I'm very intrigued by old alphabets. A few months ago, I did a lot of research on runes. I didn't even realize that there was a runic alphabet, with different variations through time and in different regions. I don't have any of those links close at hand, but here's some stuff on the Hebrew alphabet: Summary–The Ten Alef-Beit (Alphabet) Significances.

A cool book to check out is "Magical Alphabets" by Nigel Pennick (ISBN 0877287473). The cover says: "The Secrets and Significance of Ancient Scripts—Including Runes, Greek, Ogham, Hebrew and Alchemical Alphabets."

The first letter of the Hebrew alphabet is Aleph/Alef. Its 'everyday meaning' is 'cattle'.... strangely enough (or not so strangely :), the first letter of the Runic alphabet (Elder Futhark version) is Fehu, meaning 'cattle.' Cool, huh?!

Hebrew alphabet.... 1st letter Alef, 2nd letter Beit.... so the alphabet is referred to as the Alef-Beit. Runic alphabets referred to as Futharks.... from first 6 letters: F(fehu)U(ur)TH(thorn)A(ansur)R(rad)K(ken).