
Text
What is the meaning of "text"? Linguists have traced back the origin of the word to the old Indo-European root "teks-" which means "to weave, fabricate". The connection between texts and weaving is not at all accidental. Decorative patterns have only aesthetic value now, but it was different originally. Designs woven into textiles or carpets encoded cosmogonic myths, magical knowledge, and other useful information.
Later, paper and alphabet provided an improved medium and code for symbolic presentation of information. People have also used sounds and pictures as vehicles of symbolic information. All these symbols are linear or flat. Polyphony, architecture, and body language, which are multidimensional, are secondary means of communication.
Text and hypertext
And now enters hypertext, which not only adds new dimensions to text itself, but can seamlessly weave other forms of symbols into the same electronic medium - sounds, flat images, holograms, animations, etc.
Isn't that romantic?
