The Old English Alphabet Used To Have More Than 26 Letters

www.iflscience.com ^ | 14 Sept 2020 | Tom Hale

[Jonty30]

Anybody who is named, œ, here?

[ClearCase_guy]

Ampersand (&) is still considered to be the 27th letter of the alphabet by some.

[Red Badger]

I don’t know. How do you spell it?.....................

[null and void]

No ə?

[BuffaloJack]

The cursive form of thorn (Þ, þ) looks similar to a Y, y, which is why it was picked up and used to replace thorn in printed works.

[SkyDancer]

There is no rule as to how the alphabet is arranged.

[Gay State Conservative]

later

[dfwgator]

[Joe 6-pack]

"There is no rule as to how the alphabet is arranged."

It all makes sense once you realize that written alphabets were invented by people who couldn't read :-)

[SkyDancer]

Think it went back to Hebrews counting sheep.

[redfreedom]

“As any grade-schooler can tell you, the alphabet we’re using right now is made up of 26 letters.”

That was a true statement 30 or so years ago. Today it’s debatable for that statement to be made of an HS grad. Couple years ago a university professor told me some of her students could not write a complete sentence.

[Red Badger]

Benjamin Franklin wanted the reduce the number of letters to about 16, IIRC.

Getting rid of some and combining others...............

[texanyankee]

I agree. The first sentence in that article is likely not factual in these days.

[Red Badger]

Well, it’s in alphabetical order................

[texas booster]

Ah, yes, the continued evolution of our language into the metric system.

https://snltranscripts.jt.org/75/75rdecabet.phtml

[Verginius Rufus]

Finally I found out what Ray Stevens was talking about in “The Streak” when he said “Don’t look, Ethel!” He was warning about that letter.

[SkyDancer]

Kinda. What would it look like randomized? Who said “B” has to follow “A” - what about: AVZLKMPTBOUST etc? But I guess you can’t make a song about that.

[Oshkalaboomboom]

Right now on British television there is a three-part documentary called The Secret History of Writing, a series examining how the invention of writing gave humanity a history. From hieroglyphs to emojis, an exploration of the way in which the technology of writing has shaped the world in which we live. All three parts haven't aired yet but it looks like part 1 is already on Youtube. Here is part 1 if you're interested you can take a look.

[Red Badger]

Why do we have to ‘Buy a Vowel’, but Consonants are free?...................