View Full Version : The Alphabet Song
Sam Craft
09-30-1999, 04:25 PM
So why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of the song?
Nickrz
09-30-1999, 04:49 PM
Take a deep breath.. count to three.
Be gentle.
manhattan
09-30-1999, 04:55 PM
I don’t know Nick. The guy’s profile says he’s been a member since June. 'Tain’t no newbie. Might be time to call in the big guns.
Unless he’s just giddy over the fact that the MB works again. I could see that.
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Livin' on Tums, Vitamin E and Rogaine
Dirty Devil
09-30-1999, 05:44 PM
Oh god, don't let Satan see this one!
I always thought the song was created after the alphabet, as a mnemonic device.
But you open up an intriguing avenue of thought, Sammy, that deserves to be explored further. I am sure this will become one of the more enlightening threads of the SDMB.
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Jacques Kilchoer
Workers of the world, unite! You have nothing to lose but your chains.
Lumpy
09-30-1999, 06:11 PM
I remember the backwards alphabet song from Captain Kangaroo. I can still recite the alphabet backwards at top speed.
Persephone
09-30-1999, 06:17 PM
I remember the backwards alphabet song too. And hey, didja ever notice that the ABC song, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and "Baa Baa Black Sheep" are all the same tune?
No I did not figure that one out myself. I had help, from my daughter. She's two. Good ear on that kid.
DSYoungEsq
09-30-1999, 06:35 PM
Cristi, it is an ancient French melody, so old that I have variations on it written by Johann Sebastian Bach. :)
As for the OP, there is a thread on this subject already... : :Ducking the incoming messages::
bantmof
09-30-1999, 08:23 PM
So why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of the song?
For the record, that's a joke from Steven Wright, one of my favorite comedians.
Another of Wright's jokes:
"My friends have a brand new baby. I'm writing down all the noises he makes so that when he gets older, I can ask him what he meant."
But it's just not the same without his delivery.
--
peas on earth
BenDover
09-30-1999, 11:37 PM
Okay, here's the absolute, final, truthful story of WHY THE ALPHABET STARTS WITH 'A':
When the alphabeticists invented the alphabet manny, manny, years ago, there were only 4 letters - A,B,C,D - which coincided with the Greek letters Alpha, Beta, Congo, and Delta. Since the Greeks already had their letters arranged in this order, the alphabeticists decided to copy them and use the same order (this was before copyright laws). However, when writers began trying to spell words with these letters, they discovered that they needed a vowel to make the words look right, so the alphabeticists invented the 'E' and just tacked it on the end of the list they already had.
As writers progressed from simple words like 'babe' and 'cad' to words like 'antidisestablishmentarianism', the realized that 5 letters weren't enough, and the alphabeticists invented new letters as needed, and just tacked them on the end of the current list. From this you may deduce that 'Z' was the last letter invented, and therefore isn't used as much as the others.
The Alphabet Song used to be much shorter than the current version - at one time the lyrics consisted entirely of "A,B,C; A,B,C; now I know my ABCs."
Tune in next time for our discussion on how Alphabet Soup led to the invention of the Scrabble game!
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I have as much authority as the Pope; I just don't have as many people who believe it! - George Carlin
BenDover
09-30-1999, 11:45 PM
BTW, this reminds me of a joke:
A first-grade class was trying to learn to recite the alphabet. Little Johnny approached the teacher and asked to visit the restroom, and was told he couldn't go until he learned to recited the whole alphabet. After several more minutes of diligent study, Little Johnny again approached the teacher with a request to go to the restroom.
The teacher demanded that Little Johnny recited the alphabet as proof that he had indeed learned it before he could go. Little Johnny promptly recited "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNO QRSTUVWXYZ". The teacher said "Very good, except for one thing - where's the P?".
To which Little Johnny replied "Running down my leg."
Laugh, dammit, laugh! Its supposed to be funny!
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I have as much authority as the Pope; I just don't have as many people who believe it! - George Carlin
NanoByte
09-30-1999, 11:56 PM
I wouldn't want to get anything out of order in this thread. . .but. . .
J S Bach clearly stole that tune from Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
Ray (astromusicologist)
Sam Craft
10-01-1999, 06:56 AM
Jeez, a small attempt at a little dry humor, and I may as well be in your BBQ pit. Makes me almost want to start using emoticons again. =P Of course I know the alphabet song didn't lead to the order of the alphabet. I just want to know why the alphabet is arbitrarily learned, recited, and thought of in that order. Was the order that kids learned the alphabet in any different now than it was back when modern english was just being formed?
My favorite Steven Wright joke: "A cop pulls me over and says I was speeding. I asked him what the speed limit was and he said '55 miles an hour'. So I told him I was only going to be out for twenty minutes, and he lets me go."
