Contemporary Linguistics
BSL 565
Chapter 15
"Writing and Language"

Section 1 - Types of Writing	Section 2 - History of Writing
Section 3 - The Evolution of Writing	Section 4 - Some Non-European Writing Systems
Section 5 - English Orthography	Section 6 - Writing and Reading
Key Terms	Chapter Exercises

Introduction

“Outside of a dog, a book is man’s best friend; inside of a dog, it’s too dark to read.”
                                                                                    -    Groucho Marx

    Speaking and writing are different in both origin and practice. Writing, the representation of language by graphic signs or symbols, is a comparatively recent cultural development, having occurred within the past five thousand years and only in certain parts of the world.

     Speech and writing share one thing in common: they both share a link between symbol and sound. There are two basic types of writing, called logographic and phonographic, depending on the technique of linguistic representation they use.

1.1  Logographic Writing
Logographic (from the Greek ‘logos’ meaning ‘words’) refers to a type of writing in which symbols represent morphemes or even entire words. It is the oldest type of writing and includes Ancient Mesopotamian cuneiform inscriptions, Egyptian hieroglyphics, and primordial Chinese characters.

1.2  Phonographic Writing
Phonographic writing (from Greek ‘phonos’ meaning ‘sound’) uses symbols to represent syllables or segments. Syllabic writing employs symbols to represent syllables (a set of syllabic symbols is called asyllabary). Examples of this would be Japanese and Cree. Alphabetic writing represents consonant and vowel segments. English uses this type of writing.

2.1  Prewriting
     In the history of writing, drawing is considered the ‘pre-writing’ stage . The representative art seen on cave walls is thought to have been used for communication and record keeping. Some drawings are dated back as far as 20,000 BC.

     Thousands of years before writing emerged, small clay pieces were used for record keeping. People began to make impressions on them later , rather than keeping the whole stone as one counter.

2.2  Pictograms
Pictogram, or picture writing, are indications that picture writing was the precursor of the written word. In some cases, the picture represented an object or an entire idea. Even today, we use pictograms to communicate with signs indicating roadside services, information in parks or to warn of danger. One contemporary type of pictographic writing is called Blissymbolics developed by Charles K. Bliss. It makes use of a number of recombineable symbols that represent basic units of meaning. (see text, pg. 557)
 In considering the development of writing, one must keep in mind that pictograms are not writing in any sense of the word. They do not represent any linguistic elements such as segments, syllables, morphemes, or words , so they provide only limited clues about their intended meaning.

For more information on the web,  use the following sites.

This site discusses phonetic, alphabetic, syllabic, and pictographic writing; it also discusses in brief, the stages of writing.  Click here.

For an index to Blissymbolics, click here.

For more information on Blissymbolics, click here.
 

3.1 Rebuses and the Emergence of Writing
Around 3000 BC when the Sumerians first used symbols to represent sound rather than just meaning, the history of writing emerged.  The rebus principle allowed a sign to be used for any word that was pronounced like the word whose meaning it originally represented.  "Recent evidence suggests that the origins of Sumerian writing go back another five thousand years to clay tokens used to keep track of different kinds of trade goods.  Different shapes and designs on tokens indicated different commodities or sometimes numbers.  Eventually, the tokens were encased in clay balls, called bullas.  These were sent with shipments of goods so the receiver could tell that everything that was sent had been delivered.  An impression of each token was made on the outside of the bulla so the contents could be "read" without breaking the bulla.  At that point, there was no need for the tokens.  The bullas no longer had to be round and hollow, so they became flat clay tablets on which Sumerian writing is found."

3.2 Towards Syllabic Writing
Signs began to clearly represent not just homophonous words, but parts of words, syllables.  The Sumerians overlapped their syllabic signs in order to use them more efficiently.  Over time the Sumerian writing was simplified and soon the use of a wedge-shaped stylus was pressed into soft clay tablets.  This form of writing, which originated in the fourth millennium BC, has become known as cuneiform.
 

