Suchergebnisse

Writing does not begin and end with the encoding of an idea into a group of symbols. It is practiced by people who have learnt its principles and acquired the tools and skills for doing it, in a particular context that affects what they do and how they do it. Nor are these practices static, as those involved exploit opportunities to adapt old features and develop new ones. The act of writing then has tangible and visible consequences not only for the writers but also for those encountering what has been produced, whether they can read its content or not – with potential for a wider social visibility that can in turn affect the success and longevity of the writing system itself. With a focus on the syllabic systems of the Bronze Age Aegean, this book attempts to bring together different perspectives to create an innovative interdisciplinary outlook on what is involved in writing: from structuralist views of writing as systems of signs with their linguistic values, to archaeological and anthropological approaches to writing as a socially grounded practice. The main chapters focus on the concepts of script adoption and adaptation; different methods of logographic writing; and the vitality of writing traditions, with repercussions for the modern world. Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 677758), and based in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.

Western Mesoamerican Calendars and Writing Systems draws together studies by some of the world's leading experts presented at a conference held in December 2020, 'The Origins and Developments of Central Mexican Calendars and Writing Systems'. Mesoamerica is one of the few places to witness the independent invention of writing. From the earliest attestations of this intellectual feat in the Late Preclassic period 900 bc-ad 150), writing spread throughout Mesoamerica, developing and diversifying into a series of distinct and independent scripts. With the exception of the celebrated phonetic decipherments of Maya and Aztec writing, which are now well-documented and can be fully read, most Mesoamerican writing systems remain little studied and undeciphered. This is particularly true of the writing systems of Western Mesoamerica, the topic of this volume.Bringing together new research on Western Mesoamerican writing systems, some contributions focus on specific features of a given writing system, whereas others offer state-of-the-art syntheses of whole writing systems. Two contributions focus on the calendar in particular, and associated notations, as integral parts of writing systems. Chapters are included on the writing system of Teotihuacan, the Ñuiñe writing of the Mixteca Baja and adjoining areas, the writing system of the Epiclassic period and Aztec writing of the Postclassic. These writing systems represent more than a millennium of written records and literacy in Mesoamerica, spanning from the Early Classic to the Late Postclassic (from the 2nd to the sixteenth centuries ad). Aztec writing even continued in use for several decades after the Spanish invasion of Mexico (ad 1519-1521), which saw the introduction of the Latin alphabet and the gradual obsolescence of Mesoamerican logophonetic writing systems.

Intro -- PREFACE -- ILLUSTRATIONS -- 1. INTRODUCTION -- 1.1 The Balkan space between problems of multiplicity and claims of homogeneity -- 1.2 The role of writing and of the "Other" in the national discourse -- 1.3 Methodological considerations: sources and approaches -- 1.4 Semiotic and relational aspects of alphabets and nationalism -- SECTION I. ALPHABETIC DISPUTES OF THE 1920s AND 1930s IN BULGARIA -- 2. THE RECEPTION OF THE ABECEDAR PRIMER (1925) IN BULGARIA -- 2.1 Issues related to the adoption of new writing systems -- 2.2 Post-imperial national identity dynamics

Writing is not just a set of systems for transcribing language and communicating meaning, but an important element of human practice, deeply embedded in the cultures where it is present and fundamentally interconnected with all other aspects of human life. 'The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices' explores these relationships in a number of different cultural contexts and from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including archaeological, anthropological and linguistic. It offers new ways of approaching the study of writing and integrating it into wider debates and discussions about culture, history and archaeology

