Writing: The ABCs of Language

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Chapter 9 Writing The ABCs of Language
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What is Writing? The Worlds Writing Systems.
Peter T. Daniels Writing is a a system of more
or less permanent marks used to represent an
utterance in such a way that it can be recovered
more or less exactly without the intervention of
the utterer The Blackwell Encyclopaedia of
Writings Systems, Florian Coulmas A set
of visible or tactile signs used to represent
units of language in a systematic way, with the
purpose of recording messages which can be
retrieved by everyone who knows the language in
question and the rules by virtue of which its
units are encoded in the writing system.
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• A History of Writing, Steven Roger Fischer
• Criteria for a complete writing system
• A complete writing must have as its purpose
• communication
• A complete writing must consist of artificial
  graphic
• marks on a durable or electronic surface
• A complete writing must use marks that relate
• conventionally to articulate speech (the
  systematic
• arrangement of significant vocal sounds) or
  electronic
• programming in such a way that communication is
• achieved.

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Development of Writing Systems Pre-Writing
petroglyphs cave drawings Pictograms picture
writing ? each sign means what it represents ?
disadvantage can only be used to refer to
material things Ideograms idea pictures ?
meaning of pictogram extended ? came to
represent ideas rather than just objects eg.
picture of sun comes to represent heat, light,
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Pre-Writing Petroglyphs Cave drawings
Deep within a forest northeast of Peterborough is
the largest concentration of aboriginal rock
carvings in North America. Chiselled into white
marble rock face 1,200 years ago, the 900
petroglyphs depict turtles, snakes, birds and
humans.
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Hawaii Petroglyphs
An apparent hunting scene with 13 men (women did
not hunt), a dog, a horse, and the object of the
hunt which seems to be a cow or exaggerated
pig. (Detail has been highlighted to enhance
visibility)
Sourcehttp//www.alohafriends.com/Lanai_petroglyp
hs.html
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Modern Pictographs


Road sign for Canadian Canoe museum
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• Blissymbolics (semantography)
• a contemporary sophisticated pictographic system
• less than 200 basic symbols represent basic
  ideas and
• objects
• re-combinable symbols represent basic units of
  meaning

Source http//www.symbols.net/blissdex/index.html
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The Evolution of Writing Systems Pictographic
objects Ideographic ideas Linguistic Symbols
symbols that represented ideas stand for
sounds or words
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The Rebus Principle Sign represents sound of word
it originally represented eg. From Naxi, a
Sino-Tibetan language spoken in China (Yunnan)
Source http//www.ancientscripts.com/naxi.html
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eye
can
sea
ewe
I can see you.
kahki
key
car
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• Types of Writing Systems
• Logographic
• symbols are referred to as logograms
• word writing system in which each symbol
  represents a morpheme or word
• Syllabic
• Symbols represent syllables
• Words are written syllable by syllable
• May retain residue of whole word symbols
• Best suited to languages with a simplified
  syllable structure
• Alphabetic
• Typically, each symbol represents a sound
• primarily phonemic, (not phonetic)
• Symbols represent consonants and/or vowels

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• Early Writing Systems
• Mesopotamian Cuneiform Sumerian language
• Egyptian Hieroglyphics
• Mesoamerica Mayan glyphs

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• Cuneiform Writing
• wedge-shaped from Latin cuneus wedge
• created by Sumerians over 5000 years ago
• very copious records 17 volume dictionary
• elaborate pictography along with system of
  tallies
• pictograph was simplified and conventionalized
• became symbols rather than representations
• symbol stands for both word and the concept
• a logographic or word writing system

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Source http//www.upenn.edu/museum/Games/cuneifor
m.html
Sumerians created cuneiform script over 5000
years ago. It was the world's first written
language. The last known cuneiform
inscription was written in 75 AD.
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• Syllabic Writing Systems
• Babylonians, Assyrians and Persians adopted the
• cuneiform writing system
• They used them to represent the sounds of
  syllables,
• and the cuneiform writing system evolved into
  a
• syllabic writing system

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Old Persian Logograms
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Old Persian Syllabic Writing System

