Just found out that the word alphabet derives ultimately (?) from the first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet, alf and bet, meaning ox and house respectively.

That’s it ...

Edit: fixed typo

A linguist might choose to argue with you about your use of the terms “ultimately” and “Phoenician”, with or without a question-mark.  A non-linguist might ask, why do you first lead in a camel, and then show us the door?
;-)

A linguist might choose to argue with you about your use of the terms “ultimately” and “Phoenician”, with or without a question-mark.

Well if the linguist wanted to take it further back than Phoenician, we’d need more question marks…

The linguist would probably argue about “Phoenician alphabet” too, as it was really an abjad…

A non-linguist might ask, why do you first lead in a camel, and then show us the door?

It’s an ox house, not a camel house.

Ah.

;-)

Yet another fascinating detail: the letter name “gamma” is from “gaml”, which means (and is related to) “camel”.

I’m puzzling over the word respectivity.

OP Tipping - 13 June 2012 03:03 AM

Yet another fascinating detail: the letter name “gamma” is from “gaml”, which means (and is related to) “camel”.

The “gimel” in Hebrew actually looks a bit like a camel. And I’ve always heard that “AlefBeth” were Hebrew/Arabic, but obviously has antecedents. The OED blames it on the Greeks

< Alpha, Beta = Ἄλϕα, Βῆτα, the first two Greek letters taken as a name for the whole,

< Alpha, Beta = Ἄλϕα, Βῆτα, the first two Greek letters taken as a name for the whole,

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That’s the direct source, but the Greek, Hebrew and Arabic alphabets all derive from the Phoenician alphabet, and the names for most of the letters in the Greek, Hebrew and Arabic alphabets also derive from the names of the letters in the Phoenician alphabet.

so they are all basically phoeniphones ?

:cheese: