FOR THE LITTLE ONES

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 117, 20 May 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

FOR THE LITTLE ONES

ABC'S OF OTHER LANDS. A TALK ABOUT THE ALPHABET. My Dear Little Friends, — Of course all my little readers can say their ABC, and I do not doubt that most of them can read very well, too. A minute's thought about the alphabet will make you realise what a wonderful and useful thing it is. Without it you could not read this letter,. nor could you leave a note for Santa Claus at Christmas time, telling him what you' would like left in your stocking. In very ancient times people found it far more difficult to write than ♦hey do now. Instead of writing "Man" the early Egyptians would have had to go to a tremendous amount of trouble to draw the figure of a man. This picture writing may have been very pretty to look at, but it would take a very long time to write one's thoughts on paper. The Red Indians of Ameiica also used a form of sign language, with which they would write messages in beadu on deer skin. The alphabet, it is very interesting to know, «onsists of two parts—"alpha'' and "beta" which were the first two letters in the alphabet used by fhe Greeks. So when you say "alphabet" you are almost jHiying "A B" in a foreign language. British boys and girls are lucky in having only twenty-six letters to learn, for the little Indion children must master forty-seven letters before being able to boast that they know their alphabet. Worse off still is the Chinese scholar, who has hundreds of strange signs to learn before he can read and write. Considering the size of the other alphabets, we anay think that the English letters do not supply all our needs; but •really our alphabet is very good and gives all the signs we require. As ® matter of fact the alphabet, as we know it, has been in use without alteration for more than three thou- „ sand years. _ — 3 After reading this letter my little f IJ Till \r yi friends will agree that the alphabet is C *~Tf n Ad-^ a most interesting thing and something which we could not do without.