What - no alphabet? from Marita

Hello Word Spy!

I just finished 'The Word Spy's Activity Book' yesterday, and you're right! I'm a CRAZY WORD PERSON (shhhhh!) too! I love, love, LOVE reading, writing and spying on words! But unfortunately, I only have two friends who like those things as much as me, and both of them go to different schools! Oh well!

But anyway, I do have a question to ask you! I was thinking the other day about Machu Picchu, because my friend did an assignment on it, and one of the things she said was that the people who lived at Machu Picchu didn't seem to have a known alphabet. Who goes any where without an alphabet!? How did they pass things on? How did they LIVE? Personally, I consider the English alphabet a necessity of life! 

Well, thank-you for reading this, and please email back!

from Marita

p.s. I love your word Spy books, so please write some more!

Dear Marita,

Such enthusiasm from a young word spy warms this old Word Spy's heart! Thank you for such a bubbly and excited email. (I hope you manage to find some other people at your school as crazy about words as you are soon.)

Now, isn't that a fascinating thing about the people who lived at Machu Picchu? For those who might not know, Machu Picchu is a kind of palace in Peru in South America, that was built by the Inca people in about the fifteenth century. It's true that the Incas didn't write things down the way we do.  But they would have memorised stories and poems and things like that, and passed them down through the generations the way we would pass down books in written language. What amazing memories they must have had in those days!

Thanks for writing to me, Marita.

yours, with or without an alphabet,

The Word Spy