The Idea of Writing is an exploration of the versatility of writing systems. This volume, the second in a series, is specifically concerned with the problems and possibilities of adapting a writing system to another language. Writing is studied as it is used across linguistic and cultural borders from ancient Egyptian, Cuneiform and Korean writing to Japanese, Kharosthi and Near Eastern scripts. This collection of articles aims to highlight the complexity of writing systems rather than to provide a first introduction. The different academic traditions in which these writing systems have been studied use linguistic, socio-historical and philological approaches that give complementary insights of the complex phenomena.
Author(s): Alex de Voogt (Editor), Joachim Friedrich Quack (Editor)
Publisher: Koninklijke Brill NV
Year: 2012
Language: English
Pages: 254
City: Leiden
Tags: writing system, written communication, orthography and spelling
Contents
Acknowledgements
Invention and Borrowing in the Development and Dispersal of Writing Systems
27–30–22–26 – How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic
Nubian Graffiti Messages and the History of Writing in the Sudanese Nile Basin
About “Short” Names of Letters
Early Adaptations of the Korean Script to Render Foreign Languages
Han’gŭl Reform Movement in the Twentieth Century: Roman Pressure on Korean Writing
The Character of the Indian Kharosthī Script and the “Sanskrit Revolution”: A Writing System Between Identity and Assimilation
Symmetry and Asymmetry, Chinese Writing in Japan: The Case of Kojiki (712)
Writing Semitic with Cuneiform Script. The Interaction of Sumerian and Akkadian Orthography in the Second Half of the Third Millennium BC
Old Wine in New Wineskins? How to Write Classical Egyptian Rituals in More Modern Writing Systems
Subject Index
Language (Group) and Script Index
Author Index
