0:00:02 > 0:00:04THEY SING
0:00:04 > 0:00:10'Language is one of the most amazing things that we humans do.
0:00:10 > 0:00:14'It separates us from the animals,
0:00:14 > 0:00:17'gives us theatre, poetry and songs.
0:00:17 > 0:00:22'It shapes our identity and allows us to express emotions.'
0:00:22 > 0:00:23CROWD ROARS
0:00:23 > 0:00:26'It makes us laugh. It makes us cry.'
0:00:28 > 0:00:32'It allows us to record our histories and imagine our futures.'
0:00:32 > 0:00:35Oh, my goodness! This is magical.
0:00:40 > 0:00:43In this programme,
0:00:43 > 0:00:46I'm going to explore language's physical incarnation,
0:00:46 > 0:00:49our greatest invention - writing.
0:00:52 > 0:00:54Since its birth 5,000 years ago,
0:00:54 > 0:00:58the written word has given us civilisation and technology.
0:00:58 > 0:01:02I'm going to reveal how it's transformed the way we interpret
0:01:02 > 0:01:03and explore our world,
0:01:03 > 0:01:06how we organise our religions and governments
0:01:06 > 0:01:08and how we spread our ideas and our laws.
0:01:08 > 0:01:12How writing allows us to listen to the past
0:01:12 > 0:01:14and to speak to the future.
0:01:14 > 0:01:19But is writing here to stay, or is it just a flash in the pen?
0:01:21 > 0:01:25THEY SPEAK IN THEIR OWN DIALECT
0:01:30 > 0:01:32'Learning to talk, like learning to walk,
0:01:32 > 0:01:34'is a natural part of growing up.
0:01:34 > 0:01:38'It's something that children the world over do instinctively.'
0:01:41 > 0:01:42'But while spoken language
0:01:42 > 0:01:45'is an innate part of the human operating system,
0:01:45 > 0:01:50'something we've been doing for maybe only 50,000 years,
0:01:50 > 0:01:54'the ability to read and write is an optional extra.'
0:01:54 > 0:01:57Reading and writing are not a natural state of affairs.
0:01:57 > 0:02:00It's just something that's been invented
0:02:00 > 0:02:03to complement utterance - spoken human language.
0:02:03 > 0:02:07In fact, it's not necessary or essential for communication at all,
0:02:07 > 0:02:10and there are hundreds of societies around the world
0:02:10 > 0:02:13which have existed for centuries, perfectly happily,
0:02:13 > 0:02:16without feeling the need to write down their language.
0:02:16 > 0:02:20The Akha, here in North Thailand, is one such.
0:02:20 > 0:02:24THEY SPEAK IN AKHA
0:02:27 > 0:02:31'While anthropologists might attribute the lack of writing
0:02:31 > 0:02:33'to the culture's self-sufficient economy,
0:02:33 > 0:02:36'the Akha have their own story.
0:02:36 > 0:02:37'According to myth,
0:02:37 > 0:02:40'they were given writing by the first spirit,
0:02:40 > 0:02:43'Un Ma, on a buffalo hide.
0:02:43 > 0:02:47'But the Akha don't have a written language now,
0:02:47 > 0:02:49'so what on earth happened?'
0:02:49 > 0:02:51It was written down on buffalo skin?
0:02:51 > 0:02:53TRANSLATION:
0:03:06 > 0:03:08Oh, right! Cos of the meat.
0:03:08 > 0:03:10They ate it up!
0:03:10 > 0:03:14So, the guardians of the Akha alphabet ate up...
0:03:14 > 0:03:16I see.
0:03:16 > 0:03:18Since those days, we don't have...
0:03:18 > 0:03:20- Since then, you rely on your memory. - Yes.
0:03:20 > 0:03:22HE SPEAKS IN AKHA
0:03:22 > 0:03:24'Traditionally, the Akha keep in their heads
0:03:24 > 0:03:27'and pass on verbally, all their culture -
0:03:27 > 0:03:31'their myths, stories and their entire history,
0:03:31 > 0:03:36'all the way back to their founding father, their Adam.'
0:03:36 > 0:03:39And so, that's all in your head? How many generations?
0:03:46 > 0:03:48Do you learn songs, as well?
0:04:03 > 0:04:06'Aju, like the rest of the literate world,
0:04:06 > 0:04:11'now uses writing rather than his brain to remember things.
0:04:11 > 0:04:15'Rather than fight progress, he wants the next generation to learn to read and write,
0:04:15 > 0:04:19'so they can preserve their culture on the page.
0:04:19 > 0:04:23'Reading and writing will give them access not just to their past,
0:04:23 > 0:04:27'but to that of the rest of the world.'
0:04:27 > 0:04:32THEY SPEAK IN THEIR OWN DIALECT
0:04:32 > 0:04:34'Writing lets us discover things
0:04:34 > 0:04:39'about cultures far away in space and time.
0:04:39 > 0:04:43'And some of the oldest writing is here, at the British Museum.
0:04:43 > 0:04:46'So, how and why did it start?'
0:04:48 > 0:04:53The British Museum has thousands of objects with writing on them,
0:04:53 > 0:04:56some of them more than five millennia old.
0:04:56 > 0:04:58It's a matter of intense debate amongst the curators
0:04:58 > 0:05:02of the various departments here as to who has the oldest.
0:05:02 > 0:05:05The Egyptologists claim that they have the edge,
0:05:05 > 0:05:10while the Assyriologists, they maintain that their form -
0:05:10 > 0:05:13cuneiform writing - is the oldest.
0:05:13 > 0:05:16Either way, it seems that writing was not invented
0:05:16 > 0:05:22for the purposes of writing love poems or novels or prayers,
0:05:22 > 0:05:24but actually for the rather more mundane purpose
0:05:24 > 0:05:27of taxation and accountancy.
0:05:28 > 0:05:33'As societies grew and flourished in the cradle of civilisation,
0:05:33 > 0:05:38'today's Iraq, so did the need for bureaucracy and record-keeping.
0:05:38 > 0:05:41'Who owes what to whom?
0:05:41 > 0:05:46'This early clay tablet records the payment of workers in beer.'
0:05:48 > 0:05:50'Behind the scenes at the museum,
0:05:50 > 0:05:53'Dr Irving Finkel, Keeper of the Department of Assyriology,
0:05:53 > 0:05:56'is giving some students a lesson
0:05:56 > 0:05:58'in writing cuneiform the traditional way -
0:05:58 > 0:06:01'on a piece of clay, with a reed.
0:06:01 > 0:06:04'I'm attempting to write my name.'
0:06:04 > 0:06:07So, an upright like that and then...
0:06:08 > 0:06:14..that and that. Sort of more... Not quite. It's a bit too big.
0:06:14 > 0:06:17- Well, it's assertive.- Yeah, it is.
0:06:17 > 0:06:19And then, one upright.
0:06:19 > 0:06:22'The first teachers of writing used to beat their students.
0:06:22 > 0:06:27'I hope Dr Finkel doesn't subscribe to such violent methods.'
0:06:27 > 0:06:29Stephen, as you know, cuneiform writing
0:06:29 > 0:06:31is the oldest form of writing in the history of the world.
0:06:31 > 0:06:35- I knew that.- Don't let anybody dissuade you of any other truth.
0:06:35 > 0:06:36It began in ancient Iraq
0:06:36 > 0:06:39and various remarkable things have to be stressed.
0:06:39 > 0:06:42Firstly, that the people who invented writing
0:06:42 > 0:06:44had no idea what was going to be the consequence.
0:06:44 > 0:06:47They did it for local, bureaucratic reasons -
0:06:47 > 0:06:50they had to keep books and accounts on incoming and outgoing goods.
0:06:50 > 0:06:51That's how it all began.
0:06:51 > 0:06:55Nobody had a vision of giving writing to the world.
0:06:55 > 0:06:57That it was going to end up with Shakespeare and Proust
0:06:57 > 0:06:59- and Barbara Cartland.- Precisely.
0:06:59 > 0:07:02But once it started in the world, it never stopped.
0:07:02 > 0:07:05And like a snowball, it grew and grew and grew,
0:07:05 > 0:07:09until it's become the kind of intellectual prop of homo sapiens.
0:07:09 > 0:07:10So, it's a very significant thing.
0:07:10 > 0:07:13In our department to do with Ancient Mesopotamia,
0:07:13 > 0:07:16we have the earliest evidence.
0:07:16 > 0:07:20So, what I brought firstly to show you is a real tablet.
0:07:20 > 0:07:23This was written by a schoolboy in about 1700 BC.
0:07:23 > 0:07:29- Good Lord!- The most wonderful thing is there is one example of this.
0:07:29 > 0:07:32A tablet like this - on the back, there is a caricature of the teacher
0:07:32 > 0:07:35and this teacher has a goofy kind of tooth
0:07:35 > 0:07:37and a stupid expression on his face
0:07:37 > 0:07:40and this is clearly a pupil who is fed up to his back teeth.
