Robert Claiborne (1919–1990)

A history of writing from the earliest picture drawings of early man to the spread of the alphabet by the Phoenicians and ending with a photoessay of calligraphy from Japan to medieval Europe. While an older book it was quite interesting because of the lavish use of photos and drawings. The author doesn't assume that he has the last word on the development of writing and hints that new discoveries may change some of our ideas. I would like to find a good article or short book that does show more update his information but this book was worth the time I spent because of the illustrations alone. show less

I’ve been having a fascination with language lately, and this sure was an interesting read. A lot of words that came from the same root - such as unite and unicorn - were related words whose relation didn’t even cross my mind, and I LOVE those situations where I learn something new. I did give this a 4 out of 5 stars because there were some words where he just gave the modern English word that we got from the root (most of the other roots had quite a bit more detail).

handbook of word origins

Great book on English language history.