Why Is the English Alphabet in the Order That it Is?

[@TodayIFoundOut]

Check out Revtown! You can shop now using this link: shop now using the link revtownusa.com/?Today%20I%20Found%20Out&KZbin&TIFO_Jan

[@vilhelm697]

Hello there my good friend

[@andmake-qg5bi]

Why do Americans say Z and English people say zed

[@nortonwedge]

Stop opening your vids with an ad.

[@Larper64]

This is going to sound like a weird question but what about Thorn, (Þ,þ). It was a letter through most of old English but fell out of use some time in the 14th century. What I can't find is why it's shaped developed the way it did as compared to theta, (Θ,θ), why it's name changed so dramatically, which position it had in the latin alphabet, and why exactly it was dropped. I was actually hoping this little piece of trivia might have been covered, but it actually might work for a future topic, possibly combined with a topic on how wynn, (Ƿ,ƿ), became double-u, (W,w).

[@aaronbasham6554]

Simon, I had this thought today while getting out of bed... WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN MY BRAIN AGAIN?

[@whitestararmada103]

id like to know why the lowercase letters look unique for some letters and are just a smaller version of others. like "A" and "a" compaired to "X" and "x".

[@Pehmokettu]

There is no easy answer for that. Uppercase and lovercase are used because that makes the text easier to read. Both in the hand written texts and printed texts there is very much variation what the letters look like.

[@MiniDebz]

UsefulCharts put out a video 6 months ago on the evolution of the alphabet with really clear graphics and descriptions. i think he touched on why the shapes differ

[@Plasmacore_V]

Mostly due to writing the uppercase letters quicker. You can easily see how the "A" can become the "a" if you want to make 3 strokes 2. "E" and "e" are likewise. The X really can't get any simpler unless you just want to make it a U (or upside down U). "T" vs "t" is getting sloppy with the horizontal stroke placement, etc. And that is why the lowercase forms that can't really be 'simplified' are just smaller versions of the uppercase ones.

[@Shadow-sq2yj]

I don't write "a" like how it looks like on the keyboard. We write it in a different way.

[@markvwood2007]

I believe the "a" was adopted for print because it was easier to distinguish it from "o". This improved the flow of reading. Fonts are often picked for the ease of their reading.

[@sebione3576]

I had a heated discussion about this with my brother once. I said the alphabet has no logical order. He said it's in alphabetical order :/

[@leiannesw4926]

😂

[@jameswashbuirn580]

The Alphabet in Alphabetical Order Aich (H) Arr (R) Ay (A) Aye (I) Bee (B) Dee (D) Djee (G) Double-you (W) Ee (E) Eff (F) El (L) Em (M) En (N) Ess (S) Ex (X) Jay (J) Kay (K) Kew (Q) Oh (O) Pee (P) See (C) Tee (T) Vee (V) Wye (Y) You (U) Zee (Z)

[@avisian8063]

That is the original meaning of "begging the question". But that's dead now in favour of "this implies another question".

[@scottmantooth8785]

@@avisian8063 *or we'll circle back to that one*

[@sinisterthoughts2896]

He... wasn't wrong...

[@MonochromeWench]

The oMEGA and oMICRON thing seems so obvious once its pointed out

[@rickhernandez7666]

Glad I'm not the only one who JUST learned this.

[@benoithudson7235]

Today, I found out...

[@mitchkusek]

I learned enough Greek a couple years ago to be able to read the alphabet on my trip (and that's about it). On my trip, I asked our driver up to Delphi when to use Omega vs Omicron, and he basically said it is too hard to easily describe. It has to to with where it comes in the word, or what letter is right after/before it, or what word is right before/after it. Practice, I guess.

[@dhy5342]

@@mitchkusek Much like spelling in English where the same letters or sequence of letters have different pronunciations and there's little logic in word endings - er, re, or - and the ie, ei thing.

[@MaryAnnNytowl]

I ran across this info on the StarTalk's "Neil Greeks Out" episode here on YT, too, recently! 😄 Pretty interesting, the dive he took into the Greek alphabet, and what they stand for in the various sciences. I'd suggest you check it out, if this interests you!

[@ArakkoaChronicles]

I'm 32 and I've been learning Greek alphabet (in bits and pieces) since I was about 7 and it wasn't until TODAY that I noticed Omicron and Omega meant "small O" and "big O".

[@lepangolin4080]

You can learn it in two or three hour with some concentration. Did it two years ago during the plane trip to greece and was pretty easy. You don't need 25y for that.

[@engtilde]

@@lepangolin4080 yeah but you weren’t 7 at the time mate

[@ARIXANDRE]

"A, B, C, D, E, F, *COOKIE MONSTER* " . I miss my childhood.

[@sandybarnes887]

It's not easy being green.

[@macmedic892]

Without cookie, me just monster...

[@JustAGuyWhoLikesStuff.]

What has the Cookie monster got to do with this?

[@darrelltate3456]

Has US banned cookie monster yet?

[@macmedic892]

@@darrelltate3456 SHHHH! Don't give them ideas!

[@PowerPandaMods]

"Iroha" is the traditional "alphabetical order", and is worth a video in and of itself. It is a masterpiece of a poem that uses every syllable in Japanese exactly once. Traditional restaurants and inns will still arrange their alphabet in "Iroha" order. The modern order is the kana syllybary as you stated. It's used by almost everything else.

[@DMLand]

The answer, in short, is at 8:09: "someone wrote them down in that order."

