Reading and Writing – A Brief History of the Alphabet
In the modern world where we are surrounded by print we often forget the inheritance we have received from the past. This history needs to be told to children so they can appreciate what has been passed down through the generations.
In pre historical times the pictures of primitive man were often recorded in caves or on tablets. These are known as pictography or ideography. The spoken word was used to interpret these pictures often of a religious or spiritual nature. Oral traditions grew from these interpretations.
The first writing systems appeared about the 4th Century BC in the Middle East.
The first two systems were: The Sumerian Cuneiform Script and Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
The Chinese Script (characters) developed around 1600 BC.
Olmec and Maya scripts also developed before Columbus discovered the ‘New World’.
Characters were added to picture symbols in an attempt to depict what was being said more accurately. Some characters represented whole words and some parts of words. Thousands of characters and symbols were used to record the more complex needs of developing civilizations.
Learning to read was a huge task. Hieroglyphics had to be learned by memory. Some hieroglyphics incorporated phonetic clues. Learning hieroglyphics was laborious and tedious and only scholars and priests were the experts.
The fundamental idea behind an alphabet is one symbol per sound in a given language. Writing is recording these sounds with a symbol – a way to record an unlimited number of words.
A successful reader knows what sound each symbol represents and blends the sounds into recognizable words. Once this process is automatic the real purpose for reading (meaning) can develop.
The Alphabet is the foremost invention of all time. It opened up knowledge and communication for humanity.
This first alphabet is the direct descendent of all the alphabets used in the world today.
A Brief History of the English Alphabet
Time Line
1200BC:
North Semitic people (Middle East) had a working alphabet of 22 letters.
1100 BC:
The Semitic Alphabet developed into the Phoenician Alphabet.
The alphabet invented by a Phoenician was a commercial tool and was first used to record commercial transactions. It was a business man who invented the alphabet!
The earliest Greek alphabet was developed either directly from the Phoenician or from a version of North Semitic almost identical to it.
The Etruscans adopted the Western Greek Alphabet.
5th Century: The Romans adopted writing from both the Etruscans and the Western Greeks.
The early Roman alphabet looked like this:
A B C D E F H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X
The Romans also borrowed letters from the Greek alphabet.
At its peak, the Roman alphabet looked like this:
A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S T V X Y Z
Due to the Roman dominance of Europe, the Roman alphabet became the standard alphabet throughout Western Europe, and eventually spread throughout the Western World.
The Advantages of the Alphabetic Method of Writing
A code is a series of symbols that represents something.
Any alphabet is a code for the sounds of a language.
The superiority of the alphabetic method of writing was clearly seen.
All civilized nations in the western world eventually adopted this method of writing.
Features of Alphabetic Writing Systems
- More accurate recording of spoken language.
- Less reliance on memory to master.
- Easy and faster to learn than hieroglyphics.
- More citizens could learn it with relative ease. Learning to read involved mastering the sound symbol system.
- A secular and practical sound system liberated from stifling priestly traditions and superstitions.
The English Alphabet is a series of symbols developed over centuries. These symbols represent the sounds we speak.
The alphabet used to write English today was developed from the Roman alphabet.
The Anglo-Saxon language was written down using Roman letters due to the Roman invasion of Britain. Over time the letters J, U, and W were introduced to spell the sounds the Roman alphabet didn’t accommodate.
The English Alphabet today is:
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z
The English Alphabet has 26 letters. Each letter has a lower and upper case form. The upper case letters, most of the time, will be larger than the lower case letters. Upper case letters are used at the beginning of sentences in names and in titles. Punctuation was added over time.
The English Alphabet code is not a perfect code. One letter per sound would be much easier to understand.
We only have 26 letters to spell around 43 sounds.
There is an argument amongst linguists as to the exact number of sounds. Most languages have around 43 sounds.
The English Alphabet is the way hundreds of thousands of words can be recorded and read. It is not possible for the human mind to memorize that many characters or words.
One, two, sometimes three and four letters can stand for the sounds of English within a word. Sometimes the sounds of the language have more than one spelling. This is why
English spelling is regarded as difficult.
If you would like an outline of the way English sounds are spelled I have written an eBook that systematically outlines the steps to mastering the phonemes of English spelling. Please visit www.superlearner.com.au for more information.
