Writing: The Story of Alphabets and Scripts
Writing: The Story of Alphabets and Scripts (French: L'écriture, mémoire des hommes, lit. 'Writing: Memory of Humans') is a 1987 illustrated monograph on the history of the alphabet and writing. Written by French linguist Georges Jean, and published by Éditions Gallimard as the 24th volume in their "Découvertes" collection. The book is one of the five bestsellers in the collection, together with The Search for Ancient Egypt.[1] Synopsis Title page illustration: illuminated capital from a 15th-century French manuscript. Bibl. Nat., Paris.  Back cover illustration: Jean Gerson writing. 15th-century French manuscript. Bibl. Nat., Paris. Drawing on unearthed artefacts and historical documents, Georges Jean illustrates the history of writing from an archaeological perspective and with a diachronic approach. The author chose to organise Writing chronologically, stretching it from the cuneiform of Mesopotamia in 3200 BC, through the Phoenician alphabet around 1000 BC, to modern typographical techniques, with descriptions of how writing appeared almost simultaneously in ancient Mesopotamia, Egypt, and China.[2] The author focuses on the introduction of Near Eastern and Western scripts, but also covers the characteristics and differences of some Far Eastern writing systems, Chinese, Indian and Tibetan, for instance.[3] The book details a variety of writing tools and media, such as clay tablets used by the Sumerians, reed pen and papyrus of the ancient Egyptians, Roman writing awls, quill and parchment of those medieval Irish monks, as well as brush, fountain pen, stone, paper, printing press, etc.[4] It also discusses how these different writing methods and printing tools affect the development of written content, whether it can be circulated in large quantities, and the ways and channels for circulation. ContentsBody text "In the Middle Ages a form of sacred writing became established in the monasteries. Beautifully designed and executed, it reflected the serenity of both those who created it and the setting in which they worked." Illuminated capital from a bible dating to the 12th or early 13th century. Coimbra, Portugal (G. Jean, Writing, p. 73).  "The four stages in the making of a book: the delivery of the parchment to a monk; the marking of the lines by the scribe; the painting of a portrait; and the trimming of the sheets of vellum." Illuminated miniatures from German manuscripts, dating to the middle of the 13th century. Kongelige Bibliotek, Copenhagen (G. Jean, Writing, p. 86).
DocumentsThe second part of this book is made up of an anthology of "Documents", which delves into more specialised texts and relevant authors on aspects of writing already covered in the body matter — the art of typography, digits and images, the tools for writing, calligraphy, the world's different writing systems, etc.[7]
References
Further reading
External links Wikimedia Commons has media related to L'écriture, mémoire des hommes.
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Index:
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