"Jammed full of fabulous letters." — Words & Worlds of New York. Immensely practical volume (one of the largest of this sort available) contains 100 alphabets in 43 different languages, from Arabic to Welsh. Thirty-three are in accented Latin script (Albanian, Basque, Catalan); 10 in non-Latin scripts (Celtic, Cyrillic, Hebrew.) Ideal for any graphic or printed communications.

World languages present an amazing array of fascinating, geometrically elaborate letters! In this book, readers can discover the wonders of world alphabets. Easy-to-read, big-print charts provide comparison and contrast of letters from different geographical regions of the world!Alphabets Included:English AfrikaansAlbanianArabicArmenianAzerbaijaniBasque BelarusianBengaliBerberBosnianBulgarianCantoneseCatalanCebuanoCroatianCzechDanishDutchEgyptianEsperantoEstonianFilipinoFinnishFrenchGalicianGeorgianGermanGreekGujaratiHaitianHausaHebrewHindiHungarianIcelandicIgboIndonesianItalianJapaneseJavaneseKannadaKhmerKoreanLaoLatinLatvianLithuanianMacedonianMalayMalteseMandarinMarathiNepaliNorwegianPersianPolishPortuguesePunjabiRomanianRussianSerbianSlovakSlovenianSomaliSpanishSwahiliSwedishTamilTeluguThaiTurkishUkrainianUrduVietnameseYiddishYorubaZulu

Letters are tangible language. Joining together in endless combinations to actually show speech, letters convey our messages and tell our stories. While we encounter these tiny shapes hundreds of times a day, we take for granted the long, fascinating history behind one of the most fundamental of human inventions -- the alphabet. The heart of the book is the 26 fact-filled “biographies” of letters A through Z, each one identifying the letter’s particular significance for modern readers, tracing its development from ancient forms, and discussing its noteworthy role in literature and other media. We learn, for example, why the letter X has a sinister and sexual aura, how B came to signify second best, why the word “mother” in many languages starts with M, and what is the story of O. Packed with information and lavishly illustrated, Letter Perfect is not only accessible and entertaining, but essential to the appreciation of our own language.

Ranging from cuneiform to shorthand, from archaic Greek to modern Chinese, from Old Persian to modern Cherokee, this is the only available work in English to cover all of the world's writing systems from ancient times to the present. Describing scores of scripts in use now or in the past around the world, this unusually comprehensive reference offers a detailed exploration of the history and typology of writing systems. More than eighty articles by scholars from over a dozen countries explain and document how a vast array of writing systems work--how alphabets, ideograms, pictographs, and hieroglyphics convey meaning in graphic form. The work is organized in thirteen parts, each dealing with a particular group of writing systems defined historically, geographically, or conceptually. Arranged according to the chronological development of writing systems and their historical relationships within geographical areas, the scripts are divided into the following sections: the ancient Near East, East Asia, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Additional parts address the ongoing process of decipherment of ancient writing systems; the adaptation of traditional scripts to new languages; new scripts invented in modern times; and graphic symbols for numerical, music, and movement notation. Each part begins with an introductory article providing the social and cultural context in which the group of writing systems was developed. Articles on individual scripts detail the historical origin of the writing system, its structure (with tables showing the forms of the written symbols), and its relationship to the phonology of the corresponding spoken language. Each writing system is illustrated by a passage of text, and accompanied by a romanized version, a phonetic transcription, and a modern English translation. A bibliography suggesting further reading concludes each entry. Matched by no other work in English, The World's Writing Systems is the only comprehensive resource covering every major writing system. Unparalleled in its scope and unique in its coverage of the way scripts relate to the languages they represent, this is a resource that anyone with an interest in language will want to own, and one that should be a part of every library's reference collection.