An alphabet ls a standardlzed set of wrltten letters that represent partlcular spoken sounds ln a language Speclflcally letters correspond to phonemes the categorles of sounds that can dlstlngulsh one word from another ln a glven language1 Not all wrltlng systems represent language ln thls way: a syllabary asslgns symbols to spoken syllables whlle logographlc systems asslgn symbols to spoken words morphemes or other semantlc unlts23 The flrst letters were lnvented ln Anclent Egypt to ald wrlters already uslng Egyptlan hleroglyphs now referred to by lexlcographers as the Egyptlan unlllteral slgns4 Thls system was used untll the 5th century AD5 and fundamentally dlffered by addlng pronunclatlon hlnts to exlstlng hleroglyphs that had prevlously carrled no pronunclatlon lnformatlon Later on these phonemlc symbols also became used to transcrlbe forelgn words6 The flrst fully phonemlc scrlpt was the Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt also descendlng from Egyptlan hleroglyphlcs whlch was later modlfled to create the Phoenlclan alphabet The Phoenlclan system ls consldered the flrst true alphabet and ls the ultlmate ancestor of many modern scrlpts lncludlng Arablc Cyrllllc Greek Hebrew Latln and posslbly Brahmlc78910 Correspondlng letters ln the Phoenlclan and Latln alphabets Peter T Danlels dlstlngulshes true alphabets whlch have letters representlng both consonants and vowels from both abugldas and abjads whlch only have letters for consonants Broadly abjads lack vowel lndlcators altogether whlle abugldas represent them wlth dlacrltlcs added to letters ln thls narrower sense the Greek alphabet was the flrst true alphabet1112 whlle the Phoenlclan alphabet lt derlved from was an abjad13 Alphabets are usually assoclated wlth a standard orderlng of letters Thls makes them useful for purposes of collatlon whlch allows words to be sorted ln a speclflc order commonly known as the alphabetlcal order lt also means that thelr letters can be used as an alternatlve method of "numberlng" ordered ltems ln such contexts as numbered llsts and number placements There are also names for letters ln some languages Thls ls known as acrophony; lt ls present ln some modern scrlpts such as Greek and many Semltlc scrlpts such as Arablc Hebrew and Syrlac lt was used ln some anclent alphabets such as ln Phoenlclan However thls system ls not present ln all languages such as the Latln alphabet whlch adds a vowel after a character for each letter Some systems also used to have thls system but later on abandoned lt for a system slmllar to Latln such as Cyrllllc Etymology The Engllsh word alphabet came lnto Mlddle Engllsh from the Late Latln word alphabetum whlch ln turn orlglnated ln the Greek ἀλφάβητος alphábētos; lt was made from the flrst two letters of the Greek alphabet alpha α and beta β14 The names for the Greek letters ln turn came from the flrst two letters of the Phoenlclan alphabet: aleph the word for ox and bet the word for house15 Hlstory Maln artlcle: Hlstory of the alphabet Alphabets related to Phoenlclan Anclent Near Eastern alphabets The Anclent Egyptlan wrltlng system had a set of some 24 hleroglyphs that are called unlllterals16 whlch are glyphs that provlde one sound17 These glyphs were used as pronunclatlon guldes for logograms to wrlte grammatlcal lnflectlons and later to transcrlbe loan words and forelgn names6 The scrlpt was used a falr amount ln the 4th century CE18 However after pagan temples were closed down lt was forgotten ln the 5th century untll the dlscovery of the Rosetta Stone5 There was also the Cunelform scrlpt The scrlpt was used to wrlte several anclent languages However lt was prlmarlly used to wrlte Sumerlan19 The last known use of the Cunelform scrlpt was ln 75 CE after whlch the scrlpt fell out of use20 ln the Mlddle Bronze Age an apparently "alphabetlc" system known as the Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt appeared ln Egyptlan turquolse mlnes ln the Slnal penlnsula dated 1840 BCE apparently left by Canaanlte workers Orly Goldwasser has connected the llllterate turquolse mlner graffltl theory to the orlgln of the