Friday, September 30, 2005
Letters Began As Pictures
An understanding has to derive from something and in this case it was pictures.
In this article written by Bierma and Sacks they express how they feel pictures gave us the better understanding of a language. Where did these come from? Who created them? Cavemen years ago sketched them onto walls and every culture did this differently, but everyone had a system. There are pictures for every letter of the alphabet, but here are a few and the pictures they represented.
Take the letter “A” for example. The letter “A” began as a picture of an ox head, but what made the resemblance of an “A” was how it was tipped onto it side to somewhat resemble and make it easier to remember the letter “A”. Why not use pictures to better help understand and remember the alphabet. The picture of the ox came from around the time of 2000 B.C. where it was the first letter of the Phoenician alphabet.
Also, the letter “K” stood for the “kaph” which meant hand. The letter “K” represents this very well because; the letter has the two extensions coming forth from its straight line. These extensions represent the fingers on a hand and how they extend from the palm. Although this picture was created many years ago it still stands today because it allows us in today’s age to easily remember and decipher the different letters from one another. As long as you come up with a good plan so your mind can process the difference between letters you will be fine. It’s all about connections and what allows your mind to recall certain pictures and letters.
So as you can see there are pictures represented for almost every letter in the alphabet. It is a good way to make connections, and also see where these letters came from hundreds of years ago.