Page 97 - Virtual Research Lab flip book

for transcription on papyrus or parchment, the scribe served as an interface between the author and the storage or publication medium. This interface continued through the use of secretaries—and after the invention of type- writers, by typists—for many centuries, and in situations where individuals still dictate correspondence for transcription, it may continue today. Of course, in the ancient world, as today, some people probably read their own books and wrote down their own texts, without need for a such an inter- face. Most of us, however, who primarily use a computer for writing now use a computer and word-processing software or some kind of an HTML editor for composition. Our computer and software have become the new interface for both reading and writing, as the digital file that we generate is gibberish to us without the computer interface, with its necessary software or web browser. The essential process of writing, reading and publishing has not changed that much in the abstract, but as the computerized interface has grown increasingly sophisticated and complex, what we are able to achieve by using our computer and the Internet as a printing press, has transformed all three of these processes.
During the Middle Ages, beginning in the seventh century, the introduc- tion of space between words by Irish and Anglo-Saxon scribes made silent reading possible. At their remote and sparsely populated end of Europe, in monasteries which were deliberately located in places of extreme isola- tion such as Lindisfarne, in environments presumably with a vow of silence, Latin was learned from grammar books, rather than from oral culture or vocalized reading. Probably because of the need to understand the written word silently, Irish and Anglo-Saxon scribes developed word spacing based on grammatical units, i.e. words, as a way of conveying meaning, rather than deriving meaning through vocalization of words without spacing. By the ninth century the practice of word spacing gradually became more wide- spread in Europe.
Space between words, and the development of appropriate writing tables, undoubtedly contributed to the ability of scribes to copy manuscripts visu- ally rather than from dictation, a facility which is thought to have speeded
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