An alphabet is a system for organising and recording thought and the very earliest letters, which demonstrate this ('a' was the first sound of the Semitic word for 'ox', 'b' for 'house'), are still with us, virtually unchanged across the millennia. And while the western world today is divided by languages, it remains largely united by alphabet. Where these letters came from and how they have evolved over the years is more than just an academic exercise. John Man's ALPHA BETA tells a thrilling story of adventure, passion and intrigue.
Alpha Beta
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
Review
The alphabet's worldwide diffusion can be compared to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, John Man proposes in his narrative search for "Alphabeticus Originalis."
Sweeping from one ancient culture to another, Man unearths archaeological finds, debates biblical myths and provides scientific evidence to support his theory of the alphabet's germination and development.
Using a highly accessible format sharper than the dull edge of the usual historical text, "Alpha Beta" traces its subject on a historical journey around the Mediterranean. Beginning with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and cuneiform, Man, a historian and travel writer, follows the evolution of letters from one great civilization to another.
Paying his respects to the early development of script in China and an especially practical Korean alphabet, Man drives into Sinai in his four-wheel drive to begin his study of the Israelites.
"What emerges in the Sinai wilderness--or the metaphorical wilderness--is a blueprint for group survival unprecedented in history."
The blueprint, Man explains, was based on monotheism and fixed commandments. And it worked because the laws were written in a simple script that did not require excessive knowledge: an alphabet.
In the Phoenicians, Man finds another people to support his hypothesis.
"These port peoples needed a good writing system if only to keep trade records. ... They were ripe for the alphabet, knowledge of which was slowly filtering outwards from its southern Palestine dispersal centre."
Similarly, the alphabet arrived in Greece "and attached itself to a society at a crucial stage in its evolution--a youngish culture ... with no apparentloyalty to an established writing system."
Quickly moving along the Mediterranean, a "land that must have seemed ripe for the plucking" is encountered. But before discussing the true founders of Rome, Man devotes several pages to the outrageous exploits of Thomas Dempster, a forgotten 17th-century Etruscan scholar and "hooligan."
While some of the details about Dempster are amusing, they provide one of several examples of extraneous material in an otherwise concise and effective approach to such an overwhelming idea.
Moving on to the Etruscan alphabet, Man picks up the pace and explains the possibility of a Phoenician or Greek influence. While many mysteries remain about the Etruscans' origins and their alphabet, their influence on a much better-known people and alphabet is hard to ignore.
Debunking the popular myth of Romulus as Rome's founder, Man points to archaeological research for "an account of Rome's origins that dignifies not the Romans but the Etruscans."
After tracing the expansion of the Roman language, Man reaches his limit with the introduction of Cyrillic and travels at breakneck speed to the present. From one chapter to the next, he goes from the Etruscans to the Soviets.
"Alpha Beta" should appeal to anyone with even a mild interest in ancient civilization and an affinity for language.
(Associated Press, BOOKS September 10, 2001)
"Using a highly accessible format sharper than the dull edge of the usually historical text, Alpha Beta traces its subject on a historical journey around the Mediterranean. Beginning with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and cuneiform, Man, a historian and travel writer, follows the evolution of lettersfrom one great civilization to another.Alpha Beta should appeal to anyone with even a mild interest in ancient civilization and an affinity with language."(Associated Press) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Sweeping from one ancient culture to another, Man unearths archaeological finds, debates biblical myths and provides scientific evidence to support his theory of the alphabet's germination and development.
Using a highly accessible format sharper than the dull edge of the usual historical text, "Alpha Beta" traces its subject on a historical journey around the Mediterranean. Beginning with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and cuneiform, Man, a historian and travel writer, follows the evolution of letters from one great civilization to another.
Paying his respects to the early development of script in China and an especially practical Korean alphabet, Man drives into Sinai in his four-wheel drive to begin his study of the Israelites.
"What emerges in the Sinai wilderness--or the metaphorical wilderness--is a blueprint for group survival unprecedented in history."
The blueprint, Man explains, was based on monotheism and fixed commandments. And it worked because the laws were written in a simple script that did not require excessive knowledge: an alphabet.
In the Phoenicians, Man finds another people to support his hypothesis.
