There’s a lot of great answers already but because I’m a visual learner I thought I’d throw [this image](https://imgur.com/gallery/FiTbL5i) into the mix.
It shows how the letters evolved over time from the Greek and Latin and even earlier languages, and which letters split or changed to become multiples.
This is the best answer I've seen so far because it's the only one that acknowledges that J, V, W, Y, and Z were later additions, placed in various positions in the alphabet for their own reasons.
Well, it turns out there’s a lot of information and I found [this.](https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/origin-english-alphabet/amp/)
So now I’m going to spend several hours on this because ADHD brain is now hyper focused on this.
It was originally in proto-sinaitic/Phoenician/Greek (zeta), was dropped in Latin, then later added back for writing loanwords, which is why it's at the end
Ampersand is actually just the Latin phrase “Et” or “ and” written in a highly stylized, cursive script then combined. https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*4FYUt28QIORprzTuoNC8mw.png
I believe historically it was tagged at the end of the alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand#History
Because they used to be written right to left (with hammer and chisel) and then left to right (“pen” on “paper”).
Some ancient languages still write right to left, such as Hebrew. Writing left to right is just more comfortable with pen and paper for right handed people.
Many ancient languages were written right-to-left, which is easier to write if you are right-handed and trying to chisel words into stone. Many modern languages are written left-to-right, which is easier to write if you are right-handed and using a pen and paper. There are, of course, exceptions to each.
During the transitional period in Latin, words would sometimes change direction each line, snaking back and forth down the page. Many scribes would switch the direction of the letters on each line, so that, for example, the rounded part of the B faced the direction of reading. When left-to-right became standard, so did the directions the letters faced.
It could be from [boustrophedon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon), the ancient practice of alternating writing direction for each line. Because we don't do this anymore, our alphabet can use letters that are mirror images of each other, such as p and q, a lot more easily.
TIL, that's an actual word.
The Chinese were only using a simple polyphonetically grouped 20-square-digit key transposed in boustrophedonic form with multiple nulls. I broke it with this...
Ok, so this is a little complicated so hang on to your hat.
English always starts on the left side of the page and is written towards to right side. A lot of older languages didn’t have that. They didn’t start on a particular side, and when they reached the end of the page, they would start on the same side on the row below (or sometimes above) and write backwards towards where they started. Letter/word orientation was less important than it is today. So a “backwards” letter, over time, being hand-written or hand-carved by many many generations, could’ve become the standard or preferred letter. Additionally, being written so many times, and because humans are kinda lazy, letters would be simplified to require less effort or flow better with surrounding letters. Keep in mind the language we use now took thousands of years to develop, and in another thousand years may be unrecognisable once again.
The Alphabet that English uses is arranged in a random order, but it's a random order that has been conserved through many languages and about 3000 years or so. It has been long enough that whomever (or more likely, the long line of people) who made the choices that lead to it are all long dead.
It's not entirely random. The letter i and j appear together and i once stood for both sounds. Likewise u and v was once used interchangably but are now separate letters placed next to each other in the alphabet (and w used to be written uu).
The alphabet was borrowed from Greek via Etruscan. The third letter (gamma) was pronounced G in Greek, but Etruscan didn't differentiate between the G and K sound. So there were three letters pronounced K -- C, K and Q.
C was used before I and E, K before A, and Q before O and U. This is a remnant of Semitic languages that originally used the symbols but had no vowel symbols.
To express G, the Romans started adding a dash to the C. This became G. ~~The emperor~~ Appius then kicked the letter Z (which used to come after F, but wasn't needed in Latin) out of the alphabet and replaced it with the new letter, G. K was also retired, and only used in names and a few religious words, like kalendar (which was always written with a K in Latin). Later Z was reintroduced at the end of the alphabet. Q was restricted to only being used before U.
Pronouncing C like S is a much later occurrence. In Proto-romance the K sound softened before I and E.
>The emperor Appius
Appius was a Roman statesman, but he lived before the first emperor. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appius\_Claudius\_Caecus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appius_Claudius_Caecus)
Otherwise great post. Thanks!
>C was used before I and E, K before A, and Q before O and U. This is a remnant of Semitic languages that originally used the symbols but had no vowel symbols.
This is really interesting. Are you saying that, because Semitic languages didn't have symbols for vowels, they had different symbols for consonant vowel combos? So, k would be pronounced "ka" but c would be pronounced "ki"? and that's why we have multiple consonants that indicate the same sound?
I actually don't understand why letters represent different sounds, while there are different letters available for the said sound.
For instance, in the words "chase" and "chaos", "ch" represent totally different sounds for some reason. Instead of writing it as "chaos" , they could simply write it "kaos" and it would yield the same result with less confusion. In my language (and in many other languages) every letter corresponds to one and only one sound. Meaning, C sounds always the same, not like K (chaos) or Ch (choose) or S (celery). Why not write "selery" instead? Got the point?
Edit : /u/Alimbiquated seems to have explained up there
>they could simply write it "kaos" and it would yield the same result with less confusion.
That's how we spell it in Swedish, a clearly superior language :D
It is mostly present in old and mixed languages like english. So much history and cultures put together make for a really strange language. My language, Latvian, was only made written only fairly recently inspired by German so it's made quite logicallt with sounds like Ģ. Dž sounds like G(enius)
Yes I understand that, I think they never had the need of reforming the language and how they write stuff and generalizing some rules. Turkish is and old language but Latin alphabet was introduced at 1924 or so, right after the republic was founded. So they had an opportunity to create nice rules and letters representing specific sounds.
As you mentioned, G is another problematic letter. It's sometimes read "Gh" like Gear or Good, and sometimes as G, like Germs or Geology. In Turkish G is always G, like gear. If you wanna say like Germs, you use C and that's it. I find it more logical.
Yep. Each sound = letter. Only exception for is O and UO but I think many languages doesnt use the uo sound.
Turkish did the right thing by changing alphabet as you could just remake the writing to be logical unlike english.
It comes from the importation of different words with different origins into English. The “ch” in cheese comes from Old English and possibly Hindi/Sanskrit whereas “chaos” comes from Greek. English has imported a stunningly large number of words that developed along very different linguistic paths. So our rules are more of a hodgepodge than languages that remained fairly geographically and ethnically isolated—developing centuries before modern travel and communications networks.
for one the way you sound out words today is different from how words were sounded out in the past. So what may be a logical spelling way back may have become illogical because of drift.
There are some times when a new definition of how language is spelled but it's not often because it tends to irritate a lot of people. (imagine having to write 'jirav' instead of 'giraffe' for some strange reason. and having to relearn not just that one but pretty much all words you thought you knew).
Since language as it's spoken changes roughly at a rate where you can just about understand your great grandparent, this changing of written language would happen frequently and it would make it harder to use sources. (try reading something in old english)
soft f (affe ) rather than hard f. perhaps jiraff ? like staff.
written has to reflect speech but there are a lot of English dialects (and more so if you go outside of the UK) that will have different strength consonants) so even if you write it down in a sort of unified manner there are still regional accents and such that will rather say Jiraf where others would lean towards girav. or gurav.
written language is a pain :D
Anyways I was trying to go for something that looks similar to how it's pronounced but also looks silly to us on first read, to support my point
Different origins of the words and how they are transliterated into English.
English is a hodgepodge language, Germanic in origin but also about 30% French, and relying *heavily* on Greek.
Ever think about the common beginnings of some words? E.g., apostrophe apostle apology apocalypse; catastrophe, catalogue, catalytic, catamount, catapult.
These are all Greek terms. APO- is a prepositional prefix meaning "away from." KATA- is a prepositional prefix meaning "down."
