LANGUAGE – THE ORIGIN OF WRITTEN LANGUAGE

Written language came about because of the need to communicate something without using the
voice, or to let someone know why someone was away from home.
The first written message was found near the Great Lakes in the U.S.

 Show C charts of messages & symbols

 After showing the charts of messages & symbols to C ask C if they think it’ s easier to
use the drawings or the symbols we have in the alphabet box.
 How many signs & symbols do you think it would take to write a message?
 With just these few symbols we can write any word we would like to write. Look at all
the books in this classroom & imagine all the words.
When you know these symbols & learn how to put them together you can write too, & even
write books if you want to.

We should be grateful to the men who labored to give us these symbols. Who were these
people? They were the Phoenicians. They lived along the Mediterranean coast near Italy. They
were merchants who didn’ t have a specific country, instead they established beautiful cities
along the coast. They exchanged their products with other people & were great merchants. They
needed to communicate quickly & didn’ t have time to write pictures.
Show the moveable alphabet box. What are these called? The alphabet. What does it mean?
Let’ s see. In the days of the Phoenicians they used this symbol to represent an ox and ox in
their language was called “ Aleph”

A = aleph = ox = A

This symbol represented the head of an ox. When they killed an ox they would hang it upside
down & bind the horns with a cord.

This became the 1st letter of the alphabet.

= Beta = house = B

It changed a bit and became B.

We call all the symbols by the first two letters of the Phoenicians Alphabet.

500 years later the Greeks used these letters.

Another 500 years later the Romans started to use them and continued to use the same alphabet.

Today most men have forgotten the origin of the alphabet & the ox and the house, and the great
gift that was given.

It created such a great miracle – man from then on began to write everywhere.

So don’ t think of the hard work you do but be grateful to the men who worked hard to give you
the alphabet to make things easier for you.

AIM: To give the history of written language and the C an appreciation of the gift of written
language.

AGE: 6