Rating: 
Summary: Excellent book, but hazy on pronunciation
Review: "Language Visible" is a delightful combination of history, humor, linguistics, puns, archaeology, and fancy. The thrill David Sacks gets from the subject is evident throughout. I found it thoroughly enjoyable. My family tolerated my frequent comments about some aspect of the history of writing or some other interesting tidbit from the book, and may have been sufficiently intrigued to want to read the book themselves.The frequent sidebars are at once a fascinating set of trips and an annoying intrusion. They usually present entertaining information, but they usually interrupt the flow of the main text, requiring flipping back and forth to maintain context in more than one flow. There is even one instance of a sidebar within a sidebar, and one where the sidebar is interrupted to resume the main text. A minor annoyance, but still an annoyance. As I singer, I have a particular fondness for the minutiae of pronunciation, and in this area the book let me down. It was as if the author had never heard of a diphthong or a glide. Given the technical names he used for the various consonant and vowel forms, I found it rather jarring to hear him imply that the American letter name "A" is a pure vowel, to see the French "J" sound presented as having *more* rather than fewer component sounds than the English "J" sound, and to hear him find only a slight similarity between the "U" and "W" sounds. This fault did not detract significantly from the book as a whole, but it rather bothered me in the U-V-W discussion, which are consecutive chapters in the alphabetically ordered book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, but hazy on pronunciation
Review: "Language Visible" is a delightful combination of history, humor, linguistics, puns, archaeology, and fancy. The thrill David Sacks gets from the subject is evident throughout. I found it thoroughly enjoyable. My family tolerated my frequent comments about some aspect of the history of writing or some other interesting tidbit from the book, and may have been sufficiently intrigued to want to read the book themselves. The frequent sidebars are at once a fascinating set of trips and an annoying intrusion. They usually present entertaining information, but they usually interrupt the flow of the main text, requiring flipping back and forth to maintain context in more than one flow. There is even one instance of a sidebar within a sidebar, and one where the sidebar is interrupted to resume the main text. A minor annoyance, but still an annoyance. As I singer, I have a particular fondness for the minutiae of pronunciation, and in this area the book let me down. It was as if the author had never heard of a diphthong or a glide. Given the technical names he used for the various consonant and vowel forms, I found it rather jarring to hear him imply that the American letter name "A" is a pure vowel, to see the French "J" sound presented as having *more* rather than fewer component sounds than the English "J" sound, and to hear him find only a slight similarity between the "U" and "W" sounds. This fault did not detract significantly from the book as a whole, but it rather bothered me in the U-V-W discussion, which are consecutive chapters in the alphabetically ordered book.
Rating:
Summary: Excellent book, but hazy on pronunciation
Review: "Language Visible" is a delightful combination of history, humor, linguistics, puns, archaeology, and fancy. The thrill David Sacks gets from the subject is evident throughout. I found it thoroughly enjoyable. My family tolerated my frequent comments about some aspect of the history of writing or some other interesting tidbit from the book, and may have been sufficiently intrigued to want to read the book themselves. The frequent sidebars are at once a fascinating set of trips and an annoying intrusion. They usually present entertaining information, but they usually interrupt the flow of the main text, requiring flipping back and forth to maintain context in more than one flow. There is even one instance of a sidebar within a sidebar, and one where the sidebar is interrupted to resume the main text. A minor annoyance, but still an annoyance. As I singer, I have a particular fondness for the minutiae of pronunciation, and in this area the book let me down. It was as if the author had never heard of a diphthong or a glide. Given the technical names he used for the various consonant and vowel forms, I found it rather jarring to hear him imply that the American letter name "A" is a pure vowel, to see the French "J" sound presented as having *more* rather than fewer component sounds than the English "J" sound, and to hear him find only a slight similarity between the "U" and "W" sounds. This fault did not detract significantly from the book as a whole, but it rather bothered me in the U-V-W discussion, which are consecutive chapters in the alphabetically ordered book.
Rating: 
Summary: Not carved in stone?