• kept cuneiform appearance, but shape of signs
  was original
• Old Persian was spoken in southwestern Persia,
• belongs to the Iranian branch or the Indo-Aryan
  family

http//www.omniglot.com/writing/opcuneiform.htm
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• Hieroglyphics
• an Egyptian pictorial writing system that
  developed into
• a mixed writing system
• logorams signs that represent what they mean
• (morphemes)
• phonograms signs that represent sounds
• determinatives help with meaning of group of
  signs
• that precedes them
• ? logogram indicator

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Egyptian Hieroglyphic Ideograms
plural
people, mankind, Egyptians
Source http//www.egyptvoyager.com/hieroglyph_les
son2.htm
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Egyptian Hieroglyphs
Logograms
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Source http//www.egyptvoyager.com/hieroglyph_les
son2.htm
Egyptian Hieroglyphic Ideograms (Phonograms)
j (y as in yes) Normally used under specific
conditions in the last syllable of words
w (w or u)
biconsonantal
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• Hieroglyphs were borrowed by many people,
  including
• the Phoenicians, a Semitic people.
• The Greek and Hebrew alphabets are thought to
  have
• developed from the Phoenician alphabet.

Source http//www.omniglot.com/writing/phoenician
.htm
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Coptic
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Greek
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• American Scripts
• in Mesoamerica, more than 18 writing systems
  have
• been discovered
• Mayan symbols are called glyphs
• some symbols were logograms
• use of rebus principle
• some glyphs mixed syllabic writing with
  logographic
• representation

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Mayan Logographs
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Mayan Glyphs
Source http//www.halfmoon.org/.syl/emblem.gif
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Vowels
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Mayan l, m, n, p
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Modern Writing Systems Logographic Syllabic Al
phabetic
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• Logographic Chinese
• pictograms came to represent morphemes or words
• works for Chinese as spoken Chinese has little
  affixation
• many monosyllabic words are represented
  logographically
• with 1 symbol, BUT the majority of characters
  have 2 parts
• there are tens of thousands of symbols, but only
  need to
• know about 5,000 to read a newspaper
• calligraphy writing is traditionally a respected
  art
• Writing permits communication even with mutual
• unintelligibility
• Pinyin writing Mandarin with a modified Roman
  alphabet
• used for street signs, brand names, and IT
• used for teaching children to pronounce sounds

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The Evolution of Chinese Pictograph Characters
moon
Sourcehttp//logos.uoregon.edu/explore/orthograph
y/chinese2.htmlpict
sun
Xi - happiness
Source http//chineseculture.about.com/library/pi
cks/aatp_luckysymbols.htm
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• Syllabaries Japanese
• Japanese has 3 scripts
• Kanji 1,945 Chinese characters
• These characters can be read in 2 ways,
• an on reading and a kun reading

Traditional Chinese Simplified Chinese Japanese Meaning Comment
house, home not simplified
to transmit story simplified differently in Mainland China and Japan
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• Japanese
• 2. Kana Syllabaries
• each has 48 characters rather like syllables
• with diacritics, this increases to 71

• Hiragana
• used for native words and for affixes and
• grammatical words (this)
• characters are written in a curving flowing style

• Katakana
• used for foreign words, techinical terms
• and characters are more angular

3. Romanjii (Roman) used for trademarks and
advertising
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Cherokee Syllabary
Source http//www.manataka.org/page81.html
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Sample of Cree Syllabics Chart
Source http//www.storm.ca/jspence/whatis.htm
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• Alphabetic
• Consonantal (Arabic)
• only consonants are fully developed symbols
• k t b forms root associated with write
• letters may have multiple forms depending upon
  where
• they occur in a word

Source http//www.ancientscripts.com/ws_types.htm
l
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• Hangul
• Korean alphabet developed by King Seijong
  1417-1450 phonemic
• Korean has /l/ and /r/ sounds, but they are
  represented by a single
• letter
• consonants are drawn to represent place of
  articulation

