who/how alphabetized the alphabet for the English language? Is it random or is there some sort of guiding principle I’m unaware of? Bonus points if there’s actually a ‘better’ alphabetical order out there?
In: 4505
This is how it started:
Phoenicians were writing contracts with each other but they didn’t have writing so they made clay balls and inside the balls they put clay representations of what was agreed upon in the contract.
After a while they realized that they could draw the things on the outside of the ball so they wouldn’t have to literally break the contract to review what the agreement was.
Then they realized that they didn’t even need a ball, they could draw on flat sheets of clay.
The first letters were originally things that would be traded. The letter A was originally a symbol meaning “ox.” Over time the letter turned upside down.
So the original order of the letters probably had to do with the importance of those images to contract writing and any alliteration they had to make it so it was easy/natural to recite them in a certain way.
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