The Alphabet - Softcover

Sacks, David

3.99

698 ratings by Goodreads

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0099436825 ISBN 13: 9780099436829

Publisher: Arrow, 2004

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There is a story behind each letter of the alphabet. How did A become the symbol for quality or the badge worn by adulterers in Puritan England? Why is X the mark of the Unknown or shorthand for a kiss? When did Z, the least-used letter in English, become an emblem of African-American Hip Hop culture? Which two letters came last, historically, to the alphabet? (J and V). How did a few squiggles, invented 4000 years ago to denote sounds of a now vanished Semitic language, survive to become our letters today? While China and Japan rely mainly on scripts of ideograms, three-quarters of humanity uses some kind of alphabet. Chinese writing requires 2000 basic symbols, with an inventory of 60,000, where an alphabet needs typically less than 30. From A to Z, David Sacks provides answers to the most fascinating questions about the way we talk, write and think, in a book that takes you on a gripping journey through 40 centuries of the alphabet's evolution.

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Review:

"The Alphabet by David Sacks is the history of 26 letters which daily describe and change the world - from Egyptian pictures through the Phoenician, Hebrew, Greek, and Roman refinements to our own variations on those few, now abstract symbols." (Melvyn Bragg)

"Sacks' clever, simple idea is to follow the individual letters, one by one. He takes us back in time to find how each came to us and how it gained its special properties a wonderfully interesting book" (Guardian)

"Sacks has elaborate but straight-faced fun with all the letters, stroking them like pets, aware of the mosaic of associations that clings to every one of them" (New Statesman)

"Serious food for linguaphiles Sacks visits each of the letters as if it were an island, with its distinct geography and customs" (Financial Times Magazine)

"Brilliant, entertaining and amusing." (Barbados Daily Nation)

Book Description:

'A wonderfully interesting book' Guardian

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