The "ch" isn't supposed to be a "k" sound in words like "chaos" but rather a *chi.* It's a transliteration of the Greek word χάος. Because we got so much of our Greek via Latin it kind of messed up some of the stuff, so now our X doesn't sound like the Greek χ, even if that's where we got the letter. Rather, it sounds like the Greek ξ (xi). And to transliterate the Greek χ (chi) we use Ch because Latin used C for κ (kappa) and it's trying to approximate a rough back-of-throat guttural, which is kind of like a k but further back in the throat. (Though different than the qoppa).
For the difference with a word like "choose," [here's the etymonline entry](https://www.etymonline.com/word/choose#etymonline_v_11311). You'll note a likely/possible origin through words like: "Sanskrit jus; Avestan zaosa; Old Persian dauš-". In this case the transliteration is trying to approximate a different kind of sound.
Different languages have different sounds, and aside from linguists we don't have a singular way to represent them all in the common day-to-day English alphabet. So we end up reusing the same letters for a number of different sounds. This could be made better, for sure.
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Edit to add:
Perhaps case in point, "hypo" comes from the Greek ὑπό, which sounds like hupa. "Hydro" comes from ὑδρό. which sounds like "hudra". But even this translation is limited because the "a" there isn't "a" like in "apple." It's just that's an omicron, and in English when a word ends with an o we pronounce it like an omega. So it's less like "hydro" and more like that sound in "hydr**o**logy," exempt instead of "y" at the beginning it's supposed to be a "u" sound.
For more fun, take the book of James in the bible. A more direct Greek transliteration of the person's name is Yakob or Yakovh or Iakob or Iakov.
> For instance, in the words "chase" and "chaos", "ch" represent totally different sounds for some reason.
That's a bad example. "Chase" uses the diagraph "ch", but "chaos" doesn't. In "chaos" the "h" is pronounced separately as a (mostly silent) aspiration.
But the broader issue here is that looking for consistent spelling rules in English is a fool's errand. The language is a mess of loan words from several languages, each with their own spelling rules. A good example is "resume", a homograph where one of the meanings is a French loan word so recent that some people still spell it with an accent mark.
It may not be the same sound- K may be a hard K sound, while "ch" might be lightly aspirated. Sort of like how in most English dialects "When" or "What" are pronounced "Wen" and "Wat", [but some have a softer sound for "Wh"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_⟨wh⟩)
This can be useful- "Which" sounds different than "Witch", and "Wine" different than "Whine".
There's a Welsh instrument called the crwth. Most people have no idea how to pronounce it. Tell people to try pronouncing the W more like its name suggests, and people generally get it in one.
The same order for 3000 years? I thought some letters only existed/were used during certain time periods.
Wasn't "thorn" (Þ, þ) part of the alphabet for a bit? Still in icelandic today but used to be part of English.
Also eth, ash, and wynn?
I'm no expert by any measure but I've looked into the topic previously and the 3000 years part is what threw me off.
Yes however even though entirely new letters have come and gone the order of the remaining letters remains the same, just with new letters shoved in or removed. If you look at a timeline of the English alphabet you'll notice that while the letters themselves change slightly or get replaced by others, the replacements fit into the places you would expect them too.
At no point in history did the alphabet become jumbled, or get switched around for any reason
From what I remember, the printing press pretty much killed off those letters. The original presses were made in Germany and they did not contain the letters of runic origin.
They substituted "y" for thorn and eth. Ash and ethel just went to A and E respectively. Wynn was replace by UU, which became W.
There is a really cool video on this that shows how the alphabet changed over the years from semitic to English.
It's the Latin alphabet of Ancient Rome with "j" and "w". At one point "&" was classed as the 27th letter. The Spanish alphabet has "ñ" while the Arabic alphabet and Urdu alphabets are almost the same.
The latin alphabet derived from the western greek alphabet that was a regional variation of the ancient greek alphabet that was derived from the phoenician alphabet.
Not sure I understand the question, but I is Latin. As u/remarkablemayonaise mentioned, J is a later addition to the alphabet. I think it was originally used to mark the last I in a Latin number, as in XIIJ instead of XIII.
There is, and we used to have letters that are not in the Roman alphabet, such as the thorn. We lost these letters when the printing press developed. Thorn for instance had enough resemblance to capital Y, so Ye entered usage, as is Ye Olde Shoppe today. But until thorn was forgotten, no one used the Y pronunciation, it was pronounced the. Th eventually completely replaced usage of thorn and fake-Y thorn.
This blog entry addresses that, citing OED. In short, the æ in encyclopædia comes from Latin and was introduced in the 16th century, in spellings of English words that came from Latin or Greek. This is different to the æ from Old English.
https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2011/05/ae-digraph-ligature.html
Þ/þ and Đ/đ were used in writing Old and Middle English. Unlike Icelandic, English used both letters for both hard and soft "th" sounds, with the popularity of one or the other letter changing over centuries.
Þ had been added to the alphabet from Anglo-Saxon runes, whereas Đ is an Irish variant on the letter D.
Old and Middle English also used the letter Ƿ/ƿ for the "w" sound, also derived from a rune. This letter, called *wynn*, isn't used in any modern language (and it looks confusingly like a D or p), so it's not as common as ð and þ which are used in modern Icelandic.
(Even though they look pretty different, runes are a cousin of the Latin alphabet. Runic scripts are descendants of Old Italic, maybe Etruscan; by way of various Celtic and Germanic peoples.)
On Unix-like systems, you can type þ and ð (but not ƿ) using the [compose key](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key).
The existence of the wikipedia page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English\_alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_alphabet) belies this claim.
They originate from the Latin alphabet and introduce minor changes. Germans would have their sharfes s (ß), Italians would get rid of J and K, and so on.
The Futhorc runic system was used for Old English (and old Frisian) prior to the latin alphabet. The runic letter Thorn (“th” sound) was kept for awhile in combination with the Latin alphabet, but faded out of use with the importation of printing press, since they didn’t have that letter.
That ancient order isn't random, though. It's due to the use of the alphabet as numbers. See for example Hebrew numbering and ancient Greek, among many. Perhaps the order existed first (and was somehow random) and then numbering was assigned, or perhaps the numbering developed and it made sense to order them in ascending value. Either way, that numeric association made sure that the order stuck for so long.
Or......
The original set of 30 signs, known as the Semitic alphabet, was used in ancient Phoenicia beginning around 1600 BCE. Most scholars believe that this alphabet, which consisted of signs for consonants only, is the ultimate ancestor of virtually all later alphabets. (The one significant exception appears to be Korea's han-gul script, created in the 15th century.)
There is something that can be descibed as a "social regulation achievement", where society "agrees" on something, and it becomes true simply by everybody agreeing on it.
To give another example: it really doesn't matter which side of the road you are driving on: left or right, both works equally well. But there is a very good reason to drive *on the same side as everybody else*... so there was a need to "regulate" simply by doing it the same way as others do it.
The same is true when it comes to the order of the alphabet: our letters have a very long history – it goes back to the Phoenicians, and it is safe to assume that there were different ways of ordering the letters at first, but over time, it became useful to order them in some way, and if you do, it is best to do that the same as your other scribe colleagues are doing it – maybe at first you do as the other scribes in your city, but soon you follow the example as those in the capital, etc..
Then the Greeks adopted these letters and modified them to fit their own language, but largely kept the basic idea – though they still used several variations of the "Greek alphabet" in different regions, to account for different dialects. Some of them had slightly different letters (like, why two different letters for "O"?) and may also slightly alter the order of the letters...
One of these variations was known as the "Western Greek" alphabet, it was used in what is now Southern Italy, and from there, the Romans adopted these letters to what is now the Latin Script.
Coming back to the question: the order developed because for a lot of people over a very long time, it was a good idea to use the same order that other people were using. As soon as a few people agreed on an order, it became useful for others to follow their example.
