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TheIberian scripts are thePaleohispanic scripts that were used to represent the extinctIberian language. Most of them are typologically unusual in that they aresemi-syllabic rather than purelyalphabetic.[2] The oldest Iberian inscriptions date to the 4th or possibly the 5th century BCE, and the latest from the end of the 1st century BCE or possibly the beginning of the 1st century CE.
There are two main graphic as well as geographic variants in the family:
In the sense that the Iberian scripts are the scripts created for the Iberians to represent the Iberian language, theGreco-Iberian alphabet, a separate adaptation of theGreek alphabet, was also an Iberian script. It was used mainly inAlicante andMurcia. Likewise, neither thesouthwestern script, very similar to southeastern Iberian script but used for theTartessian language, nor theCeltiberian script, a direct adaptation of thenortheastern Iberian script used for theCeltiberian language, are technically Iberian scripts.
The northeastern Iberian script is often known simply as theIberian script, because it is the script of 95% of known Iberian inscriptions. These have been found mainly in the northeastern quadrant of theIberian Peninsula, mostly along the coast fromLanguedoc-Roussillon toAlicante, but with a deep penetration on theEbro valley.
The southeastern Iberian script is poorly attested, and there are some gaps in the records: There are no positively identified symbols for /gu/, /do/, and /m/, for example. Unlike thenortheastern Iberian script the decipherment of the southeastern Iberian script is not still closed, because there are a significant group of signs without consensus value. The southeastern inscriptions have been found mainly in the southeastern quadrant of Iberia: EasternAndalusia,Murcia,Albacete,Alicante, andValencia.
There is substantial graphic variation in the Iberian glyphs, and over the past several decades many scholars have come to believe that, at least in northeastern Iberian script (and recently also in Celtiberian script) some of this variation is meaningful. It appears that the original simple letters were assigned specifically to the voiced consonants /b/, /d/, /g/, whereas the voiceless consonants /t/ and /k/ were derived from /d/ and /g/ syllables with the addition of a stroke. (This is the so-calleddual signary model: see the image at right). If correct, this innovation would parallel the creation of the Latin letter G from C by the addition of a stroke.
Excepting theGreco-Iberian alphabet, the Iberian scripts are typologically unusual, in that they were partiallyalphabetic and partiallysyllabic: Continuants (fricative sounds like /s/ andsonorants like /l/, /m/, and vowels) were written with distinct letters, as in Phoenician (or in Greek in the case of the vowels), but the non-continuants (thestops /b/, /d/, /t/, /g/, and /k/) were written withsyllabic glyphs that represented both consonant and vowel together, as with Japanesekana. That is, in written Iberian,ga displayed no resemblance toge, andbi had no connection tobo. This possibly unique writing system is called a "semi-syllabary".
The southeastern script was written right to left, as was thePhoenician alphabet, whereas the northeastern script reversed this to left to right, as in theGreek alphabet.
The Iberian scripts are classified asPaleohispanic scripts for convenience and based on broad similarities, but their relationships to each other and to neighboring contemporaneous scripts, such as Greco-Iberian, are not firmly established. It is generally accepted that they were derived at least partly from theGreek alphabet and/orPhoenician alphabet, with which they share many similar-lookingglyphs. Some researchers[who?] conclude that the origin of the northern and southern Iberian scripts ultimately lies solely with the Phoenician alphabet; others[who?] believe the Greek alphabet also played a role; others still[who?] have suggested influences fromOld Italic. It appears that either the glyphs themselves were changed, or that they assumed new values.[citation needed] For example, the southern glyph for /e/ derives from Phoenician‘ayin or GreekΟ, whereas northern /e/ resembles Phoenicianhe or GreekΕ, though the letter arguably[citation needed] had the value of /be/ in southern Iberian. However, it is clear that they had a common origin, and the most commonly accepted hypothesis is that the northeastern script derives from the southeastern script.
