The Alphabet - Origins of Writing - Extra History

[@extrahistory]

Where did the alphabet come from? How did it develop, and why? Support us on Patreon! www.patreon.com/ExtraCredits

[@voytek5550]

the alphabet is a conspiracy created by global soup companies in order to sell letter soups to the sheeple.

[@ram61504]

Extra Credits will you please do the battle of midway:)

[@blackice7197]

Extra Credits is the q and a on the keyboard at 5:11 switched or am i seeing things.

[@owenjauregui]

My mind was blown when you said Alphabet. I guess it's back to kindergarten for me.

[@BListHistory]

Owen Jauregui right??? Never thought of that

[@Ryukachoo]

This series is really hammering home the fact we live in a post apocalyptic world, considering the collapse was so bad even writing reset. Damn

[@Halinspark]

Ryukachoo Writing wasn't as widespread as it is today, so it was never going to survive. When literacy is a specialist skill like masonry or smithing, you rely on having civilization be to a point where the food producing population can support the rest.

[@monkeydetonation]

zemeon2 I can't believe the Apocalypse stood us up! Not even a text to say sorry

[@carttyfartty3550]

∫ & þ æ œ ƿ Ȝ ŋ đ

[@nicholasparker2086]

@@monkeydetonation what do you think we are looking at right now

[@lucasnantes7985]

Hahaha, yes, but also resuming the all humanity creativity, some stuff in some situation+ another situation= another new stuff

[@loganswanson9784]

"Simultaneously crafty and lazy" is the most perfect way to describe Greek civilization lol

[@seraph_77]

I think that describes human progress in general really.

[@varemenos]

Being greek, i agree with that.

[@stormydragon2668]

"I divide my officers into four groups. There are clever, diligent, stupid, and lazy officers. Usually two characteristics are combined. Some are clever and diligent -- their place is the General Staff. The next lot are stupid and lazy -- they make up 90 percent of every army and are suited to routine duties. Anyone who is both clever and lazy is qualified for the highest leadership duties, because he possesses the intellectual clarity and the composure necessary for difficult decisions. One must beware of anyone who is stupid and diligent -- he must not be entrusted with any responsibility because he will always cause only mischief." -- Kurt von Hammerstein-Equord

[@rcookie5128]

second greek here, agreed :D but I also agree with the "human progress" statement..

[@barditheweird]

Ukrainian here, and... yeah. It describes pretty damn accurately)

[@Gojiragon]

To sum up the episode; *Now the Phoenicians can get down to business!*

[@breakleaf21]

I was searching this comment

[@asadashinon6355]

business: - doing trade - being cool - inventing the alphabet i guess

[@farahduale4700]

lol from bill wurtz

[@mr.recker7934]

julianarwen We can make a religion out of this

[@zamzamazawarma928]

Giving birth to Carthage.

[@rgorojovsky]

Shoutouts to this week's artist for that baller egyptian sun!

[@armvex]

Román Gorojovsky It is not just a sun but God. Egyptians worship it as I understand.

[@rcookie5128]

haha saw an light bulb at first and wondered why, then I noticed it myself.. :D

[@imperatorodaenathus9329]

Ra

[@jjmc00]

Praise the sun!

[@williamsledge3151]

They use primery sources so that is actualy what it looked like

[@idanzamir7540]

4:01 Great video! a minor correction, it is not that Semitic languages have fewer vowels, the pattern in which the vowels are used is much more predictable, rendering stating the vowels out right not necessary (although many Semitic languages added a kind of vowel system to help once writing developed)

[@Elsenoromniano]

Exactly, that bummed me, as well as the idea that every sound was in the alphabet, It was not, aspiration was not and it's an integral part of old Greek.

[@idanzamir7540]

yeah, but people like to mythologize Greece

[@mithrilld]

Upset that the video didn't start with Dan singing the alphabet, stopping at Y, then going "Why... Why?" and the theme song opens

[@AdolfHitlerMemeLord]

Hey Vsauce, Dan here.

[@PongoXBongo]

Why? _clap, clap, head slap_ Here's why.

[@colorado1164]

*Now the Phoenicians can get down to business!*

[@ladsworld]

1:10 It's over, Anaki, I have the Literacy

[@blitzwaffe]

*High level literacy

[@Healermain15]

Anaki had INT as his dump stat, so now he has -10 to making his AC during Performer moves.

[@sblower9410]

Anaki "You underestimate my picture - writing skill!"

[@neutralfellow9736]

You underestimate by grammar!

