WORLD CIVILIZATION

Detailed explanation-1: -Probably the Phoenicians’ most important contribution to humanity was the Phonetic alphabet. The Phoenician written language has an alphabet that contains 22 characters, all of them consonants. Vowels are absent.

Detailed explanation-2: -The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters, but only represented the sounds for consonants, making it a consonantal alphabet. This practical writing system was used in Phoenician ports around the Mediterranean, eventually becoming the de facto language of trade.

Detailed explanation-3: -"Phoenician proper” consists of 22 consonant letters (leaving vowel sounds implicit) – in other words, it is an abjad – although certain late varieties use matres lectionis for some vowels.

Detailed explanation-4: -The 22 Phoenician letters are simplifications of Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols, which took on a standardized form at the end of the 12th century BCE. Like Hebrew and Arabic, Phoenician was written from right to left, and vowels were omitted (which makes deciphering Phoenician even harder).