BEGIN:VCALENDAR
VERSION:2.0
PRODID:-//Spurlock Museum//Spurlock Museum Events//EN
X-WR-CALNAME:Spurlock Museum Events
CALSCALE:GREGORIAN  
METHOD:PUBLISH
BEGIN:VTIMEZONE
TZID:America/Chicago
X-LIC-LOCATION:America/Chicago
BEGIN:DAYLIGHT
TZOFFSETFROM:-0600
TZOFFSETTO:-0500
TZNAME:CDT
DTSTART:19700308T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=3;BYDAY=2SU
END:DAYLIGHT
BEGIN:STANDARD
TZOFFSETFROM:-0500
TZOFFSETTO:-0600
TZNAME:CST
DTSTART:19701101T020000
RRULE:FREQ=YEARLY;BYMONTH=11;BYDAY=1SU
END:STANDARD
END:VTIMEZONE
BEGIN:VEVENT
CLASS:PUBLIC
UID:spurlock-event-2687
SUMMARY;LANGUAGE=en-us:"Talk: The Origins of the Alphabet and How It Spread Across the World with Wayne T. Pitard"
DESCRIPTION:"\rEssentially all of the alphabetic scripts in the world descend from a single script invented probably during the 20th century BCE by a Canaanite in the southern Levant. \r\rThis lecture will provide a tour of the extraordinary development of the alphabet from its beginnings to its eventual spread across the Mediterranean and the world. We will examine the script's origin and how the signs were conceptualized by their creator(s). We will look at the alphabet's extension, first across the eastern Mediterranean where it developed into the distinctive Ugaritic, Phoenician, Hebrew, and Aramaic scripts, and then moved southward into the Arabian Peninsula, where it evolved into the Arabic system. Then we will examine how the early alphabet, which only expressed consonants, was revolutionized by the Greeks, who began using some of the letters as vowels. \r\rWe will follow the development of the Greek alphabet into both the Latin and the Cyrillic alphabets that exist throughout Europe and much of northern Asia. Finally, we will touch upon the spread of the Arabic alphabet across northern Africa and eastward into India, and the Latin alphabet's movement to the Americas and parts of southern Africa during the European colonial period of the 15th–20th centuries. All of this has made the alphabetic writing system the most widespread method of writing in the world.\r\rSponsored by: AIA-Central Illinois (Urbana) Society, Archaeological Institute of America\r"
DTSTAMP:20260511T055303
DTSTART;TZID=America/Chicago:20260222T140000
DTEND;TZID=America/Chicago:20260222T153000
LOCATION:"Spurlock Museum\, 600 S. Gregory St.\, Urbana\, IL"
URL:https://www.spurlock.illinois.edu/events/event.php?ID=2687
END:VEVENT

END:VCALENDAR