WallyM7
10-01-1999, 07:53 AM
Sam,
We're not playing baseball here.
You don't get three chances.
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According to the Pope, a woman can be a saint, but not a priest.
DSYoungEsq
10-01-1999, 08:54 AM
J S Bach clearly stole that tune from Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.
As usual, wrong, Ray.
The Star, a poem by Jane Taylor, was published first by her sister in either 1805 in a collection called Original Poems for Infant Minds or in 1806 in a collection called Rhymes for the Nursery (there seems to be a lack of agreement here - several sites attribute it to the former, others attribute it to the latter). Jane Taylor was born September 26, 1783.
The tune obviously pre-dates the poem.
C K Dexter Haven
10-01-1999, 11:23 AM
The A B C's were put into the popular order so they'd be in alphabetical order, of course. It's the easiest way to file stuff, and when they decided to order the alphabet, they figured it was the easiest way to arrange the letters.
cmkeller
10-01-1999, 11:34 AM
I have it on good authority that the alphabetical order was originated by a dyslexic taxi driver.
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Chaim Mattis Keller
ckeller@schicktech.com
"Sherlock Holmes once said that once you have eliminated the
impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be
the answer. I, however, do not like to eliminate the impossible.
The impossible often has a kind of integrity to it that the merely improbable lacks."
-- Douglas Adams's Dirk Gently, Holistic Detective
Sam Craft
10-01-1999, 11:45 AM
Well, as long as I have both feet in my mouth, I may as well go for another appendage...I take it that either: (1) this is one of those arcane questions that nobody really knows and/or cares about, or (2) I've flubbed two attempts at asking the question coherently. So maybe the third time will be the charm, and if it isn't, I'll stop torturing everybody with this inanity. OK?
Before things needed to be filed, and before there was much order to language, the alphabet for the English language evolved. What cause the alphabet to be generally known in the particular order it is in? Why wasn't it known in another order, say according to shape of the letters or according to usage in popular words of the time? Is there some rhyme (no pun intended) or reason to how it evolved to being recognized as ABCDEFG and not HRDTJYX, for example? And if so, what is the reason? And finally, when will Cecil Adams come to my door and put me out of my misery with a sledgehammer?
-Sam, aka the "problem" child.
DSYoungEsq
10-01-1999, 01:54 PM
Sam, you asked the question ok. The trouble with it is that the answer has already and recently been debated ad nauseum in a thread in this forum. Look for postings within the last month about a topic having to do with the alphabet...
NeedAHobby
10-01-1999, 02:19 PM
Ok, so here's the challenge: present an explanation that is believable and hides the inherent circular logic required to create a plausible solution.
The letters of the alphabet were originally in no order whatsoever. When lists of items were invented (discovered?), the letters were placed into a list and their natural order is what we see today. For purposes of sorting, this alphabetical order was used as a convenience. Schoolchildren were taught to memorize the letters in a particular order so they could utilize alphabetical order efficiently, a handy skill later in life.
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Hey, aren't you supposed to be at work?
WallyM7
10-01-1999, 02:26 PM
Sam,
I admire your poise in the face of hostility, but as DS says, we beat this horse to death a few weeks ago. I'm sure the thread is still around somewhere.
Have a look around.
It'll be fun.
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According to the Pope, a woman can be a saint, but not a priest.
Frankie
10-01-1999, 02:48 PM
NeedAHobby Asked "Ok, so here's the challenge: present an explanation that is believable and hides the inherent circular logic required to create a plausible solution."
How's this- The alphabet isn't in any particular order. The order has been placed on it through the centuries.
Lumpy
10-01-1999, 04:04 PM
Then there was the kid who did so poorly in school that when asked to recite the alphabet, he began: " D, D minus, F..."
GuanoLad
10-02-1999, 12:02 AM
T'was I that asked the question a couple of weeks ago, so look for my name.
And the conclusion we eventually came to was that the Greek alphabet was possibly the earliest to have a particular order (and they were pretty good at keeping records so they most likely established an order for that purpose).
Maybe.
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"So what you are telling me, Percy, is that something you have never seen is slightly less blue than something else that you have never seen."
GuanoLad
10-02-1999, 12:02 AM
T'was I that asked the question a couple of weeks ago, so look for my name.
And the conclusion we eventually came to was that the Greek alphabet was possibly the earliest to have a particular order (and they were pretty good at keeping records so they most likely established an order for that purpose).
Maybe.
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"So what you are telling me, Percy, is that something you have never seen is slightly less blue than something else that you have never seen."
John W. Kennedy
10-04-1999, 11:07 AM
No, the Greeks got it from the Phoenicians (the Bible's "Canaanites"). Before that stage, it was a syllabary, not an alphabet; I don't know what, if any, order was inherited from the syllabary.
