Ugaritic alphabet

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The Ugaritic alphabet is a consonantal alphabet (abjad) that was written using the same tools as those used to write cuneiform (i.e. pressing a wedge-shaped stylus into a clay tablet). It was mostly written from left to right, but not exclusively. It emerged c. 1400 or 1300 BCE to write Ugaritic, an extinct Northwest Semitic language, and fell out of use amid the Late Bronze Age collapse c. 1190 BCE. The inscriptions found provide the earliest evidence in history of systematic and large-scale administrative use of an alphabetical writing system. The discovery of abecedaries in the Ugaritic alphabet also provide the earliest direct evidence of not just the "abc" alphabetical order but also the "hlḥm" order. Examples of scripts that have also used these are the Phoenician, Paleo-Hebrew, Aramaic square script, Syriac, Greek and Latin alphabets for the "abc" order as well as the Geʽez script from which Amharic was adapted for the "hlḥm". Many if not most alphabets in use today order their letters...

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