Early Alphabet (Reading the Past, Vol 9)

Rating:
Summary: A Condensed Alphabetic History
Review: This little book, although only 62 pages, is chock full of information. Setting out from the consonantal alphabets of Proto-Sinitic forms and Ugaritic taking you through time to Greek, Latin, Hebrew and Arabic, which seem to be derived from the ancient Semetic languages of East and West and the devleopment of vowels. The book is filled with many pictures and diagrams of alphabets from ancient cultures, which help the clarity. Although the book is filled with good information, dont let the size fool you. There are lots of different lanugages and alphabets here with many names to remember. Its not exciting reading, mostly scholarly text and not any narrative to help the reader along. While this is a good book for someone who already has some knowledge of historical alphabets, I would not suggest this as an intro. Reccomended to those that already have an introuctory course in linguistics and historical alphabets.