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John W. Kennedy
"Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays."
-- Charles Williams
Cristi: I remember the backwards alphabet song too. And hey, didja ever notice that the ABC song, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star," and "Baa Baa Black Sheep" are all the same tune?
No I did not figure that one out myself. I had help, from my daughter. She's two. Good ear on that kid.
My 3-year-old niece helped me:
A B C D E F G
How I wonder what you are
Up above... T U V
wubble-u X Y Z
Geenius
10-04-1999, 11:54 AM
I believe the Hebrew alphabet predates the Greek. And while I don't have any scholarly evidence to back it up, I'll argue that alphabetical sequences were probably passed along by religious scribes. Why? Because writing systems follow religion.
The Bible went from Israel to Greece. From Greece the Catholic Church took it to Rome and points west, while the Orthodox church took it to Constantinople and points north. Those points north include modern Russia, Bulgaria and Serbia, where the Cyrillic alphabet is used. So you're left with the following alphabetical orders (hope this comes out right):
<pre>
Heb 'B GDHV Z&HTY KLMNS `PZKRST
Grk AB GDE ZETI KLMN XOP RSTUF H* O
Rom AB CDEFG H IJKLMN OP QRSTUVWX Y Z
Cyr ABVGDE JZ IJKLMN OP RSTUF H ZCS*'Y' EUA
</pre>
<small>Notes: Bolded H in Hebrew, Greek and Cyrillic is ch in "Bach." Bolded T in Hebrew and Greek is th. Bolded Z in Hebrew and Cyrillic is ts. Bolded E, J, C, S, U, A in Cyrillic are ye, zh, ch in "church," sh, yu, ya. * in Greek is ps; * in Cyrillic is shch. ' in Hebrew and Cyrillic is unpronounced; ` in Hebrew has no English equivalent but is like a voiced glottal stop.</small>
The repeated sequences of letters is too much to ignore, especially when you look at writing as well as sound (e.g., Greek long E is written "H," Greek and Cyrillic ch-as-in-"Bach" is written "X," etc.). So the alphabet was probably developed way back in ancient Israel and modified only when new sounds needed to be accounted for.
I think it's fair to say that the "alphabet song" tune came later.
Geenius
10-04-1999, 11:57 AM
Arrgh. Take 2:
<tt>
Heb 'B GDHV Z&HTY KLMNS `PZKRST
Grk AB GDE ZETI KLMN XOP RSTUF H* O
Rom A B CDEFG H IJKLMN OP QRSTUVWX Y Z
Cyr ABVGDE JZ IJKLMN OP  ; RSTUF H ZCS*'Y' EUA
</tt>
Geenius
10-04-1999, 11:59 AM
OK, third time's charmed. And if a friendly sysop would like to come along and put this cleaned-up version in where it was supposed to go in the first place, I wouldn't be at all opposed:
<font face="Courier New, Courier">
Heb 'B GDHV Z&HTY KLMNS `PZKRST
Grk AB GDE ZETI KLMN XOP RSTUF H* O
Rom AB CDEFG H IJKLMN OP QRSTUVWX Y Z
Cyr ABVGDE JZ IJKLMN OP RSTUF H ZCS*'Y' EUA
</font>
DSYoungEsq
10-04-1999, 01:50 PM
See http://www.optonline.com/plweb-cgi/fastweb?getdoc+view1+all002+4874+0++cyrillic for the Compton Encyclopedia entry that talks about slavic languages, and the development of the Cyrillic alphabet in the tenth century AD.
C K Dexter Haven
10-04-1999, 06:17 PM
I thunk it was pretty well established that the first alphabet was the Phoenician, from which the others derived. Hence the similarity in order for the various early alphabets (Hebrew, Greek, etc, and plenny of dead ones, eventually leading into Latin and thence to our modern alphabets.)
Prior to alphabets, the symbol for a word was often the picture of the object (rather than the name of the object); hence a picture of an ox (an o with two horns) got turned sideways and evolved into a letter like Greek (lowercase) alpha -- still basically a circle with two horns. And so down the line.
The question of whether the Phoenicians had an "order", I don't know, but I think so. (Take that for what it's worth.) Once the order was set, of course, the derivative alphabets (Hebrew, Greek, Latin, etc) followed the same order.
Geenius
10-05-1999, 12:01 AM
I can't stand it.
<font face="Courier New, Courier">
Heb 'B GDHV ZHTY KLMNS `PZKRST
Grk AB GDE ZETI KLMN XOP RSTUF H* O
Rom AB CDEFG H IJKLMN OP QRSTUVWX Y Z
Cyr ABVGDE JZ IJKLMN OP RSTUF H ZCS*'Y' EUA
</font>
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