0:07:40 > 0:07:43- So, this is his rough book, his exercise book?- Yeah.
0:07:43 > 0:07:47In my view, there's something really important to be learned,
0:07:47 > 0:07:50which is, the human beings who made these things
0:07:50 > 0:07:52are absolutely close to us.
0:07:52 > 0:07:55There are voices singing out of these apparently dead objects.
0:07:55 > 0:07:56Exactly.
0:07:56 > 0:07:59The dazzling wonder of the human mind,
0:07:59 > 0:08:02as we know it today, forcefully,
0:08:02 > 0:08:05in my view, is there to be plucked out of these documents.
0:08:05 > 0:08:10'Of course, cuneiform wasn't just used to write bills and accounts.
0:08:10 > 0:08:13'In no time at all, people started writing poems,
0:08:13 > 0:08:15'love letters and legends.
0:08:15 > 0:08:18'Written stories, like the Epic Of Gilgamesh
0:08:18 > 0:08:21'give us a glimpse into a different world.
0:08:21 > 0:08:25'A world where writing itself was a source of power.
0:08:25 > 0:08:29'Writing allowed rulers to lay down the first laws,
0:08:29 > 0:08:32'send secret messages in battles
0:08:32 > 0:08:35'and write their own versions of events.
0:08:35 > 0:08:38'Only a few highly trained scribes
0:08:38 > 0:08:41'could read and write this complex script,
0:08:41 > 0:08:45'but in doing so, they took humans from prehistoric times
0:08:45 > 0:08:48'into the pages of history.'
0:08:48 > 0:08:51Writing was developed separately and independently all over the world
0:08:51 > 0:08:53and by 1200 BC,
0:08:53 > 0:08:59it was flourishing in India, China, Europe and Egypt.
0:08:59 > 0:09:02Now, while some ancient scripts have yet to be deciphered
0:09:02 > 0:09:04even to this day,
0:09:04 > 0:09:06the language of the pharaohs, hieroglyphs,
0:09:06 > 0:09:09has been successfully translated and transcribed
0:09:09 > 0:09:13thanks to the Rosetta Stone.
0:09:13 > 0:09:16'The same inscription on this stone is written three times,
0:09:16 > 0:09:19'in Ancient Greek, Egyptian Demotic script
0:09:19 > 0:09:23'and the original Egyptian hieroglyphs.
0:09:23 > 0:09:26'These three scripts allowed hieroglyphs
0:09:26 > 0:09:28'finally to be deciphered.'
0:09:28 > 0:09:30The phrase "Rosetta Stone"
0:09:30 > 0:09:33has become a kind of metaphor for anything that is a key part
0:09:33 > 0:09:36in the process of decoding, translating
0:09:36 > 0:09:38or solving a difficult problem.
0:09:38 > 0:09:41But all written language is a form of code
0:09:41 > 0:09:42and without the ability to read,
0:09:42 > 0:09:45it just becomes as incomprehensible
0:09:45 > 0:09:48as the marks on this rock are, to me, at least.
0:09:51 > 0:09:54You probably learnt to read and write as I did,
0:09:54 > 0:09:56by using letter tiles,
0:09:56 > 0:09:58or you had those sort of strips of paper
0:09:58 > 0:10:00round your primary school classroom
0:10:00 > 0:10:05with A for apple and B for bear and C for carthorse, or whatever it was.
0:10:05 > 0:10:07The amazing thing about the system of an alphabet
0:10:07 > 0:10:09is you don't have learn symbols,
0:10:09 > 0:10:12you just learn these individual letters that make the sounds.
0:10:12 > 0:10:14Once you do, anything is possible.
0:10:14 > 0:10:18You can just make up all kinds of fantastic phrases.
0:10:18 > 0:10:22I adore playing with... Oh, look. Look what we can have here.
0:10:22 > 0:10:24Playing with letters and words.
0:10:25 > 0:10:28The alphabet allowed what you might call
0:10:28 > 0:10:30a democratisation of reading and writing.
0:10:30 > 0:10:34And the alphabet that we use came to use via the Romans,
0:10:34 > 0:10:36from that great, democratic civilisation,
0:10:36 > 0:10:38Ancient Greece.
0:10:43 > 0:10:46'The Greeks were famous for epic stories.
0:10:46 > 0:10:49'Homer's Iliad and Odyssey told tales
0:10:49 > 0:10:53'of wars and adventures all around the Mediterranean.
0:10:53 > 0:10:55'But Homer himself didn't write.'
0:10:57 > 0:10:59Some romantically-minded scholars
0:10:59 > 0:11:02have proposed that a brilliant contemporary of Homer
0:11:02 > 0:11:06invented the alphabet in order to record the poet's oral epics,
0:11:06 > 0:11:08The Iliad and The Odyssey.
0:11:08 > 0:11:11It seems unlikely, but Homer himself does give us a clue
0:11:11 > 0:11:13as to the origins of writing.
0:11:13 > 0:11:17In The Iliad and The Odyssey, he mentions the Phoenicians,
0:11:17 > 0:11:20traders who travelled the Mediterranean in ships.
0:11:23 > 0:11:27'The Phoenicians were the great merchants of antiquity
0:11:27 > 0:11:30'with ports in modern day Syria, Lebanon and Israel,
0:11:30 > 0:11:32'and all over the Mediterranean.
0:11:32 > 0:11:34'But they didn't just transport goods.
0:11:34 > 0:11:39'They introduced a whole new way of writing -
0:11:39 > 0:11:40'the alphabet.
0:11:40 > 0:11:43'Theirs was the mother of all alphabets,
0:11:43 > 0:11:45'including our own.'
0:11:46 > 0:11:48You're an extraordinarily accomplished fellow.
0:11:48 > 0:11:52You don't just dig around in sites, you actually can write Phoenician.
0:11:52 > 0:11:55Maybe you can show me the alphabet? Give me a sense of how it looks.
0:11:55 > 0:11:58- Ah, you've got a...- Yeah.
0:11:58 > 0:12:00So, just for example,
0:12:00 > 0:12:03the letter Aleph in Proto-Canaanite or Canaanite script,
0:12:03 > 0:12:05it was in the shape of a head of an ox.
0:12:05 > 0:12:08- Sorry for my drawing.- Fair enough.
0:12:08 > 0:12:12But later, it was transformed in Phoenician,
0:12:12 > 0:12:16early Phoenician, into something like this, which is the shape...
0:12:16 > 0:12:19- And, of course, if you transform it in the right direction...- Yeah.
0:12:19 > 0:12:24..you get the Alpha or the A or other languages.
0:12:24 > 0:12:31In later Phoenician inscription, was this symbol,
0:12:31 > 0:12:33sometimes it even had a small iris.
0:12:33 > 0:12:36So, basically, it was transformed into the Omicron,
0:12:36 > 0:12:38the little O.
0:12:40 > 0:12:43'For the Phoenicians, the more people who could read and write,
0:12:43 > 0:12:44'the better.
0:12:44 > 0:12:47'The alphabet allowed them to communicate
0:12:47 > 0:12:50'and deal more effectively with foreign trading partners.
0:12:50 > 0:12:54'Spreading the word made sound economic sense.'
0:12:55 > 0:12:58The important point about the Phoenician culture
0:12:58 > 0:13:00is that, being a trading culture,
0:13:00 > 0:13:04it wasn't interested in leaving permanent religious memorials in writing,
0:13:04 > 0:13:07it was more about taking writing around
0:13:07 > 0:13:10as a way of facilitating the trade that was the basis of their...
0:13:10 > 0:13:14Therefore, they got such a bad press because in the Bible,
0:13:14 > 0:13:19they are the bringer of foreign, idolatrous, er, cults.
0:13:19 > 0:13:23The foreign idols - Jezebel the queen, the Phoenician queen.
0:13:23 > 0:13:26So, these people have never written history,
0:13:26 > 0:13:28but they got all the bad press from everybody.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31They wrote the records, but they don't survive.
0:13:31 > 0:13:32It's very likely.
0:13:32 > 0:13:36It's very likely that much was on papyrus and was lost.
0:13:38 > 0:13:42'Papyrus, like the alphabet, was another Phoenician export.
0:13:42 > 0:13:44'We get our word "paper" from it.
0:13:44 > 0:13:49'The Greeks gave a collection of papyrus a new name - byblos,
0:13:49 > 0:13:53'from which we get our word "Bible".
0:13:53 > 0:13:57' "God, in mysterious Sinai's awful cave
0:13:57 > 0:14:01' "To man the wondrous art of writing gave",
0:14:01 > 0:14:04'wrote Blake in his book Jerusalem.
0:14:04 > 0:14:07'Writing allowed the priests and the rabbis
0:14:07 > 0:14:11'to set in stone their beliefs.
0:14:11 > 0:14:14'Once written, customs became religious laws
0:14:14 > 0:14:17'and the word of God could not be edited.
0:14:17 > 0:14:20'Writing has allowed one religion, Judaism,
0:14:20 > 0:14:24'to last virtually unchanged for millennia.'
