Alphabet Effect

Some communication theorists (notably those associated with the "Toronto School of Communications", such as Marshall McLuhan, Harold Innis, Walter Ong and more recently Robert K. Logan) have advanced hypotheses to the effect that phonetic writing and alphabetic scripts in particular have served to promote and encourage the cognitive skills of abstraction, analysis, coding, decoding, and classification. This set of hypotheses is known as the "Alphabet Effect" after the title of Logan's 1986 work (see the bibliography below which references the 2004 second edition).

The theory claims that a greater level of abstraction is required due to the greater economy of symbols in alphabetic systems; and this abstraction and the analytic skills needed to interpret phonemic symbols in turn has contributed to the cognitive development of its users. Proponents of this theory hold that the development of phonetic writing and the alphabet in particular (as distinct to other types of writing systems) has made a significant impact on Western thinking and development precisely because it introduced a new level of abstraction, analysis, coding, decoding and classification. McLuhan and Logan (1977) while not suggesting a direct causal connection nevertheless suggest that, as a result of these skills, the use of the alphabet created an environment conducive to the development of codified law, monotheism, abstract science, deductive logic, objective history, and individualism. According to Logan, "All of these innovations, including the alphabet, arose within the very narrow geographic zone between the Tigris-Euphrates river system and the Aegean Sea, and within the very narrow time frame between 2000 B.C. and 500 B.C." (Logan 2004). The emergence of codified law in Sumer as exemplified by the Hammurabic code actually coincided with the reform of the Akkadian syllabic system and is not directly influenced by the alphabet per se but rather by a phonetic writing system consisting of only sixty signs. Also it has to be pointed out that there was a robust scientific tradition in China but that science as practised in ancient China was not abstract but concrete and practical. In fact the impetus for formulating the Alphabet Effect was to explain why abstract science began in the West and not China despite the long list of inventions and technology that first appeared in China as documented by Joseph Needham in his book "The Grand Titration" (Needham 1969). The Alphabet Effect provides an alternative explanation to what is known as Needham's Grand Question, namely why China had been overshot by the West in science and technology, despite its earlier successes.

Another impact of alphabetic writing was that it led to the invention of zero, the place number system, negative numbers, and algebra by Hindu and Buddhist mathematicians in India 2000 years ago (Logan 2004). These ideas were picked up by Arab mathematicians and scientists and eventually made their way to Europe 1400 years later.

Paul Levinson supporting the "Alphabet Effect" hypothesis points out in his 1997 book, The Soft Edge, that the alphabet facilitated the rise and dissemination of monotheism, by providing an easy way to write about a deity that is omnipotent, omnipresent, yet invisible. In contrast, monotheism did not succeed when Akhenaten attempted to promulgate it via hieroglyphics in Ancient Egypt, nor did it even arise in places such as China, which relied on an ideographic writing system.

Bibliography

* — (Chapter 3 traces and summarizes the invention of alphabetic writing).
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* McLuhan, Marshall; Logan, Robert K. (1977). Alphabet, Mother of Invention. Etcetera. Vol. 34, pp. 373-383.
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External links

* [http://omniglot.com/writing/alphabetic.htm Alphabetic Writing Systems]
* Michael Everson's [http://www.evertype.com/alphabets/index.html Alphabets of Europe]