My 6 year old asked me this the other day. Some kids ask about the sky, mine asks about the alphabet. "I don't know, it just is," is all I could think of. Please explain in a way she will understand.
2007-01-29 04:41:43 · 10 answers · asked by trenee1977 2 in Society & Culture ➔ Languages
First of all, your 6 year old is very smart. Plutarch, a historian from ancient Greece wrote a text discussing why Alpha was the first letter of the Greek alphabet. He believed that it was choosen as first because the Greek alphabet derrived from the Phoenician alphabet, and in Phoenician alpha meant "ox", which they considered to be the first necessity for a man.
An good explanation for a 6 year old would be that some people, a long time ago thought that A was the most important letter so they placed it first.
2007-01-29 05:01:53 · answer #1 · answered by Deep Thought 5 · 2⤊ 0⤋
The Latin alphabet, like many other scripts (Greek, Cyrillic, Hebrew, Arabic...), has developed from the Phoenician alphabet.
The letter Aleph, which is the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet and the equivalent of the English A, comes from the word "aluph", means ox (imagine that the legs of the letter are the horns of the ox and that the triangle is its head).
When I was younger my father told me that the oxen used to lead the parades of the Semitic nations (in particular the parades of the Israelis to Jerusalem in ancient times), so the letter Aleph is actually the ox before the parade of alphabet.
I don't know if this is the real reason (I guess not and that it has to do something with lingual reasons), but it is a nice explanation...
2007-01-29 13:06:16 · answer #2 · answered by yotg 6 · 1⤊ 1⤋
No one knows why ‘A’ is the first letter of our alphabet. Some think it’s because this letter represents one of the most common vowel sounds in ancient languages of the western hemisphere.
In trying to find an answer to anything a child asks, its really important to give some kind of answer, even if it sounds silly, or its one of those questions that just has no answer! So, I would say, its because its the letter used most.
Any answer you give will make your child happy :)
2007-01-29 13:13:22 · answer #3 · answered by aidan402 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
No one knows why ‘A’ is the first letter of our alphabet. Some think it’s because this letter represents one of the most common vowel sounds in ancient languages of the western hemisphere. Other sources argue against this theory because there were no vowel sounds in the Phoenician language. (The Phoenician alphabet is generally thought to be the basis of the one we use today.)
2007-01-29 12:48:52 · answer #4 · answered by weams 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
First letter of the Greek alphabet. Alpha. (we get the word alphabet by joining alpha and beta- the 2 first letters in the Greek alphabet!)
2007-01-29 13:13:50 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
The first sound when you open your mouth and cry is "ah" and the letter A with its wide open legs is a symbol of the open mouth ah sound.
2007-01-30 00:37:44 · answer #6 · answered by Newman 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
because none of the other letters are the first one
2007-01-29 12:49:21 · answer #7 · answered by samantha 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
somethings you just can't explain. it's like a child asking why people die, it's just the way it is.
2007-01-29 12:48:52 · answer #8 · answered by blur b 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Because there isn't any other one before
2007-01-29 14:13:23 · answer #9 · answered by R. G 2 · 0⤊ 1⤋
cuz of the song!
2007-01-29 12:46:59 · answer #10 · answered by Jim G 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