Is the word Alphabet literally just a conjunction made from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet?
Is the word Alphabet literally just a conjunction made from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet?
Where does the word alphabet come from?
The word alphabet comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and beta. It was first used, in its Latin form, alphabetum, by Tertullian during the 2nd–3rd century CE and by St. Jerome.
105I woke up at 7:00 a.m. for this and had a sudden moment of clarity out of absolutely nowhere. Thank you.
50These little epiphanies are always fun. Like when you realise how many maths and astronomy terms are just romanised Arabic words like Algebra and Algorithm.
Another fun one that I wasn't smart enough to notice on my own is that the Hindu-Arabic numerals have the same number of angles in the symbols as the number they represent.
13It’s a Christmas miracle! 😉
5You had a Sudden Clarity Clarence moment, but you don't think in memes.
4
So calling it your ABCs when you're younger isn't that far off. Interesting.
13
Pretty much. English borrowed it from Latin because it's posh. And Latin borrowed it from Greek because it's posh. But at the end of the day it's in the same spirit as "the ABC", or Latin "abecedarius".
52And the Greeks took it from the Phoenicians where it was Alep Bet (almost identical to the Hebrew Aleph Beth).
And these are words that start with the sound of the letter. Aleph means Ox and Beth is house.
13It's also "ABC" ("ábécé") in Hungarian. (And I bet in a lot of other languages too.)
10It's abecedario in Spanish (ABCDs). I'd imagine the -rio is like diccionario, which is like a collection.
8It is kind of the same suffix but the story is a mess.
That -ario and all words using it are reborrowed* from Latin. And originally it was two related suffixes, fulfilling two purposes:
- masculine -arius, feminine -aria: transform noun into adjective. Like "a be ce de" (ABCD) into "abecedarius" (alphabetic).
- neuter -arium: noun denoting a place for another noun. Like "dictio" (saying) into "dictionarium" (dictionary, or "where you store sayings")
Except that Latin allowed you to use an adjective as if it was a noun (Spanish still does it), so that "abecedarius" ended as a substantive again. And Spanish merged Latin masculine and neuter, further conflating both versions of the suffix.
*the inherited doublet is the -ero in llavero (place for keys) and herrero (related to iron - professions took the suffix and systematised the re-substantivisation).
7
Similarly, the viking rune "alphabet" is called the Futhark, because the first letters are pronounced F, U, Þ, A, R, K.
40Fun fact - in Polish language the word alfabet exists as a technical name of the alphabet. There is also a more casual word, often used by children: abecadło which is basically polish way of saying "The ABCs".
34Spanish is similar. For spanish the word is abecedario.
20English has "abecedarian", which can mean "alphabetical", "rudimentary", "elementary", "novice" or "beginner".
6We also have alfabeto though.
1Finnish word is aakkoset. Well, it has the a. It sounds like a pet name or slang for something, but as far as I know it's just nonsense.
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The Latin word is "abecedarium". I don't know why English adopted the Greek word.
6I mean, English isn’t a Romance language
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Wow, I can't believe I never put that together before.
28Shower thought material right there
7
yes.
source: can speak Greek.
Also the first two letters of the Greek alphabet are άλφα (alpha) and βήτα (beta)
25Not that different from us talking about “learning our ABCs”.
22If it isn't, then where else would the word "alphabet" come from?
Oh wait, you could look at the Hebrew alphabet and pretend that the word came from its first two letters: Aleph and Bet.
16This is what I thought. From Hebrew.
6From Phoenician actually
13
Azbuka, name of the cirillic script, also comes from the old names of the first two letters.
13- 11
No, it's a noun made from the portmanteau of the first two letters of the greek alphabet
11Technically correct
5The best kind of correct.
4
There's a series on Prime via The Great Courses Collection about the origins of language. (Almost?) all languages derive their names like this, but that's like, a throw away line in a much deeper series.
8Many Indian languages use some version of 'akshara', which means 'unchanging' or 'indestructible'. (I guess the alphabet does change, but too slowly for us to notice.) Most Indian languages start the alphabet with all the vowels, so 'first n letters' would be unpronouncable.
4
No, it’s named after the cereal
8Completely wrong as is clearly named after Google parent company Alphabet
5
Sounds like a question asked by someone who already knows the answer.
6I never thought of it before, but it is a conjunction of those first two Greek letters. Or else, it's named after the soup it resembles.
6Yeah
4