What was the first alphabet
What was the first alphabet
The alphabet did not appear right after the inventionletters, long time writing was hieroglyphic, derived from early pictograms. The need to record the sound content of words appeared in the year 2700 BC from the ancient Egyptians. But the first alphabet is more often called Phoenician, because it was widely distributed and gave rise to other alphabets.
History of writing
The first writing was a landmark -pictographic or hieroglyphic. It originated from primitive drawings, which can be called proto-written. In the 9th millennium BC, remains of stones with a pictographic letter, supposedly belonging to one of the cultures of Near Asia, were found in Syria. Very ancient is the Chinese letter: its history began around the 6th millennium BC, by this time there are inscriptions on the tortoise shells, consisting of ancient hieroglyphs. Hieroglyphic writing was difficult, you had to memorize a huge number of signs that related to different words and concepts. To the sound structure of the language, such writing had nothing to do with it. For a long time there was no need for a more simplified version of the letter, this art was required infrequently, they were owned by units. First alphabet
The ancient Egyptians used the hieroglyphicletter, but by 2700 BC in connection with the development of trade and agriculture, there was a need for a more simplified writing. The first alphabet appeared: to denote the consonant sounds of the language, they took a set of 22 characters that were written into words. Scientists also found 23 hieroglyphs - perhaps, he passed a certain vowel sound. This system was not the most common, the hieroglyphs continued to exist, and the letters of the new alphabet were used to convey auxiliary words, grammatical constructions and foreign borrowings. Later such alphabet was used in Canaan, it is called Semitic, it consisted of Egyptian hieroglyphics and several new signs. Phoenician letter
Often the first alphabet is called Phoenician, sohow exactly in Phenicia - the ancient Canaanite state - began to use sound symbols everywhere. It consisted of 22 letters, which also indicated only consonant sounds. Their writing was from ancient Greek hieroglyphs, but was slightly modified. The Phoenicians wrote from right to left with special ink on clay shards. Phenicia was located next to the sea, many trade routes crossed here, so the alphabet quickly began to penetrate into other countries of the Mediterranean. Thus Aramaic, Greek and other alphabets emerged, on the basis of which the writing of many modern languages occurred.
