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Proto-Canaanite alphabet
 All alphabets ultimately originated from a first alphabet invented about 3500 years ago, probably in the region of present-day Lebanon. With its 22 letters, each representing a consonant, the first alphabet, called the Proto-Sinaitic, or the Proto-Canaanite, alphabet, was a totally new departure from previous writing systems that had hundreds of signs. The Proto-Sinaitic alphabet consisted of small pictures like an ox head, a house, a fish or an eye, each representing the first sound of the corresponding word. 
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