Over the next 500 years it spread north , and all subsequent alphabets around the world have either descended from it , or been inspired by one of its descendants , with the possible exception of the Meroitic alphabet , a 3rd century BCE adaptation of hieroglyphs in Nubia to the south of Egypt . Over the next five centuries it spread north , and all subsequent alphabets around the world have either descended from it , or been inspired by one of its descendants , with the possible exception of the Meroitic alphabet , a 3rd century BCE adaptation of hieroglyphs in Nubia to the south of Egypt - though even here many scholars suspect the influence of that first alphabet .