The Alphabet

THIS exhaustive work incorporates the substance of the author‘s "L‘alfabeto nella storia della civiltà" (Florence, 1937) and includes all non-alphabetic systems of writing, as well as the great family of true alphabets derived, so the author believes, from a single source in Phoenicia or North Syria. The two systems are curiously separate in their history, and it is no accident that the true alphabet originated in one of the very few regions where, by a series of historical accidents, the Cuneiform, Hieroglyphic, and probably also the Minoan systems overlaid each other, and set people thinking about a revolutionary change.The Alphabet A Key to the History of Mankind. By Dr. David Diringer. Pp. 607. (London : Hutchinson‘s Scientific and Technical Publications, n.d.) 50s. net.