The W riting L anguage

1. The Writing Language Lec. 5

2. Facts we should know • The spoken form preceded the written form. • Speech develops naturally whereas writing is artificially taught. • Accordingly, speech should be the primary object of linguistic study. • Speech is the primary medium of communication among all people.

3. Facts we should know • Despite their historical relationship, none of the mediums of communication should be seen as superior to the other • The invention of writing came late, and its development was gradual. • A large number of the languages found in the world today are used only in the spoken form. • Writing allows human to overcome the limited human brain capacity & the short memory.

4. The history of writing • Greek legends the Prince of Phoenicia, Cadmus • Chinese fables the four-eyed dragon, CangJie • The Babylonians god Nebu • The Egyptian god Thoth • The Jewish Talmud • The Quran Teachings

5. Pictorial art -2000 years • Early cave drawings “petroglyphs” are not to be considered linguistic messages; they are under the tradition of pictorial art • Cave drawings are known as pitroglyphs E.g. Africans, native Americans, the Incas of Peru, etc. • Later cave drawings are considered picture-writing “pictograms”

6. Pictogram & Ideograms Pictograms ideograms • Picture writing • Language neutral • A conventional non-arbitrary relation must exist between the symbol & its representation • More direct/ concrete • ≈ water •  moon •  sun • Idea writing • Language neutral • A symbolic relation must exist between the symbol & its representation • Less direct representation, we may need to know what an ideogram means • Less direct / abstract •  heat, daytime, & sun

7. Pictograms & Ideograms The symbol can be said to represent words in a language when the relation between a symbol & an idea or entity becomes more symbolic e.g. water in Egyptian writing   

8. Pictograms & Ideograms • The type of relation holding between the symbol & what it refers to decides the system being used pictograms or ideograms • Both pictograms & ideograms do not represent words or sounds in particular languages • Pictograms are very common in road signs, why?       

9. The Evolution of Pictography

10. Sumerians &Cuneiform Writing • The Sumerians is the oldest writing system known to us (6000+ years) • They developed both an elaborate pictography and a system of allies • Later, they simplified & conventionalized their system of their pictography into cuneiform writing

11. Cuneiform Writing  word writing • Pictography “wedge-shaped” writings / stylus /pressed into soft clay  cuneiforms •  •  • Cuneiforms  logograms “word writing” • Logographic is the oldest writing symbol, in which the symbol stands for the word & the concept

12. The Egyptians

13. Emoticons • An emoticon(or smiley) is a sequence of ordinary characters we can find them on our computer keyboards. Emoticons are used in e-mails, chat, SMS, and other forms of communication using computers. • 

14. Rebus writing • A rebus is a kind of word puzzle that uses pictures to represent words or parts of words. • E.g.  • E.g.  • In linguistics, the rebus principle means using existing symbols, such as pictograms, purely for their sounds regardless of their meaning, to represent abstract words. • The rebus principle is very popular in advertising, riddles, jokes, etc.

15. 1. LOGOGRAPHIC • A written character represents both the meaning & pronunciation of each word or morpheme. (e.g. Chinese) • Chinese writing system has the longest continues history of use as a writing history (1500-3000 years) • The Chinese writing system (morphemic) is a word-writing system, i.e. similar to compounding in English? • Maimai = business (buy & sell)

16. 1. LOGOGRAPHIC • This system does not work with highly inflected systems, such as English & other Indo-European Languages. • A person needs to know ONLY 5000 characters to read a newspaper. • Character simplification programs • To the Chinese, writing (calligraphy) is an art, literature & history are preserved in the Chinese writing system, & it permits all literate Chinese to communicate.

17. 2. SYLLABIC WRITING • It employs a set of symbols which represents the pronunciation of syllables, e.g. Japanese • This system is more efficient than word-writing system & less taxing on memory. • It does not work with languages having a rich structure of syllables. Containing many consonant clusters (E.g. Indo-European langs.). • Japanese is partly word-writing, and partly syllable writing

18. Japanese Syllabic

19. 3. CONSONANTAL ALPHABET WRITING • Some languages are written with alphabets consisting ONLY of consonants, such as Semitic languages(Arabic & Hebrew) • Inflectional & derivational processes involve inserting different vowels into triconsonantalroots • Vowels are expressed via a set of diacritic marks. • E.g. the base morpheme • ktb = to write / katib = writer

20. 4. Alphabetic • A set of symbols each represents a single type of sound. • In English, There is no correspondence between the number of letters (26) & the number of sounds (24C/12-14V)

21. Refernces • Fromkin et al. (2003).An Introduction to Language. (7th ed.). Mass.: Wadsworth. • Chapter (12) pp. 545-558 Assignment: no. 9 p. 570