ETYMOLOGY

We have been learning alphabets since grade one. But, did anyone of you wonder why they are called alphabets and not gamma-reds (not a word by the way)? If we look at the word more closely, we realize that the word speaks for itself! In fact, the etymology of the word “alphabet” takes us on an amazing journey of language development in human history. By now you probably have figured out that “alphabet” is actually the combination of first two Greek letters: Alpha and Beta. (Even if you didn’t at first, you know now). Greece, however, isn’t actually where the story begins; it is just the spot where it takes a turn (towards Europe).

For the origins of Alphabet, we have to go to ancient Lebanon, to the time when the Phoenicians lived there. Ah, of course, you remember Phoenicians who had their capital in the city of Tyre and were known for their trade around the Mediterranean Sea from 15th Century till third century B.C., don’t you? Just kidding; I myself just found out.

Phoenicians were the people who, besides other things, developed the ABC of writing. No, I mean literally! They invented the letters - what else qualifies as the ABC of writing? But, wait! Does that mean that language not being written before that? It was! The Phoenicians were already exposed to the writing systems of Egyptian Hieroglyphs and Sumerian Cuneiforms. However, these two writing systems involved assigning symbols to whole words, unlike the letter system we have today (e.g. Latin alphabet) in which symbols are assigned to a couple of dozen alphabets which are combined to spell out all words in the dictionary. In the Egyptian and Sumerian scripts, just like Chinese, there were almost as many symbols (letters) as the number of words in the language. So, instead of Spelling Bee contests, the Ancient Egyptians and Sumerians used to hold the Symbolic Bee contests (sounds like such a cool idea!)

The letter system devised by the Phoenicians really helped, because it let the common man to read and write with much less effort. You did not have to remember thousands of symbols and know their meanings anymore; you could just memorize the two dozen symbols and their sounds in order to read or write. That must have been a relief! For instance, if you have to write marshmallows in Egyptian Hieroglyphs, and you cannot recall the symbol that represents marshmallows, you would be stuck. But, in letter system, you can even spell it wrongly; it will not exactly win you the Spelling Bee contest, but it will let you to convey your message by using the letters that make the M-A-R-SH-M-E-L-O-Z sound.

Historians believe that the Phoenicians came up with this simpler form of writing due to their widespread trade and their need to maintain their accounts through a quick and easy writing method. Since a lot of trade took place between the Phoenicians and the Greeks, the latter learnt the Phoenician alphabets to keep track of the commerce. And, they started writing their own language (i.e. Greek) down. The first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet were Aleph and Beth, which, when imported by the Greeks, became Alpha and Beta.

Did you, by the way, notice that the Phoenician letters Aleph and Beth sound startlingly similar to the first two Arabic alphabets Alif and Bay? This is because Arabic alphabet came from the Phoenician alphabet. In fact Phoenician alphabets were also ancestors of Hebrew, Syriac, South Arabic, Latin and Cyrillic alphabet. Another interesting fact is that in the Phoenician language, the second letter “beth” meant “house”. What do they call a house in Arabic nowadays?

The Phoenician writing system had 22 letters all of which were consonants. The native speaker did not have much problems reading because she could make the word out of sheer consonants. But foreigners couldn’t. The Greeks spiced up the writing system by adding more alphabets (vowels) in around 800 B.C. and made it easier to read the language.

So basically the word “alphabet” comes from Phoenician letters “aleph” and “beth”. And thanks to the Phoenicians, we can now easily write Marshmallows.