- Paperback: 400 pages
- Publisher: Arrow Books Ltd; New edition edition (7 Oct 2004)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0099436825
- ISBN-13: 978-0099436829
- Product Dimensions: 19.4 x 13 x 3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 410,842 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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More About the Author
Product Description
Guardian
'A wonderfully interesting book'
New Statesman
'‘Sacks has elaborate... fun with all the letters'
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
15 of 16 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This book by David Sacks is excellent. It gives the full history of the alphabet from the first known alphabetic inscriptions up to modern-day uses. There's plenty of information mixed with stories about the letters, examples of their use in advertising and diagrams of their evolution.
One problem with the book is that it originated as 26 separate articles in a newspaper, one for each letter. These have been tied together, making one chapter for each letter and an introductory section, but there is still a fair amount of repetition, because the story of the Phoenician alphabet ends up being repeated in just about every chapter. Extra sections on subjects like the evolution of printing are thrown into the middle of chapters as "insets", but these can take four or five pages, so the flow of reading is constantly being interrupted. Even within these, pictures can have long titles stretching to half a page, the reading of which interrupts the flow of the inset. So it's not an easy book to read.
Another possible problem is that the book accepts as incontrovertible the origin of Semitic writing in Egypt in 2000 BC, and cites as evidence the two inscriptions found in Wadi El Hol. These are not as convincing as the author seems to think and are not as far as I can tell universally accepted.
All in all, though, an excellent book.
Format:Paperback
If you have any love of languages, this is a MUST. It is totally absorbing and informative and at the same time presented with great humour. It does explain how the letters, as we know them at present, came to be. Despite the 'dry' subject, this was a book I found difficult to put down and have bought it several times to give as a present.
Format:Hardcover
The AlphabetThe Alphabet This is a remarkable book which gives great insights into the background to our written language - indeed not just ours but all in the family of Indo-European languages. Gives a lot to think about.
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