Customer Reviews

The Alphabet Effect: The Impact of the Phonetic Alphabet on the Development of Western Civilization

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

This is a curious book, it made me thinking, and also left me wanting to learn more.

The premise of the book is that the use of the phonetic alphabet led to a paradigm shift in human culture among Western Europeans, that left behind the rest of the world. "The use of repeatable, fragmented, identical elements, the letters, which began with the introduction of the phonetic alphabet is an an example of such a paradigm. The extension of this idea resulted in the development of codified law, monotheism, abstract science, and deductive logic."

I want to learn more about the development of science in China. There are a number of reference to Joseph Needham's epic work Science and Civilisation in China, which currently comprises 27 volumes. Logan primarily refers to Volume 2: History of scientific thought - which I should like to read and understand. Logan uses Needham's work to support his premise that phonetic alphabets led to abstract science and that pictographic languages do not enable the development of abstract science. Logan left me wanting to learn much more, I certainly was not convinced that his hypothesis is supported based on his research.

I don't believe that the phonetic alphabet led to the development of monotheism. Logan points out that the Greeks were the first to perfect the phonetic alphabet by adding vowels. Yet, the Greeks were polytheistic, as were the Romans.

This book does assemble a lot of interesting facts and data, which are flying together in loose formation. I think that the development of codified law, monotheism, abstract science, and deductive logic can not be explained as simple offshoots of the development of the phonetic alphabet. I believe the development of each of these areas in much more complex. In particular, mathematics must lie at the origin of abstract and deductive logic. I resonate with a quote that Logan uses:

Philosophy is written in this vast book, which lies continuously open before our eyes (I mean the universe). But it cannot be understood unless you have first learned to understand the language and recognize the characters in which it is written. It is written in the language of mathematics, and the characters are triangles, circles,and other geometrical figures. Without such means, it is impossible for us humans to understand a word of it, and to be without them is to wander around in vain through a dark labyrinth.
(Galileo Galilei, Il saggiatore, 1623.)

I enjoy history, but I don't often seek it out. My knowledge base of ancient history is really lacking, but this book piqued my interest to find out more. The basic idea of the book is that there is a connection between the use of the phonetic alphabet and the development of monotheism, codified law, and abstract science. I found the section on the inclusion of the zero in math to be particularly interesting. My only criticims are that he seems to make a soft case, that is he goes out of his way to point out that he's not making a causal connection, and the final chapter (on computers), at this point, is more than a little dated.

This book brings out the tremendous effect of the phonic alphabet in ways that most people do not consider. For example, in the Chinese and Japanese symbol systems, there is no way to alphabetise a list such as a telephone directory. The book is easy reading. I recommend it highly. My only criticism is that the author did not follow a smooth time sequence. The time line in the book bounced around possibly too much.

If you ever wondered how and why the Western Civilization managed to prevail over others, you must read this book. It is easy to read, entertaining and rich in historic details that certainly required extensive ressearch. It provides a unique insight to the development of science, understood as a consequence of the thinking processes involved in the use of phonetic alphabets.
In my opinion the book may have understated the importance of treasuring books and literacy, a cultural habit indispensable for information to "jump" generations that lacked great minds. A tiny detail compared to the wealth of information the book provides.
This book is also essential to understand the role of the printing press in the Industrial Revolution, the closest paralel to the revolution we are living today due to Internet.

