As the introductory quote suggests, the history of the modern western alphabet is extensive and has evolved through many different forms to arrive at its present day state. Small modifications over thousands of years have resulted in the system of single phonemic symbol writing that we use today. By showing the processes which shaped and molded the western alphabet, much can be learned about its nature. This paper will discuss the major historical stages which the alphabet passed through to reach its current form: the Egyptian stage, the Phoenician stage, the Greek stage and finally the Roman stage.
[...] A quick look at the signs show the similarity between the two systems.”[8] By the time the Greek alphabet had been established, the ancient foundations of the modern alphabet had been solidified. Soon after the Greeks, the Romans derived their own alphabet from Greek origins and began the final descent into the emergence of the modern alphabet. The Greek alphabet was eventually adopted by a group in Northern Italy called the Etruscans and they helped to continue its spread.[9] From this, the Romans inherited the knowledge of the Greek alphabet and devised their own form of writing to account for different spellings and sounds which Greek did not have. [...]
[...] The modern Western alphabet: A brief history 26-letter Roman alphabet is a distant - but direct - descendant of the complex, ornate script of ancient Egypt, which scholars believe inspired the development of the world's first alphabetic scripts, Phoenician and Aramaic, from which the Greek and Roman alphabets derive” As the introductory quote suggests, the history of the modern western alphabet is extensive and has evolved through many different forms to arrive at its present day state. Small modifications over thousands of years have resulted in the system of single phonemic symbol writing that we use today. [...]
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