The letter is one of the primary and most basic elements that written communication has. According to the officially accepted definition, we can say that a letter is a symbol that has been designed to allow the transcription of a sound. The set of letters of a language type forms what is called the alphabet. A letter is nothing more than a graphic representation of such a sound and therefore only acquires the condition of an abstract entity. Although they are represented in writing, the letters do not exist in reality and are only a creation of the human being for the best written understanding.
As we have just seen, the existence and development of the different types of alphabets has always had to do with phonetics and with the possibility of man to evolve towards more developed forms of communication such as writing. In order to carry out this type of communication, the human being had to have symbols that represented the different sounds and that, placed in specially thought groups, would in turn mean words or concepts.
According to historical records, the Sumerians, around 3000 BC, were the first to create writing systems called cuneiforms. Its name came from the fact that each symbol was a different combination of wedges that sought to represent an idea or concept. The letters, as we know and use them today, are a creation of the ancient Greeks since from that moment on each symbol of the alphabet began to represent a sound rather than a concept. This allowed writing to be much easier as symbols had to be interleaved and words formed with them. Over time, each type of alphabet developed its own shapes and that is why today there are several types of letters, although most of the planet uses the same ones.