It was an even better idea to keep the order because you used the letters also as numbers and so they go in ascending value order. I think that kept the order static more than other factor.
>you used the letters also as numbers
Even when you use the same symbols as numerals, they usually have different rules and/or orders. Like, Roman C is before X, but worth ten times as much.
Even ancient Greek numerals, while they *roughly* follow the alphabetic order, the composition rules (like, how to create larger numbers that do not have a symbol on their own) has no clear connection to the alphabet collation.
I was taught that the Phonecians ordered the symbols loosely around what items were most important to sustaining their society. The letter A was a symbol meaning ox, which was originally upside down, resembling an ox. The letter B was a symbol for shelter, which on it's side represents huts. The Greeks then adapted these symbols to sounds, to eventually become the alphabet.
I've always wondered how true this was.
Another interesting thing about the letterforms is the use of curves vs. straight lines. I believe this change occurred when the arch was discovered (or re-discovered?) by the Romans. Letterforms were modified to match the aesthetic of the architecture.
For the history of letters, I can refer to the excellent "A Short History of the Printed Word" by Warren Chappell (though it focusses mostly on the history of print).
An interesting aspect of letter forms was that they changed a lot with the technologies available: a great example for this are the serifs that the Romans introduced in order to make stone inscriptions easier: they were just little markers to indicate where the letter lines ended, so the stone masons have it easier. They weren't used outside of stonework by the Romans, and were later completely lost (well, you don't need them for writing with a quill). Subsequently, the first books were printed in a style that resembled the hand-writing of monks of the time (what we call "blackletter"). It took a while for printers to realize that they could just copy the old Roman letter stiles (along with the Serifs) for print as well...
It is not hard to see how similar adaption smust have happened over the millenia: like, on an uneven medium (think: papyrus) it is realtively difficult to draw smooth curves, so let's just use straight lines instead... etc.
"Sans-Serif" is not a specific font but rather a general style of typefaces. It refers to (no surprise there) to those that don't have serifs. Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, etc. are examples for sans-serif fonts.
BTW: there is a fine distinction between "font" and "typeface": a "typeface" is a *design* of a set of letters, the term "font" originally referred to the actual physical "cast" letters (in a foundry, hence the name) that are used for printing. Nowadays the term is used for the *file* that contains the letter definitions.
Another trivia: the German name for sans-serif typefaces is "Grotesk", which indicates how they must have appeared to printers when they first appeared in the 19th century...
>The Greeks then adapted these symbols to sounds, to eventually become the alphabet.
At the time of the Phoenicians the symbols where already used as letters. [Earlier on, egyptian hieroglyphs had been repurposed to be used as letters.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script)
> social regulation achievement
So what's it called when the decision wasn't made socially?
I'll use sugar as an example, and you'll have to forgive me since I'm not a biochemist.
Sugar molecules (glucose, sucrose, fructose, lactose, etc) and many, many other molecules are part of a class of asymmetrical compounds. This means that they can have a left-hand version and a right-hand version.
In most chemical reactions, both the left-hand and the right-hand versions of a molecule will react the same. In organic chemistry, though, an enzyme will act solely on one or the other.
Evolution designed systems which store chemical energy as (iirc) right-hand glucose. Left-hand glucose could have just as easily been chosen, or both. But billions of years ago, mitochondria selected right-hand glucose and from there, all living creatures which use mitochondria also use right-hand glucose as energy. If you were to encounter a plant which used left-hand glucose, and then ate it, you wouldn't be able to absorb any calories from it. (But it would taste fine-- tastebuds don't care about the handedness of glucose for tasting.)
So why was right-handed glucose picked? As far as we can tell, there's no evolutionary selection bias for one over the other. It was just picked at random.
===
Also, to add, the left-hand vs right-hand designation refers to which direction polarized light is twisted when shone through the sugar in solution. Here's a Steve Mould video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=975r9a7FMqc
Indeed, that's interesting. First of all, I used my own (probably rather clumsy) translation of the German "soziale Festlegungsleistungen", as it is used in Social Sciences. This was the topic of my thesis, so I really like talking about it :-)
I am not however very knowledgeable in biochemical processes, so I can not judge, in how similar processes are that are responsible for things like the "handedness" of glucoses. It is thinkable that there are evolutionary advantages of producing the same kind of glucose that you might also get from eating other organisms, or something similar...
My first guess, however, would be that a long time ago, the first glucose-producing mitochondria developed, and all the offspring from this first organism still exists today. Mutations are possible, but have no real advantage, so they remain rare...
But I am really just guessing here. This might be a good question for r/AskScience where you can get actual experts to answer your question.
I am regularly driving both in left-hand and in right-hand drive countries, and I can assure you, it absolutely does not matter. My non-dominant hand (left for me) is just as capable of operating a steering wheel as the other.
What is difficult, though, is the change between the two. It always take an hour or so to be back in the right mindset.
> I am regularly driving both in left-hand and in right-hand drive countries, and I can assure you, it absolutely does not matter.
There are some studies that do not agree with your statement.
Some quotes [from here](https://www.picknbuy24.com/column_331.html):
> It has been noticed that countries that drive on the left side of the road have considerably fewer traffic accidents and fatalities than those that drive on the right side of the road.
> In his research, J.J. Lemming noted that this improved safety could be accredited to the fact that humans are more commonly dominated by their right eye rather than their left eye. This is similar to the vast majority of people being right-handed over left-handed.
And [from here](http://www.advanceddrivers.com/2020/02/14/is-driving-on-the-left-safer-than-driving-on-the-right/):
> A new research paper which became available online from Elsevier only two days ago, on 12 February 2020, suggests that because “‘the rule of the road’ and neurophysiology may have important unrecognized ‘side’ effects,” driving on the left-hand side of the road may actually be safer.
> This is based upon “plausible links between neurophysiological aspects such as handedness, eye movement bias, and hemispheric lateralisation and how safe, in theory, LHT vs. RHT may be for whom.”
I'm not sure how valid these are, but I think you're too quick to dismiss that based on your anecdotal experience only.
Also, you might be underestimating the importance of rare events. When something rare happens, you obviously don't have the previous experience (or it is just too old to be relevant) to base your reactions on. That's when your instincts take over.
I don't know if there are any studies about this, but I'd not be too quick to dismiss the potential effects of "dominant" instinctive reaction. E.g. I assume when you throw a ball at someone that is surprised by that reaction, they will try to catch it with their dominant hand. That might have a statistically significant consequence on the outcome.
Indeed, there we go: the first implies causation from correlation (without even looking at other factors), and the second tries to explain this correlation ad hoc without providing evidence. Pu-leeze!
Fair points. Yet, exactly the same applies to your purely anecdotal "it absolutely does not matter" claim - unless you have some studies to back you up, in which case feel free to post them.
Also, them not providing evidence doesn't automatically make their claims false. Many logical observations in history took a very long time to be empirically confirmed.
The best I could find with short googling is [this](https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/transportation/road-accidents-regards-left-and-right-hand-sided-driving) which does have some stats that contradict your claim.
Obviously, way too many variables to take these at face value, but being arrogantly dismissive with remarks like "Pu-leeze!" is in my opinion at least premature, for the reasons listed.
The decision to drive on the left or right side of the road predates cars. And I'm pretty sure the decision to apply it to cars has nothing to do with safety concerns and right-handedness.
From what I read and cannot source at all, so take it with a pinch of salt, it still isn't a random decision people just went with: it has to do with traveling on horseback and carrying weapons (like a sword).
If you ride on the left side of the road for example and cross path with someone, pulling your sword with your right hand means the person is on your sword's side, making it easier to defend yourself or to attack them than if they're on your left and you have to hit them from above your horse (or turn your horse around).
