The ABC's of the Latin Alphabet 

Article by Sergej Iwanaga (21.11.2024)

On the search for the origin of the Latin Alphabet 

The Latin alphabet is the used to write most of the languages in Europe, America, Africa and Oceania. It is also known as the Roman alphabet, being spread through Europe and West Asia by the Roman Empire. We take it for granted to have such a standardised system of writing though many parts of the developed world, but where does the Latin Alphabet have its origins? 

The search for the origin brings us back to the Ancient Egyptians. The stories of Pharaohs and mummifications are all very known to us, as well as the hieroglyphs. Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, with more than a thousand characters, combined ideographic1, logographic2 and graphic elements to create a script which was used for thousands of years throughout the sphere of influence of Ancient Egypt. After the fall of the Ancient Egyptian Empire and the take over by the Romans, the knowledge of hieroglyphs was lost. It was not until the discovery of the Rosetta Stone, which was a granite stele having the same text written in three different scripts. This decree by King Ptolemy Ⅴ Epiphanes, had classical Egyptian hieroglyphs at the top, Demotic letters in the middle and Ancient Greek letters at the bottom. This discovery by French officer Pierra-Francois Bouchard, single handedly helped modern linguists to decipher all the hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt. 

As mentioned before, the Ancient Egyptian empire spanned across modern-day Egypt and further, and is thus theorised to have left influences in different cultures and peoples. One such common theory postulates that Caananites ( in the modern-day regions of Lebanon, Palestine, Jordan, Israel and Syria ) in severe lack of their own organised writing system, utilised Egyptian hieroglyphs. It is theorised, that these Caananites, under the rule of the Pharaoh as private militias, had needed a new method of recording religious festivals and to facilitate easier administrative measures in the military body. They altering these hieroglyphs by only using the first letter of the corresponding word of the Egyptian script. Perhaps an example would make this easier to understand. The hieroglyph for “house” was [pr]. This was taken over into the Proto-Sinaitic, by changing the hieroglyph slightly and changing the sound to [b] after their own native word for “house”, baytu. The oldest inscriptions of this nature were found in Wadi el-Hol region, in modern-day Egypt. AS previously stated, many of these Canaanites were militia members, which is supported by the fact that Wadi el-Hol was of strategic importance to the Pharaoh, serving as a military checkpoint and guardpoint for the back door to Thebes. However, they carry the name Proto-Sinaitic due to most of such discoveries being in the region of Sinai, Israel. This new adapted script held some similar rules to Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, like having a writing system which could both go from right to left and top to bottom. Due to this abjad being relatively unstandardised and made up for every-day usage, many inscriptions have been found with letters facing the wrong direction or even being completely altered. Not only does this show, how quickly and naturally a written script evolves, but how quickly differing scripts can pop up. 

As trade and commerce grew around the Mediterranean, there occurred a shift in the dynamic movement of people around the region as Canaan. As Greek city-states grew stronger, just as their military might, the exploration of further and further territories had begun. Many people from the regio of Canaan had found places of work abroad and took their system of writing with them. This led to the adaptation of the Proto-Sinaitic text being adapted to standardise their communications networks across their many cities. Again, the letters were further simplified further in their shape, being particularly notable for losing their soft edges, appearing more “boxy”. In epigraphy, the reason for this was theorised as the easy and widespread use of stone tablets as a writing material. Up until this point, writing systems were categorised as abjads, a script which only had letters for consonants, with vocals being implicit, leading to a higher level of education needed to read. A famous artefact we have, is the “Nora Stone”, discovered in 1773, which is the first instance of “Sardinia” being used as the name for the island of “Sardinia.” Being dated to around the 8th century BCE, it is so far the oldest piece of Phonecia writing outside of the Levant which we have discovered. This pattern of abjads however, would change with the further expansion of Ancient Greece. 

This form of Etruscan lettering was used up until the second century BCE, where the Latin alphabet rose to prominence. The transition from the Etruscan to the Latin alphabet was a key linguistic shift as the Romans adapted the Etruscan writing system to suit the Latin language. This change highlights the influence of the Etruscans on early Roman culture and the linguistic differences between their languages. The Etruscan alphabet, derived from the Greek (Euboean) script, lacked symbols for certain Latin sounds such as the voiced stops /b/, /d/, and /g/. To address this, the Romans reintroduced letters like B and D from earlier Greek forms and created the letter G by modifying the Etruscan symbol for /k/. Over time, the Romans also simplified the alphabet, dropping symbols unnecessary for Latin and streamlining redundant ones like those for /k/ and /q/. Additionally, they replaced the Etruscan Phi with the simpler F for the /f/ sound. Later, as Latin evolved, Y and Z were borrowed directly from the Greek alphabet for Greek loanwords. Early Latin inscriptions followed the Etruscan practice of writing in boustrophedon or right-to-left directions, but left-to-right writing became the standard over time. The result of these adaptations was the Latin alphabet, which became the foundation for many modern writing systems.

