Ancient Egyptians were not secretive. They carved their story in stone, using a sylllabary because the alphabet hadn't been invented, A syllabary is a set of symbols for each of the numerous sylllables; Japanese and Koreans today write mainly in syllabaries; for example, Japanese has one symbol for "KA," a different symbol for "NA" and another for "DA." There are 50-some in Japanese, which is more than the 26 letters we find it convenient to read. Syllabaries are basically phonetic; Egypt's ancient writing system was forgetten for centuries, until a clever Frenchman realized that it was not picture-writing. He discovered the symbols for "CLE" "O" "PA" and "TRA" - and voila, the past came alive!

Ventris realized that "secret" writing found in ancient Crete was actually Greek, using a forgotten sylllabary. Sadly, academic blindness (jealousy) darkened his short life. He wanted to be an architect.

This is a very good book. Buy it and enjoy.

Linear B was a script of unknown language that appeared in bits and pieces in archaelogical digs in an around Greece. Nobody could decipher it; in fact, they couldn't even agree on what language the script represented. Andrew Robinson tells the fascinating story of Michael Ventris, the architect/amateur linguist who 'cracked' the code of Linear B and proved to the world that it contained an ancient form of Greek.

The story unfolds with the same drama as a murder mystery or detective story. Robinson makes what could have been a complicated story eloquent and clear.

Although I recommend this book highly, at the end of it I still felt in the dark about Ventris himself. He seems to have been a great eccentric and very private individual. His sudden death at the age of 34 seems to have occurred under a cloud of deep depression that Robinson does not really explain. Linear B may be deciphered, but Ventris is still a mystery.

Andrew Robinson does a wonderful job of coupling easy to understand text with explosively colorful visual imagery to create a book that can be enjoyed by either the novice naturalist or the most educated expert. I particularly enjoyed the chapters on earthquakes and volcanoes where he graphically depicts the geophysics behind the natural phenomenon and couples the graphs with brilliant pictures, allowing the reader to visually and geophysically relate to these topics.

I found this book fascinating. The text was easy to understand, written in plain English rather than pseudoscientific gibberish, and was accompanied by excellent maps, photos and illustrations. I was particularly fond of the sections regarding asteroid collisions, global warming, and the next ice age. (Who would have thought Regency England had a mini ice age?)

Holy Olio's review (10/27/02)of Robinson's Lost Languages says that he is encouraged that the author mentioned Barry Fell without dismissing him or disrespecting him. I would say, however,that the Robinson statement on the first page of his concluding chapter comes close to being a dismissal: "A Harvard University professor in zoology, Barry Fell, was convinced that he had deciphered rongorongo and the Phaistos disc before he died a few years ago, though his extensive published papers were very far from scientific in their method." It is to be hoped that Julian Fell's biography of his father, Barry,"Biography of a Renaissance Man" will eventually be published in book form. Part 2 of the biography, "Barry Fell's Revolution in Deciphering Old World Scripts" appears in the Summer 2001 issue of 21st Century Science & Technology. ...

This book discusses most of the world's translation achievements.

Anyone with an interest in India, its ancient history, and recent discoveries offshore will find the author's discussion of the still-untranslated Indus Valley script a good place to start. No consensus on the question of its origin has formed, but its clear that soon its Dravidian identity will be agreed upon.

As an amusement, the author reproduces a letter to _The Economist_ magazine regarding its article on the Phaistos Disk. The letter calls it a century old fraud (the disk, not the magazine) that could be exposed as such using thermoluminescence. [p 298].

The book's author also mentions Barry Fell as having translated the Phaistos Disk and the _rongorongo_ texts from Easter Island, but without further discussion of these achievements.

The chapter on the Phaistos Disk is interesting but unsatisfying because of the lack of a discussion of Fell (while the Fischer "translation" is discussed in depth, merely in order to dismiss it). On 306-307 there are some illustrations of the Arkalochori axe found on Crete. The haft has two types of "crested" heads (one face one, one in profile) somewhat resembling what Robinson calls the "Mohican" glyph that is the most common symbol on the Phaistos Disk. That (and a very weak second example) are all that has been found on Crete resembling the PD hieroglyphs in a century of excavation.

