Letters and Sounds A Brief History of Writing Sam Foss and Katie Kupferschmidt

There can be no doubt that writing grew out of drawing It is not surprising that certain conventions should have developed in them, such as horizontal and vertical lines on a chief's gravestone to indicate, respectively, the number of his campaigns and the number of wounds he received in the course of those campaigns But such drawings, communicative as they may be once one understands their conventions, give no idea of actual words. Any identity of wording in their interpretation would be purely coincidental. No line, no element, even remotely suggests speech sounds or word order, and hence such drawings tell us nothing of the language of those who made them. There can be no doubt that writing grew out of drawing

Ideographic or Logographic Writing When symbols come to stand for ideas corresponding to individual words and each word is represented by a separate symbol, the result is ideographic, or logographic writing. In Chinese writing, every word originally had a symbol based not on the sound of the word but on its meaning. When symbols come to stand for ideas corresponding to individual words and each word is represented by a separate symbol

Tie Coon Tycoon Syllabary, probably grew out of ideographic writing: the use of the phonogram, which is concerned with sound rather than with meaning. Pictures came to be used as in a rebus-that is, as if we were to draw a picture of a tie to represent the first syllable of the word tycoon and of a coon to represent the second. In such a method we may see the beginnings of a syllabary, in which symbols, in time becoming so conventionalized as to be unrecognizable as actual pictures, are used to represent syllables.

Rebuses

Semetic Writing to Greek Alphabet Semitic writing, the basis of our own and indeed of all alphabetic writing, usually represented consonants only There were ways of indicating vowels, but such devices were used sparingly Since Semitic had certain consonantal sounds not found in other languages, the symbols for these sounds were readily available for use as vowel symbols by the Greeks when they adopted for their own use the Semitic writing system, which they called Phoenician. The Greeks even used the Semitic names of the symbols, which they adapted to Greek phonetic patterns: thus aleph 'ox' and beth 'house' became alpha and beta because words ending in consonants (other than n, r, and s) are not in accord with Greek patterns. The fact that the Greeks used the Semitic names, which had no other meaning for them, is powerful evidence that the Greeks did indeed acquire their writing from the Semites, The order of the letters and the similarity of Greek forms to Semitic ones are additional evidence of this fact. The Semitic symbol corresponding to A indicated a glottal consonant that did not exist in Greek. Its Semitic name was 'aleph, the initial apostrophe indicating the consonant in question. Because the name means 'ox; the letter shape is thought to represent an ox's head, though interpreting many of the Semitic signs as pictorial characters presents as yet insuperable difficulties (Gelb 1963, pp. 140-41). By ignoring the initial Semitic consonant of the letter's name, the Greeks adapted this symbol as a vowel, which they called alpha. Beth was ultimately somewhat modified in form to B by the Greeks, who wrote it and other reversible letters facing in either direction; in the early days of writing they wrote from right to left, as the Semitic peoples usually did and as Hebrew is still written. From the Greek modifications of the Semitic names of the first two letters, the word alphabet is ultimately derived.

Adding Vowels Yod >> iota (i) The Consanant he >> epsilon (E) Gimel>> gamma Daleth>> delta Semitic yod became iota (I) and was used for the Greek vowel i; at the time the symbol was taken over, Greek had no need for the corresponding semivowel [y], with which the Semitic word yod began. Just as they had changed aleph into a vowel symbol by dropping the initial Semitic consonant, so also the Greeks dropped the consonant of Semitic he and called it epsilon (E), that is, epsilon Ie simple, or e without the aspirate.' As before taking over a letter or word and reassigning it a different value is not uncommon Practically all of the remaining Semitic symbols were used for the Greek consonants, with the Semitic values of their first elements for the most part unchanged. Their graphic forms were also recognizably the same after they had been adopted by the Greeks. Gimel became gamma (f), daleth became delta (.;l), and so on.

