the

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EDITED 8Y

PETER T.DANIELS

WILLIAM BRIGHT
L4 Ml
Written language is the most neglected
aspect of linguistic study, as the majc
of research focuses on historical and
retical aspects of spoken lang" ;n
> '

>H ABET (revised to 1989)

studies devoted to writing syst. /al-

ly place little emphasis on the scripts lem-

selves, limiting coverage to the external
history of writing systems. The World's Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Phar>nj;eal Glottal

Writing Systems is the only available work

t 4 c j k g q G f

to explore in depth how scripts are applied

to individual languages.
1 Jl IN

Beginning with the ancient Near East and

the earliest known scripts, this unique refer-
R
ence documents the history and typology of
c
writing to the present day, covering scores of
scripts from around the world — both those
S \ 9 j x y X K h ? h n
currently in use and those now defunct. In 1

more than eighty articles, it explains and

documents in accessible terms how writing
—
systems work how Egyptian hieroglyphs, K j uj
Chinese characters, and European alphabets
convey meaning in graphic form. I
k\ L
Sections devoted to the scripts of the 9 9 1 1 ?
c k q
ancient Near East, East Asia, Europe, South
Asia, Southeast Asia, and the Middle East
are introduced with discussion of the social
|<r j|£ rf cftf
and cultural contexts in which each group of sonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossib le.

writing systems was developed. Articles on

individual scripts within these sections pro-

vide a wealth of background information,
along with helpful visuals for each writing alized I U Nasalized C
system: the historical origin of the writing J rji
n
lalized t Nasal release LI
system is detailed, its structure is delineated
with tables showing the forms of the written L. t
Y dv '
Lateral release VJ
symbols, and its relationship to the phonol-
ogy of the corresponding spoken language Lngealized I CI No audible release CI

is thoroughly explored. Every major writing

lan/ed or pharyngeal ized
system is presented in a passage of text,
accompanied by a romanized version, a
ised C (J = voiced alveolar fricative)

phonetic transcription, and an English trans-

lation. A bibliography concludes each entry. wered 6 ( 13 = voiced bilabial appro\imanti

Presenting the finest and most current

vanced Tongue Root C
international scholarship. The World's Writ-

ing Systems is the only comprehensive traded Tongue Root 6

resource covering every major writing sys-
tem. Unparalleled in it scope and in its

coverage of the way Ms relate to the

languages they reprc s is a resource

that anyone with an in language

will wantto own, ana hould be a
part of every library's rt 'lection.
 APR 2 9 1996

VOWELS OTHER SYMBOLS

Front
AA Voiceless labial-velar Fricative

Close 1
\y W Voiced labial-velar approximant

U Voiced labial-palatal approximan

H Voiceless epiglottal fricative

T Voiced epiglottal fricative

T Epiglottal plosive
Open-mid
V fa Alveolo-palatal fricatives

3 Additional mid central vowel

Open a*(E a* d W Bilabial click

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right
represents a rounded vowel Dental click

!
(Post)alveolar click

SUPRASEGMENTALS * Palatoalveolar click

i
Alveolar lateral click

Primary stress c ..
r
X Alveolar lateral flap
,
Secondary stress

IJ Simultaneous
J and X
* Long C *

w
Half-long C
s^
?
Affricates and double articulations
can be represented by two symbols
Extra-short £• joined by a tie bar if necessary.

. Syllable break jLifikt

I
Minor (foot) group kp ts
|
Major (intonation) group

w Linking (absence of a break)

s Global rise

\ Global fall

TONES & WORD ACC ENTS

LEVEL CONTOUR

C or 1 Extra high Cor A Rising

C 1 High e N Falling

C 1 Mid e 1 High rising

C —\ Low e A Low rising

s/s

C _l Extra low e 1 Rising-falling

etc.

4- Downstep

T Upstep
 ARCHBISHOP MITTY
LI BRARY

8689

Archbishop Mitfy High

Schoof
Library
5000 Mffiy Way
San Jose. A
95129
 .

The World's Writing Systems

 THE WORLD'S
WRITING SYSTEMS

Edited by

Peter T. Daniels
and
William Bright

Archbishop M'rtty High School

Library
5000 Mitty Way
San Jose, CA 95129

New York Oxford

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1996
 6

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

Oxford New York
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and associated companies in

Berlin Ibadan

Copyright © 1996 by Oxford University Press, Inc.

Published by Oxford University Press, Inc.,

1 98 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 1 00 1

Oxford is a registered trademark of Oxford University Press

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,

stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means,
electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise,
without the prior written permission of Oxford University Press.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

The world's writing systems / edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright

p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 0-19-507993-0
1. Writing. 2. Alphabet. 3. Graphemics.
I. Daniels, Peter T., 195 1- . II. Bright, William. 1928- .

P211.W714 1995
411 —dc20 95-2247
CIP
r952
Rev.

Printing (last digit): 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2

Printed in the United States of America
on acid-free paper
 In memory of my father,

who taught me to read;

and

in honor of my mother,

who taught me to write

— P.T.D.

To Robert Thiel,

oldest friend

and companion in the study of language

— W.B.
 Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2012

http://archive.org/details/isbn_9780195079937
 — —

Contents

Contributors XXV

Preface XXXV

Abbreviations, Conventions, and Definitions XXXIX

Part I Grammatology
Introduction Peter T. Daniels

Section i The Study of Writing Systems Peter T.Daniels 3

Grammatology 3

History of the study of writing 5

The typology of writing systems 8

The study of writing 10

Related topics 12

Part II Ancient Near Eastern Writing Systems

Introduction — Peter T. Daniels 19

Section 2 The First Civilizations Peter T. Daniels 21

"Forerunners" of writing 21

The Vinca signs

Near Eastern tokens
Interconnections 23

The significance of the alphabet 26

Undeciphered scripts 28
Scripts from the Aegean and Cyprus
Proto-Sinaitic
Pseudo-hieroglyphs of Byblos

vn
 — ———— — —
Vlll CONTENTS

Section 3 Mesopotamian Cuneiform 33

Origin Piotr Michalowski 33

History of discovery
Structure
Distribution and contents

Sumerian and Akkadian Jerrold S. Cooper 37

Cuneiform writing
Cuneiform signs
Sumerian cuneiform
Akkadian cuneiform
Basic cuneiform syllabary 57
Other languages Gene B. Gragg 58
Elamite cuneiform
Hurrian cuneiform
Urartian cuneiform
Hittite cuneiform

Section 4 Egyptian Writing Robert K. Rimer 73

Hieroglyphic 73
Hieratic 81

Demotic 82

The Meroitic Script n. b. Millet 84

Section 5 Epigraphic Semitic Scripts M. O'Connor 88

Scripts in the Bronze Age (2000-1 200 b.c.e.) 90

Scripts in the Iron Age and later times (from 1200 b.c.e.) 94
Phoenician and related scripts
Aramaic
Arabia
Salient features of various groups of texts 100

The Iberian Scripts Pierre Swiggers 108

Description 109

Inventory and commentary 110

Problems 110

The Berber Scripts M. O'Connor 112

Ancient Berber 112

The Islamic period: Silence; modern use 115

 —— —— 1

CONTENTS IX

Section 6 natolian Hieroglyphs h. Craig Melchen 120

Usage and history 120

General characteristics 120
Signs 123

Section 7 Sgean Scripts Emmett L. Bennett 125

Linear B 125
The Greek mainland and Crete, ca. 1 550-1 200 b.c.e.

Scripts of Cyprus 1 30
Cyprus, ca. 800-200 b.c.e.
Cyprus, ca. 1500-1200 b.c.e.
Minoan Linear A 132
Crete and Aegean islands, ca. 1 800-1450 b.c.e.

The pictographic or Cretan Hieroglyphic script 132

Crete, ca. 1 750-1600 b.c.e.

The Phaistos Disk 133

Section 8 Old Persian Cuneiform — David D. Testen 134

Part III Decipherment

Introduction Peter T.Daniels 139

Section 9 Methods of Decipherment — Peter T. Daniels 141

Types of decipherment 141

Processes in decipherment 142

Accounts of decipherment 143

Palmyrene
Cuneiform
Egyptian
Himyaritic
Brahmi
Cypriote
Turkic runes
Meroitic
Luvian
Ugaritic
Linear B
Maya

Section 10 The ProtO-Elamite Script Robert K. England 160

History of decipherment 1 60

Basic characteristics of Proto-Elamite script and texts 1 6

 — ——— —— —
X CONTENTS

Section i i The Indus Script AskoParpola 165

Historical background and development 165

Obstacles to decipherment 165
Characteristics 166
Direction of writing
The means of distinguishing words
Type of the script and orthography
Current state of decipherment 168

Section 2 Maya and Other Mesoamerican Scripts 172

—
i

Martha J. Macri
Logographic/syllabic scripts 174
Maya writing

Codified pictorial systems 180

Section i 3 RongOrongO of Easter Island Martha J. Macri 183

Progress in decipherment 183

A linguistic approach to decipherment 185

Part IV East Asian Writing Systems

Introduction William G. Boltz 189

Section 14 Early Chinese Writing William G. Boltz, 191

Unit characters 192

Compound characters 194

Section i 5 Modern Chinese Writing Victor H. Mair 200

Relationship to the Chinese languages 202

Reform 203

Section i 6 Japanese Writing Janet S. (Shibamoto) Smith 209

Kanji 209
Hiragana and katakana 210
Romaji 213
Other script elements 213
Direction, punctuation, and organization of texts 214
Conclusion 214

Section 17 Korean Writing Ross King 218

Chinese writing in Korea 218

Hankul: General characteristics 219
 — ———
CONTENTS XI

The symbols 221

The modern vowels
The modern consonants
Middle Korean pitch accent
Forming orthographic syllables
Orthography and letter shapes 223
The relationship of Hankul to other scripts 225

Section i Siniform Scripts of Inner Asia 228

Tangut E. I. Kychanov 228
Kitan and Jurchin Gyorgy Kara 230
The Kitan scripts
Jurchin script

Section 19 The Yi Script- -Dingxu Shi 239

Classic Yi 239
Modern Yi 240

Section 20 Asian Calligraphy John Stevens 244

Comparative table of Sinitic characters 252

Part V European Writing Systems

Introduction — Peter T. Daniels 259

Section 2 1 Transmission of the Phoenician Script to the West 261

— Pierre Swiggers

Geographical and chronological aspects 261

Linguistic aspects 264
Structural innovation
Local innovations

Problems 266
Agents
Date
Place

Observations 269

Section 22 The Greek Alphabet Leslie Threatte 271

The symbols 273

Diacritical marks and punctuation 276

Numerals 278
 21

Xll CONTENTS

The Anatolian Alphabets 28

— Pierre Swiggers and Wolfgang Jenniges
Phrygian 282
Pamphylian and Sidetic 282
Lycian 282
Lydian 284
Carian 285
Other languages 287

The Coptic Alphabet— Robert K. Ritner 287

The Gothic Alphabet— Ernst Ebbinghaus 290

Special features 291

Section 23 The Scripts of Italy — Larissa Bonfante 297

Etruscan 297
Other languages and scripts ot Italy 301
Latin
Etruscan influence in the north

Central and southern Italy

Section 24 The Roman Alphabet — Stan Knight 312

Ancient Roman scripts 3 1

Old Roman Cursive

Rustic Capitals
Uncial scripts
Half Uncial scripts

Square Capitals
New Roman Cursive

Regional hands 315

Luxeuil Minuscule
Corbie ab
Visigothic Minuscule
Beneventan Minuscule
Insular scripts 317
Insular Minuscule
Insular Half Uncial
Anglo-Saxon Minuscules
Carolingian Minuscule 319
English Carolingian Minuscule
Italian Carolingian Minuscule
 — —
CONTENTS Xlll

Gothic scripts
320
Transitional Gothic
Gothic Prescissus
Gothic Quadrata
Gothic Rotunda
Gothic Batarde

Humanist scripts
32^
Humanist Minuscule
Humanist Cursive
Humanist Italic

Cursive writing from the sixteenth century

324
The pointed pen
Italic revival

The printed word 325

Mainz
Venice
Garamond
Caslon
"
Baskerville
Bodoni
The nineteenth century
The twentieth century

Section 25 The Runic Script — Ralph w. v. Elliott 333

Later developments 335
Scandinavia
The British Isles

Section 26 Ogham Damian McManus 340

The script 342
Stone inscriptions
Manuscript tradition
Names

Section 27 The Slavic Alphabets Paul Cubberley 346

The historical background 346
Forms of letters and phonological fit in old alphabets 347
Glagolitic: Later history 349
Cyrillic: Later history 350
Orthography and phonotactics in Russian 352
 — — ———— 1

XIV CONTENTS

Section 28 The Armenian Alphabet Avedis K. Sanjian 356

The symbols 356

Symbol-sound correspondences 359
Semivowels
Vowels
Orthographic change and script reform 360

Section 29 The Georgian Alphabet Dee Ann Holisky 364

Sound-symbol correspondance 365

The development of mxedruli 367

Part VI South Asian Writing Systems

Introduction Richard G. Salomon 37

Section 30 Brahmi and KharOShthi Richard G. Salomon 373

Systemic features 376

Linguistic features 377
Functions 377
Origins 378
Development 379

Section 3 The Devanagari Script William Bright 384

The symbols 384

Specific features 387
Correspondences 388
Relations to other scripts 389

Section 32 Gujarati Writing p. J. Mistry 391

The symbols 391

Specific features 392

Section 33 The Gurmukhi Script Harjeet Singh Gill 395

The consonants 395

Vowels and accessory signs 396
Tones 396

Section 34 Bengali Writing Tista Bagchi 399

Differences in inventory of characters 399

Script-to-pronunciation correspondences 399
Clusters 402
 —— — —
CONTENTS XV

Section 35 Oriya Writing b. p. Mahapatra 404

The symbols 405
Conjunct consonants 406
Distinctive characteristics 407

Section 36 Sinhala Writing James W. Gair 408

The symbols 408
Correspondence of speech to writing 409

Section 37 Kannada and Telugu Writing William Bright 413

The symbols 413
Characteristic features 416
Correspondences 417

Section 38 Malayalam Writing k. p. Mohanan 420

Section 39 Tamil Writing — SanfordB. Steever 426

Historical background 426
Description 426
Adequacy in representing Tamil phonology 427
Trends 428

Section 40 The Tibetan Script and Derivatives 431

— Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp

Symbols and specific features 432

Subscript symbols
Prescript symbols
Superscript symbols
Postscript symbols
Post-postscript symbols

Additional features 435

The Lepcha script 436

The 'Phags pa script 437
Historical background
General characteristics
Geographic distribution
 — —— — 1

XVI CONTENTS

Part VII Southeast Asian Writing Systems

Introduction Christopher Court 443

Section 4 1 The Spread of Brahmi Script into Southeast Asia 445

Christopher Court

The beginnings of writing 445

Indigenization of Indian scripts 446

Section 42 Burmese Writing Julian K. Wheatley 450

History 450
Symbols 450
General characteristics 45
Pronunciation 454
Miscellaneous signs and modifications 455

Section 43 Thai and Lao Writing Anthony Diller 457

Development 458
Consonant symbols 461
Vowel symbols 462
Tone rules 464
Numerals and other symbols 465

Section 44 Khmer Writing Eric Schiller 467

The symbols 467

Consonants
Vowels
Clusters
Special cases

Correspondences 470
Punctuation and numerals 472

Section 45 Insular Southeast Asian Scripts 474

— Joel C Kuipers and Ray McDermoU
Structure and historical continuity: The Holle charts 474
Cultural uses of the writing systems of Insular
Southeast Asia 477
Sumatra: Batak
Sumatra: Rejang
Java and Bali
South Sulawesi: Buginese and Makasarese
An arresting case: The Hanunoo of Mindoro, Philippines 481
 — —
CONTENTS XV11

Part VIII Middle Eastern Writing Systems

Introduction Peter T. Daniels 485

Section 46 The Jewish Scripts Richard L Goerwitz 487

From Phoenician to Aramaic to Jewish script 487
From consonants to vowels 489
Codification of the medieval script 494

Section 47 Aramaic Scripts for Aramaic Languages

— Peter T. Daniels
499

Classical Syriac 499

Three kinds of consonants
Diacritical points

Modern Aramaic —Robert D. Hoberman 504

Letters and obligatory diacritics
Optional diacritics
Other scripts

Mandaic — Peter T. Daniels 511

Section 48 Aramaic Scripts for Iranian Languages 515

— P. Oktor Skjcerv0

Orthographic principles 515

Transliteration
Use of Aramaic letters

Developments from Imperial Aramaic 516

Heterograms (ideograms)
Phonetic complements
Archaizing or "pseudo-historical" orthography
Book Pahlavi script
The Avestan alphabet
Sogdian script

Developments from Estrangelo Syriac 530

Developments from Nestorian Syriac 533

Section 49 Aramaic Scripts for Altaic Languages Gyorgy Kara 536

The runiform alphabet of the ancient Turks 536
The Uyghur alphabet 539
The Manichean script of the Uyghurs 542
The Mongolian script 545
The "Clear script" 548
The Manchu alphabet 550
The Buryat alphabet 554
Cyrillic script 556
 — ——— — 1

XV111 CONTENTS

Section 50 Arabic Writing Thomas Bauer 559

Basic characters 561
Morphophonemic representation 561
Optional signs 562
The effects of defectiveness 563

Dhivehi Writing — James W. Gair and Bruce D. Cain 564

The symbols 565

Section 5 1 Ethiopic Writing Getatchew Haile 569

Consonants 569
Characters

Vowels 57
Vowel signs
Characters or diagrams 574
Numerals 574
Writing Ethiopic 575

Part IX Scripts Invented in Modern Times

Introduction Peter T. Daniels 577

Section 52 The Invention of Writing Peter T. Daniels 579

Sophisticated grammatogenies 579

The Pollard script
The Fraser script
Fictional scripts

Unsophisticated grammatogenies 583

The Bamum script
The Alaska script
The Ndjuka script
The Caroline Islands script

The origin of writing 585

Section 53 Cherokee Writing Janine Scancarelli 587

The characters of the Cherokee syllabary

and their arrangement 587
The appearance of written Cherokee 589
The sound and spelling of Cherokee 590
Uses of the syllabary 591
 — — — —— 9
1

CONTENTS \ix

Section 54 Scripts of West Africa John Victor Singler 393

The N'ko alphabet 593
Vai script
593
Orthographic principles
The characters

Section 55 The Cree Syllabary John D. Nichols 599

Algonquian syllabaries 599
Characteristic features

Scripts for Inuit (Eskimo) languages 607

Syllables for Sub- Arctic Athabaskan languages 6 1

Section 56 Scripts for Munda Languages Norman Zide 612

Sorang Sompeng 612
01 Cemet' 614
Ho 616

Section 57 The Pahawh Hmong Script Martha Ratliff 619

Features of the system 61
The symbols 621
Use 623

Part X Use and Adaptation of Scripts

Introduction Peter T. Daniels 625

Section 58 A Functional Classification John Mountford 627

Functional kinds of writing system 627

General-purpose versus special-purpose writing systems 629
Terminology 629
The composition of writing systems in relation 630
to function

Multiplicity of writing systems 630

More functional kinds? 63

Conclusion 631
 ——— ———
—
XX CONTENTS

Section 59 Adaptations of the Roman Alphabet 633

Romance languages Edward Tuttle 633

Transition from Latin to early Romance
Lineal descent and internal realignment
Treatment of empty vestiges
Graphemes from external sources
Abbreviations as diacritics
Collateral extension of the foregoing sources
Orthographic reforms
Rumanian
Contemporary orthography
Germanic languages Wayne M. Senner 642
German
Dutch and Afrikaans
Scandinavian languages
English Peter T. Daniels

Celtic languages Damian McManus 655

Irish

Welsh Eric P. Hamp

Languages of Eastern and Southern Europe 663
—Bernard Comrie
Baltic and Slavic
Albanian
Uralic languages
Turkish
Basque
Maltese

African languages John Bendor-Samuel 689

Problems in adapting consonants
Problems in adapting vowels

Vietnamese Nguyen Dinh-Hoa 691

Letters of the alphabet

Section 60 Adaptations of the Cyrillic Alphabet — Bernard Comrie 700

Slavic languages 700

Non-Slavic languages 707
Representation of vowels
Representation of palatalization
Representation of consonants
Representation of prosodic phenomena
Letter names and alphabetical order
 —
CONTENTS XXI

Section 6i Adaptations of Hebrew Script- — Benjamin Hary 727

Jewish "languages" or ethnolects 727
Judeo- Arabic 728
Arabicized orthography
Phonetic orthography
Hebraized orthography

Judeo-Spanish (Ladino) 734

Yiddish Howard I. Aronson 735
Standard orthographies
Variant orthographies
Vowel representation
Consonant representation
Special spellings

Section 62 Adaptations of Arabic Script- -Alan S. Kaye 743

Spread of Arabic script 743

Minor adaptations of the Arabic script 744
"
The Malagasy script
The Yezidi cryptic script
General characteristics of Arabic-based writing systems 745
Scripts of Islamic literary languag es 746
Persian
Kurdish
Pashto
Kashmiri
Urdu
Sindhi
Ottoman Turkish
Uyghur
Malay

Part XI Sociolinguistics and Scripts

Introduction — William Bright 763

Section 63 Germany: Script and Politics — Gerhard Angst 765

Section 64 Serbo-Croatian: A Biscriptal Language 769

— Laurie Beth Feldman and Dragana Barac-Cikoja

Section 65 South Asia: Coexistence of Scripts

— Colin P. Masica 773

Section 66 Christian Missionary Activities

— Allan Gleason 777
 — —
XX11 CONTENTS

Section 67 Script Reform in and after the Soviet Union 781

— Bernard Comrie

Script replacement 781

Intra-script reform 783
Post-Soviet developments 783

Part XII Secondary Notation Systems

Introduction Peter T. Daniels 785

Section 68 The Alphabet as a Technology m. O'Connor 787

How do people learn how to write? 787

The order of the alphabet 788
Letter names 790
Elements of writing systems used for various purposes 791

Section 69 Numerical Notation — John Soren Pettersson 795

Forerunners of numerical notation 795

Ancient Near East 798
Mesopotamia
Egypt
Linear A and B
Northwest Semitic
South and East Asia 801
Indus script
China
Classical Greece and Rome 803
Greece
Rome
0-9 804
Further reading 805

Section 70 Shorthand — Peter T. Daniels 807

Historical survey 807

Classical era
Renaissance
Modern
Typology 815
Logographic
Alphabetic
Phonotypic
 ——
CONTENTS XX111

Section 71 Phonetic Notation — Michael K. C. MacMahon 821

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 821
The structure of the International Phonetic Alphabet
Consonant and vowel sounds
Prosodic features
Extensions to the IPA
Using IPA notations
Different IPA alphabets
Other alphabetic notations 831
Iconic notation 838
Linear and parametric notations 841
Analphabetic notation 842
Summary 844

Section 72 Music Notation — James D. McCawley 847

Pitch 847
Duration 848
Dynamics and articulation 851
Structure 852
Modifications 853

Section 73 Movement Notation Systems Brenda Farnell 855

Historical developments in Europe 855

The emergence of general movement scripts 864
Problems in the transcription of human movement 868
Body
Space
Time
Additional dynamics
Relationships
Reading the action

Part XIII Imprinting and Printing

Introduction — Peter T. Daniels 881

Section 74 Analog and Digital Writing Peter t. Daniels 883

Dichotomy 883

History 884

People 886

Machines 887

Consequences 890

Index 893
 Contributors

Howard I. Aronson is Professor of Slavic Linguistics at the University of Chicago.

Gerhard Augst is Professor of Linguistics, University of Siegen (Germany). He

has published numerous articles on the German writing system and spelling reform.

Tista Bagchi is Reader in Linguistics at the University of Delhi, India. In addition

to holding degrees in linguistics from the Universities of Calcutta, Delhi, and Chica-
go, she has published articles on various aspects of the grammar of Bengali.

Dragana Barac-Cikoja holds degrees in psychology from the University of Con-

necticut. She has taught at the University of Split in Zadar and at Wesleyan University
in Connecticut; she is currently a postdoctoral fellow at Gallaudet University.

Thomas Bauer holds degrees in Islamic and Semitic studies and teaches at the Uni-
versity of Erlangen (Germany). He has published monographs and articles on Classi-
cal Arabic literature and philology.

John Bendor-Samuel has degrees from Oxford and London Universities. He is a

member of the Summer Institute of Linguistics and has a special interest in West Af-
rican languages. He was editor of the Journal of West African Languages, 1 982-1 993,
and edited The Niger-Congo Languages, the current reference book on this family.

Emmett L. Bennett is Professor Emeritus of Classical Studies, University of Wis-

consin-Madison. He has published the Linear B inscriptions from Pylos, and articles

on their interpretation, with special attention to the elucidation of the differences be-

tween the Linear A and Linear B scripts. He edited Nestor for 21 years.

William G. Boltz is Associate Professor of Classical Chinese at the University of

Washington, Seattle, working and teaching primarily in the area of early texts.

Larissa Bonfante is Professor of Classics at New York University and author of

numerous books and articles on Etruscan language and culture.

William Bright is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics, University of California, Los

Angeles, and Adjunct Professor, University of Colorado. Among his principal inter-
ests are sociolinguistics and the languages of North America and South Asia; he was

editor of Language for 22 years and is currently editor of Language in Society.

xxv
XXVI CONTRIBUTORS

Bruce Cain recently spent several years in the Maldives collecting Dhivehi lan-
guage material. He co-authored a Dhivehi language course to help expatriates learn
the language. He is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in linguistics at Cornell University.

Bernard Comrie was educated at the University of Cambridge and taught Russian
and Linguistics there before moving to the University of Southern California, where
he is now Professor of Linguistics. His main interests are language universals and ty-
pology, historical linguistics, and linguistic fieldwork. His publications include As-
pect (Cambridge, 1976), Language Universals and Linguistic Typology (Oxford,
1 981), The Languages of the Soviet Union (Cambridge, 1981), and Tense (Cam-
bridge, 1 985). He is also editor of The World's Major Languages (London/New York,
1987) and is managing editor of the journal Studies in Language.

Jerrold S. Cooper is an Assyriologist in the Department of Near Eastern Studies

at the Johns Hopkins University. His specialty is Sumerian literature and history, and
he has a long-standing interest in the origins of writing and writing systems.

Christopher Court is in charge of the Thai and Cambodian (Khmer) language

programs at Monash University and has taught Thai at the University of California,
Berkeley, and Stanford University. With a doctorate in linguistics from Berkeley, he
has written on Iu-mien (Yao) grammar and is interested in tonal phenomena in South-
east Asia (including the Austronesian languages of South Thailand); he is also inter-
ested in the indigenous writing systems of Southeast Asian languages.

Paul Cubberley is Associate Professor of Russian at the University of Melbourne.

His main interests apart from Slavic scripts are the phonology and word-formation of
the Slavic languages. He is the foundation and current editor of Australian Slavonic
and East European Studies.

Peter T. Daniels holds degrees in linguistics from Cornell University and the Uni-
versity of Chicago; he has taught at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Chi-
cago State University. He has published numerous articles and reviews on writing
systems, Semitic languages, and languages of the world.

Anthony Diller is Reader in the Faculty of Asian Studies, Australian National

University, and has taught extensively in Thailand. He holds degrees in classics from
Williams College and in linguistics from Cornell University; his publications focus

on Thai linguistics.

Ernst Ebbinghaus, Professor Emeritus of German, Pennsylvania State University,

received a Ph.D. in Scandinavian philology from the University of Marburg. His prin-
cipal interests are Old Germanic languages and paleography, and he is editor-in-chief

of General Linguistics.

Ralph W. V. Elliott, of the Australian National University, Canberra, is Emeritus

Professor of English. He has taught at two British and three Australian universities
 CONTRIBUTORS XXV11

and has written widely on aspects of the history of English, including runes, the lan-
guage of Chaucer and Middle English topography, and Thomas Hardy's English.

Robert Englund is Assistant Professor of Near Eastern Studies at the Free Univer-

sity of Berlin. His research interests include work on the decipherment of proto-
cuneiform and on administrative forms in third-millennium b.c.e. Mesopotamia.

Brenda Farnell is a Visiting Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the Universi-

ty of Iowa. Among her principal interests are human movement and dance and the em-

bodiment of social theory and linguistics. She has published widely on Plains Indian
Sign Language in Assiniboine (Nakota) storytelling performance, and is co-editor of
the Journal for the Anthropological Study of Human Movement.

Laurie Beth Feldman is an Associate Professor of Psychology at the State Uni-

versity of New York at Albany. Among her principal research interests are the process-
es that underlie reading and the perception of words, and how those processes vary
across writing systems.

J ames W. Gair is Professor of Linguistics at Cornell University. He has worked ex-

tensively in South Asian linguistics, concentrating on Sinhala, but working and pub-
lishing also on other languages, including Tamil, Hindi, Marathi, and Dhivehi/Mahal.

Getatchew Haile, Ph.D., F.B.A., is cataloguer of Oriental manuscripts and Re-

gents Professor of Medieval Studies at St. John's University, Collegeville, Minnesota.
He holds degrees in theology from Coptic Theological College in Cairo, in social sci-

ences from the American University in Cairo, and in Semitic philosophy from the
University of Tubingen. He taught for many years at the Haile Sellassie I (now Addis
Ababa) University. He has published many articles and several monographs in the

field of Ethiopian studies.

Harjeet Singh Gill is Professor of Linguistics at Jawaharlal Nehru University,

New Delhi. After his earlier work in structural linguistics at Hartford, he spent several
years in France as a Fellow of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique, Paris.

Since then he has been engaged in the study of the philosophy of language and semi-
otics in the French tradition of the medieval philosopher Pierre Abelard, and the Car-

tesian thinkers of conceptual constructs.

Allan Gleason, Professor Emeritus of Linguistics at the University of Toronto,

wrote the classic textbook An Introduction to Descriptive Linguistics in 1955, and has
long been associated with missionary linguistics. Recently, he has been involved in

the computerization of scripts.

Richard Goerwitz (M.A., Yale Divinity School; Ph.D., University of Chicago) is

currently a lecturer in Northwest Semitic at the University of Chicago, working pri-

marily on historical linguistics, computational phonology, Unix system program-
ming, and full text retrieval systems.
XXV111 CONTRIBUTORS

Gene B. Gragg is Professor of Near Eastern Languages and Linguistics at the Ori-
ental Institute of the University of Chicago. His main interest is the pre- and early his-

tory of Afroasiatic (Cushitic) and the peripheral languages of the ancient Near East.

Eric P. Hamp is Robert Maynard Hutchins Distinguished Service Professor Emeri-

tus for Linguistics, Psychology, Slavic Languages and Linguistics, and Committee on
the Ancient Mediterranean World at the University of Chicago. Among his many ar-
eas of expertise is Indo-European linguistics, with Celtic as a subspecialty. He is also
the linguistic consultant and analyst for the Braille Reading and Language Program.

Benjamin Hary is Director of the Department of Near Eastern Studies, Emory Uni-
He has published extensively on Judeo- Arabic language and linguistics, Ara-
versity.

bic linguistics and dialectology, the history of Judaic languages, and proficiency-
based teaching of Hebrew and Arabic.

Robert D. Hoberman is Associate Professor of Judaic Studies and Linguistics at

the State University of New York at Stony Brook. He holds a doctorate in linguistics
from the University of Chicago. His principal interests are in phonology and mor-
phology and in modern Aramaic, Arabic, and Hebrew.

Dee Ann Holisky is Associate Professor at George Mason University in Fairfax,

Virginia. Her primary research has focused on verbal morphology in Georgian and
Tsova-Tush (a Nakh language spoken in Georgia), but she has also published two
books on English vocabulary for ESL students and a textbook on English grammar
for ESL teachers.

Wolfgang Jenniges holds degrees in classical and Oriental philology from the
University of Leuven. He is currently doing research work in the Oriental Department
of the University of Leuven.

Gyorgy Kara is Professor of Mongolian in the Department of Central Eurasian

Studies, Indiana University, Bloomington, and Professor of the Department of Inner
Asian Studies, Lorand Eotvos University of Budapest.

Alan S. Kaye is Professor of Linguistics and Arabic and Director of the Laboratory
for Phonetic Research at California State University, Fullerton. In addition to publish-
ing several books, his work in Arabic, Semitic, and general linguistics has appeared
in over sixty journals.

Kostas Kazazis is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Chicago. His inter-

ests include Balkan linguistics and Greek diglossia.

Ross King is Assistant Professor of Korean Language and Literature, University of

British Columbia. His principal research interests are Korean linguistics and philolo-
gy, the Koreans of the former Soviet Union and their language, and Altaic compara-
tive linguistics.
 CONTRIBUTORS XXIX

Stan Knight has a degree in fine art from Leeds University, England, and is an in-
known scribe and teacher. He is on the faculty of Cornish College of the
ternationally
Arts in Seattle. The author of Historical Scripts and joint author of A Book of Formal
Scripts, he has written numerous articles on the history and current practice of callig-
raphy.

Joel Kuipers is Associate Professor of Anthropology at George Washington Uni-

versity in Washington, D.C. He has researched and written extensively about the lan-
guage and culture of the Weyewa of the eastern Indonesian island of Sumba.
Evgenij I. Kychanov is a member of the St. Petersburg Branch of the Institute of
Oriental Studies of the Russian Academy of Sciences.

Michael K. C. MacMahon is Senior Lecturer in English Language at the Univer-

sity of Glasgow, Scotland, and a member of the Interational Phonetic Association's
council. One of his research interests is the history of phonetics during the eighteenth
and nineteenth centuries, especially in Britain and Europe; he has published exten-
sively on this topic.

Martha J. Macri is Associate Professor in the Departments of Native American

Studies and Anthropology at the University of California, Davis, where she is the di-
rector of the Native American Language Center. Her primary research interests are

non-alphabetic writing systems and the linguistic prehistory of the Americas.

B. P. Mahapatra holds degrees in linguistics from Deccan College Postgraduate

and Research Institute, Poona; the University of London; and Calcutta University. At
present, he is head of the Language Division, Government of India, Calcutta. He is

the chief author of The Written Languages of India, vols, i and 2, jointly produced by
the Government of India and the International Centre for Research on Bilingualism
and Language Planning, University of Laval, Quebec. He has published many articles

on Dravidian, Munda, and Indo- Aryan languages and sociolinguistics. He is also a

member of the Executive Committees of the Linguistic Society of India and the Dra-
vidian Linguistics Association of India.

Victor H. Mair is Professor of Chinese Language and Literature, Department of

Oriental Studies, University of Pennsylvania. Among his publications are translations
of the Tao te Ching and other Chinese classics; he edits Sino-Platonic Papers and co-
edited Characters and Computers.

Colin P. Masica is a professor in the Departments of South Asian Languages and

Civilizations and Linguistics at the University of Chicago. His interests have included
the cultural history of South Asia, cultural history in general, cultural geography,
South Asia as a linguistic convergence area, other convergence areas, modern and me-
dieval Indo- Aryan and Dravidian languages and literatures, and the history of reli-
gions and world-hypotheses, in general and as pertaining to South Asia in particular.
 —
XXX CONTRIBUTORS

James D. McCawley is Andrew MacLeish Distinguished Service Professor of Lin-

guistics and of East Asian Languages and Civilizations at the University of Chicago.
He has published extensively on syntax and semantics and less extensively on pho-
nology, writing systems, history of linguistics, and philosophy of science.

Ray McDermott is a Professor of Education and Anthropology at Stanford Univer-

sity. He has written widely on the role of talking, reading, and writing in the organi-

zation of social interaction and learning.

Damian McManus is Lecturer in the Irish Department and Fellow of Trinity Col-
lege, Dublin. In addition to various articles on linguistic aspects of Primitive and Old
Irish, he is the author of A Guide to Ogham
(1991 and co-editor of Stair na Gaeilge)

(1994), a comprehensive history of the Irish language, to which he contributed the

chapter on Classical Modern Irish.

H. Craig Melchert is Professor of Linguistics at the University of North Carolina

at Chapel Hill. A specialist in Indo-European linguistics, particularly the Anatolian
subgroup, he is the author of Anatolian Historical Phonology and lexica of the Cune-
iform Luvian and Lycian languages.

Piotr Michalowski is George G. Cameron Professor of Ancient Near Eastern Lan-

guages and Civilizations, University of Michigan. His principal interests include

Sumerian and Akkadian languages, literatures, history, and society. A notable volume
is The Lamentation over the Destruction ofSumer and Ur (Eisenbraun's, 1989).

N. B. Millet is a curator in the Egyptian Department of the Royal Ontario Museum

in Toronto, and a full professor in the Department of Near Eastern Studies at the Uni-
versity of Toronto. He is an Egyptologist, trained in Egyptian philology, who devel-
oped his interest in the ancient Meroitic language while excavating in Nubia in the

1960s.

P. J. Mistry is Professor of Linguistics, California State University, Fresno, and has

been Section Head of Indie Linguistics for the MLA International Bibliography since
1978. He has published several articles on Gujarati.

K. P. Mohanan has taught in the departments of linguistics at MIT, the University

of Texas at Austin, and Stanford University. He currently teaches in the Department
of English Language and Literature, National University of Singapore. Though he is

known for his work on lexical phonology, his interests include various other aspects

of theoretical linguistics, as well as the structure of Malayalam.

John Mountford taught classics before qualifying in general linguistics and in ap-
plied linguistics at Edinburgh University. His interest in writing systems stems from
applying linguistics in the teaching of English to native speakers of English. His cur-
rent concern, after some years as a teacher-trainer, is with the teaching of spelling
starting with English spelling.
 CONTRIBUTORS XXXI

Nguyen Dinh-Hoa is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and Foreign Languages

and Literatures Southern
Illinois University at Carbondale. At SIU-C he was instru-
at

mental development of academic courses and research programs coordinated

in the

by the Center for Vietnamese Studies between 1969 and 1990.

John D. Nichols is Professor of Native Studies and Linguistics, University of Man-

itoba, and holds graduate degrees in linguistics from Harvard University. His research
North American indigenous languages (especially Ojibwe, Cree,
interests are in the

and other languages of the Algonquian family), oral literature, and traditional arts.

M. O'Connor is Associate Professor of Hebrew and Biblical Studies at the Union

Theological Seminary in the City of New York. He is the author of Hebrew Verse
Structure ( 1 980) and An Introduction to Biblical Hebrew Syntax (with Bruce K. Walt-
ke, 1989).

Asko Parpola has been Professor of South Asian Studies at the University of Hel-
sinki since 1982. His major research interests include the Indus script, correlating the

linguistic prehistory of South Asian languages with archeological evidence, Sama-

vedic texts, and the history of Indian religions.

John Soren Pettersson holds a licentiate degree in general linguistics from Upp-
sala University, where he is at present a doctoral candidate. He also holds a B.A. in
mathematics from Uppsala University.

Martha Ratliff is Associate Professor of Linguistics, Wayne State University. Her

principal interests and publications are in the fields of historical linguistics, phonolo-

gy (especially tonology), and typology; the description of individual Hmong-Mien

languages; and the reconstruction of the Hmong-Mien protolanguage.

Robert K. Ritner, having previously studied and taught at the University of Chi-
cago, is the first Marilyn K. Simpson Assistant Professor of Egyptology at Yale Uni-
versity. He is a specialist in the Demotic language and script and associate editor of

the Demotic Dictionary Project of the University of Chicago.

Richard Salomon, Professor of Asian Languages (Sanskrit) at the University of

Washington, is a specialist in Indian epigraphy and paleography. His Indian Epigra-

phy: A Guide to the Study of Inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the Other Indo-
Aryan Languages is published by Oxford University Press.

Avedis K. Sanjian is Narekatsi Professor Emeritus of Armenian Studies, Universi-

ty of California, Los Angeles. Among his principal interests are medieval Armenian

cultural and literary history and paleography. He edited the first five annual volumes

of the Journal of the Society for Armenian Studies. He holds degrees from the Amer-

ican University of Beirut and the University of Michigan. He has also taught Arme-

nian language and literature at Harvard University. He has authored and/or edited ten

books and has written more than forty articles on a large variety of Armenian topics.
XXX11 CONTRIBUTORS

Janine Scancarelli is Associate Professor of English at the College of William

and Mary. Her publications and presentations have explored the relationship between
grammar and discourse structure, the grammar and historical development of the
Cherokee language, and the cultural significance of Cherokee literacy and language
use.

Eric Schiller holds a Ph.D. in linguistics from the University of Chicago; he has
taught at Wayne State University and the University of Chicago. He has written ex-
tensively on Khmer, Southeast Asian languages, and autolexical theory, with particu-
lar emphasis on serial verb constructions.

Wayne M. Senner, German and Scandinavian at Arizona State Uni-

a professor of
versity, is the author of The Reception of German Literature in Iceland, 1770- 1850
(1985) and other books, and is editor of The Origins of Writing (1989).

Dingxu Shi holds degrees in linguistics from the University of Pittsburgh and the
University of Southern California; he taught at the University of California at Irvine
and teaches at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He publishes mainly in syntax,
semantics, language typology, and language change.

John Victor Singler is Associate Professor of Linguistics at New York University.

His research focuses on pidgin and Creole studies, sociolinguistics, phonology, and
the languages of West Africa and the Caribbean.

Prods Oktor Skj/erv0 is Aga Khan Professor of Iranian at Harvard University. His
field of interest covers pre-Islamic Iran: languages, literatures (especially medieval
inscriptions), and religions, as well as modern Iranian dialects.

Janet S. (Shibamoto) Smith is a Professor of Anthropology, University of Cali-

fornia, Davis. Among her principal interests are Japanese sociolinguistics, language
and gender, and non-alphabetic writing systems. Publications include Japanese Wom-
en's Language (1985) and numerous articles on Japanese language and society, in-

cluding use of a multi-scriptal writing system.

Sanford B. Steever holds degrees in linguistics from Cornell University and the
University of Chicago, as well as a diploma in Tamil from Madurai-Kamaraj Univer-
sity. He has published three books and numerous articles on morphology, syntax,
pragmatics, historical linguistics, Tamil, and Dravidian linguistics.

John Stevens is Professor of Buddhist Studies at Tohoku Fukushi University in

Sendai, Japan. An avid student and practitioner of Asian calligraphy, he has been in-
volved in arranging exhibitions of calligraphic art in the United States and Europe,
and he is the author of Sacred Calligraphy of the East.
 CONTRIBUTORS XXX111

Pierre Swiggers is Romance Languages at the Uni-

Professor of Linguistics and
versity of Leuven, Research Director of the Belgian National Science Foundation,
and Co-director of the Centre International de Dialectologie Generate (Louvain). He
has published numerous books and articles in the fields of general and descriptive lin-
guistics (Indo-European, Semitic, and occasionally Bantu), writing, semiotics, and
the philosophy of language.

David D. Testen holds a joint doctorate in linguistics and Near Eastern languages
and civilizations from the University of Chicago. He works primarily in the historical

phonology and morphology of the Semitic and Iranian languages.

Leslie Threatte holds degrees from Oberlin College and Harvard University and
studied at the American School of Classical Studies, Athens. He has taught at Cornell
University and since 1970 at the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author
of The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions.

Edward F. Tuttle is Professor of Italian and Romance Linguistics, University of

California, Los Angeles. Having reached linguistics viaRomance philology, includ-
ing comparative medieval literatures, he is currently examining typologic relation-
ships between language and culture observed within the prism of Italian dialects — his

prime research area.

Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp is Professor of Tibetan at the University of Wash-

ington, Seattle.

Julian K. Wheatley is a senior lecturer in the Department of Modern Languages

and Linguistics, Cornell University, and director of the modern Chinese and Burmese
language programs there. His principal interests are the languages and linguistics of
mainland Southeast Asia and China.

Norman Zide is Professor Emeritus of Linguistics and of South Asian Languages

and Civilizations at the University of Chicago. His main interests are Munda languag-
es and cultures and general Indological topics; he has worked on poetic language and
writing systems, among other topics.
 Preface

Why book on the world's writing systems? There have been several surveys of the
a
world's languages, attempts by individual scholars to cover all the languages of the
world as well as collaborative volumes and series by specialists on individual lan-
guages and families. Occasionally such surveys include tables of the alphabets of
some of those languages, and occasionally they include examples of what those lan-
guages look like in print. Almost never, though, do they include information about

how the scripts represent the languages.

There have also been several surveys of the world's scripts —with one exception,
the noble work of dedicated individuals: David Diringer, Hans Jensen, James-G.
Fevrier, Marcel Cohen; Charles Fossey edited a valuable volume. These usually in-

clude facsimiles of ancient inscriptions and old manuscripts, tables of the alphabets,
and a discussion of the historical relationships among the scripts. Again, they don't
include information about how the scripts represent the languages.
This book is different: each contributor was asked to provide a historical sketch
and the table of signforms in their standard order and their variations, but the bulk of
their work was to be a description of how the script actually works —how the sounds
of a language are represented in writing, along with a brief text in the language(s) the
script is used for. For each script, the standard transliteration is shown. This is the sys-
tem used by scholars, and by governments and libraries, for representing the script in

a Roman alphabet with various modifications. Furthermore, since the Roman letters

and associated marks have often been used with different meanings in different parts
of the world, for each script a transcription is given using the symbols of the 1989
revision of the International Phonetic Alphabet (see the endpapers, and, for an expla-
nation, section 71). This provides a uniform frame of reference and ensures that the

reader can make a rather accurate attempt at pronouncing any text written with a pho-
netic script. (In practical terms, this means that among modern languages only the

Chinese/Japanese/Korean sphere is not fully presented here.) For each text, the trans-
literation and transcription are accompanied by an item-by-item literal translation

(the gloss) as well as a free translation, to give some idea of how the language works.
This book organized into thirteen parts, by writing system and chronology, and
is

coincidentally by region —
not by language family. After a discussion of the study of
writing systems, grammatology, in Part I, the scripts described in Part II are the oldest

known: those of the ancient Near East. There follows in Part III an account of the re-
covery of ancient languages, with individual reports on certain obscure scripts whose

xxxv
XXXVI PREFACE

interpretation is becoming more and more clear. Next oldest is the script of China, and
it is followed in Part IV with its derivatives down to the present.

At the root of the single tree of all the scripts that serve the rest of the world is

the Canaanite. Its first derivative, the Greek alphabet, and its descendants, the alpha-
bets of Europe, are described in Part V. Part VI covers the scripts used for Sanskrit,
along with its relatives and their neighbors in South Asia, and Part VII deals with its

further offshoots in Southeast Asia. Historically, the latest flowering of the Canaanite
branch took place in its home region, so the last of the historical parts, VIII, covers
the scripts of the Middle East.
Writing has come to unlettered cultures in two ways, described in Parts IX and
X: either some individual genius observes a visitor writing in some language and de-
termines to provide such a boon for the local language; or such a visitor provides an
fits the new language more or less well. Part XI
adaptation of an existing script that
addressessome examples of interrelations between scripts within particular societies.
Within Western civilization, writing has been adapted to record phenomena beyond
everyday language — the minutiae of speech production, speech recorded accurately
as it is spoken, numbers, music, movement —and such systems are the subject of Part
XII. And while writing is inherently a unitary phenomenon, Part XIII covers means
of multiple production of recorded texts.

The first page or two of each part is an overview of its contents, written by the
volume editors or by the contributor of its first section. These opening pages place the
writing systems in their historical and linguistic contexts, and they can be read in se-
quence as an initial orientation to the place of writing through the past and in the con-
temporary world.
A book like this would have been impossible ten or even five years ago. To type-
set all the characters of all would have required the labor of
the languages involved
numerous specially trained compositors number of different printing houses. But
at a

the implementation of multiscript technologies by Apple Computer has made it fea-

sible, if not exactly simple, to prepare the entire manuscript electronically on a Mac-

intosh Ilci system. It is Lloyd B. Anderson, proprietor of Ecological Linguistics, who

deserves the greatest credit for making this project possible. He assembled custom
software incorporating both the right-to-left scripts and the "character"-based (two-
byte) scripts —making it possible to mix, say, Arabic and Korean writing in a single
document. He has also uncomplainingly met all requests for obscure and difficult
fonts for obscure and difficult languages, ancient and modern, coming up with inge-
nious schemes to make typing them almost easy, even for someone who knows noth-
ing of the languages involved beyond their transliterations. (A list of Ecological
Linguistics fonts employed herein is included in the colophon.)
We are grateful to Cleo Huggins for the use of her Egyptian Hieroglyphic fonts,

based on the Gardiner types held by Oxford University Press and utilized by the Ori-
ental Institute, University of Chicago. Robert K. Ritner provided the Demotic font
used at the Oriental Institute. Asko Parpola has made available his own font of Indus
 PREFACE XXXV11

Valley characters, © Asko Parpola, Tuomo Saarikivi, and Bertil Tikkanen, Depart-
ment of Asian and African Studies, University of Helsinki. Paul Cubberley supplied
a pair of shareware fonts of Old Cyrillic forms —
known, appropriately enough, as
Constantin and Methodius. The text of the book is set in Adobe Times Roman and
Times Small Caps & Old Style Figures; Adobe's Wittenberger Fraktur and Helvetica
appear in examples, as does SoftKey Software's script font Koffee.
Jan Nattier made several useful recommendations of contributors, and one of her
recruits, Gyorgy Kara, in turn suggested several topics we had omitted, as well as
To both of them go our thanks. Jack Cella, manager of Semi-
scholars to treat them.
nary Cooperative Bookstore, Chicago, made sure that Daniels was aware of interest-
ing new books.
Joan Greenfield created an elegant and flexible design that has proved quite
adaptable to the unprecedentedly diverse demands made by this project. Peter T.

