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JAL 328 H1S 2003 Writing Systems Henry Rogers, University of Toronto January 2003

Handout 1 — Introduction This covers Chapters 1–2 I. STRUCTURE OF COURSE A. Details in the Course Timetable B. Textbook: available for purchase in instructor’s office 6072 Robarts Cost is $30.00. C. Handouts: on-line www.chass.utoronto.ca/~rogers/courses/JAL328 D. Quizzes, mid-term test, and final examination 1. Quiz 1: up to that point 2. Quiz 2: from mid-term test up to that point 3. Mid-term test: from beginning of course up to that point 4. Final exam: entire course, emphasising the material since the mid-term test. etc. 5. For the quizzes, mid-term test, and final exam, you will be responsible formaterial from the book, the handouts, and the lectures. 6. Knowledge of certain symbols in various writing systems will be requiredfor quizzes, mid-term test, and final exam. These will be clearly specifiedin advance. 7. Quizzes, mid-term, and final will generally be a mixture of objective(multiple choice, true-false, matching, etc.) and short answer (definition, fill in the blank, short essay). E. Note particularly that the handouts are generally an outline of the lecture and do not replace the need to attend and take notes at all lectures. F. The prerequisite for this course is LIN 100, ANT 100, LIN 200 or the equivalent. If you feel weak in linguistics, go through at Appendix A in the back of the book. You might also look at the sections on phonology and morphology in any introductory textbook. G. For next week, get textbook and read Chapters 1–3; download handouts; notice signs on shops, etc.

Handout 1 — Introduction II. CHAPTER ONE — INTRODUCTION A. Importance of writing B. Definition Writing is the use of graphic marks to represent specific linguistic utterances. (1) We will use writing only for linguistic communication, that is, forputting down the ordinary types of statements made by humans. (2) Other non-linguistic uses of the word language are language oflove, language of music, language of bees, computer languages, etc. C. Writing and language 1. Language is a complex cognitive system relating sound and meaning. 2. Warning: one of the most serious mistakes in this course, and one of theeasiest to make is to fail to distinguish writing and language. 3. What is wrong with the following statements? a) Polish is a very phonetic language. b) A Chinese character is a word. c) English has lots of silent eé’s. D. Scope of course 1. Examine all significant types of writing systems 2. Look at all major writing systems used today or in the past E. Two recent items in the news 1. Olmec ‘writing’ a) Maya writing 2. James ossuary F. Aspects of writing 1. history of writing a) Dates (1) OLD (BC, BCE) (2) NEW (AD, CE) (3) time 0 b) invention of writing Mesopotamia, China, Mesoamerica c) borrowing of writing systems— very common (Egyptian _ ) Semitic _ Greek _ Etruscan _ Latin _ (Christianity) English, and all of western Europe

Handout 1 — Introduction d) Creation of new script Cree _ Inuktitut e) Gradual change India: Brahmi (Sanskrit) _ Devanagari (Hindi, Marathi, Nepali), Bengali, Gujarati, Gurmukhi (Punjabi), Oriya, Kannada, Malayalam, Tamil, Telugu, Sinhalese 2. internal structure of writing systems a) direction: b) Hebrew — letters separated: Arabic — letters joined Arabic — positional variants c) Roman, Greek, Cyrillic: upper-case/lower-case 3. relation of writing to language a)  — phoneme /b/ b)  — two phonemes /k/, /s/ cup, city c) <4> — morpheme four d) Chinese: each syllable is written with a separate character 4. sociolinguistics a) writing always taught, not acquired, as with speech b) diglossia (1) Arabic: all Arabic speakers normally speak a local dialect; this istrue for all levels of society (2) a specific dialect of Arabic is used for writing, but this is not thenative dialect of anyone: Modern Std Arabic (a) MSA also used for formal reading: lectures, television c) literacy (1) how widespread is writing and reading? (2) how important is writing and reading?

