From Ox to A

The alphabet began as pictographs and later ideographs but eventually the symbols came to represent sounds. This abstract notion produced the letters of the Western alphabet.

letter	Hebrew	pictograph	changes in letter shape
A	ALEPH	ox
B	BETH	house
I	IOD	hand
K	CAPH	palm of hand
M	MEM	water
N	NUN	snake
O	AYIN	eye
P	RESH	head
T	TAU	cross

Imagine the pictures representing things - the ox, the palm of the hand, the ripples of water, then two processes take place. One is the simplification of the picture - just try to write it quickly, pass it through twenty generations or more and see how the carefully crafted drawing becomes simpler in form. The second is that instead of the drawing representing a thing it comes to represent a sound - the initial sound of the thing of which it was once a drawing. So Aleph becomes A, Beth becomes B, Mem becomes M. This move from a pictographic writing system to a phonetic writing system is the key to the ALPHA - BET's success.

Now only 20-30 symbols are needed to convey an infinite number of things and ideas.