Medieval Roots of The Modern Alphabet
Gone Medieval
History Hit
4.6 • 2.2K Ratings
🗓️ 5 December 2025
⏱️ 50 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
How did the alphabet we use today take shape?
Matt Lewis welcomes Danny Bate to explore how the medieval period shaped the alphabet we use today. They discuss the transformation of Egyptian hieroglyphs, the significant impact of the Norman Conquest of 1066, and the eventual disappearance of medieval letters like thorn (þ) and ash (æ). This is a journey across millennia from the adaptability of letters during the fall of Rome to innovations in medieval script and chaotic English rules.
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Gone Medieval is presented by Matt Lewis. Audio editor is Amy Haddow, the senior producer is Anne-Marie Luff.
All music used is courtesy of Epidemic Sounds.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello, I'm Matt Lewis. Welcome to Gone Medieval from History Hit, the podcast that delves into the greatest millennium in human history. |
| 0:08.7 | We've got the most intriguing mysteries, the gobsmacking details and latest groundbreaking research from the Vikings to the printing press, from kings to popes to the crusades. |
| 0:20.3 | We cross centuries and continents to delve |
| 0:22.8 | into rebellions, plots and murders, to find the stories big and small that tell us how we got here. |
| 0:30.0 | Find out who we really were with Gone Medieval. Welcome to this episode of Gone Medieval. I'm Matt Lewis. Some things are really easy to take for granted. |
| 0:43.9 | How often do you think about the collection of symbols we call the alphabet and how we use and interact with them on a daily basis? |
| 0:53.4 | But Danny Bates' new book, |
| 0:55.0 | YQ Needs You, is a treasure trove of information |
| 0:58.6 | with 26 chapters, one for each letter, |
| 1:01.3 | telling its history and importance. |
| 1:03.9 | It's a great read. |
| 1:04.9 | So I couldn't wait to get Danny on the podcast |
| 1:06.5 | to uncover the impact of the medieval period |
| 1:09.3 | on the letters that we know today, |
| 1:11.7 | how alphabets have diverged but maintain connections, |
| 1:15.7 | and to find out why two medieval staples have disappeared altogether from the English alphabet. |
| 1:32.4 | A very warm welcome to gone medievalieval, Danny. It's great to have you with us. |
| 1:39.9 | Matt, thank you so much. As a long-time listener of Gone Medieval, this is totally surreal and a real pleasure. So thank you very much. |
| 2:01.5 | No, no, it's great to have you here. I probably should have counted how many letters I've used in that introduction and saying hello, just so that we can do some weird stats about alphabets. So we're here to talk a bit about the medieval history of the alphabet, the letters that we're also familiar with today and the ways that they've been used. And I wonder if you could start us off with a bit of ancient history for us at least, and give us a brief kind of overview, a brief timeline of how |
| 2:07.2 | the alphabet, as we know it, first emerged. Absolutely. The first thing I have to say, first and foremost, |
| 2:13.0 | is when I talk about the alphabet, I am not talking about all writing throughout human history. I'm talking about |
| 2:18.4 | one particular tradition that over the centuries, over the millennia, has branched out into this |
... |
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