A- dventure- Z’ (2003)

A- dventure- Z’: The Story of the Alphabet (2003)
Ada Yardeni
Paperback. 220 x 220 mm. 86 pages. Acquired from Carta Jerusalem, 28 March 2023.
Photos: Books On Books Collection.

There is gray between what is unknown and known about the invention of shapes and signs for sounds. In the Books On Books collection, one side is reflected by works such as Cari Ferraro’s The First Writing (2004) and William Joyce’s The Numberlys (2014); the other, by Lyn Davies’ A is for Ox (2006) and Tiphaine Samoyault’s Alphabetical Order (1998). One engages myth, artistic extrapolation or fictional representation; the other, the rational, the evidentiary mundane or non-fictional presentation.

Ada Yardeni’s A- dventure- Z’: The Story of the Alphabet (2003) arches between them. She studied at the Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design in Jerusalem. As a designer at Koren Publishing, she created the font “Ada”, after which she went on to receive her doctorate under Joseph Naveh at Hebrew University in Jerusalem in 1991 and become an acknowledged expert in Hebrew palaeography.

Paired with intricate and annotated black and white diagrams, Yardeni’s illustrations use brilliant colors, an accomplished calligraphic hand and her palaeographic, historical and linguistic understanding of the alphabet to display the evolution of each letter based on its forms as they appear in ancient inscriptions. While most of the illustrations contain the cartoon figures seen below in the display of the Hebrew Bet and Arabic Ba:’, the illustration for the letter Samekh (on which the letter X is based) takes on the aspect of abstract pop art.

Alongside the diagrams, the clear, uncluttered text delivers a scholarly assuredness about the appearance, disappearance and changes of strokes in the early signs found in the Sinai, but the artistry somehow evokes the mystery that continues to envelop the invention of shapes and signs for sounds and the differences in the many writing and alphabetical systems around the world. Yardeni’s still more scholarly works are to be found elsewhere, but A- dventure- Z’: The Story of the Alphabet holds its own as a companion to any of the reference works noted below. With its graphics and its charming tale of a Canaanite king seeking a way to preserve his songs, it also holds its own with any of the children’s books noted below.

Further Reading

“Abecedaries I (in progress)“. Books On Books Collection.

Children’s books

Cumptich, Roberto de Vicq de. Bembo’s Zoo: An Animal ABC Book (2000).

Dugan, William. How Our Alphabet Grew (1972).

Ferraro, Cari. The First Writing (2004).

Heck, Ellen. A is for Bee (2022).

Joyce, William. The Numberlys (2014).

Kipling, Rudyard, and Chloë Cheese.  How the Alphabet Was Made (1983).

Kipling, Rudyard, and Gerald Lange, The Neolithic Adventures of Taffi-Mai Metallu-Mai (1997).

Mavrina, Tatyana. Сказочная Азбука / Skazochnaia Azbuka / A Fairy Tale Alphabet (1969).

Rossi, Renzo. The Revolution of the Alphabet (2009).

Rumford, James. There’s a Monster in the Alphabet (2002).

Samoyault, Tiphaine. Alphabetical Order (1998).

Shahn, Ben. The Alphabet of Creation (1954).

Winston, Sam. One and Everything (2022).

Werner, Sharon, and Sharon Forss. Alphabeasties (2009).

Reference works

Clodd, Edward. The Story of the Alphabet (1913). Superseded by several later works, but is freely available online with line illustrations and some black and white photos.

Davies, Lyn. A is for Ox (2006).

Diringer, David, and Reinhold Regensburger. The alphabet: a key to the history of mankind (1968). A standard, beginning to be challenged by late 20th and early 21st century archaeological findings and palaeographical studies.

Donaldson, Timothy. Shapes for Sounds (cowhouse) (2008).

Drucker, Johanna. The alphabetic labyrinth: the letters in history and imagination (1999).

Ege, Otto. 1921/1998. The Story of the Alphabet, Its Evolution and Development… Embellished Typographically with Printer’s Flowers Arranged by Richard J. Hoffman (1921/1998). A miniature. The type ornaments chosen by Hoffman are arranged chronologically by designer (Garamond, Granjon, Rogers) and printed in color.

Firmage, Richard A. The alphabet (2001).

Fischer, Steven Roger, A history of writing (2008).

Goldman, David. A is for ox: the story of the alphabet (1994).

Jackson, Donald. The story of writing (1997).

Pflughaupt, Laurent. Letter by letter: an alphabetical miscellany (2008).

Robinson, Andrew. The story of writing (1995).

Rosen, Michael. Alphabetical: how every letter tells a story (2014).

Sacks, David. Language visible unraveling the mystery of the alphabet from A to Z (2003).

Thompson, Tommy. The ABC of our alphabet (1952).Not a fine press publication or artist’s book, but its layout, illustrations and use of two colors bear comparison with the Davies book. It too is out of print and unfortunately more rare.