I wonder if anyone knows about alphabet songs in other languages? I’d be particularly interested in knowing about Greek and Hebrew alphabet songs, and a bit about the history of such things. It seems like these songs must be used primarily to teach the lexicographic ordering of the letters; I suppose the Latin alphabet is ordered in keeping with the Greek alphabet, and so forth, but why did the early alphabets get placed in the order that they did? Saying “numeric value”just begs the question (after all, then why those values?).

It also seems a bit odd that Twinkle Twinkle Little Star is song for the alphabet. It also seems like the alphabet song should be related to the zed/zee distinction.

And not too surprisingly, Wikipedia has an article about the Alphabet Song. Wikipedia knows too much (although they are still missing an article about superrigidity!).