Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
-
Upload
mozdamozda -
Category
Documents
-
view
226 -
download
12
Transcript of Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 1/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 2/340
\X/riting Systems
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 3/340
BlackwellTextbooks n Linguistics
The books ncluded n this series rovidecomprehensive ccountsof someof themostcentralandmost rapidlydeveloping reas f researchn linguistics.ntendedprimarily for introductoryandpost-introductory tudents,hey ncludeexercises,discussionointsand suggestionsor further reading.
1 LilianeHaegeman Introduction to Gouernment nd Binding
Theory(Second dition)2 Andrew Spencer Morphological Theory3 HelenGoodluck LanguageAcquisition4 RonaldWardhaugh Introduction to SociolinguisticsFourth
Edition)5 Martin Atkinson Children'sSyntax6 DianeBlakemore UnderstandingUtterances7 MichaelKenstowicz Phonology n GeneratiueGrarnmar8 DeborahSchiffrin Approacheso Discourse9 John Clark and Colin Yallop An Introduction to Phonetics nd
Phonology Second dition)10 NatsukoTsujimura An Introduction to lapaneseLinguistics1.1. RobertD. Borsley Modern PhraseStructureGrammart2 Nigel Fabb Linguisticsand Literaturet3 IreneHeim and AngelikaKratzer Semanticsn GeneratiueGrammar14 LilianeHaegeman nd Jacqueline EnglishGrammar:A Generatiue
Gu6ron Perspectiue15 StephenCrain and Diane An Introduction to Linguistic Theory
Lillo-Martin and LanguageAcquisition16 JoanBresnan Lexical-FunctionalSyntax
17 BarbaraA. Fennell A History of English:A SociolinguisticApproach
18 Henry Rogers Writing Systems: Linguistic Approach19 Benjamin
S7.Fortson V Indo-EuropeanLanguage nd Culture:
An Introduction
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 4/340
'STritingSystems
A LinguisticApproach
Henry Rogers
lDFtffrffiu
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 5/340
O 2005 by Henry Rogers
BLACKVELL PUBLISHING350 Main Street,Malden,MA 02148-5020, SA9600GarsingtonRoad,Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK550 Swanston treet,Carlton,Victoria3053, Australia
The right of Henry Rogers o be identifiedas the Author of this tilfork hasbeenassertednaccordance ith the UK Copyright,Designs, nd PatentsAct 1988.
All rightsreserved.No part of this publicationmay be reproduced, tored n aretrievalsystem, r transmitted,n any form or by any means,electronic,mechanical,photocopying, ecordingor otherwise,exceptas permittedby the UK Copyright,Designs,and Patents ct 1988,without the prior permission f the publisher.
Firstpublished 005 by BlackwellPublishing td
Library of CongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Rogers,Henry, 1940-Writing systems: linguisticapproach Henry Rogers.
p. cm.- (Blackwellextbooksn linguistics; 8)ISBN 0-631-23463-2hardcover: lk. paper) ISBN 0-631-2346a-0 pbk.:alk. paper)1.
'Writing.2.
'Writing-History.3. Graphemics. I. Title. II. Series.
P211.R538005411-dc22
200302616s
ISBN-I3: 978-0-63 -23463-0
A catalogue ecord or this title is available rom the British L1brary.
For further information onBlackwellPublishing, isit our website:http://www.blackwellpublishing.om
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 6/340
Gu mo mhic
Daibhidh 's lain
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 7/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 8/340
A
Lontents
Acknowledgments
A Note on Dates
1 Introduction1.1, The Importance f \flriting1.2 Definitionof \ilriting1.3 Aspects f
'Vfriting
L.3.1 Creationand historyof writing1.3.2 Relationshipof uriting to language1.3.3 Internalstructureof writing1.3.4 Sociolinguistics f uritingFurtherReadingTermsExercises
Theoretical Preliminaries2.1 InternalStructure
2.l.L Arrangement f symbols2.1.2 Graphemes nd allographs2.1.3 Freeand boundgraphemes2.1.4 Ligatures
2.2 Relationshipo Language2.2.1 Phonographicwriting systems2.2.2 Morpbographicwriting systems2.2.3 Non-segmental raphemicelements2.2.4 Unit disuepancies2.2.5 Contrastiue iscrepancies
2.3 Diglossia2.4 FurtherReading2.5 Terms2.5 Exercises
xiv
xvii
1I244557888
t .41 .51 .5
999
1 0fi,1,2t 31 3l41 5t 5t 61 71 81 81 8
vl t
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 9/340
vll l Contents
3 Chinese3.1, Background, istory,and Sociolinguistics
3.1.1 The language f utritten Chinese3.1.2 Ciuilseruice xaminations
3.2 Phonology f Modern StandardChinese3.2.1 Romanization
3.3 Relationship f Language nd\Triting in Chinese3.3.1
.Whatlinguisticunits do characters epresent?
3.3.2 Homophony3.4 Origin and Structure f ChineseCharacters
3.4.1 Early Chinesewriting3.4.2 Reconstructinghe earlypronunciationof Chinese3.4.3 How characterswere ormed
3.4.4 Traditionalanalysisof cbaracters3.4.5 Semantic-phoneticompounds3.4.6 Semantic-semanticompounds3.4.7 Someexaffiples f characterswith a complexhistory3.4.8 Writing borrowed words3.4.9 Dialect characters
3.5 Structure f ChineseCharacters3.5.1 Theshapes f characters3.5.2 Complexnumerals3.5.3 Hout characters re uritten
3.5.4 Writing directionandpunctuation
3.5.5 Calligraphy3.5.6 Ordering characters
3.6 How Many Characters oesChineseHave?3.6.1 Frequency f typesof characters
3.7 RecentReforms3.8 FurtherReading3.9 Terms3.10 Exercises
4 Japanese,Korean, Vietnamese4.1, Japanese4.1.1 Background nd history4.1.2 Releuant tructureof Japanese4.1.3 Borrowing a utriting system4.1.4 lapanesewriting4.1.5 Writing reform in lapan4.1.6 Psychology f writing in lapanese
4.2 Korean4.2.1 Background nd history
4.2.2 Korean exicon4.2.3 Phonologyof Korean4.2.4 Hankul
202021,23242526272829293 l32
34343637383939393940
41.4343444545474848
50505053545667685868
696970
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 10/340
Contents
4.2.5 Structure / hankul4.2.6 Hanca
4.3 Vietnamese4.3.1 Background nd history
4.3.2 Chfrn6m4.3.3 Qudcngir
4.4 FurtherReading4.5 Terms4.6 Exercises
Cuneiform5.1 Background nd History
5.1.1 Sumerian
5.L.2 Akkadian5.2 Tokensand the Inventionof '$Triting
5.3 Materialsof'sfriting
5.4 SocialContextof CuneiformWriting5.5 An Early Sumerian ablet rom Uruk5.6 InternalStructure f Cuneiform
5.6.1 Deuelopment f symbols5.6.2 Relationship o language
5.7 ExampleText5.8 OtherCuneiform'!flriting
5.8.1 Ugaritic5.8.2 Old Persian5.9 FurtherReading5.10 Terms5.11 Exercises
Egyptian6.1, Language amily6.2 Background nd History5.3 Phonology f Old Egyptian
6.4 Origin of Egyptian Writing6.5 Styles f \(rriting6.6 SocialContextof \Triting
5.5.1 Materials5.6.2 Literature6.6.3 Scribes nd literacy
6.7 Structure f Egyptian'Writing6.7.1 Pbonographic uriting6.7.2 Phonologicalcomplements6.7.3 Morphograpbicuriting
6.7.4 Semantic omplements5.7.5 Internal structureof Egyptianwriting
1X
72737474
7475777777
797979
808 18485868 88 89091,92
9394959596
97979899
1001001.021,027021021031031,07108
109109
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 11/340
Contents
6.8 ExampleText5.9 Decipherment5.10 FurtherReading5.1,1 Terms6.t2 Exercise
Semitic7.1, The Semitic anguage amily7.2 Origin of the SemiticAbjad7.3 Development f the SemiticAbjad
7.3.1 SouthernWestSemitic7.3.2 Phenician7.3.3 Aramaic
7.4 Hebrew7.4.1 Background nd history7.4.2 Phonologyof Tiberian Hebrew7.4.3 Hebrewabiad7.4.4 Hebrewuowels7.4.5 Reading he Bible7.4.6 Other languages ritten with the Hebreutscript
7.5 Arabic7.5.1 Background nd history7.5.2 Phonologyof Modern StandardArabic
7.5.3 Arabicabiad7.5.4 Voutelsand diphthongs7.5.5 Hamzah7.5.6 Othersymbols7.5.7 Numerals
7.6 The EthiopicAbugida7.7 The Distinctivenessf Abjads7.8 FurtherReading7.9 Terms7.10 Exercises
The Greek Alphabet8.1 Background nd History8.2 GreekScripts efore heAlphabet
8.2.1 LinearB8.2.2 Other early Greekscripts
8.3 Development f the GreekAlphabet8.4 Abjad o Alphabet8.5 The Relationship f Language nd Writing in Greek8.5 ScriptsDerived rom the GreekAlphabet
8.6.1 Coptic8.6.2 Gothic8.6.3 Armenian
1,121,1.3tt3t L 4t t 4
1 1 51 1 5I 1 7r191201,21,t23L25t25t26I27t29r371 3 11.321321331351351 3 71 3 81 3 81 3 81401,41742142
145145147147151153155r501,61
t6 r1,621,55
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 12/340
Contents xl
1551.57r67r681 6 8
1701701701,721,72173173174
1,71771,771771 8 11 8 1t82
1 8 s1 85
1871.891901,921,931941951951951,97
1,97198
r99r99201,201202203203205207zn
8.6.4 Georgian8.6.5 Slauic
8.7 FurtherReading8.8 Terms
8.9 Exercises
The Roman Alphabet9.1, From Greeceo Italy9.2 Etruscan9.3 Latin
9.49.5
9.69.7
9.3.1 Background nd history9.3.2 Thephonologyof LatinThe RomanAlphabetExamples f Roman'S7riting
LaterHistory of the RomanAlphabetOrthographicDepth:Two Examples9.7.L Finnish:A shallow orthography9.7.2 ScofsGaelic:A deeporthography
10
9.8 FurtherReading9.9 Terms9.I0 Exercises
English10.1 Background nd History
10.2 Old English10.3 Middle EnglishI0.4 Modern English
10.4.1- Orthographicdialect uariation10.4.2 Creatiue pelling
10.5 Spelling nd SoundChanges10.5 SpellingReform
10.6.1 Thenatureof reform10.6.2 Problemswith spelling eform
10.7 FurtherReading
10.8 Terms10.9 Exercises
The Indian Abugida and Other Asian Phonographic WritingIl.l Background nd History11".2 IndusValley 7riting
11..2.1 Decipherment f the Indusscript11.2.2 The language f the Indus writing
11.3 Brahmiand Kharo$thi11.3.1 A1okan nscriptions11.3.2 Thesuipts11.3.3 Origin of Kharosthr nd Brabmt11.3.4 Later deuelopment f Brahmt
t l
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 13/340
xl t Contents
ll.4 Deuanngarlas Applied to SanskritL1.4.1 Sanskrit honology
11.4.2 Devanagarl riting system11.5 SoutheastsianWriting11,.6 The TibetanAbugida
11.6.1 Tibetanphonemic nuentory11.6.2 The Tibetanabugida11.6.3 Complex orthographicsyllables
11,.7 The 'Phags-paScript11.8 TheMongolianandManchuAlphabets
11.8.7 Mongolian11.8.2 Manchu
Il.9 FurtherReading11.10
Terms1,L.11Exercises
12 Mayatz.l Background nd History12.2 Structureof the Maya ril(riting System
12.2.1 lnternalstructure12.2.2 Relation o language
I2.3 The Maya CalendarI2.4 ExampleText
1,2.5 FurtherReading12.6 Terms12.7 Exercises
13 Other Writing Systems13.1 Cherokee
1.3.1.1-Background nd history1.3.1.2 Phonology f Cherokee1.3.1.3 The Cherokee cript
1.3.2 Cree
13.2.1 Background nd history13.2.2 Phonology f Cree13.2.3 Structureof the Creewriting system
13.3 Inuktitut13.3.1 Background nd history13.3.2 Themodern nuktitut suipt
13.4 Runic13.4.1 Background nd history13.4.2 Proto-Scandinauianbonology
13.4.3 The runic alphabets
13.4.4 Mysticismand magic13.5 Ogham13.5.1 Background nd history
213273214221223223224225227227227230230
23023L
23323373523s235238242
245246246
247247247249249249
249250250252252253254254255255
2582582s8
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 14/340
Contents
13.5.2 TheoghamalphabetL3.5.3 Example ext
13.6 PahawhHmong13.6.1 Background nd history
1.3.6.2 Phonologyof Hmong13.6.3 Structureof PahawhHmong script
13.7 Bliss13.7.1 CharlesB/issand the origin of Blisssymbols13.7.2 Blisssym.bols san augmentatiue
communxcdtronystem13.7.3 TItestructureof Bliss ymbols13.7.4 Sentencesn Bliss
13.8 FurtherReading13.9 Terms
13.10 Exercises
14 Classification of Writing Systems14.1 Phonetic,Semantic, nd Glottographic'S7riting74.2 Glottographicfriting14.3 Note: Amount of Morphographyand OrthographicDeptht4.4 Gelb'sUnilinearTheoryof Development14.5 Syllabic ersusMoraic14.6 KoreanHankul as a FeaturalSystem14.7 Conclusion
14.8 FurtherReading14.9 Terms
Appendix A Some Basic Linguistic Terms
Appendix B The International Phonetic Alphabet
Appendix C English Transcription
Appendix D Glossary
Bibliography
Index
xiii
259260250260
261.261,263263
26326426s268258
268
269269271275275275277278
278279
280
285
287
289
300
3 1 0
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 15/340
Acknowledgments
Toronto is blessed ith a multiculturaldiversitywhich is ideal or learningaboutlanguages nd writing. I am very much indebted o the many friends,colleagues,
students, nd nnocentpeoplewho wanderednto my office or all thehelp, nforma-tion, and support hat they havegivenme over the years. would especiallyiketo mentionAbdel-KhaligAli, CherylCaballero,VeraChau,VincentDeCaen,ElanDresher,Karl-JiirgenFeuerherm, laineGold,DanielCurrieHall, Timothy Gianotti,DennisHelm, Kaoru Hashimoto, enniferHellum, Manami Hirayama,Mary Hsu,BridgetJankowski,Lif CrystalJing,Alan Kaye,Cynthia Lee, Ron Leprohon,TedLutz, Mary MacKeracher, aul Mercier,Laura Miller, Keir Moulton, Kenji Oda,DavidOlson,JoePartington,Hoa Pham,T6oYu6nke, nsupTaylor, Ann l7ehmeyer,ZhouJoy Hong, and four anonymous eviewers. am grateful o Tami Kaplan forher initial encouragement,o MargaretAherne or her excellent nd enthusiastic
editing,and to SarahColemanand the staff at Blackwell or their fine work on adifficult book.
The author and publishergratefullyacknowledgehe permission ranted o repro-duce he copyrightmaterial n this book:
Figures
Figure3.3 from Wayne Senner ed.),Tbe Origins of.Writing,
figure 5, p. 181.
Lincoln,NE:Universityof ebraskaPress,989.@1989 yUniversityofNebraskaPress. eprintedwith permission.
Figure3.8 from Fang-yiiWang, Introduction to ChineseCursiueScript,p.
Haven,CT: Far EasternPublications, aleUniversityPress, 958.O 1958UniversityPress. eproduced ith permission.
Figure5.L0 from Hans J. Nissenet al., Archaic Bookkeeping, rgure34, p. 38.Chicago:University f ChicagoPress,1993.@ 1986by University f ChicagoPress.Reproduced ith permission.
Figure5.L1 rom EdwardChiera,They Wrote n Clay,p. 53. Chicago:University fChicagoPress,1965.@ 1956 by Universityof ChicagoPress.Reproducedwithpermission.
New
Yale
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 16/340
Acknouledgments xv
Figure6.2 from Sir Alan Gardiner,Egyptian Grammar, plate2. Oxford: GriffithInstitute,Oxford UniversityPress, 950.O 1950by Griffith Institute.Reproducedwith permission.
Figure 6.4 fuomAnthony Loprieno, Ancient Egyptian:A Linguistic Introduction,chart,p.16.Cambridge:Cambridge niversity ress,995. @1,995 y CambridgeUniversityPress.Reprintedwith the permission f CambridgeUniversityPress.
Figure8.2 from FredWoudhuizen, heLanguage f theSeaPeoples, .70. Amster-dam: NajadePress, 993.@ 1993Jan Best.Reproduced ith permission.
Figure 8.3 from John Chadwick,The Decipherment f Linear B, 'Ventris grid,28 September951', igure13,p. 59.Cambridge: ambridge niversity ress, 967.@1967by Cambridge niversityPress. eprintedwith thepermission f CambridgeUniversityPress.
Figure 8.4 from Jan Best and Fred lfoudhuizen (eds.),Lost Languagesromthe MediterrAneAn,igure1, p.2. Leiden:E.J. Bril l, 1.989.@ 1993by Jan Best.Reproduced ith permission.
Figures8.5 and 8.6 from Jan Bestand FredVfoudhuizen
(eds.),Ancient Scripts
from Crete nd Cyprus, p.32-3,105.Leiden: .J. Bril l,1988.@ 1993byJanBest.Reproduced ith permission.
Figure8.8 from John Boardmanand N. G. L. Hammond (eds.),The CambridgeAncient History, 3.3, figure t6, p. 100. Cambridge:CambridgeUniversityPress,1970. @ 1970 by CambridgeUniversityPress.Reprintedwith the permission fCambridgeUniversityPress.
Figure9.L from Giuliano Bonfanteand LarissaBonfante,The EtruscanLanguage:An Introduction,no. 12,p. 1,32.Manchester:ManchesterUniversityPress, 983.O 1983 by ManchesterUniversityPress.Reproduced ith permission.
Figures1.2.7,12.8,12.9,12.10 rom Dr. Merle GreeneRobertson, he Sculptureof Palenque,vol.IV, 13/L7 includingR14-R17).Princeton: rinceton niversityPress, 991,.@ 1976by Merle GreeneRobertson.Reproduced ith permission.
FigureB.1 from InternationalPhoneticAssociation.@ 1993by the International
PhoneticAssociation. eproduced ith permission. ttp://www.arts.gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipa.html.
Plates
Plate1 from Buddhist ext written n Japann the Chineseanguage. eproduced ithpermissionrom FreerGalleryof Art, Smithsoniannstitution,Washington,DC.
Plate2 from portion of Dead SeaScrolls.Reproduced ourtesyof the IsraeliAn-tiquitiesAuthority.
Plate3 from Ottoman tughra.Reproduced ith permissionrom FreerGalleryofArt, Smithsoniannstitution,Washington,DC.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 17/340
xvi Acknowledgments
Plate 4 from Trajan column cast. Reproduced ourtesyof R. R. Donnelley&Company.
Plate5 from Indusseal.Reproduced ith permissionrom Harappa.com.
Plate6 from Presentation f Captiueso a Maya Ruler,ca.785. Reproduced our-tesyof the Kimbell Art Museum,Fort Worth, Texas.
Every effort hasbeenmade o trace copyrightholdersand to obtain their permis-sion for the useof copyrightmaterial.The publisherapologizesor any errorsoromissionsn the above ist and would be grateful f notifiedof anycorrectionshatshouldbe ncorporatedn future reprintsor editionsof this book.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 18/340
A Note on Dates
The traditional abbreviationsn English or erasare AD (Latin Anno Domini'inthe yearof the Lord') and ec (BeforeChrist).To avoid the Christianbias n the
traditional erms, ome cholars aveused n (CommonEra) or no andnce (BeforetheCommonEra) or ec. In my view, his swell intentioned, ut in factsubstitutesa ludxo-Christianbias or a Christianoneand could be nadvertentlynsulting ootherreligions. Fora Muslim,200 cs is not common o anything.)To avoid heseproblems, haveused he termsoro and NEwas substitutes. heseare unconven-tional, but clearand neutral.
The year L oro was followed immediatelyby the year I NEw. Therewas noyear0. Sometimes,owever, have eferredo a time0 asa convenientiction,as n'by the time 0, the old writing systemwas no longer n use'.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 19/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 20/340
Introduction
t.l The Importanceof Writing
\friting is one of the most significant cultural accomplishmentsof human beings.It allows us to record and convey information and stories beyond the immediatemoment. \7hen we speak,we can only inform those n our immediate vicinity. Writingallows us to communicate at a distance,either at a distant placeor at a distant time.Nowadays, we can record and senda spoken messagewith audio or video recordings,bu t these equire specialequipment at both ends.For writing, we need only a pieceof paper and a pencil.
\fith writing, we can supplement our own memory.'S[e
can record much longertexts than we could ever hope to memorize.The written text is also less allible thanhuman memory. Many of us have made a great deal of effort to memoize even afairly short poem. Just think of trying to memofize an entire book! or several!
With written records and manuals, we can create a much more complex societythan would otherwise be possible.By keeping recordsof weather observations,met-eorologists are able to discern patterns, allowing them to predict the coming wearher.A manual allows an appliance to be repaired. A map allows us to navigate unfamiliarareas.An encyclopxdia allows studentsto learn the history of distant places,peoples,and events.
Writing createsnot only a more complicated society,but as some have argued, amore just society.\7e frequently hear that
'thecontrol of information is power'.'When
information can be readily written down, printed, and distributed, there is lesschancefor it to be manipulated by a few people. During the 1930s, the Canadian governmentdistributed Hansard, the record of parliamentary proceedings, ree to those requestinga subscription. Many a politician regretted being met in a small rural community witha farmer pulling out a copy and saying,
'Butit says here that on the thirteenth of
May you stood up in Parliament and said . . .'. However, writing itself is not pure; itallows us to publish lies, to mislead, o libel, to cover up , to pu t a spin on the truth.'s7e
must also be careful not to equate a'literate society'with a'good society'.Formost of human history, most peoplehave been lliterate. Eventoday, illiterate peoplearound the world lead productive and satisfying lives. ]Ufho in the western world hasnot at some time identified with Paul Gauguin, who left literate France for Tahiti,where literacy was of less mportance? For many people today, even though theyare literate, reading and writing play only a small role in their day-to-day lives.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 21/340
2 Introduction
Beforewe go on, we shouldalsopoint out that spoken anguagesclearlyprimaryfor humans nd written anguages secondary. ll languagesrespoken; nly somearewritten. All people earn o speakaschildren.Someater earn o write; othersdo not. The acquisition f language nd speechs normal or childrenandhappensautomatically,ike learning o walk. ttrfritingmustalwaysbe consciouslyearned.
1.2 Definition of Writing
In English, he term writing is used n varioussenses.t can mean penmanship':
Mary's utriting is much betternow that she s in GradeTuto.\Triting can refer tothe contentor literarystyle:Mary'suriting is muchbetterafterheryear n iournalismschool.Finally,writing can refer o writing systems: rabic writing goes rom right
to left.In this book, we will normallyusewriting in theast
sense.'Wecan definewriting as he useof graphicmarks o represent pecificinguisticutterances.hepurpose f a definitions to distinguish term rom other hings.Tounderstand hat writing is, t is helpful o investigateome imilar hingswhicharenot writing according o our definition.
tU(riting s not language.Language s a complex system esiding n our brainwhich allows us to produceand interpretutterances.(/riting involvesmakinganutterance isible.Our cultural raditiondoesnot make his distinction learly. $fle
sometimes earstatements uchasHebrewhas no uowels; his statements roughly
true for the Hebrew writing system,but it is definitelynot true for the Hebrew
language.Readers houldconstantly heck hat they are not confusing anguageand writing.Although writing is not language,writing does representanguage,and in our
definition, only language.Humans engage n many non-linguistic ypes of com-munication.Theseother ypesof communicationmay at timesbe visual,but theyarenot writing. For example,a paintingmay representNoah entering he ark withvariousanimals.Sucha paintingmay communicatemany things,suchas memoryof the story,emotions,asthetic feelings,nformationabout the ark or the animals,or about Noah, but we would not consider he picture o be writing becausetdoesnot represent specific tterance.The picturemight evokevariousutterances:
e.g.,Noah entered he ark, Noah brought the animals on board, or Tbe animalsaccompaniedhe old manas be setsail, or evenGermanNoah betrat dieArchemitden Tieren. X/ecannotsay that any one of theseutterancess specificallyhe onecommunicated y thepicture.On the otherhand, f we see he written sentence oahenteredtbeark, we recognizeitas writing since t is the visiblemanifestation f aspecificinguistic tterance, newhich would pronounce s ,nowa entard i 'qrk/.
(See ppendixC for an explanation f phonetic ymbols.) rom hisdiscussion, ecan see hat writing is related o language, ot to ideas n general.
An examplesomewhatcloser o writing is known asthe Cheyennendian Letter(figure1.1).Cheyennesan Algonquiananguagepokenn the UnitedStates.Mallery
(1893)citesa nineteenth-centuryocumentwhich purports o be a messagerom aman, Turtle-Following-His-\7ife,o his son,Little Man, tellinghis son to returnhomeand enclosing 53 for the costof the trip. According o Mallery, he message
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 22/340
Introduction
";#fr""S;;b
Figure 1.1 The Cheyenne ndian letter
was understood. Our initial reaction is likely skeptical, as we think that we our-selveswould probably not have beensuccessful t deciphering he message. ossiblyit was sent with someprior arrangements.Crucially, a semantic nterpretation doesnot seem to proceed systematically from the picture according to any definablesystem. Iilfe would not know how to interpret it reliably, and there is no sysremwhich would allow us to formulate a reply or other message.Even if our skepticismabout the easeof interpretation is unfounded, the document still doesnot qualify aswriting under our definition since it does not correspond to a specific linguisticutterancel rather, we expect that several different Cheyenne utterancescould beacceptedas correct 'readings' of the message, s with ou r picture of Noah.
A crucial element missing n the Cheyenne ndian Letter is a systematicstrucrure.The primary focus of this book is expressed n its title Writing Systems. 07riting issystematic n two ways: it has a systematicrelationship to language, and it has asystematic internal organization of its own. The Cheyenne letter is not sysrematic neither sense: here is no setof conventions inking the elements n the drawing to theCheyenne anguage,nor are there conventions which structure the elementsof thedrawing with each other.
'S7ecan refer to non-linguistic graphic communicarion,
such as the Cheyenne Indian Letter, by the term picture writing.Now let's look at the history of the word writing. Knowing about the etymology of
a word doesno t really help us understand ts meaning better, but the history is ofteninteresting.The word write comes rom an Indo-European root "wrId-'tearrscratch',
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 23/340
4 lntroduction
perhapselated o Greek hlne'fiIe, asp';presumably, arly ndo-European ritingwasseen sscratchingmarkson a surface. rom his Indo-Europeanorm, a Proto-
Germanicorm owrltanAntear,scratch'developed,roducing ormssuchasSwedishrita 'draw,
scratch',German ei$en'tear' andritzez 'scratch'.The oldestEnglish
form wrltan, attested n Beourulf,originallymeant 'score,draw', and somewhatlater'write'.
Other relatedwords includescribe andscripf, which are borrowedrespectivelyfrom Latinscrtba'secretary,cribe'andscrlptum'something ritten', both derivedfrom the Latin verbscrtberewrite'. At first script meanta pieceof writing; its usefor a systemof written marks is quite late, probably first occurring n the latenineteenthcentury. Letter is borrowed from the French lettre from Latin litera'letterof thealphabet'.n theplural,Latin hteraemeant a pieceof writing, epistle,literature'.Graph s from Greekgrdphein'scratch, rite'.
1.3 Aspectsof Writing
This book examinesour importantaspects f writing:
o the creationand historyof writing. the relationship f writing and anguageo the internalstructure f writing systemso the sociolinguisticsf writing
7.3.7 Creation and history of writing
\Triting can be created in three basic ways. It can be invented as a completely new
phenomenon. More frequently, writing is borrowed from one language and applied
to a new language.Finally, a new script can be developed,not as a completely new
phenomenon, but as a new form of writing.
Rarely has writing been invented from scratch, that is, without knowledge of any
other existing writing; but it has happened on at least three occasions.S7e
know
that the earliest invention of writing was about 5000 years ago by the Sumerians n
Mesopotamia. Some 1500 years ater, the Chineseagain invented writing. The lastcertain invention of writing was over 2000 years ago by the Maya in Meso-America.
Some scholars have claimed that the Egyptians and the people of the Indus Valley
also invented writing, but these claims are controversial.
Although the invention of writing is rare, the borrowing of a writing system
from one culture to another has been extremely common. Almost all the writing sys-
tems in use oday, except Chinese, nvolve some sort of borrowing. In Asia, several
neighboring countries borrowed writing from China. Early Mesopotamian writing
likely inspired the Egyptians to develop a writing system for their language. The
Semitic writing systemarose under the influence of Egyptian. The Greeks borrowed
the Semiticsystem.The Greek alphabet was borrowed by the Etruscans n Italy, andtheir alphabet was in turn borrowed by the Romans for writing Latin. The Roman
alphabet has spread widely and has been used to write hundreds of languages
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 24/340
lntroduction 5
around the world. Almost all writing systemsn use oday stemultimately romeither he Chinese r the Semiticwriting sysrems.
Rather arely,we have he creationof a new writing system. his type of creationinvolvesan anthropological otion known asstimulusdiffusion;with stimulusdiffu-
sion,somethings borrowed rom oneculture nto another,but only thegeneraldea,not all the details. n the caseof a new writing system,he creator s awareof thenotion of writing and creates new typeof writing. What is new is the particularwriting system, ot thenotionof writing itself; he Cherokee,Cree,PahawhHmong,and Blisswriting systems reexamples f this sortof development.hese ituationsaredifferent rom that of the Sumerians,he Chinese, ndthe Maya, who inventedwriting with no prior model.
In connectionwith his novelsand stories, . R. R. Tolkien nventeda numberofscripts, ttributing hem o variousof thepeoplesn hisstories. olkienwasa Celticand Old Norsescholar, nd the shapes f the symbols avemuch n commonwith
the medirval scriptsof Irelandand Scandinavia.
7.3.2 Relationshtpof uriting to language
An extremely interesting question is how writing and language arc related. InFinnish, for example, there is an almost perfect one-to-one relationship betweenwritten symbols (lettersof the Roman alphabet) and the phonemes of Finnish. InChinese, by contrast, there is a fairly consistent relationship betweenwritten symbols(characters)and the morphemes of Chinese. (Note: for an explanation of linguisticterms such as morpheme or phoneme) seeAppendix A.)
Russianand Belorusianare closely relatedSlavic anguages,both written with theCyrillic alphabet. Russianwriting corresponds o the morphophonemic level of thelanguage,overlooking certain predictable phonological variation, whereasBelorusian
writing corresponds to the phonemic level of the language,overtly specifying thetype of variation that Russianwriting overlooks.
In Hebrew, only consonantsare generallywritten; the reader s expected o knowthe languagewell enough to supply the missing vowels. Specialsymbols do exist toindicate vowels, but they are used mostly in materials for children and learnersofHebrew.
Some anguagesare written with a mixture of systems.Japanese, or example, hasdifferent kinds of writing; it usescharactersborrowed from Chinese,as well as twofurther types of writing known as kAna, in which each symbol representsa mora(i.e. a consonant-vowel sequenceor a consonant at the end of a syllable).Japanesewriting is normally a mixture of these systems. Some words are normally writtenwith characters,somewith kana, and many with a mixture of charactersand kana.The writer must know which type of symbol is appropriate for a given word.
In English, we use the Roman alphabet, bu t its relationship to the phonemesofEnglish is not simple. For example, the vowel /i / is written variously <ee,ea, ie , ei,y, i> as in meet, medt, siege, conceiue,city, spaghetti. By the same oken, the writtensequence<ough> can be pronounced quite differently as n the words tough, cough,
tbough, and through. Clearly English spelling is related to phonology, but the rela-tionship is complex and strongly shapedby lexical and morphemic considerations.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 25/340
lntroduction
From these examples, we can see that the relationship between language and
writing is not necessarilysimple nor consistent.The relationship of the language
and writing system of Finnish is unusually simple, but the corresponding relation-
ship forJapanese
sextremely complex. Although Finnish and
Englishboth
usethesame Roman alphabet, they do so in different ways; the spelling rules of Finnish
and English are quite different. Similarly, Japaneseand Chinese both use Chinese
characters in their writing, but the rules for using characters to write the two lan-
guagesare quite different.
In our study of writing systems,we might assume hat there is a simple, one-
to-one relationship between written symbols and language: for example, that a
writing system has a distinct symbol for each phoneme, and that these symbols
are used to write utterances. n such a situation, an automatic conversion would,
in principle, be possible berween writing and language. Anyone who has learned
to write English, however, is more than aware that this situation does not hold forEnglish. \07eneed only consider such pairs as one and uton with exactly the samepronunciation and very different spellings to confirm this. There are, to be sure,
some writing systemswhich are fairly regular, but none is perfect. Varying degrees
of complexity are the norm. In the course of this book, we will investigatemany
types of complex relationships betweenwriting and language. n the next chapter,
we will develop some terminology which will help us to describe some of this
complexity. In the final chapter, we will examine this issuegenerally and develop
a taxonomic scheme for writing systemswhich takes varying kinds of complexity
into account.
1.3.3 Intemal sttactureof uriting
rUfriting systems have an internal structure independent of the language being
written. From English, we are used to writing starting at the top left corner of the
page, proceeding from left to right, with each row placed under the previous row.
But this arrangement is by no means universal; for example, the Arabic script is
written in rows like English, but each line is written right to left, starting at the
top right corner of the page. Arabic is also written cursively, so that most letters
within a word are connected to each other; as a result, letters have different shapes
depending on how they are attached to other letters. This internal structure ofthe Arabic script has been maintained even when it has been used to write other
languages,such as Persianor Urdu.
In English.-a very short public sign is sometimes written vertically with each etter
under the precedingone. This type of writing is typically done in upper-case etters,
rurely in lower-case.
Chinese writing has a different internal structure. Traditionally, it has been
written in columns, from top to bottom, starting at the top right corner of the
page; nowadays it is more often written in rows from left to right like English.
Chinese characters may consist of only one stroke or of a large number; no matter
how many strokes it has, each character is written so as to fill out an imaginarysquare with a fixed size; thus, each character on a page appears to be about the
same size.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 26/340
Introduction 7
In Koreanhankul, he ndividual ettersarecombinedn variouspredictable aysinto syllable-sizedlocks.These lockshave he same izeso hat Koreanwriting isvisually ather ike Chinesewith a setof evenlyspaced ymbols.
Clay cuneiform abletsused n ancientMesopotamiawere shapedwith one side
flat and the other slightly convex. friting beganon the flat side; hus the readercouldeasilydeterminewhich side o read irst.
Apart from the generalnternalstructureof a writing system, ifferent ypesoftextssometimes avespecific ulesof their own. For example,on the title pageof abook,the writing in the argest izeof type s usually he title of the book.Writingin a smallersizeof type typically ndicates he author or editor. !flriting at thebottom of the title page s related o the publicationof the book, typically thepublisher, ity, and oftendateof publication.Thesemattersarenot without excep-tions,bu t it would beodd to find thepublisher's ame n themiddleof thepageandthe title at the bottom.
The rulesrelating anguage nd writing tell us which symbolsmust be writtento express givenutterance, ut the rulesof the internalstructureof the writingsystemell us how these ymbolsare actually o be written down.
1.3.4 Sociolinguisticsof writing
Ifriting is done n a socialcontext.For example,ScotsGaelic s a Celtic anguagespoken n northwestern cotland;he anguage asbeenwritten for manycenturies.Today,ScotsGaelicspeakersmay on occasionwrite somethingn Gaelic,bu t formost speakers f the language, riting is ordinarily done n the English anguage.Virtually all ScotsGaelicspeakersodayare luent n English; ecause f thesocialhistoryof the highlandand islandareas f Scotland,whereScotsGaelic s spoken,writing is usuallyassociated ith English.
Variousspoken ialects re ound hroughout he Arabic-speakingrea) ut writ-ing is done n a differentdialectknown as StandardArabic.StandardArabicmusrbe earned n schoolandgenerallys not mutually ntelligiblewith spokendialects.Although t is quitepossibleo write down a text in a spokenArabicdialect, his srurelydone.By the same oken,althoughStandardArabic may be readaloud, t israre o speak he written dialectextemporaneouslyor any engthof time.
Literacy,or theability o readand write, variesagreatdeal n differentsocieties.In technological ocieties, riting is so much a part of life that being lliterate sconsidered serious andicap.n manypartsof the world, however, iteracyplayslittle part in everyd y life.
At times, iteracyhashad a special ignificance.or example,mediavalEnglandhad special cclesiasticalourts or clergy. n the early Middle Ages, iteracywasalmost entirely imited to priestsand monks,and thus readingwas a simple estto distinguishhose o be tried in the ecclesiasticalourts rom those o be tried inthe civil courts. n time, any literatepersonwas legallydeemed o be a clericandcould claim this so-calledbenefitof clergy' o be tried in the ecclesiasticalourts.This distinctionhad significant onsequencesor the offenderas the ecclesiasticalcourts endedo bemore enient;or example,heyhadno capitalpunishment. hus,by being iterateone couldavoid execution a clearsociolinguisticenefit.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 27/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 28/340
2 TheoreticalPreliminaries
This chapter ntroduces certainamountof theoretical erminologyaboutwritingwhich s necessaryo getus started.As we discuss achwriting systemn detail,we
will add further ermsas hey becomeelevant.Linguists raditionallyusedifferent onventionso indicatedifferentkindsof lin-
guistic ranscriptions. or example,we might mention he word toque tuk/ 'a knithat, especiallyn Canada'.The useof italicsshows hat we are talking about theword as such; n this situation,we use he ordinary spellingof a word. Phonemictranscriptions re raditionallyenclosedn slant ines: tuk/. A gloss, r shortdefini-tion, is pu t in singlequotationmarks.We useangledbracketso talk specificallyaboutgraphemes:.g., in English, he sound k/ is sometimes ritten as <que> nwords borrowed rom French',or 'in toque, he vowel u/ hasan unusualspellingof <o>'. Although we do not have much occasion o usephonetic ranscriptionsshowingallophonesn this book, they areplaced n squarebrackets:thuk].
2.7 InternalStructure
2.7.1 Arcangement f symbok
All writing has an underlying linear organization: that is, symbols follow each other
in some sort of predictable order. English is written in horizontal lines of symbols
from left to right with the lines ordered from top to bottom.'Sfe are so accustomed
to this arrangement that we may think that it is universal. In the course of this
book, however, we will see several other arrangements.Hebrew and Arabic are
written in horizontal lines from right to left. Chinesewas traditionally written vertic-
ally in columns starting at the upper right. Mongolian is written vertically in columns
starting at the upper left.
Even though all writing systems have an overall linear organization, we often
encounter non-linear elements n writing. In Arabic, for example,writing is writtenin horizontal lines from right to left; however, this description appliesonly to con-
sonants and long vowels. Short vowels are normally not written in Arabic; if they
are written, they are written as symbols above or below the phonologically preced-
ing consonant. In the Arabic example in table 2.t,the writing on the left shows the
word lmalikl'king'written without vowels. Vertical linesare usedhere o divide the
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 29/340
1 0 Theoretical P eliminaries
Table 2.1 Non-linear elements of Arabic writing; the
example is /malik/'king'. Consonant division is shown
on the left. On the right, the short vowels are written as
diacritics: <a> above. and <i> below the consonants
<mlk> <malik>
k l m
consonants rom eachother. The writing is right-to-left. In the example on the right,the short vowels are indicated: <a> by an angled ine above the <m>, and <i> by an
angled line below the <l>.
2.7.2 Graphetnes nd allographs
Since the mid-twentieth century, linguistics has had theoretical terms such asphoneme, phonetic, allophone, morphemic, allomorph, etc. In general, linguists
posit an -emic level of more abstract, contrastive units (e.g.,phoneme, morpheme)
which are realized as contextually determined variants on a more concrete -etic
level; e.g., allophone, allomorpb. (Appendix A has a discussionof these basic lin-guistic terms.)\U7edefine grapheme as a contrastive unit in a writing system,parallel to phoneme
or morpheme. For example, there is a grapheme <b> in English which contrasts withother graphemessuch as <p t a I r x>. The collection of graphemes or segmentalunitsin English, i.e., for consonants and vowels, is traditionally known as the English
alphabet. Non-segmental graphemes or punctuation, numbers,wordspace, etc. arenot usually consideredpart of an alphabet. Linguists have emphasized hat the crucialnature of a phoneme lies in the fact that it is different from the other phonemes.
In the same way, each grapheme in a language is different from the others; eachgrapheme
contrasts with the other graphemes. For example, the graphemic unit inChinese s the character;each Chinesecharactercontrastswith the other charactersjust as the letters of an alphabet contrast with each other. Note that this definition
of grapheme refers to writing, and not overtly to language. \7e will want to explore
the relationship of graphemes o language,bu t that is a separate ask. I will reserve
the term symbol as a general term for a graphic mark used in writing, which makesno statementabout the structural significanceof the mark. In the same way, I will
use the term script as a general term for awriting systemwithout any further comment
about its structural nature.
Phonemesare classesof allophones, which are non-contrastive variants occur-
ring in complementary distribution or in free variation. In much the same fashion,graphemes are classesof allographs. The nature of allographic variation and its
conditioning factors is more complicated for graphemes han for phonemes.
. l l
. ' | | a
ly/\tv
a
k l mi
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 30/340
Theoretical Preliminaries 1 1
/L,/ ,t /LFigure2.1 Allographicvariation n Roman handwriting
A grapheme often has a good deal of allographic variation related to style ofhandwriting or printing.
.Wecan often speakof classes f allographs.For example,
we can distinguish cursive and printed letters as classes f allographs. \il7ealso dis-tinguish upper-caseand lower-case etters. In printed English, we distinguish differenttypefaces,such as Palatino, Times, Helvetica, etc., as well as certain style variations
such as roman, italic, and bold. These classesoften overlap so that, for example,
we can speak of an italic, upper-caseHelvetica <q> - O. The allograph categoriesmentioned here do not exhaust the possibilities; fo r examples, n figure 2."1., wocommon allographs of lower-casehandwritten <r> are given, as well as two allo-
graphs of lower-casehandwritten <r>.In some cases he use of an allographic category is determined by the internal
rules of the writing system. n English,we capitalize the first letter of the first wordof a sentenceand the first letter of a proper name. To some degree,upper-caseandlower-case etters are in complementary distribution: we have, for example,Toronto
and not otoronTo; the two allographsof <t> are in complementary distribution here.On further examination, however, the situation is not quite so straightforward, sincewe occasionally write using only upper-case etters - TORONTO. Note that theuse of upper-case etters is not without communicative significance tself; in e-mailcommunications, writing everything in upper-case ettershas beencompared to shout-
ing. Proper names are sometimes spelled with unusual capitalization: MacDonald,deForest, k. d. lang, PostScript, ffrench.
Becausewriting is much more varied in its structure than speech,and also becauseit is a more conscious rocess,Daniels(1.991,1,994; eealsoHerrick 1994a,1994b)has argued that a graphemic analysis of writing is impossible. His objections areessentially hat the term'grapheme' has not been definedcarefully, and that writing,being a conscious phenomenon, is fundamentally different from language, whichis unconscious. However, I believe hat we can define and use our terms carefully.Further, the fact that the data of languageand writing are different in nature doesnot preclude our using a similar theoretical framework. \$7euse he samemathematics
for counting orangesand for calculating taxes, and orangesand taxes are certainlyas different from each other as are writing and language.
2.7.3 Freeand boundgraphemes
A free grapheme s one which occurs independently. In English cat, for example, eachof the graphemeS(c), <a>, and <t> is a [ree grapheme since eachoccurs freely inother contexts. Diacritics are bound graphemeswhich occur only in combinationwith other graphemes. n French, or example, there are diacritics suchas <'> whichoccur only with other graphemes,specificallywith the vowels <a> and <e>: <a b> .
Such a combination of a free grapheme and a bound grapheme, as <i>, can beconsidereda complex symbol.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 31/340
t 2 T heoretical Preliminaries
Table2.2 The positionof diacritics o write differentvowels n Sanskrit.They occur after,before,below,and above he consonant ymbol
<k> 4 <ka> zFT
<ku> T
<ki> fu
<ke> h
Table2.3 The non-ligaturedand ligatured orms of<fi> and <fl> in Times ypeface
Non-ligatured Ligatured
In the Indian scripts, consonantsare written from left to right. Somevowels are
written after the consonant in this horizontal order as we might expect. Others,
however, are written before, below, or above the consonant that they follow in
pronunciation.
In the Sanskrit examples in table 2.2, the consonant <k> zF is a free grapheme
since t occurs by itself. The vowels <a i u e>TT- '
are diacritics(bound
allographs)since they occur only with a consonant^symbol a different allograph is used when
the vowel occurs alone). The forms zF'IzFzFzFare complex symbols.
2.7.4 Ligatures
Ligatures are symbols where two graphemesare joined and written as one unit. For
asthetic reasons, n printing the Roman alphabet, the sequences fi> and <fl> are
frequently printed as the ligaturesshown in table 2.3. This type of combination has
no structural significance or the writing system.English readersare generallyunaware
of thisprinting
convention, and consider the ligature <fi> simply to represent<f>
followed by .it. We will call this type of ligature a non-structural ligature.
Danish, on the other hand, has a ligature <a> which is clearly formed by join-
ing <a> and <e>. In Danish <&> is considered to be a separate grapheme and
is alphabetized after <z>.'W'e
will call this type of ligature a structural ligature.
Structural ligatures are treated by the writing system as a single grapheme whereas
non-structural ligaturesare treated as a sequenceof two graphemes.The treatment
as a single grapheme often shows up in the alphabetic ordering.
In older Danish, <?a), representing the vowel ltl, formed a quasi-ligature; that
is, the sequenceacted like a ligature even though the individual letters were not
physically joined.Like <r>,<aa) was alphabetized as a unit and placed after <z>(but before <r>). In modern Danish, 1da) has beenreplacedby a complex symbol
<6> although the spelling <aa> is still found in many Danish proper names,such as
fifl
fifl
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 32/340
TheoreticalPreliminaries 13
Kierkegaard. panish as raditionallyconsidered ch>and <ll> asquasi-ligatures,alphabetizinghem as though hey were ndividual e tters; n the 1990s herewasan official decision o consider<ch> and <ll> in Spanish s simplesequencesfsingle etters o facilitate heir use n computers.As a result, he alphabeticordering
in olderSpanish ictionaries ill differ from that in futureones.Notice that a quasi-ligatures different rom a sequence f letters n that it is
treatedas a singlegrapheme. he sequence ea> n English s a common way towrite the vowel il (e.g.,heat, eague), ut it is merelya sequencef letters,not aquasi-ligature,ince tructurallyt issimply he etter<e> ollowedby the etter<a>.There s nothing in the writing system, uch as alphabeticordering, that treatsleal as a singleunit. In traditional Spanish,ll t is a quasi-ligature ince t is con-sidered separate rapheme s evidenced y its alphabetic rdering; or example,the sequencella>would be orderedafter <lu>.
2.2 Relationship o Language
A primary consideration for us is to determine what linguistic level graphemes
represent. n the Roman alphabet, the letters are related to some level of the phon-
ology; however, the numerals <L, 2, 3, etc. are all related o morphemes.Al l writing
systemsseem to have some variation as to the linguistic level involved, bu t we
can often usefully speak of the level of language which is primarily related to thegraphemesof a writing system.
2.2.7 Phonographicutriting systeftrs
In a phonemic writing system, that is , one in which the symbols of the writing
systemare primarily related to the phonemesof a language,we might expect thatthere would be a regular one-to-one relationship betweengrapheme and phoneme.
Interestingly, there do not seem to be any such systems n the strict sense. n
some languages,such as Spanish, he relationship of the graphemesand phonemes
approaches a one-to-one relationship. In Spanish, for example, /sombrero/ 'hat'
is written <sombrero> with a one-to-one relationship between phonemes andgraphemes.However, this simple relationship in Spanishbreaks down: somewords
are spelledwith <h>, bu t this letter corresponds o no sound in the language:e.g.,hora loral 'hour'. Also, the sound /b/ is written both as <b> and as <v>: e.g., uiuir,
beber /bibir, beber/'live,
drink'. To write these words in Spanish, we must know
which morpheme we are writing; the phonological information alone is not enough.The amount of morphological information required to write Spanish s not great,
bu t it does exist.
English writing, on the other hand, requires a great deal of morphologicalinformation. Very frequently in English,words which sound alike are written differ-
ently: you, ewe, !€w, U-turn. The sequence<oo> is commonly used to write two
different vowels: e.g., ul food, booth, boot, smooch, bloom, naose, drool, loop -
lul look, good, soot, wool. To write English, we need quite a lo t of morphologicalinformation.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 33/340
14 TbeoreticalPreliminaries
From these wo examples, e see hat there s no such hing as a pure phonemic
writing system. ndeed, here is considerable ariation within phonemicwriting
systems s o the amountof morphologicalnformation equired.We can think of
phonemicwriting systems rranged longa continuum,with Spanish earoneend,
requiring ather ittle morphologicalnformation,and Englishnear he otherend,
requiringquite a lot. The writing system or Germanmight be near the middle;
mostGermanspellings predictablerom the phonology,but a certainamountof
morphologicalnformation s required.The segmentalconsonant nd vowel) symbolsof a phonemicwriting systemare
traditionallycalled etters,and he nventoryof theseetters s calledan alphabet. (e
will continue o use hese erms,but readershouldkeep wo things n mind. One, n
using he term alphabet,we are ikely to forget he non-segmentalraphemes,uch
aspunctuationmarks,numerals,word boundaryspace. econd, ur culturalheritage
in having earned o write with theRomanalphabetends o mislead s nto under-
estimating he role of morphological nformation, especiallyn writing English.
Alphabetsare hemostcommon ype of writing systemn use n the world today.rilTidely sedalphabets odayareRoman, Greek,and Cyrillic, as well as Georgian,
Armenian,Ethiopic,Mongolian, and otherswhich will be mentionedater n the
book.The Arabic,Hebrew,and ndianwriting systems resimilar o alphabets, ut
they are structurally omewhat ifferentand will be discussedater.
In moraicwriting systems,raphemesrebasicallyelated o mora. A mora s a
phonological ni t intermediate etween phoneme nd a syllable.'!7e an hink of
a syllable onsisting f an onset, ucleus, ndcoda,while amoraconsists itherof an
onset-nucleus equence r the coda.Thus, cut consists ftwo mor€: lktl and tl.
Japaneseana,Cherokee, ndCree-lnuktitutareexamples f moraicwriting systems.
In moraicsystems, symbol epresentingn onset-nucleusombinationwould be a
polyphone.n bookson writing systems, e frequently ee he erm'syllabicwriting
system'wheregraphemesresaid o relate o syllables. s Poser 1992)haspointed
out, these ystems eem o relatenot to syllables, ut to mor&. In general, ou can
translate he term syllabic'of other bookson writing to 'moraic'as t is usedhere.
The only clearexample, nown to me, of a syllabicwriting systems theone or the
Yi language poken n China(chapter14).Note that, in an alphabetic ystem, ut
would be written with threegraphemes;n a moraic system,with two; and in a
syllabic ystem,with onegrapheme.Phonemic,moraic,and syllabicwriting systems reall termedphonographic, nd
their symbols rephonograms.
2.2.2 Morphographic utriting syste?ns
When we get to Chinese n chapter 3, we will meet a writing systemwhere the
primary relationship f graphemess to morphemes. ucha system an be called
morphographic,and thosegraphemes an be termedmorphograms.Other authors
on writing describe raphemess elated o words, ather han o morphemes,ften
using he term ogogram. am unawareof systems here heprimary relationship
of graphemess to words, as opposed o morphemes. ccordingly, will use he
termsmorpltogramandmorpltographichere.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 34/340
Theoretical Preliminaries 15
Sfe have a few morphograms in English; for example, the dollar sign <$> repres-
ents the morpheme dollar. Similarly the numerals <1 2 3> represent he morphemes
one, tLUo, hree.
Sampson (1985) described the hankul writing system of Korean as an example
of featural writing. He argues hat symbols n bankul relate o phonological featuresin Korean such as [velar], [aspirated],etc..S7ewill evaluate his notion more closely
when we look at Korean writ ing in chapter4,and again in chapter "1.4.For now,just note that Korean hankul seems o be the only candidate for such a relationship
and that Sampson'sclaim is tenuous.
2.2.3 Non-segmental raphemicelements
Apart from segmental consonantsand vowels) or morphological information, writing
often indicatescertain things which are not necessarilypresent n speech. n language,
many boundaries are phonologically unmarked, e.g., word or phrase boundaries;in writing, however, boundaries are commonly marked by special punctuation
graphemes.The use of punctuation graphemesvaries widely from language o lan-
guage. Even for a language such as English, the use of punctuation is not nearly
so standardizedas spelling. Further, punctuation graphemesare often used n more
than one w?y, such as the period to mark an abbreviation or to mark the end of a
sentence.
In most alphabetic writing, w€ have a short blank space, the word boundarygrapheme, inserted between al l words. This is such a strong rule with us that we
are usually astounded to see an early written text of Latin or Greek where word
boundaries were regularly unmarked, with words written next to each other with-out breaks.
In Tibetan, syllable boundaries are indicated with a raiseddot placed betweenal l
syllables.The dot here is a punctuation grapheme.In Chinese,syllable boundaries are
marked by character separation. Korean hankul is arranged in syllable-sizedunits.
Phrases n English are sometimesseparatedby a comma, but other phrasesare
unmarked. Sentencesn English are doubly marked: the first letter of the first word
is capitalized, and a period, question mark, or exclamation mark is placed at the
end. Spanish uses nverted question marks and exclamation marks at the beginning
of a sentence n addition to the regular ones at the end. Traditionally, Chinesedid
not mark phrase or sentenceboundaries, bu t in recent times, it has borrowed someEuropean punctuation graphemes.
Paragraphs are usually marked in English either by indenting the first word of
the paragraph a bit to the right or by inserting extra spacebetween he paragraphs.
In languageswritten from right to left, the indentation is to the left.
The structure of a page communicates much of how we understand a text(Mountford 1990). Material at the top written in larger type, often centred, is
usually a title. A number in the upper or lower (occasionally he outer) margin is apage number (note how odd it would be to have the page number in the middle
of the inside margin). A small raised number in the text is a footnote reference.At
the beginning of a book, a list of terms followed by numbers is likely a table ofcontents;at the end of a book, a list of terms followed by numbers s likely an index.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 35/340
15 Tbeoretical Preliminaries
The table of contents and the index are sometimes abeled as such, but evenwithout
the labels, we recognizethem by their position in the book. Correspondence has a
fairly fixed format: date, salutation, text, closing signature. Letters in French used to
start halfway down the page. n German letters, he salutation ends n an exclama-
tion mark; in English,a comma or colon is used, with a sociolinguisticdifferenceof
formality.
Different stylesof type often signal how the text is to be understood; for example,
italics normally indicate something special about the text: a title, a cited form, a
special erm, etc. In newspaperheadlines,however, italics are often used simply to
help distinguish one article from others on the samepage.
2.2.4 Unit discrQancies
A unit discrepancynvolvesa differencen thenumberof units n a specificinguistic-
graphemicelationship morephonemeshangraphemes,r viceversa.A polygraph
is a sequencef graphemes hich represents linguisticunit normally epresented
by a singlesymbol; ypicalll, in an alphabet,a polygraphconsists f two letters
which represent singlephoneme. n English, he sequence sh> s a polygraph
since t representshe singlephoneme l; we might alsocall it a digraph,a special
caseof polygraphy,consisting f on ly two graphemes.n Frenchchaque'each',<ch>and<que>are bothpolygraphs ince heyeach epresent single honeme:/and /k/, respectively.
In English, he polygraph<sh> s not a quasi-ligature ince t is not considered
to be the equivalent f a single etter;<sh> s alphabetizedetween sg>and <si>
as we would expect or a sequencef <s> ollowedby .hr. In traditionalSpanish,
however,<ch> s a quasi-ligaturend not a digraphsince t is consideredo be the
equivalentof a singlegrapheme nd not a sequencef graphemes, s shownby its
alphabetic rdering.A polyphone s a singlegrapheme sed o represent sequencef two (or more)
phonemes.n English,hegrapheme x> s a polyphonewhen t is used o represent
the wo phonemesks/. In alphabetic riting,polyphones re elatively ncommon;
in moraicsystems,olyphones re he norm.
2.2.5 Contrastiue discrqancies\[ith contrastivediscrepancies, istinctive contrastswhich exist in languageare not
represented n writing, or the contrasts of writing do not exist in language, .e.,
phonological distinctions are neutralized graphemically - homography, or graphemic
distinctions are neutralized phonemically - homophony.
English provides abundant examples of both of these situations.There are cases
of (heterographic) homophony (different written form - same sound) as in seem,
seam, cede, siegewhere <ee,ea, e-e, ie> are a\l ways of spelling the single phoneme
lil. Conversely, there are casesof (heterophonic) homography (different sound -
same written form) as in read which can bepronounced either as lidl or as lrcdl;
similarly, the graphemic sequence<ough> has a variety of pronunciations as shown
by the examples tough, though, through.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 36/340
Theoretical Preliminaries 17
Sometimeshe relationshipbetweenphonemesand graphemes an be quitecomplex.Consider he English equenceth>.Usually t is a digraph;however,hisdigraph regularly represents ifferentphonemes:0/, 16l or ltl, as in ether, either,or thyme.Thus,<th> s a homographic igraphwhich heterophonicallyepresents
lgl, 16l,or ltl. In foothil/s, however, he spelling<th> is not a digraph,but simplya sequencef graphemesach epresentingifferentphonemes,tl and hl.ln thesecases,he elationship f <th>and hephonology re exically onditioned. lthoughEnglish s often citedas havinga particularlycomplexspellingsystem, omecon-trastivediscrepancyrom a one-to-one honemic-graphemic ituation s normaland is found n all writing systems.
2.3 Diglossia
Diglossia s a sociolinguistic ituation n which two verydifferentvarietiesof a lan-guage re both used n a society,but in differentsituations.Typically,one s used nmore ormalor literarysituations uchas ormalwriting, universityectures, ndnewsbroadcasts,nd s learned nd encouragedn school.The other s used n conversa-tion, informal elevision ituations,olk literature, tc.,and s preferred t home.
In the German-speakingreasof Switzerland, oth StandardGermanand localvarieties f Germanknown as SwissGermanare used; hey are differentenoughfrom eachother not to be mutually intelligible.Writing is almost always donein StandardGerman.StandardGerman s alsoused or formal speaking ituations.Ordinary conversation, owever, s normally in SwissGerman.For example,a
universitycourseusesa textbook n StandardGerman,and lecturesare given nStandardGerman;discussion fterclass etweenheprofessor nd students, owever,would be n SwissGerman.
Arabic sanotherexample f a language ith diglossia.We havementionedn theprevious hapter hat an Arabicspeaker ormallyuses nedialect or speaking ndanother or writing.ModernGreekand heDravidian anguageslsoshowdiglossia.
The term 'diglossia'is usuallyreserved or quite distinct versionsof the samelanguage. owever,other related ariationsoccur. n English, here s not a sharpdivision betweenwritten and spokenEnglish. forgot to put on my watch thismorningseemso beappropriaten anystyleof discourse, rit ten or spoken.How-
ever,wordssuchas est,pursudnt,or uouchsafe remuchmore ikely to be found inwritten English,or in English eadaloud from a written text. Formssuchas sn't,Aren't,would'uearenormal,almost equired,n spokenEnglish. n written English,theyareregularlywritten as wo words.
In many situations,diglossianvolvesdilfercnt anguages. flehave aheadymen-tioned he ScotsGaelicsituationwherenativespeakers f ScotsGaelicare ikely towrite in English ather han in Gaelic. n mediavalwesternEurope, t wasnormalto write in Latin, no matter what languagehe writer normally spoke. n manyareas f the world today, hecolonialhistory s such hat writing is normallydonein French,Spanish, r English, ather han in the native anguage.We can refer o
suchsituations sbilingualdiglossia. ote that diglossia, ilingualor not, doesnotnecessarilynvolvewriting, although t commonlydoes.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 37/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 38/340
TheoreticalPreliminaries
In he following xamples, losseachwordyougiveas an answer, hat s, defineit briefly not an elaborate efinition,ust enough or someone lse o be surewhichwordyou mean:e.9.,stand'be upright'.Use singlequotationmarks orgfosses.
Not using he examplesn the chapter,
(a) find anotherexampleof homographic omophony.(b) findanotherexampleof heterographicomophony.(c) findanotherexampleof heterographiceterophony.
How manydifferent owelsoundsare represented y the followingwords?come,cut, dome,oven, over,pull, put, puft.Find ourwordsexemplifyingifferentways hat he vowelsound n thewordpuf
is spefledn English. Meatand meefwould be examplesor a different owelsound.)Suppose hat n Englishwritingeachsoundwerealwaysspelled he sameway(no examples ike cite-site). Would his make it easier or the reader? or thewriter?
Suppose hat in Englishwritingeach morpheme ad a distinctspelling noexamples ike well 'not sick'-well 'hole for gettingwater'). Would this make iteasier or the reader? or the writer?What s the statusof the ligature e> in the Englishword esthetic?Frenchwrites he vowel sl with he symbol<e>. This symbol s alphabetized
after<od>and before<of>. Describets nature.ln Canadian nglish,he costof an itemworth412penniess written s $4.12;in CanadianFrench, he same tem n the same currencys valuedat 4.12$or4,12$.Comparehe relationshipf thesymbol<$> o the inguisticermdollaroteach anguage.s therea structural ifference etween<,> and <.>?Can you thinkof an Englishword hat you can pronounce, ut whichdoes nothavea standard pelling? Hint: hinkof exclamations.)In comicstrips, he wordsays s occasionallypelled<sez>.Does his spellingrepresent pronunciationifferentrom that of StandardEnglish?What socio-linguisticnformation oes his spelling ive o the reader?
1 9
67
1 0
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 39/340
3 Chinese
3.1 Background,History, and Sociolinguistics
Chineses spokenby overa billionpeople n the People's epublic f China(PRC),
T6iwan, Singapore, nd othercommunities round he world. EthnicChinese eo-
ple are known as Hin ;F, after the Hin dynasty.Within China, thereare some
fifty-fiveotherethnicgroups,most of whom speakother anguages.
The Chineseanguage elongso the Sino-Tibetanamily, which has wo maior
sub-families: hinese nd Tibeto-Burman. ote particularly hat Chineses not
geneticallyelated o Japaneser Koreanalthough heseanguages aveborrowed
Chinese haracters spartof theirwriting systems.he combining orm sino-, rom
the GreekStnai,occursn a few learnedwordsrelating o China:sinology,si.nologist,
sinoph le, sinitic, SinoKorean, S no Japane e, S noV
etntmese, Sino Canadian.Today, there are sevenmajor dialectgroups n China (figure3.1): Northern
or Mandarin Jbnn ? (a large areaof the north and west ncludingBdijing),
W( R (Shinghii and Zhdjleng),Min Psl Ffjiin andTdiwan),Hakka or KEjiaE+(variouscommunitiesn the south),Yud S ot CantoneseGuingdOng nd Hong
Kong), Xiang i;[n Hrin6n),and Gin # (Jiangxi).Although nativeTaiwaneses
a Min dialect, he majority of people n T6iwan speakMandarin as their native
language. here s generallymore dialectvariation n the southof China than in
the north. Cantonese,n particular, s spokenby manypeopleof Chinese ncestry
living abroad.
Spoken ialectsn Chinaare oftenquitedifferent rom eachother.For example,Cantonesend Mandarin arenot mutually ntelligible;but, aswe will see, ll Chinese
is written the sameway, essentially singa Mandarin dialect, egardless f which
dialect hewriter speaks.Movies n Chinese ftenhavesubtitlesn Chinese haracters
to assist iewerswho speakdialects ther han the oneused n the film.
Somedebateexistsas o whetherChineses one anguagewith several ialects,
or several losely elated anguages. inguistsgenerally onsider t to be several
languages. he Chinese hemselvesenerally onsider t to be one languagewith
several ialects. he latterview agrees ith the fact hat the Chinese eoplegener-
ally feel hat theyshare he same ulture andwritten language ven hough hereare
considerable ifferencesn speech.n this book, I will take he one-languageiew,not really o disagree ith my linguisticcolleagues,ut becauset corresponds
straightforwardlywith the unifiedwriting of Chinese.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 40/340
Cbinese
Figure 3.1 Map of China showing major dialect areas of Chinese.The Kdiia (Hakka)people do not form a contiguous group but are scattered among the neighbouring dialect
groups. Non-Chinese languagesare shown in parentheses
In thischapter,Chinesewords are ranscribednptnyln, the standard omanizationof Chinese ased n the Mandarin pronunciation.OccasionallyPA transcriptionsare usedwhere phoneticdetail is needed.Ptnytnand Mandarin are explainedin more detail below.Further, he traditional formsof characters avebeenusedexcept where simplified characters re specificallymentioned; his difference sexplainedn $3.7.
3.7.7 The languageof u)ritten Chinese
Sinologistscommonly divide the Chinese anguage nto three periods: Old Chinese
1100 to 100 oLD, Middle ChineseL00 oro to 600 NE\xz,nd Mandarin 500 Nrw
to present.Although the spoken Chinese anguage has always been changing, as al l
languagesdo, the written form of the late Old Chineseperiod becameaccepted
as the standard written dialect and changed very limle unti l the beginning of the
twentieth century. This written dialect of the language s known as wdnydn X€'literary language', generally rcfened to as Classical Chinese in English, and it was
used as the normal dialect for writ ing unti l the twentieth century. Thus, in thenineteenth century, Chinesespeakersspoke a nineteenth-century ocal dialect, but
2 l
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 41/340
22 Chinese
when writing, they usedClassicalChinese.By this time, the spokenand written
forms had divergedwidely,and written Chinesewas not understandable ithout
considerableducation. esides lassical hinese,herewas a much smallerand
less espectedradition of vernacularwritten Chinese,ating o theTdngand Sdng
dynasties,nown asbdihui A et 'plain speech', ftenused n popularstories.
Early n the twentiethcentury,a movementgained orce o usemodernspoken
Chinese s he written form. Bdihud ormed he basis or this new form of written
Chinese. oday,writing is done n Modern StandardChinese, dialect lose o the
Mandarin dialectspoken n BEijing.This standard orm of Chineses used or all
writtenChinese, o matterwhat dialect s spoken.n thePRC, his standardorm is
known aspiltonghud &e6'commonspeech', nd n T6iwan, t is referred o as
gu1yil El-#'national language'. he term hdnyil ]'FF*
Chineselanguage's also
sometimes sed or Modern StandardChinese, articularly n academic riting.
Until the twentiethcentury, o be iteratewasto be able o readClassicalChinese.
Thus,a literatepersonhad accesso almostall of Chineseiterature panningmany
centuries.Modern written Chinese, owever,squitedifferent rom Classical hinese.
Literatepeople oday cannotreadClassicalChinesewithout special ducation.As
a result, hey are typically cut of f from immediateaccesso traditional Chinese
literature,ndeed o most materialwritten before he twentiethcentury.
When writing was done n ClassicalChinese,he situationwas diglossicor al l
l iterateChinese peakers.Writing was n Classical hinese, ut speaking as n
the local dialect.Today, for Mandarin speakers,he written form of the language
is quite similar o the one they use n speaking, nd thus no longerdiglossic.For
non-Mandarinspeakers, owever, he difference etweenhe spokenand writtenlanguage emainsdiglossic.People iving in Canton, or example,useCantonese
for speaking, ut for writing, theyhave o learna differentdialect.Note that the
diglossic ituation of traditional Chineses somewhatdifferent rom that of Arabic
or Greek n that the standard orms of Arabic and Greekare the normal spoken
forms n certaincontexts,but ClassicalChinesewasnot normally spoken,except n
readinga classicalext aloud.Diglossia n Chinawas betweenwriting andspeaking,
not between wo forms of the spoken anguage. iteracy n China was relatively
widespread, ut undoubtedlymuch morecommon n thewealthierclasses,ndvery
rare amongpeasants.
To illustrate hesedifferences,onsiderhe written sentence
His
home s not inAmerica'in table3.L (Voegelin ndVoegelin1,964). Mandarin speaker,eading
this sentence loud from thewritten text, would pronounce his as tade ie bi zdi
m6igu6/.This sameMandarinspeaker,alkingto a friend ater n the daywithout the
paper,would say he same hing.By contrast,a Cantonesepeakerrom Hong Kong
would read his sentence loud from the paperas tidik gi bit joi m6igwok/; his is
a conventional haracter-by-characterronunciation n Cantonese f the written
sentence. n theotherhand, hesameCantonesepeakerwould render his sentencequitedifferently n ordinaryspeech, omethingike /k6uih 1[kkei hai mdigwok/.
From the Cantoneseerspectiye,pokenCantoneses not usuallywritten down,
at least n formal contexts,although t may appear n advertising, artoons, rsituationswhere the intention s to emphasize Cantonese ording. Sometimes
there s a characterraditionallyused o showa Cantonese orpheme, ut often
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 42/340
Chinese
Table 3.1 The written and spoken forms of'His
home is not in
America'. The Mandarin is transcribedinplnytn, and the Cantonese n
the Yale Cantonese romanization
23
Fhome
t&-,he
6tposs
4 & * Enot at o'"":'TL.,if,J""
Mandarin - reading pronunciation
Mandarin - ordinary spoken
Cantonese - reading pronunciation
Cantonese - ordinary spoken
Itade ia bi zdi mdigu6/Itade1iabd zii mdigu6//tedik gi bit joi m6igwok//k6uih gukkei hai m6igwok/
there is not (cf. S3.4.9). Even for colloquial Mandarin, there is occasionally aword for which no standard character exists. By the same token, written Chinese,
when read aloud in the conventional Cantonese eading pronunciation, may not be
intelligible to a Cantonesespeaker who is not well acquainted with the Cantonese
conventions of reading written Chinese aloud.
Note that there is no social distinction involved here. In the Cantonese-speaking
area, Cantonese s not regarded as socially inferior to Mandarin. In Hong Kong,
university lectures n Chinese iterature or history, for example, are typically given in
Cantonese, but essaysand examinations are written in Modern Standard Chinese.
\Tithin the PRC, spoken piltonghud (i.e., Mandarin) has been ntroduced in the
school curriculum throughout the country. Possiblyover a period of time it mayreplaceother dialects.But so far, this has not been the case.For most people, local
dialects are valued, andpiltonghuD is most commonly used for official purposes, n
schools, and in speaking to outsiders. Even native speakersof piltanghud who move
to another dialect area often find it useful to learn at least some of that dialect.
3.7.2 Ciuil senice examinations'Writing
hasbeenstandardizedhroughoutChina or some2000 years.For sucha Iargeanddiverse ountry, his s quite emarkable. i Si +$.f , a primeminister n
the Qin dynasty 221-207oLD), attempted o unify the script;his effortswereeventually dopted, ut not until some imeafterhisdeath.Much of the explanationlies n the historyof China'scivil service ystem.Around 500 Nnw,duringthe Suidynasty, heemperorntroduced system f examinationso enter he civil service.Therewere hree evels:ocal,provincial,and mperial.Examinations ere igorousand focused ntirelyon the Confucian lassics. he standardizationn writing thatwe justmentioned rose rom the requirementhat theexaminations ewritten inClassicalChineseas well as n a particularstyle of calligraphy.
Favourableesultsn the .*"-inrtions ensured suciessful, nd often ucrative,career n the civil service.A candidatewho failedcould try again,and again.
One reason or instituting he systemwas to weaken he powerof the nobility byeliminatinga hereditary dministration. ny malesubjectwas eligible o write the
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 43/340
24 Chinese
examinations;he dentityof the authorwas kept secret o that the examinations
could bemarkedwithout favoritism.Nevertheless,espitehe apparentdemocracy,
at least or men, only wealthy familiesgenerallyhad the money o provide the
necessaryducationor theirsons o pass he examinations. he civil service ystem
was a fixtureof Chinese ocietyand asteduntil 1904.Thecivil servicewas mportantnot only for the formal establishmentf classical
writing, but also or the nformalestablishmentf a spokenquasi-standardialect
which civil servants sedamong hemselves.heycame rom all over the country
andwerenot permitted o work in their home areai his commondialectof Chinese
allowed hem to speakcomfortablywith eachother.The capitalof Chinamoved
in differentdynasties;n eachperiod he dialectof the currentcapitalcontributed
to this quasi-standardialectof the civil service.n later imes,with the capitalat
Bdijing, he Mandarindialectemergedmost stronglyas a commonspoken orm of
Chinesewithin the civil service.In Chinesean official is guan E, andguanhud Ei t 'official speech'was the
term for the form of spokenChinese sedby the civil service. he English ermfor
guan s mandarin from Sanskritmantrin'counsellor'via Portuguese ndMalay).
Mandarinwas usedas a term for theseofficialsand by extensiono the language
theyspoke.Mandarin,inaddition o referring o the anguage,s stillusedn English
today o refer o seniorgovernment fficials,as n 'Themandarins f Ottawarecently
dec i ded tha t . . . ' .Norman (1988)hasa helpful analogy or the traditionalChineseanguage itu-
ation. t is as f thepeopleof Portugal,Spain,France, taly, andRomaniaall spokelocaldialectsbut wrote in Latin, andgovernment fficialsspoke he ParisianFrench
dialectamongsthemselves.
3.2 Phonologyof Modern StandardChinese
In traditionalChineseinguistics,he syllablen Chinese asbeendivided nto threeparts: nitial, final, and tone.The initial consists f the initial consonant, nd the
final consists f everythingelse,except he tone.The final can be further dividedinto medial,vowel, and final consonant.All partsof thesyllableare optionalexcept
the vowel and tone. n a simplesyllablesuchas ln6ql btg', ln l is the initial, /aql
is the final, and 2l is the tone (thereare four tones n Modern StandardChinese,each epresented y a number);here, he initial is the sameas he onset,and the
final s the sameas he rhyme. n morecomplicated yllables,he Chinese ivisions
of the syllable o not always orrespond xactly o theusual inguisticunits or the
syllable, f onset, hyme,nucleus, ndcoda.Table3.2 shows he possibleMandarin initialsand finals; he phoneticpro-
nunciation s givenafter thepinyln transcriptionwhere t would not otherwisebe
obvious. or furtherdetails, eeStimson I975).
Chinese as exical oneswhich vary from dialect o dialect; hat is, differentpitch patternsdistinguishdifferentwords. rilfith stressed yllablesn Mandarin,
thereare our toneswhoseshapes re shown n figure3.2.Including one, herearesome1840possible yllable hapesn Mandarin;of these, nly about1359actually
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 44/340
Chinese
Table3.2 The Mandarin nitialsand finals.Transcriptions prnyin,with IPA used n
bracketso show he phonetic etailmoreclearly
25
Initials
p b t d c z l t s d z f c h z h l t s d a l q i l t p d z l k g
s sh [e] x [s] h ["]r [.r]
v til
Finals
e a ei ai ou ao en an eng ang er
i ie ia iu iao in ian ing iang
u (u)o ua ui uai un uan ong uang
ii iie tin iian iong
Table 3.3 Examples of the four Mandarin tones
Tone 1 (high evel) ma n6 'mother'
Tone 2 (rising) m6 !fr,'hemp'
Tone 3 (falling-rising) mi ,F? 'horse'
Tone 4 (falling) mi ,Ei 'scold'
Figure 3.2 The four Mandarin tone contours
occur TaylorandTaylor 19951.In omeunaccentedyllablesn polysyllabic ords,the tone s predictablerom the contextand is left unmarked.
Examples f words with four different onesare shown n table 3.3 with theirptnyln tonemarkings.
3.2.7 Romanization
As Chinese s written in characters,outsiders ind it extremelyhelpful to have a way
to indicate the pronunciation of Chinesewords in the Roman alphabet.A scheme o
representutterancesof other alphabetsor writing systems s known as a romanization.
Various romanizations for Chinesehave been nvented (table 3.4). For many years,the Wade-Giles systemwas commonplace. A different romanization known asgw6yil
fI
m nw
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 45/340
26 Chinese
Table 3.4 A comparison of different romanizations. IPA shows the phonetic
pronunciation; the tone in the IPA column is indicated as with pinytn tone marks
IPA Pinyin Yale Wade-Giles Gw6yi lu6mizi
papnatsu5tshu5
sjsig\
si
par
p'at
tso2
ts'02
hsit
hsi2
hsi3
hsia
ba
pa
tzwo
tswo
shi
shyi
shii
shih
lu6mdzineverachievedwidespread se,bu t it was interestingn representinghe
tone with letters:hus ma m6 mi mi / werewritten <mha,ma,maa,mah>.Today,ptnytn has become he official romanizationof the PRC and is widely used.The
Yalesystemwas similar o ptnylnand was used n a gooddealof teachingmaterialprior to the ntroductionof plnyln.Unfortunately, t present,he advanced tudentin Chineses likely to have o becomeamiliar with Ifade-Giles as well asptnytn
because f the argeamountof materialwhich uses oth romanvations.Note that
the Yale romanizationsor Mandarin and Cantonese renot the same hing.
3.3 Relationshipof Language nd Writing in Chinese
The relationshipbetween he Chineseanguageand the writing system s relat-
ively simple.There are many characterso learn,but the structuralrelationship
between haracters nd anguages not complex.The Chinese haracter i $ is agrapheme;.e.,a characters the fundamental ontrastive nit of writing in Chinese.In an utterance, achsyllable s representedy a character, nddifferentmorphemesarewritten with differentcharacters.
Writing an utterance n Chinese s quite straightforward.First, we divide the
utterancento syllables.n thegreatmajority of cases, achmorpheme orrespondsto one syllable.For eachsyllable,we write the characterwhich correspondso themorphemeof that syllable.
$7eneedmorphemic nformation sincemost syllable
shapesepresentmore han one morpheme. he uncommonbisyllabicmorphemes
have wo characters. hus, n our written text, therewill beonecharacteror each
syllable.Homophony s verycommon n Chinesewith mostsyllableshapes orresponding
to more han onemorpheme, ut differentmorphemes regenerallyepresentedn
writing by differentcharacters. or example,he syllable til is the soundof severaldifferentmorphemes, achwritten with a differentcharacter: trl ' ladder'ffi,
Iti l
'scrape'
h,l, ti l 'kick' frft.Thissituationsometimeseads o the writing of anincorrect,bu t homophonous, haracter.U7ritinghe wrong oneof these haractersis similar to writingtheir fo r there n English. f we want to write something or
bapadz6ts6sisisisi
bapazu6cu6xtxixixi
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 46/340
Chinese 27
which we have forgotten a character and do no t have a dictionary or other help
handy, we would have to rephrase he utterance to avoid this morpheme.
ReadingChinese s perhapsa bit more difficult than writing. From eachcharacter,
we know what morpheme is intended. The difficulty arises n that word divisions
are not marked in Chinese.Reading requires that we parse he text into words andsyntactic structures correctly. We must recognize he occasionalbisyllabic morpheme
and sort out the relatively few chancters which represent more than one morpheme,
such as 4i lxingl'walk'
and 4i lhdngl 'line, row'.
3.3.7 Wbat linguistic units do characters Qresent?
In reading bout he Chinese riting system, ne requently ets onfusingnformationaboutwhat unit in the language character epresents. oesa character zi S)represent word (c i c;l), a morpheme ci si l
-A*1,or a syllable yrnii6 + fiF ?To
sort this out, let's ook first at the language,eavingwriting aside or the moment.Although Chinesehasalmostno suffixesor prefixes, ompounding s extremelycommon,and words frequentlyconsistof more than one morpheme.Taylor andTaylor (1995)say hat approximatelywo-thirdsof all Chinesewords arepoly-morphemic.The mostcommonpattern s for a morpheme o consistof one syllable,but this snot necessarilyo.A smallproportionof morphemesn Chinese ave wosyllables; isyllabicmorphemes re particularlycommon n the names or animalsandplants.Thus, ookingonly at the anguage, e find that in Chinese,morphemesaregenerallymonosyllabic ut that words are commonlypolymorphemic.
ti l7hathen doesa character epresent?n table 3.5, we haveexamples f the
typicalsituation.One-syllable orphemesre llustrated y wd'l' andhdo'good'.Two examples f the ess ommonpatternof two-syllablemorphemes reshanhil'coral' andhildid butterfly'.Many of the words of this type are borrowings romother languages.Words with the common wo-morpheme ompoundpatternareillustrated y tidlit 'railway' (= tid'iron' + Iit 'road') andzidi,in'dictionary'F zi'character'+ didn standard').\7ecannow easily ee hat there s no regular elationin thenumberof syllables,morphemes, r words.But if we now look at how theseformsare written, we can see hat the numberof characters orrespondso the
Table 3.5 Different types of lexical items showing the different number of characters,syllables,morphemes, and words in each. Note that the only consistent agreement s
between the number of characters in an utterance and the number of syllables
Characters Syllables
+ +"frMorphemes
?51*
Words-a
wd
hdo
shAnhfi
hildi6
tidlilzidi,in
'l',*,
'good' +t'coral' Wrq'butterfly' **n*X'railway'
MW'dictionary'+4-
1,1,22
22
1122
22
1111
11
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 47/340
28 Chinese
numberof syllables, ut not to the numberof morphemes r words. n summary,
there s a general ule n Chinesehat everysyllablen the anguage orrespondso
one charactern writing.
A small exception o therule
that eachsyllables written with one character
involvesnominal forms ending n the suffix /-rl. This l-rl is a diminutive suffix,particularly ypical of colloquialspeech f the B6ijingdialect.This suffix does
not increasehe numberof syllables, ut it is written as a separateharacter L,which originally meant child'. Thus, lhuarl, the colloquial form of 'flower', has
only one syllable, ut is written with two characters.n the terminologydevelopedin chapter2, iAJL rsa polygraphsince he two graphemesepresent singlesyllable,
a unit normally represented y one charactern Chinese.n this usage, L is a
boundcharacterormingpart of the polygraph.A secondexception s the number 20' in Chinese.This number s /dr shi/
'(l iterally)
two tens'and s normallywritten with two characters+. There s,
however, single haracter li which s sometimessed or'20'. Thischaracters apolyphone ince t is onegrapheme sed o representwo syllables.
Many Chinesemorphemes avevery limited distribution.The word lplngyilul
nnR'friend' is a compound.The second lement y6ul is somewhat estrictedn
that it doesnot occur as a word by itself,but it doesoccur in other compounds
with othermorphemes, uchas y6uhio/'friendly'. The first syllable p6ng/ s even
more restricted:t doesnot occur n any othercontext,eitherasa word by itselfor
in a compoundwith othermorphemes. he morpheme plngl is what is known as
a cranberrymorpheme occurring n only one context, ike the cran- of English
cranbeny).As for writing, the generalChinese ule still applies.Everysyllables
written with one character.Accordingly f we ask a Chinese peaker o write
/p6ngydu, we getEflA without hesitation. f we thenask what the individualparts
mean, he answer or ly6ul is likely to be friend', but /p6ng/ s harder.There s
a readingpronunciation or p1nglwhich allowsus to talk about he character, ut
the meaning s hard to describe learlysince t neveroccursby itself.We
cancall
sucha grapheme cranberrygrapheme.Englishspeakers avea similar difficulty if
askedwhat the cran-of cranberrymeans.Many characters re ike this in Chinese;
they do not form wordsby themselves,nd theymay occur n only onecontext.
3.3.2 HomophonyHomophony (two or more different morphemes with the same sound) is a pro-
minent feature of modern Chinese.Old Chinesehad lesshomophony, bu t historical
changes n the phonology of Chinesehave neutralized the pronunciation of many
syllables which were different in earlier Chinese. The result today of the historic
changes n the language s that although Chinese has a great number of homophonic
morphemes, different morphemes are written differently, thus facilitating reading.
To give one example, he sevenmorphemes n table 3.6 are all pronounced /si/ in
modern Chinese,but they are all written with different characters. n Old Chinese,
however, six of thesewere pronounced differently; only the morphemes for
'stay'
and 'dawn' were homophonous - /osjuk/. The Old Chinesepronunciations follow
Baxter's(1992) reconstruction.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 48/340
Chinese
Table 3.6'Vflords
written differently, but pronounced the same in Modern
Standard Chinese
29
Character Meaning Modern Chinese Old Chinese
SU
SU
suS U
SU
susu
RtrGE\+,6$A/\r\
i*i
'millet'
'solemn'
'stay'
'dawn'
'white'
'tell'
'inform'
osiok
osjiwk
osjuk
osjuk
osaks
osgaks
osok
Taylor and Taylor (1995)note hat in modernChinese, f the 1359occurringsyllable hapes including one),eachsyllable hape s written by an average f!1 characters. hey note that 1,99 yllableshapes 14.5per cent)haveno homo-phony; .e., hey are written by only one character:€.9., he syllable hapebLilrepresents nly onemorpheme, amely he onemeaning white', which is written
6 . Thus,6 is the only characterwith thepronunciation b6il. On the otherhand,a few characters aveover 100 homophones: .g. ly\l,witten by 149 characters.Such iguresstem rom very largedictionaries, ut evena small dictionary orlearnersXudxfHdnyingCididn 1998) ists31 charactersor /yi/, each or a differentmorpheme.
Because f the considerable omophony n Chinese,t is possibleo composeentiresentences,r evenstories, sing he same yllable hape. he following story(table3.7) usingonly the Mandarinsyllable hape shi/ s an example.Note thatdifferencesf toneare gnored. Thisstory sgiven n TaylorandTaylor (1995),butit may havecome rom ChaoYuenrenwho used t in a lecture n Toronto in theearly1970s.)
3.4 Origin and Structureof ChineseCharacters
3.4.7 Eaily Chineseutriting
Aside from some early pottery marks which are difficult to interpret, the earliest
material which shows clear evidenceof writing is oracle-bone writing (Chin. jiigfw6n
W f X.), also known as shell-and-bonewriting. Oracle-bonewriting has been dated
to L200-1050 oro during the late Shangdynasty in the central eastarea of China.
Early inscriptions have been ound on bones,usually the shoulder-bladeof cattle, or
the plastron (undershell)of turt les. Thesewere used n making predict ionsabout
the future. The bone or shell was subjected o heat, and the resulting cracks were
interpreted.The questionand prophecy,and sometimes he outcome,were scratched
into the bone. Note that the character l- for /b[/ 'divination' was originally a
pictograph for two cracks.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 49/340
30 Chinese
Table 3.7 A story in which each syllable s pronounced /shi/
r tE*+, i6R ' t r t r f r ,
+A+{ff .tA t ft++€rFinfu + ft+€+rtudTFfr.F+€.ttr\€fi .ffi,L\int-+ifr 'ltk* ,4*,ft-+IfrtrtE.t6R*5€ IfrR, fifr fi "E E-& irt,K4*.++**,n,fr E*r, ' 6Rr6a*ft+Mn.AF+ i6inhfr.\frR t+EtrfrRafFfr.+"
shi shi shi shi shi shi, shi shr,shi shi shi shi.shi shi shi shf shi shi shi shi, shi shi,
shi shi shi shi shi.shi sh(, shi shi shi shi shi.shi shi shi shi shf shi, shi shi shi,shi shi shi shi shi shi.shi shi shi shi shfshi shi, shi shf shi.shi shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi shi shi,shi shi shi, shi shi shi shi shi shi shf shi shi.
shi shi, shi sh( shi shi shi shi shi shi shi shi shi.shi shi shi shi.
