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WLE Austria Logo (No Text).Svg the Beautiful White Bengal Tiger, Abhishek Chiki Le, CC BY-SA 4.0

WLE Austria Logo (No Text).Svg the Beautiful White Bengal Tiger, Abhishek Chiki Le, CC BY-SA 4.0

 WLE (no text).svg The beautiful white bengal tiger, Abhishek Chiki le, CC BY-SA 4.0. Hide Participate in Wiki Loves Earth 2016 Photo contest Upload Photos of Natural Heritage sites of India to help Wikipedia & win fantast ic Prizes Check out the rules here From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve th is article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may ch allenged and removed. (June 2015) (Learn how and when to remove this template me ssage) Predominant national and selected regional or minority scripts Writing systems worldwide.png Alphabetical Cyrillic Greek Armenian Georgian aa Logographic and Syllabic Hanzi [] [] / [L] Hanjab [L] Hebrew North Indic South Indic Ethiopic Canadian syllabic a a Featural-alphabetic. Limited. Present-day writing systems World & writing systems.svg Alphabetic Latin Cyrillic Hangul (featural) Other alphabetic Abjad Abugida Arabic (abjad) Other abjad (abugida) Other abugida Other types Chinese (logographic) v t e Writing systems 09-Pismo.jpg History Types Abjad Abugida Logography Featural Related topics v t e A is any conventional method of visually representing verbal comm unication. While both writing and speech are useful in conveying messages, writi differs in also being a reliable form of information storage and transfer.[1] The processes of encoding and decoding writing systems involve shared understan ding between writers and readers of the meaning behind the sets of characters th at make up a . Writing is usually recorded onto a durable medium, such as or electronic storage, although non-durable methods may also be used, such as writing on a computer display, in sand, or by skywriting. The general attributes of writing systems can be placed into broad categories su ch as alphabets, syllabaries, or logographies. Any particular system can have at tributes of more than one category. In the alphabetic category, there is a stand of letters (basic written or ) of and that encode based on the general principle that the letters (or pair/gro ups) represent speech sounds. In a syllabary, each correlates to a syllab le or . In a logography, each represents a , , or othe semantic units. Other categories include , which differ from alphabets that vowels are not indicated, and or alphasyllabaries, with each racter representing a ± pairing. Alphabets typically use a set of 20 -to-35 symbols to fully express a , whereas syllabaries can have 80-to-1 00, and logographies can have several hundreds of symbols. Most systems will typically have an ordering of its symbol elements so that grou of them can be coded into larger clusters like or (generally l exemes), giving rise to many more possibilities (permutations) in meanings than the symbols can convey by themselves. Systems will also enable the stringing tog ether of these smaller groupings (sometimes referred to by the generic term 'cha racter strings') in order to enable a full expression of the language. The readi ng step can be accomplished purely in the mind as an internal process, or expres sed orally. A special set of symbols known as is used to aid in stru cture and organization of many writing systems and can be used to help capture n uances and variations in the message's meaning that are communicated verbally by cues in timing, tone, accent, inflection or intonation. A writing system will a lso typically have a method for formatting recorded messages that follows the sp oken version's rules like its grammar and syntax so that the reader will have th e meaning of the intended message accurately preserved. Writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, which used , and other mnemonic symbols. Proto-writing lacked the ability to capture and exp ress a full range of thoughts and ideas. The invention of writing systems, which dates back to the beginning of the in the late Era of the late 4th millennium BCE, enabled the accurate durable recording of history in a manner that was not prone to the same types of error to which oral history is vulnerable. Soon after, writing provided a reliable form of long distance co mmunication. With the advent of publishing, it provided the medium for an early form of mass . Secure written were also made more re liable with the invention of encryption. Contents [hide] 1 General properties 2 Basic terminology 3 History 4 Functional classification 4.1 Logographic systems 4.2 Syllabic systems: syllabary 4.3 Segmental systems: Alphabets 4.4 Featural systems 4.5 Ambiguous systems 5 Graphic classification 6 Directionality 7 On computers 8 See also 9 References 9.1 Citations 9.2 Sources 10 External links General properties[edit] (漢字) are morpho-syllabic. Each one represents a with a istinct meaning, but some characters may have multiple meanings or pronunciation s Writing systems are distinguished from other possible sys tems in that a writing system is always associated with at least one spoken lang uage. In contrast, visual representations such as drawings, paintings, and non-v erbal items on , such