WORLD CIVILIZATION

Detailed explanation-1: -The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters, each for sound rather than a word or phrase. It provided the basis for the Hebrew and Arabic alphabet as well as the Greek alphabet which gave birth to the Latin alphabet which beget the modern alphabet.

Detailed explanation-2: -The first two letters of the Phoenician alphabet. On the left side is the symbol aleph, which was their word for ox; on the right is the symbol beth, which meant house. The Phoenicia was a country of seafaring traders located in modern-day Lebanon.

Detailed explanation-3: -By at least the 8th century BCE the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician alphabet and adapted it to their own language, creating in the process the first “true” alphabet, in which vowels were accorded equal status with consonants.

Detailed explanation-4: -The 22 Phoenician letters are simplifications of Egyptian hieroglyphic symbols, which took on a standardized form at the end of the 12th century BCE. Like Hebrew and Arabic, Phoenician was written from right to left, and vowels were omitted (which makes deciphering Phoenician even harder).