The Canaanite workers in the Egyptian turquoise mines in the Sinai Peninsula are thought by some scholars to have developed the Proto-Sinaitic script, an apparently "alphabetic" system, during the nineteenth century BCE.

Others suggest that the alphabet arose in central Egypt during the fifteenth century BCE, either as a creation of Semitic workers or as an Egyptian development for the workers’ use.

As only one sample of this early script has been deciphered, the exact nature of the writing remains open to interpretation.

Based on letter appearances and names, scholars believe it to be based on Egyptian hieroglyphs.

This script had no characters representing vowels.

The Proto-Sinaitic script eventually develops into the Phoenician alphabet, which is conventionally called "Proto-Canaanite" before about 1050 BCE.