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- Title
THE SOURCE OF THE UTOPIAN ALPHABET: A SUGGESTION.
- Authors
BURSTEIN, STANLEY M.
- Abstract
The article discusses the source of the Utopian alphabet that was published in the preface to the year 1516 Louvain and year 1518 Basel editions of Thomas More's "Utopia." Indologist J. Duncan M. Derrett argued that the Utopian alphabet was South Asian in origin in the year 1966. The author believes there are two problems with Derrett's theory, namely that there is no evidence that this hypothesized traveller's account ever existed, and second, it doesn't account for the different phonetic values of the alphabet that are expressed by rotating the same symbol either 90 or 180 degrees. The Hellenistic travel romance of Iambulus is explored for its use of an alphabet similar to that in "Utopia."
- Subjects
UTOPIA (Book : More); MORE, Thomas, 1565-1625; DERRETT, J. Duncan M.; ALPHABETS; UTOPIAS; FANTASY fiction
- Publication
Notes & Queries, 2009, Vol 56, Issue 1, p26
- ISSN
0029-3970
- Publication type
Article
- DOI
10.1093/notesj/gjn215