Handout 1 — Introduction III. CHAPTER THREE —THEORETICAL PRELIMINARIES A. Grapheme – contrastive unit in writing allograph — variant of grapheme g grapheme g. G allographs B. Arrangement 1. linear arrangement a) direction within line/column: left-to-right, right-to-left, top-to-bottom b) flow of lines/columns: top-to-bottom, right-to-left, left-to-right c) paging: which way do pages turn; front of book 2. diacritic a) free grapheme: occurs in a variety of contexts b) bound grapheme: (diacritic) 3. complex symbol a) violates linear arrangement: a` ç b) follows linear arrangement: t.å 4. ligatures: two graphemes joined and written as one unit a) æ oe b) structural: Danish æ c) non-structural: English æ fi (fi) fl (fl) d) quasi-ligatures: Spanish ll (1) alphabetised after and before  C. Relation to language 1. discrepancies a) unit discrepancies (1) digraph: two symbols – one linguistic unit (a)  /˜/ (2) diphone: one symbol — two linguistic units (a)  /ks/

Handout 1 — Introduction b) contrastive discrepancies (1) homography: different linguistic units written same way (a) heterophonic: does ‘3 sg pres of do’ ‘female deer (pl)’ (b) homophonic: mould ‘(hollow) form’, ‘fungus’ (2) heterography: different linguistic units written differently (a) homophonic: meet, meat (b) heterophonic: neutral situation – sat, bit, stamp 2. Level of linguistic unit a) phonographic (1) phonology — phonogram (a) phoneme letter alphabet (i) <•> /p/; <—> /k/ (ii) Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, Korean Hankul alphabets; (iii) Hebrew, Arabic systems (b) mora moraic symbol moraic system (traditionally called syllabary) (typically CV or -C) (i) <•> /pu/; <—> /ku/ (ii) Japanese kana; Cree/Inuktitut systems (2) morphology — morphogram (a) <•> dog; <—> book (b) $ @ 5 + ß (c) Chinese characters (3) syntax —punctuation ? ! . ,

Cuneiform Writing Systems JAL 328 H1S Lecture 4 Monday, 27 January 2003 Chapter 5 I. MESOPOTAMIA A. Sumerian (language isolate) B. Akkadian (Semitic)

II. HISTORY A. Bronze Age Sumerian: Appear ca 4000 OLD Urbanisation ? writing 3500 OLD B. Akkadian conquest 2350 OLD Akkadian, Babylonian, Assyrian dialects of same language Aramaic writing (Semitic: from north) Aramaic became chancery language of Babylonian Empire and widely used as lingua franca

C. 539 OLD — Persian conquest (Indo-European) Achæmenid Persian Empire continued Aramaic as administrative language and lingua franca Persian cuneiform D. 331 OLD — Greeks conquered: Alexander — Seleucid (Indo-European) E. 7th century NEW Arabs conquest introduced Arabic (Semitic), Arabic became principal language. Sizeable Kurdish-speaking (Indo-European) area in north

F. Ottoman Empire (Turkish: Altaic) G. Iraq created following WW I III. SEALS IV. TOKENS AND THE INVENTION OF WRITING A. Schmandt-Besserat 1. Plain tokens (record keeping) 2. Hollow envelopes with enclosed tokens 3. Hollow envelopes with enclosed tokens, also imprinted on surface 4. Impressed tablets 5. Complex tokens 6. Inscribed tablets B. Early tablets

C. Principles of construction of symbols 1. Pictograms 2. 3. Differentiation: gunu 4. 5. Semantic extension Based on Sumerian or Akkadian meaning (Kun- and on- readings) 6. Phonetic extension Based on Sumerian or Akkadian pronunciation (Kun- and on- readings) 7. Compounding

V. EXAMPLES OF SYMBOLS (PAGE 5.12) VI. OTHER LANGUAGES WRITTEN IN CUNEIFORM Ugaritic

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ASIAN PHONOGRAPHIC WRITING I. GENERAL A. Language families 1. Semitic: Aramaic 2. Altaic: Turkic, Mongolian, Manchu 3. Indo-Iranian a Indic (i) Sanskrit (ii) Prakrit (Pali — Buddhist) (iii) Modern: Hindi, Nepali, Marathi, Gujarati, Punjabi, Bengali, Oriya, Singhalese — Urdu, Sindhi (Arabic) (iv) Hindi-Urdu relationship b Iranian: Pahlavi, Parthian, Sogdian 4. Dravidian: Malayalam, Tamil, Telegu, Kannada 5. Southeast Asia: Burmese, Thai, Laotian, Cambodian 6. Tibetan B. Types of writing systems 1. Alphabet: ideal —1-to-1 relationship between phoneme and grapheme a reality— great deal of variation 2. Abjad: like alphabet, but vowels not written 3. Abugida a consonants are basic symbols; vowels are diacritics (bound) b one vowel is not written c special symbols for word-initial vowels d consonant clusters written as ligatures

