A really long time ago, in ancient Egypt, they used a special kind of alphabet called hieroglyphs. Its letters didn't look like the ones you know – they were more like emojis. Each sign had one meaning. A house, for instance, meant somebody's house. This alphabet was very hard to learn – even a simple letter required knowing THOUSANDS of letters! That's why only the old, wise men in Egypt could read and write. Then, a wise man called Noam, a cave digger, appeared. The Egyptians' strange alphabet gave him a brilliant idea: instead of having only one meaning for each letter, why not just use the sound of that letter? The letter B, for example, wouldn't just mean Book, but the general sound of B. The rest is history…