The word 'alphabet' comes from just the first two letters of the Greek alphabet: alpha and beta.

The word alphabet traveled a long way to get to us. It started with the Greek word 'alphabetos,' then moved into the Latin word 'alphabetum' around the year 200. Early Christian writers like Tertullian were some of the first to use it in books. The Greek system was special because it was the first to have separate letters for both consonants and vowels.Before the Greeks, the Phoenicians had a similar system around 1050 BCE. In their language, the first letter 'aleph' actually meant 'ox' and the second letter 'beth' meant 'house.' When the Greeks borrowed these letters around 800 BCE, they changed the names to alpha and beta. Even though those words didn't mean ox or house in Greek, they kept the names to identify the letters.Our English alphabet today has 26 letters and is based on the Latin script. It has changed a lot over time. For example, Old English used to have extra letters like 'thorn' (þ), which made a 'th' sound. Eventually, those letters were dropped to create the version we use in school today. Naming a list after its first few parts is a tradition that has lasted for thousands of years.