 Writing systems |
|---|
| History |
| Grapheme |
| List of writing systems |
| Types |
| Featural alphabet |
| Alphabet |
| Abjad |
| Abugida |
| Syllabary |
| Logography |
| Related |
| Pictogram |
| Ideogram |
A writing system is a type of symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in language. An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by A featural alphabet is an Alphabet wherein the shapes of the letters are not arbitrary but encode phonological features of the phonemes they represent The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. An Abjad is a type of Writing system in which each symbol stands for a Consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate Vowel. An abugida ( from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida or Amharic አቡጊዳ ’abugida is a segmental Writing system which A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language The history of writing encompasses the various Writing systems that evolved in the Early Bronze Age (late 4th millennium BC) In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language. This is a list of writing systems (or scripts) classified according to some common distinguishing features A featural alphabet is an Alphabet wherein the shapes of the letters are not arbitrary but encode phonological features of the phonemes they represent An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either An Abjad is a type of Writing system in which each symbol stands for a Consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate Vowel. An abugida ( from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida or Amharic አቡጊዳ ’abugida is a segmental Writing system which A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language A pictogram ( also spelled pictogramme) or pictograph is a Symbol representing a Concept, object, activity place or event An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write" is a Graphic symbol that represents an Idea The term symbolic system is used in the field of Anthropology and Sociology to refer to a system of interconnected Symbolic meanings A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them
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General properties
Writing systems are distinguished from other possible symbolic communication systems in that one must usually understand something of the associated spoken language to comprehend the text. Symbolic communication is exchange of messages that change a priori expectation of events By contrast, other possible symbolic systems such as information signs, painting, maps, and mathematics often do not require prior knowledge of a spoken language. An information sign is a very legibly printed and very noticeable Placard that Informs people of the purpose of an object or gives them Instruction on the Painting (pān'tīng in Art, is the practice of applying Color to a Surface (support base such as e A map is a visual representation of an area—a symbolic depiction highlighting relationships between elements of that space such as objects, Regions, and Themes Mathematics is the body of Knowledge and Academic discipline that studies such concepts as Quantity, Structure, Space and
Every human community possesses language, a feature regarded by many as an innate and defining condition of humankind. However the development of writing systems, and the process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of communication has been sporadic, uneven and slow. Orality can be defined as Thought and its verbal expression in societies where the technologies of Literacy (especially writing and print are unfamiliar to most of Once established, writing systems on the whole change more slowly than their spoken counterparts, and often preserve features and expressions which are no longer current in the spoken language. The great benefit of writing systems is their ability to maintain a persistent record of information expressed in a language, which can be retrieved independently of the initial act of formulation.
All writing systems require:
- a set of defined base elements or symbols, individually termed characters or graphemes, and collectively called a script;
- a set of rules and conventions understood and shared by a community, which arbitrarily assign meaning to the base elements, their ordering, and relations to one another;
- a language (generally a spoken language) whose constructions are represented and able to be recalled by the interpretation of these elements and rules;
- some physical means of distinctly representing the symbols by application to a permanent or semi-permanent medium, so they may be interpreted (usually visually, but tactile systems have also been devised). The musical instrument is spelled Cymbal. A symbol is something --- such as an object, Picture, written word a sound a piece In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language. This article is about meaning as it is studied in the discipline of linguistics A spoken language is a human Natural language in which the Words are uttered through the Mouth.
Basic terminology
The study of writing systems has developed along partially independent lines in the examination of individual scripts, and as such the terminology employed differs somewhat from field to field.