[@tombkings6279]

DrChillbrain i died

[@mathetesolei7961]

Eh.. your characterization of Semitic languages is off. It's not that they use no vowels, but their languages work by rearranging three (or four) sequence of consonant sounds called triliteral (or quadriliteral) roots in different templates to express variations of the basic meaning. Example: K-T-B (basic meaning: write) yaKTuBu (he writes) KaTaBa (he wrote) KaaTiB (writer, secretary) KiTaaB (book) maKTaBat (library) S-L-M (basic meaning: peace) SaLiMa (he was in peace) SaLLaMa (he rescued) aSLaMa (he submitted, i.e. he exchanges self-defence for peace under another's rulership) iSLaaM (the act of 'aslama' to Allah, i.e. the religion of Islam) Because the templates are consistent across vocabulary, indicating short vowels (long vowels are usually indicated by aleph, vav and yod) was not urgent and you can usually guess the vowels pretty accurately. Whereas Greek and other Indo-European languages work by mutating and adding inflections to a core syllable(s) called roots as well as making compound words to basically do the same thing. Example: speiro (I plant) espeira (I planted) esparka (I have planted) sperma (seed) gignomai (I am born) egenomen (I was born) genetika (things pertaining to being born; genetics) genesis (the beginning) spermatogenesis (the formation of seeds)

[@mfC0RD]

I get your point, but I don't think they said that the semitic languages do not use vowels, only that the vowels can be implied from the written consonants. Edit: Rewatched that part and they actually said that "semitic languages use almost no vowels"; impliying that there are vowels (which is correct) but that semitic languages almost do not use them (which is incorrect). It would have been better if they said that they almost do not WRITE them.

[@mathetesolei7961]

But the way they explain it is misleading. Hearing it, one might get the wrong impression that the decisive matter is the number of vowels or the frequency of their occurence ("Greek... it is full of vowels"). What differentiates Semitic languages is their templates. No matter what root you use, as long as the template is known, the vowels are easily implied. This is why the modern Persian/Urdu scripts are ill-suited: they use the the Arabic vowelless consonants while not having the advantage of a regular template by which you can guess the pronunciation. Learning to read Persian means to memorize individual words and how they are spelled. Compare that with their native Avestan and Devanagari scripts.

[@rugbyjefe710]

Wonderful explanation about the differences in Semitic and Indo-European languages. Necessity is the mother of invention.

[@ShayPatrickCormacTHEHUNTER]

@Nathan Springer nobody cares what you'll recognize buddy! Semitic languages are way more consistent than any European language!

[@yassinechtioui7704]

@Nathan Springer arabic and hebro still existed and they are older than all your european language

[@sfsfinancing3299]

I am more and more amazed by you guys. Not only are you pretty accurate, BUT, although brief, your presentations are remarkably dense with information. In fact, your brevity allows the broad connections to be understood, which can be lost when reading a 1,000 page book. Sometimes, in a large book, you get lost in the facts, and miss the bigger picture. Your series on the East Indies Bubble really exemplified that. Thanks alot.

[@MeepsNcheese]

I would love an additional video on how language in the eastern hemisphere developed! There was so much emphasis in Europe, the western world and the Middle East when it came to language development when I was in school and I'd love to learn more about how things formed elsewhere as well :D

[@ckbooks]

I'm so glad you did another one of these. The history of writing is so fascinating to me, and I've been dying for more since the last episode. Awesome stuff!

[@Scribblersys]

Can't wait for the next History of Writing episode in summer of 2018!

[@hiukas.]

Sizik we are close :)

[@jacobali333]

I don't think it will happen :-(

[@TwitchyMovies]

Still hoping!

[@IkeOkerekeNews]

Hieroglyphics are better than emojis.

[@LamanKnight]

Careful -- a movie executive might hear you and try to make "The Hieroglyphics Movie."

[@IkeOkerekeNews]

LamanKnight A meme movie would be more likely.

[@dragonstar2387]

*+Ike Okereke* They really aren't that different, now that I think about it.

[@IkeOkerekeNews]

Dragonstar Well, hieroglyphics are more Egyptian-centric than emojis, and much more simpler.

[@dragonstar2387]

*+Ike Okereke* Fair enough; I was simply saying that emojis and hieroglyphics are more like each other than I thought. They're certainly more closely related than, say, emojis and cuneiform.

[@YYcomiendo]

I don't comment on videos often, but I wanted you guys to know that I love these series about history. Well written, well told and fun to hear.

[@deathdoor]

A, B. Alfa, Beta... Ooooh my goooood!

[@HxH2011DRA]

Panino Manino Exact same reaction XD

[@teatime8535]

The Pro Gamer TMP dont be a jerk

[@teatime8535]

The Pro Gamer TMP im just sayin it sounded jerky.

[@gunjfur8633]

Shadow Plays Beaf jerky?

[@teatime8535]

Gunja Fury XD

[@jessemozingo1279]

Oh dude, SO glad you guys came back to this series! Thanks a lot, totally made my day!

