𐙝 𐙇 𐘭 𐘞 𐙢 𐙖 𐘎 𐙫 𐘰 𐘾

Modern scholarship generally holds that the first alphabet after cuneiform was Phoenician (derived from Proto-Sinaitic, derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs), and our digits were independently developed in India. This article presents an alternative view:

• forgotten Persian (aka Sumerian) hieroglyphic system is the ancestor of Egyptian, Crete Linear A and Chinese characters;
• it was used to develop early alphabets, including Phoenician and Brahmi - they share some characters, but both drew independently from some pool of ideograms;
• letters had meaningful names forming a mantra just like in early Cyrillic (that's why the alphabet order was introduced and persisted through so many cultures);
• our digits were initially letters of the early hieroglyphic based alphabet (with letter order of Phoenician) just like many other alphabet based numerals, later took modern form;
• Phoenicians and Aramaic are not ethnic groups, these are terms to address people of particular religion or caste;
• Phoenician alphabet and it's descendant Aramaic are both Persian alphabets, developed to write in Persian, misidentified due to preservation bias.

Problem #1: Numbers Won the Lottery

In this table, the second column contains Phoenician letters in their original alphabetical order, while letters from other alphabets are arranged to match the Phoenician sounds. Probability of 4, 7, and 8 coincidental shape match to corresponding Phoenician letters is (3+ matches out of 9 digit/letter pairs: 29143/362880) roughly 8%:

This alone is enough to show our numerals didn’t come from India. Why is this elementary fact not known to science? Phoenicians also had no clue: their numerals were as primitive as Roman one!

Problem #2: Stylistic Match and Mismatch

There is clear stylistic similarity of our numerals, Phoenician letters, early Chinese ideograms and mysterious Linear A from Crete. None resemble Egyptian hieroglyphs or Hieratic script which required artistic skills or outstanding calligraphy ("handwriting" Hieratic highlighted in red – you can’t tell the spaghetti glyphs one from another):

Here is Proto-Sinaitic:

We are being told that’s an attempt to write Semitic text using Egyptian pictograms as letters, which is great, yet I don’t see any resemblance to Phoenician. Phoenician looks closer to Chinese ideograms. Ideograms vs pictograms is like Van Gogh vs Rembrandt. One may wonder if Egyptian hieroglyphics were the ultimate source of it all, but Egyptian hieroglyphs appear out of nowhere in a very neat form. There are no findings of primitive Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Problem #3: Origin of Numerals

It was common to use letters as numerals, position in the alphabet determined letter numerical value. There were non-alphabet-based numerals: Chinese and Roman. Both had some obvious numeric logic in their design, our digits look nothing like these:

	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10
Roman	I	II	III	IV	V	VI	VII	VIII	IX	X
Chinese	一	二	三	四	五	六	七	八	九	十

Chinese glyph for 5 is 五 which looks strikingly similar to one for right (hand) 右. This might seem like a coincidence, but it's not! Ideograms that look similar have to be somewhat related, otherwise it'd be hard to read them. Note that it's pronounced as ng in Cantonese/Shanghainese and ngoo in Hokkien dialect. Similar words for 5 and hand/fingers using same (<vowel>)-n-<consonant> root are noted in many Indo-European languages: compare Latin-Greek-Persian-Burmese qu-inq-ue, p-ent-e, p-anj, ng-a to English-Kurdish-Urdu h-and, f-ing-er, p-ench-e, ung-li. Looks like some Indo-European speaker visited Myanmar and/or South China a while ago.

Convergent evolution explains similarity of 1, 2, 3 and 10 (X = 十 = two hands), shapes of 六 (6) and 七 (7) are not random either:

• 六 is derived from same root as penetration/insertion ideogram 入, same reason six and sex sound alike since Latin;
• 七 is derived from same root as letter Z, digit 7 and labour (tool, plough) ideogram 工.

These two peculiar ones are explained below.

Problem #4: Letter Names

Why alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, ...? Letters of Phoenician alphabet were named and Greeks copied the names without much thought about meaning: ox (aleph), house (bet), door (delt), stick/camel (giml), prayer/breath/window (he), ... Did these concepts really define the world and soul of Phoenicians? Why in this exact order? Why was this meaningless order copied by several peoples with very different-looking alphabets in the same Middle East region!

Farmers and herders don’t design alphabets. Writing was developed and used by (religious) bureaucracy, so the focus should be on somewhat more abstract and important for them. The order was copied by everybody in the region because the names of the letters sounded like a mantra in that sequence. This is known to us from the old Cyrillic alphabet: az, bouki, vedi, glagol, dobro, yest, ... – these in old Russian sound like a phrase: I letters know say good is .... Seems strange that Greeks didn’t create meaningful names for their own letters, but did so for Slavs, and did it so much better than Phoenicians.