The generic term text may be used to refer to an individual product of a writing system. The act of composing a text may be referred to as writing, and the act of interpreting the text as reading. In the study of writing systems, orthography refers to the method and rules of observed writing structure (literal meaning, "correct writing"), and in particular for alphabetic systems, includes the concept of spelling. The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either Spelling is the Writing of a Word or words with the necessary letters and Diacritics present in an accepted standard order
A grapheme is the technical term coined to refer to the specific base or atomic units of a given writing system. In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language. A neologism (from Greek neo = "new" + logos = "word" is a word that although devised relatively recently in a specific time period has been Graphemes are the minimally significant elements which taken together comprise the set of "building blocks" out of which texts of a given writing system may be constructed, along with rules of correspondence and use. The concept is similar to that of the phoneme used in the study of spoken languages. The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU For example, in the Latin-based writing system of standard contemporary English, examples of graphemes include the majuscule and minuscule forms of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet (corresponding to various phonemes), marks of punctuation (mostly non-phonemic), and a few other symbols such as those for numerals (logograms for numbers). Latin ( lingua Latīna, laˈtiːna is an Italic language, historically spoken in Latium and Ancient Rome. Capital letters or majuscules pronunciation /məˈdʒʌskyuls ˈmædʒəˌskyuls/ in the Roman alphabet A, B, C, D, The arabic numerals (often capitalized are the ten Digits (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 which—along with the system
Note that an individual grapheme may be represented in a wide variety of ways, where each variation is visually distinct in some regard, but all are interpreted as representing the "same" grapheme. These individual variations are known as allographs of a grapheme (compare with the term allophone used in linguistic study). Allography, from the Greek for "other writing" has several meanings which all relate to how Words and Sounds are written down In Phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar speech sounds ( Phones that belong to the same Phoneme. For example, the minuscule letter a has different allographs when written as a cursive, block, or typed letter. For the indie rock band see Cursive (band. Cursive is any style of handwriting that is designed for writing down notes and Capital letters or majuscules pronunciation /məˈdʒʌskyuls ˈmædʒəˌskyuls/ in the Roman alphabet A, B, C, D, In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises The selection between different allographs may be influenced by the medium used, the writing instrument, the stylistic choice of the writer, and the largely unconscious features of an individual's handwriting. A writing implement or writing instrument is an object used to produce Writing. "Handwriting" redirects here For scripts for writing down notes by hand see " Cursive "
The terms glyph, sign and character are sometimes used to refer to a grapheme. A glyph is an element of writing Two or more glyphs representing the same symbol whether interchangeable or context-dependent are called Allographs the abstract unit they There are many models of the linguistic sign (see also Sign (semiotics) Common usage varies from discipline to discipline; compare cuneiform sign, Maya glyph, Chinese character. The Maya script, also known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( The glyphs of most writing systems are made up of lines (or strokes) and are therefore called linear, but there are glyphs in non-linear writing systems made up of other types of marks, such as Cuneiform and Braille. The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write
Writing systems are conceptual systems, as are the languages to which they refer. A conceptual system is a system that is comprised of non- physical objects i Writing systems may be regarded as complete according to the extent to which they are able to represent all that may be expressed in the spoken language.
History of writing systems
A Table of Scripts in the Introduction to Sanskrit Dictionary by Monnier Williams. The history of writing encompasses the various Writing systems that evolved in the Early Bronze Age (late 4th millennium BC)
Writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, systems of ideographic and/or early mnemonic symbols. An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write" is a Graphic symbol that represents an Idea A mnemonic device (nəˈmɒnɪk is a Memory aid Commonly met mnemonics are often verbal something such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember The best known examples are:
- Jiahu Script, symbols on tortoise shells in Jiahu, ca. "Jiahu symbols" (zh-Hans 贾湖契刻符号 refer to the 16 distinct markings on prehistoric artifacts found in Jiahu, a neolithic Peiligang Tortoises or land Turtles are land-dwelling Reptiles of the family of Testudinidae', order Testudines. Jiahu ( 賈湖 Pinyin: Jiǎhú was the site of a Neolithic Yellow River settlement based in the central plains of ancient China 6600 BC
- Vinča script (Tărtăria tablets), ca. During the 7th millennium BC, Agriculture spreads from Anatolia to the Balkans. The Vinča signs, also known as the Vinča alphabet Vinča-Turdaş script or Old European script, are a set of symbols found on prehistoric artifacts The Tărtăria tablets are three tablets, discovered in Tărtăria, Romania. 4500 BC
- Early Indus script, ca. The 5th millennium BC saw the spread of Agriculture from the Near East throughout southern and central Europe The term Indus script (Harappan script refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Harappan civilization ( Indus Valley 3500 BC
The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age in the late Neolithic of the late 4th millennium BC. The 35th century BC in the Near East sees the gradual transition from the Chalcolithic to the Early Bronze Age. The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced Metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use included techniques for The Neolithic (from Greek νεολιθικός — neolithikos from νέος neos, "new" + λίθος lithos The 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture It marks the beginning of the Bronze Age and of Writing. The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400–3200 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC. Sumerian ( " native tongue " was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek The 26th century BC is a Century which lasted from the year 2600 BC to 2501 BC
The Chinese script likely developed independently of the Middle Eastern scripts, around 1600 BC. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese (
The pre-Columbian Mesoamerican writing systems (including among others Olmec and Maya scripts) are also generally believed to have had independent origins. The pre-Columbian era incorporates all period subdivisions in the history and prehistory of the Americas before the appearance of significant European influences Mesoamerica, like Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt, is one of the few places in the world where writing has developed independently The Olmec were an ancient Pre-Columbian people living in the Tropical lowlands of south-central Mexico, in what are roughly the modern-day states The Maya script, also known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently
It is thought that the first true alphabetic writing appeared around 2000 BC, as a representation of language developed for Semitic slaves in Egypt by Egyptians(see History of the alphabet). The 20th century BC is a Century which lasted from the year 2000 BC to 1901 BC In Linguistics and Ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical " Shem " Hebrew שם translated as "name" Arabic: ساميّ The history of the Alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the History of writing. Most other alphabets in the world today either descended from this one innovation, many via the Phoenician alphabet, or were directly inspired by its design. The Phoenician alphabet is a continuation of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, by convention taken to originate around 1050 BC
Functional classification of writing systems
The oldest-known forms of writing were primarily logographic in nature, based on pictographic and ideographic elements. A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language A pictogram ( also spelled pictogramme) or pictograph is a Symbol representing a Concept, object, activity place or event An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write" is a Graphic symbol that represents an Idea Most writing systems can be broadly divided into three categories: logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic (or segmental); however, all three may be found in any given writing system in varying proportions, often making it difficult to categorise a system uniquely. The term complex system is sometimes used to describe those where the admixture makes classification problematic.
