Blog No. 3

From here I went back to my Google search, and found a place to look at video's which I thought might be interesting. I first chose a video titled "the first alphabet in history was found in Ugarit, Syria." This then took me to the YouTube site to view the website. This video contained just images of ancient writings using the alphabet. It was good to see how they used it, but didn't give me any further information about the development of the alphabet. On the side bar on YouTube, there are other suggestions. Here I found another video titled: "Origin of the Alphabet' at  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX0obs1n-nA&feature=related'.

After watching it, i came across a few points that i must tell you about. Firstly, 'the Latin alphabet is the most used system in the world, around 58 alphabets derived from the Latin alphabet are used today.' I didn't even think about it but the video mentions that 'it is the only alphabet used for web addresses.'
With all this said, it is very hard to use many video clips on YouTube, as you cannot be sure as to the knowledge of the author and also to the validity of their research. So for this reason, I am going to move away from videos and back to my Google search.
Back at the Google search, after looking through 5 pages of the results of my search, I dint find any other sites of much relevance, so I decided to go look at journal articles through the Swinburne library site.
At the library site, I went to the databases. I decided to use EBSCo as it is a general database, with information and research on many different topics.
I chose 3 different databases within EBSCOHost to search, those being,

• Academic Search Complete - as it is a multi-disciplnary database with full-text articles.
• Australia/New Zealand Reference Centre - it is a database full of magazines, newspapers, newswires and reference books. Being as it is Australian based, I should have more of an idea how reputable they are compared to an overseas database.
• Communication & Mass Media Complete - as this is the basis to the alphabet, communication.

From here I did a search for the original alphabet.
 It is important to mention how I peruse the article and choose which ones to look into. Firstly, the title, see if it sounds relevant, then look at its subject terms. If both sound okay, i look into the record, and see what the abstract says. If it still sounds like something which might help, I will then look at the full text, if it is available.


The first article I found was Titled: Scriptworlds: Writing Systems and the Formation of World Literature by David Damrosch. After looking at the detailed record, the abstract said that the author writes about how global scripts usually only consider their original language and that this can impact literature and culture. Therefore, this article is not really what I am looking for.

After looking at 30 article titles, I didnt get any results that I felt would help, so i decided to change my search terms.I decided to search using 'History Alphabet.' From this search, I found the article 'Tsade and He: Two problems in the early history of the Greek Alphabet' by S.R. Slings. This article looks like it might be helpful, but from the abstract, looks like it may be a little technical.

The first point that the author makes, is that a dutch scholar C.J. Ruijgh has argued that the Greek alphabet cannot have been created around 800BCE, and that is more likely to have been around 1000BCE. After a little reading (and yes I was correct that it was a little technical), i realised that the article was just about the timing of when parts of the Greek alphabet was adapted from the Phoenicians. My blog is just about the development of the alphabet, not necessarily about arguing when each letter was changed. I am not saying that this article is completely useless for my research. From it, I can make sure that I state that 'the Greek alphabet was adapted from the Phoenician, at the earliest, shortly before 800BCE. Therefore, not mentioning a specific date, but giving a rough date.

The next article I found was "'Y' is for Branch' by Mary Carmichael talks about a theoretical neurobiologist at Caltech, Mark Changizi, thinks that our ancestors largely modeled their alphabets after natural features in their environment. She also mentions that Changizi found that a vast majority of common letters take no more than 3 strokes to write (he hypothesises that this may be perhaps because short term memory can hold only 3 basic visual pieces of information at a time.)

The next article i found that was relevent was 'The Alphabetic Body' by Brian Rotman. Unfortunately After beginning to read this article, I discovered that this article was more about how we will always read, but that writing may eventually be something that is rarely done due to technology advances.

The next article I found was titled 'First Alphabet Found in Egypt' by Elizabeth J. Himelfarb. In this article she discusses how John and Deborah Darnell, archaeologists from Yale, discovered 2 inscriptions representing the earliest-known phonetic alphabet. These inscriptions were carved into a natural limestone wall alongside hundreds of Egyptian inscriptions about 4,000 years ago. This script that they found, incorporated elements of earlier hieroglyphs and later Semitic characters. Experts have agreed the alphabetic entries were probably in inscribed around 1800B.C.

After searching another 100 titles, I did not find anything of any relevance. With this being said, I will now search using physical books from Swinburne Library. I did a search over the internet, and from the first 10 items retrieved, there are 3 which i think would be relevant and are at the Prahran campus. I will attend campus on Tuesday and get these books and keep you updated.