Why is the alphabet in that order? Who is responsible?

Question

You do realize that whoever wrote the alphabet, wrote everything!

I heard a comedian say that, and died laughing!

Answer 1

I always thought it was Mr. Hooper...

Answer 2

To start, the "person who wrote the alphabet" didn't write everything. It's not like one day someone said, "Hey, we need words and letters so let's get to writing them." The evolution of writing must be spoken of if I can begin to talk about the writing of our alphabet. The very origins of writing began as simple drawings. Cave drawings are often cited as the beginnings of written language. Simplistic drawings were then adapted to stand for words and phrases. You might draw three squiggly lines to stand for water and anything related to water.

The egyptians took this concept farther by establishing particular figures to stand for more specific words and phrases. So you may have a symbol for drinking water, running water and placid water instead of just water. This was then developed into a greater likeness of writing. Some languages stopped at this point and allowed symbols to stand for letters or sounds as is seen in the Japanese language among others to this day.

We can thank the ancient Greek civilizations for much of our writing and words and our alphabet. Have you ever thought of what the word "alphabet" is? It's a compilation of the first two letters of the Greek alphabet alpha and beta. The Greek alphabet is very similar to the current alphabet we use today. The Greek alphabet consisted of 24 letters and we have only added two to that number to get our own alphabet.

Every letter makes specific sounds and combinations of letters can change the sound of the specific letters. Try making a sound you couldn't represent with letters. This is how we got the alphabet we have today. No single man came up with words and letters, it was a collaboration of millions of people over thousands of years.

Answer 3

Depends on what alphabet you are talking about? There are many.

The history of the alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the history of writing. The first pure alphabets emerged around 2000 BC in Egypt, as a representation developed by Semitic workers in Egypt of their own language (see Middle Bronze Age alphabets), deriving the system from the partly alphabetic principles (besides syllabic and logographic values) of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Most other alphabets in the world today either descended from this one development, including the Phoenician alphabet, the Greek alphabet, and the Latin alphabet, or were directly or indirectly inspired by its design.

Answer 4

Well there are various types of alphabets. you have a linear alphabet that we you today that is derived from the greeks and is put together using consonants and vowels where the first letters of the greeks were alpha and beta hence a for alpha and b for beta. Remember other cultures used other forms of written language like the chinese use character based from symbols and egyptians used hieroglyphs based from combining writing systems

Answer 5

Victor Alphabetico

Answer 6

Blame the Ancient Greeks and Romans.

Answer 7

Touche!

(I didnt write that, the alphabet guy did)

Answer 8

Probably Al Gore-After all, he did invent the internet he said.

Answer 9

U r a genius.
Alpha in greek is the first letter.
the rest is history.
Now, you know the rest of the story.

Answer 10

The alphabet god, of course!