The Mysteries of the Alphabet: The Origins of WritingWhy is A the first letter of the alphabet? Why is O round? This work tells how Protosinaic pictograms - derived from Egyptian heiroglyphics and discovered in the Sinai only at the beginning of the 20th century - changed throughout the millennia and left their trace on our alphabet. |
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ACQUIRED MEANINGS PERPETUATED acrophony Akkadian aleph Ancient Hebrew Arabic Aramaic Archaic Greek Archeography ayin Baalat became becomes beth Byblos camel CLASSIC FORMS CLASSICAL AND MODERN cuneiform cursive Hebrew Cursive script ORIGINAL daleth DERIVATIVE MEANINGS Dynasty Egyptian hieroglyphics eighth century B.C.E. Etruscan alphabet FĂ©vrier fish FORMS IN PROTO-SINAITIC gimmel Greek Script Greek Script Greek head Hebraic HEBREW LANGUAGE HEBREW Square script Hebrew word horizontal lamed Latin letter Mesha stele MODERN HEBREW MODERN HEBREW Square mouth NUMERIC VALUE ORIGINAL FORMS ostracon phonetic pictogram pronounced proto proto-Canaanite proto-Sinaitic alphabet proto-Sinaitic inscriptions represents resh right to left samekh script ORIGINAL MEANINGS seventh century B.C.E. shape shin Sinai sixth century B.C.E. sound Sumerian SUMMARY TABLE tenth century B.C.E. theta third century B.C.E. tion Transition to Greek tsadeh Ugaritic Ugaritic alphabet variations Western alphabets writing written Yehimilk zayin