The World's Writing Systems
by Peter T. Daniels (Editor), William Bright (Editor)
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From the Publisher: Ranging from cuneiform to shorthand, from archaic Greek to modern Chinese, from Old Persian to modern Cherokee, this is the only available work in English to cover all of the world's writing systems from ancient times to the present. Describing scores of scripts in use now or in the past around the world, this unusually comprehensive reference offers a detailed exploration of the history and typology of writing systems. More than eighty articles by scholars from over a show more dozen countries explain and document how a vast array of writing systems work-how alphabets, ideograms, pictographs, and hieroglyphics convey meaning in graphic form. The work is organized in thirteen parts, each dealing with a particular group of writing systems defined historically, geographically, or conceptually. Arranged according to the chronological development of writing systems and their historical relationships within geographical areas, the scripts are divided into the following sections: the ancient Near East, East Asia, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Additional parts address the ongoing process of decipherment of ancient writing systems; the adaptation of traditional scripts to new languages; new scripts invented in modern times; and graphic symbols for numerical, music, and movement notation. Each part begins with an introductory article providing the social and cultural context in which the group of writing systems was developed. Articles on individual scripts detail the historical origin of the writing system, its structure (with tables showing the forms of the written symbols), and its relationship to the phonology of the corresponding spoken language. Each writing system is illustrated by a passage of text, and accompanied by a Romanized version, a phonetic transcription, and a modern English translation. A bibliography suggesting further reading concludes each entry. Matched by no other work in English, The World's Writing Systems is the only comprehensive resource covering every major writing system. Unparalleled in its scope and unique in its coverage of the way scripts relate to the languages they represent, this is a resource that anyone with an interest in language will want to own, and one that should be a part of every library's reference collection. show lessTags
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A survey of the various writing systems used across the world from the Bronze Age to the present (well, 1990s), this is a sort of book that's more or less obsolete in the Age of Wikipedia.
Besides the obvious disadvantages such as limited page count, cost, and lack of possibility of continuous updating, there are actually a couple advantages too: there's a unity of approach and professionality unavailable to crowdsourced endeavours, and you can browse it, stumbling on something you didn't know you were interested in, in a way that's hard to do with a wiki.
Besides the obvious disadvantages such as limited page count, cost, and lack of possibility of continuous updating, there are actually a couple advantages too: there's a unity of approach and professionality unavailable to crowdsourced endeavours, and you can browse it, stumbling on something you didn't know you were interested in, in a way that's hard to do with a wiki.
Wide coverage, but each chapter is short and in many senses wanting. EXPEN$IVE
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Author Information
Peter T. Daniels, the world's leading expert on writing systems, holds degrees in Linguistics from Cornell University and the University of Chicago. His first interests were in Comparative Semitic linguistics, which built to the study of writing and decipherment. His challenge to his teacher I.J. Gelb's influential theories of the evolution of show more scripts has led to a persistent search for legitimate principles of the nature and development of writing: He is co-editor (with William Bright) of and principal contributor to The World's Writing Systems (1996). show less
William Bright is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Anthropology at UCLA and Adjunct Professor of Linguistics at the University of Colorado, Boulder.
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