Just want to contradict the review which questions Logan's credentials as a media ecologist. He is the real thing. He collaborated with Marshall McLuhan. In fact, they co-authored the article which Logan later elaborated into this book. He has done extensive research in media ecology and the evolution of language.
In addition to The Alphabet Effect, he's written The Sixth Language: Learning a Living in the Internet Age and The Extended Mind: The Emergence of Language, the Human Mind and Culture.
In The Alphabet Effect he meticulously develops the hypothesis that the alphabet, in particular the Greek alphabet, which modified earlier Semitic alphabets by introducing 7 vowels, and thus "created the most accurate and unambiguous phonetic writing system ever known to man. The phonetic alphabet permits a one-to-one correspondence between the spoken and written language"(p. 40). "The constant repetition of the process of phonemic analysis of a spoken word, every time it is written in an alphabetic form subliminally promotes the skills of analysis and matching that are critical for the development of scientific and logical thinking" (p. 109-110). This analytical system of writing words by successively adding one sound symbol after another, although we take it for granted today, is one of the most ingenious systems every created. Logan suggests that it paved the way for codified law, monotheism, abstract science and deductive logic. And later, with the advent of the printing press and "the modern innovations associated with print, . . . created a climate conducive to the mutual development of vernacular literature, universal education, individualism, the Reformation, modern democratic institutions, and capitalism" (p. 226), always with the disclaimer that there are no "hard and fast causal links". As an added bonus, you get a synthesis of early Greek philosophy. The Greeks chose Parmenides's rational logic and philosophizing over Heraclitus's common sensical empirical notion of change and flux, which has had lasting implications for Western civilization. "Logic and rationality were critical components in the development of modern science, but only after they were integrated with empiricism and experimentation" (p. 118).
The Sixth Language develops the hypothesis that speech, writing, math, science, computing and the Internet form an evolutionary chain of languages. It won the Suzanne K. Langer Award for Outstanding Scholarship in the Ecology of Symbolic Form in 2000 from the Media Ecology Association.
The Extended Mind: The Emergence of Language, the Human Mind and Culture develops a model for the origin of language, the human mind and culture using ideas from The Sixth Language and emergence theory.
Bottom line: Logan is credible. This is an entertaining and informative read - definitely worth the time. However, his more recent books may reflect how his thinking has evolved. Have not read them (but plan to), so I don't know if they incorporate the basic ideas contained in The Alphabet Affect.

I'm no linguist and therefore cannot assess the scholarly authority of this book - I came upon it by good chance. What I can say as a layman is that this 272-page book puts forward a credible hypothesis.

The book describes a bunch of stuff about the phonetic alphabet: its genesis and comparative impact on the development of Western Civilization. The author strongly believes that the phonetic alphabet is the "Mother of Invention". I have some qualms with that designation, but not strong enough to dismiss the hypothesis. My problem is that if the phonetic alphabet is the Mother of Invention, then why is its impact limited to Western Civilization?

What appears reasonable to me is that the phonetic alphabet has been a good parent (mother or father) to the diffusion of inventions across time and space. In that capacity the phonetic alphabet facilitated scientific writing, which in turn enhanced the communication of scientific ideas. However, success did not depend on its mere existence, but more than anything on the fact that the phonetic alphabet was more cross-cultural than its predecessors and some contemporaries. For example, I like learning of the links between Canaanite and Egyptian writings the book makes. These links suggest that the efficiency of the phonetic alphabet benefited from the little resistance to adoption it faced. There was little resistance because different cultures recognized a bit of themselves in the phonetic alphabet as it evolved. This cross-fertilization explains why initial growth was fastest in the Middle Eastern region, including Ethiopia.

The book walks the line between scholarship and political correctedness deftly. For example, it clearly sees the joint determination between language and economic progress as an aspect of civilization. However, it is important to note that while the codifying properties of phonetic alphabet made the production of information efficient, nowadays (in 2006), the display (consumption) of information more and more takes the form of icons. Still there is a lot to learn from this book.

Growth and change economists (and here I do know a little about what I am talking about) often include a language dummy variable in their attempts to explain the economic performance of nations. A negative sign on the language variable would be interpreted as the presence of unproductive fractionalization - an inference that arches back to the biblical story of Babel. I am not so sure that language alone, whether based on thephonetic alphabet or not, can effectively prevent purposeful activities. According to the book Chinese writing was not conducive to scientific progress. If correct, then we should have a hard time explaining China's rapid progress today. Despite my quarrels, this ia a very good book.

H. V. Amavilah, Author
Modeling Income Determinants in Embedded Economies : Cross-section Applications to US Native American Economies
ISBN: 1600210465

While browsing through the Linguistics section of local book store, I came across The Alphabet Effect: The Impact of the Phonetic Alphabet on the Development of Western Civilization by Robert K. Logan. The book appeared to be a history of the alphabet and a discussion on its indirect effects on Western society. Now, this doesn't sound like exciting reading for most people, but the history of literacy is a small passion of mine, so I picked up the book without a second thought. Since then, I've learned that a second thought, valuable as it may seem, would still be two thoughts too many for this particular book.