Hangul Consonants
Hangul Vowels and Dipthongs
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Alphabetic
Cyrillic
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Alphabetic
Anglo-Saxon Futhorc
Source http//www.omniglot.com/writing/runic.htm
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• Alphabetic Writing Systems
• each symbol represents a single phonological
  segment
• in English there is an imperfect match between
• segment (about 38 phonemes) and grapheme (26
  letters)
• /boks/ box
• phonetic each allophone has a unique symbol
• caps caabz
• phonemic each phoneme has a unique symbol
• caps cabz
• morphonemic each morpheme has a unique
  representation
• photo photograph photography
• /foto/ /fot?/ /fota/

English orthography is largely morphophonemic
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• Writing and Speech
• Written language
• is more conservative and prescriptive than
  spoken
• language
• uses more vocabulary
• is syntactically more complex

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Some characteristics of the English writing
system PUNCTUATION capital letters, periods,
, ?, COMMA Restrictive Relatives 1. The
Greeks who were philosophers loved to talk a
lot. Among the Greeks, it was the
philosophers who loved to talk a
lot Unrestrictive Relatives 2. The Greeks, who
were philosophers, loved to talk a lot. The
Greeks were philosophers they loved to talk a
lot. APOSTROPHE 1. My cousins friends (one
cousin) 2. My cousins friends (more than one
cousin)
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• Spelling (Irregularities)
• differences between graphemes (letters) and
• phonemes (sounds represented)
• Homographs different words spelled identically,
  
• lead to lead lead-metal
• and possibly pronounced the same
• bear-animal bear- to carry
• Same sound, different spelling
• aye, buy, by, die, hi, Thai, height, guide
• Different sound, same spelling
• thought, though, Thomas
• Silent letters
• listen, gnome, psychology, honest, bomb
• Missing letters

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• Historical Factors Contributing to Spelling
  Irregularities
• Sound Change
• OE sound-symbol correspondence was fairly
  regular
• Current spelling based on late Middle English
  pronunciation
• (Chaucer) and Early Modern English
  (Shakespeare)
• OE used same symbol for long i short vowels
  i,
• but current spelling does not always reflect
  the Great Vowel Shift
• i ? aj hid and hide
• Introduction of Printing Press
• many early printers not native speakers of
  English
• lack of consistency (I, ay, aye in
  Shakespeares plays)
• Spelling Reformers
• overzealous use of Latin Greek to reflect
  etymologies
• added b where Latin had a b dette -gt debt

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• Current English Orthography
• Primarily based on earlier pronunciations
• OE used same symbol for long short vowels
• late 1500s and early 1600s, a number of spelling
• rules were formulated and published
• English orthography became more or less fixed
• use of silent e to indicate a preceding long V
• some attempts at respelling nite, thru
• any serious attempt to an orthography based on
• 1-to-1 sound symbol correspondence would
  introduce
• dialectal differences into orthographic system
  neither

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• Writing and Reading
• Logographic Systems
• 1 grapheme represents a morpheme or word
• reading simplified when number of symbols is
  limited
• reading difficult with increased number of
  symbols
• Chinese children can readily recognize symbols,
  but it
• takes years to learn enough to write and read
  all
• items in their vocabulary
• Japanese 1945 kanji (Chinese) characters for
  daily use
• 996 Kanji during 6 yrs. of elementary school
• 949 in 3 yrs. of juniour high

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• Writing and Reading (contd)
• Syllabic and Alphabetic Systems
• lesser inventory of symbols
• can be learned and used to write and read new
  words
• in a couple of years
• children learning syllabaries are reported to
  have less
• difficulties learning to read
• why syllables seem easier to recognize than
  phonemes
• although English alphabetic system has complex
• orthographic system, children learning to read
  in
• languages with more regular alphabetic
  orthographies
• also have problems

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• Neurological Demands of Writing Systems
• Brocas Aphasia a language deficit in which
  production and
• syntactic competence are diminished loss of
  function
• words and inflectional morphemes
• Logographic Systems
• patients with Brocas Aphasia typically dont
  lose ability
• to read and write logograms
• Syllabic and Alphabetic Systems
• ability to use these systems is severely
  disrupted
• very difficult for the deaf to acquire
• Different Neurological Demands
• Japanese patients with Brocas aphasia retain
  mastery of
• kanji, the logographic system, but lose ability
  to use
• hiragana and katakana