0:14:24 > 0:14:28Behind me is the Western or Wailing Wall,
0:14:28 > 0:14:30one of the most sacred places in all Judaism.
0:14:30 > 0:14:33The written word is integral to worship here.
0:14:33 > 0:14:35Observant Jewish men have strips of paper
0:14:35 > 0:14:38with words from Deuteronomy and Exodus on them
0:14:38 > 0:14:41and these are carried in little boxes here called phylacteries,
0:14:41 > 0:14:46which they have strapped to their head and to their left arm
0:14:46 > 0:14:47as they pray.
0:14:47 > 0:14:50Other worshippers write down prayers to God on scraps of paper
0:14:50 > 0:14:53and push them into the cracks and crevices of the wall behind,
0:14:53 > 0:14:55and it's forbidden to remove them.
0:14:55 > 0:14:57Twice a year, the rabbi of the Wall
0:14:57 > 0:15:01takes them and buries them in the Mount of Olives.
0:15:01 > 0:15:05It's as if the writing itself is sacrosanct
0:15:05 > 0:15:07and imbued with a special power,
0:15:07 > 0:15:11and when talking about the power of words in religion
0:15:11 > 0:15:15you absolutely cannot ignore Islam.
0:15:15 > 0:15:18Just behind the Western Wall, yards from it,
0:15:18 > 0:15:22is the Dome of the Rock, the third holiest site in Sunni Islam.
0:15:22 > 0:15:24It's covered in writings,
0:15:24 > 0:15:27in inscriptions from the Islamic holy book, the Koran,
0:15:27 > 0:15:30and for Islam the Arabic script is more than just
0:15:30 > 0:15:33a writing system invented by man - it's a gift from God.
0:15:33 > 0:15:36In fact, one of the sayings of the prophet is that
0:15:36 > 0:15:39the ink of a scholar is holier than the blood of a martyr.
0:15:39 > 0:15:43Now, it may be that the Arabic script plays second fiddle to Hebrew
0:15:43 > 0:15:46here in Israel, but on the world stage it's a very different story
0:15:46 > 0:15:51and in fact Arabic script is second only to our own Roman alphabet for use.
0:15:52 > 0:15:53The spread of religion
0:15:53 > 0:15:57and the spread of writing have gone hand-in-hand,
0:15:57 > 0:15:59and, with writing so fundamental to faith,
0:15:59 > 0:16:03it's not surprising that people go to such lengths
0:16:03 > 0:16:06to protect and preserve the written words of their gods.
0:16:09 > 0:16:14Here in Jerusalem there's the aptly named Shrine Of The Book,
0:16:14 > 0:16:17where some of the most precious religious writings are on display,
0:16:17 > 0:16:22but even in these special and carefully climate-controlled conditions,
0:16:22 > 0:16:26some of the older texts are in danger of being lost to us forever.
0:16:28 > 0:16:32The most famous documents displayed here are the dead Sea Scrolls,
0:16:32 > 0:16:37fragments of biblical texts and religious writings from the time of Christ.
0:16:37 > 0:16:40The scrolls lay hidden for nearly two millennia,
0:16:40 > 0:16:45until a Bedouin shepherd stumbled upon them in 1946.
0:16:47 > 0:16:48They are believed
0:16:48 > 0:16:52to be the discovery of the 20th century.
0:16:52 > 0:16:56We are talking about a corpus of over 900 manuscripts,
0:16:56 > 0:17:00comprising all of the books of the Bible.
0:17:00 > 0:17:05These are the oldest copies of the Bible that we have, 2,000 years old.
0:17:05 > 0:17:09These ancient texts are so fragile that only four
0:17:09 > 0:17:12highly trained researchers from the Israel antiquities authority
0:17:12 > 0:17:17are allowed actually to handle them.
0:17:17 > 0:17:24What Lynn is going to show you now is a sample of the book of Psalms.
0:17:24 > 0:17:28- Oh, goodness! That's the real thing, isn't it?- Yes.
0:17:28 > 0:17:31You're looking at it upside down, but this is...
0:17:31 > 0:17:33It might as well be upside down to me,
0:17:33 > 0:17:37but if you want to turn it round the right way!
0:17:39 > 0:17:43We have about six such plates, six such pieces,
0:17:43 > 0:17:46and we keep them as they were found.
0:17:46 > 0:17:49If you look closely here, even if you can't read Hebrew,
0:17:49 > 0:17:54every place the name of God is written exactly, the yodh, Yahweh,
0:17:54 > 0:17:57it is written in what we call Paleo-Hebrew,
0:17:57 > 0:18:00which is the Hebrew of first Temple times.
0:18:00 > 0:18:02So, an ancient Hebrew, and older Hebrew.
0:18:02 > 0:18:04And that's God, God, God, every time,
0:18:04 > 0:18:07- and there's quite a lot of him, obviously.- Yes.
0:18:07 > 0:18:10- He features quite highly. - Right. Please don't touch.
0:18:10 > 0:18:12- Sorry, I was touching the glass, wasn't I?- Yes.
0:18:13 > 0:18:18'These documents are so precious that even touching the glass is forbidden,
0:18:18 > 0:18:23'and the next scroll is all about rules and regulations.
0:18:23 > 0:18:26'It's the Ten Commandments.'
0:18:26 > 0:18:30This is the only copy that contains all of the Ten Commandments.
0:18:30 > 0:18:31Oh, my goodness!
0:18:31 > 0:18:34Is this the oldest record of the Ten Commandments?
0:18:34 > 0:18:39- This is the oldest record of the Ten Commandments.- Wow, amazing.
0:18:39 > 0:18:43So, that alone would be the most priceless...
0:18:43 > 0:18:46- Right, right. - ..document, isn't it? Amazing.
0:18:46 > 0:18:51Every child or every grown-up,
0:18:51 > 0:18:56when you say the Ten Commandments, knows what you're talking about.
0:18:56 > 0:18:57And breaks one of them every day!
0:18:57 > 0:19:02And breaks one of them every day, and these are 2,000 years old.
0:19:02 > 0:19:06That is extraordinary, extraordinary.
0:19:06 > 0:19:10'These ancient words are now being protected
0:19:10 > 0:19:12'with space age technology - spectral imaging.
0:19:12 > 0:19:16'By photographing the scrolls under different wavelengths of light,
0:19:16 > 0:19:20'new sections of the text are made visible.'
0:19:20 > 0:19:26Oh, yes. It's even becoming clear in the dark...
0:19:27 > 0:19:29Goodness me.
0:19:29 > 0:19:34'Once digitised, all 900 fragments of the scrolls will be
0:19:34 > 0:19:37'made available online to scholars and members of the public.'
0:19:37 > 0:19:39Fantastic.
0:19:39 > 0:19:42Isn't it wonderful to think something so old,
0:19:42 > 0:19:44so - I won't say primitive -
0:19:44 > 0:19:47but the dawn of writing and everything,
0:19:47 > 0:19:52is dependent on our age of the most extraordinary technological advances
0:19:52 > 0:19:55in order to preserve it? It's rather splendid,
0:19:55 > 0:19:57the old meeting new like that.
0:20:09 > 0:20:13Yes, writing utterly changed the human world.
0:20:13 > 0:20:17With writing we could preserve our myths, our stories and our laws.
0:20:17 > 0:20:21The alphabet, whether Phoenician, Hebrew, Arabic, Greek or Roman,
0:20:21 > 0:20:25allowed more and more people to read and write,
0:20:25 > 0:20:28but there was yet to come another major revolution in writing
0:20:28 > 0:20:32that would spread the word further than ever -
0:20:32 > 0:20:33printing.
0:20:38 > 0:20:42'Now, you might think that printing started in Europe in 1450
0:20:42 > 0:20:44'with Johannes Gutenberg,
0:20:44 > 0:20:48'but this revolutionary technology - like gunpowder, the compass
0:20:48 > 0:20:53'and papermaking - was invented in China nearly 400 years earlier.'
0:20:53 > 0:20:58Hi, hello. I'm Stephen, Stephen Fry.
0:20:58 > 0:21:00Nice to see you.
0:21:00 > 0:21:04Can you make me one of these chops, with my name?
0:21:04 > 0:21:08'Once carved, block printing is much quicker
0:21:08 > 0:21:11'than handwriting each complex character,
0:21:11 > 0:21:14'but there's a reason why printing didn't take off in China,
0:21:14 > 0:21:17'and that is the sheer volume of characters -
0:21:17 > 0:21:19'literally thousands of them.'
0:21:26 > 0:21:29Chinese is one of the oldest written languages in the world,
0:21:29 > 0:21:33and we all know these extraordinary characters or ideograms,
0:21:33 > 0:21:36they're familiar almost as works of art.
0:21:36 > 0:21:42To the Chinese, they are the start of a lifelong learning process,
0:21:42 > 0:21:45because you have to learn each one, each one has a particular meaning.
