Examples of letters from ancient scripts. The alphabet originated in Ancient Egypt with hieroglyphs representing syllables. These evolved into the Phoenician alphabet. Phoenician script spread to Greece where it was further modified and vowels were added. Etruscan civilisation took the Greek alphabet to the Italian peninsula where it gave rise to Latin, which spread with the Roman Empire. Latin script was used to write the descendant languages of Latin (the Romance Languages), and then other European languages such as English.