as contour lines, are not language-related. Some symbo on information , such as the symbols for male and female, are also not l anguage related, but can grow to become part of language if they are often used in conjunction with other language elements. Some other symbols, such as numeral s and the , are not directly linked to any specific language, but are ften used in writing and thus must be considered part of writing systems. Every human community possesses language, which many regard as an innate and def ining condition of humanity. However, the development of writing systems, and th e process by which they have supplanted traditional oral systems of communicatio n, have been sporadic, uneven and slow. Once established, writing systems genera lly change more slowly than their spoken counterparts. Thus they often preserve features and expressions which are no longer current in the spoken language. One of the great benefits of writing systems is that they can preserve a permanent record of information expressed in a language. All writing systems require: at least one set of defined base elements or symbols, individually termed signs and collectively called a script;[2] at least one set of rules and conventions () understood and shared by a community, which assigns meaning to the base elements (graphemes), their orde and relations to one another; at least one language (generally spoken) whose constructions are represented and can be recalled by the interpretation of these elements and rules; some physical means of distinctly representing the symbols by application to a ermanent or semi-permanent medium, so they may be interpreted (usually visually, but tactile systems have also been devised). Basic terminology[edit] A Specimen of and styles, by William Caslon, letter founder; from the 1728 Cyclopaedia In the examination of individual scripts, the study of writing systems has devel oped along partially independent lines. Thus, the terminology employed differs s omewhat from field to field. The generic term text refers to an instance of written material. The act of comp osing and recording a text may be referred to as writing, and the act of viewing and interpreting the text as . Orthography refers to the method and rule s of observed writing structure (literal meaning, "correct writing"), and partic ularly for alphabetic systems, includes the concept of spelling. A grapheme is a specific base unit of a writing system. Graphemes are the minima lly significant elements which taken together comprise the set of "building bloc " out of which texts made up of one or more writing systems may be constructed , along with rules of correspondence and use. The concept is similar to that of the used in the study of spoken . For example, in the Latin-bas ed writing system of standard contemporary English, examples of graphemes includ e the majuscule and minuscule forms of the twenty-six letters of the alphabet ( orresponding to various ), marks of punctuation (mostly non-phonemic), a nd a few other symbols such as those for numerals ( for numbers). An individual grapheme may be represented in a wide variety of ways, where each variation is visually distinct in some regard, but all are interpreted as repres enting the "same" grapheme. These individual variations are known as allographs of a grapheme (compare with the term allophone used in linguistic study). For ex ample, the minuscule letter a has different allographs when written as a , block, or typed letter. The choice of a particular allograph may be influenced by the medium used, the writing instrument, the stylistic choice of the writer, the preceding and following graphemes in the text, the time available for writi ng, the intended audience, and the largely unconscious features of an individual 's handwriting. The terms , and character are sometimes used to refer to a grapheme. C ommon usage varies from discipline to discipline; compare sign, Maya lyph, Chinese character. The of most writing systems are made up of lines (or strokes) and are therefore called linear, but there are glyphs in non-linea r writing systems made up of other types of marks, such as Cuneiform and . Writing systems are conceptual systems, as are the languages to which they refer . Writing systems may be regarded as complete according to the extent to which t hey are able to represent all that may be expressed in the spoken language. History[edit] Main article: of scripts in the introduction to -English by Monier Mo nier-Williams Writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, systems of ideographic and/or ea rly mnemonic symbols. The best known examples are: symbols, carved on tortoise shells in Jiahu, c. 6600 BC Vinča signs (Tărtăria tablets), c. 5300 BC Early , c. 3500 BC. script, c. before 500 AD The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the begi nning of the Bronze Age in the late Neolithic[dubious ± discuss] of the late 4th illennium BC. The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of the ir ancestral proto-literate symbol systems from 3400 to 3200 BC with earliest co herent texts from about 2600 BC. It is generally agreed that Sumerian writing wa s an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or was a case of cultural diffus ion. A similar debate exists for the Chinese script, which developed around 1200 BC. Chinese script are probably an independent invention, because there is no eviden ce of contact between and the literate civilizations of the Near East,[3] and because of the distinct differences between the Mesopotamian and Chinese app roaches to logography and phonetic representation.