CLCIV 328 - Midterm Flashcard Notes

Writing:
A conventional system of marks used to represent the symbols and structures of language.

Pictogram:
A pictorial representation, usually depicting an object or idea directly.

Ideogram (Logogram):
A representation of a word or concept. Pictograms are a kind of ideogram/logogram.

Phonogram:
A written symbol that represents a speech sound. Letters are a type of phonogram.

Syllabogram:
A written symbol that represents a syllable, commonly used in syllabaries.

Ideographic/Logographic:
A written system based on ideograms/logograms, where symbols represent entire words or concepts.

Syllabary:
A writing system based on syllables, where each character represents a syllable.

Alphabet:
A writing system based on individual speech sounds, typically consisting of letters.

Proto-Writing:
Any set of (ancient) written symbols that may record information but are not systematically related to language. It may or may not be a precursor to true writing.

Mesopotamia:
"The land between the rivers" (modern-day Iraq), often referred to as the “fertile crescent” or the “cradle of civilization.” Major historical regions include Sumer, Babylon(ia), Akkad, and Assyria.

Uruk:
The location where the first clay tablets were found dating back to 3300 BC. The Uruk Period (4000 BC to 3100 BC) is when the first city-states and writing appeared in Mesopotamia.

Darius I (The Great):
The king of Persia during the Achaemenid dynasty (550 BC to 486 BC). Old Persian was first written during his reign, and he claimed to have invented the script, though it may have been created by linguists he employed.

Cuneiform:
A set of writing systems that developed over hundreds of years, beginning with Sumero-Akkadian cuneiform. It is a combination of syllabary and ideographic writing systems, using wedge-shaped impressions in clay.

Stylus:
A writing utensil, often made of reed, stone, or bone, used for making impressions on clay tablets.

Avestan:
An Indo-European ancestor of Old Persian and Sanskrit.

Old Persian:
An Indo-European language (like Latin, Greek, and English), the ancestor of modern Persian (Farsi). It was first written during Darius I's reign, modeled after cuneiform but not using the cuneiform script.

Georg Grotefend:
A German high school teacher who made significant contributions to deciphering Old Persian. He identified key word dividers and demonstrated that the script was alphabetic, which helped decipher royal names.

Behistun (Bisitun) Inscription:
A trilingual inscription located near the Zagros Mountains, written in Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian. It was crucial for deciphering cuneiform languages, particularly Old Persian.

Sir Henry Rawlinson:
An English Army officer credited with deciphering Babylonian cuneiform after copying the inscriptions at the Behistun site. His methods remain partially unknown, but his work was pivotal in deciphering Babylonian.

Sumerian:
A language isolate (not related to any known language) that was the first language written in cuneiform from the late 4th to early 3rd millennium BC. It has an agglutinative structure, where words are built by adding prefixes and suffixes.

Akkadian (Babylonian, Assyrian):
A Semitic language written in cuneiform. It has a root-based word structure, with added consonants or vowels to convey different meanings and tenses. Akkadian split into Assyrian and Babylonian dialects.

Semitic:
The family of languages that includes Akkadian and behaves with a central root-based structure, where meanings are conveyed by modifying roots with additional consonants or vowels.

Rebus:
A system for representing words or phrases using symbols that correspond to parts of words. This helps transition from pictographic to syllabographic writing.

Hammurabi (Hammurapi):
A king of Babylon in the 18th century BC, known for commissioning the creation of the Law Code containing 282 laws, covering topics like contracts, social status, and punishments.

Hittite:
The oldest preserved Indo-European language, spoken in Anatolia (modern-day Turkey) and written in cuneiform. The Hittites adapted the Sumerian and Akkadian writing systems for their own language, which is unrelated to those systems.

Egyptian:
The language spoken in Egypt, generally thought to belong to the Afro-Asiatic language family.

Hieroglyph:
The formal pictorial script used since the beginning of the first dynasty (nearly 3,000 years ago), predominantly for monumental scripts on hard materials or painted on plaster/wood. The orientation of hieroglyphs varies, and they are typically read top to bottom, though they can be right to left or left to right. Evidence from names and spelling aided in the decipherment (similar to Old Persian).

Hieratic:
A cursive script derived from hieroglyphs, used on papyrus instead of hieroglyphs. It developed alongside hieroglyphs and was more standardized. Hieratic remained in use for religious texts until 660 BC and declined by the early 2nd century AD.

Demotic:
A highly cursive script evolved from abbreviated hieratic, replacing hieratic for all non-religious texts from around 643 BC. Primarily phonetic, it gradually declined during the Greco-Roman period.

Papyrus:
A writing material made from the papyrus plant, used extensively in ancient Egypt. The Greeks adopted it, and it was also used throughout the Roman empire.