Interestingly, Georgian and Armenian have the same letter order, though they’re clearly not derived from Greek or Phoenician (3 Georgian scripts and Armenian below):

Letter names in both Armenian and Georgian are meaningless, short, monosyllabic. Why? I suspect they were more interesting before, as in Old Russian, but later got censored out. The third Georgian script (Mkhedruli, used today) somehow resembles several alphabets from ... Southeast Asia:

I’ve known since school that it’s a unique Georgian alphabet, but Burmese, Thai, and Indonesians never heard of this: letter style and the specific letter for t sound match Georgian. There are many such "rounded" alphabets spread from Southeast Asia to India. Looking at the map I can’t see how they might have influenced Georgia or vice versa. My only guess is that it was some new Persian calligraphy trend of mid-late Medieval that influenced everybody.

Apparently not only Greeks and Phoenicians spread literacy. If we see clearly inappropriate letter names like camel/stick, most likely the original meanings were either censored out or lost in translation because they were defined in another, non-Semitic language (Phoenicians would have to invent their own letter names matching the first sound, which, given their limited vocabulary, didn’t work that well).

My Theory

Persians developed a "Linear A" hieroglyphic system that spread in all directions, from Crete to China. Persians developed a "Phoenician" alphabet, with same letters in nearly the same order A-B-V-D-E-G-Z-T-... Our numerals are based on letters and order of that alphabet, which everybody in the region copied. Over time numerals simplified to their current form, similar to how the Chinese character 人 (person/man) simplifies to 亻 when combined with other ideograms. At some point, probably in Byzantine age, order of letters was changed all over the Greek influence zone, yet those numerals survived in proper order in Persia and India.

I think the knowledge of alphabet symbolism was there until at least late Middle Ages and clergy modified letters and defined numerals according to their original meanings. This is the reason why, for example, six/sex or eight/ate sound alike in English.

Why Persia?

The Middle East was under Persian rule for more than 1000 years. Greeks, Georgians, Armenians, all Semitic peoples confirm this in their sources and traces of cultural influence. For example, most of the Greek pantheon exists in Persia under other names, and the Persian version looks like the original. Persian Hermes is called Tir (see Persian Tir), literally an arrow, which explains why Hermes had wings on his sandals but not on his back or arms as one might expect.

Yet, we are being told, Persians used cuneiform, failed to develop a convenient writing system, and learned writing from Phoenicians. The thing many people don’t understand is that cuneiform is practically a code, like punch-cards or QR-codes. This is highly abstract writing system, one can’t develop something as abstract but "miss" a regular alphabet. It is very inconvenient for the reader, try read these without magnifying glass:

I can’t imagine Persians running an empire with cuneiform. It was a cryptic clergy language, kind of like Church Slavonic or Latin is today.

Ancient Persians obviously agreed with me and adopted and spread Aramaic script through the empire for casual writing needs. "Aramaic" alphabet is officially considered a development of "Phoenician". I do agree, yet I can’t see any Aramaic or Phoenician ethnic group. The word "Phoenicians" came from either dates (as in date palm planters) or Phoenix (as in magical firebird worshipers), probably the latter. It’s not an ethnicity, it’s either a sect or a caste designation or a pejorative term used by Greeks/Romans, actual self-name was Canaanites which is also not an ethnic term, the land of Canaan is modern day Israel and Lebanon. Most likely they were ancestors of people we call Jews today. Jewish menorah is a stylized peacock and so is celtic cross (look at the Peacock Angel feet, - circle or semi-circle symbolizes the large rounded tail and the cross is the legs, head and wings). Russians call peacock-like magical bird a firebird (жар-птица) for these little "flames" on its tail:

آرامی in Persian is not only Aramaic but also a form of quiet, tranquil, calm. Both Phoenician and Aramaic scripts are simply versions of same caste-specific Persian script for tranquil ones (vs exhalted clergy or nobility). Several writing systems for different castes is a normal practice in the past – above I gave an example of three alphabets coexisting in Georgia in exactly such symbiosis. The population of Levant, Syria and Iraq spoke not an Aramaic but tranquil language, an imperial dialect of an original Semitic language, with grammar developed by Persians. They used Persian tranquil script, which was designed by Persians for Persians to write in Persian and there are finds of documents written in Persian in tranquil letters of later style that historians called Aramaic script. Phoenicians spoke a less standardized version of that Semitic language, since they lived at the edge of the empire. No Persian written in earlier style tranquil letters that historians would call Phoenician has ever been found. Why?

