ORIGINS OF THE ALPHABET

[Clifford Black]

The earliest certain ancestor of "A" is aleph (also called 'aleph), the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet^[2] (which, by consisting entirely of consonants, is an abjad rather than a true alphabet). In turn, the origin of aleph may have been a pictogram of an ox head in Egyptian hieroglyphs.

 

Do the work and stop THE NONSENSE

Egyptian	Phoenician aleph	Greek Alpha	Etruscan A	Roman/Cyrillic A

 

In 1600 B.C., the Phoenician alphabet's letter had a linear form that served as the base for some later forms. Its name must have corresponded closely to the Hebrew or Arabic aleph.

[Clifford Black]

Next week will add pictures of an English alphabet---the letters that you use to write with are, IN FACT, Latin!

B.

Please discontinue arguement about things that you do not understand.

B.

[Clifford Black]

The English word alphabet came into Middle English from the Late Latin word alphabetum, which in turn originated in the Greek ἀλφάβητος (alphabētos), from alpha and beta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet.^[4] Alpha and beta in turn came from the first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and originally meant ox and house respectively.

[Clifford Black]

May be we should make sure that we are understanding the fundamentals before we take off at warp speed!

B.

[Clifford Black]

This thread is a useful way of seeing how etymology and epistemology can be utilized together where one science aids the other in causing greater insights.

B.