[@justlily1209]

"Remember how easy it was to learn your ABC's, thank the Phoenicians!" - Dame Judi Dench, Spacship Earth

[@Chessrook44]

Alpha + Beta = Alphabet MY MIND HAS BEEN FREAKING BLOWN!!!!

[@redwallzyl]

here's another one for you. Alpha and Omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. so alpha and omega is equivalent to A to Z.

[@JamesDavy2009]

Other phonemic writing systems that are named similarly are the Arabic abjad and the Germanic futharks. Each of those are named after the first few letters in their order.

[@erttheking]

As a civilization we are surprisingly lazy.

[@hagamapama]

Laziness is crucial to development of technology. Soooooooo many things we take for granted today are innovations that took place because a lazy and clever individual looked at the conventional way of doing things and said "That's too damn much work!" I think it was Winston Churchill who said "if you want to find the quickest and most efficient way to do a job, give it to a man who is clever but lazy."

[@HxH2011DRA]

IKR?!!!!!!!!!

[@thearcheduck8746]

5:10 Did you just use a a azerty keyboard?

[@tatemantis9293]

Arcduck I’m glad I’m not the only one to have noticed that that wasn’t a qwerty keyboard

[@jepsteryan3908]

@@tatemantis9293 I noticed that too

[@hansroberts2574]

Blasphemy

[@1000eau]

*french patriotism intensifies*

[@history-jovian]

@@tatemantis9293 I also found it

[@ahmedshujapashamughal7126]

I just want to thank you guys because this really got me into reading books about the past and learning overall.

[@y0hoh0hoh0]

I love the art in this episode!

[@michaelgiladi8631]

You guys are literally one of the best things to have ever happened to youtube. THANK YOU! :) (That cello ending gets me all emotional)

[@Christiaan-]

5:11 EEH, why the AZERTY keyboard layout? Only the French (and Wallonians) use that abomination. You can't even write code on that effectively (according to the Belgians I spoke to).

[@jonaw.2153]

Christiaan I as a Fleming still use it every day. It's pretty easy to use to be honest.

[@firenter]

Buddy, the whole of belgium uses it, not just those crazy Walloons! Also, am programmer and have gotten so used to writing code on AZERTY I can't properly do it on QWERTY xD

[@barvdw]

writing code is somewhat more difficult, but not impossible. At least, I can write enquête, crème or Curaçao without difficulties.

[@fluff926]

AZERTY !

[@Quintinohthree]

barvdw So can I on a Dutch QWERTY keyboard. Why have extra keys for accented letters when you can have accents to add onto letters?

[@louischo2701]

Fun fact: abjad (the Phoenician system in the video) comes from the first four letters of the Arabic abjad - a, b, j, and d. Abugida (like an abjad, but with vowels being written as diacritics or modifications) comes from the first four letters of the Ge'ez abugida: 'ä, bu, gi, and da.

[@Frahamen]

It"'s not that Semitic languages don't use vowels; the vowels are just less "fixed". Vowels change in context.

[@thinkpink113]

I am currently a graphic design student. I have had to take several classes on the history of design, and the place we usually start is the history of the written word. I find it both amusing and entirely expected that I, once again, will be learning this history through one of my favorite channels. Good work guys. I look forward to watching the rest of this series.

[@supersoulty]

You guys do a lot of great work, but I have to take some issue with your characteristic of vowels in Semitic languages. Vowels sounds are as common in those languages as they are in Indo-European languages, so that is not the reason vowels weren't written. Rather the reason likely has something to do with the grammar of those languages. A well behaved Indo-European language like, say... Latin, normally adds an ending or creates a compound word (which is really the same thing, since "endings" are just what used to be free floating words that attached themselves to other words as endings, after enough time) when they want to make a slight change to the tense, or other meaning of a verb or noun. Semitic languages don't do this; instead they alter meaning by changing the vowel sound in a word, not unlike how Germanic languages have words like "eat/ate," "sing/sang," etc.(Germanic is the only IE language group that does this, in any form and it is thought it might actually the result of contact with Semitic speakers during the Bronze Age). Since this formula is used, Semitic languages usually follow a consonant-vowel-consonant structure of one syllable words (Proto-Indo-European was like this, but we went in a different direction). Well, when you have an entire language full of words like this, you don't need to write the vowels in the middle, because context takes care of that for you... so they didn't.

[@kekkres]

supersoulty I don't think he was saying they where uncommon, rather that there where few different vowels, and that condiments and vowels where always paired the same

[@dddtl]

I'd relish the opportunity to ketchup on my knowledge of adding mustard to my vowel purchases.

