Writing system

A writing system, also called a script, is used to visually record a language with symbols. The oldest kind of writing was pictographic or ideographical. Later developments brought logographic systems, syllabaries and alphabets. Among alphabets, one may distinguish the older abjads that only recorded consonants, and the newer alphabet of the Greek type called simply alphabet and the abugida.

Also of interest are those systems for recording sign languages, such as SignWriter, where symbols stand for particular features of signs, the symbols often resembling those sign features they stand for.

Table of contents showTocToggle("show","hide") 1 History of writing systems 2 Writing systems around the world 3 See also 4 Reference 5 External links

History of writing systems

The first writing system was cuneiform, which emerged among the Sumerians towards the end of the 4th millennium BC; however it was followed closely by the appearance of writing in Egypt and the Indus valley, and since then writing has appeared independently a number of times, associated with various civilizations.

Writing systems around the world

• Anglo Saxon Futhorc[?]
• Arabic abjad
• Aramaic abjad
• Cuneiform
• Chinese logograms
• Cyrillic alphabet
• Egyptian hieroglyphs
• Greek alphabet
• Korea: Hangeul alphabet and Hanja logograms
• Japan: Hiragana syllabary, Katakana syllabary and Kanji logograms
• Hebrew abjad
• Roman alphabet
• Runic Futhark
• Ethiopic abugida
• Thai alphabet

See also

• calligraphy
• penmanship
• majuscule letter and minuscule letter
• orthography
• pasigraphy
• spelling
• For technical aspects of computer support for multiple writing systems, see the articles CJK and BiDi.

Reference

• Smalley, W.A. (ed.) 1964. Orthography studies: articles on new writing systems, United Bibe Society, London.

External links

• About African writing systems by the John Henrik Clarke Africana Library[?] at Cornell University:
  • http://www.library.cornell.edu/africana/Writing_Systems/Welcome.html
• General about writing systems
  • http://www.omniglot.com/index.htm