The Alphabet and the Brain

The psychology and historiography of writing has generally received less attention than reading, speech and language acquisition. This book tries to redress that imbalance and is the fruit of the continual collaboration between a humanist and a neuroscientist who share an interest in the role of biology and brain-related factors in cultural evolution. It brings together a wide selection of scientists from the fields of neuroscience, psychology, linguistics and philology in an interdisciplinary discussion of the nature of the alphabetic system of Western writing and the forces affecting its evolution. The goal of the book is to present the background to a new model that demonstrates what factors shaped our alphabet and how the alphabet shapes us. This model develops from de Kerckhove's causal model of literacy and psychosocial development and extends to implications about the large-scale structure of human history. The chapters are especially designed so as to bring the reader up to date with each topic before giving the narrower focus. This valuable feature makes the book easily accessible to a wide audience from a variety of related fields.