[@jordanmax2719]

"Germanic is the only IE language group that does this, in any form and it is thought it might actually the result of contact with Semitic speakers during the Bronze Age" Nah, it's derived from PIE ablaut, which varied the vowel between e/o/nothing in different declensions and conjugations and changed the stress in addition to adding suffixes. It's not derived from Semitic languages, which instead use consonantal roots (e.g., k-t-b for books or reading), and then add them to templates like CiCaC (kitab, "book"). Quite a different system. Germanic languages just happen to be more conservative than most other IE languages on this front, though I don't think they're actually the only ones.

[@hansmahr8627]

You also find continuations of the Ablaut system in other IE languages, Ancient Greek for example, where you can find vowel alternations between the different stems of the verb. Here's the verb meaning 'to leave': leipo (present tense), elipon (aorist), leloipa (perfect tense). Latin also had it: facio (I make), feci (I made).

[@supersoulty]

I'm always willing to defer to a more knowledgeable person on that since, while I am very interested in historical linguistics, I'm also purely an amateur, and my info might be incorrect or out of date. What I had read though was that many thought it was connected to the fact that nearly a third of all words in proto-Germanic do not have PIE roots, and many seem to correlate with similar words in Semitic languages (for just one instance, similarities between the proto-Germanic and Semitic words for a young woman). I might have misunderstood, and the text was simply attempting to say that contact with Semitic speakers reinforced the strong vowel tendency, and not that it created it. I could be wrong about all of this, as it pertains to the latest research, though.

[@undeadisza22]

The art just keeps getting better. Good job guys!

[@void2258]

Your argument at the beginning, though, implies that Chinese, among other languages, should have naturally adopted a non-symbolic writing system. In contrast, the Chinese rejected alphabetic conversion and yet have a pretty high literacy rate.

[@2b-coeur]

Yayyy, I am so excited for this series!! I've watched a lot of videos on it already so I know the general direction this is going, but it'll still be interesting to see your take on it!

[@EricJEarley]

Really great episode! One question: did writing systems develop independently in Eastern civilizations, or did they migrate from the pre-bronze-age-collapse civilizations?

[@varana]

Chinese writing developed independently, as far as we know (i.e. we have no evidence of any Western influence). The earliest actual Chinese writing dates to c. 1200-1000 BC, so at the same time as the Bronze Age Collapse in the Mediterranean. (There are a few findings of earlier symbols in China but whether they constitute writing and are ancestors of later forms, is not known.) The other Eastern systems are based on the Chinese system (Japan) or later inventions (Korea). In India, the Indus Valley civilisation (3rd millennium BC) used symbols that probably were a form writing but we can't read it, so we're not 100% sure. That civilisation ended some time after 2000 BC. The next time writing appears in India is some time in the 1st millennium BC, and has nothing to do with the Indus Valley symbols, as far as we can see. The amount of Middle Eastern influence on that Indian script (Brahmi) is hotly debated but AFAIK, many scholars at least assume that the inspiration for it came from the Phoenician alphabet and its descendants.

[@awwab3154]

Another great video as always.

[@nakenmil]

At 5:41 You misspelled "phonemes" as "phenomes".

[@hiromiarash172]

Actually it's spelt "phonemes" not "phonemes " but it could also be spelt "phonememes" too

[@nakenmil]

Go home, you're drunk.

[@procrastinator99]

@@nakenmil Its the Internet, he is home. Drunk.

[@aninainkwich]

This is one of the best KZbin channels I've ever seen. So informative!

[@JoaDrath]

I hope you'll talk about the east asian writing systems too.

[@Release_the_Bees]

You guys are excellent at timing. I've been reading alphabet books to my roommate's 2-year-old son all day.

[@Hannah_Em]

Great video! One slight comment: at 5:39, it says "Phenomes"

[@alexhaupt2134]

I've never watched this series before, but I have a strong interest in language, so I perked up when I saw this. And, of course, hearing about Egypt and Greek made a strong first impression; one of my favorite cultures and one of my favorite languages. Thank you, again!

[@jasonng04]

This is giving me so much deja vu. Reminds me of Xidnaf.

[@noanisse]

Dang, this episodes art was amazing and so detailed! Well done whoever drew it!