TranslationA poetnamedShi ived n a stonehouseand iked to eat ion flesh,andhe vowed o eat en of
them. He used o go to the market n search f lions, and one dayat ten o'clock,he chanced
to see en of them there.Shi killed the lions with arrows and picked up their bodies, arrying
them back o his stonehouse.His housewas drippingwith waterso he requestedhat his
servants roceed o dry it. Then he began o try to eat he bodiesof the ten ions. t was only
then he realised hat thesewere n fact ten lions made of stone.Try to explain he riddle.
Figure3.3 showsan inscribedortoiseplastrondatedca.7200-1180oro. The
text is actuallywritten twice n similar erms.Keightley 19891translatesheright-
handportionas: Crack-makingon chia-shenday2L), Ch'uehdivined "Fu Hao's
childbearingwill be good". The King, reading he crackssaid: "If it be a ting
day childbearing,t will begood. f i t be kengday childbearing,t will be extremely
auspicious."On the thirty-firstday,chia-yin day5L), shegavebirth. It was not
good. t wasa girl.' The ancientChinese ad a ten-dayweek, ncluding ing, keng,
andchia as days.Since he king did not specifically entiona chia day,hispredic-
tion is technically orrect.This text a lso ells us something bout he appreciation
of women n Shang ociety.Some4500 differentcharacters avebeen dentified n the oracle-boneexts;only
about1500 havebeen onnected ith characters f laterwriting. For thosewhich
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 50/340
Chinese
Figure3.3 An oracle-bonenscription(from'WayneSenner ed.),The Origins of Writing,figure6, p. 181.Lincoln,NE: University f NebraskaPress, 989.A 1989by Universityof NebraskaPress. eprintedwith permission)
later fell out of use, t is difficult to determine their meaning. Undoubtedly, some of
the characters hat disappeared representedproper names of people that dropped
out of use or place-names hat changed over time.
The structure of the Chinese writing system has not really changed since the
oracle-bone exts although the shapesof characterschangedover time. This change
in shape s a calligraphic evolution rather than a structural change.
3.4.2 Reconstructing he early pronunciation of Cbinese
An obvious question is how do we know how Chinesewas pronounced in the past.
If we examine the historical documents of English, we find that modern /haws/'house'was
written <hus> n Old Englishtimes.From this, we can make a reasonable
3 1
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 51/340
32 Chinese
guesshat it would havesounded omethingike [hus].For Chinese,he situation s
much moredifficult. !7e know that the character $ 'horse'is pronounced mil in
Mandarin oday,but f we ook at Old Chinese ocuments, e stillget,Ftroranolder
calligraphic ariant)with no additionalphonetic
evidence.o reconstruct lder
spoken ormsof Chinese, cholarsook at a varrctyof evidence. he moderndialectformscan be used o help n reconstruction. urther, hepronunciation f the arge
numberof Chinesewords borrowed nto Japanese, orean,and Vietnamese ftengivesushelp.Sometimes,e haveearlyChineseexts ranscribed honeticallyn other
scriptsrom centralAsiasuchasBrahmi,Uighur,and'Phags-pasee hapter L).
Considerable elp in reconstructinghe pronunciationof Chinese omes rom
certainChineseexts hemselves.omposed round1000 oro in Old Chineseimes,
the ShIiIngwas a collectionof rhyming poems.By examining he rhymes n the
Shtitng,we can determinehat two morphemes erepronounced he same or at
leastsimilarly). n the fifth centuryNEw,dictionariesof characterswere writtenwhich ndicatedhepronunciation t that time.Thepronunciationwas ndicated y
showing hat the initial of the syllablewas pronounced he sameas the initial of
anotherwell-known character nd the final waspronouncedhe sameas he final
of another.We might similarlyshow hepronunciation f theEnglishword tongue
by saying hat it has he initial of tie and the final of sung.Obviously his systemrequires nowing what the reference haracters ounded ike, but with a bit of a
startingpoint, scholarsind this informationenormously elpful.Duringthe Sdngdynasty 960-1127Nrw), rhyme ableswereconstructed how-
ing the pronunciation f characters t that time. Eachpagewas a grid with the
initials listedat the rop, the finalsat the left, and characterswere entered n theappropriate ell according o their pronunciation.Characters ith different ones
were assignedo differentvolumesof the dictionary.
3.4.3 Hout charactersu)ere ormed
Very generally, Chinese used four methods in constructing characters: pictography,
phonetic extension, semantic extension, and differentiation. Pictograms were likely
the earliest types of characters. Some of these have survived into modern times
(although with substantially changed shapes).Figure 3.4 gives someexamples, show-
ing their early and modern forms.Figure 3.5 shows some abstract pictograms. These are similar to the basicpicto-
gram, but they are graphic representationsof abstract notions rather than of concrete
objects.
Any new writing system has the task of providing ways of writing any lexical
item. In Chinese, sometimes, rather than creating an entirely new character, an
existing character was used for a different morpheme which happened to have a
similar sound. For example, the character for lmil'horse'
was a pictogram f6 (the
modern form of the character s ,F?). nother similar-soundingword is lmal'mother'.
Rather than developing an entirely new character for lmal 'mother', the Chinese
extended the use of the character for lmd,l
horse'
to write lmal
'mother'
as well(figure 3.5). This is a processof phonetic extension (sometimes eferred to as rebus
writing). Later on, a separatecharacter for 'mother' developed.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 52/340
Chinese 33
early
modem
Figure 3.4 Pictograms
early
modern
lyrl'one' lEr
two'lsenl'three'
T
llqrel'below'
---- g
/shnng/'above'
Figure 3.5 Abstract pictograms
lmel'horse' -) lmel
'mother'
Figure 3.6 Phonetic extension. The arrow here shows that the character for one word
was extended to write a different (but similar-sounding) word as well
Table 3.8 Semanticextension
mo
zlo.an
wa
nt
'a mil l ''a drill''a t i le''mud'
m 6 t szudn gF
w ) Eni ;fv
trsEE,;fv
' to grind''to
drill '' to
tile''to
daub on mud'
In some cases,characters were extended to different morphemes by semantic
extension, a processwhereby a character used for one morpheme is extended to
another morpheme with a similar meaning. Most of the instancesof this process
have since been disguised by having additional elementsadded to distinguish the
two characters, bu t in modern Chinese, examples do exist where the morphemes
have the samepronunciation or differ only by tone (table 3.8).
The fourth processof differentiation was very common. \Ufehave seen ust above
that, originally, the character ,$ was a pictogram for the morpheme lmil 'horse'.
By phonetic extension, t was also used or lmal'mother'. Presumably, he ambiguous
useof ,$ for both 'horse' and 'mother'was bothersome,so the Chineseeventually
created a separatecharacter for 'mother' by differentiation. The character for /n[/'woman' is Jc. The new character for 'mother' was created by combining the
character for 'woman'with the character for 'horse', giving i,F, an unambiguous
character usedonly for the morpheme lmal'mother'; thereafter, ,$ was used only
for lmll 'horse'. The logic for this compounding is clear: the meaning of 'mother'
was similar to 'woman',and the sound of lmal was similar to lmdl
'horse'.
nJrlni i lwoman
A,^t
lrfinl'man'
oH
l r r l'sun'
En
lyucl'moon'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 53/340
34 Chinese
Table 3.9 Traditional categories of character formation
A. pictograms
B. abstract pictogramsC. semantic-phonetic compounds
D. semantic-semantic compounds
xiingxing
zhishixingsheng
huiyi
*-x,
*E'+nt+6*
This differentiation has created a semantic-phonetic compound: one part Jr was
used for its semantic value and the other ,$ was used or its phonetic value. Note that
the phonetic value of * lnil, and the semanticvalue of ,6'horse' are irrelevant. I
have usedmodern Mandarin pronunciations to illustrate this phenomenon; n early
Chinese, he pronunciations of'horse'
and'mother' would have been different from
what they are today, but we can assume hat they were fairly similarto
eachother
then. As we will see, n later years the semantic-phonetic compound became the
most common way to form a character in Chinese.
3.4.4 Traditional analysis of characters
Around 100 oro, the scholarX[ Shdn+,lF analyzedhe structureof charactersnto
six groups.His groupinghasbeenwidely used n discussinghis subject.We must
not forget,however, hat X[ Shdn ivedsome1500yearsafter Chinese haracters
were irst formed,and he had no directknowledge f the originalprocesses.
Two of Xil Shdn's ategoriesefer o their use,not to their structure.The remain-ing four categories regiven n table 3.9.S7ehavealreadyseenexamples f the first threeof thesecategories. emantic-
phonetic ompounds re so mportant hat we will look at them n moredetailand
then examine he semantic-semanticompounds.
3.4.5 Semantic-pbonetic ompounds
The semantic-phonetic compound is by far the most common type of character in
Chinese. Its structure is relatively transparent: one part of the character is related to
the meaning, and another part is related to the sound.\il(e
have already seenhowthe character ,6 lmal 'mother' is composedof a semanticelement* 'woman', and
a phonetic element ,f t lmil.
The semantic-phoneticcompounds in table 3.10 show further caseswhere ,6 is
used for its phonetic value. The meaning of the semantic component is given at the
right. Note that the pronunciation of the semantic element is irrelevant. Note as
well that a semantic-phoneticcompound character s a single characterand represents
a singlesyllable,as discussedn S3.3.1.A further example involves h, which originally was a pictogram for /wi/
'creature'. By phonetic extension, this character came to be used also for /wi/ 'do
not'. In time, the character for
'creature'
was modified to *h by adding a semanticelement for 'ox', and h was used thereafter only for 'do not'. Note that with'horse'
and'mother', the original meaning'horse'was kept with the original character
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 54/340
Chinese 35
Table 3.10 Semantic-phoneticcompounds with the phonetic ,6 . The semanticelement s
shown as a separate character at the right
Semanti c-ph o n etic comp oun d Semantic element
_afr*p
r6n&*s,6
lm6,llmillmdl
lmil
'agate'
'weights'
'grasshopper'
'scold'
'ge*' lyul'stone' lshil'insect, reptile' lch6ngl'mouth' (written twice) /k6u/
Table 3.11 Semantic-phoneticcompounds with the phonetic *,. The semanticelement n
it s allograph as a separatecharacter is shown at the right
Pronunciation Meaning of
character
Semantic
component
Meaning of semantic
component
!
ft,-;*,
&,fr*,,fu,#,w,l*,t*,
&,b*.
#,&,Eh*
i*,#,
ly6ollireolliidollqiaollqi6ollxiaollxiiol/shao/lnSolln6olln6olln5,olk6ol16olk5o; n6olkSolhdol
'legendary chief''water (verb)''lucky'
'lift foot''lift up''good horse, valiant''dawn'
'burn'
'shout, quarrel'
'oar''bell, cymbal''disturb'
'graceful'
'brushwood'
'roundworm'
'abundant'
'coil'
rf-,\/t-atr,BH)k€
^+++f+*A&
i"r.,''man, human''foot'
'quill
'horse'
tsunt
'fire'
'word, speech'
'tree, wood''metal'
'hand'
twoman'
'grass,plant''insect, reptile''eat, food''silk, thread'
shape,and the derived use mother' was associatedwith the new character.With
'creature' and 'do not', the derived use 'do not' was associatedwith the original
character, and the original usecreature'
was associatedwith the new character.
Table 3.L1 gives a large number of semantic-phoneticcompounds having the
phonetic element fr, ly6ol. Notice that the phonetic similarity here is not so tight as
with'horse'.
The meaning of the semantic element s given at the right of the table.
It is not always clear why a certain semantic elementhas beenchosen.Some of the
items n table 3.1I areno longer used n modern Chinese.
Historically, the semantic-phoneticcharacterswere formed in two stages.First, a
character with a certain meaning and sound was extended to representa different
morpheme with the same or similar sound as the first character.This process s
phonetic extension: a symbol is used for another morpheme with the sameor similar
sound. At this point, the character is ambiguous; it could be read in two different
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 55/340
36 Chinese
Table3.12 Examples f bound allographs.The free
allograph s givenat the left, then the boundform alone,
and at the right the bound form is shownaspart of a
character,with the bound form indicatedby an arrow
human, man
hand
heart
water
fire
(note different bound allographs)
bamboo +++ x
ways. In time, this ambiguiry was resolvedby altering the shapeof the character or
one of the meanings by adding a semantic element, thus forming a new character,
but keeping the original shape for the other meaning. This process s differentiation
in the form of adding a semantic determinative. In an historical sense, he phoneticelement s 'primary', and the semanticelement s 'secondary'.
In many cases, he semanticelement has a slightly different shapewhen it occurs
as a bound allograph in a character, often simplified, and generally written more
narrowly. Some of theseare given in table 3.1,2.For example, the bound allograph
for 'human' is written more narrowly with the first stroke clearly above the second.
\flith'hand',
the bound allograph is simplified by omitting the top stroke. The
bound allograph for 'heart' is quite different from the free allograph. The four-
stroke free form of 'water' is written as three strokes arranged vertically.'Fire' has
two bound allographs: one is simply a narrower version of the free form, but the
other is four dots written at the bottom of the phonetic element. The bound form of'bamboo' is a pair of three-strokeunits written above the phonetic element.
3.4.6 Setnantic-se?nanticompounds
Semantic-semanticcompounds are the fourth category in X[ Shbn's analysis
(table 3.13). He described hem as created by the combination of two independent
characters on the basis of their meaning. For example, the traditional explanation
for the character * lanl'peace' is that it is constructed of two characters which
together form a woman under a roof, a peaceful notion. A woman and a child
together are
'good';
the sun and the moon together are
'bright ';
a man leaningagainst a tree is 'resting'; two trees orm a 'grove'; the strength for work in the field
is 'masculine';and a
'home' is a pig under a roof.
Il&.I
J+hI,1.+t,'*
I
.}r'I--+/.+
+
rK
)(
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 56/340
Chinese
Table 3.13 Semantic-semantic ompounds
37
lanl +lhiol *t
lmingl Bnlxinl 4+tlint +tlninl Xtil''t *
+
f
.L
-r
+++
Modern scholars, ooking more closely at the early history of this category of
characters,have become doubtful of these radit ional explanations. Rather than
being formed purely on semanticgrounds, it seems hat many, if not most, of these
characters were formed as semantic-phonetic compounds, but becauseof phono-logical change, he phonetic element s no longer apparent. Boltz (7996, p. 197)
says:In
origin actual charactersare never formed this way; this is an art if icial,
retrospectivecategory.' Quite possibly, the explanation as semantic-semantic om-
pounds arose rom pedogogical needs; hat is, a teacher would make up an interesting
story to help children remember the characters better. The geminate (samegraphic
element written twice) example of l l inl'grove' ff iay, however, be a legit imate
semantic-semantic ompound.
3.4.7 Someexamplesof charactersu)ith a.complexhistoty
To illustrate the complexity that may be involved in the history of characters,consider
the examples n table 3.74. Al l of thesecharacterscontain the element E. By itself,
rr is used o write lk6ul'mouth'. lil7emight assume hat the secondand third char-
actersare semantic-phonetic ompounds with t? as the phonetic element since hey
are all pronounced similarly to lk6ul'mouth'. In fact, this seems o be the historic
situation, but the fourth and fifth charactersalso seem o be semantic-phonetic om-
pounds with tr as the phonetic element, but in this case, t would be pronounced
lmingl. Since he character by itself is pronounced /k6u l,we can understand characters
two and three, but the rationale for characters four and five is not immediately clear.
However, some historic digging may clear things up (table 3.15). Note that .& andqB both have a somewhat similar meaning involving using the mouth to make a
noise.$t/hat
seems o have happened s that by a processof semantic extension t?'mouth'
came also to be used to write the character for lmfngl'call, name'. \flith
Table 3.14 Characters with the element p
'peace'
'good'
'bright'trest'
tgfovet
'male'
'home'
lmiSnllnul
h\ l/rdnl/miiil\t/mi6nl
'rooftwomant
tsunt
tmant
ttreet
'strength'
'roof '
lnallz\l
/yuB/lmillmilIti6nl/shi/
twoman'
tson'
tmoontttree'
ttreet
'field''pig'
*+A^tE
T,
A
Jcfl/.th15
I?eP
lu
A€
/kdu//kdu//kdu/
lming/lmingl
'mouth'
'knock'
'hook, fasten''call,
name''cryof bird'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 57/340
38 Chinese
Table 3.15 Development of characterswith the element tr l by the processes f phonetic
extension, semantic extension, and different iation
(p meanskneel';the mage s 'kowtowing'- kneeling nd touchingone'shead o the
floor as a signof subservience)
F /k6u/ 'mouth'
by phoneticextension t? /kbu/ 'hook, fasten'
by differentiation lu /kdu/ 'hook, fasten'
(withallograph f +'hand' as adical)
P'mouth'
pictogram
g lk6ul 'mouth'
by phoneticextensionbv differentiation
tl lk6ul 'mouth'
by semantic extension
by differentiation
Er /k6u/ 'mouth'
by phonetic/semanticxtensionby differentiation
E /kdu/ 'knock'
eP /kdu/ 'knock'
P lmingl'call, name'
A lmingl 'call, name'
Er lmingl 'cry of bird'
\A lmingl 'cry of bird'
(note that later, A was itself used as a phonetic element and combined with the
character for 'gold, metal'to form a new character 4A for lmingl'engrave')
this new soundandmeaning, r wasfurther extendedo the morpheme mingl 'cry
of bird'; this latteruseseemso bea joint caseof phoneticextension nd semantic
extension. n time, the shapes f these haracterswere all differentiatedrom tr by
addingadditional lements,amely lrat'evening'and€1nidol'bird' (Boltz19941.
By itself, rr is now usedonly with the pronunciation k6u/.
3.4.8 Writing bonouted words
The writing of borrowed words presents n obviousproblem for any morpho-graphicscriptsince hereareno symbolsor foreignmorphemes. o dealwith thisproblem,Chinesewrites he pronunciationusingcharactersor their phoneticvalue
only (phonetic xtension).For example,when the formerUS presidentRonald Reagan ecame ommonly
mentionedn newspapers,t wasnecessaryo devise way of writing his name. n
the PRC,his namewas pronounced li gEnlandwritten -tsi&. By themselves,Emeans inside' and ;tRmeans root', together orming a meaningless hrase; he
characters erechosen nly becauseheyrepresenthe soundof thenameReagan.In thisparticularcaset is nterestingo note hatTdiwanadopteddifferentcharacters
to represent eagan's ame€'+R with a slightlydifferentpronunciation l6i gEnl.Canada s written hr+ X ljie ni ddl. Again, the meaningof the characters
Utu ljial 'add to'; $ ln6l 'take';X lddl large')is irrelevant. he pronunciation f
the last two characterss obvious,but the choiceof lj ial seems dd. Here we
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 58/340
Chinese 39
must realize hat the first Chinese n Canadawere from Hong Kong and spokeCantonese.n Cantonese,he characterm is pronouncedgdl,soundingike [ki]. The
Chinese ame or Canadawas irstcreated y Cantonesepeakerss gi nih daaih/
rtv+d; this was then adoptedby speakers f Mandarin n which the characters
were pronouncedas ljta n6 di/. (The English orm Peking s similarly from theCantonese ronunciation f Bdijing.)
Less ommonly, oreignwords are ranslatednto Chinese nd then written withthe semantically ppropriateChinese haracters. or example,after he
Watergate
Hotel gainednotorietyduring theNixon years n the United States,t waswritten asrJ<fl, which is a simple ranslationof the two morphemesi *ter andgate.
3.4.9 Dialect characters'We
mentioned bove hat althoughall speakers f Chinese se he samedialect or
writing, occasionallyhey may want to write a dialectexpression. omedialects,Cantonesen particular,havedeveloped ialectcharactersor manydialectwordswhich are not used n standardChinesewriting, such as o* /fih/ 'not' and €' lItongl slaughter'.SeeD. Li (2000) or further nformationaboutcurrentwriting inCantonese ndTiu" (1998) or a discussion f writing in Taiwanese.
3.5 Structureof ChineseCharacters
Simply looking at characters, we find a wide variety of shapes;nevertheless,each
character, no matter how simple or complex, is written so as to fill an imaginarysquare.Books for children to practise heir brushmanshipconsist of blank pages
with a grid of equal-sizedsquares.
3.5.1 Theshapesof characters
Some haracters onsistof only onepart,which may be simpleor complex: r
t }i . €-. Some haracters onsist f two (or three)partsplacednext to eachotherhorizontally.Although he erm s not usuallyused n Chinese tudies, e might callthesecharactersigatures, L EX ,6 7E;*f. Somecharacters onsistof two parts
placedvertically,one on top of the other: t + + /A *. Some haractersonsistof a part written insidea border;sucha bordermay be a completeor partialenclosure, r it mayconsist f two balanced arts:E El ,fg H h1.Some haractershavemorecomplexarrangements. enerallyhey are ormedby iterativeapplicationsof thestructures ivenabove.Forexample,S is a politeway of sayingyou'; it con-sists irst of two parts, f, faboveand ,t-ibelow.The lower part is a singleunit, bu tthe upperpart consists f two units arranged orizontally,4and ,i . Other typesofcomplexstructures re shown n the followingt # # ,'* flfi A ffi E i;A fe .
3.5.2 Complex numeralsOne interesting kind of character is the complex numeral. The ordinary form of
the number'one' lyll is a singlestroke, as shown in table 3.1,5.It would obviously
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 59/340
40 Cbinese
Table 3.16 Ordinary and complex characters or numerals
Ordinary Complex
lylllErlsan//si/lwliul/fin/lqlltbaltjinl/shi/
tb^it/chian/
I
;Tj-
+
)L-L
I
6+
aF\++ffirA*+tiltkJ*
t64+
be quite easy o alter this to a'two,
three, ten' or some other number. Because he
characters or numbers generally have rather simple forms, more complex variants
exist fo r use n contracts and other documents to avoid possible raud.
3.5.3 Hout charactersare u)ritten
Theorder n which the strokes f a character rewritten is important.Theadvant-
ageof a fixed stroke order is that when a characters written quickly, it will still
be legible.The general uidelinesor the order of writing strokesare shown n
table3.17.Theseareonly general uidelines;herearemanyspecial ules or strokeorder-
ing. Note especiallyhat a box-like shape onsists f threestrokes; he top and right
sides remadewith one stroke.Figure3.7 givessomeexamples.n the element ?
of characrerA, the left side s written first, then the top andright sideasone stroke,finally he bottom stroke guidelines and 6). CharacterB = goes rom top to
bottom(guideline ). Character ,t ' is written rom left to right (guideline ). tn
characterD, +, the horizontalstroke s written before he vertical guideline ). In
character , rJ<,he middlestroke s written before he sides,ollowingguideline .In both characters and G, + and H, the outerpartsarecompleted efore heinnerparts(guideline ). In characterH EI, the top and sides f the enclosure rewritten first, then the interior, and finally the bottom stroke(guidelines and 5).
Character SRviolates he guidelineswice: stroke4 precedes troke5 to its left,
and strokes8-10 precede troke11, in both cases iolatingguideline . Both of
Table 3.17 General guidelines or stroke order
1 .
2.3.
top to bottom
horizontal before verticalouter before inner finished
4. left to right
5. middle before sides6. close bottom last
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 60/340
Chinese
1r-
41
(c)B)
2 -
I
a 32 l D. t L 7
^ / l -! 4v
Figure3.7 Examples f strokeorder
these structures recur in many other charactersand are alwayswritten in the order
described.Although stroke order is generally ixed, it is not rigidly uniform; there is
a slight bit of both individual and d ialectal variation.
3.5.4 Writing direction and punctuation
Traditionally, haracters avebeenwritten in columns tartingat the top right sideof the pagewith the second olumn to the left of the first. The front of a book is
what an English eader hinks of as he back; hat is, when a book is lying before
the readerwith its front cover acingup, the binding s at the right, and pages returned ifting the ef t edge.
3 4
r \ \\),,I
(F)E)
( H)c)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 61/340
42 Chinese
ancient
graphs
orac e
bone
largeseal
sma l l
seal
c le r ica l
standard
earlysimplif ication
20thcenturysimplif ication
common
cursive
runn ing
style
simpl i f ied
script
rnodern
cursive
erratic
scr ipt
Figure 3.8 Different srylesfor tiger and dragon (from Fang-yi.iWang, Introduction to
Chinese Cursiue Script, p. ii. New Haven, CT: Far Eastern Publications, Yale University
Press,1958. O 1958 by Yale University Press.Reproduced with permission)
Regularorms
t iger d ragon
#Xr %fr6 q
HAursiveorms
t iger dragon
€,J4.._ FL p t 4
frLff, fit
rt €, 4 A
fL E ,$,
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 62/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 63/340
44 Chinese
context s called he radical, he restbeing hephonetic. n the seventeenthenturyNEw,a standard ist of 274 radicalswas developedreducedrom an earlier ist
of 540 radicalswhich he exicographer [ Shdn rewup in L21,Nrw). Radicals regivenan order based n their strokenumber,and all characters ith the sameradicalaregrouped ogether. fithin eachgroupof characters ith the same adical,
the characters re orderedaccording o the numberof strokesn the phonetic, heremaining art of the character. oothill 1889)drewup a numberedis t of phonetic
elements,eferred o in somedictionaries.For many characters,his is quite straightforward.f we were searching,or
example, or the character+ lli l 'plum', we would look under radical ,f, theradical or trees.We would count he strokes emainingn the restof the character
+ - three,and then look for our characterunder hosewith three additionalstrokes. hiscan akea bit of patientploughing hrough istsof characters,ut it isgenerally uiteworkable.
3.6 How Many Characters oesChineseHave?
Beforewe cananswer he questionof how manycharactershereare n Chinese,weneed irst to distinguishwo differentquestions: ow manycharacters re here n
the Chinesewriting system? nd how manycharacters o peopleuse? hink about
answeringhese uestions boutwords n English.A largedictionaryhashundreds
of thousands f words;we would considert impossibleor any ndividual o know,
much essuse,all of thesewords.The sames
truefor Chinese.
Estimates uggesrhat knowledgeof 1500characterss required or basic iteracy;
2500-3000 for functional iteracy.Peoplewith university ducationsend o know
around 4000 characters, lthough studentsof Chinese iteratureor history willknow more.Figures f about 5000 characters regiven or scholars.Mdo Z6dong's
CollectedWorks containedonly 2981 differentcharacters, nd M6o had a strongtraditionaleducation.
If we look at running ext, we find that 1000 characters ccount or 90 percentof those ound n ordinary eading;2400 ccount or 99 percent,and 3800accountfor 99.9percent.The charactershat one earnsearly n life are hemost frequently
used,and those earned aterwill turn up lessoften(Taylor
andTaylor'1,995).If we look at very largedictionaries,we get figuressomethingike 50,000. f ahighlyeducated ersonknows5000 characters, hat are he other44,000?Quitesimply, they just are not commonly used.Many are archaic.Many are graphic
alternativeso standard haracters.Many are ocal: hat is, they are used or local
dialectmorphemes r for local namesand places.Someare quite specializednames or different ish or mushrooms r partsof a harness. his of course s
similar o the Englishsituation:do you know termssuchasmilch, drouth, thole,bolete,or crupper?
In the end,we have wo typesof figures: knowledge f about3000 characters
means hat you can read most anything hat comesyour
way thatis not highly
specialized. figureof 50,000 s appropriate or a list of everysingle orm of every
characterhat anyone aseverused or anything, nywhere, t any ime n Chinese.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 64/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 65/340
45 Chinese
Table 3.19 Simplified and traditional characters
Traditional Simplified
llu6llmlnllmd,llgu6lldidnlly6nl/miB/
/shuang/
lshal
'net for catching birds''door, gate''horse'
'country'
'lightning'
'cloud'
'extinguish'
(fire with line above)'pair'
(two birds E in a hand (archaic) X- -+ two hands)'ki l l '
vi19J
E{,*f<
+
@
*{i
r1.F?
EI€g)H,
q
+ft
The introductionof simplified haracters as akenon a curiouspoliticalaspect.Tdiwan hasbeenstronglyopposed o the PRC for political reasons.As a result,
the simplified haracters avebeen egardedn Tdiwan as communist'and arestudiouslyavoided.Two totally differentcomputerencodingsystems aveemergedas a resultof this politicalsplit.
In Hong Kong, herehasbeen esspolitical ensionwith the PRC han foundin Tdiwan,
and,asaresult,
raditional ormsof charactersontinued o beused, ut
of both nertiaand a loyalty o tradition.After the handovern 1997, t isexpectedthat the simplified haracters ill be used n thegovernment nd schools ndwillgraduallybecome sed or privatepurposes. eople f Chinese ncestryiving abroadhavemostlycontinued o use he traditionalcharacters.
Singapore, hereChinesesan official anguage, as nstitutedsome implificationsof its own, but thesearenot necessarilyhe sameas hoseof the PRC.With HongKong becoming art of the PRC, t is l ikely that Singapore ill gradually endtowards he PRCsimplifications.
Simplifiedcharacterswerecreatedby variousstrategies: omecursive ormswere
used,or sometimes lder, simpler orms of a character;sometimesew
simplerformswerecreated.Examples regiven n table3.t9.In somecases,wo differenttraditional characters re written with the samesimplifiedcharacter.Thus it ispossibleo translate utomat icallyrom the traditionalcharacterso the simplifiedones e.g.,bya computerprogram),bu t it is not possibleo go automaticallyn theoppositedirection.
Thesimplificationwas based rimarilyon strokecount. t alsoeliminated lternat-ive formswhich previouslyexisted.Psychologistsavebeenmorerestrainedn theirenthusiasmor the simplified haractershan the politicians.Fewerstrokes learlyhelps he writer. For the reader,however, he evidencen favourof simplification s
lesspersuasive.n termsof complexversus implecharacters, aylor and Taylor(1995)pointout that a characters recognizedsa wholepattern,not asa combina-tion of individualstrokes.Thus, for readers,here s no advantageo the simpler
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 66/340
Cbinese 47
characters, nd n fact,simplercharacters ay present lesseasily dentified isualpattern.Taylor and Taylor (L995)suggesthat for writing, an upper igure of 21.strokeswould be appropriateand that morecomplexcharactershouldbe simplifiedfor easierwriting. Theyalsopoint ou t that with greateruseof computerized ord
processing,he advantageor simplified haractersn writing candisappear. heiroverall eeling s that there s insufficient videnceo makea reliableassessmentfthe valueof simplified ersus omplexcharacters.
A third type of reform hasbeena proposal or abandoning haracters ltogetherin favourof some ypeof alphabeticranscription. he currentofficial omanizationis ptnyln In the 1950s, t appearedhat the governmentwas moving towardsreplacing haracters ith plnytn.Later, t seemedo abandonany suchscheme. anypeople,both Chinese nd others, ee l hat learning he largenumberof charactersrequired or evenbasic eading s a uselessurdenand wasteof time in a child'seducation Hannas1997).Criticsof reform point to the large numberof homo-
phonousmorphemesn Chinese. ince hesearewritten with differentcharacters,reading s easier han it would be usinga phonographic ystem.However,spokenChinese etsalongfinewith all this homophony,and I am somewhatat a loss ounderstand ow writing could not cope.Havingsaid his, I mustadmit that I havenevermet a Chinese ersonwho could comfortably eada long text written inpinytn; his difficultymay of coursebe simplya lackof experience.
My own feelingabout hereasonhat the Chinese ant to keepcharacterss thatthey havea symbolicvalueof enormous mportance.Many peoplewould feelthat givingup characters ould be antamount o givingup 3500yearsof Chineseculture.Althoughusinga computer o write Chineses not quiteso easyaswriting
with an alphabet, t is certainlyworkable.Oneproposal or writing reformsucceeded odestly, ut in an unusualway.The
ZbiryInzimil ('phonetic lphabet', lsoknown asBopomofo)was ntroducednl9l3.It hasspecial ymbols or representinghe nitial, inal,and oneof a syllable.Thesymbolsook likeverysimple haracters.hilytnzimil did not succeedsa wayof normal writing, bu t it has beenusedextensivelyo indicatepronunciations n
dictionaries, articularly n Tdiwan.
3.8 FurtherReading
Chen 1999), eFrancis1984), ratochvil1968), orman1988), ndRamsey1987)
al l provide oodbackgroundo the anguagen general.Boltz 1996) nd Mair 1996)
aregoodshort ntroductionso earlyand modernChinesewriting espectively;aylorand Taylor 1995)and Yin and Rohsenow 1994)are longer reatments.Moore(2000),Keightley1989),Hsu (1996), nd Boltz 1994) ocuson historicalmatters.Simon 1959) s useful or the serious tudentdespitehis use of the gw6yil uhmdziromanization.hereare manyEnglish-Chinesend Chinese-Englishictionaries,eachwith its own personality nd with slightlydifferingways of locating pecificcharacters. anfagon1997)and Harbaugh1998)are both nterestingpecialized
dictionaries hoseprimary im s to explain he originand structure f charactersrather han o defineChinesewords.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 67/340
48
3.9 Terms
abstractpictogram
b6ihuircalligraphyCantoneseClassicalChinesecomplexnumeralcranberry raphemecranberrymorphemedialectcharacterdifferentiationfinal
hitnziinitialMandarinModernStandardChineseoracle-bone riting
3.10 Exercises
Chinese
phonetic
phonetic xtensionpictogrampictographyptnylnpilt1nghuitradicalsemantic xtensionsemantic-phoneticompoundsemantic-semanticompoundsimplified haracter
strokeordertonetraditional haracterWade-Giles omanizationwdnydn
1 The followings a list of possible ishes n a Chinese estaurant.
(a) 1.8 'hi..A X ji ding chdo b6i ciricubedchicken tir-fried ith Chinese abbage
(b) P, h 'f , ff * y[ pidnchio qfn cdisliced ishstir-friedwithcelery
(c) rfl T '}il.ia *- rdu ding chio hudsh6ngporkcubesstir-fried ithpeanuts
(d) + A 3# '}r-* it' niri r6u si chio ciri hua
beef shredsstir-friedwith cauliflower
Glossary
rdu 'meat',used o mean pork'if no otheranimal s specified
nif 'cow'
pidn 'slice'
si 'silk,shred, ulienne' theshapeof a matchstick)
X b6i ciri 'Chinesecabbage' literally:whitevegetable')
E hudsh6ng 'peanut'
B ddu u 'beancurd'
6I
+h#fi.
a+l40
I
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 68/340
Chinese
(a) What s the meaning nd pronunciationf the following haracters?
49
a ,rr-(b) Write he characters nd the pronunciationor the following ish:
shredded hicken tir-friedwith beancurd
(c) Write he characters nd the pronunciationor the folfowing ish:
fishslicesstir-fried ith Chinese abbage
How manystrokes rewrittenn the following haracters? ive he numberat therightof the character.
mfng'bright' BIJ
ching 'sing'
qiu 'seek'"E,|
3 Show he correctstrokeorder or the following haracters.ndicatehe orderbywritinga number nside he circlenext o (oroverlapping)achstroke.
(b) 4i lyfunglpretend'(a) fr /mdi/sell'
f oo
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 69/340
4 [apanese, oresn,Vietnamese
Thecultural mportanceof China hasbeenenormous hroughoutAsiasinceancienttimes.Theneighbouring ountriesborrowedChinesewriting, firstwriting in Chineseand thengraduallyadapting he Chinesewriting systemor writing their own lan-guage.Dfewill examine apaneseirst,because f its manyspecial etails, nd henlook at KoreanandVietnamese.
4.1 Japanese
4.7.7 Backgroundand history
Japaneses spokenby essentiallyhe entirepopulationof Japan,about125 millionpeople.The standarddialect s basedon educated okyo speech. he dialectsof
Japanese,lthoughquitediverse, regenerallymutually ntelligible;he Ryukyuandialectspokenon Okinawaat the southernend of Japan s differentenough o besometimesonsidered separateanguage.
The genetic elationshipof Japaneses a matterof debate.Possibly t is related oKorean,and moredistantly o the Altaic anguagesManchu,Mongolian,Turkic).Theconnection etween apanesend these anguages, owever, s not so closeasto be uncontroversial.
Japanwas in earlycontactwith China.Objectsmade n
Chinadated o about
the time 0 and nscribedwith Chinese haracters avebeen ound n Japan,aswellas objectsmade n Japanshortly afterwardswith Chinese haracters.Writing,as such,was ntroduced rom China via Korea n the third centuryNEw.Koreanshad alreadyacquiredChinesewriting, and Korean utors came o Japan o teachthe Chineseanguage ndwriting system o Japanesetudents.Note that the writingof this time, n both Japanand Korea,was completelyn Chinese, oth languageand script.The practiceof writing in ClassicalChinese, nown as kanbw, )Ri(= Ch. hdnutdn),ontinuedn Japan or centuries. hinese haractersreknown in
Japanese s kanii ,'*+ (= Ch. hdnzi).Many Chinesewords were borrowed nto
Japaneselongwith their characters. late1
showsaBuddhist
ext writtenin
Japanin the Chineseanguagen the late twelfth century;Japanand Koreanshared hecalligraphicraditionsof China.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 70/340
l>
()U
l-r
- i
bD.rl
bDr-
(t(ur-
14
Ua.)
l-l
zL{
!J(1
c.)L)?'l
I+i
c.)l>
!J
q.)]-
d t r
:)t r . !.i c, n
(g (g
. = z9? .:- t 1
F "J !
T <I'=
c)
5 \,-/FA r-r
. c )(u
ts fIr( ) t 1
a t rE . i
d\+r
t+{ X
(tt
\\i U)S D t rFa Ll
; i 9
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 71/340
52 Japanese, oreAn,Vietnamese
Over time, however,writing was adapted o theJapaneseanguage, ndcharacterscame o be associated ith native apanese ords aswell.Forexample,he Chineseword /shan/ mountain'was borrowed nto Japanesend pronouncedsan/.The
Chinese haracter or /shan/ rl r was also borrowedand used o write the newlyborrowedJapanesemorpheme sanl.However,Japanese ad alwayshad a wordlyamalmeaning mountain'. In time, the character J-r as also used o write thenativeword lyamal.Present-dayapaneseaskept both terms or 'mountain',butuses hem n differentcontexts: or example,by itself,a mountain s usually eferred
to as lyamal,but the well-knownJapanese t. Fuji is /fujisan/. n speechhispresents o problem,but in reading,both lyamaland /san/ arewritten as rb, andthereadermustdecide t eachoccasionwhether he characters to bereadas lsanlor lyama/,depending n thecontext.
In looking at an early ext from Japan, t is difficult to know if the author was
writing in the Chinese r Japaneseanguage, nd even f we can determinehat thelanguage asJapanese,t is still often uncertainwhether he authorwaspronounc-
ing a specific ord asa Chinese orrowing e.g., sanl)or asa native apaneseord(e.9., yamal).Gradually,however, cribeswrote increasinglyn Japanese.
TheJapanesend Chineseanguagesrecompletely nrelatedo eachother.The
structuraldifferences etween he two languages resented ertaindifficulties nborrowingChinesewriting for Japanese.or example,Chineseword order s SVO(subject-verb-object),hereas apanese ord order s SOV (subject-object-verb).
TheJapaneseould, of course, avesimplywritten a text in Japanese ord order;theprestige f Chinese, owever,was sogreat hat theycontinuedo write thetext
usingChinese ord order,but theysometimes ddedmarks o indicate he order nwhich the characterswere to be readto achievea correctJapanese ord order.Gradually, apanese ord orderwas adopted.
A further problem s that Chinese as almostno inflectionalprocesses,hereas
Japaneseasa considerablemountof inflection, articularly erbalsuffixes. herewereno obviousChinese haracterso use or indicating heJapaneseerbalsuffixes.For thesemorphemes, haracters ere added o text, usuallywritten smallerandbetween he main characters f the text. These haracters erechosen rom existingChinese haracters ecause f their soundwith no referenceo theirmeaning; his isan exampleof the process f phoneticextension.
'Wesaw n chapter3 that in China the civil service layeda strongrole in settingstandardsor writing. In Japan, nstead, t was he eisurednobility which played heleading ole.In earlier imes, iteracywasfairly restrictedo the upperechelons f
Japaneseociety;hey often usedwriting asmeans f displayingheir eruditionandcleverness. t the more fundamentalevel, heypreserved nd encouraged haractervariantsand manyunusualor obscure pellings. t a morerefinedevel, he noblestook positive elight n writingswhichpresented himsical roblemsor thereader.An examplesthewriting of thenumber99 ' as'fr. Ordinarllyh means'white', utif we think of the charactersor '100' -fi'
and for 'L ' -, \rye ee hat € is-6. 100'
minus he op stroke'1', or'99'. Clearly, his typeof writing s doneas a learned
form of amusementor the writer and reader,not for readycommunication.From time to time, reportshavearisenof an early ndigenous apanese riting
system alled indai moii'god-agescript' which purports o predate he borrowing
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 72/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 73/340
54 Japanese,KoreAn, Vietnamese
Table 4.3 Japanese omanization differences
Kunreisiki Hepburn Phonetic
sizi
ti
tu
dizi
du
hu
syV (sya, yu)zyv
tyvdvv
shi
i ich i
tsu
i ij i
zu
fu
shV(sha,shu)
ivchV
iv
f idr itlitsIu
dsi
3idzut
9urIV (e.g.,Ia, [w)dsv
tJVdsv
There are two common romanizations or Japanese:he Kunreisiki (Cabinet
OrdinanceSystem)s used n this book since t correspondsmorecloselywith thewriting system. he Hepburnsystem s widely usedand correspondsmorecloselywith thepronunciation. or the mostpart, hese wo romanizations gree;able4.3
shows he points at which the two systems iffer.More than the syllable, he mora is an important unit in Japanese honology;
poetry, or example,s measuredn mora. A mora n Japaneses a C(y)V sequencewithin a syllable,or /N/, or /Q/. For example, he word /niQ.poN/ [nip.pon]
Japan'
has wo syllables, ut four mor€ /ni-Q-po-N/ [ni-p-po-n](with periodsshowingsyllableboundaries, nd hyphens howingmoraic boundaries). oughly,eachmora takesabout the sameamountof time to pronounce. ong vowelsconstituteseparatemora; thus, ltarcolhas hreemorc lta-ro-ol,althoughonly two syllablesIta.rool.
Japaneseasa pitch accent tructurewhich is totally different rom the Chinesetonal system. veryword in Japaneseasone of two pitch patterns:.e.,with pitch
accentor without pitch accent. n words with pitch accent,one mora is marked
to indicate he positionof thepitch accent,which can al l on anymora n the word.Pitchaccent s not marked n Japanese riting although t is indicated n somedictionaries. n borrowing words from Chinese, apanese aid little attention oChineseones.
4.7.3 Botrouting a utriting system
Beforewe examine the problems that had to be solved n adapting Chinesewriting
to Japanese, et's seehow we might adapt Chinesewriting to English. To imitate the
early Japanese ituation, let's imagine that we don't have any way to write English
at the moment, and we have no knowledge of writ ing except Chinese- i.e., noalphabet,etc. The first stagemight be that we would simply translate our thoughts
into Chineseand write them as a Chinesespeakerwould. For example, f we wanted
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 74/340
I apanese, oreAn,Vietnamese
Table 4.4 Chinese sentence
55
Chinese
English
xu6 sheng shi yin mii jiu
+ + - &i k
* , Astudent be drink beer'The
studentsare drinking beer.'
Table 4.5 Neo-English writing of sentence n table 4.4
Neo-English: + * -XUE SHENG
llwei[^\l
6k_ i{r + rHYIN yins MAI JIUdrink-ing beer
to write a sentenceuchas The students redrinkingbeer', he Chineseranslationwould be xu6sheng hi yin miijiu/ as shown n table4.4 (examplerom Inouye1987\. Eachsyllable s written with one character.Note that two of the Chinesewords consistof two syllables nd are thus eachwritten with two characters:xudshengand mdiiiu. A word-by-word translation nto English s written belowthe Chinese.
Table4.5 showsa possiblewriting of the equivalent entencen EnglishusingChinese haracters. nlikeJapanese,nglishbasicword order s similar o that ofChineseso we do not have a maior differencehere.
Wemight try reading his
sentenceloudasbestwe canby justsubstituting nglishmorphemeshere
possiblegiving'Student e drink beer'or 'studentaredrink beer'.Although his s definitelynot English,we might do it often enough hat we got somewhat sed o it .'V7e
might borrow certainChinesewords into Engl ish;e.g.,we might start sayingxudshengor 'student'(pronouncingt perhaps s 'f*ej ,lnql) endingup with asentencelke Thexudshengsre drinking beer,which we couldwrite as n table4.5.
Threedistinct ypesof borrowingare nvolved n this example. Jfith/'{wej,{tql,the Chineseword is borrowed nto Englishas well as he Chinese haracters sedfor writing this word. This is a semanticborrowing with the charactersead asa Chineseword; we could refer o such a word as belonging o the Sino-English
vocabulary.Recall
hatSino- s a bound orm meaning
Chinese'.)
This first ype ofborrowing swritten here n upper-casetalics.The second ype of borrowing is shown n the writing for the Englishword beer.
Herethecharacters ppropriate or writing the Chinese erm for beerareborrowed,but not the Chineseerm mdijiu. This is also a semanticborrowing,but with thecharacterseadas an Englishword. This typeof borrowing s indicatedby upper-case oman ype.
The third typeof borrowing s illustratedby <de>and <si>.Thesearephoneticborrowings; hese haracters re chosenbecause f the word they representnChinese. he Chineseword /de/ ([da])sounds imilar o the Englishword the.The
meaning f 6t is irrelevant ldel s, in fact,a subordinating article n Chinese).Similarly, he characterP, epresentssi/ the nameof a river n Honan; t is chosenpurely or its soundvalue.
ie, € tLsi SHi er
s are
alde
The
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 75/340
55 Japanese, orean,Vietnamese
For Are,we haveadopteda morecomplicated olution.This word is written withtwo characters:he first is a semanticborrowing,meaning be'. The second s aphoneticdeterminative sed o showwhich of the possibleorms of the verb be'
is intended; ince he characteru
'son,
child'is pronouncedd.rl ndsounds bitlike are, t is used o indicatea reading are' rather han 'is', 'am', 'was',or anyother form of the verb 'be'. To show the participleending l-ry| of drinking, thecharacter 'go to meet' s used.This s used or its phonetic alue; n Chineset ispronounced yingl, somethingike the Englishsuffix l-ry|. For drink andbeer, he
Chinesewriting is retained, ut they arepronounced s n English.
As you can see, he varietyof strategieshat we haveused o write Englishhasresultedn a system onsiderablymorecomplex han that of the originalChinese.Thecomplexityof theJapanese riting system rose or similarreasons. ou should
alsobe aware hat Chineseeaderswould probablynot makesense f our English
sentence ritten in Chinese haracters. his is similar for Japanese nd Chinesereaders eading he other language; ometimeshey can identify the topic of thetext, but theyoftengo wildly astray.For an amusing resentationf theproblemofscriptadaptation,eeTheSinglish ffair ' n DeFrancis1984).
4.7.4 Japanese )riting
The Japaneseborrowed the Chinese writing system some 1700 years ago. At first,
they simply wrote in the Chinese anguagewith the Chinesescript. Gradually, how-
ever, they adapted the Chinese writing system to write Japanese.The adaptation
process, ogether with other changes n the system,has resulted in what is widelyregarded as the most complicated writ ing system in use today (Sproat 2000).
Chinesecharacterscontinue to be widely used, but usually representingmore than
one Japanesemorpheme (asopposed to Chinese writing where they generally repres-
ent only one morpheme). In addition to characters, two moraic systems,known
collectively as kana, are used as well.'Sfle
should state again that characters do not refer to ideas, rather they are ways
of writing specific exical units.'tJTriters
choose the appropriate symbols to write the
word using the orthographic rules of Japanese.The reader has the task of deciding
which sequencesof symbols go together and of determining how to interpret the
symbols linguistically, relying on the context.
4.1.4.1 GN/I tR+
Chinese haracters re known as kanii.(Chin. hdnzi) n Japanese. hinesewordsand the charactersor them were borrowed nto Japanese t three differentperiods
in time. The Go borrowingswere early,before he sixth centuryNErv, rom the
southernU(fdialectof Chinese. he sixth to ninth centuries aw he Kan borrow-ings,primarily from ChangAn, the capitalof the Tang dynasty. n the fourteenthcentury,during the Tang and Songdynasties, few terms,particularlyassociated
withZen Buddhism,areknown asToo-Sooborrowings.Thecharacter4i has hreedifferent ronunciations,gyool,lkool, and anl,which are he resultof independent
borrowings rom different ime periods.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 76/340
I apanese,Korean, Vietnamese
Table 4.5 Imaginary example of borrowing a Chinese character to write English
57
Source Target
Meaning Pronunciation Meaning Pronunciation Example
a. semantrcoz
b. semantickun
c. phonetic on
d. phonetic kun
lfol11
/lo'l1
lfo,lI
llol2
'law'
tlaw'
<She studies *.t
Iti strdiz fal
<Shestudies *.>
l[i stdiz lol
.My;* ther is i l l .>
lmai fo6et n ill
.i * mat /lqme/
(Buddhistmonk)
4.1.4.1.1 KUN- AND ON-READINGSIn theexample bove n $4.1.3,we had wo typesof semantic orrowings.Ufithheword for'students',he Chineseermwasborrowed, nd hus+ 4- waspronouncedas a Sino-English ord borrowed rom Chinese'[wej,lnql.In this situation, hecharacters an be said o be givenan on-reading.n the second ype of semanticborrowing, llustratedby'beer', the Chinese haracters re borrowed,but theyarepronounced
sa nativeEnglishword. In thissituation, he charactersan be said obe givena kun-reading.The distinctionof kun- and on-readingss an important one in Japanese. o
introduce hesenotions ully, we will givea further imaginaryexample rom ourNeo-Englishwriting (table4.5).\07ewill call the borrowing anguage Z (Neo-English), nd the anguage orrowed rom L1 (Chinese).
Supposehat Neo-English L2) borrowed the Chinese L1) word lfdl meaning'law'along with its Chinese haracter*. We have our possibilities epending nthe details f the borrowing. In the dialectof Englishusedhere, au is pronouncedtl.J't.)
In the first case a), he character s said o havea semanticon-reading. heborrowing s semanticwith the Chineseerm borrowed nto Englishas fol with themeaning'law' like 'Iwej ln1l above).n the second ase b), hecharacters saidto havea semantic un-reading; ere he characters borrowed,but used or thenativeEnglishsemantically quivalenterm law (likebeer abovel.
In Japanese,he termskun andon normally eferonly to semantic orrowings;however, heycould also be applied n a parallel ashion o phoneticborrowings.To continue ur examplewith lfol, examine ituation c) .Here heChinese haracterfor lfdl 'law' was borrowed nto English,only for its sound,without regard o itsmeaning. fe might thenuse t to write anyoccurrence f lfa,l n English,suchas n
the first syllableof father. This would be an exampleof a phonetic on-reading:phoneticbecauset is used or its soundvalueonly, andon becauset is based n itspronunciationn L1.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 77/340
58 Japanese, orean, Vietnamese
A phonetickun is similar o a phoneticon, but based n the L2 word. First, hecharacters borrowed nto L2 andgivena kun-reading in our example lol 'law'.
Then, his useof the character ndergoes honeticextension, o that it is used or
the same ound n other words. n example d) ,we see hat the character's se orwriting lla,l Iaw' hasbeenextended o otherwords with the sound lol, in this case,the first syllable f lama.
This fourfold ypologyof borrowing scomplex,but understandingt thoroughlywill repay he effort.
4.1.4.1.2 READTNGCHARACTERSN JAPANESETurning now to Japanese, kun-readings a characterusedwith the pronunci-
ation of a nativeJapanese ord (NJ), and an on-readings a characterused or
a word borrowed rom Chinesento JapaneseSJ for Sino-Japanese])etainingan
approximation f its Chinese ronunciation. n our first two examples, imonoand yakusyu, hecharacter 6 hasboth a kun- and an on-rcading.n kimono, thefirst part fti- is written with a semantic un; the Chinese haracter or ljial 'pot'
was borrowedand used or the nativeJapanese ord /ki/ with approximatelyhe
samemeaning,wear'.The second art -?nonos written with a characterwhich is
alsoa semantic un;here he Chinese haracteror /wr)/'thing'was borrowedand
used or the semantically orresponding ativeJapanese ord /mono/. Note thatthe fact that /mono/ in Japanese as two syllables, ut is written with only one
character,s not consideredignificant.n theprocess f borrowingChinese ritingintoJapanese,he one-to-oneelationship etween haracter nd syllablen Chinese
was undone.
/kimono/ 'clothing'rt +h
In tyakusyu'start' [tJakuJru] (literally 'puthand'), the first part tyakz-
'put'is
written with the samecharacter as we found above for ki-. Here, this character has
a semantic on-rcading; the Chinese word ljdul 'pr'rt' was borrowed into Japanesewith the pronunciation /tyaku/ (remember that theseborrowings took placecenturies
ago when both Chinese and Japanesewere pronounced differently). The second
character is also a semantic on since the Chineseword /sh6u/ was borrowed into
Japanesewith the pronunciation lsyul tJurl. (Note that * also has a kun-reading as
Itel, the native Japaneseword for'hand'.)
/tyakusyu/start'fr +
frlkil 'wear' NJ
Ch. ljiul 'put'
semantickun
EItyakul put' SJ
Ch. ljdul pur'
semantic n
+hr/mono/'thing' NJ
/wi/ 'thing, creature'
semantic kun
+lsyul hand'SJ (alsoNJ /tel 'hand')/sh6u/'hand'semantic n (semantic un)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 78/340
Japanese, orearu,Vietnamese
Table 4.7 Four characters and their kun- and on-readings
59
frh.un lkilon ltyakul
NJSJ Ch. jiut
/mono/
lbutal
/te/
lsyul
lagol
/doo/
tweart
'put'
'thing'
'thing'
'hand'
'hand'
tmovet
tmovet
Ch. /wt/
Ch. /shdu/
ch. dn/
+hkun
onNJSJ
NJSJ
NJ
SJ
frhkun
on
+kun
on
ln doobutu'animal' dorburtsru]literally movingthing'), he firstcharactersa semantrc n since t representshe Sino-Japaneseord ldool omove'.(Note that6i alsohasa kun-reading s lugol move'.)The second haractern doobutu s thesameone hat we metearlieras he second haractern kimono, but this time witha on-reading utu.
/doobutu/'animal'6rt h
91ldool move'
SJCh. /di/ 'move'
semanticon
(alsoNJ /ugo/)
(semantic un)
thlbutul 'thing' SJ
lwil 'thing'
semantic n
Table 4.7 shows the kun- and on-readingsof the four characters that we have
used in these examples. As we said earlier, understanding kun- and on-readings
takes a bi t of work. Remember that characters n Japanesecan usually be read in
more than one way. There are native Japanesewords, and words borrowed from
Chinese called Sino-Japanese.Kun-rcadings are native Japanesewords, and on-readingsare Sino-Japanese ords. Semanticborrowings are basedon meaning, andphonetic borrowings are basedon sound.
Up to now, we have primarily looked at semantic borrowings in Japanese; heseare
the only oneswith which the terms kun andon areused n traditional Japanese tudies,
and phonetic borrowings are lesscommon than semantic borrowings. A phonetic
on is the use of a character with its Chinesepronunciation fo r a similar-sounding
morpheme in Japanese.An example of this is the use of the Chinese character K'sky'
ltianl as part of the word for'oven'
^ )K /teNpi/ becauseof it s sound.
A phonetic kun is the phonetic extension of a Japanese-basedronunciation of
a character to a different, but similar-sounding, morpheme. In early Japanese, heword for 'crane'and a perfective verbal morpheme had the same sound ltwul
[tsurru]. The Chinesecharacter &6'crane' (Ch. /he/) was first borrowed as a kun
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 79/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 80/340
I apanese,Korean,Vietnamese
Table4.11 Different implificationsn Japan ndChina
6 1
Chinese
traditionalJapanese Cbinese
simplified
'Buddha'
'door'
'country'
'price'
Table 4.12 How /nippon/ Japan' can be written in
three different ways (/Q/ is realized as gemination of the
following consonant)
4fri1EI(;r
4tr:E4fr
4*,r1EI4H
kaniihiragana
katakana
/niQpoN/<ni-Q-po-N>
<ni-Q-po-N>
H Al z c l f P= y i f , /
Some haracters avebeensimplifiedn Japan.These implifications ay or maynot be hesame s hesimplified haractersf China.Thus, hecharacteror'Buddha'hasbeensimplified n Japanese,ut not in Chinese;door' hasbeensimplifiednChinese, ut not in Japanese.
Country'has he same implificationn JapanesendChinese, ut price'has
different implificationsn Japanesend Chinesetable
.ll).
4.7.4.2 KANA tE,&
Theword for 'Japan'can bewritten n threeways n Japanesetable4.12).The firstway is with kanii,and he other wo arewith oneof the two additionalscripts sedin Japanese:itherhiragana'plain kana' U b rt\ S (*LnA) or katakana'sidekana' , 9 rt f G 4E-.2); ollectively, iraganaandkatakanaareknown as kana.The etymologyof the word kana n this conrext s disputed.
Although thekana scriptsare usuallycalledsyllabaries,hey are n fact moraic
systems. achsymbol n the kana scripts epresentsne mora. Most of theseareCV sequences,ut final /N/ or /Q/ countas separatemorr, andvowel engthaddsa mora.Recall hata mora s a CV unit, a secondV (additional owel ength),or acodalC.
4.1.4,2.1 HISTORICALDEVELOPMENT OF KANAThe text Man'yooshuu'Ten ThousandLeaves' rom the eighth centuryNew hadboth morphographicmostlywith kun-readings)ndphonographic seof characters.Characters erecommonlyused or both phonetickun- andphoneticon-readings.From phoneticuses uchas his,kana developed.
The early extswritten n the Chinese tyle acked he affixes resentn Japanese.The katakanasymbolsarose rom abbreviated haractersnserted nto academicandadministrativeextsparticularly o indicate heJapaneseffixeswhichwerenot
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 81/340
62 Japanese,Korean, Vietnamese
Table 4.13 The kanii sources for some hiragana and katakana symbols
Katakana Source character Hiragana Source character
T-X_+n
$.
e,q)
4K)tu
+
77,1
+
lhulItellkalItil
lhul
Itel
la l
lnol
representedn the Chinese-styleexts. n general,he katakanasymbolswere ormedby writing only a partof a character table4.131;thehiraganaandhatakana ormsare not alwaysderived rom the sameoriginal character.The biraganasymbols
arose rom the useof characters ritten cursivelyn informal andprivate exts oindicatepronunciation enerally.Over time, katakana andhiraganadeveloped s similarparallelsystems ut were
used n differentcontexts.
4,1.4.2.2 MODERN KANAThecomplete etof kana sshown n table4.74: hiragana n the upperrow;katakanain the second ow. The two kanasystems re structurally like.Any Japanesetter-ancecan bewritten in eitherhiraganaor katakana,andany utterancen one can beconvertednto the other.
The diacritic<"> is used o changea symbol rom voicelesso voicedz iraganat<ki> e' <gi>,katakana*'t. . The diacritic<"> s used o changehe <h> series fsymbols o the <p> series:hiragana I, l <ho> (f <pot; katakana fi f,i; and thevoiceddiacritic<"> usedwith <h> gives he <b>series: iragana I <ho>{f <bor,katakanarl r i. Thesediacriticsare used or both hiraganaand katakana.Recallthat the sequencetu/ is pronounced tsru], du/ is pronounced dzul],and /hu/ ispronounced gu]. The consonants s,z, t, dl are pronounced s IJ, dg, tJ, d3]respectively hen they occur before il or lyl.
The symbol for /Q/ is a smallerversionof the symbols or /tu/: hiragana til A
lQl c , katakanahul Y lQl v.
The sound yloccursonly before he vowels a u ol . Complexonsetswith lyl asthe second lement ccur afteral l phonemesxcept yl and wl: e.g.,lkya,hyu, ryol.The clusterswith lyl arewritten as<Cirv>,with the <rv>-symbol ritten slightlysmaller. hus, kyulis writtenas<kiru>E t@n biragana, nd as * a in katakana,and lnyol is written as <niyo> 3J or in katakant = e.
In hiragana, ong vowels are written by adding the appropriatesinglevowelsymbol: okaasan/mother' *Jrt'b Z /v <o-ka-a-sx-tr),oniisan/ olderbrother'*sEL'3rL <o-ni- i-sa-n>. ost words with lool arewritten as <ou>: doozol'please'
E i <^ <do-u-zo>,kinoo/'yesterday' E 0) i <ki-no-u>.However,a fewwords with lool arewritten as<oo>: ootl many' *J*J [' <o-o-i>, tool 'ten' I *J
<to-o>.You should ealize hat mostof thesewordscouldalso be written usingkanii, or a mixture of kanii andhiragana:okaasan*J& Z lv, oniisan *3X' Z L,kinoo wFA , ooi g [., /oo l.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 82/340
Japanese, orean,Vietnamese 63
Table 4.14 The complete kanalist. Hiragana are given above the equivalent katakana
-{, if. { f i
be bo
t' )-"
7" 1.."de do
tf ;", " J
8e go
$ " 3s
€ lze zo
b tJ + .me mo
()" 3:C 7 "bi bu
5 ' Jf - ,di du
3" ('*" ,"gi gu
t" f't Azi zu
/ ^ b
i ami mu
tf
ba
t:t"da
a"v-'za
*
ma
fc
to
(ftlipo
tI,
to
Ja
ko
?vso
*r 0)i )ne no
i L, . a
u e
) o o
5. '
/ {pu pe
. tv 7tu te
t l,ke
rttrt"ga
,ku
f7su
fl
7
nu
I r
4i
Ucpi
b7ti
3*ki
I'
isi
lg
=ni
e)7a
(f
pa
t:,ta
.fit
rtka
3+/
sa
lg
fna
rftse
(J
ha
U +c rPya
b t r+ <tya
a +t tkyu
U WC : -
pyu
b wy ' t -
tyu
3 t P{ - z
kyu
b t* a
tyo
t rt =kyo
6 +* ' tdy"
3 " +* " twa
(,1.-p
ts":z
byo
r )wf zdyr't
E " P{':-gyu
cr.*C a
byo
6 rf adyo
E " r* ' =8yo
5El
ro
b 9 6 t Li l t t Vra ri ru re
t)vwa
{T,tho
F
ayo
u 5 .E 7hi hu
t9J-
yu
av
a
he
&7wo
etya
Arv
N
()"+c rby"
U TC =
pyo
[cont'd]
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 83/340
64
Table .14 (Cont'd)
Japanese,Korean, Vietnamese
L +
i rsya
( 3 +
nya
( ) +E , thya
l , W
! t -syu
{3 'o
nyu
U WE : -
hyu
u rV a
hyo
U T
! asyo
{ : r
nyo
L" +
y ' rzya
a t +
i tmya
, aI t
rya
L" tP
) - zzyu
4 Wa t t
myu
L " r
i azyo
/ ^ ri a
myo
9 w 9 rt ) - t ) a
ryu ryo
Table 4.15 Examples showing how non-Japanese sounds are written in borrowed words
Isogaa]
[wiin]
[/erii]
[gonto]
'sofa'
'Vienna'
'sherry'
'font'
v 7A ' ri t -
7 t
7 -- v
, -/ l '
<so-hu"-:>
<u ;-:-N><s i
"-ri-:><hu o-N-to>
ln katakana, the same ules for writing long vowels apply as with hiragana,
but only for words of Japanese rigin: okaasan rt 7 +t y , oniisan 7l = 4 +t y ,
doozo l: , y", ooi t t 4, too F t .For words of foreignorigin,vowel ength orany vowel s indicatedby a horizontalbar (writtenas a verticalstroke n verticalwriting and transcribed ereas <:>): aisukuriimu/ ice cream' 7 4 7, t)- A,
lkaadol (credit)card' , - l '", suupu/ soup'A'/ ,lnooto/'notebook') - l',
/sooseezi/sausage'Y ' +.- t.
To transcribe oreignwords in katakanA,certainconventions avebeenadopted(table4.15).As an example,ake heEnglishword disco,whichhasbeenborrowedintoJapaneses disuko/.Referringo table4.1,4,we ee hat the basic anasystemhasno way of writing [di]; to write <di> would be to indicatea pronunciationof
[dSi].The solution for this is somewhat ike the writing of the lCyYl clusters.A
kana symbol with the correctconsonantsound s first written, followed by theappropriate owel symbol,written small.For this sound, he kana symbol or /de/ sused, ollowedby a smallversionof the symbol for li/: 7" 't z 3 <de;-su-ko>;
thus, .de , > is the way to write ldil . To write an initial lwl, the vowel symbol for
/u/ is used.Other examples f this type of writing areshown n table4.15.
Threeof the postpositions re written with irregularhiragana table4.16).Thecareful eaderwill havenoted hat in fivecases,hereare alternative aysof
writing certainmorr (the hiragana ormsare given n table 4.17; the katakanaequivalents ould work the sameway). The useof thesephoneticallyequivalentforms s lexicallydetermined.
Hiragana'plainkana'hasalsobeen alledonnade'woman's and' rom itsearlierextensive se n literature or women. n Japaneseoday, t is used or inflectionalendings nd grammatical articles, nd for many nativeJapanese ords.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 84/340
I apanese,KoreAn,Vietnamese
Table .1-6 Irregular iragana
65
lwal topic marker
le l direction
lo l direct object
d
&
(normally used fo r .hat)
(normally used fo r .het)
(formerly used for <wo>)
Table 4.17 Potential ambiguities in writing ltiragana
lzulldzilld:allds"lld:ol
<du>
<di>
.dy"t
.dyrlt
.dyot
a',;t j r, ) wb ' r
<zu>
<zi>
<zya>
<zyu>
<zyo>
ft"L " tD t pL " r
or
or
or
or
or
Table 4.18 Examples of katakana writing
t - - L= f i
rtltut - t f i + x ' ir)zr'v v v v, : 9r t i t l v
/haamonika/
lkaerul
/hatukanezumil
/riNgo/
/waNwaN/
/pataN/
/kane okure/
'harmonica'
'frog'
'mouset
'apple'
'bow-wow'
'soundof slamming'
'Sendmoney!'
English borrowing
animal
animal
plant
onomatopoetic
onomatopoetic
telegram
Table4.19(below)and
'Kimono' written in kaniiin furigana (above)
Katakana'sidekana' is used or emphasis, on-Chineseoanwords,Chineseloanwordswhere the kanii would be usedbut for some eason s missing,namesof many plantsand animals,onomatopoetic ords, and telegramstable4.18).In modern-day apan, he useof katakana s increasing;t is frequently ound incomputerwork, in filling out forms, n new tradenames, nd n colloquialexpres-sions. n somedictionarres, un-readings regiven n hiragana,and on-readingsnkatakana.
A special seof hiraganascalled urigana,which swritten smallnext to charactersto indicate he pronunciation.n earlier imes,when a largenumberof kanii wereused, uriganawere usedextensivelyn popular publications uchas newspapers,
sometimeso thepoint whereeverycharacterwas accompaniedy furigana.ln theexample n table 4.1,9of the word kimono, the urigana show hat the firstcharacteris pronounced ki l and he second mono/.
t ' OYnmono
afrki
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 85/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 86/340
I apanese, orean,Vietndmese
4.7.5'Writing
reform in Japan
From hemid-twentieth entury,manyproposalsor thesimplification f theJapanesewriting system avebeenproposed.Suchproposals avebeen esisted tronglyby
conservativesesiringo retain he older system.After the SecondD(orld'Ufar,thetime was felt to be particularlyripe for change. n1949, the government reatedtheKokugo Singikai National LanguageCouncil' which has ssued arious nstruc-tions about writing for schools nd the public at large.Until the mid-twentiethcentury, irtuallyany Chinese haracter ouldbe borrowed nto Japanese.n 1981,the Kokugo Singikai ssueda list of only I945 charactersor generaluse and284 furtherones or writing propernames.Older variantsof kanii andkanaweredropped.The government lsoestablishedn official ist of kun- and on-readings,eliminating many esscommon readings.Needlesso say,not everyone ollows thegovernment uidelines trictly.Newspapers nd mostotherpublications enerallyfollow the officialguidelines, nd about 99 percent of the charactersn their textis from the official ist, but for the other L per cent, hey needsome1000-1500charactersor propernames.ndividualsare more ikely to stray rom the officialguidelines. requently, iraganas used f the writer cannot hink of theappropriatekanii, and writers requentlyusekanii not on the list, especiallyor propernames.The older hiraganavariantsmight be found on the sign of a country nn where heywould conveya traditional, ustic lavour.
Smithand Schmidt 1996) nvestigatedtereotypical ttitudes owards he differ-ent waysof writing used n Japanesetable4.22).They nvestigatedhe proportionof script ype ound n several arieties f popular iction. n general,he
stereotypeswereconfirmed.Comicbooksand scienceiction,aimedat a youngaudience, adfewerkanii and morekatakana.Businessnd mysterynovels,aimedat adult men,had morekanii and ess atakana.Romance ovels, imedat women,hada greaterproportionof hiragana.
The governmenteformsof the mid-twentiethcentury eft the traditionalJapanesewriting system ssentiallyntactwith its mixture of kanii andkana.The intentionof the reformswasa containment f diversity, ather han a thoroughgoingevisionof the writing system.t would, of course, epossibleo write Japanesentirely nhiraganaor katakanaor Roman etters.The writing system, owever, s so strongly
identifiedwith the Japaneseulture hat there s little movementat present or amajor reformation.After the reformsof the mid-twentiethcentury, herewas a nationwide ncreasen
literacy eported.Unger 1996)argueshat thiswasdueprimarily to the reformof
Table 4.22 The social connotations of kanii, biragana, and katakana
'Wr ter/r eader featur es Stylistic features
67
kanii
hiraganakatakana
male, middle-agedand older
female, youngyoung, especiallymale
erudition
softness or femininitymodernity; pop culture
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 87/340
58 lapanese,Korean,Vietnamese
thesoucATroNAL ystem, ot thewRrrrNG ystem.Greateropportunitiesor women,
. . .expansioninhighschoolenro lments, . . . l ibera l isat ionofunivers i tyadmissi- thesewere he changeshat madea difference'p. 1,23;Unger's mphasis).
'lfhen
computerswere first introduced, hey requiredsimple nput and outputmethods. n general,katakanAwas used,and at first it seemed s if computing
would force he abandonment f characters.n a short time, however, omputers
becamemoresophisticatednd accommodating.oday,Japanesean bewritten on
a computerwith only a smallamountof inconveniencein comparisono enteringRoman ext). Technologyadapted o the writing system, ather han the reverse.
Typically he keyboard s set up to accommodate itherkana or Roman nput.
Theword processorhen showspossible anii forms or the nput,oftenexamining
the contextand trying to guesshe most ikely kanii form, presentingt first along
with other possibilities;he author then selectshe suggestedorm or chooses
another orm.
4.7.6 Psychologyof utriting in Japanese
A gooddealof research asbeendoneon readingandwriting Japanese.or example,
Paradis t al. (1985) nvestigatedcquired yslexia disabilityn reading) nd dys-graphia disabilityn writing) amongJapaneseativespeaker-writers.e found
that the ability to usekana andkanii were ndependent,nd that any combination
of difficulties ould arise.For example, personmight ose heability o readkana,
but retain he ability o readkanji, or viceversa, r be able o write one,but not the
other.
4.2 Korean
4.2.7 Backgroundand history
Korean s spokenby about 70 million people iving in North and SouthKorea,as
well as by about ive million speakers verseas.he genetic elationship f Korean
is not certain.Quite ikely it is related o the Altaic (Manchu,Mongolian,Turkic)
languages, nd possibly o Japanese. ost dialectsare mutually intelligible.Thestandarddialect n the south s that of Seoul,and n the north that of Phyengyang(Sohm 997\.
Someof the phenomenamentioned arlieraboutJapanese riting haveKorean
parallels.Partof the reason or this s that it was theKoreanswho first took Chinese
writing to Japan.More importantly, both countrieswere strongly nfluenced y
Chinese ultureovermanycenturies. urther, he linguisticstructures f JapaneseandKoreanare similar,and thus both languagesacedsimilarproblems n adapting
the Chinesewriting system.Koreancontactwith China was very eaily; according o King (1996) he Koreans
wereawareof Chinesewriting from beforeHan times i.e.,before he second enturyoro). Althoughearlierexamples f writing in Chinese re ound n Korea, he first
evidence f writing in theKorean anguages an nscription n a stone tele ated o
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 88/340
Japanese,Koredn,Vietnamese
414 rvnw.Thewriting isentirely n Chinese haracters, ut several haractersn thesteleare usedphoneticallyo write Koreannam€s.
In addition o borrowing he writing system,Koreanborroweda largenumberof words from Chinese;he Sino-Korean ocabulary s stil l sizeablen modern
Korean. n a fashionsimilar to Japan,Koreans irst simply wrote in the Chineselanguage singChinese haracters. radually, he writing was adapted o writingthe Korean anguage singcharacters.n a form known as tutu'clerical writing',the Sino-Korean ordscontinued o be written with their Chinese haracters, ndcertaincharacters ere used or writing nativeKoreanwords and the verbalsuffixes(phonetic unl; Koreanword orderwas used.The earliest urviving tutu text isfrom 754 Nrw. In 958 NEw, he Koreancivil servicewas formed,modelledon theChinesenstitution;tsdocuments erewritten n itwu,which remainedhestandardway of writing Korean or centuries, articularly or official, egal,and administrativepurposes ntil it wasofficiallydiscontinuedn 1894.
A secondype of writing, known as ryangchal'local etters',emerged,eminiscentof theJapanese an'yogana ypeof writing in which the characters re primarilyused or theirphoneticvalue;Koreanword order was used Hyangchalwasmostlyused or writing lyric poetry; wenty-five uchpoemshavesurvived.
A third type of writing waskwukyel'orul formulr', in which simplifiedormsofcharacterswere developedor writing the Koreangrammaticalmorphemes;Chineseword orderwas used.Thiswasprimarilyused or annotatingConfucianandBuddhisttextswritten in Chinese.
Sfecan easilyseea parallelwith Japaneseanahere.
4.2.2 Korean lexiconThe Korean lexicon can be divided into three large groups: native Korean words,Sino-Korean borrowings, and borrowings from other languages(especially ecent
borrowings from English).During 1910-45,whenJapan ruled Korea, manyJapanese
words were borrowed, but subsequently, here has been a consciouseffort to avoid
Japanesewords. The Sino-Korean words are monosyllabic; native Korean wordsoften have polysyllabic morphemes.The Sino-Korean vocabulary has connotationsof tradition, education, and form ality1'native Korean words have either neutralconnotations or onesof informality, warmth, and friendliness.There are some homo-phones in Korean,
but not nearly so many as in Japaneseor Chinese.
4.2.3 Phonologyof Korean
Korean has 21 vowels and 19 consonants. There are two common romanizationsfo r transcribing Korean. The Yale system s used here because t agreeswell withthe hankul writing schemewhich we will discussshortly; in linguistic terms, theYale system s a deep system, .e., at a morphophonemic level. The other system,the McCune-Reischauer (M-R) system, is shallower, more at the phonetic level,
showing the pronunciation more clearly. The Yale system tends to be used n lin-guistic publications,
and M-R in more popular writing. Both systemsare shown intable 4.23. The rules for the M-R system are complex and, for certain contexts,involve other symbols; only the main symbol for each sound is given here.
59
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 89/340
70 Japanese,Koreln, Vietnamese
Table 4.23 The Yale and McCune-Reischauer systemsof romanizing Korean; the IPA
column at the left shows the phonetic pronunciation (U = unrounded; R = rounded)
IPA Yale M-R
Front Back Front Back Front Back
U
Vowels
u w u i w i n u
e o e o e 6 o
a a e a
i y i u i
e a t a o e y
& a a y
wl
woy
php"
p o
Consonants
Korean has three classes f obstruents:plain, aspirated,and tense. n the con-
sonant chart in table 4.23,the plain stops are given in the top row, the aspirated stops
in the second row with the lhl diacritic, and the tense stops are given in the third
row with a diacritic lo . The fricatives s so/ similarly have a plain-tense difference.
The basicsyllableshape s (C)V(C)(C).About 2000 syllableshapes ccur.Although
the glides lwl and lyl are included with the consonants here, the writing system
treats them as part of the vowel nucleus, .e., as the glide in a diphthong.
4.2.4 Hankul
In the fifteenthcenturyNEw,a completelynew alphabetknown ashankul ['hcngul]was developedor writing Korean.This alphabets attributed o King Seycong, ho
took a strongpersonalnterest n its development. he originalnameof the alphabetwashwunmincengum { RrI.+ (8E14*) 'Thecorrectsoundsor the nstruction
of the people'. n North Korean, t is referredo aschosenkul'Koreancript'. n
SouthKorea, henamehankul Koreanscript'hasbeenused ince a.1.900.
Hankul is an exampleof an inventedscript. rU(ritingwas well known to theKoreans;heyhad,after all, beenwriting for centuries.Onequestions whetherornot the development f hankul was influenced y other alphabetic cripts.Given
that Buddhismwas well establishedn Koreaat the time, the inventor of hankulwould likely havebeenawareof the Indianscripts see hapter11)traditionally
associated ith Buddhist exts.Further, he Mongolianscriptwas usednot far to
the north. Any or all of these criptsmight haveprovidedsome nspiration or the
t
th
t o
S
s o
n
I
c h k
ch' k '
cc kk
h
n8
c k p
ch kh p'
cc kk pp
h
t
th
tt
s
S S
n
I
t l k p
tf kh ph
tf" k* pp
h
t
t '
tt
s
SS
n
I
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 90/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 91/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 92/340
Japanese, oreAn,Vietnamese
Except for <ey> and <ay>, the simple vowels are written with simple symbols: a
single horizontal or vert ical main stroke; four of thesehave an addit ional short
stroke attached to the main stroke. For the <y>-diphthongs where the glide follows
the vowel nucleus as in <ey, ay, uy, wuy, oy>, the y-glide is written as the vertical
stroke of <i> and is attached to the appropriate vowel. In the past, the vowels [e ]and [a] were both diphthongs; this fact explains their writing as <ey> and <ay>.
Each syllable is normally written as one glyph. A glyph is one square-shaped
combination of the indivi dual hankul graphemes.Each glyph takes about the same
spaceas one Chinesecharacter.The graphemesof a glyph are combined according
to the following rules.
1 The onset consonant is written at the top of the cluster. If there is no onset
consonant, he symbol o is usedas a dummy consonant.
lmul E lu l .o
2 If the vowel has a main vertical stroke, it goes o the right of the onset consonant.
lmal u| lmel "l
3 If the vowel has a main horizontal stroke, it goes below the onset consonant.
lmol _E_ /mwu/ +
4 Any consonant n the coda is written in a separate ayer at the bottom of thecluster. If there are two codal consonants, he first goes on the left, and the
secondgoeson the right.
lmall g lmalkl E+
/son/ + /hulth/ *
Ittelpl H langl .J
\7hen hankul writing began, t had a fairly simple grapheme-phoneme relationship,
but it has become ncreasingly more complex over time. To pronounce Korean from
a hankul text today, one must use a number of morphophonemic rules to arrive atthe correct pronunciation. These rules underlie much of the difference between the
Yale and McCune-Reischauer romanizations. The Yale romanrzation is similar to
hankul and representsKorean phonology at a deeper evel, whereas the McCune-
Reischauer omanization representsKorean at the surfacephonological level.
4.2.6 Hanca
Hankulwas ntroducednto a societywhereChinese ulturewasveryhighlyregarded,and the Chinesewriting system haredn that esteem. he Koreannamefor charac-
ters s hanca 'hon,dgo]
Chinese
characters';his is a borrowingof the Chinesehdnzi (cf.Japaneseanii). The educated eoplewho had spentconsiderableffortin learning o write Koreanwith characters erestronglyopposed o abandoning
73
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 93/340
74 Japanese, oreln, Vietnamese
traditional writing. They argued hat the use of Chinese haractersmaintained
a crucial ink to Chinese ultureand to the classicConfucian iterature.To theprivilegediterateclasses,ankul appearedo be a deeply nferior writing system.
They referred o it as
women's
letters,monks' letters,children's etters'.Despiteits royal endorsement, ankul wasnot really adoptedwidely until long after its
introduction.For the smallproportionof the population hat was iterate,writing
continuedas before.Althougha certainamountof materialwaswritten in hankul n thenext 400years,
particularlyby women, t wasonly in the mid-nineteenth enturywith rising iteracy
thathankulbegan o gain populariry.Thesystemwhich emerged as n facta mixed
one with the Sino-Korean ords written in characters nd everything lsewritten
tn hankul.After the politicaldivisionof Korea n 1948,North Koreaeliminated
characters ntirely, eaching nly a few in school or historical nterest.
SouthKorea hascontinued he mixed form of writing, with students earningabout1800characters. nly Sino-Korean ordsarewritten n characters.owever,
since1948, he matter hasbecome ighlypoliticizedwith government dicts wice
eliminating nd thenreinstatinghe useof characters.aylor and Taylor (t995)
report hat overall he useof characters ppearso be decreasing.
4.3 Vietnamese
4.3.7 Backgroundand history
Vietnamese is the first language of most of the 57 million people living in Vietnam.
The native speakersof other languages n Vietnam usually also speak Vietnamese as
a second anguage.Vietnamese s a member of the Mon-Khmer group of the Austro-
Asiatic family of languages; t is completely unrelated to Chinese, apanese, r Korean.
In structure, Vietnamese s isolating with no affixes; morphemes are monosyllabic.
Vietnam was ruled as a colony by China with brief interruptions from 111 oro
to 939 NEw. Even after this time, Vietnam, although nominally an independent
monarchy, was in fact controlled indirectly by China. During the period of direct
Chinese colonial rule, education and thus writing were done in Chinese (Nguy6n
1959). After independence n 939, writing continued in Chinese, although a distinctSino-Vietnamesepronunciation of Chinese developed. By the eleventh centuty, d
new distinctive type of writing had emerged known as chfr n6m'southern
script'.
In this script, a large number of new characters were developed specifically to
write Vietnamese.Thesewere characters unknown in Chinese,which nevertheless
had been created along the traditional Chinese principles of character formation,
primarily semantic-phoneticcompounds.
4.3.2 Chfrn6m
tJ7ith ts monosyllabic and isolating nature, Vietnamesehad no need to develop waysto write inflectional affixes, asJapanese nd Korean did. It is also not clear why the
Vietnamese el t the need to create new characters.We can ask why they could not
have adapted Chinesecharacters o Vietnameseas the Japaneseand Koreans did to
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 94/340
Japanese, orean,Vietnamese 75
their languages ithout changing he shape.Possiblyhe development f the newVietnameseharacters asa way of expressingultural ndependence,lthough heprocess f creating he newcharacters asgenerallyChinesen its nature. n anycase,chir n6m continued nto the twentiethcenturyas waysof writing Vietnamese.
Vietnamese orrowedheavily rom the Chineseexicon;Hannas 1,997) itesestimates etween30 and 60 per cent of the modernvocabularyas borrowed.The borrowingextendedover a long periodof time, forming differentclasses fborrowedwords,with the older borrowingsbeing ully assimilated, nd the laterborrowings aving ecognized ino-Viernameseronunciarions.
The development f cbir n)m is somewhat imilar o theJapaneseituation,andwe will use he term we developedor Japaneseharacters arlier n this chapter.The examples re rom Nguy6n G959)and Hannas (1997).
4.3.2.1, SEMANTICON
Chinesewords were borrowed into Vietnamese nd were written with Chinesecharacterstable4.25).This is the sameprocesswe haveseen n JapanesendKorean.Thesewordswereperceived s Chinese orrowings.
4.3.2.2 KUN
Sometimes, Chinese haracterwould be borrowedand used or an indigenousVietnamese ord which had the sameor similarmeaning semantic un) or sound(phonetic un) as expressedy the
characrern
Chinesetable4.26).
Table 4.25 Examples of semantic on Vietnamese
Modern Mandarin Modern Vietnamese Chinese meaning Vietnamese meaning
'head,beginning beginning'
Aoau
thidu
sdch
t6u
shio
cd
eH,yW
Table 4.26 Examples of semantic and phonetic kun in Vietnamese
Mandarin Modern Vietnamese Chinese meaning Vietnamese meaning
Semantic kun
"i wdi4k yi,& bEn
mul
vrgc
von
'flavour,smell'
'work, labour''root, capital'
'smell, odour''work, event''capital,
funds'
Phonetic kun
)9-EI'R
m0tc6ai
'one''have'
twho'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 95/340
75 Japanese, oreln, Vietnamese
Table 4.27 Examplesof characters nvented in Vietnamese
Mandarin Vietnamese
a
b
c
d
e
f
g
h
* ,+ - t .
c + * .
4 + &
i + 4P t a
&
,t<@
s{i
t ian'sky'+
shing'up'
wdng ' lose '+ sh l ' lose '
ni6n'year' + su i
'year of age
mEi + mil'mother'
ba + san 'three'
w6 i 'do '
y t ' sky '
16o 'net '
tf t t
-#t
+8(z/,
k@+5
gidl
mdt
tudi
m9
ba
lim
ay
la
'sky,heaven'
'lose'
'yearof age'
'mother'
'three'
'do,make'
'that,those'
'strange'
4.3.2.3 CHARACTERS NVENTED IN VIETNAMESE
Sproat 2000,p. 156)seemso haveoverlooked he examples f semantic-semantic
compounds table4.27, forms a{), when following Nguy6n (1959).He says:'ExclusivelyVietnameseharacternnovationswere ound n chfrn6m,but thesewere
apparently ll semantic-phoneticonstructions.'Someemantic-phoneticompounds
(table4.27, ormsd-e) are ound. Note that these xamples re n the phonetic-semanticorder rather than the more common Chinese emantic-phoneticrder.Sometimes hinese haracters eresimplifiedn shape table4.27, orms f-h).
4.3.3 Qudc ngir
In the seventeenthcentury, a third way of writ ing Vietnamese arose with the
name qudc ngfr. French Christian missionariesdeveloped a version of the Roman
alphabet for publishing religious materials in Vietnamese.One of them, Alexandre
de Rhodes, published Dictionarium Annamiticum Lusitanum et Latinum 'A
Vietnamese, Portuguese,and Latin Dictionary' in 1651- He added three letters tothe basic Roman alphabet <d u o> and used diacritics to indicate vowel quality as
well as tone. As Vietnam fell more under French cultural and political influence,
de Rhodes'alphabet was increasinglyused n schools.Haarmann (7991) points ou t
that in the late nineteenth century and at the beginning of the twentieth century, the
languageand writing system of Vietnam was quite complex with three languages
(Chinese, French, Vietnamese) used in schooling and two writing systems n use
(chtr ndm and qu6c ng;r).
In 1945, with independence rom France, the new communist government pro-
claimed that qu6c ngtr would be the only recognized script. The northern dialect of
Hanoi is the standard dialect for writing. By now, qudc ngir is strongly identifiedwith the Vietnamesepeople, and the older scripts are limited to academic and
antiquarian interests.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 96/340
I apanese, orean, Vietnamese 77
4.4 FurtherReading
Taylorand Taylor 1995)cover both Japanese nd Korean.Miller 1967,1986),
Seeley 1991),Shibatani1987,1990), ndSmith 1996) ll present asic nforma-tion about he Japanesewritingsystem.Unger(1996)discusseshe historyofJapanesewriting mmediately fter he SecondWorldWar. Paradiset al. (1985)give an interesting iscussion f aphasiaand its effecton Japanesewriting.ForKorean,Sohm (1997)has general nformation bout he language nd writ ingsystem.Kim-Reynaud1997)hasa numberof more echnical rticles. ietnameseslesswelldiscussed,utsee Nguy6n 1959, 996), ndalsoHannas 1997).Hannashasvoicedstrongcriticismo the continued se of charactersor writingany Asianlanguage.