Preliminary Material -- Invention and Borrowing in the Development and Dispersal of Writing Systems /Alex de Voogt -- 27–30–22–26 – How Many Letters Needs an Alphabet? The Case of Semitic /Reinhard G. Lehmann -- Nubian Graffiti Messages and the History of Writing in the Sudanese Nile Basin /Alex de Voogt and Hans-Jörg Döhla -- About "Short" Names of Letters /Konstantin Pozdniakov -- Early Adaptations of the Korean Script to Render Foreign Languages /Sven Osterkamp -- Han'gŭl Reform Movement in the Twentieth Century: Roman Pressure on Korean Writing /Thorsten Traulsen -- The Character of the Indian Kharoṣṭhī Script and the "Sanskrit Revolution": A Writing System Between Identity and Assimilation /Ingo Strauch -- Symmetry and Asymmetry Chinese Writing in Japan: The Case of Kojiki (712) /Aldo Tollini -- Writing Semitic with Cuneiform Script. The Interaction of Sumerian and Akkadian Orthography in the Second Half of the Third Millennium BC /Theo J.H. Krispijn -- Old Wine in New Wineskins? How to Write Classical Egyptian Rituals in More Modern Writing Systems /Joachim Quack -- Subject Index -- Language (Group) and Script Index -- Author Index.

Despite the flourishing of epichoric studies on the Archaic Greek scripts in the 1960s, embodied by archaeologists Lilian Hamilton Jeffery and Margherita Guarducci, most scholarship on early alphabetic writing in Greece has focused on questions around the origin of 'the Greek alphabet' instead of acknowledging the diversity of alphabetic systems that emerged in Geometric and Archaic times. The present book proposes to bring back the epichoric approach by focusing on the different ways in which the earliest epigraphic evidence represents the spoken Greek dialects. However, instead of continuing the palaeographic methodology of previous studies, this analysis follows the latest trends in grapholinguistics, more specifically the methodology of comparative graphematics. By examining the grapheme-phoneme relationships across Greek-speaking regions, it is possible to recognize that diversity and to draw connections with neighboring contemporaneous alphabets, such as those for Phrygian, Eteocretan and Etruscan. This work, carried out within the Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) project, aims to contribute towards the conceptualization of the so-called epichoric scripts as independent alphabets, as well as their framing within the ecology of ancient Mediterranean writing systems. Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation program (grant agreement No. 677758), and based in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.

Intro -- Preface -- Acknowledgements -- List of tables -- Abbreviations and names of minorities in China -- Map 1 Distribution of minority nationalities and languages in China -- Map 2 China: Autonomous regions and prefectures -- Chapter 1 Minorities and minority languages in China -- 1.1. Historical developments of the Han and non-Han peoples -- 1.2. Official classification of the non-Han peoples -- 1.3. Distribution of minority communities -- 1.4. The classification and distribution of minority languages -- 1.5. Current status of minority languages -- 1.6. The organization of this book -- Chapter 2 The politics of minority language policy, 1949-2002 -- 2.1. Development of the CCP minorities policy before 1949 -- 2.2. Theoretical foundation of the CCP minorities policy and later changes -- 2.3. The first pluralistic stage: 1949-1957 -- 2.4. The Chinese monopolistic stage: 1958-1977 -- 2.5. The second pluralistic stage: 1978-2002 -- Chapter 3 The politics of the status of writing systems: Official, experimental, or unofficial -- 3.1. Status of writing systems: The first pluralistic stage (1949-1957) -- 3.2. Status of writing systems: The Chinese monopolistic stage (1958-1977) -- 3.3. Status of writing systems: The second pluralistic stage (1978-2002) -- 3.4. Issues in China's minority language policy -- Chapter 4 Choices of scripts and theories of writing systems: East vs. West -- 4.1. Western linguistics and the initial writing reforms for minority languages in the PRC -- 4.2. Modeling after the Soviet Union -- 4.3. Roman, IPA, and Cyrillic scripts: Conflicts and compromises -- Chapter 5 The politics of vernacular writing systems -- 5.1. The Soviet model and proliferation of vernacular writing systems -- 5.2. Vernacular writing systems: Consolidation and withdrawal -- 5.3. Vernacular writing systems: Consolidation and proliferation.