writing: References & Edit History

Geoffrey Sampson, Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction (1985), is the first systematic account of the relations between various writing systems and the linguistic structures they represent, with an especially good section on Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. Another book that places writing into the context of language is Henry Rogers, Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach (2005). Surveys of the history of writing include Roy Harris, The Origin of Writing (1986, reissued 2002); Albertine Gaur, A History of Writing, rev. ed. (1992); and Ignace J. Gelb, A Study of Writing, rev. ed. (1963, reprinted 1974). Examining a somewhat broader interrelationship between writing and history are David Diringer, The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind, 3rd ed. rev., 2 vol. (1968); and Hans Jensen, Sign, Symbol, and Script: An Account of Man’s Efforts to Write, 3rd rev. and enl. ed. (1969; originally published in German, 1935).

Two encyclopaedic surveys are Florian Coulmas, The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems (1996); and Robert T. Daniels and William Bright (eds.), The World’s Writing Systems (1996). Social implications of literacy are addressed in Eric A. Havelock, The Literate Revolution in Greece and Its Cultural Consequences (1982); and Jack Goody (ed.), Literacy in Traditional Societies (1968, reprinted 1975), which examine the cultural, historical, and psychological dimensions of alphabetic writing systems. Essays on the same subject are included in Harvey J. Graff (ed.), Literacy and Social Development in the West: A Reader (1981). Jacques Derrida, Of Grammatology, corrected ed. (1998; originally published in French, 1967), examines the conceptual implications of writing.

Brian Stock, The Implications of Literacy: Written Language and Models of Interpretation in the Eleventh and Twelfth Centuries (1983), sets out the increasing uses of writing in the Middle Ages that presaged the Reformation. Good introductions to writing and its uses are provided by Robert Pattison, On Literacy: The Politics of the Word from Homer to the Age of Rock (1982); Donald Jackson, The Story of Writing (1981); and, notable for its generous illustration, Andrew Robinson, The Story of Writing, new ed. (2007).

Insup Taylor and M. Martin Taylor, The Psychology of Reading (1983), discusses the relation between various writing systems and the psychological processes involved in learning to read and write them. David R. Olson, Nancy Torrance, and Angela Hildyard (eds.), Literacy, Language, and Learning: The Nature and Consequences of Reading and Writing (1985), gives a sampling of the interdisciplinary nature of recent work on literacy. Also worthwhile is the section on writing and orthography in Linguistic Bibliography (annual).

Several useful works reproduce historical writing. These include British and Foreign Bible Society, The Gospel in Many Tongues: Specimens of 872 Languages in Which the British and Foreign Bible Society Has Published or Circulated Some Portion of the Bible, new ed. (1965); Richard Lepsius, Standard Alphabet for Reducing Unwritten Languages and Foreign Graphic Systems to a Uniform Orthography in European Letters, 2nd ed. (1863, reprinted 1981; originally published in German, 1855); and Akira Nakanishi, Writing Systems of the World: Alphabets, Syllabaries, Pictograms (1982, reissued 1990; originally published in Japanese, 1975).