Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction

by Geoffrey Sampson

To say that writing has as much claim as speech to be treated as language may strike the reader as a statement of the obvious. But the fact is that, although the tide is beginning to turn now, for most of the twentieth century linguistics has almost wholly ignored writing. It is not necessary to accept all the theories of the French critic Jacques Derrida in order to agree with him when he describes writing as "the wandering outcast of linguistics."

This book is offered in the belief that written language is a form of language. As such, it deserves to be treated with the methods of modern, scientific linguistic study, which have been increasing our understanding of the spoken form of language for many decades.

Genres: Linguistics, Nonfiction, Language, Reference, Writing

234 pages, Paperback

First published December 12, 1985

Reviews

[Jennifer Ball · Rating 5 out of 5]

The most important sentence in this book is the one regarding Chinese on pages 164-165: "(Women's liberators might point out the number of cases where words for unpleasant character-traits such as jealousy are written with the 'woman' signific [the word he uses for 'radical']; but the incidence of this sort of thing is no greater than that of comparable sexist assumptions in the spoken English language — cf. bitch vs. dog, for instance.)"

Sampson is trying to suggest that Chinese is not inferior to English (a funny thought since Chinese has been around for 4,000 years) by pointing out that they both denigrate women (also ironic as a justification). When one finds a pervasive theme running through two disparate cultures, it would seem that this might be an orienting factor for all language: women are denigrated because they are the underpinning of written language. Written language was created to control women and other commodities.

Page 189: "The axiom of Western linguistics according to which a language is primarily a system of spoken forms, and writing is a subsidiary medium serving to render spoken language visible, is very difficult for an East Asian to accept."

This Californian has a hard time accepting it as well. If the data is there, why would a linguist not consider it? This seems like a form of denial.

Page 24: In regards to date nomenclature, and the use of "B.C." and "A.D.", Sampson writes, "Those of us who acknowledge Jesus as the Saviour have more substantial ways of demonstrating our allegiance."

I almost stopped reading the book after this sentence, but I'm glad his inappropriate statement of faith didn't deter me as this book is extremely informative considering how few books tackle an overview of all writing systems. Keep in mind it was written in 1985, and our current ability to compare all written languages via the computer will allow us to see that fertility and procreation were the dominant concerns at the time that Chinese Seal Script, Sumerian cuneiform, and the Egyptian hieroglyphs were created. Humans are animals, and we are driven by animalistic needs. For more info: www.OriginofAlphabet.com.

[Kaitlin · Rating 2 out of 5]

A careful, detailed investigation into Writing Systems, their typology, history and psychology - deserving of a careful, detailed reading which has taken me many months to complete.
Written in 1985, I wonder what has changed within the field in that time - and might have to hunt for a related and updated book on this topic.

[Walrus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Decent overview of some of the more notable writing systems. Particularly liked the argument made against English spelling reform.