Writing Systems
A Linguistic Approach
Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics
1. Edition June 2004
344 Pages, Hardcover
Wiley & Sons Ltd
Accessibly written, Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach provides detailed coverage of all major writing systems of historical or structural significance with thorough discussion of structure, history, and social context as well as important theoretical issues. Discusses systems as diverse as Chinese, Greek, and Maya.
* * Presents each system in light of four major aspects of writing: history and development, internal structure, the relationship of writing and language, and sociolinguistic aspects.
* Includes glossary of technical terms, extensive illustrations, exercises and further reading suggestions to aid in teaching from the book.
2. Theoretical Preliminaries.
3. Chinese.
4. Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese.
5. Cuneiform.
6. Egyptian.
7. Semitic.
8. The Greek Alphabet.
9. The Roman Alphabet.
10. English.
11. The Indian Abugida And Other Asian Phonographic Writing.
12. Maya.
13. Other Writing Systems.
14. Classification Of Writing Systems.
Appendix A: Some Basic Linguistic Notions.
Appendix B: The International Phonetic Alphabet.
Appendix C. English Transcription.
Appendix D: Glossary.
Bibliography
--William Bright, review in Written Language and Literacy
"This is an excellent comprehensive textbook for university courses on writing systems (grammatology), with enough preliminary remarks of a theoretical nature to enable the student to master the scripts from around the world, including cuneiform of various types, Semitic, Greek, Roman, etc. It is written in a clear style with a very good glossary and up-to-date bibliography."
--Alan S. Kaye, California State University, Fullerton