Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet From A to Z

I first heard about David Sacks' book "Language Visible" after reading a favorable review in Discover Magazine some months back. Being a long-time linguist by hobby (my day job is computer programming), I couldn't resist buying the book in hardback, even though normally I hate spending that much money. I was not disappointed.As the author points out on page ix of the preface, this is not intended to be a text book. No doubt expert linguists will be able to point out inaccuracies in the text, or quibble over some of the author's conclusions. For me, on the other hand, this is a veritable treasure trove of fascinating little nuggets of information on our familiar letters. Some of these are things I've known from childhood, looking at the big dictionary in the school library at the start of the section for each letter, where there would be diagrams showing the evolution of the symbol from ancient Phoenician up to the present day. I've picked up other bits of trivia along the way while doing research on historical topics such as the pivotal Battle of Hastings in 1066. Having it all together, under one figurative roof, on my own bookshelf, is priceless.True, the book focuses on the English language, but by necessity it also talks about German, French, Italian and Spanish, as well as earlier languages stretching back to Latin, ancient Greek, Hebrew and Phoenician. With a little ancient Egyptian thrown in for good measure. For that is another nifty thing about this book: it takes advantage of discoveries made as recently as 1999, linking our familiar alphabet to certain exotic-looking Egyptian hieroglyphs. The introductory section tells how a group of Semitic people living in Egypt some 4000 years ago hit upon the ingenious idea of using easily remembered hieroglyphic symbols to represent individual sounds, strung together to form words. All of a sudden ordinary people, be they butchers, bakers or bricklayers, could learn to read and write in a matter of days. Literacy was no longer the exclusive domain of scribes, kings and priests.The main part of the book consists of 26 articles, one for each letter, which were originally published in the Canadian newspaper "Ottawa Citizen" over a period of 26 weeks. While they've been edited somewhat for the book, to include such things as page references to related topics, they don't appear to have been completely rewritten. This is made evident by a certain amount of repetition from one chapter to the next, as might be expected given how a person reading the original "M" newspaper article might not have seen the "A" article published three months earlier.Actually, this suited me just fine: as quickly as I plowed through the book, devouring the whole thing in less than a week, things had a way of running together, so the repetition came in handy. Some day soon I'll have to reread it all ....Besides tracing the history of the letters, the chapters also go into their cultural significance in English, clear up to the start of the 21st Century. David Sacks also has a whimsical sense of humor. For instance, when discussing the silent P in certain Greek-derived words like "psychiatrist", he makes this humorous aside: "As every schoolboy knows, there can be a silent P in swimming".Other features I greatly enjoyed include the family tree linking all of the world's major alphabets back to the Egyptians (with the sole exception of Korea's Hangul alphabet, which was invented from scratch). Also, there are tables listing the ancient Phoenician and modern Hebrew alphabets, plus the original Greek, Etruscan and Latin alphabets. Plus, several of the chapters have inset grey boxes, sometimes extending for pages on end, discussing topics like the following: 1) The evolution of writing from Roman times through the Middle Ages, and where lowercase letters come from. 2) The impact of the invention of Gutenberg's printing press on the modern world. 3) Why there is a noticeable difference between British and American spelling. 4) What happened to certain runic letters which appeared in Old English works like Beowulf, but which have disappeared since?Sprinkled throughout the book are answers to a myriad of other questions as well. Have you ever wondered why are there sign posts saying odd things like "Ye Olde English Pub?" Why does the Spanish J sound like H, while the V sounds like B? How did Julius Caesar likely pronounce "Veni, Vidi, Vici"? Why is it important to mind your P's and Q's? Where did the expression "okay" come from? What does "Beowulf" mean?I could go on and on ad nauseam but will stop here. Just get the book and read it for yourself. You won't regret it.

