Juan José Millás Reflects on the Alphabet as the Basis of Infinite Phrases

Spanish writer Juan José Millás explores how a limited set of alphabet letters, just a few dozen, can combine to produce an unlimited number of words and sentences. He likens the letters to elementary building blocks that, when arranged persistently over millennia, generate everything from everyday shopping lists to masterpieces like Don Quixote, Shakespeare’s tragedies, and modern news reports. Millás emphasizes the paradox of the alphabet’s simplicity and its capacity to generate the vast complexity of human language, suggesting that the universe itself may function like an immense, ever‑growing sentence.

The essay, originally published in La Nueva España, invites readers to reconsider the invisible role of the alphabet in shaping thought, culture, and communication.