Romans adopt Greek Alpha Bet Changed the forms of some letters: Curved gamma (C), delta (D), and pi (P) Some letters maintained their form: Epsilon (E) H Addition of the letter G The Romans used a curved form of gamma (C), the third letter, which at first had for them the same value [g] as for the Greeks but in time came to be used for [k]. Another symbol was thus needed for the [g] sound. This need was remedied in time by a simple modification in the shape of C, resulting in G: thus C and G are both derived from Greek r. The C was, however, sometimes used for both [g] and [k], a custom that survived in later times in such abbreviations as C. for Gaius and en. for Gnaeus. The symbol Z (Greek zeta), which had occupied seventh place in the early Roman alphabet but had become quite useless in Latin because the sound it represented was not a separate phoneme, was reintroduced and placed at the end of the alphabet in the time of Cicero, when a number of Greek words were coming to be used in Latin.

Form changes over time… Ox >>>>> Aleph >>>>> Alpha >>>> Modern A

Digraphs Pairs of letters to represent single sounds, or even longer sequences like the German trigraph sch sh, ch, th Digraphs (pairs of letters to represent single sounds), or even longer sequences like the German trigraph sch, have also been made use of to indicate un-Latin sounds, such as those that we spell sh, ch, th, and dg. In gu, as in guest and guilt, the u has the sole function of indicating that the g stands for the [g] of go rather than the [j] that we might expect it to represent before e or i, as in gesture and gibe. The h of gh performs a similar useful function in Ghent, but not in ghost and ghastly.

Thorn Other symbols have been added to the Roman alphabet by those who adopted it. Example: (thorn) used by the early English, now abandoned as far as English writing is concerned.

Runes Rune means ‘secret’ Were angular letters intended to be cut or scratched in wood. They were used mainly for inscriptions, charms and the like.

THE (Brief) HISTORY OF ENGLISH WRITING When the English came to Britain runic writing was a highly specialized craft Christianity Introduction of Norman-French customs When the English came to Britain, some of them were already literate in runic writing, but it was a highly specialized craft, the skill of rune masters. Rune means ‘secret’ Writing did not become more general until the conversion of the English to Christianity. Although the missionaries who spread the gospel among the heathen Anglo-Saxons were from Rome and must have used an Italian style of writing, the manuscripts from the Old English period are in a script called the Insular hand, which was an Irish modification of the Roman alphabet. The Irish, who had been converted to Christianity before the English, taught their new neighbors how to write in their style. A development of the Insular hand is still used in writing Irish Gaelic. When the Normans conquered England in 1066, they introduced a number of Norman-French customs, including their own style of writing, which replaced the Insular hand. The spedalletters used in the latter were lost, although several of them, notably thorn and the long s, continued for some time. Norman scribes also introduced or reintroduced some digraphs into English orthography, especially ch, ph, and th, which were used in spelling words ultimately from Greek, although the last was also a revived spelling for the English sounds that Anglo-Saxon scribes had written with thorn and eth and the first was pressed into service for representing [c). Other combinations with h also appeared and are stilI with us: gh, sh, and wh.

Insular Handwriting Irish modification of the Roman alphabet

The Long S Anglo-saxon scribes added several other letters to the roman alphabet including the thorn and the long s. Several of the Roman letters, notably f, g, r, s, and t had distinctive shapes. S indeed had three alternate shapes, one of which, called the long S, looks very much like an F. Picture is of the word ‘congress’ in the US Bill of Rights

THE (Brief) HISTORY OF ENGLISH WRITING Cont… Gradually the letters of the alphabet assumed their present number. Gradually the letters of the alphabet assumed their present number. I was originally a prolonged and curved variant of i used in final position when writing Latin words like filii that ended in double i. Since English scribes used y for i in final position (compare marry with marries and married, holy day with holiday), the use of j in English was long more or less confined to the representation of numerals-for instance, iij for three and vij for seven. The dot, incidentally, was not originally part of minuscule i, but is a development of the faint sloping line that came to be put above this insignificant letter to distinguish it from the strokes of contiguous letters such as m, n, and u, as well as to distinguish double i from u. It was later extended by analogy to the j, where, because of the different shape of the letter, it performed no useful purpose. The history of the curved and angular forms of u-that is, u and vwas similar to that of i and j. Although consonantal and vocalic u in Latin had come to be sharply differentiated in sound early in the Christian era, when consonantal u, hitherto pronounced [w], became [v], the two symbols u and v continued to be used more or less interchangeably for either vowel or consonant. W was originally, as its name indicates, a double u, although it was the angular shape v, which we now regard as a different letter, that was actually doubled.

