Because there isn't any link between letters and meaning, didn't stop
people imagine it. So if you're looking at this sort of connection,
following is a selection of sources and starting points you could
consider.

Vlad



1) Science - There is a long tradition in mostly pre-20th century
linguistics to look in the adequacy of sound and meaning and,
occasionally, written characters and meaning. It might be interesting
for you to look into Persian and Arabic Medieval linguistics, as well
as Western (for example a proposal was made for characters for the
Persian language that would be shaped as some part of the human
phonatory system taken during the uttering of a particular sound).

> Special for this topic: Sylvain Auroux, La Linguistique

fantastique, Paris, Denoël, 1985.

> Sound symbolism: Ernst Cassier, Philosophie der symbolischen

Formen. Die Sprache, Darmstadt, Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft,
1964.

> Perceptual correlates of visual shapes and sounds: S. S. Newmann,

Further experiments in phonetic symbolism, Am. j. Psychol., 45.1,
1933.

> Idem: E. Sapir, A study in phonetic symbolism, J. exper. Psychol.,

12.3, 1929.

> For your delight: J. Godwin, Athanasius Kircher. A Renaissance Men

and the Quest for Lost Knowledge, London, Thames and Hudson, 1979.


2) Culture - In many cultures the shape of writing characters was
explained by reference to beings or objects of the natural world.
Take the Persian calligraphic style nasta'liq, ex-plained as a copy
of flying gooses (similar legend in China). Mystics, of the hurufiyya
in Persia or the bektashiyya in Turkey, have developed around the
very significance of let-ters. For poets, letters were an easy source
of metaphor. The teaching of writing and cal-ligraphy uses figurative
comparisons to provide models of how the characters should look like,
thus introducing a degree of significance in otherwise arbitrary
shapes (remember the word 'hamid' shaped like a mouse, children in
Iran like to draw?).

> Reference book: Peter Daniels (dir.), The world's writing systems,

New York & Oxford, Oxford University Press, 1996.

> Letter symbolism in Islamic mysticism and poetry: Annemarie

Schimmel, calligraphy and islamic culture, New York & London, New
York University Press, 1984.

> On sound and movement reflected in the shape of writing: Gottfried

Pott, Schrift, Klang, Bild, Mainz, Hermann Schmidt, 1995.

> Idem: Matt Woolman, Sonic Graphics: Seeing Sound by Matt Woolman,

London, Thames and Hudson, 2002.


3) Art - 'Meaning' in written characters can be observed in
figurative writing - humans, animals etc. taking the shape of letters
and vice-versa - and in the connotations acquired by a writing style
from it's context of use (you won't write a Qur'an in nasta'liq, as
Guten-berg didn't print his Bible in a Humanistic hand).

> Persian figurative calligraphy manual: Saiyyd Mehdi Mahmudi, Rumuz

khushnavisi ya asrar nasta`liq, Tehran, Sahib az-Zaman, 1378AHsh 1999-
2000.

> Chinese anthropomorphic calligraphy: Ireneus László Legeza, Tao

magic. The secret language of diagrams and calligraphy, London,
Thames and Hudson, 1975

> European anthropomorphic alphabets: Fritz Franz Vogel & Joseph

Kiermeier-Debre, Menschenalphabete: Nackte Models, Wilde Typen,
Modische Charaktere, Marburg, Jonas Verlag, 2001.

> Connotation in Latin typography: Erik Spiekermann & E.M Ginger,

Stop Stealing Sheep & Find Out How Type Works, Mountain View (CA),
Adobe Press, [1993] 2002.