Alphabet
.This is the only word compounded of letters only. The Greek alpha (a) beta (b); our A B C (book), etc.
⁂ The number of letters in an alphabet varies in different languages. Thus there are
21
letters in the Italian alphabet.
22
”
Hebrew & Syriac
alphabet
23
”
”
24
”
”
25
”
French
”
26
”
”
27
”
Spanish
”
28
”
Arabic
”
32
”
Coptic
”
33
”
Russian
”
38
”
Armenian
”
39
”
Georgian
”
40
”
Slavonic
”
45
”
Persian (Zend)
”
49
”
Sanskrit
”
⁂ The Chinese have no alphabet, but about 20,000 syllabic characters.
Ezra vii. 21 contains all the letters of the English language, presuming I and J to be identical.
Even the Italian alphabet is capable of more than seventeen trillion combinations; that is, 17 followed by eighteen other figures, as—
17,000,000,000,000,000,000;
while the English alphabet will combine into more than twenty-nine thousand quatrillion combinations; that is, 29 followed by twenty-seven other figures, as—
29,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.
Yet we have no means of marking the several sounds of our different vowels; nor can we show how to pronounce such simple words as foot, (pull and dull), sugar (father and rather), (gin and be-gin), calm, Bourges, Bœuf in “Bœuf-gras,” œufs, and thousands of other words.