[@rdreher7380]

I studied the development of writing systems under a great professor who specialized in Meso American scripts. I wrote a whole paper about what seems to be the reason ideo-syllabic scripts formed independently in at least three parts of the world. I think your video is lacking in huge ways. First is the premise that ideo-syllabic scripts are inherently harder to learn then a fully phonemic alphabet. The huge amount of literacy in countries like China and Japan beg to differ, and they have been highly literate for centuries, way more so than the western world was until very recently. I can speak and read Japanese myself, and I can tell you that first of all, memorizing many Chinese characters is not as hard as people think (and memorizing two syllabaries is crazy easy), and that their use as ideographs is highly convenient. I really don't think alphabetic writing holds a clear advantage. Second, you didn't do a very good job explaining Semitic phonology. They had many vowels in their language; every single language has vowels as far as we know. We can't talk without them. The thing is, the vowels aren't important to the root meaning of the word, because they changed depending on the grammar. For example, take the English word foot/feet. The vowel is important, because it shows if it is singular or plural, but the root meaning is really in the f and t. Thus we can abbreviate it "ft" and in context understand what "1 ft" or "4 ft" mean, and fill in the vowels. Semitic language do this sort of thing with all their words. Which brings me to Egyptian. An interesting point you left out is that Egyptian is ALSO like this. Egyptian is not a Semitic language, but it's in the broader "Afroasiatic" family along with Semitic tongues. The only reason Egyptian developed single consonant symbols, was because their language didn't need to write the vowels. Slowly, through rebus, they started using their single-consonant-root symbols to write instead of using other logographs. This system then developed into Demotic script (which you didn't mention either), until being adopted by the Phoneticians. Besides this example, every other time a writing system developed from scratch, it seems to have developed from logo-graphs becoming syllabo-graphs (or in China's case, more of a ideo-syllabo compound logograph) Even that forgotten Greek script you mentioned in the video - Linear B it's called - syllabic. Whether it was syllabic because (as you suggested) it was influenced by Cuneiform, or whether it's forebear, the undeciphered Minoan Linear A developed independently, I don't know. I concluded in my own paper way back when, that syllabic writing seems to come naturally to agglutinative languages (languages that have a lot of morphemes piled on to the ends or beginnings of roots). Sumerian, Mayan, and Japanese are all agglutinative, and all developed syllabaries. I don't know, maybe syllabaries being more primitive and thus developing first because of that is accurate, but it seems fishy to me. Like I said, I don't think alphabetic writing is clearly and unequivocally an improvement, as much as I like alphabets too.

[@Atroposian]

The call back to the Bronze Age collapse, the hint that the History of Writing is building up to more, the suggestion that it might string together many different topics... You're doing amazing work, folks! Keep this up.

[@pneumonoultramicroscopicsi4344]

Can you one day do an episode on Hangul, and its creation?

[@notaperfectsoldier]

These videos help me to calm down before sleep. Thank you!

[@benkreuter1902]

Like all your other videos, I like this one, but there are two small corrections to make: First, as others have pointed out, semitic languages have vowels. The reason semitic languages use abjads (consonant-only writing) is that the vowels are typically implied by the grammar; verbs are conjugated in ways that change vowels throughout the word, but the vowels will almost always be the same for a given grammatical case. The consonants are sufficient to indicate the verb root and the grammatical case, so vowels were never assigned letters. Second, you stated that writing systems with large numbers of characters make literacy difficult. Prominent counterexamples can be found in East Asia -- Taiwan, Japan, and Hong Kong all have very high literacy rates, better than some countries where alphabets are used, but all three use writing systems with thousands of characters. The reason for limited literacy in ancient Egypt, or in Mesoamerica prior to the Spanish invasion, is more likely that the cultures did not place much value on having a literate population -- the elites were happy to be the only literate people around. It is also worth mentioning that ideographic writing systems like Hieroglyphic, Chinese, and the Mayan system are not just large collections of unrelated symbols. In Chinese, for example, the majority of the characters are "phono-semantic compounds" which have a "radical" that conveys a concept and a phononetic part to indicate the sound; taken together they give a morpheme (or in classical Chinese, a word). As a concrete example, the character for rain is 雨, for snow is 雪, for thunder 雷, for fog 霧, cloud 雲, and so forth (one oddity is 電 for electricity -- historically, electricity was associated with lightning). Similar phono-semantic approaches were used in Egypt and Mesoamerica. So you are correct when you say that memorizing thousands of symbols would be difficult -- that is why nobody uses, and in all likelihood nobody ever used, such a system. Learning Chinese characters is like learning to spell in English: start from a small number of basic shapes and remember how to arrange them for various words. One final point -- you also claimed that as people came into contact with Semitic traders who used an alphabet, they saw the obvious advantage and adopted the phonetic writing system. China is a prominent counterexample: the Chinese have had contact with people who use alphabets for thousands of years, but they have continued to use Chinese characters. As wtih Semitic languages using abjads, part of the reason is that the grammar of Chinese promotes the use of the Chinese system. Chinese mostly lacks conjugations and declensions, which somewhat diminishes the value of phonetic writing; Japanese, on the other hand, has a totally different grammar that has a ton of conjugations, which contributed to the development of the Japanese syllabaries (there is actually more to the history that I am just glossing over here).