As Fell pointed out, the typeface (these characters were impressed on the clay using dyes, making the disk the oldest known example of a text printed with moveable type) is straight out of Anatolia. That source is what led to his decipherment of it -- he began by assuming it was from the Anatolian group of tongues, and came up with a workable and plausible translation.

I'm encouraged that the author of this book mentioned Fell without dismissing him or disrespecting him, as a reviewer for _Archaeology_ once did -- suggesting that one of his books was a candidate for burning. _Lost Languages_ is worth a read.

I teach Logic and the thing that makes this book absolutely fascinating is the way that Robinson explains the process of deciphering lost languages. We've all heard the story of the Rosetta Stone, but the discovery of the stone only made it *possible* to read Ancient Egyptian inscriptions -- it took an enormous amount of intelligence to sort out the basics of the writing system. Robinson does a wonderful job of explaining how the evidence is actually used to unlock these scripts. He also shows how mysterious writings are fertile ground for various "crackpot theories" (though I like the idea that the Phaistos Disk is a gameboard).

This book, as someone else has said, is strong on graphics and history, weak on linguistics and the relationship between writing and language.

I was astounded by the page on Sign Languages and the claim that
"...they are *not* independent of speech; every successful system, such as American Sign Language ... is based on a spoken language. (Thus an ASL user cannot communicate with a Chinese Sign Language user.)"
No "thus" about it, they are different languages, and an ASL user cannot communicate with a *British* SL user either, but *can* communicate quite well with a French SL user. The speech-based sign languages, such as Signed English, are cumbersome hearing-invented codes that SL users hate. This page makes no mention of fingerspelling nor the notation of SLs, where SL and writing DO meet, nor indeed any mention of SL users, Deaf people.

It is top-heavy with the decypherment of ancient scripts, and - even allowing for the avoidance of ethnocentrism - very weak on our own Roman alphabet. If, for example, there is anything about cursive script, italics, serifs or non-Chinese typewriters, I missed it.

If you're interested in any of its strong topics, it's quite good (assuming the SL page is an isolated lapse), but as a comprehensive survey of how we store our utterences, it's a bit of a grab bag.

As other reviewers have indicated, this book is beautifully illustrated, and it presents a great overview of the world's earliest writing systems and our attempts to understand them. If that is your interest, I cannot recommend a better introductory book.

On the other hand, if you wish to understand the relationship of writing to language, you may be led astray by the author's neglect of linguistic fundamentals.

The introduction of pictograms and proto-writing is useful. It tells most of what is theorized about the evolution of early language-based writing systems. However, the discussion of rebuses and logographs simply distracts the reader by mixing apples and oranges, namely language-based writing systems versus symbols and puzzles.

The author states that "English, French or German could be written in almost any script," but this obscures the fact that these languages adapted their common root -- the Roman alphabet -- differently to better support each language's unique phonetic structure. Similarly, how (or why) did our English orthography became fixed to now-extinct pronunciations? This you will not learn. Modern English is simply "less phonetic" than Finnish.

Of course, European writing is less novel than Japanese, Hangul or Cherokee, so the bulk of the discussion of modern writing systems focuses on the exotics. Unfortunately this is the subject area where the author is most dependent on the opinions of biased experts. For example, he bases much of his analysis of Japanese writing on J. Marshall Unger's attack on Japan's long-defunct 5th Generation computing debacle. The author relates the difficulty of the Japanese writing system to high suicide rates among juveniles during 1955-58, and tosses out unsupported gems like "It looks likely that the need for computerization must one day lead to the abandonment of kanji in electronic data processing, if not in other areas of Japanese life."

Again, the Western bias of the author (even selecting a Japanese movie poster about "Crint Eastwood" to illustrate a point!) enables him to make a very dubious claim: that even among readers of Japanese and Chinese, written symbols lack semantic content unless the reader can read the word out loud.

