Andrew Shirota

“vowel” coming via medieval French from the Latin adjective vocalis, “using the voice.”
― David Sacks, Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet From A to Z

“The Gezer Calendar is a limestone inscription from the mid- or late 900s B.C., thought to be the earliest survival of written Hebrew. Discovered in A.D. 1908 at the site of the ancient city of Gezer in what is now southern Israel, the “calendar” briefly lists the months of the year by farming duties.”
― David Sacks, Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet From A to Z

“Less rigorous was the second Egyptian writing system, hieratic. (The name, which is misleading, means “priestly,” but other social classes used it.) Hieratic was a simplified hieroglyphic script, designed for ink and brush on papyrus or textile: Pictures were converted to stylized outlines or strokes, with a far reduced vocabulary. Hieratic writing in its most basic form was accessible to most of the Egyptian upper and middle classes: landowners, certain merchants, and military officers.”
― David Sacks, Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet From A to Z

“Modern experts now believe the alphabet was invented sometime around 2000 B.C. by Semites who dwelled as foreigners in pharaoh’s Egypt;”
― David Sacks, Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet From A to Z