[4] The pre-Columbian Mesoamerican writing systems (including among others Olmec and Maya scripts) are generally believed to have had independent origins. It is thought that the first consonantal alphabetic writing appeared before 2000 BC, as a representation of language developed by Semitic tribes in the Sinai- ninsula (see ). Most other alphabets in the world today e ither descended from this one innovation, many via the , or ere directly inspired by its design. The first true alphabet is the Greek script which consistently represents vowels since 800 BC.[5][6] The , a direct descendant, is by far the most common writing system in use.[7] Functional classification[edit] For lists of writing systems by type, see List of writing systems. This textbook for Puyi shows the . Although the English letters run from left to right, the Chinese explanations run from top to bottom then rig ht to left, as traditionally written Several approaches have been taken to classify writing systems, the most common and basic one is a broad division into three categories: logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic (or segmental); however, all three may be found in any given writ ing system in varying proportions, often making it difficult to categorise a sys uniquely. The term complex system is sometimes used to describe those where the admixture makes classification problematic. Modern linguists regard such app roaches, including Diringer's[8] pictographic script ideographic script analytic transitional script phonetic script alphabetic script as too simplistic, often considering the categories to be incomparable. Hill[9] split writing into three major categories of linguistic analysis, one of which c overs discourses and is not usually considered writing proper: discourse system iconic discourse system, e.g. Amerindian conventional discourse system, e.g. morphemic writing system, e.g. Egyptian, Sumerian, Maya, Chinese phonemic writing system partial phonemic writing system, e.g. Egyptian, Hebrew, Arabic poly-phonemic writing system, e.g. , Kana, mono-phonemic writing system phonemic writing system, e.g. , morpho-phonemic writing system, e.g. German, Modern English DeFrancis,[10] criticizing Sampson's[11] introduction of semasiographic writing and featural alphabets stresses the phonographic quality of writing proper pictures nonwriting writing rebus syllabic systems pure syllabic, e.g. Linear B, , Kana, Cherokee morpho-syllabic, e.g. Sumerian, Chinese, Mayan consonantal morpho-consonantal, e.g. Egyptian pure consonantal, e.g. Phoenician alphabetic pure phonemic, e.g. Greek morpho-phonemic, e.g. English Faber[12] categorizes phonographic writing by two levels, linearity and coding: logographic, e.g. Chinese, Ancient Egyptian phonographic syllabically linear syllabically coded, e.g. Kana, Akkadian segmentally coded, e.g. Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, Ethiopian, , Devanagari segmentally linear complete (alphabet), e.g. Greco-Latin, Cyrillic defective, e.g. , Phoenician, , , Old Hebrew Classification by Daniels Type Each symbol represents Example Logographic morpheme Chinese characters Syllabic syllable or mora Japanese kana Alphabetic phoneme (consonant or vowel) Latin alphabet Abugida phoneme (consonant+vowel) Indian Devanāgarī Abjad phoneme (consonant) Featural phonetic Korean hangul Logographic systems[edit] Main article: Early Chinese character for sun (ri), 1200 B.C Modern Chinese character (ri) meaning sun or day A logogram is a single written character which represents a complete grammatical word. Most Chinese characters are classified as logograms. As each character represents a single word (or, more precisely, a morpheme), man logograms are required to write all the words of language. The vast array of l ogograms and the memorization of what they mean are major disadvantages of logog raphic systems over alphabetic systems. However, since the meaning is inherent t o the symbol, the same logographic system can theoretically be used to represent different languages. In practice, the ability to communicate across languages o nly works for the closely related , as differences in syntax reduce the crosslinguistic portability of a given logographic system. Japanese uses Chinese logograms extensively in its writing systems, with most of the symb ols carrying the same or similar meanings. However, the grammatical differences between Japanese and Chinese are significant enough that a long Chinese text is not readily understandable to a Japanese reader without any knowledge of basic C hinese grammar, though short and concise phrases such as those on signs and news paper headlines are much easier to comprehend. While most languages do not use wholly logographic writing systems, many languag use some logograms. A good example of modern western logograms are the Hindu- : everyone who uses those symbols