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Univ. Of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology. Sumerians created cuneiform script over 5000 years ago. It was the world's first written language. The last known cuneiform inscription was written in 75 AD. Pictograms, or drawings representing actual things, were the basis for cuneiform writing. As shown in the chart, early pictograms resembled the objects they represented, but through repeated use over time they began to look simpler, even abstract. These marks eventually became wedge-shaped ("cuneiform"), and could convey sounds or abstract concepts.
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Ancient Mesopotamia of the Near East - Dictionary, Flashcards and Translator. The Assyrian/Babylonian Cuneiform: Pictographs (symbols that visually look like physical objects, also known as hieroglyphs) evolved over time from around 3500 B.C. into Babylonian-Assyrian Cuneiform (wedge shaped writing) around 1800 B.C. Note: The evolution of the pictograph went from the Ancient Sumerians (who developed the first Cuneiform language based on the pictographs) -> Babylonians -> Assyrians. Over time, the original pictograph is in almost all cases, visually unrecognizable in Cuneiform by 600 B.C.
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Ancient Scripts: Sumerian
The Sumerians were one of the earliest urban societies to emerge in the world, in Southern Mesopotamia more than 5000 years ago. They developed a writing system whose wedge-shaped strokes would influence the style of scripts in the same geographical area for the next 3000 years. Eventually, all of these diverse writing systems, which encompass both logophonetic, consonantal alphabetic, and syllabic systems, became known as cuneiform.
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Ancient Scripts: Cuneiform
The term "cuneiform" is very deceptive, in that it tricks people into thinking that it's some type of writing system. The truth is that cuneiform denotes not one but several kinds of writing systems, including logosyllabic, syllabic, and alphabetic scripts. In fact, "cuneiform" came from Latin cuneus, which means "wedge". Therefore, any script can be called cuneiform as long as individual signs are composed of wedges. Many languages, including Semitic, Indo-European, and isolates, are written in cuneiform.
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Ancient Scripts: Akkadian
While the cuneiform writing system was created and used at first only by the Sumerians, it did not take long before neighboring groups adopted it for their own use. By about 2500 BCE, the Akkadian, a Semitic-speaking people that dwelled north of the Sumerians, starting using cuneiform to write their own language. However, it was the ascendency of the Akkadian dynasty in 2300 BCE that positioned Akkadian over Sumerian as the primary language of Mesopotamia. While Sumerian did enjoy a quick revival, it eventually became a dead language used only in literary contexts, whereas Akkadian would continue to be spoken for the next two millenium and evolved into later (more famous) forms known as Babylonian and Assyrian.
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Over five thousand years ago, the people dwelling in southern Iraq invented one of the world's earliest systems of writing. They did not do so in order to write stories or letters, nor yet to publicize the deeds of gods and kings, though soon enough writing came to be used for those purposes. They invented writing because they needed a means of accounting for the receipt and distribution of resources. For their numbers had grown and their society had become complex in the alluvial plains of the lower Tigris and Euphrates rivers, an environment which required attentive management in order to sustain a large, agriculture-based civilization. Hence the need for organizing labor and resources; hence the need for accounting and accountability. The accounting system the people of ancient Iraq developed comprised both a method of recording language in writing, and a method of authenticating and authorizing records and transactions, through sealing them with personal or official seals.
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Founded in 1947 by the Baghdad School of the American Schools of Oriental Research, theJournal of Cuneiform Studies (JCS) presents technical and general articles on the history and languages of the ancient Mesopotamian and Anatolian literate cultures. Articles appear in English, French, and German. Published once a year; circa 144 pages per issue.
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(Babylonian and Assyrian Cuneiform Texts)
Writing is one of the essentials and characteristics of civilization... Urbanization, capital formation and writing are closely related. Writing developed at the end of the 4th millennium in the Middle East. The prime motivation was of an economic nature: the desire to administer economical and trade transactions. Almost all of the early cuneiform texts and a very large fraction of the 2nd millenium texts concern economy and administration.