[@viperzero8501]

○ かきくけこ　ka ki ku ke ko × かくきけこ　ka ku ki ke ko Thank you for mentioning my language anyway! 😊😊😊😊😊 I'm constantly learning from your videos. Thank you!! Oh BTW, one thing sad about the International "emojis" compared to the original 絵文字 (emoji) we used to use in Japan back in the late 1990s - 2010 is that in the International version, they stripped out all the "I'm sorry" "I apologise" emojis that were there in the original ones, and instead, replaced them with tons of angry faces. It's always nice to be kind to each other and say "sorry" instead of throwing angry, outraged sentiments towards the other person. Just sending a simple "I'm sorry" emoji solves and prevents so many troubles and conflicts between people in my prsonal opinion. I hope they bring them back (I mean the lots of "I'm sorry" emojis we used to have). I'm sorry for any gramatical mistakes, I'm a Japanese, and I'm not a native English speaker.

[@okeydokey3120]

Thank you for your comments. I agree with you fully. We should apologize when we have hurt or offended someone. 💞💞From Grandmother B in Oklahoma, USA

[@viperzero8501]

@@okeydokey3120 Thank you granny! Lots of love 💖💖💖

[@scottmatznick3140]

You speak English quite well. I think better than many native speakers. That's really interesting about the emoji changes. Seems to say a lot about the respective cultures.

[@sucyshi]

いつかヴァイパーさんの英語能力ような日本語を話してなりたいですよ

[@discgolfcasados9801]

Your English is great. I've been wanting to learn Japanese and can't wrap my head around the language. Can you give me any tips on learning kanji or any Japanese dialects? I'll be more than happy to tell you anything about English you want to know about.

[@singletona082]

Sp basically hieroglyphs are ancient emoji. Gotcha.

[@discgolfcasados9801]

These/Our letters might be considered hieroglyphs by a future society. You never know...

[@emeraldfinder5]

@@discgolfcasados9801 “a future society” the entire planet is connected into one large society (with smaller but still connected ones inside). If we fall, there’s nowhere on Earth for a future society to emerge from

[@seanleith5312]

Lets think of a silly topic to make a video: why abc not cba? Good topic.

[@avisian8063]

@@emeraldfinder5yeah man, this is why in the UK, the islands being a single connected society for 1000s of years, we know precisely what all the ancient architectural monuments meant and were used for. Luckily time, shifting politics, societal norms, wars, technology, trends, and language never result in lost knowledge or twisted truth. Did you know all movie prop glass is made of sugar? Romans had vomit parties in a room called a vomitorium. Napoleon was short. Vikings had horned helmets. Iron maidens were used to torture people. Katana were the pinnacle of sword making. George Washington loved the bong A factoid is a little fact

[@mommachupacabra]

They did actually use emojis. In the Egyptian they're called "Determinatives." :)

[@DKboy001]

A Steven Wright joke: "Why is the alphabet in that order? Is it because of that song?"

[@highlanderknight]

I feel old...

[@denniskix5471]

First thing that came to mind 😅

[@denniskix5471]

"Whoever wrote that song was a genius"

[@bmac4]

@@denniskix5471 that guy wrote *everything.*"

[@Kreln1221]

Somethin' about that guy that's alright..., right?

[@KaiSan3]

when I learned it, I believe the "alphabet song" for japanese was actually the "iroha no uta", which lists the syllables in a poetic way in a different order from the hiragana/katakana table (and iroha no uta includes the now-obsolete syllables as well)

[@mfaizsyahmi]

The Japanese table you described is the gojuuon order. There's an older one in the form of a poem that uses every mora (the (c)v unit that comprises Japanese syllabaries) exactly once. Called iroha, it starts with "iroha ni hoheto". It's sometimes used the same way ABC is used to list stuffs in order.

[@the_kombinator]

I'm teaching my kid the alphabet now and I never thought the order. guess im about to find out

[@Palios33]

Educate that human 🙌

[@joeyr7294]

Same here 🍻

[@the_kombinator]

@@Palios33 Oh he's two, already can sound out and identify most of the alphabet (in French, some even in Korean)

[@daltonlocklear3399]

@@the_kombinator soak that sponge wth all the knowledge possible, ur doing great

[@the_kombinator]

@@daltonlocklear3399 Yes, he's into letters and sounds now, he finds the alphabet in things I wouldn't normally pay attention to - tiny INOX stampings in his cutlery, IKEA embossed at the base of a glass, shoe sizes on the soles, etc. Honestly, I sat him in front of a 486 computer (my retro hobby) and fired up Windows 3.1 and ran Wordpad with him on my lap. He knows where most of the letters are now, but the other day I subbed in an AZERTY keyboard to throw him off. He was a bit confused at that, initially. Next up, combining letters :D

[@martijndekok]

Some languages have extra letters (not just accents). German has the Eszett (ß). From what I've heard it's being used less and less. English used to have the letter Thorn (Þ, þ) for the th-sound. Printing presses didn't have the Thorn so used the Y instead. So they never said "Ye old..."

[@lucybronkema6486]

I think some languages still use þ

[@davidkgame]

Icelandic is the only one left that uses the Thorn that I can think of. Old and Middle English had a number of non-Latin letters that have since dropped out of use. These either took the names of the equivalent runes, since there were no Latin names to adopt, or (thorn, wyn) were runes themselves. Æ æ ash or æsc /ˈæʃ/, used for the vowel /æ/, which disappeared from the language and then reformed Ð ð edh, eð or eth /ˈɛð/, used for the consonants /ð/ and /θ/ Œ œ ethel, ēðel, œ̄þel, etc. /ˈɛðəl/, used for the vowel /œ/, which disappeared from the language quite early Þ þ thorn or þorn /ˈθɔːrn/, used for the consonants /ð/ and /θ/ Ƿ ƿ wyn, ƿen or wynn /ˈwɪn/, used for the consonant /w/ (the letter 'w' had not yet been invented) Ȝ ȝ yogh, ȝogh or yoch /ˈjɒɡ/ or /ˈjɒx/, used for various sounds derived from /ɡ/, such as /j/ and /x/. Shame that Simon completely forgot to even mention these in his video though. And despite what Wikipedia says (that I copypasted above) Some are still used as dipthongs in "proper" spelling such as Encyclopædia, Æsop's Fables, Fœtus, Œdipus Complex and so on although for the most part most people now just use the 2 individual letters "Ae, ae, Oe, oe" - shame really as dropping those letters along with us not using diacritics/accents on certain letters to denote pronunciation makes our language one of the harder European ones to learn.

