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Paleohispanic scripts facts for kids

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The Paleohispanic scripts were ancient writing systems used in the area we now call the Iberian Peninsula (which includes modern-day Spain and Portugal). These scripts were created before the Latin alphabet became the main way of writing there.

What makes most of these scripts special is that they were "semi-syllabic." This means they weren't purely alphabetic (where each letter is a single sound, like 'a' or 'b'). Instead, some signs stood for a whole syllable (like 'ga' or 'ti'), while others were for single sounds.

People used Paleohispanic scripts from around the 5th century BCE (that's over 2,500 years ago!) until the end of the 1st century BCE or the start of the 1st century CE. They were the main way to write the ancient Paleohispanic languages. Experts think these scripts might have come from the Phoenician alphabet, and some believe the Greek alphabet also played a part.

Types of Scripts

Paleohispanic scripts are divided into three main groups: southern, northern, and Greco-Iberian. They look different and have different sound values.

Southern Scripts

These scripts were mostly found in the southern part of the Iberian Peninsula. Only about 5% of all discovered inscriptions use these scripts. They usually read from right to left, just like the Phoenician alphabet.

The southern scripts include:

  • The Espanca script: We only know about this from one special tablet. It's the earliest example of an alphabetical order among these scripts.
  • The Tartessian or Southwest script: Also called South Lusitanian.
  • The Southeastern Iberian script: Sometimes known as Meridional.

Northern Scripts

Most inscriptions (about 95%) are in northern scripts. They were found mainly in the northeast of the Iberian Peninsula. These scripts usually read from left to right, similar to the Greek alphabet.

The northern scripts are:

Greco-Iberian Alphabet

The Greco-Iberian alphabet was a direct copy of a Greek alphabet style called 'Ionic'. It was only found in a small area on the Mediterranean coast, in what are now the provinces of Alicante and Murcia.

How They Worked (Typology)

Except for the Greco-Iberian alphabet and, to some extent, the Tartessian script, Paleohispanic scripts had a very unique way of working. They acted like a syllabary for certain sounds called "plosives" (like 'p', 'b', 't', 'd', 'k', 'g'). But for other sounds, like 's', 'l', 'm', or vowels, they worked like a regular alphabet. This mix is why they are called "semi-syllabaries."

For the plosive sounds, each sign stood for a specific combination of a consonant and a vowel. So, the sign for ga looked completely different from the sign for ge. Also, the original scripts didn't show the difference between "voiced" (like 'b' or 'd') and "unvoiced" (like 'p' or 't') plosives. This meant a sign like ga could stand for both /ga/ and /ka/.

However, sounds like 's', 'l', 'm', and vowels were written with simple, single letters, just like in the Phoenician alphabet and Greek alphabet.

Over time, researchers found that one version of the northeastern Iberian script (an older one) started to show the difference between voiced and unvoiced plosives. They did this by adding a small stroke to the signs. For example, they created new signs for unvoiced /t/ and /k/, while the original signs were used only for voiced /d/ and /g/. This is called the 'dual signary model'. It's a bit like how the Latin letter G was created by adding a stroke to the letter C.

Tartessian Script's Special Way

The Tartessian script was a bit of a mix between a pure alphabet and the semi-syllabaries. Even though the letter for a plosive sound depended on the vowel that came after it (like in a semi-syllabary), the vowel was also written out separately, like in an alphabet. This made it a bit "redundant" or extra.

This "extra" way of writing reappeared in some later texts of the northeastern Iberian script and Celtiberian script. In these texts, vowels were sometimes written again after the plosive signs. Some experts see Tartessian as a semi-syllabary where the vowel was just written twice. Others see it as an alphabet where the choice of consonant letter depended on the following vowel.

Where They Came From

The Paleohispanic semi-syllabaries clearly came from an alphabet (or alphabets) used around the Mediterranean Sea. But we don't know for sure if it was only the Phoenician alphabet, or if older versions of the Greek alphabet also played a part.

The only complete list of Paleohispanic signs we know of is on the Espanca tablet. It shows the first 13 of its 27 letters in the same order as the Phoenician or Greek alphabets.

It's interesting to think about how a simple alphabet might have changed into a semi-syllabary. Something similar happened when the Etruscan alphabet developed from Greek. The Greek alphabet had three letters for 'k' sounds, but Etruscan only had one 'k' sound. So, the Etruscans used all three Greek letters but made them appear only before certain vowels (like CE, CI, KA, and QU). This meant the consonant letter almost told you what vowel would follow.

A similar process might have happened with the Paleohispanic scripts. If writing came from the Phoenicians through the Tartessians, and the Tartessian language didn't have 'g' or 'd' sounds, that could explain why the early southeastern Iberian and northern Iberian scripts didn't distinguish between 'g' and 'k' or 'd' and 't'. Even though the Iberian language clearly had these different sounds, as shown in the Greco-Iberian alphabet and later Latin writings. In the Tartessian script, vowels were always written after plosives, but they were often unnecessary. So, it seems they were dropped when the script was adopted by the Iberians.

For example, among the 'k' and 'g' sounds, the ka/ga sign in southeastern Iberian and the southwestern script came from the Phoenician/Greek letter for 'g'. The ke/ge sign came from the Greek 'k'. And the ki/gi sign came from another Greek 'k' sound.

See also

  • Iberian languages
  • Iberian Romance languages
  • Languages of Portugal
  • Languages of Spain
  • Pre-Roman peoples of the Iberian Peninsula

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