# Hey! Who invented "alphabetical" order? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 29, 2001, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698 "2001-04-29T03:02:11Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Lizard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/dfb087/32.png) [@Lizard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lizard)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/1 "2001-04-29T03:02:11Z")
Well? Why is abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz considered the definitive “alphabetical” order? Why don’t we arrange letters by their frequency of ocurrence instead? (then “e” would be first) Why THIS order and not THAT order, or any other order besides the one we use? And who invented that damn tune you sing the alphabet to? ---
**Author:** ![Mercutio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/51bf81/32.png) [@Mercutio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mercutio)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 3:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/2 "2001-04-29T03:18:47Z")
I forget who made the tune. It was either, Bach, or Brahm or some composer with a B name. The tune is just _Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star_ if you haven’t noticed by now. ---
**Author:** ![jmonster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/dbc845/32.png) [@jmonster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jmonster)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/3 "2001-04-29T03:27:24Z")
See, the alphabet is in that order BECAUSE of the song. (apologies to Steven Wright or whoever) ---
**Author:** ![SmackFu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/53a042/32.png) [@SmackFu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SmackFu)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 3:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/4 "2001-04-29T03:35:47Z")
The letter order must be arbitrary. Any order that “makes sense” now won’t do so in the future. For instance, letter frequency depends on spelling, and spelling gets screwed around with every so often under the guise of spelling reform. ---
**Author:** ![NotWithoutRage](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/22d042/32.png) [@NotWithoutRage](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/NotWithoutRage)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/5 "2001-04-29T03:40:11Z")
Actually, I think it was Dr. Sean Kenniff from Survivor I. ---
**Author:** ![Arken](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/dfb087/32.png) [@Arken](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arken)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/6 "2001-04-29T03:50:35Z")
This is just a WAG, but until the Romans created the Latin alphabet, most alphabets used letters and numbers interchangably. i.e. A=1, B=2, etc. Hebrew still does this. Don’t know about other languages. Since Hebrew, Greek, etc. have orders vaguely similar to the Latin alphabetical order, it is probably based on that system. In other words alphabetical order is alphabetical order because it’s actually numerical order. ---
**Author:** ![AwSnappity](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/a3d4f5/32.png) [@AwSnappity](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AwSnappity)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 4:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/7 "2001-04-29T04:22:36Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Mercutio \* > \*\*I forget who made the tune. It was either, Bach, or Brahm or some composer with a B name. The tune is just _Twinkle Twinkle, Little Star_ if you haven’t noticed by now. \*\* It was actually Mozart. Twinkle Twinkle is his Theme and Ten Variations from _Ah! Vous dirai-je, maman_. ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 4:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/8 "2001-04-29T04:38:34Z")
I posted this very question about 9 months ago whereupon I was told that someone had posted it a few months prior to that. Use the search function and you’ll find the old threads. ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 4:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/9 "2001-04-29T04:55:17Z")
Well, the old threads talk a lot, but I don’t know that they provide a definitive answer: [The Alphabet Song](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=6482) [Alphabetical Order](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?threadid=6110) My guess would be that the Phoenicians just got into the habit of ordering their writing characters in a certain way and all the derivative alphabets have followed that practice. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/10 "2001-04-29T19:23:50Z")
An Indian roommate I had in college told me that “alphabetical order” in Sanscrit was based on the shape of the mouth when pronouncing each sound, so similar letters (such as l and r, or hard g and k) would be grouped together. Presumably, this would remain a “logical system” so long as pronounciation remained relatively constant. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2001, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/hey-who-invented-alphabetical-order/63698/11 "2001-04-29T19:40:16Z")
Interestingly, while the alphabet has been in its current order (more or less) for a very long time, it wasn’t until after the invention of moveable type that the idea of arranging things alphabetically really took off.