{"product_id":"books-the-alphabet-by-david-sacks","title":"The Alphabet","description":"There is a story behind each letter of the alphabet. Why is the X the Unknown or shorthand for a Kiss? Which letter came last, historically, in the alphabet? (J) How did a few squggles, invented a thousand years ago to denote sounds of a now vanished Semetic language, survive to become our letters today? While China and Japan rely mainly on scripts of ideograms, three-quarters of humanity uses some kind of alphabet. Chinese writing requires 2000 basic symbols (but there's no language barrier), where an alphabet needs typically less than 30. From A-Z, David Sacks provides answers to the most fascinating questions about the way we talk, write and think in a book which will also be illustrated graphically throughout - not just with variations of individual letters but with maps, charts and general narrative images.","brand":"World of Books ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53669921587473,"sku":null,"price":0.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/9780091795061.jpg?v=1781510378","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/books-the-alphabet-by-david-sacks","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}