0:21:45 > 0:21:48And the key difference between Chinese
0:21:48 > 0:21:51and almost all the other languages of the world, certainly ours,
0:21:51 > 0:21:54is that there's no hint as to how you say them.
0:21:54 > 0:21:58What's that like? Well, behind me you can see the number 60.
0:21:58 > 0:22:01That doesn't tell you to say "sixty" if you're English you say "sixty",
0:22:01 > 0:22:03if you're French you say "soixante",
0:22:03 > 0:22:06if you're German you'd say "sechzig", and so on.
0:22:06 > 0:22:07It's a symbol.
0:22:07 > 0:22:12Imagine that all the numbers from 0 to 2,000 had a separate symbol.
0:22:12 > 0:22:16You'd have to learn them all, and there's no hint how to say them.
0:22:18 > 0:22:20'Unlike most other writing systems,
0:22:20 > 0:22:22'which phonetically use symbols or letters
0:22:22 > 0:22:26'to represent the sounds that make up words,
0:22:26 > 0:22:30'Chinese characters, or logograms, represent whole words.
0:22:30 > 0:22:34'I'm given a cursory lesson in how to write this complex script
0:22:34 > 0:22:38'by entrepreneur philanthropist extraordinaire Sir David Tang
0:22:38 > 0:22:41'and his calligrapher friend, Johnson.'
0:22:42 > 0:22:45Pictograms are basically little pictures,
0:22:45 > 0:22:48and Chinese words are composed of radicals,
0:22:48 > 0:22:51which are the roots that you use all the time,
0:22:51 > 0:22:55the small pictures you use all the time to compose words.
0:22:55 > 0:22:59For example, this word, "moon", it is a stylised picture of the moon
0:22:59 > 0:23:03and this word for "brightness" is a composite
0:23:03 > 0:23:05of two radicals - the sun and moon.
0:23:05 > 0:23:07So it goes on like that.
0:23:07 > 0:23:12So, now, the ones I think I know, I've seen, anyway, is this China?
0:23:12 > 0:23:14Oh, look, I've got one of these brush pens.
0:23:14 > 0:23:17I know, I'm doing it wrong, but basically that.
0:23:17 > 0:23:20That will show you up as a very ill-educated boy,
0:23:20 > 0:23:26because the order in which you do the stroke is critical.
0:23:26 > 0:23:30Whenever people see... My uncle, if he sees me
0:23:30 > 0:23:35writing a word in the wrong order, he would immediately chastise me
0:23:35 > 0:23:40and say, "You uneducated boy, don't you know how to write that character?"
0:23:40 > 0:23:44So, the proper way is one stroke,
0:23:44 > 0:23:48two stroke, three and four.
0:23:48 > 0:23:51There is no other way of writing this character.
0:23:51 > 0:23:54And the strokes are very important,
0:23:54 > 0:23:58because that is the way in which you look up a word.
0:23:58 > 0:24:02This word is "wood",
0:24:02 > 0:24:05it looks like a tree.
0:24:05 > 0:24:08And you add two more...
0:24:11 > 0:24:14That's "full of trees".
0:24:14 > 0:24:19And you yet add two more, which makes five...
0:24:20 > 0:24:21That's a forest.
0:24:21 > 0:24:23Brilliant.
0:24:27 > 0:24:30'Traditionally, Chinese children have had to learn
0:24:30 > 0:24:33'the meaning of thousands of different characters.
0:24:33 > 0:24:36'The complexity of Chinese script meant that
0:24:36 > 0:24:41'when the Communist revolution took place in 1949,
0:24:41 > 0:24:44'less than 20% of the population could read.'
0:24:45 > 0:24:48So, Mao Tse-tung, the great leader,
0:24:48 > 0:24:51the scary leader of China for so many years,
0:24:51 > 0:24:57decided that he would institute a new way of rendering Chinese
0:24:57 > 0:25:02into a sort of phonetic alphabet, a romanisation, as it's called.
0:25:03 > 0:25:09'The challenge was to represent the many tones of spoken Mandarin
0:25:09 > 0:25:11'with just 26 letters of the Roman alphabet.
0:25:11 > 0:25:16'The system that was adopted was called pinyin.
0:25:16 > 0:25:20'Pinyin allows children to learn the sounds of words
0:25:20 > 0:25:23'and their meanings via the phonetic Roman alphabet.
0:25:23 > 0:25:25'It acts as a stepping stone
0:25:25 > 0:25:28'towards learning the thousands of characters.'
0:25:30 > 0:25:32CHILDREN READ ALOUD TOGETHER
0:25:37 > 0:25:43'The man who invented pinyin, Zhou Youguang, is now 106
0:25:43 > 0:25:45'and is hailed as a national treasure,
0:25:45 > 0:25:49'but is incredibly modest about his achievements.
0:25:49 > 0:25:50Is pinyin one of the great
0:25:50 > 0:25:53achievements of the revolution, do you think?
0:25:57 > 0:26:00IN ENGLISH:
0:26:01 > 0:26:02No?
0:26:19 > 0:26:21'At the onset of Mao's revolution,
0:26:21 > 0:26:23'literacy rates were running at 20%.
0:26:23 > 0:26:27'Within two decades that had increased fourfold.'
0:26:35 > 0:26:37Was it ever your aim, or is it now your aim,
0:26:37 > 0:26:42for pinyin to take over from the Chinese character?
0:26:45 > 0:26:47THEY LAUGH
0:26:53 > 0:26:58'Pinyin has transformed how people in China use technology.
0:26:58 > 0:27:03'A traditional Chinese typewriter had over 2,000 characters.
0:27:03 > 0:27:06'It was slow and unwieldy to use.
0:27:06 > 0:27:10'But by using pinyin on computers and smartphones, people can find
0:27:10 > 0:27:15'the right Chinese character without having them all on a keyboard.'
0:27:15 > 0:27:20So, on this phone I can choose pinyin. Now, if I type,
0:27:20 > 0:27:23let's say a word we know, "Beijing".
0:27:28 > 0:27:30That one there or that one there or that one there...
0:27:30 > 0:27:34That's the point, that allows you to use the Roman alphabet
0:27:34 > 0:27:38to find the characters, otherwise it would be impossible.
0:27:38 > 0:27:41'So, it is the simplicity of the alphabet,
0:27:41 > 0:27:45'and the ability easily to rearrange letters,
0:27:45 > 0:27:49'that gives it its potency as a tool for spreading the word.'
0:27:51 > 0:27:53Johannes Gutenberg's great innovation
0:27:53 > 0:27:57was to combine the Chinese invention - block printing -
0:27:57 > 0:28:02with typography - the art and technique of arranging type moveably.
0:28:02 > 0:28:06Movable type freed the written word from the drudgery
0:28:06 > 0:28:10of hand-scribing and allowed it to take flight in printed texts.
0:28:10 > 0:28:16There's something magical about a bound volume of printed text.
0:28:16 > 0:28:20I can never forget the moment I first saw a novel I'd written
0:28:20 > 0:28:23that had arrived from the printers.
0:28:23 > 0:28:25I put it on the table and I looked at it
0:28:25 > 0:28:28and I lowered my eyes to its level, I sniffed it, I opened it,
0:28:28 > 0:28:32I walked and circled it, and I simply couldn't believe
0:28:32 > 0:28:35that something I had written could end up
0:28:35 > 0:28:40as that magical thing - bound, printed text, a book.
0:28:40 > 0:28:44Printing would, after Gutenberg, unleash knowledge
0:28:44 > 0:28:48and new ways of thinking that would change everything.
0:28:59 > 0:29:03'The city of Norwich has a long history of printing.
0:29:03 > 0:29:07'It was the first town in Britain to have a provincial newspaper.'
0:29:09 > 0:29:13This ivy-clad, willow-lined stretch of the river Wensum
0:29:13 > 0:29:15in the shadow of Norwich Cathedral
0:29:15 > 0:29:17was once, hard to believe as it may be,
0:29:17 > 0:29:21the centre of a kind of Silicon Valley of Europe.
0:29:21 > 0:29:24Because here was a thriving and prosperous printworks,
0:29:24 > 0:29:28and that was the industry that changed the world.
0:29:28 > 0:29:32'Now all remains is the John Jarrold Printing Museum,
0:29:32 > 0:29:36'run by retired experts from the industry. They're going to help me
0:29:36 > 0:29:38'type-set a poem written by Chaucer,
0:29:38 > 0:29:42'the first English author to be set in print.'
0:29:43 > 0:29:46I believe that England's first great poet, Geoffrey Chaucer,
0:29:46 > 0:29:48would rather have liked a printing press.
0:29:48 > 0:29:52He died just around the time that Gutenberg was being born,
0:29:52 > 0:29:54so he missed the print revolution.
0:29:54 > 0:29:57But he certainly gave us indication that he was rather fed up
0:29:57 > 0:30:01with the sloppiness of those who copied out his works for readers.
0:30:01 > 0:30:05In fact, in one of his great poems, Troilus and Cressida, in the envoi,
0:30:05 > 0:30:08the bit where he sends his book out to the public,
0:30:08 > 0:30:13he sort of makes a request that it isn't too badly mangled.
