The Alphabet Explained
or, The Origin and Progress of Letters

JOHANNA DRUCKER

Among the many volumes that consider the history of the
alphabet, describe the development of calligraphic let¬
tering, and trace the design of printing types, there are a
multitude of accounts that ascribe to the letters a symbolic value
beyond their functional purpose. These accounts can be found in
texts dating back to classical times, with mythic attributions of
alphabet lore projecting into the undocumented ancient past. But
no description of the many fascinating analyses of the symbolic
values assigned to the letters within these various historical, mys¬
tical, religious, or other systems has been assembled in a single
study. My forthcoming work. From Sign to Symbol: The Alphabet in
History and Imagination, is the first attempt at collecting the vast
lore of alphabet symbolism and chronicling its development. One
of the many themes that weaves through this wide array of mater¬
ial is that of the origin of the alphabet, and it is this theme on
which I shall touch in these brief notes.

Though the origins of the alphabet are now fairly well estab¬
lished in archaeological terms, debates about the dates of its trans¬
mission from the Eastern shores of the Mediterranean to the
islands and mainland of ancient Greece, Etruria, and beyond still
divide scholars into markedly opposed camps. Artifacts uncovered
in the Sinai peninsula, and dated to about 1700 B.C., provide the
earliest evidence of a primitive alphabet. The general consensus is
that this system developed as a result of cultural exchanges
between users of the Egyptian hieroglyphic and hieratic scripts
and those people employing cuneiform to represent a simplified
syllabary further north and inward from the Eastern shores of the
Mediterranean. By approximately 1400 B.C., a system now known
as the Proto-Canaanite alphabet had stabilized.

This early system, adopted and spread by the Phoenicians
along their trade routes throughout the Mediterranean, lacked
 

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