Daniels, frequently using computer files supplied by the contributors — and, for many
of the South Asia sections, by William Bright —prepared the electronic manuscript.
The basic software is FrameMaker 4, and the parts involving right-to-left and two-
byte scripts were first done in NisusWriter. The sales and tech support representa-
tives —Greg Nisius and Raquel Romano, respectively — at Nisus Software Inc. have
been unfailingly helpful, and Lester LaPierre of Frame User's Network-Chicago
came up with useful tips early on. The music examples in section 72 were prepared
with MusicPrinter Plus 4.0, courtesy of Anne Heider, director, His Majestie's Clerkes
(Chicago). Brenda Farnell the Labanotation examples in section 73 with La-
made
ban Writer were created by Daniels, and high-resolution camera-
3.1. PostScript files

ready output of Part IV (which uses Apple Language Kit TrueType fonts) was pre-
pared by Eisenbrauns, Winona Lake, Indiana. Special thanks go to Jim Eisenbraun
and Sam Heldenbrand.
I. J. Gelb (1 907-1 985), a pioneer in the field of grammatology (and Daniels's
teacher at the University of Chicago), kept a list of future projects. Among them was
a "treasure-book of writing,"which would gather both descriptive and theoretical
accounts of writing systems. We hope that this collection will go partway toward
realizing Gelb's intention.
—Peter T Daniels and William Bright
 Abbreviations, Conventions
and Definitions

i first person

2 second person

abecedary a text listing the characters of an abjad or alphabet in their tradi-

tional or standard order (even if that order does not begin with the
equivalent of a and b)

abjad a type of writing system that denotes only consonants

abl ablative

abs absolutive

abugida a type of writing system whose basic characters denote conso-

nants followed by a particular vowel, and in which diacritics de-
note the other vowels

acc accusative

act active

adj adjective, adjectival

adv adverbial

agr agreement
allograph conditioned or free variant of a character, e.g. the distinctive
forms of five Hebrew letters used at the end of a word (condi-
tioned), the differing forms of a/a, g/g that can be intermixed in
handwriting (free)

alphabet a type of writing system that denotes consonants and vowels

alphasyllabary a writing system in which vowels are denoted by subsidiary sym-

bols not all of which occur in a linear order (with relation to the
consonant symbols) that is congruent with their temporal order in
speech

ambisyllabic of certain consonants, interpretable as either the end of one syl-

lable or the beginning of the next, or both

xxxix
Xl ABBREVIATIONS, CONVENTIONS, AND DEFINITIONS

<angle brackets> used commonly in the study of writing, but not in this book, to
enclose transliterations or, where confusion is possible, sequenc-
es of roman letters to be taken as orthography

aor aorist

* asterisk marks nonexistent (unattested) items, either reconstructions of

probable ancestral forms (e.g. Indo-European *abel-, which be-

came apple), or forms that do not occur in ordinary speech (e.g.

*breaked)

aux auxiliary

b.c.e. Before the Common Era, a nonsectarian year designation equiv-

alent to b.c. 'before Christ'

boustrophedon a style of writing a document in which lines of text read alternate-

ly left to right and right to left (or vice versa); of practical value
when a monumental inscription occupies a very broad wall, and
of psychological value because the eye need not hunt for the be-
ginning of each succeeding line; however, no script formerly
written boustrophedon has retained the style

c. century

ca. circa 'approximately'

c.e. Common Era, a nonsectarian year designation equivalent to a.d.

anno domini 'in the year of the Lord'

character i . general term for any self-contained element of a writing sys-

tem; 2. conventional term for a unit of the Chinese writing sys-
tem in East Asian scripts

clf classifier

comp comparative, complementizer

conj conjunctive

conn connector

consonant a brief portion of an utterance in which obstruction to the air

stream is created in the vocal tract; also, a character designating
such a sound

cop copula

cursive flowing, showing the influence of the motion of the hand in writ-
ing, often with joined characters

dat dative

decl declension
 ABBREVIATIONS, CONVENTIONS, AND DEFINITIONS xli

def definitizer

demonst demonstrative

deriv derivational affix

derivation grammatical process in which a distinct word is formed from an-

other, e.g. friendly is derived from friend, song from sing

det determiner

diacritic a mark added to a character to indicate a modified pronunciation

(or sometimes to distinguish homophonous words)

digraph a pair of letters denoting a single sound, e.g. ph, sh

dir direct

disp displaced

ductus an individual style of handwriting, characteristic of a small group

of scribes or sometimes a single person

emph emphatic

encl enclitic

epigraphy the study of texts inscribed on hard surfaces, usually by incising;

cf. paleography

erg ergative

featural script a type of writing system whose characters denote phonetic fea-
tures

fem feminine

fortis of certain consonants, pronounced with more energy (opposed to

lenis); e.g., English voiceless stops

fut future

gen genitive

ger gerund

grammatogeny the invention of a writing system

grammatology the discipline that studies writing systems

grapheme term intended to designate a unit of a writing system, parallel to

phoneme and morpheme, but in practice used as a synonym for
letter, diacritic, character (2), or sign (2)

hon honorific

hort hortatory
Xlii ABBREVIATIONS, CONVENTIONS, AND DEFINITIONS

iconic of a sign, bearing some nonconventional, visual relationship to

what is referred to

imp imperative

imp(f) imperfect

impfv imperfective

imv imperative

indef indefinite

inf(in) infinitive

inflection grammatical process resulting in forms of a single word, e.g.

friends is an inflected form of friend; also, the morpheme that
marks it, here -s

intens intensifier

intent intentional

italics in this book indicate transcriptions and normalizations (in the ta-
bles and sample texts, replaced by upright type since they do not
need to be distinguished from the context)

iter iterative

lenis of certain consonants, pronounced with less energy (opposed to

fortis); e.g., English voiced stops

letter a self-contained unit of an abjad, alphabet, or abugida

ligature a composite character in which the components are recognizable,

e.gsE, (E

loc locative

loc'nal locational

logogram a character that denotes the meaning but not the pronunciation of
a morpheme
logosyllabary a type of writing system whose characters denote morphemes,
and a subset of whose characters can be used for their phonetic
syllabic values without regard to their semantic values

markedness a property (associated with a particular theory of the organization

of knowledge/culture) that correlates with lower frequency, high-
er complexity, less generality

mod modal
morpheme a minimal stretch of speech that has a meaning, either grammat-
ical (s) or independent (friend)
 ABBREVIATIONS, CONVENTIONS, AND DEFINITIONS xliii

morphophonemic of orthography, spellings that remain constant when a morpheme

undergoes changes in pronunciation {photograph, photography,
photographic)

neg negative

nom nominalizer, nominative

nonfin nonfinite

normalization in this book, for scripts that are not fully explicit, a conjectural in-
terpretation that supplies, e.g., the vocalization of languages writ-
ten with an abjad (based on comparison with related languages
and reconstruction of earlier forms)

obj object

obl oblique

opt optative

orthography conventional spelling of texts, and the principles therefor

paleography the study of texts inscribed on (usually) flexible surfaces, usually

with ink; cf. epigraphy

part particle, participle

pass passive

past past

pcpl participle

perf perfect

phoneme a minimal sound of speech that distinguishes words in a particu-

lar language; usually discovered by examining "minimal pairs"

such as fuss/ bus, bus/ buzz, thing/ sing, thigh/ thy

pl plural

poss possessive

pref prefix

pres present

pron pronoun

ptcl particle

quot quotative

redup reduplication

refl reflexive
XliV ABBREVIATIONS, CONVENTIONS, AND DEFINITIONS

rel relative

sandhi interaction between sounds at the end of one word and the begin-
ning of the next

script in this book, equivalent to writing system

serif a small protrusion, not in itself distinguishing two characters, at

the end of a stroke of a writing instrument; the was
historic origin
in the brush strokes traced to guide Roman inscription carvers,
and subsequently it served to strengthen the edges of characters
in printing type

sg singular

shwa a neutral vowel produced with the vocal organs in rest position

sign i . a unit in a communicative system comprising a signifier (what

carries the meaning) and a signified (what is meant); 2. conven-
tional term for a self-contained unit of cuneiform script

signary general term for a determined collection of characters (or signs),

used to avoid specifying abjad, alphabet, etc.

'single quotes' enclose glosses (translations)

/slant brackets/ enclose phonemic transcriptions

sloped roman in thisbook, used (with an asterisk) for reconstructed ancestral

forms of attested materials, e.g. Indo-European, Archaic Chinese

small capitals in this book, used for cross references; in the study of Romance
languages, used for reconstructed Vulgar Latin forms; with logo-
syllabic scripts, used to transliterate logograms

soc sociative

[square brackets] enclose phonetic transcriptions

subj subject, subjunctive

sup(erl) superlative

syllabary a type of writing system whose characters denote syllables, with

no deliberate graphic similarity between characters denoting
phonetically similar syllables

top topic

transcription an interpretation of a written text that supplies information not

explicit in the text; in this book, limited to a (broad) phonetic
transcription using the characters and conventions of the Inter-
national Phonetic Alphabet
 ABBREVIATIONS, CONVENTIONS, AND DEFINITIONS XlV

transliteration a one-to-one transposition of the signs of a text into the signs of

another writing system; in this book, following the conventions
of individual fields of study (thus the transliteration t has differ-
ent interpretations in Semitic and Indie studies)

unkn unknown
voc vocative

vowel a brief portion of an utterance in which no obstruction to the air

stream is created throughout the vocal tract; also, a character des-
ignating such a sound

writing system a signary together with an associated orthography

 Part I: Grammatology

Humankind is defined by language; but civilization is defined by writing. Writ-

ing made historical records possible, and writing was the basis for the urban societies
of the Old World. All humans speak; only humans in civilizations write, so speech is

primary, and writing is secondary. Nonetheless, written rather than spoken language
has received attention from scholars since antiquity: standards were codified and rules
were formulated. An educated minority attempted to speak as they wrote, and they
assumed special prestige with command of these artificial rules and standards All the
while, the majority who spoke as they had learned from the cradle maintained their
native tongues in their evolving vitality and vibrancy. Language changes continually,
but writing cannot keep up, both because of social conservatism and because perma-
nent documents remain as a continual reminder of the past standards.
Linguistics, the modern science of language, has properly taken spoken language
and its structure as its main object of study. (Philology, a science with a distinguished
pedigree, studies civilizations as revealed in their documents: it is the counterpart of

archeology, which investigates cultures through their physical remains. An archeolo-

gist who discovers a text entrusts it to a philologist for interpretation.) Written lan-

guage itself (the medium as opposed to the content of documents) has of late been
taken into the scope of linguistics. But writing systems per se, the marks that record

the languages of the documents produced by the civilizations, have absorbed the at-

tention of only a very few linguists. No name for this field of study has even become
widely accepted; "grammatology," proposed in the mid twentieth century, is better

than most.
Grammatology, like linguistics in general, must be descriptive, historical, and
theoretical. The characters of each writing system must be inventoried and their use
and interpretation ascertained. Since many writing systems of the past have survived,
this process can enter greater time depth with more security than is possible for the
linguistics that studies spoken, necessarily contemporary, languages. Nonetheless, of
course, the historical recordis far from complete, so interrelationships among con-

temporary scripts and those known from earlier times need to be puzzled out, just as
with languages.

1
PART I: GRAMMATOLOGY

Writing differs from language, though, in a very fundamental way. Language is

a natural product of the human mind — the properties of people that make it possible
for everyone to learn any language, provided they start at a young enough age — while
writing is a deliberate product of human intellect: no infant illiterate absorbs its script

along with its language; writing must be studied. Language continually develops and
changes without the conscious interference of its speakers, but writing can be petri-
fied or reformed or adapted or adopted at will. It is thus in the theoretical realm that
grammatology differs most from the rest of linguistics — the theory of writing must
be very different from the theory of language. It is not to be expected that patterns or
principles that describe language should apply to writing, but little attention has yet
been paid to that fact.

Languages, perpetually changing and accompanying their speakers through pop-

ulation expansions, migrations, and conquests, have one past; scripts, peipetuated by
civilizations and intellectuals with a penchant for going among "savages" to bestow
the "blessings of civilization" upon them, have a different history. While all human
languages probably own a common ancestor (albeit so long ago that there is no hope
of determining its substance), there seem to have been at least three —and possibly as
many as seven — distinct, independent origins of writing in the ancient world. Earliest

was probably the cuneiform writing devised for Sumerian (or even some other lan-
guage, of which all trace has been lost), which seems to have been the inspiration for
Egyptian Hieroglyphic. The second of the three was Chinese, which came to be
adopted in Japan and Korea, and imitated in other areas under China's influence. The
third took place in Mesoamerica, culminating in the Maya script that has begun to be
understood by modern scholars.
Egyptian hieroglyphic in turn probably inspired the Canaanite script, whose off-

shoots became the scripts of all of Europe and most of Asia. At the root of this tree is

a system that recorded consonants only, one per character, what I call the Semitic ab-
jad. Perhaps nearly simultaneously at the eastern and western extremes of the ancient
Near East, this system was augmented with notations for vowels on quite different
principles: In the Mediterranean, they came to be written with individual characters,
resulting in the Greek alphabet that underlies all the scripts of Europe and its world-
wide extensions. In India, they became appendages to the consonants, in the Brahmi
writing system that in turn underlies all the scripts of South and Southeast Asia. (Sci-
ons of both branches penetrated Inner Asia, and the script of Ethiopia seems to repre-

sent a blending of the two.) Some centuries later, the abjads themselves — Syriac,
Hebrew, Arabic — added vocalizations that did not impinge on the consonantal text
and remain optional.
No fewer than six different ways of relating the signs of a script to the sounds of
a language have arisen, through human ingenuity. Such variety, not reducible to any
underlying unity, is further evidence that writing cannot be treated in the same way
as language. The outlines of a science of writing systems are presented below.
— Peter T. Daniels
SECTION

The Study of Writing Systems

Peter T. Daniels

Grammatology
The word grammatology was adopted by I. J. Gelb, author of the first linguistically
—
sound theoretical study of writing systems (1952), to refer in preference to graphol-
ogy, which was already used for the practice of reading a person's character by hand-
writing analysis — to the science he pioneered. (The term was subsequently taken
over, with acknowledgment, in a very different sense by the philosopher Jacques Der-
rida.) The name parallels phonology and morphology, the branches of linguistics that
study sounds and meaningful units.
A science begins with the identification and definition of its object of study. In
the case of writing, we must distinguish several senses —here we are not concerned
with writing as the motions the hand makes in creating written symbols ("That cal-
ligrapher writes beautifully"), nor with writing as the careful arrangement of lan-
guage ("That essayist writes beautifully"). Rather, writing is defined as a system of
more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterance in such a way that it can
be recovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer. By this def-
inition, writing is bound up with language; consequently, the widespread practice of

recording by means of pictures (pictograms) of ideas that are not couched in a spe-
cific linguistic form is excluded. Such pictograms are often designated fore runners of
writing (e.g. Gelb 1952), but in fact writing systems (or scripts) do not develop from
them (DeFrancis 1989).
Pictography is not writing, because languages include many things that cannot be

represented by pictures: not only obvious things like abstract notions and many verbs,

but also grammatical inflections and particles, and names. Even if the drawing skill

of communicators in a language were such that identifiable portraits of individual

people (and animals and places and so on) could be created whenever the individuals
were mentioned, the significance of such drawings would soon be lost. It is thus nec-

essary for a writing system to represent the sounds of a language.

A term often used in connection with writing is grapheme. This word is modeled
on the linguistic terms phoneme and morpheme (significant units of sound and of
meaning); but because of the fundamental difference between writing and language

Acknowledgments: For comments on drafts of sections i, 2, and/or 52. I am grateful to William Bright.

Jerry Cooper. Piotr Michalowski. Michael Patrick O'Connor, Pierre Swiggers, and especially Sara Mandell.
PART I: GRAMMATOLOGY

(see page 2), the usual understanding of the suffix -erne does not apply (it marks units
in a language — or in a culture generally — that "make a difference": [0] and [s] are dis-
phonemes in English, cf. thing/sing, but not in French). Too many attributes of
tinct

phonemes find no parallel among "graphemes," and many attributes of the units of
writing systems are not paralleled in sound systems (Daniels 199 1 , 1994; Kohrt 1986
summarizes his massive 1985). Most obviously, linguistics finds that, however differ-

ent two languages may sound, in some fundamental way all languages are essentially
the same —humans in general, regardless of ancestry, can learn any language; and
specifically, that the same principles of phonology apply to all languages, however
much they differ in their inventory of phonemes.
On the other hand, half a dozen fundamentally different types of writing systems
have been devised with respect to how symbols relate to the sounds of language (and
there's no reason more types could not be invented). In a logosyllabary, the characters
of a script denote individual words (or morphemes) as well as particular syllables. In
a syllabary, the characters denote particular syllables, and there is no systematic
graphic similarity between the characters for phonetically similar syllables. In a con-
sonantary, here called an abjad as a parallel to "alphabet" (the word is formed from
the first letters of the most widespread example, the Arabic script, in their historic or-

der; cf. section 68), the characters denote consonants (only). In an alphabet, the
characters denote consonants and vowels. In an abugida, each character denotes a
consonant accompanied by a specific vowel, and the other vowels are denoted by a
consistent modification of the consonant symbols, as in Indie scripts. (The word is

Ethiopic, from the first four consonants and the first four vowels of the traditional or-
der of the script, cf. section 68; the type has been called neosyllabary [Fevrier],
pseudo-alphabet [Householder], and semisyllabary [Diringer].* But these terms mis-
leadingly suggest that the abugida is a subtype, or hybrid, of alphabet or syllabary
a notion that has led to unfortunate historical/evolutionary notions about the history
of writing.) In afeatural system, like Korean or "phonotypic" shorthand, the shapes
of the characters correlate with distinctive features of the segments of the language.
Note that purely logographic writing is not possible: for a script to adequately
represent a language, it must not only represent its words, but also must be able to
represent —
names and foreign words even if it were possible to have a character for
every word in a language, it would still be necessary to be able to represent its sounds
so that such items from outside the system could be communicated. It is also note-
worthy that virtually every extant syllabary represents syllables comprising (besides
a vowel alone) a consonant (C) followed by a vowel (V), rather than VC or CVC syl-

lables.

*Bright's alphasyllabary (sec SECTION 31) is apparently not intended as an equivalent of these functional
terms, but refers to the formal property of denoting vowels by marks that are not of the same status as conso-

nants, and do not occur in a linear order corresponding to the temporal order of utterance.
 SECTION 1: THE STUDY OF WRITING SYSTEMS

The study of diverse writing systems requires some acquaintance with the pho-
netics of the world's languages. In this work, the International Phonetic Alphabet is

taken as a reference standard, and all discussion of the sounds of languages uses its

symbols as revised in 1989 (see endpapers). The articulatory correlates of the sym-
bols (i.e., how one pronounces the world's linguistic sounds) are beyond our scope;
see section 71 for a summary, and John Laver's monumental Principles of Phonet-
ics (1994) for a full treatment. The reader who is not familiar with the field would do
better to turn to the standard works of the three teachers Laver acknowledges: Aber-
crombie (1967) has a special interest in phonetic notation systems; Ladefoged (1975)
is the classroom standard; and Catford (1988) gives nearly sure-fire instructions for

properly pronouncing any sound used in language.

It is often supposed that writing was devised for the purpose of communicating
at a distance — in order to send messages that did not rely upon the memory of the
messenger. But this seems to be a case of overlooking the obvious: the sending of
messages, and the writing of books for posterity, are happily accidental byproducts.
The earliest uses of writing seems to be to communicate things that really don't have
oral equivalents (Cooper 1989: 323f., 329f.). In Mesopotamia, the earliest documents
are business records: quantities of livestock, lists of workers and their rations and
tasks. In China, the oldest writing is found in oracles addressing queries to the gods
(though it has been inferred that commercial applications that have not survived ap-
peared a little earlier and underlie the oracles; Keightley 1989). In Mesoamerica, as-
tronomical, life cycle, and other calendrical information is the primary topic of the
many texts that can be interpreted.

History of the study of writing

From earliest times, in Mesopotamia and in Classical Greece, the grammatical study
of language meant the study of written language (Lepschy 1994, vols. 1-2). But the
writing systems themselves were overlooked, or looked right through. The Greeks be-
lieved their alphabet had been brought to them by a Phoenician named Cadmus. The
Sumerians believed was an invention of the gods (section 3), and the
their script

closest they came to historical investigation was the compilation of lists of obsolete
signforms, so that ancient documents could be read (and, on occasion, forged: Gelb
1949 shows that a large stela that looks Old Akkadian was actually written much lat-

er).

The European Renaissance awoke interest in the study of early Greek and Latin
manuscripts; explorers brought back both antiquities and contemporary manuscripts
bearing writing in exotic scripts; subsequently, colonial administrators needed to un-
derstand their subjects' texts and to publish their own edicts in native languages.
From the sixteenth century, specimens of such exotica found their way into illustra-

tions and even type, and from the late seventeenth, the modern institution of the schol-

arly journal was in place. In such publications as the Transactions of the Royal
PART I: GRAMMATOLOGY

Society, the Memoires de VAcademie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, and Asiatick
Researches, scholars such as Edmond Halley, Jean-Jacques Barthelemy, and William
Jones presented pioneering work on scripts of ancient and modern Asia (section 9).
The Journal Asiatique, Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft,
and Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society (with branches in many lands), among many
others, began to carry reports of explorers and missionaries about the languages and
scripts they were encountering.
Western scholars cautiously freed themselves from literal interpretations of the
biblical account of the Tower of Babel (though the Bible is silent on the institution of

writing), and began to trace the historical relationships among languages and among
writing systems. It took some doing to keep those two topics separate: early interpret-
ers of Mesopotamian cuneiform were led astray by the supposition —that if the lan-
guage it recorded was Semitic (a reasonable, and correct, guess) —then the script
must, like those of the Semitic languages Hebrew and Arabic, record only consonants.
This hypothesis had to be abandoned before progress could be made (section 9).
One of the most influential scholars in the early nineteenth century, whose name is
now absent from the histories of philology —perhaps he has been forgotten because
he was a generalist — is Ulrich Friedrich Kopp. His Bilder und Schriften der Vorzeit
(1821) is a very rare book, but it includes pioneering investigations in many fields,

including European and Semitic antiquities. His work would well repay careful study,
though no single modern scholar would be competent to evaluate it in its entirety.

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, scholars began to devote entire books
to writing systems. The earliest is Karl Faulmann's Geschichte der Schrift (1880, with
a companion volume of specimens, Buch der Schrift). The coverage is very broad, but
the sensibility is premodern and rather mystical. The first book on writing from a sci-
entific perspective is Isaac Taylor's The Alphabet (1883). Fully half of it is devoted to
the scripts of India, and some of the factual material included thereon can be found
nowhere else. It seems to be Taylor who first laid out (vol. 1 , p. 6) the tripartite typol-
ogy of writing systems — logographic, syllabic, alphabetic — that has dominated
grammatology for more than a century, though it has been attributed to Edward Bur-
nett Tylor, "father of anthropology" (1865). This may be a simple confusion of the
more familiar name with the more obscure, for Tylor seems not to have made any finer
distinction than picture-writing vs. phonetic writing (e.g., 1881, chap. 7).
The twentieth century has brought a number of popular treatments of writing,
many of which are still to be found in public libraries and used-book stores. Readily
available — —
and often cited are such works as Clodd 1904, Mason 1920, Ogg 1948,
Moorhouse 1953, and Ober 1965. Volumes like these often include attractive illustra-
tions, but they tend to perpetuate misinformation. In a different class are Diringer

1958, 1962, and Gaur 1992. These are works by scholars for the general public
(Gaur's is superbly illustrated from the collections of the British Museum and Li-
brary). Still another type of writing-book is the collection of specimens: The Book of

a Thousand Tongues (Nida 1972), which celebrates the translation work of the United
 SECTION 1 : THE STUDY OF WRITING SYSTEMS 7

Bible Societies, includes a wealth and variety of information on its hundreds of non-
Roman specimens. Nakanishi (1980) presents whatever will fit onto a single page of
the actual workings of twenty-nine scripts (the criterion for inclusion being use in a
daily newspaper), along with samples of dozens of others. The details may occasion-
ally go astray, but this is a valuable resource. Lastly, there have been a number of cof-
fee-table books, in various languages, with sumptuous illustrations and dubious
textual value; on the other hand, the catalogs of museum exhibitions increasingly lead
to the next category, with both beautiful photographs and essays by competent ex-
perts (but they tend to achieve limited distribution, so none are listed here).

Modern scholarly books on writing fall in two classes. There are historical cata-
logs: Cohen 1958, Diringer 1968, Fevrier 1959, Fossey 1948, Friedrich 1966, Jensen

1969. Of this group, Fevrier tends to exhibit the soundest judgment, Friedrich's is the
easiest to use, and Jensen provides the most copious bibliography. Cohen includes the
most information, but if there is any organization to the material, it is not obvious. Di-
ringer's treatment is very readable, but bibliographic references are absent or inade-
quate. Fossey's many specialists are reliable, and their remarks are orientated toward
practical advice for typesetters of the languages of the Orient. Driver 1976 is wide-
ranging and copiously illustrated. A bridge to the next category is the work of Harald
Haarmann (1990), who presents the essential materials for the history of writing but
in a conceptual, rather than strictly chronological, order.

In 1952, I. J. Gelb published the first linguistically informed study of writing.

Like all the books mentioned below, it is shaped by its author's specialties, Gelb's be-
ing the earliest stages of the Semitic language Akkadian (as a very young man, he had
also led in the decipherment of Luvian hieroglyphs). Gelb was also a great system-
atizer: he was never happier than when finding patterns in disparate phenomena, and
this mindset on occasion led him to owrsystematize, as happened in his evolutionary
explanation of the tripartite typology of writing. Gelb claimed that syllabaries could
only develop from logographies, and that alphabets could only develop from sylla-
baries, and that these steps could be neither skipped nor reversed. He called this se-
quence the "principle of unidirectional development," and this principle has become
the accepted view. The difficulties arising from it are described in the next subsection.
Gelb always said he intended his book to be the first, not the last, word on the
theory of writing. But it was more than three decades before successors appeared

Sampson 1985, Coulmas 1989, DeFrancis 1989 and Gelb did not — live to see them.

Sampson's work is tendentious, and he includes the "forerunners" in his catalog of

writings; his accounts of Linear B and of Korean script are especially good. Coulmas
concentrates on the place of writing in society. DeFrancis debunks notions of the
"forerunners" of writing and of the "ideographic" nature of Chinese writing. DeFran-
cis is a specialist in Chinese, and Gaur in the languages of India; Sampson and Coul-

mas do not demonstrate a bias in their materials from which a specialty can be iden-
tified. All four authors seem to make up for Gelb's orientation (and
errors) by misstat-

ing assorted bits of information regarding ancient Near Eastern scripts.

g PART I: GRAMMATOLOGY

The typology of writing systems

As has already become clear, a variety of typologies of scripts have been proposed.
The tripartite scheme of logography, syllabary, alphabet was the first real one and has
remained the most popular; but it led to certain unlikely suggestions about the nature
of certain scripts, and several alternatives have been offered.
Gelb's insistence on the principle of unidirectional development led him to pro-
claim that the Phoenician script (from which the Greek alphabet developed) was not
an alphabet, as it was commonly known, but rather a syllabary with indeterminate
vowels; and that the Ethiopic script (which developed from it via the South Arabian
script) is not a syllabary, but that its classification is problematic. Both of these asser-
tions are counterintuitive and seemingly counterfactual: the Phoenician script does
not identify syllables, and the Ethiopic script does\ Owing to the importance of Gelb's
work, one nowadays regularly finds the West Semitic scripts referred to as syllabaries
by authors who have not made a special study of the topic.

There are two sources for the awkwardness of this nomenclature. One is the un-
questioning acceptance of the tripartite typology: the problem disappears when
scripts need no longer be assigned to only three classes. (Justeson and Stephens 1993
believe they have refuted Gelb's theory by adducing an impressive collection of ex-
amples of "syllabaries" derived from "alphabets"; but the refinement of the typology
renders the exercise unnecessary.) It must simply be recognized (Daniels 1990) that

abjads are not (any longer) syllabaries and not (yet) alphabets, and that abugidas
though they denote syllables — are not like syllabaries, since vowels receive identifi-
cation equivalent to that for consonants.
The other source of difficulty is the notion of applying the concept of evolution
to products of the human mind. As normally understood, evolution is the result of nat-
ural selection operating on random variation. So, while evolution can be understood
as the source of human linguistic ability, and a metaphorical extension of the term ap-
plies to the diversification of human languages, it cannot be taken as appropriate to
the history of writing. Changes in scripts are successive improvements (or at least at-

tempts at improvement), rather than evolutions. Only the change in the shapes of
characters with successive generations might be seen as evolution, but they are always
held in check by the authority of the teacher and by the need to be able to read older
documents.
Note that Gelb, as well as DeFrancis (cf. Sampson 1994) and this volume, ex-
clude from the category of writing systems those graphic expressions that do not re-
flect the sounds of the language. The Soviet scholar Viktor Istrin (1953, 1957) defines
writing as serving to transmit language at a distance in space or time; on this basis he
admits a four-way typology of pictographic, ideographic, syllabic, and phonetic writ-
ing. But since pictography records "an entire sentence, proposition, or communica-
tion, not yet clearly divided by signs into separate words" (1972 [1953]: 362), how
 SECTION 1: THE STUDY OF WRITING SYSTEMS

can it be said to transmit language at all? Istrin's "ideograms" do not in fact record
"ideas" (Gelb rightly banished the term from our science, preferring logogram) but
rather individual words or their significant parts. He notes, therefore, that the sound
of the word can be linked to the logogram or not (the latter as in the determinatives
of Mesopotamian cuneiform or Egyptian, the Sumerograms of Akkadian or Hittite,

or the mathematical signs of English). Istrin does not mention any examples of what
are here called abugidas, so it is unclear whether he would count them as syllabaries.
He usefully identifies three kinds of alphabetic writing: phonetic, where the orthog-
raphy of words corresponds to their current pronunciation (e.g. schemes of phonetic
transcription); phonologico-morphological, which we would call morphophonemic,
with unique orthography of phonemes —and of morphemes as well —even when, for
phonetic reasons, their pronunciation varies in different grammatical forms (e.g. Rus-
sian); and historico-traditional, where the orthography of words corresponds to their

former pronunciation (e.g. French and English —though it now clear that the con-
is

servatism of these orthographies is advantageous, in that much morphophonemic in-

formation, the result of change in the language, is organized in their apparent chaos).
Istrin mentions a further possible classification of scripts, grouping them into families
of common origin; moreover, such a scheme has been worked out, using synchronic

characteristics as well as awareness of their history, for a wide range of scripts, in

Herrick 1974.
A. A. Hill (1967) classifies scripts according to their relation to the units of the
different "levels" at which language is studied in descriptive linguistics: discourse
systems, morphemic systems, and phonemic systems. Since all systems omit some of
the linguistic structure from the record (morphemic systems omit phonemic informa-
tion; phonemic systems omit stress and usually pitch), it's not odd to say that dis-

course systems —what are here called pictographic —omit all the linguistic structure!

"Discourse systems are unique only in that they do not demand that the reader know
the language of the recorded utterance, and rely instead to a very heavy extent on
—
knowledge of the non-linguistic background" (p. 94) even though "the purpose of
writing can be said to be unique identification of an utterance" (p. 93).

A different approach to typology, looking at letters rather than languages, is taken

by Voegelin and Voegelin (1961, wherein alphabet apparently refers to any phono-
graphic script). They begin with the characters of scripts and consider the systems that
comprise them. There are four kinds: CVD, consonant signs which distinguish adja-
cent vowels by graphemic dissimilarity; CVS, consonant signs which distinguish ad-
jacent vowels by graphemic similarity for a particular consonant [and, of course, for
particular vowels]; IC, independent consonant signs; and IV, independent vowel

signs. The combinations of such units—CVD+IV (syllabaries), IC (ab-

five attested

jads), IC+CVD (the only example is Ugaritic), IC+IV (alphabets), and

CVS+IV
(abugidas)— are called self-sufficient alphabets; they are opposed to alphabet includ-

ed logographic systems (Chinese, Egyptian, Luvian, Maya) and to alphabet excluded

mnemonic systems, encompassing pictographic writing (though writing itself

goes
\0 PART I: GRAMMATOLOGY

undefined!) as well as quipus and "motion languages" (i.e. Plains Indian Sign Lan-
guage, rather than sign languages of the deaf, which are languages fully equal in
structure and complexity to spoken languages and not a transference into gesture of
any spoken language). Voegelin and Voegelin are caught up in the euphoria ensuing
from the decipherment of Linear B, and they are nearly prescient in recognizing the
significance of the nascent decipherment of Maya glyphs. Their article still deserves
perusal for their remarks on many aspects of the study of writing.
T. V. Gamkrelidze (1994) applies the Saussurean notions of paradigmatic and
syntagmatic relations (respectively, mutual substitutability in a particular position in

an utterance, and relations among successive elements of an utterance) to the descrip-

tion of script types: an alphabet encodes segments in both ways, while an abjad en-
codes segments paradigmatically and syllables syntagmatically.

The study of writing

The fortunes of writing in modern linguistics have fallen and risen. When the focus
of linguistics shifted from historical philology, which investigated the development
of (primarily) the Indo-European languages on the basis of ancient records and of
comparison of attested tongues, to the description of new-met languages that had nev-
er been written — a shift largely occasioned by the American encounter with exotic,
and dying, indigenous populations —writing itself was concomitantly devalued: if un-
familiar languages could, as it turned out, be fully described without the intermediary
of historic records, did that not show that writing was secondary, and all languages
should be described in purely oral mode? The outcome was descriptive linguistics,
which strove to present language as it is used (see page 1 2 on F. de Saussure; the locus
classicus is Bloomfield 1933). Bound up with this enterprise was insistence on lack
of value judgments. The languages of those who had been called "savages" proved as
rich and expressive as any European language, however different they appeared to be;

it was hard to maintain claims of mental or racial inferiority before such evidence.
This attitude was reimported to the study of, say, English (e.g. the polemics of Hall
1950), resulting in reference works that were descriptive rather than prescriptive (e.g.
reaction to the publication of the Merriam-Webster Third New International Dictio-
nary: Sledd and Ebbitt 1962, Morton 1994): language as it is rather than as it should
be; language is not correct or incorrect — it is appropriate or inappropriate. Prescrip-
tivists, on the other hand, tend to insist that only written language can be formal lan-
guage, and that only formal language can be correct; spoken language is consequently
devalued. Such reaction has preoccupied indignant "language police" or "language
mavens" who, apparently without considering the basis of descriptivism, insist that it

is the cause, rather than the reflection, of what they regard as the "corruption" of the
language. They would forbid (as if it were possible) traits of colloquial speaking from
entering written discourse. No linguist, however, would deny that a more formal reg-
ister of speech is appropriate in a more formal situation.
 SECTION 1: THE STUDY OF WRITING SYSTEMS ]
j

Another productive approach to linguistics emerged when Joseph Greenberg dis-

covered "implicational universals" of language, which are statements along the lines
of "If a language usually puts its verbs before its objects, then it probably also usually
puts prepositions before its nouns" (as in English; compare Japanese, with the oppo-

His disciple John Justeson (1976) came up with a series of statements

site patterns).

reagarding writing systems, such as "[1] All writing systems distinguishing any pho-
nemes contain signs distinguishing some consonantal phonemes," "[7] Alphabets are
more likely to represent loan-word phonemes separately than are syllabaries," and
"[32] If IV is not represented in a script, neither is /r/." These are empirical findings,
and they would repay study to discover whether they are accidental or bear on the na-
ture of the relations between script and language.
Orthography has found its way into linguistics in the discipline called generative

phonology, developed by Morris Halle and taken up by Noam Chomsky. This system
accounts for the varying phonological shapes of words (and morphemes) by, in effect,

asserting that individual speakers recapitulate the chronological sequence of changes

in the sound system of their language: what they hold in their heads is a lexicon of
"underlying forms" and a set of rules that change them —and the underlying forms,
not surprisingly, correspond very closely to the orthographic forms of the words,
leading to the valid claim that "English orthography turns out to be rather close to an
optimal system for spelling English" (Chomsky and Halle 1968: 184 n. 19).

More generally, it ought to be kept in mind that what even the purest descriptive
linguistics analyzes nearly always is a written text — the product of, ideally, careful

transcription of casual speech (which became more feasible with the introduction of

sound recording), or sometimes, careful correction of a text in cooperation with na-

tive-speaker consultants (Murray 1983). There is also a field of Native American phi-

lology, whose business is to reconstruct the pronunciation of the texts and isolated
words and phrases collected by writers in the Colonial period, recorded more or less
accurately using the sound-spelling correspondence conventions of the English,
Spanish, or French of the time (Goddard 1973). What we have in all these cases is

descriptive grammars of spoken language written down.

Largely outside the United States, there is a tradition of studying written lan-

guage as a register of language that is taken to be qualitatively different front, albeit

not superior to, spoken language. The principal names in the field are the Czech
scholar Josef Vachek, whose Written Language Revisited (1989) collects a half cen-
tury of articles; and the British-Australian linguist M. A. K. Halliday, whose systemic
linguistics seeks to involve patterns of discourse well beyond the level of sentence at

which descriptive linguistics (encompassing both Leonard Bloomfield and Noam

Chomsky, with all the apparent diversity of their many disciples; Matthews 1993) un-
til recently called a halt to analysis. Linguists in the American tradition who have
gone on language continue to focus on spoken dialogue, whereas
to larger stretches of

Halliday has also investigated the structure of written prose. Halliday and Martin
12 PART I: GRAMMATOLOGY

1993 includes several chapters written for non-linguists and represents perhaps the
most accessible entree to the approach.

The theoretical underpinnings of descriptive (which became structural) linguis-

tics were laid down in the second decade of the twentieth century by Ferdinand de
Saussure (19 16), who had done revolutionary work on Indo-European. He codified
the distinction between historical and descriptive linguistics, and firmly established
that writing is secondary to speaking; for Saussure, language comprises signs, which
embody a signifier (sound) and a signified (meaning), and these signs are arbitrary
and linear. These postulates have been axiomatic ever since, but Roy Harris (1990,
most clearly) challenges them all. He is unwilling to separate the current state of a
language from its past, or its spoken from its written form (or language as a whole
from other forms of communication). The denial of linearity —succession of spoken
elements in a single temporal dimension — is most relevant to the linguistics of writ-

ing. On the one hand, the existence of complete texts, written down, means that

stretches of language can be referred to out of the sequence of their production. On

the other, and most importantly for writing systems, Harris reminds us (1986) that

phonetics has shown the stream of speech not to be segmentable into units corre-
sponding to letters — that is, into phonemes; syllables are the smallest linguistic units

with physical existence (cf. section 52). For Harris, the phenomenon of phonemes
is an artifact of alphabetic writing. One need not accept his deconstruction of the field
of linguistics, but his proposal deserves serious consideration.

Related topics
Beyond the scope of The World's Writing Systems, but too important to go unmen-
tioned, are two fertile fields of scholarship, concerned with the psychology of reading
and with the phenomenon of literacy. A collection reporting a pioneering conference
of both linguists and psychologists is Kavanagh and Mattingly (1972), and a selection
of papers from a 1988 conference on linguistics and literacy is published by Down-
ing, Lima, and Noonan (1992). The acquisition of written language — i.e., learning to
read — is one of the most important tasks of modern youth. This has been one of the
most intensely studied areas of psycholinguistics (e.g. Gibson and Levin 1975, Hend-
erson 1982; Kennedy 1984 and McLane and McNamee 1990 address the general
reader), and a source of endless controversy among educationists. Indeed, psycholin-
guists overall have a tendency to investigate the performance of subjects on tasks in-

volving written language, and to assume that they are discovering how human minds
process language in general. This assumption seems to be not quite legitimate, in part
at least because it is difficult to understand how any part of the human brain can have
evolved to specialize in writing (as opposed such process —operating
to talking): a
over the last five thousand years or so — would have required some reproductive ad-
vantage to be connected with literacy, and it is not the case that literate humans have
produced offspring at the expense of non-literate ones.
 SECTION 1: THE STUDY OF WRITING SYSTEMS \T>

table I . I : Studies in the History of Western Literacy

Period References

Classical Greece Thomas 1989, 1992

Classical Rome Harris 1989

Medieval Europe Chaytor 1945, McKitterick 1989, 1990

Medieval England Clanchy 1979
European Renaissance Febvre and Martin 1976, Eisenstein 1979
Elizabethan England Goldberg 1990
Early United States Simpson 1986, Murray 1991

The study of literacy falls into two parts. There is the problem of illiteracy in the
modern world, both in the technologically advanced nations, and in the developing
countries where no tradition or claim — —
of universal literacy exists. Some useful
readings —excluding the large literature on language planning —include de Castell,

Luke, and Egan 1986; Graubard 1991; Kintgen, Kroll, and Rose 1988; Olson and Tor-
rance 1 991; Olson, Torrance, and Hildyard 1985; Pattison 1982; Street 1984; and
Stubbs 1980. This is the domain of, again, educationists, but also of politicians and
political scientists, of economists and business executives. We may hope that en-

hanced knowledge of writing systems may at least inform their deliberations.

The history of literacy, in Western civilization at least, has in the last few decades
been well studied — nearly every era has been examined in monographic works (the

references in table i . i are not claimed to be exhaustive), and general syntheses have
begun to appear that show the importance of written materials through the course of
European and American culture (Graff 1987, Martin 1988, Olson 1994). Baines
(1983) and Michalowski (1994) have done pioneering work on literacy in the ancient
Near East. Anthropologists and philosophers consider the impact of the written word
in the modern world, affecting both previously nonliterate cultures (e.g. Goody 1968,

1977, 1986, 1987; Scribner and Cole 1981; Street 1993) and the modern West (e.g.
Ong 1977, 1982; Illich and Sanders 1988). Marshall McLuhan, e.g. 1962, is notori-
ous, and found a disciple in Logan 1986; the similar suppositions of Eric Havelock
are discussed in section 2. Barton (1994) provides an integrated, though simplified,
overview. As with some topics noted earlier, for general historians it seems that the
written word is too close at hand to be noticed at all. The very documents that make
history possible have been studied for their content, but not for themselves.

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 SECTION 1 THE STUDY OF WRITING SYSTEMS
:
|
7

Daedalus 119/2).
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Politics

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 Part
Ancient Near II:

Eastern Writing Systems

Prehistory isn't like a "veil" or a "curtain" that "lifts" to reveal the pre-set
"stage" of history. Rather, prehistory is an absence of something: an absence of writ-
ing. So a better image of the "dawn of history" might be an AM radio in the pre-dawn
hours: you recognize wisps of words or music across the dial, interblending, and
noise obscures even the few clear-channel stations. With the coming of the daylight,
the static fades away, and signals emerge. The first ones we find, when we switch on
the radio of history about 3200 b.c.e., come from Mesopotamia, and those from
Egypt soon emerge. Eventually the neighboring lands produce records, with the effect
that the ancient Near East is probably the best documented civilization before the in-

vention of printing.
The earliest scribes we know about wrote on shaped lumps of clay the durabil- —
ity of which is the reason we know about them —
indenting wedge-shaped marks with
a square corner of a reed stylus. They wrote in Sumerian, a language related to no oth-
er ofwhich traces have survived. Scholars have debated for over a century why and
whence they were gradually superseded by writers of a Semitic language, Akkadian
(which appears in the main varieties Assyrian and Babylonian). The cultural influ-
ence of this civilization led to its script being adapted (and simplified) in neighboring
realms for a variety of languages that, other than the Indo-European Hittite, remain
difficult because of the paucity of materials and because they are not related to better

known ones.
Contemporary with the entire duration of Mesopotamian civilization was that of

Egypt in the Nile Valley. Egyptians wrote their language — distantly related to Akka-
dian —with ink on papyrus, using recognizable pictures (beside developments there-
from) for three thousand years. Between the fertile valleys of Egypt and Mesopota-
mia, in the hills and deserts of Syria and Palestine, dozens of small kingdoms rose and
fell. Somehow, perhaps around 1500 b.c.e., for a range of Semitic languages (the
most important would prove to be Hebrew and Aramaic) they came to use an abjad

or consonantal script which may find its forebears to both the east and the south, and

19
20 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

which, carrying Aramaic, was to be used from India to Egypt. Used to record other
languages, it reached to the western edge of Europe.
In the far northwest of the ancient Near East, in Anatolia and on Aegean and
Mediterranean islands, again from the mid second millennium, Indo-European lan-
guages (and apparently some others) have been found to use a pair of pictographic

scripts that may or may not reflect Egyptian influence. The Luvian hieroglyphs record
a language similar to Hittite. Linear B was the script of a form of Greek older by per-
haps five hundred years than any that has survived from the Classical era. A seeming
descendant of it was used in Cyprus a thousand years later, but other than that neither
Luvian nor Linear B lived long enough to be directly superseded by the alphabetic
scripts that were to occupy their territories in the first millennium b.c.e.
The first script we know to have been invented, rather than developed out of an-
other, was that devised for the monumental inscriptions of the Persian Empire (last of

the great pre-Classical realms). In appearance it imitates Mesopotamian cuneiform;

in inner form it resembles Aramaic script; but in function it was severely circum-

scribed —not one private document or record using it has been found from the full
geographical extent and temporal range of the realm.
— Peter T. Daniels
SECTION 2

The First Civilizations

Peter T. Daniels

"Civilization" has been used in several ways. To the anthropologist, it is a term to

avoid, since it can be (and was) taken to contrast the "civilized" nations of Europe
(and occasionally China) with the "savages" in the rest of the world. For the archeol-
ogist, civilization begins with the advent of agriculture and permanent settlement
("villagization," perhaps, long predating urbanization), as early as 10,000 b.c.e. But
in popular use —and this is the sense taken over by literacy scholars — civilization is

marked by the appearance of writing in a culture. Jack Goody's recent musings on the
written and the oral end thus (1987: 300): "Cognitively as well as sociologically, writ-
ing underpins 'civilization', the culture of cities."

"Forerunners" of writing
The full range of scripts of the ancient Near East are or appear to be related to each
other by immediate adaptation or by direct, conscious influence. There are, in addi-
tion,remains of two recording devices that have been hypothesized to underlie Sum-
erian cuneiform, the earliest true writing system: the Vinca signs and the Near
Eastern clay tokens.

The Vinca signs

The Vinca culture, found in the central Balkans and dating to 5300-4300 b.c.e., is
named for the Serbian site southeast of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, where it was initially
excavated during the first third of the twentieth century (Gimbutas 1991: 62-70, with
bibliography, describes the culture and places it in its Balkan and wider contexts). Nu-
merous objects— what Gimbutas notes as "religious items only" (p. 308)—bear
graphic marks that look as though they might be elements of a script (pp. 308-21);
often an object displays a series of such marks. According to an analysis by Winn
being variants
(1973/1981), there are 210 signs; 30 are core signs, with the remainder
8-1 and 8-2). Gimbutas supposes (as Winn ap-
and combinations (Gimbutas, figures
parently does not) that these marks are a writing system that records the
pre-Indo-

European language of her "Old European" ch flization. She goes so far as to (face-

tiously)compare Old European signs with those of Linear A (her figure 8-22) and the
Cypriote syllabary (figure 8-23; for both, see section 7). Had Gimbutas not
included

LIBRA*?
ARCHBISHOP MCTTY HIGH SCHOOL
San Jose, Uiuornla
22 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

the proviso "for our amusement" (p. 320), she would have committed the oldest fal-
lacy in the study of writing systems: the comparison of shapes alone without attention
to sound values. Researchers must, therefore, not be misled by such charts into ret-
rojecting the Greek values to a putative Old European language. Moreover, no claim
seems to have been put forward that any recurring sequences of signs have been iden-
tified, and the first step in any linguistic analysis is the identification of strings that are
the same or partly the same. It seems, then, most improbable that the marks represent
a language, either logographically or phonetically. Thus on the current evidence it is

not possible to recognize a Vinca writing system. A sober study of these and related
materials, e.g. the "Tartaria tablets," by a scholar of the Aegean scripts —not cited by
Gimbutas — is Masson 1984.

Near Eastern tokens

Firmly associated with the name of Denise Schmandt-Besserat —though the theory
had been adumbrated by A. Leo Oppenheim and Pierre Amiet — notion
is the that the

thousands of "small clay objects" that have been recovered at sites from Palestine to
eastern Iran dating back to 8000 b.c.e., and which have come to be known as tokens,
represent the starting-point of cuneiform writing. (Many of Schmandt-Besserat's long
series of articles, which began in 1977, are gathered and adapted in volume 1 of Be-
fore Writing, 1992.)
It was Oppenheim (1959) who noted that the inscription on the outside of a hol-
low, spheroidal clay object from second-millennium Nuzi listed a quantity of animals
that corresponded to the number of "pebbles" (according to the excavators) that had
been enclosed in the object. Amiet (1966) reported the discovery at Susa of similar
objects (known as envelopes) that were some two thousand years older: they con-
tained variously shaped clay artifacts (rather than pebbles), they dated from a prehis-
toric period ("protoliterate"), and some bore markings that resembled the contents
(but, Amiet noted, there was not so great a variety of markings as of enclosed tokens).
For only a handful of the two hundred or so known envelopes is the corresponding
complement of tokens known, and only some of them have markings; but for these,
the number of markings corresponds to the number of associated tokens, and they
seem to have been made by impressing the tokens on the surface of the envelope be-
fore enclosing them within (Schmandt-Besserat 1992: 1 10-28, especially tables 1-4
and pp. 127-28).
Schmandt-Besserat associates the different shapes of tokens with different com-
modities that figured in protoliterate culture, such as species of domestic animals, tex-
tiles, and metal goods. Since the "pebbles" formerly contained in the only known
inscribed envelope are lost, there is no possibility of associating their shapes with
whatever original meaning they may have had; Schmandt-Besserat compares their
geometric shapes with early stylized cuneiform signs that do not seem to have a pic-
tographic background, and suggests that the signs developed from the impressions of
 SECTION 2: THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS 23

the tokens; e.g., a disk with an incised cross is compared with a sign (table 3.1 on
page 39, line 6) that inexplicably means 'sheep' (pp. 139-54). Schmandt-Besserat
now distinguishes two types of token, simple and complex, and associates the adop-
tion of their use with the spread of agriculture. She connects the simple tokens with
the numeral signs of cuneiform tablets (section 69) and the complex tokens with
logographic signs; the two kinds of sign are indeed quite different.
Schmandt-Besserat's theory of the origin of writing received great attention dur-
ing the 1980s and has been uncritically incorporated into ancient histories and lin-
guistics textbooks. But almost at once voices of dissent from those few who were in
a position to evaluate the Sumerological evidence were raised, notably that of the late
Steve Lieberman (1980), who seems to be responsible for the distinction between
simple and complex tokens. Michalowski (1990, cf. 1993) addresses Schmandt-
Besserat's theories from a variety of viewpoints, including the full range of ancient
Near Eastern civilization as well as literacy studies, and finds them wanting. He has
moreover developed an understanding of a very localized origin of cuneiform writing
that renders the great temporal and geographic range of tokens irrelevant (see sec-
tion 3). The most convincing refutation of Schmandt-Besserat eventuated with the
publication of a full catalog of the objects which her theory describes (1992, vol. 2).

Paul Zimansky (1993) reanalyzed her database and found that the data do not support
the analysis: from everything known about the lifestyle of the region, the aforemen-
tioned 'sheep' token ought to be among the most common; yet there are just 15 ex-
amples covering seven thousand years. The two most common tokens are those said
to signify 'nail' and 'work, build'
— "Is it really credible that these early villagers

would leave more evidence of keeping accounts on nails and work days than live-

stock?" (p. 516). Zimansky also finds it incredible that tokens can have had uniform
meanings over so vast an attested range. He suggests that "various people at various
times exploited the few geometric shapes that are relatively easy to make in clay and
used them as counters or for whatever other purposes they, as individuals, chose"
(ibid.). Zimansky's review is absolutely essential for anyone interested in the topic.