understands what 1 means whethe r or she calls it one, eins, uno, yi, ichi, ehad, ena, or jedan. Other wester n logograms include the ampersand &, used for and, the at sign @, used in many c ontexts for at, the percent sign % and the many signs representing units of curr ency ($, ¢, , £, ¥ and so on.) Logograms are sometimes called ideograms, a word that refers to symbols which gr aphically represent abstract ideas, but linguists avoid this use, as Chinese cha racters are often semantic±phonetic compounds, symbols which include an element th at represents the meaning and a element that represents the pronunciation. Some nonlinguists distinguish between lexigraphy and ideography, where symbols in lexigraphies represent words and symbols in ideographies repres ent words or . The most important (and, to a degree, the only surviving) modern logographic wri ting system is the Chinese one, whose characters have been used with varying deg rees of modification in varieties of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, and other east Asian languages. Ancient and the Mayan writing s ystem are also systems with certain logographic features, although they have mar ked phonetic features as and are no longer in current use. Vietnamese speak ers switched to the Latin alphabet in the 20th century and the use of Chinese ch aracters in Korean is increasingly rare. The includes se veral distinct forms of writing including logography. Syllabic systems: syllabary[edit] Main article: Syllabary Bilingual stop sign in English and the , Tahlequah, Another type of writing system with systematic syllabic linear symbols, the abug idas, is discussed below as well. As logographic writing systems use a single symbol for an entire word, a syllaba ry is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) , which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents a consonant sound fo llowed by a vowel sound, or just a vowel alone. In a "true syllabary", there is no systematic graphic similarity between phoneti cally related characters (though some do have graphic similarity for the vowels) . That is, the characters for /ke/, // and /ko/ have no similarity to indicate their common "" sound (voiceless velar ). More recent creations such as the syllabary embody a system of varying signs, which can best be seen whe n arranging the set in an onset±coda or onset±rime table. Syllabaries are best suited to languages with relatively simple syllable structu re, such as Japanese. The , on the other , allows complex sy llable structures, with a relatively large inventory of vowels and complex conso nant clusters, making it cumbersome to write English words with a syllabary. To write English using a syllabary, every possible syllable in English would have t o have a separate symbol, and whereas the number of possible syllables in Japane se is around 100, in English there are approximately 15,000 to 16,000. However, syllabaries with much larger inventories do exist. The , for e xample, contains 756 different symbols (or 1,164, if symbols with a particular t one are counted as separate syllables, as in ). The Chinese scr ipt, when used to write Middle Chinese and the modern varieties of Chinese, also represents syllables, and includes separate glyphs for nearly all of the many t housands of syllables in Middle Chinese; however, because it primarily represent s morphemes and includes different characters to represent homophonous morphemes with different meanings, it is normally considered a logographic script rather than a syllabary. Other languages that use true syllabaries include (Linear B) and Native American languages such as Cherokee. Several languages of the Ancient Ne ar East used forms of cuneiform, which is a syllabary with some non-syllabic ele ments. Segmental systems: Alphabets[edit] Main article: Alphabet An alphabet is a small set of letters (basic written symbols), each of which rou ghly represents or represented historically a phoneme of a spoken language. The word alphabet is derived from and , the first two symbols of the . The first type of alphabet that was developed was the abjad. An abjad is an alph abetic writing system where there is one symbol per consonant. Abjads differ fro m other alphabets in that they have characters only for consonantal sounds. Vowe ls are not usually marked in abjads. All known abjads (except maybe ) belong to the Semitic family of scripts , and derive from the original Northern Linear Abjad. The reason for this is tha t and the related have a morphemic structure which makes the denotation of vowels redundant in most cases. Some abjads, like Arabic and Hebrew, have markings for vowels as well. However, they use them only in special contexts, such as for teaching. Many scripts deriv ed from abjads have been extended with vowel symbols to become full alphabets. O these, the most famous example is the derivation of the Greek alphabet from th e Phoenician abjad. This has mostly happened when the script was adapted to a no n-Semitic language. The term abjad takes its from the old order of the Arabic alphabet's conson ants 'alif, bā', jīm, dāl, though the word may have earlier roots in Phoenician or Uga ritic. "Abjad" is still the word for alphabet in Arabic, Malay and Indonesian.

