Writing - University Of Delaware

WritingLinguistics 203Languages of the World

Writing and Language Many people associate ‘language’ with writing Writing is not a primary aspect of language– most languages of past had no writing system– first known writing systems arose 5-6,000 yearsago– language is learned without explicit instruction;writing is only learned with explicit instruction

Pre-exerciseExamine the writingsystems to the right. Tryto discover how they areset up (i.e. what eachsymbol corresponds to).For Scripts A-C, the topline contains thegraphemes, and themiddle line contains thephonetic transcription.

(Brief) History of Writing Pictograms are precursors of writing systems.– pictogram: an image that represents an object andresembles it

(Brief) History of Writing Pictograms become standardized, and theirmeanings get extended to related concepts (butnot specific words). Thus, they becomeideograms. 1.2.3.4.the sunwarmthlightdaytime Both pictograms and ideograms exist alongsideother writing systems in modern societies.

(Brief) History of Writing Ideograms eventually become associated withspecific words. Thus, they becomelogograms. Logograms often become associated withhomophonous words in a language. Logograms can become associated with asyllable, thus becoming syllabic writing.

(Brief) History of Writing First known writing system, cuneiform, began around3500 BCE in Mesopotamia (modern day Iraq)– cuneiform: ‘in the shape of a wedge’ Created by Sumerians and Akkadians Writing system began as pictographs, later becomingideographs, logographs and then syllable characters. At the end, cuneiform was a combination oflogographic and syllabic writing.

(Brief) History of Writing Cuneiform continued to change over time

(Brief) History of Writing Around 3000 BCE, Egyptians develop writing systemcalled hieroglyphics (possibly influenced by Sumeriansand Akkadians) Pictograms ideograms logograms syllabic In addition to different symbols, the ‘syllabic’ quality ofcuneiform and hieroglyphics was distinct.– In cuneiform, one symbol both vowel and consonantportions of syllable (V or CV)– Hieroglyphs represented only the consonants in a syllable,not the vowels. They could represent 1, 2 or 3 consonants.

(Brief) History of WritingHieroglyphsSource: g

(Brief) History of Writing Around 2000 BCE, Chinese begin using pictograms assymbols for words ( logograms), rather than concepts Some ideograms were combined to represent abstractideas. Many words are actually represented by multiplelogograms. Most modern Chinese symbols bear little resemblanceto original ideograms

(Brief) History of WritingChineseThe characters on theright show theevolution of Chinesefrom the ShangDynasty to severalmodern variants.source: http://blogdjh.blogspot.com/2008 05 01 archive.html

(Brief) History of WritingGreek alphabet Phoenicians develop West Semitic Syllabary by 1500 BCE;only consonants were represented.– influenced by hieroglyphics Greeks borrowed Semitic syllabary around 900 BCE(probably from Phonecians) Unneeded symbols came to represent vowels. Greek alphabet is first alphabet to represent consonantsand vowels separately.

(Brief) History of WritingRoman alphabet Romans borrowed Greek alphabet around 600BCE Some symbols dropped, some changed inform, some came to represent differentsounds

(Brief) History of WritingEvolution of some common alphabetsFor complete example, see: http://www.alphabetandletter.com/egyptian.html

(Brief) History of WritingCyrillic alphabet Also borrowed independently from Greek Similar changes as Roman alphabet, with theaddition of new symbols

(Brief) History of WritingCyrillic alphabet, 10th centurysource: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/cyrillic.htm

Precursors to Writing Systems pictogram: symbol that resembles an objectwhich it signifies ideogram: symbol that represents a concept,without resembling it Neither pictograms nor ideograms are directlyrelated to sounds or words.

Writing Systems logographic phonographic– syllabary– alphabet– abjad– abugida

Writing Systems logogram (logographic): a symbol whichrepresents a specific word– no relation to sounds, just to words– language-specific

LogographicChineseThe characters on theright show theevolution of Chinesefrom the ShangDynasty to present.source: http://blogdjh.blogspot.com/2008 05 01 archive.html

Writing Systems Phonographic: a system where a symbolrepresents a sound or sounds– syllabary: all symbols represent a syllable– alphabet: all symbols represent a phoneme (ideally)– abjad: all symbols represent a consonant, vowelsare not represented or optional– abugida: a writing system based on consonants,but in which vowels must be marked

Japanese WritingJapanese uses acombination of hiraganaand kanji (Chinesecharacters) for nativewords; it uses katakana forloanwords.Kanji, being Chinesecharacters, means thatJapanese uses bothsyllabic graphemes andlogograms. Japanese alsouses the Roman alphabetoccasionally, and of courseArabic numerals.Modern Japanese iswritten left to right goingdownward, or top tobottom going leftward.

Like othersyllabaries, thosein Japanese werederived fromlogograms.Katakanagraphemes areshown on theleft, and theirsource logogramis on the right.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Katakana origine.svg

The Cherokee syllabaryCherokee Indian called Sequoya developed a syllabary for Cherokee in19th century; it used characters from the Roman alphabet, but tomark syllables rather than phonemes.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Cherokee Syllabary.svg

The Vai syllabaryVai is an ethnic group inwestern Liberia, developedthis syllabary in the early19th century. It has around200 graphemes.Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vai.gif

RunicEach symbol is called arune, these were used byvarious Germanic s/runiccharacters.gif

OghamAn interesting alphabet used by Celts in Britain and Ireland, thesymbols could be written vertically (as depicted below) orhorizontally (symbols turned 90o clockwise from s/Ogham letters.gif

Arabic abjad (sample) Written right to left,the shape of a letterdepends on itsposition relative toother letters. Diacritics canoptionally markvowels, or variousother things abicScript

Devanagari abugida (sample) Consonantssymbols mustcarry vowelsymbols. Whenconsonantclusters occur,the symbolsare combinedinto ri.htm

ExerciseWhat type ofwriting system isthis?Three symbolshave twopronunciations/functions. Whatare �� (name)‘older �snow’‘we’‘daily’‘first’

AlphabetsKorean alphabet (Hangeul) Developed in mid-15th century under KingSejong Previously, Chinese writing had been used Designed to be easy to learn Letters based on phonetics Letters are combined into syllables

Letters in Hangeul

Writing and Language Many people associate 'language' with writing Writing is not a primary aspect of language -most languages of past had no writing system -first known writing systems arose 5-6,000 years ago -language is learned without explicit instruction; writing is only learned with explicit instruction