The development of the alphabet has had a profound effect on the societies across cultures and has helped them to grow and develop into more complex communities. In this essay I argue that there are three areas within society where the alphabet has had a particular impact: in the way societies document and understand time, in the way the alphabet influenced the dynamics within society such as class and power, and in how the alphabet affected the formation of national and cultural identity of societies. I will begin the essay with a brief overview of the development of the alphabet, continue with analysis of the three areas of influence of the alphabet in society and subsequently summarise the ways in which it has altered and helped build the society of today. The findings suggest that the alphabet’s development has greatly influenced the creation of recorded history and the legal framework, shaped political power and social prestige within society through the concept of literacy, as well as helped enforce the cultural identity and unity of a nation-state.
Variations of writing systems developed independently across history in different regions, from Mesopotamia in 3200 BCE to China in 1600 BCE, and have always been created in relation to powerful and influential societies. Writing enabled communities to archive records, calculate complex mathematical operations, and to store information, and as such would have a deep impact on the structure of modern society (Juffermans & Weth, 2018). While there have been many writing systems developed in history, it was the Greek alphabet developed around 800 BCE that laid the foundation for the modern understanding of letters and the way we write today (Powell, 2017). What separates the Greek alphabet from previous hieroglyphs, pictograms, ideograms and other forms of writing, was its inclusion of signs for vowels, allowing for the first time recording of sounds and speech phonetically. As a result, the Greeks were able to capture any utterance on a page and bring the words of the past to the audience reading them in the present (Illich & Sanders, 1988). Epigrapher Yannis Tzifopoulos (cited in Powell, 2017) compared the development of the new Greek alphabet to a cultural big bang that allowed philosophy, poetry, prose and theatre to spread around the region. With the subsequent advancement of the Greek alphabet the written word began to influence and shape communities around the world in ways unique to the new medium.
For Spengler writing implies a change in the relations of our waking-consciousness—it liberates it from the ‘tyranny of the present’ (cited in Juffermans & Weth, 2018: 1). For Illich & Sanders (1988) the alphabet changed our perception of time and altered the way that we as a community recollect the past: it allowed speech to be fixed on a page and used as a source, reference or a testimonial. In the oral communities the memory of past events was much more fluid. Referencing the past in a fixed way through the science of history only emerged in society as a result of literacy and the written record to store the information for future reference. The power of the written text therefore lies in the fact that it can preserve a description of the world in time, without the need of a physical presence of the historian or the author. For Barthes (1977, cited in Juffermans & Weth, 2018: 2) that temporal separation of the author and the text creates a unique freedom for personal assessment of the meaning without the interference of the author, making reading and writing a powerful cultural accomplishment of our civilisation. On the other hand, Plato had an issue with the written word as a means of memory and recollection and believed it would make us lazy and forgetful, always depending on the written text to remind ourselves of the past events, preventing the internalization of knowledge (Juffermans & Weth, 2018). In the Middle Ages in Europe, Illich & Sanders (1988) describe how the gradual spread of literacy enabled the society to start to observe the reality around them and document it, laying down the foundations for various legal and scientific fields. From natural science’s observation and documentation, property law that described size and ownership, to various legal institutions preserved in written documents, the unique ability of the written word to retain and store information in time started to shape society. However, as Illich & Sanders (1988) observe, the most profound shift in relation to perception of time through writing occurred in the 13th century, when the notaries in monasteries started to place all of the recorded history in direct relation to the birth of Christ. While exact time keeping in the past was usually reserved only for special events, now all of the everyday matters of society were placed on a timeline that could be explicitly referenced. Time stopped being a subjective experience of each individual, based on their affinities or opinions, and became a straight line of precise points that can be arranged in relationship to each other. That division of time into specific reference points has influenced the way communities organized and functioned across cultures. Our perception and even visualisation of time as a linear experience has been formed by the use of the alphabet as a writing system.
