Alpha Beta: How our alphabet changed the Western world by John Man, Hodder
Headline, 拢14.99, ISBN 0747271364
ONE of the greatest breakthroughs in the human story鈥攐ne that ranks
alongside the domestication of fire and the invention of the wheel鈥攊s the
alphabet. The wheel, after all, was reinvented in several cultures. This
alphabet, however, represents a single, once-only development of the written
script. And this small collection of signs changed the world.
As John Man tells us in Alpha Beta, one of the adaptive advantages
of the alphabet is its compactness. It compares favourably to the unwieldy
hieroglyphic and syllabic cuneiform scripts that preceded it.
Advertisement
Man manages to tell the tale of the alphabet itself in similarly compact
fashion鈥攏amely, in a short text that is crisp, taut and as clear as a
bell. Of course he uses the Roman alphabet, one of many variations on the basic
theme.
It is a fascinating story with many a beguiling subplot along the way. Yet he
never loses the thread by allowing himself to get sidetracked. He does have to
backtrack though to the time before there was an alphabet, to set the scene for
the signs that changed the world鈥攏ot just the Western world as his
subtitle suggests.
He surveys three early syllabic writing systems: ancient Egyptian
hieroglyphics, cuneiform and the Chinese script. All three, he says, are equally
conservative and highly resistant to the novel ideas represented by the
alphabet. For this reason, Man traces the origin of the alphabet to the emerging
nations of the ancient world who had neither the weight of a syllabic tradition
of writing nor the resistance of elitist scribes to hold them back.
The alphabet did not emerge overnight. It arose around 2000 BC when people
living in Western Asia simplified Egyptian hieroglyphics. Around a thousand
years later, thanks largely to the Phoenicians, who traded widely, the alphabet
started to catch on and through various mutations developed into the Latin and
Cyrillic scripts that dominate today. Yet even now the alphabet does not reign
supreme.
From the margin
Hieroglyphics and cuneiform may have been consigned to history but in China
writing of a decidedly non-alphabetical nature has not only survived, it has
thrived. It is a sobering fact that up until the 20th century, Chinese printed
matter exceeded that of the rest of the world.
Man finds further support for his thesis that the alphabet requires 鈥渁
disadvantaged people with no conventions to reject鈥� to flourish in the curious
and little-known case of the Korean alphabet. Developed by the 15th-century king
Sejong as a means to spread the word鈥� literally鈥攖o the people, it
failed to overcome the inertia of his bureaucrats who kept up their reliance on
a Chinese script. And it failed even though the Chinese script was ill-suited to
convey the ideas expressed in Korean language and society.
But there鈥檚 more than just historical scrutiny. Man favours the provocative
idea that the Greeks had an unparalleled influence on later civilisations not
because of any technological or cultural superiority, but rather because they
chose to transmit their ideas through the vehicle of the alphabet. Easier to
learn and use than, for example, even the demotic hieroglyphs of Egypt, the
alphabet spread swiftly.
Man has an explanation for the Greek alphabet鈥檚 success. He advances his
theory that the alphabet was a meme, a term coined by Richard Dawkins for a
cultural version of a gene. He describes the alphabet meme as a kind of
beneficent virus that seeks 鈥渁 small, fringe society, a shrew-like,
mammal-like culture sneaking about among dinosaurian giants, unconsciously
awaiting its moment. In one group [in Asia Minor], the meme finds a suitable
host. It jumps cultures鈥�. He tells us to take or leave his theories but, having
praised him for the overall terseness of his exposition, I would have enjoyed
seeing him waxing lyrical about this.