Where does the word "alphabet" come from?

Question

I know that in Latin the first letter is called alpha and the second is betta, but also in Hebrew we call the first letter aleph, and the second leetr bet, so who was the first to call it like this?

I meant that I know that the first letter in Greek was Alpha, and the second letter was beta, but how do you know that it doesn't come from another language, can you give me sources (links)?

Thanks to TAvio, I found out what I was look for; I didn't know that Phoenicia is related to here. And when I looked for this word I found out this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenicia , and it answered my question. Thank you all!

Answer 1

The word "alphabet" comes from the names of the first two letters in the GREEK alphabet, not Latin. The names of the letters in Greek were generally a direct borrowing from the donor language of the letters themselves--Phoenician. In Phoenician, the first few letters of the alphabet were alif, bet, gimel, dalet... In Phoenician, these words were meaningful--'ox', 'house', (can't remember the meaning of dalet), 'camel'.... These were borrowed directly into Greek (along with the letters themselves) as alpha, beta, gamma, delta.... These words are meaningless in Greek except as names for the letters. "Alphabet" is the Greek term for the list of letters and refers to the names of the first two letters. There is absolutely no other source for the word. You can look up the word "alphabet" in any dictionary of English that has etymologies and you will find this confirmed.

Answer 2

Yes, just to enlarge upon the Professor's statement, the Phoenician letters were so called because they actually represented pictures of those things. So, the original letter B was a representation of a house, borrowed from Egyptian hieroglyths, which in the Phoenician language was pronounced Bet, and stood for the B sound.

Most beautifully, every time we write the letter M, we are writing the waves of the water, the shape has been more or less preserved from the hieroglphic form. In Hebrew, water (really, waters) is Mayim, so they used that shape for the M sound, and we still have it today - although it looks very different in Hebrew script. (I have used Hebrew because I don't know Phoenician, but they are very closely related languages.

By the way, Arabic letters have also come from the same source.

Answer 3

People are saying alphabet comes from Greek, but people don't like to mention that in turn it comes from Phoenician. The first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet (the first alphabet, in fact) were Aleph and Bet. Therefore, the term alphabet is actually derived from the Phoenician. Alephbet also sound like Alphabet, no?

Answer 4

Alpha is greek for 'A' and Beta is greek for 'B', hence the name, Alphabet. They just took the first two letters in greek.

Answer 5

yes i agree with the professor, alpha, beta etc dont mean anything in greek, although thats where the word alphabet comes from. i have heard these letter names where borrowed from semetic languages, if he says from phoenician, thats it i guess.
Other letters like epsilon and omega do have a greek meaning (omega for instance means the great o, the long o)

Answer 6

Hooded men and women chanting, but that image seems ignorant in hindsight b/c several religions have been known to do this. One person's religion is another person's cult. But I guess the real picture is I view a congregation that may be harmful to the people involved and others around them. With scientology if someone wants to pay out the *omit* for their own inner peace and personal happiness why not let them.

Answer 7

Greek, alpha and beta. Not hebrew, not Latin, Greek.

Answer 8

Latin

Answer 9

it's for the first two lettres of the greek alphabet : alphâ and béta.

Answer 10

I'll give my two cents... it came from the first to letters of the arab alphabet, 'alef and beh' stick them together you get alphabet.