Origins of the Alphabet: 26 Stories in 9 Minutes

Looking for precise and professional language translation? Look no further! I specialize in accurately translating English to Haitian Creole, French, and Spanish.

Trust me to deliver exceptional results that capture the essence of your message.ย Contact me todayย for flawless language translations.

๐Ÿช“๐Ÿ‘๏ธ๐Ÿ Axes and eyeballs and snakes. Oh my! Here are 26 stories about the alphabet your teacher never told you. Share in the comments which ones you already knew!

๐Ÿ“บ WATCH NEXT:
Where Did Language Come From? ๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿผ

โœ๐Ÿผ ON THE BLOG:
Prefer reading to watching? Weโ€™ve got you covered!
Hereโ€™s another alphabet with a rich history! ๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿผ

๐Ÿ’ป CERTIFICATE OF ONLINE LANGUAGE TEACHING (CEOLT)
Interested in teaching English or another language online? Check out my premier language-teaching course ๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿผ

โฌ‡๏ธ GET MY FREE STORYLEARNINGยฎ KIT:
Discover how to learn any foreign language faster through the power of story with my free StoryLearningยฎ Kit
๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿผ

๐Ÿ“– LEARN A LANGUAGE THROUGH THE POWER OF STORY:
Stories are the best way I have found to learn ANY language. Forget the boring textbooks and time-wasting apps and learn a language the natural, effective way with one of my story-based courses. ๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿผ

๐Ÿ—ฃ SUPERCHARGE STORIES WITH SPEAKING PRACTICE
Many StoryLearning students have found great success combining story-based learning with 1-on-1 speaking practice. We recommend LanguaTalk for finding talented tutors who can help you become more confident.
Book a free trial with a 5-star tutor here ๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿผ

๐Ÿ“ธ FOLLOW ME ON INSTAGRAM:
Get daily language tips, comics, reels, and more on Instagram (@iwillteachyoualanguage) ๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿผ

โฑ TIMESTAMPS:
0:00 – Intro
0:20 – The Letters
0:22 – A
0:39 – B
0:52 – C
1:07 – D
1:22 – E
1:42 – F
2:24 – G
2:52 – H
3:27 – I
3:45 – J
4:09 – K
4:23 – L
4:41 – M
5:00 – N
5:17 – O
5:38 – P
6:02 – Q
6:26 – R
6:54 – S
7:24 – T
7:39 – U
7:54 – V
8:03 – W
8:19 – X
8:37 – Y
8:47 – Z

๐Ÿ“œ SOURCES & ATTRIBUTIONS:

๐ŸŽฌ Video Clips:

What is a GLOTTAL STOP?

How to Pronounce Julius Caesar

๐Ÿ–ผ Images:
โ€œHiero D36โ€ by Hexifi is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

โ€œVincenzo Catena Portrait of Gian Giorgio Trissinoโ€ by Vincenzo Catena is licensed under Public Domain via Wikimedia Commons

โ€œStanding Osiris Edit1โ€ by Jeff Dahl is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Jean Antoine
 

  • Jude Ampofo says:

    Greeks and Romans tip everything๐Ÿ˜‚

  • Isa Lutfi says:

    Thank you for this insightful content.

  • M. K. says:

    I wish you had subtitles on your very educative videos ๐Ÿ˜. As a Turkish i hardly understand some British accented words ๐Ÿ˜ข

    • lisilonglegs says:

      I use the auto-generated subtitles and they work well. All the best to you.

    • M. K. says:

      @lisilonglegs thanks dear ๐ŸŒผ. I also use the atomatic translator , but especially the words that i can’t hear clearly are being wrongly typed there as well.

    • Daniel Miller says:

      ร‡ok gรผzel ๐Ÿ‡น๐Ÿ‡ท ๐Ÿ‡ฌ๐Ÿ‡ง ๐Ÿ‡บ๐Ÿ‡ธ

    • Daniel Miller says:

      As someone who used to share an apartment with two Turkish students in my college days, I never really understood how you guys could basically make one super long word that would mean something that would take like 5 words to say in English. That is, until I learned what the word “agglutinative” means.

    • M. K. says:

      @Daniel Miller ๐Ÿ˜…๐Ÿคฉ๐Ÿคฃ

  • element7795 says:

    Amazing, I didn’t realize the alphabets of the ancient world were that close to each especially to Egyptian. I guess it all came down to poor handwriting or hand carving.

    • KaiSan3 says:

      I’ve heard many times that writting was invented only 4 or 5 times, and then other cultures later adapted what their neighbors used to write for their languages…

      – so hiragana/katakana were created from hanzi simplified overtime;
      – Mayan, and the Otomi writting adapted by the Aztecs allegedly evolved (with multiple inbetween steps and diversions from each other) from Olmec writting;
      – hangul was copied from horyig, which was adapted for the Yuan rulers by the tibetans monks, who adapted a couple north-indian scripts to their language, which all evolved from greek letters from the time of Alexander (or before) and it then links to this video ๐Ÿ˜…

      …etc.

  • Olly Richards says:

    Wondering where language came from? ๐Ÿ‘‰๐Ÿผhttps://youtu.be/6gaJMvR7bKk?si=Dg1UTIS4SrHNasWC

  • lisilonglegs says:

    This is fascinating! (And weird–shoutout to Kronk.) Really fun to see how the letters came about.

  • Alvs Notes says:

    i thought the V sound associated with the letter originated in the late latin period

  • AyaMoonlight1 says:

    Great video as always, just a bit too fast paced. I wanted to stop it several times and think through what I’ve just learnt.. other than that, thanks ๐Ÿ˜Š

  • Nina Baker says:

    Really interesting! Thank you!

  • Justin Wright says:

    Mama says the letter F came from an alligator that got a fig stuck its teeth and got sad.

  • Northstar Pokeshipper says:

    5:34 The Omega.

  • Joseph Woodward says:

    so I’m pretty sure 4 of those 5 letters that came from the same root are gonna be F V W and U but idk what the last one is.

  • Derrick Miller says:

    I learn so much with your videos

  • Daniel Miller says:

    If you did this same concept except on the Chinese or Japanese writing systems: 33942 stories in 12297 minutes

  • minirop says:

    If so many letters flipped are because ancient greek was written in boustrophedon.

  • Jill Lee says:

    Fascinating! As an American I have wondered why we say “Zee” when everyone else (speaking English )says “zed”. ?

  • Travis Jacobson says:

    In Hebrew, camel is โ€œgamal,โ€ and gimel is the letter ื’. So, the letter and word are easy to remember: ื’ for ื’ืžืœ.
    House is pronounced โ€œbiteโ€ or โ€œba-it,โ€ and the B/V sound is the letter โ€œBeit:โ€ ื‘ึผ/ื‘

  • Mary Janerx says:

    Could you do a video for each of the letters?

  • lio says:

    so it is in fact real that W was formed from merging two Us, that has been a made up thing in my head for long

  • >