Guns, Germs, and Steel (My Notes)

Prologue:

Some civilizations, such as those in Europe and Eastern Asia, have developed great power and wealth and used it to dominate the inhabitants of Australia and the Americas. Why did the Europeans conquer the Native Americans, Diamond asks, and not the other way around? In general, “why did human development proceed at such different rates on different continents?”

Diamond relates a popular explanation for human inequalities across culture: climate stimulates the mind. In cold climates, it’s been argued, humans have to work harder to survive; they have to build more sophisticated houses, plan ahead for the winter, and do other things that make them more industrious. But, Europeans who lived in cold climates received many of their most important ideas and technologies (writing, the wheel, etc.) from Eurasia, where the climate was actually warmer.

Another famous answer: civilizations that arose near rivers become more successful over time. Many of the earliest civilizations did emerge near big rivers (Egypt, Mesopotamia, etc.), and it’s been suggested that the development of irrigation systems led to the development of complex bureaucracies, the basis for government and society. But studies have shown that early civilizations developed irrigation systems after they’d already developed centralized bureaucracies.

Chapter 1:

Africa had a “head start” in producing human beings, since thousands of years ago, there were more Homo erectus and later Homo sapiens in Africa than anywhere else. Effectively, Africa has “5 million more years of proto-human existence than any other continent.”

Chapter 2:

In Polynesia, there are thousands of islands, each with a different climate and elevation. Flora and fauna on these islands are incredibly diverse, reflecting the environment differences between islands. Yet the islands were colonized at approximately the same time by a group of nomadic hunter-gatherers who looked alike and spoke the same language. Therefore, Polynesia is a good “case study” for why environmental factors lead societies to branch off in different directions.

At this point, Diamond deals with correlation, not causation—i.e., he notes that agricultural production and population density seem to have some positive relationship with the establishment of complex social structures, but he doesn’t yet explain what this relationship consists of—or which factor causes which.

Chapter 3:

Europeans’ conquest of the New World arose when Francisco Pizarro, the Spanish explorer, met Atahuallpa, the king of the Incas, who lived in present-day Peru. Pizarro was leading less than 200 soldiers through Peru on an expedition, while Atahuallpa was surrounded by tens of thousands of soldiers and on his “home turf.” And yet Pizarro managed to kidnap Atahuallpa almost immediately and then ransom him for huge sums of gold. How?

Pizarro conquered the Inca Empire because of his superior technology, his horses, Europe’s diseases, and, less overtly, his knowledge of writing. But we still haven’t tackled the more fundamental question of why Europeans had such advantages while the Native Americans did not.

Chapter 4:

Agriculture, one of the most efficient forms of food production, was first discovered about 11,000 years ago, and it’s a prerequisite for the development of guns, germs, and steel

By domesticating animals and keeping them in a small area, humans don’t have to expend energy chasing after their food. And by similarly concentrating the density of plant matter in an enclosed area (i.e., a plot of farmland) humans can grow crops quickly instead of looking for berries and fruits across a wide area.

This leads to social specialization in two main ways. First, a political elite gains control over the food, and has to decide how much food different people get. Second, the increase in leisure time caused by storing food for long periods gives people more time to experiment with resources and develop specializations in jobs other than food production.

In an agricultural society, people pay a tax to the state which can support an army.

Agricultural societies domesticated horses, donkeys, etc.—all animals that allowed humans to travel long distances (and win battles). Also, domesticated animals slowly train humans to survive germ epidemics.

Chapter 5:

Q: Why didn’t humans learn to produce food in areas of the globe that are, in theory, very suitable for food production. Indigenous people in California, Argentina, and Australia never developed agriculture even though the land has been put to good agricultural use later on.

Using carbon dating, archaeologists have identified areas where agriculture and the domestication of animals arose thousands of years ago: Mesopotamia, China, Mesoamerica, the Andes, and the Eastern United States. Of these, Mesopotamia has the earliest records of both agriculture and animal domestication, about 8500 B.C. There are also regions where agriculture arose somewhat later, perhaps between 6000 and 3500 B.C., including the Indus River Valley in present-day Pakistan and India. It is likely that these regions adopted agriculture after a single agricultural product entered the region through trade.

Only a few areas of the world really developed agriculture independently—the other regions adopted it after communicating and trading with neighboring regions. The regions that developed agriculture earliest then had a head start toward guns, germs, and steel.

Chapter 6:

In the last 10,000 years, it’s become increasingly difficult to be a hunter-gatherer, for a number of reasons. Wild foods have become considerably less available in that time, and most of the world’s large mammal species have gone extinct.

Chapter 7:

The agricultural revolution began in the Fertile Crescent of Mesopotamia.

Crops, such as bananas, oranges, and grapes, developed reproductive mutations that allowed them to self-fertilize.

The original domesticated crops were wheat and barley, probably because they were fast-growing, easy to harvest, and self-pollinating. Later, humans learned to domesticate figs and olives—crops that grew more slowly. Then, humans learned to domesticate fruit trees, which can only be domesticated with grafting. In short, humans learned to domesticate different plants at different times: by and large, and across civilizations, humans learned to domesticate fast-growing, easy-to-harvest crops first, and slow-growing crops later on (if at all). By the time of the ancient Romans, most of the world’s leading crops were being cultivated somewhere in the world.

Chapter 8:

While there are millions of plants around the world, a surprisingly small number of them are suitable for domestication: most plants produce no fruit, and their leaves or roots are inedible. In modern times, humans haven’t succeeded in domesticating a single new plant.

Due to the environmental differences on the Earth’s surface, certain regions have lots of available seeds and crops and others don’t. One of Diamond’s central arguments is that the peoples with access to certain seeds and crops have formed societies that have gone on to be more powerful than societies formed by people without such resources.

