Thoth's Pill - an Animated History of Writing

1.3M views · 10 years ago · animation · evergreen

Thoth's Pill is a 47-minute animated history of writing from NativLang, tracing how writing systems arose and spread. It draws glyphs on screen and also covers Mesoamerican scripts.

HN people recommend it as a fun and deep animated history of writing and the alphabet, and as the kind of video that could set a child on a new path.

“If I had seen something like this when I was young, it would have sucked me in and maybe changed the course of my life.”

6 comments from Hacker News

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@HocusLocus2019 · in “How writing began, and other unexpectedly funny stories about cuneiform [video]”
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 we've seen over the years show glimpses of photographs of ancient writing samples, often dimly lit or weathered and faded, tending to make it more about documents than language -- these folk are writing script and glyphs on computer, presenting detailed traces or brushing the characters and building alphabets, explaining down to the character/sound. For children this is precious. If I had seen something like this when I was young, it would have sucked me in and maybe changed the course of my life. ▶ this video
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@29athrowaway2023 · in “Abecedarium”
If you like these topics, you will enjoy "Thoth's pill - an Animated history of writing" ▶ this video
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@MrsPeaches2021 · in “Who Invented the Alphabet?”
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] ▶ this video
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2
@29athrowaway2021 · in “Who Invented the Alphabet?”
This is a great video that I highly recommend: Thoth's pill - Animated history of writing ▶ this video
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@rfreytag2016 · in “Thoth's Pill: An Animated History of Writing [video]”
Submitted the video to Hacker News.
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@DiThi2017 · in “How the Alphabet Was Born from Hieroglyphs (2010)”
Related: Animation about the history of writing (47 minutes) ▶ this video