Lydian alphabet

Lydian
Script type
Alphabet
Time period
700-200 BCE
DirectionRight-to-left script Edit this on Wikidata
LanguagesLydian language
Related scripts
Parent systems
Sister systems
Some other alphabets of Asia Minor
ISO 15924
ISO 15924Lydi (116), ​Lydian
Unicode
Unicode alias
Lydian
U+10920–U+1093F
 This article contains phonetic transcriptions in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. For the distinction between [ ], / / and ⟨ ⟩, see IPA § Brackets and transcription delimiters.

Lydian script was used to write the Lydian language. Like other scripts of Anatolia in the Iron Age, the Lydian alphabet is based on the Phoenician alphabet. It is related to the East Greek alphabet, but it has unique features.

The first modern codification of the Lydian alphabet was made by Roberto Gusmani in 1964, in a combined lexicon, grammar, and text collection.

Early Lydian texts were written either from left to right or from right to left. Later texts all run from right to left. One surviving text is in the bi-directional boustrophedon manner. Spaces separate words except in one text that uses dots instead. Lydian uniquely features a quotation mark in the shape of a triangle.[2]

  1. ^ Himelfarb, Elizabeth J. "First Alphabet Found in Egypt", Archaeology 53, Issue 1 (Jan./Feb. 2000): 21.
  2. ^ Everson, Michael (2006-02-05), L2/06-050: Proposal to encode the Lycian and Lydian scripts in the SMP of the UCS (PDF)