Page 8 - The Shores of Jupiter - February '24

Page 8, The Shores
Book Review

Letter Perfect: The Marvelous the original characters Students need memorize only two dozen or so letters to begin
History Of Our Alphabet to make up the 26 in building toward literacy … Compare our 26 letters to the
Chinese system, which involves at least 2,000 symbols for
our present alphabet,
From A To Z as well as what most of educated daily reading and writing, out of an inventory of
us have long forgotten about 60,000 symbols overall.”
By Nils A. Shapiro about the “consonants” Here is an example of how the letters of today’s alphabet
As one whose entire and “sibilants” we may have taken their shapes. The following, from the chapter
personal and business life or may not have learned about the letter a, is the caption that appears in the book
has been intimately involved in elementary school below the diagram on this page marked “diagram a.”
with the written word – grammar classes.
from a love of reading that At t ha t poi nt
began in early childhood David Sacks begins
to my career as a magazine his extraordinarily
publisher and book and informative history of
newspaper editor, as well the 26 letters of our
as the more than 200 book alphabet, each in its
reviews to date – i cannot own chapter. You can
recall a title ever attracting my attention more than the jump to any place in the book; there is no need to read “The evolution of the ox. (1) Letter aleph, the ‘ox,’ as it
subject of this month’s column when i came across it in a them in sequence. For example, I decided to turn first to appears in one of the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions from about
local bookstore. the chapters about the initials of my own name, NAS – my 1800 B.C … Unlikely as it seems, this pictorial image was
And what a fortuitous discovery it was! middle name is Allen. i suspect you may want to do the the earliest form of our letter A. Today the horns of the ox
What surprises me is that this book, now in paperback, same with your name. remain with us, unnoticed, in the upright legs of our A.
was originally published, unknown to me, as long ago as i found the histories so intriguing that i continued until (2) Aleph’s shape looks simpler in another early Semitic
2003 – the work of author David Sacks, an expert in written I finished the entire book in one more week of sittings. I inscription, carved at Serabit el-Khadem in Sinai, perhaps
language who studied Greek and Latin at Swarthmore pointed out to my wife, Linda, to her delight, that her initial around 1750 B.C. (3) Two horns are still evident in the
College and Oxford University, and who is the author of “L” has traditionally been considered the most soothing and Phoenician aleph of 1000 B.C., but the letter is by now an
an earlier book, Encyclopedia of the Ancient Greek World. relaxing of all the characters in the alphabet. i read to her abstract form, to be written in three quick strokes of an ink
On publication it was received with international the explanatory text, which included the following phrase: brush on papyrus or a stylus on ceramic. (4) By the 800s
acclaim. The New York Times reviewer wrote, “As fun to “The L’s calming effect is heard in ‘lull,’ ‘lullaby,’ ‘lollipop,’ B.C., Phoenician aleph has a new look, rather more like an
read as it is enlightening … Sacks’s obsession is contagious, ‘lotus land’ and ‘la-la land.’” ox’s head, to be written in perhaps two strokes. (Can you
and I can imagine few readers whose lives would not be Perhaps i can best illustrate the depth and diversity of guess where the shape would go next?)”
enriched by what he calls his ‘voyage of discovery.’” knowledge you will derive from this book by sharing several As serious and complex as this subject is, what makes
i agree with that reviewer’s enthusiastic comment, but in examples from Sacks’s research excerpted here. (Some of Letter Perfect a true joy to read is author David Sacks’s
all fairness to the readers of my column must add a note of the text, including entire paragraphs, have been deleted for consistently light and approachable writing style, as is
caution to my description of this book’s content and purpose. lack of space and have been replaced by three dots.) evident in his introductory page to the chapter about the
To begin with, i can promise that every one of the 367 “One-quarter of Earth’s population, 1.4 billion people, letter “V,” which features a photograph of Winston Churchill
pages of this book will offer a bounty of fascinating facts use nonalphabetic writing. Basically, this means China, in a familiar pose and the following text:
you had not previously known. (That doesn’t include the including Taiwan, and Japan. The Japanese system comes “History’s famous V. British Prime Minister Winston
reference section – bibliography, index and list of more from an adaptation of the Chinese that dates back to the Churchill gives the ‘V for Victory’ hand sign to a London
than 100 helpful illustrations, photographs and charts that 600s A.D. … In Chinese script, each symbol denotes a crowd in June 1943, during World War II. Conceived by
accompany the text.) whole word of the Mandarin Chinese language. We call Churchill in summer 1941 to help boost British morale
The author begins with a preface and opening chapter, such symbols ‘logograms’ (from two Greek roots meaning after Britain’s darkest war year, the V sign proved hugely
“Little Letters, Big Idea,” which together total 51 pages ‘word letter’) … It does not operate by conveying sound; popular in armies and homelands of the Commonwealth
that introduce the concept and beginnings of a written it conveys the idea behind and, eventually, the United States, a symbol of defiance
alphabet in Egypt in 2000 B.C., then trace it throughout the word. … example: See against Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan. Churchill
many evolutions to the Modern Roman alphabet of 1840 the Chinese symbol for had initiated the sign as a knuckles-outward gesture but
we basically use today. the word “middle” in the had reversed it to thumb-outward after learning that the
The one caution i referred to above is that this evolution, logogram on this page. other one already had the vulgar meaning of ‘Up yours.’
because of its complex nature, is treated in a rather scholarly “An alphabet enjoys Without a doubt, that continued nuance helped the V sign’s
way that requires your fullest attention – perhaps requiring one huge advantage over popularity.”
you to sometimes go back over the same text more than once any other writing system: My review can be summed up in a single letter: A+.
in order to absorb so much information. indeed, throughout It needs fewer symbols. No
this book you will be presented with at least 100 times as other system can get away
much knowledge as you can remember after one reading. with so few. This makes an
if it is possible to have too much knowledge placed before alphabet easier to learn.
you all at once, at least you will have it to turn to later for
reference from time to time. Provided this subject is of
interest to you, it will be well worth it.
Along the way you will learn the very interesting
reasons why the five vowels – a, e, i, o, u – were added to

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