How did the english alphabet originate?

Question

how was it decided that the "a" will be written like this and "b" like this. etc.

Answer 1

Short answer: the BASIC order of our letters was decided over 3500 years ago by speakers of some a Semitic language somewhere from the borders of Egypt, Palestine or Syria.

Our alphabet goes back through Latin, through Greek to Phoenician and the earliest alphabets invented by speakers of "Northwest Semitic" languages (the group that includes Hebrew). This order (with modifications necessitated by differences in the languages adapting the letters to their own languages) goes back to at least the mid 2nd millennium BC, but we really don't know why they did it this way.

In fact, the very NAME "alphabet" betrays these roots!

-----------------
Fuller answer (hang on!):

The LATIN letters were derived from a form of the GREEK alphabet, and the term "alphabet" is based on the first two letters of the Greek alphabet --"alpha" and "beta" (so the idea of the word is the same as "a-b-c's").

But these Greek names are rather odd --meaningless, in fact. Why? That's because the Greeks borrowed a number of the NAMES for their letters from the source of the letters themselves, the seafaring traders of Phoenicia. The Phoenicians did not invent this system themselves, but were part of a cluster of related "Semitic" languages spoken centered in the regions later called Syria & Palestine. The letter-names are derived from actual words which BEGAN with the sound that letter is used to represent (e.g., "aleph", meaning "ox", "beth" meaning "house").

We can actually still see much of the original Semitic order of the letters in the Latin alphabet, and even more in the Greek. The original letters were at times used to represent a different sound from the original letter, esp when the original letter represented a sound unlike any in the language doing the borrowing. (This is how the Greeks came up with the first set of VOWELS, which were not part of the original Semitic alphabet.)

The major changes/differences in ORDER were caused when the borrowing language dropped a letter it could not use... and more often by adding letters needed in the borrower's language. These new letters were most often added at the end, after "T", the final letter in the Semitic alphabets. Later, after the early Latin alphabet was well-established, some letters"split" into variants, which were listed next to their "parent" letter. Thus "I" and "J" come from one letter, "U" "V" and "W" were from one letter.

So when was did the SEMITIC order of the alphabet come about, and why? Our earliest proven examples of the letters in the basic order used to this day are clay tablets the list the letters in order (perhaps for training scribes?) from the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit (the language, re-discovered in the 1920s is called "Ugaritic"). These show us that this order existed by at least 1300 BC. (with some additional letters for sounds that were no longer found in later languages like Phoenician, Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic).

(A few centuries later we find reflections of this order in the Bible. The clearest examples are "acrostic" poetic passages in which succeeding verses or sets of verses begins with the next letter of the alphabet. Psalm 119 is the most well-known example of this practice, and many English Bibles even mark the successive stanzas as "Aleph" "Beth", etc. )

But we still do not know why they adopted THIS order! Perhaps there is some ancient lost memory device or set of devices (story? set of sentences?) in which this particular order was found useful for remembering the various letters. Perhaps certain sounds were thought easy to group together (think of how "l m n" flows for us). Many believe the inventors of the alphabet were speakers of a Semitic language living in or near Egypt. So it is possible that the IDEA for an alphabets owed something to a part of the system of Egyptians hieroglyphics. In that case, perhaps the groupings of the letters and words may also be suggested by something in Egyptian learning and culture, or at least in the culture of this one group. But unfortunately, all evidence of how this might have happened, including the development of the order of letters, is lost to us.

Answer 2

The English Alphabet didn't originate in England. The Western Alphabet is a truly international epic well worth PBs doing the Ken Burns thing on because most people don't know much about it or writting and computerization is pushing that knowledge further into extinction.

You want to know where the letter A came from. Mesopotamia, they were the first big crossroad and exchange or trading center, which they called Civilization or the " big city ". Anyway people bartered everything back then because nobody had figured out money and currency. Being the Wall Street of the day they came up with the idea of a head of cattle as a standard exchange rate, and so the literal stock Market began. What does that have to do with the letter A? Simply take that phony cross bar from the Romans off and you have a horn. B is a pregnant Woman as a capitol letter and a ladle when small, ergo nurturing. Q is a monkey's tail. According to Juan Yciar. Capitol R is an elephants trunk. h & K come from an Egyptian Short-hand, the former being a cats head ( do not confuse the Roman H which is actually a North African A variation ) the latter being a dogs head with it's yap open, hence, excuse my spelling if I am wrong here, Isis & Khanubus thr god of the underworld. As a matter of fact we even call the system of numbers Arabic Numerals but the are acutally from India!

Had any Coffee today? A Roman mispelled word all because at the time they had no K! The place that first transported Coffee was a north Aerican Trading Center called Kuffe or Kufe. Look it up, it's still there west of Egypt!

You ever notice Blackletter traditionally does not use the Roman form of letter. It uses or derived from the uncal a North African ' inch letter ' and the type that you are so use to is a mirror of the reniasuance and a script form that is so bad it was named Antiqua ,ergo 'antiquated "in it's own birth becaue it really isn't a practical writting method!

the fact that you don't know any of this is an indication of how people today are being culturally deprived by the right!

Answer 3

English Alphabet Origin

Answer 4

The English alphabet came from the Roman alphabet. The Roman alphabet did not have a Q or J (originally, the J was just a different way to write "I"). The Roman alphabet is partly based on the Greek alphabet (Alpha=A, Beta=B, Gamma=G, etc.)., But some of the symbols are different (Such as Omega).

Answer 5

This penny stock service has years of proven experience. Ultimately it is the best service for beginners to use https://tr.im/t6HK8
You will have to wait between 3 and 10 days to get into the system in most cases. When I signed up it took 8 days. I wished it was faster, but if you can wait a week or two to start earn life changing money than you will have what it takes to make it in this business.

Answer 6

Our language, while mostly based on the Greek letters, the words into which we arrange these modified letters are based on many, many languages, including but certainly not limited to Latin, German, French, Hebrew, Greek, and Italian. The word "alphabet" was taken from the combination of the first 2 Greek letters "alpha" and "beta."

Answer 7

Much of it came from the Roman alphabet. Our number system had origins in arabian mathematics.

Answer 8

alike germans, spaniards, italians, and all the other cultures in western europe the alphabet was taken from the roman alphabet used for the latin language.

Answer 9

Its Egyptian, Semitic, Greek, and then Roman, in that order. It was the Roman Empire that spread it to the rest of Europe.

Answer 10

Hello,

No one know how english was invented
It just happen ....
Its just one of the axioms that we all have accepted.
There is no controversial argument against it.
Just accept it and be Happy.

Bye ........