{"id":36,"date":"2019-01-23T21:53:51","date_gmt":"2019-01-23T21:53:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/?p=36"},"modified":"2021-10-07T01:23:17","modified_gmt":"2021-10-07T01:23:17","slug":"evolution-of-the-alphabet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/","title":{"rendered":"Evolution of the Alphabet"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>Found this amazing chart on the history of the English (or Latin) alphabet, made by Matt Baker.   You can download the hi-res color version <a href=\"https:\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/1835\/6621\/files\/alphabet-color_09ce9b05-8fc6-475b-af04-a34e5b3314a4.png\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/alphabet-evolution-1024x768.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-37\" srcset=\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/alphabet-evolution-1024x768.png 1024w, https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/alphabet-evolution-300x225.png 300w, https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/alphabet-evolution-768x576.png 768w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><figcaption>Chart made by Matt Baker, <a href=\"http:\/\/UsefulCharts.com\">UsefulCharts.com<\/a> <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>A few interesting tidbits I&#8217;ve recently learned about our alphabet, from the smart people on Reddit:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul><li>The ampersand (&amp;) used to be part of the alphabet, right at the end. <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ampersand#Etymology\">It was pronounced like &#8216;x, y, z and per se and&#8217;<\/a> so is where we get ampersand from.<\/li><li>Thorn  (\u00fe) isn&#8217;t on the chart anywhere either. It was part of the Old English  alphabet and was pronounced like &#8216;th&#8217;, but because it looks like &#8216;y&#8217;,  when the printing presses arrived in England from Europe, they didn&#8217;t  have the \u00fe symbol, so they used Y instead as it was close enough. When  you see spellings like &#8216;Ye old Fish and Chip Shop&#8217; in England, <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Thorn_(letter)#English\">the &#8216;Ye&#8217; is meant to be pronounced like &#8216;The<\/a>&#8216;.<\/li><li><a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/qz.com\/914372\/we-used-to-have-six-more-letters-in-the-english-alphabet\/\">Aside from thorn, there were five other letters that have been dropped from the English alphabet<\/a>: eth (\u00f0), wynn (\u01bf), yogh (\u021d), ash (\u00e6) and ethel (\u0153)<\/li><li>Pause &#8211; comes from \u03c0\u03b1\u03cd\u03c9 meaning \u2018I stop\u2019 or \u2018I cease\u2019<\/li><li>Skeptic &#8211; stems from \u03c3\u03ba\u03bf\u03c0\u03b5\u03c9 meaning \u2018I examine\u2019<\/li><li>Psyche &#8211; \u03c8\u03c5\u03c7\u03ae, means \u2018soul\u2019 &#8211; not \u2018mind\u2019 as we may assume!<\/li><li>Angel &#8211; comes from \u03b1\u03b3\u03b3\u03b5\u03bb\u03bf\u03c2 simply meaning \u2018messenger\u2019<\/li><li> The letter &#8220;Z&#8221; was re-introduced into the Latin alphabet c. 1st century  B.C. by the Romans in order to capture the Greek letter zeta. They did  tack it back onto the end, which explain Z&#8217;s current position. This  predates both the modern printing press and even the invention of  moveable type by several centuries. <\/li><li>The  letter that looks like a Z in the Archaic Greek alphabet is the letter  yod, which used to have a &#8220;y&#8221; sound but gradually morphed into an &#8220;i&#8221;  sound (pronounced &#8220;ee&#8221;) and became the Latin I.<\/li><li> Before the Romans it was not uncommon for writing to be done in <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Boustrophedon\">&#8220;Boustrophedon&#8221;<\/a>  or &#8220;ox-turning&#8221; style, ie the first line went left-right, the second  line right-left etc (like the path of an ox ploughing a field). Not only was the direction of the words reversed, but the letters were also flipped. It wasn&#8217;t so much that the Romans flipped them, they just  settled on one of the two versions of each letter that were available. <\/li><li>After Greeks adopted the phoenician letters they flipped them perhaps  because phoenicians wrote from right to left and Greeks wrote from left  to right. Of course there is also the weird  <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Boustrophedon\">&#8220;Boustrophedon&#8221;<\/a>  way that was only used for a few hundred years. The letters used in Classical Greece is shown <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/upload.wikimedia.org\/wikipedia\/commons\/thumb\/d\/df\/NAMA_Alphabet_grec.jpg\/800px-NAMA_Alphabet_grec.jpg\">here<\/a>. As you see in this, it shows the letters in their new &#8220;correct&#8221; orientation that was used later on.  <\/li><li> &#8220;W&#8221; literally  meant &#8220;double U&#8221;, or rather &#8220;double V&#8221; since at one time V and U were the same letter that diverged as pronunciations changed. <\/li><\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Found this amazing chart on the history of the English (or Latin) alphabet, made by Matt Baker. You can download the hi-res color version here. A few interesting tidbits I&#8217;ve recently learned about our alphabet, from the smart people on Reddit: The ampersand (&amp;) used to be part of the alphabet, right at the end. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Evolution of the Alphabet<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v20.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Evolution of the Alphabet - Alphabetize any List!<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"How did the alphabet evolve? Check out this cool chart that traces the English\/Latin alphabet from Proto-Sinaitic to Modern Latin!\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Evolution of the Alphabet - Alphabetize any List!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"How did the alphabet evolve? Check out this cool chart that traces the English\/Latin alphabet from Proto-Sinaitic to Modern Latin!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Alphabetize any List!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-01-23T21:53:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-10-07T01:23:17+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/alphabet-evolution.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"5000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"3750\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/#\/schema\/person\/4c5903c3d27fa865189a5c243e2832df\"},\"headline\":\"Evolution of the Alphabet\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-01-23T21:53:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-10-07T01:23:17+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/\"},\"wordCount\":476,\"commentCount\":0,\"publisher\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/#organization\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/evolution-of-the-alphabet\/\",\"name\":\"Evolution of the Alphabet - Alphabetize any List!\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/alphabetizer.flap.tv\/blog\/#website\"},\"datePublished\":\"2019-01-23T21:53:51+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2021-10-07T01:23:17+00:00\",\"description\":\"How did the alphabet evolve? 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