Who invented the letter R?

Answer 1

The letter goes back to the earliest alphabets, created by a Semitic-speaking group near Egypt about 2000 B.C. The earliest name we know for the letter is "resh", meaning "head" and if you look at early forms of it you can see how it was based on a drawing of a head. They used this sign to stand for the first SOUND in the word "resh" -- and did the same sort of thing with their other letters. (The specialized name for this method is "the acrophonic principle".)

This alphabet, with some variations, ended up being used by speakers of Semitic languages in the "Syria-Palestine" area (including speakers of "Ugaritic", Hebrew and Aramaic). Around 1000 B.C., one of these groups, the Phoenicians -- traders who lived on the northern Syrian coast (main cities, Tyre and Sidon)-- began to sail around the Mediterranean, establishing colonies (called "Punic", based on the word "Phoenicia") along the northern part of Africa (biggest and most powerful was Carthage). In their dealings they shared their WRITING system with the Greeks and Etruscans (the Romans derived their version from the latter group).

These other groups ending up writing in the opposite direction from what the Semitic groups had used (left-to-right), so their forms face the opposite way. As for the name, the Greeks simplified it to "rho", the Romans pronounced it as we do ''arr". (The Greeks actually adopted some of the Semitic names for the letters ---such as "alpha, beta, [hence our word 'alphabet'] gamma, delta" for Semitic "aleph, beth, gimmel, dalet"-- even those these words meant NOTHING in Greek! But the Romans for the most part just combined the SOUND of the letter with a vowel, as we do today.


On R:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R

Overview of the history of the alphabet:
http://www.ancientscripts.com/alphabet.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/latin_alphabet

Explanation of the Semitic letters and their Greek and Latin adaptations:
http://www.ship.edu/~cgboeree/alphabet.html

Answer 2

Pontius Pirate also invented the letter R. To remind everyone of his accomplishment, he would shout its name whenever possible, leading many to believe that he was mildly retarded, or at least had a speech impediment. His invention of the letter R caught on especially well in the Orient, where both the letter R and the letter L presently are pronounced in the same manner. Through the evolution of lanuage, however, the spelling of the letter became "ARRRR" or sometimes "ARRRRGH!"

Answer 3

The son of the guy who invented the letter "Q" and the father of the guy who invented the letter "S."

Answer 4

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Answer 5

It's been around at least since Hebrew times, witness names like Rachel.
Later on, there were two greek monks working in the scriptorium, and one of them said to the other, 'I've invented a backward-facing R!'
'The other said, 'Nice one, Cyril!'

Answer 6

Robert

Answer 7

The Sumerians.

Answer 8

Probably the same civilization who came up the alphabet as their written language.