Review: Actually, the first alphabet was carved in stone around 1800 BC. However, the alphabet has been evolving ever since. They did not tell us this in elementary school. It was not until the early 1800s that the letters j and v became official letters of our now 26-letter alphabet. We could have just as well had a 22-letter or 30-letter alphabet. About the same time that j and v were included, the thorn expressing the th sound, was lost. It is still used in Iceland. Other letters have been lost through history. Could we lose a few more? The author is absolutely correct about the relative unimportance of the h. In my native Brooklyn, the h sound is rarely used. There becomes dere. Three is tree, etc. I had wondered where the y came from. Now I know that the Romans imported it based on the Greek upsilon for use with words of Greek origin. The author missed mentioning my favorite y-word, syzygy. I use it on my license plate. There is some repetition in the book as well as an inconsistency. The language brought to England by the conquest of 1066 is referred to in different chapters as old French, medieval French, or Norman. I believe that the last is probably correct. There are still a few Norman speakers on the Channel Islands. On Jersey, they have Norman cats, named as are ours, not French chats. This is a fascinating book from a to z.
Rating:
Summary: Not carved in stone?
Review: Actually, the first alphabet writings were carved in stone around 1800 BC. However, the alphabet has been evolving and changing ever since. It was not until the early 1800s that the letters j and v became official letters of our now 26-letter alphabet. (They did not tell us about this in elementary school.) We could have just as well had a 22-letter or 30-letter alphabet. About the same time that j and v were included, the thorn expressing the th sound, was lost. I found when visiting Iceland that it is still used there. Other letters have been lost through history. Could we lose a few more? The author is absolutely correct about the relative unimportance of the h. In my native Brooklyn, the h sound is rarely used, e.g. there can be pronounced dere. I had wondered where the y came from. Now I know that the Romans imported it based on the Greek upsilon for use with words of Greek origin. The author missed mentioning my favorite y-word, syzygy, which has three of them. There is some repetition in the book as well as an inconsistency. The language brought to England by the conquest of 1066 is referred to in different chapters as old French, medieval French, or Norman. I believe that the last is probably correct. There are still a few Norman speakers on the Channel Islands. On the island of Jersey they have Norman felines called cats in Norman as are ours, not French chats.
Rating:
Summary: Fun with Letters
Review: David Sacks doesn't feel like an expert here. He's hazy or slightly wrong on pronunciation on occasion and sometimes writes things that just aren't quite what a true expert might write. He repeats that old untruth that the Greeks added vowels to the Phoenician alphabet instead of correctly stating that the Greek extended the use of letters for vowels that were already being used in some circumstances for vowels by the Phoenicians. It is possible that the first Greeks to learn the Phoenician alphabet never realized that it theoretically contained consonants only. Not quite correct is: "Amazingly, with the sole exception of Korea's Hangul script (invented in isoldation in the mid-1400s A.D.), all of today's alphabetic scripts have a common origin." But all that's needed is to insert the words "commonly used" before alphabet scripts to avoid one bringing up John Dee's Enochian script, Deseret, Shavian and various other non-Latin invented alphabets. Yogh is introduced as an invented Old English letter which is not really right but it is too involved here to say why not. The sample given for Old Enlish letter wynn looks too much like a _p_ (perhaps because it is?) Sacks barely escapes tumbling into the false legend that the Chinese script is not largely sound based. But mostly Sacks is very right, throwing out facts amusingly and accurately and sometimes going out of his way to debunk standard legends. I've seen far worse by supposed experts, probably because this kind of book falls between disciplines. Sacks mixes genuine scholarship with an unpretentious style making heavy material seem delightfully light. There are no documenting footnotes but Sacks is not intentionally presenting anything that is not easily checked. Despite the errors I've mentioned I'm very impressed by the accuracy and obvious care and enthusiasm shown in this book. Sacks is excited by what he's finding out, almost always does get it exactly right and he wants you to share his excitement. It's all a bit casual and gosh-wow! a style which might be annoying to some. But he carries if off for me at least and it's nicer than putting the reader to sleep. I already knew most of what Sacks writes but found his presentation and style made it seem fresh again. And perhaps because he's not an expert he's very good at putting in details that experts often leave out. The center of the book is twenty-six chapters, one covering each letter of the English alphabet. He provides for each its origin and development from the Wadi el-Hol inscriptions if it was found there and from the later Sinaitic inscriptions if not, tracing its form through Phoenician, Greek and Latin and providing examples of the changes in shapes and pronunciation it has undergone on the