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The Alphabet

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Saved by megan.couch
on November 24, 2008 at 3:28:22 pm
 

 

The alphabet and the history of it comes from ancient Egypt.  Around 2000 BC is when the first pure alphabets came about in anciet Egypt.   It appeared as a, "representation of language developed by Semitic workers in Egypt." (The Alphabet)  There are numerous different alphabets that exist in the world.  They either descended from a discovery of some kind, or some how came about from the design.  The designs where either the Phoenician alphabet or the Greek alphabet. 

 

The Phaistos Disk:

This disk was found by an archeologist.  People were (just like today) curious out there.  So as they were being curious they came across this disk.  "Its purpose, meaning, and geographical place of manufacture, reamin disputed, making it one of the most famour mysteries of archaeology." (The Alphabet)  There has yet, to this day, been something even comparable to the Phaistos Disk.  It is significant.  The Phaistos disk has a small number of comparable symbols, which are known from Cretan inscriptions.  Cretan inscriptions are also known as Cretan hieroglyphs.  The Phaistos Disk can be found in the archaeological museum of herakleion in Crete, Greece on display.  (The Alphabet). 

The Phaistos Disk

 

"As you can see in the image above there are numerous things on these disks.  There are a total of 241 tokes on the disc, comprising 45 unigue signs." (The Alphabet).  Around 45 of these signs represent things of the everyday life.  "There is a small diagonal line that occurs underneath the final sign in a group a total of 18 times.  The disc shows traces of corrections made by the scribe in several places." (The Alphabet).  This disk caught numerous people's eye.  The imagination of the archeologists was captured by this disk also.  

 

The Phoenician:

This alphabet continued intothe Proto-Canaanite alphabet.  "The Phoenicians are the descendants of the Broze Age Canaanites who, protected by tthe Lebanon mmountains and the sea, did not succumb to the Israelites or the 'Sea Peoples'." (The Alphabet)  When they first appeared in the western historiography, The Phoenicians possed scores throughout the colonies.  "The Phoenciana alphabet was based on the prinicple that one sign represents one spoken word." (The Alphabet).  The Phoenician alphabet helped awaken the Greek alphabet.  "All of the names of the letter of the phoenician alphabet started with consonants, and these consonants were twhat the letters represented."  (The Alphabet)  These consonants were very hard to pronounce.  Basically almost impossible so the Greeks started to pronounce things with initial vowels.  After that...the letters now stood for the vowels.  "This fortunate development only provided for six of the twelve Greek vowels, the Greeks eventually created digraphs and other modifications, such as ei, ou, and o, or in some cases simply ignored the deficiency as in long a,i, u." (the Alphabet) 

 

The Greeks:

 

The Greek provided the alphabet as its scripts to Europe.  "The History of the Greek alphabet starts with the adoption of Phoenician letterforms and contrinues to the present day. " (The Alphabet)  Therefore, The Greek alphabet is considered the "true alphabet."  Romans used the Greek alphabet in the form of our upper case letters.  Romans made their own art of writing.  They made numerous different styles and different forms of letters.  "Serif's originated withthe carving of words into stone in ancient italy.  Roman stonemasons started addding little hooks to the tips of letters to prevent the chisel from slipping, which turned out to be the very aesthetic as well as legibility increasing addition to type that we use to this day." (The Alphabet)  The Romans also invented soething called the baseline.  "In typography and penmanship, the baseline is the line upon which most letters "sit" and under which desceneders extend.  By these additions Romans ensured that tupe, in opposition to the higgeldy piggedly writing of the Greeks, was perfectly aligned in rows." (The alphabet)

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