This argument is critical to his thesis that writing systems connect exclusively to the phonetic components of language, not to syntactic or semantic components. Ideographs persist merely to help the hapless speakers of Asian languages sort out their homphones. The thesis is wrong, and the supporting argument is severely ethnocentric.

In short, this is a great introductory history, but a lightweight analysis of writing as a linguistic phenomenon. Because of the book's focus on the history of writing, its historical merits outweigh its intellectual deficits; but please don't start an argument with a linguist or a native speaker of a non-European language based on what you've read in this book.

A richly illustrated nontechnical introduction to the history of writing. The author briefly touches upon the relationship between language and script and the challenges involved in the classification of writing systems but the bulk of the book is on presenting different families of scripts and accounts of thier development. The sections on extinct writing, such as cuneiform, and on undeciphered scripts were interesting but the book's chief attribute are the illustrations of alphabets, inscriptions, and glyphs, many of which are interpreted for the reader. A similar volume for the more linguistically inclined is "A History of Writing" by Steven Robert Fischer. The author, himself not without contraversy, provides the technical precision that is lacking in Robinson's book and has lots of examples of scripts as well.

If you like Dougal Dixon's other works (After Man, The New Dinosaurs etc.) then you will just love this one. You will have the chance to meet a huge number of the once existed dinosaurs face to face. Dixon's narrative is amazing and clear, easy to understand for the layman, too, but also scientifically accurate. Go on, order this one!

Few works of adult literature are so well known that they become embedded in our cultural fabric the way that Oliver Twist has. Perhaps it is because the title character is a loveable, sympathetic, young boy that the story, over time, has come to be mistaken by some for a children's tale. And perhaps it is because I feel like I have known the story all my life that I only recently realized that I had never, in fact, read the novel. So as I sat down to (finally) read this book, it was with a sense that I was simply revisiting a cherished story from my youth. But as I quickly realized after a very few pages, this is adult literature in all respects - in its sophisticated, intelligent prose, its rich plot, its elaborate cast of characters, and, yes, the occasional depiction of gruesome violence.

Surely even those who have never read this Charles Dickens' classic could recite the basic elements of its plot. Who among us is unfamiliar with the story of the young orphan who musters up the courage to ask, "Please, sir, I want some more." And yet this novel is so much more than a mere rags-to-riches story. It is also the heartwarming story of the triumph of good versus evil and of the human spirit's ability to face down adversity. Dickens pits an innocent child against the dangers of an uncaring world, and the story's happy ending is at once a celebration of Oliver's innocence and an affirmation of all that is right and just in society.

Though the prose can be tedious at times, Dickens' mastery of the English language is difficult not to appreciate. And while some may find the plot cliché, there is sufficient tension throughout the novel to maintain the reader's interest. For myself, I was continually surprised, as the chapters unfolded, to realize how much more there was to this classic than simply a story about an orphan who falls in with a gang of unruly pickpockets. This is definitely worth reading, even if you feel like you have already read it as a child.

The creative novel Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens in 1838, defines a classic of all times. This intense story reflects a young boy's life in London with no family or place to go. The novel begins with Oliver's mother dying, while giving birth to her son and the father remains unknown. Throughout the novel we learn about Oliver's struggles on living on his own. The young boy is befriended on the way and taken in my Fagin. Fagin along with the Artful Dodger invite Oliver to stay with them and become one of them, a thief. While going on one of the adventures of pick pocketing Oliver is caught by Mr.Brownlow who instead of reprimanding the young lad, decides to rise him. Throughout the book Oliver searches for the answers to his past while trying to stay alive on the streets of London. Miraculously, Oliver's family lay right under his nose the whole time. The theme of Oliver Twist examines the importance of a family. Oliver plays a forsaken child, abandoned by all-parental support and thrown into the cruel world at a very young age to live on his own. Oliver's early years taught him to fend for himself and he suffers from never experiencing a loving and nurturing childhood. The tone throughout the novel focused on abandonment and how to live and survive on your own. The setting of the book plays a powerful part as the story unfolded. Dickens describes the setting of London and all the places that Oliver stays very descriptively. "The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy order. The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt..." (page. 56). Dickens explains the facilities that were available to poor Oliver, and makes them sound unbearable. He does an excellent job making the setting come alive and feel the characters thoughts. I would recommend this novel because I found it very moving and towards the end you are only hoping for the best for poor Oliver.

