Writing Systems and Their Evolution

Writing Systems

  • Symbol: A form representing something other than itself, characterized by arbitrariness and abstractness.
  • Writing: The act of committing units of language into a visual form.
  • Types: Logographic and phonographic.
  • Technology: A set of skills and tools created and used by humans; details are culture-specific.

Logograms, Ideograms, and Pictograms

  • Ideograms: Images without symbolism.
  • Pictograms: Visual/iconic, non-lexical symbols.
  • Logograms: Symbols representing words.

Glyphs and Writing

  • Glyph: A unit of writing.
  • Visual symbols represent spoken symbols.
  • Word ↔ phonemes ↔ segments
  • logogram ↔ phonogram

Phonographic Systems

  • Alphabet: Glyphs represent phonemes.
  • Consonantary (Abjad): Glyphs represent consonants; vowels are unwritten but spoken.
  • Syllabary: Glyphs represent syllables.

A Simplified History of Western Script

  • Sumerian, Egyptian (c. 3000 BCE)
  • Canaanite / Phoenician (c. 16C – 10C BCE)
  • Aramaic (c. 8C BCE)
  • Hebrew (2C BCE), Arabic (3C CE), …
  • Brahmic: Devanagari > Sanskrit, Hindi, Bengali, …
  • Greek > Etruscan, Roman, Armenian, Cyrillic, …

Ancient Logographic Systems

  • Earliest hieroglyphs & cuneiforms (3000 BCE) were originally logographic systems.
  • Glyph = word.
  • Hieroglyphics: Ancient Egyptian.
  • Cuneiform: Sumerian, later Akkadian (3M) & Hittite (2M).

Consonantary (Abjad)

  • Each glyph represents a consonant.
  • Vowels are spoken but unwritten.
  • Example: Proto-Canaanite & Phoenician (15C-10C BCE).
  • Adapted from cuneiform, hieroglyphics.
  • Acrophonia: Glyph = 1st sound of word; logogram becomes phonogram.

Logogram to Phonogram Examples

  • Logogram for ‘ox’ in Proto-Canaanite becomes logogram for ʔalep ‘ox’.
    • Phoenician symbol for consonant [ʔ][ʔ]. Greek alpha letter for consonant [ʔ][ʔ], later for vowel [a][a].
  • Hieroglyph for net ‘water’ becomes Canaanite logogram for mem ‘water’, then [m][m] in Phoenician consonantary. Greek letter mu for [m][m] - Etruscan, Roman, Cyrillic, etc.
  • Phoenician pe ‘mouth’ then for [p][p] in consonantary. Greek Π pi, Aramaic ܦ pē, Etruscan, Hebrew פ pe, Roman P, Arabic ف fā’.

Diffusion of Scripts

  • Descendants of Phoenician script:
    • Aramaic: Lingua franca of much of the Middle East in 1M BCE; adapted to other Afro-Asiatic languages.
    • Hebrew, Arabic: Related to but not descended from Aramaic; consonantal roots and grammatical vowels; maintained as consonantary.

Sample Hebrew and Arabic Scripts

  • Hebrew script examples provided.
  • Arabic script examples provided with transliterations.

Greek Alphabet

  • Adaptation of Phoenician script (1 M BCE).
  • Repurposing: Φ for ph (instead of uvular consonant).
  • Used some glyphs for vowels; inclusion of vowels defines an alphabet.
  • Examples provided.

Roman Alphabet

  • (via Etruscan in Italy) adaptation of Greek script.
  • abcdefghiklmnopqrstvyxz.
  • i,j u,v.
  • For Latin; each symbol represents one phoneme.

Roman Alphabet - Adaptations for Other Languages

  • New symbols: w ß Þ ð æ œ
  • Combinations (digraphs): sh th sch rr ch … ci chi, ea oa ah eh ij eu ou
  • Diacritics: ñ ö å è ø

Diffusion of Roman Alphabet

  • Throughout former Roman empire where Romance languages are spoken (Italy, Spain, France, Portugal, Romania).
  • Throughout sphere of influence of Catholic church (Britain; W, N, Central Europe) - Germanic, Celtic, some Slavic languages.
  • Turkish, colonial & post-colonial adoption.
  • As script for indigenous languages of W Hemisphere, Africa, Oceania - Navajo, Cree, Guarani, Quiche, Swahili, Akan, Yoruba, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Tagalog, Polynesia & Micronesia.

Cyrillic Alphabet

  • Adapted from Greek alphabet for liturgical purposes.
  • Examples provided.

Diffusion of Cyrillic Alphabet

  • Regions of Eastern (orthodox) Christianity: Bulgarian, Serbian, Ukrainian, Russian.
  • Former Russian empire & USSR: Siberian, Turkic, Caucasian, Uralic languages (Kazakh, Kyrghyz, Tuvan, Abkhaz).
  • Not used for Georgian or Armenian.

Diffusion of Arabic Script

  • Via conquest & colonialism throughout Middle East & N Africa (7-8 C CE):
    • Arabian peninsula, Levant, Mesopotamia, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Morocco.
  • As alphabet: Farsi, Urdu, (Turkish).

