The Petries recognized the signs as an alphabet, though decoding the letters would take another decade, and tracing the source of the invention far longer. The Flinders Petries brought many of the prizes they had unearthed back to London, including a small, red sandstone sphinx with the same handful of letters on its side as those seen in the mines.
She had come to London to be interviewed for a BBC documentary about the history of writing. In the high-ceilinged Egypt and Sudan study room lined with bookcases, separated from the crowds in the public galleries by locked doors and iron staircases, a curator brought the sphinx out of its basket and placed it on a table, where Goldwasser and I marveled at it.
These first two signs came to form the name of the system itself: alphabet. Some letters were borrowed from hieroglyphs, others drawn from life, until all the sounds of the language they spoke could be represented in written form.
The temple complex detailed evidence of the people who worked on these Egyptian turquoise excavations in the Sinai.
The stelae that line the paths record each expedition, including the names and jobs of every person working on the site. The bureaucratic nature of Egyptian society yields, today, a clear picture of the immigrant labor that flocked to Egypt seeking work four millennia ago. This Proto-Sinaitic script is often considered the first alphabetic writing system, where unique symbols stood for single consonants vowels were omitted.
Written from right to left and spread by Phoenician maritime merchants who occupied part of modern Lebanon, Syria and Israel, this consonantal alphabet—also known as an abjad—consisted of 22 symbols simple enough for ordinary traders to learn and draw, making its use much more accessible and widespread.
By the 8th century B. Some Phoenician characters were kept, and others were removed, but the paramount innovation was the use of letters to represent vowels. The Greek language was originally written from right to left, but eventually changed to boustrophedon literally, turning like oxen —where the direction of writing alternated with every line. Hi, Wonder Friend! It's definitely been around a long time!
The Wonder tells us around B. Welcome, Darreus! The alphabet is very convenient and important! We're glad you liked this Wonder!
Hi, Abby! Thanks for reading the Wonder so closely. Bonjour, BellaMonica Loci! That was neat, SurA! This Wonder is full of interesting information! Thank you for commenting, awais! We hope you enjoyed this Wonder! You're very welcome, melina! We're you liked this Wonder! Welcome back, melina!
Hi, Varsha! Thanks for joining the discussion! We encourage you to keep researching about the history of the alphabet at your library and online!
Hello, Conner! It's always great when we're having fun and learning new things! We hope you learned some new information about the creation of the alphabet. Thanks for stopping by Wonderopolis and leaving us your comment, Nihal! You got it, Kenzie! Thanks for visiting Wonderopolis! We think you're A wesome, B rilliant and C ool! Hey Kenzie, great question!
Have you ever done a report on a certain topic in school? Wonderopolis works the same way-- we have a topic and we use the library, Internet and other awesome people we know to help us answer the question!
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Carlos! We hope you have A B eautiful, C ool D ay! The story of how the archeologists learned to read hieroglyphs is super cool!
Someone found a stone called the "Rosetta Stone" that had different languages on it that said the same thing. One of those languages was hieroglyphs, so they could match up the other languages to the hieroglyphics to see what they said! We are undergoing some spring clearing site maintenance and need to temporarily disable the commenting feature.
Thanks for your patience. Drag a word to its definition. You have answered 0 of 3 questions correctly and your score is:. Want to add a little wonder to your website? Help spread the wonder of families learning together.
We sent you SMS, for complete subscription please reply. Follow Twitter Instagram Facebook. Where did the alphabet come from? How have alphabets changed over time? How do you create your own alphabet? Wonder What's Next? Try It Out Are you ready to learn even more about alphabets?
Make sure you ask a friend or family member to help you explore the following activities: Now that you know where the alphabet comes from, it's time to make one of your own! Using simple origami, the traditional Japanese folk art of paper folding, you can fold your way to your own copy of the alphabet.
The Origami Club online offers step-by-step instructions — in both diagram and animated form — for creating all 26 letters of the alphabet.
So grab some colored paper and scissors, and get folding! Did you know you can find the letters of the alphabet all around you? Have fun exploring the Alphabet in Nature photo gallery to see letters that appear in nature, architecture and elsewhere!
Out of all 26 letters in the alphabet, which one is your favorite? Could it be A, since you're a fan of the letter that's both the first letter of the alphabet and a vowel? Or do you prefer Z, because it brings up the rear of the alphabet and is the final consonant? Or could it be H, Q, T, or Y?
Give it some thought and decide which letter of the alphabet is your favorite. When you've come to a decision, create a unique drawing or piece of art that shows your favorite letter and explains why it's your favorite. I need the earliest african written alphabet letters translated. From a to z. The 1st ancient African written next to it translated in English?
Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. Origins of Alphabetic Writing Dating back nearly four thousand years, early alphabetic writing, as opposed to other early forms of writing like cuneiform which employed the use of different wedge shapes or hieroglyphics which primarily used pictographic symbols , relied on simple lines to represent spoken sounds.
Enjoy this article? Articles Featured Facts History Language. How is Public Enemy far from modern English? Brian Obey January 9, am. Best regards as Rablah. The Origin of the English Alphabet This is a very confused and misleading article.
0コメント