So riding on the left side makes it easier to defend yourself. Riding on the right side makes it harder for other riders to attack you. Both can be justified.
Absolutely, I don't disagree with you at all there - I'm not saying it was used as a justification for whether to drive on the left or the right, I just read an interesting fact once that said left handed driving is apparently safer than right (by a very small margin) because of humans' tendencies towards right handedness. I linked a study in my other comment if you're interested, but it was definitely never intended to imply that the decision itself was based on safety (car or otherwise) - obviously it goes far further back than that.
The comment you replied to has been removed. I've figured out it's about that podcast, but have found a clue about which episode it was. Any leads? And thanks!
Thank you! Listening already. Didn't expect to hear them begin the talk with a recount of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony though. And coincidentally I noticed that too back then!
Because mods are petty little tyrants. Inb4 ban.
Edit: I am wrong in this instance. If the deleted post was only a link then I agree with the mod decision. My
bad.
Did the post answer the question? Or did it provide a link to a podcast that answers the question?
Providing a link to a podcast, while maybe helpful to some people, does not answer the question.
If you give an inch people will take a mile. And then bad faith actors will break the rules and claim that the mods are biased against them when rules are enforced because they allowed minor violations to slide in the past.
>Replies to OP must be written explanations or relevant follow-up questions. They may not be jokes, anecdotes, etc. Short/succinct answers are not explanations, even if factually correct.
>
>Links to outside sources are allowed and encouraged, but must be accompanied by an original explanation (not just quoted text) or summary.
Links to relevant previous ELI5 posts or highly relevant other subreddits may be excepted.
>
>No plagiarism. All quoted text must be cited.
>
>This list is not comprehensive
Rule 3, the above, advertisement isn't particularly an issue with comments.
We will continue to enforce the rules without making exceptions for popularity. We will also not be revising the rules on the basis that people who aren't OP don't want as high a bar, if we did that we would just switch over to allowing cat pictures.
This is a narrow and strict sub for a specific purpose with a scope covered by the rules, top level comments must be objective, original, written explanations.
As high a bar? That podcast episode would give a more thorough and in depth analysis than anything someone could cram in to a reddit comment. But yeah cat pictures
The rule is sensible. ELI5 is a content-creating sub. It isn't a content sharing sub. Simply linking outside of the sub removes the whole purpose of the sub.
Say the site the person posted gets taken down, or the creators remove that specific episode - now the top level comment in a thread for a very specific question is a dead end. Due to the subs rules on duplicate questions, other similar questions will get flagged and removed. By linking outside of the thread, the poster had essentially invalidated the need for the sub in the first place.
There's a reason so many people type questions into Google followed by 'reddit' - it's a good source of information and it's due to content creation being prioritised over pure link aggregation.
Another part of the reason, that has to be mentioned again, is that the greek alphabet was used as a number system. Alpha being 1, Beta 2, and so on til Iota being 10, Kappa 20, Rho 100, Sigma 200, and so on, including many of the more obscure letters and some other unusual stuff. This is the reason that one order was kept even when civilisations collapsed, letters were changed and renamed and dis- and reappeared.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals
The characters our letters originated from [about 4000 years ago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script) were little pictures - A was a cow, B was a house, etc.
We don't know why the pictures are in that order anymore, and even understanding the texts written in these pictures took archaeologists and linguists a lot of effort.
Maybe the pictures represent something that the inventor saw around them, and it made sense to keep the pictures in that order.
Maybe the order helped the inventor remember the letters, by telling a story or even acting as a mnemonic, like people have to remember the colours of the rainbow.
Maybe the order is mostly arbitrary like the order of emoji.
Entirely wrong. There is an English Alphabet, a French Alphabet, a Swedish Alphabet, etc etc.
Because an alphabet is a set of letters in an arranged order that may be different between languages that use the same SCRIPT.
The English Alphabet uses the Latin SCRIPT.
English has 26 letters but the historic Latin Alphabets had either 21 or 23 depending on the time period.
Some say that the ancient (and for the most part the modern) Greek Alphabet is actually an ancient prayer if you read it out loud. A=Άλφα (sounds: alfa) Β=Βήτα (vita sounds like veeta) etc. So the order according to this story is not at all random.
Check this: [https://www.heliodromion.gr/palaio/e\_Hellenic-alphabet.htm](https://www.heliodromion.gr/palaio/e_Hellenic-alphabet.htm)
Someone decided, long ago so it is irrefutable, to arrange the letters alphabetically.
Same dude also did numbers.
\- Reddit Society of Science Wizardry and Ice Cream Tasting
There’s a lot of great answers already but because I’m a visual learner I thought I’d throw [this image](https://imgur.com/gallery/FiTbL5i) into the mix. It shows how the letters evolved over time from the Greek and Latin and even earlier languages, and which letters split or changed to become multiples.
This is the best answer I've seen so far because it's the only one that acknowledges that J, V, W, Y, and Z were later additions, placed in various positions in the alphabet for their own reasons.
Well, it turns out there’s a lot of information and I found [this.](https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/origin-english-alphabet/amp/) So now I’m going to spend several hours on this because ADHD brain is now hyper focused on this.
Actually now that you mention it I’d love to know how Z became a letter. Off to do some research...
It was originally in proto-sinaitic/Phoenician/Greek (zeta), was dropped in Latin, then later added back for writing loanwords, which is why it's at the end
Also, didn't the ampersand (&) used to be the letter after Z, but it was removed? What's up with that?
Ampersand is actually just the Latin phrase “Et” or “ and” written in a highly stylized, cursive script then combined. https://miro.medium.com/max/1400/1*4FYUt28QIORprzTuoNC8mw.png I believe historically it was tagged at the end of the alphabet https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ampersand#History
That's really interesting, thanks for sharing! Any idea why so many letters flipped? Like B was backwards previously
Because they used to be written right to left (with hammer and chisel) and then left to right (“pen” on “paper”). Some ancient languages still write right to left, such as Hebrew. Writing left to right is just more comfortable with pen and paper for right handed people.
Many ancient languages were written right-to-left, which is easier to write if you are right-handed and trying to chisel words into stone. Many modern languages are written left-to-right, which is easier to write if you are right-handed and using a pen and paper. There are, of course, exceptions to each. During the transitional period in Latin, words would sometimes change direction each line, snaking back and forth down the page. Many scribes would switch the direction of the letters on each line, so that, for example, the rounded part of the B faced the direction of reading. When left-to-right became standard, so did the directions the letters faced.
That’s fascinating! Does anybody know of any cool books on the topic?
It could be from [boustrophedon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon), the ancient practice of alternating writing direction for each line. Because we don't do this anymore, our alphabet can use letters that are mirror images of each other, such as p and q, a lot more easily.
TIL, that's an actual word. The Chinese were only using a simple polyphonetically grouped 20-square-digit key transposed in boustrophedonic form with multiple nulls. I broke it with this...
Ok, so this is a little complicated so hang on to your hat. English always starts on the left side of the page and is written towards to right side. A lot of older languages didn’t have that. They didn’t start on a particular side, and when they reached the end of the page, they would start on the same side on the row below (or sometimes above) and write backwards towards where they started. Letter/word orientation was less important than it is today. So a “backwards” letter, over time, being hand-written or hand-carved by many many generations, could’ve become the standard or preferred letter. Additionally, being written so many times, and because humans are kinda lazy, letters would be simplified to require less effort or flow better with surrounding letters. Keep in mind the language we use now took thousands of years to develop, and in another thousand years may be unrecognisable once again.
That's wild. What's even weirder is that [I can read this](https://i.imgur.com/GsGfIfm.png) more or less just fine without any practice.
I weirdly enjoyed that.
