Mark and his classmate Ming talk again in the common room of their dorm.

    Ming: Mark, can I ask you another question about the alphabet?

    Mark: Sure!

    Ming: You called the way we write "the Latin alphabet." Does that mean we write like the Romans did?

    Mark: Sort of. But of course, they wrote 2,000 years ago, so there have certainly been some changes.

    Ming: Can you give me an example?

    Mark: Of course. Before the ease and speed of modern communication, and even travel, there were many regional ways of writing.

    Ming: So the writing in, say, France, might be different from that in Holland?

    Mark: Yes, although in the period I'm talking about, those countries didn't exist yet.

    Ming: Okay. But how did writing become standardized?

    Mark: That happened under a man named Charlemagne.

    Ming: He was a French king, right?

    Mark: Not exactly. He was King of the Franks, a nation which gave rise to both France and Germany. In fact, Charlemagne ruled over most of Western Europe, and laid much of the foundation for modern Western civilization. People call him "The Father of Europe."

    Ming: Cool!

    Mark: His name "Charlemagne"--or "Charles the Great"--is "Carolus Magnus" in Latin, so the way we write today is based on something called "Carolingian script."

    Ming: Amazing! What else did he do?

    Mark: His rule was sort of a "mini-Renaissance." He organized and promoted learning, ending the Dark Ages--but there were still a few more centuries of the Middle Ages before the Italian Renaissance got started.

    Ming: I see. What do you mean by "education?"

    Mark: Interestingly, Charlemagne himself couldn't read or write until he was a grown man--and then he wasn't too good at it. One of his teachers said that, because "he did not begin his efforts in due season, but late in life, they met with ill success."

    Ming: That's too bad.

    Mark: Nevertheless, he valued education. He brought Alcuin of York from England to his capital in Aachen, now in Germany, to organize his school and library.

    Ming: Library?

    Mark: Actually, they called it a "scriptorium." It's where they copied manuscripts, or hand-written books. That's how they used the new handwriting.

    Ming: I see.

    Mark: So Charlemagne made the first steps toward a revival of learning, preserved a lot of Greco-Roman literature, and promoted a flowering of art and architecture, in addition to coining money, stabilizing the political situation, and so on. He was considered the first Western emperor since the fall of Rome.

    Ming: Wow! Thanks for teaching me about him, Mark!

    Mark: It was my pleasure.