Where are the topic nazis today??! On 12/18/2013 05:13 PM, Johnny Billquist wrote: On 2013-12-18 22:15, Sampsa Laine wrote: [...] who in turn got it from the Egypts... It all starts with those guys with the pyramids... True but turning hieratic into a simple alphabet was a move of genius - it enabled vastly more people to read and write as you didn't have to spend years memorising letters while trying to survive the Bronze Age or whatever. Yes. Also done by the Egypts... ;-) But the Greek were the first to get the vowels in. I'd say anything before that is broken. :-) Typical Indo-European bias :) In Semitic languages (which Phoenician is), short consonants don't really matter and long ones don't matter all that much, e.g. kitaab, ketaab, kataab all mean book.. Of course. And if you ask me, everyone should just speak Swedish. It's a much nicer language than any other alternative. And vowels are extremely important. Kr ka or Kr ka is the difference between a crow and to barf. I think it's an important distinction. :-) Johnny -- Dave McGuire, AK4HZ New Kensington, PA