THE EVOLUTION OF THE ALPHABET REVEALED IN COLOURFUL CHART

The majority of us utilise the alphabet's letters daily, but have you ever wondered how their shapes were created? The alphabet's history is fascinating, with each of the 26 letters having a distinct backstory. A helpful poster created by Matt Baker (of UsefulCharts) charts the development of our well-known alphabet from its Proto-Sinaitic origins in ancient Egypt (c. 1750 BCE) to the current Latin script.

The limited edition Evolution of the Alphabet chart illustrates the gradual transformation of early shapes and symbols into the modern ABCs. Some letters are instantly recognised, whereas others don't resemble each other at all. For instance, the letter "A" was once an Egyptian hieroglyphic that resembles a horned animal's head. The lines that formed the letter "A" gradually became simpler to become the symbol we use today during the Phoenician (c. 1000 BCE), early Greek (c. 750 BCE), and early Latin (c. 500 BCE) periods.

Originally, the letter "C" was fashioned like a hunter's stick or boomerang. It didn't get its crescent shape until about 500 BCE, and it took the Romans another 500 years or so to flip it in the way it is written today (and change the shape to become "G"). The evolution of the early Greek letter for "F" to become the modern "U," "V," "W," and "Y" is another intriguing development that the chart shows.