What is History of the alphabet?
[[File:Phönizisch-5Sprachen.svg|thumb|right|Chart showing details of four alphabets' descent from Phoenician [[abjad]], from left to right [[Latin alphabet|Latin]], [[Greek alphabet|Greek]], [[Phoenician alphabet|original Phoenician]], [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]], [[Arabic alphabet|Arabic]].]] The '''history of the alphabet''' goes back to a writing system for [[Consonant|consonants]]. This was used for [[Semitic languages]] in the [[The Levant|Levant]] in the 2nd millennium BC.<ref>Sampson, Geoffrey 1985. ''Writing systems: a linguistic introduction''. Stanford University Press, p77. ISBN 0-8047-1254-9</ref> ==Early history== === Hieroglyphs in Egypt === By 2700 BC, the [[ancient Egypt]]ians had developed a set of some 22 [[hieroglyphs]] to represent the [[consonant]]s of their language. A 23rd seems to have been for word-initial or word-final [[vowel]]s. The first purely alphabetic script may have been developed around 2000 BC for Semitic workers in central Egypt.<ref>Hamilton, Gordon J. 2002. W.F. Albright and early alphabetic writing, ''Near Eastern Archaeology'' '''65''', #1 (March 2002): 35-42. page 39-49.</ref> Over the next 500 years, it spread north. All later alphabets around the world have either descended from it or been inspired by one of its descendants.<ref>Gaur, Albertine 1992. ''A history of writing''. The British Library. ISBN 0-7123-0270-0</ref><ref>Cristin, Anne-Marie (ed) 2002. ''A history of writing: from the hieroglyph to multimedia''. Flammarion.</ref> ==References== {{reflist}} {{DEFAULTSORT:History Of The Alphabet}} [[Category:Alphabet| ]]