0:30:13 > 0:30:16He says, "For there is so great diversity in English
0:30:16 > 0:30:18"and in writing of our tongue,
0:30:18 > 0:30:22"so pray I God that none miswrite thee, little book."
0:30:22 > 0:30:25"Nee the mysmetre for defaute of tonge
0:30:25 > 0:30:29"and read whereso thou be or else sung,
0:30:29 > 0:30:31"that thou be understonde,
0:30:31 > 0:30:36"God I beseech. But yet to purpose of my rather speech."
0:30:36 > 0:30:39In other words, he hoped that people would find some way
0:30:39 > 0:30:43of spelling all the different words at least in such a manner
0:30:43 > 0:30:46that it was understood by those who were going to listen or read it.
0:30:46 > 0:30:49And that's what printing allowed.
0:30:49 > 0:30:52'I'm going to print Chaucer's envoi
0:30:52 > 0:30:55'with the help of typesetter David Skipper.'
0:30:55 > 0:30:57What's the plan?
0:30:57 > 0:31:02Well, this is the composing case with the characters,
0:31:02 > 0:31:04capitals and lower case.
0:31:04 > 0:31:07Is that why we say upper case and lower case?
0:31:07 > 0:31:10Why you say upper case and lower case is that the capitals
0:31:10 > 0:31:12used to be in the upper case on the frame,
0:31:12 > 0:31:16- and the small letters used to be in the lower case.- Of course.
0:31:16 > 0:31:20How long did it take to train, how old were you when you started?
0:31:20 > 0:31:22I was 16 when I started.
0:31:22 > 0:31:26- So it was a proper apprenticeship? - And I did five years, yes.- Coo.
0:31:26 > 0:31:29So, you pick the character up, you feel for the space on top
0:31:29 > 0:31:31and you put it in the stick.
0:31:31 > 0:31:32Oh, I see.
0:31:35 > 0:31:38"And for there..." We need another E, don't we?
0:31:38 > 0:31:40Well, I was doing a piece of text that I saw...
0:31:40 > 0:31:43Oh, it's a Chaucerian spelling, is it?
0:31:43 > 0:31:45Of course, so we don't need another E.
0:31:45 > 0:31:47Let's have a look, what have we got here,
0:31:47 > 0:31:50"And for ther is so gret diversite."
0:31:50 > 0:31:53- "Is so gret," and "gret" doesn't have an A in it.- No.
0:31:53 > 0:31:56Oh, you've memorised it!
0:31:56 > 0:31:59'English in the Middle Ages was incredibly diverse.
0:31:59 > 0:32:04'Dialects of different regions had different words for the same thing,
0:32:04 > 0:32:06'and different spellings.
0:32:06 > 0:32:10'When Caxton brought the printing press to Britain in 1476,
0:32:10 > 0:32:12'he was faced with a dilemma.
0:32:12 > 0:32:15'He couldn't print all the different arbitrary spellings
0:32:15 > 0:32:17'that were spread around the country.
0:32:17 > 0:32:19'By setting words in print,
0:32:19 > 0:32:24'Caxton started to make the English language more stable.'
0:32:26 > 0:32:30'And printed books spread these changes across the country.'
0:32:36 > 0:32:39He's hoping that when this poem goes out in the world
0:32:39 > 0:32:41no-one will miscopy it or miswrite it.
0:32:41 > 0:32:44Miswrite, I see, in that sense.
0:32:44 > 0:32:46It reminds one of the World Wide Web, really,
0:32:46 > 0:32:52that in 1993 Tim Berners-Lee creates this new system, the World Wide Web,
0:32:52 > 0:32:56for linking text across different computers,
0:32:56 > 0:32:59and within what seems a heartbeat
0:32:59 > 0:33:03there are billions of pages of World Wide Web.
0:33:03 > 0:33:07- When things take off, they really do take off, don't they?- Yes.
0:33:11 > 0:33:15- And when you ink the type, you do it diagonally.- I noticed that.
0:33:15 > 0:33:18Yeah, because it doesn't push it over so much.
0:33:18 > 0:33:20And quite firm, but not too firm.
0:33:20 > 0:33:23And then the other way, then you get all the corners.
0:33:24 > 0:33:26That's enough.
0:33:26 > 0:33:29Then you just check that that's all pushed up like that.
0:33:29 > 0:33:33- And I'll get a piece of... - Two pieces of card.
0:33:33 > 0:33:35I notice you use the yellow paper to go on top.
0:33:35 > 0:33:39That's right, a couple of sheets just to give a bit of impression.
0:33:39 > 0:33:40I see, OK.
0:33:41 > 0:33:45- Pop your first one on, that's it. - Nice and straight-ish.
0:33:45 > 0:33:50- Then that goes on like that? - That's right.- Just one roll?
0:33:50 > 0:33:53- One roll, straight across.- Ooh!
0:33:53 > 0:33:56- Still magical. - Then carefully lift it off.
0:33:56 > 0:34:00And, voila!
0:34:00 > 0:34:02That's brilliant!
0:34:02 > 0:34:06I think Chaucer would be thrilled at that.
0:34:06 > 0:34:09And it looks like proper printing, doesn't it? It looks really...
0:34:09 > 0:34:11- It is proper printing! - That's what I mean!
0:34:11 > 0:34:13And you can tell!
0:34:13 > 0:34:18'With printing, the written word truly began to spread.
0:34:18 > 0:34:22'Printed books, like the Phoenician alphabet millennia before,
0:34:22 > 0:34:24'democratised knowledge.
0:34:24 > 0:34:28'Reading was no longer just an activity for the elite,
0:34:28 > 0:34:32'but something that ordinary people could afford to learn to do.'
0:34:34 > 0:34:38Printing didn't just give rise to greater literacy,
0:34:38 > 0:34:42it changed people's very attitude towards learning and knowledge.
0:34:42 > 0:34:46Open enquiry and questioning of received wisdom greatly increased,
0:34:46 > 0:34:49and the booksellers of Paris have long been part of
0:34:49 > 0:34:52a kind of literary underworld, spreading subversive ideas
0:34:52 > 0:34:56by printed pamphlets, books, leaflets and newspapers.
0:34:56 > 0:35:02The printed word fostered a republic of letters, the age of reason -
0:35:02 > 0:35:04the Enlightenment.
0:35:11 > 0:35:16'In London, Oxford, Vienna, Edinburgh, Warsaw and Paris,
0:35:16 > 0:35:20'like-minded thinkers congregated to read as well as to learn from
0:35:20 > 0:35:24'and debate with each other in taverns or coffee houses.
0:35:24 > 0:35:30'One of the oldest and most famous is the Cafe Procope.
0:35:30 > 0:35:35'This was the haunt of intellectual giants like Rousseau, Voltaire,
0:35:35 > 0:35:40'Franklin, Jefferson and Diderot. So it seems like a good place
0:35:40 > 0:35:44'to meet Enlightenment scholar Dr Kate Tunstall and find out about
0:35:44 > 0:35:48'the book that embodies the Enlightenment project -
0:35:48 > 0:35:51'Diderot's Encyclopaedia.'
0:35:51 > 0:35:54It's an encyclopaedia, it's an Enlightenment project,
0:35:54 > 0:35:59so it's covering human knowledge in a rational, ordered way,
0:35:59 > 0:36:02and presumably the world of man in letters and music and poetry,
0:36:02 > 0:36:05- but also the world of nature and science?- Yes.
0:36:05 > 0:36:08Could Diderot... Was he a master of those subjects as well?
0:36:08 > 0:36:12He was a kind of spider at the centre of a web,
0:36:12 > 0:36:17where he was receiving articles from all kinds of people.
0:36:17 > 0:36:20There were about 140, 150 contributors,
0:36:20 > 0:36:24and Diderot receives, we think, all of these articles
0:36:24 > 0:36:29and produces a whole lot of them himself and needs to coordinate this.
0:36:29 > 0:36:32It obviously relied on a man with an extraordinary mind,
0:36:32 > 0:36:34as you say, like a spider in a web,
0:36:34 > 0:36:38to control all these lines of thought and all these cross-disciplines.
0:36:38 > 0:36:40Yeah, you can get those things wrong.
0:36:40 > 0:36:44Whereas on the web you can alter those things as you go,
0:36:44 > 0:36:47because it hasn't been printed, as soon as it's been printed,
0:36:47 > 0:36:51if you've forgotten to put the cross reference in, you're in trouble.
0:36:51 > 0:36:55'Diderot's aim for his encyclopaedia was to assemble
0:36:55 > 0:36:59'each and every branch of human knowledge, creating a volume
0:36:59 > 0:37:03'that had the power to change men's common way of thinking.
0:37:03 > 0:37:06'His project was, in a strictly secular way,
0:37:06 > 0:37:08'as ambitious as the Bible had been.'
