Each of the letters and symbols below is shown side by side next to the original meaning of the pictogram from which we derive our modern letter. For example, the symbol for "A" originally came from a drawing of an ox and signified "ox."
| A | ox |
| B | house |
| C, G | camel |
| D | door |
| E, F? | window |
| F?, U, Y, V, W | nail |
| H | fence |
| I, J | hand |
| K | palm or bent hand |
| L | whip |
| M | water |
| N | fish |
| O | eye |
| P | mouth |
| Q | monkey or fish hook |
| R | head |
| S | tooth |
| T | mark |
| X | post |
| Z | dagger |
The sounds associated with each symbol changed as time passed. For example, the Greek letter digamma which gave us the symbol "F" originally sounded like a "W". The letter stopped being used in Greek and eventually was assimilated into the Roman (Latin) alphabet for the F sound. There were several letters in the Greek alphabet which were not used by the Romans, and therefore we do not have them in English today (i.e., since we use the Roman alphabet). These are:
| Letter | |
| Q | no similar sound in Latin (used as 100 for a while) |
| X | replaced by X, which in Greek had the KH sound |
| F | no similar sound in Latin (used as 1000 for a while) |
| W | not distinguished from O in Latin |
Even in English, the letters used for the various sounds continue to develop. "U" developed from the letter that the Greeks wrote like "Y", which is why "Y" is often used as a vowel. Later, the Roman U (which looked like "V") was used to represent a consonant, while the round U stood for a vowel. Finally, the W sound was connected with the symbol UU or VV, which became our "double-U": "W".
The process from which we derive our alphabet is a canon process. At one time, the symbols and order changed, but as time passed both symbols and order settled down. Today, we have a standard American order of the letters and a standard alphabet, even though there are sounds now that we cannot make with the letters we have. (For example, the "ch" sound is NOT just a C and an H. The Spanish are right to treat it as a separate letter.) We will see also that the order of books in the Jewish and Christian Bibles came about by a similar (chance) process, that which books became part of the official list was not a deliberate process until late, and that the canon process became progressively more rigid as time passed, until finally -- like with the alphabet -- the canon closed.