Asian Phonographic Writing II. CENTRAL ASIA A. Semitic abjad 1. Uyghur across central Asia B. Mongolian 1. Mongolian Empire 2. Yuan Dynasty in China 1271–1368 3. Borrowed from Uyghur, with some adaptations 4. Middle Mongolian language 5. Today: Cyrillic in MPR (Outer Mongolia) C. Manchu 1. Adapted from Mongolian in early 17th 2. Used for imperial documents in Qing dynasty 1644 III. SOUTH ASIA A. Indus Valley 1. undeciphered 2. 2500–1900 OLD 3. probably Dravidian 4. probably not connected with Indo-Aryan B. Indo-Aryan Language: Sanskrit _ Prakrit (Pali) _ Modern Languages Sanskrit a Rigveda composed 1200 OLD b Strong oral tradition; texts not written down until later c Grammatical tradition (i) Also not written down d Sanskrit no longer spoken by time it was written down e Around 300 NEW f Cultural language of India

Asian Phonographic Writing C. Brahmi and Karosthi 1. As'okan inscriptions 300 OLD 2. First Sanskrit inscription 300 NEW 3. Source of all modern scripts in India, except Arabic and Roman 4. Hindi-Urdu: two scripts–one language 5. Abugida D. Two script groups: northern and southern 1. all indigenous scripts of India derive from Brahmi a like dialect variation 2. each language tends to have its own script 3. Devanagari in textbook a Examples IV. SOUTHEAST ASIA A. Buddhism 1. Started in India 2. Texts in Sanskrit 3. First written in Brahmi 4. Migrated to SE Asia B. General 1. Maintained many features of Brahmi a conservatism b allowed writing of Sanskrit words c different scripts for each language

Asian Phonographic Writing V. TIBET A. traditionally said to have been created by Buddhist monk, sent to India in 7th century NEW to bring writing to Tibet B. Script 1. syllables marked 2. relationship to language a ? old dialect b spellings indicate morphological differences C. General 1. extraordinarily deep writing system a ?sound change b ?different dialect c ?morphological marking

MAYA AND OTHER WRITING SYSTEMS I. MAYA WRITING A. Intro to Maya Society 1. Maya still spoken 2. Ancient Maya society a) early origins b) flourished 300–900 NEW c) architecture, writing, social organisation d) collapse e) Spanish conquest B. Maya research 1. Rediscovered in 19th century 2. Thompson 3. Recent work C. Calendar 1. Numbers 2. Calendar Round a) Tz'olkin (1) 13 numbers and 20 named days (2) 260 days b) Haab (1) Continuous cycle (2) 18 months of 20 days + 1 month of 5 days (3) 365 days c) Together (1) 52 years 3. Long Count a) Units b) Today

D. Writing 1. Moraic – morphographic E. Palenque II. OTHER WRITING SYSTEMS All involve Stimulus Diffusion A. Cherokee 1. Invented writing system by previously illiterate person 2. moraic B. Cree 1. Invented writing system by literate person 2. moraic 3. directionality as diacritic C. Inuktitut 1. Borrowed writing system D. Runic 1. Borrowed writing system, although history not clear 2. Romanticism E. Ogham 1. Borrowed writing system, although history not clear 2. Unusual types of marks F. Pahawh Hmong 1. Invented writing system by previously illiterate person 2. Unusual order: coda–onset 3. 8 tones divided into two groups 4. each group has a different set of codas G. Bliss 1. Invented writing system by literate person 2. Only known example of completely morphographic writing system

