> Alphabets revolutionized writing by making it accessible to people beyond royalty and the socially elite. Alphabetic writing changed the way people lived, how they thought, how they communicated
Thousands of years later (with few cultural diffusion barriers) billions of people do not use alphabets. So there is probably something missing from this picture.
E.g., the large Chinese society is notoriously competitive and you would think that if the use of alphabet is an obvious enabler it would have been adopted by some segment?
Maybe there is a tradeof in a phonetic system: if the spoken language cannot be properly captured it negates the combinatorial benefits of an alphabet.
Thousands of years later (with few cultural diffusion barriers) billions of people do not use alphabets. So there is probably something missing from this picture.
E.g., the large Chinese society is notoriously competitive and you would think that if the use of alphabet is an obvious enabler it would have been adopted by some segment?
Maybe there is a tradeof in a phonetic system: if the spoken language cannot be properly captured it negates the combinatorial benefits of an alphabet.