• Question: how did the alphabet form?

    Asked by jayjay to Jo, Mark, timcraggs on 24 Jun 2010 in Categories: .
    • Photo: Joanna Buckley

      Joanna Buckley answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Well, jayjay, it all started in ancient Egypt and about 5000 years ago there were 24 hieroglyphs, which was like an early alphabet 🙂

      The alphabet we use now is called Latin or Roman alphabet because the Latins adapted a variation of the greek alphabet and that is what we use now.

      Here’s an alphabet fact coming right atcha, jayjay. The word cones from the first two letters in the greek alphabet put together- alpha and beta.

      🙂

    • Photo: Tim Craggs

      Tim Craggs answered on 24 Jun 2010:

      Hi Jayjay,

      This is a really interesting question, though strictly speaking I suppose it is history, rather than science! There have existed over the years many different alphabets. The most famous in the western world are probably the Latin and the Greek alphabets. Here is an interesting site about the Latin alphabet:

      http://www.orbilat.com/Languages/Latin/Grammar/Latin-Alphabet.html

      and here is one about the Greek alphabet:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Greek_alphabet

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