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JAL 328 H1S Notes for Quiz I 27 January 2003 The quiz will cover chapters 1–4. The quiz will be at the beginning of class in the regular classroom. It will takeabout 20 minutes. The lecture will follow. All questions will be short answer (multiple choice, true-false, fill-in-the-blank, matching, etc.). You should be familiar with the terms at the ends of chapters 1–4; in addition totheir discussion in the text, Appendix D — Glossary defines these terms. You should be able to recognise (but not produce) the following symbols: Chinese You should be able to distinguish the following and know their Englishmeaning, but you will not be asked to give the Chinese pronunciation: a. the simple forms of the numbers from 1 to 10, 100, 1000; these aregiven on p. 3.27. (Note that no. 6 is misaligned; the simple form has4 strokes.) b. the modern forms of the characters on pp. 3.15 in figure 3.4. c. the characters for horse, mother, scold as found on p. 3.18. d. the characters for meat, cow, fish, chicken, bean curd found on p. 3.35. Japanese You should be able to distinguish the following and give their soundvalue. the hiragana and katakana forms of /ka ki ku ke ko/, found on p. 4.18 Korean You should be able to distinguish the following and give their soundvalue: the symbols for the letters /p t k l i u/ and the symbol for a nullonset or a final /˜/ (p. 4.31). You should understand how these Korean symbols are written to form syllables: a–d (p. 4.32).

JAL 328 H1S Writing SystemsMarch 2003 Study NotesQuiz II 1 Same general format as Quiz I. a During regular Lecture Period b 17 March 2003 c Will cover Chapters 7–10 d Including, but not limited to, technical terms at end of chapters. 2 Symbols to know a Entire Greek alphabet in order with names i) Modern forms only ii) Upper and lower case iii) both forms of lowercase sigma b Hebrew i) <÷ b g d h w z j k l m n> including final forms ii) no vowel points c Arabic i) <÷ b t d s l m h w> (all positional variants) ii) all three short vowels iii) lam-÷alif digraph 3 Terms at the ends of the chapters 4 Family relationship of Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Ethiopic 5 Gardiner–Albright theory of the origin of the Semitic abjad 6 Difference between abjad and alphabet 7 Chart on p. 7.6 8 Relationship of Phoenician to Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic

9 Aramaic morphograms 10 Matres lectionis 11 Main structural features of Hebrew and Arabic writing 12 How vowels are written in Hebrew and Arabic 13 Relevance of religion to Hebrew and Arabic writing 14 How does Ethiopic writing differ from typical Semitic writing? 15 What type of writing system is found in Linear B? 16 What was the contribution of Michael Ventris? 17 How did Greek alter the Phoenician abjad? (in general terms) 18 What can be said about digamma (also known as waw) and qoppa? 19 What are the Greek breathings? 20 Basic history of Coptic, Georgian, Armenian, Slavic writing. 21 What is role of Etruscan writing in history of Roman alphabet? 22 What changes did the Romans make in borrowing the alphabet? 23 Be familiar with notion of orthographic depth. 24 Basic periods of English 25 What are the effects of homography and heterography for English readers/writers today? 26 How has English general treated the spelling of borrowed words? 27 Orthographic dialect variation 28 Spelling pronunciation 29 Creative spellings 30 What are the arguments for and against spelling reform?

STUDY NOTES FOR MID-TERM JAL 328H1S Note: the mid-term will be on Monday, 10 February, 3-5; it will be held duringthe regular class period, but in a special location: WW 111 (Woodsworth College) Please try to be on time so that the test can start promptly at 3:10 p.m. There willnot be a break. Please leave notebooks, bags, and coats at the side of the room. Please bring your student card. The test will cover Chapters 1–6 and the lectures through today. The questions will be of two types. One type will be answered on a computer sheet; these questions will be multiple choice and true-and-false. The second type of question will consist of short essay questions to be answered on the test paper Bring a pencil, preferably #2. There will be two help sessions in the Linguistics Department with the graduate teaching assistant, Bridget Jankowski: Friday: 7 Feb 2003 10–12 am Monday: 10 Feb 2003 10–12 am The following points should cover most of the material on the test, but not necessarily all. You should know the approximate date of events directly related to writing. Note that the first quiz covered only the technical terms and certain symbols, but the mid-term will cover ALL material in the text (chaps 1-6), including the terms, as well as the lectures through today. The only symbols required for the mid-term are the following. You will only be required to recognised them and know their values. You will not be asked to write them. Egyptian: morphograms and semantic complements (pp 6.14-6): house, morphographic diacritic (vertical stroke), plural, man, woman, eye, wood, abstract object consonantal: p t r m n w f mn wp mr nfr Henry Rogers 1 University of Toronto February 2003