3.3 Another Middle Eastern Writing System:  Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphic writing developed in Egypt around 3000 B.C.  The symbols and signs at first represented by objects later became associated with words.  In Greek, hieroglyphics means 'sacred inscriptions'.  Egyptian hieroglyphic developed into a mix of both word writing and phonographic writing.  Since vowels were not represented, translations could only be partially reconstructed in Greek and other languages that were made later.  Soon, the sign became disassociated for the word it represented and was used to transcribe other words that had similar sounds.  These symbols came to represent the consonant phonemes of words by application of what is called the acrophonic principle (from Greek acros 'extreme'): sounds are represented by pictures of objects whose pronunciation begins with the sound to be represented.  In this manner, the first consonant of a word-sign became what the sign represented.  Around 400 A.D. this writing began to die out.  The symbols remained undeciphered until 1799, when the Rosetta Stone was discovered.  Three different scripts were carved into the basalt stone.  One of the scripts, Greek, could be read and gave insight into reading the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing.
To write your name in ancient egyptian script click here.

3.4 The Emergence of Alphabets
The earliest alphabetic writing may have appeared in Egypt around 1800 B.C.  In the Middle East, alphabetic writing was slowly coming from mixed writing systems.  The Semitic people of ancient Phoenicia (modern Lebanon) created a writing system of 22 consonantal signs.  This was written horizontally, right to left.  The development of logograms, the symbols that represent the consonant phonemes of words found their origins in the Phoenician alphabet. This lead to many other systems in both Greek and Latin alphabets.  The Greek alphabet was created from the Phoenician writing system.  The modifications Today, alphabets come in all shapes and sizes.  Most have 20 to 30 symbols, however Rotokas, in the Solomon Islands, has only 11 letters, and Khmer, in Southeast Asia, has 74.  To see the evolution of the alphabets click here.

3.5 Other Developments, East and West
In addition to the Greek and Latin traditions, other alphabetic systems evolved and flourished.  The Runic writing developed from Germanic tribes in the north of Italy as a branch of the Greek/Etruscan tradition of writing.  The script is read from right to left and the letters are angular in style because the alphabet was carved in wood or stone.  Another branch of the Greek script was created by Slavic people in the ninth century A.D.  The Greek  missionary brothers Constantine (Cyril) and Methodius introduced a writing system for the translation of the Bible that is now known as Glagolitic script.  A later development, which combined adaptations of Glagolitic letters with Greek and Hebrew characters, is now known as the Cyrillic alphabet.  The current alphabets of Russia, Byelorussia, Ukraine, Serbia, Macedonia have evolved from this early Cyrillic script.  Both the Arabic and Hebrew alphabets descend from or closely to Phoenician script.  Both are mainly consonant-writing systems written from right to left.  The vowels are indicated with diacritic dots.  The other descendants of early Middle Eastern scripts made way to the traditions of Aramaic, Old Hebrew, and South Arabic syllabaries encouraging other writing systems stretching across the Near East and North Africa from India to Morocco.

4.2 Japanese Writing
    The most complicated writing system is modern Japanese.  In order to use it you must know three distinct scripts including a pair of syllabaries---katakana and hiragana---which were created by modifying Chinese characters.  The Chinese characters that are used in Japanese writing, kanji, are typically used to represent all or part of a word's root, whereas affixes are represented by hiragana symbols.
To see more about the Japanese click here.

4.3 Korean Writing
The Korean system called hangul, has eleven vowels and seventeen consonants.  After some modifications from the Chinese tradition became the standard Korean writing system.  Symbols are grouped together into syllable-sized clusters rather than being arranged in a linear fashion.  The Korean, like the Japanese, make use of Chinese characters called hanja  but in a more prohibitive way.
To see more about writing and literacy in Chinese, Japanese and Korean click here.

4.4 American Scripts
On the American continents more than eighteen writing systems have been discovered, including the Mayans of the Yucatan and Aztecs of Mexico.  Both systems evolved of pictograms that leaned toward phonetic word signs.  Mayan symbols calledglyphs, were read as word signs and had other uses as well.  The rebus principle was utilized as well.  Mayan signs could be used for their phonetic value in a form of syllabic writing.  The Cherokee writing system of the Native American tribe was derived from the Europeans who colonized North America.  A Cherokee leader Sikwayi (Sequoia) created a syllabic script of more than eighty symbols, some he invented and others based on the shapes of English letters.  Missionaries also played a role in the development of American scripts.  The syllabic script of the Cree Indians was the invention of a missionary, J. Evans, in the nineteenth century.  It was used for religious literature and by 1861 the entire Bible appeared in the Cree syllabary.  Today, in modified form, this script is used by Cree speakers across Canada.
To see some Mayan glyphs click here.
To see more about the Cherokee system click here.

