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The earliest known writing systems emerge, such as cuneiform in Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) and hieroglyphs in Egypt. These were not alphabets, as each symbol represented a word, an idea, or a syllable, not an individual sound. This made writing complex and only accessible to a small elite of scribes.

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It is believed that the Semitic peoples, who lived near the border of Egypt and the Levant (modern-day Syria and Lebanon), created the first alphabet. Inspired by Egyptian hieroglyphs, they simplified the symbols to represent only consonants, leaving out vowels. This proto-alphabetic system, known as an abjad, was a revolutionary leap because a small number of symbols could be used to write any word.

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The Phoenicians, a trading people from Lebanon, adopted and improved the Semitic alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet had 22 consonants and became the most influential writing system of antiquity, spreading throughout the Mediterranean through trade.

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The Greeks adopted the Phoenician alphabet. They made a crucial and innovative change: they added symbols to represent vowels. By doing so, they created the first true alphabet, where every sound (both consonant and vowel) had its own symbol. The Greek alphabet is the basis for all Western alphabets.

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The Etruscans, who lived in Italy, adopted a version of the Greek alphabet.

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The Romans adapted the Etruscan alphabet and modified it to create the Latin alphabet, which became the writing system of the Roman Empire. They used 23 of the 26 letters we use today (the letters J, U, and W would be added later).

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The letter J is formally differentiated from the letter I, and the letter U from the letter V.

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The letter W (double V) is recognized as a separate letter, completing the 26-letter alphabet used today in English and many other Western languages.