Lost Languages

Lost Languages PDF Author: Andrew Robinson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780500288160
Category : Extinct languages
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Undeciphered scripts have long tantalized the public, whether it's the possibility of hearing the voices of ancient peoples or the puzzle solver's taste for the challenges posed by breaking codes. Here, Andrew Robinson investigates the most famous examples, beginning with the stories of three great decipherments: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs, and the Minoan Linear B clay tablets. He then covers the important scripts that have yet to be cracked, such as the Etruscan alphabet and Rongorongo from Easter Island.

Lost Languages

Lost Languages PDF Author: Andrew Robinson
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780500288160
Category : Extinct languages
Languages : en
Pages : 0

Get Book

Book Description
Undeciphered scripts have long tantalized the public, whether it's the possibility of hearing the voices of ancient peoples or the puzzle solver's taste for the challenges posed by breaking codes. Here, Andrew Robinson investigates the most famous examples, beginning with the stories of three great decipherments: Egyptian hieroglyphs, Maya glyphs, and the Minoan Linear B clay tablets. He then covers the important scripts that have yet to be cracked, such as the Etruscan alphabet and Rongorongo from Easter Island.

Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia

Languages, Scripts, and Chinese Texts in East Asia PDF Author: Peter Francis Kornicki
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198797826
Category : FOREIGN LANGUAGE STUDY
Languages : en
Pages : 424

Get Book

Book Description
This is a wide-ranging study of vernacularization in East Asia, examining Chinese script of the early common era, the spread of Chinese Buddhist, Confucian, and medical texts throughout East Asia, all the way to the end of the nineteenth century when nationalism created new roles for vernacular languages and vernacular scripts.

Writing and Society in Ancient Cyprus

Writing and Society in Ancient Cyprus PDF Author: Philippa M. Steele
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107169674
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 291

Get Book

Book Description
The first book to explore the development and importance of writing in ancient Cypriot society over 1,500 years.

The World's Writing Systems

The World's Writing Systems PDF Author: Peter T. Daniels
Publisher:
ISBN: 0195079930
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 970

Get Book

Book Description
Ranging from cuneiform to shorthand, from archaic Greek to modern Chinese, from Old Persian to modern Cherokee, this is the only available work in English to cover all of the world's writing systems from ancient times to the present. Describing scores of scripts in use now or in the past around the world, this unusually comprehensive reference offers a detailed exploration of the history and typology of writing systems. More than eighty articles by scholars from over a dozen countries explain and document how a vast array of writing systems work--how alphabets, ideograms, pictographs, and hieroglyphics convey meaning in graphic form. The work is organized in thirteen parts, each dealing with a particular group of writing systems defined historically, geographically, or conceptually. Arranged according to the chronological development of writing systems and their historical relationships within geographical areas, the scripts are divided into the following sections: the ancient Near East, East Asia, Europe, South Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East. Additional parts address the ongoing process of decipherment of ancient writing systems; the adaptation of traditional scripts to new languages; new scripts invented in modern times; and graphic symbols for numerical, music, and movement notation. Each part begins with an introductory article providing the social and cultural context in which the group of writing systems was developed. Articles on individual scripts detail the historical origin of the writing system, its structure (with tables showing the forms of the written symbols), and its relationship to the phonology of the corresponding spoken language. Each writing system is illustrated by a passage of text, and accompanied by a romanized version, a phonetic transcription, and a modern English translation. A bibliography suggesting further reading concludes each entry. Matched by no other work in English, The World's Writing Systems is the only comprehensive resource covering every major writing system. Unparalleled in its scope and unique in its coverage of the way scripts relate to the languages they represent, this is a resource that anyone with an interest in language will want to own, and one that should be a part of every library's reference collection.

Languages and Scripts

Languages and Scripts PDF Author: K. S. Singh
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 456

Get Book

Book Description
The authors show that Indian languages derive strongly from the ethnic community or the territory in which the language is used. They investigate the distribution of different language families, the larger spread of languages such as Hindi, Marwari, Urdu and Telugu, language-contactsituations, and bilingualism.

Languages and Scripts of Central Asia

Languages and Scripts of Central Asia PDF Author: Shirin Akiner
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1136349952
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 252

Get Book

Book Description
First published in 1997. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Languages, scripts, and Chinese texts in East Asia

Languages, scripts, and Chinese texts in East Asia PDF Author: Peter Francis Kornicki
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0192518682
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 416

Get Book

Book Description
Chinese Writing and the Rise of the Vernacular in East Asia is a wide-ranging study of vernacularization in East Asia - not only China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam, but also societies that no longer exist, such as the Tangut and Khitan empires. Peter Kornicki takes the reader from the early centuries of the common era, when the Chinese script was the only form of writing and Chinese Buddhist, Confucian, and medical texts spread throughout East Asia, through the centuries when vernacular scripts evolved, right up to the end of the nineteenth century when nationalism created new roles for vernacular languages and vernacular scripts. Through an examination of oral approaches to Chinese texts, it shows how highly-valued Chinese texts came to be read through the prism of the vernaculars and ultimately to be translated. This long process has some parallels with vernacularization in Europe, but a crucial difference is that literary Chinese was, unlike Latin, not a spoken language. As a consequence, people who spoke different East Asian vernaculars had no means of communicating in speech, but they could communicate silently by means of written conversation in literary Chinese; a further consequence is that within each society Chinese texts assumed vernacular garb: in classes and lectures, Chinese texts were read and declaimed in the vernaculars. What happened in the nineteenth century and why are there still so many different scripts in East Asia? How and why were Chinese texts dethroned, and what replaced them? These are some of the questions addressed in Chinese Writing and the Rise of the Vernacular in East Asia.

Sinography: The Borrowing and Adaptation of the Chinese Script

Sinography: The Borrowing and Adaptation of the Chinese Script PDF Author: Zev Handel
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004352228
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 383

Get Book

Book Description
In Sinography, Zev Handel provides a comprehensive comparative analysis of the ways in which the Chinese-character script evolved as it was adapted to write other languages of Asia, including Korean, Vietnamese, Japanese, Zhuang, Khitan, and Jurchen.

Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets

Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets PDF Author: George L. Campbell
Publisher: Psychology Press
ISBN: 9780415183444
Category : Foreign Language Study
Languages : en
Pages : 152

Get Book

Book Description
The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets is a unique reference to the main scripts and alphabets of the world. The Handbook presents over 60 alphabets covering an enormous scope of languages; from Amharic and Chinese to Thai and Cree. Full script tables are given for every language and each entry is accompanied by a detailed overview of its historical and linguistic context. New to this second edition: enhanced introduction discussing the basic principles and strategies utilized by world writing systems expanded to include more writing systems improved presentation of non-Roman scripts. organised into ancient, contemporary and autochthonous writing systems many new entries on fascinating and lesser-known writing systems This handy resource is the ideal reference for all students and scholars of language and linguistics. It has been brought to our attention that in some of the copies of the book there is an alignment error in the tables for Cyrillic Scripts (pages 88-90) and Roman Scripts (pages 140-44). Please contact us at [email protected] to receive replacement copies of the corrected tables, free of charge. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience caused.

The Russian Graphosphere, 1450-1850

The Russian Graphosphere, 1450-1850 PDF Author: Simon Franklin
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1108492576
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 431

Get Book

Book Description
Explores a new approach to the history of writing, and a guide to writing in the history of Russia.