Spaces between words

It was Irish monks who first put spaces between written words, as I learned when I listened to part 2 of Melvyn Bragg's series The Written World (on iPlayer here). Two thousand years ago Latin was written without spaces - one word ran on from the next. The librarian on the radio programme said that this didn't matter for most people as written texts acted as an aide-memoire and usually contained information that was already known. However, Ireland was beyond the confines of the Roman empire and so its residents were not used to hearing Latin or seeing it written down. When Christianity was brought to Ireland in the 5th century, and thus Latin too, monks struggled to read the Latin texts they were introduced to. At least one of their number had the bright idea of breaking up the passage of jumbled letters to make it easier to understand.

 

The second programme in the series The Written World looked at the development of books. Although texts written on papyrus have survived in the dry Egyptian climate, similar texts that the Romans must have written, also on papyrus, did not survive in Britain's damp climate. We do, however, have examples of texts from Roman times. They are written on wooden tablets and were discovered at the site of Vindolanda, once a fortress on Hadrian's Wall. A variety of things were being written and written about on these tablets at the time - from Virgil to party invitations.

 

On the programme Melvyn Bragg got a chance to look at some very early religious books and bibles, including the earliest surviving 'proper' book, now held in the British Library and so precious that only one specialist is allowed to touch it. That is known as St Cuthbert's Gospel - it is the text of the Gospel of John and was buried in St Cuthbert's coffin with him for several centuries, which explains why it still survives.

 

The Chinese invented paper about two thousand years ago, and it gradually became known in Europe, via Samarkand and the Arab world, by the Middle Ages. The Arabs had been using paper for several centuries before Europe had heard of it, and we learned on the programme that in the 9th century there were about a hundred stationers' shops in Baghdad where people would go to read books. The Chinese were printing books on paper in the 9th century, well before Gutenberg's printing press of the 15th century.

 

Programme 3 of the series (available to listen here) was about how writing facilitated the spread of religion, and that's a very interesting programme too.

Comments

[John]

Great stuff! Thanks for posting.

Hopefully I'll get a chance to listen to the series this weekend.

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks, John. I hope you can listen to it on iPlayer or as a podcast. I'm never quite sure what the BBC makes available to listeners outside the UK.

[John]

I just tried via your link above and it works.

I can always receive live, on-air broadcasts - even the Regionals - but podcasts seem to be restricted at times; it's not clear what the rationale is. Mobiles, in particular, seem to be an issue.

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks for telling me, John. I'll know I can recommend BBC radio programmes on iPlayer in future.