0:37:08 > 0:37:10So, a really extraordinary achievement,
0:37:10 > 0:37:16and not just a sober setting in stone of world knowledge,
0:37:16 > 0:37:19- but a kind of mischievous... - Very mischievous.
0:37:19 > 0:37:22..undermining of the previous church, the ecclesiastical world.
0:37:22 > 0:37:25- Shall we look something up? - Oh, do, give me some examples.
0:37:25 > 0:37:29I want to tell you my favourite article, which is,
0:37:29 > 0:37:33"Aguaxima, Natural History," in brackets afterwards,
0:37:33 > 0:37:35"Brazilian plant."
0:37:35 > 0:37:39"That's all this article says about it," I'm quoting.
0:37:39 > 0:37:43"And I wonder who such a description is made for.
0:37:43 > 0:37:45"It cannot be for people who live in the country,
0:37:45 > 0:37:50"because they know what aguaxima is and that it grows in their region.
0:37:50 > 0:37:55"It would be as if you'd said to a Frenchman that pears grow in France.
0:37:55 > 0:37:57"It's not for us, either, because
0:37:57 > 0:38:03"what do we care that there's a plant in Brazil called aguaxima?
0:38:03 > 0:38:07"This article leaves ignorant people just as ignorant as they were before.
0:38:07 > 0:38:08"It teaches us nothing,
0:38:08 > 0:38:12"and so, if I have decided to mention this plant,
0:38:12 > 0:38:16"it's just to indulge certain kinds of readers who would rather
0:38:16 > 0:38:20"find nothing of interest in an article of a dictionary,
0:38:20 > 0:38:22"or indeed something perfectly stupid,
0:38:22 > 0:38:25"than not find the word in the dictionary at all."
0:38:25 > 0:38:27- That's fantastic! - That's the end of it.
0:38:27 > 0:38:31You imagine him late at night and he's had "agave" or something,
0:38:31 > 0:38:33and "Aguaxima, why should I bother?!
0:38:33 > 0:38:37"But now that I've got the slip of paper that says it's a plant in Brazil, I can't throw it away,
0:38:37 > 0:38:40"I promised to write an encyclopaedia."
0:38:40 > 0:38:43- But he feels it's a bit stupid just to say "plant in Brazil".- Exactly!
0:38:43 > 0:38:46That's a fabulous insight into of the workings of his mind.
0:38:46 > 0:38:52The project to describe all human knowledge and all sciences,
0:38:52 > 0:38:58all crafts in these volumes is an extraordinary project, yeah.
0:38:58 > 0:39:04'Printing led to an accumulation of knowledge, and new ways of thinking.
0:39:04 > 0:39:08'It triggered revolutions in agriculture, industry and science.
0:39:08 > 0:39:13'And we had more and more books. But what to do with them?
0:39:13 > 0:39:16'The answer was to build more libraries.'
0:39:16 > 0:39:20Almost everything I am I owe to libraries.
0:39:20 > 0:39:23When I was a child there were no great libraries around,
0:39:23 > 0:39:26certainly nothing like this, but we did have this thing called
0:39:26 > 0:39:30the mobile library, a van that would come once a fortnight, I think,
0:39:30 > 0:39:33and I would wait for it like a child waiting for an ice cream van.
0:39:33 > 0:39:36And I would get on and get my supply of books
0:39:36 > 0:39:38and they would last me two weeks.
0:39:38 > 0:39:41Then when I was older I could get to Norwich, the local big city,
0:39:41 > 0:39:44and I would spend hours and hours and hours there.
0:39:44 > 0:39:47It's like a will o' the wisp, one book lights another book
0:39:47 > 0:39:50which lights another one, which lights another one.
0:39:50 > 0:39:54I suppose libraries still, for me, have this extraordinary charge.
0:39:54 > 0:39:58When I get in one I feel this buzz, it's almost sexual,
0:39:58 > 0:40:02there's something about the fact that behind all these bound copies, there are voices,
0:40:02 > 0:40:05there are people murmuring to you, seducing you,
0:40:05 > 0:40:08dragging you into their world. These are wonderful, magical places.
0:40:08 > 0:40:13I suppose, if I have a campaign that I'm really behind,
0:40:13 > 0:40:15it's that of saving our libraries.
0:40:15 > 0:40:20Because everyone surely has the right to access the voices of the past.
0:40:20 > 0:40:24'Although a Cambridge man, I'm exploring
0:40:24 > 0:40:28'one of the oldest and most impressive libraries in the world -
0:40:28 > 0:40:31'Oxford University's library, the Bodleian.
0:40:31 > 0:40:36'No-one, no matter how important, can actually borrow books
0:40:36 > 0:40:40'from this library, and to become a reader, I have to pledge an oath.'
0:40:40 > 0:40:43"I hereby undertake not to remove from the library
0:40:43 > 0:40:46"or to mark, deface or injure in any way,
0:40:46 > 0:40:49"any volume, document or other object
0:40:49 > 0:40:51"belonging to it or in its custody..."
0:40:51 > 0:40:55'The oath was intended to protect the 11 million books
0:40:55 > 0:40:59'and countless priceless manuscripts that are housed here.'
0:41:01 > 0:41:05So here is a fantastic transition between manuscript and print.
0:41:05 > 0:41:09You have hand work for the illumination
0:41:09 > 0:41:13and you have print to print the main part of the text,
0:41:13 > 0:41:15but it's on vellum.
0:41:15 > 0:41:18And so to Ferdinand of Naples,
0:41:18 > 0:41:21who may well have felt slightly uneasy
0:41:21 > 0:41:23about the new technology of print -
0:41:23 > 0:41:26this would have been much more familiar to him.
0:41:26 > 0:41:29'But these days, the library has another challenge -
0:41:29 > 0:41:32'how to stay relevant in a digital age.
0:41:32 > 0:41:38'While the internet has many mundane uses, from booking holidays
0:41:38 > 0:41:42'to doing our weekly grocery shop, it also has a colossal impact
0:41:42 > 0:41:45'on the way we consume words and knowledge.
0:41:45 > 0:41:48'We can access, almost instantaneously,
0:41:48 > 0:41:51'an enormous repository of information
0:41:51 > 0:41:54'at the mere click of a button or swipe of a finger.'
0:41:55 > 0:41:59What marks a great library out is how the collections are used,
0:41:59 > 0:42:03how access is provided, and the kinds of environments,
0:42:03 > 0:42:07both physical and virtual, that you're able to provide scholars
0:42:07 > 0:42:13and, you know, the whole interested public, with access to information.
0:42:13 > 0:42:15This great archive that we're responsible for.
0:42:15 > 0:42:20And the whole library world is collectively responsible for.
0:42:20 > 0:42:23- It really needs to be used to be, you know, meaningful.- Yeah.
0:42:23 > 0:42:26Will you move, in the next hundred years,
0:42:26 > 0:42:30away from receiving atomic matter? And will you ask publishers,
0:42:30 > 0:42:33instead of providing you with physical books...?
0:42:33 > 0:42:36The process has already begun and is driven by the publishers.
0:42:36 > 0:42:39So there are many publishers who only publish electronically.
0:42:39 > 0:42:43So we have to do digital preservations.
0:42:43 > 0:42:46So you have library shelves, but do you also have racks of servers?
0:42:46 > 0:42:47We certainly do.
0:42:47 > 0:42:52We also have staff whose job it is to keep stuff safe.
0:42:52 > 0:42:55To keep the bits alive, so that scholars in 400 years' time
0:42:55 > 0:42:59will be able to access the information that's been produced now
0:42:59 > 0:43:03just as we're able to access information printed by the great scholars.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05Yes, it's a different expertise.
0:43:07 > 0:43:12'We're producing and consuming more and more words in a digital form.
0:43:12 > 0:43:16'But do our technological advances mean that the printed version
0:43:16 > 0:43:21'of the book will become as moribund as the clay cuneiform tablet?
0:43:21 > 0:43:25'Professor Robert Darnton, Director of the Harvard University Library,
0:43:25 > 0:43:28'is an expert on the history of books.'
0:43:28 > 0:43:30I have been invited to so many conferences
0:43:30 > 0:43:32on "the death of the book",
0:43:32 > 0:43:35that I'm convinced it's very much alive.
0:43:35 > 0:43:37And we have statistics to prove it.
0:43:37 > 0:43:40Each year, more books are produced than the previous year.
0:43:40 > 0:43:43There was a dip during the recession, but next year,
0:43:43 > 0:43:47there will be one million new titles produced worldwide.
0:43:47 > 0:43:51And yet at the same time, more digital works are coming out
0:43:51 > 0:43:54and the future is decidedly digital.
0:43:54 > 0:43:57But I think we're living in a time of transition,
0:43:57 > 0:44:00in which the two media co-exist.
0:44:00 > 0:44:02And I think that's what makes it so exciting.
0:44:02 > 0:44:04And they'll continue to co-exist?
0:44:04 > 0:44:07One thing we've learnt in the history of books,
0:44:07 > 0:44:09which is a huge, expanding field,
0:44:09 > 0:44:12is that one medium does not displace another.
