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Letterform Development

Ideas vs. Sounds

English alphabet animating in

The English alphabet is 26 symbols. Each of the letters correspond to a sound, or multiple sounds. A language where a letterform corresponds to a sound is called a phonemic language.

The first writing, about 3500 BC, is not phonemic, but is pictographic language. In pictographic writing, each "letter", or each pictogram, corresponds to an idea.

The most well-known examples of pictographic writing are Egyptian heiroglyphs.

Heiroglyphs
Heiroglyphs from the Karnak Temple Complex in Luxor, Egypt. Circa 1700-1500 BC. Source
Bull's head character

About 3000 BC, the Egyptian heiroglyph of a ox literally means 'ox', but it can also have a complex or metaphorical meaning, like 'strength', or 'spirit'.

The word for 'ox' in Proto-Sinaitic language is 'aleph'.

The Proto-Sinaitic language (named for the Sinai Peninsula where it's found) is the bridge alphabet between the earliest known writing, Egpytian heiroglyphs, and the Phoenician alphabet, where characters became attached to sounds. It's believed that the Canaanite people in this area reused existing heiroglyphs, though they spoke a different language than Egyptian.
Activity

See the evolution of these pictograms.

Egyptian heiroglyphs - 3000 BC

Over time, these pictographs change meaning and their forms simplify.

The Invention of the Alphabet

Animation of the ox head from 3000 BC turning sideways and becoming the Aleph character around 1500 BC

Heiroglyphs are taken and used in Phoenicia for the Phoenician language: the ox head is simplified and is turned.

It retains the name "aleph", but instead of an ox it usually represents a glottal vowel .

A glottal vowel doesn't have a character in English, but it's the sound—or rather the stoppage of sound—made in the middle of the word 'uh-oh'. Some people also use glottal stops in regional pronunciation, such as saying the word 'sentence', but not vocalizing the short 't' sound—"sen'ence".

Glottal vowels are more common in Semitic languages.

This happens around 1500 BC. The Phoenicians change the course of human development with their writing system, becase they have invented the first ever alphabet: a set of letterforms corresponding to sounds. Phoenician writing is based on the sound of the language and has twenty-two characters, rather than the hundred of characters typical of Proto-Sinaitic languages.

Aleph is the first character of the Phoenician alphabet.

Phoenician letterforms

Phoenician has nothing like we think of as 'lowercase' letters. These twenty-two characters represents consonant sounds only: vowel sounds are implied in the writing. As a modern-day example, this means the word PHOENICIAN would have been written as PHNCN. PRTT HRD T RD SN'T T?

(pretty hard to read, isn't it?)
Activity

Try to match the Phoenician character to the character it evolves into over time.

The Phoenician Alphabet Spreads

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The geographic location of the Phoenicians in the Mediterranean sea allows them to be a trading middleman, both in terms of goods and culture.

The trade routes of the the Phoenicians comes to the Aegean Sea, where the Greeks adapt the Phoenician letters to their language around 720 BC. The first two letters of Greek are 'alpha' and 'beta', from which we get the word 'alphabet'.

At this point, the Greeks add something major to the alphabet—vowels. The character for a glottal stop (aleph) is adapted to an 'a' sound and becomes alpha, the first letter of the Greek alphabet.

Phoenicians also had contact with civilizations of central Italy, where it is was adapted by Romans to the Old Italic alphabet.

Around 100 BC, the Romans conquer Greece and take the letters Y and Z from the Greek alphabet.

Roman emperors try to add additional letters to honor themselves, but are unsuccessful, and the Classical Latin alphabet comes to exist.

Activity

Drag the slider to see the evolution to the Roman alphabet.

Phoenician - 1500 BC