Page 18 - Lifestyles in Palm Beach Gardens - February '24

Page 18, Lifestyles in Palm Beach Gardens
Book Review

Letter Perfect: The introduce the concept the explanatory text, which included the following phrase:
Marvelous History Of Our and beginnings of a “The L’s calming effect is heard in ‘lull,’ ‘lullaby,’ ‘lollipop,’
‘lotus land’ and ‘la-la land.’”
written alphabet in
Alphabet From A To Z Egypt in 2000 B.C., Perhaps I can best illustrate the depth and diversity of
then trace it throughout knowledge you will derive from this book by sharing several
By Nils A. Shapiro many evolutions to examples from Sacks’s research excerpted here. (Some of
As one whose entire the Modern Roman the text, including entire paragraphs, have been deleted for
personal and business life alphabet of 1840 we lack of space and have been replaced by three dots.)
has been intimately involved basically use today. “One-quarter of Earth’s population, 1.4 billion people,
with the written word – The one caution I use nonalphabetic writing. Basically, this means China,
from a love of reading that referred to above is that including Taiwan, and Japan. The Japanese system comes
began in early childhood this evolution, because from an adaptation of the Chinese that dates back to the
to my career as a magazine of its complex nature, 600s A.D. … In Chinese script, each
publisher and book and is treated in a rather symbol denotes a whole word of the
newspaper editor, as well scholarly way that Mandarin Chinese language. We call
as the more than 200 book requires your fullest such symbols ‘logograms’ (from two
reviews to date – I cannot attention – perhaps Greek roots meaning ‘word letter’)
recall a title ever attracting my attention more than the requiring you to sometimes go back over the same text more … It does not operate by conveying
subject of this month’s column when I came across it in a than once in order to absorb so much information. Indeed, sound; it conveys the idea behind the
local bookstore. throughout this book you will be presented with at least 100 word. … Example: See the Chinese symbol for the word
And what a fortuitous discovery it was! times as much knowledge as you can remember after one “Middle” in the logogram above.
What surprises me is that this book, now in paperback, reading. If it is possible to have too much knowledge placed “An alphabet enjoys one huge advantage over any other
was originally published, unknown to me, as long ago as before you all at once, at least you will have it to turn to later writing system: It needs fewer symbols. No other system
2003 – the work of author David Sacks, an expert in written for reference from time to time. Provided this subject is of can get away with so few. This makes an alphabet easier to
language who studied Greek and Latin at Swarthmore interest to you, it will be well worth it. learn. Students need memorize only two dozen or so letters
College and Oxford University, and who is the author of an Along the way you will learn the very interesting reasons to begin building toward literacy … Compare our 26 letters
earlier book, Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World. why the five vowels – a, e, i, o, u – were added to the original to the Chinese system, which involves at least 2,000 symbols
On publication it was received with international acclaim. characters to make up the 26 in our present alphabet, as for educated daily reading and writing, out of an inventory
The New York Times reviewer wrote, “As fun to read as it is well as what most of us have long forgotten about the of about 60,000 symbols overall.”
enlightening … Sacks’s obsession is contagious, and I can “consonants” and “sibilants” we may or may not have learned Here is an example
imagine few readers whose lives would not be enriched by in elementary school grammar classes. of how the letters of
what he calls his ‘voyage of discovery.’” At that point David Sacks begins his extraordinarily today’s alphabet have
I agree with that reviewer’s enthusiastic comment, but in informative history of the 26 letters of our alphabet, each taken their shapes. The
all fairness to the readers of my column must add a note of in its own chapter. You can jump to any place in the book; following, from the
caution to my description of this book’s content and purpose. there is no need to read them in sequence. For example, I chapter about the letter A, is the caption that appears
To begin with, I can promise that every one of the 367 decided to turn first to the chapters about the initials of my in the book below the diagram on this page marked
pages of this book will offer a bounty of fascinating facts own name, NAS – my middle name is Allen. I suspect you “Diagram A.”
you had not previously known. (That doesn’t include the may want to do the same with your name. “The evolution of the ox. (1) Letter aleph, the ‘ox,’ as it
reference section – bibliography, index and list of more I found the histories so intriguing that I continued until appears in one of the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions from about
than 100 helpful illustrations, photographs and charts that I finished the entire book in one more week of sittings. I 1800 B.C … Unlikely as it seems, this pictorial image was
accompany the text.) pointed out to my wife, Linda, to her delight, that her initial the earliest form of our letter A. Today the horns of the ox
The author begins with a preface and opening chapter, “L” has traditionally been considered the most soothing and
“Little Letters, Big Idea,” which together total 51 pages that relaxing of all the characters in the alphabet. I read to her Book Review on page 19

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