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

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.

In the first section Sacks explains the latest discoveries and research on the history of our alphabet, which is more electrifying that it might sound. The portraits of each letter flow from historical to pop-cultural references for an overall accessible, light, and fun read.

Those of us who proudly stand at the barriers opposing the ever-increasing surge of language barbarism can use all the ammunition made available to us. Mr. Sacks' wonderfully readable little book is filled with facts and historigraphical flitchettes on the amazing English tongue that suits this purpose. Additionally, even word-warriors can occasionally have fun... and this great little gem is loaded with tidbits that will often cause the reader to say "ummm, I didn't know that;" or simply chuckle out loud. For the curious, if you ever wondered why our language looks like it does, this is the book for you.

This book is a great one to own and to read over and over again. There's a few annoying typos but I would still whole-heartedly recommend it to each and everyone. Especially for those who tend to take for granted the supposedly entrenched institutions of "civilized" society, discovering the quirky and arbitrary history of the English alphabet will make their innocent heads spin. I vote that this book should be required reading in American public education.

You can tell I don't pay attention to Wall Street Journal or New York Times. I picked up David Sacks' book from Borders' Linguistics stack because of the title. I should have known better.

I started the first chapter and didn't have the time or intention to finish it. The book is a collection of charts and stories about the history of alphabetic writing that are to be expected from the title -- in some cases conviniently summarized things in tables and maps -- but lacks, in my opinion, systematic thinking on the reasons behind the origin and prosperity of alphabetic writing that is found in other scholarly works (scholarly it is not).

Even within the first 20 pages or so, I was disawayed more than a few times by dubious claims, utter misinformation, and distastefully Euro/English-centric. Here are some examples:

"The alphabet was not the earliest writing: Egypt, Mesopotamia, and probably China already had nonalphabetic systems. But the alphabet was the most efficient writing system ever found, before or since (p.1)" -- What about Hirogana for Japanese? Syllabaries can be much more efficient for languages that do not have a large inventory of syllables.

"The 'spreadability' of an alphabet means that the future of our Roman letters looks very bright indeed. (p. 10)" -- He was speaking of languages that are written in multiple alphabets, such as Swahili, Serbo-Croatian, Urdu/Hindi, and Yiddish. And then came this proud comment on the prospect "our Roman letters". Immediately following the above quote, he gave examples of Azerbaijian and Tatarstan's decision to switch to Roman, as well as other "struggling nation"'s likewise decisions to "switch to Roman letters for native tongues, as a big to tie into global trade and communications and to better prepare their prople to learn English. Tragically, much that is venerable and spiritually sustaining while be lost. Yet that seems inevitable in the 21st century were are shaping. And it is sobering to reflect that our 26 letters wield such power."

His view of the learnability of the alphabet is also uneducated, shall I say. The following superficial comment could have come from an old gradama who happened have NOT been a teacher for her lifetime.

"An alphabet enjoys on huge advantage over any other writing system: It needs fewer symbols. No other sysmtem can get away with so few. This makes an alphabet easier to learn. Students need memorize only two dozen or so letters to begin building toward literacy, which typically takes about another five years of instruction".

And -- he writes -- because of this simplicity, children can become literate before the working age. "This cricial fact has made the alphabet historically the vehicle of mass literacy. (p.5)" Well, "vehicle" is a very clevery way of framing it. At least he is not saying that where there is alphabet there is mass literacy. Mass literacy was nevery a goal before the inducstry revolution. Now Sacks joins the ranks of you-know-who's by implying that the Europeans and Western ideals were destined to take over the world because they had the alphabet and probably the mandate from God. (Guns, what guns?)

Sacks also compared "our 26 letters" -- as if alphabetic writing is patented at the USPO -- to Chinese. "Today Chinese schoolchildren normally take three years longer than Western children to learn to read and write, with most of that
extra time devoted to mastering the symbols."

This is completely misinformation. Learning to read Chinese is not easy, but do a little research, you will find studies over studies and books over books on comparitive studies of literacy (including my own). I've nevery seen a credible study that substantiates the 3-year lag. By the way, Sacks almost never gives citations.

I think that's enough. This explains my total disappointment with the book -- I sholdn't have any high expectation from the start, had I known who David Sacks is.