Alphabet

Alphabet is a set of letters represented by symbols in a fixed order, such as the set of letters from A to Z. The letters represent basic sounds of a language. Each letter has a symbol, and each symbol has a name. The letters may represent one or more basic sounds. The word is formed by compounding the names of the first two letters of the Greek 'alpha' and 'beta' and then removing the termination 'a'.

Phoenician writing of the 2nd millennium BC gave rise to the alphabets of the west. From this the modern Hebrew and Arabic systems evolved. The Greek alphabet developed from the same root sometime during 1000-900 BC, but was later branched into two - Cyrillic and Etruscan.

The Russian script developed from Cyrillic, and the Roman script developed from Etruscan which is used in the languages of the West including English.