ENGLISH

The writing systems of the world

By Florian Coulmas

Book information

Publisher
Blackwell
Year
2000
ISBN
0631180281
LCC
P211.C67 1991
Language
english
Format
DJVU
Filesize
59 MB (61400008 bytes)
Pages
316\158
Scanned
yes
Time added
2013-03-26 23:52:42

Description

This book is an account of the writing systems of the world from earliest times to the present. Its aim is to explore the complex ways in which writing systems relate to the language they depict. Writing, Coulmas contends, is not only the guide or garment of spoken language, but has a deep and lasting effect on the development of language itself. His study takes in Egyptian hieroglyphics and the cuneiform system of the ancient Near East he describes Chinese writing, discussing why an apparently cumbersome system has been used continuously for more than 3,000 years he ranges across the writing systems of western Asia and the Middle East, the Indian families and the various alphabetic traditions which had its origins in the multifarious world of Semitic writing and came to full bloom in pre-Classical Greece.

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