Long ago, writing was hard. Hieroglyphs had hundreds of signs. People spent years learning them.

An alphabet is a short list. Each letter is a sound. About two dozen letters are enough.

Ugarit was a port by the sea. It once had its own set of letters. It had 30.

The Phoenicians sailed the sea to trade. Their set had 22 letters. Traders could learn it.

They spread it around the sea. They taught it to the Greeks. The Greeks added letters for vowels.

Some people spell words with their hands. They sign one letter at a time. We call it fingerspelling.

The alphabet song has the same tune as a nursery rhyme.

The Hawaiian alphabet has 13 letters. That is a short one. As of November 2026, Khmer is the longest alphabet in use. It is the writing of Cambodia.

The Roman set had 23 letters. It had no J and no W. Those came much later.

Words to know

• hieroglyphs: picture writing
• alphabet: set of letters
• Phoenicians: sea traders
• vowels: five letters