The area of Mesopotamia (which was less dry and hot thousands of years ago than it is today) had conditions that were highly favorable to the emergence of agriculture: a wide range of nutritious crops that humans could eat, enjoy, and plant easily. These conditions helped to make agriculture the most efficient and widespread form of food production in Mesopotamia, leading (Diamond suggests) to its role as the “birthplace of civilization.” Australia has a similar climate to the Fertile Crescent, but not many seeds; the same is true of Chile, California, and Southern Africa. 

Chapter 9:

Domesticable animals are all alike; every undomesticable animal is undomesticable in its own way.

1) The animal cannot be carnivorous. To raise a carnivorous animal in captivity, you would have to track down smaller animals to feed it, and you’d have to feed those smaller animals, too. It’s more efficient to raise an herbivore or omnivore. 

2) The animal must grow quickly. 

3) The animal must be comfortable breeding in captivity. 

4) The animal must not have a “nasty” disposition (as zebras do). 

5) The animal must not have a tendency to panic in danger. 

6) The animal must be used to herding (i.e., being controlled by a pack leader) in the wild. 

Human beings domesticated a mere 14 species before the 20th century, of which the 5 most important by far are the cow, pig, goat, sheep, and horse.

Chapter 10:

The continents of Earth have some important physical differences: most of them are wider from north to south than they are from east to west, so one could say that their “major axis” is the north-south axis. The differences in the shapes of the continents result in some big differences between civilizations.

Agriculture spread east and west far quicker than it spread north and south. For example, agriculture spread from Mesopotamia to the Indus Valley at a rate of almost a mile a year (but in the Americas, it spread north from Mexico at a rate of only 0.3 miles a year). In general, innovations in food production, from agriculture to the domestication of large mammals, spread more slowly through the Americas than through Eurasia.

This is because Earth rotates on a north-south axis, meaning that the sun’s heat warms places with the same latitude equally. Two areas that share the same latitude will tend to have very similar climates, even if they’re on opposite sides of the world, whereas two areas with the same longitude often have very different climates. This helps in migration of crops, people, animals, and even languages.

Exception: Crop innovations in the American southwest never reached the American southeast, even though the two regions had the same latitude—this is because most of the area in between (i.e., present-day Texas and the Great Plains) couldn’t support agriculture.

Chapter 11:

One of the most important factors in determining whether or not a community will die of an epidemic is population size. A small community (i.e., a hunter-gatherer community) can easily be wiped out altogether by disease. Larger communities, however, will contain some people with immunities to the disease, ensuring that the community as a whole survives, even if a majority of it dies—and those who do survive will usually pass on their immunity to their offspring. On the other hand, there are some diseases that only exist in large communities—meaning that those large communities are the only groups that develop immunities to the diseases (so that both the disease and its host—the community itself—survives). This in turn means that when a large community interacts with a smaller community, a greater portion of the small community than of the (partially immune) large community will die of the disease.

Many animals spread disease, meaning that agricultural societies in which people are often around animals will tend to have more diseases—but also develop more immunities.

Chapter 12:

<Talks about types and development of languages. Can be skipped>

Chapter 13:

The car engine, the phonograph, and hundreds of other important inventions were developed for purposes entirely different from the purposes with which we now associate them. So in a way, invention is the mother of necessity; technology “finds” a use after it’s invented, instead of being invented for a specific purpose.

Chapter 14:

A kleptocrat can encourage the people to obey him is to create a religion that justifies his own power. Many chiefs are also religious leaders in their chiefdoms, and spend much of the tribute on large religious structures. By popularizing religion, chiefs not only encourage their followers to respect and worship them; they also convince their followers to sacrifice their lives for their chiefdom in times of war.

Chapter 15:

<How do above points apply in case of Australia and New Guinea>

Chapter 16:

<Explanation for China>

Chapter 17:

<Explanation for Austronesian islands>

Chapter 18:

<Explanation for Americas>

Chapter 19:

<Explanation for Africa>

Epilogue:

There are four underlying environment factors that determine the course of human history: 

1) availability of wild plants and animals for domestication, 

2) barriers to diffusion and migration within a continent, 

3) barriers to diffusion and migration between continents, and 

4) population size and density. 

Guess the source

 Guess what? I stumbled upon this incredibly ancient text, and brace yourself for the twist – it wasn't your typical poetic masterpiece. No, sir! It was the creation of the most unexpected wordsmith, weaving verses that left me utterly captivated. Armed with translation skills and a dash of #ChatGPT magic, I transformed this linguistic gem into a poetic spectacle. Now, feast your eyes on the result, and let the guessing game begin! Oh, and just a friendly heads up – if my creative exploration unintentionally steps on any toes, my sincere apologies. I'm on this journey solely fueled by a passion for the sheer beauty that lies within these ancient words.

Ethereal Enchantment: Verses from Tranquil Valleys

In the realm where oceans yield their treasure bright,

The sky, a mother, cradles water's might.

For nine months carried in celestial womb,

To earth, a gift, as liquid life does loom.

Stairs of clouds reach heights where dreams aspire,

Adorned with garlands, Suns and skies conspire.

The wounds of heavens, veiled in clouds so white,

Drenched bandages of twilight's gentle light.

The gentle winds, as lovers, softly sigh,

Clouds painted pale, with red hues that belie.

Winds born from clouds, a delicate caress,

Fragrance of flowers, nature's sweet finesse.

Mountain slopes adorned with Primrose's grace,

Bathed in rain's embrace, a sacred space.

Dark clouds cloak the peaks, antelope's disguise,

Rain's threads cascade like sacred threads that rise.

The sky in pain, with lightning whips adorned,

A woman's struggle, in clouds, is mourned.

