Where does the word alphabet come from?
The word alphabet comes from the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and beta. It was first used, in its Latin form, alphabetum, by Tertullian during the 2nd–3rd century CE and by St. Jerome.
I never thought of it before, but it is a conjunction of those first two Greek letters. Or else, it’s named after the soup it resembles.
No, it’s named after the cereal
Similarly, the viking rune “alphabet” is called the Futhark, because the first letters are pronounced F, U, Þ, A, R, K.
Pretty much. English borrowed it from Latin because it’s posh. And Latin borrowed it from Greek because it’s posh. But at the end of the day it’s in the same spirit as “the ABC”, or Latin “abecedarius”.
It’s also “ABC” (“ábécé”) in Hungarian. (And I bet in a lot of other languages too.)
Wow, I can’t believe I never put that together before.
Yeah
