{"id":13773,"date":"2022-05-16T13:02:42","date_gmt":"2022-05-16T11:02:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/?post_type=purple_issue&p=13773"},"modified":"2022-05-16T13:02:42","modified_gmt":"2022-05-16T11:02:42","slug":"first-letters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/2022\/05\/16\/first-letters\/","title":{"rendered":"First letters"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

LANGUAGE<\/strong><\/span><\/strong><\/h4>\n\n

First letters <\/h1>\n\n
\"\"
Words of wisdom<\/span><\/strong> A page from the early eighth-century Lindisfarne Gospels. Alphabets are often viewed as critical to the development of western civilisation<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n
\"\"<\/figure><\/div>\n\n

Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

by Johanna Drucker <\/p>\n\n

University of Chicago Press, 384 pages, \u00a332<\/h5>\n\n

At the heart of one of the world\u2019s great storehouses of knowledge, the rooms built by Pope Sixtus V in the Vatican Library, are a series of pillars which literally prop up the library. Dating from the 1590s, the pillars are decorated with frescoes that celebrate \u201cThe Inventors of Alphabets\u201d and depict mythical, biblical or historical figures as creators of alphabetic writing systems. The symbolism is clear: alphabets are critical to the development of western civilisation.<\/p>\n\n

Johanna Drucker, a distinguished scholar at UCLA, provides a rich, detailed account of how western thinkers have understood the origins and development of the alphabet. Equally at home discussing medieval scholars, the learned divines of 17th-century England or archaeologists of more recent times, Drucker leads us through a complex series of intellectual approaches to a question that has perplexed scholars over centuries: where did the idea of the alphabet come from? The question represents more than just an interest in an arcane corner of knowledge. For many thinkers, especially in early modern Europe, alphabets were fundamental to the understanding of languages, and language was a critical issue in understanding the human mind. The founders of the Royal Society, for example, were deeply interested in such matters.<\/p>\n\n

These debates have a contemporary resonance, as they assume a hierarchy of writing systems that can be traced back to ancient cultures in the near east and Europe. These alphabets continue to assert dominance across the globe, for example in modern computer technologies where character-based systems (such as Chinese) have been forced to adapt around them more slowly.<\/span><\/p>\n\n

Millions learn the alphabet in childhood, and Drucker\u2019s study opens up a fascinating realm of ideas and scholarship into its origins and meaning.<\/p>\n\n

\n\n

Richard Ovenden <\/strong>is Bodley\u2019s Librarian at the University of Oxford<\/p>\n\n

All products were chosen independently by our editorial team. Below is an affiliate link, and we may receive a commission for purchases made. Please read our affiliates FAQ section<\/a> to find out more.<\/p>\n\n

Buy now from Waterstones<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n

PICTURE CREDIT: BRIDGEMAN<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LANGUAGE First letters Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present by Johanna Drucker University of Chicago Press, 384 pages, \u00a332 At the heart of one of the world\u2019s great storehouses of knowledge, the rooms built by Pope Sixtus V in the Vatican Library, are a series of pillars which literally 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First letters Inventing the Alphabet: The Origins of Letters from Antiquity to the Present by Johanna Drucker University of Chicago Press, 384 pages, \u00a332 At the heart of one of the world\u2019s great storehouses of knowledge, the rooms built by Pope Sixtus V in the Vatican Library, are a series of pillars which literally…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13773"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/24"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13773"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13773\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14207,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13773\/revisions\/14207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14299"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/c01.purpledshub.com\/bbchistory\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}