Let me start by saying that I really like the look of the Phoenician monoalphas with the gradient. And, my word, what a way to implement one of my favorite writing systems. Good job!
Looks like − and = are using non-shifted legends, while the rest of the punctuation keys are using shifted legends. You might want to change the = to + (the − can stay as is; it could represent an underscore as well as a minus). The question mark sticks out like a sore thumb, though, so maybe consider using / for that key, or even switching to non-shifted legends altogether.
Writing systems are a particular passion of mine, so I'm glad you included this bit! Overall you guys did a great job, but I have couple of remarks.
as the starting point instead of QWERTY, since the modern Hebrew alphabet has an exact 1:1 correspondence with the Phoenician alphabet (abjad, for the grammatologically inclined among you). In fact, the Hebrew layout is exactly what's used by enthusiasts to type Phoenician, similar to how the Russian layout is used as a basis when writing Old Church Slavonic in old Cyrillic and Glagolitic.
That being said, I totally understand the desire to go with QWERTY, and that's cool. (Also, the Hebrew layout has punctuation in the Q and W spots, which isn't ideal for a e s t h e t i c s.) However, standard QWERTY-based Hebrew layouts also exist (second page in the PDF linked above), so you might want to take a look at that and adjust your design accordingly. It's already good for the most part, but some letters like tsade, tet, šin etc. would have to be moved around (though I do think your positioning is better for some of them, e.g. het).
If you don't want to do that either (which I wouldn't blame you if you didn't), I'd like to go over a few slightly more subtle points as to why I don't agree with some of your positioning, and how it can be made better. Lots of text ahead, but well worth reading:
The ones that had a clear counterpart were just used on that specific key: A, B, D, Z, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q
No issues there!
giml would be C or G. Since it evolved from the greek Γ, I placed it on G. Thus we were missing a C. For this, I used the old symbol, which giml was based on.
No contention here either, at least as far as G goes. However, I believe tsade is a more appropriate symbol for C, and I'll get into why in a bit. (By the way, gamma evolved from giml, not the other way around ;))
yod could be I or J. Since there is also sade, which became the cyrillic Џ (pronounced like the beginning of jump), I used sade on J. But since yod starts with a Y, I used it as that.
For I, I modified the yod glyph and removed the tail
Now this is one (or, rather, three) that I have a problem with. As a native user of Џ (yay Serbian) and a writing system nerd, I can tell you that its derivation from tsade is very, very debatable. Although it resembles Ц (which
is descended from tsade, via Hebrew צ), Џ itself comes from Ч (che, like the “ch” in “chair”) — a closely related letter and sound. In fact, it is much more likely that Ч and Џ were derived via Ҁ (koppa) from Anc.Greek qoppa and, ultimately, Phoenician qoph. (Notice the similarity in glyphs between Ч and Ҁ, and how they may be written in a similar way.) In South Slavic languages and Romanian (where Џ originated), the Џ/Ч sounds are not very closely related to Ц /ts/, but they are closely related to the /k/ sound of Ҁ. Therefore, while Ц is related to Phoenician tsade,
Џ is likely not, and so the “J/jump” association is no good.What tsade
is good for is the
C position. Namely, that Latin letter is very often used for transcribing /ts/ sounds in various world languages, including European, Chinese and, indeed, Semitic language families (e.g.
Hebrew), which Phoenician is a part of. As a bonus, the Hebrew QWERTY layout also maps C to tsade. Therefore,
I suggest using tsade for the C character, instead of the older form of gimel (which, btw, looks exactly like Hebrew waw to me).
As for
I and
J, the appropriate letter would obviously be yod. I don't think that yod should be used for Y, since Y comes from a different, waw background (more on that below).
I suggest using yod for I, and the modified yod (without the tail) for J. That would reflect how J came to be in Latin as well — as a modified version of I. Alternatively, you can do it the other way around and use the tailless yod for I if you'd like. Either way should be fine (although I recommend the former), as long as yod is used for I and J, and not Y.
waw was difficult since it evolved to F, U, V, Y, and W. Since it is called waw and also pronounced like that, I used it on W
tet went on to became the greek Θ and cyrillic Ѳ (fita). Thus I used it for F
...
I think, only U and V are missing now. I derived both of these from waw. For V, I just made a V. And for U, I made the top part of the Y (waw) round, which seems to be an actual step in the evolution of that letter
Yep, this one was bound to be tough for sure. I agree with using waw for
W and tet for
F (nice one with the Ѳ throwback). As for
U and
V, I think U should be a modified (rounded) version of the V glyph, since that's how U came to be in Latin. So how about:
keeping W and U as they are (waw and rounded waw), and
using the Hebrew waw glyph (
, aka. your “older gimel”) for V — which actually corresponds to a /v/ sound in modern Hebrew?
That just leaves us with
Y, which isn't yod anymore. For this one, I've got a fun suggestion:
make Y also waw, but the way it evolved in Syriac and Arabic: 
. According to Wikipedia, it evolved from this hieroglyphic:
, so you could use that as a reference too.
The rest, like het, samek and šin, I agree with. I think you're missing T in the write-up, but that one falls into the “easy” category :)
So yeah... came for the colored plastic, ended up writing an essay on writing systems. But I hope you find this information useful, and I hope you'll take it into consideration and adjust the legends accordingly. Good job on the set once again :)
