15-PROSEM215-2BA-11
What do ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics, Chinese characters, Arabic calligraphy, and English pronunciation dictionaries have in common? They are all products of humanity’s ongoing quest to represent speech using a principled system of symbols, or writing.
Since its invention some 5000 years ago, writing systems have taken on many different forms at different times and in different places, under very different political and social conditions. This course will survey some of the most important writing systems of the ancient and modern world; follow the exciting intellectual journey of decipherment of long-forgotten scripts, including Egyptian hieroglyphics, cuneiform, and Linear B; and trace the evolution of writing across Europe, Asia, and the rest of the globe from ancient to modern times. We will also examine the linguistic principles that have guided the development of writing systems, with special emphasis on the role of phonetics, phonology, word formation, and semantics and the revolutionary invention(s) of the alphabet. Finally, we will discuss the role of conquest, trade, religion, and political ideology in the spread of rival writing systems, and the practical and symbolic value of scripts in the era of globalization.
Selected bibliography:
Gnanadesikan, Amalia E. 2009. The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Rogers, Henry. 2005. Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.
Robinson, Andrew. 2009. Writing and Script: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press.
- Teacher: Ronald Kim