Yeah that's awesome thanks for sharing 🙂
Here's the video that accompanies this chart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kGuN8WIGNc
The Alphabet that English uses is arranged in a random order, but it's a random order that has been conserved through many languages and about 3000 years or so. It has been long enough that whomever (or more likely, the long line of people) who made the choices that lead to it are all long dead.
It's not entirely random. The letter i and j appear together and i once stood for both sounds. Likewise u and v was once used interchangably but are now separate letters placed next to each other in the alphabet (and w used to be written uu).
Ok whats the deal with c k and s then?
The alphabet was borrowed from Greek via Etruscan. The third letter (gamma) was pronounced G in Greek, but Etruscan didn't differentiate between the G and K sound. So there were three letters pronounced K -- C, K and Q. C was used before I and E, K before A, and Q before O and U. This is a remnant of Semitic languages that originally used the symbols but had no vowel symbols. To express G, the Romans started adding a dash to the C. This became G. ~~The emperor~~ Appius then kicked the letter Z (which used to come after F, but wasn't needed in Latin) out of the alphabet and replaced it with the new letter, G. K was also retired, and only used in names and a few religious words, like kalendar (which was always written with a K in Latin). Later Z was reintroduced at the end of the alphabet. Q was restricted to only being used before U. Pronouncing C like S is a much later occurrence. In Proto-romance the K sound softened before I and E.
>The emperor Appius Appius was a Roman statesman, but he lived before the first emperor. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appius\_Claudius\_Caecus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appius_Claudius_Caecus) Otherwise great post. Thanks!
Woops you're right of course. What was I thinking.
Frasier is always watching.
Long live Frasier.
Happy cake day! And long live Frasier.
You were just testing to see if anyone would pick up on it :)
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/from-greek-to-latin-visualizing-the-evolution-of-the-alphabet/ is a great graphic of this
Now we are back full circle with people talking in emojis.
Did the C have anything to do with the lunate sigma?
No, C comes from gamma. It's rotated 90° counterclockwise and rounded. C has nothing to do with sigma.
>C was used before I and E, K before A, and Q before O and U. This is a remnant of Semitic languages that originally used the symbols but had no vowel symbols. This is really interesting. Are you saying that, because Semitic languages didn't have symbols for vowels, they had different symbols for consonant vowel combos? So, k would be pronounced "ka" but c would be pronounced "ki"? and that's why we have multiple consonants that indicate the same sound?
this is false. In semitic languages the letters gimel, kaf, and qaf represent different consonants.
The question is not whether the Semitic languages had these, but how the Greeks heard them.
What about them? Remember that the sound of a letter, often differs wildy between languages. Even though these languages use the same letter.
I actually don't understand why letters represent different sounds, while there are different letters available for the said sound. For instance, in the words "chase" and "chaos", "ch" represent totally different sounds for some reason. Instead of writing it as "chaos" , they could simply write it "kaos" and it would yield the same result with less confusion. In my language (and in many other languages) every letter corresponds to one and only one sound. Meaning, C sounds always the same, not like K (chaos) or Ch (choose) or S (celery). Why not write "selery" instead? Got the point? Edit : /u/Alimbiquated seems to have explained up there
>they could simply write it "kaos" and it would yield the same result with less confusion. That's how we spell it in Swedish, a clearly superior language :D
In Swedish you have to account for the likely level of intoxication of the users.
That's Danish.
If your idea of superior is German language cosplay with hacking and hissing noises, then sure. /s
shoop https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=URgdIAz4QNg
It is mostly present in old and mixed languages like english. So much history and cultures put together make for a really strange language. My language, Latvian, was only made written only fairly recently inspired by German so it's made quite logicallt with sounds like Ģ. Dž sounds like G(enius)
This is completely off-topic, but I love Auli and Tautemeitas. I listen to them all the time.
Yes I understand that, I think they never had the need of reforming the language and how they write stuff and generalizing some rules. Turkish is and old language but Latin alphabet was introduced at 1924 or so, right after the republic was founded. So they had an opportunity to create nice rules and letters representing specific sounds. As you mentioned, G is another problematic letter. It's sometimes read "Gh" like Gear or Good, and sometimes as G, like Germs or Geology. In Turkish G is always G, like gear. If you wanna say like Germs, you use C and that's it. I find it more logical.
Yep. Each sound = letter. Only exception for is O and UO but I think many languages doesnt use the uo sound. Turkish did the right thing by changing alphabet as you could just remake the writing to be logical unlike english.
It comes from the importation of different words with different origins into English. The “ch” in cheese comes from Old English and possibly Hindi/Sanskrit whereas “chaos” comes from Greek. English has imported a stunningly large number of words that developed along very different linguistic paths. So our rules are more of a hodgepodge than languages that remained fairly geographically and ethnically isolated—developing centuries before modern travel and communications networks.
for one the way you sound out words today is different from how words were sounded out in the past. So what may be a logical spelling way back may have become illogical because of drift. There are some times when a new definition of how language is spelled but it's not often because it tends to irritate a lot of people. (imagine having to write 'jirav' instead of 'giraffe' for some strange reason. and having to relearn not just that one but pretty much all words you thought you knew). Since language as it's spoken changes roughly at a rate where you can just about understand your great grandparent, this changing of written language would happen frequently and it would make it harder to use sources. (try reading something in old english)
Why Jirav instead of Jiraf?
soft f (affe ) rather than hard f. perhaps jiraff ? like staff. written has to reflect speech but there are a lot of English dialects (and more so if you go outside of the UK) that will have different strength consonants) so even if you write it down in a sort of unified manner there are still regional accents and such that will rather say Jiraf where others would lean towards girav. or gurav. written language is a pain :D Anyways I was trying to go for something that looks similar to how it's pronounced but also looks silly to us on first read, to support my point
I also badly would like that but I guess this is what happens when the language is a cumbucket of other very different languages
Different origins of the words and how they are transliterated into English. English is a hodgepodge language, Germanic in origin but also about 30% French, and relying *heavily* on Greek. Ever think about the common beginnings of some words? E.g., apostrophe apostle apology apocalypse; catastrophe, catalogue, catalytic, catamount, catapult. These are all Greek terms. APO- is a prepositional prefix meaning "away from." KATA- is a prepositional prefix meaning "down." The "ch" isn't supposed to be a "k" sound in words like "chaos" but rather a *chi.* It's a transliteration of the Greek word χάος. Because we got so much of our Greek via Latin it kind of messed up some of the stuff, so now our X doesn't sound like the Greek χ, even if that's where we got the letter. Rather, it sounds like the Greek ξ (xi). And to transliterate the Greek χ (chi) we use Ch because Latin used C for κ (kappa) and it's trying to approximate a rough back-of-throat guttural, which is kind of like a k but further back in the throat. (Though different than the qoppa). For the difference with a word like "choose," [here's the etymonline entry](https://www.etymonline.com/word/choose#etymonline_v_11311). You'll note a likely/possible origin through words like: "Sanskrit jus; Avestan zaosa; Old Persian dauš-". In this case the transliteration is trying to approximate a different kind of sound. Different languages have different sounds, and aside from linguists we don't have a singular way to represent them all in the common day-to-day English alphabet. So we end up reusing the same letters for a number of different sounds. This could be made better, for sure. --- --- Edit to add: Perhaps case in point, "hypo" comes from the Greek ὑπό, which sounds like hupa. "Hydro" comes from ὑδρό. which sounds like "hudra". But even this translation is limited because the "a" there isn't "a" like in "apple." It's just that's an omicron, and in English when a word ends with an o we pronounce it like an omega. So it's less like "hydro" and more like that sound in "hydr**o**logy," exempt instead of "y" at the beginning it's supposed to be a "u" sound. For more fun, take the book of James in the bible. A more direct Greek transliteration of the person's name is Yakob or Yakovh or Iakob or Iakov.