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African and Middle Eastern Division, Library of Congress. Cuneiform Tablets: From the Reign of Gudea of Lagash to Shalmanassar III presents clay tablets, cones, and brick fragments inscribed using the ancient writing system known as cuneiform from the Library of Congress' collections. The Sumerians invented this writing system, which involves the use of a wedge-shaped reed stylus to make impressions in clay. Cuneiform Tablets: From the Reign of Gudea of Lagash to Shalmanassar III includes school tablets, accounting records, and commemorative inscriptions. This online presentation features 38 cuneiform tablets, presented with supplementary materials. The 38 tablets are dated from the reign of Gudea of Lagash (2144-2124 B.C.) to Shalmanassar III (858-824 B.C.) during the New Assyrian Empire (884-612 B.C.).
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Over five thousand years ago, people living in Mesopotamia developed a form of writing to record and communicate different types of information... The earliest writing was based on pictograms. Pictograms were used to communicate basic information about crops and taxes. Over time, the need for writing changed and the signs developed into a script we call cuneiform. Over thousands of years, Mesopotamian scribes recorded daily events, trade, astronomy, and literature on clay tablets. Cuneiform was used by people throughout the ancient Near East to write several different languages.
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Darius I (550-486 BC) claims credit for the invention of Old Persian Cuneiform in an inscription on a cliff at Behistun in south-west Iran. The inscription dates from 520 BC and is in three languages - Elamite, Babylonian and Old Persian. Some scholars are sceptical about Darius' claims, others take them seriously, although they think that Darius probably commissioned his scribes to create the alphabet, rather than inventing it himself.
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Cuneiform writing was most probably invented in Uruk in southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq) about 3400 - 3300 BCE (Glassner 2003:45). It was invented to keep records of goods and services, and the language that was recorded was, as far as we can tell, Sumerian. The cuneiform script was later adopted by other people speaking languages as different as Akkadian, a Semitic language, and Hittite, an Indo-European language. Sumerian itself is, as far as we know, not related to any other living language. It is a language isolate.
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Sumerian is the first known written language. Its script, called cuneiform, meaning "wedge-shaped". The Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Created by the Sumerians in the late 4th millennium BC, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. Over time, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract.
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Ancient Sumeria in Mesopotamia of the Near East "" Dictionary, Flashcards and Translator. Ancient Sumeria covered a wide area of what we know of as Ancient Mesopotamia[26]. Based on everything that I have come across, Ur could have been the main governing city of the other cities or kingdoms of Ancient Mesopotamia (such as Erech, Kish, what would become Babylon, etc).
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(Babylonian and Assyrian Cuneiform Texts)
Writing is one of the essentials and characteristics of civilization. Urbanization, capital formation and writing are closely related. Writing developed at the end of the 4th millennium in the Middle East. The prime motivation was of an economic nature: the desire to administer economical and trade transactions. Almost all of the early cuneiform texts and a very large fraction of the 2nd millenium texts concern economy and administration. A comprehensive theory concerning the origin of writing was developed by Denise Schmandt-Besserat, University of Texas.
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The Akkadian cuneiform script was adapted from Sumerian cuneiform in about 2350 BC. At the same time, many Sumerian words were borrowed into Akkadian, and Sumerian logograms were given both Sumerian and Akkadian readings. In many ways the process of adapting the Sumerian script to the Akkadian language resembles the way the Chinese script was adapted to write Japanese. Akkadian, like Japanese, was polysyllabic and used a range of inflections while Sumerian, like Chinese, had few or no inflections.
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Ugaritic cuneiform was named after Ugarit, the city state where it was used. It was probably created sometime during the 14th century BC. Ugaritic cuneiform outwardly resembles other cuneiform scripts and has a sound system based on consonant alphabets such as Phoenician/Canaanite.
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University of Pennsylvania Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology presents Write Like a Babylonian, see your monogram in cuneiform, the way an ancient Babylonian might have written it.
