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Showing posts from October 15, 2023

Journal Entry 9–The History of English Podcast–Bonus Episode 2: History of the Alphabet

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...