Editing Alphabet (section)

{{Short description|Set of letters used to write a given language}}
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{{About|alphabets in general|the English alphabet in particular|English alphabet|the international technology conglomerate|Alphabet Inc.|other uses}}
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An '''alphabet''' is a standard set of  [[letter (alphabet)|letters]] written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to [[phoneme]]s as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from another in a given language.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Pulgram |first=Ernst |year=1951 |title=Phoneme and Grapheme: A Parallel |journal=WORD |volume=7 |issue=1 |pages=15–20 |doi=10.1080/00437956.1951.11659389 |doi-access=free}}</ref> Not all [[writing system]]s represent language in this way: a [[syllabary]] assigns symbols to spoken [[syllable]]s, while [[logographies]] assign symbols to [[word]]s, [[morpheme]]s, or other semantic units.<ref name="Daniels4">{{Harvnb|Daniels|Bright|1996|p=4}}</ref><ref>{{cite book |doi=10.1007/978-1-4684-1068-6_5 |chapter=The Korean writing system: An alphabet? A syllabary? A logography? |title=Processing of Visible Language |date=1980 |last1=Taylor |first1=Insup |pages=67–82 |isbn=978-1-4684-1070-9 }}</ref>

The first letters were invented in [[Ancient Egypt]] to serve as an aid in writing [[Egyptian hieroglyph]]s; these are referred to as [[Egyptian uniliteral sign]]s by [[lexicographer]]s.<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Himelfarb |first1=Elizabeth J. |title=First Alphabet Found in Egypt |journal=Archaeology |volume=53 |issue=1 |date=2000 |page=21 }}</ref> This system was used until the 5th century&nbsp;AD,<ref name="Houston-2003" /> and fundamentally differed by adding pronunciation hints to existing hieroglyphs that had previously carried no pronunciation information. Later on, these [[phonemic]] symbols also became used to transcribe foreign words.<ref name="Daniels" /> The first fully phonemic script was the [[Proto-Sinaitic script]], also descending from Egyptian hieroglyphs, which was later modified to create the [[Phoenician alphabet]]. The Phoenician system is considered the first true alphabet and is the ultimate ancestor of many modern scripts, including [[Arabic alphabet|Arabic]], [[Cyrillic script|Cyrillic]], [[Greek alphabet|Greek]], [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]], [[Latin alphabet|Latin]], and possibly [[Brahmic scripts|Brahmic]].<ref name="Coulmas 140" /><ref name="Daniels 9296">{{Harvnb|Daniels|Bright|1996|pp=92–96}}</ref><ref name="Goldwasser-2012" /><ref>{{Cite journal |last=Goldwasser |first=Orly |year=2010 |title=How the Alphabet was Born from Hieroglyphs |journal=Biblical Archaeology Review |volume=36 |issue=2 |pages=40–53}}</ref>

[[File:Phoenician alphabet.svg|thumb|Corresponding letters in the Phoenician and Latin alphabets]]

[[Peter T. Daniels]] distinguishes true alphabets—which use letters to represent both consonants and vowels—from both [[abugida]]s and [[abjad]]s, which only need letters for consonants. Abjads generally lack vowel indicators altogether, while abugidas represent them with [[diacritic]]s added to letters. In this narrower sense, the [[Greek alphabet]] was the first true alphabet;{{sfn|Coulmas|1999|p={{pn|date=November 2024}}}}{{sfn|Millard|1986|p=396}} it was originally derived from the [[Phoenician alphabet]], which was an abjad.{{sfn|Daniels|Bright|1996|pp=3–5, 91, 261–281}}

Alphabets usually have a standard ordering for their letters. This makes alphabets a useful tool in  [[collation]], as words can be listed in a well-defined order—commonly known as [[alphabetical order]]. This also means that letters may be used as a method of "numbering" ordered items. Some systems demonstrate [[acrophony]], a phenomenon where letters have been given names distinct from their pronunciations. Systems with acrophony include Greek, [[Arabic alphabet|Arabic]], [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]], and [[Syriac alphabet|Syriac]]; systems without include the [[Latin alphabet]].