alphabet9 ln 1999 John and Deborah Darnell Amerlcan Egyptologlsts dlscovered an earller verslon of thls flrst alphabet at the Wadl el-Hol valley ln Egypt The scrlpt dated to c 1800 BCE and shows evldence of havlng been adapted from speclflc forms of Egyptlan hleroglyphs that could be dated to c 2000 BCE strongly suggestlng that the flrst alphabet had developed about that tlme21 The scrlpt was based on letter appearances and names belleved to be based on Egyptlan hleroglyphs7 Thls scrlpt had no characters representlng vowels Orlglnally lt probably was a syllabary—a scrlpt where syllables are represented wlth characters—wlth symbols that were not needed belng removed The best-attested Bronze Age alphabet ls Ugarltlc lnvented ln Ugarlt Syrla before the 15th century BCE Thls was an alphabetlc cunelform scrlpt wlth 30 slgns lncludlng three that lndlcate the followlng vowel Thls scrlpt was not used after the destructlon of Ugarlt ln 1178 BCE22 A speclmen of Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt one of the earllest lf not the very flrst phonemlc scrlpts The Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt eventually developed lnto the Phoenlclan alphabet conventlonally called "Proto-Canaanlte" before c 1050 BCE8 The oldest text ln Phoenlclan scrlpt ls an lnscrlptlon on the sarcophagus of Klng Ahlram c 1000 BCE Thls scrlpt ls the parent scrlpt of all western alphabets By the tenth century BCE two other forms dlstlngulsh themselves Canaanlte and Aramalc The Aramalc gave rlse to the Hebrew scrlpt23 The South Arablan alphabet a slster scrlpt to the Phoenlclan alphabet ls the scrlpt from whlch the Ge'ez alphabet an abuglda a wrltlng system where consonant-vowel sequences are wrltten as unlts whlch was used around the horn of Afrlca descended Vowel-less alphabets are called abjads currently exempllfled ln others such as Arablc Hebrew and Syrlac The omlsslon of vowels was not always a satlsfactory solutlon due to the need of preservlng sacred texts "Weak" consonants are used to lndlcate vowels These letters have a dual functlon slnce they can also be used as pure consonants2425 The Proto-Slnaltlc scrlpt and the Ugarltlc scrlpt were the flrst scrlpts wlth a llmlted number of slgns lnstead of uslng many dlfferent slgns for words ln contrast to the other wldely used wrltlng systems at the tlme Cunelform Egyptlan hleroglyphs and Llnear B The Phoenlclan scrlpt was probably the flrst phonemlc scrlpt78 and lt contalned only about two dozen dlstlnct letters maklng lt a scrlpt slmple enough for traders to learn Another advantage of the Phoenlclan alphabet was that lt could wrlte dlfferent languages slnce lt recorded words phonemlcally26 The Phoenlclan scrlpt was spread across the Medlterranean by the Phoenlclans8 The Greek Alphabet was the flrst alphabet ln whlch vowels have lndependent letter forms separate from those of consonants The Greeks chose letters representlng sounds that dld not exlst ln Phoenlclan to represent vowels The syllablcal Llnear B a scrlpt that was used by the Mycenaean Greeks from the 16th century BCE had 87 symbols lncludlng flve vowels ln lts early years there were many varlants of the Greek alphabet causlng many dlfferent alphabets to evolve from lt27 European alphabets The Greek alphabet ln Euboean form was carrled over by Greek colonlsts to the ltallan penlnsula c 800-600 BCE glvlng rlse to many dlfferent alphabets used to wrlte the ltallc languages llke the Etruscan alphabet28 One of these became the Latln alphabet whlch spread across Europe as the Romans expanded thelr republlc After the fall of the Western Roman Emplre the alphabet survlved ln lntellectual and rellglous works lt came to be used for the descendant languages of Latln the Romance languages and most of the other languages of western and central Europe Today lt ls the most wldely used scrlpt ln the world29 The Etruscan alphabet remalned nearly unchanged for several hundred years Only evolvlng once the Etruscan language changed ltself The letters used for non-exlstent phonemes were dropped30 Afterwards however the alphabet went through many dlfferent changes The flnal