Editing Alphabetical order (section)

==History==
The order of the letters of the alphabet is attested from the 14th century&nbsp;BC in the town of [[Ugarit]] on [[Syria]]'s northern coast.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Robinson |first=Andrew |title=The story of writing |publisher=Thames & Hudson |year=2007 |isbn=978-0-500-28660-9 |edition=2nd |location=London |orig-date=1995|p=162}}</ref> Tablets found there bear over one thousand cuneiform signs, but these signs are not Babylonian and there are only thirty distinct characters. About twelve of the tablets have the signs set out in alphabetic order. There are two orders found, one of which is nearly identical to the order used for [[Hebrew alphabet|Hebrew]], [[Greek alphabet|Greek]] and [[Latin alphabet|Latin]], and a second order very similar to that used for [[Geʽez script|Geʽez]].<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Millard |first=A. R. |year=1986 |title=The infancy of the alphabet |journal=World Archaeology |volume=17 |issue=3 |pages=390–398 |doi=10.1080/00438243.1986.9979978 |jstor=124703}}</ref>

It is not known how many letters the [[Proto-Sinaitic alphabet]] had nor what their alphabetic order was. Among its descendants, the [[Ugaritic alphabet]] had 27 consonants, the [[South Arabian alphabet]]s had 29, and the [[Phoenician alphabet]] 22. These scripts were arranged in two orders, an ''ABGDE'' order in Phoenician and an ''HMĦLQ'' order in the south; Ugaritic preserved both orders. Both sequences proved remarkably stable among the descendants of these scripts.

As applied to words, alphabetical order was first used in the 1st millennium [[BCE]] by Northwest Semitic scribes using the [[abjad]] system.<ref>Reinhard G. Lehmann: "27-30-22-26. How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic", in: ''The idea of writing: Writing across borders'', edited by Alex de Voogt and Joachim Friedrich Quack, Leiden: Brill 2012, pp. 11–52.</ref> However, a range of other methods of classifying and ordering material, including geographical, [[chronological]], [[hierarchical]] and [[Categorization|by category]], were preferred over alphabetical order for centuries.<ref name=atoz/>

Parts of the [[Bible]] are dated to the 7th–6th centuries BCE. In the [[Book of Jeremiah]], the prophet utilizes the [[Atbash]] [[substitution cipher]], based on alphabetical order. Similarly, biblical authors used [[acrostic]]s based on the (ordered) [[Hebrew alphabet]].<ref>e.g. Psalms 25, 34, 37, 111, 112, 119 and 145 of the Hebrew Bible</ref>

The first effective use of alphabetical order as a cataloging device among scholars may have been in ancient Alexandria,<ref>Daly, Lloyd. ''Contributions to the History of Alphabetization in Antiquity and the Middle Ages''. Brussels, 1967. p. 25.</ref> in the [[Great Library of Alexandria]], which was founded around 300 BCE. The poet and scholar [[Callimachus]], who worked there, is thought to have created the world's first [[library catalog]], known as the [[Pinakes]], with scrolls shelved in alphabetical order of the first letter of authors' names.<ref name=atoz>{{cite web | title=From A to Z - the surprising history of alphabetical order | website=ABC News (ABC Radio National) | format=text and audio | first=Julie | last=Street | publisher=Australian Broadcasting Corporation | date=10 June 2020 | url=https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-11/history-of-alphabetical-order-a-to-z/12320808 | access-date=6 July 2020 | archive-date=2 July 2020 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200702080945/https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-11/history-of-alphabetical-order-a-to-z/12320808 | url-status=live }}</ref>

