Why are the letters of the English Alphabet written in the order of a b c?

Answer 1

The alphabet is called the alphabet because the first two letters of the Latin/Roman 'alphabet', from which the English system of letter forms is derived, are called alpha and beta.

Sometimes we say that children 'have to learn their ABC', which means they have all the letters of the alphabet.

But adults, instead of calling the system the 'ABC', they call it by a word made from the Latin names for the first two letters, alpha & beta, becoming the one word 'alphabet'.

The English word 'alphabet' has been used for hundreds of years, and is very similar to the corresponding Greek and Latin words from which it comes.

There are other 'alphabets.' For example 'Fuþark', pronounced 'Futhark', is one of the ancient ones. It is called 'Fuþark' because the letters f,u,th,a,r,k are the first 6 letters of that particular system!

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Answer 2

"Alpha" and "beta" are the first two letters of the Greek alphabet.
The word "alphabet" came into Middle English from the Late Latin word Alphabetum, which in turn originated in the Ancient Greek Alphabetos, from alpha and beta, the first two letters of the Greek alphabet. Alpha and beta in turn came from the first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet, and meant ox and houserespectively.

Answer 3

In the ancient Chinese alphabet "A" was considered a holy letter and "A" was the first letter of the name of the ancient Chinese goddess of wisdom, her name was Aku Yang Dang Quan, because of this they wanted "A" to be the first letter of the alphabet.

Answer 4

The Phoenician alphabet was listed in the same order in several documents 3000 years ago It became useful for maintaining lists

Answer 5

Imagine trying to find a word in the dictionary if there was no alphabetical order!

Answer 6

Alphabetical order is just whatever standard order develops for an alphabet. The letters are in alphabetical order by definition of the word "alphabetical".

Answer 7

Because that's how the Latin alphabet was designed, loosely mimicking the order of the letters of the Greek alphabet.

Answer 8

It had to be in some order.