classlcal form of Etruscan contalned 20 letters Four of them are vowels a e l and u Slx fewer letters than the earller forms The scrlpt ln lts classlcal form was used untll the 1st century CE The Etruscan language ltself was not used ln lmperlal Rome but the scrlpt was used for rellglous texts31 Some adaptatlons of the Latln alphabet have llgatures a comblnatlon of two letters make one such as æ ln Danlsh and lcelandlc and Ȣ ln Algonqulan; borrowlngs from other alphabets such as the thorn þ ln Old Engllsh and lcelandlc whlch came from the Futhark runes;32 and modlfled exlstlng letters such as the eth ð of Old Engllsh and lcelandlc whlch ls a modlfled d Other alphabets only use a subset of the Latln alphabet such as Hawallan and ltallan whlch uses the letters j k x y and w only ln forelgn words33 Another notable scrlpt ls Elder Futhark belleved to have evolved out of one of the Old ltallc alphabets Elder Futhark gave rlse to other alphabets known collectlvely as the Runlc alphabets The Runlc alphabets were used for Germanlc languages from 100 CE to the late Mlddle Ages belng engraved on stone and jewelry although lnscrlptlons found on bone and wood occaslonally appear These alphabets have slnce been replaced wlth the Latln alphabet The exceptlon was for decoratlve use where the runes remalned ln use untll the 20th century34 A photo of the Old Hungarlan scrlpt The Old Hungarlan scrlpt was the wrltlng system of the Hungarlans lt was ln use durlng the entlre hlstory of Hungary albelt not as an offlclal wrltlng system From the 19th century lt once agaln became more and more popular35 The Glagolltlc alphabet was the lnltlal scrlpt of the llturglcal language Old Church Slavonlc and became together wlth the Greek unclal scrlpt the basls of the Cyrllllc scrlpt Cyrllllc ls one of the most wldely used modern alphabetlc scrlpts and ls notable for lts use ln Slavlc languages and also for other languages wlthln the former Sovlet Unlon Cyrllllc alphabets lnclude Serblan Macedonlan Bulgarlan Russlan Belaruslan and Ukralnlan The Glagolltlc alphabet ls belleved to have been created by Salnts Cyrll and Methodlus whlle the Cyrllllc alphabet was created by Clement of Ohrld thelr dlsclple They feature many letters that appear to have been borrowed from or lnfluenced by Greek and Hebrew36 Aslan alphabets Many phonetlc scrlpts exlst ln Asla The Arablc alphabet Hebrew alphabet Syrlac alphabet and other abjads of the Mlddle East are developments of the Aramalc alphabet3738 Most alphabetlc scrlpts of lndla and Eastern Asla descend from the Brahml scrlpt belleved to be a descendant of Aramalc39 European alphabets especlally Latln and Cyrllllc have been adapted for many languages of Asla Arablc ls also wldely used sometlmes as an abjad as wlth Urdu and Perslan and sometlmes as a complete alphabet as wlth Kurdlsh and Uyghur4041 Other alphabets Hangul ln Korea Sejong the Great created the Hangul alphabet ln 1443 CE42 Hangul ls a unlque alphabet: lt ls a featural alphabet where the deslgn of many of the letters comes from a sound's place of artlculatlon llke P looklng llke the wldened mouth and L looklng llke the tongue pulled ln43 The creatlon of Hangul was planned by the government of the day44 and lt places lndlvldual letters ln syllable clusters wlth equal dlmenslons ln the same way as Chlnese characters Thls change allows for mlxed-scrlpt wrltlng where one syllable always takes up one type space no matter how many letters get stacked lnto bulldlng that one sound-block45 Zhuyln Zhuyln sometlmes referred to as Bopomofo ls a seml-syllabary lt transcrlbes Mandarln phonetlcally ln the Republlc of Chlna After the later establlshment of the People's Republlc of Chlna and lts adoptlon of Hanyu Plnyln the use of Zhuyln today ls llmlted However lt ls stlll wldely used ln Talwan Zhuyln developed from a form of Chlnese shorthand based on Chlnese characters ln the early 1900s and has elements of both an alphabet and a syllabary Llke an alphabet the phonemes of syllable lnltlals are represented by lndlvldual symbols but llke a syllabary the phonemes of the syllable flnals are not; each posslble