Very cool, but can any anyone answer this? Why is the alphabet in this order?There must have a root cause for its seemingly arbitrary order.Sure the alphabet song would sound odd in any other order, but if it were in another order, we would now have a different song.
It is well known that the Hebrews did not necessarily have Hebrew script in anything like its current state until later - around the time of Isiah in Babylon. Not that the Jews didn't come up with amazing concepts far earlier than others (ethical monotheism, abstract morality, impartial judiciary, etc, etc). But I don't know that (we) can claim the first Alphabet.
Why no Cyrillic? It is closely connected to the Greek and has some very interesting letters that require two or more to approximate in western alphabets.
And thus my point is demonstrated. You are all fairly correct about the minor factual things, like Proto-Canaanite, the Egyptians not having a proper alphabet, etc. But you're missing the crucial step that I mentioned: Egyptian hieroglyphs had dual functionality, the primary function being alphabetic in nature, each glyph representing the first sound of the word for the thing it represents (ie, a picture of an apple representing the "a" sound, a bee representing "b", etc.). The secondary use was as logographs. The alphabetic usage became predominant, and here we are today.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Canaanite_alphabet">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Canaanite_alphabet</a>You can read the history of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet there. If you're astute, you'll notice that the example glyphs there arenice, simplified versions of egyptian hieroglyphs.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets</a>Reading just from the article on the MBA alphabet we can see that the Middle Bronze Age alphabet is "believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets" and that "the script has graphic similarities with the Egyptian hieratic script, the less elaborate form of the hieroglyphs." Further down you can read about the Egyptian prototypes.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets#Egyptian_prototypes">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets#Egyptian_prototypes</a>I think I've demonstrated why I made my original comment. People know that our alphabet came from Phoenician, but Phoenician didn't just spring up out of nowhere. Neither did any other alphabet. The idea of one symbol representing one sound is not something that man just comes upon one afternoon. In our case, hieroglyphs were the prototype, providing the symbols. They were used by the Egyptians to represent the first phonetic sound of the word for the thing they represented. The simplified forms were then used for this alphabetic purposes and eventually turned into our alphabet through the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and Phoenician alphabet.
Were the rest of you as astonished as I was to see the "related ads" just above this evolving alphabet? Chinese fur toilet seats? End of the World prophecy? Crazy.
murdatsNov 10, 2006
yeah i know, them tombs are mighty impressive
grizNov 10, 2006
Very cool, but can any anyone answer this? Why is the alphabet in this order?There must have a root cause for its seemingly arbitrary order.Sure the alphabet song would sound odd in any other order, but if it were in another order, we would now have a different song.
bshniperNov 10, 2006
It is well known that the Hebrews did not necessarily have Hebrew script in anything like its current state until later - around the time of Isiah in Babylon. Not that the Jews didn't come up with amazing concepts far earlier than others (ethical monotheism, abstract morality, impartial judiciary, etc, etc). But I don't know that (we) can claim the first Alphabet.
vbsurferNov 10, 2006
oooooh. I get it.
zoshchenkoNov 10, 2006
Why no Cyrillic? It is closely connected to the Greek and has some very interesting letters that require two or more to approximate in western alphabets.
polygoneNov 10, 2006
Evolution of the alphabet?Now here is where I will lean to Intelligent Design!!
psygnisfiveNov 11, 2006
And thus my point is demonstrated. You are all fairly correct about the minor factual things, like Proto-Canaanite, the Egyptians not having a proper alphabet, etc. But you're missing the crucial step that I mentioned: Egyptian hieroglyphs had dual functionality, the primary function being alphabetic in nature, each glyph representing the first sound of the word for the thing it represents (ie, a picture of an apple representing the "a" sound, a bee representing "b", etc.). The secondary use was as logographs. The alphabetic usage became predominant, and here we are today.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Canaanite_alphabet">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Canaanite_alphabet</a>You can read the history of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet there. If you're astute, you'll notice that the example glyphs there arenice, simplified versions of egyptian hieroglyphs.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets</a>Reading just from the article on the MBA alphabet we can see that the Middle Bronze Age alphabet is "believed to be ancestral to nearly all modern alphabets" and that "the script has graphic similarities with the Egyptian hieratic script, the less elaborate form of the hieroglyphs." Further down you can read about the Egyptian prototypes.<a class="user" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets#Egyptian_prototypes">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_Bronze_Age_alphabets#Egyptian_prototypes</a>I think I've demonstrated why I made my original comment. People know that our alphabet came from Phoenician, but Phoenician didn't just spring up out of nowhere. Neither did any other alphabet. The idea of one symbol representing one sound is not something that man just comes upon one afternoon. In our case, hieroglyphs were the prototype, providing the symbols. They were used by the Egyptians to represent the first phonetic sound of the word for the thing they represented. The simplified forms were then used for this alphabetic purposes and eventually turned into our alphabet through the Proto-Canaanite alphabet and Phoenician alphabet.
ginnie4Nov 12, 2006
Were the rest of you as astonished as I was to see the "related ads" just above this evolving alphabet? Chinese fur toilet seats? End of the World prophecy? Crazy.