The alphabet is a system of writing that represents individual sounds of a language with a set of symbols, usually with the most common sounds assigned a single written form. Several alphabets have been independently invented, but the system used in Western languages derives from the "North Semitic" alphabet, which originated in the eastern Mediterranean between 1700 and 1500 B.C. That alphabet represented a simplification of the Egyptian system, which had reduced thousands of hieroglyphs to a syllable-based system with several hundred syllables.
One earlier system of writing evolved from
pictographic symbols, leading to cuneiform or wedge-shaped writing,
suitable for inscribing on a clay tablet with a stylus. The
cuneiform system was a syllabary that is, each sign represented a
syllable rather than a specific sound, as in an alphabet. The
earliest cuneiform style appeared in about 2400 B.C., and by the
time of the Assyrian Empire, about 650 B.C., had become quite
standardized. Apparently as early as 2300 B.C., a system of
envelopes as developed for covering clay tablets, set up so the
envelope could be sealed against alteration of the tablet. Scribes
regularly attended school, with surviving records of writing
schools from as early as about 2000B.C. Many texts in cuneiform
survive, even describing school days, student disputes, parental
guidance to students, and the routine of tablet instruction in
Sumerian.
The cuneiform syllabary apparently began with about 1,200 signs,
and with constant improvement was down to fewer than 200 symbols by
2000 B.C. Even so, it required extensive training before it could
be written or read with ease.
The Semitic alphabet did not have separate symbols
for vowels. This system had about 30 symbols, which were later
reduced to 22 symbols. The Phoenicians derived a similar system
from the Semitic alphabet, and as merchants they spread its use
throughout the Mediterranean world.
The Greek alphabet, which developed from about 1000 to 900 B.C.,
represented a modification of the Phoenician, changed the writing
so that one read it from left to right, and added separate symbols
for vowels. The early inhabitants of the Italian peninsula, the
Etruscans, used the Greek alphabet. From the Etruscans, the Romans
learned that alphabet and modified it by dropping certain
consonants. The alphabet used in English, French, Spanish, Italian,
German, and many other modern European languages is virtually the
same as the Roman alphabet finalized by about 114 B.C. The letters
j and w were added in the Middle Ages.
The modern Hebrew alphabet derives from the "Square Hebrew"
alphabet derived from an early Aramaic alphabet, developed in the
period from about 580 to 540 B.C., and like the Phoenician, is read
from right to left. Most vowels are indicated by diacritical marks
rather than by separate symbols.
The Arabic alphabet, like the Hebrew, derives from Aramaic. The
modern form is flowing in shape, quite suited to handwriting, and
like Hebrew is virtually free of vowels, using diacritical marks
for most of them. East Indian alphabets are also apparently derived
from Aramaic, although like some other independently invented
alphabets, they may have been invented by emulating the concept
rather than the specific letters.
Similar independent inventions by emulation developed in the 19th
century, when the Cherokee leader Sequoyah developed a syllabary in
the 1830s, and when the Vai people of West Africa, perhaps
influenced by early Baptist ministers, created another system.
The Cyrillic alphabets used to write Russian, Bulgarian, Serbian,
Ukrainian, and Belorussian derived from the Greek alphabet.
All of the alphabets greatly stimulated literacy, and by contrast
to hieroglyphic or pictographic systems such as the early Egyptian
and the Chinese, required less training and hence were open to
wider participation.
