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| Egyptians The Egyptians used writing called hieroglyphics. Although these pictures sometimes stood for a whole words or ideas, such as "man" or "house," by 2700 B.C. they also stood for phonemes, or individual sounds. The Egyptian hieroglyphs had only consonant sounds. |
| Semites The Semites, who lived in Syria and Palestine, knew something of the Egyptian writing system. They worked out an alphabetic writing by about 1500 B.C. They used signs to show the consonants of syllables, just as the Egyptians did. The Semites adapted some of the pictures from Egyptian hieroglyphics, but they used these symbols for sounds in their own language. |
| Phoenicians The Phoenicians lived along the coast of the Mediterranean Sea and were known for being sea merchants. They developed their own alphabet based on the Egyptian and Semite alphabets. It consisted of 22 consonants and they wrote their sentences from right to left. |
| Greeks The Greeks came in contact with the Phoenicians because they traded with them. They took the Phoenician alphabet and changed it to fit the sounds of the Greek language. The Greek alphabet was the first alphabet to include vowels. |
| Etruscans The Etruscans were people who lived in Italy before the Romans. When the Greek civilization spread to ancient Italy, the Etruscans used the Greek letters to write the sounds of Etruscan. Although their language did not survive, it is considered an important bridge between Greek and Latin. |
Romans
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