[@BListHistory]

I have so much love for this channel

[@DragoniteSpam]

And the wheel of history keeps on turning, and turning, and turning . . . or however exactly the expression goes. I forget.

[@GeoPol01]

Your animations got better, good job

[@a_cool_bottle]

I SWEAR IF I SEE ANotHER ALPHABEt LoRE JoKE-

[@TheCommunistGamerTV]

I'd love to see this series extended. It's one of my favorites.

[@alphaxalex1634]

I like the bolder colours Guys

[@Xucalfer]

Extra History is always one of the major highlights of my day!

[@jalapenoofjustice4682]

♪now the phoenicians can get down to business♪

[@natkatmac]

This is one of my dream topics for EH. Thank you.

[@HenningGu]

I wonder how humanity would be like if the Bronze Age Collapse didn't happen.

[@MatsuHiroshi]

That episode was simply fantastic. Well done Extra History team, hats off to you.

[@alima4280]

Xidnaf needs this info!

[@billg.7909]

You seem to imply that the Greeks came up with the names Alpha and Beta. The first two letters of at least one of the Semitic languages, Hebrew, are Alef (or Aleph) and Bet.

[@redeemaugustine5945]

Hey, a new animator!

[@josephmaslov3649]

Hey, you noticed!

[@redeemaugustine5945]

I like your unique art style for an Extra History video! Hope to see your return on Extra History in later videos! ;)

[@johnalexander651]

When you said the Alphabet part you literally blew my mind, I had to pause the video and think to myself how did I not know this before.

[@plifal7799]

Where does the alphabet begin? With the letter "A" of course. Sorry.

[@Pip-Pikacraft64]

PlifalTV oh my

[@Healermain15]

Technically it starts with a T. *Takes off Glasses of +3 Pedanticness*

[@tideriser4567]

...I get it...

[@Burn_Angel]

You mean with alpha, right?

[@TheRojo387]

@ 5:18, Upsilon is also a vowel, which you left out from circling.

[@artdcora]

"For the first time, every sound in a language was represented in its alphabet" And then English came a long and screwed it all up...

[@randomfur4202]

English is a language that robs other languages in alleys for spare consonants and loose vowel sounds

[@arnavchauhan3476]

Please make a full series on Writing!

[@amarjitsaggu7869]

Who invented the alphabet? It was Walpole......

[@BListHistory]

amarjit saggu plot twist the DNA of the ancient greek scribes can arrange to form Walpole

[@olixor]

Sesame Street

[@murtazahiraj451]

amarjit saggu DAMN IT WALPOLE

[@robertwalpole360]

It had to start up somewhere. ;)

[@t40xd]

amarjit saggu, Walpole has become the immortal world ruler.

[@ImmaSquid]

This episode looks so good!

[@AegixDrakan]

3:12 You guys had a great opportunity to put a little side joke in about a certain hilarious skeleton and you missed it. XD

[@JamesDavy2009]

"I CAN'T BELIEVE THAT I, THE GREAT PAPYRUS, DID NOT GET A SHOT ON THIS VIDEO!"

[@FamusJamus]

Fun Fact: Sans means "without". (Comic Sans is a sans-serif font.) This video didn't have Papyrus the skeleton. Therefore it was "sans the skeleton."

[@AegixDrakan]

Damn, that pun. Sans would be proud. You're gonna have a good time if you keep that up. :D

[@josephmaslov3649]

You can't imagine how difficult it was to avoid that joke.

[@ericdh4184]

Thank you. Your channel is what makes me up every day

[@bobthree920]

When we say to pronounce something phonetically are we referencing the Phonecians?

[@mennoastfalck2267]

I thought so too!

[@ΟρέστηςΜπέσιος]

no. Phonetically comes from the greek word phony, witch means voice.

[@PongoXBongo]

Which the Greeks could have taken from the Phoenicians.

[@leonverbakel3889]

Ορέστης Μπέσιος isnt it the old greek ο φονος (ho fonos)??? I learnt that in my old green lessons....

[@varana]

Nope. In Ancient Greek, the word "Phoenicia" is written with omikron (short o) + iota (i) (Φοινίκη) while "phonē" is writen with an omega (long o) (φωνή). That's two very different sounds.

[@shaileshiyer1801]

this video mentions about the indo-european languages .Writing also evolved in india with the palm leaves writing in tamil literature and also with sanskrit which was also based on phonemes .how does this development on the indian subcontinent fit into the bigger scheme of things with the european civilizations? Does it come before or after or did it develop alongside after the late bronze age collapse?

