Sogdian alphabet
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| Sogdian | ||
|---|---|---|
| Type | Abjad | |
| Spoken languages | Sogdian | |
| Time period | Late Antiquity | |
| Parent systems | Phoenician → Aramaic → Syriac → Sogdian |
|
| Child systems | Mongolian Orkhon script Manichaean script Old Uyghur |
|
| Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode. | ||
The Sogdian alphabet was originally used for the Sogdian language, which belongs to the Iranian family, but it has many child systems such as Old Uyghur and other eastern Turkic languages. It was generally superseded by versions of the Arabic alphabet on the conversion of the Turkic peoples to Islam. It is derived from Syriac, the descendant script of the Aramaic alphabet.
| History of the alphabet |
|---|
|
Middle Bronze Age 19 c. BCE
|
| Meroitic 3 c. BCE |
| Ogham 4 c. CE |
| Hangul 1443 CE |
| Canadian syllabics 1840 CE |
| Zhuyin 1913 CE |
| complete genealogy |
It is occasionally known as the sutra script, and is similar to the script of the ancient letters used in writing on papyri. Many Buddhist, Manichaean, Nestorian, and Zoroastrian texts as well as all secular material such as letters, legal documents, coin legends, and inscriptions were written in this script.
When used for the Sogdian language, this alphabet was usually written in horizontal lines from right to left. When used for Uyghur, it was normally in vertical direction from top to bottom, but with the first vertical line starting from the left side, not from the right as in Chinese, most probably because the right-to-left direction was used in horizontal writing. The Mongolian alphabet proper, being an adaptation of the Old Uyghur alphabet, still uses this kind of vertical writing, as does its remoter descendant Manchu[citation needed].
Contents |
[edit] See also
[edit] References
[edit] Works cited
F.W. Mote (1999). Imperial China, 900-1800. Harvard University Press, 42-43. ISBN 0674012127.
[edit] External links
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