JAL 328 Writing Systems Mid-Term Study Notes 1. Understand terms for all 6 chapters. 2. For each writing system discussed, you should be able to describe how it works 3. Be able to define writing and to apply the definition. 4. Distinction between alphabetic, moraic, and syllabic writing systems. 5. Diglossia. Be able to give and explain an example. 6. Role of Chinese language and writing in other languages of Asia. 7. Problems of using Chinese characters to write another language. 8. Terms such as pu‡to¤nghua`, Mandarin, Cantonese. 9. Role of civil service in Chinese writing 10. Differences between words, morphemes, syllables, and characters in Chinese. 11. Effect of homophony in Chinese writing 12. Origin of Chinese writing. 13. Type of character construction. 14. Frequency of character types (relative, not absolute). 15. How are borrowed words written in Chinese? 16. Role of seals in China. 17. What is the importance of dictionaries in Chinese writing? 18. How are characters shaped? 19. How many characters are there in Chinese? How many does a Chinese speaker know? 20. Recent reforms in Chinese writing. 21. History of Japanese writing. 22. Terms such as kanji, kana, hiragana, katakana, furigana, kanbun. 23. How did linguistic differences between Chinese and Japanese affect Japanese writing? 24. Kun and on readings 25. Go, Kan, and Too-Soo borrowings 26. Uses of hiragana and katakana. 27. 20th century writing reforms in Japan 28. Origin of Korean writing 29. Hankul and its origin. Relationship to phonetics. 30. Internal structure of Korean writing: i.e., how does it appear on the page. 31. Hanca. 32. How does ancient Vietnamese writing differ from Chinese and Korean? 33. Schmandt-Besserat’s theory of origin of Mesopotamian writing 34. Languages and dates involved in Mesopotamian writing 35. Relationship of Sumerian and Akkadian writing 36. Role of seals in Mesopotamia 37. Clay tablets; how writing was actually done 38. Phonetic extension and semantic extension 39. Notion of language family; family names of languages that we have focussed on 40. Egyptian writing: borrowed or indigenous 41. Role of stimulus diffusion in writing history 42. Styles of Egyptian writing 43. Types of Egyptian symbols; how were they used 44. Importance of Rosetta stone 45. You will be responsible only for major dates directly related to writing. Henry Rogers 2 University of Toronto February 2003

Study Notes for Final Examination JAL 328 H1S Writing Systems 1. The exam will have four kinds of questions: a. True false b. Multiple choice c. Completion d. Short essay The first two types will be answered on a special scantron sheet. Please bring a soft pencil. The last two types of questions will be answered on the examination paper. The completion questions are quite short, usually just a word or two. The shortessay questions are half a page in length each. 2. The examination will cover the entire course, including all material in the textbook and in the lectures. There will be a slight emphasis on material coverered since Quiz II. 3. You will be asked to identify examples of Roman type by general category. For example, if you were asked to identify the category of type used in this sheet, you would be expected to identify this as ‘Old Style’. Other categories of type would be Humanist, Modern, Transitional, San Serif, Display. The type faces used will not necessarily be the same as the examples in the book. 4. You will be expected to recognise the following symbols from Devanagari:  and the diacritic vowels . You will not be expected to recognise ligatures of these symbols. 5. You will be expected to recognise the following symbols from the Creewriting system: for the vowels. 6. You should review the study notes for the mid-term test and for the twoquizzes. 7. Review the terms at the ends of the chapters. 8. You should review the basic structural principles of all the writing systemswe have covered.

9. You should be familiar with the general typological categories of writing systems, based on how they relate to the language they represent. This point and the preceding one are particularly important. 10. For Chapter 11, you should be familiar with the general structure ofDevanagari, the general history of writing in South and South-east Asia, andthe role of Indus Valley writing. Don’t forget Tibetan, Mongolian, and Manchu. 11. In Chapter 12, you should know generally how the system works. You will not be responsible for the details of the Maya calendar. 12. In Chapter 13, you should know the general structure and history of thevarious individual writing systems. What is distinctive about each? 13. In Chapter 14, you should know the general history of calligraphy andprinting. You will not be asked to recognise specific calligraphic styles; however, see #3 above. Printing has a certain amount of technicalterminology that you should be familiar with. 14. Chapter 15 gives an overview of the typology of writing systems from anhistorical perspective. Focus on the the revised classification of Figure 15.5, and do not worry about the earlier proposals in detail, although you willprobably have to work through them to understand the revised proposal. Sections 15.4 and 15.5 should not be skipped.