Hidden quarters where planets cease to gleam,

Favor the hearts lost in love's tender dream.

Primrose flowers on slopes, once withered, pale,

Revived by rain, passion's fervent tale.

Dust settles, mist-kissed breezes now unfold,

Summer's torment ends, nature's stories told.

Journeying swans, Primrose blooms unite,

Carts cease on roads, travelers find respite.

Visible here, the sky, a vivid blue,

Dull there, like an ocean veiled in dew.

Mountain streams rush, carrying offerings rare,

Red mineral rocks, a gift beyond compare.

Hark! Peacock cries and black bees hum with glee,

Nature's symphony, a sweet melody.

In the forest, grass with raindrops adorned,

Peacocks dance, their vibrant plumes adorned.

Primrose branches filled with fragrant bloom,

Love awakens, dispelling nature's gloom.

Rivers swift to seas, herons soaring high,

Earth adorned in green, under the sky.

Clouds adorned with lightning, thunderous roars,

A symphony of nature, love explores.

Elephants intoxicated, trumpets sound,

Honeyed bees, on Primrose, rest profound.

Rainclouds with banners, herons in flight,

A garland of lotuses, a mesmerizing sight.

Forest features myriad, a vibrant scene,

Larks, sarja, arjuna, a floral sheen.

Thirsty birds rejoice, Indra's gifts they savor,

Musical concert, nature's sweet flavor.

Bees hum like Vina, frogs in chorus sing,

Nature's melodies in the forest spring.

Rivers rush, proud ladies to the sea,

Primroses afloat, a sight so free.

Dark clouds leaning, like boulders in the sky,

Elephants roam, peacocks rejoice, oh, my!

Nature's beauty in the forestland,

A tavern of joy, where peahens dance, so grand.

Water held in leaf cups, pearls divine,

Drops fall, wings' hues change, a subtle sign.

Peacocks dance and sing, a forest's delight,

Nature's concert, a harmonious sight.

Intoxicated elephants, a joyous march,

Nature's wonders, in the forest's arch.

Bees on fresh filaments, their dance profound,

Rain adorns, on jambu, they're heaven-bound.

Clouds with banners, thundering in the sky,

Elephants turn, thunderous calls defy.

Nature's many features, a vivid tale,

Forest echoes with a myriad of kale.

Fresh water pours, torrents swift and wide,

Winds roar, rivers change, in nature's stride.

Mountain peaks, with waterpitchers adorned,

A regal display, majesty reborn.

Enveloped in clouds, Sun and stars concealed,

Earth glides, fresh waters, a power revealed.

Mountains washed by rain, pearls hanging down,

Waterfalls, peacocks sing, nature's crown.

Strings of waterfalls, like pearls descend,

Celestial chains, through passion rend.

The forest bathed in nature's grand ballet,

Pearls and chains, in twilight's soft array.

Setting sun revealed through birds' retreat,

Lotuses close, jasmine's fragrant sweet.

Expeditions cease, armies homeward bound,

Enmity suspended, in water's surround.

Israel-Palestine Conflict (Notes)

 This is just an entry for my notes to understand the Israel-Palestine conflict and its history.

The main source of this content is this series of podcasts: Ep1, Ep2; Ep3, with the hyperlinks added by me as the keys to enter the rabbit hole.

Here is a detailed reading on the history of Palestine.

Another good summary, I found later.

Major Points to note:

70 AD: Romans take over Jerusalem, destroy King Herod's temple and Jews are dispersed.

1516 AD: Ottoman conquest of Palestine. Population: Roughly 5000 Jews and 295000 non-Jews at this time.

1896: Theodor Herzl brought his famous pamphlet, mentioning that to ensure the safety of the Jews, a national homeland was needed and the migration to the then Palestine was encouraged and supported (funded by Zionist organisations).

1916-1918: By the end of the First World War - The population in Palestine: approx 60K Jewish and 600K non-Jewish. The United Kingdom had agreed in the McMahon–Hussein Correspondence that it would honour Arab independence if the Arabs revolted against the Ottoman Turks, but in the end, the United Kingdom and France divided the area under the Sykes–Picot Agreement—an act of betrayal in the eyes of the Arabs. Further complicating the issue was the Balfour Declaration of 1917, in which Britain promised its support for the establishment of a Jewish "national home" in Palestine. At the war's end the British and French formed a joint "Occupied Enemy Territory Administration" in what had been Ottoman Syria. The British achieved legitimacy by obtaining a mandate from the League of Nations in June 1922. One objective of the League of Nations mandate system was to administer areas of the defunct Ottoman Empire "until such time as they are able to stand alone"

1940s - 1970s: About 850,000 Jews from the Arab world immigrated ("made Aliyah") to Israel. (They were also still suffering persecution, mainly in Europe)

1947: UN adopted the United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. The resolution recommended the creation of independent Arab and Jewish States and a Special International Regime for the city of Jerusalem. The proposed plan is considered to have been pro-Zionist by its detractors, with 56% of the land allocated to the Jewish state despite the Palestinian Arab population numbering twice the Jewish population. the partition plan was accepted by most Zionist factions who viewed it as a stepping stone to territorial expansion at an opportune time. The Arab leaders rejected it on the basis that in addition to the Arabs forming a two-thirds majority, they owned a majority of the lands. They also indicated an unwillingness to accept any form of territorial division, arguing that it violated the principles of national self-determination in the UN Charter which granted people the right to decide their own destiny. They announced their intention to take all necessary measures to prevent the implementation of the resolution. Subsequently, a civil war broke out in Palestine and the plan was not implemented.

