The Alphabet: A key to the History of Mankind

Writing is one of the most important means of communication—the only one that can defy time and space. Whenever there has been civilization there has been writing and reading in the remote past as in the present day. Written language has become the vehicle of civilization and so of learning and education. Writing is thus one of the main aspects of culture which clearly distinguish mankind from the animal world. The purpose of this book is to provide an introduction to this fascinating subject of the history of writing or the alphabet. In the first part a historical sketch of the development of the non-alphabetic scripts is discussed and the second part deals with the origin and development of alphabet. More space is devoted to less-known problems, to those which present more interest from the standpoint of the history of writing, to the origins of some single scripts, to the connection between the various systems, and so forth rather than deal with all the alphabets of all the modern nations of the world. The books is intended for two different type of readers. The general reader will, it is hoped, welcome the information supplied by the notes on the history of some little known people and on the linguistic and ethnic problems presented by others. The student on the other hand, who may use the book as an approach the study of different scripts and alphabets, will undoubtedly find the bibliographies a valuable aid to further study.