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The Origins and Development of the English Language Chapter 3: Letters and Sounds: A Brief History of Writing. John Algeo and Thomas Pyles Michael Cheng National Chengchi University. Ideographic and Syllabic Writing. Pictures or comic strips (Native American)
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The Origins and Development of the English Language Chapter 3: Letters and Sounds: A Brief History of Writing John Algeo and Thomas Pyles Michael Cheng National Chengchi University
Ideographic and Syllabic Writing • Pictures or comic strips (Native American) • Ideographs or logographic writing (Chinese) – each word represented by symbol • Phonograms – sound represented by symbol • Syllabary – symbols represent syllables
From Semitic Writing to the Greek Alphabet • Semitic writing - 2nd millennium BCE • Usually consonants only • Adopted by Greeks • Semitic names of letters matched to phonetics • Extra consonants turned into vowels (3000 years ago) • A = ‘aleph “ox” turned into alpha
Latin • Greek • Original Phoenician • Hebrew • Arabic
The Romans Adopt the Greek Alphabet • Romans modified the Greek alphabet • Europeans adopted Roman alphabet • Some eastern European people adopted the Greek alphabet directly; this became the Cyrillic alphabet
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The Use of Digraphs • Pairs of letters to represent single sounds • sh, ch, th, dg • gu in guest and guilt vs. gesture, gibe • Ghent is not pronounced like gent
Additional Symbols • þ thorn • ƿ wynn • ð edh • æ ash
