Egyptian and Phoenicians, mostly allies

Complementary, Egypt was not a sea faring nation.

Phoenicians writing was the vulgar Latin of the hieroglyphs, needed to communicate. Hieroglyphs for Dummies.  The Egyptian scribes likely had a phrase diagramming chart, he way grammar school diagram sentences.  They taught  Phoenician sailors the trick.

We do the same today. What we think as a diagrammed sentence is exactly the grammar of computers.

This is almost a no brainer for the Phoenicians. The Egyptians hire them on expeditions and trade. Phoenicians ran the shipping business in the region. They could carry a hundred tons in some of those ships.

Their cargo capacity was somewhere in the region of 450 tons. A fleet might consist of up to 50 cargo vessels, and such fleets are depicted in reliefs being escorted by a number of warships

Egypt one of the main ports, and Phoenicians ran these cargoes from Spain all the way around.   By chance logic, they defaulted on what they knew, Egyptian phrase concept. But they could not be limited to Egyptian vernacular. So, in translations they would naturally diagram the Egyptian, to accomplish reverse translation.  They were stuck, needing to make a Google translate. They automated the diagramming but limiting the phrase modifier function. Hence they could get binary diagrams, easily assemble into vulgar hieroglyph for Egyptian

But it was the necessity, a requirement of that huge tonnage, they needed account, translations in a hurry.  These people had regular and long lasting cargo contracts. They needed to translate across multiple vernacular. The world already had courts and arbitration.  It is impossible to think otherwise, there are few alternatives to run a world shipping enterprise of that tonnage.

I am thinking iron rigging might have been the trick. Huge linen sails, tied with iron hook?