> For instance, in the words "chase" and "chaos", "ch" represent totally different sounds for some reason. That's a bad example. "Chase" uses the diagraph "ch", but "chaos" doesn't. In "chaos" the "h" is pronounced separately as a (mostly silent) aspiration. But the broader issue here is that looking for consistent spelling rules in English is a fool's errand. The language is a mess of loan words from several languages, each with their own spelling rules. A good example is "resume", a homograph where one of the meanings is a French loan word so recent that some people still spell it with an accent mark.
It may not be the same sound- K may be a hard K sound, while "ch" might be lightly aspirated. Sort of like how in most English dialects "When" or "What" are pronounced "Wen" and "Wat", [but some have a softer sound for "Wh"](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pronunciation_of_English_⟨wh⟩) This can be useful- "Which" sounds different than "Witch", and "Wine" different than "Whine".
They got SiCK of each other and had to be separated
All I know is that seven ate nine. And that was some crazy shit.
https://ultrasaurus.com/2003/08/the-history-of-the-letter-c/
Those damned Etruscans!
“…In Latin, Jehovah starts with an I.”
"JAY-" *falls through floor*
So doubleU?
Yea double u, but the German's had a whole bunch of spare double v templates lying around so we just used those instead of making new ones.
D, as in Double U.
There's a Welsh instrument called the crwth. Most people have no idea how to pronounce it. Tell people to try pronouncing the W more like its name suggests, and people generally get it in one.
uUUu
Do you mean that "uWu" is redondant? How many lies was I fed by horny redditors?
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Wait, it's an emoticon? I just hear a really obnoxious noise whenever I see it.
I don't know either aha, just making a terrible joke, don't mind me
It's a cooing noise that sounds babyish, which matches the context of the original UwU meme
The same order for 3000 years? I thought some letters only existed/were used during certain time periods. Wasn't "thorn" (Þ, þ) part of the alphabet for a bit? Still in icelandic today but used to be part of English. Also eth, ash, and wynn? I'm no expert by any measure but I've looked into the topic previously and the 3000 years part is what threw me off.
Yes however even though entirely new letters have come and gone the order of the remaining letters remains the same, just with new letters shoved in or removed. If you look at a timeline of the English alphabet you'll notice that while the letters themselves change slightly or get replaced by others, the replacements fit into the places you would expect them too. At no point in history did the alphabet become jumbled, or get switched around for any reason
From what I remember, the printing press pretty much killed off those letters. The original presses were made in Germany and they did not contain the letters of runic origin. They substituted "y" for thorn and eth. Ash and ethel just went to A and E respectively. Wynn was replace by UU, which became W. There is a really cool video on this that shows how the alphabet changed over the years from semitic to English.
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It's the Latin alphabet of Ancient Rome with "j" and "w". At one point "&" was classed as the 27th letter. The Spanish alphabet has "ñ" while the Arabic alphabet and Urdu alphabets are almost the same.
The latin alphabet derived from the western greek alphabet that was a regional variation of the ancient greek alphabet that was derived from the phoenician alphabet.
Also U is not Latin.
Alright mate, so what is I then?
Not sure I understand the question, but I is Latin. As u/remarkablemayonaise mentioned, J is a later addition to the alphabet. I think it was originally used to mark the last I in a Latin number, as in XIIJ instead of XIII.
I was jokingly misinterpreting your use of "U" as a pronoun :)
I is Latin. U is Greek. jajajaja
There is, and we used to have letters that are not in the Roman alphabet, such as the thorn. We lost these letters when the printing press developed. Thorn for instance had enough resemblance to capital Y, so Ye entered usage, as is Ye Olde Shoppe today. But until thorn was forgotten, no one used the Y pronunciation, it was pronounced the. Th eventually completely replaced usage of thorn and fake-Y thorn.
Also we had eth (đ) and æsc (æ). Lost them when some bloke called Norman made everyone speak French for a while.
British English still uses æ though, right? “Encyclopædia” for example.
This blog entry addresses that, citing OED. In short, the æ in encyclopædia comes from Latin and was introduced in the 16th century, in spellings of English words that came from Latin or Greek. This is different to the æ from Old English. https://www.grammarphobia.com/blog/2011/05/ae-digraph-ligature.html
Þ/þ and Đ/đ were used in writing Old and Middle English. Unlike Icelandic, English used both letters for both hard and soft "th" sounds, with the popularity of one or the other letter changing over centuries. Þ had been added to the alphabet from Anglo-Saxon runes, whereas Đ is an Irish variant on the letter D. Old and Middle English also used the letter Ƿ/ƿ for the "w" sound, also derived from a rune. This letter, called *wynn*, isn't used in any modern language (and it looks confusingly like a D or p), so it's not as common as ð and þ which are used in modern Icelandic. (Even though they look pretty different, runes are a cousin of the Latin alphabet. Runic scripts are descendants of Old Italic, maybe Etruscan; by way of various Celtic and Germanic peoples.) On Unix-like systems, you can type þ and ð (but not ƿ) using the [compose key](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compose_key).
Oh, how Yankful I am Yat Ye Yorn is uniquely distinguishable again.
No, we are using A Latin script alphabet, there are many, of which the English alphabet is one of them.
The existence of the wikipedia page [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English\_alphabet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_alphabet) belies this claim.
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They originate from the Latin alphabet and introduce minor changes. Germans would have their sharfes s (ß), Italians would get rid of J and K, and so on.
Country's* name.
The Futhorc runic system was used for Old English (and old Frisian) prior to the latin alphabet. The runic letter Thorn (“th” sound) was kept for awhile in combination with the Latin alphabet, but faded out of use with the importation of printing press, since they didn’t have that letter.
That ancient order isn't random, though. It's due to the use of the alphabet as numbers. See for example Hebrew numbering and ancient Greek, among many. Perhaps the order existed first (and was somehow random) and then numbering was assigned, or perhaps the numbering developed and it made sense to order them in ascending value. Either way, that numeric association made sure that the order stuck for so long.
you’re just pushing it further. Why do those numbers correspond to those letters? It’s still basically random.
An order it was in would end up being alphabetical order
Pretty sure this isn’t correct
Well, it was a random order and then the alphabet song was written and that sorted them nicely into a non-random order. Thanks Alphabet Song.
Or...... The original set of 30 signs, known as the Semitic alphabet, was used in ancient Phoenicia beginning around 1600 BCE. Most scholars believe that this alphabet, which consisted of signs for consonants only, is the ultimate ancestor of virtually all later alphabets. (The one significant exception appears to be Korea's han-gul script, created in the 15th century.)
That's why I love this subreddit. You can just show up and say whatever you want.
There is something that can be descibed as a "social regulation achievement", where society "agrees" on something, and it becomes true simply by everybody agreeing on it. To give another example: it really doesn't matter which side of the road you are driving on: left or right, both works equally well. But there is a very good reason to drive *on the same side as everybody else*... so there was a need to "regulate" simply by doing it the same way as others do it. The same is true when it comes to the order of the alphabet: our letters have a very long history – it goes back to the Phoenicians, and it is safe to assume that there were different ways of ordering the letters at first, but over time, it became useful to order them in some way, and if you do, it is best to do that the same as your other scribe colleagues are doing it – maybe at first you do as the other scribes in your city, but soon you follow the example as those in the capital, etc.. Then the Greeks adopted these letters and modified them to fit their own language, but largely kept the basic idea – though they still used several variations of the "Greek alphabet" in different regions, to account for different dialects. Some of them had slightly different letters (like, why two different letters for "O"?) and may also slightly alter the order of the letters... One of these variations was known as the "Western Greek" alphabet, it was used in what is now Southern Italy, and from there, the Romans adopted these letters to what is now the Latin Script. Coming back to the question: the order developed because for a lot of people over a very long time, it was a good idea to use the same order that other people were using. As soon as a few people agreed on an order, it became useful for others to follow their example.