First, Robert K. Logan is not a linguist, nor a historian, nor even an otherwise unemployable English major. No, our distinguished author got his front-cover Ph.D. credentials in the field of Physics. That would have been my first warning sign, but the publisher (William Morrow) neglected to mention this, though they did spring to have a quick and sloppy photo added to the back cover.

After the publisher's bait and switch, I began to realize that not only is Logan a scientist in the wrong field, he doesn't seem to be that good of a scientist to begin with. Take this quote, which summarizes part of Logan's thesis:
"The alphabet is a natural classification scheme for words as anyone who has used a dictionary or a filing system is well aware. What distinguishes science, a term derived from the Latin word scire "to know," from knowledge is the organization of that knowledge."
Maybe the use of the word thesis is too strong for an author who apparently hasn't heard of hypothesis. Ironically, the only true statement Logan makes here is that science is a derivative of scire, which though good etymology is completely unrelated to the point he is making. Science is not organization; science is the experimental examination of natural phenomena. The order of letters in the alphabet is random (if static); other writing systems have organizational schemes that work just as well for them.

In an early chapter, Logan compares the alphabet with the Chinese writing system:
"An examination of this table reveals that even the most abstract scientific term must be rendered in a concrete form when it is written. This no doubt has a subliminal effect on Chinese thinking."
Never mind that there are scientific ways to test this hypothesis that are completely ignored, Logan's table gives us such "scientific" terms as begin, stop, sun, light, snow, life, fire, and count. I'm not an expert on Chinese, but in English, these words are among the oldest native words in the language. I imagine their correspondents are among the oldest words of any language. No one except maybe historical linguists or medieval researchers thinks of the Old English word beginnan whenever they say or read begin. I find it very hard to believe that Chinese speakers think of a woman and a fetus whenever they say or write the Chinese equivalent.

Logan uses his untested theory to account for a wide array of cultural differences. Because Chinese characters can be read by people with radically different dialects, Logan asserts that it was the ideograms alone that had a "unifying and preserving effect on culture" and not geography, government, or religion that had the same effect or which led to the broad acceptance of single written Chinese. Nonlinguists may want to note that it was the cost of a printing press and combined with the wealth of Renaissance London that gave English many of its current spelling "rules." Perhaps land owning Londoners can write phonetically, but the rest of us have to do a great deal of memorizing. Logan does his best to promote the phonetic alphabet, but the truly phonetic alphabet employed in phonetics is not only impractical for day-to-day purposes (see http://www2.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/images/ipachart.gif), it would also make written exchanges between the Hebrides and the hills of Kentucky a near impossibility.

Although I wouldn't call Logan a racist as he does try to give credit where credit is due, his compliments to the Chinese have the same sideways compliment tone of many "my black friend" statements. For example:
"Chinese technological inventiveness is unparalleled by that of any other culture, yet China never exploited its technology in a systematic manner as was done in the West during the Industrial Revolution."
Again, all other explanations are thrown aside. It was the alphabet that led the West to exploit technology, invent Monotheism, invent the printing press, invent the number zero, logic, and science. Logan's definition of "The West" is subject to change. Some times it includes Hindu India, the Persian Empire, or medieval Arab states. Other times it excludes any number of European or American nations, past and present, that don't fit Logan's limited view of Western cultural heritage.

There is a great deal of actual history in Logan's book, but he has made it unreadable by his constant rehashing of his thesis without providing any substantial evidence outside of coincidence and quotes from like-minded researchers. The alphabet is a fascinating topic; I can imagine that someone would be able to write a wonderful introduction to the topic for lay readers, but that book is not The Alphabet Effect.

This is a great book which offers an interesting view on the role played by the type of language in shaping the kind of thinking an individual/culture carries out -- and determining, to some extent, what an individual/culture can accomplish.