As someone who has studied Mandarin Chinese, I find it very interesting that the written script for languages such as Chinese and Japanese are considered to have developed independently. I am unsure as to whether or not this claim also applies to the Chinese and Japanese scripts as developing independently from each other. It is well known that the Chinese and Japanese scripts possess many of the same characters with either different phonetic pronunciations or different radicals attached to the characters themselves. However, the link between the two scripts is undeniable. Whether this link is based on borrowed words remains to be seen. If it is, however, the idea of the Chinese and Japanese script developing independently should be up for question.
When looking at the Phoenician script, I immediately noticed what appeared to be the upside down Chinese character for month (月) as well as the Chinese character for day (日). The fact that the Phoenician script possesses this character, or, the fact that the Chinese script possesses these characters is equally interesting in the face of the independent development argument.
I hope to research this matter further as I find the connection between the development of written language to be one of the more interesting aspects of researching the overall history and development of written languages as a way to express the culture and literacy of the community within which it develops and as a way to juxtapose the culture of the community within which it develops with the culture of other communities.