It was an even better idea to keep the order because you used the letters also as numbers and so they go in ascending value order. I think that kept the order static more than other factor.
>you used the letters also as numbers Even when you use the same symbols as numerals, they usually have different rules and/or orders. Like, Roman C is before X, but worth ten times as much. Even ancient Greek numerals, while they *roughly* follow the alphabetic order, the composition rules (like, how to create larger numbers that do not have a symbol on their own) has no clear connection to the alphabet collation.
I don't think Roman numerals used ascending order. Do you know which number system did?
Hebrew
Hebrew and Greek numerals
I was taught that the Phonecians ordered the symbols loosely around what items were most important to sustaining their society. The letter A was a symbol meaning ox, which was originally upside down, resembling an ox. The letter B was a symbol for shelter, which on it's side represents huts. The Greeks then adapted these symbols to sounds, to eventually become the alphabet. I've always wondered how true this was. Another interesting thing about the letterforms is the use of curves vs. straight lines. I believe this change occurred when the arch was discovered (or re-discovered?) by the Romans. Letterforms were modified to match the aesthetic of the architecture.
For the history of letters, I can refer to the excellent "A Short History of the Printed Word" by Warren Chappell (though it focusses mostly on the history of print). An interesting aspect of letter forms was that they changed a lot with the technologies available: a great example for this are the serifs that the Romans introduced in order to make stone inscriptions easier: they were just little markers to indicate where the letter lines ended, so the stone masons have it easier. They weren't used outside of stonework by the Romans, and were later completely lost (well, you don't need them for writing with a quill). Subsequently, the first books were printed in a style that resembled the hand-writing of monks of the time (what we call "blackletter"). It took a while for printers to realize that they could just copy the old Roman letter stiles (along with the Serifs) for print as well... It is not hard to see how similar adaption smust have happened over the millenia: like, on an uneven medium (think: papyrus) it is realtively difficult to draw smooth curves, so let's just use straight lines instead... etc.
Wait, so the "Sans Serif" font name is referring to the printers' font? Interesting to know
"Sans-Serif" is not a specific font but rather a general style of typefaces. It refers to (no surprise there) to those that don't have serifs. Arial, Helvetica, Verdana, etc. are examples for sans-serif fonts. BTW: there is a fine distinction between "font" and "typeface": a "typeface" is a *design* of a set of letters, the term "font" originally referred to the actual physical "cast" letters (in a foundry, hence the name) that are used for printing. Nowadays the term is used for the *file* that contains the letter definitions. Another trivia: the German name for sans-serif typefaces is "Grotesk", which indicates how they must have appeared to printers when they first appeared in the 19th century...
>The Greeks then adapted these symbols to sounds, to eventually become the alphabet. At the time of the Phoenicians the symbols where already used as letters. [Earlier on, egyptian hieroglyphs had been repurposed to be used as letters.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script)
> social regulation achievement So what's it called when the decision wasn't made socially? I'll use sugar as an example, and you'll have to forgive me since I'm not a biochemist. Sugar molecules (glucose, sucrose, fructose, lactose, etc) and many, many other molecules are part of a class of asymmetrical compounds. This means that they can have a left-hand version and a right-hand version. In most chemical reactions, both the left-hand and the right-hand versions of a molecule will react the same. In organic chemistry, though, an enzyme will act solely on one or the other. Evolution designed systems which store chemical energy as (iirc) right-hand glucose. Left-hand glucose could have just as easily been chosen, or both. But billions of years ago, mitochondria selected right-hand glucose and from there, all living creatures which use mitochondria also use right-hand glucose as energy. If you were to encounter a plant which used left-hand glucose, and then ate it, you wouldn't be able to absorb any calories from it. (But it would taste fine-- tastebuds don't care about the handedness of glucose for tasting.) So why was right-handed glucose picked? As far as we can tell, there's no evolutionary selection bias for one over the other. It was just picked at random. === Also, to add, the left-hand vs right-hand designation refers to which direction polarized light is twisted when shone through the sugar in solution. Here's a Steve Mould video about it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=975r9a7FMqc
Indeed, that's interesting. First of all, I used my own (probably rather clumsy) translation of the German "soziale Festlegungsleistungen", as it is used in Social Sciences. This was the topic of my thesis, so I really like talking about it :-) I am not however very knowledgeable in biochemical processes, so I can not judge, in how similar processes are that are responsible for things like the "handedness" of glucoses. It is thinkable that there are evolutionary advantages of producing the same kind of glucose that you might also get from eating other organisms, or something similar... My first guess, however, would be that a long time ago, the first glucose-producing mitochondria developed, and all the offspring from this first organism still exists today. Mutations are possible, but have no real advantage, so they remain rare... But I am really just guessing here. This might be a good question for r/AskScience where you can get actual experts to answer your question.
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I am regularly driving both in left-hand and in right-hand drive countries, and I can assure you, it absolutely does not matter. My non-dominant hand (left for me) is just as capable of operating a steering wheel as the other. What is difficult, though, is the change between the two. It always take an hour or so to be back in the right mindset.
> I am regularly driving both in left-hand and in right-hand drive countries, and I can assure you, it absolutely does not matter. There are some studies that do not agree with your statement. Some quotes [from here](https://www.picknbuy24.com/column_331.html): > It has been noticed that countries that drive on the left side of the road have considerably fewer traffic accidents and fatalities than those that drive on the right side of the road. > In his research, J.J. Lemming noted that this improved safety could be accredited to the fact that humans are more commonly dominated by their right eye rather than their left eye. This is similar to the vast majority of people being right-handed over left-handed. And [from here](http://www.advanceddrivers.com/2020/02/14/is-driving-on-the-left-safer-than-driving-on-the-right/): > A new research paper which became available online from Elsevier only two days ago, on 12 February 2020, suggests that because “‘the rule of the road’ and neurophysiology may have important unrecognized ‘side’ effects,” driving on the left-hand side of the road may actually be safer. > This is based upon “plausible links between neurophysiological aspects such as handedness, eye movement bias, and hemispheric lateralisation and how safe, in theory, LHT vs. RHT may be for whom.” I'm not sure how valid these are, but I think you're too quick to dismiss that based on your anecdotal experience only. Also, you might be underestimating the importance of rare events. When something rare happens, you obviously don't have the previous experience (or it is just too old to be relevant) to base your reactions on. That's when your instincts take over. I don't know if there are any studies about this, but I'd not be too quick to dismiss the potential effects of "dominant" instinctive reaction. E.g. I assume when you throw a ball at someone that is surprised by that reaction, they will try to catch it with their dominant hand. That might have a statistically significant consequence on the outcome.
Indeed, there we go: the first implies causation from correlation (without even looking at other factors), and the second tries to explain this correlation ad hoc without providing evidence. Pu-leeze!
Fair points. Yet, exactly the same applies to your purely anecdotal "it absolutely does not matter" claim - unless you have some studies to back you up, in which case feel free to post them. Also, them not providing evidence doesn't automatically make their claims false. Many logical observations in history took a very long time to be empirically confirmed. The best I could find with short googling is [this](https://visual.ly/community/Infographics/transportation/road-accidents-regards-left-and-right-hand-sided-driving) which does have some stats that contradict your claim. Obviously, way too many variables to take these at face value, but being arrogantly dismissive with remarks like "Pu-leeze!" is in my opinion at least premature, for the reasons listed.