Coptic:
A script and language of the Christian descendants of ancient Egyptians. It helped Jean-François Champollion in deciphering the Rosetta Stone. The language was gradually replaced by Arabic, but the script is still used in the Coptic Church Liturgy.

Athanasius Kircher:
A 17th-century intellectual who pioneered the serious study of hieroglyphs and learned Coptic to decipher ancient Egyptian texts. Although many of his ideas were incorrect, he was one of the earliest to believe hieroglyphs were a form of writing with phonetic values, not just symbolic.

Rosetta Stone:
A stone found in Egypt containing a trilingual inscription (Greek, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and demotic). The discovery of the Rosetta Stone allowed scholars to begin deciphering Egyptian hieroglyphs since Greek was already translatable. However, the translations were not word-for-word equivalents.

Stela (Stele):
An upright monument that contains information in the form of text, images, or a combination of both.

Thomas Young:
A physician and physicist who contributed significantly to the study of the Rosetta Stone and ancient Egyptian. He made advances in deciphering hieroglyphs, especially by analyzing repeated sequences and cartouches around royal names. Despite some errors, his work was pivotal.

Cartouche:
An oval surrounding a group of symbols in Egyptian hieroglyphs, signifying that the symbols represent the name of a royal person.

Jean-François Champollion:
A linguistic prodigy who, building on Thomas Young's work, successfully deciphered Egyptian hieroglyphs in 1822. Knowledge of the Coptic language helped him connect words and meanings to their modern counterparts.

Greek Dark Ages:
A period in ancient Greece characterized by significant upheaval and lack of written records (approximately 1200-800 BC). During this time, Mycenaean civilization collapsed, leading to famine, depopulation, and invasions. As a result, literacy declined, and few written documents exist from this period.

Attic-Ionic:
A combination of the Attic and Ionic dialects of ancient Greek, used during the Hellenistic period (323-146 BC). This form of Greek spread across territories conquered by Alexander the Great and became the basis for nearly all modern Greek dialects.

Homer:
An epic poet of the Archaic Greek period (750-480 BC), credited with composing the Iliad and Odyssey. His work is written in dactylic hexameter, a meter with alternating short and long syllables.

Oral-Formulaic Poetry:
Poetry that is partially memorized and partially improvised (or recomposed) and transmitted orally. It is often built using fixed formulae that can be repeated in various contexts.

Milman Parry:
A scholar who discovered the concept of oral-formulaic poetry by studying South Slavic bards in Bosnia. He identified compositional techniques used in the Iliad and Odyssey, noting similarities between them and the poetry he observed.

Formula:
A phrase used regularly to express a specific idea, often repeated in poetry. These phrases can have varying grammatical forms based on the context and are key building blocks in oral-formulaic poetry.

Linear B:
The first known script used for writing Greek, discovered in the palace ruins of Knossos. Linear B is syllabic and was used to write Mycenaean Greek, providing the oldest readable documents in Europe and shedding light on Greek culture during the Bronze Age.

Alice Kober:
An American classicist who made major contributions to deciphering Linear B. She created a grid of signs (Kober’s Grid) that helped identify vowel-consonant relationships, though she did not fully decipher the script.

Michael Ventris:
An architect who independently deciphered Linear B in the 1950s. By using a larger grid and recognizing symbols from the Cypriot syllabary, he confirmed that Linear B was used to write Greek, which had previously been unrecognized.

Mycenaean (or Mycenean) Greek:
The earliest known dialect of Greek, written using Linear B. It was a precursor to later Greek dialects and is notable for including the q sound. It provides evidence of the development of Greek language.

Labiovelars:
Consonants that combine a k-sound with a q-sound, similar to the "qu" sound in English.

Acrophonic Principle:
A principle where a picture representing an object is used to symbolize the first (or sometimes other) sound of the word for that object.

Alphabet:
A writing system in which individual symbols represent individual speech sounds, not combinations of sounds. The symbols are called letters. Alphabets are classified based on how vowels are represented (or not represented).

Abjad:
A type of alphabet that only has symbols for consonants, with no letters for vowels. Some abjads use diacritics (marks placed above or below the letter) to indicate vowel sounds. Some may also use consonants to represent vowels. Examples include Hebrew and Arabic.

Abugida:
Also called an "alpha-syllabary," an abugida has consonant symbols that represent consonants plus a basic vowel (often "a"). Modifications to these symbols indicate other vowels. In some cases, there are separate vowel symbols as well. Example: Nagari (used for Sanskrit).

True Alphabet:
A writing system that includes separate letters for both consonants and vowels. True alphabets are neither abjads nor abugidas, but include specific symbols for vowels. Example: Greek alphabet.