[@JamesDavy2009]

@@davidkgame Believe it or not, English uses è in verse to preserve the meter.

[@mish375]

@@davidkgame Yes "wyn" is the precursor to our modern "w". There was no "w" in the Latin Alphabet and a "uu" developed to represent the "w" sound at some point. Then the Germanic rune for "wyn" was eventually adopted into Old English after the Norman Conquest. It was simplified to a simple "w" letter sometime later. I always figured with the "æ" letter that it was simplied to an "a" over time in some cultures. It could have been based on different pronunciations that were adopted.

[@davidkgame]

@@JamesDavy2009 I can well belive it. Haven't seen it in action though!

[@jayfelty5228]

Thank you for an entertaining coverage of the order of our modern alphabet. I enjoy all of your videos. Here is my take on the letter 'j'. The Latin alphabet originated from the Etruscans’ Old Italic alphabet in 7th century BC. Some of their letters became the original twenty-one letter Latin alphabet. The letter ‘i’ was either transposable for a vowel or consonant. The modern day distinction between the vowel ‘i’ and the consonant ‘j’ came in 1524. The Italian Renaissance grammarian Gian Giorgio Trissino, known as the father of the letter ‘J’, demarcated distinctions between the two sounds. The modern ‘j’ has the soft sound as in the word ‘jam’ and the letter ‘j’ became the last entrant into the current twenty-six letter Roman alphabet. The character ‘j’ was an evolution of the use of the third ‘i’ in Roman numerals, for example, the numbers 8, 13, and 18 typically expressed with a backwash as viij, xiij, and xviij. Therefore, the letter ‘j’ was already familiar to the academic populace, and the introduction of this latest addition to clarify the distinctions between the vowel and the consonant was readily accepted. The placement of ‘j’ logically fell in the alphabet behind the letter ‘i’ (...f g h i j k l m...). Lewis Carroll gives us a play on the words for the past and future tense of the Latin word for now, ‘iam’ (meaning at some point previous or since some point previous) and the present tense, ‘nunc’ (present moment): “iam tomorrow and iam yesterday, but never iam today.” With so many Latin words with the consonant “i” being rewritten and converted to the modern ‘j’ then ‘iam’ becomes the sweet sticky ‘jam’ and changes the Latin rule into the Lewis Carroll witticism; “The rule is, jam tomorrow and jam yesterday, but never jam today, you can have jam every other day, but never today.” In the sequel to “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland” (1865(, “Through the Looking Glass and What Alice Found There” (1871): “You couldn't have it if you DID want it,” the Queen said. “The rule is, jam to-morrow and jam yesterday-but never jam to-day.” “It MUST come sometimes to “jam to-day”,” Alice objected. “No, it can't,” said the Queen. “It's jam every OTHER day: to-day isn't any OTHER day, you know.” Again, this is an academic joke, and only truly funny to those familiar with Latin. However, the rest of us do understand the part about “today isn't any other day.” Maybe, it is not very funny after explaining the mechanics of the pun, but then again, in the quirky world of Wonderland, it is.

[@icydeath0000]

Simon is so subdued compared to Business Blaze. Been binging BB and I have to say, it's weird to see Simon in Danny's cage (allegedly). XD

[@joycejames8461]

Even on his more sensible channels Simon still keeps poor Danny locked in the basement.

[@allanshpeley4284]

@@joycejames8461 As he should.

[@joycejames8461]

@@allanshpeley4284 #FreeDanny

[@J3scribe]

I like the way Simon's voice has changed over the years. It's become very posh compared to his original everyman delivery.

[@icydeath0000]

@@J3scribe I agree, very posh.

[@sarahb5531]

Fun fact- as a kid I wanted to k ow the alphabet backwards, so I wrote it down and sang it in reverse order. To this day (I’m 45 now) I can sing the c b a’s. 😁

[@temseti0]

you mean the zyx's?

[@richardvinsen2385]

@Cali Girl In Costa was that from Zoom?

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

OMG i did the same thing! I still practice writing backwards or reading/writing inverse letters, just 'for fun' i guess (?) :) I remember doing it to "Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" too--to win an argument against my cousin!

[@starrbright1494]

I diddidn't realize other people did that too.

[@XKloosyvv]

Me too! I learned it during middle school because I thought it would be useful if I ever got pulled over lol. As an adult, I don't even drink

[@deborahgarry9363]

I just finished reading a book on the evolution of punctuation. It's also a fascinating story. =)

[@joshuacollins6430]

8:38 "The more fire and earthquakes, the better" Alexandria would like a word.

[@ginnyjollykidd]

And so would Hypatia.

[@brucewilliams6292]

Thank you for bringing such variety of subjects and presenting them so well. Well done.

[@matthewmains2462]

I was hoping you would have mentioned thorn. We still have a remnant of thorn that we see today in 'Ye Olde Tavern'. The Y in 'Ye' was because many printing presses didn't have the letter thorn, so Y printer would use Y/y to replace it. So when you see 'Ye Olde Tavern' know that it's not pronounced like ye, but like the.