1948-50: The British Mandate ended on 15 May 1948 and just a day before, the World Zionist Organisation declared an independent state of Israel, which was immediately recognised by both USA and USSR and subsequently by other countries. However, this resulted in the start of the Arab-Israeli war. In 10 months of war, the State of Israel controlled the area that the UN had proposed for the Jewish state, as well as almost 60% of the area proposed for the Arab state. Transjordan took control of East Jerusalem and what became known as the West Bank, annexing it the following year, and the Egyptian military took control of the Gaza Strip. 

So, by the end of the war, three countries would divide historical Palestine among themselves. Israel,Gaza Strip under Egypt, and West Bank & East Jerusalem under Jordan.

Around 700,000 Palestinian Arabs fled or were expelled from their homes in the area that became Israel, and they became Palestinian refugees in what they refer to as the Nakba ("the catastrophe"). A similar number of Jews moved to Israel during the three years following the war, including 260,000 from the surrounding Arab states.

1956: Invasion of Egypt and Gaza Strip by Israel, leading to the Suez Crisis. Eventually, Israel faced heat globally, even from the US and Russia and had to retreat.

1964-65: The Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) was formed, and a year later, the Fatah political party was established.

1967: The Egyptian president announced that the Straits of Tiran would again be closed to Israeli vessels. He subsequently mobilized the Egyptian military into defensive lines along the border with Israel and ordered the immediate withdrawal of all UNEF personnel. As the UNEF was in the process of leaving the zone, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against Egyptian airfields and other facilities beginning the six-day war. Egyptian forces were caught by surprise, and nearly all of Egypt's military aerial assets were destroyed, giving Israel air supremacy. Simultaneously, the Israeli military launched a ground offensive into Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. After some initial resistance, Egypt ordered an evacuation of the Sinai Peninsula; by the sixth day of the conflict, Israel had occupied the entire Sinai Peninsula. At the time of the cessation of hostilities, Israel had seized Syria's Golan Heights, the Jordanian-annexed West Bank (including East Jerusalem), and Egypt's Sinai Peninsula as well as the Egyptian-occupied Gaza Strip. With the sole exception of Sinai, Israel retains control of all the seized territories to this day. Around 280,000 to 325,000 Palestinians and 100,000 Syrians fled or were expelled.

Settlement construction began in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. A two-tier system was created with Jewish settlers afforded all the rights and privileges of being Israeli citizens whereas Palestinians had to live under a military occupation that discriminated against them and barred any form of political or civic expression.

1973: To take back their territory of the Sinai Peninsula, Egypt, with the help of the Arab coalition, jointly launched a surprise attack against Israel. However, the Israelis again had military success and encircled the Egyptian Army and Suez City, bringing them within 100 kilometres of the Egyptian capital of Cairo. This development led to dangerously heightened tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, and a second ceasefire was imposed to officially end the war.

1974-1979:  This paved the way for the Israeli–Palestinian peace process. At the 1978 Camp David Accords that followed the war, Israel returned the entire Sinai Peninsula to Egypt, which led to the subsequent 1979 Egyptian–Israeli peace treaty, marking the first instance that an Arab country recognized Israel as a legitimate state. Following the achievement of peace with Israel, Egypt continued its drift away from the Soviet Union and eventually left the Soviet sphere of influence entirely.

After its founding in 1964 and the radicalization among Palestinians which followed the Six-Day War, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) became a powerful force, then centred in Jordan. There had been continual violence near the Lebanon-Israel border between Israel and the PLO, starting from 1968; this increased following the relocation of PLO bases to Lebanon after the civil war in Jordan.

1982: After various incidents, Israel invaded Lebanon, put a siege on Beirut and forced PLO to move out. In a vacuum left by the eradication of PLO, the disorganized Islamic militants in South Lebanon began to consolidate. The emerging Hezbollah soon became the preeminent Islamic militia. 
Israel unilaterally withdrew completing its troop withdrawal to the security zone on 5 June. 

(Despite this being considered the end of the war, conflict would continue. Hezbollah continued to fight the IDF and SLA in the South Lebanon conflict until Israel's final withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000.)

1987-1993: A series of protests and riots (The First Intifada) erupted in the Gaza Strip in December 1987 after four Palestinians were killed when an Israeli truck collided with two vans carrying Palestinian workers. The Israeli army’s response was encapsulated by the “Break their Bones” policy advocated by then-Defence Minister. It included summary killings, closures of universities, deportations of activists and destruction of homes. It also led to the establishment of the Hamas movement.

1993: Signing of the Oslo Accords and the formation of the Palestinian Authority (PA), an interim government that was granted limited self-rule in pockets of the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip. The PLO recognised Israel on the basis of a two-state solution and effectively signed agreements that gave Israel control of 60 percent of the West Bank, and much of the territory’s land and water resources. The PA was supposed to make way for the first elected Palestinian government, running an independent state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip with its capital in East Jerusalem, but that has never happened. Critics of the PA view it as a corrupt subcontractor to the Israeli occupation that collaborates closely with the Israeli military in clamping down on dissent and political activism against Israel.

1995: Israel built an electronic fence and concrete wall around the Gaza Strip, snapping interactions between the split Palestinian territories. The West Bank was divided into 3 areas:

While no date was agreed, the Israeli PM agreed to a statehood to Palestinians and was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. However, he was assassinated by a right-wing extremist. Peres took over the role and continued the peace process. 

1996: Peres called for an early election as there was wide support for a 2-state solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, but possibly due to some Terrorist attacks done in the subsequent months, public sentiment shifted towards Benjamin Netanyahu who won the election and became the PM. 

