THE VIDEO SHELF · history of writing
Thoth's Pill - an Animated History of Writing
NativLang's 47-minute animated documentary traces the birth and evolution of writing, from early cave marks to modern scripts. It presents the history of the world's writing systems as a story.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN recommends it as a fun, amazing overview of writing systems whenever the alphabet or cuneiform comes up.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- NativLang
- Topic
- history of writing
- Format
- documentary
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 3
- HN mentions in dataset
- 3
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2019–2023
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
I also recommend Thoth's Pill, an amazing historical overview of writing systems that breaks new ground in animated video production... as they are describing alphabet systems and letter figures they are drawn in real time and presented on a clear crisp background. Where most documentaries …
HocusLocus on Hacker News · 2019-12
In How writing began, and other unexpectedly funny stories about cuneiform [video]Highly recommend Thoth’s Pill [1] for a fun video on the subject. Goes deep but keeps it relatively light. Has the added bonus of going into Mesoamerican writing systems which are often underrepresented in these analyses. [1] [VIDEO]
MrsPeaches on Hacker News · 2021-01
In Who Invented the Alphabet?If you like these topics, you will enjoy "Thoth's pill - an Animated history of writing" [VIDEO]
29athrowaway on Hacker News · 2023-03
In Abecedarium
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.