Chapter 2

1.) Summary: The reading begins by talking about how creating the alphabet was a major step in human communications. It is conflicted on where the alphabet originated. Cretan pictographs may have possibly been a precursor to the Greek alphabet, but we may never really know. Northwest Semitic or the Phoneician alphabet writing is also considered a possible precursor. The Phonecians wanted a writing system that would be their own Northwest Semitic language. Sui generis was one of the major steps to creating an actual alphabet. Ras Shamara was a true semitic alphabet which used 30 different "cuneiformlike" characters that were the same ones used in Greek and Phonecian alphabets later on. North Semetic writing branched off into other directions such as the Aramaic alphabet. The Aramaic alphabet consisted of 22 letters and was read from left to right. It is the predecessor of Hebrew and Arabic. Hebrew had 22 conconantal letters found in the North Semitic alphabet. Arabic consisted of the same 22 letters, but 6 additional characters were added to the end. 2 modern Arabic scripts are Kufic and Nashki. Arabic is the most widely used after the Latin alphabet. It is highly used in the Indian culture. The reading continues talking about the Greek alphabet. The Greeks used the Phonecian alphabet in 1000 B.C. They then changed 5 of its consonants into vowels. The Greeks added to the structure that made them into art and beauty. Writing was read from the opposite direction every other line (boustrophedon). They soon adopted the left to right style. By setting up a democracy the alphabet was a necessary role since it allowed allotment tokens. Knowledge and writing became necessary at this time in order to document everything. The Greek alphabet soon became the predescor of Latin, Etruscan, and Cyrillic alphabets. The Romans soon conquered Greece and adopted many aspects of their culture. They changed Z into a G, and the Latin alphabet became 21 letters. Z and Y were later added since the Romans found it more appropriate with the sounds of some Greek words. J, U, and W were later added as well. The Romans took pride at this and used the alphabet on several works of art and architecture. In 190 B.C. they began to use parchment to write on for common use. With the parchment being used the Romans and Greeks created a codex to replace the scroll, which became more functional. Christians sought this type over the scroll because they considered their writings sacred and to distance themselves away fromt he use of the scroll. The last section talkes about the Korean alphabet which was called Hangul. Sejong developed an easier alphabet to write rather than use the complicated Chinese alphabet, and it consisted of 14 consonants and 10 vowel signs. The consonants reflected movements of the mouth when spoken and the vowels were dots that were next to horizontal or vertical lines. The alphabet is written in blocks of syllables which is different than the Greek and Roman alphabet. Writing was no longer just available to the priests and scribes, but rather common people could understand it easier.


2.) I thought the section on the Greeks was the most interesting. They accomplished so many things, they used a more geometrical standpoint, and were very artistic about their achievements with the alphabet. I liked that they changed the style of their writing to represent a more artistic and beautiful feeling because I think that makes them unique.

3.) Do you think that the alphabet that we know today will change in the future since the alphabet has evolved so much over time already??