We will begin by examining the development of writing through an evolutionary process. Let us begin with a few words of a hypothetical ancient language.

As the culture develops a writing system is formed where one picture represents each word. Below are the pictograms assigned for each of the above words.

Pictograph Word Meaning Bal Fire Dak Man Kad Wood Lak Cut

With these symbols we have a form of writing and can, in a very primitive, way communicate. The following is an example of a written sentence using the pictographs above.

Man Cut Wood Fire

Over time the culture develops, the language becomes more complex and a need for a more specific form of writing is required. An alphabet is formed by taking one pictograph and assigning it to one phonetic sound. The four words above will be used as a portion of this hypothetical alphabet and each will be assigned a phonetic value based on the first letter of the word. The original word becomes the name of the letter.

Pictograph Sound Name Meaning B Bal Fire D Dak Man K Kad Wood L Lak Cut

At this point the above sentence can now be written phonetically rather than pictographically.

DaK LaK KaD BaL Man Cut Wood Fire

We can now write many other hypothetical words using the new alphabet as demonstrated below.

LaB Father BaK Son LaL Walk DaB Fish

Through this evolutionary process of both language and alphabet we can see that the pictographs no longer have a relationship to the original pictograph. Instead the pictograms used for the words are simply related to the phonetic sounds rather than the meaning of the word.

The Semitic (including Hebrew) alphabet consists of twenty-two letters which were originally written with pictographs. Below are a couple of these pictographic letters as well as what they represent.

Letter Sound Name Meaning A Aleph Ox (representing strength) B Beyt House (the picture is a floorplan of a nomads tent) G Gimel Foot D Dalet Door (the picture is a the curtain used on the nomads tent that is moved back and forth to open and close.) K Kaph Palm L Lamed Shepherd Staff (represents the authority of the shepherd) N Nun Seed (the seed continues the line to the next generation)

When we look at several Hebrew words we find that the pictograms used to write the word are related, not only phonetically but, in meaning as well. Below are a few examples.

Word Sounds Meaning AB strength of the house (father - who provides strength to the family) BeN house continues (son - who continues the family line) LaK staff in the palm (walk - a traveler carries a staff for protection and balance) DaG wags foot/tail (fish)

Using the above words we can write a sentence phonetically.

AB BeN LaK DaG strength of the house House continues staff in the palm wags foot/tail Father and Son Walk to Fish

While we supplied the words "and" and "to" in the above sentence each of these words can be represented by pictographs relevant to their meaning but, are omitted here for simplicity.

If each letter of the word provides meaning relevant to the word itself, there is no possible way that these words and the writing system used to write them evolved. In this scenario, the language and pictographic alphabet were formed simultaneously indicating an original design of language and alphabet.

In the evolutionary scenario of alphabet formation it is impossible for a word's pictographs to have any relationship to the meaning of the word used to write it but, instead represent a phonetic value only.