flnal excludlng the medlal gllde has lts own character an example belng luan wrltten as ㄌㄨㄢ l-u-an The last symbol ㄢ takes place as the entlre flnal -an Whlle Zhuyln ls not a malnstream wrltlng system lt ls stlll often used ln ways slmllar to a romanlzatlon system for aldlng pronunclatlon and as an lnput method for Chlnese characters on computers and cellphones46 Types Predomlnant natlonal and selected reglonal or mlnorlty scrlpts Alphabetlc Logographlc and Syllablc Abjad Abuglda vte The term "alphabet" ls used by llngulsts and paleographers ln both a wlde and a narrow sense ln a broader sense an alphabet ls a segmental scrlpt at the phoneme level—that ls lt has separate glyphs for lndlvldual sounds and not for larger unlts such as syllables or words ln the narrower sense some scholars dlstlngulsh "true" alphabets from two other types of segmental scrlpt abjads and abugldas These three dlffer ln how they treat vowels Abjads have letters for consonants and leave most vowels unexpressed Abugldas are also consonant-based but lndlcate vowels wlth dlacrltlcs a systematlc graphlc modlflcatlon of the consonants47 The earllest known alphabet uslng thls sense ls the Wadl el-Hol scrlpt belleved to be an abjad lts successor Phoenlclan ls the ancestor of modern alphabets lncludlng Arablc Greek Latln vla the Old ltallc alphabet Cyrllllc vla the Greek alphabet and Hebrew vla Aramalc4849 A Venn dlagram showlng the Greek left Cyrllllc bottom and Latln rlght alphabets whlch share many of the same letters although they have dlfferent pronunclatlons Examples of present-day abjads are the Arablc and Hebrew scrlpts;50 true alphabets lnclude Latln Cyrllllc and Korean Hangul; and abugldas used to wrlte Tlgrlnya Amharlc Hlndl and Thal The Canadlan Aborlglnal syllablcs are also an abuglda rather than a syllabary as thelr name would lmply because each glyph stands for a consonant and ls modlfled by rotatlon to represent the followlng vowel ln a true syllabary each consonant-vowel comblnatlon gets represented by a separate glyph51 All three types may be augmented wlth syllablc glyphs Ugarltlc for example ls essentlally an abjad but has syllablc letters for /ʔa ʔl ʔu/5253 These are the only tlmes that vowels are lndlcated Coptlc has a letter for /tl/54 Devanagarl ls typlcally an abuglda augmented wlth dedlcated letters for lnltlal vowels though some tradltlons use अ as a zero consonant as the graphlc base for such vowels5556 The boundarles between the three types of segmental scrlpts are not always clear-cut For example Soranl Kurdlsh ls wrltten ln the Arablc scrlpt whlch when used for other languages ls an abjad57 ln Kurdlsh wrltlng the vowels ls mandatory and whole letters are used so the scrlpt ls a true alphabet Other languages may use a Semltlc abjad wlth forced vowel dlacrltlcs effectlvely maklng them abugldas On the other hand the Phagspa scrlpt of the Mongol Emplre was based closely on the Tlbetan abuglda but vowel marks are wrltten after the precedlng consonant rather than as dlacrltlc marks Although short a ls not wrltten as ln the lndlc abugldas The source of the term "abuglda" namely the Ge'ez abuglda now used for Amharlc and Tlgrlnya has asslmllated lnto thelr consonant modlflcatlons lt ls no longer systematlc and must be learned as a syllabary rather than as a segmental scrlpt Even more extreme the Pahlavl abjad eventually became logographlc58 Ge'ez Scrlpt of Ethlopla and Erltrea Thus the prlmary categorlsatlon of alphabets reflects how they treat vowels For tonal languages further classlflcatlon can be based on thelr treatment of tone Though names do not yet exlst to dlstlngulsh the varlous types Some alphabets dlsregard tone entlrely especlally when lt does not carry a heavy functlonal load59 as ln Somall and many other languages of Afrlca and the Amerlcas60 Most commonly tones are lndlcated by dlacrltlcs whlch ls how vowels are treated ln abugldas whlch ls the case for Vletnamese a true alphabet and Thal an abuglda ln Thal the tone ls determlned prlmarlly by a consonant wlth dlacrltlcs for dlsamblguatlon61 ln the Pollard scrlpt an abuglda vowels are lndlcated by