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Why is the alphabet 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'?
Question
#56455. Asked by kola123. (Apr 05 05 5:01 AM)
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00Eric
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Yeah. I was wondering the same thing the other week... Why is the alphabet like that? Does anybody know the order of the Latin alphabet? The English alphabet seems random when you look at it. Letters like "D" and "T" are spread apart when it would be more logical if there were together. As are "B", "H" and "P"...
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shady shaker
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Who wants to letter know?
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coolio_daniel_uk
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this is the same person who was very unhappy at the time it takes to answer a question
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coolio_daniel_uk
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whats the odds? i'll alphabet on that
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mibmob
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Latin alphabet
ABCDEFGHIKLMNOPQRSTVX[Y][Z]
I have put the y and the z in brackets as they tend only to be found in words of Greek origin.
C adn G are sometimes interchangeable aas are C and K.
THe letter order tends to correspond with earlier alphabets like the babylonian and hebrew ones and sometimes the letters were used for numbers too.
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Flynn_17
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J and V were not used before as they are today. V was a form of U, and J was a form of I. X is also normally seen only in Greek words, or in abbreviations, e.g Xylophone, fax.
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Arpeggionist
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The alphabets of the Mediterranian all have similar roots. I will now compare between the modern Roman (European) alphabet to the Hebrew and the Greek.
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Arpeggionist
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A - from the same root as the Hebrew "Alef" or ox, the first among beasts and first among letters.
B - in Hebrew "bet", coming from the word "bait" for house.
C - originally from the same root as the Hebrew "Gimel" and the association with the word "gamal" or camel.
D - "Dalet" or "Delta" in Greek, the word for gateway
E - from the Hebrew "He".
F - if I'm not mistaken the letter has a more Greek origin.
G - the Latin variant of a soft C.
H - same function as the Hebrew "Het" (little if any relation to the Hebrew ford for sin)
I - from the Hebrew "Yod", usually a vowel.
J - originally meant as the consonant variant of "I", and in some languages it is still pronounced as an "I"
K - from the Greek "Kapa" or Hebrew "Kaf", the word for the palm of the hand.
L - Greek "Lamda" or Hebrew "Lamed" (in Hebrew the word for learning).
M - Greek "Mu" or Hebrew "Mem", from the word for water ("mayim").
N - Hebrew "Nun".
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Arpeggionist
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O - served the same basic function originally as the Hebrew "ayin". In Hebrew, the Ayin is a deeper consonant than Aleph. A third degree of this consonant exists deeper still in the throat, but is only used in Arabic, in names like "Ghaza", "Ghamora", "Baghdad".
P - Hebrew "Pe" or Greek "Phi".
Q - Hebrew "Quf".
R - Hebrew "Resh".
S - Hebrew "Shin", from the word for tooth.
T - from the Greek "Tao" and Hebrew "Tav".
U - where the Hebrew and other Mediterranian alphabet leaves off, the Roman alphabet added a few letters. U was needed as the fifth vowel.
V - the consonant version of "U".
W - another more recent variant consonant of "U" (litterally "double U").
X - from the Greek "Xi".
Y - from the Greek "Ypsilon", and related to the Hebrew "Vav" (which is why it is used in names of Semitic places such as Assyria, Hebrew "Ashur"). Originally this letter could serve as both the "U" and the "I" vowel sounds, and really sounded more like the German "Ü".
Z - from the Greek "Zeta", possibly (but probably not) related to the Hebrew "Tsadi".
There used to be several other letters in the Roman and Gaelic alphabets, which fell into disuse.
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mibmob
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THanks Peggy. I knew you w0uld come up with the goods!
Flynn - where do you get the idea that Latin didn't use the letter X except in xylophone etc which isn't a classical word? Sex, sextus, nexus, arx, rex - I could go on for ages and I would include fax as that means a torch!
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Baloo55th
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X in Latin often seems to be a contracted form. Take rex - the declined forms are reg-, as regis, regorum, so I would imagine there was an original very early form regus for the nominative. Never seen this in any paleolonguistic discussion - this is just a Baloo idea and might be totally up the creek.
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Baloo55th
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That should, of course, read 'paleolinguistic'. I blame this fuzzy 12 inch monitor (17 inch still in intensive care).
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gmackematix
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The Latin alphabet is thought by many palaeolinguists to have its roots in the unilateral Egyptian hieroglyphs.
From these it can be seen, for example, that contrary to what Arpy has listed, N comes from rippling water and M derives from a hieroglyphic owl. Even today, capital M still has its two ears and a beak!
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Egyptian_hieroglyph
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Baloo55th
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I'd have thought the Latin alphabet derived more from the Greek, which (Arpy will hate me for this) derived from Phoenician rather than from Hebrew. The Hebraic people didn't get around as much as the Phoenicians did, and spreading a writing system takes a lot of contact. The commercial advantages of an easy writing system encouraged the Phoenician system to be adopted elsewhere. Hieroglyphics are all right for the hieros - the priests - but are darn awkward to do your accounts in. Likewise cuneiform had to give way to easier ro write letters. The Chinese syllabary was for a long time the preserve of an educated class equivalent to the priestly class in Egypt and the merchants were regarded as lower beings who would have to struggle. Phoenicia was primarily a mercantile place - not a nation - and people who trade and manufacture need accounting to be made easy. Incidental point - that table of Linear A contains one symbol that looks remarkably like an ice cream cone. Didn't know they had them back then.
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lanfranco
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I'm not going to get into the "Development of the Alphabet" issues, because the subject is far too complex to deal with here. However, I can recommend a couple of good books: see John Man's "Alpha Beta" (London, 2000), and Jared Diamond's recent book, "Guns, Germs, and Steel" (New York, 1997). Chapter 12 contains a fascinating explanation of the history of writing.
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Arpeggionist
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I should amend my statements. It is true that Hebrew is a more modern written language than some other Semitic languages. But the spelling of the Semitic languages is very similar, and the history behind the shapes of the letters are also all quite similar. There is not that much of a difference between the ancient Hebrew and Cuniform really as far as pictographic history goes. One can literally see the evoltuion of, say, the ancient Hebrew/Phoenician Aleph as an ox head with two horns, to the modern Hebrew shorthand Aleph (rotate the image 90 degrees), to the modern Roman A (rotate another 90 degrees). One can see the M develop from waves or ripples in the water to the modern Mem and the Roman M. This does not mean that the Greek comes directly from the Hebrew, but the two alphabets share another common root and they share that root with every other Semitic and European system of writing. Call that common ancestor a "proto-Mediterranian" or "proto-Semitic" alphabet (it could very well be Linear A), it will still have the same elements and the same spelling and the same order of letters.
It must however be noted that among the ancient cultures, Hebrew was the most used written language. While most other documents in other languages we have were written by scribes and royalty, Hebrew was used and written in by common folk. There are inscriptions on gravestones meant to fend off grave robbers, the lowest level of society, who would be expected to read. Ancient Israel was probably the nation with the highest literacy rate before 1500 C.E.
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mibmob
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Balloo, you need a few Latin lessons, mate! I love this site - don't you, guys?
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Baloo55th
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Yes. Even when people mis-spell my name......
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