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I was reading the book The Information: A History, A Theory, A Flood by James Gleick.

Towards the beginning (third paragraph) of chapter three, titled Two Wordbooks, the author writes -

The alphabet, however, had a definite order—the first and second letters providing its very name and that order had been maintained since the early Phoenician times, through all the borrowing and evolution that followed.

The context just before introducing this sentence does not make the meaning clear right away. I am guessing what the author wants to say is that the very word "alphabet" is a derivative of the first two letters of the alphabet system - "alpha" and "beta" respectively.

Am I correct in guessing the intent and the actuality of this claim? Or does the author indicate towards something else?

Anirban Chakraborty
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    Yes; the original Semitic letters were "ox" Aleph, and 'house' Bet. Aleph became Alpha in Greek, Bet became Beta. This is also the source of the pattern in the words Abjad, which is a form of writing showing only consonants, like Hebrew without vowel points; and also Abugida, a form of writing with intrinsic vowels for every consonant, like Sanskrit or Hindi. – jlawler Oct 29 '23 at 23:47
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    Here on the linguistics SE one is not supposed to ask questions one hasn’t already tried to answer for oneself. Did you check any dictionaries? As one example, Merriam-Webster gives the etymology of alphabet as “Middle English alphabete, from Late Latin alphabetum, from Greek alphabētos, from alpha + bēta beta.” – Paul Tanenbaum Oct 30 '23 at 22:54

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Yep, you are right: the word "alphabet" comes from the first 2 letters of the Greek alphabet, alpha and beta. They got their alphabet from the Phoenicians, who had a different order and names for their letters. The Greeks added vowels and changed some of the shapes and sounds. So alpha is like the Phoenician aleph and beta is like the Phoenician beth.

LjL
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Camera Man
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    Do you have evidence that the Phoenicians used a different order for their alphabet? I know that there were two different orders in use in that family of scripts in ancient times (the other order is still used for the fidal, the Amharic syllabary) but I've never heard that Phoenician used anything other than aleph-beth. – Colin Fine Oct 29 '23 at 20:43
  • @ColinFine Maybe he's referring to the order of ע and פ. – Reb Chaim HaQoton Oct 31 '23 at 20:34
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    @RebChaimHaQoton ayin occurs before pe in Phoenician, just as omicron occurs before pi (the corresponding letters) in Greek – Tristan Oct 31 '23 at 21:06
  • @ColinFine I guess you could potentially interpret the Greek sibilants in a way where Greek has the sibilants in a different order (but the other letters in place). The more usual explanation that the names fell out of alignment with the letter shapes and order seems simpler – Tristan Oct 31 '23 at 21:11