The Story of the Alphabet
New Everyday English 3 (Showa 55) pg. 1-4
| The Story of the Alphabet | |
|---|---|
| ? | |
| Details | |
| Word count | 236 |
| Book | New Everyday English |
| Grade | 3 |
| Year | 1980 |
Hello, everyone. Welcome to our new English class.
Here is an interesting story about the alphabet. Long ago people used pictures for words. That was the start of writing. Then many years later, people learned to use picture symbols for sounds. They made words with these symbols. That was the beginning of the alphabet.
Now, let's study some of the letters in the alphabet. Each letter has an interesting story. Letter "A" was the symbol for the head of an ox.
Letter "B" was the symbol for a house.
The Greeks called these two letters "alpha" and "beta". The word "alphabet" comes from the names of these two letters.
There were only 24 letters in the Greek alphabet at first. But after that the Romans made changes in the alphabet. They put in a letter "V". They also took out two letters from the Greek alphabet. So these twenty-three letters were also called the alphabet by the Romans. They did not have the letters "J", "U", or "W". But they could read and write without them.
The letter "W" was not in the English language. In 1066, the Normans conquered England, but they did not know how to write the English sound. They made a new letter "W" for the sound. Later, printers made another letter "U". The letter "J" was put into the alphabet by English printers. So the English alphabet now has twenty-six letters.