"These port peoples needed a good writing system if only to keep trade records. ... They were ripe for the alphabet, knowledge of which was slowly filtering outwards from its southern Palestine dispersal centre."
Similarly, the alphabet arrived in Greece "and attached itself to a society at a crucial stage in its evolution--a youngish culture ... with no apparentloyalty to an established writing system."
Quickly moving along the Mediterranean, a "land that must have seemed ripe for the plucking" is encountered. But before discussing the true founders of Rome, Man devotes several pages to the outrageous exploits of Thomas Dempster, a forgotten 17th-century Etruscan scholar and "hooligan."
While some of the details about Dempster are amusing, they provide one of several examples of extraneous material in an otherwise concise and effective approach to such an overwhelming idea.
Moving on to the Etruscan alphabet, Man picks up the pace and explains the possibility of a Phoenician or Greek influence. While many mysteries remain about the Etruscans' origins and their alphabet, their influence on a much better-known people and alphabet is hard to ignore.
Debunking the popular myth of Romulus as Rome's founder, Man points to archaeological research for "an account of Rome's origins that dignifies not the Romans but the Etruscans."
After tracing the expansion of the Roman language, Man reaches his limit with the introduction of Cyrillic and travels at breakneck speed to the present. From one chapter to the next, he goes from the Etruscans to the Soviets.
"Alpha Beta" should appeal to anyone with even a mild interest in ancient civilization and an affinity for language.
(Associated Press, BOOKS September 10, 2001)
"Using a highly accessible format sharper than the dull edge of the usually historical text, Alpha Beta traces its subject on a historical journey around the Mediterranean. Beginning with ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and cuneiform, Man, a historian and travel writer, follows the evolution of lettersfrom one great civilization to another.Alpha Beta should appeal to anyone with even a mild interest in ancient civilization and an affinity with language."(Associated Press) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
About the Author
John Man is a historian and travel writer with a special interest in Mongolia. His most recent books are GOBI: TRACKING THE DESERT and THE ATLAS OF THE YEAR 1000. He also wrote THE WAORANI: JUNGLE NOMADS OF ECUADOR and THE ATLAS OF D-DAY. He devised and presented the BBC Radio 4 series 'Survivors'.
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More About the Author
JOHN MAN
I usually write non-fiction, mainly exploring interests in Asia and the history of written communication. So 'The Lion's Share', available only on Kindle, is something different - a new edition of a thriller written some 25 years ago when I wasn't sure what I wanted to focus on. It's about the 'real' - in quotes, i.e. fictional - fate of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia.
Most of the time, I like to mix history, narrative and personal experience, exploring the places I write about. It brings things to life, and it's a reaction against an enclosed, secure, rural childhood in Kent. I did German and French at Oxford, and two postgraduate courses, History and Philosophy of Science at Oxford and Mongolian at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (to join an expedition that never happened).
After working in journalism and publishing, I turned to writing, with occasional forays into film, TV and radio. A planned trilogy on three major revolutions in writing has resulted in two books, 'Alpha Beta' (on the alphabet) and 'The Gutenberg Revolution', both republished in 2009. The third, on the origin of writing, is on hold, because it depends on researching in Iraq. (On the fourth revolution, the Internet, many others can write far better than me).
My interest in Mongolia revived in 1996 when I spent a couple of months in the Gobi. 'Gobi: Tracking the Desert' was the first book on the region since the 1920's (those by the American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews). In Mongolia, everything leads back to Genghis. I followed. The result was 'Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection', now appearing in 20 languages. Luckily, there's more to Mongol studies than Genghis. 'Attila the Hun' and 'Kublai Khan' came next.
Another main theme in Asian history is the ancient and modern relationship between Mongolia and China. 'The Terracotta Army', published to in 2007, was followed by 'The Great Wall', which took me from Xinjiang to the Pacific. 'The Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan' (combining history, character analysis and modern leadership theory) and 'Xanadu: Marco Polo and Europe's Discovery of the East' pretty much exhausted Inner Asian themes for me.
So recently I have become interested in Japan. For 'Samurai: The Last Warrior', I followed in the footsteps of Saigo Takamori, the real 'Last Samurai', published in February 2011. After that, more fiction, perhaps.
