DesignScape - 2'x4' ABCs

It's more than just a catchy song. The history of the alphabet goes back to ancient Egypt. By 2700 BCE Egyptian writing had a set of some 22 hieroglyphs to represent syllables that begin with a single consonant of their language, plus a vowel (or no vowel) to be supplied by the native speaker. The first pure alphabet emerged around 2000 BCE to represent the language of Semitic workers in Egypt, and it was derived from the alphabetic principles of the Egyptian hieroglyphs. Most alphabets in the world today descend directly from this development, such as the Greek and Latin alphabets, or were inspired by its design. Pretty cool.

The word “alphabet” comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and beta. The Greek alphabet was developed from the Phoenician alphabet. Without it, how would you know how to line up all the DVD's on your shelf?