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deleted
· 5 years ago
· FIRST
Except that the construct comes from Hebrew, where they are in number order
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guest_
· 5 years ago
unklethan brings an important fact. But beyond that- it kinda does have to be in order. It doesn’t necessarily have to be in the order it is in- but all things in a list will end up in SOME order. Something that gets listed frequently, and a list referenced constantly- like an alphabet- would logically be easier to use and teach if that list was given a standardized order. Many letters of our alphabet have been in the same order for thousands of years- like abcde which has been pretty much untouched. For the most part “newer” letters added later just go on the end (that makes logical sense-) so letters like XYZ were added last, most believe from Ancient Greek.
guest_
· 5 years ago
Theories exist as to WHY the alphabet originally took the order it did. Our alphabet can be traced back thousands of years through Rome, Greece, through Latin and Germanic languages, really most likely getting its most direct “roots” in hieroglyphics. It’s possible the order of letters was just that- in order of the hieroglyphs or symbols that became it. Other theories believe it was mnemonic device lost to the ages, or may follow the rhythmic or notational conventions of a long dead language of early speakers.
guest_
· 5 years ago
We don’t really know why the order it is in occurred- but we do know that through it’s traceable history that this order has largely been just copied by the next civilization to adopt and evolve what is the modern English alphabet from the previous civilization and form, and that each subsequent civilization changed it very little and generally slowly over time. It’s also entirely possible that the primary ordering of letters simply is that- the order in which a society considered that letter to have evolved chronologically, with unknowns arranged as they felt they best fit.
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guest_
· 5 years ago
Of course there ARE reasons that the alphabet be kept in established order many societies in history have based various mathematical operations on letter order or through numeric value associated with a letters placement. Substitution cyphers and the like often rely on numbers corresponding to letter position and modern computer science sometimes does too. “Grading systems” and other organizational systems are based off of letter order as well. Does it HAVE to be “abc order?” Well... likely not. But given that order is well established and in use- it would cause quite a bit of financial and social headache not to mention other unforeseen and potentially disastrous consequences- to just switch all of a sudden.
guest_
· 5 years ago
And to what benefit? What would we gain from any other order, let alone one worth not only the trouble it would cause but the fact that there is a historical line to our alphabet which aids in the understanding of historical documents and concepts based on the alphabet and it’s order. So it is also very likely the “reason” it is in order is because like us- previous generations largely said “this order is as good as any other, and a list needs some kind of order, so let’s use this since people already know it.” So yeah, QCZHNAOYPDL....” still works fine, but we have an order already.
guest_
· 5 years ago
Your house came with wiring. If that wiring does everything you want and is good- why would you rewrite the entire house? I mean, using the same exact wires and staying in code without moving any lights or sockets: there are plenty of ways to route the wires in a home. But if they all do the same job and work just as well- why re do it? And you certainly could see why standardization of wiring would be good right? Sure you could let people wire however they like within a broad scope- but then the next guy has no idea what you did, and learning becomes much harder. So it’s just a standard. Why does a Millimeter have to be what it is? Why isn’t it, and the meter etc. based on some other distance? It could be. But people chose a thing and stuck to it because standards make things easier.
charliejoachi
· 5 years ago
pfffffffffffffffffft. so? it's even more than one.
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xboxgorgo18
· 5 years ago
Language isn't real, it's just a bunch of gibberish that all of us mutually decided to understand