Interconnections

There are not now, if there ever were, any scholars well enough versed in more than
one ancient civilization to speak authoritatively about connections between them or
their scripts at their very earliest stages, when by definition there are no historical
records to refer to. The notoriety attached to the name of Martin Bernal (who arrived
with, perhaps, the advantage of being a specialist in neither of the civilizations he
would relate: the Egyptian and the Classical Greek) pertains less to his mishandling

of archeological and philological data— which are, after all, of interest only to spe-

cialists (1990; 1987-91, vol. 2) —than to his demonstration of the antisemitism per-

vasive in Oriental studies (1986; 1987-91, vol. 1). Likewise it pertains to what was
perceived as assent to pan-African sentiment deriving mainly from the title Black Ath-
24 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

ena (see the preface to 1987-91, vol. 2). Lost in the fuss was his tribute to two schol-
ars who faced similar dismissive responses, the industrious Michael Astour and the
visionary Cyrus Gordon. Both investigated influences of the Near East on Greece
(Astour 1967, Gordon 1962); and both have been marginalized. The former meticu-
lously establishes ancient geographic patterns, while the latter as early as the 1930s
was a pioneer in the study of the Ugaritic language, though he also has championed
the claims of American finds of Phoenician and Runic texts. (When questioned as to
whether he really believed in ancient connections between the Old World and the
New, he replied, "Well, it might be so.") One must thus tread lightly in this area.
I begin with the two civilizations that are best attested and longest studied: the
Mesopotamian and the Egyptian. It is universally recognized that the cuneiform
(section 3) and hieroglyphic (section 4) writing systems are sufficiently dissimi-
lar (one logosyllabic, the other logoconsonantal) that one could not have been adapted

directly from the other. But the similarities of earliest attestation (ca. 3200 b.c.e.) and
the combination of logography, phonography, and determinatives are sufficient to
convince Egyptologists (e.g. Fischer 1977: 1 189) or suggest to them (e.g. Schenkel
1984: 725) that the idea of writing came from the Sumerians to the Egyptians. Early
contacts between the two peoples are documented by Fischer (nn. 3-4) and Micha-
lowski (1990 n. 23).

In the nineteenth century, with the decipherment of hieroglyphs and cuneiform

and the recognition of their logographic nature, the notion grew of a connection be-
tween the Near Eastern and Far Eastern scripts. But the few signs of cuneiform and
archaic Chinese (section 14) that shared a form and a meaning (e.g. 'sun', 'tree',

'water') pertained to such basic and simple concepts (as already noted in 1927 by
Arthur Ungnad) that their depiction could hardly be other than very similar. Of equal
significance is the recognition that, at the time of the development of Chinese logo-
graphic writing from pictograms, the pictographic origin of cuneiform had been com-
pletely forgotten (Daniels 1992B). If Chinese writing was stimulated by, or imitated
from, Mesopotamian cuneiform, then it should have emerged as a syllabary or a logo-
syllabary, rather than as a nearly pure logography with pervasive phonetic comple-
mentation. Recently, there have been proposals of direct influence from the Semitic
abjad on the 22 Chinese calendrical signs (Mair 1992, Gordon 1994: 37-45; for a so-
ber account of the data, see Pulleyblank 1991). Their evaluation must await the full

publication of the evidence.

Historically, the next pair of scripts (and civilizations) that could be connected is

the Anatolian hieroglyphs (section 6) and the Aegean group (section 7). Note that
this pair falls across the great divide between Classical and Orientalist scholarship, so
the question of possible interrelations has not received sufficient attention. The lead-

ing authority on Luvian writing, David Hawkins (1986: 374), suggests that the picto-

rial character of both, their original use on stamp seals, and their typological
similarity in comprising only logograms and CV(CV) signs indicate some sort of in-

fluence, probably from the Aegean to Anatolia (these characteristics also render un-
 SECTION 2: THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS 25

likely a cuneiform inspiration for the Luvian script). Moreover, "The unsuitability of
both the Linear B and Anatolian syllabaries for writing the Indo-European languages
Greek and Hittite has been often noted, and this factor points to both systems, though

indigenous constructs, being ultimately dependent on an external model, i.e. Egyptian

Hieroglyphic" (ibid.).
The origin of the Semitic abjad (and hence the Greek and European alphabet) has
ethnocentrically received great attention for centuries (section 5). In more recent
decades, it seems that each time a new script was discovered or deciphered, it was tak-
en to be the direct ancestor of the Canaanite script: Egyptian Hieratic, Proto-Sinaitic,
Linear A or B, pseudo-hieroglyphs of Byblos have all been placed in that exalted line.
The truth is that insufficient materials from the earliest phases of writing in the Levant
and neighboring regions are available; every new discovery adds a new piece to the
puzzle and potentially could be the key to the entire development.
The most commonly presented scenario has West Semitic mine workers in the Si-

nai taking the idea of consonantal writing and the shapes of the letters from hiero-
glyphs, and writing dedicatory inscriptions in their language on religious objects. The
values of the letters are not as in Egyptian. Rather, they are supposed to have been
assigned on the acrophonic principle, whereby a letter stands for the initial sound in

the word for the object of which it is a picture. This new script is then supposed to

have been taken into use in the Canaanite area. Aside from the sociological objections
mentioned in section 5, this theory requires the proposed decipherment of the Pro-
to-Sinaitic inscriptions to be valid, which is a dubious assumption (see below).
What needs to be recognized is the intellectual achievement in passing from a
syllabary, the most perspicuous form of phonetic writing (see section 52), to a con-
sonantary. Someone had to recognize that ta, ti, and tu have something in common;

and moreover that at, it, and ut have that very same something in common. It has often
been claimed that the structure of the Semitic languages (wherein the consonantal
roots are important and the vowels merely add variations to the root meanings) is re-
sponsible for this recognition, but this won't work —because Akkadian, which never
adapted syllabic cuneiform into a consonantal or alphabetic script, shares exactly the

same structural property. It is conceivable that the very frequent plene writing of vow-
els in Hittite cuneiform (page 65)—CVr V— made it possible to regard the CV sign

as representing only the C of its syllable (potentially the inspiration of the abjad), with
the vowel expressed only by the V sign (the similarly written Human is attested too

be relevant; note that it was in use in

late to the Levant in the mid second millennium).
Ultimately the most successful adaptations of earlier scripts for Indo-European
languages were those that allowed the expression of vowels (and by definition also
the absence of vowels) independently of the signs for the consonants. Two such ad-

aptations happened— and they may have been nearly simultaneous, if certain argu-

ments from silence be accepted. In the west, the abjad was applied to Greek, with
letters for Semitic consonants not found in Greek adapted to
represent vowels (sec-

tion 2 ). In the east, marks for the vowels of Prakrit were added to the consonant
1
26 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

letters to produce the Indie abugida (section 30). In Ethiopia (section 51), over a
millennium later, a similar device was introduced (along with Christianity) to vocal-
ize the inherited version of the Semitic abjad. (In Ethiopia, the vowel marks are more
integrated into the consonant letters than in India, and there is no unambiguous way
of indicating a vowelless syllable.) The idea of vocalization cannot have been intro-
duced by Syriac-using missionaries, since at the time Syriac had no vowel signs (sec-
tion 47); nor by Coptic missionaries, or vocalization would presumably have
followed the Greek model and used separate letters. Rather, there must have been
some contact — however ephemeral—with the Christian community of western India,

established in legend by the apostle Thomas himself (Daniels 1992A).

Syriac script became vocalized in several stages and regions. The earliest

schemes seem to have been indigenous; but in the portion of the Syriac civilization
that accepted Greek ecclesiastical influence, tiny Greek vowels were placed above or
below the line of consonants that constituted the text. Each vowel is placed with the
consonant it follows. Again, there is no unambiguous mark for a vowelless syllable.
The native Syriac vocalization system apparently was the stimulus for the adoption
of similar schemes for both Hebrew and Arabic — again, crossing deep cultural di-
vides — yet in both these systems there are explicit indications of vowellessness.
Religion plays a part, too, in the latest examples of cross-civilizational script in-
fluence. In Korea (section 17), hankul emerged from King Seycong's desire to turn

his country from Confucian to Buddhist ideals. While the presence or degree of influ-
ence from the Tibetan-based 'Phags pa script on Korean is disputed, it is clear that
Seycong or his linguistic consultants could use as a model the alphabetic or abugidic
scripts of India and Inner Asia in which Buddhist scriptures were preserved.
In modern times, it was the entrepreneurs who sent out expeditions to all corners
of the globe, but it was usually the missionaries who introduced writing or the idea of
writing to the cultures they met (part ix).

The significance of the alphabet

As outlined in section i , for more than a century the accepted view of script typol-

ogy has admitted logography, syllabary, and alphabet. The descriptive adequacy of
this scheme has already been dealt with; here my concern is with its implications. The
sequence has usually been taken as not merely one of historical development, but also
as representing "progress" — as if the alphabet is the best possible kind of writing sys-
tem, ostensibly because it (ideally) provides one symbol of the script for each pho-
neme of the language. In fact, it is probably because the alphabet is "our" kind of
writing: the vehicle of the "best" culture (or of "civilization" in the judgmental sense).
This attitude may have reflected unthinking, nearly harmless chauvinism, and it can
be refuted fairly simply: each type of script entails about the same amount of effort to
record the same amount of information. Since a logographic system must distinguish
several thousand characters, the characters, in the aggregate, are necessarily quite
 SECTION 2: THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS 27

complex (though the most common ones tend to be simpler). The characters of a syl-
labary, numbering on the* order of a hundred, are more complicated— take longer to
write —
than those of an abjad or alphabet, which number in the tens, while those of
an abugida are again somewhat more elaborate. Undoubtedly, average reading speed
is uniform across script types.

Moreover, language changes continually but writing is generally fixed. So, how-
ever perfectly phonemic an alphabet was when it was first applied to a language, ev-
ery phonological system changes over time (sometimes over a very short time;
witness the Great English Vowel Shift, which overtook standard English just as En-
glish spelling was being codified with the introduction of printing to England). Then
the original writing system comes to reflect an earlier historical stage of the language,
and in effect becomes morphophonemic rather than phonemic. Only when spelling
has very recently been introduced or ruthlessly reformed is an alphabet likely to be
phonemic.
Additionally, there are languages for which an alphabet is not an ideal writing
system. The Semitic abjads really do fit the structure of Hebrew, Aramaic, and Arabic
very well, and the abugida really is more appropriate to Ethiopic languages than an

alphabet would be, since the spelling ensures that each root looks the same through
its plethora of inflections and derivations. The supplemental vowel markings on the
abjads serve to remove ambiguity among words with the same consonants which can-
not be resolved from the context. And it is not only Semitic languages for which an
abjad is appropriate (Daniels 1995).
(It is often argued that Chinese logography is ideal for that language because of
the large number of homonyms. Note, though, that the exceptional homonymy is

largely illusory, since it results from phonetic change by which final consonants were
lost. Modern Standard Chinese compensated in ordinary ways — e.g. syntactic and
morphological elaboration — differently in different regions, so that the literary and
vernacular languages grew quite distinct and a Classical written text cannot be read
as colloquial Chinese; see section 15.)
No, it is not unthinking chauvinism that renders pernicious the teleological view
of the perfect alphabet. It is ignorance and prejudice. Although we can deal more eas-

ily with ignorance, prejudice is also formative: too many scholars of writing or liter-

acyknow and want to know nothing of the civilizations that preceded the Classical.
The study of Hebrew (and Arabic and Syriac) is admittedly not easy; the study of
Akkadian, and moreso Of Sumerian, is very difficult (not least because so few people
have ever taken it up). But it ought to be possible for the classicist or the literary schol-

ar to at least gain some familiarity with what came before.

Bernal exposed the antisemitism that pervaded Orientalism at least until the mid
twentieth century. It is shocking to find it operative forty years later; but what else can

be made ofthe following statements by Eric Havelock? Havelock was a Classicist,

originally from Toronto, who held that the great divide in human history falls between
orality and literacy, a view that is now common but mistaken, or at least
oversimpli-
28 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

fied (Olson 1994, chap. 1). For Havelock, though, literacy began only with the intro-

duction of the Greek alphabet — the tool that made possible Greek literature, Greek
philosophy, Greek thought.
Not content with elevating Greek belles lettres, Havelock depreciated, denigrat-
ed, all that had come before. He knew the Bible and cuneiform literature only in trans-
lation (for the latter, Speiser's deiberately archaizing and poetic translation, 1969),

and made these assessments: "A stark contrast appeared between the sheer richness
of Greek orality as transcribed and the caution of its competitors. A wealth of detail
and depth of psychological feeling contrasted with an economy of vocabulary and a
cautious restriction of sentiment which seemed to be specific properties of all Near
Eastern and Hebrew literature" (1986: 9). "Selfhood and the soul, when expressed in

Greek, conjure up convictions which in the West have been powerfully reinforced by
two thousand years of Christianity (though it is worth notice that the same concep-
tions seem to be lacking in the Old Testament)" (pp. I20f.). "... We need only turn to

the so-called literatures of the ancient Near East as they have been translated for us.

We have first to discount the inevitable tendency of the modern translator to over-
translate his original, relieving its verbal repetitions, for example, by variation, and
removing ambiguities by using his version to impose a single choice among many
possible ones. . . . When all allowance is made for the simple grandeur of conception
or refinement of design, the basic complexity of human experience is not there. . .

[This is] not literature in the Graeco-Roman sense. . One need only compare what
. .

is narrated in the so-called Epic of Gilgamesh with what is narrated in Homer, or, for

that matter, expounded in Hesiod, to realize the difference" (1976: 33f. 7 if.). = 1982:
The Mesopotamians and Hebrews were preliterate, Havelock asserts, because
they did not use an alphabet; to this deficiency in their writing system is to be attrib-

uted the defects of their written remains — in 1979 he even added the "Hindu Vedic
literature [sic]" to the preliterate corpus (1982: 9).

Undeciphered scripts

A scattering of documents has been recovered from the ancient Near East in scripts

that remain undeciphered (cf. section 9). In each case, the small amount of text is

primarily responsible for the difficulty; usually there is also no clue as to the linguistic
affinity of the language(s) involved.

Scripts from the Aegean and Cyprus

The epigraphic remains from what was to be the Greek world are described in
section 7. Here I simply mention some of the more impressive attempts to interpret
them. In 1930-32 there appeared a volume of posthumous Mediterranean Studies by
the American Anglicist and Germanist George Hempl ( 859-1 92 ). These interrelat- 1
1

ed studies bring togther Hittite, Etruscan, Venetic (see section 23), and the Minoan
 SECTION 2: THE FIRST CIVILIZATIONS

and Mycenean scripts (Linear A and B) in an ambitious effort to interpret what was
unknown among them. Emmett Bennett regards Stawell (1931) as an early effort
worth mentioning, and reports that F. G. Gordon (1931), with considerable ingenuity,
uncovered a very nice (at least in the English translation) Basque poem in a Linear B
tablet. The Czech scholar Bedfich Hrozny, who was the first to interpret Hittite as
Indo-European, late in his life produced a massive synthesis regarding the pictograph-
ic and hieroglyphic scripts of the Aegean area (1944-49). All these works were ren-
dered moot, of course, by the successful decipherment of Linear B in 1952
(section 9).
Four of the mysterious scripts of this area have been interpreted as expressing
Northwest Semitic by Cyrus Gordon in a 1966 monograph and many subsequent ar-

ticles. He considers Eteocypriote, Eteocretan, Linear A, and the Phaistos Disk, calling
the language revealed "Minoan." The lack of acceptance which this work found may
be attributed in part to the aforementioned reluctance of Classical scholars to admit
to Semitic influence in their realm, but more likely it results from the tiny amount of
material concerned in three of the scripts and the failure to provide a complete corpus
(fully analyzed with exhaustive scholarly apparatus!) of the Linear A materials. Prob-
lems arise because Gordon's readings of the signs are determined by ascribing to Lin-
ear A signs the values they have in Linear B, a procedure that could be validated only
by indisputable results, and for that the full corpus really does need to be inspected.

Proto-Sinaitic

In 1905, a handful of votive objects were discovered at Serabit el-Khadem, Sinai, that
bore inscriptions in a script that looked something like a forerunner of the Semitic ab-
jad. (It is called "Proto-Sinaitic" to distinguish it from the "Sinaitic" inscriptions, in

a late form of Nabatean.) The first attempt at decipherment, Gardiner 19 16. which is

taken over in the standard treatment of the script, Albright 1966, focused on sequenc-
es of signs that seemed to acrophonically represent lb
(
lt 'to the lady'. As its most sys-

tematic critic points out, this solution involves at least four assumptions: this is an
alphabetic script; the signs have Egyptian prototypes; the letters are pictographic and

acrophonic; and the language Semitic (Sznycer 1975: 91). Furthermore, most of the
is

occurrences of lb lt are restorations. Gardiner took a snake-shaped character to be n

(

because the modern Ethiopic name for the letter is nahas, and the corresponding word
in Hebrew, nahas, means 'snake'. But it seems very likely that the modern Ethiopic
letter names date no further back than the sixteenth century c.e., and so are irrelevant
to the investigation of Proto-Sinaitic (Daniels I99 1 )-

Pseudo-hieroglyphs of Byblos

The ancient city of Byblos— a center for the distribution of papyrus and the source of
the Greek word for 'book' and hence the word Bible—has yielded a number of very
important epigraphic documents, as well as a handful of enigmatic texts in an un-
30 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

known script (dubbed "pseudo-hieroglyphic" because its pictograms resemble Egyp-

tian hieroglyphs) of which the most extensive are two on bronze tablets. Dunand
(1945) published all the texts, and classified the 1038 characters found on them into
1 14 signs, with no suggestions as to interpretation. There have been four significant
attempts at decipherment.
Dhorme (1946) assumed the language was Phoenician. He focused on a set of
seven marks at the end of Text C, supposing that they represented a date numeral so
that the four letters preceding them were the word bsnt 'in the year'. Upon substitut-

ing these four values into other occurrences of those letters, he found in the first line

of the text n?s; since the text is written on bronze, he took that word to be nhs
'bronze'. Texts, however, do not often refer to the material on which they are written,
so his methodology is immediately suspect; so are his results, which give five letters

for y but do not distinguish h from h or z from s — surprising in a Semitic language.

Sobelman (1961), prescinding from the phonetic values of the letters, applied the
techniques of descriptive linguistics to the corpus to identify word boundaries and un-
cover grammatical patterns. His results should be taken into account in all future work

on these texts.

Malachi Martin, originally a skilled paleographer, later a novelist and critic of the
Roman Catholic church, published only the first part of his work on the pseudo-hiero-
glyphs (1962). He reanalyzed the corpus of characters into just 27 "classes." It is clear
from the descriptions attached and from certain remarks in the text that he was trying
to make the script into an ordinary alphabet (i.e. abjad). The absence of further pub-
lications suggests that the attempt was not successful.
Mendenhall (1985) received the most attention for his work, because he labored
at it for 37 years and had used his findings in his historical and biblical publications

for at least fifteen years before its publication. Unfortunately, although he gives full
texts, translations, and apparatus for what he calls Old Coastal Semitic documents,
his description of the decipherment process is so inexplicit (and unreconstructible)
that no credence can be given to the results. The texts themselves have been received
with incredulity by those competent to study them, as they conform entirely too close-
ly to Mendenhall's idiosyncratic view of Levantine history.

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•7-
SECTION

Mesopotamia!! Cuneiform

Origin
PlOTR MlCHALOWSKI
What is probably the first known writing system in the world, conventionally called
prow-cuneiform, was used in Mesopotamia at the end of the fourth millennium
b.c.e., in the latter part of what is known as the Uruk Period. It is still a matter of de-
bate whether the first Egyptian writings were contemporary, slightly later, or perhaps
even earlier than the Uruk tablets. In southern Mesopotamia this was a time of rapid
urbanization, population growth, and dramatic increase in the division of labor and
political development. The first writing is part of this sudden expansion of Mesopo-
tamian civilization; it cannot be ascribed to any single cause, but must be viewed as
an element in a rapidly diversifying human environment. There can be little doubt that
the primary context for the first writing was administrative necessity, but an invention
of this magnitude, which required a realignment of all communicative systems within
a small but important segment of society, also had complex symbolic and psycholog-
ical roots. The script can be "understood" in some sense, but it cannot be fully read;
although there has been some doubt concerning the language that was the basis for

this written expression, there is clear evidence that it was Sumerian.

History of discovery

The first written texts derive from excavations in the southern Mesopotamian city of

Uruk, from the period of roughly 3200-3000 B.C. Almost 5000 tablets and fragments
inscribed with proto-cuneiform have been found there. All these tablets were found
in secondary context, mainly in dumps and fill areas. Whereas the exact chronology

as well as the original location of the tablets is unknown, the texts undoubtedly came
from large organizations, conventionally designated as "palaces" or "temples." On ty-
pological grounds these. have been divided into two periods, Uruk III and IV, on the
model of the stratigraphy of that part of Uruk, the ceremonial area which was named
Eana in antiquity (archeological strata are numbered in the order they are uncovered,
so Uruk IV is older than Uruk III). Recently, Hans Nissen (Green and Nissen 1987),
who heads the Berlin team that is publishing these materials, has proposed a more
precise dating of tablets into smaller subdivisions. The stratigraphy of the archaic

Uruk finds is currently being revised, and it possible that the dating of many of the

texts may have to be changed accordingly (Englund 1994: 16).

33
34 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

se 'stalk of grain' udu

u 'sheep' gu 7 'food' dug 'pot'

c<t> £($> t^>

various inscribed pots: dugxmas, dugxlam, dugxab, dugxnaga

<)

ud.du = e(d)
>
ka 'mouth' pisanxam,
<£j
= ama 'mother'

figure i. Proto-cuneiform signs

(Green and Nissen 1987, nos. 511, 575, 235, 88, 108, 106, 89. 109, 132, 271, 28).

The Uruk IV period texts are unparalleled elsewhere, while the period III ones
are roughly contemporary with tablets found at other Mesopotamian sites. Although
we are at the mercy of chance discoveries and there is no way of establishing the ear-
lier history of the system, there are reasons to believe that the period IV tablets from
Uruk are not far removed from the invention of the script.

Structure

The archaic system consisted of approximately 800 separate symbols, of which more
than sixty or seventy were number signs. The exact number of discrete symbols is dif-
ficult to establish; it depends on how one defines certain complex and compound

signs, and there is still some debate concerning similar-looking symbols. Many of the

signs were pictographic, for example a drawing of a stalk of barley or wheat for
'grain'; others, such as a cross within a circle ('sheep') were abstract depictions (see
figure To avoid multiplying shapes, new signs were created by combining two
1).

or three signs (sag+ sila 'head' + 'ration bowl' = gu 'food, to eat'); by inscribing
3 7

one within another (various types of clay vessels denotedby the 'pot' sign differently
inscribed); by combining two or more signs (ud.du = e(d)) or by modifying existing y

ones with hatching (sag + hatching = ka 'mouth'). Another way of forming signs is

represented by a subset that was used for writing the names of major Sumerian cities.

In these a stylized representation of some symbol of the major deity of the city was

combined with a sign that was a classifier for 'city' and had no phonetic value. Thus
Zabala was written mus, (stylized drawing of the symbol of the goddess Inanna) and
city. The name of Uruk was written simply as city, which may suggest that writing,

or the version of writing that spread throughout Mesopotamia, was invented in Uruk,
whose inhabitants may have viewed their home as "the city" par excellence (Micha-
lowski 1993). Some of these representations of divine symbols are known from seal
designs and other artistic representations.
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 35

gi nun gi bil
bilki
!m<ni nun ki

Hf TTA<T-tTTTTbargiu ft
i—&&=* •f£<&:fl bar bil
S3&:fl <}^ bil di
^$<H -TT^ <!- t^TTTT <n gi u h di

figure 2. Two copies of lines 152-53 of the za.me hymn, with Neo-Assyrian equivalents and
transliterations. The meaning is obscure, but there is no doubt that they represent the same text:

(152) bil.gi nun ki (153) bar bil.gi u 6 di

(Biggs 1974: 50; left, pi. 1 17, no. 265; right, pi. 122, no. 268; reproduced with permission).

Unlike in early Chinese and Egyptian writing, there is only sporadic evidence for
phonetic complementation, which was used more frequently in later phases of the
writing system. Nevertheless, there are a few cases of phonetic complementation al-
ready in the earliest stages of cuneiform, and these, as Krispijn (1991-92), Krebernik
(1994), and Steinkeller (in press) have recently observed, leave little doubt that the
underlying language of the earliest texts was indeed Sumerian. Thus the sign ama,
which was the Sumerian word for 'mother', was rendered with a sign we transliterate
as pisan ('box') inscribed with am 6, which indicates the range of pronunciation.
Some had double glosses, as demonstrated by the writing u.naga.ga.musen for uga
'raven', which consists of a basic naga, bracketed by
sign, the glosses u and ga, fol-
lowed by the bird name classifier musen.
Although the majority of individual symbols represented whole words —because
Sumerian was predominantly monosyllabic — these same words could function as
syllables in other contexts (ba 'ration' = /ba/). The syllabic spellings were needed for
the expression of personal names and later for the writing of grammatical elements.
Homophony was used to produce syllabic writings, but rarely for creating other word
signs through the rebus principle. There were also a series of preposed and postposed
classifiers that delimited semantic classes, such as gis 'wood'. The visual layout of
tablets also had semantic value. The arrangement of cases and columns enclosing
signs was different for different types of transactions and for different parts of the
text, such as for the final total of goods. This variety of arrangements disappeared lat-

er on as the system became more flexible and more linked to natural language. On the
early tablets, signs were arranged in random order within cases that were ordered ver-
tically, from our point of view. There are indications that the tablets were held at a
different angle than in later times. The random order of signs within the cases contin-
ued down to Early Dynastic times when the first literary texts are attested; in this pe-

riod, duplicate passages of the same composition could be written with signs in

completely different order (see figure 2).

The and logic of the system indicate that it was invented as a whole and
structure
did not develop gradually. Individual elements were borrowed from existing commu-
nicative devices: the number signs may have been adapted from small clay counters
that were used independently, or impressed on tablets. Certain cult symbols, as well
36 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

as other signs were probably used earlier in cylinder seal designs, but the system as
such was designed in one fell swoop. Those who favor an evolutionary model of the
development of writing cite certain "antecedents" to proto-cuneiform: rough clay
containers ("bullae") that enclosed simple counters and were impressed with the
shape of the counters, and sealed; as well as the so-called numerical tablets; that is,

clay tablets with the impressions of counters. It has been proposed that the hollow
bullae were flattened, and this produced the first tablets. These, in turn, were im-
pressed with the shape of the clay counters (Schmandt-Besserat 1992). The inventor
or inventors of proto-cuneiform drew on a variety of such ideas, but the quantum leap
to the conceptualization of the earliest writing system was without precedent.
The only other contemporary writing system was the hitherto undeciphered
Proto-Elamite script used over a wide area of southwest and central Iran. The first tab-
lets in Proto-Elamite are slightly later than proto-cuneiform —conventionally they are
regarded as contemporary with Uruk III —and the relation between the two systems
is unclear. Both use the same numerical notation, and they share at least one sign; but
other than that, there is little that one can say about the differences and similarities
between the two (see section 10).

Distribution and contents

Aside from the tablets found at Uruk, archaic texts of period III have been found fur-

ther north at Jemdet Nasr, possibly at nearby Tell Uqair, and at Fara; and some, of un-
known provenance, have been purchased on the antiquities market. This means that
the writing conventions first attested, and perhaps invented, at Uruk were rapidly
adopted by other Mesopotamian polities. The largest group of over 200 tablets, from
Jemdet Nasr (Englund and Gregoire 1991), consists of texts that are very similar to

the Uruk III materials.

The majority of Uruk archaic texts are administrative documents. These com-
prise texts dealing with such matters as animal husbandry, grain distribution, land, an-
imal and personnel management, and the processing of fruits and cereals.

Approximately 15% are not economic: these are lists of words arranged by semantic
class and by sign design, commonly known as lexical lists (Englund and Nissen
I993)- There are lists of wooden objects, professional names, fish, plants, and other
subjects. These differ from the accounts in a number of respects: they are preserved
in multiple copies (as many as 163 for the professions list), some duplicates were
found outside Uruk, and they were copied by later scribes for hundreds of years.
These lexical texts have been interpreted in a variety of ways, but most scholars agree
that they were manuals for the teaching of writing. This demonstrates that from the
beginning there was a concern for the structured transmission of the system from gen-
eration to generation, and that the method of instruction was passed on along with the
practical knowledge of the script.
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 37

Sumerian and Akkadian

Jerrold S. Cooper
Cuneiform script was used to represent the Sumerian language (Thomsen 1984) in

southern Mesopotamia from ca. 3200 b.c.e., and was adapted to write Semitic dia-
lects in Mesopotamia and Syria by 2500. Although Sumerian had become extinct as
a spoken language by the early second millennium, it continued to be used for reli-
gious and legal purposes, and was studied and written until the beginning of the cur-
rent era. Cuneiform we call Akkadian (Reiner
texts in the Semitic dialect family

1966) appear Mesopotamia beginning around 2350 (the dialect is called

in southern

Old Akkadian); and after 2000, texts are written in two dialects, the Babylonian, orig-
inating in southern Mesopotamia, and Assyrian, originating in northern Mesopota-
mia. These are chronologically distinguished as Old Babylonian/Assyrian, Middle
Babylonian/Assyrian, and Neo-Babylonian/-Assyrian, representing the dialects of,

roughly, the first half of the second millennium, the second half of the second millen-
nium, and the first half of the first millennium respectively. The Akkadian cuneiform
that continued to be used into the Seleucid period in Babylonia is called Late Baby-
lonian, and the language used for literary and commemorative inscriptions in the late

second and the first millennium is known as Standard Babylonian; cuneiform texts
were written as late as the first century c.e. In addition, during the second millenni-
um, Sumerian and Akkadian cuneiform texts were produced at various times in vari-
ous areas peripheral to Mesopotamia, in an arc stretching from southwestern Iran up
to Anatolia and down through Syria and the Levant into Egypt. The few cuneiform
textsfrom southern Mesopotamia written in Semitic before 2350, in a dialect that was
—
probably a precursor to Old Akkadian and the many thousands from Ebla in Syria,
representing a language related to, but probably different from, the precursor of Old
—
Akkadian (Gelb 1987) is not considered here.
Sumerian and Akkadian are not only dead languages, but unlike Sanskrit, Bibli-

cal Hebrew, ancient Greek, or Latin, they are languages without a continuous tradi-
tion of study. Akkadian is a Semitic language, but Sumerian is a language isolate of
a very different type, and with a very different phonemic inventory. The values we
give to cuneiform signs in Sumerian texts are based on Akkadian values and on an-
cient glosses. Since most of these glosses date from periods when Sumerian was no
longer spoken, from a milieu speaking Akkadian or other Semitic languages, it is
i.e.

said that we view Sumerian phonology through Akkadian glasses. However, since the
signs used to write Akkadian had been adapted from an originally Sumerian system
of cuneiform writing, we might also say that our Akkadian glasses were made by a
Sumerian optician.
38 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

Cuneiform writing
Cuneiform characters, commonly called signs, are configurations of impressions
made by a reed stylus on wet clay. The earliest signs (3100 B.C. e.) were linear — that
is, they were drawn with a pointed stylus —but it was quickly realized that impressing
the stylus in short, quick strokes was both more efficient and more esthetic. The
strokes making up a single sign are varied in length and impressed at various angles.
Each stroke has a wedge-shaped head, formed by the angular head of the stylus, and
a straight tail. Short angular strokes lost their tails by the end of the third millennium;
and by the same time, scribes abandoned the practice of using a separate stylus with
a round cross-section (or the butt-end of the normal stylus?) to write numbers (sec-
tion 67). The native terms for 'cuneiform' refer to impression of the stroke (Sume-
riangu-sum = Akkadian mihistulmihiltu) or the appearance of the stroke (Sumerian
santak = Akkadian santakku). In a Sumerian epic text that includes an etiology of
writing (Vanstiphout 1989), the purported first recipient of a cuneiform message ex-
claims, "It's wedge-like!"
Clay cuneiform tablets vary in size from 2 x 2 cm to 30 x 30 cm, and their shapes

(round, rounded corners, sharp corners, relatively thick or thin) and orientation ("por-
trait" or "landscape") have varied both diachronically and synchronically (according
to text type and function). Because of the effect of gravity on the wet clay, the obverse
of an inscribed tablet will be flat (it sits on a flat surface while the reverse is being
written and/or while drying), and the reverse slightly convex. Tablets could be fired
in a kiln for enhanced durability, but this was normally done only in special circum-
stances, as in the case of the beautifully written exemplars in the library of Ashurba-
nipal (king of Assyria, 668-627); rnany more tablets were unintentionally baked
when conflagrations destroyed their storage places in antiquity. For commemorative
purposes, clay cones, prisms, cylinders, pots, and bricks were also inscribed. These
last were also stamped by the thousands with ceramic or wooden stamps that had the
entire text of a short inscription carved in reverse.
It is clear from the pictographic signs in the first column of table 3.1 that the
original orientation of writing had been 90 clockwise from the position that the cu-

neiform signs classically assumed. The shift in orientation is generally supposed to

have to do with a change in the way the tablet was held, probably for ergonomic rea-

sons. The time of the shift is a matter of controversy; it quite possibly had occurred
by the middle of the third millennium, most certainly by the beginning of the second,
although the original orientation was maintained on stone stelas until the middle of
the second millennium.
From the archaic stage onward, signs were grouped into boxes called cases, and
these could be arranged in vertical columns (in the "classical" orientation); cases
were read from top to bottom, and the columns from left to right (see figure 3 on
page 44). By the middle of the third millennium, tablets were turned over vertically,

and the reverse was inscribed in columns beginning on the right, so that the last (right-
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 39

table 3.1 : The Formation and Evolution of Cuneiform Signs

Archaic Uruk Presargonic Neo-Assyrian

ca. 3000 Lagash, ca. 2400 ca. 700

1 SAG head' rn-n

# *JT*

2 KA 'mouth'
<^j 4=r *w
3 GU 7
'to eat'
h> #b fJsT
4 EME 'tongue' 4^ £^J
5 DU 'to go'
*4 M
6 UDU 'sheep'
© B jar

7 UD 5
'goat'
& ~K *nfc&

8 GUD 'bull'
j£? ?P W*
9 GEME, 'female slave'
n $* H*
'reed, to render'
10 GI
^^—^^ r\# TT4
11 SAR 'plant, to write'

^ y$l| *J
most) column of the obverse bordered the same edge of the tablet as the first
column
and continued
of the reverse. A writer or reader finishing the obverse turned the tablet

writing or reading in a column contiguous to the one just finished.

Within cases, signs

could be arranged randomly, but after the mid third millennium, they
were written in
into lines of signs,
the order in which they were read. Over time, the cases broadened
texts would
and the columns necessarily broadened as well, so that in later periods
rarely have more than three columns per side, whereas in earlier periods some tablets

millennia, the majority of

have up to fifteen columns per side. In the second and first

side, representing a single transaction, a

letter, or an
tablets have just one column per
extract of a literary text.
40 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

The only medium other than clay suitable for cuneiform writing was wax, and
wax-covered writing boards —
made usually of wood, but also of ivory or other pre-
cious materials —which could be hinged together to form polyptychs, are attested in
texts from the end of the third millennium onward. A set of writing boards has been
found in a late second millennium shipwreck off the Turkish coast, but it is impossible
to determine whether they had been inscribed with cuneiform or some other script
(Symington 1991). Although they were used in large numbers in first-millennium

Mesopotamia, only one complete writing board in ivory, and fragments of others in
ivory and wood, have been found at the Assyrian royal city Kalakh (modern Nimrud).
The cover of the ivory board identified it as a copy of an astrological text intended for
the palace of Sargon II (721-705), and fragments of the wax surface found with it

were indeed inscribed with that very text.

Other media were used only for commemorative, decorative, or legal purposes.
Cuneiform signs were laboriously incised on stone from early in the third millennium
onward, on objects ranging in size from tiny cylinder seals to tall stelas (e.g. the Code
of Hammurabi) to the walls of Assyrian palaces. Cuneiform was also worked in metal
and wood, and painted on a variety of surfaces. Except in the early periods, the dis-

tinctive wedge shape of the strokes was painstakingly imitated in these other media.
The cuneiform signs themselves underwent great change over time, and show
significant regional variation as well. (The cuneiform typeface used in this book is
based on the sign forms found on tablets from the time of Ashurbanipal. Compare the
illustrations throughout this section with the sometimes very different forms printed
in the figure legends and the text samples.) An experienced cuneiformist can roughly
date and localize a tablet by its paleography alone. The major trends in the evolution
of cuneiform signs, as can be seen from table 3.1, are the straightening of curved
lines, the broadening of the head of each stroke, the diminution in the number of
strokes per sign, the restriction of the possible orientation of the strokes, the replace-
ment of angled strokes by horizontals, and, in Assyria, the resolution of certain groups
of angular wedges into groups of parallel horizontals. As a result, almost all pictorial
content disappears after the archaic stage. The number of signs diminished by about
one half: in the earliest repertoire, there were around 1 200 signs, counting compounds
and significant variants; the number drops to 800 or less by the middle of the third

millennium, and in the second and first millennia there were about 600 signs. Even
though many signs in the early repertories disappeared and others merged, new signs
and sign combinations continued to be created, and some older signs even split into

distinctive shapes for different meanings. The native names for the signs, attested in

the second and first millennia, derive from a Sumerian or Akkadian value of a sign,

or, in the case of compound, complex, and altered signs, describe the way a sign has
been composed or altered.
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 4J

Cuneiform signs
table 3.1 reveals the pictographic basis of cuneiform, which in C. S. Peirce's termi-

nology was both iconic (a head used to write the word "head" [3. 1 .
1 1) and indexical
(a bull's head to write "bull" [3.1.8], a foot used to write "to go" and "to stand"
[3. 1 .5]; the latter type of index is also called semantic association herein). But there
were also a number of purely symbolic signs, such as the cross in a circle for "sheep,"

and other related signs for gendered and age-graded categories of sheep and goats
(3.1 .6-7). Possibly because drawing or impressing the stylus on clay did not lend it-
self to detailed representation without sacrificing the rapidity necessary for the writ-

ing system to be a useful administrative tool, the vast majority of signs are quite
schematic even in their earliest versions, and the specific basis of many that are clear-
ly intended to be representations of something remains obscure.
Using around 300 basic signs, and even fewer discrete elements, the archaic
scribes elaborated a system of over 1 ,000 signs that was capable of representing the
vocabulary necessary for recording bureaucratic transactions, including personal and
place names. New signs were created by altering and combining these basic signs.
Conventions for altering signs included adding lines or hatching, inversion, writing
the sign at an angle, writing multiples of the sign, and making a cross of the sign and
its duplicate. Compound signs were formed by writing one sign joined or very close
to another, complex signs by putting one sign inside another. Many of the archaic
compounds became complex signs in later periods.
Thus, the sag sign* (table 3.1.1), apictogramof a head (Sum. sag 'head'), had
some lines added where the mouth would be to create the sign for Sum. ka 'mouth'
(3.1.2; used as well to write Sum. zu 'tooth', kir4 'nose', 'word', gu 'voice, Mm
sound', and dug 4 'to say'). The sign for 'food' (Sum. ninda) was adjoined to sag to
create the sign for Sum. gu, 'to eat' (3. .3); in subsequent periods, the sign gu was
1 7

built on ka, and the food moved inside, becoming a complex sign (kaxninda) rather

than a compound one (sag+ninda). The sign for 'woman', a pubic triangle, is joined
to the sign for 'mountains, foreign lands' to form a compound for Sum. geme 'female 2

slave' (3.1 .9) because slaves were obtained in raids on foreign lands in the mountain-
ous northeast. All these modifications and combinations are based on semantic asso-
ciation; after the archaic period, combinations that join phonetic to semantic elements

were created, such as kaxme = Sum. erne 'tongue' (3.1.4), or s£. Vf^I! pa.te.si =
ensi 2 'ruler'.
This last an important tendency in matching the repertory of
example illustrates

signs to the lexicon. Rather than creating ever more compound, complex, and altered

*The Assyriological convention is to refer to a sign by one of its common values written in small capitals.

Actual Sumerian and Akkadian words are in italics (or. Sumerian is presented in spaced roman type). The
components of compound signs are joined by +, those of complex signs by x; individual signs in clusters are

separated by periods. Homophones are distinguished by subscript index numbers, except that on monosyllables
is replaced by an acute accent and , by a grave accent. Signs making up a single word are joined by hyphens.
:
42 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

signs, clusters of two or more signs (selected on a semantic, or, less frequently, se-

mantic plus phonetic, basis) were written serially and read as a single Sumerian word.
This prevented what would have otherwise been an enormous inflation in the number
of signs as the application of writing was extended to various and different contexts.
Rebus writing, too, made it possible to represent a large number of lexemes with
a relatively small number of signs, and was a way of representing lexemes that could
not be easily indicated by iconic or indexical signs. Sumerian has a large number of
homonyms and near homonyms — so many, in fact, that scholars have assumed that
Sumerian must have been a tone language. It was thus particularly well suited for re-
bus substitution. Curiously, the principle of rebus writing was understood in the ar-

chaic period but hardly used. Examples include *~£z] ba, probably a pictogram of a
tool called ba in Sumerian, used to mean 'to distribute', also ba, and -TT<& gi
(table 3. i .10), a pictogram of a reed (Sum. gi), used to represent gi 'torender' and
in the archaic period probably also used for sigi 'yellow'. Massive exploitation of re-
bus writing quickly developed in subsequent periods. A very few examples (giving
the Sumerian word, the meaning represented originally by the sign, and the homonym
represented by rebus extension): ^]] su 'body' and 'to replace', *z]] si 'horn' and
'to fill', ^TJ e 'dike' and 'to speak', eI£J sar 'plant' and 'to write' (3.1. 11). Rebus
phoneticism — that is, the use of a sign to represent not a homonym of the word rep-
resented by the sign, but only the sound of that word in order to write phonetically

also seems to have been understood in the archaic period, but again is very rare. Con-
sider archaic £&£.] *JII ne+ru erim 2 'evil', and later ]]{ **£\ ha-la 'share' or *-»t| t]<\

ba-al 'to dig', ne.ru is probably an attempt to render the sound [erim]; in each case,
the semantic values of the individual signs have nothing to do with the meanings of
the words.
The mixture of semantic association and rebus writing resulted in a very incon-
sistent system of representation. Whereas ^]] su represents the homonyms 'body'
and 'to replace', to represent su(d) 'distant' the sign for semantically associated y~
gid 'long' was altered with additional strokes and the resulting sign V'HtT sud was
used as well for su(g) 'empty, naked', based on both semantic association and rebus,
and for su 'to sprinkle', based on rebus alone. The word for 'beard', su 6 , is written
kaxsa, a complex sign combining semantic association (^fcj ka = 'mouth') and a
rebus phonetic indicator (£5 sa). Although rebus writing was employed with increas-
ing frequency after about 2900, the majority of compound and complex signs and
sign clusters are semantically based, without any phonetic reading clue. Consider the
long and certainly post-archaic <HJ ^srTT Eft IS V ki.su.lu.ub.gar ('place where
the waterbag is put?') ugnim 'army', or £]]]£ <]B] ^} ^HI^u.ki.si.ga ('put together
grass?') gud 'nest'.

Sumerian homonymy and the primacy of semantic association in the mapping of

the lexicon onto the sign system are responsible for the notorious homophony and po-
lyphony of cuneiform signs, features that complicated the initial decipherment and
were the source of considerable resistance to the decipherment once it was accom-
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 43

plished. Over twenty different signs can be read /du/, and the sign -£fcj ka has sev-
eral times the half-dozen readings mentioned above.

Sumerian cuneiform
The transformation of a writing system that used language strictly as an administra-
tive tool into one that could adequately express natural language in a broad range of

contexts — letters, commemorative inscriptions, legal documents, literary texts, tech-

nical literature —was effected by the increasing use of rebus phoneticism to write
grammatical affixes. Sumerian is an agglutinative language in which nouns take suf-
fixes and verbs both prefixes and suffixes. Virtually no trace of these affixes can be
found in the early archaic texts, but they begin appearing after 2900 b.c.e. Curiously,
they are used in what can only be described as a skeletal way for centuries; and only
in the early second millennium, when Sumerian was probably extinct and spoken
only in the schools, are the affixes fully expressed. The example in figure 3 comes
from a collection of sayings preserved in manuscripts from ca. 2500 and ca. 1800 (Al-
ster 1974). The cuneiform signs added by the later version to express the affixes are
here shown in smaller type.
The earlier version, using what is sometimes referred to as nuclear writing, omits
the genitive and dative suffixes of the nominal complex, as well as the verbal prefix,
root reduplication (for imperfective), and second person singular suffix of the verb.
Note that the genitive suffix -a(k) is written -ra after engar 'farmer', illustrating the
regular convention of using a CV sign to write a vocalic suffix after a consonant,
which helps (along with contextual features) to disambiguate the sign apin, which
could be read apin 'plow' or uru 4 'to cultivate' in addition to engar 'farmer'. (How
and to what extent the grammatical affixes expressed in written Sumerian found pho-
nological expression in Sumerian is a vexing problem that cannot be broached here.)
what Gelb (1963) termed a logosyllabic writing
Sumerian cuneiform, then, is

system. Unbound morphemes are represented by logograms (single signs or sign

clusters); bound morphemes are expressed by rebus-derived syllabograms, usually V,

CV, or VC (but note HMV nam in figure 3, late version). In addition, beginning in

the archaic period Sumerian texts employ a series of semantic classifiers called deter-
minatives that had no phonological realization and were probably developed to help
disambiguate polyvalent signs. Some precede and some follow the word they deter-
mine, and in transliterations they are generally written as superscripts, for which pur-
pose the very common determinatives -+ an for dingir 'god', J dis preceding a

male personal name, and £- sal for munus 'woman' preceding a female name are
abbreviated d m and respectively. Thus, in the sample passage below, -v -<2<lT <I0
, ,
'

d
kul-ab^ is the city Kulab followed by the determinative hi 'place', and -f *] utu is
Utu, the sun god, preceded by the determinative dingir god'.
In literary texts, lines are generally complete clauses; and in archival texts, a line

constitutes a single entry. When a clause or entry doesn't fit on a single line, it is con-
44 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

'/ /x ///J, sJ,,U, ,/>/,, ,/,,,,#

«=>l3 f / / / "I II )l Jill, /,/,,/,,

'
' I III I J 'III 1 1 //,/,>
''^ImnJinih

/ KL^-^H'ii n '''' '' / '' ///, \

/rW v h'-shj »*""»'""
"T T L I
j + Iii^ki/'I"""""'' i

fci trj/// /////////////

1(1 II 1 1 I! / ,Ij //, /a

»
*rrf IJ'J'llffJf//ltVUm Hi
VjJVJ// ///////#///, i,n,/i"i\

!^*t ^*4
l .'J>'in, j j /),,„ i, ,,,,, ////.

jj^mwx^-f
t ,11 Jl J 1 1, / / It i, / ///,
wb-:::s::
FK ^ p/ //////////

^ *ei E*T1 PtTI V -rf ^ E^IT^TI «f

dumu engar nig tftf- ra
son farmer thing do.not- beat
dumu engar -ra -ra nig nam- mu- ra-ra an
son farmer -of -to thing do.not- (prefix)- beat.iMP

'Do not beat a farmer's son.'

figure 3. Copy of cuneiform tablet with early version of saying.

The example quoted is the fifth-from-bottom case in column vi (Biggs 1974, no. 256).
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 45

tinued, indented, just beneath, before a new line is begun at the column's left edge. If
space permits, words or phrases may be grouped together; if there is too much space,
the last sign or two are moved to the right, even though it breaks up the word, so that
the last sign on the line is at the line's right edge. In no instance, at least after the mid-
dle of the third millennium, are words split between two lines.

Sample of Sumerian
/. Sumerian: EIIWT^H ^H* Ct 3!
2. Transliteration: kin-gi 4 -a ka-ni dugud su
3- Gloss: messenger mouth-his heavy aux
1. ^^TREIT^MTAMT^ -II ^^<SlT<EfWtTTT AHff-T? 31
2. nu-mu-un-da-an-gi 4 -gi 4 en kul-ab 4 ki -a-ke 4 im-e su
3. not-PREF-able-he-repeated lord Kulab-DET-of-ERG clay-on hand

1. Es&Tfc&wE^TT ^fcj <mror ^r^~r *T^m <H

2. bf-in-ra inim dub-gim bi-in-gub u 4 -bi-ta inim
3- PREF-he-struck word tablet-like PREF-he-put day-that-frorr i word

2. im-ma gub-bu nu-ub-ta-gal-la

3. clay-on put not-that-from-existed-cop

The messenger's mouth was heavy, he could not repeat the message. The Lord
of Kulab patted some clay, he put the words on
it as on a tablet. Before that

words put on clay had never existed.'

time,
—From manuscript ofca. 1800 B.C.E. of the Sumerian tale "Enmerkar and the
Lord of Aratta" (Vanstiphout 1989).

Akkadian cuneiform
The Old Akkadian syllabary (Gelb 1961) developed ca. 2350 b.c.e. based on the
same principle of rebus-based syllabic writing used to express grammatical affixes in
Sumerian cuneiform, which had been used as well to write Semitic and other non-
Sumerian names for centuries. Many of the same syllabic signs were used, and many
more were added, based either on Sumerian values or on the Akkadian translation of
the Sumerian meaning of a sign.t For example, £]]} kal = /dan/ because that sign
was used to write Sumerian kalg 'strong', which is dannu in Akkadian; or £.] gis =
/is, is, iz/ because Sumerian gis 'tree' = Akkadian isu. Most of the signs chosen rep-

resent open syllables (V, CV, VC); but CVC signs were also used from the beginning,
constituting from five to fifty percent or more of the syllabary, depending on period,

tin transcribing Akkadian, a macron indicates a historically long vowel or length compensating for loss of a
consonant, and a circumflex indicates a long vowel derived via contraction of vowels. Logograms are transliter-
ated in small capitals; in a transcription, logographic vs. syllabic writing is not indicated.
46 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

place, and the kind of text being written. (For the question of CVCV signs, see Reiner
1973.) In addition to syllabic orthography, Akkadian writing can also use signs with
their Sumerian lexical values as logograms; e.g. the sign ^^ lugal (Sumerian
lugal 'king') would be read as the contextually appropriate allomorph of Akkadian
sarru 'king'. But Akkadian cuneiform writing was from the beginning primarily syl-
labic — no doubt because as an inflecting language, Akkadian was ill suited to the kind
of logosyllabic writing used for Sumerian. (Sumerian-style logosyllabic writing was
in fact tried on a Semitic language at Ebla and other northwestern sites, but was later
abandoned in favor of the syllabic writing developed for Old Akkadian.)

