Inventing the alphabet : the origins of letters from antiquity to the present /

Inventing the alphabet : the origins of letters from antiquity to the present /

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Bibliographic Details
Author / Creator:	Drucker, Johanna, 1952- author.
Imprint:	Chicago : The University of Chicago Press, 2022. ©2022
Description:	380 pages : illustrations (black and white) ; 26 cm
Language:	English
Subject:	Alphabet -- History. Alphabet. History.
Format:	Print Book
URL for this record:	http://pi.lib.uchicago.edu/1001/cat/bib/13474972

Hidden Bibliographic Details
ISBN:	9780226815817 0226815811 9780226815800
Notes:	Includes bibliographical references (pages 307-361) and index.
Summary:	Though there are many books about the history of the alphabet, virtually none address how that history came to be. In this book, the author guides readers from antiquity to the twenty-first century to show how humans have shaped and reshaped their own understanding of this transformative writing tool. From ancient beliefs in the alphabet as a divine gift to growing awareness of its empirical origins through the study of scripts and inscriptions, the author describes the frameworks - classical, textual, biblical, graphical, antiquarian, archaeological, paleographic, and political - within which the alphabet's history has been and continues to be constructed. The book begins in ancient Greece, with the earliest writings on the alphabet's origins. The author then explores biblical sources on the topic and medieval preoccupations with the magical properties of individual letters. She later delves into the development of modern archaeological and paleographic tools, and she concludes with the role of alphabetic characters in the digital era. Throughout, she argues that, as a shared form of knowledge technology integrated into every aspect of our lives, the alphabet performs complex cultural, ideological, and technical functions, and her carefully curated selection of images demonstrates how closely the letters we use today still resemble their original appearance millennia ago. --
Other form:	Online version: Drucker, Johanna, 1952- Inventing the alphabet. Chicago The University of Chicago Press 2022 9780226815800

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Call Number:	P211.D76 2022
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