[@thomasewing2656]

Ye don't say? Thou art most correct!

[@paulroberts7620]

I bought an ogbb mug and got sent 2 thank you Mr Whistler ❣️

[@ckl9390]

If I remember correctly, the A, which was the depiction of an ox, got first place because livestock was largely considered one's most important asset. The asset of next importance was the house, or B. I don't know about the rest of the original alphabet, but it may be worth looking at if the characters that represent the sounds follow in a progression of importance to livelihood.

[@dh510]

Wow, you keep answering questions I never knew I had..

[@Richard.Sanchez]

4:07 May I see you home my deer?

[@AcousticCoffeeJunk]

Thank you!!! Was confused for a bit there!! Thought it was a donkey lolz (ass)

[@medichampion328]

@@AcousticCoffeeJunk And when 'home' could be mistaken for 'inn', that could be taken the wrong way totally.

[@TonkarzOfSolSystem]

Japanese also has the Iroha, a poem that contains each hiragana sound exactly once. This was used as an alphabetical reform until the late 1800s. when the order mentioned in the video was adopted.

[@Kreln1221]

*3:07** **_"WARNING!: Aircraft Bouncing Area! Stay Clear!"_*

[@CieJe.Alexander]

My 1st thought!

[@gqsmooth1969]

And it makes the sound "Boeing" as it bounces.

[@CieJe.Alexander]

@@gqsmooth1969 😄

[@hiteshalgotar2846]

Just go through the alphabetical arrangement of Sankrit and sankrit based languages like Hindi, Gujarati etc. They are so logically organised and arranged. And the logic behind the arrangement is how different types of sounds originate from the throat or voicebox. For example, sounds of pu, fu, bu, bhu, mu can be made only by joining two lips. so they are put together in a row. Likewise in other rows, sounds created from different types of tongue positions and tongue- teeth combinations are put.

[@jbird4478]

Short answer: ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Long answer: We don't know.

[@CieJe.Alexander]

It was the best we could come up with, until the invention of the QWERTY keyboard set everything on a securely logical, and completely scientific basis...Right?

[@johnapple6646]

This comment was really clever

[@GeneralNickles]

It's funny because the short answer is actually more keystrokes than the long answer.

[@Swm9445]

Simon consulted his pronunciation dictionary a great deal for this one.

[@willmorrison1022]

Well, obviously because that's how the SONG goes, silly!

[@ianyeager4633]

Nice, clear and fun presentation, stirred up the following essaylet: “The truth is that mathematically, every finite set is in some order or another. It’s a subjective perception judgement, rather than an objective, ideal state of affairs. “Logical” has to to with will it fit in our tiny limited minds usefully. “Natural” refers to experiential regularity of occurrence-does reality seem to fall out that way. “Disorder “ medically means “conducive to health”, “physically” relates to our sense of clutter, “mental “; to our ability to comprehend.” And gave me the grist for writing this verse!: “An eyeless librarian can’t reshelve books/The Brilliant seem Mad to the Stupid; A Hawking gibbers alone in darkness without loving students, wise and with ears to hear./Who comprehends the speech of the mad?” Fine video, and very stimulating! Thanks!

[@mike83ny]

Benjamin Franklin wanted to change the alphabet. He didn't like the fact that some letters could have two sounds, so he came up with an alphabet that still had 26 letters but all of them stood for a single sound so that "bad spelling" would be reduced.

[@jgreen2015]

Fun fact about the alphabet! You probably think it comes from alpha and beta from ancient greeks. But they got it from phoenicians who in turn got it from the proto-siniatic people, who invented it based on egyptian hieroglyphics! The way hieroglyphs are read is whats called "rebus writing". The picture denotes a thing; that things forms part of the word being written. For for example, in english, a picture of a cat, a donkey (ass), then a trophy would read 'cat-ass-trophy". Catastrophe. The proto-siniatic workers in egypt adopted the same glyphs used but used their own language for the sound. They went one step further though and instead of the whole sound (cat-ass-trophy) the picture denoted just the first sound (c-a-t). Their word for ox was Aleuf denoting a-. It was simplified as a upside triangle for the head with two extended lines denoting the horns. Its literally an upside-down A Their word for the glyph "hut" was Beth denoting b-. That became B Aleuf-beth Their word for snake, a zig-zag glyph, was Nahem -"N" The water hieroglyph is usually well known - in proto-siniatic that was Mayem and became M. R is a side-on profile of a persons head and chest (looking ->) from the proto-siniatic "Res"

[@Cmallon81]

Great video; very interesting. However, the background music, while relatively low, was really distracting.

[@lordkuma7935]

Interesting tidbit: The terms "uppercase" and "lowercase" came about with the invention of the printing press. The letter blocks used to set the type on the plate were kept in 2 cases near the press, one on top of the other on a stand. The bottom case held all the miniscule letters, the top case held all the majuscule letters, and were thus referred to as uppercase letters and lowercase letters..

[@simonwhistler4president755]

Made a KZbin account just for all of Simon's channels just so I dont miss anything, allegedly

[@rogersledz6793]

Thank you so much for uploading this video. It is helping me get through the pandemic!

[@kevinpascual]

Remember in Latin, Jehovah begins with an "I"

[@poonoi1968]

Yes, but thats only because of the transliteration of the Masoretic vocalization of the Tetragrammaton. Not many people think about that. Why would they?

[@dm7626]

J and I used to be the same letter, I as a latin pronunciation is not unlike י (yud from Hebrew) so that's why, though it's not a word one should be saying in the first place.