1997-2000: Hamas continued to carry on attacks and Netanyahu attacked back and reneged from the Oslo accords. PLO was still committed to Oslo agreements, but they didn't have any real power to enforce them. This led to the second Camp David negotiations in 2000. The summit ended without an agreement (PLO wanted refugees to be allowed to return to their ancestral home, which Israel refused as it would have disturbed the demographics) and its failure is considered one of the main triggers of the Second Intifada, along with Israeli Opposition leader's provocative visit to the Al-Aqsa compound and subsequent hard put-down of the protests and riots. 

    The incident led to a widespread armed response. During the Intifada, significant damage was inflicted on the Palestinian economy and infrastructure. Israel reoccupied areas governed by the Palestinian Authority and initiated the construction of a separation wall. This, in addition to ongoing settlement construction, had a profound impact on Palestinian livelihoods and communities. Settlements are a subject of legal dispute under international law. Over the years, many Jewish settlers have established communities on land that has been a source of conflict with Palestinians. The situation has resulted in a reduction of available space for Palestinians due to settler-only roads and infrastructure, which has divided the occupied West Bank, leading to the isolation of Palestinian cities and towns. At the time of the signing of the Oslo Accords, there were slightly over 110,000 Jewish settlers residing in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem. Presently, the number has exceeded 700,000 people living on more than 100,000 hectares (390 square miles) of land, which has been a matter of contention with the Palestinian population.

2004-2005: Yasser Arafat died in 2004 and the Intifada ended in 2005. Owing to various security concerns and International pressure, Israeli settlements in the Gaza Strip were dismantled, and Israeli soldiers and 9,000 settlers left the enclave.

2006: Palestinians voted in a general election for the first time. Hamas won a majority. However, a Fatah-Hamas civil war broke out, lasting for months, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of Palestinians. Hamas expelled Fatah from the Gaza Strip, and Fatah – the main party of the Palestinian Authority – resumed control of parts of the West Bank.

2006-2007: Hamas continued with the armed attacks and Israel imposed a land, air and naval blockade on the Gaza Strip.

-- The Violence continues

History of English (My Notes)

This page is just a compilation of my notes on the History of English (both - the language, and the people). This is going to be a work in progress for a considerable time. It's currently about 80% complete.

Read on, if you have:

1. A lot of interest in understanding, how English developed as a language, and as a culture.

and 

2. A little patience.

History of the Alphabets - Sounds - (My Notes)

 This is a side note to the larger project of noting down the History of English.

1. The Etruscan language had no ‘b’ sound, no ‘d’ sound, and no ‘g’ sound. Linguists call these sounds ‘voiced stops’ and apparently Etruscan did not use voiced stops at all in the language. Now there are unvoiced versions of these sounds. The unvoiced version of ‘b’ is ‘p.’ And the unvoiced version of the ‘d’ sound is the ‘t’ sound. And the unvoiced version of the ‘g’ sound is the ‘k’ sound. And the Etruscan language had all of these unvoiced sounds – the ‘p’ sound, the ‘t’ sound, and the ‘k’ sound. Remember that the third letter in Greek was gamma and it had the ‘g’ sound. So the third letter ‘gamma’ was pronounced by the Etruscans with a ‘k’ sound because they didn’t have a ‘g’ sound. And that is ultimately how the Romans inherited it. And that is why the third letter became the modern letter C in Latin and was used to represent the ‘k’ sound just as the Etruscans had used it.

But whereas the Etruscans didn’t have a ‘g’ sound, the Romans did have a ‘g’ sound. So they eventually had to create a new letter for the ‘g’ sound which became the Roman letter G. And that is why the uppercase C and the uppercase G resemble each other. 

And there was also a reason why the new letter G was placed in the seventh position after the letter F. The seventh letter of the Etruscan alphabet had the ‘Z’ or ‘zed’ sound which the Etruscans had borrowed from the Greeks. But unlike Greek and Etruscan, early Latin didn’t have the ‘z’ or ‘zed’ sound. So the seventh letter – called ‘zay’ by the Etruscans – was unnecessary in Latin. So the early Romans got rid of ‘zay’ and put the new letter G in its place. Of course, the letter ‘zay’ would reappear during the classical Roman period when the Romans started to borrow a lot of words from Greek, and they suddenly needed to represent the ‘z’ sound again. So at that point, they reintroduced the letter Z or ‘zed’ and put it at the end of the alphabet.

Also, note that the Romans tinkered with the letter F as well. Up to this point, the sixth letter of the alphabet represented the ‘w’ sound in Greek and Etruscan. The Romans moved this sound nearer to the back of the alphabet and that freed up the 6 letters. Now the Greeks and the Etruscans didn’t actually have an ‘f’ sound in their respective languages. The Greek had a ‘pf’ sound that was probably a sound that was in transition from the original ‘p’ sound to an ‘f’ sound. Greek had invented a new letter called ‘phi’ (they probably called it /fee/) to cover that in-between ‘pf’ sound. And that was as close as the Greeks came to an ‘f’ sound. But the Romans did have an ‘f’ sound in Latin. And that Greek sound ‘phi’ was by this point being pronounced simply as an ‘f’ sound just like we do today in words like phone and philosophy because that sound had completed its transition to the ‘f’ sound by this point. So the Romans had to find a way to write the ‘f’ sound since the alphabet they borrowed from the Etruscans did not have a letter for the ‘f’ sound. So they used that sixth letter which had previously represented the ‘w’ sound but was now free. So our modern letter F with the ‘f’ sound was born. And the Romans decided to use that letter for native Latin words. But for those Greek words which were being borrowed into Latin, they chose to use the ‘PH’ combination to represent the original Greek letter ‘phi.’ So that is why we still have that ‘PH’ spelling for the ‘f’ sound in Modern English. It represents words that were borrowed into Latin from Greek which had that original ‘phi’ letter to represent that in-between ‘pf’ sound.