I live in north London, inspired by a strong and beautiful family - wife, children and grand-children.
I usually write non-fiction, mainly exploring interests in Asia and the history of written communication. So 'The Lion's Share', available only on Kindle, is something different - a new edition of a thriller written some 25 years ago when I wasn't sure what I wanted to focus on. It's about the 'real' - in quotes, i.e. fictional - fate of Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia.
Most of the time, I like to mix history, narrative and personal experience, exploring the places I write about. It brings things to life, and it's a reaction against an enclosed, secure, rural childhood in Kent. I did German and French at Oxford, and two postgraduate courses, History and Philosophy of Science at Oxford and Mongolian at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London (to join an expedition that never happened).
After working in journalism and publishing, I turned to writing, with occasional forays into film, TV and radio. A planned trilogy on three major revolutions in writing has resulted in two books, 'Alpha Beta' (on the alphabet) and 'The Gutenberg Revolution', both republished in 2009. The third, on the origin of writing, is on hold, because it depends on researching in Iraq. (On the fourth revolution, the Internet, many others can write far better than me).
My interest in Mongolia revived in 1996 when I spent a couple of months in the Gobi. 'Gobi: Tracking the Desert' was the first book on the region since the 1920's (those by the American explorer Roy Chapman Andrews). In Mongolia, everything leads back to Genghis. I followed. The result was 'Genghis Khan: Life, Death and Resurrection', now appearing in 20 languages. Luckily, there's more to Mongol studies than Genghis. 'Attila the Hun' and 'Kublai Khan' came next.
Another main theme in Asian history is the ancient and modern relationship between Mongolia and China. 'The Terracotta Army', published to in 2007, was followed by 'The Great Wall', which took me from Xinjiang to the Pacific. 'The Leadership Secrets of Genghis Khan' (combining history, character analysis and modern leadership theory) and 'Xanadu: Marco Polo and Europe's Discovery of the East' pretty much exhausted Inner Asian themes for me.
So recently I have become interested in Japan. For 'Samurai: The Last Warrior', I followed in the footsteps of Saigo Takamori, the real 'Last Samurai', published in February 2011. After that, more fiction, perhaps.
I live in north London, inspired by a strong and beautiful family - wife, children and grand-children.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
highly informative,
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This review is from: Alpha Beta (Paperback)
"Alpha Beta" is the story of a revolutionary idea -- that instead of using symbols to represent words, or even to represent syllables, each symbol could represent a single sound, and thereby reproduce a language in only two or three dozen symbols, rather than hundreds or thousands. John Man tracks the development of alphabets from the ancient Middle East and their spread across the world.Man's basic theory is that the alphabet is a revolutionary idea. It is not, he says, necessarily a BETTER way to record information than syllabic/pictographic scripts, but it is certainly a different way, and one that requires a fair degree of abstraction. He further posits that writing systems have a great deal of inertia once established, since literacy is associated with knowledge, power, and social status. Those who have put effort into learning a complicated system of writing, such as Chinese ideograms or Egyptian hieroglyphics, resist the establishment of a new system. Therefore, the alphabet is likely to have developed in fringe societies of the Middle East, those who did not want their writing to be beholden to either Egypt or the great powers of Mesopotamia, which used cuneiform writing. Man also discusses the spread of the alphabet system, with much attention given to the development of the Latin alphabet by way of the Etruscans, Greeks, Phonecians, and probably the Hebrews. He also talks a little about the theory of alphabets and their inability to ever completely and accurately represent a language, if only because pronunciation changes. (The chapter on the Korean Hangul alphabet is particularly interesting, both in terms of alphabet design and the reluctance of the Koreans to adopt the new system over Chinese ideograms.) Man is a little vague in places, and spends a fair amount of time spinning speculative fictions about the transmission of the alphabet through the Mediteranean. However, he is fairly careful to stress that he is only speculating, and nobody has solid evidence for much of the history of our alphabet. In short, this is a fascinating book, and a wonderful introduction to the study of writing systems and the history of literacy. While not as in depth as I might have prefered, it does cover a vast range of time and space, and offers interesting directions for further reading.
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