Although they did not have a full phonetic alphabet, the Egyptians were apparently the first to represent a sound with a sign. The phonetic alphabet may have been invented about 1700 B.C.E. in the copper mining region of the Sinai and Canaan of modern Israel by Semitic language speakers who took a set of hieroglyphic signs and pronounced them as consonants for their own language. According to this theory, the people who did this used the signs to write inscriptions in their own language on religious objects.

There were no vowels in Egyptian script and none in the new consonant alphabet, but what they borrowed efficiently transcribed their spoken language. One symbol = one sound. This alphabet, known today as the “Proto-Sinaitic script,” would be adopted by one group after another. Each group adjusted what they received to suit the sounds of their own speech.

There are no biblical references to writing until we come to Moses. Canadian scholar Robert Logan theorized that “the phonetic alphabet, monotheism, and codified law were introduced for the first time to the Israelites by Moses at Mount Sinai in the form of the Ten Commandments.” If one believes that the sight of God’s speech given as marks on tablets convinced idol worshippers to alter their ways, Logan’s theory is a powerful affirmation of the potential of communication to effect change.

For believers, it is worth looking at this a little closer. Israelites in Egypt were likely to be illiterate, as were most Egyptians. Writing itself may have been unknown to them. If that were so, to be shown writing and to be told these were the words spoken by God may well have amazed them. Imagine a god who can speak with his finger! Here is the evidence!

Why did the phonetic alphabet, one of the most important advances in human history, come out of a remote and relatively unlettered corner of the then civilized world? Why not a center of culture like Thebes?

A definitive answer is, of course, not possible. One may guess that the rigidly controlled, centralized education system of the Egyptian empire or the much later Persian empire would not be inclined to change, and would see no need for a simplification that would spread literacy; in fact, just the opposite.

However, a more practical way to communicate would be as welcome as a more practical way to do anything. Ordinary people, such as copper miners who did not dream of entering the restricted doors of temple schools, could learn this. The alphabet’s simplicity enabled them to figure out how to use it.

A version of this system, known as the Canaanite alphabet, was adopted by the seafaring people we know as Phœnicians, who lived along the coastal strips of modern Syria, Lebanon, and Israel.

As its use widened, the alphabet inevitably changed. The Hebrew alphabet began with aleph, bet. The Greek alphabet began alpha, beta. To a Phœnician, aleph and bet meant, respectively, ox and house. The original version of aleph has the face of an ox. If you invert a capital A, you may see it more clearly. The original bet, meaning house, was a square. To this day, many Jewish temples have names that begin Beth. The third letter, C in the Roman alphabet, is gamma in the Greek and gimmel in the Hebrew. It meant camel.

Taken from:

Alphabet to Internet:
Mediated Communication in Our Lives

by Irving Fang
Rada Press, 2008

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http:www.radapress.com