4.5 Terms
ateji
cht ndmfurigana
hancahankul
hiragana
hyangchal
itwujukujikun
kana
kanbun
kanji
4.6 Exercises
katakana
kokujikun-reading
kwukyel
mora
on-readingphonetic xtension
phonetic unphonetic nqudc ngu
semantic unsemantic n
tomato 'tomato''femalebar manager'
Howmanypronunciationsan
youind or he number ne<1> n English?Hint:consider 0,1"v,etc.)
The followingwordshave beenborrowed ntoJapanese romother anguages,primarily nglish.What s the ypeof scriptused?Romanizehe Japanese riting,and henguessas to the meaning. omeanswers avebeengiven oryou.
l . ? 1 .
-f Z l'x < - - 1 .
U ,< 4 'U F Liszt'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 97/340
78
< - ,- t 7 ,
t 4 < -
l ' -z l 'F - x 9 -z t - g -4 v '< l ' Yr ) v ,
z 9 v F < v7 - yV tUY, U7 < z y t )
f v va v l7 v * 'l t tv9)t tV7,- l'."7 4 z t v '< v ?t t / + y ,
Japanese, orean, Vietnamese
'mutton'
'stuntman'
'yacht'
'pfayingcard'< Port.carta'medicalrecord'< Ger.Karte'cataloguecard' Eng.card
ln Chinese,dn/bank,
shore'iswrittenwith he characterf. ThisChinese ordwasborrowedntoJapanese s /gani'bank, shore'.
(a) WhenF is readas lganl n Japanese,what s this reading nownas?(b) The same character f was also used for the native Japaneseword
/kishi/'bank, hore'.What s thisreading nownas?
The ollowing ordshavebeenborrowedromother anguages, rimarily nglish,
into Korean.MatcheachKoreanword with he English loss. Hint: emember
that Koreandoes not havean lll-ltl distinction.)
zl :ol-o1,.--3?oJ=.
94ulolzJsl:
E=,4E
r-=.}JE
alibi
boombulldozercaloriecampus
charisma
disk ockey
orchestra
9fl1^ e zl
4e49,rll-1 -1
eil e.*:42144+ z-zlzlzl4+ "lEF?+
restaurant
rucksack
spaghettistoptundraice cream
kiss
milk
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 98/340
5 Cuneiform
5.1 Backgroundand History
Cuneiform, he earliest nown writing in the world, was done a little over 5000yearsago by the Sumerian eople iving in southernMesopotamia figure5.1).Mesopotamia s the land lying between he Tigris and Euphrares iversand is nowpart of modern-d y haq. A domesticated gricultural ife emergedhere around7000 oLD, and citiesarose n the fifth millenniumwith large emplesknown asziggurats(a famous one was the biblical Tower of Babel - i.e., the ziggurato{Babylon).The Sumerians ad an activeeconomy entredaround he temples.
5.7.7 Sumerian
The Sumerians ettled n this areaaround 4000 oLD, apparently eplacing arlierpeopleswhose namesare unknown to us. The Sumerian anguage s unrelatedto any other known language. he phonemes f Sumerian re given n table 5.1(Hayes1990).There s somedisputeamongSumerologistsboutseveral oints nthis nventory.
Sumerian riting was on clay. flhen clay s dried, t is extremely urable.Some-times abletswerebaked o preservehem better,but often heyweresimplyallowedto dry. Firehasdestroyedmanypaperandpapyrusdocuments f history;however,with clay,a fire simplybakes t and makes t evenmore durable.The fact that the
Sumerianswrote on clay has meant hat the modernworld has an unparalleledamountof informationabout heir life at so earlya period.
Table 5.1 The phonemes of Sumerian
k g
rl
x
p b
m
u
o
t d
n
s z
l r
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 99/340
80 Cuneiform
Figure 5.1 Mesopotamia
The earliestSumerian ocuments ere bookkeepingecords ept by the temples.Latermaterialalso ncluded argenumbers f administrative nd economicexts,as
well as egaldocuments,etters, oyal nscriptions, nd iterary exts(Postgate 992).
The best-known iterary text is theEpic of Gilgamesh.
5.7.2 Akkadian
The Akkadians, ed by Sargon, onqueredhe Sumeriansn 2350 oLD.Akkadian s
a Semiticanguage, ompletely nrelated o Sumerian. he Akkadiansadoptedmuch
of Sumerian ulture, ncludingSumerianwriting. At first, the Akkadianssimply
wrote in theSumeriananguagewith the Sumerianwriting system;ater heyadaptedthe writing systemo write Akkadian, but theyneverentirelygaveup writing in the
Sumeriananguage. or theAkkadians,Sumerian as a language f learning,muchas
Euphrates .
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 100/340
Cuneiform
Table .2 Thephonemesf Akkadian
8 1
p b t d
tS Z J
sn
l r
k g
q
x
l : u:
e: a i
l u
e a
Latin wasfor medirval Europeans. he namesAkkadian,Babylonian,andAssyrianare all used or this language pokenat different imesand places.We can viewthem simplyasdialects f a single anguage hichwe will callAkkadian.Akkadianliterature s vast, ncludingadministrative nd economic ocuments,oyal decrees,legalcodes, iterature, vencookbooks.
The Akkadianphonologicalnventory s given n table5.2.If we compare he Sumerian nd Akkadian inventories,we see hat Akkadian
had more phonemeshan Sumerian. he sounds t q g/ probably nvolvedsomesort of pharyngeal,laryngeal,r uvulararticulation see hapter7). Glottal stop 2/was presentn proto-Semitic, ut it was lost during the early stages
fAkkadian.
Assyriologistsspecialistsn this area)usually ranscribe? I x j gl as.' 5b i 0r .Sumerianwas replacedby Akkadian in the eaily secondmillennium oLD. Later,
during he irstmillennium,Aramaic,a differentSemiticanguage,ecamehe inguafrancaof the Akkadianworld; it waswrittenwith an abjad asystemike an alphabet;seechapter7).In 537oLD, the Persiansonqueredhe Akkadians.Although thePersianspokeOld Persian, n Indo-Europeananguage,headministrativeanguageand lingua francaof the area emainedAramaic.
5.2 Tokensand the Inventionof WritingDeniseSchmandt-Besserat1989,1992)has put forth a very interestingheoryasto how writing arose n Mesopotamia. rom the period 8500-3000 oro, a largenumberof artefacts nown as okenshavebeen ound.These re smallclay objectsof simplegeometric hapesfigure5.2):spheres,ones, etrahedra, ylinders, isks,lens-shapedisks,etc.; okensof this periodare known asplain tokens.They areassociated ith the beginnings f agriculture;Schmandt-Besseratelieveshat theywere used or record-keeping.
S7ecan imagine wo farmersagreeing:In exchange
for the twenty bushels f grain I am givingyou now, you will giveme two sheepn
the spring; will keep hese wo tokensas a recordof the agreement.' hearguesthat the differentshapes f tokenswereused or differentagricultural tems:barley,sheep,wool, etc.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 101/340
82
$ @ # f f iFigure 5.2 Plain tokens
Figure5.3 Hollow envelopewith tokensenclosed
Although the archaological context for many tokens has been lost, some havebeen found stored inside sealed, hollow clay balls forming envelopes around the
tokens (figure 5.3). Schmandt-Besserat rgues that these envelopesrepresenteda
way of safeguarding he record of the contract. If there was a disagreement, he
envelopecould be broken, and the evidenceof the tokens would be inside.
From the seventhmillennium oLD, sealswere used in the Near East; they were
the property of an individual or institution and servedas evidenceof authenticity(cf. the sealsused by corporations and notaries public even today). Mesopotamian
sealswere cylindrical in shape and were rolled across he clay, leaving the impression
of the pattern of the seal.Thus, the eaily Mesopotamians would have been familiar
with the notion of pressing something into the clay to make a record. Schmandt-Besseratsuggestshat, in order to record a contract, tokens were sometimessimilarly
pressed nto the outer surface of a clay envelope, hen they were placed inside the
envelope,which was then closed (figure 5.4). This procedure had the advantageof
allowing the contract to be consulted without breaking the envelope.
Once the tokens were pressed nto the outer surfaceof the clay, people realized hat
there was no need o enclose hem in the envelope; hus, the envelopesgaveway to
impressed ablets.A flat tablet of clay was marked with a cylinder seal mpression,
indicating the party to the contract, and then the tokens were pressed nto the tablet
to show the content of the agreement.
From about 4400-3000 oro, more complex tokens (figure 5.5) were found inaddition to the plain tokens. These had more complex shapes,sometimes with
incised ineson their surface.They are associatedwith the emergence f cities during
Cuneiform
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 102/340
Cuneiform
Figure 5.4 Envelope showing where tokens have been impressed; token shown separately
@ # # f f iFigure 5.5 Complex tokens
Figure5.6 Tablet with inscribedsigns
this time. Schmandt-Besserat rgues hat the complex tokens represented he manu-factured goods such as cloth, beer, and bread which were traded in the cities.
\fhen complex tokens came into existence, their more complex shapes andparticularly the lines in them were difficult to reproduce on the tablet merely bypressing he tokens into the clay. To solve this problem, the shapeof the token was
drawn into the tablet with a stylus rather than impressedwith the actual token(figure 5.5). Special types of impressionscame to be used to indicate more than
one unit.
83
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 103/340
84 Cuneiform
From simple documents which recorded different numbers and objects, someone
realized hat other typesof recordscould be made and ultimately that any utterance
in the language could be written down. Schmandt-Besserat'sheory that writing
developed from the use of tokens as a means of record-keeping is not without con-troversy, but it seems o be gradually gaining acceptance. f it is true, evenpartially
so, it givesus considerable nsight into the origin of writing in Mesopotamia.
5.3 Materialsof Writing
Theearliest nownrealwriting s romtheancient ity Uruk (southernMesopotamia,
near he Euphrates). e presumehat the anguagesSumerian, ut thepictographic
natureof the writing doesnot give any direct evidenceor the language f the
scribes. he symbolswere drawn with a pointedstick,or stylus,n soft claywhichwas allowed o dry. Since ullinga stylus hrough heclay hrows up ridges, more
satisfactory ay of writing on clay wasfound, namely,pressinghe stylus nto the
clay.A triangularstyluswasgenerally sed,eavingwedgeJikempressions.hename
cuneiformwedge-shaped'is a nineteenth-centuryermcoined rom the Latinword
cuneus'wedge'. umberswerewritten with a circularstylus figures .5 and 5.9):
one mpressionor'one', two impressionsor'two', etc.Largerunits werewritten
with a largerstylusand alsoby impressinghe stylusat an angle.A rectangular labof cIay,known as a tablet(figure5.711,as held n onehand
and the stylus n the other.Earlysymbols how strokesn all directions, ut soon
only the oneswhich could bemadewithout too much rotation of the styluswereused.For reasons ot entirely understood, ut no doubt related o the way the
tabletwasheld or writing andreading, ymbolswere otated90" counterclockwise(seeigure5.10).
At first, the scribeswrote the cuneiform symbolsby using the triangular stylus
to duplicate arefully he samedesignmadeby thepointedstylus;however,n time,
Figure 5.7 Portion of a cuneiform tablet
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 104/340
9 1 0
1 3
1 4 1 5
1 1 2' 1 61 7
Front(Obverse)
85
1 8 1 923 24
20 21 222 5 2 6
Back(Reverse)
Cuneiform
Figure5.8 The order of writing on both sidesof a tablet s shown
the shapesof the symbols became stylized. \7ith the ro tation and stylization, con-
tinuity with the original representational shape was lost. Later scribes ikely had little
knowledge of the origin of the symbols.
The shapeof clay tablet varied but was typically rectangular, of a sizeconvenient tofit in the hand. The obverse front side)was usually flat, and the reverse back) convex.This design made it easy to find where the writing began. The scribe sometimeswrote in columns beginning at the upper left of the obverseside (figure 5.8). Withina column, the symbols were written hofizontally from left to right. At the end ofone column, a new column would begin at the right of the last one. \7hen the lowerright corner of the obversewas reached, he tablet was turned over, top to bottom.The first column on the reversestarted at the right with further columns ro the left.
Thus, the columns were ordered differently on the two sides.Many tablets have
only one column per side, but the tablet would still be turned top to bottom.
Sfe have aheady mentioned envelopes n the context of tokens; cuneiform tabletswere also sometimeswritten in the form of envelopes.A contract would be written
out on a tablet, thensealed
nsidea clay envelopewhich would also bear a copy ofthe same contract. The Akkadians took fraud in contract law very seriously. Seals
could also be used to authenticate he author of a tablet.
The standard medium of cuneiform writing is the clay tablet; however, inscrip-tions were also occasionallymade in stone, metal, glass,or ivory. Clay objects n theshapeof large ceremonial building nails with inscriptions, even lengthy ones, weresometimesplaced in the walls of temples.
5.4 SocialContextof CuneiformWriting
Scribeswere an educated lite n Sumerian nd Akkadian society.They attendeda long and often harshschooling. n addition to the basics f writing, they also
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 105/340
86 Cuneiform
learned bout iterature ndmathematics. kkadian-speakingtudents penta good
dealof time earningSumerian. abletsexistwhere he eacher aswritten a model
text on one half of the tablet and the studenthascopied t on the other.The same
school exts are found from different time periods,suggestinghat the methodofschooling emainedmuch he same or centuries.One peculiarkind of text was the lexical ist. Thesewere istsof semantically
relatedwords. At first, the lexical istswere only in Sumerian, ut later Akkadian
translationswere addedalongside. ikely thesewere catalogues f symbolsmade
to helpscribalstudents.Literacywas not widespread, ut therewere still manypeoplewho could read.
Although abletswereusuallydiscarded hen theywereno longer equired,many
libraries, omeof considerableize,havebeen ound.
5.5 An Early SumerianTablet from Uruk
Nissen,Damerow,and Englund(1993)have examineda collectionof 82 tablets
from ancientUruk dated o about 3000 oLD.These abletsare among he earliesttrue writing known to us today.The tabletsaremainlybookkeepingecords. hey
were found in dumpswhere hey had beendiscarded nd were no longer n thelocationwhere hey would havebeenproducedor used.The scriptof these abletsis known as proto-cuneiform, rawn with a pointedstylusbefore he introduction
of the triangularstylus.'S7e
will look at one of these ablets figure5.10)producedby an administrativeofficial with the name Kushim lka|fiml. Seventeen ther tablets n this collectionmention Kushim, who appears o be the chief warehousemanor a brewery.His
title is Sanga, senioradministrator.His significancesclear rom the argequantities
of ingredientsor which hewasresponsible.First,we should ook at the counting system or grain.There seemso havebeen
a standard nit of volumeof about24 litresused or barley figure5.9).Different
symbolsndicatedmultiplesof this basicunit (figure5.9); he multiplesdid not have
a consistentarithmetic relationship o each other. This systemwas usedonly forgrain,particularlybarley.Other objects addifferentsystems f measurement. issen
et al. (1993) found thirteen differentsystemsor such hings asanimals, ish, milkproducts,weight,days,etc.Thesymbolsor numbers ppear o havebeenmadewith
two round styli, one small and one large. U7itheach stylus wo different symbolscouldbemade,by pressinghe stylusstraightdown into the clayor by pressinghetip in almosthorizontally.Thiswas ndicated n the textsby the symbol abelledin figure5.9. ilfewill label hese nitsasa, b, c, d.In figure5.9,symbols andb aremadewith the small stylus,c and d with the largeone. \fith symbolsb and c, the
tip of the stylus spressedtraight n, andwith symbols andd,the stylus spressed
in at an angle.Six unitsof a equal1 unit of b;10 units of b equal1 unit of c; and
3 units of c equalone unit of d.
In the Uruk tabletshown n figure5.10, he obverse hows our differententrieson the left al l having o do with barley;on the right, the tablet s signedby Nisa,
who appears o be Kushim'ssecond-in-command.he reverse ummarizesheinformationon the obverse nd is signedby both Kushim andNisa.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 106/340
Cuneiform 87
O
O
Dsurement symbol
b - 6
= 1 0
- 3
s for grain
D
o
O
1 un i t
6 units
60 uni ts
d
Figure 5.9 Mea
1B0units
total
Nrsa assistanto Kushim)
Figure5.10 An earlyaccounting ablet from Uruk (from HansJ. Nissenet al., ArchaicBookkeeping,rgure34, p.38. Chicago:University f ChicagoPress, 993.@ 7986byUniversityof ChicagoPress.Reproducedwith permission)
Looking now at the four entrieson the obverse,we see hat each one contains anumber and the title of an official. The first entry shows an amount of 4b,2c,1-d ora total of 324 units (where 4bis 4 occurrences
of symbol b as shown in figure 5.9);the secondentry has 1a, 8b or a total of 49 units; the third entry has 7b or a totalof 42 units; and the fourth entry has3b,'l,d or a total of 198 units. The total numberof units on this side s thus 613 units or approximately l4,7l2litres.
Kushm
Nisa(assistanto Kushim)
oto>r>r-
.ooraQto
ffiffi
sssg#
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 107/340
88 Cuneiform
The reverse howsa number,and the signatures f KushimandNisa.Thegrain-
shaped ymbol epresentsbarley'.The symbolbelow hat hasnot beendeciphered
but seemso refer o somekind of distribution.The amountof grain s ta,2b,'1-,c,
3d or a total of 5"1,3nits; his figure sobviously he total of the four entries n theobverse.This tabletshows he clearand accurate ookkeepingechniques f theAkkadians.
Another tablet shows he amount of various ngredientshat the warehouseman
would need o haveon hand for a certainquantityof beer o bemade.One nterest-
ing series f tablets hows hat a certainpersondid not havesufficient rain o pay
his taxes ully oneyearand that the shortfallwas carried orwardto the nextyear.
5.6 InternalStructureof Cuneiform
5.6.7 Deueloptnentof Etmbok
Eachcuneiformsymbol s a grapheme; raphemesepresent oth morphological
andphonologicalnits n the anguagefigure .11).Theearliest ymbolswerepictograms.n the llustrationsn figure5.L1, he symbols
for lsagl head' (1l1,ki l 'land' (7: pictureof ploughed ield), sal/ 'femalesexual
organs' 8), and lkurl 'mountain' (9) are pictograms.n the earliest orms of the
symbols column ) the conicnature sapparent, ut with therotationand cuneiform
stylization, he original pictorial quality has been ost, and the later forms are
simplysymbolic column V). Thesymbol or ldul'go' (5)wasoriginallypictographic,showinga foot,and henextendedo the semanticallyelatednotionof 'go'. Similarly,
a pictograph f a star (5) came o be used or lanl 'heaven'and ldir'ft| god'.
Abstractpictogramsarerepresentational,ut not exactlyof the object tself. The
symbol or al 'water' (3) s a picture,not of water tselfwhich would be difficult o
draw, but of a stream.Semantic xtension as common.The symbol or ldul 'go' (5)startedasa picto-
gramof a foot and was thenextended emanticallyo the verb ldul 'go', and also
to the verb gub/'stand'.From ts use or ldul 'go', it was hen urtherextendedo
the semanticallyimilarmorphemesnl and ginl, all generallymeaning'go'.From
its originalpictographic hapeor a'star',
the symbol or lanlheaven'
(5)was alsoused or ldir,irl'god'.Thesymbol or lkal 'mouth' (2)was extendedo representhe
semanticallyimilarmorphemedugl'speak'.Thepictograph or lsall femalesexual
organs' 8) became s well the symbol or /munus/ woman'.
In theexamples,we see honeticextensionn the useof thesymbolfor lal 'water'
(3) to write the morphemeal 'in', and indeed o write any syllableof the shapelal.\rith phoneticextension,he meaning f the originalmorphemes irrelevant.
One symbol can be changed o another symbol by differentiation, hat is, byaddinga diacritic. n Akkadian, his processwasknown asgunu. The symbol or
/kal'mouth' (2) was formedby addinga gunu mark in the form of diacritichatch
marks o the symbol or head(1) in the areaof the mouth. Note that the symbolfor lkal 'mouth' later underwent emantic xtensiono be usedas the symbol or
ldugl speak'.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 108/340
F C==(F=T +{R .& @ 4{
il fl n
froeh sq ffi
t F{ tr{ \rfi
)+ * +f< r?K
@ e 6 sV u,-a
A A cI VY t(
VoA A Fo[ + F{{
Cuneiform
Ig
/sp,g/
'head'
/ka/'mouth'
/dug/'speak'
/a/'wate(
/a/'in'
/nag/'drink'
/du/ /ra/ /gin/'go'
/gub/'stand'
/digt/'god'
/an/'heaven'
/lrr/ 1and, earth'
/sal/'female
sexual organs'
/munus/'woman'
/kur/'mountain'
/geme/ 'female slave'
Figure 5.11 Examples of symbols. Different chronological stagesof each symbol are
shown from left to right (from Edward Chiera, They Wrote in Clay, p. 63.Chicago:
University of Chicago Press,7966. @ 1966 by University of Chicago Press.Reproduced
with permission)
The symbol or lnaql drink' (a) is an illustrationof a semantic ompound.The
symbol for lsagl
head'
(1) was combinedwith the symbol or la l'water'
(3) tocreatea new symbol.Anotherexampleof a semantic ompound s shown n (10);here, hesymbolsor /munus/ woman'(8) and lkurl'mountain' (9) arecombined
8 9
UI
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 109/340
90 Cuneiform
to produce newsymbol or /gemel'female lave' 10).The ationaleor this was
that slavesypicallycame rom the mountain angeso the East.The examples o far havebeenbasedon Sumerian,which is the periodwhen
the processesf creatingnew symbolsemerged. he sameprinciplescontinuedto be used o createsymbols equiredby Akkadian. One complexityduring theAkkadian period resulted rom the large borrowing of Sumerian ocabulary.A
symbolcouldhaveboth a Sumerian nd anAkkadian eading,he same sJapaneseon- and kun-readingschapter4) . For example, he symbol for 'head'could begiven a Sumerian eading lsagl (oz-reading)or an Akkadian reading hezluml(kun-reading);imilarly, he symbol or 'land'couldbereadas kilin Sumerianonl
or as ersetu/ n Akkadian (kun).Over time, the Akkadianreadings ecamemore
common,but someSumerian eadings ontinued hroughout he entireAkkadianperiod.
Phoneticextensioncould be basedon either the Sumerian phoneticon) or theAkkadian eading phoneticun).Forexample,hesymbol or'head'couldbe used
both for syllableswith the sound lsagl ollowing the Sumerian ronunciation, r
with hefl following the Akkadian pronunciation.
Semantic xtension urthercomplicatedhe situationby associating varietyofdifferent-sounding orphemeswith the samesymbol.For example, he symbolfor lkal 'mouth'was alsoextendedo othermorphemes:zul'tooth', liniml word',
/gu/ 'voice',and ldugl speak';and by phoneticextension,t was further used or
syllables ith thesoundszul,lgul, and ldul.
5.6.2 Relationship to language
Some symbolsare morphograms; or example, he symbol trll+ was used torepresenthe morpheme sagl head',and -* is used o representhe morpheme
ldhirl 'heaven,god'.
Some symbolsare phonograms;or example, he symbol =* was used torepresenthe syllable uml. Phonographic uneiformsymbols epresented ora
or syllables, ot singlephonemes. syllablemight havehad an initial consonantor not, and t might havebeenopenor closed: C)V(C).Thus, hereweredifferentand unrelated ymbols or lu l =ffi=,l[ul ,fl, /um/ F:l[, and ffuml =ft. The
symbol nventorycontained ymbols or mostsinglevowels,CV, and VC sequences,but not all.Thereweresymbols or only someCVC possibilities. ote that although
cuneiformsymbols epresentedyllables,hey sometimesepresented singlevowelphoneme,where he syllablehad no initial or final consonant.
AlthoughAkkadiansymbols ouldrepresentyllables, ot everypossible hono-
logical syllablehad a corresponding ymbol; often two moraic symbolswere com-
bined o showa singlesyllable.Vowel length, or example,was shown rregularly
in Akkadian.Sometimesong vowelsare simplynot indicatedat all but have obe inferred rom a knowledgeof the language.At other times, hey were ndicated
by repeatinghe vowelwith a differentsymbol.Thus lba:lcould be written just as
.bat, or moreexplicitlywith two moraicsymbolsas <ba-a>. n a closedsyllable,a longvowel suchas lba:mlmight bewritten with two symbols s<ba-am>;t was
up to the reader o know whether his representedne syllablewith a long vowel
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 110/340
Cuneiform 91,
lbatml or a two-syllable sequence ba-aml, or perhaps /bam/. Many consonantal
contrasts were neutralized in writing. Thus, the written symbol <ku> might represent
lkul, lgul, or lqul.
Some symbols are used as a semanticcomplement - a symbol used to give addi-
tional semantic nformation. For example, the star symbol is used as a morphogramforldi4irl 'god'.
However, this symbol is also used to accompany the name of anygod that is mentioned. In this case the star symbol was not pronounced, but itindicated that the accompanyingsymbol was to be interpreted as the name of a god.
Semanticcomplementsare useful in disambiguating homographs.
Frequently a symbol representedmany different things. For example, the symbolif was a morphogram meaning
'tree,wood'; as such, it could be pronounced as
lgifl, the Sumerian (on) reading, or as lisul, the Akkadian (kun) reading. The samesymbols could also be phonograms, ambiguously representingeither lisl, lizl, or
/is/. Further, this particular symbol could be used as a semantic complement pre-
ceding many words to indicate that the following word is a tree or an object made
of wood, in which case he symbol would not have been pronounced at all.
Clearly, in readingAkkadian, context was of great mportance in determining whichreading was appropriate in eachcase.As a result of this complexity, Assyriologistshave developedcertain traditions for romanizing Akkadian texts. They distinguish
the terms transliteration and transcription. A transliteration of a text involves giving
a symbol-by-symbol rendering of the written Akkadian text. A transcription gives
the correct pronunciation. Morphemes with a Sumerianreading are transliterated nroman letters,and those with an Akkadian readingarc in italics. Morphograms aretransliterated in upper-case etters, and phonograms are in lower-case etters. The
semanticcomplements,such as ldiqul, are transcribed by superscriptabbreviations.This semanticdeterminatiye s transliteratedby a small <'l > (the abbreyiation is for
Latin deus'god', nor ldiDirl).
5.7 ExampleText
tlammu-rapiwasoneof the most amous ingsof Babylon, uling 1792-1750oto.He ordered hat a collection f lawsbe publicized, nd a copyof theseaws s on alargestelenow found n
the LouvreMuseum n Paris.Oneof the aws s presentedin table5.3, not with the shapeof the symbols ound on the stele,but in the laterform normallyused n teachingAkkadian.
The roots or verbsareof the ypicalSemitic riconsonantalorm (see hapter71.The other vowelsand consonants f verbs represent nflection l material.Accentsin the transliteration re used o distinguish omophonicgraphemes. yphens nthe transliteration orrespondo symbolboundaries; yphens n the transcriptionseparateexicalmorphemes.
An awi:lum was a 'first-classcitizen', different from a mulkenurmsecond-class
citizen',or from a slave.The nominativesuffix s -um and the accusative uffix s-am.Note
that the word order s SOV(subject-object-verb).
n this text, all itemsareAkkadianphonograms nd huswritten n lower-casetalics.Note thedifferencebetweenransliteration nd transcription.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 111/340
92 Cuneiform
Table 5.3 Sample Akkadian text: A law from the code of Vammu-rapi
r* EI II al--G=Translit. fum-ma a- ui- lumTranscript. fummA aui:lum
If citizennom
Translit.Transcript.
+ITranslit. la
Transcript. la :
not
Translit.Transcript. mubbir-fu
accuser-hisroot lTbrl
II ol- (=il =ilI= G = ffi EI
a- wi- lam dt- ub- bi- ir-maaui:lam ubbirma
citizen accuse
acc root l?brl
4;lffiAl =II-EEIIEI RI(+EIne- er- tam e- li- fu id- di- ma
ne:rtam eli:-fu iddi:-ma
charge of murder against-him l^y- and
acc root lnd?l
EF*l(EH€luk- ti- in- fuuktin-fuconvict-himroot k?nl
*sFG=ff iEI EIEII-Emu-ub-bi- ir- fu id- da- ak
idda:kkillroot ld?kl
'I f one citizen accusesanother and brings a charge of murder against him, but has not
convicted him. his accusershall be executed.'
5.8 Other CuneiformWriting
Several eighbouring ulturesborrowedcuneiformwriting from the Akkadiansandadapted t to their own languages. s a whole, theseborrowingswere rathercon-servative,eepinghegeneral tructure f Sumerian nd Akkadianwriting.\$7e illdiscuss everal f these orrowingsbriefly,and henexamineUgariticandOld Persianwriting in a little moredetailsince hey show certain nterestingnnovations.
Thestateof Elamwas n westernran, north of the Gulf.Elamite extswerewrittenover a very ong periodof time, rom 3100-331 oro. The Elamite anguages notknownto berelatedo any other anguage. heearliestextsare n an undecipheredpictographic cript.A linearscript ollowedwhich s only partly understood. romthe thirteenthcenturyoLD, Elamite exts existwhich usea limited numberof the
phonographic ymbols orrowed rom Akkadian.Around 10,000 abletswerediscoveredinlg64n Ebla,a site n SyrianearAleppo.
The Eblaite extsaredated rom therelatively riefperiodof 2500-2400 oLD.They
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 112/340
Cuneiform 93
werepartiallywritten n Eblaite,a Semiticanguage. he textsare mostlyadminis-trative n nature.Theyare argelywritten in Sumerianwith Eblaite nterspersed;sa result,much of the structureof the Eblaite language emainsunknown.
In northeastern urkey atBo$hazkoy, roundL0,000cuneiform exts were oundin 1906,written in Hittite, an Indo-Europeananguagesome cholars rgue hatHittite and Indo-Europeanogether orm the Indo-Hittite family).The Hittite scribesuseda largenumberof Sumerian nd Akkadiansymbols.The textscover a widerangeof subjects: dministration, iplomacy, eligion,magic,and literature.Theyare dated rom the seventeentho the thirteenth enturies LD.
The Hurrians ived n northernMesopotamia, peaking language nown to berelatedonly to anotherancientanguage f the area)Urartian.An archiveof inter-nationalcorrespondencen Hurrian wasfound n Egypt n 1887,with thematerialdated o theendof the ifteenthcenturyoLD.One of thesesthe argest nowncunei-form tablet.The
script s moraicand is an adaptation f the Akkadianscript.TheHurriansare known as he peoplewho introduced he horse o the Near East.As mentioned bove,Urartian s related o Hurrian. The Urartians ivedaround
LakeVan in eastern urkey. The textsare mostly historical n nature,dated romthe thirteenth o the seventh enturies ro. Like Hurrian. t uses reduced umberof Akkadiansymbols.
5.8.1 Ugaritic
ln 1929,about 1000Ugaritic abletswere oundat RasShamraUgarit)on thecoast
of Syria(Segert
1.984,
C. \Talker 1987).The languages Semitic, ut the script scuneiform,but unlikeany other cuneiformwriting. The texts,whichhavebeendatedfrom the fourteenthcentury oLD, include iterary and administrativeexts.Ratherthan representing orphemesr syllables s n Akkadian, he script epresentsndi-vidualsegments.n general, nly the consonants rewritten,not the vowels; hesecharacteristicsmakethe Ugaritic script an abjad,a type of script which we will bediscussingn chapte 7 The abjadwas the typical script for most Semitic anguagesotherthan Akkadian.
Eachof theconsonants asa separateymbol. n addition, hereare hreemoraicsymbols or theglottalstopcombinedwith a followingvowel:<?a?i2u>; his s an
exceptiono the rule that vowelsare not represented.here s alsoa symbol for aword divider.The order of the symbolss attested, nd t is almost dentical o theoneused or Phanicianand Hebrewscripts chapter ).
Essentially,he Ugariticscript s structurally imilar o the earlySemitic cripts,except hat the symbolswereof a cuneiform hapewritten on clay ablets.Presum-ably, the SemiticUgariticspeakers erefamiliarwith both the traditionalSemiticand Akkadiantraditionsand incorporatedboth writing traditions n their script.The internalstructure f the Ugariticscript s Semitic, nd the externalstructuresAkkadian.
Table5.4 shows he Ugariticsymbols n thenativeorder.Where here s a differ-
encebetween symbolused n Ugariticstudies nd the usual PA symbol or thereconstructed ronunciation,he IPA symbol s given n brackets.The subscriptdot indicates n emphatic onsonant;hesewerecommon n Semiticanguagesnd
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 113/340
94 Cuneiform
Table 5.4 The Ugaritic cuneiform symbols in the traditional order
}*
'a f?al
wv til
p
b l*l
(Id16l
+s [r]
F>
w
>lrlE
n
II
z
tr<? t9l
t-'i
[2i]
I Ih d
L Ib s
> <l>k 5 t / 1
m {l m
r ^ lr t [ o ]
+ , J -hth l r
Y (s
'[s]
IIL ^l^'u
[2u] 3 [su]
involvedsomesort of secondary haryngeal r laryngeal ctivity.The symbol or/su/ was added ateand wasquiterare.
5.8.2 OId Persian
Iflhen the Persians onquered he Akkadians in the sixth century oLD, the
administrativeanguage f theAkkadianempirehadbecome ramaic.The Persians
continued o use Aramaic as an administrative nd diplomatic anguage.They
themselves,owever, pokeOld Persian, n Indo-Europeananguage. ing Darius(521-486 oro) ordereda Persian uneiform o be constructedo givehis empire
and language distinctive cript.The scripthad 36 phonographic ymbolsand afew morphograms, nd a word divider (table5.5). \Ufherehere s more than one
symbol or a consonantn table 5.5, eachalternativewas usuallyusedonly before
cerain vowels.Relatively ew texts were written in Old Persian,mostly stone ormetal nscriptions,ather han on clay.
Table 5.5 Old Persian cuneiform symbols
Vowel symbols
f f i f r f i
q
ilI
<E[
d
EII
d
YT
d
k r c I F
I i k
m-t
Ew
c
Kr
m
YF
tl
'|{
I
'TYT
m
(K
h
EI
r
*
v
( F
n
<(r
FC
m
<Fd3
HYT
t
{
d3
{
v
n
Consonant symbols
F H K <
KI
e
(T
k
(fi
x
t'Iz
./>\F
8
IE
s
(II'
8
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 114/340
Cuneiform 95
Table5.5 (Cont'dl
Morphograms
F((IlI
xfaja9ija dahjau['king' 'country'
bnmd Auramazda'god'
divinename
baga'earth'
B{(
Numerals
I I
20
fi
3 1 0
<fi
1 3
KI
33 40
T100 r20
5.9 FurtherReading
Bott6ro1992),Kramer 1963),Nissen 1988),Postgate1992),Roaf 1990) ll pro-videbackgroundnformationn Mesopotamia.or more nformationn thecuneiformscript or Sumerianand Akkadian, ee Cooper 1996),Green(1989),Michalowski(1996),C. Walker 1987),whichall provide elativelyasy ntroductions.euerherm(1998)and Huehnergard1997)are introductionso the Akkadian anguagewithinformationn the writing ystem.Schmandt-Besserat1989,1992), asimandOates(1986), nd Lieberman1980) iscussokens.Green 1981), arsen 1989),Nissen(1986), issen,
amerow,nd Englund1993), icchioni1985),M. Powell 1981),Reiner 1973),Sack 1981),Vanstiphout1979) iscuss pecific oints.See Collon(1990),Gibson nd Biggs 1977), nd Schendge1983) nseals.Forother anguagessee Bermant nd Weitzman 1979,Eblaite), urtis 1985,Ugaritic), ragg 1996,general),Gurney 1981,Hittite),Hawkins 1986,Hittite), ent(1953,Old Persian),Pettinato1981,Eblaite), egert 1984,Ugaritic), ndVallat 1980, ranian).
5.10 Terms
abstractpictogramAkkadian
AssyrianBabel
Babylonian
cuneiformdifferentiationgunu
Mesopotamia
morphogram
obverseOld Persianphonetic xtensionphonogram
pictogramreverse
sealsemantic omplementsemantic ompoundsemantic xtensionstylusSumeriantablet
tokens:plainand complex
transcriptiontransliterationUgariticUruk
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 115/340
Cuneiform
5.11 Exercrses
1 Examine he development rom tokens to fully developedSumerianwriting.
At what pointcan we say that writing irst occurred?What development(s) as/
werecrucial or this change?2 Usingyourown familiarity f writingwitha pen and ink on paper,considerwhat
changeshappenedwhen Akkadianscribeswho were accustomed o writing
cuneiform n clay irststarted o writeAramaic n flat surfaces.
3 Using igure .9,write he numbersn cuneiformor36, 87,23 and henadd hem
together.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 116/340
6 Egyptian
6.1 LanguageFamily
Egyptian s a memberof the Afro-Asiatic anguageamily, a group of languagesspoken n northernAfricaandthe Middle East.Therearesix branchesn the amily( table .1) .
The Egyptian branch has only the Egyptian language,which is known fromca. 3000oLD.The Egyptiananguagesusuallydivided nto variousperiodsasshownin table5.2 (Loprieno1995).Middle Egyptian ame o beregarded s he classicallanguage;manytexts,particularly eligiousones,werewritten in Middle Egyptianup to 450 rqnw,ongafterMiddle Egyptianwasno longerspoken.From 1300oLD,secular exts werewritten in Late Egyptian, and after 700 oLo, Demotic Egyptianwas used or record-keepingnd for other
extsof apractical
nature.The lastpre-
Coptic Egyptian ext written in theold style sdated o about450 New. n thesecondand third centuries, gyptbecame redominantlyChristian; rom Christian imes,the Egyptian anguages calledCoptic. Coptic died out around 1500 although tcontinues o beusedasa liturgical anguagen the Coptic Church.Theterm Coptic srelated o the Greek erm for Egypt,Aigypto.s; ote he similarconsonants <c p t>of Coptic and <g p t> of Aigyptos.
Table 6.1 The Afro-Asiatic language family; only the better-known languages are listed
Egyptian
Egyptian
(Coptic)
Semitic
Akkadian
Phenician
Hebrew
Aramaic
Arabic
South ArabianAmharic
Berber
Tuareg
Tamazight
Mandara
Sokoro
Masa
Cushitic
Sidamo
Somali
Omotichadic
Hausa
Bura
Afro-Asiatic
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 117/340
98 Egyptian
Table 6.2 Periods of the Egyptian language
Old Egyptian
Middle EgyptianLate Egyptian
Demotic
Coptic
3000-2000oro
2000-1300oro1300-700or.o
700 oro-300 nrw
300New-l500
6.2 Backgroundand History
The inhabitedpart of Egypt s a long thin areaconsisting f the banksof the Nile
and its delta (figure6.1).The land outside his area s mostlyuninhabiteddesertwith only the occasional asis.The ancientEgyptianempirearoseout of the union
Mediterranean ea
SaudiArabia
NEGYPT
? cairo
z*r(\,o\
k \
* Aswan
Figure 6.1 Map of ancient Egypt
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 118/340
Egyptian
Table .3 Thecultural eriods f Egypt
99
3100-2580 oro2680-2160 oro
2060-1,780oro1,570-1,085ro650-332 oto
332-30oro
30 oro-284 upvr284-640
700-1100
1,250
1,515
1,882-191,9
l9l9-19521,952
Archaic period
Old Kingdom
Middle Kingdom
New Kingdom
Late Dynastic Period
Greek
Roman
Coptic
Arabization of Egypt
Turkish
Ottoman
British
Independent,bound by treaty to BritainIndependent Republic
of two kingdoms: ower Egypt (theNile delta)and upperEgypt(themain part ofthe river, oughly rom modern-day airo o Aswan).Memphis nearmodernCairo)was the capitalof lower Egypt,and Thebes nearmodern Luxor) the capital ofupper Egypt.The main part of ancientEgyptianhistory is usuallydivided ntofour periods table6.3):Old Kingdom,Middle Kingdom,New Kingdom,and LateDynasticPeriod.The Greeksand then the Romansconquered gyptbut generallymaintainedhe traditionalEgyptian ulture, ncluding he writing system. romthethird centuryNEw,however,Egyptbecame hristianand urned ts backon theoldculture.From this time, he peopleand the language ame o be known as Coptic,and the language aswritten in the Copticalphabet, ased n the Greekalphabet(chapter8). Egyptbecame redominantlyMuslim after he Islamicconquestn theseventh entury.Betweenhe eighthand eleventh enturies,EgyptgraduallybecameArabized.Today,Arabic s the normal anguage f mostEgyptians. hereare alsosmallGreek-and French-speakingommunitiesn Egypt.
6.3 Phonologyof Old Egyptian
The inventory n table 5.4 shows he phonemesor Old Egyptian.Many pointsaboutthe phonologyof Egyptianareuncertain.
Table 6.4 Phonemesof ancient Egyptian (adapted rom Loprieno 1995)
k sbfm
w
t ds z
n
r l
u
c J
I
?
s hq
X
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 119/340
100 Egyptian
6.4 Origin of EgyptianWriting
The emergence f writing in Egyptpresents n interesting roblem or scholars:was
Egyptianborrowed rom Mesopotamian uneiform,or did it developndependently?The raditionalviewhasbeen hat writing was irstattestedn Mesopotamia round
3300 oro and in Egyptaround 3000 oLD.From this time difference,many scholars aveassumedhat cuneiformwriting
developedirst and was borrowed to createEgyptianwriting. The borrowing was
clearlynot a close mitation. The structuresof the rwo writing systems iffer con-
siderably, s do the shapes f the symbols.This type of borrowing s known as
stimulusdiffusion: he underlying dea is borrowed,althoughnot the superficial
details.Recent vidence,rom Abydos,however, uggestshat Egyptianwriting dates
back o 3500 oro (Cruz-Urube 001).The textsareprimarilyof an administrative
nature,similar to the kind of early documentsound in Mesopotamia.Clearly,
this new Egyptianevidence rgues hat Egyptianand cuneiformwriting developed
simultaneously.he fact hat theywereboth used or similarpurposesuggestshat
there may havebeensomecontact between he two peoplesn the development f
the two writing systems. lthough theseearlyEgyptian exts wereused or admin-
istrativeand mercantile urposes, riting became ssociated ith the upper class.ufriting in Egypt has beenparticularlyassociated ith scribes,who were drawn
from the upper classes; riting itself became marker of socialstatus n Egypt(Cruz-Urube001).
6.5 Stylesof Writing
Thereare hreemajorstyles f Egyptianwriting, known by their Greeknames. he
earliest,and best-known, orm is calledhieroglyphic sacredcarving' from its early
use n religious exts.Hieratic 'priestly' writing was a cursive ype of writing, first
appearingabout the same ime as hieroglyphic.Hieroglyphicand hieraticwriting
styleswere argely n complementary istribution,with hieroglyphicused or more
formalpurposes, nd hieratic or less ormalones.Around 500 oro, a third typeof
writing calleddemotic'popular' rose, ndhieraticwritingwasconfined o religioustexts(hencehe Greeknamehieratic'priestly').Demoticwas an evenmorecursiveform of the scriptand was widely used n administrative nd personal ocuments.Examples f hieraticand demoticstyles re shown n figure6.2 with a hieroglyphic
transcription. Note that the hieroglyphicand hieratic stylescontinued alongside
demotic,although t became ustomary o write certain ypesof texts n only one of
the three ormsof writing. The last known pieceof writing in ancientEgyptian s a
demoticgraffito in the templeof Philae,dated450 New.A graffito (pl. graffiti) is aninformal ext, especially n a wall.
Hieroglyphicwriting hasa strongpictorialaspect. pictureof a bird, although
stylized, ooks like a bird. This pictorial aspectwas never ost in hieroglyphicwriting throughout ts history. In hieraticand demoticwriting, which were written
cursively,he pictorialaspectsgenerally bsent.n thehieroglyphic tyle,ndividual
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 120/340
Egyptian 1 01
"SF#rT
ffit-zw$i,"y'4s2-l7e;a7+vtAtK,",t?xetrf,nK\{-[[-fi dl[= ge4a a *E$.' *l:? g ?-&ar17 ..-4>g= A=:n3{ -<7[(, e<<ll 4n<r t 4_
=&gg 1:.4/roAo€iFoL'r P;(410{3[ o,ofLiterary'
Tll""'J"*ilT'"ii'hdvnastv'
etM,@ 97,,L*,lfrk;,,,La21Ii T,knnlLA3*JkUftAflfreLagt*}'^9@"7!4tttttI,rt.ofr.ryaageezbs,yt,.tw,6(Wtrtwetffi inuotett -@
# 11T, 0 iq,ykL A. -fi3Y,,,, IY,,,LY ,, W&Z&Yfr Y -,, lin', I h 7f
#rtlTF--'d/*li"{Vrl*,Rli'?[=-EryLLf-M9qJ/.f:ilf:-(RtEt:E
g*k,tL'P-'K[4q:i |,llynsL?l='(fX.flllKfu4t")"f+::f qqilf:{T*il,t-*-,3il-ornar
"Tffi ':"'*il11"*YnastY'
rfut ru-ty'z gltll o-ol"1 "'t,]f lt u) t+,{ enJ(42 v,f+\ tpr - frl ?-g
l' a yt-fi { -,ttt t Qg€ TS r {*$"'Dy'r J$1*? ta rri-llf,,frr;,i1lfu)u.p1,1: 4+tnl,"V-!t,luuf) 013,fu21!19u,t uftr, ltc';
r3/oor$0{r.*so€r[O"il$r"-itb0$Jib&Z--z0lEUW96qlt{KkfD'llt{90'{ru{.Y*r"[1ilrS
-;:IiltJ.Vb6Jt3tllvtZ,i.{;:^l-G-dfn{.oofil4.,-xooof€r{f =,ffi:;fl,/]VitzFmgii=tlht.19J,A*-i-fr=$\T,',{Vtw-ib?ll;,tlk|ltffgd-Jl:?$ll.rltt+=) -lh^:ft.Literry
"Tif ;il::.11',i3n""n'uo'"'
Figure 5.2 Some examples of hieratic and demotic writing with hieroglyphic transcription(from Sir Alan Gardiner, Egyptian Grammar, plate 2. Oxford: Griffith Institute, OxfordUniversity Press,1950. O 1950 by Griffith Institute. Reproduced with permission)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 121/340
702 Egyptian
graphemes erewritten as separate nits, but in hieraticand demoticstyles,many
ligatureswere used.
6.6 SocialContext of Writing
6.6.7 Materials
Hieroglyphicwriting was frequently nscribed n stone,but hieroglyphswere alsopaintedon walls and other surfaces.Most writing, however,was done n hieratic
or demotic on papyrus.Papyrus s a reedyplant growing in warm, wet locations.
Thin slices an be aid togetherwith overlappingedges o form an excellentwriting
surface, ooking somewhat ike a sheetof paper.For longer works, the sidesof
sheets f papyruswereattached ogether o form a scrollwhich could be rolled upfor storage.n theverydry climateof Egypt,many objects uchaspapyrushavebeenpreserved hich would havedecayed lsewhere. s a resultof the climate,Egypt
hasan enormously ich archaologicalecord.Many documentsn other anguages
arepreservedimply becauseheyhappenedo haveendedup in Egypt.
Scribes arried eedpensn a special ase.Most writing was n black nk, but red
was also usedon occasion.Hieroglyphic nscriptionswereprobablydrawn in ink
by a scribeand then cut by a stonecutter.
6.6.2 Literature
Early records which mention a name may have shown ownership of an object or
honoured the person named. This use of language s found in many placeswhere
writing is first used. Among the earliest Egyptian documents showing writing is the
Narmer palette (figure 5.3), a ceremonial cosmeticpalette from around 3000 oLD.
(Cosmeticswere used n certain ritual situations,and the paletteservedas a surface
for mixing different substances.)
Egyptian religion provided an unusual use for writing. Egyptians believed in an
afterlife. As long as a person's name was regularly mentioned, that person would
continue to have a life after death. Iilriting provided a permanent way of invoking
someone'sname. By putting someone'sname in a funerary inscription, that personwas ensured of a continuing afterlife regardlessof the possibleneglectof descendants.
Conquerors who wanted to be particularly vindictive would chisel away the name
of the conquered king off inscriptions, effectively ending his life forever.
Beyond religion, Egyptian literature has a very wide range of material: personal and
administrative letters; medical, dental, veterinary guides; economic and diplomatic
reports; prose, poetry, epics; wisdom literature (etiquette books); and moralistic
books.
6.6.3 Scribesand literaqt
Scribes ccupiedan importantplace n Egyptian ife. Beingable o readand write
was a matter of considerable restige. t is difficult to estimatehow widespread
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 122/340
Egyptian 103
Figure 6.3 The Narmer palette
literacywas in ancientEgypt: the lower classes ere probably uniformly illiterate,although iteracywas likely somewhat ommonamong he upper classes. or themiddleclasses,iteracyexistedwhere t was necessaryor work. No doubt, whenpeopleneeded o write a letter or when they receivedone, they often went ro ascribewho, for a fee,would write or read he document.
6.7 Structureof EgyptianWriting
6.7.7 Phonographic
Egyptian writing has a large phonographic component. Only consonants werewritten; vowels were not written. There are different graphemes for all the con-sonants except lll, which according to Loprieno (1995) was written ambiguouslyin a variety of ways. In principle, all Egyptian writing could have been done phono-graphically, bu t that was not the practice; Egyptian writing also had a significantmorphographic
component.The absenceof written vowels presents a difficulty for modern scholars. TheEgyptians themselves,of course, spoke the language and knew what vowels went
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 123/340
104 Egyptian
Table 5.5 The monoconsonantal symbols of Egyptian
Grapheme Transliteration Soundualue Obiect depicted
7
i o r ?
i
s
-NN
/t)
/t / l\ \
*_--n
f\
\q4
En
i l).
I
/qi-
\\-lda-\
mHX
l
tI
vti
vulture
reed
rwo reeds
arm
quail chick
(alternative form for <w>)
foot and leg
mat or stool
horned viper
owl
water
mouth
plan of courtyard
wick of twisted flax
placenta
animal's belly with teats
door bolt
folded cloth
pool
hill
bowl with handle
stand for pot
loaf
tether
hand
snake
<5:
nil n
t "
r-l
A/ 1
\7
/ A \
A
-n\|
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 124/340
Egyptian 105
where.For us oday, he writing doesnot tell us whena voweloccurrednor what thatvowelwas.For example,when a form waswritten <pt>, t couldhave epresentedavariety of shapes:pt ,Vpt, pVt, ptv/ (where Yl representsny vowel),or othercombinations,and further, different vowelscould have illed the V position.
By usinga variety of evidence, uch as other Afro-Asiatic anguages,nternalreconstruction,nowledge f Coptic,and Egyptian oanwords n Greek,scholarshavemadesomeheadway n determining he vowelsof ancientEgyptian,but agreatdeal s unclear. n pronouncingEgyptian,Egyptologistsften nsert he vowel
[e] simply o make he word pronounceable:or example,he word for 'house'is<Pr>,and scholars suallypronouncehis as per]without necessarily eaninghatthe ancientEgyptianvowel n this word reallywas [e].The written transliterationremains, owever,<pr>.
5.7.1,.1 MONOCONSONANTAL GRAPHEMES
EveryEgyptianconsonantal honeme except lll had a specific rapheme;heseare shown in table 5.5. The traditional transliterationused by Egyptologistssgiven; he column 'Sound
value' is a guessas to how the phonemes f ancientEgyptiansounded.Most graphemes re fairly clear as to what object hey depict,but someare uncertain; he names or the objectsdepictedhereare traditional nEgyptology.
Thesymbol<l> representsglottalstopwhich s sometimesransliterateds<a>.A curled op is usedwith <l> to emphasizehat it is not a vowel. The graphemes
<w> and<s>haveallographic ariation.The spiralallograph f <w> was a cursivehieratic orm which came o be used n hieroglyphicwriting as an alternativeorthe quail chick. The two allographs or the sound s/ werc n free variation; theseoriginally epresentedwo differentsounds, ossiblys zl , which fell together arlyon. Therewere our different h]-typesounds ranscribedh h b b]t; the phoneticvalues ivenare easonableuessess o how theyactuallysounded. heEgyptianshad no fixed order for their graphemes;he order given herewas developed ynineteenth-centurycholars nd s universally sedby Egyptologistsn dictionariesand other ists.
5.7.1,.2 BICONSONANTAL GRAPHEMES
In addition to the monoconsonantal raphemesepresenting ne consonant, heEgyptians lsohadgraphemes hich representedwo- and hree-consonantequences.Note that these id not necessarilyepresentonsonant lusters. he biconsonantalgrapheme rr <mn>could epresentmenlr munl,lmtnl,ot lmnl,or anyothercom-bination in which the consonants m/ and/n/ might haveoccurred n thar order.Not al l phonologically ossible onsonant equencesavegraphemes.f the mono-consonantal raphemesre akenas basic, henbi- and riconsonantal raphemesanberegarded sdiphones nd riphonesn our terminology.Some f the biconsonantal
symbolsare given n table 6.6. The transliteration s given alongside;he soundvalues anbe determined y referenceo thepreceding hart. Not all biconsonantalgraphemesregivenhere.)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 125/340
706 Egyptian
Table 6.5 Some biconsonantal symbols of Egyptian
Grapheme Transliteration Obiect depicted
,ffi
+l?
b
v
0I(
I.F
1+
ti
A/.t
N
f--a
ffi1i il
TM
l-i
IV
-'-
IU
n
lw
wl
wd
bl
mr
nb
[rm
s3
sw
kr
dr
lr
wr
mn
M S
NS
[rn
sn
mt
tl
dd
spine and spinal cord
lasso
cord wound on stick
jabiru (kind of stork)
hoe
basket
laundry club
pintail duck
sedge
two arms
fire drill
eye
fork-tailed swallow
gameboard
three foxskins
tongue
cloth receptacle
arrowhead
penis
pestle
reed column
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 126/340
Egyptian
Table 6.7 Some triconsonantal symbols of Egyptian
r07
Grapheme Transliteration Obiect depicted
Itln
T
f,
fl'f
II0
1+-.N
n
tf
Td
Hir
b\dd{r}
f)
ffi
,lt
nlr
iwn
wlh
ndm
ryw
trb
nfr
shs
rwd
hp.
5mT
dsm
column with tenon
swab
fl^g
pod
bread loaf on mat
oar
buzzard
sandal strap
heart and trachea
mast
bowstring
scarab beetle
flowering sedge
staff with animal head
htp
br*
6.7.1.3 TRICONSONANTAL GRAPHEMES
There are also triconson antal graphemes for three-consonant sequences.Some of
theseare given in table 5.7. Note that Egyptian typically had triconsonantal roots;
that is , a root consisted of three consonants.Thus, a root could always be written
with the same triconsonantal grapheme.
6.7.2 Phonologicalcomplements
A phonological complement is a grapheme that repeats phonological information
akeadygiven by a previous grapheme.The previous graphemecan be a phonogram
or a morphogram. Phonological complements were commonly used in Egyptianwriting to repeat or reinforce phonological information given by a bi- or tricon-
sonantalgrapheme.Consider, for example, the word lnfrl'beautiful, good'. There is
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 127/340
108 Egyptian
Table 6.8 Examples of phonological complements. In these examples, the bi- or
triconsonantal grapheme is at the left or top, and the phonological complement is
at the right or bottom. The phonological complement is written in parentheses
m i- \
#\ tr 3w (w)
N..- wr (r)
* mn (n)
\i-LN ndm (m)
- f tN w3(3)
F -N br (r)
? n wrhh)A\fh o
bpr (r )
a triconsonantal grapheme A fot the sequence<nfr>. In principle, this word could
be written with this symbol alone; normally, however, this word was written A
where the graphemes for <f> and <r> do not add new information, but merely
reinforce part of the information already present n [. One problem in reading an
Egyptian text is to distinguish the phonographic graphemes presenting new informa-
tion from the phonological complementswhich merely repeat information already
given by the bi- and triconsonantal graphemes. n the examples in table 6.8, the
phonological complement is shown in parentheses.
6.7.3 Motphographic utriting
Although n principleEgyptian ouldhavebeenwritten completely honographically,
it wasnormallywritten asa mixtureof phonographic ndmorphographic raphemes.
Many graphemes ould be used as both morphogramsand phonograms.Thegraphemeor lprl 'house'is ffi (table6.9).Frequently, smallverticalstrokewas
added o a graphemeo indicate hat t was usedasa morphogram,.e.,asa symbolmeaning house'.To indicate he plural in older writing, a graphemewould berepeatedhree imes.Later for the plural, the symbolwould be written only once,
and threestrokesor threecircleswould be added.Since he word for'house'was
pronouncedprl, this grapheme as alsousedphonographicallyor the consonantsequenceprl generally;his use s an exampleof phonologicalextension,a process
by which manygraphemeserived heir phonological alue.
Table 6.9 Examples of morphemic writing . Note that the same symbol could be used
morphographically for 'house'or phonographically for the sequence prl
morphogram'house'
olderplural'houses'
later plural'houses'
E=
phonogram
lprl
m0 i l
F]mm
mI
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 128/340
Egyptian r09
6.7.4 Semantic coffiplements
Semantic complements, graphemes which are used to give additional semanticinformation, were common, particularly with nouns and verbs. In general, they
relate to the generalsemantic areaof the form. In English,we sometimesclarify themeaning of the word 'funny'
by saying funnyweird' or 'funny ha-ha'; here, weird'
and'ha-ha'
function as semanticcomplements. n Egyptian, semanticcomplementswere normally written at the end of a word and were not pronounced. Table 5.10shows some of the common semantic complements.
The word lptrlmeans 'see,behold'. It is written $ a <ptr> with three phono-
graphic graphemes,<p> (t ) (r), and the eye at the end is a semantic complementshowing that the word has to do with vision.
Semanticcomplementsare often useful in distinguishing homonyms (table 5.1,1,),but they are by no means imited to such situations.For example, there are severalwords lmn/:'be firm', 'be ill', 'a sick man'. Remember that although these wordswere written the same, we do not know if they were pronounced the samel i.e.,they may have had different vowels. Thesewords are written with the samephono-graphic elements, but are distinguished by the semantic complements. The scrollindicates an action or state. The specific bird in the second one always showssomething bad or wrong. The third word, for 'a sick man', has two semantic com-plements: the bird shows that the meaning is bad, and the seated igure refers roa man.
Another set of examples is shown (table 5.12) by the homonyms /5sp/ (thegrapheme itself is a pictograph of a fence). The square mat I is a phonologicalcomplement repeatingthe lpl of the basic symbol.
6.7.5 Internal structureof Egyptian utriting
The direction of writing varied. Figure 6.4 shows the same text written in differentways. In the top part, the same hieroglyphic text is written in three ways: top left -
written left to right; just below - right to left; top right has two vertical arrangementsshowing how the sametext would be written on each side of a door. Numbers inthe top left example show the order in which the individual symbols would bewritten and read. In the
text below, the transliteration shows a symbol-by-symbolromanization; the transcription shows the consonantal text. Next comes the trans-lation, and the conventional Egyptological reading.
Most commonly, writing went from right to left. In the hieratic and demoticstyles his was always the case. n the hieroglyphic style, ef t to right was also used.One can easily ell the direction of writing by looking at a symbol of a living figure.If an animal looks to the left, writing goes from left to right; if the animal facesto the right, writing goes from right to left. It is as though the reader walks alongencountering the animals going in the opposite direction. In some cases,such asnext to doors, writing was vertical, going from top to bottom; in suchcases,writinggoes
rom the outside n: that is , glyphs of animals face away from the door. In textsfor modern readers, he hieroglyphic style is usually given left to right since that isthe normal way usersof the Roman alphabet read.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 129/340
1 1 0 Egyptian
Table 6.10 Examples of semantic complements
Grapheme Use as semantic complement No/es
S man,person
tq woman
?'1il god, kingr Rua force, effort
$:l force, effort
h enemy, foreigner
6 eye, see,vision
A walk, run
q limb, flesh
S small, bad, weak
\> wood, tree
C sun, light, time
D copper, bronze
A town, village
m house, building
skin, mammal, leather piece of skin with flesh attached
note beard
replaced previous allograph in later texts
man with elbows tied behind back
eye
piece of flesh
sparrow, note rounded tail
branch
piece of metal
layout of village
one-room building seen rom overhead
(
>4 boat
\F capsize
Table 6.11 Homonyms having the samephonological
symbols /mn/ but diffe rent semantic complements
114
AL _ - :1 \4hm j F - H -
lmnl
lmnl
lmnl
'be firm'
'be ill'
'a sickman'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 130/340
Egyptian
Table 6.12 Homonyms having the same phonological symbols /5sp/, but differentsemantic complements
lJ1
Graphs Soundualue Meaning No/es on semantic complement
+?++ ti,4U1".
"
ffi-tl
n.,ee4 ll
dtu- t l ) l
*++ - .8aLLr _ | | \
lfspl
lfspl
llspl
/[sp/
'accept'
'palm (unit of length)'
'statuet
'white,bright, dawn'
force or effort
pictorial origin of semantic
complement uncertain
upright mummy
sun with rays
GA
JJi
a* n
iriL;fin$
rrr--.J
hf*FJidfi:$c>'111*-.-
. 3 e 5 7 8 I | t o t t t t
:i,x.LFJtlnG:U
tff:ilnhLdJ_ff
Trr\^NsLt-rEp"A.l'tON: d zlvtDV 3j -ao sgb-6b - 7"GOD" 8|1 9n - lO.
llpSD -r27 r3-tdlS'66p9' - lf f
TReuscRrprroN: d@) mdw(.w) jn gbb lrn' pset=f
TRnqsutnoN: "To say thewords by G.b wirh his Ennead'CoNvENTIoNAtEADING:uedmeduun'gebeb'[ena eseptefj
Figure 6.4 The same text in different orientations (from Anthony Loprieno, AncientEgyptian: A Linguistic Introduction, p. 16.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,1995.@ 7995 by Cambridge University Press.Reprinted with the permission of Cambridge
University Press)
\Tithin a lineof text,graphemesrearrangedo fit the space uitably.Graphemesareoftenmade o fit into an maginary quare. hus wo graphemes ith agenerallyhorizontalshapewould be written on top of eachotherrarher han n a horizonralsequence. earrangements normalwith nameswhich include he nameof a god,where he graphemeor the god is alwayswritten first no matter where t actuallyoccurs n the name.Very occasionally, raphemes re wriften in the wrong orderfor esthetic easons.n /n/ (table6.t3), the <t> symbol s placedabove he bird to
fill the spacemoreevenly.Over time, new graphemes ere added and older onesabandoned. herewaslittle, if any,attemptat simplifying he writing system verrime.Althougha wordmight potentiallybe written in a varietyof ways,normallyoneway prevailed.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 131/340
11,2 Egyptian
Table 6.13 Examples of asthetic rearrangement
_u,\9 K A
lr
n l q . : : > An \ \ \ / \l J j i N l l
not ^N
not St
/tll'this'
/wd/ 'command'
not N T: A /mr/ pyramid'
Table 6.14 Egyptian sample text
$\ . - - o - t q , l l *
A ? / i f f i ) \ U -
< nfr f.r.t fem tn m sn n. tI nfr-t tn m sn-t-i /
beautiful-fem this-fem is sister-my'This beautiful woman is my sister;
f e m i >
t - l M n-. tu- Cr : '
< n d . d n s
I n ;d-n-snot say-not-she
she cannot speak any evil.'
f\ -,
\.\ \1--
- l ) C > a
dw- w t .bad nb. t >
'w-t nb-t /
evil-fem any-fem
6.8 ExampleText
In the first ineof the sample ext in table6.'1.4,lnfrlisa triconsonantal honogram,
reinforcedby two monoconsonantal honological omplementsfl and r/. (Periods
in the transliteration eparate ymbolswritten vertically; n the transcriptionhyphensseparatemorphemes.) his is followed by a phonogram tl, which represents
femininesuffix. At the end of the word is the semantic omplement or a woman.The secondword is /tn/, the feminine form for 'this', written phonographically.The third word is /m/ used o form a copulative entence,.e. is'. In theword /snti/'my sister', he biconsonantal raphemeor /sn/ is reinforcedby a phonological
complement nl. This is followed by the femininesuffix ltl, andthen the semanticcomplementor a woman.The il tsa suffixmeaning'my masc.)';t is written withthegrapheme hich s alsocommonlyusedas he semantic omplementor'man',but here s a morphogrampronouncedil .
In the secondine,a morphogram or ln l 'not'is the first word. The verb ;dns/'shedid not say' is written with four monoconsonantalhonograms. he noun
llwtl 'evil' is written with the biconsonantal honogram or ly l followedby thefemininesuffix marker t/ (abstract ounsare frequently eminine).The semanticcomplement t the end of the word is the sparrow ndicatingsomethingsmall'or
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 132/340
Egyptian
'bad'.The adjectivenbtl any (fem.)'modifiesywtl; t is written with the bicon-
sonantal honogram nbl followedby the femininesuffix t/.
6.9 Decipherment
The decipherment of Egyptian is an extremely interesting story (Parkinson 19991.
\fhen the Egyptians became Christian, they turned away from the ancient Egyptian
culture which they regardedas heathen.As a result, knowledge of the writing system
was lost. The existenceof Egyptian writing was obvious to anyone visiting Egypt,
bu t it had becomeunreadable. n Europe, t was commonly believed hat the symbols
were ideographic, that is , that they represented deas, not linguistic entities.
ln1799, a French soldier came across a large stone in the Mediterranean town
of Rashid (Rosetta).The stone contained the same ext in two languages Egyptian
and Greek) and three scripts (hieroglyphic,demotic, and Greek).The RosettaStone,
as it came to be known, quickly found its way to England where it can be seen
today in the British Museum. Copies of the text were sent to scholarsaround Europe.
The Greek was easilyread. The stone records a decreeof 196 oLD: the priests were
to establisha cult in honour of King Ptolemy V in return for favours he had granted
them.
An Englishman, Thomas Young (1773-1829), took some steps owards decipher-
ing the text; however, the French scholar Jean-FrangoisChampollion is generally
credited with using the stone to decipher the Egyptian script. In the hieroglyphic
portion of the text, he found severaloccurrencesof a graphemeenclosed n an oval,
called a cartouche. In "1,761,,the Rev. Jean-Jacques arth6lemy had suggested hat
these cartouchescontained the names of rulers. Champollion was fortunate in that
these names were written almost entirely phonographically, and furthermore the
Egyptians had made some attempt to include the vowels in these oreign-sounding
Greek names. (Recall that Egypt was ruled by the Greeks after Alexander's con-
quest of the fourth century oro.) With this foothold, Champollion was able to
make considerableheadway in deciphering the entire language.By the end of the
nineteenthcentury, Egyptian texts were once more understood.
6.10 FurtherReading
Allen (2000)provides n excellentmodern ntroductiono the language nd writing
system,with many nteresting ultural ssays;Hoch(1996) s anothergoodmodern
text orbeginners. ardiner1973)s he standardeferencerammar. oprieno1995)
is a good introductiono the language, ut with littleon writing.Faulkner 1988) s
a usefuldictionary;t is also an example f handwritten ooks,commonbefore om-
puterprinting f Egyptian. avies 1990) s a short ntroductiono thewriting ystem.
Quirkeand Andrews 1988)gives a life-size eproduction f the RosettaStone;
the decipherments describedn the recentwork by Parkinson1999).The readilyavailable eprintsof worksby WallaceBudgeare to be avoidedas unreliable nd
outdated.
r13
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 133/340
l l 4
6.ll Terms
biconsonantalrapheme
cartouche
Champollion
Copticdecipherment
demoticgraffito
hieratic
hieroglyphic
monoconsonantalrapheme
Egyptian
morphographicritingpapyrus
phonographic ritingphonologicalomplementphonologicalxtension
semantic omplement
stimulus iffusion
transliteration
triconsonantalrapheme
6.12 Exercise
The folfowingcartouchesshow the names Cleopatraand Ptolemaioswritten in
Egyptian.Without ookingat the values n table6.5, try to decipher he writingof
these names.The cartouches ontainadditional ymbols hat you will not be able
to decipher.
qr r=+ :
ffi_= fi.I+[h
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 134/340
7 Semitic
7.1 The SemiticLanguageFamily
The Semitic family of languages s a branch of the Afro-Asiatic family akeadyintroduced n chapters and5. The Semitic anguages re particularly mportantfor the history of writing becausehe SemiticAkkadianswere among he very firstpeople o write, and because n early West Semiticspeakernvented he abiad,from which ultimatelydescend ll the non-Chinese riting systemsn use oday.Recall rom chapter2 that an alphabet s a writing systemn which all phonemes,both consonants nd vowels,arerepresentedy a distinctsymbol;an abiad s likean alphabet,but only consonants re written, not vowels; he term 'abjad' wasintroducedby Daniels 1995a).One of the Semiticscripts,Ethiopic,hasa some-what differentstructure,which Daniels allsan abugida;n an abugida,he vowelsare written
as diacritics n theconsonants, nd one vowel s not explicitlywritten.(Abugidas rediscussedn moredetail n chapter11.)Theclassificationf Semiticanguagesresentedn table7.1,s based n Herzron
(1987)and Faber(1997).The Semiticanguageamily as a whole is divided nto
Table 7.1 The Semitic language family
East Semitic
Akkadian, Babylonian, AssyrianEblaite
West Semitic
Central'$fest SemiticNorthwest Semitic
Ugaritic
Canaanite
Old Canaanite
Phanician, Punic
Hebrew
Moabite, Amorite
Aramaic, Syriac
Arabic
Southern'West Semitic
Old South ArabianModern South Arabian
Ethiopic
Ge'ez, Amharic, Tigrinya, Tigr6
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 135/340
116 Semitic
Figure 7.1. Linguisticsitesof importance n the Middle East
East and !7est Semitic.'We
have already seen hat Akkadian, the main language of
East Semitic,used cuneiform writing.'S7est Semitic s divided into Central West and
Southern'West Semitic. Central West Semitic consistsof two branches:Northwest
Semitic and Arabic. Northwest Semitic languages nclude Ugaritic (seechapter 5),
Canaanite,and Aramaic. Canaanite ncludesOld Canaanite a few early nscriptions),
Syr ia
. Palmyra(Tadmur)
Mediterranean ea
lsrael
o
SaudiArabia
S ina i
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 136/340
Semitic I t 7
Phanician and ts later orm Punic,spokenn Carthage), ebrew,anda few orherpoorly attestedanguages. outhernWest Semitic ncludeshe SouthArabian an-guages nd a numberof languagespokenn EthiopiaandEritrea.TheSouthArabianlanguages re spokenat the southernend of the Arabianpeninsula note hat theSouthArabian anguages redifferent rom Arabic).SfehaveancientSouthArabianinscriptions, ut the languages f those nscriptionsare not the ancestors f theSouthArabian anguageshat are spoken here oday.
The Semitic bjademerged bout1500oLD. I7e haveakeady een har the EastSemiticspeakersived in Mesopotamia chapter5) . In this chapterwe are con-cernedwith the WestSemitic eopleswho by this time had establishedhemselvesin the Levant theeastern ndof theMediterranean;igure7.1,).Togeta pictureofthe Semitic anguage ituation n this areaaround1500 oLD,we see hat Akkadianis spoken n Mesopotamia.In the Levant,Eblaite,oncespokenaround Aleppo inSyria,hasdiedout. The Ugariticpeoples re iving
atRas
Shamrain
modern-daySyria)and heCanaanitesre arthersouth.The Aram&ans whospokeAramaic) reto the northeast. oon, he Canaanites il l divide nto Phaniciansn the north andHebrewsn the south.We know little about he ancestors f the Arabicspeakers tthis time,but they arelater oundat Petra in modern-dayJordan) nd n thenorthernArabianpeninsula. he SouthSemitic eoples re iving n southernArabiaand willsooncross o northeastern frica.
7.2 Origin of the SemiticAbiad
The \fest Semitic abjad appeared around 1500 oLD. An interesringand difficultquestion for us is how this system came about. Very likely the Semitic peoples
did not invent the abjad out of nothing. The Levant was a crossroads betweenthe two important empires of the Akkadians and the Egyptians,each empire withits own writing. Anyone living there could easily have learned about both rypesof writing.
Both Egyptian and Akkadian had a morphographic component in their writ-ing systemswhich the Semitic writing did not adopt; the abjad was completelyphonographic.
The Akkadian systemof writing is a less ikely ancestor or the abiad. Akkadianwriting was structurally quite different from the Semitic abjad. The phonographic
component of Akkadian was syllabic, not phonemic, and it indicated both conson-ants and vowels. In the Semiticabjad, writing was consonantal and did not includevowels.
The Egyptian writing systemhad greatersimilarity to the Semitic abiad.It wouldhave beenpossible n Egyptian to useonly the monoconsonantal symbols.Further,Egyptian did not write vowels. Thus, the Egyptian writing system is strucrurallylike the Semitic abjad in two crucial aspects:only consonants were written, and aword could be written consonantby consonant. On balance, chooseEgyptian over
Akkadian as the more likely ancestorof the abjad on the basisof sysremicsimilarities.In the creation of the Semitic abjad, the system used in Egyptian was greatly
simplified. All Semitic writing was phonographic, and all symbols were used to
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 137/340
1 1 8 Semitic
represent ingle onsonants nly.The morphographic nd multiconsonantal sages
of Egyptian, swell as hephonological nd semantic omplements,erediscarded.
Sass 1992)pointsout that it was common n Egyptduring the Middle Kingdom
period(2060-1780oro) to write foreignnamesphonographically.t is alsoquitepossiblehat Egyptianscribeswere taught by learning o write phonographically
first and then ater o substitutehe appropriatemorphographic ymbols. apanesechildren earnkanafirst in this way and thengraduallysubstitutehe appropriate
kanii.We
can magine hat an Egyptianwriting instructormightexplain o a Semitic
speaker ow phonographicwriting was done, but not get to the morphographic
explanation.TheSemitic ymbolswereusedacrophonically.n acrophony, symbol sused o
representhe irstphonemen the objectportrayed. or example,f, in English, use
a pictureof a tulip to representtl or one of a daisy o representdl,I haveused
thesesymbolsacrophonically. he relevance f acrophony or the history of theSemitic bjadwill bemadeclearshortly.
Gardiner 1916)analysedheProto-Canaaniteaterial ound n 1905 n turquoise
mines n the Sinaiat Serabig l-KhAdem. he mineswereoperated y the Egyptians
with Canaanite laves. everal bjectswere ound herewith short nscriptions. he
reading f thesenscriptionsemains roblematic, ut manyscholarsGardiner916,
Albright 7966,Cross1,989,
Naveh 1982)haveseen hem as he forerunners f the
Semitic bjad.
Gardinersaw a resemblanceetween omeof the symbols nd Egyptianphono-
grams figure7.2).Possibly Semitic peaker,who was familiar,at least o some
degree,with Egyptianwriting, tried to apply Egyptianwriting to the Semitic an-guage.Gardinerbelievedhat rather han using heEgyptian alueof a symbol, heSemitic peakerranslatedhe Egyptian erm nto Semitic nd henused he symbol
acrophonicallyo representhe first phonemen the Semiticword. For example,the Egyptiansymbol for house s Fl. This symbolcan be used n Egyptianas amorphogramor 'house',but alsophonographicallyor a /pr/ sequence. ardiner's
view was that this symbolwas used n writing Semitic, ut not with the Egyptian
sound value.Rather, he Egyptiansymbol meaning house'was translated nto
Semitic bEtl, and the symbol was usedacrophonically s the symbol for lb l in
writing Semitic.Note that althougha symbolmay havebeenbi- or triconsonantal
in Egyptian, ll symbolswere usedmonoconsonantallyn Semitic.Subsequentis-coveries eremade n the Sinai,andAlbright (1965),who reanalysedhe material,
claimed o havedecipheredhe majority of it. Figure7.2 gives omeof the dentifica-
tions that Gardinerand Albright made.Other symbolsof the Semiticabjadmay
havesimply been nvented.Although the matter s not decided ully, and the Gardiner-Albrighttheorymay
not turn out to be correct n al l respects,t appearshat the Semiticabjadwas atleastpartiallybased n a simplifiedapplication f Egyptianwriting.
Naveh (7982) summarizeshe development f the Proto-Canaanite cript asfollows:
1 It was nventedaround1700olo by Canaanites ho had someknowledge fEgyptianwriting.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 138/340
Egyptianhieroglyphic
Semitic
EarlySemitic
+
4
Nameof fetter
119
Si aiscript
?aleph 'ox'
bet house'
waw trooK
kuph'open
hand'mem 'water'
nahas 'snake'
sajin '"yu'
Figure 7.2 Some examples of the Egyptian sources of Semitic letters according toGardiner (1916) and Albrighr (1,9661
The number of letters representing he consonantal systemwas initially twenty-seven.By the thirteenth century, it was reducedto twenty-two.The original signs were pictographs and most developed acrophonic values.Theseevolved into linear letters.
The pictographic conception permitted writing in any direction: from right toleft, from left to right, in vertical columns, and even horizontal or vertical bou-
strophedon (lines n alternating directions; see$8.3). Vertical writing effectivelydisappeared round 1100 oLD.
7.3 Development f the SemiticAbfad
Figure7.3 givesa timelineof the development f the Semiticabjad startingwithProto-Canaanite. any of thedates hownareuncertain.$7ewill discusshe Semiticabjad n historical rder.During heProto-Canaaniteeriod,SouthSemitic peakersused he abjad o write their anguages;heyestablished SouthSemitic criptwhich
took its own course SS7.3.1 nd7.6). The Greeksborrowed he Semiticabjadnext,but we will delay he historyof Greekwriting until chapter8. In thenorthernLevant,Phanician is the direct descendant f Proto-Canaanite,n both language
ar-l
V\
.vv\
1
vmYI
\=
.ffi iA
"-)(
G
)
r41
Y
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 139/340
120 Semitic
Syriac
ArabicAramaic New Hebrew
Many local Aramaic scripts
Phenic ian lndianscr i
Proto-Canaanite
Old Hebrew Samaritan
Etruscan Roman
Coptic
Armenian
Mod.Creek
Ceorgian
oLD 1600 1400 1200 1000 800 600 400 200 0 200 400 600 800 1000NEW
Figure7.3 Timelineof the development f the Semiticabjad
and script. The Phcnician script was used irst to write Phanician and then Hebrew
and Aramaic.
7.3.7 SoutheruWestSemitic
The Southern'S7estemiticanguagesre spokenby smallnumbers f peoplen thesouthern art of the ArabianpeninsulatheSouthArabian anguages)nd by much
largernumbers f people n northeastern frica (Ge'ez,Amharic,Tigr6,Tigrinya).(Besurenot to confuseSouthArabianwith Arabic;seeable7.1.)TheSemitic bjadbecame nown in this areaquiteearly,possibly y 1400 oLD,and was used or theold SouthArabian languages. large numberof SouthArabian nscriptions refound n thesouthwestern reaof theArabianpeninsulan a monumental cript,dat-ing from theeighthcenturyoLD.The SouthArabian scripthad2g lettersas opposedto the Proto-Canaanitenventoryof 27. The two additional etterswereadded owrite newphonemes hich had emergedn the SouthArabian anguages.
TheSouthArabianabjad ravelledrom theArabianpeninsula crosshe narrowstretchof water to Africa.Originally, he Ethiopicscriptwas a purelyconsonantal
abjad,likeSouthArabian.However, he scriptwaseventuallymodified o an abugida,probably hroughcontactwith Indianscripts Daniels ,996a). he Ethiopicabugidais presentedn moredetail n $7.5.
If
I
Amharic
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 140/340
,1?A
Semitic 727
K(t/Slv/t, t1 KJg'los/4,/o)r f I K
r Jh g , 4 + w v t t K
t+ tHJ,K jY, r f9 , rvT fvL s ,v /1 , /xfv )+J+r@)wf?@H\TE+tJrtgK ,h)y , / g ' ! )b
,t1wt)),I y)+Ht) tK 1y,b't (o,g19+tuly, J-..,/LJ,KT r
Figure7.4 Phanician nscriptionof Ahiram. Byblos,eleventh enturyoLD.'Thissarcophagusasmadeby Et(?)basal,onof Ahiram,King of Gebal, or Ahiramhis father;herehe laid him down for erernity.'
7.3.2 Phunician
After 1050 oLD, the Semitic peoples n the northern Levant came to be known asthe Phanicians. They left a considerable body of material in the Phanician language.
The Phcnicians were important traders in the Mediterranean; they founded a numberof colonies, notably at Carthageon the coast of north Africa. The languageof these
colonies was known as Punic; it continued to be spoken and written after the lan-guagedisappeared n Phanicia proper. The last Punic writing is from about 200 Nrw.The Phcnician script is written only right to left, and the symbols no longer have apictographic quality. Ar inscription of the sarcophagusof Ahiram (figure7.4) showsan early form of the Phenician script.
The Phanician abjad was adopted by the Aram&ans to the northeast and by theHebrews to the south. The Aram€ans lived in northern Mesopotamia and spokeAramaic, a Nlorthwest Semiticlanguage. By the tenth century oLD, they had borrowed
the Phenician abjad and used it for their own language.By around 750 orn, theAramaic abjad had developed an identifiable form, distinct from its Phcnicianorigin.
The Hebrews borrowed the abjad from the Phcnicians and developed a newform known as the Old Hebrew abiad. Early Hebrew inscriptions have been datedto the ninth century oLD. The longest ext is the Hebrew Bible, composed betweenthe fifteenth and fifth centuriesoLD, although preserved n manuscript copiesonlyfrom a much later time. The earliest existing manuscriptsof the Hebrew scripturesare portions of the Dead Sea Scrolls dating from the second o first centuries oro(plate 21. Hebrew at this time had more consonants than Phanician which meant
that some letterswere used ambiguously.In 586 oLD, the Babylonians conquered he Hebrews, holding alarge number of
them in captivity in Babylon, especially he more educatedupper classes.Up to that
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 141/340
r22 Semitic
fiP:r :,:'ttltr
Iurrrrf ir 5151 ill,lttt 5il8ll1ltsl
: : i: , : f . : i: : : .
ffii
4fistt
tn \g)rr, nlT'I-P nYJ :###*$ffi.ilririffiiiir'iir'ro.t,rfinl#tlro\ -u2sjrr,t{.rr.', ...
315\ nf il ff nrn\tnl n$1t1fi "Ir$t\tl$5'tf
ttr*- rtjrL,wr\ tnJtt rt ..$.ni*i..'....,
Plate 2 Dead Sea Scroll version of a psalm not included in the Bible. The body of the text
is written in the New Hebrew abjad, but the name of God is written in the Old Hebrew
abiad. This name occurs six times on this page: the first occurrence is the leftmost word in
line 4. 30-40 Nnw. Reproduced courtesy of the Israeli Antiquities Authority, Jerusalem
!!f $frl$4
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 142/340
Semitic r23
point, the Hebrews adbeen peaking ebrewand using heOld Hebrewabjad.Bythis time, Aramaichad replaced abylonian Akltadian)as he spoken anguage fthe Babylonian mpireand the lingua rancaof the entireMiddle East.Because fits internationalmportance,he Hebrewswere ikely familiarwith Aramaicbeforethe Babyloniancaptivity; but during the sixth century oLD, while they were inBabylon, he Hebrewpeoplebegan peaking ramaicand using heAramaicabjad.After their return to Israel n 538 oLD, Hebrew becamencreasinglyestrictedoreligious urposes, nd Aramaicbecamehe ordinaryspokenanguage. artsof thebiblical booksof Ezraand Danielare written in the Aramaic anguage; nd later,
Jesus' ative anguage as Aramaic.In writing aswell, an Aramaic orm of theabjad, heNew Hebrew abiad, eplaced
the Old Hebrew abjad, descendedrom the Phanician abiad.The Hebrewswerea conservative eople; hus the switch from the Old Hebrew abiad o the New
Hebrewabjad s hard o explain Naveh1982).Goerwitz 79961noteshefact hatthe Hebrew-speakingreahadbeen uledby a series f powerswho usedAramaic.Sincehe wo abjads aveequivalentnventories f letters, o structural hangewasinvolved. n one of the DeadSeaScrolls plate2), the main text is written in theNew Hebrewabiad,but the nameof God swritten n theOld Hebrew orm. Coinswereoccasionally intedwith the Old Hebrew etters.But for reasonshat arenotentirelyclear, eligiouseadersook a dislike o the Old Hebrewabjadand nsistedon the New Hebrew orm. Jewish heologians ontinued o write in both Hebrewand Aramaicusing he New Hebrew abjad for both languages. he Samaritans,a groupwho separatedrom the mainstream ews,havecontinued o use he Old
Hebrewabfad.The New Hebrewabjad developedts own characteristicsn time;it is still in use odayas he normalway ro write Hebrew.
7.3.3 Aramaic
Aramaic was spoken n Syria and northern Mesopotamia. The Aram€ans borrowed
the Phcnician script by the eleventh or tenth century oLD, but specific Aramaic
characteristicsdo not appear in the script until the mid-eighth century (Naveh 1982).
By the sixth century oLD, Aramaic had become the script used for administrarivepurposes of the Babylonian Empire. \Ufhenthe Achemenid Persians,who spoke
Old Persian,an Iranian languageof the Indo-European family, conquered Babylonin 549 oLD, they took over the existing civil service which was functioning in
Aramaic. Although the Persianscreatedan Old Persiancuneiform system or writ-ing their language Testen1,996), t was usedrather little, primarily for monumentalpurposes (seechapter 5). Correspondence,contracts, and records continued to be
written in Aramaic in the Aramaic abjad. During the Persianperiod, the script main-
tained a strong uniformity throughout the empire.
The Assyrians adopted Aramaic as the official languageof their empire, as didthe Akkadians and Babylonians,and later the Persians.As a result,Aramaic became
one of the most important languages n the history of the world, spoken as a first or
second anguageby enormous numbers of people in the ancient Middle East. TheAramaic abjad developedalarge number of local variants, severalof some inguistic
and cultural importance.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 143/340
1,24 Semitic
\n>R
l l p\D.)&\r< J < n j I
)Jr,\r
A > < l A > A >
Figure 7.5 Aramaic morphograms in Middle Persian writing. In the transliteration,
the Aramaic morphograms are in upper case,and the Middle Persian suffixes are
in lower case
At first, the situationwas bilingualdiglossia. he peoplespokeMiddle Persian,
and writing was in Aramaic.By the second enturyoLD, Middle Persianwords,
written n theAramaicscript,graduallybegan o appearn writing; .e., heAramaic
scriptwas borrowed or writing Middle PersianSkiarvs 1996).In time,a curiousmixtureof language nd writing emerged. rom bilingualdiglossia,writing came
to be conceived f as entirely n Middle Persian.Many words,however,werestill
written n the Aramaic anguage, ut werepronouncedn Middle Persian. or example(figure .5), he Middle Persian ord for'brother'is lbredl;however,ather han
spelling bradl out in the Aramaicscript,which would havebeeneasy o do, thepracticewas to write the Aramaicword for <AHJ> brother' but to pronounce t
lbradl.SuchAramaicwords, hus,came o bemorphogramsor thePersian cribe.
