A Wonderleaf question
Where did the alphabet come from?
a real page from the book
The alphabet came from people adapting writing over many centuries, beginning with early sound-based marks near ancient Egypt. Phoenician traders carried a simpler set of letters across the Mediterranean, Greeks added vowels, and Romans shaped many letters into the forms we use now. Our ABCs are inherited, not invented in one afternoon.
A lovely clue hides in the name itself: alphabet comes from alpha and beta, Greek versions of older letter names. One of those began as an ox, another as a house, so a school worksheet today still carries shadows of farms, homes, ships, and stone-carved Roman words.
Wonder words
- hieroglyphs
- vowels
- phoenician
- roman
Try it out
Write your child's name, then invent one picture-symbol for each sound and compare the two versions.
Read the whole picture book
Watercolour scenes, straight answers, about three minutes cover to cover.
Open the picture bookOne more wonder: Why is space so dark?
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