23. What was the significance of the development of the alphabet?

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Most people believe that the first alphabet originated in Byblos, a port city in Phoenicia, somewhere around 1700 to 1500 BC. The first phonetic alphabet was called the Semitic alphabet, and was based on a foundation of pictographic texts, where each picture represents a word or phrase. Pictographic texts were hard to use, and often required a vast memory, as each word or phrase had a radically different picture. An example of a pictographic text would be cuneiform. The significance of this new, phonetic alphabet was that it was easier to learn, and therefore easier to become a cultural standard. Once the Semetic alphabet was created, merchants who traveled along the spread of costal cities carried it with them, assimilating it into other cultures. Next, the Greeks and Romans diffused the alphabet throughout the Mediterranean Sea, changing it and improving it. This, over time, would become the very alphabet that we use today.

"Bibliography"

"Alphabet." Manual for Cultural Foundations of Ancient Civilizations. By Clay Elliot and Rosie Beniretto. Vol. 2. Houston: St. John's School, 2012. 112. Print.

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