| Type | Each symbol represents | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Logographic | morpheme | Chinese characters |
| Syllabic | syllable | Japanese kana |
| Alphabetic | phoneme (consonant or vowel) | Latin alphabet |
| Abugida | phoneme (consonant+vowel) | Indian Devanāgarī |
| Abjad | phoneme (consonant) | Arabic alphabet |
| Featural | phonetic feature | Korean hangul |
Logographic writing systems
A logogram is a single written character which represents a complete grammatical word. Most Chinese characters are classified as logograms. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese (
As each character represents a single word (or, more precisely, a morpheme), many logograms are required to write all the words of language. In Morpheme-based morphology, a morpheme is the smallest linguistic unit that has semantic meaning. The vast array of logograms and the memorization of what they mean are the major disadvantage of the logographic systems over alphabetic systems. However, since the meaning is inherent to the symbol, the same logographic system can theoretically be used to represent different languages. In practice, this is only true for closely related languages, like the Chinese languages, as syntactical constraints reduce the portability of a given logographic system. Japanese uses Chinese logograms extensively in its writing systems, with most of the symbols carrying the same or similar meanings. is a language spoken by over 130 million people in Japan and in Japanese emigrant communities However, the semantics, and especially the grammar, are different enough that a long Chinese text is not readily understandable to a Japanese reader without any knowledge of basic Chinese grammar, though short and concise phrases such as those on signs and newspaper headlines are much easier to comprehend. This article describes the grammar of Standard Mandarin. For the grammars of other forms of Chinese see their respective articles via links on Chinese language
While most languages do not use wholly logographic writing systems many languages use some logograms. A good example of modern western logograms are the Hindu-Arabic numerals — everyone who uses those symbols understands what 1 means whether he or she calls it one, eins, uno, yi, ichi or ehad. The arabic numerals (often capitalized are the ten Digits (0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 which—along with the system Other western logograms include the ampersand &, used for and, the at sign @, used in many contexts for at, the percent sign % and the many signs representing units of currency ($, ¢, €, £, ¥ and so on. An ampersand ( &) also commonly called an " 'and' sign," is a Logogram representing the conjunction "and" The typographic character @, the at sign, denotes a pan-lingual abbreviation of the word 'at' The percent sign ( %) is the symbol used to indicate a Percentage (that the preceding number is divided by one hundred In many national currencies, the cent is a monetary unit that equals 1/100 of the basic monetary unit The euro sign (€ is the Currency sign used for the Euro, the official currency of the European Union (EU See also Pound (currency.The pound sign (" £ " or " ₤ " is the symbol for the Pound sterling —the currency of the ¥￥ )
Logograms are sometimes called ideograms, a word that refers to symbols which graphically represent abstract ideas, but linguists avoid this use, as Chinese characters are often semantic–phonetic compounds, symbols which include an element that represents the meaning and element that represents the pronunciation. An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write" is a Graphic symbol that represents an Idea Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech Some nonlinguists distinguish between lexigraphy and ideography, where symbols in lexigraphies represent words, and symbols in ideographies represent words or morphemes. A lexigram is a Symbol that represents a word but is not necessarily indicative of the object referenced by the word
The most important (and, to a degree, the only surviving) modern logographic writing system is the Chinese one, whose characters are or were used, with varying degrees of modification, in Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other east Asian languages. East Asian languages describe two notional groupings of languages in East and Southeast Asia: Languages which have been greatly influenced by Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics and the Mayan writing system are also systems with certain logographic features, although they have marked phonetic features as well, and are no longer in current use. Ancient Egypt was an Ancient Civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now
Syllabic writing systems
As logographic writing systems use a single symbol for an entire word, a syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables, which make up words. A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional A syllable ( Greek:) is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds A word is a unit of Language that carries meaning and consists of one or more Morphemes which are linked more or less tightly together and has a Phonetic A symbol in a syllabary typically represents a consonant sound followed by a vowel sound, or just a vowel alone. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In a true syllabary there is no systematic graphic similarity between phonetically related characters (though some do have graphic similarity for the vowels). That is, the characters for "ke", "ka", and "ko" have no similarity to indicate their common "k"-ness. Compare abugida, where each grapheme typically represents a syllable but where characters representing related sounds are similar graphically (typically, a common consonantal base is annotated in a more or less consistent manner to represent the vowel in the syllable). In Typography, a grapheme is the fundamental unit in written language.
