The world's writing systems
by William Bright, Peter T. Daniels · first published 1996
67% recommend33% neutral
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 dozen countries explain and document how a vast array of writing systems work--how alphabets, ideograms, pictographs, and hier
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…from taking university courses in Chinese). Hacker News readers who would like to learn about English, Chinese, or other writing systems would be well advised to read the specialized articles in The World's Writing Systems http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Writing-Systems-Peter-Daniels/d... edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. The article on Chinese is very good, and the overview articles that discuss general features…
on “Which reads faster, Chinese or English?” ↗…for judging the plausibility of various claims about the ancient Harappan inscriptions. A book on that topic I highly recommend, because it is written by very knowledgeable historical linguists, is The World's Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. There has been a little bit of new work on Harappan inscriptions since that book was published, with several claims and counterclaims by competing scholars,…
on “Did The Harappan Civilization Avoid War for 2,000 Years?” ↗…dialects/languages) of which there are many in China. Consequently, to write Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Shanghainese, it is necessary to invent characters or resort to romanization. The source is The World's Writing Systems by Oxford University Press. I recommend this book to everyone who's interested in these matters. [Edit] In case you're wondering, Chinese has palindromes, but not the letter-based ones like we're used…
on “Why Chinese Is So Damned Hard” ↗Thanks for pointing out the early Chinese phonetic effort, I remember reading it about in the excellent The World's Writing Systems by OUP. Resisting efforts to broaden literacy for the masses is also cites as the reason why the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic writing did not evolve much over the vast time period (first inscriptions…
on “A Holiday in Honor of the Korean Writing System” ↗…administration. In the second stage, phonetic coding made a new type of application possible, the written representation of information in the same way as it was previously transmitted orally."" [1] The World's Writing Systems, OED, 1996. This is a fantastic book to have if you're interested in the topic btw. [2] http://cdli.ucla.edu/files/publications/cdlj2006_001.pdf
on “Dictionary of dead language complete after 90 years (2011)” ↗…Speech by John DeFrancis, http://www.amazon.com/Visible-Speech-Diverse-Interactions-Co... and the definitive compilation of international research on writing systems to the date of publication is The World's Writing Systems http://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Writing-Systems-Peter-Daniels/d... edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright and published in 1996. I haven't concluded absolutely that the Indus Valley Script could…
on “Indus Valley Civilization’s Collapse Explained” ↗Aha! "The World's Writing Systems" looks suspiciously like another book I have, "Grammatology" (not the one by Derrida). Published in the 90s and similarly priced, but out of print as far as I know. Who wrote the chapter on Chinese?
on “Which reads faster, Chinese or English?” ↗Who wrote the chapter on Chinese [in The World's Writing Systems]? http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/Linguistics/?v... I'm pretty sure it's by William G. Boaltz http://depts.washington.edu/asianll/people/faculty/boltzwm.h... whose papers about ancient…
on “Which reads faster, Chinese or English?” ↗