Cypriot Sylalbary

Script Details

Cypriot Sylalbary

A Cypriote inscription

By simosx - https://www.flickr.com/photos/simosx/169590746/, CC BY-SA 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1350841

Unicode Chart

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Maps

Https://omniglot.com/writing/cypriot.htm

DISCLAIMER: This script is still being researched

Data

Alternate Names Cypriote syllbary
ISO 15924 Cprt 403
Type Syllabary
Family European
Direction RtL
Diacritics No
Contextual Forms Unknown
Capitals Used No
Glyphs 56
Inventor Unknown
Earliest Location Cyprus
Earliest Date 1000 BCE
Latest Date 300 BCE
Ancestry

Overview

“The Cypriot script was used from approximately the 11th to the 4th centuries BC, for writing the Greek language in Cyprus. It descended from the Linear A script, and is closely related to the Linear B script, but has no visual or structural relationship to the Greek alphabet. The script was used primarily for record keeping, not for literary purposes.

The Cypriot script was a syllabary, with each of fifty-six letters representing an open (CV) syllable. It was written from right to left without interword spacing. Voiced sounds were under-represented in the script, despite being distinctive in speech. For example, the p series of letters (pa, pe, pi, po, pu) represented syllables beginning with both [p] and [b].

In order to represent syllables with a structure other than CV, for example, CCV, CVC or CVV (diphthongs), certain spelling conventions were implemented. Consonant clusters were written using CV signs whose vowels agreed with the vowel of the whole syllable. So bre was written using the signs be+re. In consonant clusters in which a nasal preceded another consonant, the nasal was not written. Closed CVC syllables were written using the e series of sounds. In spoken Greek, only the consonants [n], [r], and [s] were used at the end of a word, so only the signs representing ne, re and se were written to close a syllable. Diphthongs were always written out, with the independent vowel signs representing the second part of the diphthong.

Word breaks were not indicated by spaces or any other means.“ - ScriptSource

Bibliography

Author Year Publication Publisher
Bennett, Emmett L; ed. Daniels, Peter and Bright, William 1996 Aegean Scripts, Writing Systems of the World, p.124-133 Oxford University Press
Duhoux, Yves 2013 Non-Greek Languages of Ancient Cyprus and their Scripts: Cypro-Minoan I-3, Syllabic Writing on Cyprus and Its Context, p. 27-46 Cambridge University Press
Olivier, Jean-Pierre, ed. Steele, Philippa M 2013 The Development of Cypriot Syllabaries, from Enkomi to Kafizin; Syllabic Writing on Cyprus and Its Context, p. 7-26 Cambridge University Press