[@varana]

The Brahmi script, being the precursor to Devanagari and many other Indian scripts, is only attested quite a bit later (1st millennium BC). The question whether there was some influence from Semitic or even Greek alphabets is uncertain, with various possibilities (actual borrowing, just inspiration, or none of those). AFAIK, most scholars assume that at least the _idea_ of an alphabet was inspired by the existing systems, not necessarily the symbols themselves.

[@shaileshiyer1801]

so the development occurs later in the indian subcontinent .That resolves it neatly.are you a philologist or a historian?

[@varana]

Yep. There were the symbols of the Indus valley civilisation that were much earlier (3rd millennium BC, contemporary to the later Sumerians) but we don't know whether they were actually a script (probably, but we can't read them at all), and there are no known connections from that script to the "modern" writing systems that came c. 1000-1500 years later. Historian, mostly, with some philology. :)

[@Vio818]

I would Love if you guys continue to look at different histories of Written Languages to do Korean. It is fascinating.

[@lazybertl2248]

The writing is so good. Congratulations!

[@Cythil]

I think is important not to trash on syllabaries to much. It is easy to think that Alphabet is better than all syllabaries. A rather Eurocentric view of language as evolving into the perfect Europen tung that is superior to all other languages. But syllabaries can be powerful and not too hard to learn. In general what you find is that the best writing system is often tailored to the language that uses it. Most writing systems are not, however. There adapted from older writing systems and have morphed in to what is used today. In some cases, they have not even morphed that much from their original inception which may make them even more of a hassle to deal with. But if you look like a writing system like the Korean Hangul you notice an elegant system that is made for the language. So in a language with few syllables, it might be far more useful to have a syllabary as bases for language then phoneme based system.

[@eniascika3050]

The way said the collapse reminded me of like that avitar intro when they said “until the fire nation attacked” but instead it was “the collapse”

[@ΟρέστηςΜπέσιος]

When you are greek and watch the astonishmemt of people discovering the obvious to you.

[@rcookie5128]

tru :D

[@darthmortus5702]

Not just Greeks, we learned this stuff in school. Like one of the first things explained by our English teacher. Not that it isn't obvious on its own.

[@TheSpecialJ11]

It's more the native English speakers who never had anyone tell them and just took it for granted. I found out the first two letters of the Greek alphabet were alpha and beta when I was a kid, but I was a curious kid and I'm sure most of the people I know could really only name theta and pi properly thanks to math class.

[@rugbyjefe710]

Opa!

[@carlosm.labanca2285]

We are taught this at school. We say "abecedario", meaning A B C. Now I know my ABC...

[@Pete9138]

The art was amazing in this episode, not sure if something's changed but was really impressed!

[@TheStrangeSandwich]

So why did this system never make its way to China? Or is there something I have misunderstood?

[@varana]

The Chinese developed their own system and just never switched.

[@sion8]

+TheStrangeSandwich What do you mean by that?

[@HxH2011DRA]

TheStrangeSandwich China didn't collapse

[@Carewolf]

China collapsed a few times, but not in sync with the rest of the world, and they usually recovered quickly, it wasn't a loss of every major city like the Bronze Age collapse.

[@qbzzt]

Because Chinese isn't a language, but a family of mutually unintelligible languages. Being able to at least understand writing from other provinces is useful.

[@paigecraig6208]

Amazing channel,videos as always

[@perpetuarealityVODs]

2:26 Now the phonecians can get down to bussiness!~~

[@naimaskar820]

Vowels exist in Phoenician but it has many tones just like music, so the vowel letter will exist in the written word depending on how high the tone. if the tone of the sounds is high the letter will exist and if the tone is low the letter will be implied.

[@Alex1jag]

And even though everyone uses the same letters, English still has to be weird and not assigned a single sound to each vowel.

[@Treviisolion]

Alex1jag well we also have fourteen to seventeen vowels depending on the language and we try to use an alphabet based around five vowels.

[@RoberttheWise]

Somewhen in the development of modern english spelling a major fuckup happened. And nobody has deamed it necesarry to to reform the thing. I guess out of bullshit traditionalism and irrational disdain for central authority (and difficulties to set up this authority in a multinational context).

[@f_f_f_8142]

German alphabet has eight vowels. It is a start.

[@drFocak]

30 letters, one for each sound, our base grammar rule is "write as you say it, read as it is written" Serbo-Croatian

[@moartems5076]

Alex1jag it is also hard to reform a system this big. in german we have had several modifications to spelling to keep it in line with pronounciation

[@andrewwebb5953]

We need more on Eastern Writing development.

[@blaz2892]

Hebrew has that also. Alef and Bet.

[@JamesDavy2009]

Two letters that have become transfinite numbers.

[@kemoiii]

BZZBBZ Gaming Arabic (being a semetic language too) also has Alef and Beh(instead of bet)

[@lolo-om9rs]

So does arabic alef ba

[@samvimes9510]

Moar on early writing systems, please! Etymology is incredibly fascinating to me.