0:44:12 > 0:44:18So, as you know, the radio did not displace the newspaper.
0:44:18 > 0:44:20Television did not kill the radio.
0:44:20 > 0:44:23And the internet did not destroy television, and so on.
0:44:23 > 0:44:27So I think, actually, what's happening now
0:44:27 > 0:44:30is that the electronic means of communication,
0:44:30 > 0:44:34all kinds of hand-held devices on which people read books,
0:44:34 > 0:44:39are actually increasing the sales of ordinary printed books.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42The same number of people are reading more, one or the other?
0:44:42 > 0:44:47I think both. I think both. But that, I can't absolutely prove.
0:44:47 > 0:44:51However, it's certain, I think, that a lot of people
0:44:51 > 0:44:54use hand-held electronic devices for one kind of reading
0:44:54 > 0:44:57and use a codex for another kind of reading,
0:44:57 > 0:45:02and that the interest and availability of books online
0:45:02 > 0:45:05is getting people more excited about reading in general.
0:45:05 > 0:45:08So I think it's a fascinating moment,
0:45:08 > 0:45:13when reading itself is undergoing a change.
0:45:13 > 0:45:16'I like to have a foot in both camps -
0:45:16 > 0:45:19'the shiny new digital world of technology,
0:45:19 > 0:45:22'and the traditional path to knowledge,
0:45:22 > 0:45:24'which is embodied by the library.
0:45:24 > 0:45:28'I do hope that libraries survive. They're more than just buildings
0:45:28 > 0:45:33'in the same way that books are more than just print and paper.'
0:45:33 > 0:45:35As the poet, philosopher and political theorist John Milton said,
0:45:35 > 0:45:39books are not absolutely dead things,
0:45:39 > 0:45:41they do contain a potency of life.
0:45:41 > 0:45:45"He who destroys a book, kills reason itself."
0:45:45 > 0:45:48Perhaps that's why, as we all know, one of the first acts of a tyrant
0:45:48 > 0:45:52is to destroy a library and to burn books.
0:45:53 > 0:45:56They want to control literature,
0:45:56 > 0:45:59and the elitists want to hoard the power and the knowledge
0:45:59 > 0:46:01that is contained in books.
0:46:01 > 0:46:04'But digital words cannot be burned,
0:46:04 > 0:46:10'and myriad connections of the web make online information mercurial.
0:46:10 > 0:46:13'The internet is not only radically transforming
0:46:13 > 0:46:16'our way of storing what we write,
0:46:16 > 0:46:19'it is bringing about a new raft of changes in what is written,
0:46:19 > 0:46:23'and who writes it. A man who has pioneered
0:46:23 > 0:46:26'our exploration of this new technological frontier
0:46:26 > 0:46:30'is the founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales.'
0:46:30 > 0:46:32When we look back at the history of the encyclopaedia,
0:46:32 > 0:46:35Diderot, the French enclopaedist,
0:46:35 > 0:46:39the basic philosophy of Wikipedia is essentially the same.
0:46:39 > 0:46:42They had the idea of collecting the world's knowledge
0:46:42 > 0:46:44and making it more accessible to more people.
0:46:44 > 0:46:47And they did an amazing job.
0:46:47 > 0:46:50But one of the problems the traditional encyclopaedia form
0:46:50 > 0:46:53always had is that once it's done and you publish it, it's done.
0:46:53 > 0:46:57And it's really hard to revise, really hard to update.
0:46:57 > 0:47:01Whereas the next edition of Wikipedia happened since I started this sentence!
0:47:01 > 0:47:05One of the reasons Wikipedia can update so quickly
0:47:05 > 0:47:08is that it's written by the public,
0:47:08 > 0:47:10rather than a select group of editors.
0:47:10 > 0:47:14That whole process just couldn't exist in the past.
0:47:14 > 0:47:16You know, it was a one-way medium.
0:47:16 > 0:47:18A few people wrote and everybody else read.
0:47:18 > 0:47:20Now everybody's participating in the writing.
0:47:20 > 0:47:23And I think you just can't dismiss that as, you know...
0:47:23 > 0:47:25It's one thing to read a book
0:47:25 > 0:47:28and feel like you understand political philosophy,
0:47:28 > 0:47:31it's another to go out and have a discussion or debate about it
0:47:31 > 0:47:33and realise how little you actually knew,
0:47:33 > 0:47:35how much deeper and richer your understanding is
0:47:35 > 0:47:39with other people discussing things with you.
0:47:39 > 0:47:42Wikipedia is a part of the long-term enlightenment trend.
0:47:42 > 0:47:46It's part of this idea that everyone should have access to knowledge,
0:47:46 > 0:47:50that democratisation of information is good for the world.
0:47:50 > 0:47:53One type of search people do is they just want to know something.
0:47:53 > 0:47:56You know, you hear on the news, "In Azerbaijan..." and you think,
0:47:56 > 0:48:01"Oh, Azerbaijan, I sort of know where that is..." And you just go and you look it up.
0:48:01 > 0:48:05And you go and say, "OK, now I understand what the situation is there" and those kinds of things.
0:48:05 > 0:48:08That's a very human impulse, the desire to know things.
0:48:09 > 0:48:14This democracy of the web can have dramatic results.
0:48:14 > 0:48:17Knowledge is power. And combined with the widespread use of texting,
0:48:17 > 0:48:20tweeting, and social media sites,
0:48:20 > 0:48:23information can no longer be so easily controlled
0:48:23 > 0:48:25by a ruling elite.
0:48:25 > 0:48:27It is in the hands of the masses - "demos".
0:48:27 > 0:48:32The flames of the Arab revolutions were fuelled, fanned and organised
0:48:32 > 0:48:36by writers on the web. The power of the blog is that it can be
0:48:36 > 0:48:39about everything, and by everyone.
0:48:39 > 0:48:42Yes, politics, food, music,
0:48:42 > 0:48:45and, of course, sex.
0:48:45 > 0:48:50I'm picking up Dr Brooke Magnanti, who blogged about her experiences
0:48:50 > 0:48:54as a lady of the night, under the nom de plume "Belle de Jour".
0:48:54 > 0:48:57- Hello, Stephen.- Hello. Hop in.
0:48:57 > 0:49:00'Brooke's blogs proved so popular
0:49:00 > 0:49:05'they were published in book form, as "Belle de Jour".'
0:49:05 > 0:49:10What gave you the idea of blogging what, for most people,
0:49:10 > 0:49:17would be a very secret part of their life, joining the sex industry?
0:49:17 > 0:49:22Well, it seemed quite natural, when I started doing something
0:49:22 > 0:49:26that I couldn't really openly speak with my friends about.
0:49:26 > 0:49:30And I thought, there's some absolutely brilliant, funny things
0:49:30 > 0:49:33that are happening, I'd love to be able to share it with someone.
0:49:33 > 0:49:36So it seemed natural to me to start blogging about it.
0:49:36 > 0:49:37You were being both literary -
0:49:37 > 0:49:40I think that's what astonished people - and frank,
0:49:40 > 0:49:44about something that was mostly covered up.
0:49:44 > 0:49:46Do you think if the internet had not been invented,
0:49:46 > 0:49:50you would have written a diary anyway, in the old-fashioned way?
0:49:50 > 0:49:53Probably. The neat thing about blogs and one of the things I love,
0:49:53 > 0:49:55- is that they're in reverse order. - Yes.
0:49:55 > 0:49:59So, in the past, if you pick up somebody's diary,
0:49:59 > 0:50:03you start on day one of when they start writing and they explain things
0:50:03 > 0:50:06and introduce characters and this and that. With the blog,
0:50:06 > 0:50:10you're reading what just happened. There's this immediacy of,
0:50:10 > 0:50:13"Who's that person? Why did they say that? I've got to find out."
0:50:13 > 0:50:17And it's almost addictive in that way.
0:50:20 > 0:50:25'Belle de Jour became so popular that it was adapted for television.
0:50:25 > 0:50:27'It acquired a life of its own
0:50:27 > 0:50:31'and became something more communal and interactive.'
0:50:31 > 0:50:34It's changing all the time. For instance, when I started my blog,
0:50:34 > 0:50:37- commenting was unheard of.- Yes. - Commenting didn't exist.
0:50:37 > 0:50:42I've never had comments on my blog. I didn't have two-way engagement
0:50:42 > 0:50:47in the way that social networking really has now.
0:50:47 > 0:50:52This sort of direct connection between the writer and the reader,
0:50:52 > 0:50:56absolutely bypassing all of the gatekeepers,
0:50:56 > 0:51:01bypassing editors, bypassing critics, bypassing the shops.
0:51:01 > 0:51:03I was just blindly broadcasting,
0:51:03 > 0:51:08- almost like a little radio station, in my bedroom, as it were.- Yes.
0:51:08 > 0:51:12Whereas now, I think it's changing, things are a bit more collaborative,
0:51:12 > 0:51:14and you can see it evolving.
0:51:14 > 0:51:18It's just impossible to predict where it's going to go.
