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Early Alphabets

Alphabetic characteristics 1

Cretan Pictographs 11

Hieroglyphics 16

The Phoenician Alphabet 24

The Greek Alphabet 31

The Latin Alphabet 39

Summary 53

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Alphabetic characteristics3,000 BCE

Basic building blocks of written language

Early visual language systems were disparate and decentralized

3,000 BCE

Protowriting, Cuneiform, Heiroglyphs and far Eastern writing all functioned differently

Rebuses, ideographs, logograms, and syllabaries

2 / 5 3G D T- 1 0 1 / H I S T O R Y O F G R A P H I C D E S I G N / E A R LY A L P H A B E T S / A L P H A B E T I C C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S

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H I E R O G LY P H I C S R E P R E S E N T I N G T H E R E B U S P R I N C I P A L · B E E & L E A F · S E A & S U N · B E L I E F A N D S E A S O N


P E T R O G LY P H I C P I C T O G R A M S A N D I D E O G R A P H S · C I R C A 2 0 0 B C E · U TA H , U N I T E D S TAT E S


L U W I A N L O G O G R A M S · C I R C A 1 4 0 0 A N D 1 2 0 0 B C E · T U R K E Y


O L D P E R S I A N S Y L L A B A R Y · 6 0 0 B C E

Alphabetic structure marked an enormous societal leap3,000 BCE

Power was reserved for those who could read and write


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What is an alphabet?Definition

An alphabet is a set of visual symbols or characters used to represent the elementary sounds of a spoken language.–PM


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They can be connected and combined to make visual configurations signifying sounds, syllables, and words uttered by the human mouth.–PM


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• An alphabet is a commonly recognized set of letters used to write one or more languages

• It has separate glyphs for individual sounds, rather than larger units, like syllables or words

• A true alphabet has letters to represent the vowels of a language as well as the consonants.

• Standard ordering (alphabetical order) provide structure

1 0 / 5 3G D T- 1 0 1 / H I S T O R Y O F G R A P H I C D E S I G N / E A R LY A L P H A B E T S / A L P H A B E T I C C H A R A C T E R I S T I C S

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1 1 / 5 3G D T- 1 0 1 / H I S T O R Y O F G R A P H I C D E S I G N / E A R LY A L P H A B E T S

Cretan Pictographs2,800 BCE

Early Minoan pictorial mark-making

A possible basis for later alphabetic forms because of its visual similarities

1 2 / 5 3G D T- 1 0 1 / H I S T O R Y O F G R A P H I C D E S I G N / E A R LY A L P H A B E T S / C R E TA N P I C T O G R A P H S

C R E TA N P I C T O G R A P H S C O M P A R E D T O T H E L A N G U A G E S T H E Y I N F L U E N C E D


C R E TA N P I C T O G R A P H S · L I N E A R B S Y L L A B A R Y · M Y C E N A E A N G R E E K · 1 , 7 0 0 B C E

• Figures, arms, body parts, animals, plants, geometric shapes

• About 135 pictographs survive


P H A I S T O S D I S K · M I N O A N C I V I L I Z AT I O N · E X C AVAT E D I N 1 9 0 8 , C R E T E

Phaistos Disk

• 241 hieroglyphic tokens

• Hatchet, eagle, carpenter’s square, animal skin, vase

• Relief impressions in terra cotta

• Origin of movable type?


P H A I S T O S D I S K A N D S Y M B O L K E Y


Hieroglyphics2,700 BCE

Three varieties of proto-alphabetic expression

1 7 / 5 3G D T- 1 0 1 / H I S T O R Y O F G R A P H I C D E S I G N / E A R LY A L P H A B E T S / H I E R O G LY P H I C S

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Three types of writing1. Hieroglyphics—The classic pictographic Egyptian writing

2. Hieratic script—Developed around the same time as the hieroglyphic script and was used for official tasks (record keeping, accounting, and writing letters)

3. Demotic script—The popular script, a name given to it by Herodotus, developed from a northern variant of the Hieratic script in around 660 BC


C L A S S I C E G Y P T I A N H I E R O G LY P H I C S


T H E E V O L U T I O N O F H I E R AT I C S C R I P T


D E M O T I C S C R I P T, C O N T R A C T, P T O L E M A I C E R A


T H E R O S E T TA S T O N E · E G Y P T I A N H I E R O G LY P H I C S , E G Y P T I A N D E M O T I C S C R I P T A N D C L A S S I C A L G R E E K


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Hieroglyphics were made from three different parts

1. Ideograms—Pictorial denotation of an object

2. Phonograms—Denote a sound or sequence of sounds

3. Determinatives—Provide clues to meaning and sounds


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• Vowel sounds existed but were unwritten

• Consonantal alphabet (abjad)

• Requires cultural knowledge


The Phoenician Alphabet 1,500 BCE

Cuneiform, Hieroglyphs, and Cretan pictographs come together to form the seeds of the modern alphabet