Middle Persian uffixes ouldbeadded o Aramaicmorphograms: .g., henominative
pluralof brother bradarlwas ormedby writing theAramaic ogogram<AHJ>and
thenattachingheMiddle Persian uffix<-tl>whichrepresentshe sounds-drl.Thegenitiveplural was ormedby adding he furthersuffix<-jn> -in/ giving<AHJ-tl-jttt
pronouncedbradarin/ (Skje va 1,996). heMiddle Persian seof Aramaicmorpho-
grams s a remarkableexampleof the conservatismn borrowing writing systems
that we often encounter.Note that thesemorphogramsare different rom Chinese
characters orrowed nto Japaneser Korean,since heir pronunciationwas rans-parent o the Persian cribeas they werewritten in the Aramaic script. n English,
we havea similarsituationwherewe write Ib. (anabbreviationor the Latin word
Iibrum)but pronouncet aspound.By addingan Englishsuffix o this abbreviated
Latinword, we form thepluralas bs., n a manner imilar o theadditionof Middle
Persian uffixes o the Aramaicwriting of the word. Similarly,we oftenwrite otherLatin abbreviations s etc.,e.g.,or i.e. but pronounce hem in Englishas and so
on', 'for example', r 'that is'.In 330 oLD, Alexanderhe Greatconqueredhe Achemenidempireof Persia nd
established reekas the official anguage. ramaiccontinuedas a lingua franca,
but the centralauthoritywhichgaveuniformity o theAramaicscriptdisappeared,
andmany ocalvarieties rose.In the west, two local scriptsemerged.UVe ave alreadyseen hat a Hebrew
versionof the Aramaicabjadcame o be used n Israel,and the Nabatran empire
aroundPetra in modern-dayJordan) lsodevelopedts own variant,which ultimately
led to the Arabicabjad.In Mesopotamia,he Hatran script was used n the north and Mandaic n the
south.A numberof scripts rosen PersiaPersian, arthian,Sogdian, horazmian),
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 144/340
I'C0I\UVGL,'
NffiIONI.t
Semitic 125
rr-r1uJ nturt xJ:{TFigure 7.6 Palmyrene Aramaic inscription from Britain. The inscription reads
<rginZ bt xr j brst? xbl>'Regina,
the freedwoman of Barates:woe!'
all derived rom the earlierAramaic.The Sogdian criptwas adoptedby peoples
living farthereast. t is the ancestor f theUighur,Mongolian,andManchu scripts
(chapter 1).
In India, King A6okawas a powerfulking in the third centuryoLD.As a convert
to Buddhism,he erecteda numberof Buddhistmonuments round the country.
Thoseon the northwestern dgeof his empire modernAfghanistan)werewritten
in Greekand Aramaicso as to be more easilyunderstood y the people here. n
chapter11, we will see hat the Aramaic script s likely the ancestor f the many
Indianand southeast sianscripts.
Palmyra modernTadmur) s an oasis n Syriabetweenhe Mediterranean nd
theEuphrates iver.The nhabitants pokeAramaicand developed localPalmyreneversionof theAramaic abjad.An interestingnscription s found in Englandwritten
in thePalmyrene bjad.Apparentlya man namedBaratesrom Palmyradecidedo
seekhis fortuneat the other endof the Romanempire. n SouthShields,n north-
easternEnglandnear Newcastle, e erecteda monument figure7.6) in the late
second enturyNEw n Palmyreneetters o the memory of his latewife, Regina.
\fith thespread f Islam,Aramaicwasreplaced y Arabic as he ingua rancaof
the Middle East.Today Aramaic s still spokenby about200,000people,with the
largestgroup of speakersn an areawhereTurkey, raq, and Syriameet.Aramaic
today is usuallywritten with the Syriacabjad,of which there are threeversions:
Estrangelo, erto,and Nestorian.
7.4 Hebrew
7.4.1 Backgroundand histoty
The linguistic situation of Hebrew is unique. As we have already noted, by the
second century oLD, Hebrew had died out as a spoken language,and Jews were
speaking mainly Aramaic or Greek. As they later spread out to various parts of
the world, they spoke the local language where they were living. Nevertheless,Hebrew remained the liturgical language,and scholarscontinued to write in Hebrew
(and in Aramaic) and occasionally used Hebrew for spoken communication with
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 145/340
126
visitors. In the nineteenth century NEw, a movement arose to revive Hebrew as a
spoken language. This movement succeededand coincided with the establishment
of the modern state of Israelwhere it has become he native languageof native-born
Israelis.This is the only known caseof the successful evival of a dead language oa language spoken natively by a sizeablegroup of people.
7.4.2 Phonologyof Tiberian Hebreu,
The Bible s the only large ext of ancientHebrew. t containsmaterialwritten overseveral enturies nd rom differentdialectareas. he text aswe know it todaywasfixed around the seventh enturyNEw, ong after Hebrew wasno longera spokenlanguage.The editors were known as Masoretes,and the text is known as theMasoreticext.Since he editingwasdone n Tiberias,he dialectof Hebrewuseds
referred o asTiberian Hebrew. In the variouspartsof the Jewishworld, differentways of pronouncingBiblicalHebrewarose.None of these s exactly he sameaswhat we now believeancientHebrew sounded ike, nor the sameas the TiberianMasoretesn the seventh enturyNEwwould haveused, or the same s hat whichemerged n modern Hebrew n Israel oday. In order to talk about the Hebrewwriting system,we will usea reconstructedorm of what scholarsbelieve o be theTiberianpronunciation Khan 1997).
The consonantphonemes f Tiberian Hebrew are presentedn table 7.2. Thes tops /ptkbdS lhadf r i ca ti vea l lophones [f0xvdy ]h ichoccur reda f te rvowe ls .Thephonemesqg/ weredistinct rom /t s/. Proto-Semitic ada series f obstruents
referred o by Semiticists s emphaticsounds.The exactphoneticnatureof theseobstruents uring the early stages f Semitic s difficult to determine s heyturn updifferentlyn differentSemiticanguages. enerally, owever,heemphatic topsseemto have nvolveda secondary rticulationat the backof the oral tract (i.e.,velarization,uvularization,pharyngealization,r laryngealization).fle will simplynote here hatTiberianHebrewhad these wo emphatic honemesEQl,distinct rom lt sl.
A varietyof analyses xist for Tiberian Hebrew phonology,particularly for thevowels. The one given here is only one of various possibilities. n this analysis,TiberianHebrewhad eightvowels table7.3).
The Tiberian Masoretesexplicitly indicatedcertain variations n the vowel sys-
temwhich areregarded ereas allophonicand predictable. or example, lthoughscholars oday generallyview vowel length as allophonicand predict it from thesyllablestructure,he Tiberianscholarsndicated ength n the writing as though
Table 7.2 Consonant phonemes of Tiberian Hebrew
h s
k sd
!
$
s zn
I
p b
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 146/340
Semitic
Table7.3 Vowelphonemesf TiberianHebrew
t27
it were phonemically ontrastive. he Tiberian theory of phonotactics eld thata syllablecould end only in a consonant r a long vowel.Thus, ICVCI or lCYtlwould constitutesyllables, ut /CV/ alonewould not; as a result, he sequences/CVCV:/ and /CVCVC/ were treatedas singlesyllables. he first vowels n thesecomplex syllablesare referred o as reducedvowels; he relevance f this analysisfor
thewriting systemwill bediscussedelow. n thischapter, haveomittedvowellengthwhen citing Hebrewwordsgenerally, ut I have ncluded t whendiscussingthe writing of a word to make it easier or the reader o relatea cited item totraditionalwriting.
In modern Hebrew, ltl and tl havemergedas ltl; lk/ and ql havemergedas/k/; [6 y 0] havemergedwith the stops d g t] , respectively;wt has become v];/s/ hasbecome tsl; e e a/ havemergedas [e]; and lal andbl havemergedas [a](Bolozky1997).For somespeakers,he sounds?1,lrl, and hl havedisappeared.Despite hesehistoric phonological hanges,modernHebrewwriting has tendedto retain raditionalBiblicalspelling.
7.4.3 Hebreutabjad
At first in early Semitic,only the consonantswere written and no vowels. Later, somelong vowels came to be written using consonant letters.This systembegan with theAramaans and spread o the other Semiticusersof the abjad (except he Phanicians).In Hebrew, the symbol r, originally usedonly for the consonant ljl,was used o writelong vowels /i r et/;1, originally used only for the consonant wl, was usedfor longlu t ot ; and sometimes he consonantalsymbol ;'l <h> was used for lar,l.Thus ffotrefl'root'was
earlier written Ur-][t .ltb, with no vowel marking the long lor,l;later it
was written as Urll[t.Jwrft where the <w> shows the long vowel lotl. Aconsonanrsymbol used in this manner to indicate a vowel is known as a tnater lectionis (Latin
for 'motherof reading', pl. matres lecti.oni.s).Matres lectionis were common for long
vowels in Hebrew, but they were not always used; short vowels were not indicatedat all. By the seventh century NEw, even with the matres lectionis, concern arosethat knowledge of the correct pronunciation of the Hebrew scripturesmight be ost.By this time, Hebrew scholars were familiar, of course, with the Greek method ofusing ordinary letters or vowels; however, they did not wish to alter the sacred extby inserting vowel symbols betweenthe existing letters.Their solution was to indicatevowels by meansof a set of diacritic marks over or below the consonantal letters.
This use of diacritics in Hebrew is known as vowel pointing, and texts with vowelsindicated are called pointed texts. Actually, three different sysremsof pointingdeveloped,but in the end the system rom Tiberias in Palestinewon out. A few other
i
e
a
u
oJ
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 147/340
128 Semitic
Table7.4 Letters of the Hebrew abfad. The sound values given for the abjad are those
reconstructed for Tiberian Hebrew; parentheses ndicate transcriptions appropriate for
modern Hebrew. The super- or subscript macron is used to show a fricative pronunciation:
. b d 0 p t k ' = [ v d y f 0 x ]
Printed Cursiue Sound ualue
final finalform form
Name Modern pron. Numeric
of name ualue
NlI1i]'lTnt)t
? p,N Or lo
Ua f3 3i)-)Q'
D
f 1,b EJ lo
vD ls Ti2-'l
V)n
If,t3tI5D6)
?
bg
dh @ )w (v)zh @ )
t ( t )j
kImns\
(g)p
$ (ts)q (k)
R
s l It
zalep
bet
gimel
dale!
he
waw
zayin
he!
!et
iodkaF
lame{
mem
nun
samef,Tayin
pe
sade
quBrelsin{in
taw
l'olfil
lbstl
/'grmal/
l'dolatl
lheil
lvavl
l'zajinl
lxetl
Itttl
tjudl
lktf I
/' lomad/
lmeml
lnunl
/'somex/
l'ajnllpetl
/'tsadi/
lkufl
lxxf/
lsn, {nlItovl
12345
6789
1 02030405060
708090
100200300400
marks were added o removeambiguities n pronunciation,and a set of symbolsknown ascantillationmarkswere also added o indicate he liturgical tune.
Hebrew is written from right to left like all Semitic abjads.Five lettershavespecial llographswhich are usedonly at the end of a word. Variouscalligraphic
stylesexist. In table 7.4, the letterformsat the left are typical of those used n
modernprintedmatter.The forms o their right are ypicallyused n handwriting.Lettersare written separately nd not joined,even n handwriting.
The order of letters n the Semiticabjad,given in table 7.4 has a very long
tradition.As we haveseenn chapter5, the Ugariticcuneiform abjadhad essentiallythesame rder n the atesecondmillenium O'Connor7995a). oday, heHebrew,
Roman,and Greek alphabets till haveessentiallyhe sameorderingof symbols.Arabic and the Indian scriptsstand out in having reorganuzedhis order:Arabic
slightly,and he Indianscripts, horoughly. 7e haveno ideahow this earlySemiticorderarose. Hebrewhad no special ymbolso represent umbers, ut used etters
with numericvalues. s shown n table7.4.)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 148/340
Semitic r29
Table 7.5 Sibilant letters of Hebrew
Letter Faber's Proto-Semitic
reconstruction
Early Hebreupronunciation
Tiberianpronunciation
Name
owa
S
s
{
D
n)
p D
t nk l
f.T
I
b l
d : ls l
tsIS
same15
sin
shin
Table 7.6 Dagesh letters o{ Hebrew.'SThere
the modern pronunciation differs, it is givenin parentheses
v
6 (d)v (g)
f
o (t)X
Originally,Semitic ad threesibilants table7.5).The reconstructionf thepro-nunciationof these asbeenproblematic. aber 1981;seealsoDaniels79991 asreconstructedhem as [s], [{], and [ts]. The traditional view for Hebrew hasbeenthat early Hebrewhadthreekindsof s-soundss 5 which werewrirten with twolettersO and l/ ; the etterD waspronouncedsl,and the etter ll hadtwo differentpronunciationsS l. By Masoretic imeS,<5>had come o be pronouncedas /s/.
The Masoretesmaintainedhe traditionalwriting of bothD and I, and, n pointedHebrew, hey distinguishedhe two pronunciations f ll l by puttinga dot overrheleft or right side.
In pointedHebrew,the dagesh a dot inside he letter) s used n two ways.First, t is used o indicatea geminate onsonant: tFy <$ammrm>peoples',Eti?tl,<Saqqim>sacks'.Second,Hebrew historicallyunderwenta process f lenition,changing ingle tops o fricativesntervocalically. lthough hiswas an allophonicchange, iberianscholars sed he dagesho indicatehat the etterwaspronouncedas a phoneticstop [b d g p t k]; without a dagesh,he letterwaspronounced safricative u6 y f 0 x] (table7 61.lnModernHebrew, he stopswithout a dagesh re
pronounced s [u d g f t x] (olderHebrew[6 V e] havebecomemodernHebrew[d g t]). The dual functionof the dageshs facilitatedby the fact that singlestopsdonot occur betweenvowels.Thus, an intervocalicstop without a dagesh epresentsa fricative,and an intervocalic top with a dagesb epresents geminare luster.
7.4.4 Hebreut uouels
The Tiberian writing of Hebrew vowels is fairly complex. As we have alreadynoted, earlyHebrewwriting did not indicatevowels.Some ong vowelscame o beindicated y adding , '1 ,
and n some ases asmatresectionis. majorpurpose f
theTiberianeditionof the text was o fix thepronunciation f the Bibleby indicat-ing all vowels.This was accomplished y usingthe existingmatres ectionis ncombinationwith a newsetof diacritics nown al points(table7.7).Thediacritics
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 149/340
130 Semitic
Table 7.7 Tiberian Hebrew vowel pointing, shown with the letter D <m>
Short Longldiphthong
hireq
sagol
pa!ax
qame$ xatup
qibbus
hireq jo{
9ere
qamef
holem(-waw)
ftreq
?l)
Db
i ' Dc c i D ' De Po o w b t D
r l D
i
e
a
o
u
DDDDb
[awa o, A
hagep sagol E
hagep paph Ft
hagepqamef 6
Table 7.8 Hebrew personal names
nq- r
n r s
e a
rlgl'
< 6 r h > < S a r i h >
are written with the consonant that they phonologically follow. As an example, the
earliestwriting of /dawid/ [da:wir6]'David' would have been
-l'l'T<dwd> (the <w>
here s consonantal,no t a mater lectionis),later with .j t as a mater lectionis fo r the
long vowel li'^lJ'l-l <dwjd>, and finally with points J'l:l <dawid>.As we have said, vowel length was indicated although this was essentially
allophonic. The writing of the diphthongs and corresponding long vowels is some-
times conflated.The reducedvowels were given specialsymbols.One of the reduced
vowels is known as schwa (literally 'nothing';this is the source of the name of the
phonetic symbol [a]). The written diacritic fo r schwa indicates either the presence
of the reduced vowel [a ] or the absenceof any vowel. The names of the points are
given in table 7.7; vowels are often referred to by thesenames. Examples are shown
with the letter b <m>.
Note that <o> and <a> are written with the samediacritic. Knowledge of Hebrew
is necessary o determine which is intended. Romanization schemessometimes usea circumflex to indicate that a long vowel is written with a mater lectionis. Readers
should be aware that a number of different romanizations for Hebrew exist.
Although these symbols for vowels exist, as we have just seen, Hebrew today
is not generally written with vowel points although matres lectionis are regularly
written. Biblical texts are normally written with points although the scrolls used in
a synagogueare unpointed. Texts for children or learnersof the language are pointed
to give extra help. Poetry is sometimespointed since t often contains unusual words.
For other material in Hebrew, the reader is expected to know the language well
enough to supply the appropriate vowels.
Like all Semitic abjads, Hebrew is written right to left. In pointed texts, the
vowels are written with the consonant which they phonologically follow. For
example, the name Sarah (table 7.8) is written as <6rh>. The reader sees he con-
sonantal sequence<6rh> and given the context of the word, interprets this as the
iTlU'h r S
10rlnl
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 150/340
Semitic r31
nameSarah.See f you can guesshe secondname n table 7.8; the third may behardersince t is not pointed.
Hebreworiginallyhadno special umerals.Ordinary etterswereusedasnumbers.In table7.4, thenumericvalueof each etter s given.Today,Arabicnumerals re
used n most situations.One interesting ociolinguistic henomenons that thenumberof a year,accordingo theJewish alendar,s written with Hebrew ettersand then nterpreted s an ordinaryword, to predictwhat kind of year t will be.
7.4.5 Readingthe Bible
God is referred o by several amesn the Hebrewscriptures, ut the mostsacredwas JJi'lt<jhwh>, likelypronounced jahweh/. n thecourseof time, his namecameto be regardedas too holy to be spoken,exceptoncea yearby the High Priest n apart of theprayers n the Day of Atonement.Note that in the DeadSeaScroll extshown n plate2, the text is written in the New Hebrewabjad, but the nameofGod is written in the Old Hebrewabjad.Whenreading he Biblewhere hiswordappears,he reader s supposedo substitutehe word :JlS /Iddnai/'my Lord'. Toremindreaderso make his substitution,he vowelpointsof lddonailarc writtenwith the consonants<jhwh>, the result being written as il]it' or iTJhr with hateppagah -> predictably hangedo schwa.,;).This form ir, *rr.-onic and notintended o be pronounced swritten.Medirval Christian ranslators f the Bible,with a somewhat hakyunderstandingf Jewish radition, enderedhis iterallyas
Jehouah, word which doesnot exist n Hebrew.Traditionalsosays hat the readersmustnot
touch he holyname
n a scrollwiththeir fingers.To avoid this, scrollshavehandles or rolling and unrolling them,andreaders sea special ointer o keep heirplace n the text. The book of Estheroftenhasonly onehandle, ince t is the only book in the Biblenot containing heholy name.
Another nteresting ociolinguisticoint is that if a reader n a synagogue elievesthat the scrollcontainsan error, the services to stop until the matter s clarified.A youngboy is called orward,one old enough o have earnedhe Hebrew erters,but not experiencednough o understandhe meaningof the words. He is askedto decidewhat the letter n question s. If his decision hows hat the scroll s in
error, t must be takenaway to be corrected r destroyedElanDresher, ersonalcommunication).
7.4.6 Other languagesurritten urith the Hebreu)script
After the destruction f the temple n 70 NEv, theJewswere orced o leave sraeland spreadout widely. Theygenerally ame o speak he languagewhere hey wereliving. For example, hose iving in the Middle East and North Africa came rospeak udao-Arabic, form of Arabicwith manyHebrewand Aramaic oanwords.The Jewswrote this language sing he New Hebrew abiad.Similarphenomena
happened lsewhereHary 1996).In northeastern urope, ewsspokea form ofGermanwhich developednto Yiddish,alsowritten with the New Hebrewabjad.In southernEurope, he same hinghappenedn theSpanishLadino,Judezmo) ndItalian Judao-ltalian)reas.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 151/340
\;-TA'il{\1
t r}.nr t'-'i.* b
132 Semitic
Figure 7.7 Inscription from Jabal Ramm (near Aqaba), late fourth century NEw;
the oldest Arabic inscription so far discovered Reuuebiblique 45.91,,1936)
7.5 Arabic
7.5.7 Backgroundand history
Very little is known about pre-IslamicArabic writing (i.e.,before 622 New). A
considerable ody of pre-Islamic oetry has beenpreserved, ut this was passedon orally and not written down until Islamic imes.S7e now that the Nabataankingdomof PetraspokeArabic,but theNabataansnormallywrote n Aramaic,orthey wrote Arabic texts n non-Arabicscripts.The Nabatcan varietyof theAramaic
script s believedo be the ancestor f the Arabic script.Only fiveclearexamplesof pre-IslamicArabic inscriptionsexist (Bellamy1989).The text in figure7.7 is the
oldestknown. Bellamyanalysest as a boastmadeby an energeticman who went
out into the world and made money; his he announceso all thosewho are soworld-weary hat they cannotdo likewise'.
\flith the adventof Islam(622 Nnw),Arabic experienced n explosionof writing.
Tradition holds that Mohammed himselfwas illiterate and dictated the Qur'an,the Islamic acred ext, to scribes. y 550 NEw,hiswritingshad been ollected ndpublished. ubsequently,anycopies f the Qur'an weremade,andotherwriting,
both religiousand secular, nsued.Tealthy amiliesamassedarge ibraries.As Islamspread, ome onverts egan o speakArabic,andothersused heArabic
script to write their own language. oday, many languages poken n areaswhereIslam s a common religion are written with the Arabic script,notably PersianandUrdu, and manyother anguagescross entralAsia. n the past,other anguages,
suchasTurkish,Swahili,and Hausa,were written using he Arabicalphabet.Like otherSemiticabjads,Arabicwriting doesnot showvowels ully. Longvowels
are regularly ndicatedby matres ectionis, but not short vowels. SomecenturiesaftertheQur'an waswritten down, Islamicscholarsdeveloped way of indicatingshort vowels.They did this partly to facilitate heir missionarywork amongnon-Arabicspeakers,nd alsobecauseheywereconcernedhat the sacredextmightbe
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 152/340
Semitic 133
altered. hey ntroduced iacriticmarks o indicate hortvowelsand othermarters;these ymbolsare consideredo be secondary ymbolsand arenot used n writingordinary text, but they are regularlyused n writing the Qur'an, and n texts forchildrenor students f Arabic; hey arealsooccasionally sed or decorative ur-poses, son thecoverof a book.Thereare nteresting tructuralandsociolinguisticparallelsbetweenhe Arabicand Hebrewwriting of vowels.
Arabic s highlydiglossic. hroughout he Arabic-speaking orld, everyone peaksa localdialect,often referred o as colloquialArabic.
Writing,however, s almost
entirelydone n the dialectknown asStandardArabic,which sgenerally ot mutuallyintelligiblewith local dialects. oday, his dialect s similar ro, but not exacrly hesameas, the classicalArabic of the Qur'an and other older literature.Althougheveryone peaks olloquial Arabic, StandardArabic is highly regarded.ModernStandardArabic can on occasionbe spoken,but it is more usuallyread aloud.
Universityectures,he newson television, nd formal speechesre usuallycomposedin StandardArabic and then readaloud. It would, however,be quite unusual oran Arabic speaker o useStandardArabic for any extended eriodof time in aninformal situation.Normally, all Arabicspeakers, o matterwhat their socialstatus,conversen their ocaldialect.S7rittenArabichas he advantagehat it is the samefor al l Arabicspeakers.o becomeiterate n Arabic meansearning his dialectofArabic.Although t is quitepossibleo write colloquialArabic, his is rarelydoneoutsideof special ituations uchas n a comic book, popularadvertising, r in aplay to showa local pronunciation.
Over time a large numberof calligraphic tylesof Arabic haveemerged.slam
discouragedhe drawingof living beings.As a result,calligraphy aineda specialsignificances a permittedartisticendeavour. ometimes,he decorative alue ofthewriting became upreme. uringtheOttomanEmpire,an officialsignature nownasa tughra(plate3) wascreated or eachSultan; heseweresoornare hat theyhadto be written by scribes.
7.5.2 Phonologyof Modern Standard Arabic
Arabic sspokenby about150millionpeopleivingprimarily n theMiddleEastandnorthernAfrica.Thedialectdescribed ere s Standard rabic. t has28 consonants
and5 vowels table7.9).Thesubscript ot indicatesheemphatic onsonants.
Table 7.9 The phonemes of Modern Standard Arabic
h h(
X
Y
t t
d d d go s q l6 0 2
Ir
w
m
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 153/340
:i i i, t: . 4 . :
':.i!.t::.
ix's;
P : .
i'fl
Plate 3 Imperial edict with tughra of Sultan Ahmed II, Turkey, 1694 Nrw. Reproduced
with permission from Freer Gallery of Art, Smithsonian Institution
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 154/340
Semitic 13s
7.5.3 Arabic abiad
Arabic is written from right to left with an abjadod23 lettersplusa numberof addi-tional,optionalsymbols. he etters ndicate
onsonants ndong
vowels.Althoughthereare diacritics o indicate he shortvowels, heyarenormallynot written.Theconsonant ymbols f eachword aregenerally onnectedo eachother;wordsaredivided rom eachother.Theshortvowelsand otheroptionalmarks,whenwrirren,are written as diacriticsaboveor below he consonants.
Arabic s alwayswritten cursively,.e.,with the letters oined.There s nothingequivalento our hand printingwith separateetters.Most lettersare connectedoany preceding nd following etterswithin a word; these ettershave our shapes:initial, medial, inal, and isolated.Six letters<2 d 6 r z w> are connectedo theprecedingetter,but not to the following letter; heyhaveonly rwo shapes:solated
and final.The lettersaregiven n table 7 10 in the traditionalArabicorder.The sequencea:m-:alif is neverwritten as U, but alwaysas a ligature Y. Thisligature s sometimes onsidered s a letter in its own right; it is then orderedsecond-last,fterwa:w.
The orderof the letters n Arabic s a modifiedversionof the traditionalSemiticordering,with letters f a similarshape laced eareachother.Thisreorderingmusthavebeen he resultof thoughtfulplanning,not simplya gradualdevelopment.slightlydifferentorder s used n northwesrern frica.
The terms nitial, medial, inal, and isolated efer o a writing group.A writinggroup startsat the beginning f a word or aftera non-connectingetter<?d 6 r z
w>. A writing group endsat the endof the word or with a non-connectingetter.If a writing groupconsists f only one etter, he isolated orm is used.Otherwise,the initial, medial,or final form is useddepending n the position n the writinggroup. Somenonsense xamples table7.11) with a connectingetter <b> and anon-connectingetter <d> will illustrate his. The vowel al is understood, ut notwritten.
7.5.4 Voutelsand diphthongs
Thethreeshortvowelsareknown as al fatbab,lil kasrah,and ul f,ammah;vowels
are optionally written with the consonant hey follow. Fayttaband Qammabarcwritten above he consonant; asrah s written below he consonant:
lbal
Long vowelsare written by t la:l,c;symbol s optionallywritten with the
tbil
/ba:/ tt ot t+ :
li |, or j lu:l; the corresponding short vowelprecedingconsonant:
lbi:l
lbu:/
,t o'
,/ ot
lbul
€ + q
J + t . t
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 155/340
t36
Table7.10 The Arabicabjad
Semitic
Isolated Final Medial Initial Name Value
7) ai
b
t
e
ds
h
X
d
6
r
Z
s
I
$
d
t
0s
Y
f
q
k
I
m
n
h
w (u:)
y (IPA tjly(i)
-)
I
.>
-ti-
.'i-
l lr !
? ! +
r> l:
a Ltv) (-
e e7 7 -ls t-
a c) . L
i j t
l rJ J
r ;J J
, /, L
' f , t *
e e
,f o^
b L _
b J L
7 F\ - !
? L\* \-j ..i
, I(JL,
J d Il l
t) J-
f r +r l
/ lv , F
v
0 J -
J ,
€ q 5
-e
-"b
_b
t .-D
t
i
j
A
t
j
-D
L
L
.t-
i
i,
s_I
<-
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 156/340
Semitic 1 3 7
Table 7.11 Arabic nonsenseexamples showing connecting <b> and non-connecting <d>
ba
'-*
bababa
da
J*
babada
J{
bada
./J{
badaba
(-tJ
daba
)-IJ
badada
-
baba
*)
dababa
?) )
dadaba
dada
-u)
dabada
dadada
In the remainder of the section on Arabic, short vowels are explicitly indicatedwith the understandingthat this would not ordinarily be done.
'7.5.5 Hamzah
Glottal stop is a phoneme n Arabic; t appearsn al l positions initial, medial,and final. n theoriginalSemitic bjad,glottalstop waswritten with an ?alif . The
Qur'an was written much ater n the dialectof Medina of wesrernArabia. By thetime the Qu'ran waswritten, the glottal stopsoundhad been ost n word-medialandword-finalposition n the Medinadialect.As a result,glottalstop waswritten
in the Qu'ran only in initial position.Earlyscholarsrom other dialectareasweretroubledby this lossand wanted o indicate he glottal stops n the Qur'dn whichthe Medinascribes adomitted;however,hey wereunwilling o change hesacredtext. In theend, he scholars olvedheir dilemmaby creating new mark 9, calledhamgah, o represent lottal stop. The hamzahwasaddedaspart of the secondarylayerof symbolsand thuswasnot consideredo alter he sacred i.e.,consonantalor primary) layerof the texr of theQur'an.
In modernArabicgrammar, hehamzah tself s now consideredo be the symbolwhich ndicates glottal stopand thezalif s viewedmerelyasa 'seat'for the hamzah(or asmarking ong a:lin othercontexts)Bellamy989, Bauer1996).Thecomplete
rules or writing hamzaharequitecomplex;only the basics regivenhere.In word-initialposition,a glottalstop swritten with an zalif andan accompanying
hamzah.If the vowel following he glottal stop s lal or lul, thehamzah s writtenabove he zalif; with lil, it is written below:
l?akalal 'heate' lTumml 'mother'
lzibnl 'son'
This caseof hamzab shows a situation where a straightforward relationship (glottal
stop written as an zalif) has been drastically altered (glottal stop is written as a
bamzah, sometimeswith an ?alif, whose placement is quite complex) becauseofdialect variation and a desire to preservea culturalvalue, namely a sacred ext inits traditional form
e 2
p l
*1L.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 157/340
1 3 8 Semitic
Table 7.12 The writing of Arabic nouns. Note the special tanuln diacritics for the
indefinite endings
Indefinite Definite
r t .
Nom. l-unl -rt:S
Acc. l-anl
Gen. l-inl
/kita:bun/
/kita:ban/
/kita:bin/
l-ul /al-kita:bu/
lal-kita:bal
lal-kita:bil
l-al
7.5.6 Other symbokOther optional diacriticsarenot normally used,but theyare ound in the Qur'anand in material or learners.A doubledconsonants written only once, and an
optionaldiacritic ikea small oundu is written above,o showconsonant oubling(seenn theexample?umm/above). he absencef a followingvowel s shownby
a superscript ircle:
';ft/qallaqa/ |^3 /xums/
Arabic has hreecases:ominative, ccusative,ndgenitive. he cases re ndicated
by suffixes,which are llustrated n table7.12 with the word -'13 lkitabl 'book'.The indefinitesuffixesare written with specialsymbols called tanuln (left side,
table 7.'1.2), hich areessentiallyoubled orms of the simplevowel diacritics. he
indefiniteaccusatives written with a silentzalif.
The definitearticle s theprefix lal-l the'which is alwayswrittenas a prefix .. .Jl
before he noun(table7.12)even hough he 1/ assimilateso a followingdentalorpostalveolaronsonant.
7.5.7 Nutnerak
T h e n u m e r a l s f r o m 0 t o g i n A r a b i cr e \ Y t o 1 V A I < 01 . 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 > .Arabicnumbers rewrittenfrom left to right: \ I 1 o '1955'.Theso-calledArabic
numerals'used n Englishare actually rom India (see hapterL1) and are called'Indiannumerals'n Arabic.Theyare oftenused n modernArabic writing.
7.6 The Ethiopic Abugida
The early South Arabian abjadand its developmentnto an abugidahave akeadybeendiscussedn
$7.3.1.The Ethiopianabugidawas irstused or Ge'ez, he class-
ical anguage f Ethiopia. t was originallyspokenn northernEthiopia.Most textsfrom theearlyperiodare ranslations f Christian iterature rom Greek.Ge'ezdied
out asa spokenanguage round1000NEw.Sincehemid-twelfthcentury,Amharic
t-il
u[5t ' /
{-Jli)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 158/340
Semitic 139
Table 7.13 Phonemesof Amharic
k s
k'
d3b
p'f v
Fj
m
w
r d
t'S Z
ts
n
l r
tl
tl'I
k* g*
h*s
;
IY
f
+fi
uA
r+{l
r
L
ftot
t
It
F
,l
\
E
Tq
*
i
Y.lto{.
tIL
F
u
rl
ft
@
*
tl
uA
otr
f
tl
s
h
I
m
q
b
q*
Table 7.14 Selectedsymbols from the Ethiopic abugida. Symbols in the same row have
the same consonant; those in the same column have the same vowel
hasbeen he main spoken anguage f Ethiopia,but Ge'ez etainedgrear mport-anceas a liturgicalandcultural anguage. ntil the nineteenth entury, irruallyal lwriting in Ethiopiawasdone n Ge'ez, nd t remainshe anguage f theEthiopianchurch.TheJewishFalasha f Ethiopiaalsoproduced smallamountof material nGe'ez.Now we will examine ow themodernEthiopicabugida,he scriptof Amharic
and neighbouringanguages, orks. (Formoredetailson abugidas, ee hapter11on the Indianscripts.)
The phonemicnventoryof Amharic sgiven n table7.1,3C'indicates n ejectiveconsonant).
Recall hat in an abugida, he consonants re he main symbols, nd the vowelsare written as diacritics.Also, n an abugida,onevowel s not explicitly ndicated.In the Ethiopicabugida,hevowel sl is not explicitly ndicated;hus, heabsencefa diacriticshows hepresencef lgl.The othersixvowelsare ndicated y diacritics.The shapes f the diacriticsare almost,but not quite,predictable. s an example,considerhesecondow for ll in table7.'1.4: llsl, tt llul, tt" lil,\ llal, \ / le/, A
llal, tv llol. Bycomparingheseormswith those n otherrows,we can see hat A sthe basic onsonant hape or ll , and hus that lslis the vowel hat is not explicitlyindicated. he other vowelsare ndicatedby diacriticsattachedo rhis symbol.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 159/340
140 Semitic
Table7.15 Ethiopicnumerals.Theseare borrowed rom Greek
4 1 ,
R zt 3n 4e 5
11
iP.
I
6
7
8
9
10
n 2 0q 3 0
f 4 0
I 5 0
f r 5 0
c
lt
,l
n
I
70
80
90
100
The symbolswith the diacriticfor the vowel al arealso used o show he absence
of a vowel, husallowingconsonant lusterso be written. Thethera <Ca>symbol
representsCl or lCal can only be determined y a knowledgeof the language.
Geminate onsonants re not indicatedalthough hey arephonetically istinctive.Labralized onsonants re written with specialdiacritics.The writing systempre-
serves ertaincontrasts o longerexisting n the present-dayanguage.
Theorderof the etters n theEthiopicabugidasdifferent rom the usualnorthern
Semitic rder.The reasonor theEthiopicordering s not known. In certain eligious
contexts,he northernSemitic rder s used,and henameabugida omesrom this
order;cf . aleph,beth,gimel,daleth n Hebrew.The numerals table7.751wereborrowed rom the Greekalphabetic umerals;
see hapter8 for the useof Greeknumerals s etters.Horizontalstrokes rewritten
aboveand below he numerals. oday,Arabicnumerals reusedn mostsituations.
7.7 The Distinctivenessf Abiads
Semiticmorphology is unusual among languages, onsistingof two interlocking
patterns.Onepattern epresentsheroot,which ypicallyconsists f threeconsonants:
for example ktbl'write' or lfsll'do'. Theotherpattern sthe nflectionalmorphology;
different nflectionalpatternsaremarkedby insertingdifferentvowels between he
consonants f the root. Prefixesand suffixesmay also be part of the inflectional
morphology.The examplesrom Arabic (table7.1,6)show this structure. n the
lastcolumn, he phonemes f the root are n uppercase /s/ s to be ncludedhere),and thoseof the affixes n lower case o highlight the two different patterns. f
you examine he phonological orms,you will see hat the formsfor 'write' all have
lktbl, and those or 'do' have frll.If we look at the writing system,we see hat the consonantsof the stem are
alwayswritten, and the inflectionalmorphology s written only to the degreehat it
contains onsonants. uite frequently,wo formsare exactlyalike,and the correct
reading anonly bedetermined y the context.The orms n table7.17, or example,
would all bewritten exactly he same.In English,we aremuch ess ommonly acedwith this sortof homography.7here
it doesoccur, he context n English,as n Arabic, usuallydistinguisheshe possible
readings: ow lbowl and bawl,or lead lidland lledl. Onemight expect ormssuch
as ead idl and rcdlto bemoreproblematic ince hey distinguishhe present nd
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 160/340
Semitic
Table 7.16 Examples of Arabic showing Semitic morphology. The root consonants areshown in upper-case etters. The inflectional morphemes consist of the medial vowels,prefixes, and suffixes
t41
J-,i.ts
i"l*'
.^<l
t n
d;1tt--
Ji.n"
kataba
fasala
katabna
fasalna
yaktubu
yafsalu
yaktubna
yaf(alna
'hewrote'
'hedid'
'they (fem.) wrote'
'they (fem.) did'
'hewas writing'
'hewas doing'
'they (fem.) were writing
'they (fem.) were doing'
KaTaBa
Fasal-a
KaTaBna
Fa(al-na
yaKTuBu
yaF{aLu
yaKTuBna
yaFTaLna
Table 7.17 Homography in Arabic. These words, although
phonologically different, would be written the same
c-i-i
cl'i
d^I'i
c-lri
< f s l t >
< f \ l t >
< f s l t >
< f s l t >
fasaltu
fasalta
fasalti
fasalat
'I did'
'you (masc.) id '
'you (fem.)did'
'shedid'
past tenseof the sameverb, either of which could easily occur in the same syntacticposition. Even though read is a rather common verb in English, my own experience,however, is that I have ittle senseof misreadingthis word, certainly not very often.Similarly, Arabic speakersdo not have frequent difficulties in reading Arabic.
Some people have claimed that Semitic languagesare ideally suited for an abjadsincewriting only the consonants highlights the lexical root. Sometimes his argumenr
is statedas though the inflectional morphemesare of no consequence.Most people,however, feel that there is some significance n the difference between'I will die'and'I
have died'. Rather than saying that the inflectional information is not so important,perhaps t would be closer to the truth to say that it is likely to be more redundantor more easily ecovered rom the context. In this sense,he Semiticabjad emphasizesthe lexical and less edundant parts of words.
7.8 FurtherReading
Thischapter overs greatdealof territory ithan enormousiterature. ealey 1990)is a goodshortgeneralntroduction.he various rticles n Daniels nd Bright 1996)are all usefulstudies f the individual cripts:O'Connor 1996a,1996b),Goerwitz
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 161/340
142 Semitic
(1996),Daniels 1996b), kjarvo (1996),Bauer 1996),Haile 1996),Hary 1996),
Kaye (1996).Bellamy 1989)and Cross(1989)are alsovery useful.Driver 1976),
Naveh(1970,1982- the most accessible), nd Sass (1992)are more technical
treatments. ersteegh1997) s an interestingntroductiono Arabicwith a gooddealon writing.Abbott 1939) ndGruendler1993)dealwith he history f Arabicwriting.
Brustadet al . (1995) s a modern ntroductiono Arabicwriting.Mitchell 1954) s
quitedetailed, ut will repay he efforts f a serious tudento learnauthentic rabic
handwriting.enderet al. (1976)and Weninger 1993)give more nformation n
Ethiopicwriting.
7.9 Terms
abjadabugidaAchamenid
acrophony
Akkadian
alphabetArabicAramaic
BabylonianBabylonian aptivity
BiblecursiveDeadSea scrollGe'ez
hamzahHebrew
LevantMasoreticmater lectionis
morphogram
morphographicNew Hebrewabjad
Old HebrewabjadPersian
Phenicianphonographic
pointing, ointed ext
Proto-CanaanitePunic
Qur'dn
schwaSemiticStandardArabic
tanwinTiberian
tughravowelpointing
writinggroup
Yiddish
7.10 Exercrses
1 This exercisenvolvesHebrewnameswhich havebeen borrowednto English.
Foreachof the followingtems, ranscribehe Hebrewnamecursively. ransliter-
ate he name n Roman etters sing hechart n table7.4. Don't orget o reverse
the Hebreworderso that your transliterations in the correctorder or English.
Therewill usuallybe somediscrepancy etween he Hebrewand English orms
of the names.Note hat he Hebrew onsonants 'may represent lides j w/, but
they mayalsobe matres ectionisor long i e:l or /u: o:/.Theconsonantalalue
of Hebrewlis likely o be lvl in English, nd Hebrew willoftenbe ld3l. Hebrew
tav h often urnsup in English s <th>.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 162/340
Semitic 143
(a) Eachof the names n italicsbelow s containedn the followingHebrew ist(there s one extraname);write he English ame or each Hebrewname nthe appropriate ow.
Daniel,David,Dinah, Esau,Esther,Rachel,Reuben
Hebrew
e.g. ?llil'fa. ?nrb. ?x':'tc. ;]Jt-l
d.-lnoN
e.-I'l't
Cursive
prc-)
Transliteration EnglishName
< r ? w b n > R e u b e n
(b) Foreachof the ollowingtems,ranscribehe Hebrew amecursively. rans-literatehe name n Roman etters.Write he English ame oreach Hebrewnameat the right.
Hebrew Cursive Transliteration EnglishName
a.b.
c.d .
e.f.g .
nT'lEl;]''llN
?x:'n;1i7fr'byJ
E'TN
J'b'Jf
(c) The followingHebrewnamesare a littleharder:
Hebrew
a. fllCb. 13tcJ?flJc. fxrcd. njianr
Transliteration EnglishName
The followingwords are importantpropernamesprimarily rom the Arabic orMuslimworlds.Transcribinghe words n Romanetters irstmayhelp.Mostof thewordsare givenas theyare ordinarily ritten n Arabic that s, without owels.The irstone s done oryou.Note hat somepropernouns n Arabicareprecededby the article ?al-l Jl . (Note: tem (g) is namedafter a famousGreekgeneral
who founded hiscity.Twothingshappenedo this name n Arabic: 1) two con-sonants re reversed metathesis),nd (2) t has beenreanalysed s containingthe article.)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 163/340
1,44 Semitic
r a q >raq
ui) -
Jti-..ful* 6
/ o . . a t oa
AJ,-U>*, JlJ g
' / i
r ! .SJtJ
- r /
4)\J
)l&-r
?t'fF?r{brt?m'?utlll,lrvni75u ?Tb
;T93fi
lDv?u
<?l
c.
e.
Yiddishmeaningdoughnut-shapedread(chicken)at
an unluckyperson
to press,complain
congratulationsimpertinence,erveto drag
b.
d.
f..
i .
,JlrJl
tll:;r ^,Jl
rJ*'Lrx*"Yl
s) q '^lJ J A '
l-t;t
[Jiblt,
J
3 A numberof wordshave been borrowednto English romYiddishand Hebrew.
Try to guess he wordwrittenbeside.Yiddishorthographys slightlydifferent rom Hebrew.Note hat $ represents
la/; 9 is lel; a double representsejl; and a double1'l epresentsv/. The
superscriptorizontaline ndicates fricative ronunciation.ote hat heEnglish
meaning f a borrowedword s notalways he sameas the originalYiddish. he
infinitive f Yiddish erbsendsn
l-nl.
Englishmeaning wheredifferent)
excessive entiment
a mess
'lYJYlllrba crazyperson
l3Y:'7 chat
lUr$J to snack
Suppose hat English peakers ad borrowedEgyptianwritingand used t in the
sameway that earlySemiticwriters id.Whatwouldbe the phonologicalalueof
the first hreesymbols f the English lphabetn this situation?How do modernHebrewand modernArabicdiffer rom eachother structurally(not ust in havingdifferent-shapedymbols)n the way vowelsarewritten?Writeyourown nameandcity n the HebrewandArabicscripts, ayingattention
to the sound, ot English pell ing.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 164/340
8 The GreekAlphabet
8.1 Backgroundand History
Greek s heonly language f theGreekbranchof the ndo-Europeananguageamily.Althoughmanyof ustoday are amiliarwith the Greekalphabetwhich hasexistedfor almost3000years, arly exts n several cripts avebeen iscoveredn theGreekarea.The earliest exts in the Greek languagedate from the Mycennan period,1550to 1200oLD. The Mycen&,anextsare n an early orm of Greek n a scriptknown asLinearB. LinearB diedout around 7200orn andknowledge f thesysremwas ater ost o theGreeks.Otherveryold undecipheredcripts xist;we aregener-ally uncertainof the languagen the undecipheredexts. Only in the eighthcenruryolo do we find textswritten in the ancestor f the modernGreekalphabet.
The Greek anguage an bedivided nto the periodsshown n table8.1.The Greek poet Homer composed he epics Iliad and Odyssey n the eighthcenturyoLD.Theseare he oldestpost-Mycen€anGreek exts hat we have.Clas-sicalGreek rom 500 oro is well known with a vast iterature hat formsa majorcomponent f European ulturalhistory.AncientGreekhada greardealof dialectvariationalthough he Attic (i.e.,Athenian)dialecthasa certainprestige.
AncientGreecefigure8.L) ncludeda much argerarea han hemoderncountryof Greece;n particular,a largeportion of what is today Turkey was earlier Greek.Greekcoloniesexisted n Cyprusand southern taly. Thus,Greekwas the nativelanguage f manypeopleivingbeyond heboundaries f modernGreece. ollowing
Alexander he Great'sconquestsn the late fourth centuryoLD, Greekbecame nimportant ingua ranca hroughout heeasternMediterraneannd heMiddle Easr,as far as India. In largepart, Greeksupplanted ramaic n this role. The Hebrew
Table 8.1 Periods of the Greek language
Mycenran
Homeric
Classical
Hellenistic (Koin6)
Byzantine
Mediaval
Modern
1500-1200 roca. eighthcentury oLD600-300oro300 oro-300 Nrw300Naw-l1001100-1500
1600-present
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 165/340
UKRAINE
HUNCARY
MediterraneanSea
BOSNIA
ERZEGOVI
CREECE
146 The GreekAlphabet
Figure 8.1. Map of ancient Greece
Biblewas ranslatednto Greek or Greek-speakingews.Thistranslations known
as the Septuagintafter the Greekword for '70' because f the 70-72 translators
involved.Early Christianswere argelyGreek-speakingews,and their sacred ext(theNew Testament) as composedn Hellenistic Koin6 ,kcj'nej/)Greek.Greek
wasthe language f the ByzantineEmpire n Constantinople nd continues s he
language f Greeceoday.Modern Greek s an exampleof a diglossicanguage ituation.Although the
language ad changed ver time, many mediavaland modernauthorsattempted
to write in ClassicalGreek.The result is that two forms of Greek developed:
kathareuousara0apa;ouocr'purifying',ko0o'revu,so/)s conservative nd morelike Classical reek although ot completelyhe same) nd s used or more ormal
purposes;he othervariety s demotifte Enpottr.cipopular'/,di'motr'ki/), which is
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 166/340
The GreekAlphabet 147
basedon current speech nd used n less ormal situations.Up to the twentiethcentury,writing wasgenerally nly done n kathareuoust. ince 900, he tendencyhasbeen o increasehe useof demotike.
Greekpronunciationhas changedconsiderablysinceclassical imes. n Greecetoday, however,ClassicalGreek s pronounced s though t weremodernGreek.Students f Greekelsewhereave endedo use hepronunciationeconstructedyErasmusn the fifteenth enturyNEw.Modern scholars isagree ith manydetailsof Erasmus' econstruction.
8.2 GreekScriptsbefore he Alphabet
8.2.7 LinearB
Theoldest nownwriting in Greekconsists f clay abletsn an early orm of Greekknown as MyceneanGreek n a scriptknown as Linear B (figure8.2).Texts havebeen oundprimarilyat PylosandMycen&on the Greekmainland,and ar Knossosin Crete.Theyhavebeen ated o 1550-1200oLD. The extswerewrittenhorizont-ally left-to-righton the tabletswith a pointedstylus.Most are accounting ecords.Apparentlya disaster truck the societyaround 1200 oLD, in which the palaceswereburntdown.As a result, he clay abletswerebaked.There sno laterevidenceof the LinearB script.
The discovery nd decipherment f Linear B is an interesting tory (Chadwick
1967).Mycenran siteswerediscovered round 1900and work began oon hereafteron the tablets.The decipherment asparticularlydifficult; hescriptwasotherwiseunknown,and at this time, almostno one thought hat the language as Greek.
In the mid-twentieth entury,an Englisharchitect,MichaelVentris,beganworkingon thedeciphermentsinga purely ormalapproach.Ventris elt that the nventoryofsignswas oo large or thesystem o bealphabetic nd hat it wasmore ikely moraic.
AliceKober 1945)hadpreviouslydentified numberof relatedriplets the hreeforms in eachcolumn)which sharesymbols.For example,n table 8.2, the firsttwo symbols n eachcolumnare shared. urther, n the top two rows, the ast woare shared, nd n the bottom row, the astsymbol s shared.Kober's hinking was
that each riplet representedifferent nflectedormsof the same temandeach owrepresentedormsof different temswith thesamenflectional nding.Thus, n eachform the stemconsists f the two leftmostsymbols,and the inflectionalendingscomprisehe rest.
1filFigure 8.2 Example of a Linear B tablet (from Fred'$foudhuizen, The Language of the SeaPeoples, .70. Amsterdam:Najade Press,1993.@ 1993Jan Best.Reproducedwith permission)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 167/340
148
Table 8.2
unknown
The GreekAlphabet
Examples of Kober's Triplets. The transcription (as we now know it, but
at the time to Kober) is shown below
+ ? Y F* I Y '* ? q r
? l A t A E? W + \qP lll 'l
V * A EY * A T\ t * ' 1
+ Y A E+ Y f \ f+ Y T
T T N E? T T i \ T? 1 7
ru.ki.t-i. a
ru.ki.t-i.io
ru.ki.t-o
pa.l.t-l.la
pa.i.t-i.jo
pa.i.t-o
However,we see hat the nflectionalendings renot exactly he same:he second-
last symbols f rows 1 and2 arc the same,but the last symbols f these ows aredifferent,and the astsymbols f row 3 aredifferent rom eachother. f the system
is moraic, hese atterdifferencesan be explained s follows.The stemends n a
consonant which alls n the third mora in these xamples);he suffixesn rows L
and2 have he shapeVCV; and the suffix in row 3 has he shapeV. The natureof
a moraicwriting systemwould mean hat the symbols epresenting morawhich s
entirelya pafi of the stemwould be written the same the irst two symbolsn these
examples);encehe vertical imilarity n each olumn.Similarly,he symbolswhich
representmor€ entirelya part of the suffix would be written the same;hence he
horizontal imilaritybetweenhe columnsn rows1 and2.Dlffercnceswould occur
at the stem-suffixboundary the hird mora in these xamples) here he symbolswould represent ifferentCV combinations thethird symbol n theseexamples).
Kober'swork started his typeof analysis nd Ventrisbuilt on it.
UsingKober'swork, Ventris ried organizing he symbolsnto patterns figure8.3)
where he symbolsn the same olumnhave he same owel,and hose n the same
row have he sameconsonant.On a whim, he tried reading he texts as an early
form of Greekandmetwith success. owever, he LinearB formsdid not look like
HomericGreek, he earliest orm of Greekknown at that time.Partly, his wasdue
to the fact that the Greek anguage ad changedn the time betweenhe Mycen&an
era (1200oro) and Homeric imes(earlyninth centuryoro). But the differences
are also due to the fact that LinearB is written with moraicsymbols table8.3),and not the alphabetic ymbolsused or Homericor ClassicalGreek.The useof a
moraicsystemmade t look unusual or two reasons. ince herewerenot symbols
in Linear B for vowelless onsonants,inal consonantsn Linear B weregenerally
omitted,and consonant lusterswere written with a dummyvowel: e.8.,d cluster
lksal would be written <ka-sa>using two symbols epeating he vowel. JohnChadwickwasa youngGreekscholarwho immediatelyecognizedhatVentriswas
on theright track. Unfortunately, entriswaskilled n an automobile ccident, ut
hiswork remains n outstanding ccomplishment.The LinearB writing systems a mixture of moraicand morphographicwriting.
Most of the writing moraic,bu t a numberof morphographic ymbolswereusedaswe[l, particularly n inventory istsand asnumerals.
tu.ri.s-i.ja
tu.ri.s-i.io
tu.ri.s-o
ko.no.s-i.ja
ko.no.s-i.jo
ko.no.s-o
rr.lo.n-r.la
ri.jo.n-i.io
ri. jo.n-o
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 168/340
TbeGreekAlphabet
LlllEARSCR|PTB SyLLAB|C RID uoil torE t( rro srrrr
otAcltosts 0F CoilSorlilt AID voUELEoulnotg AtftllSr2! SEtt fll[ flE ![rLEX|o||AL|ATEitA[Fto]t rylos:
149
*:Esig;l) f 6 - -
i;s;g;HiXETEgsEF
lrtlrf .!alrllplcrl r;lr|lairfor -tf -E
n Clrr2c 5
'?rrr'rrlh;,
ttrlcrl roif;mtlrcr olfqrh Colrrl I
l rc l l lsrponl l l :
trocrllth:tt
llrorllt tcr freprrtly,llc lnlmllr:r ol lcrr
h Colrrr I
nE$ srGflsoorfroccurarromB-
IHESEtclrs occui LEss oIrorly 0i t|orAT [r rcrorr E-
IrloRtoFTEtfF${llilflE
TltAtlxlc,e!il rr,
lroi[ oFrEil xlscuuxE
rnrr rexnne?
[mE of'rErFOfl$XE
rI^lflr,tl|| llr I
IoRHALLYoR]t TrEGflilTtv€ StXGULAn
av oorncf
IIORIIATLYilH TBEG€XITIY€
smGuLAnr rootrc- B
rorcl I vo;cl 2 vor:l 5 rorrl 1 rorrl 5
t!?3rdrrb ? b 'o.s H
I rr.2r r rnl -rot : l ?
{r ! f . 0 \ p.r
A rf .g ft iz-l Z z..z ff zel li r...2 A tg.6 I l7.t tt.7
5 f r.2 K t r 10.0
4 /'\ r7.o I,' | zt.a W o.f5 t1\4"., r0.5 l l l 1.1 f r.26 f 1.1-Wt 205
TTJI rf.f ? rfr
7 X{, T {..08 V o. l
1,
6. t D rr-r M tt.a9 It.l
Mn !2.t F r-.
t0 g 22.2 :l: ,, r.t 2.2
t l
b--n
r-I tt.r u.4
r.)I r. l 0.7
t2 17.0 A *.1 O 21.0r5 , t -
T e..f O r4.2t4 ' l
5.0
r5 V tz.6iltGIAELWXrilS
Figure 8.3 A sample page from Ventris' notebooks. His working hypothesis was that thesymbols represent CV sequences; hose in each row share the same consonant, and those inthe same column share the same vowel (from John Chadwick, The Decipherment of Linear
B,'Ventris
grid,28 SeptemberL95"L', igure 13, p. 59. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversiryPress,1957. @ 1967 by Cambridge University Press.Reprinted with the permissionofCambridge University Press)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 169/340
1 5 0
Table 8.3 Some Linear B symbols
The GreekAlphabet
Phonographic(moraic) symbols
T A ru
dpu
vtu
3ku
0ldu
ESU
Tmu
blnu
Tru
Do
t--I
po
Tto
aI
ko
{!
T
qo
tdo
Iso
Azo
1mo
llL
no
+ro
dwo
Tjo
l )V
mi
X XI
ni
att
ri
.(A\
wi
e
NV
pe
me
Yne
Yre
Zwe
lj e
a
+T
Pa
L
ra
F| | l
wa
Rti
tta
oka
Tqa
Fda
YSA
tza
Uma
Tna
-t -
te
/l\
ke
\7
qe
X
de
$t-I
se
L
ze
T
Yi
rilpi
f\ti
Tki
.T
qi
mI
di
iltIT\
si
Examples of morphographic symbols
O Twheel grain
mrwine
o
100
FI
bronze
o
200
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 170/340
The GreekAlphabet
Figure8.4 LinearA tablet (from JanBestand FredWoudhuizen eds.), ost Languages
from theMeditenanean)igure1, p. 2.Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1989.@ 1,993 y JanBest.Reproduced ith permission)
8.2.2 Otber earb Greekscripts
Other textshavebeen oundon Crete n scripts nown asLinearA (figure8.4).Todate, hese exts havenot beendeciphered.
Sometime round 1,700oLD, a clay disk about L8 cm in diamererwas madein Crete figure8.5). This PhaistosDisk has igures n a spiralorderon both sideswhich appear to be writing. The symbolswere not written individually, butwere impressedwith stamps; here arc 242 separate mpressionsmade with 45different stamps.The impressionsare made in
boxes with two to seven m-pressionsn eachbox. Unfortunately,he Phaistos isk has esisted ll attemprs tdecipherment.
Two possibly elatedancient scripts have been ound on Cyprus.The oldergroup s known as he Cypro-Minoanscript rom 1500-1200oro. It hasnot beendeciphered.he aterCypriotscript rom about 800-200 olo hasbeendeciphered,and the textsare n Cypriot Greek figure8.5).The script s moraic.Although hesymbolshavedifferentshapesrom the Linear B symbols, he orrhographic on-ventions rc verysimilar.See he discussionn thenext section f
'sfoodard'sclaim
for the importance f Cyprus n the historyof Greekwriting.
1 51
> 'nY 0 T
r,,Y- -W-YBvo\hfuor
r-\-#VrG;
*b"?+
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 171/340
Qn@
#Zffi a€
\
s,
ffi#
N RM6+
tuq,@
Figure8.5 PhaistosDisk (from Jan Bestand Fred foudhuizen (eds.),AncientScripts
from Creteand Cyprus, p. 32-3. Leiden:E. J. Brill, 1988.@ 1993by JanBest.
Reproduced ith permission)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 172/340
*-tnFil,i?,?il'
/#'$,fifiiil{F";tdd} fifo4ltt ttf ?trho+ot4t
. il? tf Ofgrj rni rbn l^tf -t
fiffjl$lHfffiffiHfH{ruxw;"f,F p,rirOi $tlr!I: I Oo!,+pJll+tt'cbhrr7tr tr ilil F € €
rf4FP,*roi f$tr! lr fi ooffrtPtrnO?rlil Bhr?tt'g;fl no?rlil Bhr;rF?r e hl
ffiyh?,:_
The GreekAlphabet 153
Figure8.6 Exampleof a Cypriot Greek ext (fromJan
Bestand Fred'$Toudhuizeneds.),AncientScripts rom Creteand Cyprus,p. 106. Leiden:E.J. Brill, 1988.@ 1.993 y JanBest.Reproducedwith permission)
8.3 Development f the GreekAlphabet
The Semitic bjadwas brought o Greece robablyby Phanician raders.Severalactsmake t clear hat theGreekalphabetwasborrowed rom the Semitic bjad.First, heorderingof the Greek etters s basicallyhe sameas n Semitic.Second,he Greek
namesof the lettersareobviouslysimilar o the Semitic cf . Greek lalphal Sem.lzalill, Greek be:tal- Sem.beztl,etc.; he actualGreekormsof the namesmay havebeenborrowed rom Aramaic).Third, thesenames re meaningful nd acrophonicin Semitic, ut meaninglessn Greek: ikely, he Greeks orrowed he etterswith theirnames ven hough heydid not understandhosenames. ourth, he shapes f thelettersaresimilar to thoseof olderPhcnicianwriting. And fifth, ancientGreek exrsrefer o the ettersasrporvtretapd,ppataPhanicianletters'and asro8peloypdppatcr'Cadmeanletters' namedafterCadmus, legendary hanicianhero).
Although he act hat theGreekalphabet erivesrom Phcenicianriting isclear,the date of the borrowing s problematic Naveh 1982, 19Sg).The earliestGreek
textsdate rom only theeighthcenturyoLD; however,he form of earlyGreekwrit-ing s more ike that of Phanicianwriting of theeleventh enturyoLD. f borrowingtook place n the eleventh entury, henwhy do we not have exrsuntil the eighth
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 173/340
1,54 The GreekAlphabet
a b c d 6
I i r l s t
k l m n o
l e r p { t
Figure 8.7 Boustrophedon. Note that in boustrophedon, the direction of the letters is
reversedas the line direction changes
. ilfili;i," ji/: :r._t*,A'qqn'
'"am;'7q$r
Figure 8.8 Inscription on Nestor's cup (from John Boardman and N. G. L. Hammond(eds.),The Cambridge Ancient History,3.3, figure 16, p.100. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 1970, @ 1970 by Cambridge University Press.Reprinted with the
permission of Cambridge University Press)
century?On the other hand, f the borrowingdid not take placeuntil the eighthcentury, hen wo aspects f Greekwriting must be explained.One, he shapes fthe letters esemble lder Phanician orms. And two, older Greek exts are some-timeswritten in boustrophedonfuuorpoq466vas an ox ploughs' ,bustra'fidan/),that is, lineswritten alternatingly eft to right and right to left (figure8.7). Early
Phanician extsare oftenboustrophedal,ut by the eighthcenturyoLD, Phenicianwritingwasonly done ight to left (only aterdid Greekwriting become xclusivelyleft to right). I am inclined o agreewith Naveh(1988)and opt for the earlierdate
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 174/340
The GreekAlphabet 155
of borrowing,but thedatingof the Greekscript emains n openquesrion. Sproat(2000)notes hat thereareregular eports hat with boustrophedonhe reverialoflettersas shown n figure8.7 is optional.He says,however, hat he has ound noexampleswhere he ettersare not reversed.)
\Toodard (1997)hasarguedhat Cyprusplayedan mportant ole n theborrow-ing of the script for Greek.He claimsthat it is likely t[rat Cypruswas the site ofthe borrowing and that Greekscribes amiliarwith Cypriot *iiting werecruciallyinvolved n the process.7oodard places he Cypriot
-btrrowingoi the phenician
script n the ninth century.Whereas the early evidence or writing is associatedwith bookkeeping n
Mesopotamiaor in Mycenaan Greece,or with religion for Hebrew and Atr'bi.,or with oracularpredictionsor Chinese, uchassociationsor Greekare ess lear.One suggestions that writing was at least n parr an affectation hat upper-classyoung men used o show off andamuse hemselves. or evidence
of this theory,we canexaminean exampleof an earlyGreek nscription,he dipylonwine jug ofAthens,known as Nestor'scup and dated,o 740 oro (figur.'ti.g). The tex-t swritten right-to-left,and reads I am thedeliciousdrinking cup of Nestor.Whoeverdrinks from this cup swiftly will the desireof fair-cro*n.*d Aphrodite seizehim'.
8.4 Abiad to Alphabet
The phonemic inventoriesof Phanician and Greek were different. Greek hadsoundsnof found in Phanician
and did not have all the soundsofphcnician.
Thus, it neededa somewhatdifferent inventory of symbols or writing. How theGreeksdealtwith thesedifferencesed to a significantchange n the ,-r"tur.of thewriting sysrem.
The ClassicalGreekphonemic nventory (Attic dialect of the fifth and fourthcenturies ro) is shown n table8.4. (Notes: w/ was ost early n somedialects fGreek.There s alsosomeevidenceo consider he clusters ps/, lks/,and lzd,lassinglephonemes, r at leastas ightly boundphonological nits.j
Table8.4 The phonemes of ancient Greek
t k
d sth kh
n
s
l , r
p
b
ph
m
(w)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 175/340
155 The GreekAlPhabet
Table 8.5 The development of the Greek alphabet from the Phenician abiad. Faber's
(19S1) proto-Semitic reconstructionsare used for the Phceniciansibilants,and the
traditionally posited Phanician forms are in parentheses.The symbols in parentheses
in the Modern Greek column were not used in Classical Attic Greek or later except fortheir numeric values
Plten. Phen. Early Greek name
sound shape Greeh
8th-7th
centuries
Early Modern Numeric
Greek Greek ualue
sound shaPe
+ A4 E( A
6 . 4a 1Y 1
7
bg
dh
w
&fupcr
Ffr.oyrippn
661rai ryilov
qno
(flta
qra
Ofltoi6na
rdrno
Lir,F6"ttl,
v0
Er6 pirp6v
nl
odv, oripnt
rbnna
i6oiypa
to03 - ^ t
D \rlAOV
eixrw,f pryo
alpha
beta
gamma
deltaepsilon
wau
digamma
zeta
eta
theta
iota
kappa
lambda
mu
nu
xi
omikron
pi
san, sampi
koppa, qoppa
rho
sigma
tau
upsilon
phi
chi
psi
omega
a) ai
b
8
de(w)
zd
e:
t"
i, i:
k
Im
nkso
p(z\
r
s
t
ur u:
ph
kh
ps
) I
A c r
B Bf y
A 6E e(F)
z cH q
o 0I t
K r
A l .
M p
N v
O o
f I n(1)(e)P p
r o g
T tY urD p
X yY y
Q r o
12
3
45
6
dz (zl
h
tj
k
I
m
n
ts (s)
s
p
ts (q)
q
r
S(I)
t
IHaIX1
AIo'l
,-1q{(
TYqAX
T
a@
7
),-1
Y
+o7jy
I4
wf
789
1 0203040
50607080
9009A
100200300400s00600700800
Table8.5shows hedevelopmentf the GreekalphabetromthePhanicianabjad.
For mostof theconsonanti,he Phcenicianymbolwassimplyused ot a similar-
soundingGreekconsonant.Somesymbols,however,were reallocated.Phanician
<g> te:tlwasused or Greek th/.The symbols w> (waw,alsoknown asdigamma),
<s>(sampi, .qt (koppa)werekept,but usedonly in somedialects.New symbols
for /phki ps/ werecriated.Following he Semitic radition,ordinary etterswereused o ,.fr.r.nt numbers. or this special urpose, he older etters F g }t were
kept asnumerals.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 176/340
The GreekAlphabet 157
Table 8'6 The traditional view of the borrowing of the Greek sibilants from phanician
Symbol
Phenician Greek Phenician Greek
zai
semk
sade
shin
z
s
tS
t
T!F
lv
w
zeta fx i tsan nsigma {
d z > z d
ksz
S
Table 8'7 The implications of Faber's reconstruction of the early Semitic sibilants for theborrowing of the
Greek
Symbol Sound
Phenician Greek Phenician
(Faber)Greek
zal
semk
sade
shin
zeta
xisansigma
dztS
ts'
s
rtn{
IFIvw
d z > z dkszS
The borrowingof the Pheniciansibilantshas been roublesomeor scholars.The traditionalviewhas he correspondencesf table8.6 (earlyGreek dz/ becameClassicalzdll.
.Thesecorrespondenceseems dd. $fty would the Greeksnot have used, emk
(instead f shin) for ls/,and gade or dz/ (instead f zai)?The role of sanin Greekis uncertain.t iscommonly ranscribed s zl,in which.rr., why would theGreeksnot have usedzai for lzl; however,
.san and, igma seem o be in complementary
distribution n most dialectsof Greek,with boti retained or their diffirentualuesin the numericsystem.Faber (19s1) has_reanalysedhe reconstructionsf the proto-Semitic ibilants
(table8.7).Her analysiss based n Semiticevidence, ur ii helpsconsiderablynresolvinghe problemof the borrowingof the Phaniciansibilant ettersnto Greek(Daniels 9991.
If .Faber'spronunciationsor the proto-Semitic oundsare valid for phcnician(table8.7), the borrowingsmakemuch bettersense. eta ldzl andsigma s/ arestraightforward.San s an alternativefor sigma,but retained or its u"l.r. of 900in the numericsystem. he only syllable-firrilonronant clustersn Greek are ps/
and /ks/. The creatorsof the Greek alphabet elt the needfor separate ymbtlsfor these lusters;heycreateda n.* ,y-bol psi for lpsland borrowedsemh forxi lksl.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 177/340
1 58 The GreekAlPbabet
\[ith this understanding, the types of adiustment which we have iust seen are
rather typical of what happenswhen one language borrows the writing systemof
another lang.rage.The real-change hat occurred in Greek was that some unneeded
Semitic letters were used for vowels, thus changing fundamentally the way in whichthe writing sysrem related to the language.The abiad became an alphabet. The
reasons oi this changeare not clear.English-speaking tudentsof Semitic anguages
such as Hebrew or Arabic find the absenceof vowel indications very frustrating;
perhapssome Greeks, rying to learn to write Phcenician,were also frustrated and
ino.rght that they could do better. The Aramaic model of using matres lectionis may
have also been an influence.
Perhapsa Semitic speaker,demonstrating the way the abiad worked, pointed to
an zalif ind said lzal io indicate a glottal stop. The Greek listener,however, paid no
arrention ro the glottal srop, which did not exist in Greek, bu t rather thought that
?alif wasthe way to write the vowel lal. Generally, however, we find that borrowe_rsof a writing system tend to be very conservative. They often keep the old methods,
no ma6et ho* inconvenient they may be. Certainly, the Semitic abiad spread to
many other languageswithout becoming an alphabet. Note that the Greeksborrowed
writing, they did nbt borrow the Phanician languageor culture generally;perhaps
with this detachment, rhey felt little need to preserve the system intact. In any
case, he Greekscreateda new type of writing system, he alphabet, which spread
vigorously and is considered he norm today when we want to createa new writing
system for an unwritten language.
Almost al l vowel distinctionsof ClassicalGreek were written; only the long-short
differences or /i ir y yr a arl were not indicated.Table 8.8 shows how the Phanicianconsonant symbols were reassignedo the Greek vowels.
Note that the spellings<EI> and <OY> reflectan earlier period when thesevowels
were diphthongs, hence he use of digraphic writing.
Table8.8 Phanicianorigin of Greekvowel symbols
Phenician Phenician
letter consonant
sound
Early Greek Greekuowel Modern Greek
letter sound letter
I
I
E
E IH
A
A
oo
O YY
YY
IIaI
1lHAA
o
OYYY
I
i r
e
e i > e r
EI
a
ai
f, I
o
o u > u :vyI
new symbol
derived from
waw <w>
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 178/340
The Greek Alphabet
Table 8.9 Dialectal variation in the early Greek alphabet
159
Modern
Greek shape
Ionia Athens Corinth Eubea (borrotued
by Etruscans)
ABC
FFr
H
aIKLrrxorf4IPtTYIY9 /
AtnC
AB
Fr
H
a{KArr
gor14IP
TYIx
I
ABAAFFrH
aIKtf^rx(or
IPt
TYIA
1',
AErAF
rH
(digamma)
AB
f
A
E
rZH (/er/)
uht)
oIK
AM
N
oII
1 (sampi)I (qoppa)
PTT
Y
oXYcl
@I
KArr
fol-
IP(
TYIxYn
The letterS<F>, .9t, .l t were usedas regular letters only in archaic times; theiruseas numbers, however, continued. In medieval times, sigma developedtwo lower-caseallographs: <g> occurs word-finally, and <o> o.corsllrewhere.
Different versions of the Greek alphabet emerged in differenr areas of Greece(table 8.9). In the fourth century oLD, the Ionic alphabet generally replaced theother local varietiesof script; however, n terms of language he Attic dialect ncreas-ingly became ecognizedas the standard. The early Attic dialect had usedthe Semiticletter he: <h> for the sound /hl.The Ionic dialect, however, had lost the sound /h/and used <h> for the vowel letl. Thus, to write Attic lhl,a new device had to befound: diacritics, known as breathings, developed(probably from divided versions
of <H> F and -]; . rhe rough breathingover an ini t ia l vowel (.d.. .> lha... /)indicated that the word began with lhl, and the smooth breathing over an initialvo w e l ( . . r . . . > l a . . . l ) i nd i ca te dha t t d i d no t .
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 179/340
160 The Greek AlPhabet
Early Greek apparently had a pitch accentsystem,and diacritics were developed
by the third cenrury oLD ro indicate these pitch accents. Later, this pitch accent
systemturned into a stressaccent system,and the same symbols continued to be
used o indicate the stressaccents.Recent spelling reform has simplified the writingof theseaccentsand has removed other diacritics.
8.5 The Relationshipof Language nd Writing in Greek
\7e will use ClassicalGreek,as written in modern times,as an exampleof how
grapheme-phonemeelationships an be formulated systematically. he relation-
ship is fairly straightforward,yet with enoughcomplexity to make it interesting.
The phonemes f ClassicalGreekhavealreadybeengiven n table8.4. Note that
the arrow can be readas is written as'.
1 Simplephoneme-graphemerelationships:
lbl +ldl +lql +lpl +Itl ->
lkl +
lpnl + aIthl + 0lkhl + xlll + l"h l - + p
lml + p
l n l + v
li'- :l + 1lel + €
le:l + q
la, azl + crltl -) 0)l o l + o
ly, y:l + rl
p6
Tn
I,
K
2 Two digraphsare used:
letl + 11 lu:l + 01)
Three diphones are found:
lzdl + q lpsl + V lksl + 6
ln l before/kg khks/ assimilateso [r]]; n these ases,t iswrittenas<Y>:Tr(W
rxv\.ls l + g at the end of a word, and + o elsewhere.
/h/ occursonly initially and is written with a diacritic known as a rough
breathing ver he ollowingvowel: i i d (b6 t. If a word beginswith a vowel,
a diacriticknown as a smoothbreathings writtenover hat vowel (indicating
that no initial h/ occurs): i i e ,b6ri .Note that everyword-initialvowelmust
have either a rough or a smooth breathing. $(/ithdiphthongs,breathingsare
written over the second owel lhaftlo:l aip6c,lseize'.
In initial position,hl is writtenwith a roughbreathing; a sequencef lrrl rs
written di ; otherwise,hlis written asp: piryoqfrost', Iltppoq Pyrrhus'.In modernpedogogicalexts, ong la: : y:l aresometimes ritten with a macron
a s a i 0 .
56
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 180/340
8.6.7 Coptic
The main language f Christianity n the easrernMediterranean as Greek.As aresult, he Greekalphabetwasadaptedo many anguagesn order o write transla-tions of the ChristianBible and other religiousmaterial.As we have apeady een,Egyptianswere known as Copts after they becameChristian n the third cenruryNnw(chapter ). TheCoptic anguage aswritten in a versionof theGreekalphabei.Thenames f the ettersand he numericvalues how he Greekorigin (tableS.10).Six letterswereprobably adapted rom demoticEgyptianwriting. boptic died out
asa_ pokenanguagen thesixteenth entury,but it continues sa iturgical anguagein the CopticChurch.Six symbolswereapparently orrowed rom demoticEgyptian table8.11).
r61he GreekAlphabet
1 0
Historically, herewere long diphthongs a: j e: j r:j/ which were wrimenascrt rl1 cot.Later thesediphthongswere simplified to la: e: y.l. Although nolongerpronounced,he iota of thesediphthongswas still written, bui in aspecial hapeknown as iota-subscript;his is smalland written beneath heprecedingvowel: g n g: e.g., Arovuotrpdionysir/ from earlier /dionysicrj/'to Dionysius'.Three accentsare written in ClassicalGreek:acute <'>, circumflex <^>,andgraYe<'>. Everyword, with the exceptionof a few verycommonshortwords(whichhaveno accent), asoneandonly oneaccent. he positionof the stressis
_determinedy a combination f lexicalandphonologicalules,but it alwaysfallson oneof the ast hreesyllables. he exactphoneticmanifestarion f theancient onemarks s not entirelyclear.
(a) Thecircumflexaccent ccursonly on longvowelsand only on oneof thelast wo syllablesn rheword: i fr & A)0.
(b) The acuteaccenr ccurson both shortand ong vowels: t fi & 6 6 6.(c) The graveaccent alls only on the last syllable. t occurswhen a word
which would ordinarily have an acureon its last syllable s followedby anotherword in the sentence;n sucha case, he acute urns into agrave:
€.9., Uetti qv pcl,plv+ petd d1vpri26qvafter the battle'
(d) A circumflexaccent s written overa breathing: fi : dl6e
thus'.
(e) An acute or grave accent s written after a breathing:6 E: &v0ponog'person'.
(f) T7ithan initial diphthong,accents re written on the second owel:cripdrrr,Aip6ro.
(g) Accentsand breathings re written beforean initial upper-caseowel(exceptwith a diphthongas n (f ) above):
H 'E '?"fr:
'oprnpoqHomer'.
8.6 ScriptsDerived rom the GreekAlphabet
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 181/340
762 The GreekAlphabet
Table 8.10 The development of the Coptic script from the Greek
Coptic Coptic
name sound
Greek shape
3rd-|th centuries
Coptic
shape
Greek
ndrne
Numeric
ualue
alf.a
ve:ta
kamma
talta
ei
sou
sata
hata
thita
io:ta
kappa
lauta
me:
ne
ksi
ou
pi
ro:
se:mma
tau
he
fikhi
ps i
o!
alpha
beta
gamma
delta
epsilon
zeta
eta
theta
iota
kappa
lambda
mu
nu
xi
omicron
pi
rho
sigma
tau
upsilon
ph ichi
psi
omega
?
b
g
d
h
z
h
t
1kIm
n
S
(
TBrA€
uLHeIKAMN7onPCT
Y
+Xv(I)
ABrA€
ZHoIKAMN
=ol-l
PCT
Y
\PX
Yu)
123456789
1 020304050607080
100200300400
500500700800
pr
It
i r Y
fx
ps
o:
Table 8.11 The six symbols in the Coptic script borrowed from demotic
Sound Shape Demotic
Iai
faihori
dgandSia
qima
ti
379d{L
0)
qzx6
t
Ifhdgqti
(numeric value 90 )
8.6.2 Gothic
Gothic s the only memberof the EastGermanicanguageamily. t was spoken n
eastern urope n the first millenniumNEw; he main surviving extsare ragmentsof a translationof the ChristianBible rom the fourth centuryNEw,madeby \7u1fi1a.
Possiblyhe Gothicalphabetwas nfluenced y otheralphabets, ut contemporary
Greekwasclearly hemajorsource table8.12).
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 182/340
The GreekAlphabet r63
Table8.12 The Gothicalphabet
Gothic shape Gothic sound Early Greek shape Transliteration Numeric ualue
AB
r
a,
e
u
z
tr,1,ti
R
A
n
N
q
n
n
rl
t(s
T
YFxo
a
f
a
b
g
d
e
A
B
r
A
€
alat
b
g
d/6
e/el
kw
wly
f
kh
AT
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
20
30
40
50
6070
80
90
100
200
300
400
500
500
700
800
900
7
H
o
I
K
A
M
N
z
h
e
i l t
k
I
m m
n
iu
p
r
s
t
w
f
r
s
t
q
z
h
bi
k
P
C
T
Y
X
hw
o
Note that Gothic created several etters for soundsrhat Greek did not have:
lk* i f kh,,tr,/by this timethe ClassicalGreek khl hadbecome fricative x/). Somesymbols re usedonly for numbers, uchas .When lettersareused or numbers,they are written between aiseddots or markedby horizontalstrokesi T. or f'300'.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 183/340
164 The GreekAlphabet
Table 8.13 The Armenian alphabet.'Western
sound values are indicated where they differ
from Eastern
Minuscule Maiuscule Eastern sound ualue Western sound ualue Numeric ualue
a
bg
d
ic
z
e
e
th
3I
I
x
ts
k
h
dz
Ytl
m
hti
n
Ivo/o
tIn
p
d5
rs
v
t
J
tsh
v/whp"
kh
u
of
uF9-tD2f
t(h6t'lhl
TIt
I
?dUILb
n()
ql
p
,FU.1.s(r
Ih
a#nh
0,s
uI
F
++b
1_t
Ertd
t,Ll"dtlt\d
Id,tJIt.,(n
tL
ut
2IL
u
4n
tt
I
L
+PN L
o
#
p
kt
dz
g
itlee
1,
2
34
56
7
89
10
20
3040
5060
70
80
90100
200300400
500
500700
800900
10002000
30004000
500060007000
8000
9000
rS
dg
b
tl
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 184/340
The GreekAlphabet t65
8.6.3 Arwenian
In the early ifth centuryNEw,BishopMesrop created heArmenianalphabet,knownas the aybuben,primarily basedon a Greek model.
The Armenianalphabet sknown for its strongone-to-one elationshipbetweenphonemes nd graphemes.Armenian is a memberof the Indo-European anguage amily. The two dialectsEastArmenianand lfest Armenianuse he samealphabet.The vowels or the twodialects re he same,but the consonantnventories iffer.
TheArmenian lphabets shown n table8.13.
8.6.4 Geotgian
The Georgianalphabet,or mxedruli, is the only Caucasiananguagewith its own
writing system.OtherCaucasiananguagesavebeenwritten in theCyrillicor Arabicalphabets. he creationof the Georgian lphabet assometimes eenattributed othe ArmenianBishopMesrop,but thisattriburionhasbeen efutedby Gamkrelidze(1984).The earliestext is from 430 Nsw;the alphabet tselfwasprobablycreatedin the early ourth centuryNEw.
The Georgianettersaregiven n table8.14.
Table 8.14 The Georgian alphabet
Georgian Sound Numeric ualue Georgian Sound Numeric ualue
x
c
b
g
d
e
v
z
et
t"
i
k'
I
m
n
,5
o
,o
R
3E%
a)
o
{U
Ra5
-c.
(Il
d
o
P
3
1
2.'J
4
5
6-|
8
9
1 0
20
30
40
50
60
70
80
90
6
It
0?
tsdR
ilaB(td
v3b
5
r
S
t'
uhp"
kh
Y
q'
{
tt
tS
dz
ts '
tl'
x
q
d5
h
100
200
300
400
500
600
700
800
900
1000
2000
3000
4000
5000
6000
7000
8000
9000
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 185/340
766 The GreekAlphabet
Table8.15 The Glagoliticand Cyrillic Slavicalphabets.An older form of the Greek
alphabet s givenat the left for comparison
Greeh Old Cyrillic Glagolitic Value Modern Russian Cvrillic
A a
B 6
B n
f r
n nE e
E e?It ar
3 s
1 4 u
V l u
V t nK rI I n
M u
H s
O ol I n
P p
C c
T r
Y y
o 0
X x
U qV q
III nr
ill nt
b
b i l u
b
9 g
0 nfl, g,
a
b
v
g
d
e
3
dz
z
i
i :
k
I
m
n
op
r
s
t
au, ou
f
ex
o
s
tS
t{
()
I
u
tu
I
e
va
+H1PsJt3
xts6?
tAdFdb
P
IfbIOU
&+ebu,s1'suJ[l€
traA
f
A
E
B
f
AE
B
rA
e
X
s3H
I
Z
H
I
K
n44
N
ofl
PcT
oy00X\I/
[lqrl
IUqI'h
t l
h
t
Ion
K
A
M
N
oT]
PC
T
OY
0eX
ul
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 186/340
The Greek Alphabet r57
8.6.5 Slauic
In the early850s NEw, wo brothers,Cyril and Methodius,undertooka Christianmission rom Constantinopleo
the Moravian Slavs.Cyril is creditedwith thecreationof the Slavicalphabet,and the Cyrillic alphabet s named after him. Theactual historic situation,however, s not clear. Early Slavic had two differentalphabets:Glagoliticand Cyrillic (tableS.15).Srrucurally the two alphabets reequivalent. he Cyrillicalphabetsclearlybased n Greek.TheGlagoliticalphabet,however, s particularly puzzlingbecausets lettershapes o not obviously esemblethose of any other alphabet.Cubberley 1996) feels hat Glagoliticwas likelyolderandbased n Greekcursive.After the ninth cenrury,Glagoliticwasgraduallyreplacedby Cyrillic, although t survived n somePolish and Czechareasuntil thesixteenth entury,where t was seenas a signof independencerom the Roman
Church.The Cyrillic alphabetbecamehe normal alphabet or languagesn the EasternOrthodox Slavicareas;he RomanCatholicSlavicpeoples, uchas hePoles,Czechs,and Slovaks, sed he Romanalphabet. n the earlyeighteenth entury,Peter heGreatof Russia nstitutedreformswhich slightly simplified he writing systemandwesternizedhe shapes f letters.The communist evolutionof t918 made urtherreforms.Russian,Belorusian, krainian,Bulgarian, nd Macedonian re normallywritten in theCyrillic alphabet.During thecommunistperiodof a unifiedYugoslavia,Serbo-Croatian as written in both the Cyrillic and Romanalphabets.With tneseparation f Serbiaand Croatia, he languageends o be written in Cyrillic in
Serbia nd n Roman n Croatia.Thereareminorvariationsn the symbol nventoryof Cyrillic for all these anguageso accommodate ifferencesn their phonologicalsystemsCubberley993,1,995;Comrie
1,996a,l991b\.
In addition o theSlavic anguages, anynon-Slavicanguagesf Eastern uropeand Asia are written in the Cyrillic alphabet Comrie 1996,il: o name a few -Moldovan,Tajik, Komi, Azeri,Turkmen,Tatar,Kazakh,Uzbek,Kirghiz,Abkhaz,Kabardian,Avar, Chuckchee, nd Mongolian.Since he fall of the SovietUnion,therehasbeensomemovemento return o scriptsused n earlier imes,principallyArabicand Mongolian.
8.7 FurtherReading
Chadwick 1967) s a fascinating ccountof the decipherment f LinearB. Stroud(1989) s a shortgeneral ntroductiono earlyGreekwriting, nd Chadwick 1g87) sa short ntroductiono LinearB. Chadwicket al. (1986-98),Bennett 19g6),andWoodward1997)aresources or the moreadvanced tudent or preclassical ritingin Greece.Naveh 1988), wiggers1996),Daniels1999), aber 1981), ndWoodard(1997)discuss he transmissionf Phenicianwriting o Greece.Palmer 1980)dis-cusses he ancientGreek anguage enerally; effrey 1961) s a thoroughreatment
of dialectvariationn Greekwriting;Woodhead 1981)presentsGreek nscriptions.For he scripts erived romGreek,see: Ritner 1996) or Coptic,Ebbinghaus1g96)for Gothic,Gamkrelidze1984)and Holisky 1996) or Georgian,Sanjian 1996) or
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 187/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 188/340
The Greek Alphabet 169
When Ventris irst deciphered inearB, many Greekscholarsargued hat thelanguagewas not Greek.Whatmight have ed them to this concfusion?Describe nd contrasthe history f the followingetters: eta, epsilon, igamma,theta,xi, psi.
Writeyourown nameand city n the Greekscript,payingattentiono the sound,notEnglish pelling.Do he same n someof theotherscripts f this chapter uchas Gothic, rmenian, eorgian,yrill ic modern nd old),andGlagolit ic.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 189/340
9 The RomanAlphabet
9.1 From Greece o Italy
Greece adcoloniesn ltaly,and t is through his contact hat thealphabet ame rom
Greece o Italy during the seventhcentury oLD. At this time, the Latin-speaking
Romanswerea smallgroupof people iving in andaroundRome.Their neighbours
to the north were he Etruscans,who first borrowed he alphabet rom the Greeks.
Eventually he Etruscanswere conqueredand absorbedby the Romans, who
borrowed he alphabet rom them. n the Greekalphabet ach etter s a grapheme,
andthis situationcontinuedwith the Etruscan nd Romanalphabets.
9.2 Etruscan
Etruscan s a langvageunrelated o any other known language.Until recently t
hasbeenundeciphered,nd even herecent laimsof deciphermentBonfante990)
aredisputed.SinceEtruscans written in a familiaralphabet,we havebeenable o
readthe inscriptions n the sense f knowing roughly how they would have been
pronounced,but we have not understood hem.Etruscanwas usuallywritten from right to left. We have an earlyEtruscanwrit-
ing tablet(figure9.1)with an abecedary ritten acrosshe top. An abecedarys the
inventoryof letters n order. t is easy o see rom this figure hat theEtruscanorder
is essentiallyhe Greek order. \ilfle houldnote that it is the'SfestGreek versionofthe alphabet hatwasborrowed; f. theEubaian (tU(est reek) ersionof the alphabet
in table 8.9,not the easternonicversionwhich predominatedater n Greece.
The Etruscan lphabets shown n table9.1 alongwith the ettersof the'Western
Greek alphabetand a Romantransliteration. comparison f the Etruscanand
Greekalphabetseveals ow accuratelyhe Etruscansreservedhe Greekalphabet
including he letterswhich havesincedisappearedn Greek:digamma</>, sampi
.Mr, andqoppa <Q>.Omega<S)> s not includedhereas it was not used n the
West Greekalphabet.Note that the \ilVest reek etter <X> was a diphonerepres-
enting ks/, not /kh/as n other versions f the Greekalphabet.Note also hat the
Etruscan etters aceto the left as was normal in right-to-leftwriting; later, whenRomanwriting went from left to right, the orientation of the letterswas reversed.
