Another Book on the Alphabet?

Traditional approaches to the alphabet are reviewed and contrasted with the unrecognized phonological exceptionalism of our alphabetic letter names. Alphabetic letter names are, save for onomatopoeic words, lexically unique as letter names are poised to semiotically match their form with their meaning. Rather than rely on arbitrary relations between phonetic form and semantic content, letter names have the semiotic capacity to be grounded in a form of phonetic iconicity. This unusual dynamic has released them from the usual linguistic burdens of maintaining their phonological integrity so as to ensure their semantic interpretability. As a result, a series of phonetically streamlined monosyllabic words, sculpted almost exclusively by phonological pressures, has emerged. This chapter sketches this semiotically induced phonological crystallization and how naturally occurring, phonetically motivated adjustments have subsequently distorted the uniformity of this metalinguistic simplicity. In turn, this chapter outlines how successive chapters reapproach the phonology and orthography of English by capitalizing on the metalinguistic behavior of our alphabetic letter names. By first recognizing the semiotically unique phonological trajectory of our ancient alphabetic letter names, we are positioned to begin appreciating what happened, why it happened, how it happened and, finally, who should care.