way. Sacks adds examples (often very amusing) of how the letter is used distinctively in modern English and of the feelings that the letter arouses. For letters (and their sounds) do arouse feelings, some seeming familiar, some trite, some exotic (like X and Z). Sacks is often studidly silly as in his discussion of the relationship between C and G: << Oversimplifying somewhat, we can say that C stole G's identity. G was the alphabet's original number 3, centuries before C existed. Then, a change: G disappeared and C became letter number 3--similar to G yet lacking in voice. Where had the real G gone? Not dead, but banished from the developing alphabet, G wandered four and a half centuries in limbo, until, its services being at last missed and appreciated, it was recalled to the letter row, to spot number 7 (ousting another letter). There G abides today, staring with who-knows-what emotions at the back of C, four places ahead. >> Mixed among the letter chapters are numerous separate articles on the stages of the evolution of the alphabet, typesetting, American spelling, lost letters from Old English and Middle English, Baby Language used by Grown-Ups and other interesting side issues. An article called "A Pecking Order of Scripts" giving the origin and evolution of mixing styles on a page from which our casing system developed is especially well done using an example manuscript and explaining it. There are also a number of tables giving forms and pronunciation. One strange defect: there is no table of contents or listing of tables making it difficult to locate a particular article or table. But there is a list of illustrations at the back of the book and a good index. This is a very enjoyable book for light reading as well as for detailed study.
Rating:
Summary: A Thoroughly Enjoyable Read
Review: 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.
Rating:
Summary: A Thoroughly Enjoyable Read
Review: 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.
Rating: 
Summary: Each Letter is a Story
Review: Language Visible tells the story of the alphabet, one letter at a time. Each letter gets its own chapter and Sacks follows the development of that letter over 4000 years from the origins of the alphabet, through the Phonecians, Greeks, Romans, and through to the modern English alphabet. The concept is good, and Sacks has a knack for making his subject interesting. However, the book starts to become tedious by about the letter M. The book is an adaption of a series of columns that the author wrote for he Ottawa Citizen and has been published almost verbatim with the addition of a few sideboxes of additional material. This results in a lot of material being duplicated in different chapters. Language Visible would have benefitted greatly from a thorough edit that removed duplicate information and made the chapters read more like chapters in a book and less like self-contained newspaper columns. The book is aimed at people who have no knowledge of the history of the alphabet and does a good job of explaining how the modern English alphabet came to be. There are some factual errors, but they are minor and do not affect the overall histories of each letter. More annoying was Sacks attempts to discuss the influence of pop culture on various letters. His comments on the rock band U2, for example, suggest that he has very little understanding of pop culture in the year 2003. All in all this book is well worth reading, even if you find yourself skimming through the later chapters in order to find material that was not covered earlier in the book. The book is ideal for keeping on the coffee table so that you can dip into it during breaks in the hockey game. The short chapters also make it
ideal breakfast reading.
Rating:
Summary: Each Letter is a Story
Review: Language Visible tells the story of the alphabet, one letter at a time. Each letter gets its own chapter and Sacks follows the development of that letter over 4000 years from the origins of the alphabet, through the Phonecians, Greeks, Romans, and through to the modern English alphabet. The concept is good, and Sacks has a knack for making his subject interesting. However, the book starts to become tedious by about the letter M. The book is an adaption of a series of columns that the author wrote for he Ottawa Citizen and has been published almost verbatim with the addition of a few sideboxes of additional material. This results in a lot of material being duplicated in different chapters. Language Visible would have benefitted greatly from a thorough edit that removed duplicate information and made the chapters read more like chapters in a book and less like self-contained newspaper columns. The book is aimed at people who have no knowledge of the history of the alphabet and does a good job of explaining how the modern English alphabet came to be. There are some factual errors, but they are minor and do not affect the overall histories of each letter. More annoying was Sacks attempts to discuss the influence of pop culture on various letters. His comments on the rock band U2, for example, suggest that he has very little understanding of pop culture in the year 2003. All in all this book is well worth reading, even if you find yourself skimming through the later chapters in order to find material that was not covered earlier in the book. The book is ideal for keeping on the coffee table so that you can dip into it during breaks in the hockey game. The short chapters also make it
ideal breakfast reading.
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