In conclusion, the Latin alphabet, originally derived from the Etruscan and Greek scripts, has played a crucial role in shaping modern writing systems. As the Roman Empire expanded across Europe and beyond, Latin became the dominant language of governance, culture, and education. Consequently, the Latin alphabet spread and was adopted by many cultures, influencing the development of writing systems in Europe and later in the Americas and parts of Africa. 

As the early Greeks sought to gain a foothold in the Mediterranean, their need for clear writing increased. Having been trading partners with Phoenicia, there seemed to be only one obvious answer. As we have seen throughout history, the easiest way was to copy someone else and change it slightly, which is exactly what the early Greeks did. By further simplifying the shapes, making them unrecognisable to the early pictographic hieroglyphs of Ancient Egypt, the Greeks had created the last pillar which would hold up the Latin alphabet as the dominant European script. Not only would this effort be spread across the Mediterranean, but the change from an abjad to an alphabet, which included letters for vowels as well made it easier for the less educated to learn. 

Here we are, just one “stepping stone” - language away from the Latin alphabet and this one, is one rarely ever mentioned. The Etruscan alphabet. This tribe of people, seldomly ever talked about, where the contact point between the Ancient Greek alphabet and the creation of the first Latin alphabet. Deriving its alphabet from a Greek set of colonies, which had settled in the south of Italy’s west coast, it shared many similarities with the Greek alphabet. Yet, there were some notable differences: For one, the Etruscans omitted letters for sounds they did not need like B and D. On the other hand, Greek letters were modified to fit Etruscan sounds, such as Φ to represent /f/. Lastly, while Greek was an established and highly robust writing system for literature, philosophy and mathematics, the Etruscan script was primarily used for tomb inscriptions and religious texts, as there is very little evidence pointing to extensive works of literature. 

Over time, the Latin alphabet underwent modifications to better suit the phonetic needs of different languages. New letters such as "J," "U," and "W" were introduced to represent sounds not initially captured by the original Roman alphabet. These changes enabled the alphabet to adapt to various linguistic systems, making it versatile enough to accommodate a wide range of languages, including English, French, Spanish, German, and many others. 

Today, the Latin alphabet is the most widely used script in the world, not only in Europe and the Americas but also in many parts of Africa and Asia, especially for languages with global communication needs. Its widespread adoption, flexibility, and ability to evolve with language have made it a cornerstone of modern communication, technology, and culture. Through these historical adaptations, the Latin alphabet has become a key component of our globalised world, influencing how we write, communicate, and connect across cultures. To end, I find it worthwhile to mention a phrase a Latin, which I find to be very fitting to this article, 

de nobis fabula narratur 

Which literally means “about us is the story told”. In a more figurative way, it is used when comparing events of the present with those of the past. I believe it is noteworthy to look at our modern - day privileges of global communication and to see, how far along we have come from cryptic Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Sources:

Graphic Sources 

File:Rosetta Stone.JPG - Wikipedia, en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Rosetta_Stone.JPG. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024. 

“Wadi El-Hol Inscriptions.” Wikipedia, Wikimedia Foundation, 21 July 2024, 

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wadi_el-Hol_inscriptions#/media/File:Wadi_el-Hol_inscriptions_II_drawing.jpg. Accessed 20 Nov.2024 

Roberta. “Nora, l’antica Città Fenicia Sulla Punta Del Capo Di Pula.” Siti Archeologici Di Italia, 19 Feb. 2024, www.sitiarcheologiciditalia.it/area-archeologica-di-nora/. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024. 

McDowell, George. “Greek Inscription at Delphi.” Flickr, Yahoo!, 20 Nov. 2024, 

www.flickr.com/photos/15010636@N07/3279482619/. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024. 

Museum, The British. “Etruscan Inscription Plaque.” World History Encyclopedia, 

https://www.worldhistory.org#organization, www.worldhistory.org/image/6376/etruscan-inscription-plaque/. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024

Followinghadrian. “Roman Mosaics from the National Archaeological Museum of Spain, Madrid Following Hadrian.” FOLLOWING HADRIAN, 16 Oct. 2014, 

followinghadrian.com/2014/10/15/roman-mosaics-from-the-national-archaeological-museum-of-spain-mad rid/#jp-carousel-5004. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024 

Information Sources 

Lundberg, Marilyn J., and John Coleman Darnell. “Two Early Alphabetic Inscriptions from the Wadi El-Hôl: New Evidence for the Origin of the Alphabet from the Western Desert of Egypt.” C. Dobbs-Allsopp, P.K. McCarter, M.J. Lundberg, and B. Zuckerman, Co-Authors, with the Assistance of C. Manassa Darnell, in Annual of the American Schools of Oriental Research 59 (2005): 63-124, 28 Nov. 2015, www.academia.edu/19066825/Two_Early_Alphabetic_Inscriptions_from_the_Wadi_el_H%C3%B4l_New_ Evidence_for_the_Origin_of_the_Alphabet_from_the_Western_Desert_of_Egypt. Accessed 20 Nov. 2024