Why is the alphabet in that order?Is it because of that song?
553381
Short answer: the BASIC order of our letters goes back through Latin, through Greek to Phoenician and the earliest alphabets invented by speakers of "Northwest Semitic" languages (the group that includes Hebrew). This order (with modifications necessitated by differences in the languages adapting the letters to their own languages) goes back to at least the mid 2nd millennium BC, but we really don't know why they did it this way!\n\nIn fact, the very NAME "alphabet" betrays these roots!\n\n-----------------\nFuller answer (hang on!):\n\nThe LATIN letters were derived from a form of the GREEK alphabet, and the term "alphabet" is based on the first two letters of the Greek alphabet --"alpha" and "beta" (so the idea of the word is the same as "a-b-c's"). But these Greek names are rather odd --meaningless, in fact. Why? That's because the Greeks borrowed a number of the NAMES for their letters from the source of the letters themselves, the seafaring traders of Phoenicia. The Phoenicians did not invent this system themselves, but were part of a cluster of related "Semitic" languages spoken centered in the regions later called Syria & Palestine. The letter-names are derived from actual words which BEGAN with the sound that letter is used to represent (e.g., "aleph", meaning "ox").\n\nWe can actually still see much of the original Semitic order of the letters in the Latin alphabet, and even more in the Greek. The original letters were at times used to represent a different sound from the original letter, esp when the original letter represented a sound unlike any in the language doing the borrowing. (This is how the Greeks came up with the first set of VOWELS, which were not part of the original Semitic alphabet.) The major changes/differences in ORDER were caused when the borrowing language dropped a letter it could not use... and more often by adding letters needed in the borrower's language. These new letters were most often added at the end, after "T", the final letter in the Semitic alphabets. Later, after the early Latin alphabet was well-established, some letters"split" into variants, which were listed next to their "parent" letter. Thus "I" and "J" come from one letter, "U" "V" and "W" were from one letter.\n\nSo when was did the SEMITIC order of the alphabet come about, and why? Our earliest proven examples of the letters in the basic order used to this day are clay tablets the list the letters in order (perhaps for training scribes?) from the ancient Syrian city of Ugarit (the language, re-discovered in the 1920s is called "Ugaritic"). These show us that this order existed by at least 1300 BC. (with some additional letters for sounds that were no longer found in later languages like Phoenician, Biblical Hebrew and Aramaic).\n\n(A few centuries later we find reflections of this order in the Bible. The clearest examples are "acrostic" poetic passages in which succeeding verses or sets of verses begins with the next letter of the alphabet. Psalm 119 is the most well-known example of this practice, and many English Bibles even mark the successive stanzas as "Aleph" "Beth", etc. )\n\nBut we still do not know why they adopted THIS order! Perhaps there is some ancient lost memory device or set of devices (story? set of sentences?) in which this particular order was found useful for remembering the various letters. Perhaps certain sounds were thought easy to group together (think of how "l m n" flows for us). Many believe the inventors of the alphabet were speakers of a Semitic language living in or near Egypt. So it is possible that the IDEA for an alphabets owed something to a part of the system of Egyptians hieroglyphics. In that case, perhaps the groupings of the letters and words may also be sug
479876
Eleven, not counting the space. "the alphabet"
644690
Of course it is.  I mean, it's just like how J.K. Rowling wrote the Harry Potter books based on the movies; but she decided to add a bunch of other stuff that wasn't included in the movies.  The same thing for the alphabet--someone decided to sing a song, and then write down the letters to form the alphabet. Um...no...\n\nThe Phoenicians made a written alphabet for their spoken languages as a means to keep records of their trading.  Our alphabet and the Hebrew, Greek, Latin, Cyrillic and many other languages too.\n\nEdit: \nTo the person above me: it was based on Latin, yes, but where do you think Latin was based on?
833644
well she says it's a trick question....but I did a lil digging and if you want to be technical about it there is more then one word spelled in alphabetical order....\n\nThe longest word whose letters are in alphabetical order is the eight-letter Aegilops, a grass genus. The seven-letter addeems (from the archaic verb addeem, meaning to award), alloquy (an archaic or literary word for an address), beefily (in a beefy manner), billowy (like a wave or surge), dikkops (a South African bird) and gimmors (plural of gimmor, an old-fashioned word for a mechanical contrivance) are also close.\n\n\n\nas for the trick part... I don't get it! LOL
199319
They tend to show them in order of popularity first, then in alphabetical order.
