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The Idea of Writing The Idea of Writing Writing Across Borders Edited by Alex de Voogt and J oachim Friedrich Quack BRILL LEIDEN . BOSTON 2012 Cover iLLustration: Multi-lingual sign posted by the Greek-Norwegian mission on Sai Island, Sudan, using Arabic and Old Nubian scripts for the Nubian language. This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data The idea of writing : writing across borders / edited by Alex de Voogt and Joachim Friedrich Quack. p. cm. Includes index. ISBN 978-90-04-21545-0 (alk. paper) 1. Writing. 2. Written communication. 3. Language and languages-Orthography and spelling. I. Voogt, Alexander J. de. 11. Quack, Joachim Friedrich, 1966- P211.134 2011 302.2'244-dC23 This publication has been typeset in the multilingual "Brill" typeface. With over 5,100 characters covering Latin, IPA, Greek, and Cyrillic, this typeface is especially suitable for use in the humanities. For more information, please see www.brill.nl/brill-typeface. ISBN 978 90 04 21545 0 (hardback) ISBN 978 90 04 21700 3 (e-book) Copyright 2012 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Global Oriental, Hotei Publishing, mc Publishers, Martinus NijhoffPublishers and VSP. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, translated, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior written permission fromthe publisher. Authorization to photocopy items for internal or personal use is granted by Koninklijke Brill NV provided that the appropriate fees are paid directly to The Copyright Clearance Center, 222 Rosewood Drive, Suite 910, Danvers, MA 01923, USA Fees are subject to change. r'\ MIX Paper from " -u-> responsible sources !.�� FSce C008919 PRINTED BY AD DRUK BV - ZEIST, THE NETHERLANDS CONTENTS Acknowledgements ........................................................................................ vii Invention and Borrowing in the Development and Dispersal of Writing Systems ............ .................. ..................................... ...................... 1 Alex de Voogt 27-30-22-26 - How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic ...................................................................................................... 11 Reinhard C. Lehmann Nubian GraffitiMessa ges and the History of Writing in the Sudanese Nile Basin ..... ........................... ................................ .................. 53 Alex de Voogt & Hans-JorgDohla About "Short" Names of Letters 69 Konstantin Pozdniakov Early Adaptations of the Korean Script to Render Foreign Languages ....................................... ......................................... .. ................... 83 Sven Osterkamp Han'gill Reform Movement in the Twentieth Century: Roman Pressure on Korean Writing ...................... .... ................. ........................ 103 Thorsten Traulsen The Character of the Indian Kharo�thl Script and the "Sanskrit Revolution": A Writing System BetweenIde ntity and Assimilation ....... ........................... ............ ..... .............................................. 131 Ingo Strauch Symmetry and Asymmetry, Chinese Writing in Japan: The Case of Kojiki (712) .............................................................................................. 169 Aldo Tollini vi CONTENTS Writing Semitic with Cuneiform Script. The Interaction of Sumerian and Akkadian Orthography in the Second Half of the Third Millennium BC ..... ... ......... .. .... .. ............. ... ..... ................ 181 Theo JH. Krispijn Old Wine in New Wineskins? How to Write Classical Egyptian Rituals in More Modern Writing Systems .. ...................... ............. ... 219 Joachim Quack Subject Index .................................................................................................... 245 Language (Group) and Script Index ............. ....... ..... ........... .. ....... .... ...... 249 Author Index ....... .................................... .... ............. ................ ........... ... .... .... 251 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context: Shift­ ing Asymmetries in Cultural Flows" at Heidelberg University hosted the exchange of thoughts and ideas that were at the basis of this publica­ tion. In particular, we wish to thank Profs. Madeleine Herren-Oesch, Axel Michaels and Rudolf Wagner for their support. The Idea of Writing seminar series started at Leiden University where it was hosted for five years. This is the first volume that resulted from a meeting outside Leiden, at Heidelberg University in Germany. Subse­ quent seminars have been held in Einsiedeln, near Zurich, Switzerland and Venice, Italy. They illustrate the lasting interest that this exchange has created. We owe particular thanks again to Connie Dickmeyer fo r her corrections and suggestions, and the patient staffat Brill Publications who have facilitated the continued productivity of these exchanges by publish­ ing this second volume of contributions. The publication of this volume has been made possible by generous funding of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (German Research Foundation) in the context of the cluster of Excellence "Asia and Europe in a Global Context". 