Wadi el-Hol:
A location in Egypt where early graffiti of Proto-Sinaitic script has been found, dating to the Middle Kingdom (around 21st to 18th centuries BC). The site is unusual because most other Proto-Sinaitic evidence is found closer to Greece.

Byblos:
An ancient script from the west coast of the Fertile Crescent (modern-day Lebanon), dating from 1700-1400 BC. It had only about 13 inscriptions and is still undeciphered. It was likely a syllabary, influenced by Egyptian and early Semitic scripts.

Phoenician:
An ancient alphabet used by the Phoenician people (who lived along the eastern Mediterranean coast, in present-day Lebanon, Israel, and Gaza). It is an abjad that evolved from Proto-Sinaitic/Proto-Canaanite. The Greeks later adapted the Phoenician alphabet, adding symbols for vowels.

Ugaritic:
A cuneiform-based alphabetic script that appeared in Ugarit (modern-day Syria). Its origins are unclear, but it was modeled on Mesopotamian cuneiform. The script has two distinct alphabetic orderings and was used for a variety of texts.

Etruscan:
An ancient language and script used by the Etruscan civilization in what is now Italy, particularly in the region north of Rome. The Etruscan language is not related to any known language, and its origins remain mysterious.

West Greek Alphabet:
A version of the Greek alphabet derived from the Phoenician alphabet, in which the Greeks added a letter to represent the “h” sound (called "heta"). It also had a “w” sound, which required borrowing the Phoenician letter "waw" for both "w" and "u."

East Greek Alphabet:
A variant of the Greek alphabet that used the Phoenician "heta" symbol for the "e" sound (instead of the "h" sound, as in West Greek).

Serif:
A small line or stroke attached to the end of a larger stroke in a letter, giving it a stylized or decorative appearance.

Square Capitals:
An inscriptional style used in the Roman Empire for official monuments. It imitates book hand and has a formal appearance, often used for special editions. Square capitals are characterized by their clean, geometric design.

Rustic Capitals:
A more flowing script than square capitals, often used for less formal or more rapid writing. Letters are elongated and rounded, but it still maintains some similarities to the formal Square Capitals.

Uncials:
A script that marked the transition from all-capital letters to lowercase. Uncial writing was characterized by its "economy of movement," making it faster and easier to write. It was suited to smooth parchment, as opposed to rough papyrus.

Minuscule (Half-uncial):
A script that evolved from uncial, where the letters varied in height and vertical orientation. Minuscule letters are more like modern lowercase letters, and this style is where many of today’s letterforms originated.

Charlemagne:
The emperor of the Holy Roman Empire (800-814 AD), who played a significant role in promoting the Carolingian Renaissance, a cultural revival of art, literature, and learning. His reign greatly influenced the development of writing and literacy.

Alcuin:
An Anglo-Saxon monk from York, chosen by Charlemagne to lead the scholarly revival of the Holy Roman Empire. He was instrumental in the development of Carolingian minuscule.

Carolingian Minuscule:
A highly legible script developed under Charlemagne and Alcuin in the 8th century. It was a modified version of minuscule script, combining features from scripts used in the British Isles and the continent. This script became the standard for medieval manuscripts and continued to be used until the 1200s.

Black Letter (Gothic Minuscule):
A style of writing developed around the 12th century that featured thick, angular strokes and compact letters. Blackletter was used extensively in medieval manuscripts and became associated with the Gothic period.

Johannes Gutenberg:
The inventor of the printing press, which revolutionized the spread of written materials in the 15th century. Gutenberg's press used movable type and helped standardize the production of books.

Sanskrit:
An ancient and highly structured language from India, originally passed down orally before being written. Sanskrit features unique script characteristics that indicate subtle pronunciation changes. It is the language of many ancient Indian texts, including the Vedas.

Prakrits:
The regional languages or dialects spoken in ancient India, which evolved from early Indic languages. These languages became literary in their own right and gave rise to many modern languages of India.

Rig Veda (Rigveda):
One of the oldest and most important texts in Sanskrit, a collection of hymns dedicated to the gods. It was composed orally and passed down through generations.

Indo-Aryan:
A branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken in most of the Indian subcontinent. This includes languages like Hindi, Urdu, Punjabi, Bengali, and many others.

Futhark (Runic):
The runic alphabet used by ancient Germanic peoples, primarily in Scandinavia. The origins of runes are debated, with one theory proposing that they evolved from the northern Etruscan alphabet, possibly influenced by the alphabetic system used in Italy around the 4th century BC.

Brahmi:
An ancient abugida script from India, used for writing Prakrit and other languages. Brahmi is the ancestor of most modern Indian scripts and is one of the oldest known writing systems in South Asia. It was used extensively by Buddhists and spread with the religion. The letters of the Brahmi script are arranged based on phonetic principles, from back to front of the mouth.