Syllabaries are best suited to languages with relatively simple syllable structure, such as Japanese. The English language, on the other hand, allows complex syllable structures, with a relatively large inventory of vowels and complex consonant clusters, making it cumbersome to write English words with a syllabary. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract In Linguistics, a consonant cluster (or consonant blend) is a group of Consonants which have no intervening Vowel. To write English using a syllabary, every possible syllable in English would have to have a separate symbol, and whereas the number of possible syllables in Japanese is no more than about fifty to sixty, in English there are many thousands.
Other languages that use syllabic writing include Mycenaean Greek (Linear B) and Native American languages such as Cherokee. "Lion Gate" redirects here For other uses see Lions' Gate (disambiguation. Greek (el ελληνική γλώσσα or simply el ελληνικά — "Hellenic" is an Indo-European language, spoken today by 15-22 million people mainly Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of Greek. Indigenous languages of the Americas (or Amerindian Languages are spoken by indigenous peoples from the southern tip of South America to Alaska and Cherokee (ᏣᎳᎩ Tsalagi) is an Iroquoian language spoken by the Cherokee people which uses a unique syllabary writing system Several languages of the Ancient Near East used forms of cuneiform, which is a syllabary with some non-syllabic elements. The Ancient Near East refers to early Civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq
Alphabetic writing systems
An alphabet is a small set of letters — basic written symbols — each of which roughly represents or represented historically a phoneme of a spoken language. An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either The phoneME project is Sun Microsystems reference implementation of Java virtual machine and associated libraries of Java ME with source licensed under the GNU A language is a dynamic set of visual auditory or tactile Symbols of Communication and the elements used to manipulate them The word alphabet is derived from alpha and beta, the first two symbols of the Greek alphabet. Alpha (uppercase Α, lowercase α; Αλφα is the first letter of the Greek alphabet. Beta (uppercase Β, lowercase β, internal ϐ; Βήτα Vita is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. The Greek alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early
In a perfectly phonemic alphabet, the phonemes and letters would correspond perfectly in two directions: a writer could predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker could predict the pronunciation of a word given its spelling. Each language has general rules that govern the association between letters and phonemes, but, depending on the language, these rules may or may not be consistently followed.
Perfectly phonemic alphabets are very easy to use and learn, and languages that have them (for example Serbocroatian or Finnish) have much lower barriers to literacy than languages such as English, which has a very complex and irregular spelling system. As languages often evolve independently of their writing systems, and writing systems have been borrowed for languages they were not designed for, the degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a language varies greatly from one language to another and even within a single language. In modern times, when linguists invent a writing system for a language that didn't previously have one, the goal is usually to develop a phonemic alphabet. Linguistics is the scientific study of Language, encompassing a number of sub-fields It should be noted that a truly phonetic alphabet for a natural spoken language would be very cumbersome, as it would have to have a huge variety of phonetic variation. Phonetic transcription (or phonetic notation) is the visual system of symbolization of the sounds occurring in spoken human Language. An example of such a writing system is the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA is a system of phonetic notation based on the Latin alphabet, devised by the International Phonetic
Abjads
The first type of alphabet that was developed was the abjad. An Abjad is a type of Writing system in which each symbol stands for a Consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate Vowel. An abjad is an alphabetic writing system where there is one symbol per consonant. Abjads differ from regular alphabets in that they only have characters for consonantal sounds. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal Vowels are not usually marked in abjad.