[@jonomoth2581]

@@poonoi1968 lol I don't know half of those words

[@poonoi1968]

@@jonomoth2581 lol, about same

[@poonoi1968]

@@dm7626 Do you mean like saying over and over and over again, or do you mean just not say ever? At least not without wearing a particuar type of costume or hat. Am I gettin close...

[@AmyFutch]

I've been watching too much business blaze, you see weirdly composed and calm here.

[@EricJorgensen]

People who decry sms shorthand as being a degradation of language should familiarize themselves with ancient hebrew

[@dm7626]

Or even modern Hebrew. It's a nightmare to learn new words in Hebrew and honestly my eyes glaze over when I read it unless I make myself do it lol

[@Darkest_matter]

I wanna learn Hebrew and Japanese. So far, I can write simplified Arabic but I can't speak it/don't know what words mean.

[@dm7626]

@@Darkest_matter I feel you on that. Honestly, I would love to understand Japanese to a competent level due to my enjoyment of manga and the lack of physical volumes for many of the titles I have enjoyed - it's such a silly reason - but also because I've had many Japanese friends in my life and it would have been nice to communicate with them in their native language. So far, I have studied German and Hebrew as a child to a moderate level (though I'd probably cry if I actually had to use it) and I did Latin and Spanish, largely using them as a chance to sleep or draw, learning nothing lol. I wish I had paid attention aha. Hebrew is very beautiful in my opinion and if you would ever like any help I can try to advise you on some basic things, knowing how Arabic's writing system works will be very helpful tbh. My other interest recently has been Korean, and I taught myself how to read this week which was exciting, it really is far more difficult that anything I have studied though. I hope I can push through and maybe study it under a teacher next year.

[@talisikid1618]

No. It is a degradation. Like much of modern “culture “.

[@discgolfcasados9801]

I'm low-key wanting those Revtown jeans...

[@jonadabtheunsightly]

That first letter isn't an A. It's a glottal stop, i.e., the consonant sound in the middle of the English word "uh-oh". (If there are any other English words containing this phoneme, I am not aware of it.) The idea of having actual letters to write for the vowels came along with the Greek alphabet. The reason you will occasionally see the first letter transliterated as A is complicated and involves the histories of several languages, but the short version is that the word for ox, which became also the word for the letter itself, started with a glottal stop followed by an A-type vowel in relevant Semitic languages of the time (e.g. Aramaic), and Europeans couldn't pronounce the glottal stop on the beginning of a word so they just ignored it. Relatedly, the Greeks didn't need that letter to write Greek, so they repurposed it as a vowel. (It's not the only letter they repurposed. They also only needed two sibilants instead of four and only one unvoiced dental stop instead of three, among other things. Different languages have different phonemic inventories; transliteration gets weird; film at eleven.) Also, the order of the Greek alphabet on that bowl you show is not entirely the order that the Greeks eventually settled on, though some important parts are the same, including the first five letters (alpha beta gamma delta epsilon), and almost all of the section from mu through upsilon. In between, I think I'm seeing the same order on the bowl, and on the backwards alphabet list: ... epsilon, digamma, iota[1], eta, theta, iota[2], kappa, lambda, ... Note that there were two letters I'm calling iota: one was the vowel, and the other represents the consonant sound English speakers associate with Y at the beginnings of words; eventually these became the same letter in Classical Greek and later in Common Greek (but were still treated differently morphologically when adding affixes onto words; see books by William D. Mounce for details here). Also, digamma eventually disappeared from usage altogether, but you can see on the second list that the Italic peoples repurposed it as F (not sure what they did with phi). After kappa and lambda we have on the bowl mu, nu, omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, then I think that's chi, phi, omega, overall very similar to the modern Greek order with a couple of caveats; whereas the right-to-left listing has mu, nu, a letter that might be xsi but might not, omicron, then I think that's an older form of rho (compare e.g. Hebrew resh), a traditional/older form of sigma (like the modern capital form turned sideways), something I can't identify in Greek that is clearly ancestral to our capital Q, then a newer (more miniscule/scripty) form of rho, and a newer (also more miniscule/scripty) form of sigma, then tau, upsilon, chi, phi, psi; I don't see omega, perhaps it wasn't needed. It looks to me as though someone is adapting the alphabet for a different language here, because we're getting back to having more than one S and more than one T, suggesting we're now writing a language that isn't Greek. (Compare to how Klingon, when written using the Latin alphabet, uses lowercase q and uppercase Q for different phonemes; or compare to how many modern European languages use u and v, which were interchangeable forms of the same letter until the 1600s, as distinct letters.) This is fascinating stuff.

[@frigginjerk]

For what it's worth, the glottal stop shows up all over the place in British dialects of English. It's said where the written language has a T in a lot of situations. "Fancy glass o' wa'er" (glass of water). "Push the bu'on for bu'a'" (button for butter). Even the words "glottal" and "British" can be pronounced with a British glottal stop in there.

[@christophersnyder3241]

i love all of your videos sir. your a phenomenal teacher

[@Voicelet]

Dude just pronounced Japanese A-I-U-E-O as alphabets then proceeded to do it correctly for the two rows later and didn't realize that there's a vowel pattern.

[@theresehopkins1581]

Great class again Sir!!! Thanks!!!!

[@bmac4]

Woulda been interesting to hear why Americans say Zee instead of Zed for Z and why lower-case exists

[@zogian5991]

Pretty sure they covered why lower-case exists in a podcast. If I remember correctly, lower-case was created before spaces were created and every word started with an upper-case so you could differentiate between the words. SOSENTENCESWEREWRITTENLIKETHIS. AndThenTheyWereWrittenLikeThis. Then spaces, commas, periods, etc. were all created later

[@markvwood2007]

I think the American Zee was picked to match the "ee" ending in other letters. Also, makes the alphabet song sound better.

