It is called ABC (or alphabet) to a group of letters structured under a specific order accepted at a general level in the framework of a language. It is a set made up of spellings for the representation of language. This group is named after the first three letters that comprise: A, B and C.
The system adopted for the Spanish language is the Roman alphabet, which offers a writing structure that serves as a basis worldwide, since, with certain modifications, it is used in most languages spoken in America, the European Union, the area from Sub-Saharan Africa and the islands located in the Pacific Ocean.
According to experts in linguistic matters, the first alphabetists in the West found their origin in the northern Semitic alphabet, which appeared more than 3,500 years ago. Despite the name that identified it, the Roman alphabet was used by the Etruscans from the Greek letters. At first it had only 21 letters, which over time expanded to include the 26 that we know today. Likewise, it must be said that the derivation of the conventional Roman alphabet that includes graphic variations such as the Ñ is known as the Latin alphabet.
Is the alphabet essential for writing?
Throughout history there have been many alphabets that in turn derived into others; Currently, there are many and very varied, although some have many similarities.
In Ancient Greece, more precisely in 900 BC, the Semitic alphabet, used by the Phoenicians, was adopted and they expanded their list of 22 signs, in part to represent the vowels. Three hundred years later, when its alphabet was already consolidated (having spread throughout much of the Mediterranean) it was adopted by the Roman people, who in turn merged it with Latin to create a more complete variant. With the great conquests made in this period, they managed to make their alphabet the basic one of all the Western European languages.
Another known alphabet in antiquity was Cyrillic (name given by one of its creators, Saint Cyril), created in 860 AD in Constantinople. His goal was to achieve a symbol system that would bring together the sounds of the language of the Slavic people. It was based on Greek and Hebrew letters and consisted of 43 characters, some of which were new. Scriptures such as Russian, Ukrainian, Serbian and Bulgarian are derived from this alphabet. Not to be confused with the Polish, Czech, Slovak or Slovenian, which come from the Roman. What persists today of the Cyrillic alphabet are various writing systems; some characters have been lost and others have been transformed, taking different forms in each region.
Arabic is another of the alphabets that comes from the same origin as those mentioned above; it is believed that it emerged from the fourth century of our era and that it has not undergone many changes. Today it is used by all countries belonging to the Islamic world, certain countries in Asia, Africa and southern Europe. It is many things similar to the Hebrew alphabet, as in that it almost completely lacks vowels (except for three long ones, the rest are represented with diacritical marks).
Regarding Chinese writing, it could be said that it is unique since it does not consist of a phonetic or alphabetical system but is based on ideograms (graphic representation of ideas or objects); that is, they lack an alphabet and instead have a large number of symbols that allow them to represent their writing in a completely different way. At this point we can clarify that the alphabet is not strictly necessary for the development of writing. It is just one of the most conventional ways; neither the richest, nor the most important.
Other types of writing in which the alphabet is not used to express an idea are:
* Morse writing (also identified by the Morse code name), which consists of an alternative based on the representation of numbers and letters by means of signals that are emitted intermittently. In principle, it was used in telegraph lines through cable lines and later it was extended to radio communications;
* The Braille a system of touch reading and writing that was developed specifically for the benefit of blind or visually impaired individuals.
