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added note on elementa
This property lends itself to the transmission of oral abecedary verses to memorize the order of letters.
This property lends itself to the transmission of oral abecedary verses to memorize the order of letters.
=== ʾaleph-beth-gimel and halaḥam ===
The earliest evidence for abecedaries dates to the mid- or late-15th century BC, on languages that persisted into the Greco-Roman period -- for a duration of 1500 years -- although it is not clear to me whether specific alphabet songs persisted across this entire time.
The earliest evidence for abecedaries dates to the mid- or late-15th century BC, on languages that persisted into the Greco-Roman period -- for a duration of 1500 years -- although it is not clear to me whether specific alphabet songs persisted across this entire time.
The TT99 Ostracon would thus constitute the oldest attestation of the ʾAbgad se- quence, probably in its shorter variant of 22 letters. is attestation predates the ostracon of ʿIzbet Ṣarṭah, so far our oldest witness by three centuries (Sanders 2009: 90–91; Lehmann 2011: 19) and the longer version of the standard Ugaritic alphabet (ʾAbgḫd) by two centuries. The ostracon from TT99 would then be a double abecedary of both ancient alphabet sequences: After writing down the first seven (or more) letters of the Halaḥam sequence on the obverse, the scribe flipped the ostracon over to continue with the initial part of the (short) ʾAbgad sequence.
The TT99 Ostracon would thus constitute the oldest attestation of the ʾAbgad se- quence, probably in its shorter variant of 22 letters. is attestation predates the ostracon of ʿIzbet Ṣarṭah, so far our oldest witness by three centuries (Sanders 2009: 90–91; Lehmann 2011: 19) and the longer version of the standard Ugaritic alphabet (ʾAbgḫd) by two centuries. The ostracon from TT99 would then be a double abecedary of both ancient alphabet sequences: After writing down the first seven (or more) letters of the Halaḥam sequence on the obverse, the scribe flipped the ostracon over to continue with the initial part of the (short) ʾAbgad sequence.
=== Elementa ===
Late/medieval Latin called the alphabet the ''abecedarium'', but in classical Latin the alphabet is sometimes called the ''elementa''. It has been [https://www.jstor.org/stable/1356335 suggested by Coogan] (1974) that the word ''element'' is derived from the names of the first 3 letters that begin the second half of the classical alphabet: L, M and N.
=== Athbash ===
An interesting but unrelated alphabet learning method in Ancient Rome was to write out the letters in "Gaussian pairs" of first/last letter, etc ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abecedarium wikipedia article on abecedarium]).
An interesting but unrelated alphabet learning method in Ancient Rome was to write out the letters in "Gaussian pairs" of first/last letter, etc ( [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abecedarium wikipedia article on abecedarium]).