What is an alphabet?
Any ancient people who had their own language,always tried to reflect it on paper, so that the language and events occurring in the present could be transmitted through generations. People came to the wise men who displayed on the wooden plaques, clay or papyrus the signs that denoted certain events. What is the connection between these events of antiquity and the word "alphabet"? In general, what is the alphabet?
Alphabet (a word originally from the Greek language)denotes a set of signs, which we now refer to as letters. From the letters in the future you can add words, and from words - whole sentences. The inventors of the first alphabet consider the people of Ancient Mesopotamia - the Sumerians, who invented cuneiform writing in the 3rd century BC, from which both the Egyptian and Indian alphabets are believed to have gone. There are several types of alphabets used by different peoples of the world:
- Consonanto-vocalic alphabets - in this alphabet the same letters can designate both vowels and consonant letters.
- Consonant alphabets - letters in such writing are only consonants, but they can be considered vowel under a special system of vowel marks.
- Syllabic alphabets - in this alphabet, the signs denote more than one letter, and entire syllables. More often these syllables with the same consonant, but different vowel letter.
Life and death of the alphabets
Annually several languages die, and together withthey go and the alphabets. Many neighboring peoples can find similar signs in writing, as sometimes one people borrows something from another, and that's normal. But still there are a lot of alphabets in the world, each people has its own, albeit something similar to someone else's. There are alphabets for a reason, they carry certain tasks. Firstly, this is communication, because we communicate with words that consist of letters of the alphabet. Secondly, the alphabet plays a big role in preserving and fixing on the paper the knowledge accumulated by mankind. The alphabet is an integral part of the culture and civilization of peoples. Earlier, the alphabets were needed to tell the story of the appearance of people, various campaigns and battles, to transmit the experience of ancestors.