Why Haven’t Archaeologists Found This Persian Alphabet Yet?

Archaeologists also haven’t found a common ancestor of Egyptian pictograms and Hieratic script. Egyptians couldn’t have developed from scratch about a thousand beautiful pictures and an equal number of corresponding handwritten characters. Several versions of the same glyphs from several dynasties are found in China. It should be the same in Egypt, but we don’t observe this. Why? Things don’t survive that long, especially if some centralized religious government doesn’t want them to.

Another example: missing precursor of fairly abstract cuneiform writing systems. There should be finds of cuneiform ancestors with more eye-friendly stick-pictures of objects. There are some, but very few.

We know very little about Zoroastrian Persia and even less about pre-Zoroastrian. No large pre-Zoroastrian texts are known to us. There’s every reason to believe Zoroastrians “cleaned up” pre-Zoroastrian cultural heritage as well as Muslims “cleaned up” Zoroastrian heritage. One can suggest (e.g. famous "300" movie did) that pre-Zoroastrian Persia was something like ancient India with temple orgies and Kama Sutra and this explains why everything was "forgotten" already under Zoroastrianism. Symbols and writing survived in smaller peripheral cultures (Yazidis, Phoenicians), but disappeared in the place of origin.

As for alpha, beta, gamma, ... – Greeks hated Persians: hundreds of years of wars from Antiquity to Byzantium. European culture inherited this attitude: notice how little popular culture mentions the Persian empire compared to inferior Greeks or Egypt. What we see is a typical "French fries" turned into "freedom fries" story for political reasons: Greeks claimed it’s a Phoenician alphabet, to avoid admitting their culture came from their mortal enemies. They did it for their pantheon of gods as well, it’s a pattern.

Why Not China origin theory?

Chinese history has several examples of Persian cultural influence and proselytism acknowledged by the Chinese. Uighur in China are Muslims (and also Malaysians and Indonesians – not only Europeans like to colonize and "convert"). How many Confucians or Taoists are there west of China? I suppose writing also spread from West to East, which is more likely than the reverse scenario.

Ancient Persian ideograms survived and flourished in China precisely because of their foreign origin: speakers of several Chinese dialects began using them simultaneously. They were able to communicate without translation via ideograms. Chinese Empire simply didn’t want to give up such benefit.

Connecting the Dots

I’m not trying to find exact correspondences between numerals, letters, and Chinese hieroglyphs. Given the number and style and meaning variations of Chinese ideograms, this would be p-hacking.

I am not trying to prove the origin of digits: 92% of non-coincidence is good enough.

I am not trying to prove it’s Persian: Phoenicians had no clue their alphabet came with numerals, Arabs discovered them in India, Indians knew of no such alphabet, neither did Chinese, so who else could it be? Aliens?

I’m trying to reconstruct the meaning of digits/letters using Chinese ideograms as a reference. Common sense and linguistics help, since cultures influence each other, people think similarly, letter names would be some popular words known to everybody. Below are several examples that explain shapes of our digits and letters and their order in the alphabet (full list is in the table below).

You can open image in separate tab for better resolution or use original google spreadsheet:

𐙇 人 𐤀 A 亻1) This isn’t an ox head, obviously, no one would draw an ox head with horns down. When I saw how the Chinese hieroglyph 人 is written in its compressed form, I understood this was it. The horizontal line in letter A is a symbolic robe which was obligatory for priests (the corresponding Linear A hieroglyph looks so complex for same reason: it's not just a man, it's a priest). At first I thought this was adam (Semitic for man) but precisely by the robe I figured out this is a priest āθravan - in Georgian that would be azrovani ("one with a thought"), there was also a shorter Middle Persian version asro which sounds almost like Georgian azri ("thought") - words and meaning do survive in adjascent cultures.

𐘭 𐤁 B Б 2) Drawn with love. Men will understand :) Bacchus because in Persian both garden and god sound similar to bagh (Indian Bhagavad Gita, Russian bog (god), bakhcha (garden), city of Baghdad and Turkic baghatur). It was a VERY popular term and symbol: Persian gardens is where the word paradise comes from (Eden?). Garden matters because Bacchus is not just about sex, he is also a god of wine: the association of women body-parts with fruits and flowers and love with wine wasn’t invented today either. Probably Brahmi script square letter 𑀩 (compare to Chinese rice field 田) expresses literal garden meaning of the same word (baag in Hindi). The connection between garden and woman with breasts is even more obvious if we look to the right on this comparative table showing variations of character with time (original unmodified image in Wikipedia):

𐙢 𐤃 D Д 厶 4) Four sounds similar to fear and fire in English, chetire similar to chort (devil, demon) in Russian, planet Mars is №4, shape of Star of David (two triangles) and David itself sounds very similar to Persian dev (demon, devil). Both Old Testament David and Indo-Iranian dev from India to Europe, among Muslims, Jews, Christians, Hindus, Persians are very popular negative images (despite heroism, David's path ends badly). The Linear A symbol 𐙢 is probably a sword/dagger, that’s why 4 (as well as the Phoenician delt) has a little "leg".