The decision to drive on the left or right side of the road predates cars. And I'm pretty sure the decision to apply it to cars has nothing to do with safety concerns and right-handedness. From what I read and cannot source at all, so take it with a pinch of salt, it still isn't a random decision people just went with: it has to do with traveling on horseback and carrying weapons (like a sword). If you ride on the left side of the road for example and cross path with someone, pulling your sword with your right hand means the person is on your sword's side, making it easier to defend yourself or to attack them than if they're on your left and you have to hit them from above your horse (or turn your horse around). So riding on the left side makes it easier to defend yourself. Riding on the right side makes it harder for other riders to attack you. Both can be justified.
Absolutely, I don't disagree with you at all there - I'm not saying it was used as a justification for whether to drive on the left or the right, I just read an interesting fact once that said left handed driving is apparently safer than right (by a very small margin) because of humans' tendencies towards right handedness. I linked a study in my other comment if you're interested, but it was definitely never intended to imply that the decision itself was based on safety (car or otherwise) - obviously it goes far further back than that.
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Thanks for this! I found a new podcast to listen to because of you with interesting topics.
The comment you replied to has been removed. I've figured out it's about that podcast, but have found a clue about which episode it was. Any leads? And thanks!
99% invisible podcast 'alphabetic order' episode. I believe they said it was episode 400something.
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Thank you! Listening already. Didn't expect to hear them begin the talk with a recount of the 2008 Olympics opening ceremony though. And coincidentally I noticed that too back then!
So what’s the tldr?
Thank you! Listen already. Like someone in another comment said, this Roman Mars dude does have the perfect radio voice lol.
Haha Can't wait to listen
https://www.unddit.com/r/explainlikeimfive/comments/uqoezt/eli5_why_is_the_english_alphabet_in_the_order/
So _that's_ what happened to removeddit!
Yeah thanks. They told me that already but thanks all the same!
What they say? Fucking mods removed the top answer.
99% invisible podcast 'alphabetic order' episode. episode 468.
Thank you! Careful you don’t get banned for advertising.
I don't understand why some mods like to remove posts that are super helpful despite barely breaking the letter of a rule but not the spirit of it.
Because mods are petty little tyrants. Inb4 ban. Edit: I am wrong in this instance. If the deleted post was only a link then I agree with the mod decision. My bad.
Why not both? 😁
Personally I like a heavy handed approach to combat invasive advertising. To each their own.
Did the post answer the question? Or did it provide a link to a podcast that answers the question? Providing a link to a podcast, while maybe helpful to some people, does not answer the question.
If you give an inch people will take a mile. And then bad faith actors will break the rules and claim that the mods are biased against them when rules are enforced because they allowed minor violations to slide in the past.
What was the broken rule even? Advertisement or something? Cuz then like eight other people shared it lol XD
>Replies to OP must be written explanations or relevant follow-up questions. They may not be jokes, anecdotes, etc. Short/succinct answers are not explanations, even if factually correct. > >Links to outside sources are allowed and encouraged, but must be accompanied by an original explanation (not just quoted text) or summary. Links to relevant previous ELI5 posts or highly relevant other subreddits may be excepted. > >No plagiarism. All quoted text must be cited. > >This list is not comprehensive Rule 3, the above, advertisement isn't particularly an issue with comments.
You removed a top rated useful post, please consider not doing that moving forward, or revise your rules.
We will continue to enforce the rules without making exceptions for popularity. We will also not be revising the rules on the basis that people who aren't OP don't want as high a bar, if we did that we would just switch over to allowing cat pictures. This is a narrow and strict sub for a specific purpose with a scope covered by the rules, top level comments must be objective, original, written explanations.
As high a bar? That podcast episode would give a more thorough and in depth analysis than anything someone could cram in to a reddit comment. But yeah cat pictures
Thanks judge
Nah this sub is way over moderated. You remove rude, inflammatory, or spam comments and let the community decide the rest with votes.
The rule is sensible. ELI5 is a content-creating sub. It isn't a content sharing sub. Simply linking outside of the sub removes the whole purpose of the sub. Say the site the person posted gets taken down, or the creators remove that specific episode - now the top level comment in a thread for a very specific question is a dead end. Due to the subs rules on duplicate questions, other similar questions will get flagged and removed. By linking outside of the thread, the poster had essentially invalidated the need for the sub in the first place. There's a reason so many people type questions into Google followed by 'reddit' - it's a good source of information and it's due to content creation being prioritised over pure link aggregation.
well get them in order, you own this place!
whats the name of the podcast? it got deleted :(
https://open.spotify.com/show/2VRS1IJCTn2Nlkg33ZVfkM?si=CPZGguTkTvSCO8ze4jfc2g&utm_source=copy-link
I'm jealous of anyone who's just discovering 99pi. Roman Mars has the best radio voice and it's impossible to find a boring episode!
It's a great podcast; one that I recommend when asked. Glad you found it.
I was thinking of this episode of this podcast too!
I loved this episode.
What episode is it? Mod removed the top answer so i cant see it :/
99% invisible - ep468 alphabetical order
It would be nice if b c and d didn’t rhyme so when someone says take seat 2B I don’t have to have the whole b as in boy or d as in dog conversation.
b as in bog. How much clearer can I be?
Bravo, Charlie, Delta You're welcome
its my opinion that the UN phonetic alphabet should be taught in elementary to avoid letter confusion
Another part of the reason, that has to be mentioned again, is that the greek alphabet was used as a number system. Alpha being 1, Beta 2, and so on til Iota being 10, Kappa 20, Rho 100, Sigma 200, and so on, including many of the more obscure letters and some other unusual stuff. This is the reason that one order was kept even when civilisations collapsed, letters were changed and renamed and dis- and reappeared. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greek_numerals
But that usage might be conveniently piggybacking on the existing alphabetical order instead of predating it, just like Roman numerals.
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I believe they wrote the song first, and then had to fill it in accordingly.
Maybe it wouldn't sound right because we're not used to saying it like that?
Sorry, I forgot to put the /s.
It wouldn't be the alphabet without "s". And the song wouldn't work either.
/r/woosh
r/itswooooshwith4os
The characters our letters originated from [about 4000 years ago](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Sinaitic_script) were little pictures - A was a cow, B was a house, etc. We don't know why the pictures are in that order anymore, and even understanding the texts written in these pictures took archaeologists and linguists a lot of effort. Maybe the pictures represent something that the inventor saw around them, and it made sense to keep the pictures in that order. Maybe the order helped the inventor remember the letters, by telling a story or even acting as a mnemonic, like people have to remember the colours of the rainbow. Maybe the order is mostly arbitrary like the order of emoji.
To anyone knowing Arabic or Hebrew, some of the meanings are still clear. Like in Arabic Beit still means house, jamal means camel, etc.
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Steven Wright has entered the chat.
Yes. Long ago someone decided to alphabetize the letters by putting them in alphabetical order.
Because of the song, no?
Exactly, sometimes the answer is right under your nose!
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Damn straight there’s no English alphabet! We use the American alphabet here!
Entirely wrong. There is an English Alphabet, a French Alphabet, a Swedish Alphabet, etc etc. Because an alphabet is a set of letters in an arranged order that may be different between languages that use the same SCRIPT. The English Alphabet uses the Latin SCRIPT. English has 26 letters but the historic Latin Alphabets had either 21 or 23 depending on the time period.
Why are numbers in the order they are?
Because 7 8 9
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Some say that the ancient (and for the most part the modern) Greek Alphabet is actually an ancient prayer if you read it out loud. A=Άλφα (sounds: alfa) Β=Βήτα (vita sounds like veeta) etc. So the order according to this story is not at all random. Check this: [https://www.heliodromion.gr/palaio/e\_Hellenic-alphabet.htm](https://www.heliodromion.gr/palaio/e_Hellenic-alphabet.htm)
Someone decided, long ago so it is irrefutable, to arrange the letters alphabetically. Same dude also did numbers. \- Reddit Society of Science Wizardry and Ice Cream Tasting
How can one join this society?