A:

Originally represented the /a:/ sound in Latin (as in Father). 

However, modern English has more common that ‘short [a]’ sound (/æ/) has been around since Old English. (ex: hat, back, sad and apple). Old English had a specific letter for that sound: ash. That letter was created because the /æ/ sound was a little different from the /a:/ sound usually represented by letter A. But after the Norman Conquest, the French-trained scribes didn’t see a need for the letter ash, so it gradually disappeared. During the Middle English period, it was replaced with letter [a], and that spelling persists to this day.

And then like the change in the sound of all other Vowels, the Great Vowel Shift occurred. 

B: 

The sound represented by letter [b] hasn’t really changed, but we do have a few silent [b]’s in words like doubt and debt. They were added because the Latin roots of those words had a [b] in them because they were pronounced with a ‘b’ sound in Latin. 

C:

The hard /k/ sound is the original sound of letter [c] going back to Latin, and we still use the letter in that way when it appears before the vowels [a], [o] and [u].  And the letter usually has the soft /s/ sound when it appears before the vowel letters [e] and [i]. 

See :The Centum / Satem split

However, in words like ocean, social, facial and precious – the [c] appears before an [e] or [i], so that was the sound used in those words in the mid-1500s (/oh-see-an/ instead of /oh-shun/, and /soh-see-al/ instead of /soh-shul/). That’s why those words are spelled that way. But the modern /sh/ sound in those words started to appear by the late 1500s and early 1600s.

D:

[d] is a consonant letter, and it hasn’t changed much over time.

E:

The short sound of letter [e] is /e/ as in pet, bed, etc.. The letter [e] by itself before a consonant usually represents that sound, and that short sound has been pretty stable since English adopted the Latin alphabet in the early Middle Ages. 

Long e sound (Tree, Bee, etc) : Scribes and printers usually represented the ‘long [e]’ sound by doubling the [e]’s, but another technique used by French scribes was to place an [I] before the [e] or after the [e], thereby producing the [ei] and [ie] letter combination for the sound. That spelling was often retained in words that were taken from French, and was sometimes even applied to native English words (grieve, chief, brief, field, receive, ceiling, etc). Most of those words have essentially the same phonetic history as words like tree and be and feet. They experienced the same vowel shift. They just use a slightly different spelling to represent the same sound.

What about the ea words (please, heat, etc.)? 
The [ea] spelling was once used for a different sound, but again, the sound shifted and merged with the /i:/ sound in those other words. And since the spelling of these [ea] words was already locked in place, they have retained that spelling over time. 
(So a word like feast was once pronounced as /fe:st/ – a sound still heard in the related word festival. And a word like read (r-e-a-d) was once pronounced as /re:d/ – a sound still heard in the past tense form and the word leave was once pronounced as /le:v/ – a sound still heard in the past tense form - left.)

(we still find that old [ea] spelling in words like head, death, deaf, bread, sweat, spread, weather, measure, ready, and so on. These words retain an original /e/ pronunciation; they just use a slightly shorter version of it. A few of those words also got stuck in the middle with the /e:/ sound. And those words are great, steak, and break. But most of the words spelled with [ea] moved on to the /i:/ pronunciation we use today in words like clean, seat, speak, etc.)

F:

The sound it represents has been pretty stable in English since spellings became fixed. 

But, we also have the alternate [ph] spelling for the ‘f’ sound, and that spelling is almost always found in loanwords from Greek, who used the letter Phi for the sound.

G:

Hard g (as in game, go, etc.): The traditional sound. When the alphabet was brought to England from Rome, the Anglo-Saxons applied letter [g] to the same sound in Old English.

Soft g (as in germ, gender, etc.): As French evolved out of Latin in western Europe, the sound started to change in some words. When a [g] appeared before letters [e] or [i], the sound changed and produced the so called ‘soft’ sound of letter. That’s the /j/ sound. That happened because the sounds represented by [e] and [i] are pronounced with the front of the tongue raised, and the ‘g’ sound was sort of pulled forward to the palate region, thereby creating that /j/ sound.

Note: The soft /j/ sound didn’t exist in Latin, so Latin didn’t have a letter for it. Most words that use the ‘soft [g]’ today are French loanwords.

Interestingly, even in French, there were a few words that retained a ‘hard [g]’ sound before [e] or [i], and in those cases, the French scribes had to figure out a way to make it clear the [g] retained its original sound. So they came up with a new spelling. That added a [u] after the [g] as an alternate way of indicating a ‘hard [g]’ sound. (Ex: guest, guide, guild, guitar, guilty, disguise and even before the other vowel letters like guard and guarantee.)

In Dutch, scribes had a different way of indicating the ‘hard [g]’ sound. They would add an [h] after the [g], (Ex: ghost, ghastly, aghast.Remeber that the Dutch began using the printing press before the English did. In fact, the first English printing press was brought over from the Netherlands, and some of the Dutch assistants and typesetters came with it. And that allowed some of those Dutch spelling conventions to pass into English. Italians did the same - Ghetto, Spaghetti)

Then why is /gh/ silent in words like night, eight, etc?

The silent [gh] is native to English. This particular [gh] spelling emerged in Middle English to spell the /x/ sound, which was still common in English at the time. So the word night was originally pronounced more like /nixt/. 

That still doesn't explain the /f/ sound of gh in words like laugh, cough, etc.

This is the same [gh] that was used to represent the /x/ sound in Middle English. But where that sound occurred at the end of a word, it sometimes became an /f/ sound. A word like laugh would have been pronounced /laux/. This word – and most of the other words where the ‘f’ sound emerged at the end – had a vowel sound that was pronounced with rounded lips and hence closer to /f/ sound which eventually became the dominant sound.

What about Gnaw , Gnat, etc?

