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This seems very low quality. And it ends with: > the alphabet’s letters are in that order because they have simply always been that way. Seriously? Like befor
by letoosh 7y ago
This seems very low quality. And it ends with:
> the alphabet’s letters are in that order because they have simply always been that way.
Seriously? Like before the universe?
Quick search leads to Wikipedia (obviously) which actually tries to answer the question: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet#Letter_names_and_order https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_alphabet#Letter...
Interestingly, first sounds and "words" produced by human babies are quite similar to the sounds the starting letters of most alphabets produce ("baba", "dada", "gaga" etc): https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby-talk-your-babys-first-words#1 https://www.webmd.com/parenting/baby-talk-your-babys-first-w...
So the answer may be in biology / evolution.
- jjtheblunt 7y agoThe article doesn't seem to mention the "Futhark", which is the Runic alphabet, which _is_ the same alphabet optimized for carving into grained wood. For some reason, the old Scandinavian stylization of this alphabet is not ordered the same, since "futhark" is, like "alphabet" being the first two letters in order, "f" "u" "th" "a" "r" "k", no?
- Wowfunhappy 7y ago> Seriously? Like before the universe? Obviously, in this context, "always" means "a long time". I can understand why you'd be frustrated with how the article ends, but this strikes me as a needlessly pedantic complaint. The article can basically be summarized as "No one knows why all the letters are placed in the exact order we're familiar with today, but we can guess at the reasons behind a few letters." I found the (suspected) reasons we do know to be interesting.
- samatman 7y agoThe article answers it, in fact. Phoenician letters had to have an order, because they were also numbers. Subsequent alphabets preserved that order.