Inventory. In the Old Akkadian syllabary, the phonological features voiced, voice-

less, and "emphatic" are not distinguished at all. Only one CV sign each is used to
represent a labial, dental, or velar stop followed by a given vowel. Either this was a
way to hold down number of signs in the syllabary, or the actual phonological ba-
the
sis of the distinction made between the Sumerian stops that we transcribe as voiced

vs. voiceless (b, d, g vs. p, t, k) was heard differently than the distinction made be-

tween Akkadian voiced, voiceless, and emphatic stops (represented as b-p- [no em-
phatic labial], d-t-t, and g-k-q). So for example, gf| da = /da, ta, ta/, ^f< ti = /di, ti,
ti/, trJTT* ga = /ga, ka, qa/, V- bu = /bu, pu/. By the early second millennium, when

Sumerian was no longer spoken outside the schools, scribes began to use the signs for

distinct Sumerian stops to represent voiced and voiceless syllable-initial Akkadian

stops, in what appears to be a reinterpretation of the stop system of the now dead
Sumerian language in terms of the system of Akkadian. The emphatic series was rep-
resented by the voiced or voiceless sign (E^fJ da = /da, ta/, <J@[ ki = /ki, qi/), or else
emphatic values were given to separate signs (e. g. ffiEJ tun = /tu/; £XZ gum = /qu/;

^ hi = /ta/ because hi was used to write Sumerian dug 'good', which is tabu in
Akkadian). The tendency over time is to increasingly distinguish stops in CV signs,

but in no period was this done consistently. The representation of sibilants developed
similarly, though it was very much more complicated at the beginning because Old
Akkadian preserved more sibilants than later stages of the language and tried to dis-

tinguish among them (see Gelb 1961 for the problem of-Old Akkadian sibilants, la-

ryngeal, and pharyngeals).

In syllable-final position, Sumerian never distinguished between voiced and
voiceless stops (probably only voiced stops were allowed in that position), and Akka-
dian writing never makes that distinction either. In all periods, t£] ad = /ad, at, at/,

etc. (similarly, in the sibilants, ^-|<J uz = /uz, us, us/, etc.). In CVC signs, the initial
stop may be distinguished (n=T!Tf DIR = /d ir, JirA but ^WW TIR = /tir/ )' but never final
stops Cfrrf dag = /dag, dak, daq/).
As in Sumerian writing, the Akkadian syllabary generally distinguishes three pri-
mary vowels, /a, i, u/, and distinguishes a fourth vowel Id (see Reiner 1973) in some
signs, but usually the signs incorporating the I'll vowel are used for Id as well (e.g. the

pairs /id, ed/, /gir, ger/, etc. are written with one sign each). Exceptions occur with
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 47

weak consonants and glides: *]**- pi can be used to represent /w/ + any vowel, or any
—
vowel + Av/ and also, in some syllabaries, lyl + any vowel, or any vowel + lyl
(which in other syllabaries is represented by t%] i+a). A»Hfp AI3 = any vowel + /h/,
and in earlier periods + any vowel; in later periods a separate sign derived from ah,
*

ArHh s usec for + any vowel, or any vowel +Mn some CVC signs, too, the V can
i *
'

represent more than one primary vowel; thus, for different reasons in each case, <&gE
har = /har, hir, hur/, <^J nim = /nim, num/, and J@J lu = /dib, dab/.
With rare exceptions in certain syllabaries, there is
one sign each for the vowels
/a, e, i/ and three for Old Akkadian, < u = /yu/, t]]]z u = /u/, and <H@J u =
/u/. In
/?u/; in the early second millennium, u dropped out of the syllabary, u was used for

/u/, and u was specialized to write the conjunction u 'and'. In the first millennium, u

and u retain those same functions, but u returns as an alternate for either.
In theory, Akkadian could be written perfectly well with a concise set of V, CV,
and VC signs, since the digraph CV-VC is equivalent in the system to CVC. Yet CVC
signs were in the Akkadian syllabary from the beginning, probably because of the as-

sociation of the signs with Sumerian CVC readings; and their number and use in-

crease over time. But even the latest periods do not have CVC signs for every possible
syllable: for example, from Old Akkadian onward, CVC signs can be used to write
/dan/ or /mas/, but there are never CVC signs to write /Ian/ or /bas/. There is a small
amount of homophony in the early Akkadian syllabaries, but the choice of homo-
phones is seldom free; it is, rather, contextually determined. In Old Akkadian, t^\
ne = /bi/ when it is etymologically /bi?/. At Mari, £$zz] ab is commonly used with the
value is to write /is/; but in a sequence /issV/, if /ss/ is etymologically *ns, then /is/ is

written with t] gis = is. Only after the middle of the second millennium, and espe-
cially in the first, do we find cases of free variation (though still, often, with a degree

of predictability) of values like ZE] ad and >£]]] dd, V- pu and gj pu, and even CVC
signs like <HJJ dub and ^T^ T dub. Similarly, although a small amount of polypho-
ny exists in the early syllabaries, it is only in the first millennium that it becomes ram-
pant. V kur can be read mad, nat, lad, sad, sad, kur; HrJ ur is ur, lik, tan, tasls, tis;

£- sal is sisal, rag, mim, mam, and so on. Whereas a scholar at the court of Ashur-

banipal would have mastered ca. 600 cuneiform signs with their syllabic and/or logo-
graphic values (as well as hundreds more compound logograms), scribes writing

Akkadian most periods had a working repertoire of between two and three hundred
in

signs, and a scribe or merchant in an Old Assyrian trading firm (ca. 1800 b.c.e.) could

do very well with around one hundred syllabic signs and a handful of logograms.
table 3.2 presents a cuneiform syllabary of the first millennium, known as Syl-

labary A (edited by Richard T. Hallock, in Landsberger 1955: 1-45; cf. Cavigneaux

1983). This would have been the first list of signs and their values for a student scribe
to master in Nineveh during the age of Ashurbanipal. It is presented in the order of
the original manuscripts, and the values are supplied with accents and index numbers
according to modern scholarly conventions. Only the values given in the syllabary are

listed here (with some minor adjustments). Where the sign values have not been pre-
48 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

served on the ancient manuscripts, they have been restored. In the manuscripts, the
values are expressed using a very limited inventory of CV and VC signs; these are
gathered in table 3.4 on page 57, which will also serve as a phonetic key to the cu-
neiform syllabary and to the subsequent tables.
As set forth above (page 46), all syllable-final stops and sibilants (except /s/) can
be used for voiced, voiceless, or emphatic segments (thus sign 3 could be used to
write /sug, suk, suq/), but in syllable-initial position this is not necessarily the case
(sign 2 is /sur/ but never /zur, sur/, for which see sign 82; sign 22 is /za, sa/ but rarely
/sa/, which is usually written with sign 108). Note that this ancient beginners' sylla-
bary does not always give all the current values of each sign it lists, and there are some
relatively common signs that it entirely omits (table 3.3 on page 52). A few signs
appear in two different places in the list, because the sign current in seventh-century

Assyria represented two or more earlier signs whose forms had coalesced.
Syllabary A begins with the sign a because a different beginners' syllabary, used
a thousand years earlier, also began with a. The succession of signs is determined by
phonetic, graphic, and semantic factors, but not all transitions are explicable. Thus,
sign 2 sur follows a possibly because Sumerian a is 'water' and sur is 'to press out,
drip liquid'. Sign 3 is graphically similar to sign 2, and sign 4 was attracted because
of the rhyme of /mur/ and /sur/ (no. 2). Signs 5 and 6 are graphically related to 4, sign

7 was attracted because /hu/ is the inverse of no. 5 /uh/, and sign 8 is formed by adding
a single vertical wedge to sign 7. Cavigneaux stresses that not only Sumerian mean-
ings come into play (signs 9 and 10 are both third person singular suffixes), but the
phonetic similarities of the Akkadian equivalents of the signs can be relevant as well
(166-168: geme 2 = amtu, am a = ummu, es = amutu).
table 3.3 lists some common signs that were not included in Syllabary A by the
ancients. The list is adapted from Landsberger 1955: 45, with the most frequent val-
ues added using the same typographic scheme as table 3.2.

Orthography. Rules of Akkadian orthography vary chronologically and geograph-

ically; the following represents standard practices and trends that do not (necessarily)
apply to Old Akkadian or late Akkadian dialects. Within a word, a consonant-final
sign cannot be followed by a vowel-initial sign: parasu 'to decide' would be written
tf= E^JJ ^Ty pa-ra-su, never *par-as-u or the like. There are two exceptions. This
rule is sometimes violated at a morpheme boundary: iprusam < iprus 'he decided' +
ventive suffix -am may be written tJT tlH ^M<J t^ ip-ru-us-am. Otherwise, the C-V
im idu 'they have become many'
y
juncture is used to indicate a glottal stop: is written

AHr" E£ ^T im-i-du. Double consonants may or may not be expressed, but in most
orthographies a double consonant can only be written if grammatically justified. Sim-
ilarly, long vowels may or may not be indicated (by adding the appropriate V sign af-
ter a CV sign), but are usually grammatically justified when written, and are almost
always expressed in word-final position when derived from the contraction of etymo-
logically dissimilar consonants. Thus -tfcjf HU ka-lu can be either kallu 'bowl' or
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 49

table 3.2: Syllabary Aa table 3.2: Syllabary Aa (continued)

1 TJ a 36 gan
JwT
2 >Jf sur
37 -II en
3 <V sug 38 *£$& in

4 <&E£ mur, har, kikkin

39 ^l\ eri

5 AHfff uh 40 iMJT e/, sikil

6 ^-Hf -
' *> UMUN 4 41 <P~ «, /«n, lib 4 bad,, , igi

7 -T<J /»/,//,,,/?#£, MUSEN 42 ^T_ IGL

8 —TT<T ri, dal
43 A hi, ti, sar, dug
9 £2 bi, kas 44 4^ du I5 , kam
10 ?& ni, zal, //'
45 *-HF- an, //, dingir, sa 8
1 V- bu, sir 46 *- buluh, hal
2 SU
1
*-flff 47 IH ur» #*, tas
b
13 I^J ku, se, zi, dur, tukul 48 t^py ne, de, bi, bil, kum, sah, izi
C
14 ISQ[ lu, dib, udu 49 £^£?T gibil
15 *J]1 ru, sub, gespu 50 *tjy ka, /?/ 4 , inim, du„, zu, KIR 4
16 }}< ha, fl 7 , ku 6 51 ^yyt^ sag
17 E|J< kir, pes 52 E^tf- sur
18 ^H li
53 ^T du, sa 4 ra, , gub
19 -ET la
54 ^y suh 6
20 j^t lum 55 ^yy kas 4
21 «-^tt zu 56 £E i

22 }} za 56A ttfj ya
23 ^jy su, kus 57 £J su

24 ^ nu 58 ^yyy sa

25
26
~r] na 59 W sa

-*t] ba 60 *y<r<y uh
27 -Ify zi 61 — as, n), dil

28 -TTA ge 62 *J erim, zab

29 Mf^ ge 4 63 *T u4 ud,, tarn, /wr, lah, zalag

30 <SJ! gim, dim 64 tET ad

31 ET ma 65 ^y da

32 ^ mu 66 ^yyy ta

33 t*/ tah 67 -y< ti

34 -T iz, gis 68 <yyy um

35 rjsiy ga, MA, /Wtf/, PISAN 69 <yyyy dub

a. Values transcribed in lower-case roman would have been used both for syllabic Akkadian writing and logo-
graphically, italicized values would have been used only in syllabic writing, and values in small capitals are
only logograms or hypothetical values that are never found in context. Cf. figure 9 on page 147.
b. Compare no. 200.
c. Compare no. 91.
50 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

TABLE 3.2: Sy llabary A (continued) TABLE 3.2: Sy llabary A d (continued)

70 *m mes 106 <T* di, sa, sim

7' M98 urudu 107 e£H sar, mu, nisa, nisi

72 t& am 108 w sa

73 AHff im 109 Hf<T* birs , sim, nam

74 ^TT is, mil, SAHAR no cM ab, es

75 ET- gal 1 1
^ GU 4 GUD ,

76 -TTTT nun 112 <sT* ul

77 r- me 113 e^jT az

78 c: mi, siI, gig 114 tv*5I Ug, PIRIG,

79 <^ dugud 115 <^ ANSE 2 , HUS, PIRIG, GIR

80 <T< din Il6 <^w ALIM

81 Clt GESTIN 117 A<^ hus

82 <^ ZW, AMAR Il8 <^<<<" kis

83 & siskur 119 ^T^ ANSE

84 *-T<T uz 120 Mt lib, pah, nar

85 -60 KU 4 , tU, HUDUS 121 £< NAGAR

86 E9E turn, fb 122 -TT gur

87 ^M egir 123 Si gar

88 -** dim 124 ^T£T dar

89 -IT- mar 125 ^* rig, sum

90 -TV rad 126 £X1 SA y qu,
, gum
91 iin
d
dib 127 K^ gaz

92 D hab, kir, rim, lagab 128 »^T AG

93 fc= tab 129 «r kur, pap

94 g kas I30 eV bur

e
95 ^TTT< lah, SUKKAL 131 *f bar

96 tffl dan, kal, lib, gurus 132 ^TT si

97 £* gu 133 ^T^T Sl 4

98 ^TTV ga 134 # pa

99 ^^ ub, ar 135 < u

[00 <^TT lam I36 <M£fl U

[01 *T- pi, mc\, a, tal, geltan 137 V mas

102 £ du, ru, gag I38 V sd, gar, mu x, ninda, nita 4
103 Ew ir 139 tW al

104 E^TT ra 140 ^TT il

•05 <HI ki 141 -TTT= li

d. Repeated from no. 14, because originally different sign.

e. Compare no. 1 37.
f. Sign originally different from no. 131.
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 5 \

table 3.2: Syllabary A* (continued) table 3.2: Syllabary A* (continued)

142 r lal
177 m UIl, KALAM
143 ^AT lal
178 fafc gu
144 ^T id
179 >C^Z dur
145 -ETT si 180 II sig
146 HMl SIMUG l8l <HT SIG5
147 ^T us, us, nit, nita, gis 182 *T te, temen
148 ^T KU 7 183 *m kar
149 & si I84 —v bal
150 -m KI4, sah, 111, kid 185 <&m sul

151 wt bar4 dag ,

186 *-z#m sah
152 (=H e, eg I87 Kw lu

153 -mi e 188 tll^w lugal, sarru

154 EpE J BUR 6 LEL 4 KISAL
, ,
189 ^11 mah
*-*—
155 ka 190 <HDfcJ hul
156 <mj<i ar 191 «n gul

157 *-w< mus, sir 192 m as, ziz

158 I^TT ur 193 *m<m IL, GUR
159 K&J sis, ses, URI3 194 t* gab, duh, du 8

160 HT ib, URAS, DARA 2 195 ^T nita ir, ARAD

161 ^ tag, sum 196 -n ARAD
2,

162 & sal, rag, mm 197 ^H sir, hir, ezen

163 &1 nin, min 4 , eris 198 ^< h IDIM
164 HB ag, me. 199 y se

165 *W* ig, gal 200 IIT SE

166 ^v GEME 201 « nim, tum4 , elam
^
:

167 AMA, DAGAL 202 <M turn

168 <« es 203 cHW nir

169 ^ zib 204 t£E< zag

170 V kur, sad, lad, mad, nad 205 * he
171 -T qa, sila, 206 -III kab
172 »*c tar, has, kud, sil 207 :3f kib

173 -<s be, til, us, bad 208 ter

*SJfflf

174 <W ku 209 It tuk

175 HfefW sa 6 210 *¥fW tag 4

176 stt BAN, BANDA 3 DUMU, , tur 211 E& bar, sar6

g. Compare no. 198.

h. Sign originally different from no. 173.
i. Sign originally different from no. 13.
52 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

TABLE .3.3: Additional Signs* table 3.3: Additional Signs* (continued)

3 *£ mug 154 CM sab

7 «£TwT sen, iwA7, rag 155 tr-ISJ sipa, sib

9 -m gir, ad 164 -Ik dug, lud

10 -w* BUR, /?*// 188 £<£>< lil

24 *ht GISGAL 198 ETO mir, AGA, NIMGIR

14 «? III 210 V gam, gur

28 *H A PIN, ENGAR, /?//? 220 1 Us, DILIM 2

37 4 kad 237 && bir, ELLAG 2 , GIRIS

44 -<^ sir 244 <^ ab, lid

45 -V NUMUN, kul 256 <SJ pan

56 -MA mud 262 <kui pa

69 *> mun 274 « man, min, mam, mim, nis

74 ^£1 mus, suh 276 i dis, das, gis, ana

88 -IT! ma 277 r lal, la

89 *ffll dir 283 till, pu, HAB

94 -1 nab 284 fir bul, TUK 4
95 »K mul 285 ft SUg, AMBAR
1 1 sSp rab 294 mi kin, c/i

n8 (*fl EDIN 296 1 sii

128 £<3<1 zfb, zig, has 301 £Hf dam

141 ^11 sim, rig 322 re GIN, TUN, tu

a. The succession of the signs follows the order used in modern scholarly sign lists: taking the strokes from
left to right, one and more horizontal wedges, one and more oblique wedges, one and more angle wedges, one
and more vertical wedges. The numbers on the left are those of von Soden and Rollig 1967-76.

kalu 'all', whereas -£fcj £l<J I@fl ka-al-lu or t]]] ISJ kal-lu could only be kallu, and
--fcj EJ ^ ka-lu-u would be kalu 'lamentation priest'. -£fcj till ka-ru might be £#/*«
'dock' or karru 'pommel', but »-£fcJ||^III ka-a-ru would be only the former, and
t\V[ UH kar-ru or -trfcj <WT<T till ka-ar-ru only the latter.

Logograms were used regularly for some very common lexemes, like 'king',

'field', 'silver', 'barley', 'scribe', etc., and for numerous technical terms as well.

Logograms can be followed by phonetic complements, which can contain both gram-
matical information and clues to the proper Akkadian reading of the logogram. Logo-
grams are generally used for nouns and adjectives; but verbs, too, at least in certain
kinds of inscriptions, could already be written logographically in Old Akkadian —
practice which, together with the logographic writing of prepositions, becomes com-
mon in certain first millennium texts. In this case, phonetic complements may also
precede the verbal logogram. In discursive texts of all kinds, the amount of logogra-
phy seldom exceeds 15%, and is usually much more limited. Administrative texts,
with their long lists and repetitive formulas, always employed a much greater amount
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 53

of logography. Scientific and technical texts have some iogography in the early sec-

ond millennium; but in the late second and especially in the first millennium, the use
of logograms in these texts expands enormously: divinatory and astronomical texts
can be 85% logographic. This increase in the use of signs with their Sumerian-derived
lexical values to write Akkadian was in part a scholarly affectation that made facility
in the specialized use of the vocabulary of a long-dead language prerequisite to an
academic career; but once mastered, logography was very useful. It often reduced the
number of signs needed to write a given word or phrase, and it resulted in easy-to-
scan texts, in which specific phenomena could quickly be located (figure 4).
In the first millennium, a few common bisyllabic logograms were actually used

as syllabograms in writing Akkadian, but this was done either in restricted contexts
So the sign Jgf for the Sumerian word tukul 'weapon' was used to
or as a scribal pun.
spell forms of Akkadian tukultu 'trust', as in 1HJ^I< tukul-ti 'my trust'. Or the name

of the Sumerian moon god Nanna is found in a playful writing of the Akkadian word
inanna 'now': ££ »Hf-KwKIIiJ i- d nanna.
Determinatives occur with logograms, but also with words written syllabically;
they are transliterated in superscript (as in Sumerian) or can be written in small cap-
with a logogram they modify. Thus, the logogram £TI0, for Akkadian kakku
itals

'weapon' preceded by the determinative for 'wood', can appear in transliteration as

gls
TUKUL or gis. tukul. Besides the use of phonetic complements, the grammatical
realization of logographic writings can be indicated by reduplication, by the addition
of plural markers derived from Sumerian, or by the dual marker ]] (the numeral two),
sometimes written by the scribe as a small superscript. The numeral two, often pre-
ceded by the sign <I§J ki, can also be used as a ditto sign, and the Sumerian-derived
suffix 4fcr< kam following a numeral indicates that it is to be read as an ordinal.
Glosses and variant readings are set off by one or more angled wedges, known by the
German term Glossenkeil.
In some Old Assyrian texts, a vertical wedge ] is used as a word divider, but never
consistently. Otherwise, words are not separated or grouped in letters, legal texts, or
commemorative texts. As in Sumerian, words and phrases may be grouped together
in literary and technical texts, and words are never carried over to a new line; again

as in Sumerian, the remainder of a word (or phrase in a literary text) will be indented

below the line on which began and considered the prolongation of that line. In po-
it

etry, a line is a whole stich, and in technical texts, a line is normally a complete entry
(e.g. a protasis together with its apodosis in an omen collection). As in Sumerian writ-
ing, short lines are spaced so that the last sign reaches the right margin.
Just as Sumerian cuneiform writing was slow —
even, it seems, reluctant to ex- —
ploit rebus phoneticism to fully express Sumerian grammatical affixes or provide

phonetic indications for the pronunciation of Sumerian signs, so Akkadian cuneiform

never exploited the potential for either a concise and consistent syllabary, or fully syl-
labic writing. Much like Japanese writing in its relationship with Chinese, Akkadian
cuneiform relished the vestiges of its Sumerian origins, using Sumerian values to add
54 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

10

&r >$#$?& wept?

15

Hf

» *. 4 W|tH?<
20
KlrW ffw W^T »^#
Tmfw&w&^W ^4 «*r ^i:;;MT

figure 4. A first-millennium Akkadian omen text in Babylonian script. The omens are derived
from the behavior of various animals. The initial wedge J in each line is logographic for Akkadian
summa 'if, which is followed by the logogram for the animal in question: 1-9 jy JEJ ur.gi 7 'dog',
UDU GUD ^T^ V E^IT
'

10-15 ^"f-IW ^ Af
i 'pig', 16-19 ISCf 'sheep', 20-23 ^T * ox \ an d 24-27
anse.kur.ra 'horse' (Gadd 1926, pi. 26).
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 55

to the stock of superfluous CVC signs, and making ever increasing use of Sumerian-
derived logograms. Literacy in cuneiform was never to be reduced to the mastery of
a syllabary and some orthographic rules; "Sumerian culture," acquired over years of

study and zealously cultivated by the academics who controlled the curriculum and
established the canon, was the ticket of admission to literate society. Neither efficien-

cy nor convenience played an important role in the development of Akkadian cunei-

form.

Sample of Akkadian

WUHWtfMnpt* *£<fc SUIT &H

6*
6<r.
56 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. Akkadian:
2. Transliteration. 56 E. GAL m AN.SAR.DU.A LUGAL SU MAN KUR
3. Transcription: ekal Assur-ban-apli sar kissati sar mat
4. Gloss: palace.of Ashurbanipal king.of totality king.of land.of

2. AN.SAR ki sa d
NA
~f -s
d
HP; w r-
taS-me-tU 4
^ *t- i!

GESTUG 11
^ ^m
DAGAL-tU 4
3. Assur sa Nabu Tasmetu uzne rapastu
4. Ashur whom Nabu Tasmetu ears/wisdom broad

1. ^rjnUJBtf
57 e-hu-uz-zu IGI 11 na-mir-tu 4 m-siq
2. is-ru-k[u-us]

3. isrukus ehuzu Ine namirtu nisiq

4. they.gave.him he. acquired eyes sharp best.of

58 as LUGAL. MES-ni mah-ri-ya

2. tup-sar-ru-ti sa a-lik

3. tupsarr-uti sa ina sarr-ani alik mahr-iya

4. scribe-ship which among kings goer.of front-my

/. £-El T-*jn ^IIP! ^T *TM<T*-T<T^TT &<tt= £TTT <^HA

2. mam-ma sip-ru su-a-tu la e-hu-uz-zu 59 bul-ti ta muh-hi
3. mamma sipru suatu la ehuzu bultl ultu muhhi
4. any work this not he. learned remedies from top.of.head

Hr-^RW
2. EN UMBIN liq-ti BAR.MES ta-hi-zu nak-la
j. adi supri liqtl ahuti tahizu nakla
4. to nail selections other teaching clever

1. R-=TTEM@H -4-^fHT < Hf-^^T S^T -^J£^

60 a d
a-zu-gal-lu-ut nm-urta u gu-la ma-la ba-as-mu
azugall-ut Ninurta u Gula mala basmu
chief.physician-ship.of Ninurta and Gula whatever pertains

term*!**
61 62
AS tup-pa-a-ni as-tur as-niq iGi.KAR-ma a-na
ina tuppani a-stur a-sniq a-bre-ma ana
4. on tablets I-wrote 1-checked I-collated-and for

2. ta-mar-ti si-ta-si-ya qe-reb e.gal-ya u-kin

3. tamarti sitassl-ya qereb ekalli-ya u-kln
4. perusal reading-my within palace-my I-deposited
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 57

'Palace of Ashurbanipal, king of totality, king of Assyria, whom (the gods)

Nabu and Tashmetum gave broad wisdom, who acquired sharp eyes: The best
of the scribal art, such works as none of the kings
who went before me had ever
learned, remedies from the top of the head to the toenails, non-canonical selec-
tions, clever teachings, whatever pertains to the medical mastery of (the gods)
Ninurta and Gula, I wrote on tablets, checked and collated, and deposited
within my palace for my perusal and reading.'
— From a colophon on a medical text from the library of Ashurbanipal, king of
Assyria, 668-627 (Hunger 1968, no. 329). Bottom of the last column, most of
which is destroyed. Beneath the last horizontal rule is the catchlinefor the next
tablet in the series, followed (line 55) by the identification of the tablet as the

first in the series "If a man is sick with a cough " (drawing, Kuchler 1904, pi. 5).

Basic cuneiform syllabary

table 3.4: Inventory of Basic Signs Used in the Pronunciation Column of Syllabary A a

_a _e. _i _« a_ e_ /_ M_

p
b
# *T- ** 3=1 HI ^
t
£ffl *T
d C0 ^T *T
t

k <m m
g -a -T<T* tr^Tf

s »5w
E?M?" t]

s ^TT W * <Sr & I £ <« ^TT 5fl

m f- c:
n Ew1 -n
I m «n
r <MT<T ^
w
y tfll

b A -!<? £Hfff 4HtT

4Hf-

H ^T 6=w t£ < ^TTTt

a. The following CVC signs are also used: dim ~£\, dim <^JJ, gir ^J[[, har A£, kal tjft, kil £j.
kin JElU, kul -v, lag *HI. lam <^Tf. rig ^TT> suk <V. tan t^, tin <!<. Table prepared by P. T. Daniels.
58 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

Other languages
Gene B. Gragg

By the mid third millennium b.c.e., the cuneiform writing system, now adapted to
both Sumerian and Akkadian, had evolved into its near-definitive inventory of some
600 mixed syllabic-logographic signs with their characteristic polyphony (most signs
are associated with a set of syllabic and/or logographic values) and homophony (most
syllabic and some logographic values can be represented by more than one sign). No
one implementation of cuneiform used all 600-plus signs, nor all possible values of
the signs it did use, and the history of cuneiform is the history of the variable selection
made by different periods, places, and genres, adding some values, pruning many,
with characteristic local adjustments in the ductus and complexity of the sign-forms
(usually in the direction of simplification and reduction in number of possible "sign
components"). As Mesopotamian institutions (including the cuneiform writing sys-
tem) became normal vehicles of West Asian cultural expression, the adaptation of the
cuneiform writing system took on a dimension of adjustment to new linguistic envi-

ronments — sometimes for proper names (Amorite) or isolated glosses (Kassite) or

texts in related Semitic languages (Eblaite, Canaanite; even a single known Aramaic
incantation text), but eventually for full notation of a corpus of texts in languages
completely distinct from Sumerian and Akkadian. There are four privileged cases of
this adaptation: Hittite, Elamite, Human, and Urartian. (A possible fifth case, involv-
ing Hattic, the non-Indo-European language of the predecessors of the Hittites in
their capital Hattusha, involves too many unknowns —not the least of which is uncer-
tainty about the reliability of the knowledge of Hattic on the part of the Hittite-speak-
ing scribes from whom we have all our Hattic texts.)

In the tables that follow, the row labels give the probable consonant (phoneme or
allophone) value in the target language, with following or preceding vowels as col-
umn labels. Each syllable in the cells is a standard transliteration value of the cunei-
form sign used to represent the combination of the consonant(s) in question with the
particular vowel(s) — the transliteration value which is the closest available one to the
presumed target language syllable. Thus the sign E£jf, which can be transliterated zf,

is used for the Elamite syllables /zi/ and /ze/, or perhaps /ci/ and led. Where the trans-

literation value is less familiar (e.g. »^| ka 4 ), its usual designation is added in small

capitals. Less common values are given in italics.

Elamite cuneiform

Elamite has no known linguistic affiliations (a link with Dravidian has been suggest-
ed, but never widely accepted). Spoken by the southeastern neighbors of Sumerian on
the Iranian coastal plain and associated highlands, it has a history of cuneiform ex-
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 59

table 3.5: Achaemenid Elamite Syllabic Signs and Values

_Q _e _i JU a_ e_ i_ u_

p pa Pi
pu ap ip, ip up
b ba be
k ki
ka 4 (QA) ku ak ik uk
g gi

t tu, tuA
da te ti at ut
d du
s sa. sa se si su as is

s sa si su
as/z is/z
z{=cl) za Zl

V ya
/ la li lu ul

m ma me mi mu am um
n na ni nu an en in un
r ra ri ru ir ur

h ha hi hu
ah
a e" i u, u

pression, ca. 2500-331 b.c.e., almost as long as that of Akkadian. After abandoning
an indigenous cuneiform-like writing system which had achieved widespread use on
the Iranian plateau by the early third millennium (section 10), the Elamites began
using an Old Akkadian form of cuneiform to write at first Akkadian, but eventually
monumental inscriptions, letters, and administrative documents in their own lan-

guage. Soon after the initial adaptation, sign forms began to take on a recognizably
Elamite ductus, and for texts of the final periods there are many signs that cannot be

easily recognized by scholars who have not spent time working specifically in this

area of cuneiform.
The Elamite adaptation of the cuneiform script is characterized by a radical re-

duction in the inventory of cuneiform signs. For the whole period only 206 signs are
used, and in any given period (Old, Middle, Neo-, and Achaemenid) the total number
of signs used remains remarkably constant — at about 130 (Steve 1992). What chang-
es from period to period is the complexity of the syllabary and the number of logo-
grams. In the earliest texts very few logograms are used, but almost all common
syllabic CV and VC values from the Old Akkadian syllabary are taken over. In each
successive period the syllabary becomes sparser, while, for unrelated reasons (prob-
ably because of the increased frequency of list-like administrative and economic
texts) the number of logograms increases.
table 3.5 (adapted from Paper 1955) gives the relatively compact syllabary of
CV and VC signs achieved in the royal monumental inscriptions of the final period,

Achaemenid Elamite (539-331 b.c.e.).

50 -PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

As is obvious from the table, the polyphony and homophony of the cuneiform
syllabary have been almost (but not entirely) eliminated in a syllabic inventory re-
duced 47 (C)V and 23 VC signs. In addition, almost no distinction is made between
to

voiced and voiceless stops in CV signs (the same lack of distinction in VC signs is
inherent in the cuneiform writing system, and probably corresponded to a phonolog-
ical feature of Sumerian) — to such an extent that the distinctiveness of this feature for
Achaemenid Elamite has frequently been called into question. However, where there
is a distinction in signs, many words are consistently spelled with one or the other

sign; consequently we cannot be certain that a simple phonological generalization can

be drawn from the orthography in this respect. The /z ~ s/ distinction is more consis-
tently made, but from Old Persian loanwords it seems likely that graphic z may in fact

have been [tfj, [0*5], or Its]. The hV signs are in frequent variation with the correspond-
ing V signs, so that /h/ may have been in the process of disappearing. A few common
CVC signs (about 40) are also used on occasion; it has been noted that their primary
function seems to be to represent only the two consonants in question, with the vowel
value frequently ignored: thus words are written in some contexts indifferently with
the CVC signs whose conventional value is tar ^ or tur ££, and in other contexts
with writings of the form ti-rV. Writings of the form VC,-C,V seem to be in free vari-

ation with V-CV writings (e.g. E£=J £Jr ap-pa ~ ]] t£- a-pa), so that gemination may
not be distinctive in the language. The most unusual feature of Achaemenid Elamite
is the phenomenon of broken writing, whereby a sequence C,V,C is represented as 2

C,V,-V 2
C 2 , without regard for the quality of V 2 : thus ^y^JgE du-na-ds ~
tZ] —*~] ^yydu-na-is 'he gave', ^] fc£*L Etjy su-uk-da ~ Jh] -y<y^ t^] su-ik-da 'Sog-
dian', 45 5£T EfT 10 E^IT sa-ad-da-ku-is ~ *gjy ^y t^\ Jgf t^\ sa-ud-da-ku-is 'Sata-
gydian'. Although it is possible that these writings may be a sporadic representation
of vowel length or glide formation, it now seems more probable that this represents a
quasi-alphabetic reinterpretation of Elamite, whereby the VC: 2
in fact represents C 2 ,

i.e. the pure, isolated consonantal value.The use of the masculine personal name de-
terminative y m is greatly expanded
h
—
it is even used with pronouns. In addition a new

determinative •- is used for place names, but also for many nouns. The general cu-

neiform plural determinative [*-+- mes is regularly used without the connotation of
plurality to indicate that the previous sign is a logogram.

Sample of Elamite
T £-TT -TTK m !H < c*TT T TTT^ -sT ~-T -TTT< ?! <

<B> E£> -T < -ITT- k S-TT -tT T ^TTT - *tfp -T- T-

S-TT ft -ft -TT£ <TT> -TT< tf S-TT -£T^ -TTT< E=ft TS
/. Cuneiform: TBT-TMaRH<C<n y t^^w ~rTHP-TT<l
2. Transliteration: m Da-ri-ia-ma-u-is m SUNKI na-an-ri

3- Transcription: daryamauj sunki na-n-ri

4- Gloss: Darius king speak-PART-SG

 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM (,\

2. za-u-mi-in d
U-ra-mas-da-na mu h
tup-pi-me da-a-e
3. tfaumin uramajta-na u tuppi-me daae
4. grace Ahuramazda-of I tablet-DERiv other

/. HMT*<W HW*TEn ASHWsim

2. ik-ki hu-ud-da Har-ri-ia-ma
3. ikki hutta harriya-ma
4. on make Aryan-in

'Darius the king said: "By the grace of Ahuramazda I made another inscription
in Aryan (Iranian)."'
— Trilingual inscription of Darius on the cliff at Behistun, § 70: 1-3
(King and Thompson 1907: 167).

Human cuneiform

Hurrian, related to Urartian but otherwise an isolate (a hypothesis of Northeast Cau-

casian affiliation has been proposed), is attested from the third millennium on, in
northern Syria and those parts of modern Iraq and Turkey now inhabited by Kurds.
The adaptation of the cuneiform syllabary to Hurrian is attested in a monumental in-

scription from the end of the third millennium and in many contemporary and subse-
quent proper names. Many religious texts in Hurrian have been found in Syria and,
especially, incorporated into Hittite rituals in texts found in Anatolia. In the middle of
the second millennium a Hurrian kingdom in northern Syria, Mitanni, was a major
player with the Assyrians, Hittites, and Egyptians on the international scene, and car-
ried on a vigorous diplomatic correspondence with the Egyptian Pharaoh. Most of
these letters were in Akkadian, but one long letter (almost 500 lines — written on what
is physically the largest cuneiform tablet in existence) is in Hurrian, drawn up by the
Mitanni chancery in one of the most original and consistent adaptations of the cune-
iform syllabary ever made. (Other fragmentary instances of letters in the same Mitan-
ni chancery orthography have been discovered — it is generally supposed that there
exists or existed a major archive in the as yet undiscovered Mitanni capital city,

Wassukani.) The Humans disappear abruptly from the ancient Near Eastern world to-
ward the end of the second millennium.
table 3.6 gives the Mitanni Hurrian (C)V (43 signs) and VC (34) syllabary (the
system also contained a few CVC signs and a very limited number of the most stan-

dard cuneiform determinatives and logograms). One major feature of Mitanni Hurri-
an, its treatment of the voiced/voiceless distinction, is a systematization of tendencies

present in earlier attempts to write Hurrian: these earlier orthographies, which tend to
use thefull range of voiced and voiceless CV signs available in the Old Babylonian

and Middle Babylonian syllabaries, consistently show voiceless CV writings such as

t£ A
pa-hi in initial position, voiced in intervocalic (C)V-CV as in <gj ^=\ ki-ha. but
52 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 3.6: Mitanni Hurrian Syllabic Signs and Values

_a _e _i _o _u tf_ e_ i_ o_ "_

p~b,pp pa pe pi(Bl) pu ap e/ip up

t ~d,tt ta te ti tu at e/it ut

k~g,kk ka ke ki ku ku x ak e/ik uk

f~vlw,ff> wa/e/i/u(pi) aw(AB) e/iw(iB) uw(ub)

(see text) u-a u-e u-i u-u u-u' a-u e-u i-u u-u u-u'

ts ~dz, tsts sa si/e su

s ~z, ss sa se/si su as es/is us

s ~ z, ss sa se si su as es is us

X ~g, XX ha he hi hu a/e/i/uh

1, 11 la le/i lu al el il ul

r ra re/i ru ar e/ir ur

/?/, mm ma me mi mu am e/im um
n na ne/i nu an en in un

a e i u u

again voiceless in intervocalic geminates of the type VC-CV as in -]<] t^ t^ hu-up-

pa. Apparently in Hurrian, then, the basic distinction in consonants is not
voiced/voiceless, but geminate/ non-geminate; initial consonants can only occur non-
geminate and are realized as voiceless, as are intervocalic geminates, while intervo-
calic non-geminates are realized with a voiced allophone. This principle seems to be
explicitly incorporated into the Mitanni syllabary, whose organization tends generally
toward absolute minimization, if not complete elimination, of polyphony/homopho-
ny. For each vowel V and each articulatory position, only one of the possible
voiced/voiceless pair of CV signs is chosen, usually the more common one. This sign
was then presumably pronounced with the (redundant) voiced allophone when occur-
ring intervocalically and non-geminate, voiceless otherwise.
For back rounded vowels, Mitanni used both < u and t]]]t- u, but never as vari-
ants — words and affixes are consistently spelled with one or the other; therefore they
must represent two different vowels, presumably lul and /o/ (u, which can also be
used for /w/, is assigned to the former, and u to the latter). In the velar series, the or-
thography, which has chosen <I0 ki and Jgf ku for the values ki, gi, ku, gu, goes so
far as to take the unassigned signs -H<& gi and £-^ gu and use them without excep-
tion for values which are clearly ke, ge, ko, go (this can be verified in instances where
stem-final g, (k)k is followed by e, o). Note, however, that although they could have
done this also for the dental series by employing the unused -^f tu, they did not;
the labial series in cuneiform in any case does not afford two signs for the values pu,
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 53

bu. Writings of the form CV,-V„ with "plene" or "redundant" writing of the vowel
inherent in the CV sign, are especially abundant. Opinion is divided as to whether this
is an indication of vowel length, absence of a cluster, or an attempt to make explicit
vowel quality distinctions (e vs. i and o vs. u) not consistently made by the syllabary.
The Mitanni syllabary needed additional innovations in order to represent what
seems to have been a voiced/voiceless labial continuant pair, probably either [f, v] or

[f, w]. For these in CV signs, the Mitanni syllabary uses the sign ^J— pi, which is al-

ready quasi-alphabetic with the values wa, we, wi, wu in the standard cuneiform syl-

labary. In view of the general avoidance of homophony, the fact that the £t=| ab, fcj|

ib, t<^ ub series is used for this labial continuant VF may mean a genuine neutral-
ization of the stop/continuant distinction in geminates. £.]]]£ u is also used with pre-
ceding or following vowel for a sequence involving a labial continuant. It is not clear
how, if at all, the value of these u writings differs from that of the pi, ab, ib, ub writ-

ings —although the tendency to avoid homophony would seem to indicate a priori that

it should. Elsewhere in spirants, the ]} za, -J|^ zi, -£]] zu series is used for s, z,

whereas the £& sa, ^JJ si, ^]] su series seems to be used for an affricate, perhaps
ts, dz. Similarly, the s- and H-series enable representation of s, z and x, y.

Sample of Hurrian

1. Cuneiform: T -TT* -^!T !£

- "glT W HF" *
- <T- SIT fcjn- 5?T ^ A
2. Transliteration: m Ke-li-[i]-as-sa-a-an pa-as-si-i-it-hi-iw-wu-us

3. Transcription: kelia-J-(nn)a-an paJJ-itxi-iffu-J"

4. Gloss: Kelia-ERG-it(OBj)-and send-NOMiNALiZER-my-ERG

Im ^y<^ ^^y< ^jgiK-gn g||«f ^ryn^f. A££TT^TT

2. ti-we an-ti ku s -lu-u-sa ma-a-an-[na]-a-am hi-il-li

3. tive andi kul-03-a manna-an xill-i

4. word this say-PAST-3SG(suBJ) PRONOMiNAL-and speak-PART

m Ni-im-mu-u-ri-i-as kur
2. se-e-na-wu-sa-an Mi-si-ir-re-e-we-ne-es

3. Jena-f-J-an nimmoria-J misir(i)-(n)e-ve-ne-J

4. brother-your-ERG-and Nimmoria-ERG Egypt-DEF-of-DEF-ERG

2. ew-ri-is ta-se ap-li ta-a-a-nu-u-sa

3. evre-J ta3e apli tan-oflj a

4. lord-ERG gift great(?) make-PAST-3SG(suBj)

54 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

'And Kelia, my messenger, said this word: thus speaking, "Your brother, Nim-
moria, the lord of Egypt, made a great(?) gift."'

—Mitanni letter lines 83-85 (Schroeder igi 5, no. 200).

Urartian cuneiform

Urartian, a reasonably close relative of Hurrian, is attested on a large number of

monumental inscriptions (and a much smaller corpus of other kinds of texts) from the
highlands around Lake Van in southeastern Turkey between about 830 and 650 b.c.e.
Although the language may have lasted into the first centuries c.E., by the time of the
Persian Empire the Urartians had been replaced by the Armenians as the politically
and culturally dominant group in the area. As opposed to the Elamite and Hurrian cu-
neiform adaptations, the Urartian syllabary does not go back to roots in the Old Akka-
dian period. In values and sign-shape, it seems to have been adapted directly from
current Neo- Assyrian cuneiform, and shows no trace of having been influenced by the
writing practice for Hurrian (from whose phonological system Urartian shows signif-

icant differences in any case).

As can be seen from table 3.7, Urartian cuneiform, like the previous two,
shows a "reduced inventory" sign system. It has more (C)V signs (59), but fewer VC
signs ( 1 8) than the others. In addition it has a small number of CVC signs (22), but a

table 3.7: Urartian Syllabic Signs and Values

_<3 _e _i _w a_ e_ /_ u_

p pa P'
p/bu ap/b ip/b up/b
b ba be bi

t ta te ti tu, tu

d da du at/d it/d

ti(?l) te(NE) tl(Hl) tu

k ka k i ku
g ga £ i gu ak/g/q
h
k''(k !) qa q i qu

s sa s i su
2 2 i zu
z/sa
ts S i su

s sa se si su, SU as is us

X ha he hi hu

m ma me mu am
n na ni nu an

I 1 1 i lu al el il 111

r ra r i ru ar, ar(UB) ir ur

a e i u, ti
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM fi5

larger inventory of logograms than Hurrian: 106 signs, of which 20 also have syllabic
values and 15 are commonly used as determinatives. Urartian has frequent plene writ-
ings of vowels, and many "broken" writings of the type Ci-e and Ce-i; there are, how-
ever, virtually no geminate writings of the form VC r C,V a fact which perhaps —
explains the relatively low number of VC signs (which are thus only used for true
clusters). Unlike Hurrian, Urartian systematically uses the cuneiform emphatic series
t- and Q- for what seem to be globalized (or aspirated) dentals and velars. It is possi-

ble that the same manner of articulation existed in the labial series as well, but could

not readily be represented by the syllabary.

Sample of Urartian

1. Cuneiform: «f - <Tt^ sfl *T1 ^TTT- —TT<T & fc TI

T ~TT *- -ITT- ^^V
d
Hal-di-ie e-u-ri-i-e
m Is-pu-u-i-ni-se
2. Transliteration:

3. Transcription: xaldi-ie evri-ie ijpuini-Je

4. Gloss: Xaldi-DAT lord-DAT Ishpuini-ERG

md Sar-du-ri-e-hi-ni-se m Me-nu-a-se m Is-pu-u-i-ni-hi-ni-se

2.

3. sarduri-xi-ni-Je menua-Je ijpuini-xi-ni-je

4. Sarduri-ADJ-DEF-ERG Menua-ERG Ishpuini-ADJ-DEF-ERG

d si-di-is-tu-ni
2. Hal-di-e-i su-si

3. xaldi-ei susi Jid-ijt-uni

4. Xaldi-of shrine build-DERiv-3sc.suBJ-1-3sG.OBJ

'For lord Haldi, Ishpuni son of Sarduri (lit. 'the Sardurian one') and Menua son
of Ishpuini built Haldi's shrine.
-Dedicatory inscription on a shrine, line J (Konig 1955 no. 8).

Hittite cuneiform

Of the cases being considered here, Hittite is the only one in which cuneiform has
been adopted by a language belonging to a well-known and widely distributed family,
Indo-European, and attested in a varied, extensive, and well-studied corpus of texts

The Hittite corpus is larger, but

of literary, religious, historical, and legal content.
more concentrated in time, than either the Hurrian or the Elamite. Although it may
66 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

have been written as early as the seventeenth century b.c.e., the bulk of the material
in our possession, more than 600 compositions preserved on several thousand tablets,

comes from the fifteenth through the thirteenth centuries, and was found in the vari-

ous archives of the Hittite capital, Hattusha (modern Boghazkoi).

The Hittite writing system uses at least 375 cuneiform signs, of which 86 are em-
ployed in the core syllabary of CV, V, and VC signs. These are given in table 3.8.

In addition to these values, Hittite cuneiform also took over a number of CVC values.
The most recent syllabary, Ruster and Neu (1989), lists 74 signs with a total of 89
CVC values (nine of these signs also occur in table 3.8 with VC and CV values).
Besides the syllabic CV signs of table 3.8, the scribes of Boghazkoy evolved five
complex CV signs made by inserting a small V sign If a, tTJ e, t£ < w, £]]]£ u inside /,

(under the horizontal of) *I»- pi, a sign which in a number of cuneiform systems
could be used by itself in the values wa, wi, we, wu (compare e.g. table 3.6). These
signs, however (transcribed wa a we e , , wij, wu u , wu^), were only used in the writing of
Hurrian, Hattic, Luvian, and Palaic passages. Moreover, in Boghazkoy Hurrian at

least, the signs were used redundantly in a large number of their occurrences i.e. — in

writings of the sort -wa a -a-, -we e -e-, etc.

Following a pattern already observed in the other adaptations of cuneiform, the
Hittite writing system shows its own ambivalence about the rendering of voiced and
voiceless stops. In the stop series, for a given articulatory position and vowel, the
choice of a voiced or voiceless consonant value (i.e. a sign whose conventional Akka-
dian value is voiced or voiceless) seems to be a question of at most orthographic habit,
and many words can be written with either variant: thus £Il£l^H da-ma-is or
trTII^T^TT ta-ma-is 'other', tyj^^J e-es-tu or <«t^I es-du 'let him be',

-ITA-T^ gi-e-nu 'knee (nom.sg.)' versus <I9«/-*I^»- ki-nu-wa-as 'knee

(dat.pl.)'. Hittite does, however, show a tendency to write etymologically voiceless
stops double "where the cuneiform syllabary makes this possible" (i.e. between vow-
els). This relationship between gemination and voicelessness is known as Sturtevant's
Law; it can be seen in words such as *}~ t^TII kat-ta 'with, along, down' (cf. Greek
Korea katd) and VI -]<]* I@ 5£T "SIT Ct te-ek-ku-us-sa-mi T show, I present' (cf. Lat-
in died 'I say', Greek 8£iKVi)|ui deiknumi T show'), as opposed to words for 'eat' like

If
-tgy tryj ^ a-tu-e-ni 'we eat', If HI ^f- "~!T^ a-da-an-zi 'they eat', where the stem
is invariably written with a single tV or dV sign (cf. Latin edd T eat').

For the continuants, the relationship between gemination and voicing is much
less clear. To begin with, Hittite apparently only had one continuant in the dental-

alveolar region, and its phonetics is very uncertain. This phoneme is always rendered
by signs conventionally transcribed with s in the cuneiform syllabary — a phenome-
non undoubtedly connected with the generally complex and shifting relationship be-
tween the sV and sV signs throughout the history of cuneiform. There was no /z/ in

Hittite, but the cuneiform zV and Vz signs are used to represent an alveolar or dental
affricate As/, a palatalization of A/ before l\l or /e/: e.g. in the third person singular
present ("primary") ending -zi (as opposed to -ti in the closely related Luvian). Since
 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM 57

table 3.8: Hittite Syllabic Signs and Values

_a _e _i _u a_ ?- L u_

P,b pa
be bi bu ab ib ub
ba
t,d ta te ti tu
ad id ud
da di du
k,g ka ki ku
qa ag ig ug
ga gi gu
ts za ze zi zu az iz uz
s sa se si u, su as es is us

X (, xj) ha he hi hu a/i/uh

m ma me mi mu am im um
n na ne ni nu an en in un
I la li lu al el il ul

r ra ri ru ar ir ur, ur

w wa wi s

V ya
a e i u, u

the hV and Vh signs occur both single and geminate, it is thought that Hittite may have
preserved at least two spirants, voiced and voiceless, in the so-called "laryngeal"
range —an important class of consonants first postulated for Proto-Indo-European
solely on the basis of complex historical reconstructions (Saussure 1879), and subse-
quently discovered in Hittite, the only Indo-European language to have preserved
them directly as distinct consonants.
For any of the adaptations of cuneiform, it is a priori plausible that the phonolog-
icalsystem of the borrowing language could show a certain lack of fit with the repre-
sentation possible in the borrowed writing system. For Hurrian, Elamite, and
Urartian, lacking any independent access to the languages' phonological structure,
we can only guess at areas where this might be the case. In the case of Hittite, a mem-
ber of a familiar language family, we are in a much better position to judge. Thus, in

the cuneiform syllabary, word-initial and word-final clusters of more than one conso-
nant cannot be directly represented; nor can word-internal clusters of more than two
consonants. It seems probable, however, that at least some of each of these cluster
types are possible in Hittite, and that VC and CV signs are sometimes used to repre-

sent single consonants. Thus s£ E^TJ If pa-ra-a 'forward' presumably represents /pra/
(cf. Latin pro); >^TTfcgw ,
*T<fc li-in-ik (stem link-) 'swear!' and •gjjwffft sa-an-
ha (or "glTR AHffl sa-a-ah, stem sank-) 'seek!' represent /link/ and /sanx/; and
^||{ tt=\ -JJ* kar-ab-zi 'he lifts' seems to represent /karptsi/.
On the other hand, al-
though the standard cuneiform syllabary permits an unambiguous distinction be-

tween l\l and Id at least in a limited number of contexts, for example, before /s/ and
68 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

after /n/ (^jy is vs. «< es\ X^ ni vs. £&£] ne), the distinction is not consistently ob-

served in the corpus from which most of our texts come. Thus 'blood' is written both

-TK«4Ufc e-es-har and ^yyAfc is-har. Finally, although geminate (so-called

plene) writing of vowels can be used for long vowels in Akkadian, the frequent, but
sometimes inconsistent, writing of double vowels in Hittite does not seem to correlate
with length. On the one hand, the consistent s=TI {{{ *-]]*£ e-es-zi 'is' corresponds to a
short vowel in Indo-European (cf. Latin est), but on the other hand there are many
words with variations of the type £{= ^^fflF -T<y JfcJ pa-ah-hu-ur ~ tM| A^ffl *&&
pa-a-ah-hur ~ t£. A^ffl ^M K CfcJ pa-ah-hu-u-ur 'fire'.
Signs functioning as syllabograms account for the bulk of running Hittite text.

