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Alphabets

© Regenia G. Butcher

If there was something you wanted to say, how would you be able to say it to someone? Well, there are three ways:

1. Speak it out loud.
2. Use hand gestures or other signals.
3. Write it.

We communicate by using sentences and phrases which are made up of words. Words are a collection of letters and a collection of the sounds that those letters make. Whenever you hear someone speak, it is verbal or oral communication. Whenever you read what someone has said, it is written communication. Written words need letters or symbols. Written words need an alphabet.

There are twenty-six letters in the English-language alphabet. Twenty of them are consonants. The consonants "c" and "g" can have either a soft sound or a hard sound. Six of the letters are called upon to do a very special task. They are the vowels: a - e - i - o - u and sometimes y. Vowels can have a long sound or a short sound. Every word in the English language needs at least one vowel.

Letters can be used as abbreviations. Instead of writing a complete word, sometimes we can shorten it by leaving a few letters out or using other ones that have become understood to mean those words. Some abbreviations are:

• St. instead of street
• Dr. instead of doctor
• bro. instead of brother
• Jr. instead of Junior
• doz. instead of dozen
• S.O.S. instead of help

RAISED DOTS
But, what if someone can't see? How can they read what someone else has written?
Charles Barbier de la Serre, who had been in Napoleon's army, wanted to find a special way of reading messages in the dark. In 1824, Louis Braille worked on that "code" of writing to improve it. He showed his code of raised dots to the director of the school where he was going and soon, others who were blind, began using it. Louis was blind and only 15 at the time. The Braille alphabet is still used today nearly everywhere in the world.
Braille alphabet and numbers.
Brief history of Braille.

SPECIAL HAND GESTURES
But, what if someone can't hear? How can they communicate their thoughts to others?
A silent way of talking or "finger spelling" was probably used by Monks as far back as the 10th century. The first US school for the deaf was established by Thomas Hopkins Gallaudet in Hartford, Connecticut in 1817 after he visited England and France to learn more about it in order to help a friend's daughter who was deaf.

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