Divinity Atlas

Sacred Correspondences
Open Questions

Is the Ge'ez letter payt a modification of tayt?

Citation Formats

General Reference

APA Style

BibTeX

Open Question

Payt writes an ejective p, which has no Semitic ancestor. It is usually explained as a sign made by altering tayt, on the resemblance of the two forms and on the position of payt late in the order, but the explanation is an inference from shapes rather than a documented act, and it competes with an account deriving both Ge'ez p letters from Greek.

What would resolve this A palaeographic sequence for both letters from dated Aksumite material, showing whether the earliest forms of payt resemble tayt more closely than the later ones do, would test the derivation directly.
OpenEthiopian epigraphy and Semitic palaeographyPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.), The World's Writing Systems
Cross-Tradition Connections

Question On

Source The World's Writing SystemsPeter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.)
Sources
The World's Writing Systems
Peter T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.), Oxford University Press, 1996View the Source
Comments (0)
No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.
Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)
No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.

View At A Past Year

The atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.