However, in addition to syllabographic function (which in any case, as we have seen,

only involves about 150 of the 375 signs), as in contemporary Akkadian, each of the
cuneiform signs used in Hittite has at least one, and sometimes several, logographic

values, and 41 signs function additionally as determinatives. The largest number of

logographic values are carried over either directly from Sumerian, or from the scho-
lastic elaboration of Sumerian in the Akkadian scribal schools. For example, the sign
Vf sa has, in addition to its syllabic value, the logographic values nig 'thing; four',

ninda 'bread', and gar 'set, put' —moreover, these values themselves figure in com-
pound expressions such ^^|J<yt£: nig.si.sa 'justice',
as nig.ba 'gift', V^I
^^y ninda. ku 7 'sweet bread', and V*^; ninda. kaskal 'voyage provisions'.
These logograms are referred to as Swnerograms, and are usually printed in capital

letters in Hittite transliterations. More

Sumerograms are known, of which
than 1500
several hundred were in common Sumerograms, the Hittite
use. In addition to the
scribes also used a smaller number (about 150) of Akkado grams, syllabically written
Akkadian words or word elements (such as suffixed possessive pronouns), usually
printed in capital italics in transliterations: t£ *~r] I-NA 'in' (= Hittite andd), X^S\ E^
IS-PUR 'he sent' (= Hittite hatrais), <y^-y^"-ffi DI-NAM 'judgment (acc.sg.)' (=
Hittite hannessar). For a number of expressions written only in logograms, the under-
lying Hittite lexical items are unknown or uncertain.
Finally, a number of Hittite words are written in a mixed logographic-syllabic
system, whereby a Sumerogram or Akkadogram can be" followed by a syllabogram
(sometimes referred to as a phonetic complement), usually representing inflectional
information — either Akkadian or Hittite. A variety of combinations are possible
(where SG = "Sumerogram," AG = "Akkadogram," PC akk = "Akkadian phonetic
complement," PC hit = "Hittite phonetic complement"):

SG + PC akk ^ -<y<SU-r/ 'hand (gen.)'

(Akk. QA-TI, Hit. ki-es-sa-ra-as)
SG + PC hit tJ^S Z£l LVGAL-us 'king (nom.)'
(Hit. ha-as-su-us)
AG + PC hit ^yyy <^yy - EL-LAM-as 'free (nom.)'

(Hit. a-ra-wa-as; n.b.: Akk. ellam is accusative)

 SECTION 3: MESOPOTAMIAN CUNEIFORM £0,

SG + PC akk + PC hit wf <f- 25: DINGlR-LIM-ni god k

(dat.)'

(Hit. si-u-ni\ n.b.: Akk. ilim is genitive)

As a final refinement, these mixed logographic-syllabic writings standing for Akka-

dian words can themselves be used in a syllabic function (so-called rebus writing, in
gls
proper names). On the one hand, the Sumerogram t] t^ PA 'scepter', which stands
for the Akkadian word /hattu/, is given the syllabic value /hattu/; on the other hand,
^•Jf-<f— DINGIR-L/M, which stands for the genitive of 'god' in Akkadian, earlier
/ilim/ but later /ili/, is given the syllabic value /ili/ as a result the writing —
^jy & PA-si-DlNGlR-LIM-is
s
-y j£ (j^ ^f_ (y is to be interpreted as hattu-si-ili-is,

and can be used to write the name of the ruler Hattusili (which can also be written
more conventionally ])< tt] ^! (1— -tMJ] ^TT ha-at-tu-si-li-is).
Sample of Hittite

In the Analysis, Akkadograms and Sumerograms are marked with subscript Akk and
Sum respectively, and determinatives are superscript.

/. Cuneiform: V
KUR URU Mi-it-ta-an-ni
2. Transliteration. A-BU-YA-msi-km I-NA
3. Analysis: a bu Akk -ya Akk -ma-kan ina Akk kur Sum ^Mittanni

4. Gloss: father-my-but-LOc'NAL in land Mitanni

2. ku-it an-da a-sa-an-du-le-es-ki-it na-as-kan

3. kuit anda asandul-eske-t n(u)-as-kan

4. because in camp-ITERATIVE-3SG(PAST) and-he-LOc'NAL

2. a-sa-an-du-li an-da is-ta-an-da-a-it SA d

UTU
asandul-i anda istantai-t S a Akk utu Sum

camp-LOC in delay-3SG(PAST) of sun.god

URU A-ri-in-na-ma-kan GASAN-FA EZEN HI.A

clty
Arinna-ma-kan gasan Sum -ya Akk ezenP lural Sum

Arinna-but-LOc'NAL lady-my festivals

*gTJ IS *F -Hf- HI -TW <« <Ef 55

sa-ku-wa-an-da-re-es-ki-ir
sakuwandar-esk-ir
go.unobserved-iTER-3PL(PAST)
70 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

'But because my father remained camped in the land Mitanni, and delayed in
the camp, the festivals of my Lady the sun goddess of Arinna went unobserved.'
—Excerpt from the "Ten- Year Annals" ofMursili II (ca. 1 353-1325 B.C.E.),

found in Boghazkoi (Figulla and Weber 1919, no. 4, lines 16-18).

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Landsberger, Benno, ed. 1955. Materialien zum sumerischen Lexikon 3. Rome: Pontifical Biblical

Institute.

Lieberman, Stephen. 1977. The Sumerian Loanwords in Old-Babylonian Akkadian (Harvard Semit-
ic Studies 22). Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press.
Reiner, Erica. 1966. A Linguistic Analysis of Akkadian (Janua Linguarum Series Practica 2i).The
Hague: Mouton.
1973. "How We Read Cuneiform Texts." Journal of Cuneiform Studies 25: 3-58.
.

Symington, D. 1991. "Late Bronze Age Writing-Boards and Their Uses: Textual Evidence from
Anatolia and Syria." Anatolian Studies 41:11 1-23.
Thomsen, Marie-Louise. 1984. The Sumerian Language (Mesopotamia 10). Copenhagen: Akade-
misk Forlag.
Vanstiphout, Herman. 1989. "Enmerkar's Invention of Writing Revisitedrin DUMU-E2 -DUB-BA-
A: Studies in Honor ofAke W. Sjoberg (Occasional Publications of the Samuel Noah Kramer
Fund 11), ed. Hermann Behrens et al., pp. 515-24. Philadelphia: University Museum.
von Soden, Wolfram, and Wolfgang Rollig. 1967-76. Das Akkadische Syllabar, 2nd ed., samt Er-
ganzungsheft (Analecta Orientalia 42-42 a). Rome: Pontifical Biblical Institute. (1st ed.,
1948.)
Walker, Christopher B. F. 1987. Cuneiform (Reading the Past). London: Bntish Museum Publica-

tions; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

72 part ii: ancient near eastern writing systems

Other languages
Benedict, Warren C. 1958. "Urartian Phonology and Morphology." Ph.D. dissertation, University
of Michigan.
Bush, Frederic W. 1964. "A Grammar of the Hurrian Language." Ph.D. dissertation, Brandeis Uni-
versity.

Diakonoff, Igor M. 197 1 . Hurrisch und Urartaisch, trans. Karl Sdrembek. Munich: Kitzinger.
Figulla, Hugo H., and Otto Weber. 19 19. Keilschhfttexte aus Boghazkoi, vol. 3. Leipzig: Hinrichs.

Friedrich, Johannes, i960. Hethitisches Elementarbuch I: Kurzgefasste Grammatik, 2nd ed. Heidel-
berg: Winter.
Goetze, Albrecht. 1933. Die Annalen des Mursilis (Mitteilungen der Vorderasiatisch-Aegyptische
Gesellschaft 38). Leipzig: Hinrichs.
Giiterbock,Hans Gustav, and Harry Hoffner, eds. 1980- The Hittite Dictionary of the Oriental In-
.

of the University of Chicago. Chicago: Oriental Institute.

stitute

King, Leonard W., and Reginald Campbell Thompson. 1907. The Sculptures and Inscriptions of
Darius the Great on the Rock ofBehistun in Persia. London: British Museum.
Konig, Friedrich W. 1955. Handbuch der chaldischen Inschriften (Archiv fiir Orientforschung
Beiheft 8). Osnabruck: Biblio-Verlag.
Paper, Herbert H. 1 955. The Phonology and Morphology of Royal Achaemenid Elamite. Ann Arbor:
University of Michigan Press.
Reiner, Erica. 1969. "The Elamite Language." In Altkleinasiatische Sprachen (Handbuch der Ori-
entalistik, division 1, vol. 2), pp. 54-1 18. Leiden: Brill.

Riister, Christel, and Erich Neu. 1989. Hethitisches Zeichenlexikon. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Saussure, Ferdinand de. 1879. Memoire sur le systeme primitif des voyelles dans les langues indo-
europeennes. Leipzig: Teubner. Repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1987.
Schroeder, Otto. 1915. Die Tontafeln von El-Amarna (Vorderasiatische Schriftdenkmaler 12).

Leipzig: Hinrichs.
Steve, Marie-Joseph. 1992. Syllabaire elamite: Histoire et paleographie. Neufchatel and Paris: Re-
cherches et Publications.

Sturtevant, Edgar. 1951. A Comparative Grammar of the Hittite Language, rev. ed. New Haven:
Yale University Press.
Wilhelm, Gemot. 1992. "EA 24: A Letter in Hurrian about Marriage and Friendship." In The Amar-
na Letters, by William Moran, pp. 63-71. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press.
SECTION 4

Egyptian Writing
Robert K. Ritner

The Egyptian script tradition is one of the world's longest, extending from the end of
the fourth millennium b.c.e. to at least the tenth century c.e. During these four thou-
sand years, four distinct but interrelated scripts were developed, often in complemen-
tary usage: Hieroglyphic, Hieratic, Demotic, and Coptic (see section 22).

Hieroglyphic
Of these various scripts, none was as long-lived, or has so captured the public imag-
ination (Iverson 1993)-, as Egyptian hieroglyphs. Indeed, hieroglyphs represent the
fundamental Egyptian writing system, from which Hieratic, Demotic, and (to a lesser

extent) Coptic are cursive derivatives. The common designation "Hieroglyphic"

(from Greek id i£poy^t)(()iKd ta hierogluphikd 'sacred carvings') was first applied
by Clement of Alexandria (Stromata V.IV.20-21), while Herodotus termed the script

id iepd (ypdjijLiaia) ta hierd (grdmmata) 'the sacred (letters)' (II.36). Such termi-
nology corresponds to that of the native language, in which hieroglyphs were styled
mdw-ntr 'god's-words', in recognition of the divine origin of writing, the inven-
tion of Thoth, the god of wisdom.
The Hieroglyphic script is pictographic in nature and was developed by the rebus
principle at or just before the beginning of the First Dynasty (ca. 3100 b.c.e.) in close

conjunction with a nascent artistic tradition. Bas-relief and accompanying text form
an interdependent unit, in which depicted actions and individuals may be "read" as
"ideograms" or "determinatives" for phonetically written names or titles. This repre-
sentational character of Egyptian writing was continually exploited by scribes and

theologians, resulting in the late misconception by outsiders that the script was purely
"symbolic" and not phonetic. The development of writing in Egypt may be the result

of "stimulus diffusion" by which Egypt gained the "notion of writing" through trade
with Sumerians. However, it must be stressed that the Egyptian system is quite alien
to the Sumerian and represents a distinctly local creation.

The distinguishing feature of the Hieroglyphic script is its consonontal basis. Un-
likeSumerian, Egyptian pictograms are not syllabic, i.e. they neither write vowels nor
indicate their presence. The contrary suggestion of a syllabic basis for Egyptian by
the linguist Gelb (1963: 72-81) has found no Egyptological support (Schenkel 1984,
cols. 717-18). The omission of vowels probably results from syllabic shifts such as

73
74 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

are characteristic of the related Semitic languages, in which grammatical inflection is

indicated by internal vowel variation around generally invariable consonontal word

roots. Egyptian writing thus provides word "skeletons" to which the reader would add
the appropriate vowels, obvious from the context to native speakers.* Evidence from
Coptic further indicates that Egyptian syllables with sonants often lacked vowels al-

together. Special techniques for representing the unfamiliar syllabic character of for-
eign loanwords ("group writing") are discussed below.
Not all hieroglyphs represent consonants, however, for Egyptian is a "mixed sys-
tem" in which certain signs convey sounds (phonograms) while others indicate mean-
ing (semograms). Though there is a fairly consistent core of about 700 standard signs
used to write the classical stage of the language (Middle Egyptian, Dynasties XI-XII,
ca. 2000-1650), no strictures were placed on either the form or the number of signs.

Despite the often conservative character of scribal schools, some signs were "updat-
ed" (Old Kingdom ^
> Middle Kingdom 1 'axe') and innovations were acknowl-
edged with new signs (New Kingdom "^ wrry.t 'chariot'). The generation of new
hieroglyphs accelerates in the Late Period (Dynasties XXVI-XXX, 664-332), result-

ing in over 5,000 signs in the Greco-Roman eras (332 b.c.e. - ca. 400 c.e.).

The simplest element of the hieroglyphic repertoire is the "logogram" or "ideo-

(
gram," by which a word is represented with a corresponding picture: ©1 r> 'sun', ti b>
'mace', ^\ msdr 'ear', m\ mnhd 'scribal outfit'. Extended usage of this picture writing
permits ideograms to stand for affiliated notions and actions: 01 hrw 'day', 1 hrp 'gov-
ern', j\ sdm 'hear', mi ss 'write'. Exclusively logographic writing is relatively rare

in Egyptian, and, as in the examples above, instances of nouns are usually followed
by a stroke (1) as a determinative. From the logograms derive all other hieroglyphs,
whether semographic determinatives or phonograms. The association of individual
pictures with characteristic sound values led to the use of such signs as purely pho-
netic elements, so that the sign <? hr 'face' is used in writing the homophonous <?<=>

hr 'upon' and <?<=>^ hr 'be distant'.

Phonograms in Egyptian are divided into three categories on the basis of the
number of consonants represented by the individual sign. The most basic of these are
the 26 "alphabetic" or uniconsonontal signs (table 4.1). Classical (Middle) Egyp-
tian recognizes 24 consonants. An alternate sign for y (w) derives from the archaic
dual ending, while that for s (— ) originally indicated a lost consonant z, still distin-

guished in Old Egyptian. The phonemic structure of classical Egyptian probably rep-
resents the spoken dialect of the capital Memphis. Later dialectal spellings reveal the

widespread existence of an /, conflated with r (less often //) in Middle Egyptian. The
consonants ]k >', Q /, W y, and _P w are weak, readily assimilated to preceding vowels,
and frequently omitted in final position. The order of the Egyptian "alphabet" given

^Conventionally, the sound |e| is inserted into words for convenience in pronunciation, but with no claim of
accuracy or authenticity. In transcriptions of Egyptian, periods link gender and number affixes, tilted double
hyphens link personal affixes, and hyphens link members of compound words.
 SECTION 4: EGYPTIAN WRITING 75

table 4.1: Uniconsonantal or ''Alphabetic" Hieroglyphs

\ m l h M
1 i affinity to /, otherwise u] m h [x]

« y usually word-final 0= h perhaps [9]

w y word-final -=- s variant of following, originally z

^
1
m p
s

* w affinity to u, otherwise [w] —

,
s [J]

J b A q [q]

D P ^3^> k [k]

*=_ f s g [g]

& m Cs t

n may substitute for /

t= t [tf]

<=» r may substitute for /

£5 d

rn h ^ d [*]

in table 4. 1 follows modern scholarly convention; native classification is known to

begin with the letter ra h, but is not fully attested (Johnson 1994: 67-68).
Although Egyptians could thus compose purely alphabetic texts, and did attempt
such experiments in the Late Period, preference was given to mixed writings that ac-
tually increase legibility (Davies 1987: 35). Thus the alphabetic a<=> pr is ambiguous
as to meaning, while ni pr 'house' and u^<=>a pr 'go forth' are clear.
The largest category of Egyptian phonograms comprises the biliterals, or combi-
nations of two consonants. About eighty common biliterals are used, and several have
more than one possible sound value. The full inventory is shown in table 4.2.

Whether or not alternative readings are possible, biliterals are usually accompanied
by alphabetic signs acting as phonetic complements: J5r*Jk b>\ \lk<=> mi mi , IJ
b
>b . More than one biliteral may have the same phonetic value, but in practice biliter-

als are rarely interchangeable for the choice of biliteral is typically dependent upon
word root.
The remaining phonographic category includes the approximately seventy trilit-

erals, or signs comprising three consonants; they are given in table 4.3. Since many
Egyptian words are based on triliteral roots, the distinction between triliteral and
logogram is often blurred (Gardiner 1957: 45)- As with biliterals, triliterals may be
accompanied by alphabetic phonetic complements which serve to specify the reading
m
of a pictogram with more than one signification: <R!W1 w>"s 'scepter'; l.k d?m
'electrum'. More often, the phonetic elements are redundant and optional: T or t" ©
(nlj)
Phonetically redundant elements nonetheless function calligraphically,
(
nh 'life'.

facilitating the arrangement of signs within invisible square spaces or "quadrants."

76 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 4.2: Bi lite nil Hieroglyphs

-: -/' .<
-U' -b -p -/?/ -//

-'-
A :w \ *
i- &^ iw - im ^ in

<

w- f\ ws «d- w (

V WP <g. wn
wn
+
b- if-b;

P- 2&P-
m- >m: mi ZZ mw t— 1
mn
mi
a a

n- o nw ^nb 1 nm ^ nn
nw
\o
r- .** rw

h- f h: %_ hw a hm \ hn

h- 1 b: <a> h' ^ hw

b- ^ h: <H hn

^ -
n

s- ^ sw I sn
si
6
s- pm> S5 p sw X ^
q-

k- U k ;
<— kP iG km
g- ^ £ m
t-
S t: }
ti £1=11 tm

t- h t:

4- i d: iw) dw

,,
Completing the inventory of hieroglyphic signs are the "semographic determi-
natives, which are placed after the phonetic elements and add precision to a word's
meaning (table 4.4). Determinatives are often the only distinguishing features
among homonyms. Thus, the concluding "book-roll" determinative characterizes the
word ffll ss 'writing' in contrast to ffi$ ss 'scribe', determined with a seated man.
While some determinatives are specific to individual words (A in i© .PA nhliw
'flail'), most are generic indicators of a word's nature (taxograms). The number of
commonly used generic determinatives is quite large, indicating, for example, specif-
 SECTION 4: EGYPTIAN WRITING 77

table 4.2 (continued)

-r -h -.v -q -A- -t -J -d

i- & ir « is

<_ c
¥. q == 'd

vr- ^ wr i
wd

b- »— bh
P- Li P r ^ ph

m- ^ mr n mh (fi
ms
mr
?
k mt

n- k nh ^ ns t nd

r-

^ hr L hs f
hd

b- _ ht

b- /a hr

s- T sk "f St

s- 5 ss «*=! sd

q- 1
qd

k-

8- e= gs

t-

t-

4- dr dd
Q B

of action, classifications, and materials (Gardiner 1957: 3i~33)- Words often

ic fields
s
have more than one determinative to add clarity or nuance, e.g. T. 9^ gs 'anoint'
with jug and force determinatives. Some determinatives provide further, extra-lin-
guistic, information. Thus by the addition of v~ stick, D crucible, or = slab to the
writing of "i.^3 ^ fd.t 'box/chest' the reader
, would be informed of its compo-
sition in wood, metal, or stone. Determinatives are a most significant aid to legibility,

being readily identifiable word dividers.

78 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

TABLE 4.3: Triliteral Hieroglyphs

ft :bw H& bi: I sbq

i im ^ bit — spr

o Tb 1 pds I sm:

^ iw (

^=, mi' I smn

8
iwn <— mnw t shm

o ib! «5£r>
msn f shm

+ imi a mdh ^ ssm

*& isw i» nni > ssm

<0 idn 1 nhb * ssr

o idr 1 ntr j^ stp

1
c
wt 1
ndm -v st:

! <b: v rwd, rwd 1 sdb

1 <pr ^ hfn 4 sdm

* <nh ^ hry X sbn

^ <rq j htm * sm'

I
c
h< X hbs ^ sn'

^ <S5 $ hpr ffit ssp

! wlh <S hnt (Ml ssm

1 wis (1 hnt V 1 qmi

I wld I
hrw /-=- k:p

i w'r t hsf Si kf:

8 wbn ft h:r I ghs

) whm hnm "k tyw

1 wsr M, s:h -1 tpy

© wsh 3=^ si ft _tm

C7 wsh — e.
sin ^ dsr

T wsm X sw 1
d'm

ff b:s * swn I db:

*
(

a bis sb: \
db

Despite the variety of signs and potential combinations, words are rarely written
in all possible combinations. Though never rigidly standardized, the spelling of indi-
vidual words regularly crystallizes around a core of specific sign combinations. As
elsewhere in the ancient Near East, scribes learned to write by memorizing word
 SECTION 4: EGYPTIAN WRITING 79

table 4.4: Generic Determinatives''

t man, person tree

$ woman \ plant, flower

M
*"
people

young
flA vine, fruit, garden

wood, tree
child, V—

ft old man, old, lean upon ,-CD corn

a official, man in authority ^ <& s>

grain

^ exalted person, the dead F=^l sky, above

god, king sun, light, time

i ©
fior€ king T night, darkness

> god, king -k star

J^orfc goddess, queen I fire, heat, cook

T high, rejoice, support 9 air, wind, sail

praise, supplicate =. stone

1
* force, effort D copper, bronze

$ eat, drink, speak, think, feel 000 sand, minerals, pellets

water, liquid, related actions

3 lift, carry

A weary, weak t — sheet of water

% enemy, foreigner H irrigated land

ss, enemy, death =3 land (later often replaces h)

i^or^ lie down, death, bury i^ road, travel, position

mummy, likeness, shape |W] desert, foreign country

1

head, nod, throttle foreign (country or person)

© 1

"^ hair, mourn, forlorn ® town, village, Egypt

/as-
eye, see, actions of eye n house, building

xn»-
actions or conditions of eye a door, open

3b nose, smell, joy, contempt iei box, coffin

of ear shrine, palanquin, mat

^ ear, states or activities ft

w tooth, actions of teeth -^k boat, ship, navigation

U_fl force, effort

c
^ sacred bark

~J substitute for v-i in hieratic

d
T clothe, linen

offer, present ~v bind, document

Q_fl

rope, actions with cord or rope

__» arm, bend arm, cease <?
80 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 4.4: Generic Determinatives (Continued)

envelop, embrace ^ knife, cut

r=o phallus, beget, urinate ^ hoe, cultivate, hack up

1 leg, foot, actions of foot X break, divide, cross

A walk, run \J cup

£V
move backwards <y vessel, anoint

e
Q limb, flesh s pot, vessel, beverages

tumors, odors, disease bread, cake

'O bodily discharges ctd or = loaf, cake, offering

^and^ cattle ^57 festival

f
%J savage, Typhonian book, writing, abstract

«? skin, mammal ( :
royal name, king

V bird, insect 1
one; the object depicted

small, bad, weak g several, plural

:;, 1 1 i

<SS=.
fish \ substitute for hard-to-draw signs

TAa_ snake, worm

a. After Gardiner 1957: 31-33. Listed in the conceptual order used for hieroglyphs in modern lists.

b. Less accurately #.
c. Interchangeable with j\.

d. Less often in hieroglyphic.

e. Less accurately p.
f. Also vertically I, older form =^=.
g. Also 000.
h. Mostly hieratic.

groups, and this communal practice resulted in a high degree of consistency and clar-
ity.

Hieroglyphic texts are composed in either vertical columns or horizontal lines.

With few exceptions ("retrograde"), the direction of reading is toward the face of hu-
man or animal pictograms, i.e. the signs are turned toward the beginning of the in-
scription. Vertical columns are read from top to bottom, while horizontal texts may be
oriented either from right to left or left to right. In practice, a distinct preference is

shown for right-to-left orientation. Reversal of this norm is usually based on an artis-
tic desire for symmetry (flanking inscriptions on doorways, etc.), or to coordinate the
text with a represented figure facing left (Fischer 1977, cols. 1 192-93). Artistic con-
siderations may also dictate a rearrangement of the expected sequence of signs, so
that tall thin signs typically precede birds: Ilk n for Ikl n >h.t (never *h >'./) 'field'.

Honorific transposition is accorded to terms of exceptional prestige in written se-

quences, with divine and royal terms written first though pronounced in inverted or-
 SECTION 4: EGYPTIAN WRITING g{

der: 11SI mdw-ntr, written <n_tr-mdw> (< 1 'flag' + 1 'word') 'god's- words' (cf.

English $i,ooo). "Orthograms" (calligrams) and ligatures represent additional artistic

and theological influence on the script. Calligraphic "filler strokes" eliminate blank
spaces in textual arrangement. The use of ligatured "composite signs" increases with
time, either for harmonious arrangement (3^ = ^ m + _j <
\
c
jT - ^=,s + a come in
*j?\a sm 'go') or for "magical" considerations due to the representational nature of
the signs (is see Ritner 1993: 163-67).
A particular subset of hieroglyphic writing is the so-called "group writing" by
which foreign names and terms are rendered in combinations of biliterals and sign
groupings, as in Mm j^^g^ 'Ihi not *'Bhwiw (Gardiner 1957: 52). This system was
termed a syllabic orthography by Albright (1934), and despite initial opposition this
interpretation is now dominant (Iverson 1993: 34-36; Schenkel 1985). Though the
system was in common usage only in the Middle and New Kingdoms, a Demotic text
of Persian date uses similar principles for transcribing not isolated words, but an ex-
tensive manuscript composed in Aramaic (Steiner and Nims 1985: 65-68).
Of great importance for the later history of hieroglyphs are the occasional cryp-
tographic writings, in which common signs or modified variants represent atypical
phonetic values on the basis of visual puns, acrophony, or other reasons. Such writ-
ings occur rarely even in the Old Kingdom, but become common in royal funerary

texts of the New Kingdom, where they are often accompanied by a parallel, normal
"translation." Many of these individual spellings and values survive into the Greco-
Roman eras, when the application of traditional cryptographic principles led to the
formation of thousands of new signs and the misperception by outsiders that the script
was purely symbolic.

Hieratic

Like the Hieroglyphic script of which it is a direct cursive equivalent, Hieratic

("priestly") received its name from Clement of Alexandria, in whose time its use was
restricted to religious compositions. Native terminology does not distinguish Hieratic

from hieroglyphs. Both forms were invented and developed almost simultaneously,
with Hieratic being but a linear simplification of the complex hieroglyphs. Hieratic,
however, is left. As Hieroglyphic served as a monu-
written exclusively from right to
mental script, Hieratic was more rapid and often less exalted purposes
designed for
on ostraca (see figure 3) and papyrus: dockets, accounts, and letters. Only rarely
was late Hieratic engraved on stone. Developing Hieratic produced a variety of dis-
tinctive writing styles, with the mundane "business hand" displaying increased use of

ligatures, while elaborate calligraphic flourishes characterize the "book hand" later

used for literary and religious compositions. Literary Hieratic may include punctua-

tion in the form of "verse points." Regional variations are also notable, so that by the

Twenty-fifth Dynasty the chancery styles of the south (Abnormal Hieratic) and north
(Demotic) were no longer mutually legible. With Demotic accorded royal preference
82 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 4.5: Demotic Uniconsonantal "Alphabetic" Signs

2^ or ? ! i or? h

L i
6 h

II e * h

jii y -orj3 h
<
<> or > 1, ?l, -,ar<ll s
"
b or w 3 or 5 s

1
J- or 1
^ b i- q
2 or 1
P i
k
>- f N- g
2) or ] m - t

— or O n *i t

or /. r /z_ t

X 1 r" orlj- d

/1 h

in the Twenty-sixth Dynasty, only calligraphic Hieratic survived as a traditional script

for religious texts.

Demotic
Designated "Demotic" ('popular') by Herodotus, the script was termed ss-s (
.t "letter

writing" in the native language, and thus "Epistological" by Clement. As noted, De-
motic derives from the "business hand" of the Delta and was in continuous use from
the seventh century b.c.e. to the fifth century c.E. Though ultimately descended from
hieroglyphs, Demotic is characterized by numerous abbreviated writings and liga-
tured word groupings, making identifications with precise hieroglyphic renderings
difficult or impossible. Thus the common ligature > may derive historically from a
variety of phonetic combinations: l
and ', *
and «, r and n, t and n, etc. Within De-
motic orthography, such ligatures acquire almost independent status as "logograms"
used to represent words, with specific readings indicated by accompanying phonetic
complements or other visual markers. Demotic still retains "alphabetic" signs, how-
ever (shown in table 4.5), and purely "alphabetic" spellings are common for loan-
words. Like Hieratic, Demotic is read only from right to left. Unlike Hieratic,
however, Demotic was regularly inscribed on stone from the Ptolemaic Period on-
ward, the most famous example being the Rosetta Stone used in the decipherment of
the Egyptian scripts.
With the demise of Demotic, Egyptian scripts survived only vestigially in Coptic

as a means for writing the Egyptian language. However, Egyptian writing had a dom-
inant influence on both the Meroitic and Proto-Sinaitic scripts, and through the latter,

Egyptian may serve as the direct ancestor of the contemporary Latin alphabet.
 SECTION 4: EGYPTIAN WRITING g3

Hieratic Selection

figure 3. Ostracon bearing part of the following text (Oriental Institute Museum 25329;
photo courtesy of The Oriental Institute of The University of Chicago).

Hieroglyphic Transcription
Q
rr< 9$ 1 b A I

9 ^l 9
d ZZ I 9 ~ I °
rr, 9 « 9! f ,

o I
<?

a ?l i
/. Hieroglyphs: *^ ^ *: c 1 <^
2. Explanation: d-d-k HEART-/-k m-S>-/ SCRIBAL KIT-W-SCROLL-PL-
J. Transcription: dd^k ib=k m-s> SS.W

4. Gloss: set-you heart-your after writings

/. ^s^ ^ _ $ ^ol^^ <? 1

2. d-g-NEYE-n-ISG n-hm-m-W-SCROLL-MAN W. STICKhr-/ bNk-W-SCROLL-PL

3. dgLn^y nhm.w hr b>k.w
4. since-have-seen-I those-saved concerning work-their

2.
(
m-( )-k-y-scROLL n-n wn-n m hJ-J-w scribal kit-w-scroll-pl
5. mk nn wn m h>w ss.w

4. behold not there.is in excess.of writings

84 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. i ^^ =-= <*> i z: d j^o ^ gt

2. mi-t-t-scROLL hr-/ mw p-w-» d-(i)-iSG
j. mitt hr mw pw di^i
4. likeness on water they-are may-cause-I

1. ^W ^ fl » *_ «
2. mr-y-MAN W. HAND TO MOUTH-k SCRIBAL KIT-W-SCROLL-PL r

3. mry^k ss.w r

4. that.love-you writings more. than

/. ^oll^o ^g£ ^/]7i I .-= I l l I P

(
2. mwt-t-SEATED WOMAN-k-»d-(i)-ISG q-q-WALKING LEGS nfr-/-SCROLL-PL-S
3- mw.t^k dm (

q nfr.w^s
4- mother-your let. cause- I enter beauty-its

1. J^ <? 1 <^ rs* <=,^ <? s <=> ^ «==> llkf^n,

2. m hr-/-k-* wr-r sw-w g-r-t r 1- :-W-t-STANDARD-SCROLL-PL
3- m hr^k wr sw grt r i :w.t

4- into face-your great it then more. than office

1. ^7 ^ O JU ~^5» O £}Q c^£= & — .

n
2. nb-t-* n-n wn-n mi-t-t-scROLL -s m EARTH-/-LAND-*
3- nb.t nn wn mit.t^s m t:

4- any not there. is likeness-its in land

'Set your thoughts just on writings, for I have seen people saved by their labor.

Behold, there is nothing greater than writings. They are like a boat on water. Let
me cause you to love writing more than your mother. Let me usher its beauty
into your sight. For it is greater than any office. There is nothing like it on
earth.' -From the Teaching of Dua-khety, Ila-IIId (Helck 1970: 19-21, 29-29).

The Meroitic Script

N. B. Millet

The script used by the ancient Meroites, or inhabitants of the ancient empire of Meroe
in the Sudan, was apparently devised in the third century b.c.e. and remained in use
until after the fall of that empire in the first half of the fourth century c.E. There is

some evidence to suggest that it was employed to write the Nubian languages of the
successor kingdoms that grew up amidst the ruins of the old imperial power, although
no actual texts have survived. It was finally displaced by the coming of Christianity
to the Nubian Nile and the adoption of the Coptic alphabet in the sixth century.
 SECTION 4: THE MEROITIC SCRIPT g5

TABLE 4.6: 77/f Meroitk Script

Hieroglyph Cursive Transliteration Hieroglyph Cursive Transliteration

2 **. initial a £& * 1

r 9 e <=>, <£> < h

tf / U > h
It * i u •// se

M /// y m J s

a 3 w % ^ k
5k f b A O q
P > 1 t

m te

££
^ n c^ <7~ to

» A ne ^ JL d

CE3, -CD u/ r :
•'
word divider

The Meroitic script existed in two variants, a "cursive" or linear version for gen-

eral use, and a pictorial "hieroglyphic" lapidary style for monumental purposes on
temple walls and other royal monuments. This duality reflects the age-old Egyptian
scribal traditions, from which both forms of the Meroitic script had in fact been de-
rived by their inventors.
The individual characters of the hieroglyphic variant are simply pictorial substi-
tutions for those of the cursive system, most of the forms being explainable as drawn
directly from the Egyptian hieroglyphic system which the Meroites had themselves
been using for hundreds of years. The signs of the parallel cursive script are also gen-

erally traceable to Egyptian Demotic (cursive) prototypes.

Meroitic writing is written from right to left and occasionally, in the case of hi-
eroglyphic, in columns for decorative effect. The system is essentially alphabetic and
makes use of a word divider with varying degrees of regularity. There are fifteen con-

sonantal signs and three vowel signs, besides a sign to indicate the presence of the ini-

tial vowel 9^a. For reasons not understood, but possibly having to do with the
existence of dialect differences, the devisers of the system created four further char-
acters to express the syllables A ne, S0 se, •<- te, and 4- to. Absence of a written
vowel after a consonant implied the vowel a. Certain syllable-closing consonants
such as s and n were not necessarily noted. In the cursive variant, the sign for the vow-
el i is usually written in ligature with the preceding consonant.
The phonetic values of the signs of the script were ascertained in 19 10 by the En-
glish Egyptologist F. LI. Griffith (see section 9); but since no true bilinguals have

ever come to light, and no surviving related languages have been identified, the lan-
guage main undeciphered. Place and personal names, a few
itself remains in the di-

vine names, and a mere handful of words can be identified with any certainty.
86 part ii: ancient near eastern writing systems

Sample of Meroitic

^S 220
XJ> 4&y •" && "J> &<"' $J ^ o°^3 ^=^aj fe^^r g- &
s- 'f- IS'S'sf U^
s^ &4 %<^jy/ $=.$s// (^y^s? s&c
&& <sl P£ SJ £j& J> jrjtf' £*"j?S'v='JK>

$///

MO VWW993 19-U//J :**90A9-0At93 U/l<-

: oq irrtew : iros : ileqeniyentew : sow<—

9///19WO*/// ¥3/0909/9
iwolekiret ilekiret : eykerqiy iwoqeyemt

^«0/<- :909U/9*fi^
beletenosos iwolehdet ilehdet : eyertidk

9////J9^ A<$U/< 9-3/*>9}<}99/ll

iwoledmtey eyosek enhprh iwoledmtey

:9-*/<>9lS}9/// 91+9904*
: iwoledmtey ekiteqes silbda : etirep

/. Transliteration: wos : wetneyineqeli sori : wetrri

2. Gloss: O Isis [epithet] O Osiris [epithet]

/. qo : tmeye-qowi yiqrekye : terikeli

2. The noble Tameye-the.noble.one.it. is (of) Yiqarekaye begotten

/. terikelowi kditreye : tedheli tedhelowi

2. begotten. he. was (of) Kaditareye born born. he. was

/. sosoneteleb yetmdelowi hrphne kesoye

2. (to) sosonete-officzrs related.he.was; (to) the.city.governor Keshoye

/. yetmdelowi perite : adblis seqetike yetmdelowi :

2. related.he.was (to) the. agent of. ihz.adb Seqetike related.he.was

'O ... Isis! O ... Osiris! Here lies the noble Tameye; Yiqarekaye was his father,
Kaditareye was his mother; he was related to so sonete'-officers, to the city gov-
ernor Keshoye, and to the adb agent Seqetike.'
— Opening lines of a sandstone tombstone from Qasr Ibrim in Lower Nubia,
ca. 300B.C.E. (Mills 1982: 69).
 SECTION 4: EGYPTIAN WRITING g7

Bibliography

Egyptian
Albright, William F. 1934. The Vocalization of the Egyptian Syllabic Orthography (American Ori-
ental Series 5). New Haven: American Oriental Society (repr. Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprints,
1974).
Davies, W. V. 1987. Egyptian Hieroglyphs (Reading the Past). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University
of California Press; London: British Museum.
Fischer, Henry G. 1977. "Hieroglyphen" [in English]. Lexikon der Agyptologie, vol. 2, cols. 1 189—
99.
Gardiner, Sir Alan. 1957. Egyptian Grammar, 3rd ed. Oxford: Griffith Institute.
Gelb, I. J. 1963. A Study of Writing, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Helck, Wolfgang. 1970. Die Lehre desDw>-Htjj. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Helck, Wolfgang, Eberhard Otto, and Wolfhart Westendorf, eds. 1975-89. Lexikon der Agyptologie.
7 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Iverson, Erik. 1993. The Myth of Egypt and Its Hieroglyphs. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University
Press (1st ed. Copenhagen, 1961).
Johnson, Janet H. 1994. "Ancient Egyptian Linguistics." In "Linguistics in the Ancient Near East,"
ed. Erica Reiner, pp. 63^6. In History of Linguistics, ed. Giulio C. Lepschy, vol. 1, The East-
ern Traditions of Linguistics, pp. 61-96. London: Longman (original Italian publication,

1990).
Liiddeckens, Erich. 1974. "Demotisch." Lexikon der Agyptologie, vol. 1, cols. 1052-56.
Osing, Jiirgen. 1980. "Lautsystem." Lexikon der Agyptologie, vol. 3, cols. 944-49.
Ritner, Robert K. 1993. The Mechanics of Ancient Egyptian Magical Practice (Studies in Ancient
Oriental Civilization 54). Chicago: Oriental Institute.
Satzinger, Helmut. 1977. "Hieratisch." Lexikon der Agyptologie, vol. 2, cols. 1187-89.
Schenkel, Wolfgang. 1984. "Schrift." Lexikon der Agyptologie, vol. 5, cols. 7!3— 35-
. 1985. "Syllabische Schreibung." Lexikon der Agyptologie, vol. 6, cols. 114-22.
Steiner, Richard C, and Nims. 1985. "Ashurbanipal and Shamash-Shum-Ukin:
Charles F. A Tale of
Two Brothers from the Aramaic Text in Demotic Script." Revue Biblique 82: 60-81.

Meroitic
Griffith, Francis LI. 191 1. Karanog: The Meroitic Inscriptions of Shablul and Karanog. Philadel-
phia: University Museum.
. 19 1 2. Meroitic Inscriptions II. London: Egypt Exploration Fund.
Hintze, Fritz. 1974. "Some Problems of Meroitic Languages of the
Philology." In Studies in Ancient

Sudan, ed. Abdelgadir Mahmoud Abdalla, Khartoum: Khartoum University Press.

pp. 73~78.
Mills, A. J. 1982. Cemeteries of Qasr Ibrim (Excavation Memoir 51). London: Egypt Exploration
Society.
Priese, Karl-Heinz. 1973. "Zur Entstehung der Meroitischen Schrift." In Sudan in Altertum (Mero-
itica 1), ed. Fritz Hintze, pp. 273-306. Berlin: Akademie-Verlag.
SECTION 5

Epigraphic Semitic Scripts

M. O'Connor

The Semitic languages are spoken across major sections of the Old World (Asia, Af-
rica, and southern Europe). In ancient times they were spoken in the area of south-
western Asia known nowadays as the Near East or the Middle East, from the banks
of the Tigris in the east to the Mediterranean in the west, and from the Armenian
mountains in the north to the Arabian peninsula in the south; then, as now, they were
used alongside a variety of languages from other families. Beginning in ancient times
the Semitic languages spread into Africa, initially North Africa and later Ethiopia,

and to islands in the Mediterranean and off the Arabian Peninsula.

The forerunner of the alphabet was invented to notate the consonants of the

Semitic languages, specifically the West Semitic languages, which comprise the
Canaanite group (Hebrew and Phoenician, and numerous local dialects; Ugaritic may
be an early form of Canaanite), the Aramaic group, the Arabic group, and the south-
ern group (South Arabian and Ethiopic).
The term "alphabet" is controversial (section i): some scholars have proposed
that the Semitic script, which is purely consonantal at base and does not fully notate
vowels (and is thus an abjad in the terms of Daniels 1990), prior to the development
of a system of more or less independent diacritics, is not a "true alphabet," but a syl-
labary. On this understanding, pioneered by I. J. Gelb, each sign of a syllabary notates
a syllable; the Ethiopic, Indie, and Japanese syllabaries record an entire syllable,
while the Semitic "syllabaries" record the initial consonant of the syllable and leave
the remainder unspecified. This proposal may be arguable on linguistic grounds (Gelb
1963, Swiggers 1983, 1984), but it is counterintuitive (Daniels 1990) and has been
misused as a way of privileging the distinctive role of Greek consciousness in a way
that makes no linguistic or historical sense (e.g. Havelock 1976, 1982). The standard
practice of referring to the West Semitic scripts as "alphabets" could be defended on
the grounds that no writing system notates everything relevant to language: the dif-

ference between what a Semitic script notates and what the Greek alphabet notates is

a real difference, but a difference of degree and thus hardly grounds for explaining the
unquestioned Greek contribution to the growth of the Western tradition.
The name of a language and the name of a script may be different, but it is com-
mon and sometimes unavoidable, even among careful scholars, to muddle the terms;
some confusion must be expected in both popular and scholarly treatments. The his-
tory of forms of the script is a different matter from the history and relationship of the
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS $9

2000B.C.E.
Northern Linear (Canaanite)
_oj <;
"O <D approx. death date
"O N
§1 j> survives to present

1525 Wedge (Ugaritic)

<D

3 I
QQ
1200 Southern Linear Northern Linear (Canaanite) 1200

i
Old South Arabian scripts Phoenician

Hebrew (linear) Phoenician

bo
<
Phoenician Aramaic

Old South Old North Ammonite Aramaic

Arabian Arabic
scripts scripts Punic Phoenician
500
Hebrew (square) Aramaic

C.E.

Ethiopic OSA
(Ge'ez)
v 500

figure 4. Family tree of ancient Semitic scripts

languages, even within the comparatively small compass of West Semitic (figure 4).
Consider two examples: (a) the earliest text in the Ammonite language is written in
the Aramaic script (a form of the northern linear abjad first attested in Aramaic-lan-
guage texts), while later texts in Ammonite are written in the Ammonite script (which
is derived from the Aramaic script) —even though the Ammonite language is more
closely affiliated to Hebrew than to Aramaic (Herr 1978); (b) the Classical Arabic
90 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

scriptdeveloped from Nabatean, a form of the Aramaic script (Gruendler 1993),

though the epigraphic scripts used earlier for languages closely related to Classical
Arabic derived from a distinct, southern linear form of the abjad.
The study of the ancient written records of the Semitic languages is important be-
cause of their cultural and historical importance and because of the many innovations
in the history of writing associated with the Semitic languages. Ancient written
records can be divided into three categories based on the material used for the writing,
(a) Paleographic records are those written on soft or perishable materials; these
records lead into the great manuscript traditions of the three monotheistic religions,
Judaism, Christianity, and Islam, though not all paleographic records are literary, (b)

Argillographic records are those written on clay, the medium of choice for wedge
writing; nearly all Akkadian (cuneiform) records are preserved on clay; many of the
wedge-abjad records of Ugaritic are also preserved on clay. Both these categories in-

clude many literary texts, (c) Epigraphic texts are those written on durable materials
(stone, including living rock as well as precious and semi-precious stones; ceramic;
metal, including coins). They do not excite much love but are nonetheless crucial for
historical and linguistic purposes and exhibit some points of literary interest.

Scripts in the Bronze Age (2000-1200 b.c.e.)

The abjad was invented during the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1525) and came into
increasingly broad use during the succeeding Late Bronze Age (1 525-1 200). The
process by which it came into being has been much disputed, and there is little his-

torical evidence. On the one hand, there can be no doubt that speakers of West Semitic
languages were exposed to a variety of writing systems in the cultural ambience of
the ancient Near East; the Egyptian models were of more immediate importance than
the Mesopotamian models (see Sass 1991). (The role of Aegean models is uncertain,
as is the character of the early Middle Bronze Age "pseudo-hieroglyphic" texts from
Byblos.) On the other hand, there is a longstanding and plausible tradition of regard-
ing writing as an invention, i.e. as something that reflects the work of one person at

one time.
A small and difficult body of texts called the Proto-Sinaitic inscriptions, dating
from the end of the Middle Bronze period, seems to be relevant to the prehistory of
the alphabet. Despite various attempts, it cannot be said that they have been deci-
phered. These rock-cut graffiti are from a turquoise-mining area in the Sinai peninsu-
la, SerabTt el-KMdem; the setting is noteworthy, since the workers were prisoners of
war from southwestern Asia and thus probably West Semitic speakers. The texts, as

they have been deciphered, appear to be religious, specifically votive, texts. The Pro-
to-Sinaitic texts thus raise two questions that recur at every stage of the history of
writing: (a) Are writing systems developed for religious or for economic (and social)

purposes? (b) Are writing systems before the European Renaissance chiefly a concern
of elites? One argument against current proposals for reading the Proto-Sinaitic texts
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS 9 |

table 5.1: The Earliest Linear Scripts (Garbini 1979, fig. if

/ n III IV V
»

(< K KK > > T

b
3 3 <3 1? 9 <l

g A 1

d A <a ^j > <a 3

h 3 3
w >^Y
X
H
z I X n
h
§ a ^ 3 *£ m e^
t ©
y VI i 2 ^^L
k * -^ \k >
1 j V c c 6c 6 (/
m * s i >
n
H h S $<?
s ^ t
< Q

P )?? 1

s -£IM f-h » ^L
7
q

s
1 mw w
^
\A/

t t X X + -*.

a. Col. I, Arrowheads from Lebanon; col. II, Byblos 7765; col. Ill, Ahiram
inscription; col. IV. Inscriptions from Palestine; col. V, Gezer calendar.
92 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

11
table 5.2: The Ugaritic Script, with Hebrew Equivalents

h^TT- T ? t£ ^ >- J H * SX?TTT^T</^« 7 < t= jj k^<;^ — ^JHfB

a b g h d h w z l?
!
yks lmdnzs' psqrtgt i u s

?a b g x d h w z h t j k J" 1 m 5 n cV s V p s- q r y t ?i ?u ?

k a 31 i n i t n u ^ D tf V B ] S7 D S p 1 n

a. Ugaritic uses a word divider in the form of a small vertical wedge T . The second row of the table shows a
standard transliteration scheme, and the third gives a plausible IPA transcription. The last line gives Hebrew
equivalents.

(or reading them as the earliest alphabetic texts) is that miners seeking to honor a de-
ity would not have come up with a writing system; this is plainly open to question,

though the proposals are unsatisfactory on other grounds.

In the Late Bronze Age texts, two forms of signs are used: the linear (i.e. com-
posed of lines) form (table 5.1), the ancestor of all later forms, and the wedge or
cuneiform form, used for Ugaritic (table 5.2); wedge-abjad texts have been found
at Ugarit and a few other Late Bronze sites. The wedge form of the abjad developed
under the influence of cuneiform (logo- and syllabographic) writing: writing with a
stylus on clay worked better with wedges than with the simple strokes that make up
the forms of the linear abjad, and so the scribes at Ugarit adapted the script. These
scribes also adapted it to record vowels in a limited way, specifically vowels follow-
ing the glottal stop: the abjad, developed for West Semitic languages, was purely con-
sonantal in origin, but the need to record words, especially names, that originated in
other languages led to the notation of some vowels. The wedge script thus replaces

'aleph) with three " 'alephs," for the combinations +

}
the glottal stop sign ( a,
}
+ it,

and '
+ i (probably also used when no vowel followed the
3

). The wedge script also

used an extra sign for a sibilant whose sound value is unclear; it may represent a
sound articulated between [s] and [J]. Wedge-letter writing, unlike most other Semitic
forms of the abjad, was oriented from left to right. The Ugaritic script is recorded in

two different orders, one similar to the order known for the Phoenician and another
similar to the order known for the Arabic (section 68).- The wedge script records an

inventory of sounds that is closer to that found in Classical Arabic (ca. 28 sounds)
than to that found in Biblical Hebrew (ca. 22 sounds).
From the Bronze Age there are also various linear-script texts from the Levant,
the "Proto-Canaanite" texts (table 5.1, col. I). It is difficult to place these linguisti-

cally, since the structure of the language family at this time is uncertain and the ma-
terial is slight. By convention, texts dated on other grounds to the period before 1050
are called Canaanite (Old Canaanite, Proto-Canaanite), while texts from the ensuing
period are called Phoenician (Naveh 1987). For some transitional texts from Byblos,
including the inscribed clay handle Byblos 7765, cited in table 5.1, see Cross and
McCarter 1973.
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS J3

a
table 5.3: Northern Linear Cursive Scripts (Garbini 1979, fig. 4)

VI V7/ VIII IX X x/

* * r f
>

f H X *
b
$r \ > ) 1 > >
g /> -s A
A/1
d
<\
^^
* i v v A H

h AA ft Sf * H\

w 1
1 T \ t
V •'V /' * 1
z /s/ :£

h
^ \A y)
w 11;
* * »
t

(P tf

y t/'x
H
-0
n * ^% A
k
1 ^ / 7 5 7 1
1
1 < / / c
\
1 / 4 S
m *l!»V7 X * * J M
n
S \ / ) // > ^
s

<
O u ov
/
*i
*
V i'
\
Q
* n V

P
A y ) )
1
s

V ? r *4r,
Y
q
?SP r r tft If

r
A 9 / /
1 1 1 \ 1

s
\^ ^ WN\^ u/ ¥* «* IV

/v^ /
/I /I * ft
t
*•//
VII, Malta, 3 rd-2nd c. C.E., ostraca.
a. Col. VI, Mozia, 6th c. B.C.E., stela, Punic; col.
r c.e., Phoenician; col. IX. Phoenician
Late Phoenician cursive; col. VIII, Sidon, 5th c.
b.c.e., ostraca. Hebrew cursive;
papyrus, 4 th- 3 rd c. B.C.E.; col. X, Samaria, mid 8th c.
col. XI, Aramaic papyrus, 465 b.c.e.
94 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

Scripts in the Iron Age and later times (from 1200 b.c.e.)