All known abjads (except maybe Tifinagh) belong to the Semitic family of scripts, and derive from the original Northern Linear Abjad. Tifinagh ( in Neo-Tifinagh Tifinaɣ in Berber Latin alphabet, tifinaɣ is an Alphabetic script used by some Africans to write their language The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar Undeciphered scripts dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BCE and believed to be ancestral The reason for this is that Semitic languages and the related Berber languages have a morphemic structure which makes the denotation of vowels redundant in most cases. The Semitic languages are a Language family whose living representatives are spoken by more than 467 million people across much of the Middle East, Nomenclature The term Berber has been used in Europe since at least the 17th century and is still used today Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words In Phonetics, a vowel is a Sound in spoken Language, such as English ah! or oh!, pronounced with an open Vocal tract
Some abjads (like Arabic and Hebrew) have markings for vowels as well, but only use them in special contexts, such as for teaching. Many scripts derived from abjads have been extended with vowel symbols to become full alphabets, the most famous case being the derivation of the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician abjad. The Greek alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early This has mostly happened when the script was adapted to a non-Semitic language.
The term abjad takes its name from the old order of the Arabic alphabet's consonants Alif, Bá, Jim, Dál, though the word may have earlier roots in Phoenician or Ugaritic. The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. In Articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a Speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the upper Vocal tract, the upper vocal Phoenician was a language originally spoken in the coastal region then called Pūt in Ancient Egyptian Canaan in Phoenician, Hebrew, and The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern
Abjad is still the word for alphabet in Arabic, Malay, and Indonesian. Arabic (ar الْعَرَبيّة (informally ar عَرَبيْ) in terms of the number of speakers is the largest living member of the Semitic language Indonesian or Bahasa Indonesia, based on the Riau version of Malay language, was declared the official language with the declaration of
Abugidas
An abugida is an alphabetic writing system whose basic signs denote consonants with an inherent vowel and where consistent modifications of the basic sign indicate other following vowels than the inherent one. An abugida ( from Ge‘ez አቡጊዳ ’äbugida or Amharic አቡጊዳ ’abugida is a segmental Writing system which An inherent vowel is part of an Abugida script It is the vowel sound which is used with each unmarked or basic Consonant symbol
Thus, in an abugida there is no sign for "k", but instead one for "ka" (if "a" is the inherent vowel), and "ke" is written by modifying the "ka" sign in a way that is consistent with how one would modify "la" to get "le". In many abugidas the modification is the addition of a vowel sign, but other possibilities are imaginable (and used), such as rotation of the basic sign, addition of diacritical marks, and so on. A diacritic ( also called a diacritic or diacritical mark, point, or sign, is a small sign added to a letter to alter pronunciation
The obvious contrast is with syllabaries, which have one distinct symbol per possible syllable, and the signs for each syllable have no systematic graphic similarity. A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional The graphic similarity comes from the fact that most abugidas are derived from abjads, and the consonants make up the symbols with the inherent vowel, and the new vowel symbols are markings added on to the base symbol.
The Ethiopic script is an abugida, although the vowel modifications in Ethiopic are not entirely systematic. The Field Museum of Natural History is located in Chicago, Illinois, USA. Chicago (ʃɪˈkɑːgoʊ is the largest City by population in the state of Illinois and the American Midwest of the United States. The State of Illinois ( roughly ill-i-NOY is a state of the United States of America, the 21st to be admitted to the Union. Ge'ez (gez ግዕዝ) also called Ethiopic, is an Abugida script that was originally developed to write Ge'ez, a Semitic language Canadian Aboriginal syllabics can be considered abugidas, although they are rarely thought of in those terms. Canadian Aboriginal syllabic writing', or simply syllabics, is a family of Abugidas {dubious}} used to write a number of Aboriginal Canadian The largest single group of abugidas is the Brahmic family of scripts, however, which includes nearly all the scripts used in India and Southeast Asia. The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, India, officially the Republic of India (भारत गणराज्य inc-Latn Bhārat Gaṇarājya; see also other Indian languages) is a country
The name abugida is derived from the first four characters of an order of the Ge'ez script used in some religious contexts. The term was coined by Peter T. Daniels. Peter T Daniels (born December 11, 1951, currently living in New Jersey is a scholar of Writing systems specializing in typology.
Featural writing systems
A featural script represents finer detail than an alphabet. Here symbols do not represent whole phonemes, but rather the elements (features) that make up the phonemes, such as voicing or its place of articulation. Voice or voicing is a term used in Phonetics and Phonology to characterize speech sounds, with sounds described as either voiceless In Articulatory phonetics, the place of articulation (also point of articulation) of a Consonant is the point of contact where an Obstruction Theoretically, each feature could be written with a separate letter; and abjads or abugidas, or indeed syllabaries, could be featural, but the only prominent system of this sort is Korean hangul. This article is mainly about the spoken Korean language See Hangul for details on the native Korean writing system In hangul, the featural symbols are combined into alphabetic letters, and these letters are in turn joined into syllabic blocks, so that the system combines three levels of phonological representation.
