[ExI] A deep question

[Harvey Newstrom]

"spike" <spike66 at att.net> wrote,
>> Why is the alphabet in the particular order that we know of,
>> with A first and Z last? Is there some grand historical
>> document that decrees that order that I am unaware of? Or is
>> it all the result of that stupid song?  John K Clark
>
> It wasn't the song, it was the phone book.  Someone came up with a grand
> scheme to order the alphabet to agree with the order of the names.


The earliest proto-semetic alphabets used the characters for numbers and 
letters.  My guess is that the numbers evolved for counting before letters 
evolved for recording speech.  If that is true, the numerical order would 
have determined the sequence.
--
Harvey Newstrom <www.HarveyNewstrom.com>