Phoenician and related scripts

During the Iron Age, the linear script flourished and spread. There are two principal
forms of linear abjad, the northern (usually called Phoenician) and the southern form.
The latter is sometimes thought to have broken off from the northern form before the
end of the Late Bronze Age, ca. 1300 b.c.e., though no texts that old are known.
The northern (tables 5.1,-5.3) has a smaller consonantal inventory
linear abjad

(ca. 22 sounds) than the southern linear form (ca. 28 sounds) and was used to repre-
sent a language like Phoenician that had undergone certain sound changes by ca.
1200. (Aramaic underwent similar changes several centuries later.) Since the earliest
major texts are in fact Phoenician, the script of the period1050-850 is called Phoe-
nician. The argument has been made that various forms of the Bronze Age linear ab-
jad survived into the Iron Age (Kaufman 1986). The contention that the use of the
term Phoenician is therefore not justified does not follow (pace Kaufman 1986: 3-4);
since the texts show the smaller consonantal inventory, they are linguistically closer
to Phoenician (if they are not actually Phoenician) than to Aramaic (Naveh 1987). The

number of texts is in any case small, and the diagnostic points for both language and
script are sparsely attested. The oldest Aramaic applications of the Phoenician script

show poly valence, i.e. the writing of two related but distinct sounds with a single sign.
There were four Aramaic "ghost sounds" and thus four cases of polyvalence (/5/,
written z but later written d\ /0/, written s but later written t\ Ibl, written q but later
c
written ; /6/ written s but later written t).

The southern form of the linear script retained throughout its history the original,
purely consonantal structure, while the northern form over the ninth to fifth centuries
developed various ways of notating vowels with matres lectionis 'mothers of read-
ing', consonantal signs used to indicate the presence of a vowel.* Earliest notated
were long vowels at the ends of words, followed almost immediately by word-internal
long vowels; short-vowel notation came later. (West Semitic words never begin with
vowels.) This process of vowel notation apparently began among the Arameans and
later spread to Canaanite scribes. The shift to the use of vowel letters was not univer-
sal among the West Semitic script traditions: Phoenician was written in a purely con-
sonantal orthography with no trace of vowel letters as late as the first century b.c.e.,
though its descendant language Punic had developed vowel letters centuries before.

The Phoenician form of the linear abjad was widely diffused as a result of Med-
iterranean colonization, and it is customary to refer to the Phoenicians as the "inven-

*In transliterations of West Semitic texts, it is customary to mark the presence of a mater lectionis with a cir-

cumflex accent on the letter for the vowel it indicates, while a macron marks a long vowel not indicated by a
mater. Northwest Semitic texts are usually transliterated into Hebrew letters, so that the scholar is not forced to
resolve ambiguities inherent in the consonantal script that cannot be conveniently reproduced in Roman letters.
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS 95

a
table 5.4: Northern Linear Monumental Scripts (Garbini 1979, fig. S)

XII XIII x/v XV xw

'

r *nt «*.
4 x-t /?
b
3 S3 7 4 H 4
g -\
1
-7 "\ A 1
d 4 < <?v «M4
h
* 3 3 °7 3^?\T\
Y
w
r rv h Y ¥* K
z -& 2; 3C 1 ==5 ^
h * * * PI +1 «
t
a <8> (9
*?-
y 1 X. -V
t. =L £
k
J y J?
4
/

LI L
1
/ l 6 ^
m u, w,
y Hj y uf y kf <?

n
j >W i 1 M y 7
s

c
V7f 7
*
P
j * .? 1 ? j^
S •"-*"* t*J fu H, K ft
q <? ?
?T P
r t ?
r
4 1 1 ^
s
1 1

\*
<l

W w W
t X
t * * X
a. Col. XII. Siloam inscription, Hebrew; col. XIII, Hebrew seals; col XIV, Mesha inscription,
inscription, 2nd-
Moabite; col. XV, Ammonite script; col. XVI. Hasmonean coins and Abba
1st c. b.c.e., "Paleo-Hebrew" script.
96 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

tors and propagators of the alphabet." This is misleading. There were no Phoenicians
as such in the Bronze Age, and so the Phoenicians did not "invent" the alphabet. A
variety of scripts (and peoples) were involved in the diffusion of the alphabet around
the region, even if the Phoenicians played a major role in the process.

As the northern linear script spread through the Levant (modern Syria, Lebanon,
Israel, and Jordan) and neighboring regions, and was used to write the various North-

west Semitic languages, it took on different shapes. These identities, which are
"scripts" in themselves, chiefly reflect geography, but language, chronology, writing
medium, and the purpose of the writing are also revelant in describing them.
The Phoenician script was the base from which the other varieties (and later sub-
varieties) developed. Texts are found in various Canaanite languages from the elev-
enth century b.c.e. on. In the central and southern Levant, the most notable script va-
riety is linear Hebrew (table 5.4), used also for that language's lesser known
relatives, Moabite and Philistine (the Semitic language of the Philistine area, Naveh
1985, not the language of the ruling military elite from the Aegean). The colonies of
the Phoenician homeland and its cultural dependencies throughout the Mediterranean
at first used the Phoenician script and later developed local varieties of it; the most
important were Punic and its lineal offspring Neo-Punic.

Aramaic
In the northern Levant and in neighboring, Aramean-influenced areas (southern Ana-
tolia and northern Mesopotamia), and sporadically elsewhere, Aramaic speakers (and
writers) used the Phoenician script during the ninth and early eighth centuries; a dis-

tinctive Aramaic script developed by the mid eighth century b.c.e. By 700, Aramaic
was the preeminent language of the region, and the Persian Empire, established in the

mid sixth century, confirmed that position by adopting it as its official language. The
official status of Imperial Aramaic provided a stability and uniformity for both the
language and the script that outlasted the empire. Extant materials include not only
many epigraphs but also several caches of manuscripts from Egypt. Aramaic script

was a major influence on the developing scripts of the Transjordanian region: the ear-
liest Ammonite texts are in Aramaic script, probably as a result of contacts with Da-
mascus. Hebrew continued to be written with the linear Hebrew abjad during the
exilic period (597-539 b.c.e.), when it was gradually replaced by a form of the Ar-
amaic script. The older ("linear") Hebrew abjad remained in intermittent use, nation-
alistically or religiously motivated, until 135 c.e.; during this later phase it is called
Paleo-Hebrew script. This abjad is the basis of the Samaritan script, which emerged
during the first century b.c.e. and is still used for religious purposes. Post-biblical He-
brew scripts, the Jewish (also called square or Assyrian) scripts, develop from the ex-
ilic, Aramaic script (section 46).
The Aramaic script continued its dominance Achaemenid
after the collapse of the

Empire, spreading far to the east, through Iran to South and Central Asia. The earliest.
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS 97

table 5.5: Scripts Derived from Aramaic Script (Garbini 1979, fig. 7/'

XVII XVlll XIX XX

'

« X * M ££ <s *, /
b iJ J2 .s J *% )X i ^
g K X A * x ± ^
d
>
1 1
h n
<\
w *\ 1 ? <* 9
? 1

z
r \ \
1 l
r
h
HH H W M H A >
t
u 6 6 V b .b
A 3 4
<^
y
\
1 3 J- -Lff

k
Dl
5 5 133 J £ h 43
1

U \ "J V S I 1

1 VX) •0
m 32 ft ft

J
n
)) J \ J J

s
1 7 t> 2 y <& jd
<

y y 1 / / J. V -X li.

p J3 ?> 2> ^ .9 X s>

J>
s y r f J>
q r? n n r >° s 2 JL

r
1 ^ \ 1 1J J
s
\ * \s fc & > ji A*J

/l 9- J
t
w * h Ir J7 rfl 19

Hebrew square script; col XVIII, Palmvrene script; col. XIX, Nabatean script;
a. Col. XVII,
col. XX, Ancient Arabic script.
98 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

Semitic phase of this post-imperial history begins with the breakdown of the unifor-
mity of Imperial Aramaic script around 250 b.c.e. (table 5.5). In the western half of
the old empire, in addition to the Jewish scripts, the Arabic-speaking Nabateans de-
veloped their own Aramaic script; the texts are found in Palestine, Transjordan, the
Sinai, and northern Arabia. In the eastern half of the imperial territory, there were a

number of developments. The trading oasis of Palmyra in the Syrian desert developed
its own script, which may have had some influence in later Iranian developments.
Northern Mesopotamian local scripts are attested both in the old Assyrian heartland
(at Hatra and Assur) and to the west, at Edessa. The Old Edessan texts are unvocalized
and epigraphic or legal in character; their script eventually developed into the Syriac
script used to record the literary and religious texts of a large part of Christianity (sec-

tion 47). In southern Mesopotamia an unattested local script gave rise to the writing

system used by Mandean gnostics of the marsh regions. Under the broad heading of
Arsacid Aramaic scripts may be gathered texts from the Parthian period texts (200
B.c.E-200 c.E.): texts from the far north, Armenia and Georgia (Armazi), reflect the

Hatran script, while texts from the far south, in the Iranian province of Elymais (an-
cient Elam), reflect the same origins as the Mandean script. The Elymaic script,
though poorly attested, is the chief predecessor of the adaptations of the Aramaic
script used to write a range of Iranian dialects in the ensuing Sassanid period and later

(section 48).

Arabia

Among the languages of the Arabian peninsula, understood broadly to extend north-
ward into the wildernesses of the Levant and westward into the Horn of Africa, there
is great diversity. From early in the first millennium b.c.e. (perhaps ca. 900) there are
texts in several varieties of Arabic (or North Arabic) and corresponding scripts, in-

cluding a dialect more or less identical to Classical Arabic, as well as in Dedanite,

Lihyanite, Safaitic, and Thamudic; the interrelations among these languages/dialects
and their writing systems remain under study (table 5.6). The South Arabian branch
of the Semitic family includes both the languages associated with the south of the
Peninsula, the South Arabian languages proper, and their close relatives, the Ethiopic
languages. There are several living South Arabian languages, but these are not iden-
tified with the ancient languages attested epigraphically: Minean, Sabean, Qataban-
ian, Hadramauti. The southern linear abjad was the source for the scripts used for the
(North) Arabic and South Arabian languages and for inscriptional Ethiopic script
(table 5.7). Some forty texts written on wooden slats in a cursive South Arabian
script (Ryckmans 1986) have recently come to light; sixteen are now published
(Ryckmans, and Abdullah 1994).
Miiller,

The Ethiopic epigraphic finds, from the early first millennium c.E., are in a form
of the major northern Ethiopic language, Ge'ez, the language of Ethiopian Christian-
ity; the early inscriptions are consonantal, while in the later texts the Ge'ez syllabary
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS 99

table 5.6: North Arabic Scripts (Garbini 1979, fig. 9)°

XXI XXII XXIII xx/v XXV xxv/

x * * r f
»

f y< *
b
$r \ 9 9 9 ) >
g
\A A ^s A
d
<\
^m^
* 1 V V A 1

h \^\ ft s> A -ft

w 1 1
1 T 1
V *
z /v •"V /' :£ 1

h
vi r* VI
wm> \N w
t

# tf

y
t/>x
M
-0
75 <* ^^ A
k
1 J / 7 1 7 y
1

1 \ 1 / 1
m
\
/ ^ /
*0v? ^ * * ^ %%
n
S \ 1 ; // > it
s

<
O \i ov
/
*»
•
V i»
^ * n V

P *\
7J ) )
K*>
s
r P r Y

q
?SP f r r?? it

r
A 9 I 1
^ 1 1 A 1

s \^ Hs v/^ u/ »f «r »v
- 1

/I
Yfr /
/I * tf
t *</•/
a. Col. XXI, Dedanite; col. XXII. Late Lihyanite; cols.
XXII1-XXV, Thamudic
(XXIII, Teiraa; XXIV. Hejaz; XXV. Tabuk); col. XXVI, Safaitic.

.^u crHOOU LIBRAE

100 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

(the abugida) has developed (section 5 1

). The southern form of the linear abjad died

out in Asia during the first millennium c.e.; classical Arabic script developed from
Nabatean (section 50).
script

Starting with the late Second Temple period of Judaism (ca. 200 B.c.E-70 c.e.),

with the establishment of Eastern (Aramaic-speaking) Christianity (ca. 400 c.e.), and
with the establishment of Islam (ca. 700 c.e.), epigraphic texts in Hebrew, Aramaic
(Syriac and various other forms of Jewish and Christian Aramaic), and Arabic are in-
fluenced by and reflect the scriptures of those religions. Full cursives develop more
extensively in this later period, although cursive scripts had appeared earlier; the use
of final forms in Hebrew and various ligatures in Nabatean are related phenomena,
preliminary to the ligatured cursive scripts of Arabic and Syriac.
In the northern and southern forms of the linear abjad, various numbering sys-
tems were used, some native, notably the use of letters with numeral values ('aleph
= 1, beth = 2, etc.), and some borrowed. In Hebrew, the Egyptian hieratic numerals
were used; 'Arabic numerals" are in origin from South Asia and are called by the Ar-
abs "Hindu numerals."

Salient features of various groups of texts

What features make the various corpora of ancient Semitic epigraphic texts distinc-
tive? Pride of numerical place goes to the North Arabic texts, mostly short graffiti and
numbering in the many thousands. Pride of historical place goes to the Aramaic texts,
since Aramaic was the most widely used language of the ancient Near East, the inter-
national language from the seventh or perhaps even eighth century b.c.e. and the of-

ficial language of the Persian empire (550-330 b.c.e.). Pride of geographical place
may be awarded either to the Aramaic texts, a corpus extending far to the East (the six
Official Aramaic inscriptions of the 3rd-century Indian emperor Ashoka are found in

Afghanistan and Pakistan), or to the Phoenician texts, which are found far to the west
of the Levantine homeland, as early as the ninth century, in Cyprus, Crete, Sardinia,
Spain, and most famously North Africa.
As texts, the most beautiful ancient Semitic epigraphs are the monumental Old
South Arabian texts, with their large and perfectly formed letters; these are distinctive
in exhibiting the greatest variation in writing direction: some are left-to-right, others
right-to-left, still others boustrophedon. The most beautiful epigraphs as works of art

are the Syro-Hittite texts from northern Syria, some written in Phoenician, including
our example text, the Kilamuwa inscription (ca. 825 b.c.e.), and some in Aramaic,
such as the Fekheriye bilingual (ca. 850), also represented below.
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS \()\

table 5.7: Monumental Scripts of Yemen and Ethiopia (Garbini 1979, fig. iof

XXVII xxw// XXIX XXX

»

h ft rtM * A
b n R R n n n
g TO) 1 T 1 -1
d fti
H 4 ~ f I
d
N N # H
h
Y(Y) Y Y Y V
w <D <p 00 e a> © v
z
x X H H
h «p(t; Y y * t
h
Y
t
m CD m m
z
1
y
9 ? f 7 ?YP
k
6 fi h nh
1
1 1 1 1
A
m
3 a J 8 WOT CX7 pq
n
s i h
1*1
A A
1
s

< V

1 n n 1
<J^t
p
s 5
d
B B 5
q
r C <
s2
2 1 w
s3
5
+ X + x
t

O—O
t
8(X) I
Arabic
a. XXVII, Epigraphic South Arabian script (forms in parentheses are of the North
Col.
type, in some older inscriptions); col. XXVIII, Later
found South Arabian script; col. XXIX.

"Thamudic" type of Ethiopic script; col. XXX. Ethiopic consonantal script. The
order of letters
Semitic order,
in this table is artificially based on the North Semitic order; for the ancient South
see section 68.
102 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

Samples of West Semitic

Ugaritic text

/. Ugaritic: JTT
*~ JJ. «>- >- m- m- TTT<R>-T ^TTT N-Jt*
24
2. Transliteration: ltbrknn ltr. il aby
}
3. Normalization: la+tubarrikan(a)na li+toru >Ilu abuya
4. Transcription: la:-tu-barrikan(a)na li-0o:ru ?ilu ?a:bu-ja
5. Gloss: NEG-you-bless O-bull 'Ilu father- my
*!*> ^T TTTJ0W8T JL^>^^- ^p >m.T £^E^ ££^T
25 wykn bnwt 26 bnh
2. tmrnn lbny bbt
3. tamurran(a)na li+banayu banawati wa+yakuna binuhu ba+beti
4. ta-murran(a)na li-ba:naju banawaiti wa-ya-kuna binu-hu ba-be:ti
5. you-strengthen O-creator creatures and-he-is son-his in-house

^TTT^T TTJJT y>^T ^ttt^^^t £^<?

27
2. srs . bqrb hklh . nsb . skn . ilibh . bqds
> >
3. sursu bi+qirbi hekalihi nasibu sikna Ili ibihi bi+qadusi
4. Jurju bi-qirbi he:kali-hi nais-ibu sikna ?ili?ibihi bi-qaduji

5. root in-midst palace-his erector stela 'Il'ib in-sanctuary

I. J— bM <1^T m^tt^TTT ^<?TTJHT ^ttH TTT<t=B^T

2.
28
ztr .
'
mh . lars . mssu . qtrh 29 l<pr.

3. zittara ^mmihi li+'arsi muslsi'u qittarahu li+'apri

4. zittara iammi-hi li-?ars-i mu/iis-iPu qrtt-ira-hu li-iapri

5. solar.disk people-his in-earth causer, to. go. forth incense-his in-dirt

T«>-<?
dmr 30 nish. d.
2. . 'trh . tbq . lht grs

5. damiru 'atrahu tabiqu lahata na'isihi garisu da

4. daimiru ?a6ra-hu taibiqu lahaita na:?is-i-hi ga:riju da:
5. singer step(s)-his smasher(?) jaws attacker-his expeller him. who

/. <<?3T TTT-EE m^I^T SJH^T £<?>-tt>-^T

2.
(
sy . lnh 31 ahd . ydh . bskrn . nVmsh
3. 'asiya lonahu 'ahidu yadahu bi+sikkaruni mu ammisuhu
(

4. laisiya lo:na-hu Vaixidu jada-hu bi-Jikkaruni muTammisu-hu

5. obscures face-his seizer hand-his in-drunkenness carrier-his

*»- T
32 33
2. [k]sb
(
yn . spu . ksmh . bt b
(
1 [wm]nth bt

3. ki+sab (
i yeni sapi'u kussimahu beta ba'ala wa+manattahu beta
4. ki-Jabfr jeini sa:pi?u kussima-hu beita baSala wa-manatta-hu beita
5. when-sated wine eater(?) emmer-his house Ba'lu and-gift-his house
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS JQ3

TTTT *IT
il . th . ggh . bym 34
[ti]t rhs npsh bym rt

'ili tahu gagahu biyomi taMti rahisu nipasahu biyomi riti

?ili -t-aixu gagahu bi-jo:mi 6a?iti ra:his-u nipais-ahu bi-jo:mi riei

'Ilu plasterer his roof in-day mud washer his-cloak in-day slime

'Will you not bless him, Bull 'Ilu, my Father,

(And) strengthen him, Creator of Creatures,
So there may be a son of his in the house,
A scion in his palace,
To erect the stela of the family god,
(And) the clan solar disk in the sanctuary,

To burn incense for him on the (temple?) ground(s),

To sing his achievements(?) out in the yard(?),
To smash the jaws of those who abuse him,
To drive off those who darken(?) his face(?),
To hold his hand when he's drunk,
To carry him (home) when he's full of wine,
To eat food for him at the Baiu temple,
And a gift on his behalf at the Ilu temple,
To fix his roof in bad weather,
To wash his clothes when he's slipped in the mud?'
—A petition, ca. 1250 B.C.E., requesting a son for the king Dan 'ilu offered by
the god Ba'lu, from the Legend of Aqhatu (CTA 17, KTU i.ij, lines 24-34).

Aramaic text
u

IS

It

figure 5. From the Fekheriye Assyrian-Aramaic bilingual

(Abou-Assaf, Bordreuil, and Millard 1982, fig. 3).

"Win :Q^<-
(

y sydh :mls^-

nxo-o mn onxV anx :T1

:*n :»o :m :an
h'srk tdrw mr'l nzr* :yzw
:vzw :nks :yzw nzg :klm

W1X I'D
1
?* :VX :H?DD :m»K rasraVi :rrrn

nsn* :Tw :nhP :hmp rtrm* :n

(
mlw :hwyh ikr'mlw

:VX :nXT :XmOT :3UTI

rtwh :mdq :yz :db

(
:t>z i'twmd :btyt
 ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING
SYSTEMS
104 PART II:

(
mlk: gzn: wzy: skn: wzy:
/. Transliteration: slm: hdys y
malk Gozani wa+di Sikani wa+di
Normalization: salm Had-Yit/i
2.
gozani wa-oi: sikani wa-oi:
s-alm had-yiefi: malk
3. Transcription:
king.of Gozan and-of Sikan and-of
4. Gloss: image.of Had-Yith'i

krs'h wlm'rk: hywh:

/. 'rzn Pirn wrdt:
wa+li+ma >rak hayyohi
li+'Aram wa+darat kars( )ohi
'

2. 'Azrani
wa-li-ma?rak hajj-o:hi
?azrani li-?aram wa-darat kars-ohi
3.
9 throne-his and-for-lengthening.of life-his
4. Azran to- Aram

>
lhn: w>l: >nsn tytb:
/. wlm'n: >nvrt: pmh: >1:

'elahln wa+>el 'anasln tetab

wa+li+ma* n >imrat pim-ohi 'el
2.
?el ?e:lahi:n wa-?el ?ana:Ji:n tefcab
wa-li-ma^n Vimrat pim-ohi
3.
gods and-for people it.is.good
word.ofmouth-his to
4. and-for-because

<bd: >1: zy: qdm: hwtr

/. dmwt': z't:

do^)* <abad >el dl qadam hotlr

2. damuta'
Sot Sabad ?el 5i: qadam ho:ti:r
3. damuta:
what before being-exceeding
4. image-the this he.made for

of Sikanu and of Azranu to

The image of Had-Yith'i, King of Gozanu and
life and so that the speech
of his mouth
Aram his throne and to lengthen his
made this likeness, improving on
for gods and for people might be good, he
what it once was.' Qrr,u r f m .

portion, ca. 850 B.L.L.

-Opening of the second section of the Aramaic
(Abou-Assaf Bordreuil and Millard 1982).

Phoenician texts

W$'WWkt»
tpm^ %m ¥
ggffWglggj
ff^n^h^^ y_
mnmiD^^
From the Kilamuwa inscription
figure 6.

Birnbaum 1957^ vol. I, no. 014).

(after

[X]TI .13 .T»V3 .31K*-

[>]yh . rb . wmlk .
kn'<-
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS 1()5

[Vv]d . tai . nx ,
» . Vv . lax
(
[l ]p . lbw . ycPy . 1
(
. rbg . klm

nx pi . ^D . V^l . XTI . ^K pi . Vi?D . tal HB3 P .

h* . nkw . Tp . lbw . 'yh . yb' . nkw . l

(

p . lbw. hmb nk

bxw 4
?
tl'p.s'm . mt . rb . wmlk.lkjn'w . Tp.lbw .PS
D1 6 ik . arte . nDnon . ^xnn .
p . v>xbn . Vvd
mr d* . mklm . tktmb . yb> tb . nk . mynplh . Tp .lb

/. Transliteration: 'nk . klmw . br . hyp] mlk. gbr.

2. Normalization: 'anokl . Kilamuwa . bir . Hayya' malak . Gabbar
3. Transcription: ?ano:ki: kilamuwa bar hajja? mailak gabbar
4. Gloss: I Kilamuwa son.of Hayya he. ruled Gabbar

/.
(
1 . y'dy . wbl .
p[
c
]l kn bmh. wbl. p l
c
.

2.
c
al. Ya >

udi(?) . wa+bal. pa
(
al ken Bamah wa+bal. pa'al.
3. S'al ya?udi wa-bal pa:Val ke:n bamah wa-bal pa:?al

4. over Ya'udi and-NEG he.did he. was Bamah and-NEG he.did

/. wkn 'by. hy' . wbl. p

(
l. wkn 'h

2. wa+ken . 'abiya . Hayya .wa+bal . pa'al wa+ken 'ahiya

3. wa-ke:n ?a:b-ija hajja wa-bal pai^al wa-ke:n ?ah-ija

4. and-he.was father-my Hayya and-NEG he.did and-he.was my brother

/. s'l . wbl .
p
(
l . w'n[k] . klmw . br tm ?
.

2. Sa'u^?) . wa+bal. pa'al. wa+'anokl. Kilamuwa bar . tom(?) .

3. Ja:?u:l wa-bal pa:Val wa-?ano:ki: kilamuwa bar to:m(?)

4. Saul and-NEG he.did and-I Kilamuwa son.of virtue(?)

/. m's .
p
c
lt bl. pM. hlpnym . kn. bt

2. ma'es . pa'altl bal pa'alu . halipanniyyim . ken . bet

3. ma-?e:J paiTal-ti: bal pa:al-u: ha-lipannijj-i:m ke:n be:t

4. what-which did-iSG neg did-3PL the-former.one-PL it. was house. of

/. 'by bmtkt mlkm 'drm

2. 'abiya . ba+mitoket milaklm . 'addirlm

3. ?ab-ija ba-mito:ket mila:k-i:m ?addir-i:m

4. my-father in-the.midst.of king-PL mighty-PL

'I Bir [son of] Hayya. Gabbar ruled over Yaudi and did nothing.
am Kilamuwa
Bamah was (king) and did nothing and Hayya my father was (king) and did
nothing and my brother Saul was (king) and did nothing and I, Kilamuwa, a vir-
tuous man—that which I did (my) predecessor did not do. My father's house
was surrounded by kings (more) powerful (than I).'
106 PART 1I: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

From the Kilamuwa inscription (ca. 825 B.C.E.), lines 1-5

(Donne r and Rollig 1971 no. 24; O'Connor 1977).

The Phoenician text from Pyrgi (illustrated in figure 36 on page 300)

imp ito mnOT ? 1

n2iV<-
(
sdq rs> trts l tbrl<—

an
1
' W*0 V^D TO TI?

nty s'w l'p s' z'

T klm snlw • 'yrbt

rat • nri' • xntFD

hbz • hryb • 'yrsyk

331 rQ3X 3n»D WttW

nbw tbb
J
ntmb sms

na • imx • rnntwo • in
ydb •sV •trts k
,
• wt

*a III^Vu? raw o^V

yb III sis tns yklml

nap »*a >td m

rbq myb • rrk hr

aVx mi*b nw\ bVx

mP s'ml tnsw ml'

Q2DDH as nw >rm
mbkkh mk tns ytbr

/. Transliteration: lrbt Pstrt *sr qds *z 's p'l

(
2. Normalization: la+rabbat la+ astarat *asar qodls *az 'is pa'al
3. Transcription: la-rabbat la-VaJtarat ?ajar qo:di:J ?az ?ij pai^al
4. Gloss: for-lady for-Astarte place holy this which he. made

/. w's ytn tbry' • wins mlk *1 kysry '

• byrh • zbh
2. wa+'is yatan Tabariya Walunas melek <al Kaysriya bi+yarih zebah
3. wa-ViJ jaitan tabarija walunaj melek Yal kajsrija bi-jarih zebah
4. and-he gave Thefarie Velianas king over Caere in-month sacrifice
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS \QJ

/. sms bmtn 'bbt wbn tw • k'strt • 'rs • bdy

2. semes bi+MTN 'abi+bet wa+bana taw ka+'astarat 'erresa bodiyo
3. JemeJ bi ... ?abi-be:t wa-ba:na: taw ka-ajtarat ?erreja bo-di-jo
4. sun in-MTN in-temple and-he.built room as-Ashtarat asked in-his-hand

/. lmlky snt sis /// b-yrh krr • bym qbr Mm

2. li+molkiyo sanat salus /// bi+yarih KRR bi+yom qibbur 'ilim
3. li-molk-ijo Janat JaluJ bi-jarih . . bi-jo:m qibbur ?ilim
4. for-rule-I years three 3 in-month KRR on-day.of burial.of deity

/. wsnt mVs Mm rbty snt km hkkbm *1

2. wa+sanat li+mu'is 'ilim rabbotay sanat kima ha+kokabim 'elle

3. wa-Janat li-mu?ij ?ilim rabbotaj Janat kima ha-kokab-i:m ?elle

4. and-years for-statue.of deity many years like the-star-PL these

'For the Lady, for Ashtarat is this holy place that Thefarie Velunas, king over
Caere, made and donated to (the) temple, in the Month of the Solar Sacrifice
(which is called?) MTN, and he built (a/ the?) cella as Ashtarat had asked of
him during Month of KRR on the Day of the
the third year of his reign, in the
God's Burial. And may the years of the god's statue be as many as these stars.'
— Phoenician text from Pyrgi (Donner and Rollig 1968-73, no. 277;
Guzzo Amadasi 1967; Schmitz 1995)-

Old South Arabian texts

/. South Arabian: ins? *rSQ] )hH mh
2. Transliteration: lbny qsh rnd hdk
3. Normalization: lubaniyyu qos'tu randu ?

4. Transcription: lubainijju qojt'u randu 7

5. Gloss: frankincense costum nard (type of incense)

— The words appear (one to a side) on limestone incense altars, ca. 300-100
B.C.E. The first two are from Pritchard 1969, no. 579: the others, from no. 581.

Philological notes:
Frankincense is a gum resin from trees of the genus Boswellia; the English term involves an obsolete sense of
frank 'first rate, high quality'. The Semitic terms for frankincense are derived from the root Ibn 'to be white',
though actually the resin is yellowish: Arabic luban, Hebrew hbond; from the latter comes Greek libanos, ulti-

mately the source of archaic English olibanum.

Costum is thename for a variety of incense ingredients, some also used as spices, including in at least some
cases a root. Qs H, which may not be Semitic, appears as well in Greek, kostos; and Latin, costum, costos. The
Latin term has left various traces in English, notably costmary, an herb.
Nard is the extract of plants of the genus Valeriana; for incense use the term nard is preferred, while for the

medical, mostly sedative, uses, the term valerian is used. The word nard is derived from Sanskrit naladd, per-

haps via Persian ndrdin, as the spikenard is imported from India via Persia. The Biblical Hebrew term nerd is
found only in theSong of Songs. The English term is from the Greek nardos. The Classical Arabic form rand

shows the same metathesis as the Old South Arabian.

Nothing is known of hdk.
108 PART I,: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

The Iberian Scripts

Pierre Swiggers

Iberian (or Paleo-Hispanic) is the term used for the speech and script varieties of the
(H)iberi (Gk. "Iprjpet;) who lived in the south and northeast of Spain and in Portugal
during the second and first millennia b.c.e. These varieties include a number of non-
Indo-European languages or dialects (with "Iberian" serving as their general designa-

tion) and one Indo-European —more specifically, Celtic — dialect, Celtiberian. The
Iberian varieties are attested in four scripts: (a) a Northeast Iberian script (also called,
somewhat misleadingly, "Iberian" script), (b) a South Iberian script (also called

"South Lusitanian" script), (c) the Ionic Greek alphabet, and (d) the Latin alphabet.

This subsection discusses the first two; for the others, see sections 22 and 23.
The geographical distribution of the scripts is as follows: (1) In the northeast Ibe-
rian peninsula (Catalonia, Aragon, and the Valencia region up to the Jucar), the

Northeast Iberian script was used almost exclusively and in a uniform way; it is also
attested in inscriptions from southern France. (2) South of the Jucar, down to the Se-

gura, three scripts are attested: Northeast Iberian (in Alcoy, Benidorm, Alicante),
South Iberian (in Mogente, Elche, and the province of Albacete), and Greek (in Al-
coy, Campello, Cigarralejo). (3) In Andalusia, most of the inscriptions are in the

South Iberian writing system, but the Northeast Iberian script is sporadically attested,
occasionally with slight variants, as in Iliberris, in eastern Andalusia.
The Northeast Iberian is the best attested variety, with, in most cases, at least two
variants for each letter. The Celtiberians adapted it around the turn of the third to the

second century b.c.e.; they used this adapted form (beside the Latin alphabet) for the
inscriptions in their Indo-European language. They made a number of formal chang-
es, such as the use of a diacritic to distinguish r and f, and the reintroduction of the
Ionic n for s; and some structural changes, such as the use of five consonantal signs
B, A, T, T, K instead of the fifteen syllabograms of the Northeast Iberian script.
In the southwest corner of Spain, inscriptions are attested in a script variety often

labeled "Tartessian"; the underlying language is unknown. This "Tartessian" or

"Southwest" script (see Correa 1985) can be assigned to the South Iberian variety, al-
though there are a few signs by which these two scripts differ (for a juxtaposition of
the two inventories, see Untermann 1990, 3/1: 141-42). Typologically the Iberian
script varieties can be traced to one basic Paleo-Hispanic type. In view of this, it is

preferable to avoid script designations based on the names of the Iberian tribes who
once inhabited a particular region (e.g. Tartessian, Turdetanian, etc.). It is better to

speak of Northeastern and Southern varieties of Paleo-Hispanic (with "Southern"

comprising Southeastern and Southwestern), rather than "Iberian" script; however,
this usage is not yet established, and the term "Iberian" is maintained here.
 SECTION 5: THE IBERIAN SCRIPTS \Qg

table 5.8: The Iberian Scripts

Northeast South

a ?>Pt! A
e M $$ 09
i/j V *l

H *f
u/u ? A HM
1 A r 1

m r
ifi VYK
n m *1

r <na q

f 0999 >Y (?)

s
*S \\ *¥
s M M
pa/(ba) IC<,/1 1 (?)

pe/(be) ££*15#& * (?)

pi/(bi) PP *
po/(bo) X* *
pu/(bu) D
ka/ga AA A A
ke/ge <«C<S<CX X*
ki/gi >r<f^t t
ko/go X X tx

ku/gu <*©
ta/da X +X
te/de #<$<$ ®
ti/di ip \^ vj/Ujii
4>
to/do [jj \J/ iuj

tu/du A A AA

Description
The Iberian script varieties have the following characteristics: (a) They combine
monophonemic ("alphabetic") and syllabic characters: the vowels and all the contin-
uants are represented by single signs, whereas the stops are written together with a
following vowel, (b) Some of the syllabic signs show variations, both geographic and
chronological, but it is unclear whether these variations reflect an attempt at phonetic
discrimination. It is best to transcribe these variants using diacritics, as is done by Un-
termann (1975-90) in the definitive edition of the inscriptions. It should be noted that
1 10 PART I,: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

variants of one sign occursome inscriptions, while other signs show no variations
in

in the same The syllabic signs for the stops distinguish place of artic-
inscriptions, (c)

ulation (labial, dental, velar), but do not mark a voicing contrast; the Iberian inscrip-
tions in the Latin and Greek alphabets, however, show a distinction between voiced

and unvoiced stops (except in the labials?),which must be accepted as phonemic.

In the few texts that are more than one word long, word division is marked by
centered single or double dots. Graphically separate elements can be taken to be
words (i.e. unbound morphemes, or a lexical construct of morphemes).

Inventory and commentary

table 5.8 gives an inventory of the Northeast and South Iberian characters with their
values (see also Untermann 1990, 3/1; Lejeune 1993: 55).
Northeast Iberian inscriptions are written from left to right (with one boustrophe-
don inscription), and South Iberian inscriptions from right to left. The differences be-
tween the sign shapes do not show any consistent pattern: a and i are identical in
Northeast and South Iberian, but e and u differ completely. The signs for /, r, i, and n
are almost identical, but s and f are very divergent. Some signs of the South Iberian
script are still unidentified, and the representations of [pu], [ku], [te], and [to] are un-
known. Roughly, the Iberian language(s) underlying these scripts can be phonologi-
cally characterized as having five vowel timbres a, e, i, o, u\ two or three pairs of
voiced and voiceless stops (velar, dental, and perhaps only one labial); six dento-
alveolar or post-alveolar resonants /, n, r, r (velarized, flapped, or geminated /*?); and
s, s (affricated or palatalized). Under Celtic influence, two shapes, T and Y, were
added, but it is not clear whether they denote m and another nasal, or whether they are
simply variants of a single letter (the distribution is too complicated to be explained
in geographic terms).

Problems
There are two types of problems concerning the Iberian script varieties: structural and
historical.

The structural problems arise from the fact that the Iberian inscriptions are as yet
uninterpreted — the values of the letters are known from bilingual and biscriptal in-
scriptions, from parallel texts in Latin and Greek, and from Iberian-language texts in

Latin and Greek script, but we cannot offer a grammatical and semantic analysis. Our
knowledge is limited to (a) identification of proper names, on external grounds; and
(b) a very limited contextual and interlinguistic recognition of the sometimes still hy-
pothetical value of sequences such as aretakelareteike, corresponding to Latin hie est
situs 'here is located', or tebanen, corresponding to the parallel Latin coeravtft] 'he
procured/arranged for himself in a bilingual text.
 SECTION 5: THE IBERIAN SCRIPTS \ \ \

The historical problems — a subject of ongoing debate —concern the origin of the
Iberian writing system, (a) Did the Iberian script originate, in the sixth or seventh cen-

tury b.c.e., in the south(west) and then spread through the south, and later, in the fifth
century, to the north? If so, we should reckon with the fact that the Southwest ("Tar-
tessian") variety was used to note a language of which we know almost nothing.
(b) How is the mixture of "alphabetic" and syllabic signs to be explained? This
problem is of course linked with the first, but it is wider in scope (apart from its gen-
eral linguistic relevance, and its typological oddity in the history of writing systems).
Should the Iberian writing system be viewed as a simultaneous integration of a Semit-
ic and a Greek model (with some letter shapes closer to the Greek, others closer to the
Semitic model)? as the refurbishing of a Greek model? or as an original Paleo-
Hispanic adaptation of a Phoenician signary, leading to a solution analogous to the
Greek adaptation? This problem has divided scholars into pro-Greek and pro-Semitic
camps. Whatever position one takes, it remains to be explained how a partial sylla-

bary could have been conceived (on what basis? for what reasons?) and why it was
limited to the stop series.
(c) Is it possible to distinguish various scribal schools and traditions that flour-
ished during the first millennium in the Iberian peninsula, and to correlate with these

the variants observed in the Iberian scripts?

Sample of Northeast Iberian

fAH^[^AZ\
r* • *A>Mir^
P^b/f^<AXO :

F^^Yf^ 7YK :

0f^CHt=A-K<V

I.Iberian: FAHO^AAr 9A>MimM HP 1

:

2. Transliteration: alofiltu/i .
belasbais/er eban
2. Interpretation: alofiltun belasbaiser eban
Gloss: Alofiltu- Belasbais- has.dedicated/built
3.

/. <AXONKYP: PY*P0r tHr ,

4
P- MVP
2. keltaf/erkermi: ame/teikeoen er-m/i

keltaferker-mi areteike-oen er-mi

3.

4. for (to).Keltaferk- this.(is the) place-UNKN for.him

1 12 PART H: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

'Alofiltu (son of) Belasbais has dedicated this resting place for Keltaferk.'
—Northeast Iberian inscription found in 1894 in Pilaret de Santa Quite ria
(Fita 1894: 259-61; Untermann 1990, 3/2: iji-J2).

*Y m is a scribal error for < /• or O r.

The Berber Scripts

M. O'Connor

The diverse but closely related Berber languages, a branch of the Afro-Asiatic phy-
lum, are spoken across North Africa, from the far west of Egypt (in the Siwa oasis)
through Libya, Tunisia, and Algeria, to the far northwestern margins of the African
continent in Morocco. The major living Berber languages are Tamazight (four million
speakers in Morocco and Algeria) and Kabyle (two and a half million speakers in Al-
geria and France), both belonging to the Northern Berber subfamily, and the various
Tamasheq languages, whose speakers are collectively known as the Tuareg, who live

on both sides of the Sahara, in southern Algeria and Morocco and on the upper reach-
es of the Niger River (in Mali and Niger).
The term Berber, though well established, is Greek in origin and pejorative, akin
to English 'barbarian'.Numidia is the ancient Roman term for the Algerian home of
the ancient Berber kingdom; this too is Greek, a form of vojidq nomas 'nomad', and
indeed some Berber groups are in modern times true nomads. The local term is Mas-
silian or Massuli.
An ancient Berber language (or perhaps several) is preserved in the ancient Ber-
ber script (or scripts), sometimes called Numidian, Libyan, or Libyco-Berber.
The Berber languages have always existed on the margins of literate nations and
empires: the Carthaginians and Romans dominated the Berbers, while the Muslims
incorporated them to the degree possible —Berber Islam is distinctive in various
ways. Thus the Berber languages have never regularly been used as written lan-
guages; they are not regularly written today.

Ancient Berber
The ancient Berber script (table 5.9) is based on and derived from a Semitic proto-
type, probably Punic. The geometrical character of the letterforms suggests that Old
South Arabian scripts (and the related North Arabian scripts) may also be relevant (cf.

Rossler 1979A), but Berber forms are more consistently symmetrical. (In this connec-
tion, Rossler remarks [p. "From the point of view of the history of writing, it is
91],
noteworthy that a drive toward symmetry is not an archaic feature in the shaping of
 SECTION 5: THE BERBER SCRIPTS |
| 3

writing signs.") The idea of consonantal writing has been borrowed, along with a few
of the letters. There are twenty-two letters; words are never broken over lines; word
spacing is erratic, as is line-internal word division by dots or puncts (in some texts the
punct seems to have a second, obscure function as well). The earliest date proposed
for the script, the sixth century b.c.e., is possible, given that Phoenician colonization
may go back to the eighth or even ninth century, but it seems dubious.
The major datable inscriptions come from Numidian independence
the period of
in the second century b.c.e., a time associated with a contest between Carthage and
Rome in the late third and second centuries; ultimately Carthage lost and Rome won,
but there was a brief opening for Numidian independence, seized by the kings Gaia
(Gaya), Massinissa (d. 148 b.c.e.; Masinisan), Micipsa (Mikiwsari), and Jugurtha,
who played the two enemies off against one another.
Most of the inscriptions —
Chabot's corpus (1940-41) includes over 1100
texts — are from western Tunisia and Algeria, with Morocco yielding a few texts (Ga-
land 1966 has 27 texts); Dougga and Maktar in western Tunisia are major sources.
Among the Berber texts, monumental inscriptions are rare; the bulk of the inscrip-
tions are non-official funeral texts, repetitive and thus poor in linguistic information.

The basic orientation of these texts is from below upward, starting from either the
right or the left; an upward orientation is extremely rare among the writing systems
of the world. In monumental texts (and some others), this orientation is abandoned
for a horizontal orientation from right to left, on a Punic model. Perhaps related is the
great variation in the orientation of individual letters.
A group of three Berber-Punic bilingual texts is worth noting (see Rossler in
Donner and Rollig 1968-73 [KAI]). Two of these, both from Dougga (Latin Thugga,
Berber Tubgag [sic!]), are from the time of the Numidian kings. One is dated to 139
b.c.e., during the reign of Micipsa, commemorating his predecessor Massinissa {KAI

101). The other is a tomb building inscription {KAI 100, photo in Rossler 1979B; cf.
Rossler's suggestion [1979A] that this may be the oldest Berber inscription). The lat-
est of these bilinguals is a tomb inscription {KAI 153); the Semitic text is Neo-Punic
(the stage of Punic written after the fall of Carthage), and the Berber section is badly
damaged.
The script continued in use through the following Roman period, as is shown by
Berber-Latin bilinguals, probably extending through the third century c.e.; there is

no way to guess at the date of apparently late, isolated graffiti, written on desert stones
in a distinctive spiral shape.

On the basis of one of the bilinguals, F. de Saulcy in 1843 established the deci-
pherment that is still basically accepted, yielding recognizable Berber names and
words. Nonetheless, the question remains, Has the ancient Berber script been deci-

phered? Two points are relevant. First, the writing system exhibits a good deal of vari-
ability, so that it may represent several related scripts, perhaps two: an eastern, the
script of the Dougga texts; and a western. Second, no single modern Berber language
can be identified with the language of the script; thus the term "Berber" is used here
1 14 PART ,,: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 5.9: The Berber Scripts

Ancient B ERBER Ti FINIGH

Horizontal Vertical Letter Ligature with -t

b O O CD «
a
g r V A •I- *- T
d n H C n a
h llll

w = II

z - - # 8
z H H I 1
z n\ Ixl >K x
h h
_1_ T"

b
t,d >- m 3 E lu

y z N Z S 2

k *= ir

1 11
= II M
m n u w 3 C +3

n 1 I I t (•I- nk)
s X X 8 O +a

S2 C C G n

g = -5" III t
f X X B :c m
q =
g X X *«

r a ffl

s § M § 3. -3
d
t + x + +
t
2
3 M
a. The modern Berber form is/, the ancient perhaps g.
b. The pronunciation is uncertain; the sounds in question are not native to Berber, occurring in
Punic and Arabic loans.
c. Modern Berber has/in Arabic loanwords. The ancient Berber realization is uncertain.
d. The second form is used finally.

to refer to one or more unspecified languages not identified with living tongues. Ga-
land has gone so far as to propose that the script is undeciphered, though he does not
deny that it is alphabetic and that it could be related to a Berber language. Most other
scholars are not so skeptical — the Berber character of the ancient kingdoms is guar-
 SECTION 5: THE BERBER SCRIPTS JJ5

anteed by the attested names (though the kingdoms used Punic and Greek rather than
Berber script on their coinage).

The
from the Canary Islands may be Berber (Alvarez Delgado 1964); it has
texts

been proposed that the extinct indigenous language of the islands, Guanche, was a
Berber language. The Celtiberian coinage of the first century b.c.e. seems to use Ber-
ber letters.

The Islamic period: Silence; modern use

The Berber languages in medieval and modern times, down to the present, have been
written in the Arabic script; Berber texts written in Arabic script are known from the
1 2th century c.e. on, and there is a translation of the Qur'an into Berber from the me-
dieval period. During the Middle Ages, various quasi-Islamic, local Berber religions
developed, several with their own Berber scriptures, written in Arabic script. Since
there are Berber Jews, there are also Berber texts written in Hebrew script, mostly
prayerbooks and ritual texts (e.g., Passover haggadoth).
There are no references to Berber script during the medieval and early modern
periods, but something of the ancient script has endured in the Tifinigh (table 5.9)
used by the Tuareg for playful purposes, for love letters, family notes, and domestic
ornamentation (two examples in Cohen 1958, vol. 2, plates 39-40) by both men and
women, often in settings where the women are not able to read Arabic. The remark-
able continuity of the ancient and modern scripts remains unexplained. This modern
Berber script is never (in Chaker's formulation) used to support collective memory,
be it historical, literary, or institutional — such is the role of Arabic. Recent attempts
to adapt Tifinigh for serious use in the writing of other Berber languages, prompted
by pan-Berber political aspirations, have failed.

The most striking feature of this writing system is its name, Tifinigh (sometimes
Tifinagh),which is the feminine plural (ti- is a Berber feminine marker) of the Latin
word Punicus 'Phoenician'; thus Tifinigh means 'the Phoenician (letters)'. (Another
view associates it with Greek idvoJ^pinaks 'writing tablet', Rossler 1979A: 93). Tifi-
nigh uses about forty letters. The script is written without word dividers or spacing;
but distinctive ligatures, linking the feminine ending -t to whatever precedes it (cf. the

Arabic td'marbuta), and a single sign, apparently read as -a unless after v or w when
it is read -i or -u, serve to mark the ends of some words. The fullest illustration of the
Berber scripts is in Friedrich 1966: 94~95 with figures 166-73.

Samples of Berber
Ancient Berber
>-X£ 1x1111-= uniir zzr= aniir ixixh h?xio rro+ i*=h^-
[t]tps nsllzw tdlg yygw tdlg nsnsm nstpnb ggbt nks<^
\ 15 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

ix=^n mir =xzx ^nrc = nicoc

nswkm dig 'sys tdgs Mnsbs

/. Transliteration: skn tbgg bnp't sn' msnsn gldt wgyy

2. Normalization: (e)s9k-n Tubgag bn-pts-n Msnsn-i gallidt w-Gyy

3. Gloss: built-3PL Thugga tent-?-this Massinissa-DAT king son-Gaia

/. gldt wzllsn spt[t] sbsnd* sgdt sys* gld mkwsn

3
2. gallidt w-Zllsn sft swas-nd'sugasdenn s-yusa gsllidMikiwsan
3. king son-Zllsn shuphet year-? after that-come. 3SGking Mikiwsan

'The Thuggans built this sacred place for King Massinissa, son of King Gaia,
son of the shuphet Zllsn, in the year of the Jubilee(?) after Micipsa became
king." —From the Punic-Numidian bilingual KAI 101, lines 1-2.

Modern Berber: From a Tuareg letter

/. Tifinigh: : I-: IAA: +1+ ill! I DUE Q:i iU II: OLD •

2. Transliteration: w nk fddw tnt hlgn sf swy hd lgsb

3

3. Transcription: awansk fedudu tennat hulayin Jif siwi hid elysjaba

4. Gloss: this I Fedudu saying I. salute chief send.me here garment

T, Fedudu, greet the chief and request a garment.'

—After Cohen 1958, pi 39, linei.

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198-201.
. 1984. "On the Nature of West-Semitic Writing Systems." Aula Orientalis 2: 149-51.
Virolleaud, Charles. 1936. La legende phenicienne de Danel (Mission de Ras Shamra 1). Paris:
Geuthner.

