Hi, anybody know what the oldest letter in the English alphabet is? My DW says it has to be X or V, I have no idea,but I told her one of you guys would surely know. Thanks, Daryll

-- Daryll in NW FLA (twincrk@hotmail.com), September 09, 2001

Answers

hmmmm,,,old letter,,, wouldnt the alphabet all be the same age??? unless your talking a borrowed letter from another language or alphabet.

-- stan (sopal@net-port.com), September 09, 2001.

Actually there is not just one letter that has been noted to be the oldest. Most came within groups starting with pictures on cave walls. But if you really thought about it the letter "A" is probably the oldest sounding letter. the first words from cave person mouth could have been AAAAAA!!!!!

The first alphabet, from which we have the Greek, Cyrillic and Roman alphabets of today, was probably invented in Syria or Palestine about 3,600 years ago. Used for trade, to record purchases and exchanges of goods, it spread widely and was developed into a successful communications system.The oldest known writing using an alphabet was written on clay tablets by the people of Ugarit in what is now modern Syria. They wrote using a letter form called Cunieform Script written with a pointed stylus which was triangular in section and made a combination of lines and triangles in the soft clay. This alphabet had 30 letters.The Phoenicians were great sailors and traders and came from what is now Syria. Their alphabet had 22 letters and omitted vowel sounds.The Greeks learned writing from the Phoenicians about 2800 years ago. They modified the letter shapes and added vowels to suit their own language, eventually deciding on writing from left to right and adding spaces between words. The Roman alphabet we use today is essentially the same as that written by the Romans two thousand years ago.

-- TomK(mich) (tjk@cac.net), September 09, 2001.