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Nine Babylonian cuneiform tablets were obtained by Millikin University President A.E.Taylor for the university's library collection on Oct.12, 1922 from Edgar James Banks (1866-1945), archaeologist/Assyrologist and purveyor of Middle East artifacts. Mr. Banks, in a letter accompanying the collection, certified all nine tablets as being "the genuine ancient Babylonian originals."
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(605-594 B.C.)
Neo-Babylonian, about 550-400 BC. From Babylon, southern Iraq. Nebuchadnezzar II's campaigns in the west. This tablet is one of a series that summarises the principal events of each year from 747 BC to at least 280 BC. Each entry is separated by a horizontal line and begins with a reference to the year of reign of the king in question. [British Museum]
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The script of the Sumerians and all the other inhabitants of Mesopotamia employed to write their language, up to the first century BC was cuneiform. The name cuneiform comes from the Latin word "cuneus", meaning wedge. According to Babylonian beliefs Nabu, the god of scribal arts, who was also the city god of Borsippa, gave cuneiform to them.
(Bible History Online)
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The Cuneiform Digital Library Initiative (CDLI) represents the efforts of an international group of Assyriologists, museum curators and historians of science to make available through the internet the form and content of cuneiform tablets dating from the beginning of writing, ca. 3350 BC, until the end of the pre-Christian era. We estimate the number of these documents currently kept in public and private collections to exceed 500,000 exemplars, of which now nearly 225,000 have been catalogued in electronic form by the CDLI.
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Thousands of historically revealing cuneiform clay tablets, which were inscribed in Mesopotamia millenia ago, still exist today. Visualizing cuneiform writing is important when deciphering what is written on the tablets. It is also important when reproducing the tablets in papers and books. Unfortunately, scholars have found photographs to be an inadequate visualization tool, for two reasons. First, the text wraps around the sides of some tablets, so a single viewpoint is insufficient. Second, a raking light will illuminate some textual features, but will leave others shadowed or invisible because they are either obscured by features on the tablet or are nearly aligned with the lighting direction. We have investigated solutions to these problems. We've first created a high-resolution 3D computer model from laser range data, then unwrapped and flattened the inscriptions on the model to a plane, allowing us to represent them as a scalar displacement map, and finally, we rendered this map non-photorealistically using accessibility and curvature coloring. The output of this semi-automatic process enables all of a tablet's text to be perceived in a single concise image. Our technique can also be applied to other types of inscribed surfaces, including bas-reliefs.
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What do ancient cuneiform tablets teach us about biblical times and the biblical record? Cuneiform was a system of writing used by different language groups in the ancient Near and Middle Eastern regions to inscribe information in a variety of languages. It was used for over three thousand years, from the dawn of the postdiluvial civilizations until after the Jewish Diaspora in A.D. 70. The word "cuneiform" derives from the Latin word "cuneus" which means "wedge." "Cuneiform" literally means "wedge form," or "wedge shaped." The wedge-shaped letters were pressed into a clay tablet using a stylus usually made of reed. The wet clay was then baked or left to dry. Cuneiform was for the most part deciphered by archaeologists Sir Henry Creswicke Rawlinson and Georg Friedrich Grotefend in the mid to late 19th century, though there are many cuneiform tablets written in languages which are yet to be deciphered.
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The Land between the two Rivers is the place where writing appears for the first time: a means of registration essential first for the administration of the new city states, and then for putting into writing Sumerian and Akkadian literature in the scribal schools. The inhabitants of Mesopotamia at the end of the 4th millennium BC, the Sumerians catented this extraordinary means of communication, using clay tablets that were engraved with a pointed stylus initially creating logograms, that is to say schematic drawings of the objects mentioned, then gradually simplified through the decomposition of the figures into cunei, until a large collection of syllabic signs (about 600) was achieved.
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Sumerian is the first known written language. Its script, called cuneiform, meaning "wedge-shaped". The Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression. Created by the Sumerians in the late 4th millennium BC, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs. Over time, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract.