In addition to the transformative power of writing through the recording of time, the alphabet also helped to create specific power dynamics within societies, including authority and social standing. Knowledge of the alphabet was not widespread in communities, only a select few, such as priests, knew the ‘secret code’ of communication (Juffermans & Weth, 2018). Illich & Sanders (1988) state that until the High Middle Ages knowledge stayed within a minority, giving them unique access to power and social influence. Alphabetization considerably influenced the power dynamics within society. The idea of literacy introduced the system of orthography: for every word a single form is fixed and all others are wrong (Bloomfield, 1927, cited in Juffermans & Weth, 2018: 6). Writing creates visual distinctions between ‘literate’ and ‘illiterate’ language and therefore influences the assessment of one’s educational or social background. As Juffermans & Weth (2018) write, it is a form of cultural capital that is not always equally distributed between different social classes. Being able to read and write does a lot more in the community than just represent spoken language. It can be a device for solving various social problems, as it assists in cooperation between individuals and helps establish shared social norms (Juffermans & Weth, 2018). For Siefkes (2010) language is part of a mental culture who’s members have access to interpret, spread and create new codes of society through different mediums of language to hold power of interpretation over their community. The writing system, through literacy, can also influence a community’s social relations. The unique orthography developed in medieval Novgorod, Russia for example, was a result of its citizens’ desire to be associated with their own social values and to disassociate from the far away political centre of Moscow (Bunčić, 2018). The rising economic and cultural significance of the city was reflected in a special writing system that denoted their high status, considering that it was largely used by the city’s bourgeoisie. Looking at a more recent example in modern Sri Lanka we can also notice the use of language and writing as means to establish one’s social class (Rambukwella, 2018). English in Sri Lanka has been recognised as an indicator of social, cultural and economic privilege, despite not being an official language of the country. The poorer members of society do not have access to English education resulting in poorer writing and speaking skills, as well as mixing English with local words and dialects. On the other hand, the elite is educated at prestigious schools founded during the British colonial period that socialise young men into the codes of what Rambukwella (2018: 117) calls “colonial masculinity” giving them a knowledge of standardised English language and thus an especially desirable status in Sri Lankan society. In terms of political power of writing, Freire (1987, referenced in Juffermans & Weth, 2018: 3) believed that literacy can also help emancipate members of society, allowing them to politically participate and release themselves from the oppression of the ruling class. In historical context, writing has also often been used to obtain and keep political power. Looking at the example of the British colonial rule in Sudan we can see how the language and its writing system was used to divide the society and in the process keep the rule of the land unaffected. According to Abdelhay, Makoni & Makoni (2018) the debates about the writing systems in colonial and post-colonial societies are always embedded into politics through culture. The British colonial system divided the colony of Sudan into two parts: the north that was considered to be more cultured and developed, where the dominant writing system was Arabic, and the multi-ethnic south, considered pagan and underdeveloped, where Christian missionaries spread their religion and the English language. Arabic was given prestige and power in the colony through legislature and became a language of high social class. The use of English in the south helped to establish a single administrative unit, despite the region being very diverse ethnically and linguistically. Such policies of dividing colonial territory between ethnic groups, races and cultures was a common political device of the British to hold on to power by setting different groups against each other (Abdelhay, Makoni & Makoni, 2018). The consequences of such policies can be seen to this day, with the country of Sudan going through a 20 year-long civil war that ended in the partition of north and south of the country, as well as an ongoing civil war in South Sudan. Looking at the examples and theories presented, it can be concluded that the writing system can be used as a means to gain or hold on to power in society. The knowledge of the alphabet can influence the way that societies create, maintain as well as disrupt economic, political and social relations within a community.