My how times change… Or not? white alphabet a-z graffiti source: puregraffiti Vs. Ancient Semetic

English Consonant Sounds The Stops: Bib, ruby, ebb, rabble, bride, naked, pick, Bacon, trek The Fricative: Raffle, off, phantom, Bathe, thin, fizzle, vise The Affricates: Major, surgeon, budget, Educate, spinach, church The Nasals: Mum, summer, time, Honor, inn, finger The Liquids: Lapel, felon, hole, rear, Baron, err, bare The Semivowels: Won, which, yet, chignon The word consonant is also used to refer to a letter of an alphabet that denotes a consonant sound. Consonant letters in the English alphabet are B, C, D, F, G, H, J, K, L, M, N, P, Q, R, S, T, V, X, Z, and usually W and Y Since the number of possible sounds in all of the world's languages is much greater than the number of letters in any one alphabet, linguists have devised systems such as the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) to assign a unique and unambiguous symbol to each attested consonant. In fact, the Latin alphabet, which is used to write English, has fewer consonant letters than English has consonant sounds, so digraphs like "ch", "sh", "th", and "zh" are used to extend the alphabet, and some letters and digraphs represent more than one consonant. For example, the sound spelled "th" in "this" is a different consonant than the "th" sound in "thin". A stop is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. Fricatives are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. These may be the lower lip against the upper teeth. Affricates are consonants that begin as stops but release as a fricative rather than directly into the following vowel. A nasal consonant is produced with a lowered velum (soft palate) in the mouth, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. The oral cavity still acts as a resonance chamber for the sound, but the air does not escape through the mouth as it is blocked by the lips or tongue. Liquids or liquid consonants are a class of consonants consisting of lateral consonants together with rhotics. English has one lateral, /l/ and one rhotic, /r/, and therefore has two liquids, exemplified in words such as led and red. A semivowel (or glide) is a sound, such as English /w/ or /j/ ("y"), that is phonetically similar to a vowel sound but functions as the syllable boundary rather than as the nucleus of a syllable.

English Vowel Sounds Front Vowels: Evil, cede, been, ape, Basin, gray, bet, threat, Central Vowels: But, calm, aunt, solder Back Vowels: Ooze, too, rude, roof, Good, road, toe, owe, All, law, talk, Diphthongs: Ride, my, style, dye, Eye, aisle, oil, boy Vowels before [r]: Mere, bare, urge, art, Poor, oar, fire Unstressed vowels: Coffee, taxi, bucket, melon, Window, remedy, butter, In writing systems based on the Latin alphabet, the letters A, E, I, O, U, and sometimes Y are all used to represent vowels. In all languages, vowels form the nucleus or peak of syllables, whereas consonants form the onset and (in languages that have them) coda. A front vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a front vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far in front as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. A central vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a central vowel is that the tongue is positioned halfway between a front vowel and a back vowel. A back vowel is a type of vowel sound used in some spoken languages. The defining characteristic of a back vowel is that the tongue is positioned as far back as possible in the mouth without creating a constriction that would be classified as a consonant. A diphthong, also known as a gliding vowel, refers to two adjacent vowel sounds occurring within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: That is, the tongue moves during the pronunciation of the vowel. In most North American accents, for example, although there are ten or eleven stressed monophthongs, only five or six vowel contrasts are possible before a following /r/ in the same syllable (peer, pear, purr, pore, par, poor). Often, more contrasts exist when the /r/ is not in the same syllable; in some American dialects and in most native English dialects outside North America, for example, mirror and nearer do not rhyme, and some or all of marry, merry and Mary are pronounced distinctly. An unstressed vowel is the vowel sound that forms the syllable peak of a syllable that has no lexical stress (accent).

Spelling Pronunciations Example: The t of often has come to be pronounced once again. Popular misunderstanding that many people suppose that the ‘best’ speech is that which conforms most closely to the writing system. A knowledge of spelling has been responsible for changing the pronunciations of certain words. When a word’s spelling and pronunciation do not agree, the sound may be changed to be closer to the spelling. Popular misunderstanding that many people suppose that the ‘best’ speech is that which conforms most closely to the writing system.

Pronunciation Spellings When a word’s spelling Is changed to agree With its pronunciation. Examples: Perculate for percolate Momento for memento Spicket for spigot Lite….light?