[@TheGolux]

Phenomes...

[@nathnlturner68]

TheGolux ikr

[@Binidj]

"Phenomes"? This is absolutely the best video to have a typo like that. :D

[@HaydenX]

Now if only modern English actually had different letters for all of the different phonemes...Why in the hell did we drop æ (ash), ð (eth), and þ (thorn)? These represent the sounds found in "a"pple, "th"en, and "th"eory respectively. Doesn't it suck that one vowel can be pronounced in so many different ways in English? We should seriously have like 35 letters...and there are a few we can drop (such as x or c).

[@jarlfenrir]

Yea, you really should do it ;) Learning English is so pain...

[@theyaregone]

We need more episodes like this: first money, alphabet, writings, religion, drawings, any cultural and social aspects of ancient life

[@papamike6110]

Do Alexander the Great or the American civil war.

[@ltqltq]

Are you going to do an episode about Chinese characters, and Brahmic scripts of India?

[@nicksucc9945]

Now the phonecians can get down to buisiness

[@DuranmanX]

Go from talking about the Bronze Age Collapse to discussing the Axial Age I mean, every story needs a happy ending

[@TehAxelius]

Hmm, with this in mind, I'm wondering if the simpler writing system of Europe was an additional factor to the advantage of the west over the Asian cultures in the 16th-19th centuries. With it a larger population could more easily and more quickly be made literate, meaning for a faster spread of information and ideas, as well as being able to more effectively harness the knowledge of the population.

[@mightza3781]

This was especially true with the printing press. Asia had the movable type printing press hundreds of years before Europe, but it only really took off in Europe since you only had to cast 26 or so letters, instead of thousands of characters. It was also the printing press in combination with writing in the spoken vernacular word that acted as kindling for the sparks which were the religious Reformation and Scientific Revolution. Without easily reproducible and updatable text, the sheer weight of pre-established history will weigh a country down and trample on innovation.

[@HxH2011DRA]

TehAxelius HOLY SHIIIIIIT!!!!

[@xenotypos]

I think that there are many reasons for the Renaissance and everything that followed, but indeed the writing system (and its compatilibity with the printing press) was one of them. I think another one was how the East ignored the Indian numbers, maybe because of isolation, or because of their view of the world (which was, coincidentally, isolationist). The Far East didn't do a lot regarding mathematics compared with Europe, or with the middle-east, or even with India alone, I think that's the reason. You can extend that argument about everything China missed with their isolationist behavior, thinking they were the best and nothing else was needed (while they were amongst the last people to even know that earth was a sphere...). By traveling everywhere, Europeans broadened their minds, and made a lot of discoveries. There's also another reason that pops in my mind: the philosophy behind each culture. In China, stability was one of the highest priorities (and a moving society creates instability), and they weren't especially wrong in that if look at how big was their empire. Also, in the far east every member of the society works for the common interest/the state, and individuality isn't really a spread value. In this context, it may be more difficult for individuals to go against to etablished order to make society itself changes. Also, critical thinking was also probably an heritage from the Greeks, "philosophy" in the western (and middle-eastern!) sense being largely different from the (ancient) far eastern meaning of the term, which was more about "wisedom" rather than "why?". Yes, a lot of things seem linked to the ancient Greek's influence. It's fascinating that a civilisation so obsessed with knowledge (more than any other in antiquity) even existed. Of course, they wouldn't have initially achieved that alone, but even then, their achievement is fascinating.

[@xenotypos]

Also, regarding the writting system, I think the Hangul (the Korean alphabet) case is very interesting. Indeed, they have one of the best/more efficient writting system in the world, and it's been several centuries it's the case. Which should put into perspective the impact it has in society (though I also think this impact remains indeniable). More generally, I think it's interesting how many cultures related to the Chinese civilisation had to create their own way of writing (Vietnam, Korea, Japan...) because of the problems caused by the Chinese logograms (though they are a good system for the Chinese language itself). It shows how much a struggle it was for them, while we didn't do much about it in Europe. And it's still a struggle for Japan actually, which didn't exactly find the most efficient system...

[@f0rm0r]

Semitic languages use plenty of vowels, it's just that all the routes are all consonants, but they mean slightly different things that you can figure out from context when inflected with vowels.

[@TurrisBlancus]

Είδες τι καταφέραμε πάλι;

[@herman1francis]

I never cease to be amazed by human history. It's quite a shame to know that eventually every single record of our existence will be long forgotten to never be known of again.

[@ParrotGab]

Alphabet lore

[@Fir3Chi3f]

I just saw the videos from Matt and Tom on Cuniform! Love it when my favorite youtube channels lineup like this.