0:51:18 > 0:51:21Whatever happens next is going to be a surprise.
0:51:21 > 0:51:23Nobody will have called it accurately.
0:51:23 > 0:51:25Fantastic! Thank you so much.
0:51:25 > 0:51:29And here we are, ready for your next client. I mean, ready for...
0:51:29 > 0:51:34- I'll drop you off here. - Always a pleasure, sir!
0:51:34 > 0:51:39'So, we are at an event horizon, where publishers could disappear
0:51:39 > 0:51:42'and a whole new way of experiencing writing is in the offing.
0:51:42 > 0:51:44'I asked the author Hanif Kureishi.'
0:51:44 > 0:51:49Is it the same thing to read a digital book as a physical book?
0:51:49 > 0:51:53Well, I think there'll be new kinds of books made.
0:51:53 > 0:51:57Um, because people will read them on iPads and so on,
0:51:57 > 0:52:01which means that they can use bits of film, they can use colour,
0:52:01 > 0:52:05they can use drawings, they can introduce footnotes
0:52:05 > 0:52:07that go on for pages and pages.
0:52:07 > 0:52:10So I think new technology is a fantastic opportunity
0:52:10 > 0:52:14for new forms, you know, just as the invention of film,
0:52:14 > 0:52:16then we had the cinema.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19And digital, then we had new forms of pop music and so on.
0:52:19 > 0:52:23I think that the iPad particularly will generate writers
0:52:23 > 0:52:26to make new forms of books and new forms of writing
0:52:26 > 0:52:27that we haven't even thought of yet.
0:52:29 > 0:52:32'For the last 20 years, author Robert Coover
0:52:32 > 0:52:36'has been experimenting with interactive text.
0:52:36 > 0:52:39'Is this the way of the future? Or just one of the ways?'
0:52:39 > 0:52:42SWOOSHING
0:52:44 > 0:52:46Ah!
0:52:46 > 0:52:48Oh, this is fantastic!
0:52:54 > 0:52:59Oh, my goodness! Indifference, punishment, interruptions.
0:52:59 > 0:53:02And I'm in a cube.
0:53:02 > 0:53:06'This is a 3D, virtual reality cave -
0:53:06 > 0:53:09'an amazing interface between writer and reader.'
0:53:09 > 0:53:15Oh, my goodness! This is magical! It's all got huger, and it's all...
0:53:15 > 0:53:19'Coover's work is fascinating, but can never really have a mass market.
0:53:19 > 0:53:20'It's just too expensive.'
0:53:24 > 0:53:27'But at the world-renowned MIT in Boston,
0:53:27 > 0:53:31'some of the brightest and most technologically savvy people in the world
0:53:31 > 0:53:34'are trying to find out other ways we might record
0:53:34 > 0:53:39'and transmit information in the future, for all of us.
0:53:39 > 0:53:42'The researchers at the MIT media centre
0:53:42 > 0:53:46'are also experimenting with new ways of sharing stories.'
0:53:46 > 0:53:50So, what we have here is called the never-ending drawing machine.
0:53:50 > 0:53:52It's an e-book, but an e-book of a different sort.
0:53:52 > 0:53:57It's made out of paper and not only is the book itself tangible,
0:53:57 > 0:54:02but also it's possible to incorporate tangible objects into it.
0:54:02 > 0:54:06So this book is networked and as we turn the pages...
0:54:06 > 0:54:07Oh, a new page comes up!
0:54:09 > 0:54:12'The idea is that people, even miles apart,
0:54:12 > 0:54:14'could interact via the book,
0:54:14 > 0:54:16'adding their own images and text
0:54:16 > 0:54:19'to create a communal, interactive story.'
0:54:19 > 0:54:23So, part of the idea of the project is to make interfaces
0:54:23 > 0:54:27for creative collaboration, that go across boundaries.
0:54:27 > 0:54:30So one is generational, another one is cultural,
0:54:30 > 0:54:32another one is...
0:54:32 > 0:54:35Yeah, like acquired learning skills, you know?
0:54:35 > 0:54:37I could play these with my grandfather,
0:54:37 > 0:54:40though he was never trained in computer science
0:54:40 > 0:54:43or would not know how to turn on a computer.
0:54:43 > 0:54:46- But that wouldn't be a problem. - But he can turn a page.
0:54:46 > 0:54:49He can turn a page and press a button, that's easy, exactly.
0:54:49 > 0:54:51And he can just have the freedom
0:54:51 > 0:54:54of using stuff that he finds familiar in his environment.
0:54:54 > 0:54:58'For the researchers here, the key word is interactivity.
0:54:58 > 0:55:02'The person reading the book is also adding content.
0:55:02 > 0:55:07'They're also experimenting with new ways of recording and relaying information.
0:55:07 > 0:55:12'For them, the senses of sight and hearing are just part of the story.
0:55:12 > 0:55:15'A truly immersive method of communication
0:55:15 > 0:55:18'would also involve the sense of touch.'
0:55:18 > 0:55:22We want to build technologies that are not just in our world,
0:55:22 > 0:55:25- but they are also intimate with our own bodies.- Yes.
0:55:25 > 0:55:30And they're connecting with us at every millimetre, every millisecond.
0:55:30 > 0:55:33'Their idea is to record someone's movements,
0:55:33 > 0:55:37'then allow a second person to feel them, via the medium of a jacket,
0:55:37 > 0:55:39'as a kind of second skin.'
0:55:40 > 0:55:44And as you say, the implications for gaming
0:55:44 > 0:55:48and a narrative world in which you can participate.
0:55:48 > 0:55:54Absolutely. Imagine if you can download your data
0:55:54 > 0:55:57for your grandson, who, 20, 30, 40 years from now
0:55:57 > 0:56:00can actually live through a day of your life.
0:56:00 > 0:56:04- Oh, my God.- So you can connect people through space and time,
0:56:04 > 0:56:08and cultures and ages.
0:56:08 > 0:56:10Stories are what make us human,
0:56:10 > 0:56:13and we need to create new containers to tell the stories.
0:56:13 > 0:56:14It's what really drives me.
0:56:14 > 0:56:17Exactly. And I suppose it's about it all being human-shaped,
0:56:17 > 0:56:19not technology-shaped.
0:56:19 > 0:56:21- The technology shapes itself to the human.- Yes.
0:56:21 > 0:56:24Not the human to the technology. And talking of shaping,
0:56:24 > 0:56:27Ken is very slim and properly built and I'm a great...
0:56:27 > 0:56:31- But is it possible to try this on? - We can try it on.
0:56:31 > 0:56:34Shall I have a go? I'd love just to get a feel.
0:56:34 > 0:56:38- Let's get this here.- Yeah. It's sort of on, isn't it?- Yeah, exactly.
0:56:38 > 0:56:42So, in your hands, if you move your hands...
0:56:45 > 0:56:49- Oh, yes!- ..You will feel as if I'm pushing you.- Yes.
0:56:49 > 0:56:53And it's not like I'm holding you and moving you, it's more subtle.
0:56:53 > 0:56:56Yeah. Almost like a magnet in a magnetic field,
0:56:56 > 0:56:59- that slight feeling of...- Exactly.
0:56:59 > 0:57:03'All these technologies are ways of recording and transmitting
0:57:03 > 0:57:06'feelings, ideas and stories.
0:57:06 > 0:57:09'You could say that they're writing, but not as we know it.
0:57:09 > 0:57:12'They're the next generation of communication
0:57:12 > 0:57:15'for a world that is transcending the written word.'
0:57:17 > 0:57:20Even if reading and writing were to disappear tomorrow,
0:57:20 > 0:57:22I would argue that the changes they have made to us,
0:57:22 > 0:57:25technological, cultural, intellectual,
0:57:25 > 0:57:27and in terms of the adaptation of memory
0:57:27 > 0:57:29and the transmission of history, they would remain.
0:57:29 > 0:57:32We may have invented reading and writing,
0:57:32 > 0:57:34but reading and writing have re-invented us.
0:57:34 > 0:57:39But one thing that has never changed is our eternal love of storytelling.
0:57:39 > 0:57:41And that predates even reading and writing.
0:57:41 > 0:57:44And that's what I'm going to be looking at next time.
0:57:44 > 0:57:49'I'm going to introduce you to some of my favourite writers.'
0:57:49 > 0:57:53He has invented our language. He's so ultra-modern!
0:57:53 > 0:57:57To be or not to be?
0:57:57 > 0:57:58That is the question.
0:57:58 > 0:58:01"True wit is nature to advantage dressed.
0:58:01 > 0:58:04"What oft was thought, but ne'er so well expressed."
0:58:04 > 0:58:07A man hears what he wants to hear and disregards the rest.
0:58:07 > 0:58:10You go through life and realise people are only hearing
0:58:10 > 0:58:13a bit of what you say, because it's the bit that suits them.
0:58:13 > 0:58:16HISSES
0:58:30 > 0:58:34Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd
0:58:34 > 0:58:37E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk