Cypriot Syllable Ne

Read it as ne; in some Greek endings, e is silent. In this syllabary, 𐠚 normally represents the syllable ne. In some Greek spellings, it stands for a final n without a spoken e; the transliteration po-to-li-ne corresponds to Greek πτόλιν.

The earliest known evidence for the recognizable Cypriot syllabary is a bronze inscription from Palaepaphos-Skales, dated to the 11th century BCE. Scholars have proposed it as a link between the earlier undeciphered Cypro-Minoan script and the later syllabary, but it does not reveal exactly how this individual sign developed.

What did people write with it?

It recorded language in everyday and public writing. The syllabary wrote the Cypriot dialect of Greek and, at Amathus, a local language scholars call Eteocypriot. That name is debated; some use the place-based name Amathusian instead.

Inscriptions appear on graves, dedications, pottery, coins, statues, seals, jewellery and weapons, as well as in administrative and legal records. The bronze Tablet of Idalion records an agreement between a city and its physicians to treat soldiers wounded in battle.

How does it connect to other scripts?

Yes: Linear B has a distinct sign for the same syllable.

Cypriot and Linear B are historically related syllabaries, and both recorded varieties of Greek, but their signs and spelling conventions differ. Cypriot was usually written right-to-left; unlike Linear B, it used vowel-bearing signs such as ne to mark some final consonants. Cypriot is also related to Cypro-Minoan, an undeciphered script. A bilingual inscription from Idalion placed Cypriot beside Phoenician and helped scholars decipher it; that link does not make Cypriot signs Phoenician descendants. During the Hellenistic period, alphabetic Greek texts appeared alongside syllabic ones as alphabetic writing gained ground.