The creative novel Oliver Twist, written by Charles Dickens in 1838, defines a classic of all times. This intense story reflects a young boy's life in London with no family or place to go. Oliver's mother dies while giving birth to her son in the beginning of the book. Oliver's father remains unknown. Throughout the book the reader sees constant struggles. Oliver is befriended by Fagin and his company. Fagin, along with the Artful Dodger, invite Oliver to stay with them and become a thief. During one of Oliver's pick pocketing adventures; he is caught by Mr. Brownlow. Instead of reprimanding the young lad, Mr. Brownlow decides to raise him. Oliver desperately searches for the answer to his past while trying to stay alive on the streets of London. Ironically, Mr. Brownlow is Oliver's grandfather. A dominate theme of Oliver Twist examines the importance of family. Oliver's early years taught him to fend for himself and he suffers from never experiencing a loving and nurturing childhood. The setting of the book plays a powerful role as the story unfolds. Dickens describes the setting of London and all the places that Oliver stays very descriptively. "The street was very narrow and muddy, and the air was impregnated with filthy odor. The walls and ceiling of the room were perfectly black with age and dirt..." (page. 56). Dickens explains the facilities that were available to poor Oliver and makes them sound unbearable. He does an excellent job making the setting come alive and allows the reader to plight. I would recommend all readers at some point in life to delve into this classic. I found Oliver Twist very moving and towards the end hoping only the best for poor Oliver.

This is a review of ISBN 156971651X, called Star wars: Republic - The Hunt for Aurra Sing issues 28 to 31, released as a TPB by Dark Horse comics July, 2002.

This is a very good comic, but a step backward from the three that preceded it. The story by Truman is good, but the artwork is a step backward. The style is more cartoonish than what we have been getting in the REPUBLIC run of issues. The cover art is very dark and frankly, not very good.

The Jedi are out to hunt down Bounty Hunter - force sensitive killer Aurra Sing. Aurra is a rouge in the worst sense. She slaughters others cruelly and senselessly, and in fact she murdered Padawan A Sharad's father (see OUTLANDER).

The production quality, even if you don't care for the artwork itself, is awesome. Dark horse as of early 2002, even late 2001 has had great strides in producing great comic. They also seem to have been sensitive to the tradition of poor editing in the past, and they seem to do a much better job of helping the reader now who is who and who is speaking. My biggest complaint concerning the lazy editing was UNION. I see that Chris Warner edited that one. He is still editor-and-chief of HUNT but had an assist from David Land. Thanks for being more attentive for the fanatics like me.

The lightsabers. Some have criticized that the lightsabers in some comics were drawn to small. Looks like they may have overadjusted here because they look larger and I would say, more cartoonish.

I assume that the person who does the pencils is in effect the artist. I did not that a different person did the pencils here from the previous TPB's that I liked a lot. Lets just say that I really like the work of Jan Duursema, Magyar and McCaig, and am less a fan of the work of Robinson and Fabbri (though Robinson's art in Twilight as great).

If Fett and Sing were to do battle it would likely make for one of the more interesting face offs in the Star Wars series. Like Fett there appears to be almost no way of stopping this huntress who collects the lightsabers of the Jedi that she has vanquished. And as far as deep seated hatred of other Jedi her anger can only be matched by the Dark Lord Vader himself.

In this graphic novel Aurra Sing has a posse of Jedi Masters, and even members of the council sent to finally take her out. One Padawan learner, a former Sandperson whose father was killed by Aurra is also included in the hunt. As these collections of graphic episodes go, this one is quite good, and will be especially appreciated for fans whose favorite sound is the snap hiss of a lightsaber and the mayhem that follows. Duels in this book even include opponents both fighting with a ligtsaber in each hand. This was shown briefly in Episode II, and I for one wish there had been more.

This series also featured some of the most haunting dark art that has ever appeared on the covers of the individual issues prior to there being collected in to this graphic novel format.

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