1033393
Huh? What's jing song? I understand the rest, but I don't get the first part....well, because the first part doesn't make sense...the whole question doesn't really sound like it's a question at all...sus, puede ba English na lang?
431198
The Beatles had it and so do Led Zeppelin and other bands. The Beatles' song sounds like there were messages other than the music but I really can't make it out. \nhttp://www3.telus.net/jefmil/stairwaybackwards.htm\nhttp://www.reversespeech.com/music_reversals.htm
377293
Last letter of alphabet Z\n\nOnly Z and 7 are barred to avoid confusion between 2 and i.
801915
Take a look at this link.  It shows you how the alphabets developed.  Fascinating! http://www.wam.umd.edu/~rfradkin/alphapage.html
295438
Yes, I can read it. It says:\nDid you know that the human brain can read a word withough the letters being in order? It's cool isn't it? I got an e-mail about this and could actually read it! If you can read this, then what does it say?
737184
THE MOST USED LETTERS OF THE ALPHABET HAVE TO BE THE VOCALS ,'CAUSE YOU HAVE TO USE THEM TO MAKE WORDS
1062865
Because that is the order Campbell uses when they add letters to their alphabet soup.
112801
At first, tt was chosen over the obvious alphabetical order because the old mechanical typewriters used long bars to print the letter on paper, and these bars would get stuck if the typewriter was typing English words very quickly. To reduce the bar clogging, the inventor Sholes placed letters that would be used together often as far apart as possible, like the letters "T" and "H".\n\nAnd since that day we have been stuck with this layout, phasing it out would be too difficult since we've been used to it for generations.
681117
It's the phonetic alphabet.  Theoretically there is no other word in the English language that sounds like any word in that alphabet.  It was originally intended for radio communications, so operators wouldn't confuse letters like B and D.
914347
I also think that way...\n\nWell have u ever wondered why there is not a single alphabet  for the "sh" as in shine, or "ph" in Philadalphia, \n\nwhy there is need of the silent alphabets in different words ... like t in listen...?\n\nWhy there are 2 words for single meaning, or why there are so many meanings for one word?\n\nwhy the spelling for Psychology is not sykology???\nOr for Physics, it is "fiziks"\netc...\nLikewise there are thousands of things that are ununderstand able....\n\nSo isn't it a stupid language???\n\nBy the way it is the language that GAYS speak.\nAs in all England....
1092662
ummm why would u want 2 know an Animal alphabet? it seems kind of far fetched 2 me.sorry I couldn't help i out though
1108027
PHONETIC ALPHABET\n\nwhen using the police radio some letters sound very much alike, such as "D" and "E" "B" and "C" and so on.  so the phonetic alphabet was devised.  there are two common versions of the phonetic alphabet, the one used most commonly in law enforcement is listed first, and then the one commonly used by military is listed second. \n\nA..........ADAM       J..........JOHN      S..........SAM \nB..........BOY         K.........KING        T..........TOM \nC..........CHARLES L..........LINCOLN U..........UNION \nD..........DAVID      M.........MARY      V..........VICTOR \nE..........EDWARD  N..........NORA     W.........WILLIAM \nF..........FRANK      O..........OCEAN   X..........X-RAY \nG..........GEORGE   P..........PAUL      Y..........YELLOW \nH..........HENRY      Q.........QUEEN     Z..........ZEBRA \nI...........IDA            R..........ROBERT   \n\n                 A second version of the phonetic alphabet mostly used by the us military\n\nA.....Alpha        J.....Juliet        S.....Sierra \nB.....Bravo       K.....Kilo           T.....Tango \nC.....Charlie     L.....Lima         U.....Uniform \nD.....Delta        M....Mike          V.....Victor \nE.....Echo        N.....November W....Whiskey \nF.....Foxtrot      O.....Oscar       X.....X-Ray \nG.....Golf          P......Papa       Y.....Yankee \nH.....Hotel        Q.....Quebec     Z.....Zulu \nI......India        R.....Romeo