𐙖 Э E 爪 5) Chinese reader would have perceived this letter as paw/hand. Knowing how many languages use same common root for five and hand/fingers, I think this was Persian engashtan (fingers).

工 Z 七 7) Symbol and meaning preserved through Phoenician, Persian and Chinese! Chinese 七 shape and the fact that it's used as part of 切 (cut) character, tells us that the person who designed Chinese digits was aware of the ancient alphabet where symbol for tool/weapon had position №7!

𐘰 H 曰 H 8) Chinese ideograms Sun 日, speech 曰 and twisted thread 糸 (ancient version) resemble numeral 8. What do Sun and 8 have in common? Thread? Chinese ideogram resembling squared 8 theoretically resembles lips, and this explains why eight in English sounds similar to ate. Is there an ancient Persian word starting with h sound meaning something like speech? – Yes: hukht, and it sounds similar to 8 hasht in Persian!

𐘾 申 T თ 9) Explaination of theos etymology.

𐤂 𐘎 𑀕 6 vs 𐘞 W ვ 3) Looking at all symbols related to waw sound (Y, W, V) in many languages I realized too many of them look like 3 and original waw 𐤅 is a three pointed shape as well. Letters in positions 6 and 3 switched places at some point. Initially waw was №3 and in Russian it still is: their waw is В and it does look like 3. The penetration symbol was formerly №6, which explains the consonance of sex/six. Another proof that letters were moved, not numerals, is that Chinese numeral 6 六 looks like ancient version of penetration/insertion ideogram 入 - and the Phoenician giml 𐤂 does look like a sharp object pointing up.

The only numeral in Georgian that sounds just like Greek counterpart is 6: ek'si. This is a hint on who changed the initial order A-B-V-D-E-G-... to A-B-G-D-E-V-...

Possible reasons for V-G order switch:

• original №3 knowledge/split 𐘞 and №4 demon/devil 𐙢 most likley implied vagina and penis (the words weren't used directly, but given №1/№2 being male/female and shapes of №3/№4 ...);
• in some language the mantra of the alphabet letter name sequence wouldn’t sound as it should.

𐤐 ♌︎ 𐝃) Sumerian 𒊊 piri(n)g (lion) that survived in Persian/Kurdish as polang (leopard) and piling (tiger) matches P sound of Phoenician 𐤐 and meaning of a very similar looking Zodiac Leo sign ♌︎. Both 𐤐 and ♌︎ have very distinct shapes, no other Zodiac sign or Phoenician letter look like that, we know that both Zodiacs and Phoenician came from same region.

Mantra

There might be mistakes here and there but 1-9 and 0 are likely correct, seems it was kind of a mantra: priest, Bachus, know, devil, fingers, sex, tool, sermon, god, .... Sounds much more fun than bull, house, stick, door, ... :)

How Come Nobody Discovered This Before?

Most of what I’m referencing has only been published online not so long ago: database of ancient Chinese, online etymological dictionaries of (Ancient/Middle) Persian, Avesta. Wikipedia was a huge help. It took me several years but 25 years ago a study like this would require a lifetime.

I’m pretty sure some people noticed match of 4, 7, 8 to Phoenician letters or Chinese 七 looking like 7 upside down, yet without knowing a lot of stuff from vert different branches of science they would fail to find a plausible explanation for the non-matching digits. Without at least a hypothetical scientific explanation the similarity was ignored.

It helped that I am from Georgia, which was a part of Persian Empire, later part of Russian Empire and USSR. I speak 3 very different languages: Russian, Georgian and English. I am an immigrant. I natively understand what cultural influence looks like. That convinced me we don’t see enough Persian in Semitic cultures. The reason: it’s Persian top to bottom, - what else would you expect after 1000+ years of Persian domination in that region? We misidentify the roots because the Persian original is long gone and forgotten: several dynasties, 2 religious conversions, half a dozen writing systems later nobody remembers anything even in Iran.