The content of this book is fascinating, but I took off one star because much of the text is included in set off text boxes, especially the running history which ties together the tidbits in each letter. The problem is these text boxes are printed in a teeny tiny font against a grey background, making them very hard to read. Even worse are the lengthy captions to images - these are often really Interesting and meaty, but they’re printed in teeny tiny italics. Kinda ironic that a book about letters, with much discussion of type faces, would make such irritating chooses about type face. The editor should be ashamed.

This book examines the history of the alphabet that we all know and love...and by the third chapter I could finally read it without getting the ABC song stuck in my head. Sacks examines the evolution of each letter, its relationship to the other letters, its placement in the alphabet, and pop culture images of the letters. Furthermore, pronunciation shifts and language influences to pronunciation are excellently explained. Sacks presents plenty of examples of how to pronounce certain letter sounds-so much that I think my husband is now afraid I'll be reading aloud. He also gives an entertaining introduction to linguistics-again, causing me to contort my mouth every few lines to examine the difference between voiced and unvoiced sounds, letter pairs, fricatives, sibilants, and all those other wonderful ways we make our language and accents. This is beyond a beginner's book on language (but not much beyond); having a basic understanding of world history, word origins, and foreign languages is the best way to truly enjoy this book. It is not a difficult or boring read, however. I was entertained the entire time I was reading. The only reason it took me more than a week to finish it is that I kept reading parts of it aloud to my husband because of how much I kept learning.

Where did the alphabet come from? How has it changed throughout time? Why does X represent the unknown? An introduction and a chapter on each letter answer these and many other questions, some you may not have thought of asking. Illustrations show the evolution of the appearance of each letter, and charts demonstrate the frequency of the letters . An enjoyable read.

I’ve always been fascinated by the origins of written communication. I found this book fascinating: “Letter Perfect: The Marvelous History of Our Alphabet From A to Z” —David Sacks. Ironically it also had the worst typography and layout in any printed book I’ve ever seen.* I’d even buy a clean reprint.*Printed on low quality newsprint paper, that soaked up the ink like a paper towel; body copy borderline legibility, worse were the practically illegible (but interesting) scholarly side bars and other entire sections of the book, printed in a ~8 pt serif, ~set solid, over ~50% black dot screen. Terrible production, but the book itself was good. Try to find one with cleaner typography.

This book was easy to read and had a lot of great information about each letter of the alphabet, tracing most all the way back to the Ancient Egyptians. While I was more likely to groan than laugh at most of the humor in the book, I did enjoy the read and got exactly what I expected out of it. If you are interested in a pretty comprehensive history of each English letter, I definitely would recommend it.

Great material and research information to learn. Excellent book and I'm am very satisfied.

No issues at all. Perfect

There may be other books out there that do this job in more depth - certainly the lengthy bibliography makes it clear this is far from a revolutionary or isolated book in the field. But for an interested lay reader, I doubt that there are any that do the job better. David Sacks gets information across the way that perhaps one really good teacher in your education career did. If you were lucky. Engaging, broad-ranging, entertaining as much as informative, easy without ever being facile, this is just a great read. It starts with an outline of the earliest origins of the alphabet in a meeting of cultures and traditions in ancient Egypt and its subsequent spread across most of the world in different forms. The main part is divided letter by letter, describing the development of the letter in sound, typography, and symbolism (think brand x) from its earliest days to modern use in major European languages. As a side note, anyone who struggles with spelling ought to read this. Not because some of the history might help - it might, that's true - but because once you know that people have been trying to ditch the letter "c" since the middle ages as redundant, and other little nuggets in here, it's hard to feel alone.

Initially skeptical of the glowing praise and the price, I hesitated to purchase this book - but I am delighted that I did buy it. It is a book to dip into, informative and written in a clear, humorous style. There are the more academic sections if one wants to read in more detail; there is the lighthearted history of each letter's development for general information. A wonderful book and just what I was looking for..

Best book about the history of the alphabet. It goes letter by letter and explains how the shapes evolved and gives lots of interesting anecdotes along the way.