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 - 2 nd 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

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

The History of English Writing

Futhark/Futhorc

The Spelling of English Consonant Sounds

The Spelling of English Vowel Sounds

Spelling Pronunciations and Pronunciation Spellings

Writing and History

Exercises