Chapter 15: Writing Systems

Pictograms pictures

drawn to express ideas.

Rebus principle

borrowing a symbol only for the phonemic value that it encodes.

Abjads

systems that represent consonants but not vowels.

Shorthands

written faster than orthographies, designed to be fast enough to record speech verbatim.

Orthographies

the vast majority of writing systems.

Alphabet

systems that represent all sounds.

Cryptographies

codes designed to conceal information.

Abugidas

systems that represent the consonants with full graphemes and the vowels with extra marks.

Technographies

scientific tools designed and used by a specialized field.

Phonographic systems

system that rely predominantly on the representation of sound.

Phonemic writing systems

uses characters that represent individual sounds or segment.