Trace Letters and Numbers Workbook: Trace Letters and Numbers Workbook: Learn How to Write Alphabet Upper and Lower Case and Numbers (Paperback)

An alphabet is a standard set of letters written to represent particular sounds in a spoken language. Specifically, letters largely correspond to phonemes as the smallest sound segments that can distinguish one word from another in a given language. Not all writing systems represent language in this way: a syllabary assigns symbols to spoken syllables, while logographies assign symbols to words, morphemes, or other semantic units.

The first letters were invented in Ancient Egypt to serve as an aid in writing Egyptian hieroglyphs; these are referred to as Egyptian uniliteral signs by lexicographers. This system was used until the 5th century CE, and fundamentally differed by adding pronunciation hints to existing hieroglyphs that had previously carried no pronunciation information. Later on, these phonemic symbols also became used to transcribe foreign words. The first fully phonemic script was the Proto-Sinaitic script, also descending from Egyptian hieroglyphs, which was later modified to create the Phoenician alphabet. The Phoenician system is considered the first true alphabet and is the ultimate ancestor of many modern scripts, including Arabic, Cyrillic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, and possibly Brahmic.

Peter T. Daniels distinguishes true alphabets—which use letters to represent both consonants and vowels—from both abugidas and abjads, which only need letters for consonants. Abjads generally lack vowel indicators altogether, while abugidas represent them with diacritics added to letters. In this narrower sense, the Greek alphabet was the first true alphabet; it was originally derived from the Phoenician alphabet, which was an abjad.

Alphabets usually have a standard ordering for their letters. This makes alphabets a useful tool in collation, as words can be listed in a well-defined order—commonly known as alphabetical order. This also means that letters may be used as a method of "numbering" ordered items. Some systems demonstrate acrophony, a phenomenon where letters have been given names distinct from their pronunciations. Systems with acrophony include Greek, Arabic, Hebrew, and Syriac; systems without include the Latin alphabet.

More recently however, four cylinder seals dating to 2400 BC and found at the site of Umm el-Marra, in present-day Syria, are incised with what is potentially the earliest known alphabetic writings in the world. The discovery suggests that the alphabet emerged 500 years earlier than previously thought, and undermines leading ideas about how it was invented. According to Christopher Rollston, a scholar of the ancient Near East, the morphology of the letters on the cylinder seals parallels quite nicely that of the existing corpus of early alphabetic writing. This theory however has yet to be universally accepted.

How may refer to:

• How (greeting), a word used in some misrepresentations of Native American/First Nations speech
• How, an interrogative word in English grammar

Lower may refer to:

• Lower (surname)
• Lower Township, New Jersey
• Lower Receiver (firearms)
• Lower Wick Gloucestershire, England

A paperback (softcover, softback) book is one with a thick paper or paperboard cover, and often held together with glue rather than stitches or staples. In contrast, hardback (hardcover) books are bound with cardboard covered with cloth, leather, paper, or plastic.

Inexpensive books bound in paper have existed since at least the 19th century in such forms as pamphlets, yellowbacks, dime novels, and airport novels. Modern paperbacks can be differentiated from one another by size. In the United States, there are "mass-market paperbacks" and larger, more durable "trade paperbacks". In the United Kingdom, there are A-format, B-format, and the largest C-format sizes.

Paperback editions of books are issued when a publisher decides to release a book in a low-cost format. Lower-quality paper, glued (rather than stapled or sewn) bindings, and the lack of a hard cover may contribute to the lower cost of paperbacks. In the early days of modern paperbacks, the 1930s and 1940s, they were sold as a cheaper, less permanent, and more convenient alternative to traditional hardcover books, as the name of the first American paperback publisher, Pocket Books, indicates. In addition, the Pocket Books edition of Wuthering Heights, one of the first ten books it published in 1939, emphasized the impermanence of paperbacks by telling readers if you "enjoyed it so much you may wish to own it in a more permanent edition", they could return the 25 cent book to Pocket Books with an additional 70 cents and it would send them a copy of the 95 cent Modern Library edition "substantially bound in durable cloth."

Since the mid-20th century, paperbacks can also be the preferred medium when a book is not expected to be a major seller and the publisher wishes to release the book without a large investment. Examples include many novels and newer editions or reprintings of older books.

Because paperbacks tend to have smaller profit margins, many publishers try to balance the profit to be made by selling fewer hardcovers against the potential profit to be made by selling more paperbacks with a smaller profit per unit. First editions of many modern books, especially genre fiction, are issued in paperback. Best-selling books, on the other hand, may maintain sales in hardcover for an extended period to reap the greater profits that the hardcovers provide.

Upper may refer to:

• Shoe upper or vamp, the part of a shoe on the top of the foot
• Stimulant, drugs which induce temporary improvements in either mental or physical function or both
• Upper, the original film title for the 2013 found footage film The Upper Footage
• Dmitri Upper (born 1978), Kazakhstani ice hockey player

Workbooks are paperback textbooks issued to students. Workbooks are usually filled with practice problems, with empty space so that the answers can be written directly in the book.

More recently, electronic workbooks have permitted interactive and customized learning. Such workbooks may be used on computers, laptops, PDAs, and may be web-based.