The Iberian scripts

Anderson, James M. 1988. Ancient Languages of the Hispanic Peninsula. Lanham, Md.: University
Press of America.
Caro Baroja,Julio. 1946. "Sobre la historia del desciframiento de las escrituras hispanicas." Actas y

Memorias, Sociedad Espanola de Antropologia, Etnografia y Prehistoria 21: 1 5 1 -7 1

1954. "La escritura en la Espana prerromana (Epigrafia y numismatica)." InHistoria de Es-
.

pana, ed. Ramon Menendez Pidal, vol. 1/3, pp. 679-812. Madrid: Espasa-Calpe.
Correa, Jose A. 1983. "Escritura y lengua prerromanas en el sur de la Peninsula Iberica." In Actas
del VI Congreso Espahol de Estudios Cldsicos (Sevilla, 6-1 1 de abril de 1981I vol. 1 , pp. 397-
41 1. Madrid: Gredos.
. 1985. "Consideraciones sobre las inscripciones tartesias." In Actas del III Coloquio sobre
lenguasy culturas paleohispdnicas (Lisboa, 8 noviembre 1980), pp. 377-95. Salamanca: Edi-
ciones Universidad de Salamanca.
de Hoz, Javier. 1979. "On Some Problems of Iberian Script and Phonetics." In Actas del II Coloquio
sobre lenguas y culturas prerromanas de la Peninsula Iberica (Tubingen, 17-19 junio 1976),
pp. 257-71. Salamanca: Ediciones Universidad de Salamanca.
. 1983A. "Origine ed evoluzione delle scritture ispaniche.'M/£2A/5: 27-63.
1983B. "Las lenguas y la epigrafia prerromanas de la Peninsula Iberica." Actas del VI Con-
.

greso Espahol de Estudios Cldsicos (Sevilla, 6-1 1 de abril de 1981), vol. 1, pp. 351-96.
Madrid: Gredos.
.
1985. "El origen de la escritura del S.O." Actas del III Coloquio sobre lenguas v culturas
paleohispdnicas (Lisboa, 5-8 noviembre 1980), pp. 423-64. Salamanca: Ediciones Univer-
sidad de Salamanca.
. 1986. "Escritura fenicia y escrituras hispanicas: Algunos aspectos de su relacion."A«/<7 Ori-
entalis 4: 73-84.
.
1 991. "The Phoenician Origin of the Early Hispanic Scripts." In Phoinikeia Grammata:
Lire et ecrire en Mediterranee, ed. Claude Baurain, Corinne Bonnet, and Veronique Krings, pp.
669-82. Namur, Belgium: Societe des Etudes Classiques.
.
1993. "De la escritura meridional a la escritura iberica levantina." InSprachen und Schriften
des antiken Mittelmeerraums: Festschrift fur J iirgen Untermann, ed. Frank Heidermanns, Hel-
mut Rix, and Elmar Seebold, pp. 175-89. Innsbruck: Innsbrucker Beitnige zur Sprachwissen-
schaft.

Fevrier, James G. 1957. "Remarques sur l'ecriture ibero-tartessienne." Rivista degli Studi Orientali

32:719-30.
Fita, F. 1894. "Fraga: Inscripciones romanas e ibericas." Boletin de la Real Academia de la Historia

25: 257-304-
Fletcher Vails,Domingo. 1983. "Lengua y epigraffa ibericas." \r\Arqueologia del Pais Valenciano:
panorama y perspectivas, pp. 281-305. Alicante: Universidad de Alicante.
Friedrich, Johannes. 1956. "Zur iberischen Schrift." Minos 4: 72-75. 1

Gomez-Moreno, Manuel. 1943. Misceldneas: Historia, arte, arqueologia I. Madrid: Aguirre [esp.
pp. 219-330]
Lafon, Rene. 1952. "Les ecritures anciennes en usage dans la peninsule iberique." Bulletin hispa-
nique 54: 165-83.
 SECTION 5: EPIGRAPHIC SEMITIC SCRIPTS 1 j Q

. 1975. "Les ecritures iberiques." In Colloque du XXIXs Congres international des Orienta-
listes: Le dechiffrement des ecritures et des langues, pp. 1 1-14. Paris: L' Asiatheque.
Lejeune, Michel. 1993. Notice biographique et bibliographique, suivie de V expose "D'Alcoy a Es-
panca: Reflexions sur les ecritures paleo-hispaniques" Louvain: Centre international de dia-
lectologie generate.
Maluquer de Motes, Juan. 1968. Epigrafia prelatina de la Peninsula Iberica. Barcelona: Univer-
sidad de Barcelona.
Michelena, Luis. 1979. "La langue ibere." InAdas del II Coloquio sobre lenguas y culturas pre-
rromanas de Peninsula Iberica (Tubingen, 17-19 junio 1976), pp. 23-39. Salamanca: Edi-
la

ciones Universidad de Salamanca.

Schmoll, Ulrich. 1961. Die sudlusitanischen Inschriften. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
. 1962. "Zur Entzifferung der sudhispanischen Schrift." Madrider Mitteilungen 3: 85-100.
Siles, Jaime. 1985. Lexico de inscripciones ibericas. Madrid: Ministerio de Cultura.
Tovar, Antonio. 1961 . The Ancient Languages of Spain and Portugal. New York: Vanni.
.
1975. "Les ecritures de l'ancienne Hispania." In Colloque du XXIXs Congres international
des Orientalistes: Le dechiffrement des ecritures et des langues, pp. 15-23. Paris: L' Asia-

theque.
Untermann, Jiirgen. 1962. "Das silbenschriftliche Element in der iberischen Schrift." Emerita 30:
281-94.
.
1983. "Die althispanischen Sprachen." Aufstieg und Niedergang der Romischen Welt
II. 29/2, 791-818. Berlin: de Gruyter.
. 1984. "La lengua iberica." Varia 3: 249-72.
• l 915~9 - Monumenta Linguarum Hispanicarum. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz. [See vol. 3/1
(1990) for bibliography, indexes, and a general philological-historical and linguistic descrip-
tion].

The Berber scripts

Alvarez Delgado, Juan. 1964. Inscripciones libicas de Canarias: Ensayo de interpretacion libica.

La Laguna: Universidad de la Laguna.

Chabot, Jean-Baptiste. 1940-41. Recueildes inscriptions libyques. Paris: Gouvernement General de
L'Algerie.
Chaker, Salem. 1984. Textes en linguistique berbere: Introduction au domaine forbore (Laboratoire
d' Anthropologic et de Prehistoire des Pays de la Mediterranee Occidentale, L.A. 164, Aix-en-

Provence). Paris: Editions du Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique.

Cohen, Marcel. 1958. La grande invention de Vecriture et son evolution. Paris: Klincksieck.
Friedrich, Johannes. 1966. Geschichte der Schrift. Heidelberg: Winter.
Galand, Lionel. 1966. "Inscriptions libyques." In Inscriptions antiques du Maroc by L. Galand et
al., pp. 9-80 (Publications de la Section antiquite du Centre de recherches sur l'Afrique
Medi-
terraneenne, Faculte des Lettres, 13, Aix-en-Provence). Paris: Editions du Centre Nationale de
la Recherche Scientifique.
1979. Langue et litterature berberes: Vingt cinq ans d' etudes {Chronicles de l'Annuaire de
.

l'Afrique du Nord). Paris: Editions du Centre Nationale de la Recherche Scientifique.

Horn, Heinz Gunter, and Christoph B. Riiger, eds. 1979- Die Numider: Reiter und Konige nordlich
der Sahara. (Kunst und Altertum am Rhein96). Cologne: Rheinland-Verlag; Bonn: Rudolf Ha-

belt.

KAI = Donner and Rollig 1968-73.

Rossler, Otto. 1979 a. "Die Numider: Herkunft— Schrift— Sprache." In Horn and Riiger 1979: 89-97.
. 1979B. "Bilingue von Thugga." In Horn and Ruger 1979: 576-77-
SECTION

Anatolian Hieroglyphs
H. Craig Melchert

Usage and history

Hieroglyphs were used in central, western, and southern Anatolia and in parts of what
is now modern Syria during the third and second millennia b.c.e. They first appear
on personal seals from the ancient capital of the Hittite Empire, Hattusha (modern
Bogazkoy). Virtually all later use is also found in the cultural sphere of the Hittites.
The system therefore has been and continues to be known widely as the "Hittite
Hieroglyphs."
The inscriptions on seals consist only of names, titles, and sometimes good-luck
symbols such as that for 'well-being'. It is inappropriate to view these as texts in a
given language. I follow Marazzi (1990) and others in treating this use of the hiero-
glyphs as "ideographic." They stand not for sounds or words in a particular language,
but for concepts which may be "read" in any language. One may compare the present
world-wide use of Arabic numerals.
All actual texts written in the hieroglyphs are in Luvian, an Indo-European lan-
guage closely related to, but distinct from, cuneiform Hittite (for an orientation to the
Anatolian languages, see section 22, "The Anatolian Alphabets" on page 281). A
form of Luvian is also attested in cuneiform from Hattusha, and the phonological in-

terpretations of hieroglyphic spellings given below are largely based on Cuneiform

Luvian. We do have a handful of one-word Urartian glosses (see Klein 1974) on
pithoi (storage jars), and at the Hittite shrine at Yazihkaya several divine names are
written with the hieroglyphs in specifically Hurrian form.
The Luvian texts are mostly monumental inscriptions on stone, on either natural
rock faces or man-made structures. There are also a few letters and economic docu-
ments inscribed on soft lead strips. There are references in the Hittite cuneiform texts

to writing on wooden tablets (gulzattana-/Gi$. hur). It remains an open question

whether any of these were inscribed with hieroglyphs, and if so, whether the language
was Luvian or Hittite.

General characteristics
The direction of writing is variable, but the text is most commonly arranged in a series

of horizontal panels or "registers." The text begins in the top left or right corner of the
top register, with each register reading alternately left-to-right and right-to-left in a

120
 SECTION 6: ANATOLIAN HIEROGLYPHS 12

TABLE 6.1: The Logograms, Equivalents, and Translations (after Hawkins 1975; isV
ANNUS DOMINUS LUNA REGIO
§ ARHA
'year'
ll
W 'lord'
DOMUS
ft 'moon' kk 'kingdom'
MAGNUS REX
I
'away'
Q 'house' r^ 'great'
A 'king'

4
&
AUDIRI

WIS
'hear'

"bird'
&
EGO
T
EQUUS
'horse"
4
®
MALLEUS
'hammer'
MALUS
'bad'
X1*
SARMA
'Sarruma'
SCALPRUM
'chisel'
a

AVUS
© 'ancestor'
BONUS
^ EXERCI IS
'army'
FEMINA
I

03
MANUS
'hand'
MONS
S(

SOL
RIBA
'clerk'

1 BOS
'good'
FINES
'woman'
# 'mountain'
f 'sun'
SOLIUM

C
'cattle'
\1 IUM i 'boundary' *> NEG(ative)
1 STELE
'seat'

NEG NEG,
'heaven'
CAPUT
t f 2 ,

'stela'

® 'head'
CASTRUM
# FRONS
'forehead'
HALPA a
SsJalfc
NEPOS
'descendant'
OCCIDENS SUPER
AM CERVUS M uy
V
9
'camp'

'stag'

CERVUS,
W
*a
111

INI
'Aleppo'
ROS
'hero'
ANS
'child'
#=^

*
'west'
OMNIS
'all'

ORIENS
'east' X
p
t=J^ TERRA
'above'

'land'
THRONUS
'throne'

^
CORNU INFRA
& OVIS
W TONITRUS

W**
'horn' 'below' 'sheep' 'thunder'
CRUS IRA PANIS URBS
JJ 'leg' 'wrath' 'bread' A 'city'

* CRUX
'cross'
CULTER
U LEPUS
'hare'
LIBARE
dr
PES
'foot' 9
VAS
'vase'
VERSUS
? 'knife' ^0 'offer'
G> PES 2
1/ 'to ard'
CUM LINGUA PONERE VIA
y 'with'
£S 'tongue' *U 'put' » 'road'

e^r
CURRUS

DARE
'chariot' r
LITUUS
'staff'
^ POST
'after'
PRAE
¥
VINUM
'wine'

K
DEUS
'give' t 'before'
PUGNUS
<D
VIR
'man'

(D 'god' 1
LOQUI
'speak'
ftq
'fist'
AnA VIS
'strength'

Three of the equivalents are Luvian rather than Latin words.

boustrophedon pattern. Signs with a distinct left-right orientation face into the direc-
tion from which one reads: right for reading right-to-left and vice versa. Within each
register, the signs are arranged in a series of roughly vertical columns. However, one
esthetic principle of the scribes was that all available space should be filled in a bal-
anced way, and the reading order of the signs is not always strictly vertical nor unam-
biguous to the modern reader. The texts arc written continuously without word
breaks. There is a word divider >l , but it is not employed consistently.
122 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 6.2: The Regular Syllabary (after Hawkins 1975: 154-55)

s
a i

1
S u
^ sa <

sa '
*••
v 1 s,
© ha
GD hi
V hu
tf
ta
*>1
ti fc^j tu

W ha
^" & tf
ens ta

li'/
ki
O ku
fS
ta F^l tu

^ la li 'a, -
ft
db
/\ 1 A.
la/i
li
* (lu) ^ ta 5 (tl 4 ?)

p- li
0|O
wa/i

<Cp ma II li
mi
^ mu
I wa/ '" —
ic
IC mi £ wa/i
3|

mi ia
1
^ na c ni
t nu
i
ia

f na
^ ni
in

ID
1 ia

^JP pa
* Pi If pu za
t zi ^7 zu?
t
9 pa? © za
<D zf

\ ra/i •*
© ru
S
V
Z*
$ zi

§- $ za <
k*
u~& sa
# si A
H sa
^ si? ^ su -

cur sa ffrsu ^. ara/i

sa 4 ! I
K tara/i

2 sa,
if k;ir

In their fully developed form, the Anatolian hieroglyphs are employed in a mixed
logographic-phonographic system. Words may be written logographically, phono-
graphically, or logographically with a phonetic complement. The word [wawis] 'cow'
may thus be written as bos, as wa/i-wa/i-(i)-sa, or as BOS-wa/i-sa (by a convention
established in 1974, most logograms are transliterated with Latin equivalents;
 SECTION 6: ANATOLIAN HIEROGLYPHS 12?

table 6. i ). One also finds the logograms preceding or following a complete phono-
logical spelling, thus functioning as determiners: (BOS)wa/i-wa/i-sa. Some signs are
used exclusively logographically or phonographically, but many serve in both func-
tions. There is a sign J t (transliterated with quotation marks) which explicitly
marks logographic use, but it appears only sporadically.
The phonographic portion of the system is syllabic (table 6.2). There are signs
for vowel (V) and for consonant+vowel (CV), and a few complex signs for CVCV.
There are no VC or CVC signs. Final consonants and all consonant clusters must thus
be spelled using "empty" vowels: wali-wali-s(a) = [wawis] 'cow', d-s(a)-ta = [asta]
'was'. For some syllables there are several homophonous signs, distinguished in

transliteration by accents and subscript numbers: sa, sa, sa, sa 4 , etc., all equal [sa].

The system does not distinguish single versus geminate consonants, or voicing in
stops. The signs transliterated ta 4 and ta may be used consistently for [da], but this is
5

not certain, and other signs such as ta are used for both [ta] and [da]. Preconsonantal
[n] is not indicated in spelling: a-ta = [anda] 'into'.

For syllables beginning with [r], there is a separate sign only for ru ([ra] and [ri]

do not occur word-initially). All other instances of [r] are indicated by adding an ob-
lique stroke or "tang" \ to "a V or CV sign. Such combinations may be read with an [a]

or [i] vowel before or after the [r] or both: i+ra/i = [iri] 'goes', i+ra/i-hi- = [irhi-]

'boundary', pa+ra/i-na = [par(r)an] 'in front', pa+ra/i-na- = [parna-] 'house', i-sa-

ta+ra/i- = [istri-J 'hand'.
There are distinct hieroglyphic signs for a, i, and u and likewise for many com-
binations Ca, Ci, and Cw. However, for some consonants, particularly in early texts

from the second millennium, there is a single sign for Ca and Ci; hence the rather
awkward transliterations Call above. There is no indication of vowel length in the

Anatolian hieroglyphs. The only function of CV-V spellings (such as -tu-u 'to

him/her') is esthetic (filling space, as mentioned above).

Signs

Most of the signs are clearly pictorial in origin, representing human figures, body
parts, plantsand animals, and everyday objects. Unsurprisingly, as the signs came to
be used for syllabic values, they became more stylized and less easily recognizable as
representational drawings.
In many clear cases the syllabic values are derived by acrophony, i.e. by taking
the first syllable(s) of the word represented by a logogram. For example, the sign

tarali is derived from [tarri-] 'three', that for ta from [targasna-] 'ass, donkey', and

so on. Our knowledge of the Luvian lexicon is quite limited, and it is likely that nearly

all syllabic values are derived in this manner. The fact that all known cases are derived

from specifically Luvian words suggests that the system was invented for writing Lu-
vian (cf. Hawkins 1986). Resemblances to Egyptian hieroglyphs are of a typological
sort, and there is little if any influence from cuneiform.
124 part ii: ancient near eastern writing systems

Sample of Luvian

i. Transliteration: . a-wa/i a-mi-za . (DiES)ha-li-ia-za . a-tana-wa/i-ni-zi (urbs)

2. Transcription: a-wa amints haliyants Adanawannintsi
j. Gloss: conj-ptcl my days Adanian

/. FiNES-zi 'MANUs'-la-tara/i-ha . zi-na . occidens -pa-mi

2. irhintsi ladaraha tsin ipami
?. boundaries I.extended on. this. side west

/. . VERSUS-ia-na . zi-pa-wa/i 'ORiENs'-ta-mi VERSUS-na

2. tawiyan tsin-pa-wa isatami tawiyan
j. toward L
on.this.side-but-PTCL east toward

in my days I extended the Adanian territory toward the west on this side, and
toward the east on this side.'
— From the Karatepe Luvian-Phoenician bilingual (Bossert 1950-51: 270).

Bibliography

Bossert, H. Th. 1950-51. "Die phonizisch-hethitischen Bilinguen von Karatepe. 3. Fortsetzung."

Jahrbuchfur kleinasiatische Forschung 1: 264-95.

Hawkins, J. David. 1975. "The Negatives in Hieroglyphic Luwian." Anatolian Studies 25: 1 19-56.
.
1986. "Writing in Anatolia: Imported and Indigenous Systems." World Archaeology 17:
363-76.
Hawkins, J. David, Anna Morpurgo Davies, and Gunter Neumann. 1974. Hittite Hieroglyphs and
Luwian: New Evidence for the Connection. Nachrichten der Akademie der Wissenschdften,
Gottingen, philol-hist. KL, 1973/6.
Klein, Jeffrey J. 1974. "Urartian Hieroglyphic Inscriptions from Altintepe."A/?<://o//V/// Studies 24:
77-94-
Marazzi, Massimiliano. 1990. // geroflico anatolico: Problemi di analisi e prospettive di ricerca.
Rome: Univ. "La Sapienza".
The following works also remain useful, especially for their complete repertoire of
signs, but their readings of many syllabic signs must be revised in the light of the work
of Hawkins et al. 1974:
Laroche, Emmanuel, i960. Les hiiroglyphes hittites /. Paris: Editions du Centre National de la Re-
cherche Scientifique.
Meriggi, Piero. 1962. Hieroglyphen-hethitisches Glossar. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
SECTION 7

Aegean Scripts
Emmett L. Bennett

Most of the five scripts considered in this section are confined to the Aegean islands,
Crete, and mainland Greece, and to the second millennium b.c.e.; those from Cyprus
have often been described as derivative from those in the Aegean. The proliferation
of names for them may be confusing. Listing them in order of discovery, "Cypriote"
is simply an indigenous script of Cyprus. The Hieroglyphic script was "Cretan" be-
cause the first examples were put on the antiquities market as coming from Crete. It

was named "Pictographic" from its almost three-dimensional signs. When clay
first

tablets whose signs were drawn with simple lines were excavated in Crete (initially

at Knossos by Arthur Evans), these became "Cretan Linear" —

and "Pictographic" be-
came "Cretan Hieroglyphic." It was soon apparent that there were two "Linear"
scripts. These became "A" and "B": earlier and simpler, later and sophisticated. These

three may be "Minoan," since that name was given to the Bronze Age culture of Crete;
but the mainland connections, or even origin, of Linear B have suggested that it might
really be "Mycenaean" Linear B. "Cypro-Minoan" reflects the possibilities that this

script is both derivative from a Minoan script and ancestral to the Cypriote script. For
only two of these scripts, Linear B and Cypriote, can comprehensive descriptions be
offered, inasmuch as they have been deciphered (section 9). Until the others are de-

ciphered, any description must be incomplete.

Linear B

The Greek mainland and Crete, ca. 1 550-1 200 b.c.e.

The best-known pictographic script of the Aegean is the Mycenaean script Linear B.
Since the principal texts are accounting records, the phonographic and sematographic
elements are of equal importance (Bennett 1963). These are respectively a syllabary
and a large repertory of nonphonetic signs, including punctuation, numerals, and
signs for commodities and measures, usually called ideograms (they are not used as
logograms in writing sentences).

The texts are regularly drawn with a stylus on clay tablets; some are written on

clay pressed into the surface of a basket, as a label, while others are written on lumps
of clay formed around a knot and impressed with a seal. A few are drawn with paint

125
126 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 7.1: The Basic Syllabary of Linear B

H a R e Y i
B O f u

"
1- da * de di V do I du

Q ja X je 1 jo IS ju

© ka ke y ki ? ko 3 ku

\t ma r me \) mi *i mo mu
; na Y ne Y ni 1 no H nu
T
1

'1
1
pa & pe ft Pi po IT pu
4
i qa © qe 1 qi t qo
i
k ra 1
re I ri 1
ro T ru

V sa se
1 r ik si ^ so 1! su
T
E ta t te ft ti 1 to * tu

M wa z we I wi If wo
0,

1 za k ze t zo

and brush on pots. The sign-groups are written horizontally from left to right. Except
in narrow tablets of one or two lines, the text is normally written in the space above a
ruled line. Words are separated by a word-divider, by a change in the height of the
signs, or by a space. In transcription the signs of a word are joined by a hyphen, the
words divided by a comma. Words are rarely carried over from one line to the next.

Emphatic words of a text are frequently indicated by the height of their signs. When
a series of parallel statements or items follows on several lines of a text, a columnar
arrangement is frequent.
In the fundamental syllabary of 59 signs (table 7.1), there are signs for each of
the five vowels, plus 54 signs for the consonant-vowel (C V) combinations of twelve
consonant series. It is assumed that the syllabary is adapted for writing an early Greek
dialect. It must be emphasized that these transcriptions- are a modern convention and
correspond exactly only to the shape, and not to any pronunciation or phonemic value
of the sign. The five vowel signs are used primarily at the beginnings of words. But
sometimes one does occur in a sequence of signs of the form CV,-V, (T ! pa-a). This
does not represent a single syllable with a long vowel, but two syllables; the second
could begin with aspiration, or be in hiatus. In the sequences Ca-u, Ce-u, Co-u
(tr pa-u, \\\ pe-u, \\ po-u), the diphthongs an, eu, ou may be represented.
It is assumed that the d- and r-series represent syllables beginning with a dental
stop, the /r-series with gutturals, the/?- with labials, the ^/-series with labiovelars; the

r-series with either liquid, r or /. The nature of the consonant in the z-series is unclear.
Voiced and unvoiced, aspirated and unaspirated consonants are represented by the
same signs. In the conventional transcription, /- and w- represent English v and w.
 SECTION 7: AEGEAN SCRIPTS ]
27

Spoken syllables beginning with a consonant cluster are represented by two or more
signs, e.g., C,C V, :
(pro) is written C, V,-C 2 V, (lk pa-ra), and are thus not distinguish-
able from the sequence of two syllables C,V r C V, 2 (pa-ra). Some probable instances
of C V rC2C V (pa-tro) written as C V -C V -C V (tEt pa-ta-ro) do occur beside
1 3 2 1 1 2 1 3 2

the normal C V -C V2-C 3V (Tit pa-to-ro). Any double consonants are apparently
1 1 2 2

represented in the single sign.

In conventional transcription, syllabic signs have only open syllables (V, CV; H
a, T pa), but they may also represent certain types of closed syllables, as well as syl-
lables with a diphthong in iota (cf. section 22; pan, pai). The syllabic codas are lim-
ited to those normally permitted Greek. These are a sibilant sigma, a nasal
in Classical

nu, and a liquid lambda, rho. Syllables in any position in the word, including the final,
may be interpreted in this way. Two words, where the first ends in one of these codas,
and the next word begins in a vowel, sometimes are written as single sign-group, with
the coda and initial vowel joined in one sign. Enclitics and proclitics are regularly in-
cluded in the sign-group as, e.g., in n a\) da-mo-de-mi (daimos de min) 'damos but
her'.

There are also sixteen signs transcribed either with diacritics (e.g., i° a 2 1 ra
, : ),

perhaps indicating diphthongs or aspiration, or double consonants, e.g., n nwa, Hi

pte). Unless some of these indicate vowel length, it is nowhere indicated. These signs
may be used in the frequent variations of spelling, perhaps reflecting differences of
idiolect, of local dialect, or of date. Eleven further signs occur so rarely that no tran-
scription has been agreed upon (Ruijgh 1967: 21-34).
The sample text presents the longest sentence known in Linear B. It occurs in two
versions, one copied from the other, with additions and changes. Note that any pho-
nemic transcription is speculative, and especially one of a unique text; this follows
Ruijgh 1967: 314-15. In names (as in the name of the priestess, e-ri-ta), transcription

is entirely arbitrary. The spelling rules of Linear B allow ML e-ri-ta to represent *Er-
itha, *Eritta, *Erita, *Erintha, *Erista, *Elitha, *Elintha, or *Elista, etc.

The sentence ends with the record of a quantity of granum, which in Eb 297
stands in apposition to ft \l e-to-ni-jo and Q io-na-to. In most of these texts, and 1 1

in Ep 704, the quantity stands in apposition to the phrase 1 'in 1 to-so pe-mo. All the

surviving texts in Linear B are, like this one, accounting documents. In most texts the
indication of the nature of the transaction, which might be expressed as a verbal pred-
The very frequent simplest form of record is a name, followed by an
icate, is absent.

ideogram, followed by a number. The type of transaction in a text is frequently rec-

ognized only through the context of the group of tablets to which it belongs. Very few
surviving records do not include an ideogram. Many ideograms are certainly, others

possibly, pictographic in origin. The species and quantity represented by the ideo-

grams and numbers are an integral part of the text. It is important to note that semato-
grams have a morphology and syntax of their own.
The ideograms in table 7.2 represent a few of the commodities important in the
Mycenaean economy. The decimal numerals are written from left to right, larger to
128 PART ,I: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 7.2: Selected Ideograms (sematographic signs) of Linear B

Category Sign, Transliteration, Gloss Example Gloss

Word divider 1

0-
Numerals, decimal <
1000', ° 'ioo', 'io', ' 'I

Dry volume: Unit measures

f III GRANUM 3 Units
for cereals, etc., implied

Fractional measures I
T %', 4 V %', -Z %,,' Y T 4 Wi%
Liquid volume: Unit mea-
sures for wine, etc., implied
£" vinum 2 units

Fractional measures Ts 'y \4 v

3
%', -z ''/
72
'
tM'J OLEUM I
7
/60

Weight: Unit measure for

metals, etc. h m !!
aes 4 units

Fractional measures 2 M 'W, ft N

l
Vm '
h ! '
tt
'
AES '/
:4

Unit measure for wool

SCPtf LAN A 5
I /, 2
implied, fractional units I M 'V3', ff N *Va
* 1

Cereals, plants
Wr
I granum grain , 1 NI figs , arb tree

Extracts T" oleum 'oil', £ vinum 'wine', n far 'flour'

Metals I" aes 'bronze'

Other materials % LANA 'WOOF, ^ CORNU 'hom'
Artifacts
Vessels ^ r
'

'phial', £> 'bull's head rhyton'

Vehicles ®H bigae 'chariot', ® rota 'wheel'

Weapons I 'sword', ~"^*-hasta 'spear', •— sagitta 'arrow'

Animals V ovis 'ovine' ( t 'ram', A 'ewe'),

~T caper 'caprine' ( f 'he-goat', 1) 'she-goat'),

P bos 'bovine' (* 'bull', If 'cow'),

?I> sus 'suine' (F 'boar', d* 'sow'),

u^ equus 'equine' (^ 'stallion',!^ 'mare')

Humans i vir 'male', "a mulier 'female', vM £o-w# 'girl', \1/.t fco-wo 'boy'

Syllabograms used as Y A// 'figs', I

SA sa-sa-ma 'sesame', M MA ma-ra-tu-wo
ideograms or to abbreviate
'fennel', ±j
k

KU ku-mi-no 'cumin', £ ZE <*ze-u-ko> (cf. ze-u-ke-si)

names of commodities
pair (example: tf^e '
equus Z£ 1 '2 horses')

Adjuncts, parallel to the use

of different stems to distin-
$ pellis + tl' ATO ^ 'oxhide', *tf vas + 1 PO S? 'type of vessel',

guish male & female animals U tela + \ ZOm 'type of cloth'

Monograms %KAPOka-po 'fruit',

T AREPA a-re-pa 'ointment',

ft meri me-ri-(to) 'honey'

 SECTION 7: AEGEAN SCRIPTS 129

smaller. The place of the ideogram is sometimes taken by a word followed directly by
a number, e.g., Win ko-wa 6. In others a word spelled out is repeated in an ideogram,
which occasionally is an abbreviation, e.g., I
SA for i I M sa-sa-ma 'sesame', or a
monogram, e.g., ^ AREPA for i i T a-re-pa 'ointment'.
For commodities which occur in distinct varieties, the ideogram may be modified
by various devices. The support of an animal ideogram varies with sex, transcribed
BOS f BOS m For many pictographic signs, the addition of specific detail to the
,
i
.

drawing is found. E.g., one may draw a vase with three or four handles, or a chariot
at successive stages of manufacture.
For things counted, e.g. humans, animals, and artifacts, the ideogram represents
the unit of counting. For things measured by dry measure or liquid measure, the ideo-
gram generally represents not only the commodity but also the unit of measure. For
weight, however, the sign for the commodity is always followed by the largest sign
required by the quantity, whether 01 l for bronze, or ff n or even the smaller fraction
I p for gold. But the sign for wool, M LANA, indicates a special unit equal to m *
3.

By an extension of this system to a team of horses, 0* equus with e '

ZE 1 records
one pair, and with an additional \ MO, a single additional horse.
Obviously the repertory of syllabic signs used by any one scribe, at any one cen-
ter, or in any one period of time, will be finite. Since new abbreviations, new mono-
grams, and new pictograms could be introduced at any time, the sematographic
repertory is open-ended.
These inscriptions have been found at Pylos (Bennett and Olivier 1977); Myce-
nae, Thebes, and Tiryns on the Greek mainland; and at Knossos (Chadwick et al.

1986) and Khania in Crete; inscribed pots are found elsewhere as well. The language
of the texts is an early dialect of Greek; among the personal names some are of normal
Greek formation, but many cannot be characterized as Greek (Chadwick 1987).

TWO SENTENCES FROM PYLOS

/. Linear B: TXTk 1
ft*© 1
ftff T© .
ftTYt
2. Transliteration: i-je-re-ja , e-ke-qe ,
e-u-ke-to-qe , e-to-ni-jo ,

w u
3. Transcription: hijereja hekhej k e eukhetoj k e etoinijon

4. Gloss: priestess has swears-and special. land.grant

I. ftf ft , « !TM« n tb ,

2. e-ke-e , te-o ' ko-to-no-o-ko-de ko-to-na-o ,

3- hekhehen theoij ktojnohokhoj de ktojna:ho:n

4- to.have for.the.god landholders-but of.cultivable. lands

hit mil
1. t f ytu , mn ,
ftf ft
.a
T '"1 MM 4
i in
'"

2. ke-ke-me-na-o , o-na-ta , e-ke-e GRANUM 3 T 9 V 3

3- khekhemena:ho:n onaita hekhehen granum 3 t 9 v 3

4- of.communal land.grants to.have: granum 3

57/
60 measures
130 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

I.

2.
Mrs
e-ri-ta
,

,
TO
i-je-re-ja
,

,
ft*

e-ke
,

,
m T©
e-u-ke-to-qe
,
ftTYt
e-to-ni-jo
,

,
ft* ft

e-ke-e
,

w
3- *eritha hijereja hekhej eukhetoj k e 5 etoinijon hekhehen
4- *Eritha priestess has swears-and special.land.grant to.have

i. vn ,
l-*-m , \k , !TT73 (i\ ft \ 1 L\ |

2. te-o ,
da-mo-de-mi , pa-si , ko-to-na-o , ke-ke-me-na-o ,

3- theoij daimos de min phaisi ktojnaihoin khekhemenaihom

4- for-the-g od damos-but-her says of-cultivable-lands of-communal

i. BTT. ftfft, V*l Ih 1

'" 1 MM
2. o-na-to ,
e-ke-e , to-so pe-mo GRANUM 3 T 9
3- onaiton hekhehen tosson spermo: GRANUM 3 T 9
4- land-grant to-have so-much seed: GRANUM 3
9
/, ()

'The priestess has and swears she has a special-land-grant for the god, but the
landholders <say> that she has 3.95 land measures in land-grants of communal
lands.' —PYEb2gy.
'*Eritha, the priestess, has and swears she has a special-land-grant for the god,
but theddmos (community) says that she has 3.9 land measures in a land-grant
of communal lands.' — Ep 704.5-6.

Scripts of Cyprus

Cyprus, ca. 800-200 b.c.e.

The Cypriote syllabary, used primarily in Greek inscriptions of ca. 800-200 b.c.e.,

shares many of the features of Linear B (Masson 1983). The sign forms (table 7.3)
are clearly not pictographic; they seem to be derived from Cypro-Minoan scripts.
Cypriote is written from right to left, with conventions similar to those of Linear B.
The chief difference is that all syllables ending in liquids or sibilants [par, pas), and
those with nasals final in the word (pan), are written with two syllabograms, CV-O
(cf. >0^r\i^i a-no-ko-ne dvcoyov [anoigon] 'they ordered' and XbX i-ta-i w too. [in

tail] 'in the') (Chadwick 1987, Baurain 1991).

Cyprus, ca. 1 500-1 200 b.c.e.

No consensus has been reached on the interpretation of the very limited corpus of
Cypro-Minoan inscriptions. Many signs resemble those of Cypriote, except that they
are written by impressing the stylus rather than drawing with the stylus; the appear-

ance of a text is often reminiscent of Linear A signs. It has naturally been suggested
that the Cypriote is descended from Cypro-Minoan, which in turn is descended from
Linear A (Chadwick 1987, Palaima 1989).
 SECTION 7: AEGEAN SCRIPTS 31

table 7.3: The Cypriote Syllabary

X a X e X i
^ T u

9 ja v/v jo

1 ka * ke Y ki n ko * ku

V la 8 le 4. li
+ lo to lu

><
v
ma X me V^ mi CD mo •X mu
T na ne i ni 7/ no >; nu

* pa J
pe V Pi ; po ^ pu

2 ra ft re ^ ri
s ro
H ru

V sa r se ± si M so » su

r ta jk te T ti
F to K tu

U wa I we >'< wi ? wo

)( xa (H xe xo

>\ ga

Sample of Greek in Cypriote Syllabary (with Classical equivalent)

Syllabary: Xir^i ^t^+i^ii F7/*t£*J^i

Transliteration: a-no-ko-ne o-na-si-lo-ne , to-no-na-si-ku-po-ro-ne
Classical: 'Avcoyov 'QvaoiA,ov xov "QvaaiK\37cpcov
Transcription: ano:gon onasflon ton onasikupro:n
Gloss: they. ordered Onasilos the of.Onasikupros

in Fn i^iflFr
to-ni ja-te-ra-ne ka-se to-se ka-si-ke-ne-to-se
xov iccxflpav rag xoq Kaaiyvfjxoc;
ton iateiran kas tos kasigneitos
the physician and the brothers

XOvhXi Fn XFxTn Fn x
i-ja*sa-ta-i to-se a-to-ro-po-se to-se i ta-i

i&aOou xoq dv0pc67io(; xdc; IV x&i

h h
iast ai tos ant ro:pos tos in ta:i

to heal the men those in the

v v
><iXi XY> <X7Ari
ma-ka-i , i-ki-ma-me-no-se ,
a-ne-u ,
mi-si-to-ne

jrdxai iKjuajaevoc; dv8\) uigGgov.

h h
mak a:i ikmamenos aneu mist 6:n
battle wounded without fee
132 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

'They ordered Onasilos the (son) of Onasikupros the physician and the brothers
to heal the men wounded in the battle without fee.'
—From the Idalion inscription, after Chadwick lgSj: 56, with permission.

Minoan Linear A

Crete and Aegean islands, ca. 1800-1450 b.c.e.

Linear A is apparently a syllabic script, and Linear B is to some extent affiliated to it.

The phonetic signs in A which are similar in shape to those of B (e.g. da, ro, pa) are
a majority, about 50 out of 60 phonetic signs, and about 40 of the 60 sematographic.
Many of the signs for commodities (e.g. gra, aes, NI) are similar. These are also
found with modifications indicating varieties. There is, however, no consensus on a
standard transliteration of the phonetic signs and ideograms. The language of the texts
is still to be identified. Some attempts at decipherment are mentioned in section 2.

Most of the texts are the accounting tablets. Linear A tablets are smaller and more
carefully made than Linear B tablets; but the writing is less careful. The direction of
writing is left to right, and words are sometimes separated by word dividers. Sign-
groups are regularly carried over from one line to the next, divided by the edge of the
tablet at any point. There is no ruling to divide successive lines of text, but lines are

often drawn to make fields for different records. Small clay objects of various shapes
with minimal inscriptions and ill-defined accounting functions also occur. There are
several inscriptions, without ideograms, on objects of stone or metal. These texts may
have a different function, and they share few of the sign-groups occurring in the clay

tablets (Godart and Olivier 1976, Chadwick 1983, Duhoux 1989).

The pictographic or Cretan Hieroglyphic script

Crete, ca. 1 750-1 600 b.c.e.

This script is most often found on sealstones, or on their impressions on clay. It also
may possibly be syllabic; the signs on the seals seem to be in regular sequence*, and a
simple mark may indicate the end of a word. There are some clay tablets, or other

shapes, with linear signs closely resembling the pictographic signs rather than Linear
A signs, and with ideograms and numerals employed very much in the style of Linear
A. There is even less material preserved for this script than for Linear A (Chadwick
1987).
 SECTION 7: AEGEAN SCRIPTS ]
33

The Phaistos Disk

The notorious Phaistos Disk, found in Crete, is unique. Although the circumstances
of its discovery make it impossible to determine when it was made, it has been dated
to about 1700 b.c.e. There can be no certainty that it was made in Crete. Its script is

certainly pictographic. It is a clay disk on whose two faces 242 clear impressions were
made by 45 They appear in the 31 fields drawn on the one face and
different stamps.

the 30 on the other, and each field has from two to seven impressions. Those figures
suggest that the script was syllabic, but nothing suggests that a verifiable decipher-
ment will ever be achieved (Olivier 1975, Duhoux 1977, Chadwick 1987).

Bibliography

Baurain, Claude. 1991 . "L'Ecriture syllabique a Chypre." In Phoinike la Grammata: Lire et ecrire
en Mediterranee, ed. Claude Baurain, Corinne Bonnet, and Veronique Krings, pp. 389-424.
Namur, Belgium: Societe des Etudes Classiques.
Bennett,Emmett L. 1963. "Names for Linear B writing and its signs." Kadmos 2: 98-123.
Bennett,Emmett L., and Jean-Pierre Olivier. 1973. Pylos Tablets Transcribed, /(Incunabula Graeca
51). Roma: Edizioni dell'Ateneo.
Chadwick, John. 1987. Linear B and Related Scripts Reading the Past). Berkeley and Los Angeles:
(

University of California Press.

Chadwick, John, et al. 1986-89. Corpus of Mycenaean Inscriptions ofKnossos. 2 vols. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Duhoux, Yves. 1977. Le disque de Phaistos. Louvain: Peeters.
1989. "Le lineaire A: Problemes de dechiffrement." In Duhoux et al. 1989: 59-1 19.
.

Duhoux, Yves, Thomas G. Palaima, and John Bennet, eds. 1989. Problems in Decipherment (Bib-
liotheque des Cahiers de Tlnstitut de Linguistique de Louvain 49). Louvain: Peeters.
Godart, Louis, and Jean-Pierre Olivier. 1976-85. Receuil des inscriptions en lineaire A. 5 vols.
(Ecole Francaise d'Athenes, Etudes Cretoises 21). Paris: Geuthner.
Masson, Olivier. 1983. Les inscriptions chypriotes syllabiques, 2nd ed. (Ecole Francaise d'Athenes,
Etudes Chypriotes 1). Paris: Boccard.
Olivier, Jean-Pierre. 1975. Le disque de Phaistos. Paris: Boccard.
.
1989. "The Possible Methods in Deciphering the Pictographic Cretan Script." In Duhoux
et al. 1989: 39-58.
Palaima, Thomas G. 1989. "Cypro-Minoan Scripts: Problems of Historical Context." In Duhoux et

al. 1989: 121-87.

Ruijgh, C J. 1967. Etudes sur la grammaire el le vocabulaire du Grec mycenien. Amsterdam: Hak-
kert.
SECTION 8

Old Persian Cuneiform

David D. Testen

The Old Persian script is number of royal inscriptions in the Old Per-
found in a small

sian language dating from the Achaemenid Empire. The most extensive and impor-
tant of these is the trilingual monument of Darius I at Bisitun (Behistun), which, in

addition to playing a central role in Old Persian studies, served as a "Rosetta stone"
in the deciphering of cuneiform (section 9).
Although inspired by cuneiform, the Old Persian script is essentially an alphabet-
ic writing system — its only clear relation to cuneiform lies in the sign ^ for the non-
Persian sound /l/, the character for which is clearly based on cuneiform -E| la (Paper
1956). The development of the Old Persian script remains a matter of debate. It is

likely that this writing system was invented early in the reign of Darius I (522-486
b.c.e.), although some investigators maintain that it reaches back to the reign of Cyrus
II (539-530X the founder of the empire. The discussion of the history of the script has
mainly centered on the interpretation of the brief inscription CMa which may or —
may not date back to Cyrus's time —and on the ambiguous lines IV:88-92 of the Bisi-
tun inscription (known as "paragraph 70"), in which Darius makes a statement sug-
gesting, in the opinion of many researchers, that he was responsible for first putting
Old Persian into written form. In any event, there is no unambiguous evidence for the
existence of the script prior to Darius's time (see Nylander 1967, Hinz 1973: 15-21,
Schmitt 1989: 61-62, and Stronach 1990).
The script runs from left to right and, in addition to thirty-six phonetic characters,

employs seven ideograms, a set of numerals, and a word divider (table 8.1).
In transcriptions of Old Persian, the letters v and v stand for the semivowels [w]
and [j]; the sound g (< Iranian *6r) is a sibilant of undetermined quality which corre-
sponds to Modern Persian s. Raised characters are sometimes used in transcriptions

to represent the sounds left unexpressed by the writing system.

The script contains three vowel signs rrf a, TT /', <rf //. In word-initial position

these indicate the vowels a, f, if, with length unexpressed. In medial position Iff a in-

dicates that the preceding consonant is followed by a. Medial Yf /', <TT u represent f,

u, respectively, although a long 1 or u is occasionally represented by rr K- i-y, <TT>T!E

(a)
u-v . Outside of initial position, there is no marker for short a, the consonant signs
of the (aj-series (see below) containing an inherent a; since a consonant sign of this

series may also be read without a vowel, ambiguity is not uncommon (e.g., tf b= [b],

[ba]).

134
 SECTION 8: OLD PERSIAN CUNEIFORM ]
35

table 8.1: Old Persian Characters

Vowel Signs

TTT a Vf i <Sf u

Consonants Whose Shape Is Independent of a Following Vowel

s P TT^ c

3 b
K< f KT «TT x

IE s ^ s

H z

h <K h K^y % 1

Consonants Whose Shape Is Governed by a Following Vowel

d a>
C C"

TT d
(a)
fff d' <& d
u

-TlT m (a)
ft= m j
|E<»- mu
m t(a-i) TTf t
u

« n
(a-i)
<«= n
u

8 (a-i)
r K< r
u

I k
(a) — <T k
u

<Tf g < a> — <^ g

u

^ j(a) KEji —
fit v (a) *v j
—
Ideograms

t<K xsayaGiya 'king'

8T.81T dahyaus 'land'

~« baga 'god'

^ bum is
k

earth'

»K A(h)uramazda divine name

m "

tm A(h)uramazdaha divine name (genitive)

Word Boundary \ :

Consonant signs are of two types. For consonants of the first type (p, /?, c,/, 0, .v,
s, z, s c, /?, v, /), the following vowel is indicated solely by a vowel sign
(ttt a, tt" i,
t

<JT u\ the absence of a vowel sign = short /a/ or vowellessness): ^ TTT /;-# = [pa:]; ^ TT

p-i= [pi(:)]; ^ = [pa], [p]. Each of the remaining consonants (cL mj, v, k. g, f, /.. r)
has a different shape depending on the nature of the following vowel. The consonants
d and m each have three distinct shapes (e.g. TT d (aK ^ d\ <& </"), which correlate
136 PART II: ANCIENT NEAR EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 8.2: Attested Numerals

' <
'20' «
1
' T
< 'io' < « '40'

'2' '12' '22' «<

} <f i} «< '6o'

Ul '5' <}] '13' w '23' n 120

wt '7' <u '14' mi '25'

}m '8'
<WT '15' W1 '26'

}}m '9' '18' wit '27'

'19'

with the following vowel (a/0, i, u, respectively). T, n, and r have two shapes, distin-
u (a ' l)
guishing a following u from any other vowel (i.e. TTf t vs. tfrT t ). Similarly, there
is only a two-way distinction with k, g,j, v (> k
(a
\ <I £"; <If g
(a)
g , <^ w
; ^ /, KE /;
Tit v^, tt v'), although this may be due to the fact that the sequences ki, gi,ju, vu
are not attested in Old Persian.
The vowel signs are rarely omitted, even when the preceding consonant sign in-
dicates the nature of the vowel — i.e., [di(:)] is spelled BT TT d l
-i. The vowel signs are
also used in diphthongs, which in medial position are thus graphically distinct from
pure vowels only when following a consonant capable of marking a distinction in
vowel quality — [dai] TT TT d
(a)
-i differs from [di] HTtt" d -i, but ^TlVf
l
t
(a ' l)
-i repre-
sents both [tai] and [ti] —although the vowel sign TTT a was infrequently used to dis-

tinguish a diphthong from a simple vowel (TT^ TT ^ n (Tff ) TT ^ c-i-s-p-(a)-i-s

[tfijpai.f|). The long diphthongs di, du contain the vowel sign TTT a (Tff TT a-i, TTT <JT

a-u). It is not clear why, in word-final position, [i(j)], [u(w)], and the diphthongs were
(a ' l)
written with an extra semivowel (TTT T^ tffl Vf KK a-s-t -i-y = asti(y) 'is',
-
(a
^TTf^TT 3<jt^ b-a-b-i-r
i}
-u-v
(a)
= bdbirau(v) 'in Babylon').
In syllable-final position, n and (before medial stops) m are not reflected in the
(W<ttKEttKk k -b-u-f-i-y- [ka m buc£ija-] 'Cambyses'). H is left unex-
ia)
script

pressed before u (<JT u- [

h
u-] 'good-') and, generally, m (TTT (<e< )K^= TT Kk a-(h)-m
l
-i-y

(ahmi(y)] 'am'). With a few exceptions, the vowel ^ i is not written immediately af-
ter <K h, perhaps indicating a lowering of the vowel in this environment:
<KW TTT K^tI h-z-a-n (a '°-m (a) 'tongue (ace.)' < *hizd- (Hoffmann 1976: 642-43).
Syllabic [r] is not graphically distinguished from [ar].

The attested numerals are shown in table 8.2.

Sample of Old Persian

/. OldPersian: KIttt^tTttK^ tt ttt 3 1ME <tt ^ «U £ ttt K- KI tt K^
2. Transliteration: 0-a-ti-i-y . da-a-ra-y-va-u-s . x-s-a-y-6-i-y .

3. Transcription: 6ati darayavahus xsaya9iya

4. Gloss: says Darius king
 SECTION 8: OLD PERSIAN CUNEIFORM ]
37

/. K-mrTK^ TT-TiTrff^TT^ BTYT*ItHtK>T!e rrK^ttf <K[K- <] TT^TTTT^^TTf^

2. y-di-i-y . i-ma-a-m . di-i-p-i-m . va-i-na-a-h-[y .] i-ma-i-va-a .

3. yadi imam dipim vainahi imai-va

4. if this inscription (you) see these-or

p-ti-i-ka-ra-a . na-i-y-di-i-s . vi-ka-na-a-h-y . u-ta-a-ta-i-y .

patikara nai(y)-dis vikanahi uta-tai

sculptures not-them (you) destroy and-to.you

^tT <^fr ^tT ttt ["- TrKKtWrrK^]

2. y-a-va-a . ta-u-ma-a[ . a-h-ti-i-y .] p-ri-i-b-ra-a-h-di-i-s .

3. yava tauma ahati paribarahi-dis

4. as. long. as strength (there) be (you) preserve-them
,

TT<!TT^<ffTT TTf^

2. a-u-ra-ma-z-da-a . 6-u-va-a-m . da-u-s-ta-a b-i-y-a .

3. ahuramazda Ouvam dausta biya

4. Ahuramazda you friend may (he) be

'Says Darius, the king: If you look at this inscription or these sculptures, (and)
do not destroy them (but), as long as there is strength to you, you care for them,
may Ahuramazda be friendly to you.'
—Bisitun IV: 72-75, according to the reading ofSchmitt 1991: 43-44.

Bibliography

Hallock, Richard T. 1970. "On the Old Persian Signs." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 29: 52-55.
Hinz, Walther. 1973. Neue Wege im Altpersischen. (Veroffentlichungen des Sonderforschungsbere-
iches Orientalistik an der Georg-August-Universitat Gottingen, ser. 3, Iranistik, vol. 1). Wies-
baden: Harrassowitz.
Hoffmann, Karl. 1976. "Zur altpersischen Schrift." In bisAufsatze zur Indoiranistik, vol. 2, pp. 620-
45. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
Kent, Roland G. 1953. Old Persian: Grammar, Texts, Lexicon. (American Oriental Series 33) New
Haven: American Oriental Society.
Nylander, Carl. 1967. "Who Wrote the Inscriptions at Pasargadae? Achaemenid Problems. III." (9/7-

entalia Suecana 16: 135-80.

Paper, Herbert H. 1956. "The. Old Persian l\l Phoneme." Journal of the American Oriental Society
76: 24-26.
Schmitt, Riidiger. 1989. "Altpersisch." In Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum, ed. Rudiger
Schmitt, pp. 56-85. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
99 1. The Bisitun Inscription of Darius the Great: Old Persian Text (Corpus Inscriptionum
.
1

Iranicarum 1/1). London: School of Oriental and African Studies.

