Fig. 1. Still from The History of English Podcast Website.
This podcast episode from The History of English, hosted by Kevin Stroud, deals with looking at the core group of letters which have stayed constant since the Phoenician alphabet. Stroud explains that their shapes might have changed, but the sounds they make and their position in the alphabet shows the consistency of these letters for over 3000 years.
Stroud also points out that the original alphabet only had consonants, so all of these letters were also consonants – which he calls Constant Consonants. He reminds us that the vowels present in our modern English language were added later by the Greeks. The Constant Consonants are: B, D, L, M, N, P, R, and T.
Stroud further states these letters are still found in the same order as the original Phoenician alphabet, and besides their individual shapes and their modern English names, they are direct descendants from the Phoenicians. In the beginning, these letters were given names of objects which began with the sound of the letter.
Stroud then shares fascinating details of each letters origins, and the ones which stood out to me the most were the letter B and the letter N.
While the original letter B still carried the same sound as it does today, “buh,” it was actually known not as the letter B, but as byat/bet (spelling unknown) which meant house. It was also formed by drawing a simple shape of a rectangular boxed house.
With its inception by the Phoenicians and then contributions from the Greeks, Romans, French, and the English over the centuries, this finally gave way to the shape and name of our modern letter B.
The letter N also has an interesting history. The original letter resembled the image of a snake. At that time, there was a word, nahash (spelling unknown) which meant snake, and this is what is believed was the original name of the modern letter N. By the time of the Phoenicians, the letter was changed to be called nun (spelling unknown) which meant fish. Then throughout time with influences of the Greeks and the Latin language, the snake-shaped letter changed to the modern looking letter N.
So while these letters may have changed names and how they were written, it is amazing to discover that they maintained the same sounds humans have been using for each letter for over 3000 years! Additionally, Stroud answers a question I had always wondered. Where does the word alphabet come from? From the Greek letters Alpha and Beta, which was combined to make Alphabet.
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Works Cited:
Geleynse, Joyce. “alphabet-6916985_1280.” Pixabay, 22 Jan. 2022. https://pixabay.com/illustrations/alphabet-letters-decorated-letters-6916985/. Accessed 5 Sept. 2023.
Johnson, Gordon. “alphabet-2730767_1280.” Pixabay, 08 Sept. 2017. https://pixabay.com/vectors/alphabet-animals-heart-art-2730767/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2023.
Stroud, Kevin, host. “Bonus Episode 2: History of the Alphabet. The History of English Podcast. 24 Feb. 2013, https://historyofenglishpodcast.com/2013/02/24/bonus-episode-2-history-of-the-alphabet/. Accessed 15 Oct. 2023.
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