Writing in coastal cities
During the late second and early first millennia BCE, Tyre, Sidon and Byblos participated in maritime and overland commerce. Phoenician writing developed from earlier experiments in West Semitic alphabetic scripts. Its signs chiefly represented consonants, allowing writers to record words with a relatively small set of symbols. Inscriptions served royal commemoration, burials and dedications, preserving names, offices and religious expressions within the life of coastal cities.
References: [1]
Routes through ports and settlements
Phoenician traders sailed to Cyprus, the Aegean, North Africa and western Mediterranean ports. Settlers established communities that carried language, religious practices and writing alongside goods. Metals, timber, purple dye and other commodities moved through these networks. Interaction with local people gave letters uses far from the eastern coast. Writers adjusted shapes and conventions to their own materials and linguistic needs as inscriptions spread through these connected settlements.
References: [1]
Greek adaptation of the signs
Greek users borrowed Phoenician signs and their order, assigning some unnecessary consonantal signs to vowels. Local Greek alphabets initially varied in letter forms and direction. Writing recorded names, dedications, poetry and public rules, with conventions becoming more regular over time. Etruscan and Roman users subsequently adapted related alphabets, leading to Latin writing. These successive borrowings gave different Mediterranean languages some shared graphic forms.
References: [1]