+ 3 The written word is history
A visible language, e.g.
the alphabet, is different to a more generalised concept of
visual language (a smile, nod of the head, signs etc.). A
child who has not yet learned the complex structures of
speech can still communicate with us though a series of
universal 'built in' utterances and visual messages. We
comprehend visual signs long before we can articulate or
name them. Robert Rieber suggests; "Cognizing of 'things' is
prior to cognizing of words. And this priority must have
applied to the development of language in the species as
well as it does to contemporary human individuals."
12
The precise
historical origins of language are unknown but Rieber's
suggestion that its development was like that of a child
seems plausible. We first learn to recognise objects
(Pictograms) and then signs that represent them (Ideograms).
As speech develops we learn their 'names' and after a while
learn symbols that embody individual sounds within their
spoken name (Phonograms). In the last two sentences, using
Rieber's metaphor, I have swept through history from
primeval man (500, 000 years ago) through to the first
scripts (3,500 B.C.) and on to the Roman era (around 1500
B.C.) when what we recognize as the alphabet was evolving.
It is from this time that man could be said to possess a
visible language - a visible rendering of the voice. The aim
of this essay is not to study the history or development of
our verbal language but to look at the verbal/visible
relationship as it exists since the evolution of writing. By
definition (Collins English Dictionary 1994) history does
not start until this development.
"Prehistoric; man's
development before the appearance of the written word"
12
Robert. W. Rieber; Dialogues on the Psychology of Language
and Thought (1983)
13-15
Walter. J. Ong; Legibility Research Abstracts (1970)
16
Jon Wozencroft; Fuse 1994
17
Brian Stock; Text, Readers and Enacted Narratives-Visible
Language 20.3 (1986)
This implies that
history only exists if it has been written down. Unwritten
knowledge exists, but it is transmitted only by word of
mouth and as such it is unfixed. Dates can be forgotten,
words denied, names changed, the crux of a story can be
shifted. "Without written records, knowledge threatens
constantly to slip away. Words are always thought of as
fleeting, vanishing - Homer calls them 'winged words' - for
they are thought of only as sounds, which of course is what
words really are. Sound itself is not only perishable but
always actually perishing. Sound exists only when it is
going out of existence." 13. Walter. J. Ong uses the term 'Oral
cultures' and on the subject of absorbing history he writes
of how such cultures must "invest their efforts not in
developing new knowledge but in retaining what knowledge is
had" 14 The written word, be it an account of an
actual happening, a fictional story or a thought or idea, is
always the making of history. It lingers on long after its
author has laid down his/her pen and becomes evidence that
thoughts existed. "Without the written word knowledge can
only be gained by listening to someone talk. In a
chirographic or writing culture, one could study alone
without any sound at all, with only a book. In this setting
individuals began to think for themselves."
15 But even a written communication could not
be seen by more than a small number of readers and their
recollection of that information, without referring to it,
will become 'fleeting' once more. And so duplication,
translation and interpretation of writing came about and
again knowledge becomes unfixed. The printed word is
perceived as a verification of knowledge. It enables its
readers, when ever and where ever they are in the world, to
believe in its veracity. Lies can be printed but the reader
can be sure that those lies have been untouched by it's
journey through time and space.
We are now coming to the end of a period that in the future
may be referred to as that of a printed culture. The printed
word figures much more in our visual lives than writing.
"Typeset messages are everywhere, but few people have any
say (or indeed show any interest) in their invention. As
McLuhan said 'the information environment in which we live
is quite as imperceptible to us as water is to a fish'"
16 Often we use the printed page and believe
in it because speech cannot be trusted, let alone heard. We
set information in text as a sign of our convictions. The
proof that, say, someone is a professor or that someone has
passed a driving test is not in observing their knowledge or
in seeing them drive, it is in reading printed certificates.
Revolutionaries, political parties and groups of artists
produce manifestos to say what is going to happen and what
they are going to achieve, not as a record of what has
happened. The texts come to be as important as their
actions. Writing, if set in print, becomes subconsciously
solidified and takes on the immovable qualities that are
associated with its production. Brian Stock describes the
chirographic culture as the "textual community". He talks of
how the printed word, is used to verify verbal language.
"The norms of a bureaucracy, even the agenda of a meeting,
can be a 'textual community', depending on the relationship
between texts and action." 17Text has long been used as a certificate of
conviction but with the development of digital technology
knowledge threatens to become unfixed once more.
We are now moving towards what, for the sake of continuity,
I will call the Technological Community. The terminology
used by the old hierarchy of print is still used, but like
them, it will soon disappear. How long can terms like
leading, body size and even type itself survive now they
have ceased being physical objects? In the digital age they
are just units on a screen; pixels, on or off, 0 or 1.
My aim, to design a typeface that reconsiders the
relationship between language and the alphabet, is made
easier by the mode of todays technology, where nothing is
tangible or ever really exists. Like Ong's remark that
spoken language "only exists when it is going out of
existence", digital language only appears to exists when
your machine is switched on. Perhaps digital information can
be said to be as fleeting as the spoken word, for we still
feel the need to print out what appears on our screens
either to see how it 'really' looks or through a fear that
it might disappear.