It's common to think of alphabetic writing as all writing. I assume that the author is asserting that the characters represent individual phonemes as opposed to

It's common to think of alphabetic writing as all writing. I assume that the author is asserting that the characters represent individual phonemes as opposed to pictograms or syllables because those have been around much earlier. There's not much information though and I have no idea how they can make such a radical claim with 4 finger-sized cylinders.