Anyone who can read knows the 26 letters of our alphabet. But where do those letters come from? How long do they exist? And who designed them? Autobahn and Bette Westera take you back to the time of our distant ancestors, who made a drawing if they wanted to 'write' something. Slowly but surely, their drawings changed into the first letters. If you look closely, you can recognize our current alphabet. 

And guess  what? A is not for Apple at all, but for Ox! After reading this book you will understand how this came to be. You will also understand why, whenever we send each other emoji's, we actually do the same as our distant ancestors over 5000 years ago. An educational and special letter book for all ages!

Visit www.aisvanos.nl or scroll down to download 3 free typefaces!

Throughout time, our alphabet has changed quite a lot. It started around 1900 B.C. in the Sinaï dessert. This writing (called Proto-Sinaïtic) was adopted and changed by the neighboring Phoenicians (around 1500 B.C.). The Phoenicians were a nation of sailors and through trade they've passed the alphabet on to the Greeks (around 800 B.C.). The Greeks changed the letterforms a bit and eventually passed it on to the Romans who finalized the alphabet in the way we still use it today in the Western world:

To display the first form of our alphabet, we've cut the letters in stone:

A / Aleph

R / Res

E / Hé

Windowdressing:

Animation

Background information about the process (English subtitles):

You can download 3 typefaces for free that were specially designed for this project:

Proto-Sinaïtic   /   Phoenician   /   Greek

or visit www.aisvanos.nl for more info

Gottmer Publishers Group / 24 x 24 cm / ISBN 978 90 257 6804 1 / NUR 210

Printed in Pantone Reflex Blue & PMS 805

Finished with Gravel Spot UV coating

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Released 18th of June 2018
Order here
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Dutch only (for now...)