Litters of Letters

by Jill Amadio

Were there ten fewer consonants and only three vowels in the English alphabet, here’s how two of the Bard’s indelible lines would have been written:

“Fr n mr th het f th sn…”  

“Th ly’s th  thg…”

Much of our English is derived from other languages, including Latin, French, Greek,  Italian, German and the aliens for all we know. In fact, our precious alphabet initially descended from the Egyptian Pro-Sinaitic alphabet around 1,800 B.C. The Phoenicians took it up, followed by the Greeks, then the Romans, who brought it to the British Isles during their disgraceful occupation, only to be shunted aside by the bloodthirsty Anglo-Saxons.  By the 13^th century, we are told, the “modern English alphabet had emerged from the Old English alphabet.”

Earlier, the Chinese, other Asians, and Russians had invented their own enigmatic images to represent words, adding to our confusion. The strokes used to appear to bear no relation to letters as we know them, but then the vice-versa is also true.

Some writers are rather taken by the French influence whereby we tend to add acute and grave accents over certain letters, and also by the German umlaut of two tiny dots placed over specific vowels.

My keyboard doesn’t provide any of these extra  elegant little marks although to the left of my number 1 in the top row there is a funny little squiggle that resembles a drunken letter N: ~. I am sure it has great significance but the meaning escapes me sand I have never felt compelled to use it, even as an April Fool’s Day joke.

So, by the 13^th century the Normans generously presented the Brits with their very own alphabet, and many of the world’s most remarkable English writers went full-tilt into turning out their extraordinary literature.

In my Oxford Dictionary of Quotations, a 1,000-page tome, there is only a single reference to the alphabet. It is from Charles Dickens’  The Pickwick Papers. He had one of his characters, Samievel, being advised that although “there were many things you don’t understand now, but…as the charity boy said when he got to the end of the alphabet, it’s a matter of taste.“

I think Dickens was indicating that knowing the alphabet was a choice but something a poor person may not have the opportunity to learn, if, indeed, he could even read English.

That should be the end of this saga but I became fascinated with my research. It turns out that we have been cheated. There were originally 29 letters in the English alphabet although three other letters were left out entirely: J, U, and W. I also  read that NATO  has its own phonetic alphabet to help members pronounce  English words during their lifelong luxury residence in America.

What’s so interesting now is how our words have come to mean something else entirely, such as “swatting,” “hacking,” and many others.

I wonder how these words translate into other languages, and if the message changes with the wind. Their double meanings will undoubtedly show up in dictionaries although the editors might want to wait a couple of years in case an even different and additional meaning pops up.

At least we still have our five vowels and 21 consonants with which to create characters, settings, plots, and strategies.