Those are Old English words. Old English had the initial /gn/ sound in some words, just like it had the initial /kn/ sound preserved in so many words.

H:

Old Englih had the pronoounced /h/ sound but French words had silent H at the beginning. This also explains the confusion and differing pronounciation of words like, Honor, Honest, Herb,Hello,  and even House.

I:

Same as other vowels. Original short sound and then hte long sound due to the Vowel Shifts.

J:

It is basically I with a little flourish or a little tail at the bottom.  Letter [j] as a distinct letter for the /dj/ sound didn’t exist until 1619.

The /dj/ sound was also rare in Old English, but it did sometimes appear at the end of a word like the words edge and bridge. Since there was no Latin letter for the sound, Old English scribes had to invent a way to represent the sound. They usually used some form of letter G – sometimes a double [g], sometimes a [cg] letter combination, and sometimes they came up with other variations. That uncertainty evolved into a [dg] spelling in Middle English, which was the precursor of our modern [dge] spelling in words like edge, bridge, ledge and so on.

The hard /g/ sound was softened in French and became a /dj/ sound in certain words. So in those words, the letter [g] was used to represent that /dj/ sound, and that spelling passed into English in words like gentle, giant, etc.

Note: when used with other vowels, the /i/ sound tends to become a /y/ sound (ex the second i in Olivia).  And that’s what happened in a lot of words in Late Latin and early French. But then the sound continued to evolve in some words. In fact, the sound evolved into different sounds throughout western Europe, but in French, it gradually became a /dj/ sound in many words.

Ex: Julius. It is often written with an [I] in Latin as ‘I-u-l-i-u-s.’. (This /y/ vs /j/ intechange is also seen in Hindi variations ex. 

जुग सहस्त्र जोजन पर भानु

vs

युग सहस्त्र योजन पर भानु

K:

[k] was rarely used in English before the 1200s. During the Old English period, scribes generally used the letter [c] for the /k/ sound. [k] was adopted during the Middle English period, because [c] had by then also adopted the /s/ sound and was causing confusion. 

The use of letter [k] in Modern English is still pretty straight-forward, but the primary exception is the silent [k] at the beginning of many words like knife, knee, etc. Of course, those [k]’s are there because there was once a ‘k’ sound at the front of those words. So a word like knife was /k-neef/, and knee was /k-nay/. Remember that English spelling largely reflects the way words were pronounced in the mid-1500s.

L:

When an [L] occurs in the middle of syllable, specifically when it is wedged between a vowel on one side and a consonant on the other side, then the ‘L‘ sound has had a tendency to disappear (chalk, talk, etc). That generally happened after the mid-1500s – after the spellings had started to become fixed. So those words shave a silent [L] today which reflects an older ‘L’ sound that has been lost.

Vice versa, a few words that didn’t originally have an [L], got one during the 1500s based on the etymology of the word. These are words that ultimately come from Latin where there was an ‘L’ sound in the distant past, but the sound was lost as the words passed through French. So when English speakers borrowed the words from French, they didn’t have the ‘L’ sound anymore. But in the 1500s, scholars started to add an [L] to the spelling to reflect that sound that had been lost. That’s what happened with salmon, which is still usually pronounced without an ‘L’ sound. The same thing happened with words like fault, vault and assault. Those words were borrowed from French as faute, vaute and asaut, but when scholars added the [L] back in to reflect the ancient history of those words, it affected the way people pronounced them.

M and N: pretty stable

O:

short  /o/ sound is sometimes called a ‘rounded’ vowel sound because the lips are rounded when it is pronounced.

However, in American English the lips are not rounded and that’s really the main difference between the ‘short [o]’ sound in British English and American English. In Britain, the lips are still rounded a bit, while in North America, they’re not. And that’s why words like spa and pot use the same vowel sound in American English, but tend to have slightly different sounds in British English.

[Is this straightening of the /o/ sound also often related to class, and is even evident in Hindi. (ex. कोई काम करो  - focus on the o sound - kOi kaam karO - might become - कउनो काम करा - kAuno kaam karAA)?? And how about Bengali A vs O?]

Long /o/ sound adopted both the magic 'e' at the end or the 'oa' spelling (hope, boat, etc.)

Q: What's the deal with 'oo'? Why is it sometimes short /u/ or long /uu/ sound? (foot, book, vs pool, room, etc.) instead of giving long /o/ like 'ee' does for long /e/?

A: Because of the Great Vowel Shift. Plus; because in Middle English the letter [o] was used to represent two different long vowel sounds, and the scribes didn’t have enough letters for all the vowel sounds in English. So English scribes had to figure out a way to make the letter [o] represent both of those sounds. For the /o:/ sound, which is made with back of the tongue slightly raised, the scribes tended to double the O. That’s a long vowel sound and it was common to represent long vowels sounds by doubling the vowel letter. And that is the sound that shifted during the Great Vowel Shift to the /u:/ sound, which is basically a ‘long [u]’ sound. And that’s why so many of those double-[o] words have that /u:/ sound today like room, boot, mood, choose, and so on. And in some of those words, the vowel later shortened and changed again, thereby producing the pronunciation in words like foot, took, book, good and so on. 

P: 

Consistently applied to the same sound since the Old English period.

A few words with a silent [p], like the word receipt. And that’s because the original Latin root word passed through French where it lost its ‘p’ sound. English scholars then added the [p] back into the word in the 1500s to reflect the original Latin pronunciation of the word. The ‘p’ sound can still be found in other versions of the same root word, like reception and receptacle.

(Also see, the extra notes section)

Q:

The letter [q] wasn’t really used in Old English. But after 'c' acquired /s/ sound, both [k] and [q] became more popular in English after the Norman Conquest. And even native words like queen and quick had their original [c]’s replaced with [q]’s under that French influence.

