The Order of Our ABCs
Alpha Omega Mnemonics



We present here the rather novel and speculative idea that the modern "order" of the alphabet perhaps originated in a mnemonic funeral prayer based on the concept of Alpha to Omega, beginning tand end. This mnemonic prayer may have been Indo-European and related to Hebrew words for numbers.

The Alphabet Prayer - Alpha to Omega speculatively reads in translation:

The breath of life was given at birth. Absolution.
The destiny of the grave covers my sins. Absolution.
In the end, all of us sleep eternally (are with God).



Alpha Omega / Birth and Death

Latvian ELPA or ALPA = ALPHA means "breath (of life)"
Latvian IEMIEGA = OMEGA means "sleep (eternal)".

The ancient ALEPH symbol, was represented by a "bull" and LOP- "beast (of burden), cattle" in Latvian was the closest "homophonic" (similarly sounding) concrete (as opposed to abstract) symbol to Latvian ELPA / ALPA "breath". Scholars have erred in thinking a steer or bull was itself intended originally. The bull stood for "breath, life".

OMEGA is the symbol for bread or "MAIZE" in Latvian. It was the closest concrete homophonic symbol for Latvian IEMIDZA or IEMIGA = "asleep" in Latvian, i.e. "eternal sleep". The Omega form was originally a bread form and stood for "eternal sleep".

The above analysis is supported by a highly unusual - if unconfirmed - source. The book Die Chronik von Akakor (The Chronicle of Akakor) by Karl Brugger (Econ Publishers: Düsseldorf, Vienna, 1976), which relates a tale told by Tatunca Nara, a white-skinned Brazilian Indian chief of the Amazon Ugha Mongulala [Quechua] tribe, who traced the history of his tribe back to 13000 BC and who told that a group of white-skinned "gods" (i.e. foreign peoples) having six fingers and toes (i.e. counting by the sexagesimal or dozen system) arrived in South America with a written script of symbols, which always began with a symbol for "bread" or "life" and which always ended with a symbol for "death" or "water".