Where did the alphabet come from?

The alphabet began long ago when people near ancient Egypt started using simple marks for spoken sounds instead of drawing many detailed picture signs. Those early letters were passed to Phoenician traders, changed by Greek writers, then shaped again by Romans into the letter family English uses today.

One lovely detail is that some letters began as pictures with ordinary meanings, such as an ox or a house, before centuries of writing turned them into neat marks. Every ABC page carries traces of miners, sailors, schoolchildren, stone carvers, and many languages trading ideas.