Part 2 (1/2)

It is so common that you see it and hear it and use it almost every minute of the day.

It is made of twenty-six different parts. You can make me know what these are with a pencil or crayon. With them you speak and write and read. There are machines which hold these parts separately or form them in groups, and then leaving their likeness on paper give us books and stories to read.

Now I am afraid that I have told you too much! Have you guessed what these twenty-six little tools are called? We call them, and so did your grandfather and greatgrandfather and all the people that lived hundreds and hundreds of years ago--the _Alphabet_.

You never knew before that the Alphabet was such a wonderful thing, did you? Would you like now to hear the story about it?

Long, long ago in a country called Egypt, which is far across the sea (you may find it on your map, and that will make it more interesting for you) they had a very curious way of writing. They had no letters like our A, B, C's, but did what we call picture writing; that is, they drew pictures instead of writing letters and words as we do today. Their writing looked like this--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

That does not look much like writing, does it? You do not know what it means, either, do you? Yet the people at that time could read their picture writing just as easily as we can the Alphabet writing. This is the way they sent messages to each other and wrote down the things they wanted to remember. Do you know that they did not have any paper in those days long ago, either? What do you think they used? They cut their pictures on stone, on walls of buildings, and sometimes on wood and the bark of trees.

They also had a material called papyrus, which was made from reeds growing in the swamps of Egypt. Think what a long time it must have taken them to write in this way, and how much easier and quicker it is for you and me today!

To the north of Egypt there is a small country called Phoenicia. If you will look on your map you will find that the sea comes to the very sh.o.r.es of this country. In Phoenicia there were many beautiful things that people in other countries wanted to buy. So the Phoenicians built big s.h.i.+ps and filled them full of the beautiful things and sailed away. Across the water they came to a land by the name of Greece, the country you know about where Hercules and Ulysses lived, and here they unloaded their s.h.i.+ps. Of course the Phoenicians brought the picture writing they had learned from the Egyptians with them. By this time they were beginning to think pictures took too long to draw, and they gradually changed the pictures into signs so that they could write easier and quicker. So the writing they brought to Greece was quite different from the picture writing they had learned from the Egyptians. It looked like this--

[Ill.u.s.tration]

We cannot understand this either, can we? But you can see it is much better than the way they wrote before.

The Greek people were very happy that the Phoenicians brought such a wonderful way of writing with them and soon began to copy it, and use it in their country, too. When the Phoenicians went back to their own country the Greeks continued to use the sign writing, but changed it and made it more beautiful. They gave it a name, too, and called it by the names of the first two signs, _Alpha_ which means ”ox,” and _Beta_ which means ”house.” If you put these two words, _Alpha_ and _Beta_, together, what do you have? ALPHA-BET--the word we use today.

Now the Greeks were an adventurous people, and one day they set sail in their s.h.i.+ps, and went to the land of the Romans, which is now called Italy. They liked this new country, and some of them settled there. Like the Phoenicians long ago, they brought their new Alphabet with them. The Romans were a great and wonderful people, but they did not know the easy way of writing by signs that the Greeks used. They saw right away what a fine thing this Alphabet was, and began to use it for their writing, too.

At first they wrote the signs exactly the way the Greeks did, but soon they changed them, and made them simpler and better.

CHAPTER II

You know the story of the Alphabet from its beginning so long ago in far Egypt to the time when it came to the Romans and how it changed from pictures to signs and from signs at last to the letters of the Alphabet.

You know, too, how hard it was for the people to write in those days when they had no better material than papyrus, wood and stone. That was a long, long time ago. Would you like to hear a story about what has happened to writing since the time of the Romans and the changes that have taken place in the Alphabet in its travels through the countries of Europe?

The first great thing of importance was the discovery of a new material to write on. What do you think it was?--the skins of sheep and calves! That seems strange to us and we like the paper we use today better, but think what a great improvement this discovery was then and how much easier writing could be done on the smooth surface of the skin with a pen and ink. In all of the countries except Italy this change of writing material brought about a change in the style of lettering too. The Romans alone kept to the simple form of lettering they had always used and did not change it when writing on the skins. The other European countries gradually came to vary this style and make the letters more pointed, heavier and blacker and in some cases more elaborate. This style of lettering was called the Gothic. Do you see the difference between these two alphabets?