
Evolution of the English Alphabet - sohkamyung
https://usefulcharts.com/blogs/charts/evolution-of-the-english-alphabet
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jack6e
This may be a (passable) evolution of the Latin alphabet, but it is not the
English evolution. Missing are runes, and the lost letters eth, thorn, and
yogh, which were still in use alongside the Latin alphabet as late as the 16th
century.

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EngineerBetter
The author addresses this very point, highlighting that the chart is
simplified from a more detailed work.

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gingericha
This may seem like a silly question, but does anyone know why the alphabet
seems to flip from 500 bce (ancient Latin) to 1 ce (Roman)?

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def-
Same question came up on Reddit:
[https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/8am0si/e...](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/8am0si/evolution_of_the_english_alphabet/dwzqvk6/)

> Linguist here! In those ancient languages, there was no standard writing
> direction or standardized spelling conventions. In fact the Greeks often
> wrote in either direction alternating in a method called "boustrophedon"
> which means "ox-turning." You get to the end of the line and then write
> backwards to the other side of the page; it's actually much better for
> reading.

Answer by sandscript

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em3rgent0rdr
"boustrophedon" sounds extremely useful. Too bad that practice didn't remain.
I always find my eyes loose track of where the next row starts, especially
with small text and/or wide screens/paper.

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thechao
The fastest way to go rasterize fixed sized tiles on LRB was
boustrophedon—only requires ~9 registers, and takes 3c per 16 samples,
amortized.

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daurnimator
LRB?

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thechao
Larrabee; an old Intel part.

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Jedd
Am I misremembering, but I thought in Jared Diamond's GGS, the claim was made
(and fairly well substantiated IIRC) that although writing was invented
independently in several places around the planet, the (concept of an)
alphabet was only invented once, and basically was propagated outwards.

It's an appealing idea, not least because it seems so bizarre.

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empath75
I think in the sense of characters representing consonants and vowels
specifically, but there are several phonetic alphabets — Japanese and Korean
off the top of my head.

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gus_massa
I think you mean "syllabic".

Korean is almost phonetic but it's very recent (1443-1444) and it's influenced
by the Latin alphabet family (should I call it Phoenician). It's not a direct
copy, but it's not an independent invention.

The Japanese language is mostly logographic, but they have two second class
syllabic alternatives for students, kids and weird words. They have no
traditional phonetic system.

If I can add a personal anecdote, I speak Spanish that is a very regular
phonetic language like German. When my daughter was learning to read we have
to teach her all the combinations of each consonant, for example "ma, me, mi,
mo, mu" and then "la, le, li, lo, lu", and then ... after a few letter we
imagined that she would pick the regularity and then with a single example
like "ba" she would complete the sequence but no, we had to tell her the whole
sequence "ba, be, bi, bo, bu".

This is similar to the system used in schools, so I guess it's necessary to
hear all the syllabic combinations in spite when you are grow up you my think
they are easy to interpolate.

And remember that Spanish is like German, you have a straightforward relation
between the written form and how you say it. [There are minor pronunciation
details, as in any language, for example we sometimes drop some unnecessary
letters.]

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irrational
>you have a straightforward relation between the written form and how you say
it

This is one of the things I love about Spanish. I've heard people say that
English is easier to read than Spanish. I don't know what those people are
smoking, but I think it would be too strong for me ;-) Seriously, how would
anyone know how to pronounce words like "enough" without hearing them first?

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squiggleblaz
When I lived in Germany so many people asked me what the secret was to English
pronunciation. How could you tell from the spelling how a word is pronounced?
I told them to do what I was taught to do when I come across an unfamiliar
word - check a dictionary. They were hoping for a different answer.

(It's also the answer to "yes/no" questions. Answer in a sentence, don't just
say "yes" or "no". There's rules about how English speakers use them "yes" and
"no" and when we use full sentences, but if you're asking me, the answer is
just "always say 'i do' or 'she won't' or whatever", because it's 100%
guaranteed to be clear and unambiguous. It's also easier to remember in the
heat of the moment despite the complexity. If you want to be really good, you
can practise "no, I don't", but leave "yes, I do".)

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crehn
FWIW, in French the name of the letter "y" is "i grec", or "Greek i".

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tomca32
Similar in Polish, but for some reason, in Slavic languages from the Balkans
it is "Ipsilon".

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kwoff
In English at least, the corresponding Greek letter is normally spelled
"upsilon", which is obviously similar. The "psilon" in both "upsilon" and
"epsilon" meant somethign like "simple" in Greek. So these letters were the
"simple u" and "simple e". (Similarly with "omicron" and "omega", you can
probably guess what size of "o" those were. :) Not sure if there are other
cool facts about the Greek letters, for example those ending with "eta".

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vidanay
I'd love to know the story behind "I" and "Z" swapping places.

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irrational
It's not an I. You can actually see the evolution of the "real" I right there
on the chart.

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skissane
What about diacritics used in English, aren't they part of the "English
alphabet" too?

The New Yorker is (in)famous for coöperate, naïve, reëlect, etc.

Some people spell French loan words the French way, e.g. café, resumé, etc.

French/German/Spanish/etc proper names commonly keep their diacritics in
English texts. Many people see Gödel as more correct (even in English) than
Goedel.

In New Zealand English, Māori loan words commonly keep the macron. Certainly
if you look at New Zealand government web sites you will see that happening.

But if English contains just as many diacritics as French/German/Māori/etc
(albeit with rarer and less consistent usage) is there really a distinct
"English alphabet"? Or just one Latin alphabet shared by many languages? (I
know the page author attempts to address this objection, but I'm not satisfied
with the response.)

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danaliv
What happened to þ?

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laretluval
It entered the alphabet from runes and then exited the alphabet with the
invention of printing, because there weren't typefaces for it. So it appeared
and disappeared between the last two stages in the graphic.

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jjallen
This is super cool, but I wish there were more explanations about what
happened!

It's interesting how the Q gets turned upside down and rounded out.

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laretluval
Would be cooler if it took it all the way back through Hieratic and Egyptian
hieroglyphs.

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FiveSquared
That’s the reason why their is no “proper” English; English is constantly
evolving.

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fouc
Interesting that the ancient alphabet starts off as "A B C D E F Z H"

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squiggleblaz
Yes, and they made a mistake in it. Z and Y don't come from the Latin forms.
The letters entirely died off and they reborrowed them from the contemporary
Greek forms.

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KasianFranks
TLDR: [https://i.imgur.com/4WtybUs.gif](https://i.imgur.com/4WtybUs.gif)