When discussing the significance of the alphabet in society, we should also consider the writing system as symbolic representation of a specific language and, in extension, of a particular nation. As Fuller (2017) writes, the knowledge of the alphabet also includes semiotic richness of letters that, when written, give layers of different meanings. Accordingly, writing can be used as a tool to form and enforce national and cultural identity. Juffermans & Weth (2018) conclude that it is writing in particular that effectively separates one language from another and helps establish hierarchies between a dialect and a standard. Moreover, according to Abdelhay, Makoni & Makoni (2018), scripts and orthographies have two basic functions within society—the instrumental use, to convey information, and the symbolic one that has cultural and sociopolitical considerations. Van der Horst (2018) writes that it is during the Renaissance that the view of a language as a national symbol started to emerge in Europe with the printing press allowing for circulation of vernacular grammar books and dictionaries (now for the first time using alphabetical order for organising words). In the following centuries these phenomena only intensified with the national thoughts becoming an important part of the European language culture. The ideas of standardisation started to appear, aimed at national unity and prevention of influences from outside of the country boarders (Van der Horst, 2018). The pioneer in the field of national languages was Antonio de Nebrija, a 15th century Spanish Renaissance man of letters, who Coulmas (2018: 21) tells us published the first ever grammar of a European language. Illich & Sanders (1988) note that he urged Queen Isabella to introduce an official language into Spain as a means to gather and unite. However, it is only in the late 19th century that the position on national language and its orthography as one of the pillars of a nation-state has fully developed. As per Böhm (2018) the late 19th century period in France was a pivotal moment in homogenisation of a linguistically heterogenous French territory, facilitated through the institution of primary schools on a national level. Böhm (2018: 64) writes that then standard French was spoken only by the aristocrats and the bourgeoisie around Paris. Educational reform has had effects to the present day as the contemporary French European territory is almost completely unified in language, thus providing a strong foundation for a joint cultural identity of otherwise historically diverse geographical areas. Similarly, extensive educational reforms centred around national language have also been organised in late 19th century Germany. According to Ulrich Mehlem (2018) the reforms have introduced, due to a strong nationalistic sentiment, repression of language minorities around territories of the united Germany Reich, which at the time included diverse set of languages such as Polish, Danish and French. In fact, the German reformers Hildebrand and Otto have greatly contributed to the collectivistic language ideology that favours a standardised national speech, as opposed to diverse local vernaculars (Mehlem, 2018).
By examining the more contemporary examples of language debates, we can see how the written and spoken language still holds an important part of identity politics. The late 20th century dissolution of Yugoslavia resulted in creation of a variety of languages that, although very similar in sound and writing, are differentiated and used to enforce national identity of each of the former federal republics through orthography and script use. That process of particularisation of language has been also happening in present-day Spain where the pro-union nationalist party is encouraging diversification of the Catalan language in the Balearic islands into smaller vernaculars to weaken its cultural identity and thus help preserve the unity of the Spanish state territories (Deane, 2018). Summarising the analysis it can be determined that written language, through orthography and the symbolic use of script, has been utilised as an effective instrument to unite otherwise very heterogenous areas into nations with a single identity throughout history. The unique ability of written language, by way of orthography, to prescribe the correct and standardised use of language on a national level makes it an attractive ideological tool in creating consolidated cultural identities of modern nation-states.
Conclusion
Examining the research and analysis presented throughout the essay, it can be summarised that the development of the alphabet, as a phonetic writing system, has been instrumental in shaping society. Through its ability to preserve written word for future reference the alphabet has created the science of history that in turn has had a great impact on the development of the modern-day legal framework as well as science. The system of written record-keeping has also helped to shape the way that we as a society comprehend the concept of time and sequencing. Throughout history the understanding of the alphabet often meant access to political and social power, with the knowledge confined to a small part of the community. With the spread of literacy the alphabet has given each individual member of society the power to cooperate and politically participate, permanently changing economic, cultural, political and social relations in modern society. Finally, through orthography and the symbolic power of written language, the alphabet has helped to shape national and cultural identities of today’s nation-states, changing in the process the contemporary political landscape and understanding of modern statehood. In summary, the development of the alphabet has had numerous and considerable consequences on the organisation and formation of the society without which the modern world would be unrecognisable.
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New Minds Eye 