[@Monty_BeGoodToEachOther]

I found it interesting the Simon used both Zed and Zee without an explanation, as though he expected his audience to be education to this difference... Well played, Simon!

[@Lozzie74]

Simon did refer to the origin of “z” as “zeta”, which morphed to “zet”/“zed”. I suggest the US “zee” is to align with other letter pronunciations.

[@653j521]

Robert MacIntosh And British vs American omega pronunciation.

[@schlurpie]

i noticed that japanese katakana and hiragana alphabet order are based on sanskrit. probably influenced by buddhism when it reached japan

[@randomeh393]

You're so classy and sophisticated - not like that eejit who presents Business Blaze XD

[@Friendship1nmillion]

🤣

[@twocvbloke]

BadabumbumTISH... :P

[@leandabee]

😅😅

[@WiqedWhiteGorilla]

When I think of what I want on a pair of jeans "sustainable" come to mind every time Bravo

[@ElDiabloGringo]

There’s something about a bearded British man in glasses telling me about a pair of pants before explaining the alphabet that really kickstarts my morning

[@YanickFM]

This is so much information. Amazing that all of this can be known

[@potatomatop9326]

One day no joke, i removed all of my sister's keys on her keyboard and made it abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

[@gumbyshrimp2606]

You’re right that is no joke. Jokes are funny.

[@ar6666]

Good prank

[@THall-vi8cp]

There are actually keyboards set up that way.

[@mikieswart]

@@THall-vi8cp 🤮

[@Laocoon283]

That's fucking great

[@Alewort]

I think you massively overlooked the fact that generally the order of the alphabets is numerically ascending, according to the numerical values of their ancestor alphabets. Both Greek and Hebrew numerals are examples. Later languages in cultures that used different numerical notation did not have that element in preserving the order when adding new letters, but the skeleton is there. As to numericity being the ultimate origin I can't speak, but it's such a strong element I cannot believe you didn't mention it.

[@lekiscool]

I literally compare languages as a hobby. I loved this video so much. I don’t remember what the ky sound in cute was compared to phonetically. cute /kyo͞ot/ but apparently thats one of the only places that sound is found in the english language. Cu - ky

[@johnqpublic2718]

Cube, cue, queue (phonetic), cuneiform, cubicle, cumin, cucumber

[@WarblesOnALot]

@@johnqpublic2718 G'day, Cue, Cure, Curious, Curiosity... Who 'd 'a. thunk it ? (!). Such is life, Have a good one... Stay safe. ;-p Ciao !

[@thomasewing2656]

That is so kyoot!

[@lekiscool]

I just wish I could remember what the context was.

[@artugert]

Not even remotely true. It appears in MANY words.

[@representativejoints1188]

I really enjoy Brain Blaze however videos like this are so clean and informative. Well done to you and your staff. Language can be such a hastle.

[@GeneralNickles]

It's so weird seeing Simon so subdued and calm after watching so much business blaze.

[@sandrataylor2323]

Thank you! I've learned more about the alphabet than reading history books and watching history channels.

[@djdange01]

Ive allways wondered this lol

[@SeptemberMeadows]

This is a very great episode! Thank you!

[@t900badbot]

Alpha, beta, Gamma, Delta. Ah. Buh. Guh. Duh. Have a good day! -some dude who smashes watermelons.

[@FEJK82]

Very interesting! I love it when you guys do stuff like this. Cheers.

[@goffrd137]

The vowels in Japanese are a i u e o and are pronounced ah ee oo eh oh. Ignore Simon's pronunciations because he doesn't speak Japanese

[@goffrd137]

@John Barber hello

[@kevinhurd4258]

(1) The alphabet song is sung to the tune of "Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star." (2) The form of the letter "A" represents the shape of the Hyades cluster in the constellation of Taurus the Bull. The cluster is seen as representing the bull's head, and is very impressive when seen through binoculars. The sun rose in Taurus during the spring equinox at the time the Great Pyramid was built.

[@AveryTalksAboutStuff]

The fact that we still use qwerty keyboard even though it was designed with typewriters in mind and we just never changed it is hilarious.

[@mpzakhaevski8988]

Far too late to change now, everyone is too used to it.

[@dedmanzombie]

As much as it was made for typewriters its all optimal placement for those things even split keyboards still have the qwerty placement the only other keyboard that is different is the stenographer with only 22 keys 2 rows of constants and A,E,O,andU and can type whole words with 2 key strokes

[@mikieswart]

@@dedmanzombie i mean there are quite a few different keyboard layouts, including dvorak and azerty, but yeah stenotypes are awesome, would actually make a good tifo video

[@JohnnyWednesday]

How, on earth, did you, manage... to spell qwerty wrong? it's LITERALLY written in front of you.

[@AveryTalksAboutStuff]

@@JohnnyWednesday autocorrect hit me where it hurts 😂

[@goldenpun5592]

That hieroglyph Today I found out logo would make a good T-shirt

[@bignubles]

8 minutes already 560 views, this is actually the earliest I’ve ever been lol normally I’m working so I can’t just stop and listen, but now..... i crave it....... I WILL BE FIRST NEXT TIME!!!!!! AGGHHHHHH!!!!!!!

[@ingridfong-daley5899]

Why?

[@pointsnorth3924]

Robert Graves in his book The White Goddess describes the origins of alphabets, the letter's relation to trees, mythology, biblical references, seasons & more. The letters form calendars and are sacred.

