The chapter explains the development of alphabets from early cultures to the Greeks. It was man's attempt at making visual communication more simple to master and subsequently made literacy more available (from only a select few priests and royalty spreading to more humble merchants and emerging somewhat middle classes). The alphabet was developed to represent the sounds of words rather than the word itself so that these letter representations could be combined infinitely.
2.Name the one thing (or person) you found most interesting from the reading.
Alexander the Great has always been one of the most fascinating people in history, to me at least. I already knew some of the things stated in the text, but I'm curious to look up more on this library he had in Egypt. It must have been a marvel at the time when he lived. There must have been knowledge about people and places from half the world.
3.State at least one question you have after the reading.
I can't remember the measurements that led to it, but do you suppose that the measurements of the papyrus scrolls in Alexander's library have anything to do with the "Golden Ratio"?
1. Name of graphic style (or topic) studied this session:
The invention of the Alphabet.
2. Describe specific qualities of this style (or if it’s a topic-highlights of that topic) that will help you identify it in the future.
Alphabets were an evolution of the simple pictographs, ideographs, ect. Instead of simply representing things with pictures, they are smaller, simpler characters that represent sounds of the spoken language; thus allowing for use of syllables and other phonetics.
3. What is the most useful or meaningful thing you learned today?
Generally that alphabets are pretty much universal. There are very few languages that do not have one.
What was the first culture to use punctuation and other grammatical devices to their written language?
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