User:JCLemke/Letter (alphabet)
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History of alphabetic writing (Draft)
[edit]Before alphabets, phonograms, graphic symbols of sounds were used. There were three kinds of phonograms: Verbal, pictures for entire words, Syllabic, which stood for articulations of words, and alphabetic, which represented signs or letters. The earliest examples of which are from Ancient Egypt and Ancient China, dating to around 3,000 BCE. The first consonantal alphabet emerged around 1800 BCE, representing the Phoenicians, Semitic workers in Egypt. Their script was originally written and read from right to left. From the Phoenician alphabet came the Etruscan and Greek alphabets. From there, the most widely used alphabet today emerged, Latin, which is written and read from left to right.[1]
The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters, Nineteen of which the Latin alphabet used, and the Greek Alphabet, which was adapted around 900 BCE, added four letters to the Phoenician list. This Greek alphabet was the first to assign letters not only to consonant sounds, but also to vowels.
The Roman Empire further developed and refined the Latin alphabet, beginning around 500 BCE. During the fifth and sixth centuries, the development of lowercase letters began to emerge in Roman writing. At this point, paragraphs, uppercase and lowercase letters, and the concept of sentences and clauses still haven't emerged, these final bits of development emerged in the late 7th and early 8th centuries.[2]
Finally, many slight letter additions and drops were made to the common alphabet used in the western world. Minor changes were made such as the removal of certain letters, such as thorn (Þ þ), wynn (Ƿ ƿ), and eth (Ð ð).[3]
- ^ Taylor, Isaac (1899). The history of the alphabet; an account of the origin and development of letters. New York: C. Scribner's Sons.
- ^ Mason, William Albert (1920). A history of the art of writing. New York: The Macmillan company.
- ^ Taylor, Isaac (1879). Greeks and Goths: a study on the runes. London: Macmillan and co.