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Cuneiform Inscriptions "" Translations/Transliterations
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The University of Minnesota owns nineteen artifacts inscribed in cuneiform, the script of ancient Mesopotamia. This collection, which is kept in Special Collections and Rare Books at the Elmer L. Andersen Library, comprises sixteen clay tablets, two clay cones, and one inscribed and sealed clay tag. These documents include sixteen administrative records from various cities of Sumer in the Ur III period (late 3rd millennium BCE), and three short royal inscriptions from the cities of Isin and Uruk in the early Old Babylonian period (early 2nd millennium BCE). Most of the texts were published four decades ago by Tom B. Jones, then professor of ancient history at the University of Minnesota, and John W. Snyder. They are now made available to the public in new editions, including transliterations, translations, and photographs, through digital media.
Cuneiform Inscriptions "" Translations/Transliterations
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With transliteration, translations, and discussions on the individual texts,
Cuneiform Inscriptions "" Translations/Transliterations
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Database of Neo-Sumerian Texts. With various collections from different countries and includes transliterations of texts.
Cuneiform Inscriptions "" Translations/Transliterations
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eTACT aims to be the definitive repository on the Web for translations of Akkadian materials. Through eTACT, scholars, students, and the general public gain convenient access to a wealth of information that otherwise can be difficult to discover. Visitors to the site can have confidence in the quality of the translations since they are prepared and edited by experts...
Cuneiform Inscriptions "" Translations/Transliterations
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Over 1,900 Latin Mottos, Latin Phrases, Latin Quotes and Latin Sayings with English Translations.
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A list of original Latin texts, both in Latin and in translation.
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Learn Hebrew for FREE. Study the Hebrew Alphabet and Names of God. Understand Hebrew Grammar and the Hebraic mindset of the Bible. Gain powerful insights into your Christian faith! Do Hebrew Bible Study. An online course with exercises, Hebrew audio, vocabulary, charts, downloads, and much more.
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The Titans, The Olympians, and Other Gods. Also includes a Mythological Story of Creation and The Creation of Man by Prometheus.
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800 dictionaries in 160 different languages
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The meanings and origins of over 1,200 English sayings, phrases and idioms. The meanings and origins of sayings and phrases | List of sayings | English sayings | Idiom definitions | Idiom examples | Idiom origins | List of idioms | Idiom dictionary | Meaning of idioms
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French-Italian-German-Portuguese-Spanish-English.
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Use this global dictionary to search in 275 dictionaries on the Internet. Translate from 69 source languages into 73 target languages - 400 language combinations.
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(7,350,240 entries in 43 languages at last count)
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The Web`s most comprehensive index of on-line dictionaries with 800 dictionaries in more than 160 different languages. This conveniently organized index includes glossaries of specialized terminology and other vocabulary aids. It includes an index of on-line grammars and several pages of linguistic fun. The site is maintained at Bucknell University, Lewisburg, Pennsylvania by Professor Robert Beard.
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Info and resources on many languages. [Linguistics] [Languages]
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Info and resources on many languages. [Linguistics] [Languages]
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Info and resources. [Linguistics] [Languages]
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Mega dictionaries. [Linguistics] [Languages]
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There are over 5,000 distinct human languages in the world. One very basic question is how did they all get there? Historical linguistics is the branch of linguistics that focuses on the interconnections between different languages in the world and/or their historical development. Historical linguists investigate how languages evolve and change through time. [Linguistics]
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This area holds works on language, linguistic theory and structural linguistics. [Linguistics]
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Language Variation and Change by Sarah G. Thomason of the University of Pittsburgh. [Linguistics]
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Historical Linguistics, graph theory, Indo-European, perfect phylogeny, parsimony, compatability [Linguistics]
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By Bill Freeman, "To learn Greek well requires a disciplined and diligent life, and in the long run this kind of life will mold a character that can be used by God."