More Phonographic Systems

  • Other alphabets: Armenia, Georgia.
  • Abugida: India, SE Asia.
  • Syllabaries.

Other Alphabets: Armenian

  • Examples of Armenian alphabet and transliterations.

Abugida

  • Consonant bases; vowel symbols are secondary (combined with consonants as ligature).
  • Example: Devanagari for Hindi, Nepali, Sindhi, Marathi, Gujarati, Bengali, Punjabi, Thai, Khmer, Lao.

Abugida: Devanagari Consonants

  • Examples of Devanagari consonants with transliterations

Abugida: Devanagari Vowels

  • Vowels added as diacritics: क ka, का kā, कि ki, की kī, के ke, कै kē, कॊ ko, कौ kō, कु ku, कू kū.

Overview: History of Eastern Script

  • Old Chinese logograms: homophony & phonosemantics.
  • Classical Chinese, Han writing systems.
  • Japanese kanji > kana.
  • Sino-Korean.
  • Hangul (Korea): sudden whole replacement of Sino-Korean script.

Chinese Writing

  • Shang Dynasty (late 2nd M BCE).
  • Unit characters: single logographic glyphs.
  • Rebus: similar sound, different semantics.
  • Polyphonia: different sound, similar semantics.

Chinese Writing: Ambiguity

  • Rebus symbols: wáng ‘king’, wǎng ‘to go toward’.
  • Polyphonic symbols: kǒu ‘mouth’, míng ‘speak’.

Chinese Writing: Determinatives

  • Glyphs combined with unit characters to resolve ambiguity.

Resolving Semantic Ambiguity

  • 王 wáng ‘king’, wǎng ‘go toward’.
  • 止 zhǐ ‘step’.
  • 往 wǎng ‘go toward’ (combination of 王 and 止).

Resolving Semantic Ambiguity (cont.)

  • 貝 bèi ‘cowrie shell’, bài ‘defeat’.
  • 攴 pū ‘strike’.
  • 贁 bài ‘defeat’ (combination of 貝 and 攴).

Resolving Phonological Ambiguity

  • 口 kǒu ‘mouth’, míng ‘to speak’.
  • 夕 míng ‘brighten’.
  • 名 míng ‘to speak’ (combination of 口 and 夕).

Important Points about Chinese Writing

  • Chinese writing is not strictly logographic.
  • Logographic writing is not by definition iconic.
  • Alphabetic writing is not by definition more sophisticated than logographic writing.

Logographic Systems

  • Chinese: symbols combine semantic and phonological components; logograms with phonological information.
  • Kanji: borrowed from Chinese but used for Japanese words.

Japanese Writing

  • Kanji: Chinese glyphs for Japanese words.
    • Onyomi: glyph & word borrowed; 京 kyang ‘capital’ → 京 kyo ‘capital’, 行 xang ‘go / row’ → 行 gyo ‘go / row’, 子 tsi ‘child’ → 子 -shi ‘child’.

Japanese Writing (cont.)

  • Kanji: Chinese glyphs for Japanese words.
    • Onyomi: glyph & word borrowed; 東 tung ‘east’ → 東 higashi ‘east’, 子 tsi ‘child’ → 子 ko ‘child’.

Japanese Writing - Kana

  • Japanese grammar is agglutinative; Kanji logograms struggle.
  • Resolution: additional syllabic writing system (syllabary).
  • Glyphs adapted from kanji; each glyph = 1 syllable (sequence of phonemes).

Japanese Writing: Kana Systems

  • Two systems of kana:
    • Hiragana: Used for native forms without kanji.
    • Katakana: Used for borrowings, technical terms, trademarks.

Japanese: Hiragana

  • Examples of hiragana characters shown.

Japanese: Katakana

  • Examples of katakana characters shown.

Kanji + Hiragana Example

  • 読んでいた (yonde ita) - ‘I was reading’

Katakana Examples

  • Honda: ホンダ (honda) 本田
  • skateboard: スケートボード (su kē to bō do)

Korean Writing

  • Sino-Korean script: Chinese logograms for Korean words.
  • Korean is agglutinative.
  • 15th C CE: development of Hangul.
  • Glyphs borrowed from other scripts; glyphs represent phonemes.

Korean Hangul

  • Consonant and vowel glyphs are grouped: 한 (han).
  • Examples provided for consonant and vowel glyphs.

Cultural Diffusion of Writing

  • Middle East: ancient logograms → consonantaries, alphabets, abugida.
  • East: ancient logograms → semi-phonological characters & syllabaries.

Cultural Analysis

  • Incorrect assumption: logograms are ancient; abjads are classical; alphabets are modern.
  • Correct understanding: cultures adapt their writing systems to their languages.

Interim Conclusions

  • Language and writing are not equivalent.
  • All languages have words and phonemes.
  • Chinese has segments and phonemes.
  • Hebrew and Arabic have vowels.
  • Alphabetically-written languages have words and syllables.

Emergence of Writing

  • Mesopotamia, China, Maya.
  • Similar trajectory: logographic → phonographic.

Cherokee Syllabary

  • Example of the Cherokee syllabary.