How the Alphabet Was Made

Some weeks after Taffy had drawn her very first picture-letter (and caused a great deal of fuss), she went fishing with her Daddy again.

'Daddy,' said Taffy, 'you know how my picture-letter went wrong last week? Because it was hard to guess what I meant?'

'I do,' said Daddy.

'Well,' said Taffy. 'What if we invented pictures for SOUNDS, instead of pictures for things? Then anyone would know exactly what we meant.'

'Show me,' said Daddy.

'Open your mouth,' said Taffy.

'Aaaah,' said Daddy.

'That,' said Taffy, drawing quickly on birch-bark, 'is a carp fish's open mouth. And a carp fish opens its mouth to say aaaah. So this little open-mouth picture', she showed him, 'shall mean the sound aah.'

'That is very clever,' said Daddy. 'Do another.'

'Say sssss like a snake.'

'Ssssss,' said Daddy.

Taffy drew a wiggly line. 'That is a snake curling. It means the sound sss.'

They worked all day. They made a picture for O (a round eye). They made a picture for Y (a fish tail, which is forked like Y). They made a picture for W (little waves, like river-water). They made pictures for every sound they could think of.

By the evening, they had a whole set of sound-pictures.

'Daddy,' said Taffy, 'these could be very useful. If we drew a snake and a carp-mouth together, sss-aaah, that would spell my name!'

'It would!' said Daddy. 'Taffy, my dear, we have just invented WRITING.'

They went home to show Mummy. Mummy was very impressed. So was the Head Chief. So was the whole tribe.

And that is how the alphabet was born, piece by piece, long ago by a river, by a little girl called Taffy and her Daddy.