A Bible printed with script An abugida is an alphabetic writing system whose basic signs denote consonants w ith an and where consistent modifications of the basic sign indic ate other following vowels than the inherent one. Thus, in an abugida there may or may not be a sign for "k" with no vowel, but al so one for "ka" (if "a" is the inherent vowel), and "ke" is written by modifying the "ka" sign in a way that is consistent with how one would modify "" to get "le". In many abugidas the modification is the addition of a vowel sign, but ot her possibilities are imaginable (and used), such as rotation of the basic sign, addition of diacritical marks and so on. The contrast with "true syllabaries" is that the latter have one distinct symbol per possible syllable, and the signs for each syllable have no systematic graph ic similarity. The graphic similarity of most abugidas comes from the fact that they are derived from abjads, and the consonants make up the symbols with the in herent vowel and the new vowel symbols are markings added on to the base symbol. In the 'ez script, for which the linguistic term abugida was named, the vowel modifications do not always appear systematic, although they originally were mor e so. Canadian Aboriginal syllabics can be considered abugidas, although they ar e rarely thought of in those terms. The largest single group of abugidas is the Brahmic family of scripts, however, which includes nearly all the scripts used i n India and . The name abugida is derived from the first four characters of an order of the Ge 'ez script used in some contexts. It was borrowed from Ethiopian languages as a linguistic term by Peter T. Daniels. Featural systems[edit] Main article: Featural writing system A featural script represents finer detail than an alphabet. Here symbols do not represent whole phonemes, but rather the elements (features) that make up the ph onemes, such as voicing or its . Theoretically, each featur e could be written with a separate letter; and abjads or abugidas, or indeed syl labaries, could be featural, but the only prominent system of this sort is n hangul. In hangul, the featural symbols are combined into alphabetic letters, and these letters are in turn joined into syllabic blocks, so that the system co mbines three levels of phonological representation. Many scholars, e.g. John DeFrancis, reject this class or at least labeling hangu l as such.[citation needed] The Korean script is a conscious script creation by literate experts, which Daniels calls a "sophisticated grammatogeny".[citation n eeded] These include stenographies and constructed scripts of hobbyists and fict ion writers (such as ), many of which feature advanced graphic designs co rresponding to phonologic properties. The basic unit of writing in these systems can to anything from phonemes to words. It has been shown that even the Lat in script has sub-character "features".[13] Ambiguous systems[edit] Most writing systems are not purely one type. The English writing system, for ex ample, includes numerals and other logograms such as #, $, and &, and the phonem ic letter clusters are a complex match to sound[clarification needed]. As mentio ned above, all logographic systems have phonetic components as well, whether alo ng the lines of a syllabary, such as Chinese ("logo-syllabic"), or an abjad, as in Egyptian ("logo-consonantal"). Some scripts, however, are truly ambiguous. The semi-syllabaries of ancient Spai n were syllabic for such as p, t, k, but alphabetic for other consonant s. In some versions, vowels were written redundantly after syllabic letters, con forming to an alphabetic orthography. cuneiform was similar. Of 23 c onsonants (including null), seven were fully syllabic, thirteen were purely alph abetic, and for the other three, there was one letter for /Cu/ and another for b oth // and /Ci/. However, all vowels were written overtly regardless; as in th e Brahmic abugidas, the /Ca/ letter was used for a bare consonant. The zhuyin phonetic glossing script for Chinese divides syllables in two or thre e, but into onset, medial, and rime rather than consonant and vowel. Pahawh Hmon g is similar, but can be considered to divide syllables into either onset-rime o r consonant-vowel (all consonant clusters and are written with single letters); as the latter, it is equivalent to an abugida but with the roles of c onsonant and vowel reversed. Other scripts are intermediate between the categori es of alphabet, abjad and abugida, so there may be disagreement on how they shou ld be classified. Graphic classification[edit] Perhaps the primary