There were at that time four alphabets in use simultaneously-that is, the Latin, the Greek, the Hebraic, and the Arabic-so that each language could make itself visible in its characteristic way. Now there was also a dim awareness that written signs actually were types and not characters and that it is therefore possible to refer to, say, Slavic languages with Greek letters, Germanic ones with Latin letters, and Iranian ones with Arabic letters, but this awareness remained dim: the four languages characteristic of each alphabet were held to be sacred. If these four alphabets are still preserved today, despite a clear awareness of the typology of writing, it is because remnants of the dim awareness continue to resist typifying thought today.