Thanks to writing, we have left behind the ephemeral stories of oral communication and created a culture that is passed down from generation to generation by writing the important things. We have succeeded in transmitting this written culture using a common alphabet. So how was the first alphabet found? Let’s examine the curious questions such as who found the alphabet, when and how in all details.
The reason you make sense of the shapes you see by reading them is because we use a common alphabet. If this article were written in different ways, it would still have the same meaning, but no one would understand. Here’s to the written culture The secret of transferring our knowledge from generation to generation lies here. The invention of writing means the invention of the alphabet and thus the transmission of information by people.
Of course, not all alphabets were the same and could not be understood by everyone when they were first discovered, as they are today. The first alphabet consisted of simple shapes, as you can imagine, but met the required written language. As time passed and people wanted to write much more, alphabet systems also evolved. Bride who invented the alphabet, when and how Let’s examine the curious questions a little more closely, with all the details.
Let’s start with the basics; What is the alphabet, what are its types?
The alphabet is all the letters that correspond to a sound or a meaning in the language in which it is used. an alphabet, can be a single language Societies speaking different languages can write their own languages using the same alphabet. We can talk about two different types of alphabets, languages that use phonograms and those that use ideograms.
The alphabets of languages that use phonograms are just like the ones we use now. Like the Latin alphabet, each letter corresponds to a sound. The letter doesn’t have to have a meaning, it only makes sense when combined with other letters. In the alphabets of languages that use ideograms, such as Chinese and Japanese, a letter has a definition. That is, each icon represents an object. There are exceptions to both situations.
Who invented the alphabet and when?
The emergence of the first alphabet coincides with the invention of writing. Writing was invented by the Sumerians about 5,000 years ago. Same way The alphabet was also found by the people who found the writing. This alphabet, which is called cuneiform, was also used in civilizations such as Assyria, Babylon, Elam, Akkad and Hittite, which were influenced by the Sumerians.
The first writing that we can call the alphabet after the cuneiform In ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs Emerges. In this alphabet, which was accepted as ideogrammatic, obvious shapes defined understandable objects. We encounter a similar alphabet in the pre-Columbian Maya civilization. These scripts, called South American alphabets, are thought to have originated in the Aegean region.
A modern alphabet similar to today’s It first appears in the Phoenicians. Inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphs, this alphabet was phonogrammatic and each shape corresponded to a sound. As the Phoenicians traded in the Mediterranean and the wide area around it, this alphabet soon spread among the Arabs, Greeks, Hebrews, and Latins. In other words, the ancestor of the Latin alphabet we use today is the Phoenician alphabet.
How was the alphabet found?
Of course, no one knows the exact moment of ‘evreka’, as it was an event that took place thousands of years ago. However, the answer to the question of how the writing was found also gives the answer to the question of how the alphabet was found. Considering that it is impossible to write without the alphabet first a primitive alphabet may have been found and then a text may have emerged.
The original purpose of writing was to make commercial accounts. In other words, the article was found to say that X person owes X money. Who is person X? An alphabet was created so that anyone who looks at that tablet can understand it. The common acceptance of the alphabet is therefore extremely important. If only that person knows the alphabet in which a text is written, the text in question is only seen as a scribble.
Sumerian alphabet to civilizations such as Assyria, Babylon, Elam, Akkad, Hittite; When we consider the transition of the Phoenician alphabet to Arabs, Greeks, Hebrews and Latins, we can see that the alphabet also means unity. When viewed from this perspective alphabets that have survived to the present day, It is possible to say that it spread to the world by dominant cultures.
How are the letters in the alphabet ordered?
When we look at the book The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind by David Diringer, the letters in the Egyptian hieroglyphs, which are considered to be one of the first alphabets, with the juxtaposition of reminiscent objects we see it occur. Each newly found letter was added to the end of the alphabet.
So, how is the Latin alphabet, which is the most widely used in the world and we use, sorted? Unfortunately we have no idea. Inspired by the Egyptians, the letters are somehow lined up side by side. Later letters such as X, Y, Z were added to the end of the alphabet known in Roman times. Letters such as Ğ, Ü, Ş, Ö, Ç, which are only in our alphabet, have been added next to the nearest letters similar to them.
Alphabets used by Turks throughout history:
- Gokturk alphabet
- arabic alphabet
- the Latin alphabet
- Kiril alphabet
- Old Turkish alphabet
Gokturk alphabet:
The Göktürk alphabet, also known as the Orkhon alphabet, It is known as the oldest alphabet of Turkish. Consisting of 38 letters, 4 of which are vowels and 34 of which are consonants, this alphabet is written from right to left. Bilge Tonyukuk, Kül Tigin and Bilge Kagan inscriptions were also written using the Göktürk alphabet. It is known that the same alphabet was used by the Bulgarians, Khazars, Pechenegs and Sekelles.
Arabic alphabet:
Beginning from the 10th century, with the acceptance of Islam by the Turks, the Arabic alphabet began to be used. It was used until the Alphabet Revolution. The Arabic alphabet, consisting of 28 letters, is written from right to left. No lowercase, uppercase and punctuation marks. Ottoman Turkish is a mixture of Arabic and Persian alphabets.
The Latin alphabet:
It was established on November 1, 1928 in order to increase the literacy rate of the people in the modern Turkish Republic, which was established with the disappearance of the Ottoman Empire. Law on Adoption and Application of New Turkish Letters was published and the Letter Revolution was carried out. The alphabet that we started to use with the Revolution is called the Latin-based Turkish alphabet because some of the letters in this alphabet, which consists of 8 vowels and 21 consonants, were created only to be suitable for Turkish. Having an alphabet that is read as it is written is a rare situation in the world.
Kiril alphabet:
The Cyrillic alphabet, inspired by the Greek alphabet, has been used since the beginning of the 9th century for writing the Slavic languages. living in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Turks wrote Turkish with Cyrillic alphabet because it was compulsory. There are 38 letters, 11 of which are vowels, in the Cyrillic alphabet, which is written from left to right.
Old Turkish alphabet:
The alphabet of the Uyghur language, the language used by the Uyghur Khaganate, which was established in the 8th century, is called the old Turkish alphabet or the Uyghur alphabet. China committed a systematic genocide The official language of the Turks living in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, He has been in Uyghur since 2016. There are also Uighur speakers in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The Uyghur alphabet, consisting of 18 letters, is written from right to left.
The foundations of the writing Who invented the alphabet, when and how? We answered the curious questions such as, and talked about the alphabets used by the Turks throughout history. Although we have used many different alphabets, it is our greatest chance to be a nation that has spoken Turkish, which has been its own language for thousands of years.