Letters are tangible language. Joining together in endless combinations to actually show speech, letters convey messages, tell stories, and create newspapers, advertising, poetry. While we encounter these tiny shapes hundreds of times a day, we take for granted the long, fascinating history behind one of the most fundamental inventions--the alphabet. David Sacks has embarked on a fun, lively, and learned excursion into cultural history in LANGUAGE VISIBLE. Clearly explaining the letters as symbols of precise sounds of speech, the book begins with the earliest know alphabetic inscription (circa 1800 B.C.), recently discovered by archaeologists in Egypt, and traces the history of our alphabet through the ancient Phoenicians, Greeks, and Romans and up through medieval Europe to the present day. But the heart of the book is the twenty-six fact-filled biographies of letters A through Z, each one identifying the letter`s particular significance for modern readers, tracing its development from ancient forms, and discussing its noteworthy role in literature and other media. We learn, for example, why letter X may have a sinister and sexual aura, how B came to signify second best, and why the word mother in many languages starts with M, and what is THE STORY OF O. The book also features clever illustrations for each letter, such as Winston Churchill`s V-for-Victory World War II hand-sign, the trademark N from the label of Newman`s Own salad dressing, and images from rock music and other pop culture.