ABC book

Page 1


The letter A is the first letter in the Latin alphabet.



B started as a pictogram of the floorplan of a housein Egyptian hieroglyphs.




C is the third letter in the Latin alphabet.


The Semitic letter D

probably developed from

thelogogram for a fish o


m

or a door.


Ε in the Semitic probably represented a


praying or calling human.


F originally represented either a hook or a club. It may have been based on a comparable Egyptian hieroglyph of mace.




G was introduced in the Old Latinperiod as a variant of c .


The form of the letter H probably stood for a fence or posts.



In Semitic, the letterwas probabl


ly originally a pictogram for an arm with hand.



J is the 10th letter in the basic modernLatin alphabet used today. It was the last of the 26 letters to be added.



K the symbol for an open hand.



The letter L is derived from the Egyptian crook or goad.


Semitic M probably originally pictured

water.



N as one of the most common snake hieroglyph was used in Egyptian letters.



This Semitic letter in its original form been inspiredby a similar Egyptian hiero


seems to have oglyph for “eye”


P is the sixteenth letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.




Q - originally qaw, “cord of wool”, and based on an Egyptian hieroglyph.


The original Semitic letter ably inspired an Egyptian


R was probn hieroglyph for “head”


S

is the ni basic mode


ineteenth letter in the ern Latin alphabet.


T was the last let Semitic and Hebre probably re


tter of the Western ew alphabets, and epresented a cross.


U is the twenty-first letter and a vowel in the basic modern Latin al


lphabet.


The letter V comes from the Semitic letter Waw, as do the modern letters F, U, W, and Y.



The earliest form of the letter W was a doubled V used in the 5th century by the earliest writers of Old English.



The letter is also a


a Roman numeral that represents the number 10


The letter Y is the twenty-fifth and penultimate letter in the basic modern Latin alphabet,representing a vowel in most languages that use it.




Z is the twenty-sixth and final letter of the basic modern Latin alphabet.


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