Ambiguous systems
Most writing systems are not purely one type. The English writing system, for example, includes numerals and other logograms such as #, $, and &, and the phonetic letters are a poor match to sound. As mentioned above, all logographic systems have phonetic components as well, whether that's along the lines of a syllabary, such as Chinese ("logo-syllabic"), or an abjad, as in Egyptian ("logo-consonantal").
Some scripts, however, are truly ambiguous. The semi-syllabaries of ancient Spain were syllabic for plosives such as p, t, k, but alphabetic for other consonants. A semi-syllabary is a Writing system that behaves partly as an Alphabet and partly as a Syllabary. A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a Consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the Vocal tract. In some versions, vowels were written redundantly after syllabic letters, conforming to an alphabetic orthography. Old Persian cuneiform was similar. Old Persian cuneiform is the primary script used in Old Persian writings Of 23 consonants (including null), seven were fully syllabic, thirteen were purely alphabetic, and for the other three, there was one letter for /Cu/ and another for both /Ca/ and /Ci/. However, all vowels were written overtly regardless; as in the Brahmic abugidas, the /Ca/ letter was used for a bare consonant.
The zhuyin phonetic glossing script for Chinese divides syllables in two or three, but into onset, medial, and rime rather than consonant and vowel. In Phonetics and Phonology, a syllable onset is the part of a Syllable that precedes the Syllable nucleus. In the study of Phonology in Linguistics, the rime or rhyme of a Syllable consists of a nucleus and an optional coda Pahawh Hmong is similar, but is a rime-based equivalent of an abugida. Other scripts are intermediate between the categories of alphabet, abjad, and abugida, so there may be disagreement on how they should be classified.
Graphic classification of writing systems
Perhaps the primary graphic distinction made in classifications is that of linearity. Linear writing systems are those in which the characters are composed of lines, such as the Latin alphabet and Chinese characters. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( Chinese characters are considered linear whether they're written with a ball-point pen, a calligraphic brush, or cast in bronze. Similarly, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Maya glyphs were often painted in linear outline form, but in formal situations they were carved in bas-relief. Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek The Maya script, also known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently A bas-relief (baʁəljɛf in French; French for "low relief" derived from the Italian basso rilievo) or low relief is a Sculpture Non-linear systems, on the other hand, such as braille, are not composed of lines, no matter which instrument is used to write them. The Braille system is a method that is widely used by blind people to read and write The earliest examples of writing are linear: the Sumerian script of c. 3300 BCE was linear, though its cuneiform descendants were not.
Cuneiform was probably the earliest non-linear writing. Its glyphs were formed by pressing the end of a reed stylus into moist clay, not by tracing lines in the clay with the stylus as had been done previously. The result was a radical transformation of the appearance of the script.
Braille is a non-linear adaptation of the Latin alphabet that completely abandoned the Latin forms. The letters are composed of raised bumps on the writing substrate, which can be leather (Louis Braille's original material), stiff paper, plastic, or metal. Substrate is a term used in Printing (mainly industrial printing to describe the base material onto which Images will be printed Louis Braille ( in English in French January 4, 1809 &ndash January 6, 1852) was the inventor of Braille, a world-wide system
There are also transient non-linear adaptations of the Latin alphabet, including Morse code, the manual alphabets of various sign languages, and semaphore, in which flags or bars are positioned at prescribed angles. Morse code is a Character encoding for transmitting telegraphic information using standardized sequences of short and long elements to represent the letters numerals Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a Writing system, and sometimes Numeral systems using only the hands A sign language (also signed language) is a Language which instead of acoustically conveyed Sound patterns uses visually transmitted sign patterns Flag semaphore is a system for conveying information at a distance by means of visual signals with hand-held flags rods disks paddles or occasionally bare or gloved hands A semaphore telegraph, optical telegraph, shutter telegraph chain, Chappe telegraph, or Napoleonic semaphore is a system However, if "writing" is defined as a potentially permanent means of recording information, then these systems do not qualify as writing at all, since the symbols disappear as soon as they are used.