4.5 Some African Scripts
The syllabic scripts produced in Central Africa have either developed through stages from pictograms to refined syllabaries or have been invented by one or several individuals.  The main example of alphabetic writing developed in modern times among the African people is the Somali alphabet.  The creator, knew Arabic and Italian, devised an alphabet composed of nineteen consonants and ten vowels.  The symbols appear to be freely invented but the names are based on those used for the letters of the Arabic alphabet, and are listed and recited in the same order.
To see some African writing systems click here.

4.6 Some Indian Scripts
    Variations of Indian writing traveled abroad by Buddhist missionaries and influenced writing systems in Tibet and Central and Southeast Asia.
To see the Indian Scripts click here.
To see the Hindi scripts click here.

5.1  Irregularities
    One of the problems with English orthography is that it does not have a direct relationship between symbols and phonological segments.  The following is a poem that exhibits this problem of non-corresponding symbols and segments.  This is a poem written by Richard Krogh.

Problem	Example
Some letters do not represent any segments in a particular word.	through, sign, give, palm
A group of letters can be used to represent a single segment.	think, ship, philosophy
A single letter can represent a group of segments.	saxophone /ks/, exile /gz/
The same letter can represent different segments in different segments in different words.	o in rot /a/, bone /ow/
The same segment can be represented by different letters in different words.	uw in rude, loop, soup, new, sue, to, two

(This table is taken directly from the text, Contemporary Linguistics)

These relationships have not always been so indirect between symbols and segments in English.  The Old English component of the English language had direct one to one correspondence.  This system did not have the symbols,  j, v, and w, but did contain four other symbols that are not included in the orthography today.
    Many of these changes in English orthography occurred in the Middle English Period.  This is when the pattern of the English language began to change.  We see these changes in words like hide and hid, write and written, ride and ridden, wide and width, and many other words.
    Other changes occurred when invaders from other countries entered England.  These caused French and Latin influences in the English Language.

5.2  Obstacles to Reform
    As years have passed there have been countless motions to reform the English orthography.  Men such as Benjamin Franklin, George Bernard Shaw, and Noah Webster have lobbied to make such reforms.  These motions have gone unheard because people realize that changes such as these would cause great difficulty in the publics' ability to read and write in the new or old orthography.  The various dialects of English around the world would make it virtually impossible to make a universal orthographic system for the language.

Other Considerations
  The variations of dialects have not caused major reformation in our orthography.  These are most likely the causes of retention of the primary spelling of certain words.
These are apparent in words like sign and signature and music and musician.
    The table below shows some examples where English orthography provides a single spelling for roots with different pronunciations.
 

electric - electricity [k] and [s] represented as c.

insert - insertion [t] and [sh] as t

right - righteous [t] and [tch] as t

impress - impression [s] and [sh] as ss

chaste - chastity [ej] and [æ]

Other examples in orthographic change  are words that end in /s/.  Even though words like mess, crass, lapse, and dense end in the single phoneme /s/ they are represented by ss and se.  Also, words like plentiful and excel end in one /l/, while baseball and recall end with two.
    These changes prove that the system of English Orthography can only be understood if it is carefully studied from a historical view.

Three types of writing described in this chapter are morphemes, syllables, and consonants.  Different parts of the brain are responsible for using logographic and phonographic systems.  Some types of brain damage prohibit the use of these systems.
    The correlations of language and writing are evident in people who are deaf since they have never heard language.  These people have great difficulty in learning English.
    Children find it easy to learn syllabaries in their language than their alphabet.  Children have less difficulty identifying syllables than phonemes.  Because there are so many syllabic possibilities in English, it would be impossible to represent the language using syllables.

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