2 5 / 5 3G D T- 1 0 1 / H I S T O R Y O F G R A P H I C D E S I G N / E A R LY A L P H A B E T S / T H E P H O E N I C I A N A L P H A B E T

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The Phoenicians

• Modern day Lebanon, Syria and Israel

• Seafaring merchants and ship builders

• Needed an alphabet for their native tongue


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Distillation of Cuneiform, Hieroglyphs, and Cretan pictographs


T H E P H O E N I C I A N A L P H A B E T · C I R C A 1 , 5 0 0 B C E · 2 2 C H A R A C T E R S


P H O E N I C I A N P E T R O G LY P H I C I N S C R I P T I O N


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• Unprecedented use of alphabetical order

• 22 letters, each representing a single sound

• Read from right-to-left

• Democratized writing for Phoenicians

• Simple for non-Phoenician people to learn

• Consonantal alphabet (abjad)


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Since vowels sounds were not specified, a two-syllable word like drama could have at least nine different pronunciations.

1. drama

2. dramu

3. drami

4. drima

5. drimu

6. drimi

7. druma

8. drumu

9. drumi


The Greek Alphabet1,000 BC

Greece, an epicenture of science, philosophy, democracy, art, architecture, literature, and alphabetic evolution

3 2 / 5 3G D T- 1 0 1 / H I S T O R Y O F G R A P H I C D E S I G N / E A R LY A L P H A B E T S / T H E G R E E K A L P H A B E T

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The Phoenician alphabet was brought to Greece by mythic hero Cadmus

• Invented history, created prose, designed some Greek letters

• His use of writing allowed him to raise and control armies quickly


T H E G R E E K A L P H A B E T


E A R LY G R E E K I N S C R I P T I O N · T H E R O S E T TA S T O N E

• Early Greek used Phoenician characters, arranged the same

• Anyone who could read ancient Phoenician could also read Greek

• Five were changed to vowels, making it a true alphabet

• All capital letters

• No punctuation, paragraphs, or word spacing

• The direction of reading changed several times


B O U S T R O P H E D O N

Greek was often read in a format known as boustrophedon or as the ox plows

One row would read left-to-right and then switch from right-to-left


E A R LY G R E E K P E T R O G LY P H I C I N S C R I P T I O N W R I T T E N I N B O U S T R O P H E D O N


R E V E R S E B O U S T R O P H E D O N


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Centralized by Athens

400 BCE

• Classical Greek settled on right-to-left orientation

• Letterforms became monumental and some letters were reversed

• Based on formal geometric ideals, lack of scripted-details


The Latin Alphabet200 BCE – 1,400 CE

The ultimate expression of our modern written language

4 0 / 5 3G D T- 1 0 1 / H I S T O R Y O F G R A P H I C D E S I G N / E A R LY A L P H A B E T S / T H E L AT I N A L P H A B E T

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A brief timeline750 BCE

Rome was a village on the Tiber River

200 BCE

Rome conquered Greece in the second century BCE

100 BCE

By the end of the first century CE the Roman Empire stretched from the British Isles in the north, to Egypt in the south, and from the Iberian Peninsula in the West to the Persian Gulf at the base of the ancient land of Mesopotamia

–PM


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Greek influenceThe Romoans modeled their art, literature, religion and philosophy from the Greeks

• Greek scholars and libraries were taken to Rome

• The Latin Alphabet came to the Romans from Greece


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The Latin Alphabet shows heavy influence from the

Etruscan alphabet of 700 BCE


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250 BCE

• The Latin Alphabet is formed

• 20 letters


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250 BCE

• Spurius Carvilius designed G to replace Z (zeta)

• 21 letters


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100 BCE (AFTER GREEK CONQUEST)

• The Greek letters Y Z were added to the end

• Romans were appropriating Greek words using these sounds


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A brief timeline410 CE

Rome is sacked by the Visigoths

476 CE

Fall of the Roman Empire

Emperor Constantine was situated in Ravenna, Italy

The Latin Alphabet had gained use all over the world


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900 CE (MIDDLE AGES)

• V represented two Old English sounds

• U was formed to assume the soft vowel sound

• 24 letters


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1,100 CE (MIDDLE AGES)

• VV in frequent use

• W double-u

• Began as a ligature of V

• 25 letters


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A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R

S T U V W X Y Z1,300 CE (MIDDLE AGES)

• J was formed as a consonantal version of I

• Manuscripts

• Typically used at the beginning of a word

• 26 letters


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117 CE

The ultimate resolution of the Roman letterform appears in an inscription at the base of Trajan’s Column


T R A J A N ’ S C O L U M N , R O M E , 1 1 7 C E


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SummaryThe evolution of our modern alphabet can be traced through Cretan Pictographs, to the Phoenician Alphabet, the Greek Alphabet and ultimately the Latin Alphabet.

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Early Alphabets - Squarespace · PDF fileEarly Alphabets Alphabetic ... Greece, an epicenture...

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