Evolution of the Alphabet via https://usefulcharts.com/

@infobeautiful Interesting, the Proto-Sinatic and Phonecian alphabets had no need for the current 25th letter. Telling.

@infobeautiful It's amazing to me how many of our letters used to be backwards...

@macronencer @infobeautiful https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boustrophedon

@infobeautiful *Roman alphabet
Other alphabets are available

@cogdog @infobeautiful They completely lack vowels. Latin differs from modern alphabets in so far that there were dual-use vowels/consonants, which now are different letters, like I/J and U/V/W.

@macronencer @infobeautiful
Prior to Greeks writing was right to left, like Hebrew /Aramaic (close to Phoenician) and Arabic. Greek was RtoL till about 750 BC.
I don't know if that accounts for reversal.
Etruscan is between Greek & Roman. Swiss Celtic (500 BC Helvetii) is Etruscan & Greek letters.
Only one Cuneiform was alphabets (Aramaic Lebanon / Syria area).
Lower case is developed from script used by Irish Monks via France. Old Irish had no JKQVWXYZ.
Greek H -> E sound and H replaced by '.

@gugurumbe @infobeautiful
Greek developed multiple form inc Capitals & lower case. Modern Green alphabet differs from ancient
Ω ω
Σ σ
Α α
Δ δ
Η η
etc.
It's not entirely true that the oldest alphabets had no vowels, but most were not written, bcs thy r nt lwys ndd,

@infobeautiful Good Nova episode about this https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/video/a-to-z-the-first-alphabet/

@infobeautiful Where will it develop from here?

@infobeautiful I've seen this picture a thousand times

it still surprises me, its so "wooow"

@noodlemaz @infobeautiful

i think they asume it is the English alphabet*, cause there are no ç nor ñ's

@forthy42 @cogdog @infobeautiful I think U is still a dual-use vowel/consonant, at least in English:

A Uniform.
An Umbrella.

@Simx72 @infobeautiful yes, English uses the Latin alphabet.
There are lots of letters/diacritics that modify it (besides the ones you note, things like ø, ó, ö, ß, ê, ł etc.), and my point is other alphabets exist - Cyrillic, Greek, so many more.
So it's not The Alphabet, was my point!