R:

The letter [r] was generally trilled or rolled in Old English and Middle English. So instead of saying rat, people were more likely to say /rrrat/. 

Today, many English accents drop the ‘r’ sound in certain words, especially where it appears after a vowel sound in the middle or at the end of a syllable (ex: birth, fear, etc.). The tendency to pronounce the ‘r’ sound in those situations is called ‘rhoticity.’ So Standard American English as said to be ‘rhotic,’ whereas the Standard English of southern England tends to be non-rhotic. 

[The letter 'r' has the most complex and varied sound history and covering all those here will make the notes too long and boring. Suggest other sources if interested in all other variations]

S:

Before 'z' was added to the english alphabet, 's' was used for /s/ and the /z/ sounds. (the ‘s’ and ‘z’ sounds are basically the same sound. The only difference is that the vocal chords are activated when we pronounced the ‘z’ sound, so it creates a buzzing sound (/z/))

Compare 'his' vs 'this'

Normally, the pronunciation of the plural ‘s’ sound at the end of a noun varies depending on the sound that comes before it. So we say tacks with an ‘s’ sound at the end, and tags with a ‘z’ sound at the end.

It also can represent the ‘sh’ sound. This sound change occurred when the ‘s’ sound was followed by [I] and another vowel – so usually [-ion] or [-ient] and something similar.

T:

Pretty straightforward because it almost always represents the /t/ sound and has done so since Old English. 

There are a few French loanwords where the [t] is silent at the end, like ballet, buffet,etc. Sometimes a [t] is silent in the middle of word, like in castle, whistle, wrestle, listen, and so on. Those are usually [t]’s that became silent at some point after the spelling became fixed. 

Just like with [s], when [t] was followed by [i] and another vowel, it produced the ‘sh’ sound (/sh/). This usually happened in words ending in [t-i-o-n].

A similar change occurred when the letter [t] was followed by [-ure], but in those cases, the [t] became a ‘ch’ sound (/ch/).

U:

 The original vowel sound heard in the word put, and the newer sound heard in the word putt.  Interestingly, this newer ‘short [u]’ sound didn’t emerged in northern England, so even today, most speakers in northern England tend to use the older vowel. It’s a quick way to detect an accent from northern England. 

Sometimes two words were pronounced and spelled the same way, but meant something completely different, so scribes distinguished them by giving one of them a different spelling. That’s what happened with sun and son. They were both originally spelled with a [u], but scribes decided to distinguish them by giving the word for a male child an [o] in place of the original [u]. The same thing happened with words like some and sum.

And there is also another reason why we use [o]’s to spell words with these ‘short [u]’ sounds. And this  reason was also part of a conscious decision to avoid confusion – though it produced its own confusion in the long term. In many words, the original [u]’s were replaced with [o]’s because letter [u] tended to get lost in the Gothic script that was used in early Modern English.  Many curvy letters were actually written with straight lines. So a [u] was written with two bold straight lines, which were connected with a little flourish at the bottom. An [n] was the opposite. It was written with two bold straight lines connected with a little flourish at the top. And [m] had three straight lines connected with flourishes at the top. And [i] was just a straight line with a flourish at the bottom. In writing, all of those straight lines blended together. A word like minimum looked like fifteen straight lines connected by various flourishes at the top or bottom. 

Scribes looked for a way to make the vowel sound stand out in the line of letters, and one solution was to simply replace the [u] with an [o], which had a rounder shape and stood out better. And through that process, a lot of words that originally had a letter [u] now got a brand-new letter [o]. That included words like love, come, some, monk, tongue, honey, above, and wonder. (This idea was also borrowed from French, who used "ou" for the /oo/ sound - ex. vous, nous, etc)

The ‘long [u]’ sound was /oo/. And it was found in the original version of words like house, and mouse, and south, etc. They were originally pronounced /hus/, /mus/, /suth/. It was affected by the Great Vowel Shift. Some regional dialects of English still retain one of those older pronunciations, but the English of southern England and the English of North America experienced both changes. 

Also V, and W:

'u' represented the ‘w’ sound as well, a spelling that we still find in words with [qu] like quick, queen, etc. It then became common practice to double the letter [u] when it represented the /w/ sound, printers created a specific letter for that purpose which consisted of two [u]’s put together, and that gave us a new letter which became known as [w] (‘double-U’).

But even after that development, the letter [u] was still being used to represent all of the vowel sounds of the letter and the consonant sound /v/. Both versions were used for all of those sounds. So the letter had two distinct shapes and could be used for a set of vowel sounds and a separate consonant sound. It was only a matter a time before printers decided to dedicate one shape to the vowel sounds and the other shape to the consonant sound. 

X:

 It’s a letter that goes back to the Greeks, and it represents the same sound that we normally spelled with [ks] (Tax vs tacks)

The Greeks also had that ‘ks’ sound at the beginning of words, but English doesn’t. So when an [x] appears at the front of a word, we usually just pronounce it as ‘z’ sound instead. Or a mix, as in 'exit'.

Y:

The consonant/semi-vowel sound hasn't changed much, esp in words starting with 'y'.

The letter once represented a distinct vowel sound that no longer exists in the language. That was the /ü/ sound. But during the Middle English period, that sound merged with the /i:/ sound, which was represented with letter [i]. And from that point on, [y] basically became an alternate way of spelling the vowel sounds represented by letter [i]

Z:

[z] was really introduced to English during the Middle English period. It obviously represents the /z/ sound, and  the same sound is also sometimes represented by letter [s] which was the more traditional letter used for that sound in earlier forms of English. Other than that, the use of the letter [z] is pretty straight-forward in English.