Pretty much. English borrowed it from Latin because it’s posh. And Latin borrowed it from Greek because it’s posh. But at the end of the day it’s in the same spirit as “the ABC”, or Latin “abecedarius”.
It’s also “ABC” (“ábécé”) in Hungarian. (And I bet in a lot of other languages too.)
Then why do Abacuses help us count instead of spell? 🤔
- Abaci
Not in greek, it’s abacodes of something but, like octopus, it’s usually just ‘es’ on the end in english.
Coincidence. The word backtracks to Greek ᾰ̓́βᾰξ / ábax “board, slab”, it doesn’t have to do with ABC.
And the Greeks took it from the Phoenicians where it was Alep Bet (almost identical to the Hebrew Aleph Beth).
And these are words that start with the sound of the letter. Aleph means Ox and Beth is house.
