# The Alphabet Song **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [September 30, 1999, 9:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688 "1999-09-30T21:25:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![WallyM7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/b5e925/32.png) [@WallyM7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WallyM7)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 1999, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/21 "1999-10-01T19:26:00Z")
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. * * * According to the Pope, a woman can be a saint, but not a priest. ---
**Author:** ![Frankie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/258eb7/32.png) [@Frankie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frankie)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 1999, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/22 "1999-10-01T19:48:00Z")
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. ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [October 1, 1999, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/23 "1999-10-01T21:04:00Z")
Then there was the kid who did so poorly in school that when asked to recite the alphabet, he began: " D, D minus, F…" ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 1999, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/24 "1999-10-02T05:02:00Z")
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. * * * “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.” ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 2, 1999, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/25 "1999-10-02T05:02:00Z")
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. * * * “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.” ---
**Author:** ![John\_W.Kennedy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_w.kennedy/32/1031_2.png) [@John\_W.Kennedy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_W.Kennedy)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 1999, 4:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/26 "1999-10-04T16:07:00Z")
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. * * * John W. Kennedy “Compact is becoming contract; man only earns and pays.” – Charles Williams ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 1999, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/27 "1999-10-04T16:27:00Z")
\*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_ ---
**Author:** ![Geenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Geenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geenius)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 1999, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/28 "1999-10-04T16:54:00Z")
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): \ Heb 'B GDHV Z& **HT** Y KLMNS `P **Z** KRST Grk AB GDE  ZE **T** I KLMN XOP  RSTUF  **H** \*       O Rom AB CDEFG H IJKLMN  OP QRSTUVWX      Y  Z Cyr ABVGD **E J** Z  IJKLMN  OP  RSTUF  **H ZCS** \*‘Y’  E **UA** 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.\ 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. ---
**Author:** ![Geenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Geenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geenius)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 1999, 4:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/29 "1999-10-04T16:57:00Z")
Arrgh. Take 2: \ Heb 'B GDHV Z& **HT** Y KLMNS `P **Z** KRST Grk AB GDE  ZE **T** I KLMN XOP  RSTUF  **H** \*       O Rom A B CDEFG H IJKLMN  OP QRSTUVWX      Y  Z Cyr ABVGD **E J** Z  IJKLMN  OP  ; RSTUF  **H ZCS** \*‘Y’  E **UA** \ ---
**Author:** ![Geenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Geenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geenius)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 1999, 4:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/30 "1999-10-04T16:59:00Z")
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: \ Heb 'B GDHV Z& **HT** Y KLMNS `P **Z** KRST Grk AB GDE  ZE **T** I KLMN XOP  RSTUF  **H** \*       O Rom AB CDEFG H IJKLMN  OP QRSTUVWX      Y  Z Cyr ABVGD **E J** Z  IJKLMN  OP  RSTUF  **H ZCS** \*‘Y’  E **UA** \ ---
**Author:** ![Geenius](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/f475e1/32.png) [@Geenius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Geenius)\ **Post date:** [October 5, 1999, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/31 "1999-10-05T05:01:00Z")
I can’t stand it. \ Heb 'B GDHV Z **HT** Y KLMNS `P **Z** KRST Grk AB GDE  ZE **T** I KLMN XOP  RSTUF  **H** \*       O Rom AB CDEFG H IJKLMN  OP QRSTUVWX      Y  Z Cyr ABVGD **E J** Z  IJKLMN  OP  RSTUF  **H ZCS** \*‘Y’  E **UA** \ ---
**Author:** ![DSYoungEsq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/c6cbf5/32.png) [@DSYoungEsq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSYoungEsq)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 1999, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/32 "1999-10-04T18:50:00Z")
See [http://www.optonline.com/plweb-cgi/fastweb?getdoc+view1+all002+4874+0++cyrillic](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. ---
**Author:** ![C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/b2d939/32.png) [@C\_K\_Dexter\_Haven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/C_K_Dexter_Haven)\ **Post date:** [October 4, 1999, 11:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688/33 "1999-10-04T23:17:00Z")
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. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-alphabet-song/3688.md?page=1)