They modified it, as did the Greeks and Romans.
Like the Greeks, they based their own alphabet on it.
The Phoenician alphabet is the oldest verified consonantal alphabet, dating to approximately 1200 BCE. The alphabet was used by the ancient civilization of Phoenicia and through their traveling and colonization came to widespread use. The Phoenician alphabet consisted of 22 letters, many of which form the basis of the greek alphabet and therefore the Latin and English alphabets currently in use.
There were no previous alphabets. Prior to the Phoenician alphabet, writing systems involved thousands of pictures to represesent words.
The Greeks copied and adapted the Phoenician alphabet for their own use.
The Phoenician alphabet did not contain vowels.
The Greeks did they borrowed the Phoenician alphabet and created the own alphabet using the Phoenician alphabet.
The Phoenician alphabet began in the Phoenician city-states located in Lebanon, about 1200 BCE.
The alphabet we use today was based on the Phoenician alphabet system, passed to us via the Greek and Roman alphabets.
Early Greek merchants adapted the Phoenician alphabet for their own use.
It's really not similar at all. The Phoenician alphabet has 22 consonants and no vowels. The only similarity is that the English alphabet is a version of the Latin alphabet which was adapted from the Greek alphabet alphabet which was adapted from the Phoenician alphabet.
The Greek alphabet, an evolution of the Phoenician. An evolution of the Greek alphabet was the Latin.
The Phoenician Alphabet