I have ransliteratedhe letter 1t as <C> (instead f <G> as t would havebeen
transliteratedor Greek) or reasonshat will be explained elow.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 190/340
TheRomanAlphabet
Figure 9.1 Etruscan writing tablet with alphabet written ar rop from right to left(seeBonfante 1990) (from Giuliano Bonfante and Larissa Bonfante The EtruscanLanguage: An Introduction, no. 12, p. 1,32. Manchester: Manchester University Press,1,983.O 1983 by Manchester University Press.Reproducedwith permission)
Table 9.1 The Etruscan alphabet. Etruscan in the top row, early West Greek in the
middle row, Roman transliteration in the bottom row
Etruscan did not have voiced stops, aspirated stops, nor a vowel /o/. Never-theless, he Greek graphemes or lb d g tn pn kn o/ were dutifully included in theEtruscan inventory of graphemes.These graphemes were borrowed because healphabet was seenas a whole, a singlecultural entity. We have previously mentionedthe conservatismwhich often accompanies he borrowing of a writing system.TheEtruscanborrowing of the Greek alphabet is a clear example of this. Over time, theneed to be faithful to the original weakens as it did with Erruscan,and the letters<B D Th PhKh O> were dropped.
In the northern Etruscan area, three different letters <C K Q> were used for the
single Etruscan voiceless top /k/, with the distribution shown in table 9.2.It is notclear why this situation developed. Quite possibly, the distribution correspondedto different allophones of lkl precedingdifferent vowels. These three letters appearto be in complementary distribution and to be allographs of the same grapheme.
171
r J ) t E g I 1 1 ( 1 {\ 1 H t 6 F t I 1 l Z A tM L K I T h H Z V E D C B
9 X Y T 1 , 4 9 M 1 O Eq x Y T ( { e n l o tp n K S U T s R a s p o s
AAA
tl
^N
) 1?Pro
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 191/340
t72 The RomanAlphabet
Table 9.2 Etruscan allographs for writing /k/
1 <c>
) <K>
I .Q'
lkl before e, il
lk/ beforc al
lkl belore o, al
In any case,keep this point in mind as we will return to it later in discussing he
Roman alphabet.
9.3 Latin
9.3.7 Backgroundand history
Latin is the best-knownmemberof the Italic family of Indo-European. ther Italic
languages ere Oscan,Umbrian, and Faliscan, ll spoken n ancient taly. Latin
survivesoday as heRomanceanguages:talian,French,Spanish, ortuguese,nd
Romanian.Table9.3 shows he varioushistorical tages f Latin.
Latin-speakingeoples ettled he areaaroundRome n the eaily irstmillennium
oLD.Politically,heywereamong he most successfulocietiesn thehistoryof the
world. First, hey extendedheir control o the entire talianpeninsula y the early
third centuryoLD,and ultimately he RomanEmpireextendedrom Britain o theMiddle Eastand north Africa. The Latin spokenby ordinary people s known as
vulgar('popular')Latin asopposedo theclassical tyleusedby themoreeducated
elite.The Romanceanguagesevelopedrom latevulgarLatin, not Classical atin.
Even after he classical eriod, schoolscontinued o teachClassicalLatin with the
result hat during heLateLatinperiod, he anguage ecamencreasingly iglossic.
For much of the early Middle Ages,peoplespoke ocal Romancedialectswhile
writing wasdone n Latin. n the earlyMiddle Ages,Latin was henormal anguage
for writing in all of westernEuropebecause f its role as he anguage f the western
Christian Church, although n the later Middle Ages vernacularwriting became
increasinglyommon.Until the seventeenthr eighteenth enturies, atin was thepre-eminentanguage f learning hroughoutwesternEurope,and it remainsan
importantpartof European ulturalheritage ven oday.The erms Latin alphabet'
Table 9.3 Historical stagesof Latin
753 orn
seventh century oLD
before 150 oro
L50 oro-L50 New150 Nrw-sixth century
sixth-fi fteenth century
fifteenth century-
Traditional date for the founding of Rome
(no certain evidence for this)
earliest inscriptions
Early Latin
Classical LatinLate Latin
Mediaval Latin
Neo-Latin
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 192/340
Tbe RomanAlphabet
Table 9.4 The phonemes of Classical Latin
173
t k k * i i rd g e e rs h a a i
n
r l
j
p
b
f
m
u u :
o o I
and 'Romanalphabet'are often used nterchangeably.will use Roman' for the
alphabetand'Latin' for the anguage.The earliestLatin inscriptions ate rom the seventh enturyoLD. By the early
sixth century,examples f writing are found in majorcentresaround Rome. ntime, literacy becamemoderatelycommon, at least or men. Literacywas normal
for upper-class en,and often for women.Schoolswerecommon,and childrenofwealthy familieswere usually aught by householdslaves.The graffiti at the ruinsat Pompeiisuggesthat fairly ordinarypeoplecould write. For boys,a knowledgeof Greekwas a desirable efinemenr;hose amilieswho could sent heir sons oradvanced tudy n Greece.
9.3.2 Thephonologyof Latin
The phonologicalnventoryof Classical atin is given n Table9.4.
9.4 The RomanAlphabet
Perhapsenvying the cultural achievements f their Etruscanneighbours, he Romansborrowed the Etruscans' alphabet. However, the structures of the sound systemsof the two languageswere different. Unlike Etruscan, Latin did have voiced con-sonantsand the vowel /o/. The Romans used he graphemes or /b/, ldl, and/o/ just
as if they had borrowed the alphabet directly from the Greeks. This usagesuggesrs
that although the Romans primarily borrowed the Etruscan alphabet, they werenevertheless ware of the Greek alphabet and the sound values of its letters.As we noted above, the northern Etruscans used three different allographs
<C K Qt to write the single phoneme /k/.The Romans retained this system.Theyused <Q> to write /k*/. The grapheme<K> was used or only a few words (all withlal after the /k/), and <C> became he normal way to write /k/. Interestingly, althoughthe allograph <K> was not important for Latin, it was never dropped from theRoman alphabet.
In Greek, <C> had been used to write lgl,but the Etruscan alphabet used thissymbol as one of the ways of writing /k/. The Romans had a sound lgl and needed
a way to write it. They could, of course,have used<K> for lkl and <C> for lg l as nGreek. The Romans choserather to keep <C> for lkl, and to crearea new symbol forlgl by adding a lower stroke to <C> to create<G>, and they placed the new graphemeafter <F> in the alphabet. The abbreviations for the common Roman men's names
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 193/340
174 The RomanAlphabet
Gaius lgajusland Gnaeus gnajus/were always<C> and .CNt, respectively, sing
<C> n its older Greekvalueof lgl.The Romanswere ess onservativehan the Etruscansn their borrowing.They
discardedetters hat theydid not need,e g.,<Z> and he symbolsor the aspiratedconsonants, s well as other Greek etters.For Cicero, he alphabetwould have
endedn <X>: <A B C D E F G H I K L M N O P Q R S TV X>. Thegrapheme
<I> was used or lil,litl, and jl; similarly,<V> was used or lul,lul, and w/. The
modern etters J U t0fY> weremediavaladditions, nknown o the ancientRomans.
The sequenceks/ could, in principle,havebeenwritten <CS>or <KS>,but the
Romans retained he Sfest Greek diphone <X> for /ks/. Only rarely was vowel
length ndicatedby an accent n the vowel symbol.At first, he Romansdiscarded Z> as unnecessaryinceLatin did not havea lzl
sound.However, n time heyhadborrowedsomanyGreekwordswhich contained
the sound zl that they found <Z> useful for writing this Greek sound, so theyresumedhe useof <Z>, but theyplacedt at the endof the alphabet. he emperor
Claudius ca.50 Nnw)proposed hreenew letters or /ps, y, w/; they were used
slightlyduringhis reignbut disappearedoon afterhisdeath.As you can see, he Romanskept the Greek-Etruscanrderingof the alphabet
reasonablyntact, but they did not borrow the letternames.Rather, hey created
new names ased n the soundof the etters.For vowels, he soundof eachvowel
was usedas its name.The namesof the consonants ere made with the sound
of the consonantplus lel; for <f I m n r s x>, the lel waspronouncedbefore he
consonant. hus, he Latin alphabetwould havebeenpronounceda beke de e efl
etc.Sfhen
<Z> was eintroduced t theendof the alphabet,tsGreekpronunciationlzetal wasused; his givesmodernEnglish ztdl. The nineteenth-centurymerican
lexicographerNoah tDflebsterdvocated he regularizingof this to lzil Iike /bi si di/
etc. His preferenceor lzil has become he norm in the United States,probably
producing he form that would haveoccurredhad the Romansnot removed<Z>
from the alphabetn the first place.
Unlike Etruscan,Latin writing was always eft-to-right.This direction s perhaps
further evidencehat the Romans ook the Greekalphabetas a model n creating
the Romanalphabet, inceby the fifth centuryoLD, Greekwriting was regularly
left-to-right.
9.5 Examples of Roman Writing
The form of writing usedon public monuments rectedn ancientRome sstrikingly
readable y us today.This monumentalorm of the ettershashad suchprestigen
thehistoryof theRomanalphabet hat t hascontinued or two millennia.The Trajan
monument plate4) in the RomanForum softencitedasa fineexample f this sort
of writing. Even f we know no Latin, we haveno difficulty n recognizinghe etters.
Lestyou think that all ancientLatin writing is easy or us o read oday,consider
the example f ancient ursivehandwriting n figwe 9.2.TheoldestLatin nscriptions ate rom the ateseventh enturyoLD. Among hem
are two inscribedwine vesselsWallace1989)dated 620-500 oLD. One hasthe
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 194/340
TheRomanAlphabet 1,7
Plate 4 Trajan inscription, L'J.3 rw. Roman Forum (photograph of a full-size replicacreated by Edward Catich; reproduced courtesy of R. R. Donnelley 6c Sons, Chicago)
Figure 9.2 Example of ancient Roman cursive handwriting
wording: SALVETOD TITA 'May Tita be in good health' (Classical atin: saluetotita). The other is ECo URNA TITA VENDIAS MAMARICOS MIED YHEICEDI'I
am the urn of Tita Vendia;Mamarcosmademe' (Classical atini egourn(t itaeuendiae.mAmarcusmefecit).The portions n bracketsare ost andhavi been econ-structed;he portionswith subscript ots areparriallyobscured.
9.6 Later History of the RomanAlphabet
Over the courseof time the Roman alphabet developed nto many local calligraphicvarieties.Some are difficult for us to read today without extensive raining. Never-theless, hese local forms were always considered to be forms of a single Roman
alphabet shared by all western European cultures, and the classical monumentalforms of the letters retained their status as the standard shape for letters. If wecompare this with the Greek situation, we note that when the alphabetwas used or
,j
vA)\'
fr)'r\,1..t T6F'
f..,Mu
t,,Y (\ \ b
( I'u'o
, A
k,o
X) '
Lt
lo
T V
,r'( , t ,
, 1 .
u r
I)^
.lT
, ( . , ,
/r \1 ,
>)
r\
N/
[,
\
).
t( t
qf.{c
A -'l
I)"
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 195/340
176 The Roman Alphabet
other languages, hosevariants frequently became ndependentscripts: Coptic, Gothic,
Cyrillic, etc. In chapter 11, we will see hat in India a single early script gave rise
to a very large number of different scripts.'Vfestern
Europe, however, maintained a
senseof cultural unity which preserved he Roman alphabet intact.Very rarely does a particular language using the Roman alphabet have a com-
pletely different grapheme beyond the basic rwenty-six. Rather, new graphemes
have usually been created by modifying an existing graphemewith a diacritic. For
example,French usesa number of diacritics: <6 B 6 Ct . German has one diacritic, the
umlaut, as in <a o ii>. The umlaut derives rom a small <e> written over the main
symbol; although the umlauted forms are normal and required in all typesof German,
if the writer is unable to write an umlaut (perhaps using an English typewriter),
writing <aeoe ue> is a recognizedalternative. A few proper names are alwayswritten
without the umlaut,Goethe fo r example. German also uses he special symbol <B>
instead of <ss> n certain situations; this symbol is used in Germany and Austria,but not in Switzerland. Writing <ss> s a recognized alternative to <B> if it is not
available.The symbol <B> is etymologically a ligature of <f> (an old form of <s> -
seechapter 10) and <z>; it is known in German as /es tset/'S-Z'.
Of the few new symbols which are not simply diacritics, Polish has a plain <l>
lll, and one with a slanted cross-bar<l>. This cross-barcould be considereda dia-
critic, bu t it occurs nowhere else n Polish, nor is it otherwise usedwith the Roman
alphabet in other languages. celandic uses two symbols for l0l and 16l <0 6>
(upper-case p D>).
One of the great difficulties in using the Roman alphabet is that Latin did not
have any postalveolaror palatal consonants.For {/ , English uses he digraph <sh>whereasFrench uses<ch>, and Italian uses<sci>.The Slavic anguageshave a number
of these sounds and different languageshave solved the problem in different ways;
some of these are shown in table 9.5.
Late Latin had a palatal nasal lpl (e.g., senior lseporl'older,
elder' and title of
respect)and a palatal ateral I,tl (e.g.,filia) lfr,Ial'daughter'. The different Romance
languagesarrived at different solutions fo r writing these (table 9.6l'. ltalian uses
<gn gl> for the palatals,and Portuguese ses<nh lh>. French uses<gn> and <ll>, and
Spanishuses<fl> and <ll>. In Spanish, he Romancepalatal lt l has become hl, e.g.,
hiia lrhal'daughter',
bu t the palatal l,{,1has been reintroduced in other words such
as amarillo 'yellow'. In French, the earlier palatal lateral [d ] has become a palatal
approximant Ii].
Table 9.5'Ways
of writing postalveolar obstruents and
the palatal nasal in different Slavic languages
Polish Czech Croatian
uthyls llt l
s
cz
nj
s
cz
n
SZ
czL, rz
fi
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 196/340
TheRomanAlphabet 177
Table 9.6 Different ways of writing the palatal nasal and lateral in Romance languages
Italian French Spanish Portuguese
lnl
tIlsrgnore
figlia
selgneur
fille
seflor
(amarillo)'yellow'
senhor
filha
'sir,Mr ''daughter,girl'
9.7 OrthographicDepth: Two Examples
In this sectionandthe next,we will compare wo somewhatdifferentorthographies,
both using he Romanalphabet:Finnishand ScotsGaelic.The two systems ifferratherstrongly n what is known asorthographicdepth.Finnishwriting is shallow,ScotsGaelic sdeep.By orthographic epth,we are alkingabout he relationship fwriting and anguage.Youmayat thispoint need o reviewphonemic ndmorpho-phonemicevelsn AppendixA on linguistic oncepts.)n a writing systemwhich sorthographically hallow,graphemesepresent honemes;n a writing systemwhichis orthographically eep, raphemesepresentmorphophonemes.anguagesreofteninconsistentn that they may represent ome hingsat one evelandother hingsatanotheror at an intermediaryevel.Onecommonlyseeshe erm phonetic'
used omeanshallow,as n 'Finnish
writing isphonetic'.This s a poor choiceof words on
two grounds.First, n linguistics,'phonetic'impliesubphonemic,llophonic,whichis clearlynot meanthere.Second,phonetic'
suggestsn absoluteype of relation-shipbetweenhewriting system nd anguage, hereasdeep'suggestsneendof acontinuum,a muchmore realisticappraisal,n my opinion.
9.7.1 Finnish:A shalloutorthography
Finnish calledSuomi n Finnish) s a Finno-Ugricanguage poken n Finland.TheearliestFinnish ext goesback to the thirteenthcenruryNEw,and more plentifulmaterial s found from the sixteenth entury.The phonemes f Finnishare given
in table9.7.Finnish orthographyalmost perfectly agreeswith rhe phonemicrepresentarion
except n three respects:he final glottal stop is not written, ql is written as <n>before kl , andlong lqgl is written as <ng>.Finnishwriting is a strikinglysrrongexampleof a shalloworthography.Other lettersare found in recent oans romother anguages<b g f z>.
9.7.2 ScofsGaelic: A deeporthagraphy
Scots Gaelic provides a contrasting example of a deep orthography. Scots Gaelic
is a Celtic language spoken in the northwestern part of Scotland. Gaelic came toScotland from Ireland in the fifth century NEw and formed a continuous linguisticand cultural area with Ireland until the fifteenth-sixteenrh cenruries. Although a
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 197/340
178 The RomanAlphabet
Table 9.7 The phonemes of Finnish. The doubled vowels are long
Consonants
Vowels
Diphthongs
Table 9.8 The consonant phonemes of ScotsGaelic
rldE
I
few early rexts exist in the ogham script (seechapter L3), the vast majority of Irish
and Gaelic texts have been written in the Roman alphabet. During the Middle
Ages, Middle Irish became established and fixed as the written form of the lan-guage n both Ireland and Scotland.Although the languagescontinued to change,
the writing system did not, and the situation became ncreasingly diglossic. n the
fifteenth and sixteenth centuries this situation broke down, and the modern lan-
guagescame to be written. It was at this point that Irish and Scots Gaelic writing
becamedistinct from each other. However, certain writing conventionswhich had
been established n Middle Irish have substantially continued in both languages
to the present ime.
The consonant phonemesof modern ScotsGaelic are shown in table 9.8.
At the morphophonemic level, there is a considerably simpler inventory shown
table 9.9.Two historic phonological changes account for much of the discrepancy between
the phonemic and morphophonemic inventories. First, consonantsbetweenvowels
t
d
s
n
r
I
v
m
u i i W u u
o e e o o u u
a e a a
r y
e c i
a
yi ui
er or ol
al al
tds
n
Ir
pbf
v r i
m n
+r*
k r kgj g
E x h
i v
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 198/340
The RomanAlphabet
Table 9.9 The consonant mofphophonemes
of Scots Gaelic
179
pb
f
m
cg
td
S
n
Ir
Table 9.10 The effect of lenition in Scots Gaelic. The non-lenited forms are shown aboveand the lenited forms below
Sound
non-len.
len.
Vriting
non-len.
len.
p b t d k g f s m
f v h y x y g h n
p b t d c g f
ph bh rh dh ch gh fh
S
sh
m
mh
underwent lenition: i.e., generally, stops became fricatives, and fricatives werefurther weakened or lost. Orthographically, lenition was earlier shown by writinga dot over the letter, and in modern writing with an <h> after he consonant. In thiisection' I will indicate morphophonemic transcriptions in curled brackets { }. Thus,in the word mdthir'mother', the {t } is lenited as shown by the writing of <th>; alenited {t } is pronounced as /h/, so the word is pronounced as /ma:hitll 1^n accentindicates a long vowel). Over time, the original interyocalic conditioning environ-ment of lenition has changed so that lenition is partly lexical (as here) and partlymorphological. Modern Scots Gaelic spelling, however, is clear about indicatinglenition with an <h>; with a few exceptions ar the beginning of a word, the lettei
<h> does not occur in any other use. Table 9.L0 shows the lenited form of someof the consonants.
Note that {d} and {g} both lenite to lyl, and {s} and {t } both lenite to lhl; lf ldisappears n lenition.
The second phonological change which affected Scots Gaelic was palatalization(table 9.11). Roughly, consonants before a front vowel were palatalized. Again,the conditioning factor for this change has been lost over rime, and the pto..rthas become lexical or morphological. For example, some plurals are formed bypalatalization:
singular plural written formslbarsl lbafl bds bdis 'death'
lexl leql each eich 'horse'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 199/340
180 The RomanAlphabet
Table 9.11 ScotsGaelic masculine vocative. The initial consonant of a man's name is
lenited, and the final consonant is palatalized
Spoken orms Written forms
Nominatiue Vocatiue Nominatiue
James''Donald'
l{emesl
ld6all
la hemitl
/a ytilj/Seumas
Domhnall
a Sheumais
a Dhomhnuill
Table 9.12 Examples of the writing of palatalization. Note that B is always next to b,
and N is always next to n [b = broad, n = narrow; upper-case for consonants, lower-case
for vowels]
cadal lkadell'sleep' (noun)
cadail lkadillgen. of cadal
caidil lkad3lll'sleep' (verb)
cinnich Ik)intig 'grow'
c a d a l
B b B b B
c i n n i c hN n N n N
c a d a i
B b B b n N
c a i d i l
B b n N n N
The vocative of masculine names is formed by an initial particle /a/, which lenites
the initial consonant, and in addition the final consonant of the name is palatalized
(a neighbouring vowel is also sometimesaffectedby palatalization) (table 9.11).
The writing of palatalization is an unusual feature of Scots (and Irish) Gaelic.
The example /bars/ is written bds; the plural lba{ is written bdis.Palatalization is
indicated here by inserting an <i> before the palatalized<s>. The generalrule is that
a non-palatalized consonant must always be next to a back vowel <a o u>, and apalatalized consonant must always be next to a front vowel <i e>. \fith
'horse',the
singular is spelled eacb and the plural eich. First, in both forms, the spelling <ch>
representsa lenited {k}. In the singular, the <a> is a back vowel showing that the
<ch> is not palatalized; in the plural, the <a> is replaced by .it to show palataliza-
tion. These etters <a> and <i> are present o show pronunciation not of the vowel,
bu t of the adjacent consonant. Interpreting the function of a vowel letter presentsa
difficulty in learning to read Gaelic.
In Scots Gaelic, palatalized consonants and front vowels are called'narrow',
and non-p alatalized consonants and back vowels are called'broad'. To describe he
writing of palatalrzatron) here is a sayingLeathann ri leathann's cAolri caol'Broad
to broad and narrow to narrow'; i.e., broad consonantsonly occur next to broad
vowels, and narrow consonantsonly occur next to narrow vowels. The examples n
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 200/340
The Roman Alphabet 181
table 9.12 illustrate the writing of palatalization. The label below each consonanridentifies he type. In the noun cadal lkadall'sleep' , al l threeconsonantsare
broad',
and both vowels are the broad vowel <a>. Thus, each broad consonant s only nextto broad vowels. ln
cadail lkadill, the genitive of
'sleep',
the {1} s palatalized (ltlbecomes l]); this is indicated by insertingan <i> before the <l> giving cadail. Noticenow that the first two consonantsare broad and are both next to broad vowels; thefinal consonant is narrow and is next to a narrow vowel. ln caidil lkafuiLl
'sleep'
(verb), the first consonant is broad, but the other rwo are palatalized. Here an <i>appearsbefore the secondconsonant to show that it is narrow, and the <a> of thesecondsyllabledisappearsas t is no longer needed o show a broad consonant. Thefinal example is cinnicb lkiiniiQl 'grow'
with all consonants palatalized; here an <i>appears n both syllables.Broad consonantsare always next to broad vowels, andnarrow consonantsnext to narrow vowels;however, broad and narrow vowels may
be next to each other.Scots Gaelic spelling conventions are decidedly different from those of English
or Finnish or most languagesusing the Roman aiphabet. However, rhey allovi thewriting system o representa morphophonemic level of the languagequite elegantly.In doing so, a much smaller number of symbols is needed han if a shallow writingsystem representingphonemeswere used.
9.8 FurtherReading
Bonfante 1990,1996)and Bonfante nd Bontante1983)providean introductionorecentwork n Etruscan.Wallace 1989)discusseshe development f the Romanalphabet. omrie 1996b), enner 1996), nd Tuttle 1996) iscusshe use of theRoman lphabetorother anguages; cManus ndHamp 1996) nd Rogers1972)specifically iscussScotsGaelic.Ullman 1980) s an interestingultural iscussion,and Harris 1989) reats iteracyn Romeand Greece.
9.9 Terms
abecedarycalligraphydeepEtruscangraffiti
Latinlenition
orthographicepthpalatalization
Romanalphabet
shallowumlautvulgarLatin
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 201/340
182 The RomanAlpbabet
9.10 Exercrses
1 Discuss he question:Does talianhave a letterW?
2 Why s Czechwritten n he Roman lphabet, utBulgariann he Cyrillic lphabet?
3 In ScotsGaelic,how wouldyou expect he followingwords o be pronounced?
c6ig'five' <6> representso:/]m6r'large masc. g.nom.)'mh6r'large fem. g.nom.)'mh6ir'large masc.sg.gen.)' thevowel s still o:/]
MacThdmar'sThomson'[the<a> s /al; <d> representsct ; the finalvowel s /i/]
Sasunnaich'Englisheople' cl. Saxons)thevowelsare la,e, il l
4 Germanwas previouslywritten n a form of the Romanalphabet nownas Fraktur/,fiok'tur/:
atsrtuSre
SlnE8utsgroB
6riufer[eitllcn
muStsiien9cIoSOcIiiiic
ieiniotuieioQtrotfle
la''sl 'ate'
lqserel 'exterior'
/flus/ 'river'
Itu'.sl 'foot'
/gro:s/ 'big'
lhqzarl 'houses'
/hajsan/ 'arecalled 3 pl.)'
/mus/ 'must(3 sg.)'/pasen/ 'fit'
llo.,sl 'lap'
llysal 'shots'
lzEnl 'be'
lzo:vi',zo. 'anyhow'
lllra'sel 'street'
cu$enefien
$lriiic$iiSc6onttcilhUlefic
mtiiicnia'llOcInts
icc0tienbcnipriteiten6irits
/awsan//esen/lllyselIty.'sel/hawsi/hajse//mese/
/mysan/lza:s/
fiusllzeksllzendenl
{pe:testens//sy:s/
'outside''gat''rivers''feet''housg''am called''lair'
'must(1,3pl . ) ''sat''shot(n.)''six''send''at the latest''swggt'
(a) In Fraktur, hereare three ormsof the lower-caseetters: <t itfl>.Note hat
there is a differencebetweens <t> and f <f >. The differencebetween he
use of <6>and .it is simplyorthographic,epending n its positionn theword. Examine he data above,and complete he rulesbelow by stating
the appropriate nvironments simplyas possible t the end of eachrule.
The rulesshoulddescribewhen <E>occursand when <i> occurs.Do not
worryaboutdoubled fit or <B> or upper-case <g>.
/s/ -+ <0> | (l = in the environment)/s/ --r <i> I
(b) Thedifferencen the useof <fi>and <t> is morecomplex.Onlyoneof these
occursat the end of a word.Completehe following ule by writing fit ordl> as appropriate:
lsl -+ < > I al the end of a word
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 202/340
Tbe RomanAlphabet 1 83
(c) Note hat ongvowelsare ndicated y a l: l atler he vowel n thephonemictranscription. ermanorthographyoes hotdirectly howvowel ength.Thediphthongsaw/, ajl,and cjl areconsideredo be longvowels.Examinehewordshavingeither ii t or <rf]> n the middle.Complete
hefollowing
ulesby stating he environment s simplyas possible. State he environmentafter he fsign.)
iv. /s/ + <ii> Iv. /s/ -+ dl> I
Italianhas (amongothers) he following onsonants:
u k
d 5 gs lt
and the consonant luster sk/. For this exercise,we will assumea five-vowels y s t e m :i e a o u l .
The writingof theseconsonant ounds s somewhat omplex n ltalian. romthe folfowing xamples, ry to figureout the system.
acciughe
amicheamicibroccolibruschettabuchicacciatorecanollicecocelloche
Chiaraconcertofacciafunghifungogallogelatoghettoghiaccioghiotto
Ginagioielli
Giorgio
/atJ:uge/
/amike//amitJi//brok:oli//brusket:a//buki//katJ:atore//kanol: i/lrlekol/r!el;ol/ke/
lkjara//kontlerlo/Ital[:alltuqgtllluqgollgal:ol/dSelato//get:o//$atllo//gjot:o/
/d3inal/d5ojel:i//d5ord5o/
'anchovies''(female)
friends''(male)friends''broccoli'
a type of horsd'€uvres
a type of pasta
a woman'sname(= Eng.Clara)
'mushrooms''mushroom''chicken''icecream''ghetto'' icg'
a woman's ame'jewels'
a man'sname = Eng.George)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 203/340
1 8 4
Giovannimaggiorana
maraschino
santascarolascena
scherzo
schiavo
sciabla
scienzasi
spaghettiviaggio
zucchini
TheRomanAlphabet
/d5ovan:i/
/mad5:orana/
/maraskino/
/santa//skarola/
fienallskerdzo/
/skjavo/
llablal
Itenzal
lsil
/spaget:i/
lvjadSol
ldzuk:inil
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 204/340
10 English
The English anguage as arguablybecomehe most important nternarionalan-guageand the most widely studiedsecond anguagen the world today.In view ofits world importance nd alsoby the fact that as a readerof this book you obvi-ously have some familiarity with and interest n Englishwriting, we will devotesome imeto exploring he Englishwriting system. nglishorthographys interest-ing in its own right, particularlybecause f its repurarion or complexity.
S7ewill
investigatehe natureand development f thiscomplexity.
10.1 Backgroundand History
Britain was conqueredby the Romans n 43 NrEw nd becamehe westernmostregionof the ancientRomanEmpire.The British nhabitanrs t rhat time spokea
Celtic anguage,he ancestor f modernWelsh.Although heseniorRomansoldierswere literate, here s little evidencehat the Britonsborrowedwriting from theRomans. n the early ifth centuryNErw,he Romanshad difficultiesat homeandrecalledheir troops rom Britain,with the withdrawalcompleted y 425 nrw. Inthe ensuing oliticalvacuum,Germanic-speakingeoplesnvaded rom the contin-ent, akingover heareawe nowcall England ndsouthern cotland. heir anguagecame o be known as English.
Latin-speaking hristianmissionarieseintroducedhe Latin language nd the
Romanalphabet o Englandaround500. Somewhatater he Norse nvadedpartsof Britain.Many runic nscriptionschapter13) havebeen ound n England n theNorse anguage swell as a few in Old English.Although the early Middle Agesaresometimesalled he 'Dark Ages' n referenceo the collapse f learningafter thefall of the Romanempire, his erm s somewhatmisleading, speciallyoi England.lfinchesteremerged s he capitalof England t this ime, andwith the sponsorshipof KingAlfred, ts monastery ecame recognizedentre f learningn Europewitha large ibrary.OthermonasterieshroughoutEngland ollowed finchesteis lead.
During the Old Englishperiod,Latin held sway as the preferred anguageorwriting. Documents f both church and statewerenormally n Latin, as was the
case hroughoutwesternEurope;nevertheless,nglishwas written to a limitedextent n fairly early imes.Portions f theBible,prayers, nd otherreligiousmater-ia l were ranslatednto English or the devotionalneeds f the people. ilTillswere
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 205/340
186 English
sometimes ritten in English;presumably, eoplewere more comfortable f the
arrangementsor their inheritancewere made in their native anguage.Certain
other works were also eitherwritten in English,such as the Anglo-SaxonChron-
icles,or translatednto English rom Latin, suchas heVenerableBede'sEcclesiast-ical History of the EnglishPeople.The best-knownOld English iterary work is
Beowulf
In 1055,Englandwasconquered y William of Normandy,who quickly nstalled
his own French-speakingeople nto positionsof authority.Latin remained he
languageor muchwriting,but Norman French merged s he court anguage, nd
many documents ame o be written in French.The nobility spokeFrench,but
ordinarypeople ontinued o speakEnglish.For about 200years,until 1250,very
little waswritten in English.
By the late thirteenthcentury, he nobility had begun o speakEnglish.English
begangradually o replace oth Latin and French n almostall contexts.By 1350,Englishwas used n schools,and in 1384, tUfycliffe'sEnglish ranslationof the
Bible had appeared.n 7420,English eplacedFrenchas the official anguage f
Parliament.Englishsurvivedas the ordinary spoken anguage f England,but it
had changed onsiderably. s well as changesn the phonologyand grammar,an
enormous umberof Frenchwordshadbeenborrowed nto English: ftenwordsof
government nd warfare duke, udge,gouernment, ounty,general,Army,but also
very ordinarywords - table,uery,single,, eef.London was the capital,and the
dialectof the Londoncourt becamehe standard poken orm of Middle English
although herewas considerableariation hroughout he country.Whereas
Old
Englishspellingwas relativelyuniform, following the Winchester tandard,MiddleEnglish spelling was quite diverse,often following the local pronunciation. The
best-known iterarywork in Middle English s Chaucer'sCAnterburyTales.
In thefifteenthcentury,a standard orm of English,based n courtusage, merged
as he official styleof writing for government nd spread hroughoutBritain. It also
becamehe standard orm used or all typesof written communication, radually
displacingocal variation.The English anguages usuallydivided nto threeperiods:
500 nnv-1100 Old Englishor Anglo-Saxon1100-1500 MiddleEnglish1500-present Modern English
The boundarybetweenOld and Middle English s markedby the Norman con-
questand the introductionof French; he boundarybetweenMiddle and Modern
English s lessdramaticallymarkedby a setof soundchanges.n the mid-fifteenth
century, English underwent what is known as the Great English Vowel Shift(describedn more detail below) which affected he quality of all long vowels.
Shakespeares the bestknown of the earlyModern Englishwriters.
Printing came o Britain in the late fifteenthcentury and was established y the
mid-sixteenrh entury.The Reformationencouraged veryEnglish amily to read
the Bible;printing madeBibleswidely available,f not to every amily, at least o
thoseof moderatemeans. he Renaissance,ith its interestn the classical orld,
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 206/340
English I87
introduced argenumbersof words of Latin and Greekorigin. Printers ended ouse uniform spelling,and by the reign of Elizabeth in the mid-sixteenth entury,Englishspellinghad become airly standardized.
Sincehe sixteenth enturyvariousminormodifications avebeenmade o Eng-lish spelling, ut the basicstructure emains.As Venezky 1999,p. 115) remarks:
'Theamountof orthographic hangehat hasoccurred ince1500 s small,and the
amount hat has akenplace ince1700 s minuscule.'Dictionariesadconsiderableinfluencen propagatinghe standard.Samuel ohnson'sdictionaryof 1755 wasparticularly mportant n England,and Noah Webster'sdictionaryof 1805 set aslightlydifferentstandard or the UnitedStates. nglishhas neverhad an officiallanguage cademyo regulatehe anguage,uchas hose ound n France,Sweden,Portugal,and other European ountries;quite possibly, he effectivenessf thesedictionarieseduced he need for a regulatorybody. The fixed narureof spelling
since 1'500,of course,did not meanthat the language id not change. n fact thephonological hangeshat haveoccurred ince hat time havemeant hat the rela-tionshipbetweenwritten and spokenEnglishhasgrown morecomplex.
lA.2 Old English
old Englishhad the phonemenvenroryas shown n table 10.1.For manysounds herewasa one-to-one orrespondenceetween rapheme nd
phoneme.Al l of thesewerestraightforward daptations f the Romanalphabet o
the sounds f Old English.
<p>
<b>
<t>
<d>
<f>
<m>
<n>
<l>
<r>
lpltbtlt /tdttfllmllnltIl
hl
<plegian>
<blod>
<tunge>
<deap>
<folc>
<mus>
<nama>
<lufian>
<read>
lplejianl
lblo:dl
/tungel
lde:a9l
lfolkl/mu:s/
lnamal
llufianl
he:adl
'pIay'
'blood''tongue'
'death'
'people'
'mouse'
'name'
'love'
'red'
In Old English, [h ] and [x] were allophones of the same phoneme lh l in com-plementary distribution, with [h ] used word-initially, and [x ] used elsewhere.Theletter <h> was used for both allophones.
Table10.1 The phonemes f Old English
t! ds
Iyr u:
o:
o:
i y u
e o
o
k sh
t d
S
n
I
r
p b
f em
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 207/340
1 8 8
<h> tht thl[" ]
English
<hat> lha:tl [ha:t]'hot'
<riht> hihtl [rixt]'right'
The letters<c>, <g>, and <s> were usedwith their expected atin values orepresentkl, lgl, and lsl, but they were alsoused o represent ther soundsnot
presentn Latin. The letters<c> and <g> were alsoused o representt/ and jl
respectively;urther, the digraphs<cg>and <sc>were used or the sounds dsl
and l.
<c> lkl
<c> ltf
<g> lg l
<g> l j l
<s> lsl
<cg> ldsl
<sc> [l
<corn> /korn/'grain'
<ceap> lt[e:apl'cheap'
<guma> lgumal'man'
<geard> lieardl'yard'
<s€> lse,l 'sea'
.bry.gt lbrydSl'bridge'
<scip> l[ipl'ship'
The soun l0l which was not found in Latin was first written as <th>. Later,
however, he symbols<p> and <6>wereusedmoreor less nterchangeablyor l0l.
Thesymbol ht is'thorn'from therunicalphabetchapter 3),and hesymbol<6>
is a modified orm of <d>.
<b 6> lol<pancian, dancian> l}ankianl
'thank'
In early Old English, a runic symbol <p>, known as'wynn', was used for <w>.
Later, wynn was replaced by <u>, <uu), or <w>. Note the three similar symbols:
thorn <h>, wyntr <p>, and modern lower-case<p>.
<P> lwl <Pepen> lwe:penl
Vowel length was not marked in Old
the low front vowel. In later Old English,
were written as <i>.
short
<i> li l <siffan>
<y (i)> lv 0l <yfel (ifel)>
<e> le l <bern>
<&> ln l <frder>
<a> lq l <wacian>
<o> lo l <god>
<u> lul <lust>
English. The ligature <€> was used for
the vowels /y, yr l merged with li, it and
long
<wif>'woman, wife'
<fyr (fir)> 'fire'
<swete>'sweet'
<hrlan>'heal'
<gan>'go'
<mod>'heart,
spirit'
<pu>'thou'
'sit '
'evil'
'barn'
'father'
'beawake'
'god'
'desire'
A portion of the Lord's Prayer s shown n figure10.1.The first ine
the next two are n Old English.Note that the upper-caseorm of <6>in Latin;
<D>.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 208/340
English
Parr R ^iR.QvrrsrhTcEfls
1 8 9
patern[oste]rqui es n celis
Du ure nder
fe eart on heofenu eo in namatlvyRrFfiDER-]*t Ftry onhopenufunn an:u
Figure 1A.1 The beginning of the common Christian prayer known as the Lord's Prayer.The first line is in Latiry and the next two lines are in Old English (eleventh cenrury)
Table 10.2 The phonemes of Middle English
p b t d t / d 3 k gf v e A s z I hm n
Ir
I l r
e :
e t :
u u :o:
f , J :
a a :
10.3 Middle EnglishThe phonemicnventory or Middle English s given n table 10.2.
Unlike Old English, he fricativesn Middle Englishhad contrastive honemesdistinguishedy voicing: f vl, lO 61,s zl. The etters<f> and <v>wereused or thephonemesfl and v/ respectively. oth lpt and16l arespelled<th>; thorn .bt,however,was retainedn a fewcommonwords:<pe pat pou pen> the,that, hbu,then'. This limited use of thorn survived nto the .ight..nth ..ntury, giving thequaint formssuchaspe oldesboppe.Commonly, he thorn waswritten as a super-script: b.t; the thorn was atermisunderstoods<I>, and this antiquatedwriiing
of the is commonlymisread odayas ji/.The etter<s>wasused or both s/ and zl. Furthermore,wo lower-casellographs
of <s>arose: s>and<f>,with no setpattern or their distributionalthough heiewasa tendencyo use<f> word-initiallyand-medially,and <s>word-finally. nstead fdouble<ss>or .fft, a form <B>wascommon,a combinationof <f> and <z>.Thelong<{>continuedo beused nto the earlynineteenthenturywhen t was eplacedentirelyby .t".
As a result of the influenceof Frenchborrowings,suchas cellar, <c> came tobe used or both lk l and s/. The Frenchuseof <c> for /s/ was extended o somenative words such as lice and mice.French <qu> replacedOld English<cw> for
lkwlzOE cwenMidE quene queen'.The digraph<sh>was used or [l : OE scamuMidE shame;<ch>was used or ltfl: OE ceapMidE cheap;and <gh>was used or/x/: OE riht MidE right.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 209/340
190 English
The letters<i> and<j> were n freevariation: iim tiim'time', iuge ugeiudge',as
were<u> and<v>:up up'up'reueneueneven'.The letter<y> was consideredn
allographof <i>.
One phonologicalchange nvolving vowels also affected he relationshipoflanguage nd writing. In Middle Englishunstressedowelswereneutralizedo lal,
and sometimesost; the writing, however, etained he etymologicalvowel. Thus
in writing today, one needs o know the etymological pellingof a word. For
example, he first and third syllablesof the words sereneand diuin€ were both
unstressed nd the vowel in thesesyllables ecameal : Mid. Eng. /sa're:na/ nd
/da'vi:na/.The final syllable s spelled<e> in both cases, ut the first syllable s
spelled ifferently n the fwo words,<se-,di-t, reflectinghe historyof the words.
Today, Englishspeakers ften stumbleover pairs such as affect and effecr;both
words arenormallypronounceda'fektl,but distinguishedn spelling y the etymo-
logicalvowel.In Late Middle English, unstressed e> lel was lost in word-final syllables:
/da'virna/> /da'vi:n/,and sa're:na/ /sa're:n/, ut again he spelling id not change
to reflect his changen pronunciation. he situationof a long vowelbeingwritten
as <VCe>was so common hat in Modern English he convention asarisen hat
this s a normal way to spell ense owels:e.g.,bite,made, ose'cute.
10.4 Modern English
Between Middle and Modern English, various changesoccurred in the languagewhich altered the relationship between writing and pronunciation. During the
Middle English period, a sound change known as trisyllabic shortening occurred
(table 10.3), which shortened ong antepenultimatevowels. This shorteningresulted
in many morphemes having different allomorphs with long and short vowels. Since
the writing system did not distinguish long and short vowels, no change to the
writing of thesewords was indicated.
Table 10.3 Trisyllabicshorteningn Middle English.Antepenultimate owelsare
shortened. he addition of the suffix(right
column)o the root causeshe long vowel
to occur n the antepenultimateyllableand thus become hortened.Except n the
first example,only the affected owelsare shown
MidE Long Short
ti l
la l
lu l
diuine
deriue
serene
supreme
sane
explainprofound
abound
/(dav)i :(na)/
f t l
le:l
lezl
la t
la tlut l
lu l l
diuinity
deriuatiue
serenity
suprema.cy
sanity
explanatoryprofundity
abundance
/(div)i(niti)/
t i lle l
le l
la l
la llu l
lul
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 210/340
English
Table10.4 Great EnglishVowel Shift. The long highvowelsbecame iphthongs,and the othersshiftedupwards
19l
li',let,l
let
lat
Itwll w l
lotl
lu,l
In late Middle English imes, after risyllabicshorteningwas complete, he longvowels' but not the short ones,underwenta sound changeknown as the GreaiEnglishVowel Shift (table 0.4) in which the highvowelsbecame iphthongs, ndthe other long vowelswere shifted upwards.
For morphemes avingallophones ith longand shortvowels, he GreatEnglishVowel Shiftgreatlyaccentuatedhephoneticdifference etweenhe two allomorphs.Englishorthography ouldhave evisedhe spelling o reflect hese oundchanges,perhapswith forms like "serine-serenity,
sene-sanity.Sucha changewould havemaintainedhe relationship etweenanguage nd writing muchas t hadbeen,.e.,a _fairly losephoneme-graphemeorrespondence.owever, his did not happen.The spellingof thesewords remainedas before.The retentionof thesesp.ilingtgreatlychangedhe relationshipbetweenEnglishwriting and pronunciation.Forthis typeof alternationn ModernEnglish,morphemes eregivena single pelling,andallomorphic ariations ad o besupplied y thereader. he effect oday of the
Great Englishvowel shift is shown n the following examples:
serene serenityMiddleEnglish le:l lelEarlyMod. English li:l le lLater Mod. English lil lel
sAne sanity
lat,l lal
lezl lal
lejl lel
Thus, we can see hat from a relativelysimple relationshipbetweengraphemeand phonemen Middle English, arious orcescombined o creare
"-rr.h more
complex elationship y Modern English imes. n particular, t frequentlybecame
necessaryo know which morpheme newaswriting. Thus,Modern Englishspellingis deeper cf. discussion f orthographicdepth n chapte 9) than Middle Englishspelling ecausef the argernumberof cases here hespellingsmorphophonimicor morphemic.
One incidentaleffect of the Great EnglishVowel Shift was that Englishrensevowels today are pronounceddifferently from the way they arc pronounced nthegreatmajorityof languagessing he Romanalphabet: f <ae i o u> in Englishlei i ai ow u/ and n Germano e o u/. English egularlyuses numberof digraphs.S,ome igraphs ike <ch> tf , <sh> f , and<th> /e, 6l areused n a fairlyconsistentfashion.Other digraphsare usedonly in certainenvironments. he sound d3/ isusuallyspelled jr at the beginning f a word, but <dge>at the end,cf . ay, edge,iudge. The sound /k/ is usuallyspelled<k> or <ke> after rensevowels or aftertwo vowelsequences,ut <ck>after ax vowels: eek, ke,break, ake,soak,smoke,
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 211/340
r92 English
Luke, like; Iick, deck,rack, duck. The diphone<x> has he samevalue ks/ that
it had in Latin: axe, six; n the few words with <x> in word-initialposition, t is
usuallypronouncedzl: xylophone,Xauier.
For mostwords borrowed nto English n Modern English imes rom languagesusing heRomanalphabet, heoriginal spellinghasbeen etained.For example, rom
French,we havesouffli, ballet, lingerie, cul-de-sac;rom German:Kindergarten)
Fahrenheit,Gesundheit,Umlaut; from Italian spagheni, oncerto, ologna.Although
the pronunciation f a borrowedword is regularlyaltered o fit Englishpatterns,
sometimeshereareotherunpredictablehanges:ingerie 'lon3a,rejl, hereonemight
expecta final -il, or bologna ba'lowni/ instead f /oba'lownja/; ompareEinstein
/'ajn,stajn andHolstein 'howl,stinl,both borrowed rom German.
Spellingpronunciations (or reading pronunciations) arise by guessingat the
pronunciation f a word by applying he regularorthographic onventions f Eng-
lish. This is commonwith foreignwords.The surnameSamarancbs pronounced/somoroqlinCatalan,but it is regularlyheardas 's€ma:rntfl in English;French
ddshabill| ldezabriels sometimes eardas 'deiJabil/.
A somewhatdifferent situation involves he Chinese apital Beiiing l,bej'd3tql,
which softenheardas ,bej'5ry1. ote that <jinp is a perfectly rdinaryspellingn
English or d3ryl; thesyllable 3n1lis,n fact,unusualn English.Probably,hemis-
takenpronunciation 3ryl for the Chinese ity is used n Englishbecauset sounds
more foreignand exotic and thusmore appropriateor a foreignword. Similarly,
one occasionally earsCopenhagen'kopen,hejgan/pronouncedith /-hqg-/ (the
Danish s quite different:Ksbenhaun kaBanhawn/);presumably, he vowel lsl is
assumedo sound oreign.The television haracter amedBucketwho insistedhather namewaspronounced,bu'kej/givesusan exampleof manipulating hedifferent
spelling onventions f English n an attempt o achieve legance.
70.4.7 Orthographic dialect uariation
In the nineteenth entury,particularly because f the spellingpreferences f Noah
Webster's ictionary, wo standardspellingvariationsarose,which we may term
orthographicdialects.Most of the English-speaking orld generally ollows what
we can call 'British usage';he UnitedStates, owever, ollows Americanusage'.
The actualnumberof wordsaffecteds not large,but the differences ftenassume
patrioticand symbolicsignificance.omeexamples f theseorthographic ialectal
variations regiven n table10.5.
These differencesare never significant enough to impede anyone's reading;
however, heir symbolicsignificances enough hat popularnovelsare frequently
re-typeseto reflect he appropriatemarket; film titles are also often similarly
altered.Canada,having an inherited radition of British spelling,yet widely exposed
to Americanmedia,often showsan interestingmixture of the two traditions.The
word cheque,or the
bankinstrument, s almostneverspelled beck n Canada;
check s the spellingeverywhere or the meanings inspect,obstruct, intersecting
pattern',etc.The-rewordsoccur n Canadawith Britishspellingairly consistently.
\fith the other ypesof words, here s a gooddealof variation.The-our spellings
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 212/340
English
Table10.5 Examplesf English ialect ifferencesn spelling
193
American British
color, fauor, bonor, humor, glamor
center) theater, fiber, liter (but acre, ogrel(bank\ check
traueling, leueling
enroll, enrolled, enrollment
license, practice
defense, offense
iudgmentcatalog, cigaret
colour,, fauour, honour, humour, glamour
centre, theatre, fibre, litre, acre, ogre
cheque
trauelling, leuelling
enrol, enrolled, enrolment
Iicence, practice (nounl; license,practise (uerb)
defence, offence
iudgement (but iudgment in legal contexts)
catalogue, cigarette
morewidely used n Centraland EasternCanadaand in BritishColumbia han inthe prairieprovinces Pratt 1993).The spellingof other words takeson a some-what randomappearance. ost Canadiannewspaperssesomevariantof Britishspelling; et ,despite he besteffortsof editors,odditiesstill occur.Overcorrectionsare not uncommon.Honour and honourableboth have a <u>; honorary is notsupposedo haveone- in any tradition - but Canadiannewspapersavenever-theless ecordedmany an honourary degree. n the food section,one often seesareferenceo the herbassummer auoury,whichn all dictionariess givenassauoryisduourys the general djectivemeaningtasty'.EditorsalmostalwaysgetMinister
of Defenceright (cf. the AmericanSecretary f Defense),but the sport secion ofnewspapers ften extolsa strongdefense.At my own university, he official docu-ment or examinerso registerheirdecisionor a PhDexamination ontained othspellings efenceldefensen the samesheetof paper.By the same oken,Americaneditorscomplain hat theyhaveconstantbattles o keep he <e>out of iudgementand the <u> out of glamour.
In the twentiethcentury,Englishbecamewidely used n internationa| affairs.Theincrease f politicalandeconomicmportance f theUnitedStatesn thisperiodhasled to an increasing seof Americanorthographicusage, ot only in areaswhereEnglishs a foreign anguage, ut also n Canada,Australia,New Zealand,etc., nd
at timeseven n Britain tself.
70.4.2 Creatiuespelling
Since he Second il(orldWar, there hasbeena markedpopularity of what Venezky(1999)callscreative pellings. ormssuchas Kids"R" f.Is,MolsonLite Beer,E-Z-Kleendemonstrate layful, inventivespellingso give grearerdifferentiation o thename; or marketing, his often givesgreaterbrand recognition o a companyorproduct. The umlauts n HiiagenDazs cecreamor the musicgroupMoxy Friiuousare apparently urelydecorative. pellings uchasnitelitesubstitute morecommon
spellingconvention or anotherslightly lesscommon one. Ye Olde ClackeShoppeuses pseudo-)archaicpellingo suggest ld-worldcharmandvalue see iscussionabove n S10.3).
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 213/340
194 English
Computer usagehas ed to manycreativespellingvariations,suchasPostScript,
theglobeandmail,DVORAK. The internet revived the almost defunct @-signas
part of an internetaddress. he punctuationmark <.> traditionallyhasdialectal
pronunciations, eingknown both asperiod'
andfull
stop'; n internetaddresses,however, t is universally eadas dot', as n www.widgetuille.com.Note: he @-
signarosen the Middle Agesas an abbreviation f the Latin word Ad'to' (Ullman
1980).Theverticalstrokeof the<d>wasenlarged nd curvedover he <a>,eventu-
ally resulting n the present orm. In later times, he abbreviationwas used or
English t in commercialhrases uchas 10 apples@ Te each'.)
10.5 Spellingand SoundChanges
Frequently, oundchanges ccur without a correspondinghangen the spelling.tUfe avealreadyseen xamples f this n trisyllabicshortening nd heGreatEnglish
Vowel Shift. n Middle English, he words see se:/and sea sezlwerewritten and
pronounceddifferently. D7ithhe GreatEnglishVowel Shift, he vowelswereraised
to see si:/ and sea lse:l n early Modern English,still pronouncedand spelled
differently. n the eighteenth entury sea se:lwas aised o /sir/,neutralizinghe pro-
nunciationwith see,but the spellingdifference as maintained. his is an example
of the ater endency f English o retainspelling ifferences here heydistinguish
morphemes.
Old Englishhad nitial clusters f /hl, hn, hr/ spelled espectivelys<hl, hn, hr>.
By Middle English imes, he lhl of theseclustershad been ost and the spellingrevised o reflect he change n pronunciation.This is an exampleof the earlier
tendency f English o revise he spelling o reflect hangesn pronunciation.
French, f course,s a descendantf Latin.Over he centuries, renchhasunder-
gonemanysoundchanges. y the eleventh entury, he Latinwords debitum'debt'
anddubitum'doubt'had lost he bl andthe inal lml andwerewritten n French s
dette and dout The Norman conquerorsbrought thesewords with them to Eng-
land,and heywere borrowed nto Middle Englishasdette dttl anddout /durt/. In
Renaissanceimes,scholars howedoff their knowledgeof Latin by insertingan
etymological<b> into the spelling,giving the modernforms debt anddoubt. Here
we havea spellingchangewith no soundchange.Thesewords haveneverbeenpronouncedwith a lbl in English.
Similarly, he Latin falconem'falcon'was borrowed nto Middle English n its
French orm as faucon with no /1/. Note the proper nameFawkner (alongside
Falconerl; he <l> was added o the spelling ollowing the Latin spelling alcon-,like the <b> n debt anddoubt.In modern imes, alconshavenot figuredpromin-
ently n mostpeople'sives,although hosewho used he word usuallypronounced
it in the traditionalway without an lll as 'fokan/ (or /'fckan/, depending n their
dialect). n the twentiethcentury, he Ford Motor Company ntroducedan auto-
mobile with the name Falcon.By this time, the word was sufficientlyunfamiliar
that a spelling ronunciation'f*lkanlbecame thenorm, at least n North America.As a sidenote, automobilemanufacturers eem o like fast birds.Toyota found a
rather are erm for a kind of falcon tercel.Dictionariesegularlygive his word
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 214/340
English 195
with a stresson the first syllable 'tarsal/.Toyota, however,stressedhe secondsyllableas tar'sel/,perhapshinking that this soundedmore French,more exotic,and worth more money.
English place-names,otably in Britain, often have unusualspellings.Often,the spelling eflectsan older pronunciationand has not kept pacewith soundchange. ome xamples f theseareThames temzl,Gloucester'glostatlrTowcester/'towstarl, Kirkcudbright /kar'kubri/, Cholmondeley 'tftmlil, and my personalfavouriteFeatherstonehaugh' fnn,lol.
10.6 SpellingReform
70.6.7 The nature of reform
Because f the complexrelationshipof writing and languagen English, herehavebeenmanyproposalsor spelling eform,ranging rom the scientific nd well-thoughtout to the amateurish nd confused.Variousarguments an be made or spellingreform in English,but the strongest s that a phonemicallybasedsystemwouldallow children o learn o readand write morequickly.Differentspelling eformershaveproposeddifferentapproacheso reformingEnglishspelling,but certain hemesrecur.
Most of these chemesim to spellEnglishwith a one-to-one rapheme-phonemerelationshipn which eachsoundwould be representedy a singlesymbol. U7here
the samesound s now spelled n differentways,only onespellingwould be used,a singlegrapheme herepossible. or example,he useof <c> or both lkl and lslwould be eliminated, y usingeither<k> or <c> consistentlyor lkl, and <s> or/s/. The sound d3l would be consistently pelledas <j>, eliminatingspellings uchas<dge>.
Silentsoundswould be removed n suchwords as debt, ndict, right, hymn, sign,knee,sword. Many schemes ould eliminate he final silent<e> n words suchaskite, ate, lute.Thedigraphs shzh ch> would beused o spell 3 tl;/0/ would bewritten as <th>, and ldl as <dh>.Thesedigraphswould be usefulsinceno reason-ablesinglesymbol s otherwise vailable. he onediphone<x> would be replaced
by <ks>.The largenumberof Englishvowelscreatesa problem since he Romanalphabethasonly fivevowel etters.However,doubledvowel symbolsand voweldigraphs ould be used.
A basicway to spellEnglishphonemicallywould be to removemorphemicallybasedheterography. hus,pairssuchasblue-bleq scene-seen, ood-would, ring-wring, meat-meetwould eachhave he samespelling.Further,words with irregularspellings uchas is,wls, of, one would be respelledo reflect heir pronunciation.
70.6.2 Problemstaith spelling reform
Despite he effortsof variouspeoplewith a varietyof schemeso reform Englishspelling,he astsuccessfuleformswere he minor reformsof Noah'Webster ome200 yearsago,and his nfluence utside he UnitedStates asbeenvery imited.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 215/340
196 English
Why hasspelling eform n Englishnot met with greater uccess,onsideringhenumberof proposalsor reform?Onereasons thenaturalconservatismf people.
Reformedspelling ooks strange.Somepeople,of course are attracted o novelty,
but moreseemo beput of f by unusual pellings. illions of people ave earned ospellEnglish. ndeed, he expectationoday for most nativespeakers f English s
that they will becomeiterate.We have ittle sensehat English-speakingountries,in relation o others n the world, havebeenheldback n science,he arts,or com-mercebecause f any extra ime spent n school earningo readand write English.
\fith this successate, he general ublicreaction s to invoke he adage:'If t ain'tbroke,don't fi x it.'
If we take a more scholarly,scientificview of spellingreform, other problems
emerge.One, English s widely spokenwith many dialects.Which dialectwould
be chosenas a standard?Shouldcar be spelledwith an <r> or without? English
speakers an be divided nto two largedialectgroups:one which pronouncesr/in sucha word, the otherwhich doesnot. The present ituation s that words ike
cnr arespelledwith an <r>, and the largegroup of Englishspeakerswho do notpronounce he lil have o learn when to insert the <r> in spelling. f the <r> wereto be omitted in spelling, he largegroup of Englishspeakerswho do pronounce
/r/ would have o learn not to write a consonantwhich they pronounce.Either
woy, he undamental otion of a simpleone-to-one quivalenceetween honemes
and graphemess violated.This problembecomes normous swe go through he
variousother dialectalvariations:most dialectsdistinguish he vowelsof cot and
caught,but manydo not. Shouldpath have he samevowel aspat or palm?Should
solderhavean <l> to reflect he Britishpronunciation,or no <l> to reflect he NorthAmericanpronunciation?Quite simply, the dialectalvariationof Englishmeans
that no transcription ystem an bedevised hich would not requirea largenumber
of arbitrary rulesand considerablememorization or many people,preciselyheproblem hat spelling eformsetout to avoid.
The secondconcern s that evidencerom psychologysuggestshat someof theso-calledrregularities f Englishactuallyserveo facilitate eading, speciallyor the
experiencedeader.Experiencedeadersend o perceive ordsas singleunitsanddo not'read'them etterby etter.Evidenceuggestshatwe processhe nformation
slightly faster when homophonousmorphemesare spelleddifferently:pair-pear-
pare.On the other hand,whenwe see he word well, we have o spenda slightlylonger ime figuringout which morphemes intended.
Phonemic ranscription may be useful to the inex-perienced riter in that thespelling an be accurately eterminedrom thepronunciation. or the reader, ow-
ever,especiallyor the experiencedeader, he English endency f spellingdifferentmorphemes ifferently s useful.
Otherobjectionso spellingeformalsohavesome alidity.Theamountof litera-ture n thecurrentEnglishorthographysenormous.Most people, ertainlyuniversitystudents,would haveto learn to read both systemsor at least 50-7 5 years; or
scholars,nowledge f both systems ou ld berequired or much onger.Moreover,
thepolitical ikelihoodof persuadingll English-speakingountries ndpublishersousea single evised ystems unlikely.Even f thepoliticalwill for revision xisted,it is not unimaginablehat a hodgepodgef new standards ould emerge.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 216/340
English r97
Certainarguments gainst pelling eformare ess ersuasive.ometimes e takefalsepride n difficulty: If I coulddo it , so canyou.' A bad sysrem eednot be per-petuated ust becauset is workable. Having mastere a difficulty,we sometimesascribegreaterattributes o ourselveshan is
warranted:
People
who can spellchrysanthemum orrectlyare of a highermoral characterand havea greater ntel-ligence han thosewho cannot.' We should not forget the purportid sayingofAndrewJohnson,a president f the United States nd a poor speller: lt takesapoor mind not to beable o think of more hanoneway to spella word.' Sometimesthe argument s made hat our currentspelling ystem eepsus in touch with thepast: Writing
a <g> n gnaw keepsus awareof our glorioushistory.'Justexactlyhow much glory arewe talkingabouthere?
In summary,spellingreform in Englishwould offer somehelp to writers andthose earning o read; hepresentsystem, owever,hasvirtuesuseful o theexperi-
enced eader.The extensive ialectvariation, he complex nternational ituaiion,and theenormousamountof materialexisting n the presentsystemwork to makechangempracticable. here s a dangerof fragmenting stable ystem. t present,there s no viablemovemento reformEnglishspelling.
In othercountries,writing reformhasbeensuccessful.or Dutch, he socialsitu-ation was verydifferent.First,Dutch is spokenby many fewer people han English.Second, lthough t is spoken n two countries,he Netherlands nd Belgiu-, ih.teis a strongdesire o maintainuniformity n linguisticmatrerswherever ossible.
The character implificationn China succeededor different easons. lthoughChineses spokenby a very large numberof people,China has been uled by a
strong central government or centurieswith the authority to make significantchanges. he communistgovernment f the People'sRepublicof China imposedenormous hanges n Chinese ociety, f which writing reformwas simply one ofmany. In Tdiwan and elsewhere utside he PRC, Chinese peakers ave resistedcharacter implification, artly out of conservatismnd partlt because f a dislikeof the communistgovernmentn the PRC. However,as more material s printedu.singhe simplified haracters,ndwith the handover f Hong Kongto rhe PRC,aslow drift of otherusers owards he simplified haracrerseemsnevitable.
10.7 Further ReadingLass (1987),Millward 1988),Wakelin 1988)are recent reatments f the historyolEnglish.Englishorthographys specifically iscussedn Carney(1994),Deighton(19721, arkes 1993), cragg 1974), allins 1954), ndVenezky 1 ro, 1999).
10.8 Terms
Anglo-Saxon
creative pellingGreatEnglishVowelShiftJohnson, amuel
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 217/340
198
language cademyMiddleEnglishModernEnglish
Old Englishorthographicialect ariation
reading ronunciation
spelling ronunciation
spelling eform
Webster,Noah
English
10.9 Exercises
1 Give he British/Americanlternative pellingor the followingwords.
(a) program
(b) pyjamas(c) jail
(d) maneuver(e) sulphur(f plow
(g) woolen(h) kerb
(i ) esophagus
2 Why wouldacre and ogrenot be spelledacer andoger n the UnitedStates ike
center and scepter?3 Findexamples howinghreedifferent aysof spelling achof theEnglish owels:
l i e j o u l4 Lookup the standard ronunciationf the followingwords n a dictionary. on-
siderwhy each wouldbe considered n unusualor problematicpelling.Where
two differentpronunciationsre in commonuse, dictionariesypicallygive the
one consideredmorestandardirst.
(a) boatswain(b) brooch(c) cotoneaster(d) diocese(e) dour(f gaoler(g) gunwale(h) stele(i ) victuals
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 218/340
11 The IndianAbugida andOtherAsianPhonographic'S7ritirg
11.1 Backgroundand History
This chapterexamines everal nteresting honographicwriting systems f Asia,particularly hose ound n SouthAsia,but also n Tibet,Mongolia,and Manchuria;we have akeady ooked at kana of Japan and hankul of Koria in chapter4.
SouthAsia s an areaof greatdiversityandcomplexiry. t comprises ix counrries(figure11.1): ndia,Pakistan, angladesh,epal,Bhutan,and Sri Lanka; ndia sexpected oon o have he argest opulationof any nation n theworld. As a resultof the partition in the mid-twentieth entury,British ndia was divided nto threecountrieswith Muslim Pakistanand Bangladeshn the westand east,and mainlyHindu India n the middle.Fourmajor religions ave heir originshere:Hinduism,
Buddhism,Jainism,andSikhism.Christianity ame o Indiaquit. earlyandwasre-inforcedby theEuropean olonizationmuch ater.Moreover, n thesixteenth entury*T*, the Mughals rom Persia rought slam.As we will see, eligion n India haioften been onnectedo the useof differentscripts.
Thereare wo major anguageroups n SouthAsia(figure 1.1and able11.1):Indo-Aryan in the north and Dravidian in the south.Since he nineteenth entury,Englishhasbecome n importantsecondanguageor manypeople hroughout hisarea.The Indian Government ecognizesifteen official languages.Mosi of theselanguagesave heir own script.
Sanskritand its later form Prakrit are the ancestors f the modern Indo-Aryan
languages.anskritwasspoken n northernSouthAsiaaround1500-500 oro. The
Table 11.1 The major languagesof South Asia
Indo-Aryan
Sanskrit
IPrakrit
Sindhi
Marathi
Assamese
UrduPuniabi
Oriya
HindiNepali
Sinhalese
GujaratiBengali
Tamil MalayalamTelugu Kannada
Brahui
Dravidian
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 219/340
200 Indian Abugidaand Other Asian'Writing
Figure 11-.L Languagesof South Asia. The Indo-Aryan languagesare shown in roman
type; the Dravidian in italics
earliestorm of the anguages known asVedicSanskrit,n which the oldestSanskrit
text, a collection f hymns, nownas heRigveda, ascomposed round1200oLD.
A later orm of the anguages known asclassical anskritwhichhasa vast iterature.
Thesuccessoro Sanskritsknown asPrakrit, ollowed by gradualdialectdiversifica-
tion which led to thevarious ndo-Aryan anguages e have oday.
Sanskrithascontinued o be used o the present ay as a language f learning,literature,and religion. t is the sourceof learned ocabularyn SouthAsian an-
guages, speciallyn the non-Muslimareas. t has also been he sourceof much
lexicalborrowing nto other anguages hereBuddhism asbeennfluential, uchas
Tibetan,Burmese, hai,Laotian,and o somedegree hinese ndJapanese.anskrit
still functionsas a language f learningn India muchasLatin did in Europe n the
Middle Ages; here s evena daily newspaper ublishedn Sanskrit.
The Indo-Aryan anguages re spoken n the north (figure11.1),with the excep-
tion of Sinhalese,hich sspokenn SriLanka.As a whole, hemaingroupof Indo-
Aryan languagesorm a dialectcontinuumwithout cleargeographic oundaries
betweenhem.Hindi is the mostwidely spokennative anguage f India.
The Dravidian anguages ere probablydistributed hroughoutSouthAsia in
early imes.The ndo-Aryan peakers,owever, rrivedaround1700-7400olo and
sf'p'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 220/340
Indian Abugidaand Other Asian'Writing 201
conqueredhe northernarea, ushing he Dravidianso the sourh seeigure 11.1)leavingonly smallgroupsof speakersn the norrh.
SouthAsia hashad a strong radition of oral transmission f texts.Evenwhenwriting did appear, he early Hindu
and Buddhist raditionswere wary of writingreligiousmaterial.NeitherHindu nor Buddhist acredextswerewrittendown unrilwriting had beenused airly extensively or other purposes.t is interesring o norethat by the time Sanskrit extswere irst written down around 300 NEw.Sanskrititselfwas no longera living language.
tl.z IndusValleyWriting
Beforewe examine he historyof Sanskritwriting,we must ook at a phenomenon
which developed efore he Indo-Aryansarrived.Plentifularchaologicalevidenceremains f an ndusValleyculturewhichexisted long he ndusRiver(modern-dayPakistan) ating rom about 2500-1900orn. Some 000sites reknown; he argeronessuchasMohenjo-daroand Harappahousedat least40,000peopleeach.
The Induscultureproperbegan n the BronzeAge around 3500 oLD. By 2500oLD' the Induspeoplehad developed omplexcitieswith systemariclanninganda stronglycentralized dministration. treets ere aid out in straight ineswith agood watersupplyand a sewage ystem. he houseswereof bakedbricks.Therewas a fair|y high standardof living with a ratherevendistribution of wealth.
Induswriting developed round2500 oro (Parpola1996).The rexrs hat have
been ound are short,mostlyon stampsealswhichwerepressednto clay.Around1900oLD, the Indusculturecollapsed. he reason or this demises not clear,butthescriptdiedwith theculture.Not longafter he fall of the ndussociery, n Indo-European eopleknown as the Indo-Aryansmigrated nto the IndusValley.
The Indussiteswereessentiallyorgottenuntil the nineteenth enrury.Unfortun-ately,some ites adbeen lunderedor buildingmaterials, nd he Britishdestroyedsomesitesby using ubbleas ballast or over 100 milesof railway rack. The mainexcavations ere n the first half of the twentiethcentury,and unexcavateditesstill remain.
Of the some4000 nscribedndusValleyobjectswith writing, 50 percenrareseal
inscriptions,ypicallysquare, bout an inchon a side,with a lineof text at the topand a picturebelow(plate5). The shortestextsconsistof only onesign; he aver-age engthof a text is about ivesigns; nd the three ongestextshave 4,17, and28 signseach.There s no evidence f word division.
$7eassumehat writing also
occurredon perishablematerial,suchas cloth or bark,which was ost over ime.
71.2.7 Deciphermentof the Indus script
The deciphermentof an unknown languagehas a romantic aura about it and oftenattracts many devoted workers, some luckier or more gifted than others. In evaluat-
ing a proposeddecipherment,a degreeof scepticism s nor out of place.The essentialpart of a successful ecipherment s uncoveringprinciples which apply to al l rexrs na regular manner.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 221/340
202 Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
Plate5 Indusseal rom Mohenjo-daro.National Museum,Karachi.Reproducedwith
permissionrom Harappa.com.
Anyone attempting to decipher the Indus writing faces he worst possibledecipher-
ment task (Bright 1990a). For the Indus script, neither the languagenor the script
is known. No bilingual text exists, such as the Rosetta Stone which helped in
deciphering Egyptian. At the present time, the tentative attempts at decipherment
by Parpola ('1.994,1996lrseemmost plausible; however, evenhe admits that there is
no generalagreement hat any attempts at deciphermentof the Indus writing have
been successful.Possehl 1996) has an extensivediscussionof the various attempts
at deciphering he Indus script.
77.2.2 The languageof the Indus utritingInduswriting hasabout400 symbols; hese avea generally eometric, tick-figurequality o them.Theclear conicnatureof some igns uggestspictographic rigin,
such as thoseappearing o represent person, ish,or bird. The most frequently
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 222/340
Indian Abugida and Other Asian Writing 203
occurringsign,however, s not clear. t appearso be a cup with two handles neachside,but this identifications likely incorrectsince he pottery found in theHarappansitesdoesnot includeany suchvessels. n alternativenterpretationsthat it representshe headof a hornedanimal.
Ligatures ppear o exist, .e.,composite ignscomposed f two differentsigns.A few of these igature parts do not occur as independent ignsand are boundgraphemes. he scriptshowsno development ver ime excepr or stylisticvariation.There s ittle geographicariation n the script hroughout he area n which t wasused.Scholars enerally greehat the directionof writing is right to left.
An inventoryof 400 differentsigns s far too largea number for a purely phon-emic or moraic system.A phonemicsystem s likely to have ewer than fifty sym-bols,and a moraiconearound50-100 symbols.For a completelymorphographicsystem,we would expect,however,a larger igure,perhaps loser o a thousand.Parpola 1994,1996)
concludeshat the nduswriting sysrems most ikelya mixedmorphemic-moraicystem.Of the 400 differentsigns,perhaps ome80-100 aremoraic symbolsrepresenting onsonant*vowel equences, ith the rest beingmorphographic igns epresenting orphemes. mixedmorphemic-moraicystemwould alsobe consistentwith the short engthof texts;a typiial five-sign ext mightcontain wo to four words,suitable or a seal ext containingpossiblyone or twonames lusa title.
Oneof themost mportantquestionsn decipheringhe Induswriting is to deter-mine what languagewas written, or at least o try to limit the choices. he mostlikely candidateanguageor the Induswriting is Dravidian.Today, he Dravidian
languagesremostly ound n thesouthern art of India;however,Brahui s spokenon the Pakistan-Afghanistanorder,and a numberof smallgroupsof Dravidianspeakers re ound scatteredn northern ndia.'S7as
the Induswriting a local invention,or was it borrowed rom someotherwriting system? t the timeof the development f Induswriting around2i00 oLD,the existingwriting systemswere cuneiform n Mesopotamiaand lfestern Persia,Egyptianhieroglyphics,nd Chinese. here s no evidenceor anycultural conractat this time with China or Egypt.Thereseemso havebeenno directcontactatthe time with Mesopotamia, ut the Indus peoplewould likely haveknown aboutcuneiformwriting from their trade with the Gulf area.And evenmore likely, they
would also havebeenawareof writing throughtheir contacs with their westernneighboursn Persia.Knowingas ittle aswe do now about he Induswriting sysrem,we cansay ittle with certainty,but if the writing was borrowed, t is likely that theborrowingwas an exampleof stimulusdiffusion,with only the most tudi-entrtynotion of writing beingborrowed,not the details.
ll.3 Brahmi and Kharosthi
77.3.7 A6okan nscriptions
After the demise f Induswriting around 1700oLD, there s a gap of 1400 yearsbeforewriting againappearedn South Asia. Aside rom the Indusmateriai, heearliestwriting in SouthAsiadates rom the hird centuryoLD.The EmperorA6oka
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 223/340
204 Indian Abugida and Other Asian Writing
Figure 17.2 An example of an A6okan Brahmi inscription
(264-223oLD; a'Jowka/) onvertedo Buddhism nd caused numberof inscrip-
tions o be erectedhroughout he and with textsurgingBuddhistmoralvalues n
his people figure11.2).By A6oka's ime, Sanskritwas no longer spokenalthough t was still a widely
known languageof learning.Peopleordinarily spoke Prakrit, a descendant fSanskrit. he A6okan nscriptions ere n Prakrit,not Sanskrit, resumably o that
theycould bemorewidely understood y thepeople. extswritten n Sanskritater
became uitecommon,but the earliest ate or Sanskrit exts s from around150
NEw,some400 yearsafter the Adokan nscriptions, time when Sanskritwasno
longera spoken anguage. he A6okan extswere written in two somewhat imilar
scripts Brahmiand Kharo$thi,discussed elow.The climateof SouthAsia s not conduciveo preserving riting on bark, palm
leaves, r othersoft material or any length of time. We might reasonably onclude
that writing existedor some100-200yearsbefore he A6okan nscriptions, hich
werewritten on stone.Prior to A6oka's eign,an oral traditionof linguisticanalysis ad arisenn South
Asia. The best-knownwork of this tradition is the grammarof Panini(probably
fourth centuryoro) whichhasdetailed escriptions f thephonetics ndmorphology
of Sanskrit.Palini's work was held n high esteem nd widely studied.However
writing in SouthAsia may havearisen, t is clear hat the writing systemook its
particularshapen the ight of this linguisticanalysis.The Brahmrscriptgraduallychanged hapeover ime with many ocalvariants.
Thesechangeswere eventuallysufficient hat knowledgeof how to readthe early
Brahmi extswas lost. The knowledge f Kharo$thiwas also ost.The early exts
were not deciphered ntil the nineteenth entury,principallyby an Englishman,JamesPrincep.By L900, alargenumberof textshad beenpublished rom all areas
andperiodsof SouthAsianhistory.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 224/340
Indian Abugida and Otber Asian Writing
Table 11.2 SomeBrdhmiand Kharogghi ymbols.The lastthreesymbols howconsonant lusters
205
Brahmi Kharosthi
77.3.2 Thescripts
The early scripts,Kharosthi and Brahmi (/ka'roJti/, /'brohmill, areboth abugidas,atype of writing which we have alreadyencountered n S7.5.An abugida is similar toan alphabet:al l vowels are indicated, but normally, vowels are written as diacritics,and one vowel is not written. The Kharo$thi and Brahmi abugidashave very similar
structures(table Il.2).In both scripts,all consonanrsare written. Vowels generallyhale two allographs: one is a free allograph used only in word-initial position; thlother allograph is bound, and is usedword-medially and -finally. Further, the vowellal, the most common vowel in Sanskrit, is no t written in word-medial and -final
position; the absenceof any vowel diacritic predicts the presenceof la/.Thus, la lhas only one allograph, the one occurring in word-initial position. The Indian tradi-tion considers /a/ to be inherent in the consonanr symbol. Vowels, other than shortlal, are shown by diacritics on the preceding consonanr (table 11.21.Consonanrclustersare written as ligatures. The abugida came to dominate Indian writing andremains the organizing principle of the indigenous scripts of South Asia today.
The question ariseswhether the Kharosthr and Brahmi scriptscould be analysedas a moraic systemrather than as an abugida. Recall that in a true moraic system,such as Japanesehiragana, each symbol representsone mora; however, the various
I'
tI'
,
vb
II
:
1
1l
b)
?
e
+++A
,(
,L
IrL
o
d
o-
4
lr
ka
ki
ku
ta
ti
tu
ta
r i
ru
va
vi
vu
tva
rva
rvi
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 225/340
206 Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
hiragana ymbols aveno internalstructure. or example,he symbolsepresenting
anyparticularconsonant r vowelshareno graphic eature.Bycontrast, hesymbols
of the Brahmiabugidado havean internalstructure;or example,he symbolsor
/ka ki ku/ all share he symbol , and he symbolsor /ki ti ri l al |share he diacritic'.This difference f internalstructures preciselyhe difference erween moraic
system nd an abugida cf. he discussion f Cree n chapter13).
In the igatures,he irst consonants writtenabove he secondseetva rva vil in
table l.2). The firstconsonants fully formed,and the secondmay be somewhat
attenuated.n earlyBrahmi, he ligaturesaregenerallyransparent;n Kharogqhi,
therearesomeopaque igatures cf.<tva> n table71.2)whosesources not clear.
In some nstances,he consonantsmay be written in the reverse rder; thus, the
same ymbolmay ambiguouslyepresentsralor hsal.
11.3.2.1,KHARO$THI
The Kharogqhi cript existedprimarily in the northwestern art of SouthAsia(northernPakistan nd eastern fghanistan) here t was used o write the Prakrit
dialect nown asGandhari.n this area,Kharogqhiswell attestedrom theA6okan
period to the third centuryNEw,when it was replacedby Brnhmi, eavingno
descendants.haro$thi s probablyslightlyolder than Brahmi(Salomon 998).
Kharogghrmaterial has also been ound from the secondand third centuries
Nrw in the Tarim Basinof westernChina (Xinjiang-Uighur utonomousRegion),
Uzbekistan, nd neighbouring reas,whereKharogqhimay havesurviveduntil the
eighthcenturyNnw (Salomon 995).Kharosghis written from right to left. In this script, the free vowel allographs
wereall variants f the freeallograph f <a>;e.g., hefree orm for <i>was ormed
by adding he diacriticof <i> to thefreeallograph f <a>.Kharosghl nderspecified
the phonological ystem y not distinguishinghe contrastive hortand ong vowels.
1,1.3.2.2BRAHMI
Brahmiwas used o write Prakrit,and later Sanskrit,n mostof India outside he
northwesternKharosthi area.Ultimately, it is the ancestorof all Indic scripts,of
Tibetanwriting, and of most of the scriptsof southeast sia.Generally,heBrahmisymbols remadewith linesof uniform width, without serifs
or headlines; achsymbol s distinctwith little tendency owardscursiveness.n
appearance,rahml smonumental ndmore ormal han hemorecursiveKharogghi.
Brahmi s written from left to right, and the freeand bound vowelallographs o not
physically esemble achother.Even hough the later variantsof Brahmrwere adapted o the variousspoken
languages,he cultural mportance f Sanskritmeant hat all the scriptswere con-
servativen retaining he ability to write Sanskrit.Eventhe scriptsadapted or
Dravidian anguages ith differentphonological nventoriesmaintained he symbolsfor writing Sanskrit, he notableexceptionbeing he Tamil scriptwhich followed
Dravidianphonology.On the one hand, his conservatism aintained relatively
consistentelationship f language nd writing for all of Indiagenerally ndcreated
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 226/340
Indian Abugida and Otber Asian Writing 207
therea commonculturalunderstandingf how a scriptworks.On the other hand,this oyalty o conservatismasmade he relationship f eachspoken anguage ndits writing morecomplicated.
71.3.3 Origin of Kharo4lhi and Brdhmi
The origin of writing systems resents ertain nteresting roblems,not the leastof which is the obvious act that little can be known aboui writing
.beforewriting
itselfexists.As we saw n chapter1, writing systemsomeabout n variousways:independentnventionof writing, borrowingof a writing system, r the develop-ment of a new script.nflewill investigatehe history of Kharosthi and Brahmi inlight of thesemethods.
To show hat writing was ndependentlynvented s largelya negative ndeavour.
One mustshow hat for thescript n question ny similarities etweenhe shape fits symbolsor theconventionsor using hemand thoseof anyother wriring ryit.-canonly haveemerged y chance. urther, ulturalcontactat therelevantime withany existingwriting sysremmusrbe ruledout.
To show that one writing systemwas borrowed from another,one must showthat culturalcontactexisted t theappropriareime.Thisalonewould allow for thepossibilityof stimulusdiffusion.To show a closerdegree f borrowing,one musrshow hat similaritiesn theexternal hape f symbols r in theconveniiotr f theirusearegreater han randomchancewould allow.
In manycases, ith theevidencevailable,t isnot possibleo demonsrratelearly
whethera writing systemwasborrowedor independentlynvented. he Indiansitu-ation is frustrating n this regardwith its paucityof early historical nformation.
Most scholars gree hat Kharosthi s derived rom Aramaic(table11.3):'AconnectionbetweenKharogthiand the Semiticscripts. . , particularlyAramaic,hasbeen vident o scholarsrom an earlyperiod'(Salomon g98,p. 52i. For manyof the symbols, ormal similarities an be found betweenKharoggiiand Aramaic.The symbols or Kharosthl b g v k n r t/ seem easonably lose o their Aramaiccounterparts. tructuralsimilarities xist as well. In Aramaic,as in other Semiticwriting, only consonants rewritten; vowelsarenot usually ndicated.TheKharosthipracticeof not writing short lal is reminiscent f this Aramaicconvention.Cul-
turally, Kharosghrwas a local script of the northwest.,an area which from thesixth centuryoLD was controlledby the Persianempirewhich usedAramaicasits chanceryscript. People iving in rhe area where Kharogrhidevelopedwouldhave been amiliar with Aramaicwriting. Despite ts Aramaic beginnings,t isobvious hat the internalstructureof Kharosthihasbeen horoughly ewotked naccordance ith the linguistic heoryof the Sanskritgrammarians. or example,the symbol nventory its Prakritclosely,and the orderof the symbols ollowsihelogical phoneticorder worked out by the Indian grammarians. Note the sytematicordering f stops n table 1.4.)
The originof Brahmihasproveda moredifficultquestion o answer.There s no
direct nformationabout tsearlyhistory.TheA6okaninscriptionsppearn the mid-third centuryolo with a fully developed riting system. he pre-A6&.n (composedorally, written down later) religiousand linguistic exts havebeen nterpreted s
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 227/340
208 Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
Table 11.3 Comparison of Aramaic and early Indic symbols
Semitic sound Phen. shape Aramaic Indic sound Kharostht Brahmt
tl
trnt
t
o
Eb
oJ
+J
U
I
rt
L
d
1
I
A
A
fl
ul
?5
z1
Y
+n'),
4
U
I
P
f'tf
q
I
n,
a
b
g
d
h
v
ish
th
v
k
I
m
n
s
e
p
c
kh
r
6
t
x91t4
41
lR
6
1
IL
t
tIa,l
,^
lq
vn
+4(
4
aY
TE
&
z)
vnY
!F
o7
h/
I4
wf
7
b
g
d
h
w
zh
t
v
k
I
m
n
tS
s
p
ts (q)
q
r
S (T)
t
having a few references o writing, but they are not clear. Somecommentariesby
early Greek visitors to India mention writing, but they have conflicting comments
about the existenceof writing. The presenceof the Indus writing complicates the
situation further: is there a relationship between t and Brahmi?
No other writing system(except Kharosthi) was in use n the third century oLD
which offers a transparent resemblance to Brahmi. The diacritic way of writing
vowels is strongly reminiscent of the way they are written in the Ethiopic languages,
but this feature of Ethiopic writing seems o have been borrowed from an Indian
writing system,not the other way around.
Various theoriesabout the origin of Brahmi havebeenproposed.The most import-
ant of these are consideredbelow in turn.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 228/340
Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
11.3.3.1 BRAHMI TSRX INDIGENOUS NDIAN INVENTION
209
The ndigenousheoryholds heview hat writing in rhe orm of Brdhmlwas nventedin SouthAsia ndependentlyf the ndusValleywriting,
Semiticwriting,Chinese, rany otherwriting system. hisviewwasoriginallyadvanced y Cunningham 1877),who thought that Brahmi had developed rom an earlier pictographicscript. Noevidence xists,however, or an earlierpictographic cript n SouthAsia.
More recently, omehaveargued hat the Brahmiscriptwas invented n Indiaduring the periodof A6oka.These heories re speculativiand not based n evid-ence Salomon 995).
Even hosewho are not persuaded y the indigenousheoryagree hat Brahmiwasthe resultof considerableeworking n SouthAsia n light of the phonologicalframeworkdeveloped y the early ndian inguists Bright r990a).
11.3.3.2 BRAHMI IS BRSE,D N THE INDUS VALLEY WRITING
\fith the discovery f Induswriting in the earlypart of the twentiethcentury,somescholars,mostrecentlySircar I97I), haveattemptedo show hat the Indui Valleywriting is theancestor f Brahmi;however,Parpola, leading cholaron rhe ndusscript,says hat there s 'no positiveevidencewhatsoeveror a [Indus]origin ofthe Brahmlscript' (1,994, . S7).Thishypothesis asbeenwidely rejectedoithreereasons. t present,we havenot decipheredhe nduswriting system; nycomparisonbetweent and Brahmicanbe madeonly on the shape f symbols.Compariions f
thissort arevery shakybecausef the high ikelihood hat somethingn onesetofmarkswill outwardly esembleomethingn a differentsetof marks.A .o-p"risonof the symbolsof Induswriting and Brahmr evealsno obviousconnection hatcould not be due o coincidence.
A second ifficulty s that mostscholarsbelievehat the Indo-Aryanswere nor yetin SouthAsiauntil after he Indussociety ollapsed.
Third, if the Indo-Aryansborrowed he Induswriting sysrem,here s a very ongperiod between1700 ot-o and 300 oro with no writing. The bestexplanationwhich hasbeenput forward or thisgap s that writing during hisperiodwasdoneon perishablematerialswhich havedisappeared. right pointsout thar this is not
veryplausible.Given hat Induswriting waswidely doneon stoneand other hardmaterials,t is likely that the Indo-Aryanswould havecontinued his tradition.The fact that the indigenoushypotheses escribedn this and the preceding
sectionhavebeenheld primarily by SouthAsianscholars, nd rejected ener lly byscholars rom elsewhere,aiseshe awkward question f patriotismover evidence.Somedoubt alwaysarisesabouta theorywhich tends o glorify the ancestors f theproponentof the theory.This scepticism verlooks he very fine scholarship ndsensitivityo evidencehat someof thoseproposing he indigenous r Indushypo-theses bout he originof Brahmihaveshown.At times, oncern asbeen *presiedthat outsiders iewSouthAsia hrough oreigneyes nd from a foreignperspective,
undervaluingts realaccomplishmentsnd,consciously r unconsciomly, ant toseea European onnectiono the origin of Indianwriting. Thisposition,however,overlooks he fact that all scholarsof Europeanbackgroundposit a non-Europeanorigin for their own writing.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 229/340
2t0 Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
Issues uchas theseusuallysettle hemselves,ot by a sudden, lear-cut ictory
on rheacademic attlefield, ut by a gradualdriftingof the roops nto onecampor
the other.At the moment, he non-indigenousiew seemso be winning.
