On the other hand, there was in the alphabet a certain amount of redundancy.

_Tsade_ is superfluous, since it represents, not a simple elemental sound, but a combination of two sounds, _t_ and _s_.

Hence the Greeks omitted it, as did also the Oscans and the Romans.

There is redundancy in the two forms for _k_, namely _kaph_ and _koph_; in the two for _t_, namely _teth_ and _tau_; and in the two for _s_, namely _samech_ and _shin_.

But no alphabet is without some imperfections, either in the way of excess or defect; and perhaps we ought to be more surprised that the Phoenician alphabet has not more faults than that it falls so far short of perfection as it does.
The writing of the Phoenicians was, like that of the majority of the Semitic nations, from right to left.