Iberian scripts

Origin

Many inscriptions in the Iberian scripts have been found on the Iberian peninsula, in southern France and on the Balearic Islands. The oldest known inscriptions date from the 4th century BC. The scripts are thought to have derived from the Punic alphabet.

In the 3rd century BC the Iberian peninsula was invaded first by Carthage, then by the Romans. Thereafter, the Iberian scripts and the languages they were used to write gradually disappeared.

Notable features

The Iberian script is mainly syllabic but also partly alphabetic.
There were two version of the Iberian script - one used in southern France, Catalonia and Castile, the other used in Andalusia and Mursia. The main difference between these versions is the shapes of the glyphs and direction in which they were written. The northern version was written from right to left, while the southern version was written from left to right.

Used to write:

Iberian and Lusitanian, non-Indo-European languages which have so far resisted decipherment. A modified version of the Northern Iberian script was used to write Celtiberian, a Celtic language.

Northern Iberian script

Southern Iberian script

Links

Iberian Epigraphy Page, by Jesús Rodríguez Ramos - details of the scripts and languages of pre-Roman Iberia (Spain and Portugual): http://www.webpersonal.net/jrr/

ALPHABETUM is a Unicode font specifically designed for ancient languages that includes Iberian scripts, and many other ancient scripts
http://guindo.pntic.mec.es/~jmag0042/alphabet.html

Other syllabaries

Bamum, Blackfoot, Caroline Island Script, Carrier, Celtiberian, Cherokee, Cree, Cypriot, Hiragana, Iberian, Inuktitut, Katakana, Kpelle, Loma, Mende, Ndjuká, Nüshu, Ojibwe, Vai, Yi

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