In the 1st century BC, Roman writer [[Varro]] compiled alphabetic lists of authors and titles.<ref name="O'Hara">{{cite journal |title=Messapus, Cycnus, and the Alphabetical Order of Vergil's Catalogue of Italian Heroes |last=O'Hara |first=James |journal=Phoenix |year=1989 |jstor=1088539 |volume=43 |issue=1 |pages=35–38|doi=10.2307/1088539 }}</ref> In the 2nd century CE, [[Sextus Pompeius Festus]] wrote an encyclopedic [[epitome]] of the works of [[Verrius Flaccus]], ''[[De verborum significatu]]'', with entries in alphabetic order.<ref name="remacle">{{cite book |url=http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/erudits/Festus/m.htm |title=LIVRE XI – texte latin – traduction + commentaires |access-date=8 May 2012 |archive-date=9 June 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120609075646/http://remacle.org/bloodwolf/erudits/Festus/m.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> In the 3rd century CE, [[Harpocration]] wrote a [[Homer]]ic lexicon alphabetized by all letters.<ref name="gibson">{{cite book |title=Interpreting a classic: Demosthenes and his ancient commentators |last=Gibson |first=Craig |year=2002 }}</ref> 

The 10th century saw major alphabetical lexicons of Greek (the ''[[Suda]]''), Arabic ([[Ibn Faris]]'s ''al-Mujmal fī al-Lugha''), and [[Biblical Hebrew]] ([[Menahem ben Saruq]]'s ''Mahberet''). Alphabetical order as an aid to consultation flourished in 11th-century Italy, which contributed works on Latin ([[Papias (lexicographer)|Papias]]'s ''Elementarium'') and [[Jewish Babylonian Aramaic|Talmudic Aramaic]] ([[Nathan ben Jehiel]]'s ''Arukh'').{{Efn|Nathan's ''Arukh'' may not have been the first alphabetical Talmudic dictionary, but it achieved surpassing popularity and remains in use today. One possible antecedent is the lost ''Alpha-Beta'' of {{ill|Machir ben Yehuda|he|מכיר בן יהודה}}.}} 

In the second half of the 12th century, [[preachers|Christian preachers]] adopted alphabetical tools to analyse [[Bible|biblical]] vocabulary. This led to the compilation of alphabetical [[Concordance (publishing)|concordances]] of the Bible by the [[Dominican friars]] in [[Paris]] in the 13th century, under [[Hugh of Saint Cher]]. Older reference works such as [[St. Jerome]]'s ''Interpretations of Hebrew Names'' were alphabetized for ease of consultation. The use of alphabetical order was initially resisted by scholars, who expected their students to master their area of study according to its own rational structures; its success was driven by such tools as [[Robert Kilwardby]]'s index to the works of [[St. Augustine]], which helped readers access the full original text instead of depending on the compilations of [[Quotation|excerpts]] which had become prominent in 12th century [[scholasticism]]. The adoption of alphabetical order was part of the transition from the primacy of [[memory]] to that of written works.<ref name="Rouse">{{citation |last1 = Rouse |first1 = Mary A. |last2 = Rouse |first2 = Richard M. |contribution = ''Statim invenire'': Schools, Preachers and New Attitudes to the Page |title = Authentic Witnesses: Approaches to Medieval Texts and Manuscripts |pages = 201–219 |publisher = University of Notre Dame Press |year = 1991 |isbn = 0-268-00622-9 }}</ref> The idea of ordering information by the order of the alphabet also met resistance from the compilers of encyclopaedias in the 12th and 13th centuries, who were all devout churchmen. They preferred to organise their material [[theologically]] – in the order of God's creation, starting with ''Deus'' (meaning God).<ref name="atoz" />

In 1604 [[Robert Cawdrey]] had to explain in ''[[Table Alphabeticall]]'', the first [[monolingual]] English [[dictionary]], "Nowe if the word, which thou art desirous to finde, begin with (a) then looke in the beginning of this Table, but if with (v) looke towards the end".<ref name=Cawdrey>{{cite book |first=Robert |last=Cawdrey |title=A Table Alphabeticall |location=London |year=1604 |page=[A4]v }}</ref> Although as late as 1803 [[Samuel Taylor Coleridge]] condemned encyclopedias with "an arrangement determined by the accident of initial letters",<ref name="Coleridge">{{cite book |url=https://www.inamidst.com/coleridge/letters/letter507 |title=Coleridge's Letters, No.507}}</ref> many lists are today based on this principle.