graphic distinction made in classifications is that of linea rity. Linear writing systems are those in which the characters are composed of l ines, such as the Latin alphabet and Chinese characters. Chinese characters are considered linear whether they are written with a ball-point pen or a calligraph ic brush, or cast in bronze. Similarly, Egyptian hieroglyphs and Maya glyphs wer e often painted in linear outline form, but in formal contexts they were carved in bas-relief. The earliest examples of writing are linear: the Sumerian script of c. 3300 BC was linear, though its cuneiform descendants were not. Non-linear systems, on the other hand, such as braille, are not composed of lines, no matte r what instrument is used to write them. Cuneiform was probably the earliest non-linear writing. Its glyphs were formed b y pressing the end of a reed stylus into moist clay, not by tracing lines in the clay with the stylus as had been done previously. The result was a radical tran sformation of the appearance of the script. Braille is a non-linear adaptation of the Latin alphabet that completely abandon ed the Latin forms. The letters are composed of raised bumps on the writing subs trate, which can be leather ('s original material), stiff paper, pl astic or metal. There are also transient non-linear adaptations of the Latin alphabet, including , the manual alphabets of various sign languages, and , in w hich flags or bars are positioned at prescribed angles. However, if "writing" is defined as a potentially permanent means of recording information, then these s ystems do not qualify as writing at all, since the symbols disappear as soon as they are used. (Instead, these transient systems serve as signals.) Directionality[edit] Overview of the writing directions used in the world See also: Right-to-left, Horizontal and vertical writing in East Asian scripts, Bi-directional text, and writing Scripts are also graphically characterized by the direction in which they are wr itten. Egyptian hieroglyphs were written either left to right or right to left, with the animal and human glyphs turned to face the beginning of the line. The e arly alphabet could be written in multiple directions:[14] horizontally (side to side), or vertically (up or down). Prior to standardization, alphabetical writi ng was done both left-to-right (LTR or sinistrodextrally) and right-to-left (RTL or dextrosinistrally). It was most commonly written boustrophedonically: starti ng in one (horizontal) direction, then turning at the end of the line and revers ing direction. The Greek alphabet and its successors settled on a left-to-right pattern, from t he top to the bottom of the page. Other scripts, such as Arabic and Hebrew, came to be written right-to-left. Scripts that incorporate Chinese characters have t raditionally been written vertically (top-to-bottom), from the right to the left of the page, but nowadays are frequently written left-to-right, top-to-bottom, due to Western influence, a growing need to accommodate terms in the Latin scrip t, and technical limitations in popular electronic document formats. The Old Uyg hur alphabet and its descendants are unique in being written top-to-bottom, left -to-right; this direction originated from an ancestral Semitic direction by rota ting the page 90° counter-clockwise to conform to the appearance of vertical Chine se writing. Several scripts used in the and , such as Hanunó' o, are traditionally written with lines moving away from the writer, from bottom to top, but are read horizontally left to right. While is written bottom to top and read vertically, commonly on the corner of a stone. On computers[edit] In computers and telecommunication systems, writing systems are generally not co dified as such, but graphemes and other grapheme-like units that are required fo r text processing are represented by "characters" that typically manifest in enc oded form. There are many standards and related , such as ISO/IEC 8859-1 (a character repertoire and encoding scheme oriented tow ard the ), CJK (Chinese, Japanese, Korean) and bi-directional text. Today, many such standards are re-defined in a collective standard, the ISO/IEC 10646 "Universal Character Set", and a parallel, closely related expanded work, The Unicode Standard. Both are generally encompassed by the term Unicode. In Uni code, each character, in every language's writing system, is (simplifying slight ly) given a unique identification number, known as its . Computer oper ating systems use code points to look up characters in the file, so the cha racters can be displayed on the page