Directionality
Scripts are also graphically characterized by the direction in which they are written. Many East Asian scripts can be written horizontally or vertically. Bi-directional text is used as some Writing systems of the world notably the Arabic (including variants such as Nasta'liq) and Hebrew scripts Egyptian hieroglyphs were written in either horizontal direction, with the animal and human glyphs turned to face the direction of writing. The early alphabet could be written in multiple directions, horizontally (left-to-right or right-to-left) or vertically (up or down). It was commonly written boustrophedonically: starting in one (horizontal) direction, then turning at the end of the line and reversing direction. Boustrophedon (ˌbustroʊˈfiːdən from Greek βουστροφηδόν "ox-turning"&mdashthat is turning like Oxen in Ploughing
The Greek alphabet and its successors settled on a left-to-right pattern, from the top to the bottom of the page. The Greek alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early Other scripts, such as Arabic and Hebrew, came to be written right-to-left. The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. Scripts that incorporate Chinese characters have traditionally been written vertically (top-to-bottom), from the right to the left of the page, but nowadays are frequently written left-to-right, top-to-bottom, due to Western influence, a growing need to accommodate terms in the Roman alphabet, and technical limitations in popular electronic document formats. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( Western culture (sometimes equated with Western Civilization) are terms which are used to refer to Cultures of European origin An electronic document is any Electronic media Content (other than Computer programs or system Files that are intended to be used in either an The Uighur alphabet and its descendants are unique in being the only scripts written top-to-bottom, left-to-right; this direction originated from an ancestral Semitic direction by rotating the page 90° counter-clockwise to conform to the appearance of vertical Chinese writing. A clockwise motion is one that proceeds 'like the Clock 's hands' from the top to the right then down and then to the left and back to the top Several scripts used in the Philippines and Indonesia, such as Hanunó'o, are written with lines moving away from the writer, from bottom to top. In Philippines there are over 170 languages almost all of them belong to the Austronesian language family. The Republic of Indonesia ( (Republik Indonesia is a Country in Southeast Asia. Hanunó'o is one of the indigenous scripts of the Philippines; see Baybayin.
Writing systems on computers
Different ISO/IEC standards are defined to deal with each individual writing systems to implement them in computers (or in electronic form). The International Electrotechnical Commission ( IEC) is a not-for-profit, non-governmental international Standards organization that prepares and publishes Today most of those standards are re-defined in a better collective standard, the ISO 10646, also known as Unicode. The Universal Character Set (UCS defined by the ISO / IEC 10646 International Standard, is a standard set of characters upon which In Computing, Unicode is an Industry standard allowing Computers to consistently represent and manipulate text expressed in most of the world's In Unicode, each character, in every language's writing system, is (simplifying slightly) given a unique identification number, known as its code point. The computer's software uses the code point to look up the appropriate character in the font file, so the characters can be displayed on the page or screen. In Typography, a typeface is a set of one or more Fonts designed with stylistic unity each comprising a coordinated set of Glyphs A typeface usually comprises
A keyboard is the device most commonly used for writing via computer. In Computing, a keyboard is an Input device partially modelled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or keys Each key is associated with a standard code which the keyboard sends to the computer when it is pressed. By using a combination of alphabetic keys with modifier keys such as Ctrl, Alt, Shift and AltGr, various character codes are generated and sent to the CPU. In Computing, a modifier key is a special key on a Computer keyboard that modifies the normal action of another key when the two are pressed in combination For a list of keyboard shortcuts see Table of keyboard shortcuts The Alt key on a computer keyboard is used to change (alternate the function The shift key is a Modifier key on a keyboard, used to type capital letters and other alternate "upper" characters AltGr is a Modifier key on PC keyboards used to type many characters primarily ones that are unusual for the locale of the Keyboard layout, such The operating system intercepts and converts those signals to the appropriate characters based on the keyboard layout and input method, and then delivers those converted codes and characters to the running application software, which in turn looks up the appropriate glyph in the currently used font file, and requests the operating system to draw these on the screen. An operating system (commonly abbreviated OS and O/S) is the software component of a Computer system that is responsible for the management and coordination QWERTY keyboardjpg|thumb|right|300px|QWERTY keyboard on a Laptop of 2007]]A keyboard layout is any specific mechanical, visual, or functional Application software is a subclass of Computer software that employs the capabilities of a computer directly and thoroughly to a task that the user wishes to perform A glyph is an element of writing Two or more glyphs representing the same symbol whether interchangeable or context-dependent are called Allographs the abstract unit they A visual display unit, often called simply a monitor or display, is a piece of Electrical equipment which displays images generated from the Video
