# .font: font.text_2
2023-04-05 11:43 dustin  
# .font: font.text_1
time for the alphabet family tree! in this map, you can see all the most important predecessors of the modern latin letters:  
  
| the phoenician alphabet (22 letters written in ΚΚΚ)  
| the greek alphabet (24 modern letters in ΕΕΕ +2 old ones in ΓΓΓ)  
| the latin alphabet (3rd row: earliest version with 21 letters, last row: letters which were added later, written in ΔΔΔ)  
  
i left away the old italic/ etruscian alphabet, mainly because i'm not completely sure which version was adopted by the romans, but also because they didn't have so much influence on the evolution of the alphabet.   
  
once again i tried to make the map as self-explanatory as possible, but still a few notes:  
| the bottom half is supposed to be a continuation of the top half. just imagine you cut the map in two halves and add the bottom half at the right of the top half.  
| letters in the same column are always related. even without connecting lines.  
| letters in ΓΓΓ existed in ancient versions which were relevant for the evolution of the alphabet, but they no longer exist today.  
| the two "semi-connections" are:  
| modern latin "g" and old latin "z" are only related by their alphabetical position ("z" was replaced by "g")  
\ greek "xi" and latin "x" are only related by their common phoenician predecessor, their sound [ks] and their names ("xi" versus "x"). the shapes (probably) aren't related. note that we saw in the "x for unknown" cave that the phoenician root of the letter "x" isn't even certain.  
  
i think that this family tree is a good "final point" behind the whole series! it was a lot of fun to do the research and create the caves and comments! i'm also very happy of the positive feedback from you! :d  
  
but wait - the series isn't completely finished yet! i have got 3 (maybe 4) bonus caves in store, which don't belong to the main series but... well, you'll see :d  
  
cave difficulty: 0/10