I was recently in Greece addressing an advertising conference. The Greek alphabet was based ion the Phoenician alphabet and the Roman alphabet was in turn based on the Greek. The Cyrillic alphabet was 'invented' some time later.
What happens if you have an alphabet that is different to most others? Does that mean that scientific and technical works are not available unless translated? In practise, most people will need to learn the more dominant alphabets - like the Roman one. This could be seen as extra work, or it might even improve brain function. In Montreal there was some research showing that bi-lingual youngsters appeared to have an advantage over mono-lingual ones in unrelated subject areas.
Will everyone eventually learn English (American)? What is the price, if any, that is paid for preserving national identity through an unusual alphabet?
All this may make more necessary the 'inter-language' concepts that I put forward in my book on 'the de Bono Code'. Situation codes may be faster, simpler and more precise than ordinary language - though not so comprehensive or flexible.
Edward de Bono nmt
24th November 2002
London
Go to top