27-30-22-26 - HOW MANYLETTE RS NEEDS AN ALPHABET? THE CASE OF SEMITIC* Reinhard G. Lehmann Introduction and General Considerations In his recent novel "Das Geheimnis des Kalligraphen", the Syro-German writer RafikSc hami reports a fictitious dialogue between the progressive young calligrapher Hamid Farsi and his master Serani. In the course of this dialogue, the master states: Die arabische Sprache hat nur neunundzwanzig Buchstaben, und je mehr du davon zerstOrst, umso unsicherer und ungenauer wird die Sprache. (Schami 2008: 395)' Modern oriental scholars know that the Arabic alphabet has 28 letters. A twenty-ninth letter is added by tradition, attributed to Mohammed himself, and is nothing but the Lam-Alif ligature LA,which simply com­ bines the two letters into a single cohesive unit. Accordingly, Hamid Farsi considers the Lam-Alif ligature superfluous, artificial, and not a genuine letter in the Arabic alphabet. However, the more conservative and careful calligraphy master Serani warns his young, impatient pupil not to be all too optimistic, modernistic, or straightforward: Ich will dich nicht entmutigen. Diesen Buchstaben LA hat der Prophet dem Alphabet hinzugefiigt, und er bleibt, bis die Erde untergeht. Wenn du auf mich horen willst, streiche keinen einzigen Buchstaben, weil sonst die ganze islamische Welt gegen dich sein wird, denn diese Buchstaben kommen im Koran vor. (Schami 2008: 39SY * Thanks to Robert M. Kerr, Philip C. Schmitz and other colleagues and friends with whom I could discuss parts of this paper. However, mistakes and errors are exclUSively my responsibility. , Th e Arabic language has onlytwenty-nine letters, and the more of them you destroy, the more uncertain and imprecise the language becomes. (translation by R.G.L.). 2 I don't want to discourage you. The Prophet himselfadded the letter LA to the alphabet, and it will persist until the world ends. If you listen to me, then you won't do away with one single letter, or otherwise the whole of the Islamic world will disapprove of you because these letters are fo und in the Koran. (translation by R.G.L.). 12 REINHARD G. LEHMANN And: Man nimmt keinen Buchstaben weg [ . ] den die Jahrtausende geformt haben ... (Schami 2008: 396)3 The dialogue scene points to some problems, which are directly relevant to the title of this paper: - To determine how many letters, or graphemes, an alphabet needs, it is crucial to know what a letter is. Is the Lam-Alif ligature of the Arabic alphabet a letter, or is it not? Moreover, ifLam-Alifis not a letter, why then should OMEGA, the last letter of the Greek alphabet, be labelled a letter? Yet, it is conspicuous that even the name O-mega tells us that it is nothing more than a diacritical variation to denote the 'big'-that is, long-pronunciation of the {o} of the Greek alphabet, which thus became the O-mikron. This is a fact that is also proven occasionally by its early archaic written forms.4 And ifthe Arabic LA were a letter, why then isn't the German digraph {CH} or the German {SZ} ligature (g) a letter? - There is a claim that reducing the number of letters of an alphabet causes uncertainty and imponderability of the language. Is this claim really convincing? - There is the claim that a letter, once invented, will last for eternity: "You must not remove a single character [ ...], which has been formed by millennia." This, however, is obviously not true. In the course of his­ tory, several letters have become obsolete and were removed in several alphabets. Despite the traditional Muslim's claim that the Arabic alphabet has 29 letters, modern oriental scholars know that it actually has only 28 let­ ters. And some might even say that the Arabic alphabet has only 15 or 3 Yo u must not remove a single character [ ...], which has been fo rmed by millennia. (translation by R.G.L.). 4 In areas like Ionia, Knidos, Paros, Melos and others, the difference between the short and long /0/ was marked by use of "a new sign which appears to be a doublet formed from 0 by breaking the circle" Qeffery 1961: 37), i.e., opening it at the bottom. Another interesting specimen is found in an archaic inscription from Phleious (first half of the
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