In computers and telecommunication systems, graphemes and other grapheme-like units that are required for text processing are represented by "characters" that typically manifest in encoded form. For other uses see Character. In Computer and machine-based Telecommunications terminology a character is a unit of A character encoding consists of a code that pairs a sequence of characters from a given character set (sometimes incorrectly referred to as Code page For technical aspects of computer support for various writing systems, see Universal Character Set, CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and Bi-directional text, as well as Category:Character encoding. The Universal Character Set (UCS defined by the ISO / IEC 10646 International Standard, is a standard set of characters upon which CJK is a collective term for Chinese, Japanese, and Korean, which constitute the main East Asian languages. Bi-directional text is used as some Writing systems of the world notably the Arabic (including variants such as Nasta'liq) and Hebrew scripts
See also
- Artificial script
- Asemic writing
- Calligraphy
- Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic
- History of writing
- History of writing numbers
- ISO 15924 — a list of "codes for the representation of names of scripts"
- List of writing systems
- List of inventors of writing systems
- Majuscule
- Minuscule
- Nü Shu
- Official script
- Orthography
- Pasigraphy
- Penmanship
- Shorthand
- Spelling
- Transliteration
- Universal Character Set
- Written language
- Formal language
External links
- decodeunicode Unicode Wiki with all 98,884 Unicode 5. A constructed script (also artificial script, neography, and conscript for short is a new Writing system specifically created by an individual Asemic writing is a wordless open Semantic form of Writing. The word asemic means "having no specific semantic content" Calligraphy (from Greek kallos "beauty" + graphẽ "writing" is the art of writing (Mediavilla 1996 17 Nearly all the segmental scripts (loosely " Alphabets " but see below for more precise terminology used around the globe appear to have derived from the The history of writing encompasses the various Writing systems that evolved in the Early Bronze Age (late 4th millennium BC) A numeral system (or system of numeration) is a Mathematical notation for representing numbers of a given set by symbols in a consistent manner ISO 15924, Codes for the representation of names of scripts, defines two sets of codes for a number of Writing systems (scripts This is a list of writing systems (or scripts) classified according to some common distinguishing features This is a chronological list of any individuals legendary or real who are purported by traditions to have invented Alphabets or other Writing systems whether this is proven Capital letters or majuscules pronunciation /məˈdʒʌskyuls ˈmædʒəˌskyuls/ in the Roman alphabet A, B, C, D, Nü Shu ( is a Syllabary Writing system that was used exclusively among women in Jiangyong County in Hunan province of southern An official script is a script that is specifically designated to be official in the Constitutions or other applicable Laws of countries, The orthography of a language specifies the correct way of using a specific Writing system to write the language A Pasigraphy is a Writing system where each written symbol represents a concept rather than a word or sound or series of sounds in a spoken language "Handwriting" redirects here For scripts for writing down notes by hand see " Cursive " Spelling is the Writing of a Word or words with the necessary letters and Diacritics present in an accepted standard order Transliteration is the practice of Transcribing a Word or text written in one Writing system into another writing system or system of rules for such practice The Universal Character Set (UCS defined by the ISO / IEC 10646 International Standard, is a standard set of characters upon which A written language is the representation of a Language by means of a Writing system. A formal language is a set of words, ie finite strings of letters, or symbols. 0 characters as gifs in three sizes
- Linguaseek, a free online transliteration program that supports 111 languages (Thai and Urdu are in the works; Simplified Chinese only)
- About African writing systems by the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library at Cornell University:
- General about writing systems
- Omniglot(e. g. Alphabetic Writing Systems, with many free script fonts)
- Ancient Scripts: Home(Site with some introduction to different writing systems and group them into origins/types/families/regions/timeline/A to Z)
- Michael Everson's Alphabets of Europe
- The Unicode Consortium
- Scriptorium Bulletin Board — A forum devoted to writing systems
References
- Coulmas, Florian. Michael Everson (born January 9, 1963) is a linguist, script encoder, typesetter, and Font designer. 1996. The Blackwell encyclopedia of writing systems. Oxford: Blackwell.
- Daniels, Peter T., and William Bright, eds. Peter T Daniels (born December 11, 1951, currently living in New Jersey is a scholar of Writing systems specializing in typology. 1996. The World's Writing Systems. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0.
- DeFrancis, John. 1990. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1068-6
- Hannas, William. C. 1997. Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1892-X (paperback); ISBN 0-8248-1842-3 (hardcover)
- Rogers, Henry. 2005. Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-23463-2 (hardcover); ISBN 0-631-23464-0 (paperback)
- Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing Systems. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press. ISBN 0-8047-1756-7 (paper), ISBN 0-8047-1254-9 (cloth).
- Smalley, W. A. (ed. ) 1964. Orthography studies: articles on new writing systems. London: United Bible Society.
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