Roman+Alphabet

 The Roman Alphabet And Roman Numerals  By Trevor R.

In the early part of the world people could not read or write but they had to use some type of writing to communicate or count and keep track of time and events. So in the early days of the world, people began to make line markings carved into stone to keep track of certain events and to record information items and changes over time.

When the Romans began writing, they needed something sharp to write with. They developed a tool called the stylus to write with. They needed to find something to write on that would be thick enough so that the stylus could write on it without making a hole in it. So they often wrote on clay tablets, wax, and wood or broken pottery. To erase on a wax tablet, writers smoothed out the surface with the other end of the stylus, which was broad and flat. The stylus became difficult to use and carry around and so they looked for something better to write on. The Egyptians had a plant called papyrus that grew a lot. This became the world’s first light writing material. When pressed into thin flat sheets papyrus could be used to write on as a light material they were looking for. This had to do with the Romans because that they used all of this. This is where we get the word paper from. The ancient peoples wrote with a reed brush that was dipped into ink to make the writing. When the papyrus became scarce from using it so much they found parchment which was made from animal skin to write on.

Early civilizations used picture symbols called pictographs to write and record information about specific things that happened. This was the earliest form of writing and communicating. The pictures became symbols that stood for objects. Then they began to stand for ideas that became messages. These images were called ideograms. Two or more objects together became an idea. Then people started using a syllabic system in which the sign for a word could be used for that word or part of another word or syllables for words based on the sounds of the beginnings of words. This was called rebus writing. And people began to use simple symbols to stand for sounds in their own language. People agreed on the sounds and the symbols became their alphabet. The alphabet Romans used was created in the 8th century in Greece by the Phoenicians. The Etruscans moved into central Italy sometime around 1000 B.C. from the eastern Mediterranean region of Europe. They brought the Greek alphabet with them. The early Roman alphabet only had twenty letters to begin with and over time it gradually gained three more letters. We still use the Greek alphabet today. But the Roman stonecutters added the detail to it we use today. They also added serifs to the capital block style letters that were first used. These serifs were little finishing strokes at the tops and bottoms of many letters. The stone cutters added these by mistake because it was difficult ending the letters and sometimes the stylus would slip and they couldn’t easily erase them. But the serifs ended up adding a touch of strength and grace to the roman lettering and it is still used today. Scribes who spent much time copying books of records used uncials which are rounded letters that were easy to form. This form of writing was developed by the Romans. The true lower case letters were not developed until much later in time.

When they formed the alphabet, they started with all capital letters. They used capital letters for hundreds of years. But later they used what they called ordinary writing called business hand which was like cursive so that they could cut down on time and they thought it was easier because they used less strokes to make the words. Then they began mixing the two types of letters which is how come we use capital letters at the beginning of sentences and for names. In the original alphabet, the letter I was used for both J and I and the letter V was used for both V and U before the Romans added j, u, w, y and z it became the alphabet we use today. Romans did not use a lot of punctuation which made writing confusing. They ran their words together and separated their sentences by spaces. They adopted the question mark as a first sign of punctuation.

Roman numerals were created to establish a system of counting. Ancient people needed to make records for trade and the use of counting and exchanging money. They started off using their fingers and that is how it is believed that they began using tally marks. The marks looked like their fingers. The V was used because it looked like the whole hand and then the X was used because it represented two hands and the total number of fingers on the hand. They began using marks like the number 1 to indicate the number 1. Then they added more marks to show higher numbers. As the numbers got larger, they used alphabet symbols to stand for numbers so they could have less writing strokes to do. So they used a V for 5 as an example. Then they used subtraction to make the numbers smaller so IV was equal to 4. They used addition to make them larger VI was used to make the number 6. They developed a complete set of symbols that stood for all numbers and included higher numbers like 50, 100, and 1000 to make the highest numbers.

In ancient times certain numbers were considered holy numbers. The number 1,600 was sacred because priests counted 1600 stars in the sky. The people of Rome thought 52 was a special number because there was only 52 years in a century at that time. People thought 5 was special because they had 5 fingers on the hand. Number 400 was special because that is how many gods of the night there were. Number 13 was special because they thought the earth and sky was made up of 13 layers. Ancient Rome, China and India and other places sometimes used numbers as good luck charms.

The Roman alphabet and roman numerals were very important to the Romans. That helped us learn what they had to learn, but much easier Setich, Frank http://carlos.emory.edu/ODYSSEY/ROME/writ.html//
 * __WORKS CITED__**

“Latin Language” World Book Student 2008 “The Roman Alphabet” World Book Student 2008

// Prepared by Geography Department, University of Minnesota // Scrawl, Writing in Ancient Times // Minneapolis, Runestone Press, 1994

Woods, Michael and Mary B. Woods // Ancient Computing// Minneapolis, Runestone Press, 2000