11.3.3.3 BRAHMI IS BESEDON A SEMITICMODEL
The notion that Brahmr s basedon a Semiticmodelgoesback to the nineteenth
century Salomon19981. ccording o this theory, he Indo-Aryanswereawareof
Semiticwriting in the west,borrowed he system, nd thoroughlyreworked t with
Brahmias he result.
The Indo-Aryanshad ample opportunity to learn of Aramaic writing from the
conracr rom the sixth centuryorn with the Persian mpire n the northwest.A
few of the A6okan nscriptionsn this areawerewritten in Aramaic.However,a
comparison f the ettershapes f Aramaicand Brahmi table11.3)doesnot showenough ormal similarity n the symbols o provideverypersuasivevidence.
Bright (1996) and Salomon 1996) have stressedhe typologicalconnections
between he Aramaicabjad and the Brahmi abugida.As we haveseen,with the
Aramaicabjad, onsonantsrealwayswritten,but vowelsarewrittenonlysporadic-
ally. In the Brahmiabugida, he consonantsarealwayswritten and form a primary
class f graphemes ith thevowelswritten asdiacritics.
Salomonsuggestshat the Semiticsystem f not writing vowelswas continued
for Sanskrit al, he most commonvowel,andthe othervowelswere ndicated n a
secondaryashion eeping he consonantsrimary.He argueshat it would behard
to arriveat sucha system tartingcompletely rom scratch, r from a morphographicsystem.
According to rhe theory of a Semiticorigin, a possiblescenario or the intro-
ductionof writing is that during he period n which Gandhara elongedo Persia,
an Indo-Aryan speaker bservedhe way in which Aramaicwas written down. This
persondecidedo apply he same rincipleso Sanskrit r Prakrit.Thisadaptation,
however, equireda largernumberof symbols han was available n the Aramaic
abjad.Unnecessaryramaic etterswereredeployedwith differentvalues,although
often retainingsomephonetic similarity. For example, rom the Indo-Aryanpoint
of view,Aramaichad two symbols aph andqoph available or lkl. One of these
wasused or Indo-Aryan kl and heother or /kh/. Other extensions eremadebytinkeringwith symbols or relatedsounds.
Within SouthAsia, the existing inguistic analysisof the phonologyof Sanskrit
recognizedhe aksaraor open syllableas a primary unit. For the adapterof the
alphabet,herewas a strongcorrespondenceetweenhe unit written by a Semitic
letterandan Indo-Aryan kgara. he inguistic nalysis f Sanskrit, owever, learly
recognized oth consonants nd vowels. n order o preservehe principle hat one
akqaraequalsone symbol,andyet fully to acknowledgehe vowelsof the linguistic
analysis, iacriticswere added o the consonant ymbols or all the vowelsexcept
short lal. Further, he symbolswere orderedaccording o the logical sequence f
the inguisticanalysis ndweregivennew ogicalnames ased n their Indo-Aryanpronunciation.
Differences etweenSemiticand Indo-Aryanwriting are o be explained s fol-
lows:(1)the borrowerdid not feelconstrainedo maintain he exactshapes f the
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 230/340
Indian Abugida and Other Asian Writing 211
Semitic ymbols possiblyhe shapes erenot learned r rememberederfecily; 2)Indo-Aryanhad moreconsonantshan Aramaicand somenew symbots rad o beinvented; 3) the rulesgoverning he Aramaicuseof the symbolswere horoughlyreworked n accordancewith the principlesof the Indian linguistic traditio.rr thitinvolved primarily maintaining he akgaraas the primary unit of writing, and thediacritic ndicationof vowels; 4) the directionof writing was changedo left toright, a not uncommonrypeof change; alk (1993)views his change spossiblyGreek nfluence.
On balance, directSemiticorigin for Brahmlseems ossible, ut nothing ikeclearevidenceor this hypothesis xists.
11.3,3.4 BRAHMI TSENSEDON KHAROSTHI
A final possibility s thatBrahmi is derived rom Kharosthi.This theory has beenadvanced y Falk (1993)andconsidered t leastplausible y Salomon 1998).The
structureof the two scripts s virtually identical:particularly, the manner n whichvowelsand consonant lustersare written. The most obviousdifferences re thedifferentdirectionsof writing, the absencen Kharosthiof differentgraphemesorshortand ong vowels,and generally,he differentshapes f the symbois.
As we haveseen,Kharosthl sgenerally greedo havebeenderived rom Aramaic;further,Kharoqqhi eemso haveappeared omewhat arlier han Brahmi.A possiblescenario or Brahmi is that, after Kharosthi emerged n the northwest, he sysremwas aken o the northeasternrea,whereseveralmodifications eremade.Possibly
a conscious ffort was made o producea different-appearingcript,possiblywithsome eferenceo Aramaic etters.Or , Brahmi s possiblya revisionof an earlierscript bringing r more into line with Kharosthi.
In my view, the Kharosthi hypothesisseemshe most arrracriveof the existingpossibilities.The advantage f this theory is that it explainsrhe grearsimilaritybetweenKharoqthi and Brahmi, and it requiresno great leap of faith to -oulfrom Aramaic to Kharosthi to Brahmi. The additional letters n Brahmr can beseen s he resultof correcting ertain laws n the earlierKharosthi.Thechange fdirection is not uncommon n the history of writing. The different shapesof theindividual lettersmay have been he result of an intentionaI effort to disringuish
the two scripts.
77.3.4 Later deuelopnent of Brd.hmt
Although Kharosthidied out, Brahmrsurvived o becomehe ancestor f all theindigenous cripts f SouthAsiaaswell as hoseof TibetandmanySoutheast siancountries.Tithin SouthAsia, his ypeof development asevolutionary, erymuchparallel o the common diversification f dialects nto distinct langu"g.t. Localvarieties f the Brahmiscriptemerged nd were dentifiedwith localvarieties f thespoken anguage.Just as the varieties f the spoken anguage volvedoften into
mutuallyunintelligibleanguages,o thevarieties f scriptdiverged ntil theyoftencould no longerbe recognizedby ll readers.In general,al l the scriptsof India maintained he samebasicsrrucrureas the
original Brahmi.This was partly due to the fact that the scriptswerecommonly
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 231/340
2r2 Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
used o write not only the contemporaryanguage, ut alsoSanskrit.Theprestige f
Sanskrit ctedas a strongconservativeorceon the evolutionof the scripts. ustas
we saw with Chinese hat, although he shapes f characters hanged ver time,
the basicstructure f writing did not change, o also n India, he nternalstructureof the variouswriting systems tayedmuch the same,but the shapes f the letters
changed, ometimes rastically.
In general,henorthern criptsmaintained moderate implicity, ut thesouthern
scriptsbecame uiteornateand elaborate. y and arge, henorth-southdivision n
scripts orrespondso the dividebetweenhe Indo-AryanandDravidian anguages;
however, he Sinhalesecriptof Sri Lankabelongso the southern roupalthough
the anguages Indo-Aryan.
Hindi and Urdu are sometimes escribed s a single anguage ividedby two
scripts. ypically,Urdu is spokenby Muslims iving n Pakistan nd swritten with
theArabic script,whereasHindi is spokenby Hindus iving n Indiaand s writtenwith the Indian Devanigan script.For ordinary conversation, owever, here s
almostno difference etweenhe wo languages;heyaremutually ntelligible.But,
for more academic urposes,he two languages iverge omewhat inceUrdu has
chosents learnedvocabulary rom Persian r Arabic (consider ow Englishuses
Latin andGreek or thispurpose)whereasHindi hasborrowedwords rom Sanskrit
for its learned ocabulary.Deuanagaru,iscussedn detail ater in this chapter, s the scriptused or writ-
ing Hindi, Marathr,and Nepali.Today,Sanskrit s usuallywriften in Deuanagart.
Occasionally,anguagesf Indiawith no traditionalscriptof their own arewritten
in Deuanagarl.The Gujarati script s used or the Gujaratiand Kacchi anguage. he Gujarati
script is historicallya cursive orm of Deuanagart, evelopedor keepingbusiness
records nd or personal orrespondence.n thepast,more ormalwriting in Guiarati,
such as literary and scholarly exts, were done n the Deuanagarl cript.Since he
beginning f printing n the early1800s, he Gujaratiscripthasbeenusedgenerally
for prosewriting although verse s still sometimes rinted in Deuanagarl oday.
(Texts n Sanskrit renormallywritten in Deuanagart.)Mistry (1,996)eports hat
the earliesthandwrittendocument n Gujaratl dates rom 1592, and the earliest
printedrecord s an advertisementrom 1797.
Bengalis spokenby Hindus n the'!(est Bengal tateof Indiaandby Muslims nBangladesh. lthough many anguagespokenby Muslimshavecome o bewritten
in theArabicscript e.g.,Persian, rdu), heBengalianguageBangla) ontinueso
be written with the Bengaliscript by all speakers. he reason or this is that during
theperiodof Muslim dominationn India, ather hanwriting Bengalin theArabic
scripr,most writing was n the Urdu language sing he Arabic script.The Bengali
script s alsoused or Assamese, anipuri, and someMunda languages.
The Punjabi anguage s spoken n northern India and in Pakistan. n India,
Punjabispeakersregenerallymembers f the Sikhreligionand use he Gurmukhi
(/'gurmaki/) script for writing Punjabi. n Pakistan,Punjabi s sometimes ritten
in theArabic script.However, he situation here s oftenbilinguallydiglossic, ithMuslim Punfabispeakers ommonlywriting in a different anguage, rdu, in the
Arabicscript.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 232/340
lndian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing 213
Oriya s themajor anguage f Orissa tate.TheOriya script s used or the Oriyalanguage swell as for the numerous ther minority languagespoken n Orissa.The tradition of writing Sanskrit n the Oriya script is coniinu.d th.t. as well.Although he Oriyascript smoreclosely onnectedo the norrherngroup
of scripts,the largecurved inesaresimilar o those ound n the sourhern cripts.The Kannadaand Telugu scriptsare very similar; they ate ured to write the
Dravidian anguages annadaandTeluguof south ndia.The Malayalamscript sused or the Malayalam languageof south India. This script is characterized ythe largenumberof specialigature orms.
The Tamil script s used or the Tamil language poken n south India and inSri Lanka.TheTamil script s unusualamong he Indianscripts n two ways.First,it follows he Dravidianphonology, nd n its basic orm ."nnot beused oi writingSanskrit. o do this,several dditional ettersareused.Second,he useof ligatureshas
beenalmostabandoned ith the result hat the script s morean alphaber hanan abugida.The Sinhalesecript is used n Sri Lanka for the Sinhaleseanguage, n Indo-
Aryan.languagepoken n the far southof the SouthAsian area.The languagesstronglydiglossic. he distinctionof voiceless nd aspirated topsand oi voicedand breathyvoicedstopshas been ost, but the differentsymbols or thesesoundshavebeen etainedn writing.
Apart from the major borrowingof the Brahmiscriptby languagesf SoutheastAsia which areconsidered elow in $11.5,a considerable umberof versions fIndianwriting areusedor havebeenused or various anguagescrosshe south-
eastern reaof Asia,particularlyn the slands, tretching s ar as he Philippines.In Japan,a script derived rom Brahmi,known as siddbamor siddhamatTka,susedby someBuddhistsor religious urposes stevens 995).
11.4 Deuand.ganas Applied to Sanskrit
To illustrate he Indianabugida n moredetail,we will look at theDeuanagart criptasapplied o Sanskrit.Deuanagaris the script mosroften used n modern imes orwriting Sanskrit lthough raditionallySanskritwaswritten n a varietyof localscripts.
Deuandgarl s alsocurrently used or writing Hindi, Marathi, and Nepali, and onoccasionor writing other anguages.t is the mostwidely usedscript n India andgenerally erves s hedefault ndianscript.The nameDeuanagariis ot entirelyclear.The script softencalledNagari,whichseemso mean of thecity';Deuanagarutwouldthenbe of thedivinecity,nagarlof thegods'.The relationshipo 'city' is uncertain.
The variousabugidas f SouthAsiaall derive rom Brahmiand havecontinuedto function in much the sameway. The structurewe find for Deuanagarls, by and7arge,he same or all the scriptsof SouthAsia.
77.4.7Sanskrit
phonology
The phonemesf Sanskrit regiven n table11.4 n the order n which heynormallyappear n grammars.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 233/340
2'1,4 Indian Abugidaand Otber Asian Writing
Table L1.4 The phonemes of Sanskrit, in the traditional order
The romanization cheme sedhere s frequently sed or SouthAsian anguages;
the order of thephonemess the onecommonlyused n SouthAsiaandreflectshe
ancient rammaticalradition.Vowelsoccur,both short and ong.Superscriptars
indicate ength.The subscript ircles ndicatesyllabic not voiceless!)onsonants.Thus, he vowels gg!J/ arephonetically yllabic onsonants;he vowels il and ll
occuronly rarely.Longsyllabic [/ doesnot occur n anyrealSanskritword; it was
addedby the grammarianso make he vowel repertoire ymmetrical. he sound/rir/ is pronounced sa homorganic asal,or it nasalizeshe preceding owel; lh l
represents regularvoicelessh], whereas hl indicates reathyvorced hl.Note that the stopsareorderedaccordingo theirplaceof articulation rom back
to front. The voicelessspirated tops kh Jh ntnpn]areromanized s kh ch gh hph/. The breathyvoicedstops g dl { d bl are romanizedas gh jh dh dh bh/. The
subscript ot under t 4 qr$ U dho'ils'a etroflexplaceof articulation;without the
dot, /t d n s Il aredental.The retroflex ateral f/ is found only in Vedic texts; ater,
it is replaced y l4l.The symbol[fr] is palatal,and [n] is velar.The postalveolar
fricative J] is romanized s 5/.
A complicated et of morphophonemic lternations, nown as sandhi,operateacrossmorpheme oundaries nd sometimes venacrossword boundaries.
77.4.2 Devanigan utriting systetn
The ancientBrahmi script was developedor Sanskritas described arlier.As
a successorcript to BrahmT,Deuanagarlcontinues his tradition and follows thephonological tructureof the anguage uiteclosely.Thereareseveral mall egional
variations n Deuanagari hich are describedmore ully in section11.4.2.5below.Deuanagarl s written left to right.
The graphemesf the writing system table11.5)aregiven n the samearrange-mentas he soundsn table1,1..4;his arrangements used or the orderingof words
in dictionaries s well. The series f svmbolss known as he uarnamala fulTlfoT.
i i
r Tl lo o
o a u
a e
r io o
e a i
kc
ttp
v5
h
k h sc h j
s h dt h dp h b
n
fr+n
m
( ! )
ghjh
dhdhbh
v
h
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 234/340
Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
Table 11.5 The basic symbols of Deuanagart
215
a
3t
f
4
e
q
ng
shET
g
TT
k
4
j i h n
G T A S T
c
q
+uT
r r h de 6 g
n
;T
t
d
m
q
p
g
I
ovq
sTT
5ET
u
s
u
g
i i
= +q P
I Tr l
; ;c ' c
a
3tT
o
fr
r4,
ai
t
h
au
3nl
kh
(E
ch
ct
rh
g
ph
EF
r
{
Iq
dh
a
dh
sI
bh
t{
v
Et
h
€
d
(
b
G[
rr.4.2.1 vo\rELS
Vowel graphemestable11.6)have wo allographs: ne ree,and the otherbound.At the beginning
9f an orthographicunit (seeak;ara below), he free allograph sused;otherwise,he boundallograph s used, .e., he vowel swritten
"r"
dir.titi.
on the preceding onsonant.Table 11.5 shows he freeand boundallographs nd the boundallographwiththe consonant F<k>, forminga complexsymbol.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 235/340
276 lndian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
Table 11.6 The vowel symbols of Deuanagarl
Bound
uith <k>
Free Bound Bound
uith <k>
ka
4
a
3t
ki
tu
kr
T
kl
3
ka i
*
't
a
3nT
i
s\a
I
sr4
!F[
ai
t
ka
ZFT
ki
fr
ku
T
kau
d
ku
4\t
kg
q
u
g
rT
!q
e
q
kl
T
ke
+ko
dau
do
d\T
Note the following points about vowels:
The short vowel lal is written only at the beginning of an ofthographic unit
(akpara);otherwise, it is not overtly indicated. The absenceof any vowel diacritic
indicates the short lal: V <p> (=/pal). To indicate the absenceof a followingshort lal,the diacritic uirama, a short subscriptdiagonal line (. . ), is added below
the consonanr symbol: {. /p/, ( /t/, fi. /map/, thus indicating the absenceof a
vowel at the end of a word.
The diacritic for lil preced,eshe consonant symbol: $ lpil. The diacritics for
le ailare written above the consonant symbol: Q lpel'4 lpail' The diaclitics for
la T o aul follow the consonantsymboltW tpil, fr /ii/, fr /po/, fi /pau/.
Note that the rop portionsof the diacritics or lol and laul are he sameas the
diacritics for lel and al, but placedabove he verticalstroke of lal.
The diacritics for lu
"f f ! ll are_writtenbelow the consonantsymbol:$
lpul,!/pt/, Y /pf ,l lpll,E/pl/, Elpll. Note that the diacriticsor /u [/ differonly in ih.it orientation.As mentionedabove, he vowels l Ll are rare,and lll
doesnot reallyoccur.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 236/340
Indian Abugida and Other Asian Writing 2 1 7
3 certain special orms of consonant vowel exist:e.g.,d /ru/, F hul, e ldrl,Taldl l ,E /hg/.
4 with somevowels,^6l takesthe allographicshape : e.g., liEl, { /su/,{ /6[ /; but ttT 5a/, rr lSil.
11.4.2.2 CONSONANTS:SINGLECONSONANTSANDCONSONANT CLUSTERS
A single onsonant, sopposedo a consonant luster, s written with the symbolsasgiven n table11.5.
A consonant luster s written as a ligature,with the individualgraphemes fthe cluster ombined nto a singlesymbol.Frequenrly, pecial llographs re used;often,a verticalstroke s omitted rom an initial grapheme. or.*"-f1., for .pyr,
theverticalstrokeof e <p> s removed o give he allographu; this is th.o .ornbinedwith ET<y> to give he igatureET<py>.A ligature s treatedas a singleunit with respecto vowels.The voweldiacritics
areattachedo thisconjunctsymbolexactlyas o a single onsonant ymbol.Super-script and subscriptvowelsare written aboveor below the last elementof theligature:
q r z 1 T f u u f r q q<py> <pya> <pyi> <pyi> <pyu> <pyt>(- lpyal)
q q<pys> <pyr>
q d u f t
<pyai> <pyo> <pyau>
qTI
<py!> <pye>
The complete set of ligatures is quite large. Note that some of the clustersoccuronly across syllable or word boundaries (word boundaries were not indicated inearly texts). Selectedexamples are given below to show the various merhods offorming ligatures. In some cases,more than one form is found in free variation forthe samecluster: e.g.,E or 9 <cc>.
(a) Horizontal combination:
ct <gv>
€ <cch>
(b) vertical combination.The symbolsmay be adjustedn shapeorsmaller ertical pace:
g 'ji'
4 or ?f;' kk>g <[Pg <ddh>
to fit the
q + q
4 + 4e + e
A + e {
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 237/340
278 Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
(c ) \[hen <r> occurs as the first consonant of a cluster, it is not written 25 {, but
as a diacritic'
above the final consonant; this allograph of <r> is known as
repba:
f <rr>
d <rih'
(d) It/hen <r> occurs as a non-initial consonant of a cluster, t is not written xs {,
bu t as a diagonal stroke <,> below the first consonant:
q <gr>q <nr>
(e) \rith some ligatures, he shapeof the free allograph is altered slightly:
fi <kt>
f, <tt>g <dd>
(f ) Diphones.Two symbols,<jfr> and .kst, have diphones,whereone symbol
representswo phonemes:
n <ifr>
fl <ks>
Ligatures made of more than two consonants are constructed according to the
sameprinciples as setout above for two-consonant ligatures.Note that many of the
clusters occur onlv acrosssvllable or word boundaries.
rq .gdhyttW <nsmy>q <nkhy>q <cchv>
S <flcm>
rat <ttv>ql
. <stry>
€ <rrsny>
11.4.2.3 AI($ARA: THE ORTHOGRAPHIC SYLLABLE
The term aksara is used to define an orthographic syllable in Sanskrit. Each initial
vowel symbol alone or eachconsonant symbol with its vowel diacritic plus any final
modifier constitutes an akparAor orthographic syllable. Consonant clusters are com-
bined orthographically into ligatures. A ligature counts as a single consonant, and
thus a ligature with its vowel diacrit ic also formsanakpara. Anakgara consistsof
any number of init ial consonants or none)+ a vowel (= (C)V).
?T?T
a
q
rt
ef + zt
{ T + r T + qs + t { ) qq ( . 6 + u [ )
q + 1 + qi T + d ) + e tq + q + { + qi t + { T + ; T + q
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 238/340
Indian Abugida and Other Asian Writing 21 9
Frequently, n akgara s also a phonologicalsyllable.For example, he word/bahumana\l 'esteem'is written c|.$rtl;T:.Divided into phonologicalsyilables, hisword hasexactly he samedivisionaswhen t is divided nto akgira. (Theuisarga sconsideredo be the codaof a syllable.) o dividea word intoakga1as,
heoir.t,a.re bsolutelymaximized, venoverword boundaries; nly uisarga syllable-final[h]) andanusuaravowelnasalization) repermitted n the coda.
phonological yllables /ba-hu-ma-na\/ak;aras orthographicyllables) <ba-hu-md-nah> q -g -rTT n:
However,with a word suchas kurmah/ 'tortoise'qdt, .orrtaininga consonantcluster, he phonological yllables o not correspondo the akgarai.In linguisticterms' he maximizationof onsets or aksara.siolates he phonotactic onstraints
of thesyllables.
phonological yllables /kur-mah/ak;aras orthographic yllables) .k[-rmah, T - d,
11.4.2.4 \r/oRD DTVISION
In earlywriting,word divisionswerenot indicated.Today,word divisionsn Sanskritare ndicatedwhere his doesnot changehe way the eitersarewritten. Textspre-pated or learners ometimeshowal l word divisionsby usinga uirama S11.4.2.1)
under inalconsonants.The ollowing ines rom a well-knownSanskrit toryabouta KingNala llusrrate
word division.First he transliteration nd translation regiven, hen he text withall words divided using the uirama if necessary, nd finally the rexr as writtenwithout word divisions.
asidraja,nalo nama,virasenasutoal iupapanno uqair stai, flpavan,a6vakovidallatisthanmanujendralarhmtrdhni devapatir atha
'Therewasa king, Nala by name, he strongsonof the army of heroes, ndowedwith desired irtues,handsome,killedwittr horses. e stoodsuperior o princes,justas ndra o gods.'
Iflith word divisions
snfr( rr{r rd;rq ft+{g* {dsqcriRq}
Without word divisions
sTFdstrgilqrqT$S ffiq vw w
Note the differencesbetweenthe versionswith and without word divisions:
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 239/340
220 lndian Abugida and Other Asian Writing
Line 1( IT = qr ldral
Line 2
Line3
1rT = =T lnmal
Tq = { fua l
11.4.2.5 ALTERNATIVE FORMS
Over time, a few graphemes avedeveloped eographic llographs, nown as theBombayandNorthern(or Calcutta) orms.Currentgovernment olicy avours he
Bombay ariants.The moreobviousdifferencesre shownbelow.Sanskrit ndHindi
havebeenwritten with both variantsdepending n the locationand preferencef
the author or printer.The Maraqhi anguages written with Bombayvariants,and
the Nepali anguage ith the Northern variants.
Bombay Northern Bombay Northern
initial<a> 3il q <ih> A $
initial <a> 3ilT qI <q> uT {T
< k g > f l ? . k $ y t H A. tkq t f f i G [ . ihy t f l tR
. jjht W eF <nm> urT {FT
<qq> wT {I
II.4.2.6 NUMERALS
The numeralshavespecial orms. Thereare also specialBombayand Northern
alternative orms for somenumerals. t is interesting o note that what are called'Arabicnumerals'n the.West rereally ndian n originand n theArabic anguage
arecalledlndiannumerals'.
1 , 2 4 5 6 7 8 9 0Bombayforms: t a ? 8 q E I C q o
Northernforms: t a A 8 q q t9 E t o
71.4.2.7 OTHER SYMBOLS
Anusuara vowelnasalization)swritten asa diacriticdot above hemaingrapheme:
4 lkaml. A dotted-half-moondiacritic is sometimes sed nsteadof anusuara o
show nasalizatio.t . The syllable orh/, sacredq Hinduismand in Buddhism,snormallywritten as3b.Thii is an older orm of fr bil.
Theuisargasyllable-finalh]) s written as wo dots; t is transcribed slbl.
Tg = fr hi l13T = ;T lnal
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 240/340
Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
Table 11.7 The phonemes of Burmese
221
Consonants
k k h g r . lc c h i nt t h d np p h b m
y r l w s
h l z
Vowels
i
e
a
u
o-!
Tones
l o w t - l high t' l
11.5 Southeast sianWriting
Buddhism ravelled rom India to Southeast sia via Sanskritor a later anguage
known as Pali.Buddhismhus broughtboth the Sanskrit anguage nd the grahmiabugidao Southeast sia.Largenumbers f Sanskrit nd Paliwords,both religiousand secular, ereborrowed nto the ndigenous outheast sian anguages.here, heBrahmiabugidadevelopednto the Burmese, hai, Laotian,CambodLn,and otherwriting systems.We will not go into thesewriting sysremsn detail,but we willpoint out an nteresting spect f the conservatismf theborrowing,usingBurmeseas an example.Note that Sanskrit nd Burmese re not related anguages.
Burmese as he phonemenventoryshown n table 11.7.The romanizationsvery close o that used or the Indic languages. ote that the Burmese rder ofconsonantsollowsthe Indic tradition.
The basicBurmese ymbols re shown n table 11.8.The basic nventory s quite similar to the Indian systems; owever, here s a
major differencen the relationship f the consonant ymbols nd the anguage. swe haveseenabove,Sanskrithad a series f retroflexstopswith its own sytnbols rtthe Brahmiscript.The symbolsor these onsonanrs t !h d dh n> were etainednthe Burmese riting system lthough he soundswerenor presentn Burmese. orexample,n Burmese,he retroflexseries f stops s keptdistinct n writing from theseries t th d dh n> even houghbothseries repronounced sdentals Roop1g7Z).The so-calledetroflexstops n Burmese re usedprimarily for words of Sanskritorigin.
Similarly, he etters or the breathy oicedstopsof Sanskrit represervedgh ihdh dh bh>, even hough n Burmesehey are phoneticallydentical o the voiceds t o p s . g i d d b > .
c r e aky t ' I
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 241/340
222 Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Vriting
Table 11.8 The symbols of the Burmeseabugida
Voiceless stop Voicedstop Nasal
Unaspirated Aspirated Unaspirated Aspirated
? D g h c n
q i h e n
? ) d h c t D q
o d h E n
J ) b h e m
c n k o k h o g
o c o c h e t
c t c t h ) d1 c j ' - t
@ t c o t h 3 d
o p c l p h o b
Velar
Palatal
Retro
Dental
Labial
w
7
o
3A
crJ
g
r
h
6t
LD
Table 11.9 The writing of the Burmese vowels lt a ul
Initial uith <k> Initial uith <k> Initial witb <k>
creaky
low
high
e o ? fe
e o ? u
f : c ? : i ,
a
eL
ai
oCD CY) Irn-
Q Ec n l m le-rl
,r3: i:
3> Cr)
ffv)
crv)?
In these two examples,we see hat the cultural importance of the original lan-
guage favoured retention of the original inventory. A large number of Sanskrit
words were borrowed into Burmese,and this conservatismallowed distinctions made
in Sanskrit to be written in Burmese even though no such phonemic distinction
existed in Burmese. When a writing system is borrowed, there is a tendency for the
inventory of symbols to be considered a single object, and for the entire inventory
to be borrowed regardless of how well it fits the new language. Because he entire
inventory is borrowed, complex relationsbetweenphonemeand written symbol are
often introduced at the beginning.
Like the Indian abugidas, he Burmeseabugida writes vowels as diacritics unless
they occur at the beginningof a word (table 11.9).The vowel la l is not written. The
Burmese system is different from the Indian systems in using vowel diacritics to
indicate not only vowel quality, but tone as well. The entire vowel system s not
shown here, but the examples n table 11.9 indicate the basic structure. There are
separatesymbols when the vowel occurs word-initially. For the non-initial vowels
li a ul, diacritics derived from the Brahmr short vowel diacritics are used o indicate
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 242/340
Indian Abugida and Other Asian Writing 223
vowelswith creaky one;diacriticsderived rom the Brahmi ong vowel symbolsareused o indicatevowelswith low tone;and the high tonevowelsare ndicatedwiththe creakydiacritics ogetherwith an additionaldiacriticresemblinghe Romancolon.Othervowelsarewritten in a somewhat
imilar way. For a -ot. completediscussion f Burmese riting, seeRoop (1972)and wheril.y (1996).
11.6 The Tibetan Abugida
Tibetan sa member f theTibeto-Burmananguageamily,which s tselfa memberof the Sino-Tibetanamily. It is spoken n Tibei and neighbouring reas China,India,Nepal,andBhutan)by about our million people.Tibethaspoliticallybeenapart of Chinasince1951.
According o Buddhist radition, the TibetanKing SrongBtsanSgamPo (earlyseventh enturyNew)senthis son Thon Mi Sambhotan 6,32 o Kashmir o learnthe art of writing in order that the Buddhist extscould be translated nd writrendown in Tibetan.This account s sometimes isputed,but Tibetanwriting is ulti-matelybased n an Indianmodeland was establishedy thesevenrh.nt*y NEw.A grammaticalreatisewaswritten by Thon Mi Sambhoga,f which only portionssurvive.
The earliest xistingTibetan extsare from the eighthand ninth centuriesNEw.The iterary anguage erivesrom Tibetanof the ifteenth o theeighteenth enruries.The moderndialects ifferconsiderablyrom literaryTibetan; he dialectof Lhasa
of centralTibet is considered tandard. n the twentiethcentury,written Tibetanchangedo reflectmoreclosely he spoken anguage.A largenumberof unpronounced onsonants re written in Tibetan.possibly
someof these onsonants erepronouncedat earlierstagesn the historyof Tibetan,but very ikely someof thesewereneverpronounced ut wereused o distinguishhomophonousmorphemes. or modernTibetan, he relationship etweenhewiittenand spoken orms is complex,and the one cannotbe compGtelypredicted romtheother.
_The Libraryof CongressLC) romanization chemes usedhereexcept hat<zha
sha> s used nstead f <z,as,2).The romanization resent one-to-one apping
between ibetanorthography nd Roman etters,without regard o pronunciation-.Because f the considerable ifferencen Tibetanbetweenwriting and ptonunci-ation, it is important to bear n mind that the romanizations simply a device orshowingTibetanspelling n Roman ettersand doesnot necesr"rilv ndicate hepronunciation xactly.
77.6.7 Tibetanpbonemic naentoty
The phonemicnvenroryof Tibetan s given n table 1,r.1,0.Tibetan has a generalsyllableshapeof (C)V(C)+ tone. Generally,an initial
consonantspresent.n nativeTibetanwords hereareno consonant lusters ithinthe syllable.The only final consonants re /p k m n g ll . Words borrowed romSanskrit ftendo haveconsonant lusters.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 243/340
224 lndian Abugida and Other Asian Writing
Table 11.10 The phonemes of Tibetan
Consonants
p tph th
l s
w l
m
Vowels
ie
Table 11..11 The basicgraphemesof the Tibetan abugida
in the traditional order
y ug o
a
t l k ?rIn kh
h
t s t ctsh th cn
T Ir y
n I
Tones
high
low
"1 <ka>
6 <ca>
5 <ta>t'J <pa>5 <tsa>
q <zha>{ <ra>
1 <ha>
F <kha>
ab <cha>
{ <tha>r{ .pha>
6 <tsha>
t <za>al <la>(fl <a>
1 <ga>E <ja>( <da>{ <ba>( <dza>
A {a>q <sha>4 <fa>
( <na>
9 <fla>q <na>d'l <ma>q <wa>u' l
<ya>s <sa>d <va>
77.6.2 The Tibetan abugida
The Tibetanabugida raditionallyconsists f thirty basicetters lNa'35'<gsalbyed>
lset[elwhich are orderedas shown n table ll.ll; the romanized ranscriptions
also given.The letters or <f v> have been addedat the end recently or foreignwords.
The structuralsimilarity between he Tibetan and Indian abugidass obvious.
\(hen a consonantswritten alone, hevowel<a> sassumedo follow the consonant
as shown in the romanization.The simplestorthographicsyllableconsistsof a single consonantgrapheme,
possiblyaccompanied y a vowel grapheme:€.g.,nl' 4{ '5' <ka se ngu>.A raised
dot is written at the endof everysyllable.Complexsyllablesnvolve he additionof
one or more graphemeso the basicsyllable.The mostcomplicated rthographic
syllable onsists f seven raphemes six consonants nd a vowel- although t is
pronounced s a simpleCVC syllable.
{fl{dr' <bsgrubs> /dnp/ 'completed'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 244/340
Indian Abugida and Other Asian Writing 225
The vowels 5!<s' <dbyangs>yaql) are written aboveor belowrhe consonantgrapheme.Only one vowel occursper syllable.Threevowels<i e o> are writtenabove he consonant,and <u> is written below. The vowel <a> is not written;a syllablgwith no written vowel conrains he vowel al : n)<ka>,
'.kit,
t.ket,
n1<ku>, .kor.In the rarecaseswherea voweloccursat the beginningof a syllable, t is written
with thegrapheme 6{>.For <d), (w > is writtenalone; heotheivowelsarewrittenwith <w> as though it were a consonant, .e., ars{ plus the appropriatevoweldiacritic.Thisway of writing vowelsojher than lalis Jdepartur. fro- the Brahmisystem:fl '<2>r f' <i>,G <e>,S' <u>,6' .ot.
77.6.3 Complexorthographicsyllables
Figure1L.3 shows he structureof the Tibetanorthographicsyllable.The num-bersabove he names ndicate he sequencen which the elements re written.
Only the radical s presentn everysyllable.Only onegrapheme an occur n anyone box; i.e., a syllablecan be written with only one subscriptconsonant.Thevowelof a syllables written in oneof the boxes abelled5. bur nor in both.Each
5Vowel
2
Superscript
1
Prescript
3Radical
6
Postscript1
7
Postscript2
4
Subscript
5Vowel
Figure 17.3 The structure of the Tibetan orthographic syllable
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 245/340
225 Indian Abugidn and Other Asian.Writing
orthographicsyllableconsistsof a radical (box 3) and one or more adscript
graphemes.n adscript onsonantswritten o the ef t (box L),right (boxes or 7),
above box2) , or below(box 4) the radical box 3). A vowel diacritic s written n
box 5, either at the top or at the bottom, depending n the vowel. Figure11.3showsal l possibilities.
The following examples how a variety of forms. Note the lack of simplerela-
tionshipbetweenhe writing andthe pronunciation:{' <thap> thipll'oven'/, {<t<t'
<thaps> thiryl*ry, means'.Threegraphemes nJ {<r I s> occur as superscript raphemes ritten above he
radical n position2: H'<lb> be/,9' <lt> t5l,W <ldz> tfdl,H <lng> gdl.
Four graphemesr, l4 { a .y w r l> are written under he radical n position4.
Subscript <y> appears s a loop .r attochedunder the radical:5' .by"t ltfdl,
5' .pyat lt[61,3'<phya>r[h61.
Subscript <w> appears s a triangle o attached nder he radical.This is notpronounced ut is usedonly to distinguish omophonous yllables. ubscript qr>
appears s a horizontalstroke ^rat the bottom of the radical.Subscript J<l> is
written below the radical. ts shape s not changed, lthoughwritten smaller:5'<dw> lti,l,1' <br> ti/, fl ' <bl> hl.
Superscripts/ occursn box 2, andsubscript l in box 4: {' <spra>t6l,A' <smr>
lm6l.Thegraphemes ( 41 a <b d g -'> occur n theprescript osition; hat is, they
are written asa separate rapheme recedinghe radicalwithin the samesyllable.
Prescript raphemes re not pronouncedas such,but they sometimes ffect the
toneof the syllable r distinguish omophonousyllables:1'yut ly6,l,al$'<gyu>lyil;5' <da> di, l , \ '<bda> ldi l .
Thesyllable tructure llowsa maximumof two postscript onsonants,nown aspostscript-landpostscript-2. ostscript-Lllowsavafietyof consonants:q'<khab>
lkhipl, n' <dam> timl, {q' .golt /k&/.The postscript-2position may be filled only by N asl and only if the postscript-l
position s filled; t is not pronouncedr qs ' <khebs> khepl.In writing, the consonants ppear o hang from an imaginary ine. A superscript
consonants written at this line; the radical,any subscript onsonant, nd an <u>
are oweredaccordingly. lo ' <grub>, he <g> and the <b> both hang rom the
imaginary op line. The <r> is subscript o the <g>. n fl { <sgrub>,he superscript<s>hangs rom the same ine as he <b> and <gru> s ldwered.The vowels<i e o>
arewritten above he imaginary ine,as shown n i. <gron>.
The raiseddot <' > ltflkl Bol' s placedafter everysyllable.U(ord oundaries re
not indicated.A verticalstroke<l > [e l {5 ' is writtenat the endof longergrammat-
icalunits; t is doubledat the end of the ongest rammatical nits<i l>. At the end
of a chaprer,t may bewritten four times<llll>.At theendof a largeportionof text
the following symbolmay appear: PThe Tibetanabugidahas beenpresentedn somedetail althoughmany details
were omitted. t is obvious hat both the internalstructureand the relationship
of writing and languagen Tibetanarequitecomplex.Further, hereare differentcalligraphic tylesn usewhich do not resemble achother verymuch.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 246/340
Indian Abugida and Otber Asian Writing
rd o
e r
i
227
dt
rdo
rj
Figure 11.4 Two syllables rdo rie/ writtenin Devanagari and 'Phags-pa (from Bright 1999)
ll.7 The 'Phags-paScript
The 'Phags-pa(/'pogz,po/) criptwascreatedby a Tibetanmonk in the thirteenthcentury under instructions rom the Mongolian king Kublai Khan who wantedto devisea unifiedscript for writing the most imporrant anguages f his empire:Mongolian, Chinese, ibetan,and Uighur. The scriptwas basedon the Tibetanmodel; he symbolshavea generally quare hape.
The structure f the Phags-paabugida s verysimilar o the Tibetanand Indian
scriptsexcept hat it is written in vertical ines rom the top left of the page(cf.Mongolian n
$11.8).Symbols or the sounds n al l four languagesre ncluJed.. The 'Phags-pascriptwasusedonly sporadically uring Kublai Khan's eignand
then.generally isappeared.t lingeredsomewhatn the Mongolian area,w-heretis still usedoccasionallyor ornamentalpurposes. omescholars Ledyard 9971havesuggestedhat the Phags-pa
scriptmayhavebeen, t leastpartially, he modeifor Koreanhankul.
In contrast o the Tibetan and Indian models, he non-initial vowel symbolsin'Phags-paare not diacritics figure11.4).Eachsyllable s written asa connectedglyph with the elementsproceeding rom top ro bottom. Consonantclustersaresimplywritten oneon top of the other. Thus, the 'Phags-pasysrem s typologically
intermediate etweenan abugidaand an alphabet.Like an abugida, t doesnoiwrite one vowel, namely al. However,as with an alphabet,both consonants ndvowelsarewritten with freegraphemes,ot diacritics.
11.8 The Mongolian andManchu Alphabets
77.8.7 Mongolian
We saw in chapter 7 that the Aramaic abjad was used in medirval Persia.One
variety, known as Sogdian, was used by Persianspeakers iving in western Chinafrom the third century NEw. The script spread"nd
in the eighth century NEw was
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 247/340
228 Indian Abugidaand Other Asian Writing
Table11.12 Thesymbolsf Mongolian
Initial Medial Final
J
e
i
o r U
6 r I
n
ng
q
Y
b
(p)
S
I
t ' d
I
m
r.l
(ds)
i
k , g
r
V t W
(h)
I
{
t.4
+:f
,?
)
):
D
+
trf
4
4
?
4
4
I
I
4
4
4 q
. 1 q
t(
.{{
bI
+
f:
4
I
trrf
,.f
4
t
4
41
J
o
,
q
J
I
_4
{
1:
(
I
A-
o
_4
r5
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 248/340
Indian Abugidaand Otber Asian'Writing 229
borrowedand adapted or writing Old Uighur (/'wi,guull, a Turkic language fCentralAsia. Subsequently,he Uighur directionof writing changedand Uighurwas written in verticalcolumnsstartingat the top left of the page.Vowelsweremorefully written than n theAramaic radition,especiallyn initial position.
Uighuriscurrentlywrittenwith the Arabicabjad;Uighur sunusual mong anguagessingthe Arabic abjad in that it has respelledArabic words according o the Uighuipronunciation Kaye19961.
In the twelfth century NEw,the Mongolians borrowed the Uighur script fromwhich a distinctiveMongolian script emerged.Mongolian is an Altaic lang.rage,related o the Turkic languagesndpossiblyo KoreanandJapanese.he Mongolian-speakingarea s divided into Inner Mongolia, a provinceof China, and OuterMongolia,which s the MongolianPeople's epublic.n Inner Mongolia, he tradi-tionalMongolianalphabetsusedalthough he anguagetself sunderconsiderablepressure
rom the Chineseanguage.n Outer Mongolia, rhere s less nfluencefrom Chinese, ut under he nfluenceof the former SovietUnion, the anguage asbeenwritten there n the Cyrillic alphabetsince 1946.Since he breakupof tn.SovietUnion, herehavebeendiscussionsf reverting o the traditionalMongolianalphabetn outer Mongolia,but so far this hasnor happened.'$7hen
the traditional Mongolian alphabet s used, he situation s somewhatdiglossic incean older Middle Mongoliandialect s used.The modern anguagesusedwhenwriting with the Cyrillic alphabet.
In the process f borrowing the abjad rom Uighur into Mongolian,vowelscameto be written fully, thusproducingan alphabetic ysrem f wriring from the earlier
abiad.Visually,Mongolianwriting hasa strongvertical ine forming a backbonewith the ndividual etters ppearing sdistinctivemarkson rhesideof thebackbone(6gure11.5).Therearepositional ariants or initial,medial,and final positions(table11.12\.
<enemode tere modun-atJayeke.>
Figure 1L.5 An example sentence n Mongolian
{
{_
3
{
{
{-
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 249/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 250/340
Indian Abugidaand Other Asian'Writing 231
ll.7l Exercises
1 Write your own name and city in the Devandgari cript,payingattention o the
sound,notEnglish pelling.2 fn $11 4.2.4, shortpassage f Sanskrit asgiven n he Devandgarlscript.elow,
the sameSanskrit assages given n the Bengali cript.AlthoughodaySanskritis usuallywritten n Devandgarlhroughoutndia, n the past t waswritten n thelocalscripl,as hasbeendonehere.Notice hat he anguage ere s stillSanskrit;only he script s Bengali.
qrnq: Trqt-dc,;Trm fucq-qqcor<-ftg'e1a[6ff
Cor{ tt" s'er<{ {ir+rkraqfub{ t-gow.vr"nrS cn<"n-sqen
(a) write the Bengali ymbolsor the following onsonants:
(b) In one case, a merger n Bengaliof two soundswhich were distinct nSanskrited to the use of one symbof or both sounds n Bengafi.Whatarethe sanskritsoundsand what s the commonBengali ymbol?
SoundA in Sanskrit Roman ymbol)SoundB in Sanskrit Roman ymbol)
(c) For the followingvowels show the bound and free forms found in theBengali assage.For he bound orms,show hemwith he consonant k>.Not al l free ormsoccur.Bound ong dl is given or you.
Bound Free Bound Free
sT
g
nthnb
v
rhI
kj
tdp
mS
h
aI
aiu
eo
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 251/340
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 252/340
12 Maya
l2.l BackgroundandHistoryDuring the middle of the last millennium oLD, writing was invented in Meso-America, an arca of southern Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, and parts of Hondurasand El Salvador. This is one of the three clear caseswhere writing was inventedwith no prior knowledge of writing. Scholars have identified
"rru-b., of scripts in
this area; most of them, however, have very little textual material. Recent ,tt.*pt,at decipherment appear to be hopeful for the Zapotec and Epi-Olmec writing(Macri 1995). Quite possibly, some of the other scripts are nor *iiting proper, bu iincipient writing, that is, graphic represenration which did not fully d.u.tp inro
writing. One Meso-American society, he Maya, however, clearly developed fulyfledged_writing system leaving thousands of texts. Some Maya texts are written onsmall objects,but the majority of material is found on stone monuments, which areunfortunately now subject to weathering and looting. Four texts written on barksurvived the Spanishconquest and the humid tropical climate.
The classic Maya period is dated 250-900 NEw; it was a robust, sophisticatedculture, organized in interdependent city states with magnificent architicture andart. Maya culture experienced a major reorganization in the tenth century NEw,strong enough that it has often been described as a cultural collapse. Ifritin g afterthis time was severelycurtailed although it survived to the time of the Sfanish
conquest in the fifteenth century.In
'1,549,a severeRoman Catholic priest from Spain, Diego de Landa, arrived
in the Yucat6n peninsula of Mexico. As part of his mission^ty work to convert theMaya to his religion, he burnt several Maya books becausehe considered them'pagan'.
Even the Inquisition considered some of Landa's methods a bit extremeand recalled him to Spain. As part of his defenceand rehabilitation Landa wrotea document describing Maya life, which included information on the calendarand the writing system(Tozzer 1,941).The documenr was lost for many years butresurfaced n 1853. After elevenyears in Spain, Landa was sent back as a bishopto Mexico where he died. Shortly after the Spanishconquestof Meso-America, the
Maya writing sysremwas abandoned and forgotten..
Landa attempted to establish Maya equivalents for the Roman alphabet; thishas come to be known as Landa's alphabet. This has provided May.nirt, wiih an
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 253/340
234 Maya
invaluable, although for many years puzzhng, tool for the task of deciphering the
Maya script. Landa's main consultant was a Yucatec speaker,Antonio Gaspar Chi,
who knew some Spanish. The problem with Landa's alphabet is that the Maya
symbols representmorc, i.e., CV sequences, ut Landa expected he symbols to bealphabetic. For example, he described the Maya way of writing <b>, but this is
in fact the symbol for the CV-sequence bel. Probably, Landa asked Chi how he
would write the letter <b> which Landa pronounced in Spanishas lbel; thus, Ch i
wrote down the symbol for the mora lbel, not an alphabetic symbol for lb l which
Landa expected.An interesting example showing this confusion is Landa's report of
the Maya writing fo r'water'.
PresumablyLanda knew the Maya word for'water'
lhal.'lfhat we acrually find is a nonsensesequenceof Maya symbols representing
the sounds la-t[e-al.Landa's question to Ch i was apparently not'How
do you write
lhal?', bu t rather'How do you write <h> <a>?' Landa spelled he word; in Spanish
<h> is pronounced latlel, and <a> lal.Scholarly interest in the ancient Maya began in the nineteenth century. Early
archaologistswere able to uncover entire citiesabandonedand coveredby centuries
of tropical growth. This interest grew with new discoveriesand continues strong
today. Although the area is still populated by Maya-speaking peoples, the lan-
guageand culture have changedsince he time of the ancient Maya. Modern Maya
speakershave little or no detailed oral tradition of historical eventsof the ancient
period. Today, there are some 28 Maya languagesspoken by four million people
in the area.
In the mid-twentieth century, the leading Maya scholar was Sir Eric Thompson.
Thompson was a giant in the field, and any modern Maya scholar stands on hisshoulders;however, about certain important aspectsof Maya culture and writing,
Thompson was dead wrong. Thompson believed that the Maya texts were not writ-
ing in the sense hat they representedanguage(i.e.,phonemesand morphemes),but
rather semantic deas.He also believed hat they did not representhistoric events.
He conceived of the ancient Maya as a peaceful and gentle folk whose priests
contemplated he motions of heavenly bodiesand constructedan intricate calendar,
occasionallymaking monuments about calendricalobservations.'Wenow know that
the writing expressed he Maya language, that the ancient Maya were frequently at
war with eachother, and that the monuments document historic events.Coe (1992)
has an interesting discussionof how Thompson with his strong beliefs,persuasiveelegance, nd control of the pursestringsof Maya researchdelayed he decipherment
of the Maya texts.
The key to the decipherment camewhen a Russian,Yuri Knorosov (1952), showed
that Maya writing representedsomewords phonetically. Thompson strongly attacked
Knorosov's theory, but it has ultimately proved correct. Shortly thereafter,another
Russian,Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1.960),showed hat Maya texts documented historic
facts. Again, Thompson criticized her work, but in the end, even he admitted that
Proskouriakoff was right. From the 1970s on, enormous strides have been made
and continue to be made in deciphering the Maya texts to the point now where
we can understand most of them. Researchhas reached he point where different
dialects can be identified in the texts (Vail and Macri 2000).
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 254/340
Maya 235
Figure 72.1 The order of reading a Maya rext
72.2 Structureof the Maya Writing System
72.2.1 Intemal structure
Y^y^ writing is organized graphicallyas a seriesof squarish iguresknown asglyphs.A glyph may consistof only one grapheme, ur com-only, two or moregraphemes re combined nto one Slyph.Two graphemesmay be conjoinedbyreducing ach n sizeor by usingonly a part of eachgrapheme. raphemes rraybecombinedby attaching ne o another; n thiscase,he main symboi s graphicallythe more prominentone,and the diacritic is the lessprominentsymbol.Dtiacriticsmay be positionedo the eft, right, top, or bottomof the main symbol.More thanonediacriticmay occur n a singleglyph.Occasionally, negraphemes infixedor
included n the orher.In generala text goes rom the top left corner to the bottom right. A typicaltext is written in double columnsand is read in a zigzagmotion downwards] henumbered lyphs n figure12.1show he orderof readinghe rext. n an nscripiiorr,glyphsareusuallyof equalsizealthough he ntroductoiyglyphsmay be of doublewidth, i.e.,occupyinghe space ormallyusedby glyphs aid z.
The novicereaderof Maya text typically finds the correct nterpretationof thesymbols erydifficultand frustrating.Often he distinguishing"ttbf two differentsymbols s a relativelysmall portion; and conversely,*o rrih.r different-lookingelementsmay in fact be variantsof the same ymboi.
Plate5 is an inscription rom around 765 rqnv depicting he presentation fcaptiveso a ruler.Note particularly he integration f the several hort extswiththe picture.
72.2.2 Relation to language
Maya writing hasfour typesof symbols:morphograms,moraic symbols,semanticcomplements' ndphonologicalcomplements.Morphograms epresentmorphemes;moraic symbolsare phonographic,epresenting V sequences.he comp1.-.nt,provideadditional nformation o securehe properreadingwhere t mightoiherwise
beambiguous. emanticomplementsre ather are,burphonologicaliomplementsarequitecommon.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 255/340
236 Maya
Plate 6 Maya inscription, ca. 785 Nnw. Presentation of captives to a Maya ruler,
UsamacintaRiver Valley. Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth, Texas. Reproduced courtesy
of the Kimbell Art Museum
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 256/340
237aya
tr&fftrBalam
( 1 )
Ba Balam
Ma
Ba Balam
Ba [a
Ma
,r,ffiBalam
Ma
"rffi ,rff i
,r,mFigure 2.2 Differentwaysof writing balaml
Theword lbalaml'jaguar'canbewritten n anumberof differentways(figure Z.Z).One way is simply o use he morphographic ymbolalone(1). Alternaiively, hismorphographic ymbolcould be accompaniedy a phonological omplemenisbal
written as a prefix (2). Or, a phonological omplement malcould be written as asuffix (3). Note that the vowel la l is chosen or the suffix since he last vowel oflbalam/ is an lal; the al of the suffix lmal in this case s a dummy vowel and notintendedo bepronounced it is theresimplybecausehe scriptonly hasCV-sizedphonographic nits.A furtherpossiblewriting of the word is that boin a prefixanda suffixcouldbewritten (4).Or, theword couldbewrittenenrirely honemically slba-la-mal(againwith the al of lmal beinga dummy vowel) (s).
Note how the alternativewritings of Maya resemblehepossibilitiesn Egyptian.Egyptian, owever,ended o pick onealternarive nd use t regularly.Maya,-on heother hand,seemedo enjoy using the available ariation.
Aside rom the differentwaysof constructing lyphs ust discussed,rherkindsof vatiation occur.Not infrequently, wo unrelatedgraphsare simply two waysofwriting the sameelement; or example, igure 12.3showsalternativewaysof writ-ing 'zero'.Many morphographsavespecial eadvariants,which end o beused nmore prominentpositions.Thesehavesomepart of the normal variant attachedas a diacritic to a human head.For somegraphs, here s alsoa full-figurevariantinvolvingan entirehuman body.Theseare usuallydouble-widthglyphs ound inintroductorymaterial.
Maya scribesended o exploitdifferentpossiblewaysof writing the same hing.In a text, one frequentlyseeshe sameword written differently. Even the namJs
of Maya kingsand citiesshow variation n writing. Perhapso the Maya, o usethe samewriting too close ogetherwasastheticallyunpleasing,ust
",in English
we tendto avoidusing he sameword twice too close ogether.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 257/340
238 Maya
Numeral Head variant Ful l igurevar iant
Figure 72.3 Alternative ways of writing'zero'
Palenque
Figure 12.4 Emblem glyphs for three Maya cities
Certainkinds of glyphshave received pecialattention n Maya studies.The
verbal glyphsfound on monumentsprovide information about 'birth', 'death','accession',matriage',wagingwar', 'bloodletting',etc. Somemark the end of a
calendrical eriod.Many verbalaffixeshavebeen dentified.
Otherglyphsgive henames nd itlesof rulers.A common itle isahaw, he king
of eachmajorsite,although hawcouldalsobepart of the itle of a lesser ignitary.
Namesof dignitariesare commonly ollowed by the namesof their parents.
Emblemglyphs figure1.2.4)wererecognizedn the 1950s.Each s peculiar o a
particularcity. Typically, hey have lch'ull'holy' (appearing s a stringof blood
droplets) refixed,a superfixedorm of abaw,and a main symbolwhich identifies
the ocality.The Palenque mblemglyphmeansthe Holy Lord of Palenque'.
12.3 The Maya Calendar
Dates are a prominent feature of Maya inscriptions; frequently every sentence f a
texr begins with a date. The Maya had a very complicated calendar which was a
part of the generalMeso-American culture. In few other ancientcultures do we have
the precisedating that we have for Maya history. Rather than saying that something
happened between500 and 550, as we often do for other cultures, fo r Maya events
we can often say, for example, that it happened on2 August 521.
First, le t us consider our own calendar for a moment.'We
have two independ-
en t cycles.One cycle is a weekly cycle of sevendays with each day named in turn,
Monday, Tuesday, etc.This seven-day yclecontinues ndefinitely with no variation
-7*- -vl}lfr -l
N - t - - , a t , a
I . - I I I I I I I I \ I
l t- l t
t g
Y E I t t ' t t t l , r
PiedrasNegras
ffiTikal
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 258/340
Maya 239
whatsoever.The other cycle s a yearlyone of'1,2
months:January,February,etc.Again this cyclecontinuesndefinitely.Eachmonth consists f Zd,30, or:i daysaccordingo a set ormula.This givesa yearof 365 days.Actually, a'year s a bitless han 365-25days ong. The
Julian calendar"su-Ld that a yearwas exacrly365.25days ong and addedone day to the yearlycycleevery our years a leapyear); he seven-day eeklycycle reats he eapday asan ordina y d,ay nd is notalteredby leap years.To distinguishyears rom eachother, we needan arbitraryreferenceoint.For us, hat ismidnightbetween 1 December orn and January1 Nnw.Yearsarenumbered onsecutivelyeforeand after his point. Datesbeforethis arbitrarypoint we call oro and datesafter his as Nnw (see oreon datesonp. xvii).
Over ime, heslightdeviationrom the 355.25-day earhadaccumulated,nd bytheeighteenthenturyNEw, heJuliancalendarwaseleven ays ate.TheGiegorian
calendarattempts o fix this problem:yearsdivisibleby 400 are leapyears"(ass2000)'but otheryears ivisible y 100arenot (1900,2100).Most wesrern uropeancountries doptedhe revisedGregorian alendarn the ateeighteenth nd nineteenthcenturies. thercountries doptedhe Gregorian alendarn the twentiethcentury.You may be familiarwith datedifferencesetweenhe Westernand the OrthodoxChurches;his s becausehe OrthodoxChurch etainedheJuliancalendar.n thefollowingdiscussion, regoriandatesare used.
Next, let's review he Maya numberingsystem figureL2.5)which is vigesimal,i.e.,based n thenumber20. One s written as one dot; *oras two dots; hrrr, ^,threedots; ndfour ,asfourdots. iueiswr i r tenasabar.Srr is barunjon. jot ,
and so on up to ten which is two bars.Nineteen s threebarsand four dots.Forlargernumbers positional ystemwasused imilar o our decimal ystem. orone,we write 1; for ten,we write 1 but oneposition o the eft,adding azero- 10; fora hu.ndred,we ut the 1 in the third columnto the left - tOO. he Maya ur.d
"imilarsystem ut based n twenty (figure12.5).To write 20, oneputsonedot inthesecondow from the bottom.Two dotswould be40, andso on. Since umbersin anyonerow extend rom 0 to 19, a singledot in the third row would be 400.Asingledot in thefourth row would be 8000,etc.Therewasa special ymbol for zero.
Now let's ook at the Maya calendar.A day s a k'in. K'iis rr . orgrrrizednto anumberof largerunits table Z.I).
The arbitrary irst day of the Maya calendars 13 August 3t14 oro (Mathews1996). ITedo not know why this datewas selected.t appearso be animaginarydate n Maya historysince t predates y far any known Mrya sertlementn t4eso-America.Although there s somedisagreement, ost scholars se he Goodman-Martinez-ThompsonGMT) correlationof Maya and Gregorian ates.
Table 12.1 Calendar units
20 k'ins'1.8
winals20 tuns20 k'atuns
u.,inal
tunk'atun
bak'tun
20 days
350 days7200 days
144,000days
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 259/340
240
8000
400
@0
oI T
5 5
oI TI T
1 0' 1 1
oI II T
I I
1 5 1 6
o o
@
20
Maya
o o
2
o aI
-,
o oI
I
1 2
o oI
--
1 7
o
I
o o o3
o o o o4
o o o o o o or I
8 9
o o o o o o or I- -
1 3 1 4
o o o o o o oI -
- -I -
1 8 1 9
o
o
o0
I
o
o-I
o o o-
16,628
Figure 12.5 Maya numbers
A datecan be specified s a certainperiodof time from the arbitrary irst day.
For example, he Gregorian ateof 25 February607 NEwwould be 9 bak'tuns,8
knt'uns,13 uns, 2 winals,78k'insafter hearbitrary irstday.Mayanists bbreviate
this as 9.8.1,3.1,2.18.he followingdaywould be 9.8.13.1.2.1.9,nd the dayafter
that would be9.8.13.13.0 ince 0 k'insequalonewinal. Maya dates ecordedike
this in referenceo the arbitrary first day areknown as ong counts.The systemof
using ong countswas a Maya invention. It lasteduntil the reorganizationof the
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 260/340
Maya 241
Figure 12.6 Maya calendar showing the tz'olkinz the number of the day is determined bythe left wheel and the name of the day by the right wheel. The day shown is 1 Imix; thenext day will be 2Ik', and the day after that will be 3 Ak,bal
classical Maya world in the tenth century NEw. The earliesr recorded long counr isa decorative endantdated8.4.0.0.0 120NEw); he lasrrecordedong *orrt *" ,10.4.0.0.0909Nnw)at Tonind(Schelend Freidel 990).
Independentrom the ongcounts, he Maya, alongwith otherpeoples f Meso-America,alsohad a complexcyclicalcalendar, nown as a calendar ound, con-sistingof two parts.One part is known as he tz'olkin,which can be portrayedastwo interlocking wheels (figure 12.6) turning in oppositedirections.One wheel(left)has L3 numbers;he otherwheel(right)has20 nameddays.The orderof thedays s shown in the figure from Imix to Ahaw. Everyday, both wheels advance
one notch.For example, he first day is I Imix; the following day is 2 Ik'; the thirdday is 3 Ak'bal; the fourth 4 K'An,etc. until 13 Ben.The diy following L3 Ben sI Ix; the numberwheelhas returned o L, but the namewheelstill has furthernames.The twentieth day is 7 Ahaw; the day following this is I Imix; and then9 Ik', etc.Theentirecycle akes260 dayso complete. he 259thday s lZ Kawak,the 250th is 13 Abaw, and thecyclestartsoverwith 1 Imix.The tz'olkin cyclecon-tinues ndefinitely, epeating very260 days. n texts, the z'olkin date s representedby a numberprefixed o a morphographof the day name.
Thesecond art of thecalendaround s the haab.The haabcanbe houghtof asanother argewheel notshown)of 365 days in Maya studies,his s oftencalleda
vague earsince t is about tl4 dayshortof the solaryear).On thiswheel, heyearis divided nto'l'9 namedmonths.The first 18 monthshave20 dayseach,andthelastmonth Wayebhas5 days. Tithin the months, he consecuriveaysaresimply
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 261/340
242 Maya
numbered.The first day is t Pohp, the seconds 2 Pohp. The last day of Pohp
is, however,not called20 Pohp,but rather he'seatingof Wo', usuallywritten as'0 Wo'. The next day s then L Wo, and hen2 Wo, until 0 Zip. The secondastday
of the year is 4
'Wayeb;
the last day is 0 Pohp; and the haab cycle beginsagainwith 1 Pohp.Like the tz'olkin thehaabcyclecontinuesndefinitely, epeating very
355 days. n texrs, hehaabdate s representedy a numberprefixed o a morpho-
graphof the nameof the month.
The calendar oundconsists f the nteraction f the two cycles,he tz'olkin and
thehaab.For example,we know that the arbitraryfirst day of the Maya calendar
was 4 Ahaw 8 Kumk'u. The next day after his was 5 Imix 9 Kumk'u. The tenth
day after his was2 Chuuten19 Kumk'u. The following day would havebeen3 Eb
0 Vayeb. Together,he tz'olkin and the haabdescribe periodof L8,980daysor
52 years.At theendof 52 years,he calendar oundstartsover.Thecalendaround
was nor limited to the Maya, but was used hroughoutMeso-America.n fact, tcontinues ven oday n manyMayacommunities ith a localpersondesignateds
responsibleor keeping rack of the dateaccurately.
In Maya texts,datesarewritten in differentways.The fullestversion s the nitial
seriesoundat the beginning f the ext: first the ongcountdate, hen hecalendar
round date.This was often followedby othercalendricalnformationsuchas the
numberof dayssince he astnew moon.Later n a text, datesweregivenas a dis-
tancenumbershowinga dateas a distancerom someother date,e.g.,'4238days
earlier'or '382 days ater'. Distance atesarewritten in the reverse rder of long
counts,startingwith the smallest nit.
The Maya celebratedhe completionof a larger round' period, hat is the endof a tun, k'Atun, or bak'tun, much as we might celebratehe end of centuryor
millennium. f suchan endof a periodoccurswithin the imeframe f the ext,such
a datemight bementioned, .g., 8 Altaw'1.3Keh,endof a bak'tun'.
12.4 Example Text
I7e will now examine a short passageof a text from Palenque (/pa'lerlkejl), an
ancient Maya city in the modern state of Chiapas in Mexico. Palenque is a city of
magnificent architecture, and it also contains many records of its important history.In one building, an inscription was found with a designof a cross n the centre.This
tablet is known as the Tablet of the Cross. It records a number of important events
about various rulers of Palenque.The deciphermentof this text was the combined
work of severalpeople; I am following the analysisgiven by Mathews (1995).
Maya scholars use letters to identify the columns and numbers for the rows.
I7e will examine the text S13-S17. Recall that we read a text zigzagging down a
double set of columns; the columns relevant for this text are R and S. The syntax
in this sentence s distancemarker - verbl - subject - verb2 date. Roughly this is
equivalent to English'A
certain period of time (distance marker) after the date
when the subject did verb1,he/shedid verb2'.The easiestplace to start a Maya text is with the dates; they are usually quite
obvious because hey contain numbers, which are easy o recognize.The first three
glyphs (S13-514) contain numbers giving information about a date.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 262/340
Maya
R l 4
243
s 1 3
,6 '
,rrffi-,winar,,-ts,-
s 1 4
Figure12.7 The first threeglyphsof Text s13-17 showing he date:1.19.6.15(in reverse rder) (from Dr. Merle GreeneRobertson,TheSculptureof Palenque, ol.Iy,S13ll7 (includingR14-R17).Princeton: rincetonUniversityPress,19gl.A ble AyMerle GreeneRobertson.Reproducedwith permission)
Table12.2 Calculation f the distance umber1.19.6.16
k'atuns tuns tuinals k'ins
= 2 0
t9= 360= 342
6
= 7200= 6480= 120
76
'1.3,8"16Total
Thefirst glyph(S13),n fact,has wo numbers figure12.7):the irst s L6 wrimenverticallyat the left. Eachof the threebarsrepresents, and the centralball is 1.The two handle-likeobjectsat the top left and bottom left simply fill the spacearoundthe ball. \7e will leaveaside or the momenrwhat is beingcounred.Thesecondhalf of the glyph has the number 5 written hofizontallyatlhe top, and acircularelementwith threeballs at the bottom. By consultinga list of ialendarunits,we can find that the circular element s the symbol for winaL Thus,we have'15){
and5 winals'.
_The next glyph (R14)givesus 19 tuns. Finally,S14shows1 k'atun So ar, our
date eads15 X, 6 utinals,lg tuns,1.h'atun.This s not a longcountsincewe haveno indicationof bak'tun.Rather, t is a distancemarkershowinga certainperiodoftime distant rom anotherdate, ratheras we might say two y."rr, threemonths,and four daysafter X'. Now, let'sreturn o rhe irst number16. fle have he unitswinal, tun, andk'atun explicitly expressedn the order of increasing ize.
Sfecan
seehat.thedayunit of k'in would ogicallyoccurbeforewinal;rhus, he numb r !6implicitly refers o k'ins. The entiredistancemarker s 15 k'ins,6 tuinals,L9 tuns,and 1 k'atun. Recall hat distance umbersare alwayswritten in this order, thereverse f theway theywould bewritten at the beginning f an inscriprion.Modernscholars bbreviate oth types he sameway, startingwiih the argesiunit; thusour
distance umber s 1.19.6.16.1{ e do thearithmetic table 2.4,we cansee harthis s equivalento 13,815daysor almost38 years.
The glyph R15 gives he first verb (figure 2.8\. Although t may be difficult forneophyteso see, cholarsecognizehe mainelement sa frog'shead acingupwards.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 263/340
244
lsihl 'be born'
thitphoneticomplementredundanti/
Maya
lk'an/'yellow,
precious'
- lhok'l 'knot'
-lchitaml 'peccary'
-/ma/
phonetic omplement
redundanta/
s 1 5R l 5
FigureL2.8 Theverband subject f Text 513-17 (fromDr. Merle GreeneRobertson,
Tbe Sculptureof Palenque, ol. IV, Sl3l17 (includingR14-R17). Princeton:Princeton
UniversityPress,7991,.@ 7976 by Merle GreeneRobertson.Reproducedwith permission)
R 1 6
lhunl bark cloth'
liwall'and
then' l tul-
Itubal'on him'
Figure 72.9 The second verbal phrase of Text Sl3-17 (from Dr. Merle Greene
Robertson, The Sculpture of Palenque,Vol. IV, 513/17 (including R14-R17). Princeton:
Princeton University Press,1,991.@ 1976 by Merle Greene Robertson. Reproduced with
permission)
It has been identified as meaning'he/she was born' and had the sound /sih/. The
phonetic element hi/ is suffixed to the main elementas a phonological complement.
Morphograms are shown in italics, and phonograms in regular type.
The subject of the text is given by the glyph 515. Mathews (19961identifiesthis
person as rhe king K'an-Hok'-Chitam I. The prefix at the left with the cross is
lk'anlmeaning'yellow' or'precious' (the latter alternativeprobably more appropri-
ate here). The main elementshows a headwith a vertical cloth band tied at the top.
The cloth band was a symbol of kingship. Mathews identifies his as hok'/ meaning'knot' (metaphorically ascendingthe throne). The head appears to be that of a
peccary lchitaml (a peccary is a pig-like mammal of Central and South America).
Finally, the phonological complement lmalis suffixed at the bottom; only the con-
sonanr /m/ is intended to be pronounced. Together this gives he name K'an-Hok'-
Chitam. So far our rexr readssomething ike'13,816 days after K'an-Hok'-Chitam
was born'.
The secondverb is given in two glyphs R15-S15 (figure I2.9). R15 meansand
then, he acceded o the throne', literally'and
then, he tied the white bark cloth',
although not al l details are clear. The main glyph presumably means 'tie' but a
clear reading has not yet been made. Three superfixes are found here: from left
to right, tiwall'and
then'; this shows clearly that the activity of the second verb
s 1 6
- lsak/ white'
--? tie'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 264/340
Maya 245
R17 s' \7
W-*avab'Figure 12.10 Calendar round of the accessiondate af Text S13-17 (from Dr. MerleGreene Robertson, Th e Sculpture of Palenque,Vol. lV, 5"1,3117including R14-R17).Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1991. @ 1976 by Merle Greene Robertson.Reproduced with permission)
follows hat of the first.The other wo prefixes tate he object: sak/'white', lhunl'barkcloth'.Thewholeglyphwould read iwal . . . sak hun/'and then he [tied] he
white barkcloth'.The second lyphof the second erb S15 s simply tu-bal 'on him'; i.e., he
tied,the cloth on himself. This is written phonetically: tul is on the left, and lbal onthe right.
-The inal wo glyphsR17-517(figure12.10)givea calendaround giving he dayof the accessiono the throne.The tz'olkin is 5 K'dn, and the haabls tf X'ayab.Rememberhat a calendar ound date recursevery52 years. rom other datesonthe text,however,we canbe airly sure hat thisoccurrence f S K'an 12 K'ayab sthe day with the ongcounrof 9.4.14.10.4.
Our text now can be translatedn full: '\7hen 16 k'ins,5 uinals, !9 tuns,and 1
k'atun had passed fterK'an-Hok'-Cbitam wasborn, he then ied thewhite bandon himself 1= became ing] on 5 K'An 12 K'ayab 19.4.14.10.41.,ccording oMathews (1996), his would havebeenpronoun.edas /waklahun,wak winf,-hibolonlahun un-i hun k'atum sih-i k'an-hok'-chitamwal . . . -hi sak hun tu-ba ho?k'an lahchaz 'anasi/.
Weknow that K'an-Hok'-Chitam was 1 19.6.16old when
he accededo the hroneon 9.4.14.10.4. herefore,f we subtract .lg.6.lG from9.4.14.10.4, e get rhe day of his birth - 9.2.15.3.8 =Wednesday,2lFebruary529, n Gregorian).
9. 14. 1,0. 4
19. 6. 16
9 . 2 . 1 5 . 3 . 8
12.5 Further Reading
Mayastudieshas not evolved o the pointwhere here s a gooddealof secondaryliterature hich s easifyaccessibleo the uninitiated. oe (1ggg)and Sharer 19g4)are introductionso Mayaculturegenerally.MontgomeryQOO2)s the mostgeneral
treatment f the script.Other nformation n Mayawriting s to be found n HarrisandStearns1992), ouston1989),Macri 1996), ounsbury1989),Mathews1996),J. Thompson1950), nd Vaifand Macri 2000).Coe (1992) s a fascinating ccount
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 265/340
246 Maya
of the historyof the Maya decipherment.he late LindaSchelewas central n the
deciphermentnd hasa numberof workswhichconsider pecificextsand provide
information n both Mayawritingand art: Scheleand Freidel 1990),Scheleand
Miller 1986), ndSchele ndMathews1998).
12.6 Terms
calendar ound
diacritic
distance umber
emblem lyph
full-figure ariant
glyphhaab
headvariant
initialseries
Landa's lphabet
longcountmainsymbolMaya
moraicmorphogram
phonologicalomplementsemantic omplement
tz'olkinvagueyear
12.7 Exercises
1 Whatare he structural imilarities nddifferences etweenhe MayaandEgyptian
writingsystems?
2 Assume hat he longcount or 1 January 000was 12.19.6.15.2.alculatehelong count or today'sdate.
3 Expresshe distance etweenodayand1 January 000as a series f Mayaunits:
e.9.,XX funs,YY winals,ZZ k'ins.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 266/340
13 Other\Tritirg Sysrems
This chapterdescribes even nterestingwriting systemswhich do not fit neatly ntoother chapters.Although most nativeNorth American anguages avebeenwrittenby borrowingandadapting he Romanalphabet hrough.ontr.t with theSpanish,French,and English,a numberof indigenous criptshavebeen nvented. ilrewillexaminehree:Cherokee, ree,and nuktitut (seeJfl.Walker 1,995or details boutother North Americanwriting systems). ater,we discusswo European ystems:runic and ogham.Thenwe look at PahawhHmong from Southeast iia, oneof theworld'smostrecently eveloped riting sysrems. inally,we look at Bliss,perhapsthe only semantically asedwriting sysrem.
73.1 Cherokee
73.7.1 Backgroundand history
Cherokeesan Iroquois anguage poken n the UnitedStatesn North CarolinaandOklahoma.Around 1820,Sequoyahca.1770-1843),a previouslylliteratenativespeaker f Cherokee, eveloped moraicscript or his anguage. isually,manyofthe Cherokee ymbols redrawnfrom upper-case oman itteis. Others'are ltera-tionsof Roman ettersor invented ymbols. lthough he Cherokee ymbolsmay npart resembleRoman etters n their shape,he system iffers n two importantwaysfrom
theRomanalphabet:irst, he Cherokee ysrems moraic,not alphabetic; ndsecond,he valuesof the Cherokee ymbolshaveno relation o their oidin^ryyaluesin the Romanalphabet. heseactsareconsistent ith the reports hat Sequoyah aspreviouslylliterateand unfamiliarwith Roman ettersexceptasgraphicsymbols.
By 1821, Sequoyah ad publicizedhis writing system,and it spread apidlyamongsthe Cherokee.t hasbeen sed or a largevarietyof personal ndpublishedwriting, particularly or record-keepingf nativemedical r."t*etrts and or Christianpublications,ncludinga New Testament nd a hymnal.
Shortly after the development f the Cherokeescript, an Americanmiss onary,Samuel
Sforcester,arranged o have a rype font cast for printing. \Torcesteralso
devisedhe transliteration chememostoftenused or Cheiokee. .rn.", elli 1996)reports hat reading ronunciations,ased n'Worcester'sransliteration. resome-t imesheard.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 267/340
248 Other Writing Systems
Table 13.1, The phonemes of Cherokee
? i u
e 5 oa
k*
tstlsI
m nw i
Table 13.2 The symbols f Cherokee
Da, ?a
$ka
+ha
wla , hla
d'ma
ena
0kwa, khwa
oO
s
tta
Vtna
frtla
Gtsa, tsha
G
wa, hwaoja, hia
Rer Te
?ke, kne
?he
d'le, hle
3.Ane, hne
(l
kwe, khwe
i$
te
Tthe
Lt le, thle
Ttse, tshe
il9we, hwe
0ie,hie
Ti , ?i
vki, khi
.0hi
fl i , hli
Hmi
hni, hni
Tkwi, khwi
bsi
J
ti
x. h .
t " l
Ct l i , thl i
h
tsi, tshi
owi, hwi
{,
ii, hji
d5o, ?o
Ako, kho
lho
clo , hlo
1"nno, hno
"trkwo, khwo
l"Vto, tho
stlo, thlo
Ktso, tsho
e,wo, hwo
6jo, hjo
0u,2u
Jku , khu
Ihu
Mlu, hlu
r,q
nu,hnu
(okwu, khwu
I
i' ?5
Dk5, kh5
&h5
fl
15, l5
0n5, hn5
Ekw5, khw5
0kh a
t'hna
f,th la
V Rsu s5
s 0 "L
-h -tu , t "u ta, t "a
C Ptlu, thlu tl5, thlS
d Gtsu, tshu ts5, tshS
. 9 6wu, hwu w5,hw5
G Bju,hju i5,hi5
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 268/340
Other Writing Systems 249
Although he numberof speakersf Cherokees small today, he scriptconrinuesto beused n newslettersnd other publications.
73.7.2 Phonologyof CherokeeThe phonemes f Cherokee re shown n table 13.1.
73.7.3 The Cherokee cript
Thesymbols f the Cherokee criptaccordingo'Worcester'srrangementregivenin table 13.2with a phonetic ranscription.
The Cherokeewriting systems essentiallymoraicexcepr or fi <s>which is usedfot lslin onset lusters nd n codaposition. n CV sequences,s/ swrittenmoraically:U 4b* 6"
R /sasesi so su si/.In relation o the phonology, heorthographicsystem sunderdifferentiatedsomephonemic ontrasts re not representedn the writing system)n variousways. Anull onset s not distinguished rom one with a glotial- rop: e.g., D la, zal. T]heonsets l,hll, /kry, khw/, /ts, tsh/,/w, hw/, lj,hjt are not diitinguishedn writing.The onsets k, kh/, /n, hnl, /tl, thl/ aredistinguished efore lal, but not befoiethe othervowels.The onsetst, th l are distinguished efore a,e, /, but not beforelu ,o,5/. Scancarelli1992)says hat the pointsof underdifferentiation ith respectto the aspirated nd unaspirated topshaverelatively ittle role in distinguishingmorphemes. heargues hat placeswhereSequoyah id maintainplain-a-spiratel
contrastsare thosewhosefrequent
appearance imply made them perceptuallysignificanto him'.Codal lhl or ltl is not written, nor is vowel lengthnor tone.The symbolG is
shown n someversions or nahl, but Walker (1996)says hat it is not used.To indicateonsetclusters r codal consonants ot otherwiseprovided or, the
consonants written with a dummyvowel.For example,kthot?al it is hanging' swritten asD VD <k5-to-a>.
13.2 Cree
73.2.7 Backgroundand bistory
In Canada,around 1840, John Evans,a Methodist missionary rom England,developedhe writing systemwidely known as Creesyllabics.Evansbegan Jrkittgon writing systemsor Ojibwa when he was in Ontario, usingboth the Romanalphabet nd scriptshe devised imself.After moving o Norway-Hour. n Ruperr,sLand (now Manitoba) n 1840,he developedhe cree writing iyrt.*.
The Creesystem pread apidly. Reports rom the atenineteenth enturysay hatvirtually everyadult Cree speakerwas literare;evenallowing for someexaggera-
tion, Creemay havehad oneof the highest iteracy ates n the world at the time.At first, the churches pposedhe useof Evans'system, swell as he useof Creeitself.Thesuccessfulpread f Creewriting,without nstitutional upport,however,
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 269/340
250 Other Writing SYstems
led hechurches ventuallyo support he Creescript. n 1851,an entireBiblewas
publishedn London n Creewriting.
Some mallgeographicseehe east-west ifferencesn writing codalconsonants
in table 13.4)and evensectarian ariantsof the Creesystem avearisen.Until themid-twentieth entury,publishedmaterial ended o be imited o religiousmaterial.
Since hen,however,an increasing mountof secularmaterialhasbeenpublished
using the Creesystem,suchas schoolbooks, opular magazines, nd government
publications.
TheCreesysrem asbeenused or other anguagest times,suchas heAthapaskan
languages hippeweyan nd Carrier; he mostsuccessfulf these orrowings, ow-
ever,hasbeen nto Inuktitut (S13.3).
Evans was familiar with Sequoyah'swriting for Cherokee,with Deuandgari
(chapter1L) from India,and alsowith Pitmanshorthand.He apparently rew on
shorthand or the shapes f the symbols.PossiblyEvans'use of rotation of theconsonanrso showdifferentvowelswas inspiredby suchmodels.He might also
have been nfluencedby his knowledgeof Deuanagartwhich treats he consonant
as basicand writesvowelsas diacriticsymbolsbefore,after,above,or under he
consonantdepending n the particularvowel).
73.2.2 Phonologyof Cree
Cree is an Algonquian language, closely related to Ojibwa and Montagnais. It
is spoken in central Canada, from northern Qu6bec acrossnorthern Ontario into
Manitoba. The phonemesof Cree are given in table I3.3.The phonoractic structure of the Cree syllable s quite simple: (C) V (C). Thus a
mora is either a syllable-initial CV sequenceor a codal (final) consonant.
73.2.3 Sttucture of the Creeutriting systetn
In the Cree writing system, he symbols epresentmor&, i.e., either initial CV
sequencestable13.4)or a codalconsonant.With the nitial CV symbols,he shape
of the symboldetermineshe consonant, nd ts orientationdetermineshe vowel.
For example,whenthe symbolpointsdown,the vowel s el; when t points o the
right, the vowel is /o/; etc.Thereare alsospecialsymbols or codal mors withdifferentwesternand eastern ersions lthough<h> s thesamen both.Thewestern
codalsymbols redistinct rom therestof the system;he eastern ersionof theses
a smallversionof themain symbol with the lalvowel).The first row of table13.4
Table L3.3 Thephonemes f Cree
t
n
S
r l
t!m
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 270/340
Other'WritingSystems
Table13.4 Thesymbolsf Cree
251
Final
West East
c
t
b
L
c
L
I
ct
b
Lo-
\
r/l
(-
q
)
J
d
J-o
)
ru
J
?
A
nnf'
P
ra/
.r
.a
)
C
n-
V
V
U
1g
-'l
a
\
t. V
I
-)
'!t
g
p
t
L-
k
m
n
S
I
w
'
I
r
h
gives the symbols for a null onset; i.e., a vowel with no precedingconsonant. Anonset /d is written as the null onset symbol with a precedingdiacritic dot. Vowellength can be indicated by a superscriptdot: A lpfi/, L tkart.
Let us now examine the symbol orientation more closely. In all cases, he formsfor the vowels /o/ and la/ arc mirror images of each other; i.e., one is formed byflipping the other over (however, the dot for lwlis always at the left). Beyond this,
there are three different orientational patterns. For <O p t w r>, the <e> symbolspoint down; theseare rotated 180" to give the <i> series.A further 90" clockwiserotation produces the symbols for <o>.
The symbols for <c k m n s j l>, however, follow a differenr pattern of orienta-tion. Startingwith the symbols for <e>, hey are flipped on a vertical axis to give thesymbols for <i>. The <i> symbols are then tot"t.d L80" to give the symbols for<o>. The third pattern is usedonly for <J> which is similar t; the secondpattern,bu t the symbol for <Je> s rotated 135' clockwise to give </o>.
McCarthy (1995) points ou t different styles of writing Cree. In more informalwriting' vowel length and codal consonants are usually not marked although con-
siderablepersonaland dialectal variation exists. n formal writing, and in publishedmaterial, the vowel length and syllable-finalconsonanrsare usually indicated.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 271/340
252 Other Writing Systems
The classification of the Cree writing system is not completely straightforward.
McCarthy (1995) points out that writers of Cree learn the symbols as distinct
entities and think of them as equivalent to individual spoken syllables. In dis-
cussionsabout other so-calledsyllabaries e.g.,Japanese ana, Cherokee),we havepointed our rhat the systemsare not really syllabaries,bu t moraic systems.Thus,
we can argue that Cree is a moraic writing system.Note, however, that when we
organize kana and Cherokeesymbols so that the oneswith the same consonant arc
in the samerow and those with the samevowel are in the samecolumn, we do not
find any recurring graphic pattern in either rows or columns. For Cree, however,
the situation is different; the rows and columns each share a certain pattern. The
shapeof the symbol showsthe consonant,and the orientation is a diacritic showing
the vowel; the strucrure of the symbol is transparent, and we can identify the con-
sonant and the vowel componentsseparately.To some degree, hen, Cree s like an
abugida where the vowels are written as diacritics; however, it is different froma typical abugida in that al l vowels are written and there are no consonantclusters.
In my view, the Cree writing system is basically moraic with some attributes of
an abugida.
Walker (1996) argues that the different orientation patterns used to indicate
vowels'can
only have caused great difficulty for the many thousands of people
who have struggled o become iterate in Cree-Ojibwa syllabics'.Walker's objection
seems ll-founded; Cree speakers eport instead that the system s remarkably easy
to learn. One part of the explanation of'Walker's
problem is McCarthy's observa-
tion, mentionedabove, hat speakersearn the individual symbolsas distinct entities.
Although they may be aware cognitively of the orientational pattern of the system'
they do not make extensiveuse of this structure in learning or using the system.
Further, coping with three slightly different patterns of orientation seemstrivial
when compared with the capability of the human mind for dealing with anomalies
and irregularities of language and writing.
One drawback to the use of orientation that is occasionally mentioned is that
children do not acquire a clear senseof geometric orientation until an agesometime
after they have usually started writing. Consider, for example, the confusion that
children who use the Roman alphabet often have with the letters <b d> and <p q>.
Children thus might find a writing system hat dependsso crucially on orientation
confusing. No hard evidenceon this point seems o exist.
The Cree script is an example of the developmentof a script, as opposed to the
invention or borrowing of writing. Clearly, Evans was literate, in fact, familar with
several anguagesand scripts.'S7hat
is new in the Cree script is the shapesof the
symbols,and especially he use of orientation as a diacritic to indicate vowels.
13.3 Inuktitut
13.3.7 Backgroundand historyInuktitut is spoken across he North American arctic from Greenland to Alaska. In
Canada, the terms Inuit and Inuktitut have come to replace the older word Eskimo'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 272/340
Other'Writing Systems 253
a pejorativeerm from Algonquian,meaningmeateater'.The nuit are hepeople,and nuktitut is the language.
By the mid-nineteenthentury, he AnglicanmissionariesohnHordenandE. A.Watkins,working in JamesBaywith Creespeakers, daptedhe Creewriting sysremfor writing Inuktitut. Another missionary,Edmund Peik, who is often incorrectlygivencredit for creating he Inuktitut script (Harper 1983),was insrrumentalnspreadinghe system fter1876,publishingranslations f portionsof the Bibleandothermaterials. lthough he Inuktitut systemwassometimesaught n missionaryor otherschools,t wasmoreoften earnedrom parents r other users.Many first-handreportsdescribehe systemas extremelyeasy o learn.The Inuktitut script hasbeenwidelyusedby the Inuit in mostof Canada xcepr n Labrador.Roman-basedsystems re used n Alaskaand Greenland.
The Inuktitut borrowingshowed onsiderableonservatismntil recenrly, eep-ing closely o the original Cree model. Many
symbols rom the Creesysrem .i.used or Inuktitut with no difficulty. Although nor representing xactly the samephoneticsound, he Creesymbol or <c>was reassignedo Inuktitut lgl (f etc.),and_theCreesymbol for lrl was reassignedo Inuktitut lv l (ru erc.);similarly, hesymbolsor Cree o/ werereassignedo Inuktitut lu l (t r etc.).The resulting ystemwas still underdifferentiated y not providing for the Inuktitut sounds q q v I/.It was also overdifferentiatedby retaining the Cree four-vowel system,whereasInuktitut only neededhree.Certaindialectalvariations n the script had arisen,particularlyalongsectarianines; or example,he Anglicans seda superscript otto indicatevowel lengthwhereashe RomanCatholics epeatedhe vowel (usingthe null consonant
orm).However,despitehese malldifferences,he Creesystemwas used o write Inuktitut for over a century; n addition,many areasusedavarietyof Roman-basedcripts.
In 1950, the CanadiangovernmentappointedRaymond Gagn6 o establishone writing system or al l Canadian nuit. Gagn6cameto the conclusion hatthe moraic (syllabic)systemshould be abandonedn favour of a Roman-basedalphabet.However,as Harper (1983)says, Gagn6,and throughhim the Depart-ment [of Northern Affairs], seriouslymisjudged nuit attachmenr o syliabicorthography'.
