- Before the alphabet writing took the form of visual symbols such as hieroglyphs and pictograms, like our numbers these bore no relation to their sound.
- “42” gives no clue to pronunciation at all and you would say the sign differently according to the practices of your language.
- The Phoenician alphabet was adapted by the Greeks into the writing system more or less in use today.
- Its close Cyrillic relation spread from Bulgaria in the ninth century AD to the Balkans, Russia and many other areas of eastern Europe and Asia, while the Romans adapted the Greek alpha and beta into the alphabetic system you are interpreting so fluently at this minute.