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Part of the book series: NATO ASI Series ((ASID,volume 41))

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Abstract

The object of this chapter is to raise a basic question concerning the underpinnings of Western culture. Did the fully phonetic alphabet invented by the Greeks circa 750 B.C. (for a discussion of a possibly earlier date, see Naveh, 1982) and still used today in Greece (and in the rest of the West in its Latinised version), have a conditioning impact on the biases of specialised brain processes in our culture? Could the alphabet have acted on our brain as a powerful computer language, determining or emphasising the selection of some of our perceptual and cognitive processes?

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© 1988 Martinus Nijhoff Publishers

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de Kerckhove, D. (1988). Alphabetic Literacy and Brain Processes. In: Berry, J.W., Irvine, S.H., Hunt, E.B. (eds) Indigenous Cognition: Functioning in Cultural Context. NATO ASI Series, vol 41. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2778-0_6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-009-2778-0_6

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-94-010-7749-1

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-009-2778-0

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