TRANSCRIPT OF
“History of the Code:
Part 1:
The Alphabet’s Big Bang”

1. Dr. Frank Moore Cross, Professor of Ancient Languages, Harvard: (00:02):

I would put the invention of the alphabet amongthe absolute cardinal inventions of all human history.

2. Dr. Leonard Shlain, Author ”The Alphabet vs. The Goddess” (00:14):

The first forms of writing, hieroglyphics and cuneiform, were extremely difficult to learn, and they were limited to a very small percentage; less than 2% of the population of Egypt and Mesopotamia could read and write.

1. Dr. Frank Moore Cross, Professor of Ancient Languages, Harvard: (00:30):

The old writing systems were all exceedingly complex and could be used only by a scribal elite, and these usually under the dominance of the king, or of the temple.

2. Dr. Leonard Shlain, Author ”The Alphabet vs. The Goddess” (00:42):

There’s an old saying that “In the valley of the blind, the one-eyed man is king.” If you know how to read and write, and nobody else does, within a very short period of time, you gain all the power. And then about 3,500 years ago, a group of people halfway between Mesopotamia and Egypt figured out a much simpler way to read and write called the alphabet, and the alphabet transformed the world. The alphabet continues to transform the world.

3. Dr. Johanna Drucker, Chair of Media Studies, University of Virginia (01:09):

There are several different writing systems that have been invented in the course of human history. There’s actually only one alphabet. It has many visual forms that are currently in use, but we can trace most of those forms back to a common root, which is the proto-Canaanite alphabet that emerged sometime around 1800 BC in the Sinai Peninsula.

2. Dr. Leonard Shlain, Author ”The Alphabet vs. The Goddess” (01:31):

You mention the name Sinai to anybody, historically, there’s only one event that’s associated with the Sinai, and that is the giving of the 10 Commandments. And I think it’s amazing that the oldest alphabet ever discovered was in the Sinai. So the question is, was the enormous event that really happened there, the invention of the alphabet?

4. David Abram, Author “The Spell of the Sensuous” (01:56):

The Israelites, are born as a people, in relation to the written word. That is to say, they become a people when Moses, during the Exodus, goes up a mountain with two blank stones and he comes down with writing. The guy’s a scribe, obviously.

5. Dr. Robert Logan
Author “The Alphabet Effect” (02:17):

Moses introduced the 10 Commandments, which was codified law. He came with a written code, written with alphabetic writing, and he introduced a new form of monotheism.

4. David Abram, Author “The Spell of the Sensuous” (02:30):

The alphabet is there at the beginning of the monotheistic tradition.

3. Dr. Johanna Drucker, Chair of Media Studies, University of Virginia (02:36):

Really the core of Jewish learning, teaching and faith, is to be able to read the scriptures

2. Dr. Leonard Shlain, Author ”The Alphabet vs. The Goddess” (02:43):

And what better way to inspire people to want to learn how to read and write this new form of language than to say that “This is given to you in the written by the moving finger of God.”

4. David Abram, Author “The Spell of the Sensuous” (03:00):

The history of the Jewish people, and hence of Christianity as well, is integrally entwined with the story of the alphabet, of this writing system, that unlike any others that came before it, or any others that developed elsewhere. This phonetic writing, this first writing system, that privileged the human voice.

(03:38):  Voices from “The 13th Warrior” (1999) Touchstone Pictures

VOICE 1: You can draw sounds?

VOICE 2: Draw sounds. Yes, I can draw sounds, and I can speak them back.

VOICE 1:  Show me

VOICE 2:  (as he is writing in the dirt with a stick) There is only one God…

3. Dr. Johanna Drucker, Chair of Media Studies, University of Virginia (04:14):

What amazes me… I was doing some work on early writing systems recently for another project, and the Phoenician letter forms, and the early, earliest proto-alphabetic forms, were constantly before my eyes. And then I was out in the landscape, and I would see billboards and signs on the sides of trucks, and I would think “That’s amazing. Those are actually Phoenician letter forms, and they aren’t that different.” And that’s 4,000 years, modestly speaking, of those forms being in existence. And suddenly I had this incredible, uncanny feeling of this ancient culture. It’s as though it’s this sort of “mind code” of an ancient culture still with us. Very few things that we use in daily life have living legacy still active within them; the wheel, fire, forks, knives, a couple of other things. But really, it’s amazing.