The Story of the Book [antikvár]

CHAPTER I Man Begins to Write Can you imagine the world without any books in it at all? Nowadays we all use books in one way or another, either at school, or in our work, or for pleasure. Even people who are not very fond of reading have to use catalogues, time-tables, dictionaries, and books of that kind. Yet men lived on earth for many thousands of years before they had anything that could be called a book at all, and for many more thousands of years before the kind of book we know to-day appeared. Before people could make any kind of book they had to learn how to write their thoughts and ideas down in some way so that other people could understand what they meant. To-day we have a sign for each separate sound we make when we speak. As you know, we call the signs letters, and the twenty-six letters form what we call the 'alphabet'. By joining the letters together in different ways we can write down the sound of every word we speak, and anyone who has learnt how to read, and who understands our language, will know what we mean. This seems quite simple and natural to us because we are so used to it, but human beings took thousands of years to develop an alphabet. Before that, when they wanted to write something, they had to do it in a way that we should find very difficult and uncertain. 13