Writing: the story of alphabets and scripts

A small book that explores the evolution of writing systems in many different cultures. The book's strongest point is its illustrations -- lots and lots. Nothing revolutionary here, but those who like this sort of thing will like it. I certainly did

Jean covers the development of writing from the distant past to the present day in a fun, easily digestible, comprehensive manner. There's a lot of neat little tidbits here.

Interesting intoduction, but not a full text: A small book, recapping briefly the history of writing from Akkad and Sumer through the development of printing in the West and China. There are, in fact, two sections: First, the overview of languages and writing, without an overly forceful emphasis on the West, which avoids the taint of cultural bias nicely; second, a group of documents ~ quotations ~ from all sorts of sources, about writing, the alphabets, ideograms, and more. The documents are interesting, though a little confused, especially as regarding the plates that illustrate them; it is not always possible to tell what is what. And the first section is a fascinating overview, well written (or well translated [from the French], show more it's hard to know with a translation), though with little in it i didn't actually know already. The most important thing that a book of this nature can do is to whet the appetite for more. Consider mine whetted. show less

The alphabet has a fascinating history. This book's chief virtue is in its use of well-chosen pictures, usually in color, to illuminate the text.

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Non so quanti libri, libretti, libroni o enciclopedie ho su questo argomento. Da quando ho imparato a leggere e scrivere, mettendo insieme i caratteri mobili della piccola tipografia paterna, non mi stanco mai di riflettere su questa abilità che è la quarta e la più sofisticata che ci distingue dagli animali: ascoltare, parlare, leggere, scrivere. Breve e conciso, questo libretto mi ricorda che il libro essenziale, il solo vero libro, un grande o piccolo scrittore non deve inventarlo, poichè esiste già in ognuno di noi, ma tradurlo. Il dovere e il compito di chi scrive è quello di tradurre ... se stessi e trasmettere quello che pensa agli altri ...

História písma je príbeh starý 6000 rokov. Jej rozhodujúce epizódy sa odohrávali na území rozprestierajúcom sa od brehov Tigrisu a Eufratu až k brehom Egejského a Stredozemného mora. Rydlo, trstina, dláto, pero: nástroj určuje formu. A forma sa rozvíja. Písmo, sprostredkovateľ grandiózneho dedičstva, nie je ničím iným, než pamäťou ľudstva.