Reading for Class 2/9

Chapter Two: Alphabets

Early forms of written language were comprised of pictographs for whole words instead of written forms for individual letters; Crete pictographs are speculated to be the origin of the modern-day alphabet. The North Semitic people, however, are believed to be the creators of the first alphabet. Around 1500 B.C., Sinaitic script was developed by Egyptian workers, followed shortly by Ras Shamra, a "true Semitic alphabetical script" minus any vowels. The oldest forms of Hebrew were found from 1000 B.C. Arabic writing, developed before 500 A.D., added six vowels to the end of the Semitic alphabet, spreading to become the most widely used alphabet today. Greece's alphabet developed earlier than the 8th century B.C., and the country's great success and influence spread the language through many lands and influencing the letterforms that we use today derived from the Latin alphabet.

I found the Phaistos Disc to be an interesting piece of the chapter that stuck out to me. Probably because I was just visiting Crete in Greece, and got to see the disc in person, it especially connected with me. It is also a great mystery that people will speculate about for a long time (perhaps forever), but the beauty and design of the disc is something that will continue to be admired as well. It is an example of moveable type, and it is astonishing to me that thousands of years ago these people were able to come up with the concept of type like that.

The question I ponder as I read this chapter is, how different would things be if we’d all used the same alphabet—would we have advanced to something far beyond our intelligence, or would only using one alphabet form have stifled our minds?