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Writing may refer to two activities: the inscribing of characters on a medium, with the intention of forming words and other constructs that represent language or record information, and the creation of material to be conveyed through written language. (There are some exceptions; for example, the use of a typewriter to record language is generally called typing, rather than writing.) Writing refers to both activities equally, and often both activities occur simultaneously; however one may write while doing only one of the activities.
Methods and tools for recording information
Writing systems
Writing systems, i.e., methods of inscription, can be broadly divided into four categories: logographic, syllabic, alphabetic, and featural. Another category, ideographic (symbols for ideas), has never been developed sufficiently to represent language. A sixth, pictographic, is insufficient to represent language on its own, but often forms the core of logographies.
Logographies
A logogram is a written character which represents a word or morpheme. The vast array of logograms needed to write a language, and many years they require to learn, are the major disadvantage of the logographic systems over alphabetic systems. However, the efficiency of reading logographic writing once it is learned is a major advantage.
No writing system is wholly logographic. All have phonetic components as well as logograms ("logosyllabic" components in the case of Chinese, cuneiform, and Mayan, where a glyph may stand for a morpheme, a syllable, or both; "logoconsonantal" in the case of hieroglyphs), and many have an ideographic component (Chinese "radicals", hieroglyphic "determiners".) For example, in Mayan, the glyph for "fin", pronounced ka’, was used to represent the syllable ka whenever clarification was needed. However, such phonetic elements complement the logographic elements, rather than vice versa.
The main logographic system in use today is Chinese, used with some modification for various languages of China, Japanese, and, to a lesser extent, Korean in South Korea. Another is the classical Yi script.
Syllabaries
A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate) syllables. A glyph in a syllabary typically represents a consonant followed by a vowel, or just a vowel alone, though in some scripts more complex syllables (such as consonant-vowel-consonant, or consonant-consonant-vowel) may have dedicated glyphs. Phonetically related syllables are not so indicated in the script. For instance, the syllable ka may look nothing like the syllable ki, nor will syllables with the same vowels be similar.
Syllabaries are best suited to languages with relatively simple syllable structure, such as Japanese. Other languages that use syllabic writing include the Linear B script for Mycenaean Greek; Cherokee; Ndjuka, an English-based creole of Surinam; and the Vai script of Liberia. Most logographic systems have a strong syllabic component.
Alphabets
An alphabet is a small set of symbols, each of which roughly represents or historically represented a phoneme of the language. In a perfectly phonological alphabet, the phonemes and letters would correspond perfectly in two directions: a writer could predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker could predict the pronunciation of a word given its spelling. As languages often evolve independently of their writing systems, and writing systems have been borrowed for languages they were not designed for, the degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a language varies greatly from one language to another and even within a single language.
In most of the alphabets of the Mid-East, only consonants are indicated, or vowels may be indicated with optional diacritics. Such systems are called abjads. In other, vowels are indicated through diacritics or modification of the shape of the consonant. These are called abugidas. Some abugidas, such as Ethiopic and Cree, are learned by children as syllabaries, and are often called "syllabics". However, unlike true syllabaries, there is not an independent glyph for each syllable.
Sometimes the term "alphabet" is restricted for systems with separate letters for consonants and vowels, such as the Latin alphabet.
Featural scripts
A featural script notates the building blocks of the phonemes that make up a language. For instance, all sounds pronounced with the lips ("labial" sounds) may have some element in common. In the Latin alphabet, this is accidentally the case with the letters b and p; however, labial m is completely dissimilar, and the similar-looking q is not labial. In Korean Hangul, however, all four labial consonants are based on the same basic element. However, in practice, Korean is learned by children as an ordinary alphabet, and the featural elements tend to pass unnoticed.
Another featural script is SignWriting, the most popular writing system for many sign languages, where the shapes and movements of the hands and face are represented iconically. Featural scripts are also common in fictional or invented systems, such as Tolkien's Tengwar.
Historical significance of writing systems
Historians draw a distinction between prehistory and history, with history defined by the advent of writing. The cave paintings and petroglyphs of prehistoric peoples can be considered precursors of writing, but are not considered writing because they did not represent language directly.
Writing systems always develop and change based on the needs of the people who use them. Sometimes the shape, orientation and meaning of individual signs also changes over time. by tracing the development of a script it is possible to learn about the needs of the people who used the script as well as how it changed over time.
Tools
(see also methods of representing text)
Stylus
A stylus is a narrow, elongated staff, similar to a modern ballpoint pen. Many styli are slightly curved to be held more easily. The ancient Romans used a thin metal stick, often made of lead, to scratch on wax-tablets. A quill was used to write on papyrus.
Pens
A pen is a writing instrument which applies ink to some surface. Pens come in a variety of colors, the most common of which are: dark blue, black, red, and green. Types of pens include ballpoint pens, fountain pens and marker pens. Originally the word meant quill. A quill pen is made from a flight feather (preferably a primary) of a large bird, most often a goose. Quills were used as instruments for writing with ink before the pen came into use.
Pencils
A pencil is a handheld instrument used to write and draw, usually on paper. The writing is done with graphite, which is typically covered by a wooden sheath. The prototypical pencil may have been the ancient Roman stylus. Indeed, the word pencil comes from the Latin word penicillus which means "little tail".
Typewriter
A typewriter is a mechanical, electromechanical, or electronic device with a set of "keys" that, when pressed, cause characters to be printed on a document, usually a piece of paper. A typewriter has a keyboard, with keys for the characters in its font. The method by which the typewriter actually marks the paper varies, but until the end of the 20th century the impact of a metal type element against an "inked" ribbon caused ink to be deposited on the paper.
Word processor
A word processor is a computer application used for the production of any sort of viewable or printed material. They are descended from early text formatting tools. Word processing was one of the earliest applications for the personal computer in office productivity. Most word processors are powerful systems consisting of one or more programs which can produce any arbitrary combination of images, graphics and text.
Writing in Early Cultures
Mesopotamia
In Mesopotamia the writing system used is called cuneiform. This system developed over several hundreds of years beginning with pictograms which were first used to represent real things beginning around 3200 BC. These pictograms were soon simplified and changed to better represent ideas as well as things.
Egypt
In Egypt writing was very important however very few people knew how to read or write. Writing was often used to record all types of information in tombs, temples, the army and in government. Only people from a particular group were allowed to train to become scribes.
China
In China historians have found out a lot about the early Chinese dynasties from the written documents left behind. From the Shang dynasty most of this writing has survived on bones or bronze impliments. Historians have found that the type of media used had an efffect on what the writing was documenting and how it was used.
Indus Valley
The Indus Valley script is one of the most fascinating and mysterious aspects of ancient Indian culture as it has not yet been deciphered. Although we have many example of the Indus script, without true understanding of how the script works and what the inscriptions say, it is impossible to understand the importance of writing in ancient India.
Creation of information
Creativity
- For more details on this topic, see Creativity.
Author
- For more details on this topic, see Author.
See also
Further reading
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations by or about:
- ERIC Digests
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