You will need some patince to understand my english, it is your choice to go on or not...
Also, i was ask to speak to the Typoforum conference on the topic "Glaubensfrage" (a question of faith).
In all religions and myths there is an explanation about the origin of writing - at least in the culture that were able to write.
I found this interesting and i tried to tell funny a story about it.
It was something about how god gave us the alphabeth, why and how his plan was going wrong.
But back to the real history of writing:
I've read a lot of stuff on this topic and find out, that our alphabeth was not "planned", it was a necessity and it came out as we it known, only becasuse of some accidents.
At the begin people used pictures in order to communicate: it was complicated and someone find out a way to make it easier. This person (or people) tought that they could need less pictures if these one were used as equivalent of the their first sound in order to "write" other worlds. A little complicated?
Let's make an example: the picture of the telephone were used to write "telephone". This word begin with the sound "T": we can take then this picture to write this sound "t" also in other words.
To draw a telephone takes a lot of time: we could use only a part of it to be faster (you recognized the phone also this way, i think). The people wo use as first the alphabeth didn't have a telephone: they took the picutres of things that were familiar for them, as like a camel, an ox, a roof or a door. So - this is the point - it was only a pure chance that the signs we now use (signs that were developed from this first one and soon loose every connction to the original objects) are so as they are: if this people were - for example - allergic to animals (as i am) they would prefer to draw something else...
© 1996/2003 Alessio Leonardi