From Anton Fjortoft
If a section of the brain is responsible for learning to equate sequences of symbols with recalled sound and learned meanings, I would question whether this only happens with certain symbols that acquire a collective significance among a tribe or nation as a whole (5 July, p 30). Perhaps any reasonably well thought-out system of letters would do the job.
The Roman alphabet in use today can be traced back to Egyptian hieroglyphs that evolved through Old Hebrew and Greek letters, while the modern Hebrew alphabet was virtually invented by a Jewish professor around the time Israel was founded in 1948. Yet Israelis seem equally at home with their written language as any other nation.
London, UK