[@MandleRoss]

So, in short: It's probably random.

[@leilamalkie]

This question drove me nuts when I was little! So glad there’s actually an answer.

[@davidsenra2495]

Did you watch the video tho? There isn't! 😂

[@jacobhuff3748]

Suggestion: Cryllic Alphabet.

[@jamesdreads7828]

this was waaaaaaay more interesting than i thought it was going to be. awesome, thanks.

[@Surf456]

Why are there so many B vitamins Simon?

[@ann_onn]

Because Elmer McCollum isolated "factor A", and "factor B", before it was discovered that "factor B" was actually a whole bunch of different things.

[@edwardbarton1680]

An episode on the extra letters/characters that we had for a while in the alphabet would be interesting. Things like thorn or ampersand.

[@lincolnphillips1074]

You forgot the letter which were added and then dropped in English, Ampersand, Thorn and Wynn

[@Unknowngfyjoh]

Did you know the $ sign refers to the letters "SI" of the city of PotoSI, Bolivia.

[@thomasewing2656]

W (double u) should still be called Wynn. Much nicer, and Z should stay Zee.

[@petenielsen6683]

I am not surprised the letters that are no longer in the English alphabet were also left out of this video. 1 or 2 letters used to exist for words that produce a sound similar to clearing one's throat - such as the word loch - and for the sh as in the word sheep. Now we use the ch or sh combinations for those words and the letters are considered to be 2 letters instead of 1.

[@user-ellievator]

When you mentioned Japanese, my brain went "ah, ee, oo, eh, oh, ka, ki, ku, ke, ko, sa...." Then you did it in British and I shat my pants.

[@redapol5678]

“Ey”, “Eye”, “You”, “Ee”, “Owe” - 😖 😖 😖 At least his pronunciation improved once he hit the K and S lines 🤣

[@the_once-and-future_king.]

"Did it in British". Or, as we Brits call it, English...

[@user-ellievator]

@@the_once-and-future_king. It was the British accent I was referring to.

[@KonbiniTV]

@@user-ellievator when British people say the word “kanji” it hurts me

[@DoroNijimaru]

i know!! when he said ゆ instead of う! 😵

[@harrybarrow6222]

Today I found out that Greek letters omicron and omega are actually o-micron and o-mega. I had not noticed that. Thank you!

[@MrWillcapone]

SIMON, GO TO SLEEP SOMETIMES MATE

[@paulherman5822]

When there's thousands of Simon copies, it just looks like he doesn't sleep... 😁

[@offrails]

Allegedly

[@vircervoteksisto5038]

Maybe Simon could make a follow-up video on why the english language has over 30 distinct sounds but only 26 letters to represent them.

[@thomasewing2656]

Should we invent more letters or some kind of shorthand? In a hundred years we won't recognize 20th century English!

[@HasekuraIsuna]

Because spelling words exactly as they pronounced doesn't work in practise.

[@danielt.3152]

There is a pretty high correlation between Hebrew(aleph bet) and English alphabet that gets you pretty close to 350BC time frame more or less

[@magma2050]

The alphabet didn't stop there; it has somewhat reverted to that previous form. The letters Thorn (used like the Greek letter Theta) and Yogh (the use of which was... complex) used to be in common use in some places, but fell into disuse. Also, the Latin word for "and" (et) slowly evolved into the symbol "&" which would be recited as the 27th letter of the alphabet after Z, ending as "X, Y, Z, and per se, and" (which became shortened to "ampersand" over time).

[@blackbarnz]

Fun fact: "WWW" has 9 syllables but is short for "World Wide Web" which only has 3 syllables.

[@ann_onn]

wo wi we?

[@HasekuraIsuna]

@@ann_onn syllable _a unit of pronunciation having one vowel sound, with or without surrounding consonants, forming the whole or a part of a word; for example, there are two syllables in water and three in inferno._

[@ann_onn]

@@HasekuraIsuna OK. How many syllables are there in "WWW"?

[@HasekuraIsuna]

@@ann_onn Doub-le u doub-le u doub-le u = 9

[@dasanoneia4730]

Excellent breakdown thanks

[@nortonwedge]

Stop opening your vids with an ad.

[@nortonwedge]

@Red Dwarf Wow, you're so brilliant. His vids his choice. That doesn't mean his choice isn't stupid. But again, thank you pointing that out. You're so smart.

[@kirbymarchbarcena]

DECADES AGO: The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog TEXTERS TODAY: D qik brwn fox jmps oer d lesi dog

[@WarsunJurei]

"Vikings changed the order for some reason" Because they are vikings, they can do whatever they want.

[@TheJMBon]

When your favorite past time is raiding, pillaging and re-arranging peoples body parts, what's a few arbitrarily placed letters matter.

[@hydrolito]

Vikings had to wait for the Wright brothers before they could fly an airplane.

[@samurguy9906]

Who’s going to argue with a hairy guy waving an axe around?

[@sstudley82]

I was just talking about this with my 8 year old. Great timing 👍

[@goon5757]

this guy must be a millionaire by now

[@DerptyDerptyDUM]

Allegedly.

[@midlifeduck7040]

Especially if he thinks $90 is affordable for a single pair of lightweight jeans

[@TBJ1118]

@Matthew Meditz or, in case of Patagonia and such, you're paying the ethics and sustainability...as we all should...

[@deansheets]

Doubt it since he has at least 3 writers and two editors.

[@vexedemperor5588]

He lives in Czech Republic for tax evasion purposes, allegedly

[@dennisud]

Love all your videos and IMHO I'd like one of those future videos working with my other Historic KZbinrs Thoughty2 and The History Guy! Thanks again!