or screen. A keyboard is the device most commonly used for writing via computer. Each key i s associated with a standard code which the keyboard sends to the computer when it is pressed. By using a combination of alphabetic keys with modifier keys such as Ctrl, Alt, Shift and AltGr, various character codes are generated and sent t o the CPU. The operating system intercepts and converts those signals to the app ropriate characters based on the and input method, and then deli vers those converted codes and characters to the running application software, w hich in turn looks up the appropriate glyph in the currently used font file, and requests the operating system to draw these on the screen. See also[edit] Portal Languages portal Artificial script Formal language ISO 15924 Written language References[edit] Citations[edit] Jump up ^ "Definitions of writing systems". Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages. www.omniglot.com. Retrieved 2013-06-29. Jump up ^ Coulmas, Florian. 2003. Writing systems. An introduction. Cambridge Un iversity Press. pg. 35. Jump up ^ David N. Keightley, Noel Barnard. The Origins of Chinese civilization. Page 415-416 Jump up ^ Sex and Eroticism in Mesopotamian . By Dr Gwendolyn Leick. P g 3. Jump up ^ Coulmas, Florian (1996). The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems . Oxford: Blackwell Publishers Ltd. ISBN 0-631-21481-. Jump up ^ Millard 1986, p. 396 Jump up ^ Haarmann 2004, p. 96 Jump up ^ David Diringer (1962): Writing. London. Jump up ^ Archibald Hill (1967): The typology of Writing systems. In: William A. Austin (ed.), in in Honor of Leon Dostert. The Hague, 92±99. Jump up ^ John DeFrancis (1989): . The diverse oneness of writing systems. Honolulu Jump up ^ Geoffrey Sampson (1986): Writing Systems. A Linguistic Approach. Londo n Jump up ^ Alice Faber (1992): Phonemic segmentation as an epiphenomenon. Evidenc e from the history of alphabetic writing. In: Pamela Downing et al. (ed.): The L inguistics of . Amsterdam. 111±134. Jump up ^ See Primus, Beatrice (2004), "A featural analysis of the Modern Roman Alphabet" (PDF), Written Language and Literacy 7 (2): 235±274, retrieved 2015-12-0 5. Jump up ^ Threatte, Leslie (1980). The grammar of Attic inscriptions. W. Gruy ter. pp. 54±55. ISBN 3-11-007344-7. Sources[edit] Cisse, Mamadou. 2006. "Ecrits et écritures Afrique de l'Ouest". Sudlangues n°6, ttp://www.sudlangues.sn/spip.php?article101 Coulmas, Florian. 1996. The Blackwell encyclopedia of writing systems. Oxford: B lackwell. Coulmas, Florian. 2003. Writing systems. An introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge niversity Press. Daniels, Peter T, and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World's Writing Systems. Ox ford University Press. ISBN 0-19-507993-0. DeFrancis, John. 1990. The : Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: Univers ity of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-1068-6 Haarmann, Harald (2004). Geschichte der Schrift [History of Writing] (in German) (2nd ed.). München: C. H. Beck. ISBN 3-406-47998-7. Hannas, William. C. 1997. Asia's Orthographic Dilemma. University of Hawaii Pres s. ISBN 0-8248-1892-X (paperback); ISBN 0-8248-1842-3 (hardcover) Millard, A. R. (1986). "The Infancy of the Alphabet". World 17 (3): 390±398. doi:10.1080/00438243.1986.9979978. Nishiyama, Yutaka. 2010. The Mathematics of Direction in Writing. International Journal of Pure and Applied Mathematics, Vol.61, No.3, 347-356. Rogers, Henry. 2005. Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell. ISBN 0-631-23463-2 (hardcover); ISBN 0-631-23464-0 (paperback) Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing Systems. Stanford, California: Stanford Univers ity Press. ISBN 0-8047-1756-7 (paper), ISBN 0-8047-1254-9 (cloth). Smalley, W. A. (ed.) 1964. Orthography studies: articles on new writing systems. London: United Bible Society. External links[edit] Writing Systems Research Free first issue of a journal devoted to research on wr iting systems Arch Chinese (Traditional & Simplified) Chinese character writing animations and native speaker pronunciations Sensible Chinese A practical guide to approaching the Chinese writing system decodeunicode Unicode Wiki with all 98,884 Unicode 5.0 characters as gifs in thr ee sizes African writing systems Omniglot: The Online Encyclopedia of Writing Systems and Languages Ancient Scripts Introduction to different writing systems Alphabets of Elian script a writing system that combines the linearity of spelling with the f ree-form aspects of drawing. 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