Cuneiform Writing System Not Alphabetic for Sounding Out Words

6). Second, it was consonantal—it dealt only with speech sounds characterized by constriction or closure at one or more points in the breath channel, like b, d, l, m, n, p, etc. Third, it streamlined the system to 22 signs, instead of several hundred. (Fig.

Most scholars consider the cuneiform to be independent of other writing systems at the time, such as Elamite, Akkadian, Hurrian, and Hittite cuneiforms. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently ...

At any rate, the invention of writing is not generally seen as the culmination of an attempt to represent human language graphically, by means of pictograms representing words. This old interpretation is now obsolete because the characteristics of proto-cuneiform do not support it.

He also guessed, correctly, that they represented not letters or hieroglyphics but words and syllables, and were to be read from left to right. In 1700 Thomas Hyde first called the inscriptions "cuneiform", but deemed that they were no more ...

In cuneiform, a carefully cut writing ... understanding of a word). All of the great Mesopotamian civilizations used cuneiform until it was abandoned in favour of the alphabetic script at some point after 100 BCE, including:...

Old Persian was written in a subset of simplified cuneiform characters known today as Old Persian cuneiform. It formed a semi-alphabetic syllabary, using far fewer wedge strokes than Assyrian used, together with a handful of logograms for frequently occurring words like "god" and "king."

Anatolian Hieroglyphs date to the second and first millennia BCE, and were used to write the Luwian language, an Indo-European language, in the area of present-day Turkey and environs. Sumero-Akkadian Cuneiform is a logographic writing system with a strong syllabic component.

The difference is that cuneiform writing is not alphabetical but a mixture of ideograms (one sign is one word) and syllabic.

There are between 600 to over 1000 characters that can be used to write syllables and words. Since each character represents a sound, it could be used to write in any language, even English!