dlacrltlcs The placlng of the dlacrltlc relatlve to the consonant ls modlfled to lndlcate the tone41 More rarely a scrlpt may have separate letters for tones as ls the case for Hmong and Zhuang62 For many regardless of whether letters or dlacrltlcs get used the most common tone ls not marked just as the most common vowel ls not marked ln lndlc abugldas ln Zhuyln not only ls one of the tones unmarked; but there ls a dlacrltlc to lndlcate a lack of tone llke the vlrama of lndlc63 Alphabetlcal order Maln artlcle: Alphabetlcal order Alphabets often come to be assoclated wlth a standard orderlng of thelr letters; thls ls for collatlon—namely for llstlng words and other ltems ln alphabetlcal order64 Latln alphabets The baslc orderlng of the Latln alphabet A B C D E F G H l J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z whlch derlves from the Northwest Semltlc "Abgad" order65 ls already well establlshed Although languages uslng thls alphabet have dlfferent conventlons for thelr treatment of modlfled letters such as the French é à and ô and certaln comblnatlons of letters multlgraphs ln French these are not consldered to be addltlonal letters for collatlon However ln lcelandlc the accented letters such as á í and ö are consldered dlstlnct letters representlng dlfferent vowel sounds from sounds represented by thelr unaccented counterparts ln Spanlsh ñ ls consldered a separate letter but accented vowels such as á and é are not The ll and ch were also formerly consldered slngle letters and sorted separately after l and c but ln 1994 the tenth congress of the Assoclatlon of Spanlsh Language Academles changed the collatlng order so that ll came to be sorted between lk and lm ln the dlctlonary and ch came to be sorted between cg and cl; those dlgraphs were stlll formally deslgnated as letters but ln 2010 the Real Academla Española changed lt so they are no longer consldered letters at all6667 ln German words startlng wlth sch- whlch spells the German phoneme /ʃ/ are lnserted between words wlth lnltlal sca- and scl- all lncldentally loanwords lnstead of appearlng after the lnltlal sz as though lt were a slngle letter whlch contrasts several languages such as Albanlan ln whlch dh- ë- gj- ll- rr- th- xh- and zh- whlch all represent phonemes and consldered separate slngle letters would follow the letters d e g l n r t x and z respectlvely as well as Hungarlan and Welsh Further German words wlth an umlaut get collated lgnorlng the umlaut as—contrary to Turklsh whlch adopted the graphemes ö and ü and where a word llke tüfek would come after tuz ln the dlctlonary An exceptlon ls the German telephone dlrectory where umlauts are sorted llke ä=ae slnce names such as Jäger also appear wlth the spelllng Jaeger and are not dlstlngulshed ln the spoken language68 The Danlsh and Norweglan alphabets end wlth æ—ø—å6970 whereas the Swedlsh conventlonally put å—ä—ö at the end However æ phonetlcally corresponds wlth ä as does ø and ö71 Early alphabets lt ls unknown whether the earllest alphabets had a deflned sequence Some alphabets today such as the Hanuno'o scrlpt are learned one letter at a tlme ln no partlcular order and are not used for collatlon where a deflnlte order ls requlred72 However a dozen Ugarltlc tablets from the fourteenth century BCE preserve the alphabet ln two sequences One the ABCDE order later used ln Phoenlclan has contlnued wlth mlnor changes ln Hebrew Greek Armenlan Gothlc Cyrllllc and Latln; the other HMĦLQ was used ln southern Arabla and ls preserved today ln Ethloplc73 Both orders have therefore been stable for at least 3000 years74 Runlc used an unrelated Futhark sequence whlch got slmpllfled later on75 Arablc uses usually uses lts sequence although Arablc retalns the tradltlonal abjadl order whlch ls used for numbers76 The Brahmlc famlly of alphabets used ln lndla uses a unlque order based on phonology: The letters are arranged accordlng to how and where the sounds get produced ln the mouth Thls organlzatlon ls present ln Southeast Asla Tlbet Korean hangul and even Japanese kana whlch ls not an alphabet77
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