Althoughthe attempt o replace nuit writing with the Romanalphabet ailed,
the effort did initiate an orthographic reform of the syllabic writing system.Adual syllabic-Romanrthographywas establishedn 1976 by the Inuit Languagecommission.t is shown based n Nichols1996\ n table13.5.
73.3.2 The modernInuktitut script
The symbols f Inuktitut aregiven n table13.S.Since nuktitut has only three vowels,only three vowel orientationsare used
<i u a>. Long vowelsare shownas a superscript ot : A <pii>. The sounds q r1lwereprovidedfor by usingdiacritics:writing /qi/ as
qP,/qi/ as $1. For /v/ and
/{/, newsymbolsweredevelopedtr lvil , q l*al . The soun lh l only occurs inally.In the Roman-basedcript, ongvowelsaregeminated pii>; gl iswritten2s<ng>;l*l is writteneitheras<{> or as<6c>.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 273/340
254 Other Writing SYstems
Table 13.5 The symbolsof Inuktitut. The standard
romanization s given with additionalphonetic nformation
in squarebrackets;note that <6c> s a symbol or a lateral
fricative
u a Final
g
p
t
k
g [v ]
m
n
s
I
iv
r [rl
q
nehl
{ 6. t{l
h
A
nnP
l"
ra
(
C
c\t\
s P
$r '
(-
)
d
J
J
-0
)
J
{
7s d
cb
t
L
o-
\
(-
q
q b
c
b
L
L
c
(-
,
s
s b
$
q
lt
$ L
t
$ J
J
13.4 Runic
73.4.7 Backgroundand history
Therunic alphabetwasused o write inscriptions uring heMiddle Agesn Germanic
languages, rimarily in Scandinavia nd Britain. The Germanic anguages re a
branchof Indo-European.The earliest unic writingsare found in Denmarkand adjacent reasand dated
from the first centuryNEw.Shortly hereafter,Germanicpeoplesbrought the runic
writing system o the continent.When the Anglo-SaxonsnvadedBritain in the
fifth centuryNEv, they took runic writing with them. Becausehe Norse travelled
so widely, runic inscriptions ave been ound occasionally utside he Germanicarea.One inscription s even ound in Istanbulon the floor of the GreatMosque
(the ormerHagL Sophia athedral). omewhat urprisingly,celand as ather ew
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 274/340
Other Writing Systems 255
runic inscriptions,and they are found mainly in churches, ll datedafter 1200.Greenland asabout40 inscriptions. laimsof runic nscriptionsn North Americaaregenerallyegarded y runologisrs s unsubstantiated.
The earliestwritingsare on smallportableobjects,uchas spear-blades,hieldbosses,ewellery, ombs,buckles,igurines, tc. From raresurvivingexamples, e
know that runicwriting wasalsodoneon wooden ablets; owever,mostsurvivinginscriptions re on stonestela. During a twelfth-centurywinter storm, groopo?Vikings became trandedn the Orkneysand took shelter n a tomb where"thei .ftabout thirty inscriptions n the walls. 7ith the introductionof Christianity,unicwriting was gradually eplaced y the Romanalphabet.The ChrisrianCtrurch nScandinaviaeemso have olerated unic writing in viewof the many nscriptionswith crossesand other Christian symbols.Runic writing never completetyaieaout, althoughby the late Middle Ages t had become n antiquarian nterest.Thesurvivingexamples
f runic writing arealmostall cur or scratchednto the writingsurface;examples f runic writing on parchmentor paperare mostly from latemedifval times. It has beensuggestedHaugen1g76i, iro*.u.r, rhat the reasonfor the smallamountof runic writing in Iceland s that the writing was on easilyavailable heepskinwhich hassincedisintegrated.
Theoriginof the runicalphabetsdebated.f theearliestexrsdate rom about hefirstcenturyNEuz, e can reasonably ssumehat the runic alphabetwasdevelopedsometime round he ime0, or shonlybefore.TheRoman,Greek,and northern talicalphabets avebeensuggestedspossible ources.We must, however,be carefulaboutchronologicallyappropriate orms.The lettetr K N.<f r> (table 13.71likely
come rom the Romanalphabet.The ettersX Y .g z> couldpossiblybe related oearlyGreek hi andpsi<X Yt. The etters $ l'"t B11X f ri <k n i s t b e m I o>could (with a bit of imagination) ome rom eitherGreekor Latin.North Italic offersparallelsor someof the distorted
ones'<a u s>.Some f the etters<w r p rJ>maybe originalcreations.
The mixture of likely sourcessuggestshat stimulus diffusion may havebeenat work here.
$7ecanenvisiona Norsespeakerwho travelledn soutirernEurope
and became cquaintedwith writing from Roman,Greek,or perhapsother rour.ir.This personcamehome, perhapsnot remembering ccuraiely u.ry detail, andcreatedan alphabetwith elements rawn from u r^iirty of souices.Moltke (igSs)
has argued hat the actual ocationof the development f the early runic scripiwas Denmark; his is plausibleon the basisof the largenumberoi earlyDanishinscriptions.
Runic lettersare quite angular with no strictly horizontal strokes.The bestexplanationor this shapes that the runic alphabeiwasdesignedo be written onwooden ablets. f the grain of the wood runs horizontally,-verticalnd diagonalstrokeswould be clear,but horizontalstrokeswould be hard ro seeagainst hegrain.
73.4.2 Proto-Scandinauianphonology
Haugen 1976) econstructs roto-Scandinavianhonology,whichwould beappro-priate or early nscriptionsrom Denmark,asgiven n ta-ble13.6.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 275/340
255 Other Writing Systems
Table 13.5 The phonemes of Proto-Scandinavian
73.4.3 The tanic alphabets
The order of the runic alphabet s known from the many existingabecedaries:. f , rh ar kgw h n i j r p zs t b em I j d o>;notethat 0/ isnormal lyomanized
as<h>as n Old English. he 24 letters redivided nto threegroupsof eight etters
each, nown as ettir'families'.We haveno ideawhy the ettersareorderedn this
way. In modern imes, heword futbark hasbeenusedasa name or the alphabet,'futhark' beingsimply he first six letterspronounced s a word.
The ndividual uneswereusually ivenacrophonic ames. he names arysome-
what, but table I3.7 givescommon names n their earlyGermanic econstructed
form.The runic alphabetwent throughvariousphasestable13.7), he best-known
being he Germanic elder) uthark, the Danish (younger) uthark, and the Rok
(short-twie)uthark.The svmbolN s transcribe as lal in the Germanic uthark; however, n later
versrons,r s a nasal owelusually ranscribe as lVl.The symbol$ in the Germanic
futhark is transcribedas 'il; inthe later versions,ire correipondingsymbolN n the
Danish uthark, and I in the Rok futhark, represent non-nasalizedowel and are
transcribed s al .The Germanicuthark is the oldestversion,probablydatingback o the time 0.
As you can see, t fits the reconstructed roto-Scandinavianhonologyquite well.
Thedeveloper f the runicalphabethad workedout a verycarefulphonemicanalysis
of the anguage nd developed n alphabetwell suited o that analysis.
The Danishfuthark, which emergedn the eighthcentury n Denmark,was aradical reyision of the Germanic uthark. The olde Z4-Iettersystemwas reduced
ro sixreenetters. he anguage ad changed, nd he Danish uthark allowed hose
changeso berepresentedn thewriting systemmoreclearly.But more nterestingly
from a linguistic iewpoint, he one-to-oneelationship etweenetterandphoneme
changed o that one letter represented ore than one phoneme.Frequently,we
find that over time a language hanges, ut the writing systemdoesnot. A society
then sometimesnstitutesa spelling eform to bring the writing systemback into
line with the phonology.Many examples f this sort of spelling eform exist.The
Danish futhark, however, epresents spelling eform in the oppositedirection.
'!flherepreviously herewasa fairly clearone-to-oneelationshipbetween honemesand symbols,now many symbolsambiguouslyepresentwo or more phonemes.
IThy this happeneds not clear.
k
gh
!
p t
b df em n
l r
s z
u
oo
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 276/340
Other Writing Systems 257
Table 13.7 Three stagesof runic symbols (note: an aurochs is the extinct large Europeanox Bos primageniusl
Phoneme GermanicDanisb Ro& Germanic name
A
N
t
B
rh
F
N
R
XP
N
$
I<>
J
rYV1
f
B
f1
P1
I
o
X
i
f
u
e
a r ?
r
k
gw
h
n
i
ii la
p
Z
S
t
b
e
m
I
D
d
o
Y
h
P
N
R
Y
r1\
I
F
RY
"fehu'cattle,
wealth'
olruz 'aurochs'
opurisaz'giant, monster'
oansuz'god'
"raidd'r iding'
"kaunaz'ulcer'
ogeb6'gif t 'owunio ' ioy '
ohagalaz'hail'
onaudiz 'need'
olsa- ice'
"jera-'year'
oeihwaz'yew'
"perp-
'?'
" algiz '?'
osdwild'sun'
oteiwas 'god Tiw' (cf. Eng. Tuesdayl
oberkanan'birch-twig'
oehwaz horse'
omannaz tman'
"laguz'water'
oingwaz'god Ing'
"dagaz 'day '
*opila'hereditary land'
I
\
I
ttI
In Norway and southernSweden, revised lphabet, nown asRdk runes, r short-twig runes,was usedwith symbolsof slightlydifferentshape, ut with essentiallythe same trucure as the Danish uthark.
. The Anglo-Saxonsame o Britain in the mid-fifth cenruryNEw,bringingwiththem the Germanic uthark. Somewhat ater, he Norse nvaded he norri'eait partof England, lsobringingwith them runicwriting. Rather handecreasinghe number
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 277/340
258 Other Writing Systems
of lettersas with the Danish uthark, the Anglo-Saxonsncreasedhe numberof
letters n their futhorc; he British name uthorc reflects ertainsoundchanges hich
had takenplace here.Eventually, herewere some31 letters n the Anglo-Saxon
futhorc.Runicwriting endedn Britainduring he tenthcentury.Most British unicinscriptions re n the Norse anguage, ut about fifty are n Old English.
73.4.4 Mysticis?n nd ruagic
Sometimespeople, usually non-specialists n runology, becomefascinatedwith the
supposed magical lore or powers of the runes. The fact that the word rune derives
from Old English run, Old Norse rfin'secret,mystery', hascertainly encouraged his
approach. In late mediaval Scandinavia, uneswere used or fortune-telling and for
writing magical sayings. n recentNazi times, mystical Aryan powers were attributed
to the runes. From a linguistic perspective,any magical properties in runic writingare irrelevant. Runic writing is an ordinary, although interesting,writing system.As
Page 1987) says,'if [the Germanic peopte]wanted to cut a religious or magical tex,
if they wished to produce a charm word, they would userunic, the only script they
had, for it, just as a modern wizard would be likely to write his magic . . . in Roman
characters.But that would not confer upon runes the status of a magical script.'
In this context, it is interesting o note that Christianity did not disapproveof runic
inscriptions; indeed, many stoneswith runic writing also have a Christian cross.
13.5
73.5.7
Ogham
Background and histoty
Ogham nscriptions re Old lrish texts found in lreland,Britain, and the Isleof
Man, dating from the fifth to the seventhcenturiesnnw (McManus 1991',7996).
The ogham nscriptions re the oldestsurviving rish texts.Manuscriptuseof the
ogham alphabet, nown asscholastic gham, s attestedn later texts,notably n
The Scholar'sPrimer (Auraiceptna nEces).
Inscriptions utside reland are ocated n areas olonized r heavily nfluenced
by the rish.Ogham nscriptionsn Britain,but not in Ireland,aresometimesccom-paniedby a Latin translation.Some ndecipherednscriptionswritten n this alphabet,
known as Pictishoghams,are found in easternScotland.Modern Irish spells he
word ogbam,andOld Irishspelledt ogaln;bothspellings re ound n English. he
oghamalphabet s alsoknown as beithe-luis-fernrom the namesof the first three
letters.The Romanalphabetater replaced gham or writing lrish.
Irish is a Celtic language,a family itself descendedrom Indo-European.The
oghamscriptwas usedonly for Old Irish.Al l the otherCeltic anguages nd later
formsof Irish usedadaptations f the Romanalphabet.
The oghamalphabet s unusual n its graphicshape table 13.S).The letters
consist f notches nd strokes,ypically nscribed t the edge f a stonemonument.Each etter s formed by 1-5 repetitions f thenotches for vowels)or strokepatterns
(for consonants). otchesare on the edge;somestrokepatternsare on the left
of the edge,someon the right, and somecross he edge.Unfortunately or later
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 278/340
Other.WritingSystems 2s9
generations f readers f ogham, he edge s the part of a monumentmost likelyto be broken off or damagedby weathering.The later manuscript exrsare oftenwritten horizontally.
In terms of shape, here is no other writing sysrem ike ogham.The symbolsthemselvesiveusno clue o theirorigin.Onetenuous xplanriion or the shapes
that they developedrom the useof the fingers n counting. n structure,howiver,ogham s a perfectlyordinaryalphabet,well suited o the languaget was used owrite. Irelandwas not part of the Roman Empire,but the Irish neverthelessadcontactwith the Romans,and they werecertainly awarcof Romanwriting. Thebestguesss that someone evised n originalalphabet n Ireland nspired6y theRomanalphabethroughstimulusdiffusion.
73.5.2 Tbe oghamalphabet
Theogham ettersareusuallyarrangedn four groups,eachgrouphaving he samekind of stroke,but differing n the numberof strokes.Many lettetsareassociatedwith variousobjects, speciallyrees.
A star-shapedetterwas used or kl or lelin the stone nscriptions, ur in latermanuscriptshis symbolwasused or the diphthong eal:
k/e (ea) X 6bad,?,
In addition,a few othersymbols re ound only in the atermanuscriptradition
for the diphthongswhich had developedater:
oi + 6r'goId'
ia Til p{n, phin'pine'
Table 13.8 The oghamalphabet
u i X
s-ae
uilen'elbow'
emanchol/'double'
l-
FFFF
++++*
b
If
s
n
m
g
D
z
r
beithe'birtch'
luis'blaze, herb'
fern'alder'
sail'wlllow'
nin 'fork,loft'
muin'neck'
gort'field'
(n)gdtal wounding?'
straif 'sulphur'
rz ls ' red(ness) '
h
d
t
k
kw
a
o
u
e
i
I{+++
(h )ua th '? '
dair'oak'
tinne'metal od '
coll'hazel'
cert,queirt'bush'
i l r 'earth'
eded '? '
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 279/340
260 Other Writing Systerns
I
+I
--1
+-]--1
-t
.--1
:-r+:l-
g
o
O
(J
F
F
o
F
F
o
F
Figure 13.L An ogham inscription from Kerry, Ireland:'Of Toictheach son of Sagi Rettos'
73.5.3 Example text
Ogham texts are very short, typically one or two nouns in the genitive case. The
stoneswere likely grave markers or possibly boundary markers.
The text in the inscription in figure 13.1 starts at the lower left corner of the
stone and proceeds upwards around the top. Note that the romanization is given in
upper-case etters, as is common in ogham studies;also /k / is transcribed as <C>,
and /k*/ as <Q>.
13.6 PahawhHmong
73.6.7 Backgroundand history.We
rarely know much about the emergence f a script. I7ith PahawhHmong,
however,we are fortunate n having a greatdeal of first-handknowledge Smalley
et al. 1990). Between7959 and 1977, ShongLue Yang developed script for his
languageHmong, spokenon the Laotian-Vietnamese order.Previously lliterate,
ShongLue Yang devised he script and revised t in four versions, ach ime bring-
ing it closer o an unambiguous honemic epresentationf Hmong. \(zitha long
familiarity with writing systemsn southeastAsia, Smalley elt that the PahawhHmong writing sysrems uniqueand bearsno obvious elationshipo anywriting
sysremhat ShongLueYangmight possiblyhavecome nto contactwith.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 280/340
Other Writing Systems
Table 13.9 The phonemes of Hmong
261
qh
q
k
kh
ua
ia
tL
r
FhT
ai
ai
au
c
c"
tlt L
U "
I3
TSk
ts "
t
th
ddh
nh' ,n
php '
fv
mnm
i
e
e
Tones
Ahigh levellow glottalizedIow risinghigh falling
Bmid risingmid levellow levelfalling breathy
The Hmonghavea traditionof the sacrednessf writing asa glftof God.Shong
LueYangbelievedhat hewasdivineand that hisscripthadbeendivinely nspired.He was known amongsthis followers as the 'Mother of Writing'. He taught thescriptwith greatsuccessntil his assassinationn l97I by the governmeniwhichfearedhis growing nfluence.
. Although ShongLue Yang's fourth and last versionof the script appeals olinguistsbecausef itsclearer elation o thephonemes f the anguage nd ts lackof ambiguity,mostHmongspeakerssing he scriptprefer he hird revision, hownhere.Although the PahawhHmong script is highly valued and widely respectedamongst he Hmong)a romanization,he RomanizedPopularAlphabet,deviiedbyChristianmissionaries,s morewidelyused.
73.6.2 Phonologyof Hmong
Hmong is a memberof the Miao-Yao anguageamily.Hmong s an isolating an-guagewith monosyllabicmorphemes. he phonemic ysrems shown n table13.9.
There are eight tones.The significance f the column labelsA and B will beexplainedn $13.6.3.Hmong hasa largenumberof onsets, ut the only codalconsonants gl .
73.6.3 Structureof PahauthHmongscriptSomeof the symbolsof PahawhHmong are shown n table 13.10.The script s
written linearly from left to right. The rhyme s written firsr, followed by the onr.t.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 281/340
262 Other Writing Systems
Table 1.3.L0 Some symbols of the Pahawh Hmong writing system
mr ml ll fb
d a a t ta - a a
Jr tt It lt
6 u o 6 x 6 tn n n f l
a - a a
I . J H H H
u t i t m u
lg lr hfa l
v v \ 7i L an n nf i d t t n
a l
U U U
H A F
hl
\7
L
nttl
U
H
Some rhymes
l-tgl
t-il
l-aul
l-ul
l-el
l-ail
Tones
mr
ml
ll
fb
ht
lg
lr
hf
high level
low glottalized
low rising
high falling
mid rising
mid level
low level
falling breathy
Some onsets
lvl
lskl
ls l
lhll
thl
lml
tgl
G
n
TLl
FR
i
tft
ttnl
lnl
G
n
AnrR
tr
G
nAr-.1
trR
tr
lr\tl
/nts/
lu
Isl
Ithl
Itsh
lndll
/ntsh/
lpll
lq,l
lndhll
t l
1
Numerals
The rhyme is written as a combination of the VC-symbol and tone diacritic. The
tones are divided into two groups, A and B, as shown in table 1.3.9.Each rhyme has
two symbols: one is used when the tone is from the A-group and the other when
the tone is from the B-group. The tones in eachgroup are then indicated by one of
four diacritics (including the absenceof a diacritic). Three of the four diacritics are
the same n the two groups, but one is different. There is no relation in the shapesof
the symbols for the same rhyme in the two groups. Many onsets share the same
basicsymbol with different diacritics; there is no significance o the diacritics other
than in distinguishing the different onsets.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 282/340
Other Writing Systems 263
As exampleof the writing of PahawhHmong syllables,veq-hl/ (where hl /
in.dic_a1eshigh evel one) s written as Vg; lve\-mri(mid rising) s written asElG.hki-hf lis written as Ah; and ?au-mr/ s written as60A.
13.7 Bliss
73.7.7 charles Blissand the origin of Btisssymbols
Karl Blitz was born in 1897 in Austria, near the Russianborderwhere severaldifferentethnicgroups ived.As a youngman, he notedthe animosity he differentgroupsshowed owardseachother and felt this was in largemeasure ue to thefact that they spokedifferent anguages. s a Jew,he was t"L.r, prisonerwhen theNazisoverranAustria
n 1938.He managedo escape nd fled o Englandwherehe changed is name o CharlesBliss.He went o Shanghaio rejoinhis-wife;here,he was nternedby theJapanesen 1943until theendo] thewarwhen hemoved oAustraliawith hiswife. In Shanghai, lisshad becomenterestedn Chinesecharuc-tersandwas ascinated y the fact that al l Chinese ouldcommunicaten the samewritten language ven f they spokemutuallyunintelligible ialects.
In Australia,althoughBlisswas a chemicalengineer, e developed passionateinterest n creatinga semantically asedwriting sysremwhich all peiple in theworldcould use o communicatewith eachother. His aim was not to'cr ^t, ^n artificiallanguage,ike Esperanto, ut to createa universalwriting system hat could be'read
in all languages'.n
'1.949,
he publishedhis systemt *t*antography witha secondedition n 1,965.He then wrote thousands f letters n rtr .Jfoit io findsupport o publicizehiswork, but with very ittle success.
13.7-2 Bliss symbols As An aug?nentatiue co?nftrunication syste?n
1y.t971,,ShirleyMcNaughton,a special ducationeacher t theOntario CrippledChildren'sCentre now the Hugh MacMillan MedicalCentre) n Toronto, be-c-ar.reawareof Bliss'swork. Shewas ooking for asystemo helpchildrencommunicate hohad physicaldifficulties, uchascerebral alsy,which preventedhem rom speaking,
especiallyounger hildrenwho could not yet read.Her previouswork hads,rggeste;that pictureswere helpful, but that by themselvesheyJid not allow thechildrenroexpressomplex houghts r emotions.fith thediscovery f Bliss ymbols,work atthe Centrebeganon developing setof the symbolswhicir would beuseful or theirchildren's eeds. he methodwas mmediately uccessful,nd by 1975Bliss ymbolswerebeingused n a numberof centres. ypicallya boardof abouta hundredsymbolswas used,and a message as createdby pointing to the appropriate ymbok inturn. Additionalsymbols ouldbe madeavailable s equired. u"ri. ty of differentdeviceshave been nvented to accommodate he needsof peoplewith differingmotor difficulties,suchas not beingableto point preciselywith ihelr finger.
Families ndprofessionalslikewereextremely leased ith the resul6.With th.^r99f Bliss ymbols,ndividuals, othchildrenandrdultr, who hadbeen argely hutoff from many ypesof interactionwith their families, uddenlycame
to life;.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 283/340
264 Other Writing Systems
Blissymbolicsas beenparticularlypopular n Canada,Scandinavia,nd Israel.
Committees avebeenestablishedo createdictionaries ndregulate he development
of new signs much he way the national academiesf Europewere envisioned).
Blisshimselfwaspleased t the usefulnesshat his systeminally ound,but at thesame ime disappointedhat his originalgoalof bettercommunicationor theworld
had been ost.Theadventof computers asmeant hat a varietyof other echniquesndsystems
havebecome vailable or peoplewith speech roductiondifficulties, nd the use
of Blissymbolicsas allen off in the pastyears,but it clearlypointed he way in a
dramatic ashion.
73.7.3 The sttactureof Blisssymbols
Let us look now at how the Blisssystemworks. Most of the work on Blisshasfocused n developing ymbols or lexical tems. U(ewill look at theseandreturn to
syntaxand other ssuesater.
Some ymbolsarepictograms:
A.house' 6$ 'caf \-/
'container'
Some ymbolsare abstract ictograms:
A'feeling' n 'protection' ^' / 'water,liquid'
Some symbols are arbitrary, with no logical connection to their meaning:
tr 'thing' n 'mind' / 'this'
Somearbrtrarysymbolsare borrowedfrom ordinary writing:
g 'three'+
'addition'!
'intensity'
Some symbols are semanticcompounds:
ae tcloud'
0oparent'
dG|'taxi'
= L' 'water' +'sky'
= 1 ' p e r s o n ' + n ' p r o t e c t i o n '
= 6 'car' + G|'[mited time'
Al l of this is very much ike the way Chinese haracters ere developedchap-
ter 3), excepthat thereareno phonetic xtensionsr semantic-phoneticompounds.
Semanticallyaseddiacriticsare common:
I'room'
f'ceiling'
]t'wall'
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 284/340
Other'Writing Systems 265
Symbols alled ndicatorsare often used o specify hingssuchas the syntacticcategory f the term,suchasverb enseor number:
O 'mouth'
I
'food'
'ate,eat (past)' 'eat (future)'
(pastcondit ional) '
'minds'A .brain'
'think (verb)'
The small cross indicatesplural; the small square a thing; rhe arrowheaddown, an adjective;and the arrowhead pointing up, ? u.rb.
A combination of pictograms and compounding is a common way oflexical items:
(q
t
o
?,
o
x
A
'eat (present)'
'mighthave eaten
'mind'
'thoughtful'
polntlng
deriving
o
'say'
od
o ! !
'shout'
r$,
'opinion'
€
oe
'discussion'
R'nonsense'
o€
oe''argument'
E'secret'
A
o/6\'describe'knowledge' 'understand' 'explain'
Theexclamationmark shows ntensity.Discussions'talkgoing n bothdirections'.Song s mouth'+'a musical ote'.Opinion s mind'+'mouthl.
Secrets held n anenclosureKnou',ledges'mind' + 'storehouse';understands 'knowledge'+ 'into'='to enterone'sstoreof knowledge'; xplain s'say'+'understand '.bescribe s'think'+ 'say'+ 'be'= 'to saywhat somethings, .
73.7.4 Sentencesn Bliss
The materialsavailable o me primarily derive rom the attemptro creareBlisssymbolsn an English-speakingnvironment.Helfman(1981)hasa small sectionon syntaxwith directions or formingquestions, egative entences,ndcommands,aswell assuggestionsor simplifyitg statements.hesynrax n the morecomplicatedsentenceseemsmoreor less o follow Englishpatterns.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 285/340
266 Other Writing SYstems
The following showsa possible entence ritten in Bliss: will go utith you if you
are afraid.
I , l+ ++ I" ?> I , ; $ tC '
+ I will go with you if you are afratd.
The first symbol s f, written as person'+'1' for firstperson.The second ymbol s
go with the future diacritic. With is expressed s a sequencef two plussigns.You
is like /, but with a number2 for secondperson. f is written as a questionmark
togetherwith 'eirher'.The next symbol s you again.Be is a smallversionof 'live'
(note he absence f verbal nflection).Finally,afraid is 'sad'+ future+ question
mark + modifiersad
about he future because f its uncertainties).To demonstratehe flexibility of Bliss, he next sentences a famousnonsense
sentencen Englishgoing back to Noam Chomsky:Colourlessgreen deassleep
furiously.
- 9 9 r
colourless green ideas sleep furiously
Colourles.sswrittenas'withoutcolour'; colour' is'eye'+'earth' (what he eyesees
from theearth) Green s a compoundof ocolour'+ grass'.Blissdefineshe coloursin termsof commonobjects.There s an alternative ystemor namingcoloursby
giving he numbersn theorder hey appear n a rainbow;greenwould be colour'
+'4'in that system.dea s 'mind' + 'down' (a thought ssuing rom themind); he
plural marker s addedhere.Sleeps 'eye'+ 'close'+ action ndicator.Furiously s
written here he sameas angrily' sincedifferentsymbols or synonyms re avoided:'much'+'feeling'+'opposition'+ modifier ndicator having trong eelings gainst
someone r something).As we will seeurther n chapter 4,the Bliss ystemsstructurallynteresting. ll
the other writing systemswe have studiedhave large phonologicalcomponents;
however,Bliss s completely emantic.t is unclear o me how personal amesarerepresentedn Blisswithout the useof somesort of phoneticextension. suspect
that the symbol or a family membernamedGeorgemight well be <G> using he
Romanalphabet; owever, uchusagewould be quite imited.
Because liss s suchan unusualsystem,we need o asksomebasicquestions.s
Blissa writing system?Our definitionof writing as the useof graphicmarksto
represenrpecificinguisticutteranceslearlyencompassesliss. U(e ave ust seen
rwo examplesentenceshat fit this definition.By changinga symbol n Bliss,we
systematicallyhange he meaningof the utterance, nd a changen the utterance
systematicallyhangeshe representationn Bliss.A secondquestion s: can any-
thing be written in Bliss?Our own observationshat both meaningfuland non-
sensical entencesan be written in Blissansweryes o this question; urther, he
testimony f Blissusers learlyagrees.
'i. tr x0<<
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 286/340
Other Writing Systems 267
Is Bliss ndependent f language?his wasoneof CharlesBliss's oals.Here heevidencesuggests ot. Rather than a writing sysremcompletely ndependentoflanguage, liss n fact seemso be ike the Romanalphabeti t can be used or anylanguagewith
a bit of adaptation.Can a sentence ritten in Blissby a Hebrewspeakerbe understoodby an Englishspeaker?Obviously,a sentence ritten inPolish n the Romanalphabets not understandabley an-English peaker;he useof the Roman alphabetmight allow the Englishspeaket Jmaki ^ uriy roughapproximationof the Polishpronunciation, ut it would not allow undersianding.Bliss,however,by beingsemantically ased,might allow somemutualunderstand-ing betweendifferent anguageso a very limited exrent.
Is Blissa writing system or a distinct anguageBliss?Clearly, he Blisswritingsystem ouldbe usedstrictly or writing English or someother "ngurg.), but in ifamily situation, t is likely that dialecivariationsand shortcutswould arise.The
resulting anguagemight be English-like, ut nor exactlyEnglish.Note that thepersonwith motor difficultycould useBlisssymbols o .*pt.rr himselfor herself,but other familymembers ould reply n spokenEnglish; his situationwould tendto keep he Blissuser'sanguage lose o English.
Is Blisssemanticallybasedor morphologicallybased?7hat linguistic unirs arerepresentedy the symbols? he answerseems learly o be that ii is semanricallybased. or example,Englishhasa morpheme axi. This morphemen Englishhas
no possiblenternaldivision nto smallermeaningful nits.The Blisssymbol6}p|for 'taxi', however, learlyhas nternalstructure.And indeed,we had manycases
of singlemorphemeswritten with complex,analysable ymbolsie.g.,+ .cloud,,
t 'parent ' , and od
morphemsargu-and
symbolO;) ! .
Blisssometimes akessemantic istinctionswhich do not exist exically n Eng-lis.h: or-ex_ample,herearesix differentwaysof writing 'I', explicitly set out in tlieBlissymbolReferenceGuide ('vt/ood, rorr, and Reichtggzl,
1 ' A , A , 8 , R , ? ,' f ' ' I ' ' I ' . f ' . f ' , I '
(general) (female) (male) (girl) (boy) (child)
. Clearly, he Blisssymbols orrespondo unitsof meaning, ot morphemes, ndthus the systems semantically ased.n chapte 14,*. *iil examine urtherhowBliss its nto thegeneral lassificationf writing sysrems.'Vfe
conclude henthat Blisssymbolsaresemantically ased,hat anything hatcanbesaid n any anguage anbewrittendown n Blisssymbols, ndanythin! thatcan be written down in Blisscan be read in any language. inally, the crJationprocessor symbolsused or Blissusesno devices ot otherwiseknown in creatingtraditionalwriting sysrems.
The English word 'argument'consists of two
but neithercorrespondso any of the parts of the
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 287/340
268 Other Writing Systems
13.8 FurtherReading
Danielsand Bright(1996) have chapterson most of these writingsystems.ForCherokee,eealsoScancarelli1992). orCreeand nuktitut: urnaby1985),Harper
(1983),McCarthy1995),W. Walker1981, 996). or unic: ntonsen1989), augen
(1976),Moltke 1985), nd Page(1973,1987;especiallyor runes n Britain). or
ogham: ehmann1989) ndMcManus1991). malley, ang,andYang 1990)sa
fascinatingtoryof the developmentf PahawhHmong.For Blissymbolics,ee Bliss
(1965), elfman1981),McDonald1980), ndMcNaughton1985).
t3.9 Terms
futhark
overdifferentiated
underdifferentiated
13.10 Exercises
1 Writeyourownnameand city n the scriptsof this chapter exceptBliss), aying
attentiono the sound,not English pelling.
2 What evidencedoes the Cherokee criptprovide o show that Sequoyahwasilliteraten English?
3 Howdid the historical evelopment f the Cree and Inuktitut criptsdiffer rom
thatof Cherokee?
Howdoes the Cree scriptdiffer rom an abiad? roma typicalabugida?
What internalevidencedo the runic and oghamscriptsprovide hat they were
the productof stimulus iffusion nd not completely riginalnventions?
ThePahawhHmong ystem iolates principlehat he phonemes f a language
and hegraphemes f its writing ystemgenerally ccur n the sameorder.Could
either he onsetsor rhymesbe considered iacritics f the other?
4
5
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 288/340
14 class fication f \ilfritingsysrems
Now that we haveexamineda largenumberof writing systemsn somedetail,wecanprofitably survey hem again o seehow they can-bestbe classified. he mosr
productiveway of organizingwriting systems asbeen o considerwhat linguisticlevel s representgdy thegrapheme. xamining heclassification f writing ,irr.-,will alsogiveus heopportunity o review heciucialstructural ointsof thevariouswriting systems e havesurveyed.
14.7 Phonetic,semantic,and Glottographicwriting
Languages a relationshipbetween oundand meaning,and it contacts he realworld at two interfaces: honeticand semantic. n priniiple, we can represenr nutterance y writing at anyof thesehree evels: honetic, inguistic, r iemantic.
I7e are amiliar with the notion of a phoneticwriting ryrt.- *hich could be usedto transcribe he soundsof any ufterance n any languagen the world; such asystemwould be similar o the InternationalPhoneticAlphabet IPA;seeAppendixB and InternationalPhoneticAssociation1.999),which providesan inventoy ofsymbols or a wide varietyof phoneticphenomena hich occur n humanspeechwith certain ules or using hese ymbols.The symbols epresent ure so,rndandarenot associated ith anyparticular anguage. hat is, the IPA piovidessymbolssufficiento represent ll thosephoneticdistinctionswhich areconrrastiven somelanguage omewhere. owever,asMacMahon (1,996notes: strictly
speaking,hen,the IPA is not a universal honeticalphabet n the sense f an alphabet liat willprovidea notation or everyconceivableoundused n a natural anguage. ather,it is a selective honeticalphabetwhich s constrained y therequirc-r* of phon-emiccontrastivity.'Even hough he IPA may not be a completely honeticwritingsystem,t is cleadya closeapproximation.'We
can also maginea semanticwriting scheme sed o transcribe deasdirectly,that is, the meaningof any utterance f any languagen the world, although,euertin linguistics, ucha notion is unusual.Sampson t98S,1,994) rg-uesotlhe pos-sibleexistence f a semanticwriting system hi useshe termsemasiigraphic):Tirere
would appear n principle o be no reasonwhy a society ould notfuu.expandeda semasiographicystem,by adding further graphicconventions, ntil it was as
complexand rich in expressiveotentialas heirspoken anguage' Sampson 985,
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 289/340
270 Classificationof Writing Systems
p.30).As part of hisevidenceor a semantic ystem,Sampson nfortunately sed
ih. 'Y.tkaghirLoue Letter'as an exampleof semanticwriting. This documenthas
been requentlydescribed sa messagerom a Yukaghirwoman n Siberia o her
boyfriend; t is a rathercomplicated rawingwith no words. n a fascinating it ofacademic leuthing,DeFrancis1989)showed hat the natureof this drawinghad
beenmisunderstood.t was not a genuinecommunication, ut rather part of a
parlour gameplayedby Yukaghir girls;one girl would makea drawingand the
otherswould take turnsguessing t the storybehind t.
Sampson lsorefers o the CheyennendianLetterwhich we examinedn chap-
ter 1 (figure1.1.).Recall hat this s a drawingpurportedly ent rom a father o his
son with money and instructionso return home. Sampson onsidershis as an
exampleof pre-writing on the way to becominga fully fledgedwriting system.
Aparr from theseexamples, e notes hat we occasionally ncounternstructions
with no words:modern rafficsigns, r assemblynstructionsntendedor interna-tional usewith no words.
DeFrancis1989)andDeFrancis ndUnger 1994\argue trongly hat al l writing
is phonologicallybasedand that semantically asedwriting is an impossibility.
They dismissnot only the Yukaghir letter, but also other types of evidence or
semanticwriting that Sampson dvanced. hey stxt€: thereis no possibilitywhat-
soeverhat pictographs ased n the nonphonetic rincipleunderlyingheir usage
by theYukaghirandthe North Americanndianscouldevolvento a full system f
nonphoneticwriting'.The problemwith the proposed xamplesor semanticwriting is that either he
examples renot concrete r systematicn theirmeaning r that the system nderlyingthem s not general n its scope.U7e ight beable o draw quitea numberof pictures,
like the Cheyenneetter, o communicate considerableangeof our activities.
However, t would be very difficult to do so in a way that reliably communicated
what we intended. n the absence f backgroundnformation,we might give the
Cheyenneetter a wide varietyof interpretations:Turtle-Following-His-Iilifewants
Little Man to send$53','Little Man wantsTurtle-Following-His-\7ifeo send$53','a man who knows Turtle-Following-His-Wifewants Little Man to sendhis chil-
dren to him', etc.As DeFrancispointsout, it seemsmpossibleo find a systematic
basisinking he drawingand ts meanitrB, system hichcouldbe used o interpret
othermaterial.If we rurn to signswith no words, suchas highwaysigns, he informationpro-
vided s, by contrast, uiteclear 'no entry', left-turnonly', yield',but therangeof
expressions quite imited. No signsexist or 'While you're out, would you mind
gertingsomeof that special ind of bread hat Marge likes'or 'I dreamt was a
robin last night'. Obviously,we could invent signs or thesemessages,ut there
would alwaysbe further messagesithout signs.
Sproat 2000,p. 135)says:Nobodyhasshown he existencef a writing system
that is entirelysemasiographic,elyingon no linguisticbasiso communicatedeas,
and which allowspeople o write to one anotheron any topic theychoose.t seems
fair to say hat the burdenof proof son thosewho would claim hat semasiographicwriting is possibleo demonstratehe existencef sucha system.'f we want to test
for a semantic riting system i.e.,Sampson'snd Sproat's emtsiographic),e can
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 290/340
Classificationof'Writing
Systems 271
semantic glottographichonetic
Figure 4.1 Basic lassificationf writingsysrems
set wo criteria: a) hat t be based ntirelyon semanticallynalysablenitsand noton pronunciation; nd (b) that any inguisticutterance e ranslatablento a corres-pondingsemantic epresentationnd viceversa.Any attempt o describeChinesewriting assemanticails
o satisfy he irstcriterionsinceChinese asa largephono-graphiccomponent.Both picturewriting and the assemblynstructionsltoai signspicturesai l to satisfy he second riterion.However, he Bliss ystemchapter 3] sindeed ust sucha semantic otationalsystem;t meetsboth these riteriaand thusconstitutes semantically asedwriting systemwithout phonological ontent.Theexamples rovided n chapter13 clearlyshow hat any inguisticutt.r"n.. couldbetranslatednto a semantically quivalentext in Blissand that any Bliss ext couldbe translatednto_a emanticallyquivalentinguisticutterance. ndoubtedly,Blisshas aultsand deficiencies,ut, by and arge, iis successful t accomplishingwhatit setsout to do; in any case, ur point here s that sucha system s possible-.
A basicclassificationor writing systems figure 14.1)distinguishesemantic,glottographic, nd phoneticwriting systems. he semanric ranih seemso haveonly one member,Bliss; he phoneticbranchhasonly the IPA and other similaruniversalphonetic ranscriptionschemes. he glottographic ranchcontainsall theotherordinarywriting systems e havediscussedn thii book.From thispoint on,we will setsemantic nd phoneticwriting asideand focusentirelyon glottographiiwriting systems.
The term ideographic s commonly found in works on writing with a varietyofmeanings,often poorly thought out, sometimes eferring to morphogramsandsometimeso semantic nits.Becausef thevery highchance f confusion, would
stronglyurge hat this term not be used.
14.2 GlottographicWriting
Glottographicwriting systems re he kind of writing systemswe havebeen ookingat in this book,except or Blissand PA.The ntentionof sucha sysrems to recorJthe linguisticutterances f a specificanguage.n the next secrion,we will discussthe considerableypologicalvarietyof glottographicwriting systems, ut they al lhave he purpose f giving eaders ufficientnformation hat theycanconstrucan
appropriatesemanticand phonological epresentationor any wriften utterance.Many scholars aveproposedmanydifferentclassification chemesor glottographicwriting sysrems. any of these avea basicsrrucrureike figure 14.2.
Writing
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 291/340
272 Classificationof Writing Systems
Morphographic Phonographic
Moraic Phonemic:
Figure 14.2 Traditional classification scheme of glottographic writing systems
In this scheme, hree basic types of writing systemsare distinguished. Uflith
morphographic ystems,he graphemeelateso morphemes: hinese nd Sumerian
areusually itedas he bestexamples f morphographicystems.he phonographicsysremselate o phonological nits in the language, ithermoraic or phonemic.
\7ith moraicsystems,he grapheme epresents mora:Japaneseanaor Cherokee
aregoodexamples f moraic systemstheproblems f syllabicvs.moraic aredis-
cussed elow in $14.5).And with phonemicsystems,he grapheme epresents
phonological egment,.e., a consonant r vowel;Finnishand classicalGreekare
goodexamples f phonemicwriting systems.This taxonomicscheme as a certainamount of validity to it , but on closer
examination, t is problematic.First,writing systems re taxonomically messy'.
Writing systems re mixtures of somesort or other. Sometimes,he mixture is
relatively malland can be setaside.Finnish s oftencited or its simpleone-to-onerelationshipbetweengraphemeand segment.
S7esaw in chapter9 that there are
threeminor exceptionso this relationship, nd also, ike most modernwriting
systems, innishusesArabic numerals,as well as symbolssuchas <U o/" *) ,
which areclearlymorphemically ased.f Finnishwereour worst caseof typological
mixture,we probablywould not worry a greatdeal.
Egyptianwriting presenrs much more seriouscaseof mixture, regularlyusing
bothmorphographic ndphonographic ymbols.Triting a word phonographically
and hen addinga semantic eterminativesnormal.Many wordsarc alwayswritten
morphographically;many are alwayswritten phonographically.n Maya, the mix-
ture of phonographic nd morphographics similarly horoughgoing, ndvariationis so common hat it would be difficult o specify usualor typicalway of writing
a word in Maya.Japaneseriting is themost obviouslymixedsystem f all today,
with its useof morphographickanii and the two types of phonographickana.To
account or these ystems, e needa way to describemixed systems.
Aside rom mixture,a second ointhasbeen rgued trongly y DeFrancis1989)'
who insists hat hereareno truemorphographicwriting systems,hat all truewriting
sysrems rephonographicallyased.DeFranciss speaking ereof the basic,over-
riding natureof a system,ecognizingthatmorphographic lements ay bepresent.
In particular, he refers o Chinese,wherehe estimateshe phoneticcomponentof
characterso be 66 percent. n hisview, he mportance f thepurelymorphographiccharactersn Chinesehasbeengreatly exaggerated,artly becausehey are often
thecharacters hich are aught irstand hus akeon a prominencen our mind, and
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 292/340
Moraic
Classificationof Writing Systems
Consonantal
273
Morpho-phonemic
Engl ish
French
Korean
Pure
consonantalMorpho- Pure
consonantal phonemic
Creek
Latin
F inn i sh
)ap. kana Chinese West Semit ic EgyptianCherokee Sumerian
Figure 14.3 DeFrancis' classification of writing systems
partly becauseh_e riting system rose rom pictographic and husmorphographic)writing
historically. haveargued bove hat the Blid system ontradicts elrancis'general laimaboutal l writing systems,ut the somewhatweakerclaim hatglotto-graphlcwriting systems re nevercompletelymorphographic eems alid.
A third problemariseswith writing systemr u.h"r
Ettglirh.Basically, nglish sa phonemicsystem,but its orthographyoftencontainsmJrphological nforriation.As we saw n chapter10, t is verycommon n Englishspelling o diitinguishdifferenthomophonousmorphemes: .g., ou,yera, J,eui. rfle itill needa -ry io incorporatethis sort of information n the classificationcheme.
DeFrancis'1989)solution s o removemorphographic sa separateategory ndto addmixedcategories: orphomoraic,morphophonemic,.t..A slightly roiin.a
versionof thechart n DeFrancis 1989) s shown n figure 14.3 l havesubstitutedmoraic for his syllabic).Note DeFrancis' erm consonnntal ar the SflestSemiticabjadsand for Egyptian.
Sproat 2000)argueshat DeFrancis rred n equating hedifference etween ureconsonantaland morphoconsonAntAl ith the differencebetweenpure phonemicandmorpbophonemic. ather,Sproatsays, hemorphophonemic ysiems ff.t fromthe,purephonemicsystems, ot by what is represetu.dby the basicsymbols,butratherwith respecto the phonological epthof -hrt is represented;t is a mistake'to equatehe exicalorthographic e.g.,he markedspelling f lnl in knit) with thelogographic[= our morphographicJ omponenrsof
-Chineiewriring, an equation
that is implicit in DeFrancis's lassification'. his distinction s the sameas thesecond nd third problemsof the traditionalclassificationcheme iscussedbove(figure14.2).
Alphabetic
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 293/340
3o
=
t
.l
1C
0q
D,E
274 Classificationof Writing Systems
fype of PhonograPhy
Consonantal Polyconsonantal Alphabetic
W. Semit ic Engl ish,Pahawh LinearB
Creek, Hmong
Korean,
Devanagari
Perso-Aramaic
Sumer ian,
Mayan,
Japanese
Figure .4.4 Sproat'slassificationf writingsystemsthe ermphonemicasbeen
substitutedor hisalphabetic)
Further,Sproatargueshat callingEgyptianconsonantal bscureshe existence
of bi- and triliteral symbols; ather,he viewsEgyptianaspolyconsonantal. proat
ultimately abandonsDeFrancis'hierarchicalclassificationn favour of a two-
dimensional nalysis figure14.4).The dimensions re rypeof phonographyandamounr of morphography.Perso-Aramaicefers o the Middle Persian 57.3.3)
writing with its frequentuseof Aramaicmorphograms.
I believehat Sproat's istinctionof two dimensions,honography ndmorpho-
graphy, s an improvement ver earlierclassificationchemes. proatsuggestshat
other dimensionsmight be added, n particular orthographicdepth which would
distinguish eep English, orean,Russian)rom shallow Greek,Finnish,Belorusian).
He alsomentionshe possibility f graphicarrangementsa significant lassificat-
ory feature; his would distinguish he very differentpatterningof Deuandgariand
Korean.
In my view, Sproat's imension f phonographys too unstructured. e presentsthevariousphonographicypessimplyasa list,going rom smallest r simplest ni t
to the largestor mostcomplex. n particular, umping a phonemicwriting system
like Greekwith an abugidasuchasDeuanagari eems dd. Further, do not see he
differencebetween he consonantaland polyconsonantal ystems s an important
organizingprinciple or writing systemsn general.TheEgyptianuseof polyconson-
antalgtrphi-.s is uniqueandseems ot to occurelsewhere.proat's istinction f
consonyntal ndphonemicscompatiblewith Daniels' 1995a)distinctionof abiad
andalphabet,but would addabugida.lwould proposehe classificationchemen
figure74.5.
The dimensionof orthographicdepth s also included:shallowsystems re inregular ypeanddeepsystems re n upper-case.innish,Greek,andBelorusian re
examples f shallow phonemicsystems,whereasEnglish,Korean, Russian,and
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 294/340
Classificationof'Writing
Systems
Typeof Phonography
Alphabetic Abugida
Finnish Pahawh Devandgari LinearB
Creek Hmong BURMESE CHEROKEEBelorusian TIBETAN
KOREAN
RUSSIAN
SCOTS AELIC
ENCLISH
275
o
-E'
oe-Itt
W. Semi t i c
Perso-Aramaic
Egyptian
Chinese
Mayan Sumerian
Japanese
Figure 14.5 Revised classification of writing systems (capitals show deep systems; regulartype, shallow)
ScotsGaelicareexamples f deepphonemic ystems. urmese nd Tibetanaredeepabugidasn conrrasro the shallow ndianabugidas.
14.3 Note: Amount of Morphography andOrthographicDepth
The notionsof amount of morphographyand orthographicdepthshould be care-fr{ly-distinguished. he amountof morphographyi gieate, i thereare symbols
which representmorphemes r, in a phonographi. yrt.-, if the spellingdistin-guishes ifferentmorphemes.Orthographicdipth is gieater f differentailJmorphsof the samemorpheme re written the ame. thur in English, he useof numeralssuchas <7 8 9> adds o the amountof morphography,l, do., the fact that thespellingdistinguishesomophonousmorphernes uchasby, bye,buy. Orthographicdepth in English s greaterbecause f the many heteropho"oui aliomorphs"*irichare spelled he same:e.g.,soutb-southern, hild-children,sign-signal.
l4-4 Gelb'sunilinear Theory of Development
In 7964,IgnaceGelb,a renownedSemiticist, ublished n mportantbookon writingsystems hich influencedmuchof the subsequentiscussion bout he typologyoT
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 295/340
276 Classificationof Writing SYstems
writing sysrems. elbargued hat writing systems nderwent naturalprogression
from fii.,ogt"phic to rytt.Ui. to phonemic; urther, he felt that no step in this
,.qu.n.. .ouli be skipped. f we examine he three placeswhere we are sure
that writing was irruerried, e seeclearevidencen Mesopotamiaand China thatwriting beglanwith pictogiaphs.With Maya writing, although here s little direct
evidenie or the .rtiy denelopment f writing, an early pictographicstage s quite
plausible. Gelb himselfbelieved hat writing had only beencreatedonce. He
ihought that Chinesewriting was borrowed from the Middle East, and he wrote
befoie the decipherment f Maya.) Thus, we haveno reason o differ with his
notion that all writing starts with pictographs.His secondpoint, that writing
moves rom pictograpLt o an alphabetvia a syllabary,hasprovedmuch more
contentious.Gelb claimed hat the Semiticscript was syllabic(the term syllabichas other
problemswhich are discussedn 514.5).His motivation or doing this was influ-inced by his notion of progression nd was rathercircular.AlthoughGglbrecog-
nized hat the Semitic .iipti werequitedifferent rom a more ypicalsyllabarysuch
asJapaneseana,his view was that eachconsonantal ymbol n the Semitic cript
r.*"lly represented syllable;or example, consonant ymboldid not represent
merely<pr, but <pv> where<v> could be anyvowel, .e., pi , P€,P2,po, pu/, etc.
Most-scholarsoday eel hat Gelbwaswrong n these laims: irst, hat there s no
invariantdrive owardsalphabetization;nd second,hat theSemitic cripts renot
syllabariesDaniels 990,Justesonnd Stephens993)'
!4.5 SyllabicversusMoraic
\friting systems uchasJapaneseana,Cherokee, inear B, etc.have raditionally
beenreferred o as syilaLii systems.Poser 1992) drew attention to the fact that
most of these ystems renot in fact syllabic,but moraic.Mora in this sense an be
takenasa partof a syllable qualeither o theOnset+ Nucleus r to the Coda; hus
a typicalsimplemorawould have he shape itherof (C)V or -C.
i1 chapte,4, *, pointedout that Japaneseanarepresents or&' not syllables.
Most kana symbols epresent (C)V ,iqo.n.., but thereare separate ymbols 9r
representinghe t*o .od"l morc. Thus n kana,a syllable uchas kun/ would be,.pr.rrnr.iUy two symbols<ku.n>. Cherokeehas a very similar system'with CV
,y-bolr plusone or codal lst.lfJapaneseanaandCherokee ere ruesyllabaries,
therewould be separate ymboli or the closedsyllables, nd a syllablesuchas
/kun/ would be representedy a single ymbol.
GreekLinearB writing (chapter ) is moraic n a slightlydifferentway.EachLinear
B symbolnormally .pr.i..rt, a mora.To write a word suchas tripos/'tripod', Linear
B writes <ti-ri-po>. tttir writing is moraic and not strictly syllabic n two ways.
First, a single ytt"bt. with an iiitial consonant luster tri/ has o be written with
two moraii symbols<ti-ri> (duplicating he vowel) with theconvention hat the
vowelof the first symbol s not ptottounced.Second, codalconsonants simplynot written. If LinearB weresyllabic,herewould be separate ymbolsor writing
syllables ith consonant lusters nd with codalconsonants.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 296/340
Classificationof.Writing
Systems 277
In Sumerian uneiformwriting (chapter5), aside rom the morphographicwriting,three ypesof phonographic ymbols xistwith theshapesC)V,VC, andCVC. Longvowelsare sometimeswritten simply as CV (ignoring ength)and sometimes yrepeating he vowel with a separate ymbol
CV-V. Cloied ryllrbl.r weresomerimeswritten moraicallyas CV-VC, but therewerealsosome eal syllabicsymbols orcertainCVC combinations. he phonographic ortionof Sumer-ianriting appearsto be basicallymoraic,with somesyilalic writing.
Modern Yi writing has beendescribed r rrrly syllabic Poser1.992,Shi 1.995,Sproat 000).Yi (Lolo) s a Tibeto-Burmananguage'spokenn southwesiern hina.A traditional Yi script exists which appears
-tohru. a logographicorigin. The
Chinese overnment asproposed t.ulr.d scriptwith 819cTraIa.i.rr,based olelyon phonology.From the information availableo me,Yi has44 onsets,en vowels,and our tones;as ar as candeterminehereareno codas. he proposed cripthassymbols
or al l occurringphonological ossibilities. hereare istinct symbols orthree of the tones; he fourth tone is written by using the symbols or one of theother toneswith a superscript rch diacritic. flithouicodal consonants,r is diffi-cult to distinguishhe difference f a simpleCV syllablerom a mora.However, hepresence f the complexonsets, uchas mb nd ish ndz tqh/ etc.,written with onesymbol asopposedo the moraicway LinearB would havewrittenthese nsets),ssome ndication hat the writing may be syllabic,nor moraic.
As Sproat 2000)pointsout, Chineses a syllabicscript n the sensehat eachsyllablehasa separate ymbol.The Chin.r. *iitirrg ,yrt.*, of course,hasa largeamgulltof morphographyn that differenthomophonousmorphemes re written
with differentsymbols.
14.6 KoreanHankul asa FeaturalSystem
Sampson 1985)described oreanhankulas eatural,positinga typolog cal categoryof featuralwriting systems. s we saw in SS4.2.4-5, y*Lok in hankul for thedifferentplaces f articulation hare ertain hrp.r, ,, do he symbolsor thediffer-ent manners.Sampson iews heseas the graphemes f the writing system.Sincethey relate_o phonological featuresof the language,he describes-the ystemas
featural.The overall hankul inventory,howeu.i irlofficiently unsysrematic s tothe relationshipbetween eatures nd shapeshar Sampson's nalysis eemsorced.
To apply Sampson's nalysis see able 4.24), he letters<m r s g g> would betakenasbasic.This s abeady roblematic ince heydo not sharea commonmannerof articulation.To form theplain stopsby Sampson'sules,a line s added,but thelabialsymbol sexceptionaln shapend .gt is aiready n thiscaregory. heaspiratedstopsare ormedby addinga further ineor dot; again,theabial f,rp. isexceptional.The- ense topsand tense<s>are formed by Sampson y reduplicatinghe plainsymbol; his works well. The liquid <l> *ouid havi to be addedasan exceprion.
. Somg eoplehavearguedagainsthe featuralanalysis n thegrounds hat Koreans
learn he system y memorizing ntiresyllabic lyphs.Althougi I reject he featuralanalysis'hisarguments unpersuasiveinceinguiitic yrt.*r-rnd humanconsciousawarenessf themareoftenquitedifferent.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 297/340
278 Classification f Writing Systems
In all, Sampson'snalysiseems xaggeratedDeFrancis989,Kim-Reynaudl'997,
Sproat2000, Taylor andTaylor 7995;however, eeKim 1997 for a view agreeing
with Sampson).he exceptionseem splentifulas heregularities. eatural harac-
teristicsareobviouslypresent.We havealreadyseen hat originalsymboldesignswere basedon articulatorypositions.However, he presence f features oesnot
mean hat they orm the basicstruffureof the system. analyse ankul asa segmental
writing system,with the ndividual etters ombinednto syllable-sizedlyphs.
14.7 Conclusion
The importance f writing in our public and private ives s immense. or much
of the world today ife salmostunimaginable ithout writing.For 1999,UNESCO
reporrsover 8000 daily newspapers ublishedwith a circulationof about275*illiott, and over300,000books;andvastnumbers f unpublished ersonal otes,
lelers, and diariescould be considered s well in the total amount of writing.
The rate of literacy n a societyhas becomea benchmark or measuring ocial
development.
Surprisingly, riting hasbeen nvented eryrarely,perhaps s ew as hree imes
in the historyof the world. The usefulnessf writing, however,s such hat, once
known, it has spreadvigorously o other languages. ll writing now in use s
derived,ar leasr ndirectly, rom only two writing systems: emiticand Chinese.
Today, here s likely no language hich has not been ouchedby writing to some
extent.Oncewe humanspossess riting, we regularly urn it into a socialobject.Most
often t hasbeenassociated ith education nd the ntellectuallyoftierportionsof
society.Not infrequently,societies avespokenonedialector language ndwritten
another.Major struggles ave esultedor andagainst hangesn the waywriting is
done n a language.\ilfehaveexaminedmany of the historicallyand linguistically mportant writing
sysrems f the world.'We
haveseengreatvariation and intricacy n the way differ-
ent writing systems ork. But much of that variation s related o detail;overall,
writing t.pr.r.ttts language y puttingdown symbols epresentinghe morphemes
andphonemesn the syntactic rderof the languagenvolved.
14.8 Further Reading
Daniels 1996a) rovides goodgeneralntroductiono the ield,especially p.8-10.
Gelb(1963), lthough utdated nd sometimes rongheaded,s still mportantead-
ing for this area. Sampson 1985,chapter2), DeFrancis1989),and Sproat 2000,
chapter ) presenthe standard iew.The debate n Sampson 1994)and DeFrancis
and Unger (1994) s useful,althougha bit polemic;Sproat(2000) s particularly
good n comparingheirviews.Coulmas 1989)presents moresemiotic pproach.
DeFrancis' istory f the interpretationf theYukaghir oveLetter 1989,pp.24-39)
is fascinating.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 298/340
Classificationof.Writing
Systems
14.9 Terms
amountof morphography
featural ystemglottographic ritingsystemlanguage
orthographicepthphoneticwritingsystemsemanticwritingsystem semasiographic)typeof phonography
279
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 299/340
AppendixA SomeBasicLinguisticTerms
Communication s a very general erm for the exchangeof information. In thisbook,we areparticularly nterestedn linguisticcommunication,hat is, communica-
tion via the useof language. languages a specific ognitivesystemwhich human
beingsuse o communicatewith eachother. When we speak,we use anguage o
encodeour thoughts nto sound which can be heard by others;when we listen,we
use anguageo decode oundsproducedby others nto meaningfulmessages.
Structurally, anguage an be definedas a complexrelationshipexistingbetween
soundand meaning.Many different anguages xist n the world. A major role of
linguisticss o discoverhenatureof languagen general, nd of languagespecifically.
Since his is a book on writing, you may wonderwhere writing fits in. Linguists
considerwriting to be secondary o sound.All languages re spoken;only somearewritten.Al l children earn o speak; omechildren earn o readand write, but
only after heyhave earned o speak.Learning o speak s a natural,unconscious
phenomenon;children learn to speakwith no special nstruction. Reading and
writing, however, equirespecial, onsciousraining.'We
havesaid hat anguagesa relationship etweenmeaning ndsound.Language
is normally manifestedas sound. If, however, anguage s manifested nsteadas
graphicmarks, henwe cancall thosemarkswriting (figureA.1).
MrnNrruc
1 Semantics The structure of meaning.
2 Syntax- The structureof sentences.
3 Morphologt - The structureof words.
4 PhonoloW . The structure of the internal soundsystemof a hnguage.
q Phonetics The structureof the details of the
manifestedsoundsof a language.
SouNo
Figure A.7 The relationship between writing and language
WRrnNc
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 300/340
SomeBasicLinguistic Terms 2gI
Linguistics suallydivides anguagento various evels. n FigureA.1, meaning,sound,and writing areconsidere partof the outsideworld, not p"rt oi hngurg..I anguages thecognitivestructure inking meaningand sound. fe can seero- t[isfigure hat semanticssthepart of languagemosrclosely elated
o meaning, nd hatphoneticss the partof languagemostclosely elated o sound. Vflritingti"r"
morecomplicated elationshipo languagen that unitsof writing arecommonly elated obothmorphologyandphonology,but not generallyo semantics,yntax,oi phonetics.To illustrate he different evels,we will analysehe senreneMary purchiseda neutbookcase;his analysiswill be followedby otherexamplesor each evel.
Semantics
Semantic elationsarethoseof meaning. n our examplesentene (Mary purchasedA new bookcasel,purcha.ses the eventor action; this event s connectld to t*o
semantic nits:Mary andbookcase.In he sentence, ary performs he actionandis known as he 'agent';
bookcaseeceiveshe actionand s ktto*., as he'goal'. Thetime of the event s specified sprior to the expressing f the utterancetself.A andnew giveus nformationabout he bookcase.
For other examples,hot and cold are semanticopposites;a tulip is a kind offlower, which, in turn, is a kind of plant. The sentences be ball was kicked byMary andMary kicked he ball haveverysimilarmeanings.n both,Mary perforrnsthe kicking and s the agent,and the ball receiveshe attion and is the goal. The
semantic tructureof these wo sentencess the same,or at leastverysimilar.
Syntax
Syntaxdescribeshestructureof thesentencen termsof subjects, erbs,andobjects.In English, he normal order of theseelemenrss subiect-uerb-otbiectSVO). n ourexample entence,heagents realized s he subject nd hegoalas he object: hus,we get a basicstructureof Mary purchasebookcase SVO).The time sequencesrealized spast ense.Boththe subjectandobjectare noun phraseswhich have fairly
fixed word order in English.Mary is a singleword and creates o problem.For th!object.,he typical word order of a noun phrase s used:article-aiiectiue-noun.In the sentenceshe ball uas kickedby Mary andMary kicked heball, ball is the
subject f the first sentence,ut the directobject n the second entence. ote thatthe syntacticstructures re quite different,but that the semantic tructures re verysimilar,as notedabove.
Morphology
Morphology discusseshe structureof words.Severalwords n our samplesentencehaveno internalstructure:Mary, q new.S(e
say hat eachconsistof oniy one mor-pheme.Bookcase bviously onsists f two parrs,book andcAse,which o togetherto form a compound:eachpart is a separutemorpheme.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 301/340
282 AppendixA
The word foreigners an be broken nto threemorphemes:foreign'not native',-er a person',and -s plural'. These hreepartsare minimum meaningful arts nthe sense hat they are meaningful, ut theycannot be further brokendown into
meaningfulunits. Minimum meaningfulparts form morphemes. urchasedalsoconsists f two morphemesi urchaseand-ed, where ed is a suffix indicating hepast ense. f we listencarefully o the soundof purchased, e notice hat the pasttense ar t is pronouncedtl , not dl as he writing suggeststhis s discussedurtherbelow).
Other examples:
1 basketball basket+ ball2 foolishness fool + ish + ness3 books book + plural
4 men- man+ pluralanalyzed n the modelof books
5 broke- break+ pasr enseanalyzed n the modelof purchase
Morphemesrequently re ealized y more han oneshape. he different ealiza-tions of a morpheme recalledallomorphs.
IJ[eeasilydivide ioness nto rwo morphemes s ion + ess,where esss a femininesuffix.Similarly,we analyze uchess s duke+ ess.Here, he situation s morecom-plicatedhanwith lioness.When hemorpheme ukeappears lone, t has he shape
duke; however,when it occursbefore he morpheme ess, t has the form duch-.Thuswe can say hat Englishhasa morpheme uke and hat themorpheme uke hastwo allomorphsduke andduch-.Duch- alsooccursbefore y 'territory' as n ducby.'We
say hat theseallomorphsduke and duch- are n complementary istributionwhich meanshat oneallomorphoccurs n onesetof environm nts dukeby itselfand the other occurs n anotherset of environments duch-before-ess r -yl.
'S7emustbesure o think in termsof sounds, ot in termsof writing. In our example
aboveof purchased, e saw hat the allomorphof the past ensemarker s /t/. In adifferentword, however,suchas rolled, the allomorph of the past tensemarker isldl.fi we were o examinemany ormsof thepast ensen English,we would discover
that the choiceof lt l or ld l is predictable nd depends n the astconsonant f theverb: hus, after s/ in purchase, e get t/, but after lll in roll,we getdt. Thewritingsystem,however, gnores his allomorphic variation and alwayswrites -ed. I haveenclosed ymbols n slant ineshere o emphasizehat I am talkingabout sounds.
In another example,with the plural forms cats and dogs,although the pluralmorphemes written -s, t is pronounceds/ in cats and zl in dogs. hus he pluralmorpheme as wo allomorphsn English:sl (afterhl) and z/ (after g/). Again,hewriting system gnoreshe allomorphic ariationand alwayswrites-s.
Phonology
Every anguage asa basic etof sounds alledphonemes. ny utterance anberep-resentedn termsof thephonemes f the anguage. or example,he representation
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 302/340
I
SomeBasicLinguistic Terms 283
of our example sentence s /,meri ,partJasta ,nu'buk,kejs/ (or something similar in
other accentsof English).
English has the sounds lp t kl. These sounds all contrast with each other in the
sense hat by interchanging them, we createnew words: lpot, tot, kot/ pot, tot, cot.
(Note that we are talking about sounds here, not letters; hus we always use lkl to
represent he phonemeno matter how it is spelled:cat, queen)kick.) The phonemes
of English are given in Appendix C.
Like morphemes, phonemesoften have different realizations,known as allophones.
For example, in English when lp t kl come at the beginning of a word, there is a
little puff of air afterwards: [phct, ttop, khul] pot, top, cool. The allophones [pn n kn]
have been written in square brackets to emphasize that we are talking about
allophones here, not phonemes.Now note that when an ls l precedes p t kl at the
beginning of a word, there is no puff of air: [spot stop skul] spot, stop, school.
Thus, we can say that English has the phonemes p t k/ and each of thesehas twoallophones in complementary distribution: [p phJ, t th], [k kh].
The term segment is used to cover both consonants and vowels. Syllables are
divided into constituent parts. The vowel is the central part of the syllable, called
the nucleus. Any consonants preceding the nucleus are known as the onset. Con-
sonants following the nucleus are known as the coda. The nucleus and the coda
taken together form the rhyme.
Phonetics
.Vfecoulddescribehe phoneticdetailof our sample entence,ut thiswould not be
very useful n this book. One examplewould be the sounds pn n kh],which are
calledaspirated tops;aspiratedmeans hat they havea little puff of air, and stopmeans hat while theyarebeingproducedhe airflow through hemouth s cut off.'We
couldalsonote hat both FrenchandEnglishhave he unaspirated tops p t k],
but that only English,and not French, as he aspirated tops pn nknJ.This book assumeshat the readerhasa basic amiliaritywith phoneticsymbols
and terminology.Appendix B contains he IPA (InternationalPhoneticAlphabet)chartwhich explains he symbols. f you are unfamiliarwith the descriptions,ou
might want to review hem n the phonetics hapterof an elementaryext on lin-guistics.A more horoughdiscussionan be found n Rogers 2000).
Bracketing
As we have just seen,a linguistic utterance can be analyzed at many different levels.
Linguists use certain notational conventions to help keep the levels straight. Slant
lines /top arc used to indicate a phonemic transcription; square brackets are used
to indicate an allophonic or phonetic notation [thop]. In this book we use talics top
to write a word generallywithout focusing on the pronunciation.'\Ufhenwe want todraw special attention to the fact that we are talking about an orthographic symbol,
we useangledbrackets<t>. Thus, we could write: In English, <c q k> are al l used o
write the phoneme lkl, as in the word quick.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 303/340
284 Appendix A
LinguisticLevel
A linguisticepresentation ay relate o different inguistic evels. t can be describedby ts positionon a continuumbetween eepand shallow.A transcriptionsshallower
if it is closer o thephoneticend;a representations deeperf it givesmoremorpho-logical nformation. A morphophonemic epresentations one related o linguisticunits betweenmorphologyandphonology.n the examples boveof thepast ense,thewriting system f English egularly epresentshe past ensemorphemehe sameway: <-ed>,except or irregularverbssuchas kept,sent, ode,sang thissimplifiesthe situation somewhat),even hough the past tensemorphemehas two differentsoundingallomorphst/ and dl.In this case,English s usinga deep ranscription.If Englishwrote <-t> or <-d> n strict accordance ith the sound, t would usea
shallow ranscription.
LanguageChangeand Dialects
Languagesare constantly changing. A simple way of looking at the effect of lan-guagechange s that if a language s spoken in two areas,and one area undergoesa
linguistic change, but the other area doesnot, the result is that the two areascome
to speak different dialects. If thesedialectal differences accumulate, they may become
so great that the dialects are no longer mutually intelligible, and we can then call
them different languages. Two languages related in this way are said to form alanguage family descended rom the older language. A well-known example is that
Latin changed in various ways in different places, giving rise to several different
languages:Portuguese,Spanish,French, Italian, and Romanian.
Variation in languageextends beyond dialectal or geographicvariation to include
also social variations basedon variablessuch as age,social class,education,gender,
or sexualorientation.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 304/340
AppendixB The InternationalPhoneticAlphabet
The InternationalPhoneticAlphabet IPA) s the standard ystem or transcribinglinguisticutterances. he chart of IPA symbols s given n figure8.1. A detaileidescriptionof the system s given in the Handbooft of the Iniernational PhoneticAssociation1999).
The IPAwasdevelopedn the early wentiethcenturyand becameairly standardin Europe.n North America, everal ariantsymbols rose rimarilybecausef thedifficulty of typing the IPA symbols n the daysof typewrirers.At present, he useof the North Americanalternativess very slowly turning towards the .rie of thestandardPA symbols. he majoralternatives reshown n tableB.1.Occasionally,scholarlyareas e.g.,Assyriology,Egyptology)havecertainspecialusesof theii
own. The normal_transcriptionf many languagesaries rom strict IPA usageptnytn, or example,n Chinese.
Table 8.1 common North American alternatives to IpA usage
IPA North American
I3tI
dgj
v
S
Z
L
ivii
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 305/340
THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETICALPHABET (revisedo 1993, pdated 996)coNSoNANTSpr.JLMONtC) o 1996pA
Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.
coNSoNANTS (NON-PIILMONIC) vowEl-s
ClicksVoiced mplosives Ejectives
O Bilabial
I o'o,"t
! leost;alveotr
+Palatoatveotar
ll etu-t. ","-r
b Bilabial
d DerraVatveotu
JPatatal
dvelar
d uvuts
Exmples:
p
t
B itabid
t' D$tallalveotil
kt velr
St Alveolufricativc
e
c \ q
Front
i . .C;ntrat
Close r 1 U - U I
\ I Y \ U\ \
*\o- e\e- r
u
o
c
Close-mid
Open-mid
Open
e
.G- {u -nreTHERSYMBOLS
A\ Voicelesslabial-velarfricarrve
W Voi".d lubial-vela approximml
q Voicedlabial-patatalapproximmt
H Voiceless epiglotral fricative
$ Voiced epigloual fricarive
? Epiglotral ptosive
Q 7 n"*lo-paatal fricarives
TJ Voiced alvmlar lateral flap
e l - *Il Simultanrcus I and AJ
Affricates md double articulations
can be rcEesented by two symbols
joined by a tie bar if neessary.
Wheresynbols appear n pairs, }Ie oneto theright represents roundedvowel.
SUPRASEGMENTALS
I
a o
6 { e I
I
I
Itl
Primary sftess
Secondary tress
,foune'trJentong el
HalfJong e'
Extra-short d
Minor (foot)group
Major (intonation) roup
Syllablebrcak Ji.Ekt
Linking (absence f a break)
DIACRTTICS Diacriticsmaybeplacedabovea symbolwith a descender,.g.{l
Voiceless n C Brcathy oicedb 4 Denrat t d
Voiced S - Creakyvoiced b 4 Apical t ch
arpirut"d th dh - Linguotabi" ! d Lminal t d
More rounded C
w
rabiatized t* d* easalized
Lessrounded C J Pulutuli""o tj dln
Nmal release dn
Advanced u Y t",.,r* tY dY Laterat eleas dl
Retracted I Pharyngalized 1r d\ No audible release d'
x
Centralized ex
Mid<enralized €
-Velrized or ptrryrgealized t
. Raised I 1J =voicedalveolarficative)
Syllabic 4 trwercd I tS ='oiceObilabiatappmximanr)
^Non-syllabic
I Advmed Tmgrrc Rmt I
!Rhoticiry + T RetrrctedTmgue Rml I
TONES AND WORD ACCENTSLEVEL CONTOUR
6* t n:f eo, A Rising
e-l Higr, C \ Farring
C J ruria 6, 4 Hfl
C -l ,o* E ) l#;c l i # " 6 1 f f i i l i .J **","0 / Global ise
t ,o.r.o \ Global arl
Figure 8.1 The IPA chart (from International Phonetic Association. @ 1993 bv theInternational Phonetic Association. Reproduced with permission.httg//www.arts. gla.ac.uk/IPA/ipa.html )
Bilabial -abiodental oenra I Alveolar lPostalveola Reroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal
Plosive p b r d r 4 c t k q q G ?Nasal m ITJ n 4 F l N
Trill B r R
Tap or Flap r rFricative 0 p f v 0 d s z l s $ 1 9 J x Y x B h t h Rrnreralfricative t hApproximant U J { .l rqLateral
approximant I t f L
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 306/340
AppendixC EnglishTrunscription
Englishexamples reoccasionally iven n thisbook n transcription, nd he Glossarygives he pronunciationof many less amiliar terms.The uirg. followed n thesltranscriptionss givenbelow.
Table C.1 Key to English transcription
Consonants:
lpl pot
It l tot
ltf / chin
lkl cotlfl fought
utth/ln// l /Iwl
thin
seal
shot
hot
not
lot
wit
tellsl
tbttdl/$/
lsllvl
t6lIz l
lsllml
ht/t /
tj l
beat
do t
gin
got
uote
then
zealpleasure
medt
hang
rot
yacht
Vowels:
li l beatlt l pit
lejl hate
lel pet
/a/ pat
lajl ride
lawl loud
/tj/ choice
lel
Ittl
lu l
lul
lowl
lt l
/s/
boot
Putboatdoorpot, pdw
Stress marked at beginning of syllable):
Primary l ' l
Secondary l, l
Unstressed unmarked
/'slpor/
I'dtt,nobl
/a'pit/
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 307/340
288 Appendix C
Thepronunciation ivenespeciallyor borrowedwords s ntended o represent
standardEnglishpronunciation, ot necessarily hat a nativespeaker f the anguage
would say. n manycases, lternative ronunciations re o be heard.
Theaccent f the ranscriptionssthat of Toronto,where he author ives.Speakersof other accents il l probablybe able o adjust he pronunciation o fi t their own
accenr.For further nformationon this,seeRogers 2000),especiallyhapter5.)
Note that in this dialect, he vowelsof caugbt andcot are mergedas /o/; both
words arepronounced kstl. The vowel r/ only occursbefore il as n door I'dttl.
The vowrl ltl occurs stressedbefore tl; otherwise t occursonly in unstressed
syllablesincluding eforeil in unstressedyllables):ur r I'patl,upper I'rpeil, sofa
/'sowfa/.The wordsmerry,mlry, Mary areal l pronounced s I'mertl.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 308/340
App.ndixD Glossary
abecedary /,eibi'sida:i/. A text showing the letters of an alphabet in their standard order.abiad/'abd3edl. A phonographic
writing system n which symbols correspond to consonanrsin the language, but vowels are not typically written: e.g., many Semitic systems.abstract pictogram. A pictogram which representsan abstract object by a conventional draw-
ing; e.g.,a single in e which represents he number one.abugida /,cbu'gida/. A phonographic writing system n which vowels are typically written as
diacritics on consonants and one vowel is not written: e.g., scripts of India, Eihiopic.Achamenid /o'kimerud/. Th e persian Empire during the period sj3-330 oro.acrophony /a'krofoni/. The principle by which a pictographic symbol takes a phonographic
value from the first sound of the name of the object it iepresents: e.g., a piciure of a tulipcould be used to represent the sound ltl in English since /t/ is the first stund of /,tjuhpi.Adj. acrophonic /,ekn'fonrkl.
acute accent. A diacritic [' ] of the Greek and Roman alphabets.Akkadian /o'kejdion/. An ancient Semitic language of Mesopotamia, particularly around the
ancient city of Akkad /,'r'knd/. see Assyrian and Babylonian.aksara I'okfotol.In Indian scripts, an orthographic syllable. An aksara is an open syllable
with maximal onset, consisting of a vowel and the entire preceding consonant ilurt.r, ..g.,<hi-ndi>, where the hyphen divides the aksaras.
allograph l'r'la,gt*.f/. A non-contrastive unit in a writing system; a member of a grapheme.In the Greek alphabet, <o> and <€> are allographs of the i"-" grapheme sigma.-Class", ofallographs - allographs which are defined by a feature such as opp.t case, lower case,roman, italic, bold.
allomorph I'a,le,mtsf/. A non-contrastive meaningful unit in a languaget a member of a
morpheme. In English /djuk/ and ld,rt[-lare allomorphs of the same morpheme duke.allophone /'a,la,[ownl. A non-contrastive unit of sound in alanguage; a member of a phoneme.
In English, [t ] and [th] are allophones of the same phoneme ltl.alphabet. A type of writing system in which each symbol typically corresponds to a segment
(consonant or vowel) in the language: e.g., the Roman, Greek, and Cyrillic alphabets.amount of morphography. A dimension in the taxonomy of writing ,yri.*, arranging writ-
ing systemsby how much morphographic information is encoded in the writing ,yit.-.Anglo-Saxon. An alternative name for Old English.Arabic. An important version of the Semitic abjad, derived from the Aramaic abjad. The
Arabic language is the most widely spoken Semitic language today and is the fiturgicallanguage of Islam.
Aramaic /,cra'mejrk/. An important version of the Semitic abiad, giving rise to many otherversions. The Aramaic language is an historically important Semitic language, originallyspoken in Syria and later widely used as a chancery language and lingua iranca-in th !
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 309/340
290 AppendixD
Middle East.Aram€an /,e:a'mian/. A speakerof Aramaic, from Aram la'teml, the Biblical
name for Syria.
Armenian. An alphabet derived from Greek in the fifth century NEw for the fumenian language.
Assyrian /a'sirian/.An ancient Semitic language of Mesopotamia, particularly of the north.
SeeAkkadian and Babylonian.
ateii | ,o'tei$il.In Japanese,words of more than one characterwith the characterschosenby
phonetic extension.
aybuben. The name of the Armenian alphabet.
Babel /'bejbal/. Biblical name for Babylon, best known for its ziggurat in the phrase 'tower of
Babel ' .
Babylonian /,babr'lownian/. An ancient Semitic anguageof Mesopotamia, particularly around
Babylon (= Babel /'beibel/).
Babylonian Captivity. The captivity of the Israelites n Babylon (586-538 oro).
bd.ihud./'baj,hwo/.Plain speech';a tradition of writing in colloquial Chinese,coexistingwith
Classical Chinese. Btiihui formed the basis of Modern Standard Chinese.Bible. The name for the scriptures used by Jews and Christians. Christians commonly refer to
the Hebrew scriptures as the Old Testament and to the specifically Christian scriptures as
the New Testament, and use the term'Bible' to include both.
biconsonantal grapheme. A grapheme representing two consonants, as in Egyptian.
bold. In typography, letterforms with heavier weight: e.g., <a> as opposed to <a>.
borrowing-of a writing system. The adaptation of a writing system originally used for one
lattguage for a different language; e.g., the borrowing of the Semitic abiad to write Greek.
Cf. creation of a writing system and invention of writing.
bound grapheme. A grapheme which occurs only in combination with other graphemes,
often a diacritic. See ree grapheme.
boustrophedon /,bust:a'fidan/. Writing that alternates direction from right to left and leftto right in alternating lines. Greek Boootpoqn466v
'as an ox ploughs'. Adj. boustrophedal
/,bustra'fidal/.
breathings. Diacritic marks in Greek to indicate the presenceor absenceof /h/. The presence
of lhl is shown by a rough breathing above a vowel .i ot; its absence s shown by a
smooth breathing <i d>.
calendar round. In the Maya calendar, a repeating cycle of 52 years' consisting of a tz'olkin
and a haab.
calligraphy /ka'hgrafi/. Beautiful writing; writing as an aft form. Adi. calligraphic
l ,kxh'gt*frkl.Cantonese /'kente,nizt. A southern dialect of Chinese spoken in Guangdong (Canton) and
Hong Kong; also known as Yud.."rtoo.h" /,kor'tu/. An oval drawn around portions of an Egyptian king's name in hiero-
glyphic writing.
Champollion, Jean-Frangois (1,790-7832) tJept/^Jt The French decipherer of Egyptian hiero-
glyphics.
chancery language. The language or dialect used for administrative purposes by government
officials.
chfrn6m /'tJu,nom/. (Viet. 'southern script'). A type of early Vietnamese writing involving
invented characters modelled on Chinese.
circumflex accent. A diacritic <^> of the Greek and Roman alphabet; Greek. sometimes
appeaflng as < >.
Classical Chinese.The dialect of Chinese used for writing before 1900 Nrw.
ClassicalGreek. Ancient Greek of the period 500-300 oro.
clay tablet. The normal writing surface of cuneiform writing.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 310/340
Glossary 291
coda. In a syllable, any consonants following the nucleus.communication. A general term for the transmission of messages.Language is one form of
communication.
complementary distribution. A distribution of objects, such that none occurs in the environ-
ment of the other, e.g., duke and duch-, or [t] and [th], as discussed n Appendix A. Se econtrastive distribution.
complex numeral. In Chinese, a complex form of a number grapheme, used to avoid fraud.complex symbol. A combination of a free grapheme (or basic symbol) and a diacritic: e.g.,
<fr>, where <n> is the free grapheme (o r basic symbol) and .tt i, the diacritic.contrast (verb). To form two distinct units. Two units contrast if they occur in the same
environment with different meanings.contrastive distribution. A distribution such that two obiects occur in the same environmenr.
e.g.,lsl and lzl as discussed n Appendix A. Seecomplementary distribution.Coptic /'koptrk/. 1. The name used for Egyptian language since tire third century New. (The
people are Copts /koptsi.) Z.The Greek-basedwriting sysremused or the Copiic language.cranberry grapheme. A grapheme occurring in only one environment; e.g., ir English, Jq>
typically occurs only before <u>.cranberry morpheme. A morpheme occurring in only one environment; e.g., the morpheme
cran- only occurs before berry.creation of a writing system. The creation of a new writing system by stimulus diffusion; the
creator is aware of the existence of writing: €.g., Cree, Cherokee. Cf. borrowing of awriting system and invention of writing.
creative spelling. A non-standard spelling, intended to be amusing or eye-catching.cuneiform /,kju'nia,fr.rm/. An ancient type of Middle Eastern *ririrrg made witf, a wedge-
shaped stylus pressed nto clay.cursive writing. \ilfriting done
with minimal lifting of the writing tool; writing done quickly.Cypriot I'stpiatl. 'Writing of early Cyprus: Cypro-Minoan (1500-1200 orn, undeciihered)and Cypriot (800-200 oro, Greek).
Cyrillic /sr'-rilrk/. An alphabet, possibly created by St. Cyril, commonly used n Slavic anguagewhere the religion has been mainly Eastern Orthodox.
Dead Seascroll- Hebrew and Aramaic manuscripts found near the Dead Sea n Israel, con-taining many of the oldest manuscripts of the Jewish scriptures.
decipherment. The successfulprocessof reading and understanding a previously unreadabletext.
deep. A deep writing system is more closely related to morphophonemic units in language,as-opposed to phonemic units. A deeper writing system will have more casesof different
allomorphs written the same. see shallow and orthographic depth.demotic /da'motIk/. The most cursive form of Egyptian wriiing. Seehieroglyphic and hieratic.dcmotike /dimoti'ki/. A more informal form of the modern Greek languagi. See atbareuousa.Deuandgati /deva'nagai/. An important modern script of India, us.d-fo. Hindi and other
languages.
diacritic /,daja'krrtlk/: A bound grapheme which modifies the value of the basic symbol towhich it is attached; e.g., in <6>, <'> is a diacritic, and <e> is the basic symbol.
dialect. A variety of a language, particularly a regional one.dialect character. In Chinese, a non-standard chaiacter used to represent a morpheme, found
in a certain dialect, but not in Modern standard chinese.differentiation. A method of creating a symbol: an ambiguous symbol used for two different
things is disambiguated by altering its shape in one of the uses. For example, if in aIanguage, he symbol X is ambiguously used to represent two different morph.-.r, differ-entiation might use X to represent one morpheme and { to represent the other.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 311/340
292 Appendix D
diglossia /,daj'glosia/. A sociolinguistic situation in which two very different varieties of a
l"rrgrrrg. are both used, one for writing and the other for speech.Bilingual diglossia -_a
,yp. oiaiglossia in which one language is used for writing and another for speech.Adj.
diglossic ,daj'glosrk/.
digraph l'daj,gtaf L A sequenceof two graphemes which representsa linguistic unit normally
represented by one grapheme: e.g., in English, the grapheme sequence<sh> represents he
phoneme {/ which is normally representedby a single grapheme.
distance number. In Maya writing, a time period which is to be added to or subtracted from
a date in the text to give a new date.
Dravidian /d:e'vrdiian/. Th e maior language amily of southern India.
emblem glyph. A Maya glyph showing the name of a ciry.
-emic /'imrk/. A level of more abstract, contrastive units.
-etic /'etrk/. A level of more concrete, non-contrastive units.
Erruscan /a'trrrskan/. 1. A language formerly spoken in Italy to the north of Rome. 2. An
alphabet used for Etruscan borrowed from Greek and borrowed in turn by the Latin-speaking Romans.
featural ryrp-. A taxonomic term, used by Sampson (1985) to categorize Korean hankul;
the use of diacritic features in hankul is made a crucial taxonomic point. Generally rejected
by other scholars.
final. In Chinese, the part of the syllable except any initial consonant or the tone.
free grapheme. A grapheme which occurs independently. Seebound grapheme.
full-figure variant. In Maya writing, alarge allograph, usually occupying two writing spaces.
furiganal'fu:igona/. Small hiragana placed near a character to show its pronunciation.
futhark /'fu,Qo.rk/.The name of the runic alphabet; its Anglo-Saxon form is known as utborc.
Ge'ez I'gi,ezl. A Semitic language, of the South Arabian group; the traditional language of
learning and liturgy of Ethiopia.Georgian. An alphabet derived from Greek by the fifth century NEw for Georgian, a Caucasian
language.
ClagJitic /,gloga'htrk/. An early alphabet used for Slavic languages, possibly derived from
cursive Greek.
glottographic writing system ,glate'gta;frk/. A writing system used o transcribe the linguistic
units (e.g.,morphemes or phonemes) of a certain language;e.g.,most of the writing systems
discussedn this book.
glyph. A unit of organization in Maya writing.
boitti". An alphabet used for the Gothic language, derived from Greek in the fourth century
NEW.
graffito /gra'fitow/ (p1.graffiti /g.ra'fiti/). An informal writing, as on a wall or other public
surface.
grapheme l'gte,fimL A contrastive unit in a writing system;a classof allographs. The English
alphabet has 26 graphemes; each character in Chinese is a grapheme.
grave accent. A diacritic <'> of the Greek and Roman alphabets.
br.", English Vowel Shift. A major set of sound changes n English which took place around
1450 r'rew, affecting the long vowels of English.
gunul'gu,nu/. In cuneiform writing, a diacritic used o differentiate one symbol from another.
haab.In the Maya calendar, a repeating cycle of 35 5 days.
hamzah l'homzol. An Arabic symbol c for the glottal stop l?l-
hanca /'hondgo/. The Korean name for Chinese characters (= 61t. hdnzil.
hankull'ho4gal/. In Korean, the alphabet normally used fo r writing today.
hdnzi I'hqndzal. The Chinese name for characters.
head variant. In Maya writing, an allograph, particularly of a numeral, which incorporates a
human head.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 312/340
Glossary 293
Hebrew. An important Semitic language. After dying out as a spoken language, Hebrew wasrevived and is spoken in Israel today; it is the liturgical lang,rageof JuJaism. Ota Hebrewabiad.