[@diobrando1476]

I love these types of so simple questions that everybody wonders, yet nobody seems to know 😂

[@Ainar86]

I thought it was the Greeks who put the alphabet in order but I guess it was you all along!

[@Robinallenyukon]

"the order of letters is alphabetical ... the same reason snakes don't ride bicycles and oranges don't have armpits" !!! this was the explanation given to me by a teacher many years ago ! lol ... can you imagine Simon as a teacher .... his students would be brilliant !!

[@nathaniellecompte55]

The video hasn’t been public for 1 min and there’s 5 comments?!

[@danielcarlsen2217]

This is most likely one of you favorite videos that you have done

[@sandybarnes887]

Why is W called double u and not double v?

[@paulherman5822]

Because it was literally just that, at one point. As to it's looking like 2 "v", the letter "u" was originally just the "v" and the sounds were interchangeable.

[@paulherman5822]

@@mako9579 Latin, if I remember correctly. Midieval manuscripts, early on, had the linked "vv" "w." Still can crop up in modern calligraphy, on occasion. Also, if I remember, the "vv" was used even post Reformation once in a while.

[@Terri_MacKay]

In French, it is called "double v". Pronounced "doo-blah vay."

[@stephenarbon2227]

@@paulherman5822 Probably more than once in a while. In Barkar's edtion of the Bible of 1576 : • there was no ‘J’ character, and ’i’ or 'I' were used for both ‘i’ & ‘j’ sounds; 
 • ’v’ could be used for both ‘v’ & ’u’; & often ’u’ for ‘v’ in the 
middle of a word, but there doesn’t seem to be a capital U anywhere.
 • double ‘vv’ was sometimes used for ‘w’, 
 • there were several versions of lower case ’s’, with the more common long ’s’ [as in ‘chess’]. more often written as ‘∫’, ‘∬’ [for double s], with or without the lower tail as in ’ſ’. 
They didn't start a word with ‘∫’, but might with ’ſ’. [Either versions used less space than an 's', especially when combined with other letters like 't', which would save on a cast letter]. -With the ‘the’ in some later editions by the same printer, Barkar used ‘y’ with small e above it, presumably he did this toalso save space & the cost of casting 2 less letters for each ‘the’.

[@PhrugalPhan]

@@Terri_MacKay Probably all Latin languages. In Portuguese they pronounce it the same way.

[@zetawolfgang5106]

I’m still finding channels of yours that I didn’t know exists and I follow 4 of them

[@SplotchTheCatThing]

Wait, you mean to say there's a *reason?* Sure, there must have been a *story.* Everything in the world has a story. Most of them are just not interesting enough to be worth telling. But stories are not the same thing as reasons, are they?

[@Unknowngfyjoh]

It doesn't matter if it's interesting. It matters if it's possible to make a 10-minute video before revealing the fact that it's not interesting and could have been said in one sentence. (Note: I'm saying this before watching the video)

[@IHateUniqueUsernames]

A reason is simply a story that follows a series of (generally) logical events as it evolves from between the start and the end. To that end, practically every event or thing as some reason leading to it, and as you trace it back, you are discovering the story of its origin.

[@SplotchTheCatThing]

@@IHateUniqueUsernames A reason is deliberate or at least purposeful. I'd argue the fine line between a reason and a story is... well, the difference between the evolutionary pathways that led to leopards having spotted coats in order to better camouflage from prey, versus the specific combination of gametes that gives one particular leopard one particular pattern of spots in his fur. The first serves a clear purpose, even if it did come about through random events. The second could have turned out in a near-infinite number of ways without affecting anything outside of itself.

[@IHateUniqueUsernames]

@@SplotchTheCatThing A reason for camouflage is to provide an advantage. A reason for the pattern is because of genetic. I do see where you're going, and I can appreciate the point. So I'll stop here.

[@garyfrancis6193]

Simon “heiroglyph” derives from “xeiro” the word for “hand” in Greek and “glyph” meaning symbol. So it was writing symbols by hand or handwriting. The Egyptian word for “pharaoh” was “pa-roo” meaning Great House written as “PR”. The word for “pyramid” was “MR” which may have been pronounced “ma-roo” another type of great house for the “ka” or departed soul of “pa-roo”. The “P” in “pa-roo” might have been aspirated as it would be in English written as “ph” later confused as the letter “phi” in Greek sritten in English as “ph” and equated with thr labio-fricative /f/. So we pronounce “pharaoh “ as starting with an /f/ sound as we see in many Greek derived words like “pharmacy” or “photograph”. In Egyptian the “P” in “pharaoh” would have been pronounced more like a stressed aspirated /p/ as we do in stressed syllables starting with “P”. You can test aspiration yourself by holding a tissue in front of your mouth when you say: power, possible, people. The tissue should move slightly. In Egyptian maybe more pronounced. We make the same mistake in pronouncing the Thai resort of “Phuket”. Not an /f/ but a /p*/ aspirated “P”.

[@DavidPaulMorgan]

hieroglyphic - 'priestly or sacred writing' from the greek. hierarchy - priestly/sacred government

[@midlifeduck7040]

Damn Simon. $90 for a single pair of jeans is " affordable " ? You have got to be pretty wealthy man to have a family, a studio, and are willing to drop $90 on a pair of jeans. I know Europe may not sales tax,( not sure how the VAT is used over there ) but after that your looking at $100 or real close. Congrats on your success though.

[@JoseFernandes-js7ep]

We have VAT in Europe but they are included in the price. If you see 90 € in the label you will have to pay 90 €. It's seems so obvious to me that I can't understand the logic of not putting the price you have to pay in price labels.