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Covers the advent of a writing system from approx. 4100 BC.[Early Writing] [Languages]
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Text of Karatepe. 10th-8th cent. BCE [Early Writing] [Languages]
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Mesha Stele Epigraphic. 9th cent. BCE [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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800 BCE [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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700 BCE [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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Samaritan retained the use of the archaic script. 800 BCE [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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Cursive Palaeohebrew. 6th cent. BCE [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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Aramaic Square Scripts. Cursive, 6th cent. BCE [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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Aramaic Square Scripts. 6th cent. BCE [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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Aramaic Square Scripts. 6th cent. BCE [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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Aramaic Square Scripts. 6th cent. BCE [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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Latin bookhand from 1st to 6th century [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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Latin Uncial, late 2nd to 6th century [Early Writing] [Languages] [Fonts]
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Offical script of Church literature from the 3rd century.
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Mega list of foreign language fonts for download. "Our non-English Font Archive is designed to assist users who wish to display or type non-English fonts on their computers."
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Each language has its own guide that contain links to useful information and resources. [Languages] [Fonts]
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A downloadable lexicon, sample texts and useful links. [Ancient Languages]
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The complete transliterated text with roots and parsing. [Greek] [Ancient Languages]
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Searchable. Editors: Jan Don, Johan Kerstens, Eddy Ruys. Utrecht institute of Linguistics, OTS. Utrecht University [Lexicon] [Linguistics]
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Focus on Ancient Greek Language and Linguistics
For the study of Ancient Greek, you have come to the right place. From dictionaries to grammatical aids, you can find it here, where the Greek language and the field of Linguistics meet.
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Greek Bible study resources: Greek New Testament. Ancient Greek (biblical / classical) material including: Online texts (accented Greek New Testament), Shopping for printed materials, and Resources for learning and studying Ancient Greek. [Online Text Archives] [Study Tools] [Collections]
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Written to explain the discipline to the general public.[Linguistics]] [Languages]
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Until this section is finished being indexed into the main database you can click here to see a list of links including the Bible History Online general resources on this subject, although many of these links are outdated. [Languages]
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Whether you are a teacher or a student of ancient Greek or simply an interested passer-by, this web site will show you that the study of this "dead language" is more alive than ever before. [Greek]
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The fonts indexed by this page are believed to be in the public domain. We encourage users to abide by any usage agreements packaged with the font.
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This tutorial is available for download, as part of a free Java application to teach Hebrew. [Hebrew] [Instruction]
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The Early Church Fathers. graciouscall.org To see them Greek and Hebrew in their own alphabets, you should install two public-domain fonts: SPTiberian and SPIonic. [Hebrew] [Fonts]
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Hebrew for windows guide
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The SIL Hebrew Font System is a font package for displaying and printing Biblical Hebrew text. [Hebrew] [Fonts]
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Contains spachmim font
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Shows where in Italy: Gaulish, Greek, Oscan, Ligurian, Messapic, Etruscan, Umbrian were spoken.
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Shows where in Italy: Gaulish, Greek, Oscan, Ligurian, Messapic, Etruscan, Umbrian were spoken.
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Let's Review Greek!
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This utility will allow you to type right to left. Software with right to left typing support [Languages] [Downloadable Fonts]
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ER ArchitextKoi Cryllic Font [Languages] [Downloadable Fonts]
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Carolingian Minuscule 8th to 12tn century [Languages] [Downloadable Fonts]
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Free Unicode fonts and keyboards
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Greek & Hebrew Bibles as Unicode Word docs
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Cuneiform is the earliest form of writing. The predominate writing material used in the ancient Near East was clay, formed into small tablets and impressed with wedge-shaped symbols called cuneiform writing, and then baked in an oven or dried in the sun. Thousands of clay writing-boards have been uncovered by archaeologists. Cuneiform is the earliest -known system of writing. It was invented in Sumer around 3000 B.C. The name cuneiform comes from the Latin word "cuneus", meaning wedge. (Bible History Online)
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Contains Alex, Chaya, Mendel Siddur, Rashi, Ruth, Tzipporah fonts
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Latin Glossary of words. Brief definitions with some pages ranging from 100-200 kb. [Latin Word Glossary] [Languages]
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