NOVA: A to Z - The First Alphabet And How Writing Changed The World

Very informative. My 10 year old loved it. Adults will find it interesting.

Good documentary on literacy of many cultures throughout history

Never before information on evidence of the first written language with abstract 26 letters, like our Western alphabet.

I really enjoyed the documentary about writing. My only disappointment is that they did not cover origins of Devanagiri (Sanskrit), Dravidian (like Tamil), Thai scripts etc. I wish they would have covered it.

A good pair of shows about our alphabet. Very informative although some greater detail would have been appreciated.

Well put together documentary that little is told about before.

Watched this on PBS Documentaries on Prime Video. Fascinating show about the origins of writing and human language. The fact that all written language seems to stem from the same basic alphabet is amazing. I agree with the previous review that the subtitles should have been printed in a darker color, as they are difficult to read at times with white words over very light backgrounds. Also, the narrator consistently pronounces the word “picture” as “pitcher” which I found quite irksome. You’d think with a documentary about language, they could have found a narrator who could pronounce that word correctly! Especially since the whole premise is about how picture-based writing evolved into the development of a simpler alphabet. You get the idea... you will hear “pitcher” a lot. And it made me cringe a bit each time. Ugh. Otherwise, excellent!

A wonderful program five stars . Only problem was that almost all the cast spoke nonenglish languages and the subtitles were so faint they could not be read against a light colored background.but very well done otherwise.