'\il7ritingsystem used for Hebrew before the Babylotriu"
-C"ptivity,derived from the
Phanician abiad. New Hebrew abjad. Writing system used for Hebrew since the Babylonian
Captivity, derived from the Aramaic abjad; also used for Yiddish, Ladino, and other lan-guages spoken by Jews.
heterography /,heta'rogrefi/. A situation in which two different linguistic units are wrirten
_differently, e.g., blue-blew, cat-dog. Adj. heterographic /,hetara,gia.fikl.
heterophony /,hete'rofani/. A situation in which t*o diff.rent linguistic units sound different
.e.9., cat-dog, bow'bend over'/'bow and arrow'. Adj. heteropLonic /,heta.ra'fonrk/.
hieratic l,haia'txtrk/. A form of Egyptian writing, more cursive than hieroglyphic, and moreformal than demotic.
hieroglyphic /,haira,ghfrk/. The earliest pictographic form of Egyptian writing.hiragana. Seekana.
homography /ha'mognfrl. A situation in which two different linguistic unitsare writtenthe same, e-g. bow 'bend over'/'bow and arrow', well'hole fo i water'/'not sick'. Adj.
homographic /,homa' gta;frkl .homophones /,homa'fown/. Two different words in a language with the same pronunciation.homophony /he'mofeni/. A situation in which two different-iinguistic units sound the same,
e.g.' well'hole for water'/'not sick', blue-bleu. Adj. homophonic /,homa'fcnrk/.hyangchal l'hioqtfoll. In Korean, an historic fype of writing of poetry using phonetic extension
of characters.
ideogram. A term found in some literature on writing systemswith a variety of meanings,best avoided.
Indian grammarians. Scholars of the fourth century olo who developed a sophisticatedanalysis of certain
aspectsof Sanskrit grammar.Indo-Aryan /,rndow'e-rijan/.A branch of Indo-European; the maior language amily of northernIndia, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh.
Indus valley /'rndes/. In Pakistan, an early society with an undecipheredinitial. In Chinese, the first consonant of a svllable.initial series. n Maya writing, a date at the beginning of the text, often written with special
doubly wide glyphs.
internal structure of writing. Rules of the writing sysrem ndependent of the language beingwritten; e.g., the Roman alphabet is always written left to right, ,ro *"tt., *hat ttt.language.
invention of writing. The invention of writing, with no previous knowledge of writing at all;
e.g., cuneiform, Chinese, Maya. See borrowing of a writing system and creation of awriting system.
italic. In typography, a slanted style of letterforms.itutu l'rdui. In Korean, an historic type of character-based writing, used until 1900.Johnson, Samuel (1709-54). An importanr English lexicographer, aurhor of Dictionary of
the Englisb Language.
iukuiikun /,dzu'kud3i,kun/. In Japanese,words of more than one character with the charac-ters chosen for their semantic value.
kana /'kona/. Either_of two moraic systemsused in Japanesewriting: biraganal,hha,gona/, acursive form used especially for writing affixes, and katakoni /'kotJ,kone/,
"r'".rg,ri",orm used especially for writing borrowed words and other special uses.See alsofuigana
and kanii.kanbun /'kon,bun/. The writing of classical chinese in Japan (= ch. ut4ny6n).kanii /'kondSi/. The Japanesename for chinese characte^ 1= gh. hdnzi).katakana. Seekana.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 313/340
294 Appendix D
katbarevousa l,ko0o'revu,so/. A more formal form of the modern Greek language. See
dcmotike.
kokuiil'kowku,dgi/. In Japanese,characters invented in Japan and not existing in Chinese.
kun-reading /kun/. A readingof a character in
Japaneseusing a native
Japanese
pronunci-
ation. A semantic kun uses he pronunciation of a native Japaneseword; a phonetic kun
extends the kun-reading of a native Japaneseword to other Japanese words having the
same pronunciation. Seeoz-reading.
ku,ukyei /'kugial/. In Korean, an historic type of writing, especially used for Buddhist texts'
employing phonetic extension for writing affixes.
Landa's alphabet. A portion of a sixteenth-century NEw document written by Bishop Diego
de Landa giving information about the Maya writing system.
language. A complex system residing in the human brain, relating meaning and sound; a
form of communication.
language academy. An institution, found in certain countries, usually charged with the re-
sponsibiliry of establishing standards with respect to language.Latin. The language of
"n.i..rtRome and a language of learning for western Europe for
centuriesl the Romance languagesare descended rom Latin. SeeRoman alphabet.
lenition lla'n{anl. A phonological process of weakening, in which a stop typically becomesa
fricative, and a friiative becomes lht or disappears. A phenomenon in Scots Gaelic and
other Celtic languages, affecting the writing system.
letter. A single grapheme of an alphabet.
Levant |la'va:ntl. ihe land of the eastern Mediterranean: Syria, Lebanon, Israel, Palestine,
Jordan. Adj. Levantine /'levan,tajn -,tin/.
ligature /'hga,tjur/. Two graphemes which are joined and written as one unit; e.g., <a> for
<ae>. Structural ligature - a ligature which functions as a separategrapheme in the writing
system.Non-stnrctural ligature - a ligature which functions as a sequenceof two graphemesin the writing system. Quasi-ligafure
- a sequenceof two symbols which functions as a
single grapheme in the writing system; i.e., as though it were a structural ligature.
Linear A. An undeciphered script of ancient Crete.
Linear B. A mixed morphographic and moraic script of Mycenaan Greek.
linear organization. The way in which symbols in a writing system follow each other; e.g., in
the Roman alphabet, writing goes in horizontal lines from left to right with the next line
vertically below the last. Nonlinear elements - elements of a writing syst€m which-occur
outside its overal linear organization: e.g., accents in the Roman alphabet generally go
above the letter they are associatedwith.
lingua franca /,hggwe'f.ra:gkel. A language adopted as a common language by speakersof
different native languages.
linguistic. Relating to language.
linguistics. The scientific study of language.
literacy. The abiliry to read and write.
long count. In Maya writing, a count giving a precise date
point in time.
reference to an arbitrary
main symbol. The more prominent symbol to which diacritics
often free and can stand alone.
are added; a main symbol is
Mandarin l'm*ndannl. 1,. The dialect of Chinese historically used by civil servants.
2. Northern and western dialects of Chinese. 3. Equivalent to Modern Standard Chinese.
Masoretic text /,masa'.letrk/. The standard text of the Hebrew scriptures, edited by the
Masoretes /'maso,.rits/ in the seventh century NEv/ at Tiberias (in modern-day Israel).
mater lectionis /,mote: ,lekti'ownrs/ (Lat. literally'mother of reading'; pl. matres lectionis
/'motrejs/). In Semitic abjad writing, the use of a consonant symbol to representa vowel.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 314/340
Glossary 295
Maya /'maia/. One of the sure casesof invention of writing; a people of Meso-America. Mayais used as the general adiective form; Mayan is used irreferring to language.
Mesopotamia /,mesowpa'tejmiiel.The land between the Tigris arrJEuphrares rivers; modern-day Iraq.
Middle English. English between 1100 an d 1500 Nnw.Modern English. English after 1500 Nr,w.Modern Standard Chinese. The standard written dialect of Chinese today, very similar to the
spoken Chinese of Beijing; also known as piltongbud.monoconsonantal
_grapheme. A grapheme representing a single consonant; common inalphabets, abjads, and abugidas, but in Egyptian distinct fiom bi- and riconsonantalgraphemes.
mora /'mtsa/ (pl. mora /'mci/). A phonological unit larger than a segment and smaller thana syllable, typically of the shape CV.
moraic system ,m-r'-rejtk/.A writing system n which the graphemes ypically represenrmor&.morpheme /'mr:,fim/. A contrastive meaningful unit in
"l"ng.r"g.;
a .l"rt of "llog."phs. InEnglish, book and table are different morphemes; bluenesi.o-nri.t, of two -or"ph.-., -blue and -ness.
morphogram /'mufo,gt*mr/. A single grapheme of a morphographic writing system. Agrapheme which represents a morpheme of the language.
morphographic writing system l,mttfa'gtrfrk/. A writing system in which the graphemesty pically represent morphemes.
morphophonemic /,mufafa'nimrk/. Having to do with linguistic units between the phono-logical and morphological levels of language.
mxedruli. The name of the Georgian alphabet.Mycenean /,majsa'nian/.An early Greek culture centered n Mycena /,maj'sini/.Nabatean l,nabe'tianL
A version of the Aramaic abiad which developed in the Sinai andnorthern Arabia; the Nabata.an abjad developed into the Arabic ab;ad.nucleus. The vowel of a syllable.numeric value. The use of a letter to represent a number.obverse. The front side of an inscription. See everse.Old English. English before 1100 Nuw.Old Persian. The language of the Persian cuneiform inscriptions, from the sixth to fourth
centuriesoto.
on-teading. A reading of a character in Japaneseusing a borrowed Chinesepronunciation. Asemantic ot, uses the pronunciation of a borrowed Chinese word; a phonetic oz extendsthe on-reading of a Chineseword to other Japanesewords having ih. ,"*. pronunciation.
Seekunteading.onset. In a syllable, any consonants preceding the vowel.oracle-bone writing. The earliest form of Chinese writing, found on bones and shells.orthographic depth. The relationship of language and writing, considered from the point of
abstractnessof the linguistic units involved. jee deep and shallow.orthographic dialect variation. Two recognized ways of writing the same anguage or cerrain
words of the same language. In English, there is a significait, although small, amount ofdialect variation between spellings used in the United Statesand thJrest of ih. English-speaking world.
overdifferentiated- Describing a relationship between writing and language in which someorthographic distinctions do not correspond to any phonological contrasts. See
underdifferentiated.palatalization. A phonetic process by which sounds come to be produced with the tongue
closer to the hard palate: e.g., tl -+ ltJl.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 315/340
296 Appendix D
papyrus /pa'pajres/. 1. A paper-like writing surface made from the papyrus plant Cyperus
payrus.2. A text written on papyrus (pl. papyri).
Persian. An Indo-European language belonging to the Indo-Iranian family.
Phaistos disk /'fai,stows/. A clay diskfrom Crete with undeciphered writing.
Phenician lfe'nilenl. Early writing and people of the northern Levant.
phoneme /'fow,nim/. A contrastive unit of sound in a language; a class of allophones. In
English, ltl and ldl are different phonemes.
phonemic /fa'nimrk/. Having to do with the sound system of a language' especially with
regard to contrastive units.
phonetic. 1,. adj. Having to do with the sound systemof a language, especiallywithout regard
to contrast; allophonic. 2. n. In Chinese, the phonetic component of a semantic-phonetic
compound, .rp.ii"lly used n traditional systemsof ordering characters n a dictionary; see
radical.
phonetic extension. A method of creating a symbol by extending the use of a symbol to other
instancesof the same sound; ..g., if, in a certain language, the symbol # representstheword /ko/ in a certain morpheme, phonetic extension would lead to its use to representthe
phonological sequence kol in any situation.
phonetic trriting ryrt.-. A writing system ntended to be useful in transcribing the sounds of
any language, e.g., the International Phonetic Alphabet.
phonogram. A ringl. grapheme of a phonographic writing system, representing a phonolo-
gical elementof the language: .e., a syllable, mora' or phoneme.
phonographic writing.'Writing
whose graphemes relate to phonological units (phonemes'
mor€, syllables)of a language.
phonological complement. A grapheme which repeatsphonological information already given
by another grapheme, as in Egyptian and Maya.
phonological extinsion. A method of creating a symbol: the use of a symbol is extended toother words having the samesound; e.g., n English, the extension of the useof a pictogram
of a bee to refer to the morpheme be.
pictogram. A grapheme created by pictography; a morphogram which graphically portrays
the object iirepresents; e.g., a picture of a flower to represent the morpheme flower.
pictography. A method of creating a symbol: a (stylized) picture is used as a morphogram for
the object pictured.
picture writing. Pictures which tell a story, but which are not related to specific linguistic utter-
ances;not considered eal writing although having someelementsof graphic communication.
ptnyin /,pin'yin/. The current standard romanization for Mandarin Chinese.
p"inti"g. The use of diacritics to indicate vowels in a Hebrew text; sometimes also used for
Arabic texts. Such a text is called a pointed text.
polygraph I'poh,gtrfl. A sequenceof graphemes which representsa linguistic unit normally-
represented by one grapheme: e.g., the grapheme sequence<sch> is used in German to
,.pr.r.rrt the phoneme ll , although a phoneme is usually written with one grapheme.
polyphone /'poli fown/. A single grapheme which represents wo or more phonological units
of a language:e.g., <x> in English for /ks/.
Prakrit /'p.rokrrt/. A later form of Sanskrit.
PRC. People's Republic of China.
Proto-Canaanite 7'pro*to*-'kejna,najtl. Early writing of the southern Levant, developed
from Egyptian and leading to the Semitic abiad.
Punic I'plunrkl. Referring to the African colonies of the Phanicians, particularly Carthage.
piltonghuA /putoq' hwc/. Modern Standard Chinese.
qudcngfr. The adaptation of the Roman alphabet for writing Vietnamese.-Quf
ai. The sacred ext of Islam. (The most common English pronunciations are lka'tanl or
l,kt't73nl, but /ka'.ron/ is occasionallyheard. A common alternative spelling s Koran.)
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 316/340
Glossary 297
radical. In Chinese, the semantic component of a semantic-phonetic compound, especiallyused in referring to traditional systemsof ordering characters in a dictionary. Seephonetic.
reading pronunciation. Seespelling pronunciation.rebus writing. Seephonetic extension.
relationship of language and writing. This relationship describes the level of linguistic unit(e.g., morpheme, phoneme) represented n the writing system of that larrguagel
reverse. The back side of an inscription. Seeobverse.rhyme. In a syllable, the nucleus and rhyme taken togerher.Roman. 1. Pertaining to Rome. 2. (lower-case)In rypography, the ordinary form of lemerforms,
not italic or bold.
Roman alphabet. The alphabet borrowed from Etruscan and Greek ro write Latin. TheRoman alphabet was borrowed for writing languages n western Europe and then to manylanguages throughout the world.
sanskrit /'senskrrt /. The earliest attested form of Indo-Aryan.schwa ffwol (i n Hebrew often [a'wal).1. A diacritic in Hebrew to indicate the vowel la l or
to show the absenceof a vowel. 2. In linguistics, a phonetic symbol [a] for a mid centralvowel.
script. A general term for a writing system without regard for its structural nature.seal. An engraved object used to make an impression on clay, wax, or paper.segment. A consonant or a vowel, but not the tone.semantic complement. A grapheme which gives addirional semantic information, as in
Egyptian.
semantic extension. A method of creating a symbol: the use of a symbol is extended to othermorphemes having the same or similar meaning; e.g., r pictogram of a leg used to refer tothe morpheme leg; semantic extension might further extend the use of this pictogram torepresent semantically related morphemes such as walk, run, go.
semantic-phonetic compound. A grapheme consisting of two parts, one semantic and onephonetic; for example, in Chinese, the grapheme for lmal 'mother'
consists of two parts,one meaning 'woman'
and the other representing he sound lmal.semantic-semanticcompound. A grapheme consisting of two parts, both semantic; for exam-
ple, in Chinese, the character for 'home'is said to consist of a pig under a roof.
semantic writing system.A writing system ntended to be useful in transcribing any utterancein any language n terms of its meaning, e.g., the Bliss system.
semasiographic writing. An alternative name for a semantic writing system.Semitic /sa'mrtrk/. A branch of the Afro-Asiatic language family; an important language
family for writing including Arabic, Hebrew, Aramaic, Akkadian, and Eihiopian.shallow. A shallow writing sysrem is related
to phonemic units in ianguagr, ", opposed tomorphophonemic units. A shallower writing system will have -or. cases of diff.r.ntallomorphs written differently. Seedeep and orthographic depth.
simplified character. In Chinese, a simplified form of cirtain traditional characters ntroducedin the PRC in the mid-twenrieth cenrury.
spelling pronunciation. A pronunciation which agrees with typical spelling conventions,but which goes against the traditional pronunciation. For example, ih. prorr.rnciation ofboatswain as /'bowt,swein/,instead of the traditional/'bowsan/. Also readiog prorr,rrrciation.
spelling reform. A proposal for revising the spelling system of a langu"g., oit.r, with a viewto making the system easier to learn.
Standard Arabic. The variety of Arabic used in writing and in formal speech.stele Greek /'stili/, pl . stele 'stili/).
An upright slab of itone or other haid substanceused orwriting or art (e.g., a tombstone). Sometimes he Latin form stella is used (/'stela/, pl. stelleisteli/).
stimulus diffusion- The borrowing of an idea without necessarily borrowing all the details.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 317/340
298 AppendixD
stroke order. The order in which the strokes of a symbol are written, especially n Chinese. In
European contexts, the equivalent term is ductus.
stylus /'stajlas/. A pointed tool used for writing, as on clay or wax.
subscript.'\ilfritten
below the normal level of writing, as the <2> in.HrO, or the diacritic
in <h>.
Sumerian /,su'merijan/. Ancient language of Mesopotamia; the first language to be written.
superscript.'Written
above the normal level of writing, as the <2> in <xzt or the diacritic
in <6>.
syllabic. Refers to a writing system in which the graphemes typically represent syllables.
syllable. A phonological unit generally uttered without a break; typically syllables have a
vowel and may have consonants before or after the vowel.
symbol. A general term for a graphic mark without regard to its graphemic status.
tablet. A piece of clay or wax used for writing.
tanufin /,ton'win/. In Arabic, three special symbols to indicate the indefinite article:
lmanl",j, lminl.i, /mun/ L.
Tiberian /,taj'bi:iian/. The dialect of Hebrew used n the Bible, from the Israeli town Tiberias.
SeeMasoretic.
token. In the Middle East, small clay objects used for record-keeping.
tone. Contrastive pitch patterns in a language. In Chinese, each word has a specific tone
which may distinguish it from other words with the same consonants and vowels.
traditional character. In Chinese, he traditional form of certain characterswhich was replaced
by a simplified character in the PRC in the mid-twentieth century.
transcription. A representation of the pronunciation of a text.
transliteration. A representation of a text in which each grapheme is given in a romanizedform.
triconsonantal grapheme. A grapheme representing three consonants, as in Egyptian.
tughra /'tuyro/. Ornate signature of senior official in the Ottoman empire.
type of phonography. A dimension in the taxonomy of writing systems distinguishing the
ways in which phonological information is portrayed in a writing system.
tz'olkin /'tsolkrn/. In the Maya calendar, a repeating cycle of 260 days.
Ugaritic /,juga'rrtrk/. A cuneiform abjad used for the Semitic language Ugaritic; found at
Ugarit I'juganl (Ras Shamra lsaf'Jomro/).
umlaut /'um,lawt/. A diacritic used with the Roman alphabet, consisting of two superscript
dots <">.
underdifferentiated. Describing a relationship between writing and language in whichsome phonological contrasts are not indicated in the writing of that language. See
overdifferentiated.
unit discrepancy. A difference in the number of units in a specific linguistic-graphemic
relationship.
Uruk /'u,ruk/. An ancient Mesopotamian site of very early cuneiform writing.
vague year. In the Maya calendar, the haab.
Ventris, Michael (7922-56) /'vent.rrs/. The British architect who deciphered Linear B.
airiima /vr'roma/. In Indian scripts, a diacritic used to indicate the absence of a following
vowel.
vowel pointing. Seepointing.
vulgar Latin. The dialect of the common people in ancient Rome, as opposed to the formaldialect used by the upper classes,particularly in literature. The Romance languages are
generally derived from vulgar Latin, not formal Latin.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 318/340
Glossary 299
Wade-Giles romanization. The most commonly used romanization for Chineseuntil replacedby plnytn in the mid-twentieth century.
Webster, Noah (17 58-1843). An important American lexicographer, author of the AmericanDictionary of the English Language.
winydn /'wcn,jon/. Classical Chinese.writing. The use of graphic marks to represent specific linguistic utterances.writing brush. In chinese writing, the normal writing tool.writing group. In Arabic, a group of letters which are connected to each other. Most letters
in a word are connected to each other, but certain Arabic letters cannot be connected to afollowing letter; thus, the next letter starts a new writing group. Every new word starts anew writing group.
writing system. A system for graphically representing the utterances of a language.Yiddish l'i]d'fl. A Germanic language commonly sfoken until recently by Jews in eastern
Europe, written with th e Hebrew abiad.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 319/340
Bibliography
Abbott. Nabia. 1939. The Riseof the North Arabic Scriptand its Kur'anic Deuelopment.
Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Ahn, Pyonh-Hi. 1.997.
Th e principles underlying the invention of the Korean alphabet', in
Kim-Reynaud,89-105.
Albright, W. F. 1966. The Proto-Sinaitic Insuiptions and Their Deciplterment. Haward
Theological Studies, 22. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Allen, James P. 2000. Middle Egyptian: An Introduction to the Language and Culture of
Hieroglypbs. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Antonsen, E. H. 1989.The runes:The earliestGermanic writing system', n Senner,139-58.
Atkinson, B. F. C. 1933. The Greek Language. New York: Faber 6c Faber.
Bauer,Thomas. 1,996.Arabic wri t ing', in Danielsand Bright,559-64.
Baxter, William H.1,992. AHandbook of Old ChinesePhonology. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Bellamy,JamesA. 1989.'The Arabic alphabet', in Senner,9'l'-1'02.
Bender, M. L., Sidney \U7.Head an d Roger Cowley. 7976.'The Ethiopian writing system',
in lvl. L. Bender,J. Bowen, R. L. Cooper and C. A. Ferguson, eds.,Languages in Ethiopia,
t20-9. London: Oxford University Press.
Bennett, Emmett L. 7996.'Aegean scripts', n Daniels and Bright,'l '25-33.
Bermant, C. and M.'Weitzm
an. 1979. Ebla: An Archeological Enigma. London:'tilTeidenfeld
6c Nicolson.
Best, Jan and Fred'SToudhuizen, eds. 1988. Ancient Scripts from Crete and Cyprus. Leiden:
E. J. Brill.
Best,lan and Fred'Woudhuizen,
eds. 1,989. Lost Languagesfrom tlte Mediterranean. Leiden:
E.J.
Brill.
Bliss, Charles. 1,965. Semantography. Sydney:Semantography Publications.
Bolozky, Shmuel. 1,997. Israeli Hebrew phonology', in Kaye, 287-311"'
Boltz, r;Tilliam. 1994. Tbe Origin and Early Deuelopment of the Chinese Writing System.
New Haven, CT: American Oriental Society.
Boltz, \Dfilliam. 1996.'Early Chinesewriting', in Daniels and Bright, t97-9-
Bonfante, Giuliano and Larissa Bonfante. 1983. The Etruscan Language: An lntroduction.
Manchester: Manchester University Press (new edn. 2002).
Bonfante, Larissa. 1990. Etruscan. London and Berkeley: British Museum and University of
California Press.
Bonfante, Larissa. L995.'The scripts of Italy', in Daniels and Bright, 297-37t.
Bott6ro, Jean.7992. Mesopotamia: Writing, Reasoning, and tbe Gods. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Bright, Wiliiam. "1,990a.How not to decipher he Indus Valley inscriptions', n Bright 1990c,
1,18-23.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 320/340
Bibliography 301
Daniels
Bright,William. 1990b. .$Trittenand spokenanguagen SouthAsia,, n Bright 1990c,130-
46.Bright,S7illiam.1990c.LanguageVariation n SouthAsia. Oxford:Oxford Universitypress.Bright, ilTilliam.1996.'TheDevanagari cript', n Danielsand Bright, 3g4-g0.
Bright, tilflilliam.1999. A matterof typology:AlphasyllabariesnJabugidas,.Written Lan-guage nd Literacy2.45-56.
Brustad,Kristen,MahmoudAl-Bataland AbbasAl-Tousi.1995.Atif Baa: ntroduction oArabic Lettersand Sounds. Tashington:GeorgetownUniversitypress.
Burnaby,Barbara,ed. 1985.PromotingNatiue Writing Systemsn Canada.Toronto: OISEPress.
carney, Edward. 1994.A surueyof Englishspeiling.New york: Routledge.Chadwick,John. 1967.The Decipherment f Liniar B.2nd edn.Camb.idge,Cambridge
UniversityPress.Chadwick,John. 1987.Linear B and Related Scripts.Berkeleyand London: Universityof
CaliforniaPress nd BritishMuseum.Chadwick,John,et al.-l'985-98.Corpusof MycenearrnscriptionsfromKzossos.Cambridge:
CambridgeUniversityPress.Chao Lin. 1958-A Surueyof Chinese Han) Characters. ong Kong:UniversalBook Co.Chen Ping.
'J"999-Modern Chinese:History and Sociolingulstics.ambridge: Cambridge
UniversityPress.Chiera,Edward. 1966.They Wrote n Clay. Chicago:Universityof Chicagopress.coe, Michael D. 1992.Breaking be Maya code. iondon, Thames6c Hudson.coe, MichaelD. 1999.TheMaya.London:Thames& Hudson.Coe,MichaelD. andMark Van Stone.2001.Reading heMaya Glyphs.London:Thames&
Hudson.Collon,Dominique-1990.
NearEasternSeals. erkeley nd London:Universityof CaliforniaPress nd BritishMuseum.Comrie,Bernard,ed.7987.The world's Maior Languages. xford: Oxford Universitypress.Comrie,Bernard.1996a.'Adaptationsf the Cyrillicalphabet',n Danielsand Brighi, 700-
26.Comrie,Bernard.1996b. Languages
of Eastern nd SouthernEurope', n DanielsandBright,653-89.
cooper,Jerrolds. 1996.'Mesopotamian uneiform:Sumerian ndand Bright,37-57.
Coulmas,Florian. 1989.The Writing Systems f the World. Oxford: Blackwell.Coulmas,Florian.1996.TheBlackwellEncyclopedia f
'WritingSystems. xford: Blackwell.
Cross,Frank Moore. 7989.'The inventionand deveiopme"i"i the alphabet,,n Senner,77-9A.Cruz-Urube,Eugene.200t.'scripts: An overview', n Donald B. Redford ed.,The Oxford-
Encyclopedia f AncientEgypf,vol. 3,192-8. New York: Oxford Universitypress.Cubberley, aul. 1993.'Alphabets nd transliteration',n BernardComrieand GrevilleG.
corbett, eds.,TbeslauonicLanguages, 0-59. London:Routledge.cubberley,Paul.1996. TheSlavicalphabets',n Danielsand Brigh"t, 46-ss.Cunningham,Alexander.1877 (reprint 1961). nscriptionsof Aika. Varanasi: ndological
Book House.Curtis,A. 1985. Ugarit (RasShamral.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversitypress.Dani, AhmadHasan.1963. ndian Palaeography.Oxford: Oxford Universitypress.
Daniels,PeterT. 1,990.'Fundamentalsf grammatology'.Journalof theAmericanOrientalSociety 10.727-31.Daniels,PeterT.1997. 'Is a structural raphemicsossible?' ACUSForum 1g.52g-37.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 321/340
302 Bibliography
Daniels, Peter T. 1994.'Reply to Herrick'. LACUS Forum 21.425-31.
Daniels, Peter T. 1996a.'The study of writing systems', n Daniels an d Bright 3-17.
Daniels, Peter T. 1996b.'Aramaic scripts for Aramaic languages', in Daniels and Bright,
499-574.Daniels, Peter T. 1999.'Some Semitic phonological considerations on the sibilants of the
Greek alphabet'. Written Language and Literacy 2.57-61.
Daniels, Peter T. and'William
Bright. 1.996. The World's Writing Systems.Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Davies, \f. V. 1990.'Egyptian hieroglyphics', in J. T. Hooker, ed.' Reading the Past: Ancient
'Writingfrom Cuneiform to the Alphabet. London: British Museum.
DeFrancis, John. 7984. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fanta.sy.Honolulu: University of
Hawai'i Press.
DeFrancis, John. 1989. Visibte Speech:The Diuerse Oneness of Writing Systems.Honolulu:
University of Hawai'i Press.
DeFrancis,John and J. Marshall Unger. 1994.
'Rejoinder
to Geoffrey Sampson:"Chinese scriptand the diversity of writing systems"'. Linguistics 32.549-54.
Deighton, Lee C. L972. A Comparatiue Study of Spellings in Four Maior Collegiate Diction-
aries.Pleasanwille,Y: Hardscrabble.
Diringer,David. 1962.Writing. London:ThamesEcHudson.
Driver, Sir Godfrey.1,976.SemiticWriting: From Pictograph o Alphabet.
UniversityPress.Drogin, Marc. 1980.MedieualCalligraphy: ts History and Technique.New
Earnshaw,C. J. 1988. Sho:JapaneseCalligraph!, An In-deptb Introduction'Writing
Characters.Rutland,VT: CharlesE. Tuttle.
Ebbinghaus, rnst.1996.'TheGothicalphabet',n Danielsand Bright,290-3.
Edgerion,\il7illiam
F. 1940. 'Egyptian phonetic writing'. Journal of the Oriental Society60.473-506.
Elliott, Ralph $7.V. t995.'The runic script', n DanielsandBright,333-9-
Emmison,F. C. 1967.How to ReadLocal Archiues1550-1700.London:The Historical
Association.Faber, Alice. 1981.
'Phonetic reconstruction'. Glossa 1'5.233-52-
Faber, Alice.'1,997.Genetic subgrouping of the Semitic languages', in Robert Hetzron,
TheSemiticLanguage.s,-15. London:Routledge.
Falk,Harry 1993.ScltitB m ahen ndien:Ein Forschungsberichtit Anmerkungen. iibingen:
GunterNarr Verlag.
York: Dover.
to tbe Art of
Fang-yii, l07. 1958. Introduction to Chinese Cursiue Script. New Haven,
Publications, Yale University.Faulkner, Raymond O. 1988. A Concise Dictionary of Middle Egyptian.
Institute.
Feuerherm, Karliiirgen G. 7998. Introduction to
Photocopied notes. University of Toronto.
Akkadian through Codex Hammurapi.
Fischer, StevenRoger. 2001. A History of Writing. London:
Fisher, J. H. 1977. 'Chancery and the emergenceof standard
century'. Speculum 52.870-99.
Gamkrelidze, homas.1984.AlphabeticWriting and the Old GeorgianScript.New
CaravanBooks.
Oxford: Oxford
Far Eastern
Griffith
Reaktion Books.
written English in the fifteenth
Institute.
Journal of EgyPtian
Gardiner, .1973. EgyptianGrammar.3rdrev.edn.Oxford:Griffith
Gardiner,Alan H. 1,916.The Egyptianorigin of the Semiticalphabet'Archeology 3.1-1.6.
Gaur, Albertine.1979. Writing Materialsof the East. BritishLibrary.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 322/340
Bibliography 303
Gaur, Albertine. 1984. A History of Writing. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.Gaur, Albertine. 1,994.A History of CalligraDby. New york: Cross River.Gelb, Ignace. 1963. A Study of
'Writing.Chicago: chicago university press.
Gibson, M. and R. D. Biggs, eds. 1977. Sealsand Sealing in the Ancient Near Easr. Malibu:
Undena.Glaister, Geoffrey Ashall. 1996. Encyclopedia of the Book. Newcastle, DE and London: Oak
Knoll Pressand British Museum.Goerwitz, Richard L. 1996.'The Jewish scripts', in Daniels and Bright,, 4g7-9g.Gragg' Gene B. 1996.'Mesopotamian cuneiform: Other languagesl in Daniels and Bright,
58-70.
Graham, A. J. 1,982. Thecolonial expansion of Greece', in John Boardman and N. G. L.
Hammond, eds., The Cambridge Ancient History (2nd edn., vol. III, Part 2), g3-L62.Grant, Bruce K. 1982. A Guide to Korean Characters. Elizabeth, NJ: Hollym.-Green, M. \Uf. 7981. 'The
construction and implementation of the cuneiform writing system'.Visible Language 15.34S 72.
Green, M. 1$7.1989.'Early cuneiform', in Senner,43-58.Greenspan,J. S. 1981. Hebreu Calligrapby: A Step-by-StepGuide. New York: Schocken.Grimme, Hubert. 1935. 'A propos de quelquesgraffitesdu temple de Ramen'. ReuueBiblique
64.90-s .
Gruendler, Beatrice. 7993. The Deuelopment of the Arabic Suipts. Atlanta, GA: ScholarsPress.
Gurney, O. R. 7981. The Hittites. London: penguin.
Haarmann, Harald. lggl.IJniuersalgeschichte der Schrift Frankfurt: Campus.Haile, Gatatchew. 1,996.'Ethiopic writing', in Daniels and Bright s6g-76.Haley, Allan. 1990. ABC's of Type. New york: rilTatson-Guptill.
F{annas, rJTilliam C. 1997. Asia's OrthographicDilemma. Honolulu: University of Hawai'iPress.
Harbaugh, Rick. 1'998.Chinese Cbaracters and Culture: A Genealogy and Dictionary.NewHaven, CT: Yale Far Eastern Publications.
Harper, Kenn. 1983. ''$Tritingin Inuktitut' . Inuktitut (Part I) 53.1-3S an d (part II ) 53.35-83.
Harris, John F. and StephenK. Stearns.1,992. (Jnderstanding Maya Inscriptions. Philadelphia:University Museum of Archeology and Anthropology, University of Pennsylvania.
Harris,'tilTilliam
V. 1989. Ancient Literacy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University press.Hary, Beniamin. 1996.'Adaptations of Hebrew script', in Daniels and Bright, iZl-qy.Haugen, E. 1976. Tbe Scandinauian Languages: An Introduction to Their History. London:
Faber & Faber.
Hawkins, David. 7986.
.sfriting
Archeology1.7363 7 5. Imported and indigenous systems'. World
Hayes,John H. 199A.A Manual of SumerianGrammarand Texts.Malibu: Undena.Healey,John F. 1990.Tbe Early Alphabet.London:BritishMuseum.Helfman, Elizabeth S. 1981. Blissymbolics: Speaking uitbout Speech. New
Nelson.
Herrick, Earl M. 1994a.'Of coursea structuralgraphemicss possible'. ACUS Forum21.413-24.
Herrick,EarlM. 1994b.'Reply o Daniels' eply'.LACUSForum 21.432-40.Hetzron,Robert.1.987.'semiticanguages',n Comrie,654-63.Hinz, \Y. 1972. The Lost world of Elam. London:Sidgwick& Jackson.
Hoch,James.7995.Middle Egyptian Grammar.Societyor the Stidy of EgyptianAntiquities,Pub.19.Mississauga, N: Benben ublications.
Elsevier/
Holisky, Dee Ann. 1996.'The Georgian alphabet', Daniels and Bright,
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 323/340
304 BibliograPhy
Hooker, J. T., ed. 1990. Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the Alphabet.
London and Berkeley: British Museum and University of California Press.
Houston, S. D. 1989 . Maya Glyphs. Berkeley and London: University of California Pressand
British Museum.
Hsu, JamesC. H. 7996. The Written Word in Ancient China,2 vols. Toronto: Tan Hock Seng.
Huehnergard, John. 1997. A Grammar of Akkadian. Atlanta, GA: ScholarsPress.
Hwa, Khoo Seow and Nanry L. Penrose.1993. Behind the Brushstrokes:Appreciating Chinese
Calligraphy. Hong Kong: Asia 2000.
Inouye, Kyoko. 1987.'Japanese: A story of language and people', in Timothy Shopen,
ed., Languages and Their Speakers, 247-300. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press.
International Phonetic Association. 7999. Handbook of the International Phonetic Associ-
ation: A Guide to the IJse of the International Phonetic Association. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Jackson, Donald. 7987. The Story of Writing. New York: Holt, Rinehart and
.Sfinston.
Jasim,SabahAbboud and Joan Oates. 1986.'Early tokens and tablets n Mesopotamia: New
information from Tell Abada and Tell Brak' . World Archeology 1'7.348-62.
Jeffrey, L. H. 7961. The Local Scripts of Ancient Greece. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Jensen,Hans. 1970. Sign, Symbol, and Script. London: George Allen & Unwin.
Justeson, ohn S. and Terrence Kaufman. 1,993.'A deciphermentof Epi-Olmec hieroglyphic
writing'. Science259.1,703 71,.
Justeson, ohn S. and Laurence D. Stephens.1993.'The evolution of syllabaries rom alphabets:
Transmission, language contrast, and script typology'. Die Sprache 35.2-46.
Kaye, Alan S. 7996.'Adaptations of Arabic script', in Daniels and Bright,743-62.
Kaye, Alan S., ed.'1,997.Phonologiesof Asia and Africa.'sfinona Lake, IN : Eisenbrauns.
Keightley, David N. 1989.'The
origins of writing in China: Scripts and cultural contexts', inSenner, 177.-202.
Kent, R. G. 1953. Old Persian: GrammAr, Texts, Lexicon. New Haven, CT: American
Oriental Society.
Khan, Geoffrey. 1997.'Tiberian Hebrew phonology', in Kaye, 85-102.
Killingley, Siew-Yue. 1998. Learning to Read Pinyin Romanization and its Equiualent in'Wade-Giles:
A Practical Course for Students of Chinese.Munich: Lingcom Europa.
Kim, Chin \W. 1997.'The
structure of phonological units in Han'g[l', in Kim-Reynaud,
1.45-60.
Kim, S. 1981. Inuersions: A Catalog of Calligraphic Cartwbeels. Peterborough, NH: Byte.
Kim-Reynaud, Young-Key, ed. 1,997. The Korean Alpbabet: lts History and Structure.
Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press.King, Ross. 1.996.'Korean writing', in Daniels and Bright,21'8-27.
Knorosov, Yuri V. 1,952.Drevniaia pis'mennost' Tseltral'noi Amerikl'. SouietskayaEtnografiya
3 .100-18 .
Kober, Alice E. 1,945.Evidence of inflection in the "Chariot" tablets from Knossos'. American
lournal of Archeology 49.1.43-51.
Kramer, S. N. 1963. The Sumerians. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Kratochvil, Paul. 1968. The Chinese Language Today. London: Hutchinson University Library.
Lambert, Hester M. 1953. Introduction to the Deuanagari Script. London: Oxford University
Press.
Larsen, M. T. 7989.''What
they wrote on clay', in K. Schousboeand M. T. Larsen, eds.,
Literacy and Society, l2l-48. Copenhagen: Academisk Forlag.
Lass, Roger. 1,987.The Shape of Englisb: Structure and History. London: Dent.
Lauf, D.l. 1976. Tibetan Saued Art: The Heritage of the Tantra. London.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 324/340
Bibliography 30s
Ledyard, Gari. 1997. 'Theinternational linguistic background of the correct sounds for the
instruction of the people', in Kim-Reynaud, 31-97.Lehmann, Ruth P. M. 7989. 'Ogham:
The ancient script of the Celts', in Senner, ISg-70.Li, David C. S. 2000. 'Phonetic
borrowing: Key to the ,rit"lity of written Cantonese in Hong
Kong'.'Written
Language and Literacy 2.1,99-233.Li, Gertraude Roth. 2000. Manchu: A Textbook for Reading Documents.Honolulu: Univer-
sity of Hawai'i Press.
Lieberman, StephenJ. 1980. 'Ofclay pebbles, hollow clay balls, and writing: A Sumerian
view'. American Journal of Arcbeology 84.339-5g.Loprieno, Anthony. 1995. Ancient Egyptian: A Linguistic Introduction. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Lounsbury, Floyd. 1989.'The ancient writing of Middle America', in Senner, 203-37.MacMahon, Michael K. C. 1996.'Phonetic notation', in Daniels and Bright, g2l-46.Macri, Martha J. 1996.'Maya an d other Mesoamerican scripts', in Daniels and Bright,
172-82.
Mair, Victor H. 1996.'Modern Chinesewriring', in Daniels and Bright,200-g.Mallery, Garrick. 1893. Picture Writing of the American Indians. \rashlngton: Government
Printing Office. Repr. 1972, New york: Dover.Martin, Samuel E. 1997.'commentary', in Kim-Reyn aud, 263-77.Masica, Colin P- 1991. The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University press.Mathews, Peter. 1996. Notebook foir the Iniugiral Maya Hieroglyph workshop at Calgary.
Calgary: Department of Archeology, University of ialgaryMcCarthy, Suzanne. 1995. 'The
Cree syllabary and the writing system riddle: A paradigm incrisis', in Taylor and Olson, 59-75.
McDonald, Eugene T. 1980. Teaching and [Jsing Blissymbolics. Toronto: The BlissymbolicsCommunication Institute.
McManus, Damian. 1991,.A Guide to ogam. Maynooth: An Sagart.McManus, Damian. 1996.'ogham', in Daniels and Bright, 340-J.McManus, Damian an d Eric P. Hamp. 1995.'Celtic languages', n Daniels and Bright,
655-53.
McNaughton, Shirley. 1985. Communicating with Blissymbolics. Toronto: The BlissymbolicsCommunication Institute.
Michalowski, Piotr. 1996.'Mesopotamian cuneiform: Origin', in Daniels and Brigh , 33-6.Miller, Roy Andrew. 1956. The Tibetan System of Writing.
'U7ashington:American Council
of Learned Societies.
Miller, Roy Andrew.'l'967. Tbe JapaneseLanguage. Chicago: University of Chicago press.
Miller, Roy Andrew. 1986. Nihongo. London: Athlone.Millward, C. M. 1988. A Biography of the English Language.Fort
'srorth,TX: Holt, Rinehart
&'S7inston.
Mistry, P.I. 1996. 'Gujaratiwriting', in Daniels and Bright,3gl-4.
Mitchell, T. F. 1954.'writing Arabic: A practical Introdition to theOxford University Press.
Moltke, E. 1985. Runes and TheirMuseum of Denmark.
Denmark and Elsewbere.
Ruq'abScript.Oxford:
National
Hippocrene.
Collinge, ed., An
Montgomery, John. 2002. How to Read Maya HieroglypDs. NewMoore' oliver. 2000. chinese. London: British Museum press.
Mountford, John. 1990. 'Languageand writing-systems', in N. E.
, -Encyclopedia of Language,70l-39. London: Routledge.Miiller-Yokota, \ilfolfram. 1989. 'scrift
und schriftgeschichte', in Brunound Schrift lapans, 185-ZZl. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Lewin, ed., Sprache
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 325/340
305 BibliograPhY
Naveh, J. 1970. The Deuelopmentof the Aramaic Script. Jerusalem: srael Academyof
Sciencesnd Humanities.
Naveh, . 1982.Early History of theAlphabet:An Introduction to'West SemiticEpigraphy
and Paleography. erusalem ndLeiden:Magnesand E.
J.Brill'
Naveh,J. 1948. The originof the Greekalphabet',n Derrickde Kerckhove nd Charles .
L1rmsderr,ds.,The Atphabetand theBrain: The Lateralizationof'Writing,84-91.
Berlin:
SpringerVerlag.
Ng"ye" DQnh-Hoe.Dsg. 'ChfrN6m: The demoticsystem f writing in Vietnam'.Journalof
theArnericanOriental Society79.270-4.
Nguy6nDQnh-Hoi.1996.Vietnamese',in Danielsand Bright,691,-5.
Nichols, ohnD. 7996.'TheCreesyllabary',n Daniels nd Bright, 599-61,'1,.
Nissen,HansJ. 1956.'Thearchaic exts rom Uruk'. World Arcbeology17 317'34.
Nissen,HansJ. 19SS.TheEarly Historyof theAncientNear East9000-2000B.C. Chicago:
Universityof ChicagoPress.
Nissen,HansJ. ,Peterbamerow, nd RobertK. Englund. 993.ArchaicBookkeeping: arlyWriting and Techniques f EconomicAdministration n theAncientNear Easl.Chicago:
Universityof ChicagoPress.
Norman,Jerry.1988.Chinese. ambridge: ambridgeUniversiryPress.
O'Connor M. 7996a.Thealphabet s echnology',n DanielsandBright,787-94-
O'Connor,M.79g6b.'Epigraphic emitic cripts',n Daniels ndBright,88-107.
O'Neill, P. G.7973. Essential anii.New York: tilTeatherhill.
Ormond,L. 1981. Writing: The Artsand Liuing.London:Her Maiesty'sStationeryOffice.
Page,R. I. 1973 Introduction to the EnglishRunes.London:Methuen.
Page,R. I. 1987. Runes. ondonandBerkeley: ritishMuseumand University f California
Press.
Palmer,L. 1980.The GreekLanguage.Atlantic City' NJ: HumanitiesPress.Paradis,Michel, Hiriko Hagiwara,and Nancy Hildebrandt. 1985. NeurolinguisticAspects
of theJapaneseWriting System.New York: AcademicPress.
Parles,M. B. 1,993.Pauieand Effect:An lntroduction to theHistory of Punctuation n the.West.
Berkeley: University of California Press.
Parkinson, Richard. 1999. Cracking Codes: The Rosetta Stone. University of
CaliforniaPress.
Parpola, Asko. t994. Deciphering the Indus Script. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity
Press.
Parpola,Asko. 1996. The IndusScript', n DanielsandBright,l'65-71'.
Petiinato,G. 1981. The Archiuesof Ebla: An Empire Inscribed n Clay. GardenCity' NY:
Doubleday.Picchioni,S. A. 1985. 'The directionof cuneiform
Orientali e Linguistici2.77-26.
Theorv and evidence'. Studi
Poppe, Nicholas. 7968. Mongolian Language Handbook-
Linguistics.
tUfashington: Center for Applied
Poser, S7illiam. 7992.'The structural typology of phonological Presentation to the
Linguistic Society of America, Philadelphia, PA.
Possehl,Gregory L. L996. Indus Age: The Writing System. Philadelphia: University of Penn-
sylvania Press.
Postgate,J. N. 1992. Early Mesopotamia. London: Routledge.
Powell, Barry B. 7991. Homer and the Origin of the Greek Alphabet. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Powell, Marvin A. 1981,.Three problems in the history of cuneiform writing: Origins, direction
of script, literacy'. Visible Language 15.419-40.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 326/340
Bibliography 307
Pratt' Terry K. 1'993.'The hobgoblin of Canadian English spelling', in Sandra Clarke, ed.,Focus on Canada. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.
Proskouriakoff, Tatiana.1960. 'Historicalimplications of a pattern of datesat PiedrasNegras,
Guatemala' American Antiquity ZS.454-7 S.
Pu Yi . 1964. From Emperor to Citizen Trans. by,D7.J. F. Jenner. Beijing: Peking ForeignLanguage Press.
Quibell, J. E. 1S98. 'Slatepalette from Hiraconopolis'. Zeitschrift fiir Agyptische Sprache
und Alth erthumskunde 36.81.-4.
Quirke, Stephen and Carol Andrews. 1988. The Rosetta Stone: Facsimile Drawing withIntroduction and Translations. New york: Harry N. Abrams.
l"Tt-9y'S. Robert. 1987. The Languages of China. Princeton: Princeton University press.
Ratliff, Martha. 1996.'The Pahawh Hmong script', in Daniels and Bright, 619-24.Reiner, Erica. 1973.'How we read cuneiform texts'. lournal of Cuniifo,rm Studies 2s.3-
58 .
Ritner, Robert K. 1996.'The Coptic alphabet', in Daniels and Bright, 2g7-g0.Roaf, M. 1990. Cultural Atlas of Mesopotamia and the Ancient Near East. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Robertson, Merle Greene. 1991. Tbe Sculpture of Palenque. Vol. IV. Princeton: princeton
University Press.
Rogers,Henry. 1972. 'Theinitial mutations in modern ScotsGaelic'. Studia Celtica7.63-85.
Rogers, Henry. 1995.'optimal orthographies', in Taylor and olson, 19-31.Rogers, Henry. 2000. The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics. Hailow:
Pearson Education Ltd.
Roop, D. Haigh. 1972. An Introduction to the Burmese Writing System. New Haven, CT:Yale University Press.
Sack, Ronald H. 1'981.'The temple scribein Chaldean Uruk'. Visible Language 15.409-Ig.Salomon, Richard. 1996. 'Brahmi an d Kharoshthi', in Daniels and Bright,373-83.
Salomon, Richard. 1998. Indian Epigraphy: A Guide to the Study of Iicriptions in Sanskrit,Prakrit, and the Other Indo-Aryan Languages. Oxford: Oxford University press.
Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction. Stanford: StanfordUniversity Press.
Sampson, Geoffrey. 1994.'Chinese script and the diversity of writing systems'. Linguistics32.117-32.
SanfaEon,Roland. 1997. Chinese-English-French Dictionary. Sainte-Foy,eu6bec: Lespressesde I'Universit6 Laval
Sanjian, Avedis K. 1996.'The Armenian alphabet', in Daniels and Bright, 356-63.
Sass,Benjamin.1992. Studia Alphabetica: On the Origin and Ea4y HiJory of the NorthwestSemitic, South Semitic, and Greek Alphabets. Gcittingen: Universitatsverlag Schweiz.Scancarelli,Janine. 1992.'Aspiration and Cherokee orthographies', in pamela Downing,
SusanD. Lima, and Michael Noonan, eds., Linguistics olLiitrory, I3S-52. Amsrerdam:John Beniamins.
Scancarelli,Janine. 1996.'Cherokee writing', in Daniels an d Bright, sg7-92.Schele,Linda and David Freidel. 1990. A Forest of Kings. New York:
't;TilliamMorrow.
Schele,Linda and Peter Mathews. 7998. The Code of iirgs, The Language of SeuenSacredMaya Temples and Tomb.s. New york: Scribner.
Schele,Linda and Mary Ellen Miller. 1986. The Blood of Kings. New york: George Braziler.Schendge,Malati J. 1983. 'The
use of seals and the invention of writing'. Jouinal of the
Economic and Social History of the Orient 26.113-36.Schenker,Alexander. L995. The Dautn of Slauic: An Introduction to Slauic philology. New
Haven, CT: Yale Universitv press.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 327/340
308 BibliograPhY
Schmandt-Besserat,Denise. 1989.'Two precursors of writing: Plain and complex tokens', in
Senner,27-42.
Schmandt-Besserat,Denise. 1992. Before Writing.2 vols. Austin: Texas University Press.
Scragg,D. G.
'1,974.A History of English Spelling. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Seeley,Christoph er. 7997. A History of Writing in Japan. Leiden: E. J. Brill.
Segert, Stanislav. 1984. A Basic Grammar of the Ugaritic Language. Berkeley: University of
California Press.
Senner, ilfayne M., ed. 1,989. The Origins of Writing. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska.
Senner,Wayne
M. 1996.'Germanic languages', n Daniels and Bright, 642-51.
Sharer, Robert I. 1994. The Ancient Maya. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Shi, Dingxu.1996.'The Yi script', in Daniels and Bright,739-43.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1987. Japanese', n Comrie, 855-80.
Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1990. The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press.
Simon,'t$(.1959. Hotu to Study andwrite CltineseCharacters.London: PercyLund Humphries.Sircar, Dinesh Chandra. t971.
'Introduction to Indian epigraphy and palaeography'.Journal
of Ancient Indian History 4.72-136.
Skjarvo, P. Oktor. 7996.'Aramaic scripts fo r Iranian languages', n Daniels and Bright,
515-35 .
Smalley, Igilliam A., Chia Koua Vang, and Gnia Yee Yang. 7990. Mother of Writing: The
Origin and Deuelopment of a Hmong Messianic Script. Chicago: University of Chicago
Press.
Smith, Janet S. (Shibamoto). 1995. Japanesewriting', in Daniels and Bright,209-17.
Smith, J"r,.t S. and David L. Schmidt. 1996.'Variability in written Japanese:Towards a
sociolinguistics of script choice'. Visible Language 30:46-71.
Smith, Vincent A. 7909. Asoka: The Buddhist Emperor of India. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.
Sohm, Ho-Min. 1,997. Orthographic divergence n South and North Korea: Toward a unified
spelling system', in Kim-Reynaud, 793-21'8.
Soothill, William Edward. 1889. Student's 4000 Chinese Characters and Pocket Dictionary.
London: Kegan Paul.
Soudavar, A. 1992. Art of the Persian Courts. New York: Rizzoli.
Sproat, Richard. 2000. A ComputationalTheory of'Writing
Systems.Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Stevens,John. 1995. Saued Calligraphy of the Easr. Boston: Sambhala.
Stevens,John. 1996.'Asian calligraphy', in Daniels and Bright, 244-51,.
Stimson, Hugh. TgTs.lntroduction to Chinese Pronunciation and the PInyIn Romanization.New Haven, CT: Yale University, Far Eastern Publications.
Stroud, Ronald S. 1989.'The ar t of writing in ancient Greece', n Senner,103-19.
Sussmann, Ayala and Ruth Peled. 1993. Scrolls rom the Dead Sea.s7ashington:
Library of
Congress.
Swiggeis, Pierre. 7996.'Transmission of the Phanician script to the'West',
in Daniels and
Bright, 261-70.
Taylor, Insup and David R. Olson, eds. 1995. Scripts and Literacy: Reading and Learning to
Read Alphabets, Syllabariesand Characters. Dordrecht: Kluwer.
Taylor, Iniup and M. Martin Taylor. 1995. Writing and Literacy in Cbinese, Korean and
Japanese.Amsterdam: John Beniamins.
Testen,David D. 1,996.'Old Persiancuneiform', in Daniels and Bright,l'34-7.
Thompson, Edward Maunde. 1893. Handbook of Greek and Latin Paleography.
Kegan Paul.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 328/340
Bibliography 309
Thompson,J. Eric S. 1950. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction. Washington:Carnegienstitution.
Threate, eslie.1996.'TheGreekalphabet',n Danielsand Bright, 271,-ga.Tiu" Hak-khiam. 1998.'.sfriting in two scripts:A casestudy of digt"phia in Taiwanese,.
Written Language nd Literacy 1.225-4g.Tozzer,Alfred M- 1941. Landa'sRelaci6nde lasCosasde Yucat6n'.papersof the peabody
Museumof Archeology and Ethnology,1,8.Cambridge,MA: Harvard Universitypress.Tuttle,Edward.1995.'Romanceanguages',n Danielsand Bright, 633-42.Ullman,B. L. 1980.Ancient Writing and ItsInfluence.Toronto: Universityof Toronto press
and MedievalAcademyof America.Unger,J. Marshall.1996. Literacyand ScriptReform n OccupationJapan Oxford: Oxford
UniversityPress.Vail, Gabrielleand Martha J. Macri. 2000. 'Introduction
to special ssue:Languageanddialect n the Maya hieroglyphicscript'.
'WrittenLanguage nd Litrrocy 3.7-7i.
Vallat, Frangois.1986.'Themost ancient scriptsof lran: The current situation,. WorldArcheology17.335-47.
Vallins, G. H. 1954.Spelling.London: Andr6Deutsch.van der Kuifp, LeonardW. J. 1996.'The Tibetanscriptand derivatives',n Danielsand
Bright, 431-41..Vanstiphout,H. 1979.'How did they earncuneiform?'CuneiformStudies 1.11g-26.Venezky,RichardL. 1970.TheStructureof EnglishOrthography.The Hague:Mouton.Venezky, Richard L. 1999. The American Way of Spettingt t i Structuri and Origins of
AmericanEnglishOrthograp,by.New york: Guilford.Versteegh'Kees.1997.TheArabic Language.Edinburgh:EdinburghUniversitypress.Voegelin,C. F. and F. M. Voegelin.1964.Languageiof the WorU. AnthropologicalLin-
guistics. ino-Tibetan ascicle ,vol. 5, no.3, p.28. Bloomington,N: Archives f Llanguagesof the tWorld.'wakelin,
Martyn. 1988.TheArcheology of Engtisb.London:Batsford.Walker,C. B. F. 1987.Cuneiform.Berkeley nJLondon: University ofCalifornia pressand
BritishMuseum.'Sfalker,
WillardB. 1981. NativeAmericanwriting systems',n CharlesA. Ferguson ndShirleyBriceHeath,eds.,Languagen the USA, 145-74.Cambridge:CambridgeUniversitypress.
$falker, r$TillardB. 7996.'Nativewriting systems',n IvesGoddard, ed.,Iiandbookof NortbAmerican ndians,vol. 17: Languages, 58-84. Washington:Smithsoniannstiturion.Wallace,
Rex.1989. Theoriginsand developmenrf the Latinalphabet',n Senner,1l-35.Sfeninger,Stefan.1993.Ge'el,.Munich: Lincom Europa.'\il7heatley,JulianK. 1996.'Burmese riting', in Danieisand Bright 4s0-6.
STilson'Hilary. 1993. [Jnderstanding ieroglyphs.London:Michael O,MaraBooks.lwood, Claudia,Jinny Storr, and PeterA. Reich, eds. 1,992.BlissymbolReferenceGuide.
Toronto: Blissymbolics ommunication nternationar.'Sroodard,RogerD.1'997.Greek'Writingfrom Knossoso Homer:A Linguistic nterpretation
lf tle Origin of the GreekAlphabetand the Continuity of Ancient Errrk Literacy. NewYork: Oxford Universitypress.
uToodhead,A. G. 1981.The Studyof GreekInsuiptions. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.
'$Toudhuizen,Fred. 1993. The Language
Xudxi Hdnying Cididn. 1999. Learner's
SiangPau.Yin Biny6ng and John S. Rohsenow.
of the SeaPeoples. Amsterdam: Najade.Chinese-English Dictionary. Shanghai: Nanyang
1994. Modern Chinese Cltaracters.
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 329/340
Index
Note: Page numbers in italics refer to illustrations.
abecedary 70
abjads 15
Arabic 24, t35, 136,229
Aramaic123,1"24,,70,, 27,229
Hebrew727-9
New Hebrew123,,737
Old Hebrew1.21, 23, 131'
Palmyrene 25
Phanician 2l , 153-4, 156
Semiticl7-25, 120, 141,153
SouthArabian 120Syriac125
Ugaritic93,1.28
Abkhaz167
abugidas
Brahmi 205, 206, 2t0, 21.3,221
Burmese22,275
Ethiopic 15, 120,138-40
Indian21,3,275
Kharogghi 05
Tibetan 24-6,275
Abydos100
academies,anguage 87
AchemenidPersians 23, 124
acrophony L8
acuteaccents 51
Afro-Asiatic anguageamily 97,'l'!5
Akkadian 0-L, 86, 90,92, l5, " l '1 '6, ' l '17
diacritics88
gunu 88
morphographicwriting 717
phonemic nventory81phonographic omponent'l-'l'7
romanization L
Sumerian orrowings90
vowel length 90
seealsocuneiform
Akkadians123
aksara210, Zt8-79
Alaska253
Alexanderhe Great113,124,1'45
Algonquian anguages , 250
allographs0-11,1,77, 72,173
allographic ariation l, 77
classesf allographs 1
freeand boundallograPhs 6,215
full-figurevariants237, 238geographic llographs220
headvariants237, 238
allomorphs10,282
allophones,10'.283
alphabets 4, 115
Armenian1'64,L65
Cyril l ic5, 14,766,167,229
English5, 5, 10
Etruscan'1..70,7"1,,7L
Eubaian L70
Georgian 55
Glagolit ic '66,167
Gothic1,62,163
Greek ,1 ,4 ,128
Hebrew128
InternationalPhoneticAlphabet(IPA)
21,269,285-6
Ionic alphabetL59
Korean hankul)70-3, 71, 227
Landa'salphabet233-4
Mongolian 229ogham258,259
Roman -5,6 ,74,128
runic255,256-g
Zhityln zimfi 47
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 330/340
Altaic anguages 0, 68,229Americanorthographicusage192, lg3Amharic120,138-9
phonemic nventory 139
amountof morphography 74,275Anglo-Saxon eeOld Englishanusuara220Arabic6, 14, 99 , 116, 25, 132-8, 1.67
Arabicabjad124, 135, 136,229backgroundand history 1.32-3calligraphic tyles , 9-10, 133, 3Scases 38colloquialArabic133diacrit ics 33,135,138diglossia ,17, 133
directionof writing 135hamzab 137homography140
Judaeo-Arabic 37Modern StandardArabic 133non-linear lements -10numerals'1.31,38,272phonemic nventory 133phonology133pre-Islamic riting l3Z, 132Standard rabic7,1,33vowelsanddiphthongs 35, 137
Arameans l7, 127,123, 127Aramaic 1,716,120,121,123-5,'1.32,145
Aramaicabiad123, "l_24,270,227, 229and early ndic symbols207, ZOgmorphograms 24, 124Perso-Aramaic 74
Armenian 164-5alphabet 64,165dialects 55
Asianwriting systems 99-232A6oka,Emperor125,203-4A6okan nscription 203-4, 204, 207, 210Assyrian81Assyrianempire1,23at (@)sign194ateii 60Athapaska languages 50Attic dialect'1.59Avar167aybuben165
Azeri167
Babel79
Babylonian '1.,123
Index 3rl
BabylonianCaptivity 721, 123bSihui 22Bengle212Bangladesh99,212
Belorusian, 167,274'benefit
of clergy'7Bengali 21,2Bhutan 199Bliss , 263-7,273
diacritics254semantic istinction 267semantic otational system 71sentenceormation 265-7symbols 63-saswriting system 66-7
Bliss,Charles253Blitz, Karl seeBliss,CharlesBofhazkoy93book structure7, 1,5-'1.5BApomofoseeZhilyin zimftborrowing of a writing system4-5boustrophedon 54, 154, l5Sbracketing283Brahmi204,204,205-77
abugida205, 206,210, 227
directionof writing 206,211indigenous ypothes s209Indusorigin hypothesis 09Kharosthiorigin hypothesis 11later developmenr 11-13origin 207-1.1.Semiticorigin hypothesis 10-ll
Brahui203breathings ,59,16ABuddhism ,25,'1.99,00, 201, 204,
213,221
Buddhistsutra 51Bulgarian167Burmese 00.221-3
abugida 22,275diacritics222-3phonemic nventory221retroflexstops221Sanskritborrowings222vowels222-3
ByzantineEmpire146
calendarcalendar ound 241-2Gregorian calendar239
Julian calendar239
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 331/340
312
calendar cont'd)
Maya 238-42,24L
seven-day nd yearlycycles238-9
vagueyears241calligraphyseeunder ndividualwriting
systems
Cambodian 21
Canaanite 16
Old Canaanite 15'Proto-Canaanite 78-1.9
Canada1, 192-3,250, 252,253
Cantonese0,22,23,39
capitalization11, 15
Carrier250
cartouches 13,114Caucasiananguages 65
Celtic anguages , 177, 258
Chadwick, ohn 148
Champollion, ean-Frangois13
Cherokee , 14, 247-9, 276
background nd history247,249
moraicscript247, 249,272
orthographicsystem 49
phonemic nventory248
symbols 47,248
transliteration247CheyennendianLetter2-3, 3,270
Chinese , 5, 6, 20-49, 200,27'l',276, 278
compounding 7, 33, 34-7
dialectgroups20,27
diglossia2,23
earlypronunciation 1-2
homophony 6,28-9
language eriods21
language-writingelationship , 26-9
Middle Chinese eriod21
Modern StandardChinese 2,23homophony 28-9phonology24-5
romanization25-6
morphographic lements 72, 277
neo-English riting of 54-6
numerals 8,39-40
Old Chinese 1, 28,29, 32
phonographic lements 72
punctuation 5,43
readingChinese 7
romanization 1, 26, 47, 285
spokenand written language eforms
4s-7
standardization of writing 23
syllabic script 277
syllable boundaries 15
syllablenitial, final and tone 24-5,25
word order 52
written Chinese2l-3, 26-8
oracle-bonewriting 29-31, 3L,43
seealso Chinese characters
Chinesecharacters"1.0,26, 27-8, 32-45
character simplification 45 , 46-7, 197
complex characters 37-8
dialect characters39
formation 32-4
frequency of types of characters 45
large and small seal characters 43number in use 44,45
structure 39-44
ca l l i g raphy ,9 ,42 ,43
complex numerals 39-40
ordering characters 43-4
shapes39
stroke order 4O-1..47
writing direction 41 , 43
traditional analysis34
traditional characters4 5, 46
writing of borrowed words 38-9Chinese civil service examinations 23-4
Chippeweyan250
chosenkul 70
Christ ian Bible 151, 162,785' 186
chft ndm script 74-6
Chuckchee 167
circumflex 16 1
ClassicalChinese27,22,23, 50
classification of writing systems269-79,
27 1
DeFrancis' classification 273, 273featural writing systems277
Gelb's unilinear theory of development
275-6
glottographic writing systems271-5
mixed writing systems272
phonetic writing systems259
revisedclassificati n 27 5
semantic writing systems269-71
Sproat's classification273-4, 274
syllabic versus moraic script 275-7
c lay ablets7,79,83, 84, 84 ' 1 ,47
accounting tablets 86-8, 87
envelopes85
Index
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 332/340
lndex 313
obverse 85
order of writing 85, 85
reverse85
Uruk tablets 86-8,87
commas 15communication 28 0
complementary disributio n "1,1,2t2computers
and creative spelling variations 194and Japanesewriten language 68
contrast 28 3
contrastive discrepanciesL6-17Coptic 97 , 98, 99, "1.61-2
Egyptian borrowings 161,,162Greek borrowings 161, 162
correspondence 16cranberry graphemes 28
cranberry morphemes 28
creation of a writing system 4-5
creative spellings 193-4
Cree5, 14,249-52,253
background and history 249-50
moraic writing system 252phonemic inventory 250phonotactic structure 250
symbols and symbol orientation 2Sl,
252writingsystem 50.-2
Crete 47, l5 l
cuneiform 9-96, L00,116,203,277internal structure88-91phonographic ymbols277proto-cuneiform85relationship o language 0-"1social ontext85-5symbol evelopment1-4,88-90, 89
seealsoAkkadian;clay ablets;OldPersian;Sumerian;Ugariticcursivestyles5
Arabic135
Chinese 2,43Latin 174,175
Cypriot script151, L53Cypro-Minoan script 151Cyprus 51,155Cyril l icalphabet , '1,4,,66,'1.67,ZZ9
dagesh129Danish12-13,192,256Dar ius94
de Rhodes.-Alexander76DeadSeaScrolls 21,722,723,131demoticwriting 100, 101, 709demotike'1.46-7
Denmark254,255Deuanagan 12, 213-21,227, 250,274
aksara218-19
consonants 17-18diacritics 16geographic llographs220ligatures 17, 21,8numerals 20symbols 15vowel nasalization220vowels215-77word division 21.9-20
diacritics 1Akkadian88Arabic133,135,138Bliss264
breathings ,59,'1.60Burmese 22-3
Deuanagart l,6Ethiopian139-40French 'J.,1.76
German176Greek160Hebrew127,129-30Indo-Aryan 210
Japanese2Maya 235
PahawhHmong 262Sanskrit12vowelpointing127,130
dialects , 284dictionaries 87
differentiation 2, 33, 36, 88diglossia 7,"1.24digraphs 5,17,197distance umbers 42Dravidiananguageroup17,199,
200-1, 200, 203, 206Dutch197dysgraphia58dyslexia 8
e-mail11
Ebla 92Eblaite 2-3,777Egypt98,99
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 333/340
374
Egyptian ,97-114
absencef writtenvowels103, 105
astheticrearrangement f graphemes
11. "1, l l2biconsonantalraphemes 05, 105
Coptic97, 98, 99
decipherment13
DemoticEgyptian97, 98, 1'61', 62
demoticwrit ing1.00, 01,109
directionof writing 109,L11,
exampleext 112-1,3
hieraticwriting "1,00,101,'1,09
hieroglyphic riting 100, L01,102
homonyms 09,110-11
internalstructureof writing 109-12LateEgyptian 7,98
literature102
Middle Egyptian97,,98
monoconsonantalraphemes 04' 105
morphographic riting 108, 117, l8 ,
272
Old Egyptian98,99
origin of Egyptianwriting 100
periods97, 98phonemic nventory(Old Egyptian)99
phonograms 18phonographic riting 103-7, 178' 272
phonological omplements 07-8
polyconsonantalgraphemes 74
scribes nd literacv102-3
semanticcomplements 109, 110
social context of writing 102-3
stylesof writing 100, 102
systemic similarities to the Semitic abjad
177,'1,"1.8
triconsonantal graphemes707, ll2
writing materials L02
Elam 92
Elamite 92-emic 10
emphatic consonants93-4, "1,26,13 3
Engl ish5, 6 , 16, t76,1 ,85-98,274
alphabet 5, 5, L0
background and history 785-7
calligraphic style 6, 9
capitalization 11,,1, 5
diglossia 17
homography 140
languageperiods 186
Latin abbreviations 124
Index
l igatures 13
Middle English'l'86, 189-90
French borrowings 1'89' 794
fricatives 189
Great English Vowel Shift 186, 191,
194Latin borrowings194
phonemicnventory189
spelling 94
trisyllabic hortening 90
vowels190
Modern English186, 190-4
borrowings192
creativespellings 93-4
orthographicdialectvariation 1'92-3spell ing 91
spelling ronunciations 92
morphological nformation 73, "l'4,
273
Old English185-5, 187-9
phonemic nventory187
spelling 94
vowel ength188
orthographicdepth275
paragraphs 5
phonemicsystem 73place-namepellings 95
punctuationgraphemes 5
runic writing 257-8
spell ing , 6,17,"1'87, 91
Middle English194
Modern English791,192
Old English1"94
reform1,95-7
and soundchanges '94-s
English ranscripti n 287 B
Epi-Olmec 33Erasmus 47
Eritrea 117Estrangelo 25
Ethiopia l7 , 139
Ethiopicabugida138-40
Ethiopicnumerals 40
Ethiopicscript 1.5,'1.20-etic10
Etruscan 70-2
abecedary170
allographs'1.71,72,773alphabet 70, 7l , 171, 73
calligraphic tyle170
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 334/340
directionof writing 170Greekborrowings ,171writing tablets171
Etruscans 70
Eubaianalphabet170Evans,John249,250exclamationmarks15
Falasha 39Faliscan 72featuralwriting systems 7T-gFinnish , 6,272,274
orthographicdepth 177,274phonemicnventory178
Finno-Ugric 77
Fraktur'1.82French 72,'1.76,77, 192
diacrit ics 1,176NormanFrench186,194soundchanges 94
funerary nscriptions 02
furigana 65futhark256,257futhorc258
Gaelic
IrishGaelic 78,180ScotsGaelicseeScorsGaelic
Gin 20Gandhari206,210Ge'ez 20,138,"1.39Gelb, gnace 75-6Georgian155German 4,16,"1,82
diac:.itics176Fraktur 1.82
StandardGerman17SwissGerman17
Germanic anguages 54Glagoliticalphabet1.66, ,67glottalstop81, 93,1,37,'1,58glottographicwriting systems 71-s
classificationcheme 71,272moraic systems 72morphographic ystems 72phonemic systems 72phonographic ystem 272
glyphs235,235, 238,243-5,243,244,245
emblemglyphs238
Index 31s
Gothic 162-3graffiti 700,1,73graphemes,70,13
biconsonantalraphemes05,L06,
t t 2cranberrygraphemes 8freeand boundgraphemes 1-12grapheme-morphemeelationships 4grapheme-phonemeelationships13,
1,7,160-1,,191Iigatures .2-13monoconsonantal raphemes 04, 105non-segmentalraphemes 0, 14,
t5-16phonologicalcomplemenrs
07-8, 235,237polyconsonantalgraphemes 74punctuationgraphemes 5triconsonantal raphemes 1, 1,07,712word boundarygraphemes 5
graphemicanalysisof writing 11graveaccents 5LGreatEnglishVowelShift185, 191,194Greek15, 124,'125,'1,73,74
accents 51
Attic dialect1.45boustrophedon54,154, SsClassical reek145,147,155, 60
phonemic nventory155voweldistinctions 58
Cypriotscript sL, 153Cypro-Minoanscript 151demotike146-7diacritics 60diglossia 7, 746-7directionof writing 754,174
HellenisticGreek145,1.46HomericGreek145,148kathareuousa46,147language eriods145language-writing elationship150-1
LinearA script15'1,, 51LinearB script145,147-51., 47,276Modern Greek145,'1,46-7MycenaanGreek145,147pitch accent ystem150pronunciation 1.47
sibilants 57socialcontextof writing 155syllable-finalonsonant lusters 57
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 335/340
316
Greekalphabet , 14, 128,145-69, 170
development53-5
dialectalvariation L59
Eubaian alphabet170Ionicalphabet 59
Phanicianborrowings153-5, "l '56,'l'57,
158
scripts erived rom 767-7
Greenland 53
Gregoriancalendar239
Gujarati script 212
gunu 88
gtu6yil u6mdzi25-6
haab247,242,245Hakka 20
Hammu-repi91
hamzah137
Hin 20
hanca73-4
hankul7'1.5,
53,70-3, 71 74, 227
featuralanalysis 77-8
shapes "1.,72
structure72-3
unique eatures 1
Hansard Ihdnyil 22
hdnziseeChinese haracters
Hatranscript124
Hausa132
Hebrew5, 14, 117,'1.20, '23,, 25-32
alphabet 28
backgroundand history 125-6
calligraphic tyles , 128, 130
diacritics127,,129 30
directionof writing 128, 130
Hebrewabiad127-9
language2
lenitionL29
New Hebrewabiad 1'23,731
numerals 28,131'
Old Hebrewabjad121,723' 73'l'
personal ames 30-1
sibilants .29
TiberianHebrew126-7, "l'29
vowelpointing130
vowels ,129-31writing system
HebrewBible121,123, 126,"1'31,145-6
reading131
Septuagint 45
Hepburnsystem54
heterography 6
heterophony 6
hieraticwrit ing100,1.01,109
hieroglyphic riting 700,L01, 702,
1,09
Hindi 200, 201,,272, 213
hiragana 'plainkana')6'1,, 2, 63,
54-5,65,67,205-6
Hittite 93
Homer L45
homography16
homonyms 09,110-11
homophones 5
homophony16Chinese6,28-9
HongKong 23,45,"1'97
Hurrians93
hyangchal69
Iceland 54-s
Icelandic 75
Iliad 145
illiteracy L
importanceof writing 1-2
India 125,'1,99, 12-1,3seealso Deuanagarl
Indian grammarians 07
Indo-Aryan anguage amlly t65,
799,204,200
Indo-Aryans209
Indo-Europeananguageamily 93,
145 ,1 .65 ,72 ,254
Indusscript2AI4,209
Brahmi and 209-10
decipherm nt201'-2,203
ligatures203morphemic-moraic ystem 03
symbols202-3
IndusValleyculture4,201
internalstructureof writing 6-7
InternationalPhoneticAlphabet(IPA)21,259,285-6
Inuktitut 14,252-4
backgroundand history
2s2-3Creeborrowings253
orthographic eform 253
symbols 53,254
inventionof writing 4*5' 81-4
Ionic alphabet 59
Index
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 336/340
Irish
Middle Irish 178ogham258-50Old Irish258
Islam125,132,1,33lsrael 126I ta l ian 72,176,177i ta l i cs ,16itwu 69
Japanese, 6, 5A-68, 200ateii 60calligraphic tyles50, 51,66character implification51Chinese orrowings ,20, 50, 52 ,
54, 56_7,5gcomputerwriting 68diacritics 2dialects 0inflection52
iindai moii ('god-age cript'l S2-3
iukuiikun 50kana seekanakokuii 60literacy 52, 67-8morphographic elements 72numerals 2phonemic nventory53phonographicelemens 272pitch accentstructure54psychology f writing 68romanizations 4siddham 213structure53-4verb orms53word order 52,53writing reform 67-8
Japaneseharacters eekanji
iindai moii 52-3
Johnson,Andrew1,97
Johnson,Samuel 87
Judao-Arabic131
iukuiikun 60
Julian calendar239
Kabardian157KacchT 12
kana5,14, 6 '1 . -6 , l18, SZ, 7Z,275
braillesystem 6
furigana 65
Index 317
hiragana'plainkana')61,62,63,64-5 ,56,67,205_6
historicaldevelopmentG1-2katakana 'sidekana') 60, 61 ,62 , 63,
5 4 , 6 5 , 6 6 , 6 7 , 6 9modern ana62,54-6
kanbun50
kan i i50 ,56 ,57 ,58-60,66,57,68,179,272
hun-readings7, 58, 59-60, 65on-readings7, 58 , 59,65
Kannada213katakana 'sidekana') 60 , 61, GZ,63,
64 , 65 ,66 , 67 , 69kathareuousa46,147Kazakh 1.57Ketie 0Kharosthi204,205-6
abugida205
directionof writing 206hypotheticalorigin of Brnhmi211origin207,211symbol inventory207
Khorazmian"l,24
Kirghiz 167Knossos
47Kober'sTriplets 147-8Kokugo Singikai 'National Language
Council'l 67kokuii 60Komi 157
Korean68-74,274calligraphic raditions50characters 3-4Chinese orrowings20, 68-9dialects 8
featuralwriting systems 77-8hanca73-4hankulseehankulhyangchal69itwu 69kwukyel69lexicon69obstruents70phonology69-70romanizations69-70syllable hapes 0
KublaiKhan71,227kun-readings7, 58 , 59-60,65Kunreisiki (CabinetOrdinanceSystem) 4kutukyel69
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 337/340
3 1 8
Landa, Diego de 233
Landa's alphabet 233-4
language ,269,280
acquisition2
language change 284
spoken language 2
writing-language relationship 3, 5-5,
280-1,280
languageacademies187
Laotian 200,221
Latin 1.5,172-3, 185, 1,86,194, 284
background and history 772-3
ClassicalLatin 172, 173
direction of writing 774
historical stages172inscript ions1,73,774-5, 175
palatal nasal L7 6
phonemic inventory 173
social context of writing 172,,173, 186
vulgar Latin 172
Latin alphabet seeRoman alphabet
lenition
Hebrew 129
Scots Gaelic 179
letters 14
Levant !L7,l l9.-12"1.lexical lists 85
Library of Congress romanization scheme
223ligatures2-13,203,205,206,217,2l'8
non-structural igatures12
quasi-ligatures2-13, L6
structural igaturesL2
LinearA script151,,151
LinearB script145,'1,47-57,47,276
Kober'sTriplets 147-8
moraicsymbols148, 150,275morphographic ymbols 48, L50
linguistic evels284
linguistics280,281
literacy 1,,7, 103,773
logograms14
long counts240-l
Lord'sPrayer188, 189
McCune-ReischauerM-R) system59,
74,73
Macedonian ,67Malayalam 21,3
Manchu 50,'1,25,230
Index
Mandaic script 124
Mandarin2A, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25
M5o Ztdong 44
Maraghi '1.3,220
Masoretes26,129
Masoretic text 126
matres ectionis127 1'29 130, 1, 2' 158
Maya4, 5,233-46
backgroundand history 233-4
calendar 38-42,247
decipherment 34
inscriptions 35 ,236, 238,242-5,
243 , 244 , 245
Landa'salphabet 33-4
numbering ystem 39' 240pictographic stage276
writing system
alternativewritings 237, 237
diacritics 35
glyphs235,235, 238,238,243-5'
243 ,244 ,245
internalstructure235
moraicsymbols 35
morphograms 35, 237' 272
phonological omplements35 ,
237 ,272semantic omPlements 35
Meso-America ,233
Mesopotamia, 7, 79, 80, l7 , 1'21,'].,23,
t24,275
Mesrop,Bishop165
MiddleAges , t7,172,178, 1'85
Min 20
Mohammed732
Moldovan157
Mon-Khmer languages 4
Mongolian 50 ,125,1'67,227-9calligraphic tyle9,229, 229
symbols 28
monoconsonantal raphemes 05
Montagnais250
mora5 ,74 , 54,272,276
moraicwriting systems 4, 1'6,, 3, 1'48,
203,235,272,276
Cherokee47,249,272
Cree252
Indus script203
Japaneseana 272LinearB script
l'48,1'50,276
Maya 235
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 338/340
morphemes , 10,282
cranberry morphemes 28
disyllabic morphemes 27grapheme-morpheme relationships
1,4monosyllabic morph emes27
morphograms 14-15, 90,9I, 108,'1.12,
124, 124, 235, 237morphographic writing systems 14-lS,
203,272
Akkadian117Aramaic 124Chinese72,277Egyptian 08,117,118,272
Japanese72
LinearB script148,150Maya 235,237Sumefian272
morphology 281-2morphophonemic epresentations84morphophonemicwriting systems 73mxedruli 165Mycena 147Mycenaan exts145,147
Nabataan empire 724, 132Ndgari 213Narmer palette"1.02,103Nepal 199
Nepali 213,220Nestorian125Nestor's up 154,155non-linguistic ommunication2, 3North American anguages 47*54Norway 257numerals
Arabic1,31,138,272Chinese 8,39*40Deuanagarr220EthiopicL40Hebrew128,1.31.
Japanese 2letters sed snumerals 56,162,163,
164,1.65
Maya239,240
Odyssey145
ogham258-60alphabet 58,259calligraphicstyle 258-9
Index
inscriptions 58 , 260,260Pictishoghams258
Oiibwa 250Old Chinese 1,28,29, 32
Old English 85-5, 1,87-9Old Persian 1, 94-5,'1.23Old Uighu 229on-readings7, 58, 59,65oracle-bone riting 29-31, 37,43oral transmission f texts 201,2A7originsof writing 82-4Oriya 213
orthographicdepth 177-81, 274-sdeep177-81.
shallow 177
orthographicdialectvariation 192-3Oscan172overdifferentiatedorrhography 253
pagestructure15PahawhHmong 5,260-3
backgroundand history 260-Idiacritics262
directionof writing 261phonemic nventory261rhyme2671romanization261symbols 62tones 61,252
Pakistan199,212palatalnasal176-7palatalization 179 -81
Palenque242Peli 221.Palmyra'1,25Palmyrene 25, 125
Panini 204papyrus102paragraphs 5Parthian 124People's epublicof China(PRC)20,
4 3 , 4 5 , 4 6 , 1 9 7periods15Persian ,,132
Middle Persian724Old Persian L, 94-5,1,23
Perso-Aramaic74
Peter he Greatof Russia157P e t ra 17 , I 24 , 132'Phags-pa
script71,227,227
319
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 339/340
320
Phaistos isk 151,152
Phanician177,"1.7920, 121,121,1'23
boustrophedalexts 154
directionof writing 154
Phanicianabfad121',153-4
PhaniciansL53
phonemes ,6, 10 , 282-3
allophones,10,283
grapheme-phonemeelationships 3,
1,7,160-1, 191
phonemic ranscriptions
phonemicwriting systems 3,'t'4,203,
272 , 273 , 274
phonetic xtension 2,33,38, 58, 60,
88 ,90phonet ic un 58,59-60,75,90
phonetic n 58,90
phonetic ranscriptions9
phoneticwriting system 59
phonetics 83
phonograms .4, 0, 91, 108,112
phonographicwriting systems 3-14, 272
Akkadian117
Chinese272
Egyptian1.03-7,
108, 1'1.,8,72
lapanese272Maya 272
Semitic117-78
phonological omplementsl'07-8,235,
237
phonologicalextension108
phonology 282-3
Pictishoghams258
pictograms 2, 34,45, 88, 264
abstract ictograms 2, 33 , 45, 88
pictography 2, 43, 92, l"l'9,276
picture writing 3p iny ln t ,26,47,285
Pitmanshorthand250
pointed exts127, 130
Polish175
polygraphs6,28
polyphones4,16
Portuguese72, 176, 1.77
Prakrit 799, 200, 204, 207
Gandhari206
Proto-Canaanite 1,81,9
proto-cuneiform85Proto-Scandinavianhonology255 6
Proto-Semitic 7,126
Index
Pu Yi 230
punctuationgraphemes 5
Punic177, l2 l
Punjabi 12
piltonghud23,45
Pylos'147
questionmarks15
qu6c ngu 76
Qur'an1.32, 33,137,1.38
radicals44
Ras Shamra117
readingpronunciations1,92
rebuswriting seephoneticextension
Reformation 85
Renaissance86-7
rhyme26l-2,283
Rigveda200
Rok runes257
Romanalphabet -5, L2, L3,128,167,
173-84,185, 58
calligraphic arieties175
Etruscanborrowings173, "1.74
Greek-Etruscan rdering1'7
laterhistory'1,75-7Romanceanguages72,177
Romanian172
romanization
ga6yti lu6md.zi 5-6
Hepburnsystem54
Kunreisiki (CabinetOrdinanceSystem)
54
Library of Congress cheme 23
McCune-Reischauerystem 9, 70, 73
plnyIn21,26' 47' 285
RomanizedPopularAlphabet261rU7ade-Gilesomanization25, 26
Yale omanizations6, 69,70,73
RosettaStoneLL3
runic254-8
alphabets 55,256-g
backgroundand history 254-s
calligraphicstyle255
inscriptions 85,254-s
mysticismand magic258
Rcik unes257
symbols 57Russian , 167, 274
Rvukvuandialect50
8/8/2019 Henry Rogers_Writing Systems -Linguistic Approach
http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/henry-rogerswriting-systems-linguistic-approach 340/340
Samaritans 12 3
sandbi 214
Sanskrit 12,199-200, 20L, 212, ZZ7borrowings from 200
classicalSanskrit 20 0diacritics 12
phonemic inventory 273-14phonology 273-14
retroflex stops 274, ZZIVedic Sanskrit 200
word divisions 21 9
schwa 130
ScotsGael ic 7,17
lenition 179
Modern Scots Gaelic 179
morphophonemic inventory l7g, 1,79orthographic depth 177-gI, 27 5palatalization 179-81phonemic inventory 178
scribes85-5, 100, 102-3script 10
seals82
Chinese43
Indus Valley 201,202
Mesopotamian 82segment28 3
semanticcomplements91, 109, 1lZ, Z35semanticcompounds 89 , 26 4semant ic xtension 2,33,38, 88, 90semantickun 57,75
semantic on 57, 75semantic writing system 269-71semantic-phoneticcompounds 34-6, 37,
4 3 - 4 , 4 5 , 7 6
radicals 44
semantic-semantic ompounds 36-7, 45semantics
281semasiographic writing system see semanticwriting system
Semit ic4, 5, 1L5- 44, 276, 278acrophony 118
Egyptian sourcesof Semitic etters 119,119and Indo-Aryan writing 210-11phonographic writing 117-IgProto-Semitic 81,'1.26
Semitic abiad'1.17-25, 120, l4l, IS3Semitic anguage amily 1,IS-17
Semitic morphology 140, 14 1see also'SfestSemitic
Sequoyah 47,250
Index 321
Serbo-Croatian67Serto125Seycong, ing 70ShongLue Yang 260,251
sibilants 29,757siddham 213Sinai118Singapore 0,46Sinhalese 00, 212,2"1.3Sino-Japanese8, 59Sino-Korean9,74Sino-Tibetanamily of languages 0,223Sino-Vietnamese5Slavicanguages, 167, T6
alphabets167sociolinguistics f writing 7Sogdian 24,'1.25,227SouthArabian anguagesl7,lZ0Southern'$fest emitic 20Spanish 3, 74, 15, 16, 172, 7G, T7,
'1.92
spellingcreative 93-4spellingpronunciations192spelling eform 795-7, 256
Sri Lanka 199,200,212, 213
stimulus iffusion5, 100stylus84Sumerian, 5,79-80, 81, 96,90,277
earliest ocuments 0lexical ists86phonemic inventory 79seealsocuneiform
SuomiseeFinnishSwahili132Sweden 57syllabaries52,276
syllabicwriting sysrems 4,276syllables 83
coda1,4,283
final 24initial24nucleus 4,283onset283rhyme261-2,283tone 24
symbols 0,14complex ymbols'1,1,2
syntax281Syria123Syriacabiad125