Stronach, David. 1990. "On the Genesis of the Old Persian Cuneiform Script." In Contributions a
Vhistoire d'Iran: Melanges offerts a Jean Perrot, cd. Francois Vallat. pp. 195-203. Paris: Edi-
tions Recherches sur les Civilisations.

Windfuhr, Gemot L. 1970. "Notes on the Old Persian Signs." Indo-lranian Journal 12: 120-25.
 Part III: Decipherment

More than six thousand languages have been catalogued as spoken in the
world today. The most optimistic prediction of survival rates for these languages as
living tongues is 50% by the end of the twenty-first century. Not all "language death"
results from replacement by the languages of dominant cultures (as has happened
many times, for instance, in the Western Hemisphere, with the encroachment of Span-
ish, Portuguese, French, and English); often, communities have simply dwindled
away, or their inhabitants have mingled with the populations of neighboring groups
and adopted the language of their new homes.
Another sort of "ecology" of language is the pattern of multilingualism. The
United States is quite unusual in this respect. In most of the world, most people are
familiar with and regularly use more than one language: people of one village speak
somewhat —or very — differently from the people in a neighboring village, yet regu-
larly interact with them; the language of an administrative center can become a de
facto standard for a region, and so be used in interactions with bureaucracy and in pri-
mary education — writ large, the pattern in Western Europe; regional lingua francas,
sometimes spoken natively by no one in a region, help unify nations whose political
boundaries do not correspond to ethnic borders, and facilitate communication be-
tween neighboring nations; and "metropolitan" languages of former colonial or sim-
ilar powers, notably the set used as official languages by the United Nations, make
possible international commerce and cultural interaction.

There is no reason to suppose that the dual phenomena of great linguistic diver-
sity and pervasive multilingualism, with the attendant passing out of use of numerous
tongues, have not obtained throughout the human career. At any moment after the
human species had expanded from its original home and begun to spread around the
globe, thousands of distinct forms of speech must have been employed — as soon as
communities fragment, their languages diverge. And of those thousands, most must
be lost forever.

We now enjoy the good fortune that a small number of cultures, or civilizations,
since vanished from the earth, have left behind written records of their languages.

from which some information can be determined and much else can be deduced.

139
140 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

But —except in the few cases where the writings of long-gone peoples have been
maintained in an unbroken tradition, as with Latin, Hebrew, Chinese, and the relative
handful of other Classical languages —those written records must be recovered.
Recovery has two aspects: inscriptions must be discovered, and texts must be de-
ciphered. Discovery can be accidental, as with the Rosetta Stone, or deliberate, either
by archeological excavation or by illicit prospecting for materials to be sold on the
antiquities market (or taken home as souvenirs). The latter sort of discovery makes an
item virtually worthless: shorn of its context, an object may be difficult or impossible
to identify, and can make little contribution to the understanding of the people who
produced it; an inscription, even if the language and script are identifiable, may be all
but uninterpretable. Every possible clue must be available to the decipherer.
The decipherment of a newly discovered or perennially mysterious text is the
most glamorous aspect of the study of writing systems. Whether two centuries ago or
today, decipherment makes headlines. Decipherers are like mathematicians, in that
they manipulate pure patterns and combinations. Also like mathematicians, they tend
to do their major work when they are young. Cyrus Gordon, himself an investigator
of little-known languages, divides all scholars who work on unknown scripts into

those who are decipherers and those who aren't, based on whether they can have an
original idea, stick to it when it seems to defy conventional wisdom, and abandon pre-
conceptions when necessary. A true decipherer must have all three capacities — al-

though the second and third might seem to exclude each other. Examples of each are
easily found in the chronicle of decipherment: An original idea was the notion that
Coptic would be useful in reading Egyptian. An unlikely idea held on to was the no-
tion that Ugaritic could have more than one letter for aleph. An abandoned precon-
ception was that Linear B must be Etruscan.
Perhaps popular acclaim yields scholarly disdain: it is surprisingly difficult to
find accounts of how a decipherment was accomplished. To be sure, there are lavishly

illustrated books with lush photos of the Rosetta Stone and old engravings of the cliff

at Behistun; but such volumes rarely reveal the details of a scholar's labors.
Nonetheless, nearly every ancient writing system whose interpretation is taken
for granted today had to be read for the first time, and those first readings had to be
defended and submitted to scholarly scrutiny, criticism, and refutation or acceptance.
The initial publications were of necessity addressed to the tiny community of learned
contemporaries who were competent to evaluate them; they are found in scholarly

journals of limited circulation, and some of the relevant volumes seem not to have
been opened in more than a century. Each generation has an obligation to remember
the contributions of its forebears, especially when later generations have allowed the
achievements, and even the names, of those forebears to slip into obscurity.
Not all surviving inscriptions have been interpreted, of course; four fairly exten-
sive corpora —Proto-Elamite, Indus, Maya, Easter Island— seem amenable to new
approaches that may yet unlock the meanings they held for their users and hold for us.
— Peter T. Daniels
SECTION 9

Methods of Decipherment
Peter T. Daniels

Types of decipherment
In popular usage, whenever Assyriologists or Egyptologists read a cuneiform tablet
or a hieroglyphic inscription, they are engaged in deciphering. As a technical term,
decipherment refers to determining the relation between some writing not hitherto
understood and the language it represents, table 9. i is adapted from the typology of
possible decipherments devised by I. J. Gelb (1973: 268 = 1975A: 73 = 1975B: 96, see
Gelb's note p. 95).

Type O comprises everyday documents in a familiar language in its ordinary

script — as well as phenomena like Punic texts written in Greek letters, or Indian
names in Chinese Buddhist compositions, which can present knotty problems for the
philologist and must indeed count as deciphering words.
Type IA refers to such decipherments as those of Phoenician and Ugaritic. Both
languages were readily identifiable — it was always known that certain inscriptions

scattered about Europe and North Africa had been left by the Phoenicians — but it was
not obvious that both would be quite similar to Hebrew. Indeed, it probably was less
obvious than hindsight suggests that the Ugaritic script concealed a Semitic language,
for the first dates provided by the archeologists for the Ugaritic materials — ca. 1500
b.c.e. —were half a millennium earlier than the earliest known Phoenician and He-
brew inscriptions (Harris 1939). The dating has since been adjusted, according to
mentions in Ugaritic texts of otherwise known rulers, to ca. 380-1 180 (Yon, Pardee, 1

and Bordreuil 1992), so that they are nearly contemporary with the composition of
the earliest Biblical passages (though not with the earliest Hebrew inscriptions).

Type IB designates familiar languages in unknown scripts, including such cases

as Linear B (section 7) and Maya glyphs (section 12).
Type II includes two different situations. The first is cryptanalysis, where the
identity of the concealed language may be known, but it is written in some fashion

table 9.1: Typology of Decipherment

Writ ING

Language Know / Unknown

Known O IA, IB

Unknown II III

141
142 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

devised to confound the reader not in possession of the key. Cryptanalysts, followed
by Gelb, distinguish between codes and ciphers, the former operating at a semantic
level, the latter at a phonetic (or, more likely, graphic) level (Kahn 1967: xiv). The
other kind of Type II is languages that are pronounceable but unintelligible. The
scripts have, if necessary, been deciphered, but the languages need to be interpreted.
Examples (see section 3, "Other languages" on page 58) include Sumerian and
Elamite; Hittite might count as a language that has been successfully interpreted.
How these languages were learned is an interesting and useful study, but not an aspect
of grammatology.
Type III is where most decipherments start out; they move into one of the other
types as inspiration or toil provides the impetus. The most impressive example is the
decipherment of Mesopotamian cuneiform.
It might be surmised that the work of deciphering is rather like thework of learn-
ing a new language. Superficially, in both cases a speaker of some language is con-
fronted with an alien communication system. But it is interesting to discover that the
filling-in of details seems to work the same way in both situations: first the broad con-
cepts are elucidated, then the grammatical details on various levels. Investigation of
the parallels could prove enlightening. Voegelin and Voegelin (1963) note several
times that decipherers were often keen polyglots. Their article applies a number of
novel concepts to the study of decipherment, including their script typology discussed
in section 1 . Unfortunately for information on decipherment they rely almost exclu-
sively on Doblhofer 1961, a breezy, biographically oriented narrative that perpetuates

a number of errors.

Processes in decipherment
It might seem unnecessary at the present time to stress that the single most important
requisite for a decipherment is accurate copies of the inscriptions under study. Now-
adays, photography is at everyone's fingertips, but during the quarter millennium af-

ter 1600, when scientific study of antiquities captured the imagination of Europe, only
the artist's eye and hand could record the materials, and their publication involved the

additional step of having the drawing reproduced by an engraver or (later) a lithogra-

pher. The process was subjective, and wildly divergent renditions of the same inscrip-
tion could be offered (see examples in Daniels 1988).
A preliminary step in deciphering an unknown script is compiling a catalog of all
the apparently different characters that occur in the texts, and attempting to identify

the permissible variations each character may undergo. The number of different char-
acters can be a clue to the type of script involved. A small number, around 30, sug-
gests an abjad or an alphabet; greater variety, 100 or so, suggests a syllabary or an
abugida; and several hundred or more, a logosyllabary (or a logography — though no
purely logographic script, if such has ever truly existed, has been deciphered).
 SECTION 9: METHODS OF DECIPHERMENT 143

On the borderline between decipherment and normal philological study are cases
where a seemingly unreadable script, on careful examination of the catalog of char-
acters, proves to be a variety of some known script. This has happened with several
descendants of the Semitic script.

Nearly all successful decipherments have involved a language that was familiar,
or very like a known language. Since language isolates such as Sumerian and Etrus-
can are preserved in scripts that can already be read, they are available for interpreta-
tion; but the pseudo-hieroglyphs of Byblos, for instance (section 2), will probably
not be deciphered unless further materials turn up.
Helpful in determining the possible identity of the unknown language is distribu-
tional analysis: do certain signs occur frequently at the beginnings or ends of words?
Are there patterns of substitution, suggesting patterns of grammatical inflection?

The must useful stretches of language for pursuing decipherments have proven
to be proper names. These tend to be familiar from historical accounts preserved by
neighboring peoples with whom the unknowns interacted.
The most useful tool overall, though, is a bilingual inscription. It sometimes hap-
pened that ancient monarchs would post accounts of their mighty deeds, or dedicatory
inscriptions, or other important matters in the language of imperial administration as
well as in local languages. When texts of similar length in different scripts are in-

scribed together, it is usually safe to assume they express the same content. If one of
the parallel versions can be read, the content of the other can be deduced, along with
its form of expression.
Unfortunately, readable bilinguals are not terribly common. Most often, texts oc-

cur in just one language; rarely, inscriptions will turn up with parallel texts that are
written inmore than one unknown script. In these cases, the ingenuity of the scholar
is called to discover some external linguistic object that might plausibly be rep-
upon
resented in the unreadable text. Such a surmised parallel may be called a virtual bi-
lingual. Poor choice of a virtual bilingual is what most commonly dooms a failed
decipherment — yet it is uncommonly difficult to decouple an unsuccessful decipherer
from a false virtual bilingual.

Accounts of decipherment
Several books on decipherment can be recommended — in increasing detail, Friedrich

1957, —
Gordon 1982, and Pope 1975 though none is ideal (their accounts of the de-
cipherment of Mesopotamian cuneiform are incomplete). Friedrich's English version
has been reprinted without taking into account the revised German edition, so it does
not cover Linear B. Gordon's is an enticingly personal account; the 1982 edition
largely replaces the discussion of his eastern Mediterranean work with a discussion
of (the interpretation of) Eblaite. Pope's is well illustrated and includes a number of
references to primary sources. See Daniels 1995 for a general overview. Deuel 1965
is a popular, but reliable, narrative of the recovery of (primarily) manuscripts.
144 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

TABLE 9 2: Publications and Accounts of Decipherments and Interpretations

Script Original Work Description

LOGOSYLLABARIES
Egyptian Young 1818; Champollion 1822, 1828; Ray 1990/91, Davies 1987
(Hieroglyphic, Demotic) Lepsius 1837; Hincks 1846B, 1859
Cuneiform
Elamite Westergaard 1844A, 1844B; Hincks
1846A; Norris 1852; Sayce 1874
Mesopotamian Hincks 1846c, 1847, 1849, 1850, 1852, Fossey 1904, Rogers 191 6,
1853, 1863; Rawlinson 1850, 1851, Daniels 1994
1 851; "Comparative Translations" 1857
Urartian Hincks 1848, Sayce 1880B
Sumerian Hincks 1850, 1856; Haupt 1878 Weissbach 1898, Cooper 1991
Hittite Hrozny 19 15
Luvian Sayce 1880A, 1903-4, 1907; Gelb 1931,
1935, 1942; Forrer 1932; Meriggi
1937; Hawkins, Morpurgo-Davies, and
Neumann 1974
Maya Knorosov 1952, 1963; Berlin 1958; Lounsbury 1989
Proskouriakoff i960; Lounsbury 1973

Syllabaries
Old Persian Grotefend 1802, 1817; Burnouf 1836;
Lassen 1836; Hincks 1846A;
Rawlinson 1846
Cypriote Smith 1 87 1, Schmidt 1874
Linear B Kober 1945, Ventris 1951-52 Chadwick 1967, 1973, 1987

Abjads
Palmyrene Barthelemy 1759; Swinton 1755 Daniels 1988
Phoenician Barthelemy 1764
Imperial Aramaic Berthelemy 1768
Sassanian Silvestre de Sacy 1787-91
Himyaritic Rodiger 1837, 1841, 1842; Gesenius -
Hommel 1893, Daniels
1841A, 1841B 1986
Nabatean (Sinaitic) Beer 840
1

Ugaritic Virolleaud 1929, 1931; Bauer 1930, Corre 1966

1932; Dhorme 1930; Friedrich 1933

Alphabets
Avestan Burnouf 1833
Orkhon runes Thomsen 1893, 1894
Meroitic Griffith 1909, 191

Abugidas
Brahmi Prinsep 1834, 1837 Hoernle 1884, Daniels 1987
Kharoshthi Prinsep 1838
 SECTION 9: METHODS OF DECIPHERMENT ]
45

Hs/cL-ilr/i letters km hr chLjuc BrifisiJi /clryi'". ]! CL-atar* Je lajteiomr ccntxn &r/?f*e

'

|J!A.r\r\£. f^.^rl- I

.. fr.TT.fl.fr.n.rMf.hf.^l
;

.ror.iri.iiKf.Kf-.K~

<Ff.</h<il .«.<<.!«'

c« <K .«ff

figure 7. The inventory of Old Persian characters, as identified by Niebuhr; citable 8.1
(1778, pi. 23; retouched in the French edition of 1780).

The best-known decipherments are those of Old Persian cuneiform, Egyptian hi-

eroglyphs, and Linear B, and they are described well in the books just mentioned, as
well as elsewhere. A number of other decipherments are equally interesting, and
many have never been brought to general attention. Some are presented here chrono-
logically; table 9.2 (which see for all references) is organized by script family.

In chronicling decipherment, it is common to list the characters that each inves-

tigator "got right." This is a meaningless exercise —because at every stage, the deci-
pherment had to stand or fall as a whole. Subsequent researchers could not know
a priori which of the values were reliable and which should be rejected; only the full

coherence of the system and of the underlying language — founded on demonstrable,

replicable method — is probative of a decipherment.

Palmyrene
The first decipherment exemplifies many of the principles and processes enumerated
above. "Copies" of Palmyrene script had been available in print since 1616; but not
until 1756, when English travelers published accurate copies of paired inscriptions in

Greek and Palmyrene, could the script be deciphered. Accounts by various Church
Fathers had mentioned that the Palmyrene language was similar to Syriac. The first
word in one of the inscriptions is the name Septimios, and literally overnight the Abbe
Jean- Jacques Barthelemy (17 16-1795) was able to match the Palmyrene letters with
the Greek (as well as to discover that they were recognizably similar to both Hebrew
and Syriac, see table 5.5 on page 97, col. XVIII).

Cuneiform
—
The first decent copies of trilingual Old Persian, Elamite, and a late, odd form of
—
Akkadian cuneiform inscriptions from the awesome ruins of Persepolis were pub-
lished by Carsten Niebuhr in 1 772-78, who also set out the characters of the Old Per-
sian script (figure 7; cf. section 8). Expecting that inscriptions from Persepolis
146 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

£T (TO ^TT ft Hf) ^T I —TT<T *H <W

figure 8. summary of the formulary introducing the annals of Argishti (1848:
Hincks's 388).
The passage is now read dHal-di(-i)-ni u-ta(-a)-bi ma(-a)-si-ni(-e) G\s-su-ri(-i)-e
'the god Haldi set out with his own weapons' (interpretation prepared by G. Gragg).

would include Persian rulers' names (known in Greek guise from Herodotus), and fa-

miliar with Silvestre de Sacy's recent reading of the formulary of Sassanian inscrip-
tions (section 48), Georg Friedrich Grotefend (1775-1853), in what seems to be the
first use of a virtual bilingual, supposed that the names would appear in the style "Da-
rius, great king, son of Xerxes, great king, son of Hystaspes" —who was not a king.
There is sufficient repetition of sounds among the names that Grotefend could be fair-

ly sure he was on the right track, and he identified the language as Persian. The
Iranists Rasmus Rask, Eugene Burnouf, and Christian Lassen contributed significant-

ly to the rigor of the description of the language in its Iranian context.

An important contribution to the study of cuneiform was Henry Creswicke Raw-
linson's copying and eventual publication of what is by far the longest trilingual cu-

neiform inscription, incised over several years during the reign of Darius the Great on
an inaccessible cliff at Behistun, Iran. Rawlinson (1810-1895), then a British Army
major stationed in Baghdad, apparently replicated Grotefend's decipherment after

learning of the virtual bilingual (he could not read German). But the frequently re-
peated assertion that Rawlinson deciphered Mesopotamian cuneiform is incorrect;

the third version of the Behistun inscription was even published too late to play any
part in the decipherment. What is telling is that he was never able, in after years, to
describe his process of "deciphering" the scripts. Much of what he published was de-
rived from work he was kept abreast of, via an efficient postal service, that was labo-
riously carried out by a self-effacing Irish cleric, Edward Hincks.
Hincks (1 792-1 866) was already middle-aged when he turned from his main in-

terest, Egyptian, to cuneiform —he expected it would shed light on the Hieroglyphic
texts; between 1846 and 1852 he produced a series of significant monographs. Suc-
cessively, he demonstrated that the Old Persian script was (semi-)syllabic rather than
strictly consonantal; that the second and third versions were written with respectively
less and more elaborate inventories of the same signary; that the rather different-look-
ing cuneiform scripts on objects brought from Babylonia and Assyria were in fact

equivalent (thus greatly augmenting the materials available for analysis); that Meso-
potamian cuneiform, though it probably represented (in the third version) a Semitic
language, combined syllabic and logographic but not consonantal elements; that most
or all of the signs had more than one phonetic reading, probably because the script
had been devised for a non-Semitic language; that most or all of the signs had logo-
graphic as well as phonetic readings; and that Biblical personages were named in the

Assyrian records.
 SECTION 9: METHODS OF DECIPHERMENT 147

^ fl
!

I
li-ib]

pa-ajh
Jit
Jit
(na-a-ri]
n[a-a-ri]

T na-a]-ri Jlc na-[a-ri]

T na]-ga-ar fr na-an-ga-n
T] gu-ur *n gur-ru
J] ga-ar B4 qar-ru
| da-ar •^TAT da-far-ril

| ha -as «fe su-[um-mu

'-orr-l f «TfrT tgr £eT *& <x->a]-a-ii T ri-ik *-£ su-[um-mu
xt -T<T^]'-qu y su-um £S= su-[um-mu
r- tr ~T<J*]i-qu y sa-qu c^=: q[u-um-mu
r^w^r^ & £-v] gi-mu-u T gu-u ^^ q[u-um-mu
Ef £-y] a-ma-at T qu-um ^=: [qu-um-mu
'f # 5^[]a-mu-u y ga-za »E [sa-qum-ma<-ku>-um-i-gub
5^3] a-mu-u y a-ka ~<^E sa-nin-da-ku-i-zi-i-gub

<«] gi-es-pu-u T ku-ur V pa-ap-pu

^1 zi-ib-bu y pa-ap ^ pa-ap-pu
V 1 ku-u-rum y bu-ur E7 bu-u-ru
V ku-u-rum y ba-ar + ba-a-ru
V ku-ii-rum y si-i *n si-su-u
V ku-u-rum T si-i •^TAT gu-un-nu-u
V ku-ii-rum y pa-a * gi-es-ta-ru-u
£-|*l si-lu-u T u < gi-gu-ru-u
-y] 'si-iu-u' T u <HUJ i-gi—di-ib-bu

T ma-as f ma-a-su
y sa-a V ni-tu-u

T ga-ar V ni-tu-u

T [m]u-ii V ni-tu-u

T [ni-i]n-ni V ni-tu-u

T [ni-ta]-a V ni-tu-u

T [a]l c« fall-[lu]

figure 9. K.62, the fragment of Syllabary A identified by Hincks; from its first publication

(Rawlinson and Norris 1866, pi. 3; cf. table 3.2 on page 49, lines 164-71, 120-39).
Transliteration from Hallock 1955, lines 309-22, 230-60
(that the later column is at the left shows that this fragment is from the reverse of a tablet).

Hincks's initial approach to the second and third versions was through the per-
sonal and place names revealed in the first version, but he soon turned to the gram-

matical patterning that he could transfer from known Semitic languages. The most
important of his articles, though, is probably that of 1848, published in the prestigious

Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, which deals not with Akkadian, but with Urar-
tian. He had just received a copy of the inscriptions from near Lake Van, collected
at

the price of his life by Fr. Ed. Schultz in the late 820s and published in Paris in 1 840.
1

The most extensive inscription is a royal annal, covering some thirteen years, in

which each year's account begins with the same formula. Hincks noted that the for-
mulaic repetition is not exact: certain signs seemed to be omissible (figure 8) as, ap-
parently, required by the space available on the surface where the inscription
was
carved. He be optional vowel signs; since he already knew some
rightly took these to

of their values from the Persepolis trilinguals, he could identify the vowel inherent
in

each preceding CV sign. Grammatical investigation of the Urartian language (which

he believed was Indo-European) resulted in a tolerably full signlist, with values from

Assyrian and Babylonian as well as Urartian sources. Hincks also brought an end (in

the
the decipherment phase of Assyriology, by correctly interpreting
first o\'
1852) to
thousands of fragments of of signs that give their pronunciations (it was, in fact,
lists

a portion of Syllabary A, figure 9). He went on to publish

grammatical studies of

Assyrian, as well as articles on a wide variety of Egyptian and Assyrian

topics.
148 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

M. srj?r/3fEJ\rs OF FHRASKS. JtO.V. fA'SfJt . /JtST J./JVF.

.... iTEPEOYAlOoVTOirTElEfoltKAl EfX fl PlOIX KA< EAAHNtKo IT rPAMtMA^.1 N

figure io. Young's comparison of the three versions of a Rosetta Stone passage (1818, pi. 78).

Egyptian

Thanks to misunderstandings on the part of various Greek and Roman authors, it was
believed until the European Enlightenment that the hieroglyphs of Egypt were esoter-
ic signs concealing sacred mysteries. An English polymath, Thomas Young (1773-
1829), and a French monomaniac, Jean-Francois Champollion (1 790-1 832), share
the credit for determining that the ancient Egyptian language was written with scripts

very like other scripts. Both held that Coptic, the liturgical language of Egyptian
Christians, would reflect the ancient language. The impetus for their decipherment
was the discovery by Napoleon's army, in 1799 near Rashid (Rosetta), Egypt, of a
large chunk of basalt bearing a long inscription in three scripts —Hieroglyphic, De-
motic, and Greek. The Greek inscription was easily read, and it was immediately rec-
ognized that here lay the key to the mysterious hieroglyphs. (Its importance was such
that in 1 802 it was made part of the booty upon a British victory, and it has remained
in the British Museum ever since.) Unfortunately, only seven Hieroglyphic lines were
preserved, versus nearly all of the Demotic and Greek passages.
Decades earlier, Barthelemy had suggested that the cartouches observed in Hi-

eroglyphic inscriptions might enclose royal names (cf. table 4.4 on page 79). This
could now be seen to be the case; unfortunately, the preserved portions of the Hiero-
glyphic version contain only cartouches corresponding to the name Ptolemy in the

Greek, so any guesses about the values of signs comprising it could not be confirmed.
Young, therefore, turned to the Demotic passage, and began by identifying a
number of stretches of text Alexander, Alexandria, and, king, Ptolemy, Egypt —with
their counterparts in the Greek; he also noted that some of the Demotic signs related
in shape to correspondingly situated hieroglyphs (figure 10). But he had no way of
determining their pronunciation, and indeed continued to believe that the script was
primarily semasiographic, and phonographic only when representing names. Budge's
discussion of Young (1929: 198-216) more responsible than his presentation of the
is

decipherment of cuneiform as Rawlinson's work (1925); in both books, his chief pur-
pase seems to be to promote the claims of English over French scholars.
Champollion may well have known of Young's work, but took it immeasurably
further.The name of Cleopatra turned up on a bilingually inscribed obelisk brought
to England in 18 13, and there was enough overlap of letters with Ptolemy to confirm

the values of many signs. Other names could be brought into play, and when a sun-
shaped sign (Coptic re) appeared in a cartouche before an unknown sign and two s's,
 SECTION 9: METHODS OF DECIPHERMENT 49

*#*fi ft ft^x^
W 1
y&VJSO

figure 1 1 .
Supposed Himyaritic alphabets found in two unrelated manuscripts in the Konigliche
Bibliothek, Berlin (left, ms. 1 10, Arabic, written in Arabia, dated 856 A.H./1452 c.e.; right, ms. 248,
Persian, written in India, early 1 8th century). Arabic key and South Arabian letters (right to left):

JJjO^^i^i?^^^ ^
uv n
J j b
j
h
f
htio
f! b n u un
(Rodiger 1837, plate).
j j i

h h
5 £ £ £
hi n
OO ^
nft
I

Champollion recognized the well-known name Ramesses. He then had the courage to
defy the common wisdom that hieroglyphs couldn't be phonetic, and tried to read
Coptic —
in which he had immersed himself from boyhood — in the hieroglyphs to
which he could assign phonetic values.
Thus many of the principles of decipherment came into play in the Egyptian case:
bilinguals, familiar language, proper names, flash of insight all featured in Champol-
lion's work. He died young; it fell to Richard Lepsius to discover that signs could con-
tain more than one consonant, and to Edward Hincks to show that they could not
contain any vowels.

Himyaritic

Again two rivals competed to decipher inscriptions found in southern Arabia, again
as a result of British operations overseas. Wilhelm Gesenius (1786- 1842) was the
greatest Hebraist of his age —updated editions of his grammar and dictionary remain
the standard today —and Emil Rodiger ( 1 80 - 874) was his most distinguished pupil
1 1

(and editor of the first posthumous versions of those two works). Several Islamic
manuscripts record alphabets of various alleged infidels; these were often fanciful,
but Rodiger found two tolerably similar ones, both said to represent the writing of
South Arabian peoples, that apparently derived from independent traditions
(figure 1 1). He relied on these, and on enormous command of Semitic philolo-
his

gy, to interpret the inscriptions; Gesenius put more faith in a newly reported Semitic
language from the same area. Both made important contributions to the decipherment
of the inscriptions, but they are particularly obscure and difficult — it turns out that the
first sizable text contained almost nothing but proper names, names not familiar from
other sources and not accompanied by a version in another script.
150 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

ClaAfi/iccUitnt. of the artccervt character , No. I.

iffhr usu-ttd n*&i> th* vwamI msatrMj. with.

of Otfur forms occurring
Uur &? d 1 if
-4 at

U» y 3 "%s* tf, \T* q< 8* "M £$ y>

u U rJ \J iz C«r C, b* b'
Y i <b k±
\,t If 2 IfiZ t/ e, b-* U J-H>rtiU* \rlyI.?3urC.

h to (L H \j u rC <f &* «^ / d; b it ri^«J/ (7Z* ZHtu&ri)

6 16 On On O -re <?* 4>, <!> Zi 4 -8

& 4 Q> Z dJ* *' *<

L lj Xi 6 JL <y X, r, L > X* %!» 1/ JL

1* I« 1* -U j: J,* 1- i i
A<7 X 8 A7 x» A"> A.* A' ^ x r*A.
>» $ e ">*> s, * !•» !>•
J»^A^/rj
(

+* f 7 ** •f. fct f i^*S-± * -K

in <j\ a, <r, d" <L

D„ D* D^ u* D* D' T p

X» * *v »• W ! A(U*ructffoadt)

J. Jtf J z J% J". J z J- 4*1^

1« tz 1, Tz r- 1. »t 1

£> e?* £r €* fc,

£• H fe

n kl <u C
li d If £ C fr *
A/ A* A I /T^
<J* <£ £ Sasn.4. as Z t

l»» f / H" i/ d^uUful r*

Il r r C L IX-LL* V
n» rf r? ./ n" r
a < D-3 b. O / half fix*

O o< CV 9 ditto

e i CH <i>» ditto

A* ' V do
• • •
:•

«?• $H 3>
t
TJuhu&aZ Kvri^ 2 mficnftionf on.tius U
Ctmt/vund .
•> 6 ± dl
Sm.tiu, DMi Column.. At.Ku.VU.1lo.

%lTktfiqt ire* cLoeunst ecu ^^^*- fji**viufrufu4**y trf etcusretiec. on. th*. JCctu.

figure 12. Prinsep's chart of the Brahmi characters found on the Allahabad pillar (1834, pi. 5).
 SECTION 9: METHODS OF DECIPHERMENT }
5 \

Brahmi
The Brahmi script of Ashokan India (section 30) is another that was deciphered

largelyon the basis of familiar language and familiar related script but it was made —
possible largely because of the industry of young James Prinsep (1799-1840), who
inventoried the characters found on the immense pillars left by Ashoka and arranged
them used for teaching the Ethiopian abugida (figure 12). Ap-
in a pattern like that

parently, there had never been a tradition of laying out the full set of aksharas thus
or anyone, Prinsep said, with a better knowledge of Sanskrit than he had had could
have read the inscriptions straightaway, instead of after discovering a very minor vir-
tual bilingual a few years later.

Cypriote

Barthelemy deciphered Phoenician on the basis of bilingual coin legends in the

1 760s. That language repaid its debt by in turn serving as the key to the Cypriote syl-

labary (table 7.3), thanks to the bilingual from Idalion (page 131) discovered in
1869. It was an Assyriologist — a protege of Rawlinson, George Smith (1840-
1876) — who determined that the script was syllabic, and a specialist in Greek, Moriz
Schmidt, who proved that the language was Greek. He searched for signs that could
represent each of the necessary consonants with each of the five vowels, thus using
the property of a syllabary as a tool.

Turkic runes

With the simultaneous publication of reliable editions of bilingual inscriptions two —

—
of them major in Chinese and the vaguely known script found by the Orkhon River
near Karakorum, Mongolia, it became possible for Vilhelm Thomsen (1 842-1927) to
decipher the latter. The first problem was to determine the unusual layout of the lines
of writing — right to left, and bottom to top; except that on the bilinguals, the script

ran vertically, with the columns reading top to bottom, taken right to left like Chinese.
The second problem was that it was clear from the number of words in the two ver-
sions that one was not a translation of the other. The number of different characters
was 38 (see table 49.1), suggesting a syllabary or a script representing subphone-
mic distinctions. Thomsen began by identifying the vowel letters: in a pattern at.y. if

a is a consonant, then y is a vowel, and vice versa; it is very unlikely that x and v are
both consonants or both vowels. Three vowel letters, > u, r /, P /V, were thus isolated.

The small number of vowels coupled with the large number of consonants suggested
that the script was expressing vowel harmony (within a word, all vowels must belong

to one of two classes, alylolo or alii id ii) by varying the accompanying consonant.

Unable to use the sense of the Chinese inscriptions in interpreting the Orkhon,
Thomsen searched for words that could serve as virtual bilinguals. The most common
152 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

word in both inscriptions, he surmised, represented part of the royal titulary, TTHh
tengri 'heaven, god', which is common to Mongolian and all of Turkic. There was one
word that occurred frequently in one of the inscriptions, but not the other; Thomsen
identified this with the name of the person honored by the Chinese version, K'iueh-
ti(k)-k'in = rffNiYPt him another common word, RTM h tiirk
Kol-tigin. This gave
'Turk', confirming the nature of the language. He filled in the known letters as in an
acrostic, recognized more and more Turkic words (the fourth vowel letter, ^ a, oc-
curred only finally), and eventually could read these inscriptions as well as others.

Meroitic

Meroitic inscriptions were observed by explorers in Nubia and the Sudan from about
1820, primarily Richard Lepsius's expedition of 1843-44. Lepsius noted some equa-
tions between Egyptian and Meroitic cartouches, which were to provide the first few
phonetic values of the characters. F. LI. Griffith's study of the materials began with
compiling the list of 23 letters (see table 4.6 on page 85); he was able to establish

the equivalences between the hieroglyphic and demotic forms (he shuns the term
"cursive" because except for 9- i the letters are not joined) thanks to the very formu-
laic content of the many funerary inscriptions, written now in one, now in the other

script. Positional analysis followed: Griffith found that 5 ^occurred only initially; 9,

/, and 9- did not occur before or after each other, or after *///, A, •<-, or V. The first

four signs would seem to be vowels, and the last four — in a rather surprising sugges-

tion —CV syllables. From a list of the names of places where inscriptions were found,
and from other likely equations with names and titles known from Egyptian and
Greek accounts of Nubian civilization, Griffith determined the value of each letter.

Luvian

The pioneer in interpreting Luvian hieroglyphs was the immensely prolific Archibald
H. Sayce (1 845-1 933) —he seems have to intuited that they represented the distinc-
tive product of Hittite civilization —but sufficient materials were never available to

him. Among the several contributors to the decipherment, the most explicit as to

method was I. J. Gelb (1 907-1 985). From Sayce, he knew the determinatives, the
word divider, and the indicator of logograms (see section 6). Like decipherers be-
fore him, he gathered the words accompanied by the country determinative from
inscriptions found at places whose ancient names were known, he insisted that the
signs were strictly syllabic, and he isolated the vowel signs by finding that they were
optional. He made judicious use of personal names and of the few bilinguals; and he
analyzed the grammar with full knowledge of Hittite (which Bedfich Hrozny had rec-

ognized as Indo-European in 1915). Gelb found that the languages were not identical,
and accepted Johannes Friedrich's identification of the hieroglyphic language with
cuneiform Luvian. Other scholars have further refined the decipherment.
 SECTION 9: METHODS OF DECIPHERMENT j
53

Ugaritic

The three scholars who worked on Ugaritic (section 5), language of a large corpus
of texts originally found by accident at a site on the Syrian coast, chose different vir-
tual bilinguals. The excavator, Charles Virolleaud (1879- 1968), noted that an inscrip-
tion on certain adzes was also found at the beginning of a clay tablet, with one
additional sign preceding it; he suggested that the tablet was a message to the owner
of the adzes, and the extra sign was the prefix /- 'to' in Semitic. On what seemed to
be an accounts tablet, he found a word of the pattern (rare in Semitic) ?l?\ this had to

be 'three' (Hebrew sis, Arabic ///). Hans Bauer (1 878-1 937) isolated the letters that

seemed to be prefixes and suffixes, and assigned them to the limited number of sounds
that are used as such in Semitic (/, m, n, t). Edouard Dhorme (1 881-1966) worked
along similar lines, and there was exemplary cooperation among the three.
The most unusual feature of Ugaritic is that all the letters represent consonants,

except for the three that represent '

[?] plus each of the vowels (transliterated a. i. //').

Bauer, confronted by irrefutable evidence that two different letters had to stand for \

even though this was unparalleled in Semitic, declared that indeed they did —and Vi-
rolleaud soon added a third. Bauer tried to differentiate the three alephs according to
the following vowel, but he had worked out an account of Hebrew vocalization in-

volving different stages of the language, and within that framework he could not get
the vowels to come out right. It was Johannes Friedrich who explained them correctly.

(Bauer did not dispute the solution, but he did not publish the second volume of his

monumental Hebrew grammar, Bauer and Leander 1918-22, perhaps because he

would have had to reconceptualize so much of the undocumented history of the lan-
guage.)

Linear B
As has been described in section 2, the Aegean scripts fascinated generations of

scholars, who were unable to succeed in reading them. As soon as sufficient materials

were adequately published, Alice Kober (1907- 1950) undertook distributional anal-

ysis, finding words that were identical but for the last sign or two; she took these to

represent inflections. Her untimely death left the field to Michael Ventris (1922-
1956), who built on her work, constructing charts of mutually substitutable signs, set-

ting presumed consonants against presumed vowels. (Barber 1974 is without say- —
ing so, and without a single actual example —
a mathematical generalization of the
Kober- Ventris technique.) In a now familiar pattern, he matched place names with in-
scriptions found at particular sites. Yet just as for his predecessors, work was ham-
pered for Ventris by inability to suppose that some form of Greek could have been
spoken centuries before the earliest remains of the Classical era. On a whim, he said.
he tried reading the texts as an archaic form of Greek— and knew immediate success.
154 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

Maya
The decipherment of Maya glyphs has proceeded in two separate phases. The inter-

pretation of the numerical, astronomical, and calendrical information included on the

monuments was the work of the nineteenth century, and belongs more to the history

of mathematics than to the history of decipherment. Primary credit is assigned to

Ernst Forstemann (i 822-1 906; Thompson 1971: 29-30), whose work was based on
the few surviving pre-Conquest astronomical codices.
Though virtually all knowledge of Maya script was extirpated by the Conquista-
dores, along with those who commanded such knowledge, there was one Spanish
bishop, Diego de Landa, who took an interest in the dying civilization. Among the
data he recorded from the few surviving intellectuals was what he called the "alpha-
bet" of the Maya glyphs. His work, though, went unknown until 1864, and meanwhile
Americanists, like Europeans faced with Egyptian hieroglyphs, convinced them-
selves that the impossibly ornate glyphs could be at best an ideography, and despaired
of ever understanding it.

Over the decades, order was brought to the overwhelming variation in sign ap-

pearance, and equivalences established between completely different signs (various

items could be expressed by distinctive heads, or by full-square glyphs, or by append-
ages to glyphs, for instance). This kind of information was codified in the works of
J.Eric S. Thompson ( 1 898-1975). It fell to a Soviet linguist, Yuri Knorosov (who be-
came aware of Maya literature when he rescued a sumptuous edition of the surviving
codices from the ruins of a burning Berlin library in 1945), to take seriously Bishop
Landa's "alphabet." Knorosov tried reading some words as (modern) Mayan using
the handful of values Landa assigned to glyphs, comparing them with pictures in the

codices, and the results were encouraging enough to convince some scholars (though
never Thompson) that actual language might be concealed in the Maya inscriptions.
The next step was taken by Heinrich Berlin (19 15-1987), who discovered that
particular "emblem glyphs" are associated with specific sites; when a different site's
emblem glyph turns up in an inscription, presumably some sort of interaction be-
tween the places is described. About the same time, Tatiana Proskouriakoff (1909-
1985) discovered that certain inscriptions bore dates that did not obviously relate to
astronomical cycles, and she noted that they often occurred in triplets, spaced suitably
to number birth, coronation, and death of a ruler. These discoveries constituted the
first evidence that the monuments could concern mundane as well as celestial events.
Finally, it is the linguist Floyd Lounsbury who has led in linguistic interpretation

of the glyphs as syllabic and logographic. It is difficult to point to a single break-

through article; he tends to publish in great detail on a single glyph or group of glyphs
at a time. This is the pattern of progress in Maya research, to which numerous schol-
ars continue to contribute. (Coe 1992, though useful for certain historical informa-

tion, cannot be recommended as an account of the decipherment, since it omits

essential details of methodology, and is marred by a pervasive, inexplicably personal
 SECTION 9: METHODS OF DECIPHERMENT J 55

animosity toward Thompson.)

Even from this brief summary of the ongoing decipherment of Mayan, several
techniques that are by now recognizable from previous decipherments are apparent
familiar languages, place names, combinatorial analysis, willingness to renounce pre-
conceptions and to embrace unlikely propositions. One can only wonder whether, had
the methods of other decipherers been familiar to Mayanists, they might not have
achieved far more in a far shorter time. Within the neglected study of writing systems,
the study of decipherment has been attended to the least.

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Hoernle, A. F. Rudolf. 1884. Centenary Review of the Asiatic Society of Bengal from 1774-1883,
158 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

part 2, Archceology, History, Literature, &c. Calcutta: Asiatic Society of Bengal.

Hommel, Fritz. 1893. Sud-arabische Chrestomathie. Munich: Franz.
Hrozny, Bedrich. 1915. "Die Losung des hethetischen Problems." Mitteilungen der Deutschen
Orient-Gesellschaft 56 (December) 17-50.
Kahn, David. 1967. The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing. New York: Macmillan.
Knorosov [Knorozov], Yuri V. 1952. "Drevnjaja pis'mennost' Tsentral'noi Ameriki" [Ancient writ-
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.
1963. Pis'mennost' indejtsev Majia [The writing of the
' Maya Indians]. Moscow: Academy
trans., Selected chapters from ...,
of Sciences. Partial by Sophie Coe (Harvard University, Pea-
body Museum of Archaeology and Ethnology, Russian Translation Series4), Cambridge, 1967.
Kober, Alice E. 1945. "Evidence of Inflection in the 'Chariot' Tablets from Knossos."American
Journal of A rchaeology 49 : 1 43-5 1
Lassen, Christian. 1836. Die altpersischen Keil-Inschriften von Persepolis. Entzifferung des Alpha-
bets und Erklarung des Inhalts. Bonn: Weber.
Lepsius, Richard. 1837. "Lettre a M. le Professeur H. Rosellini sur l'alphabet hieroglyphique."Arc-
nali dell' Instituto archeologico di Roma 9/1 : 5-100.
Lounsbury, Floyd. 1973. "On the Derivation and Reading of the 'Ben-Ich' Prefix." InMesoameri-
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search Library and Collections.
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1989. "The Ancient Writing of Middle America." In The Origins of Writing, ed. Wayne M.
Senner, pp. 203-37. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Meriggi, Piero. 1937. "Listes des hieroglyphes hittites." Revue hittite et asianique 4: 69-1 14, 157-
200.
Niebuhr, Carsten. 1772-78. (Reise)beschreibung von Arabien. 3 vols. Copenhagen.
Norris, Edwin. 1852. "Memoir on the Scythic Version of the Behistun Inscription." Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society 15: 1-2 13, 431-33.
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Prinsep, James A. 1834. "Notes on Inscription No. 1 of the Allahabad Column." Journal of the Asi-
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1838. "Additions to Bactrian Numismatics, and Discovery of the Bactrian Alphabet." Jour-
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.
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.
Memoir on the Babylonian Translation of the Great Persian Inscription at Behistun.
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1

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Rodiger, Emil. 1837. "Notiz iiber die himjaritische Schrift nebst doppeltem Alphabet derselben."
 SECTION 9: METHODS OF DECIPHERMENT J59

Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes 1 332-40.

—
:

. 84 1. Versuch
1 iiber die himjaritischen Schriftmonumente. Halle: Waisenhaus.
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Waisenhaus.
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.

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1903-4. "The Decipherment of the Hittite Inscriptions." Proceedings of the Society of Bib-
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1907. "Hittite Inscriptions:The Method, Veiification, and Results of My Decipherment of
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1894. "L' alphabet runiforme turc." In his Inscriptions de l'Orkhon dechiffrees (Memoires
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1922. Samlede Afhandlinger, vol. 3. Copenhagen: Gyldendalske Boghandel.
Ventris, Michael. 1951-52. "Work Notes on Minoan Language Research" nos. 1-20. In his Work
Notes on Minoan Language Research and Other Unedited Papers (Incunabula Graeca 90), ed.
Anna Sacconi, pp. 135-333. Rome: Ateneo, 1988.
Virolleaud, Charles. 1929. "Les inscriptions cuneiformes de Ras Shamra." Syria 10: 304-40.
.
193 1. "Le dechiffrement des tablettes alphabetiques de Ras-Shamra." Syria 12: 15-23.
Voegelin, C. F., and F. M. Voegelin. 1963. "Patterns of Discovery in the Decipherment of Different
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Weissbach, Franz H. 1898. Die sumerische Frage. Leipzig: Hinrichs.
Westergaard, Niels Louis. 1844A. "On the Deciphering of the Second Achaemenian or Median Spe-
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1844B. "Zur Entzifferung der achamenidischen Keilschrift zweiter Gattung." Zeitschriftfur
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6: 337-466.

Yon, Marguerite, Dennis Pardee, and Pierre Bordreuil. 1992. "Ugarit." In Anchor Bible Dictionary
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Young, Thomas. 18 18. "Egypt." Supplement to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Editions of the Encyclo-

paedia Britannica 4 (1824) 38-74.

SECTION 10

The Proto-Elamite Script

Robert K. Englund

The ideographic writing system conventionally called Proto-Elamite was developed

and used in western and southern Persia at the end of the fourth through the beginning
of the third millennium b.c.e., a historical phase generally considered to correspond
to the I periods in Mesopotamia (Le Brun 1971;
Jemdet Nasr and the Early Dynastic
Damerow and Englund The region of Persia designated "Elam" in later
1989: 1-4).
Mesopotamian cuneiform sources lent its name by association to the language spoken
there; Old Elamite/Old Akkadian bilinguals employing the partially deciphered linear

Elamite and Old Akkadian cuneiform date this language of unknown linguistic affil-
iation (Reiner 1969) no earlier than ca. 2300 b.c.e. "Proto-Elamite" is the name used

for the writing system of the earliest documents from the region — texts on clay tablets

which are assumed to represent a precursor of Old Elamite (Hinz 1975; Meriggi
1 97 1 : 1 84-220; Andre and Salvini 1 989). The earlier language has not, however, been
identified; the phonological structure of the archaic script is thus entirely unknown.
However, contextual analyses and the formal similarity of Proto-Elamite documents
to better-understood proto-cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamia dating to ca. 3200-
3000 b.c.e. make possible a substantive assessment of the ideographic nature and the
fields of application of the indigenous Persian writing system.

History of decipherment
Since the first archaic texts were discovered at the turn of the twentieth century, some
1 500 Proto-Elamite tablets have been published, the great majority excavated at Susa
on the Kerkha river east of Babylonia, but including in smaller numbers tablets found
in sites reaching to the southeast across to Shahr-i Sokhta on the Afghanistan border
(Damerow and Englund 1989: 1-2). The tablets are administrative documents, to the
near total exclusion of either literary or lexical texts.
Syllabic sign readings adduced from an assumed link between Proto-Elamite and
the ostensibly related linear Elamite (see above) have not led to successful decipher-
ment of the archaic script. A preliminary graphotactical analysis of the Proto-Elamite
texts has also met with only modest success (Meriggi 1975: 105, 1971: 172-84; Brice
1962-63: 28-33; Gelb 1975). To be sure, scholars have with mixed success estab-
lishedsome graphic and semantic connections between Proto-Elamite and proto-cu-
neiform, the first writing stage of which predates that of Proto-Elamite by some 100

160
 SECTION 10: THE PROTO-ELAMITE SCRIPT X61

Direction of script

Obverse
<
£ :

Reverse

Axis of
rotation for
continuation

Reverse

Axis of
rotation for
summation

figure 13. Complex rotation of the Proto-Elamite account Scheil 1905, no. 4997 (all figures depict
tablets and signs in true orientation; see Damerow and Englund 1989: 1 1-12, n. 30). Proto-Elamite
tablets were rotated around their horizontal axis to inscribe additional individual entries on the re-

verse, if necessary; summations were also entered on the reverse face of tablets, but in this case the
accounts were rotated around their vertical axis.

years (Langdon 1928: viii; Mecquenem 1949: 147; Gelb 1963: 217-20; Meriggi

1969: 156-63; Damerow and Englund 1989: 11-28). However, a lack of necessary
philological tools, above all a dependable sign list purged of redundant sign variants,
continues to hinder progress in this work.

Basic characteristics of Proto-Elamite script and texts

A preliminary study of the entire text corpus suggests that the Proto-Elamite sign rep-
ertory was comparable to that of proto-cuneiform, using less than 1000 individual
 —
162 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

Sexagesimal System S w iw _ d
Used to count discrete inanimate W *"

"600"
\~/ \

"60"
/
• V
"1"
10?
13
Objects "3,6(Xr "IO"

Decimal System D ^m-

Used to count discrete animate r-uu
l0
IX! 2
H 6 io H
objects, in paticular domesticated IR! lyi [J V
"
"10.000" k^^J "100" "10"
animals and human laborers
'1,000"

Bisexagesimal System B
Used to count discrete grain prod-
ucts; objects noted with this system t^i 10 tyi 2 HH 6
# io H
may, as archaic Babylonia,
^* "^ J
in
" " "
\J
" " " " "'"
200 ,20 60 10
belong to a rationing system "
1 -

Bisexagesimal System B# ,---- ,----, *mm> -«.

'"'
Derived from System B, used to jlxl; jIAIj !\ /] \\J\
'~~
count rations(?) of an unclear nature .. ..
12(r 6
~r' .. „ „
r
120(r 10

Capacity System Ci
Used to note capacity measures of grain, in particular barley; the

small units also designate bisexagesimally counted cereal products.

w <

Capacity System C# ,«« ,

,
,--. ,--, r^pfi -~7~
Derived from C, pos- 1
\ /! :w '"'
|\jl ||/J
,l --' '

<^}! I'T'!
'

yJj
sibly related to B#
Capacity System C" ^^
DerivedfromC,
graphically related
•* Jj
^ $ ^ &^ f& ^
to the Babylonian

#~ •~ i^ U
system for emmer
Area System A
figure 14. Numerical sign systems attested in the Proto-Elamite text corpus (Damerow and En-
glund 1989: 18-30; the numbers above the arrows indicate how many respective units are replaced
by the next higher unit). In the capacity system, the basic sign (middle column: = "i" in the systems
qualifying discrete units) may have represented ca. 25 liters of grain.

signs and thus in the range of logo- or ideographic writing systems (Damerow and
Englund 1989: 4-7). Superficially, a large number of signs seem entirely abstract
which, considering the probability that the script developed explosively during the
Jemdet Nasr Period (ca. 3050-3000 b.c.e.), suggests that its developers consciously
chose geometric and other nonpictorial shapes and introduced them into conventional
usage. The extent to which pictography may have been represented in a dead script
is, however, difficult to discern.

The first serious was

work on a formal description of the Proto-Elamite texts
done in the 1960s and early 1970s (Brice 1962-63, 1963; Meriggi 1971-74; Vaiman
1972). Proto-Elamite documents were written in a linearized script from right to left,
 SECTION 10: THE PROTO-ELAMITE SCRIPT \ 53

designation designation designation

sign for of the 1 st of an sign for of the 1 st designation of an
"sheep* shepherd institution 'workman' foreman institution
22 sheep
HI
:•-
of 1 st

shepherd 94
+ 9 sheep work-
ij££ of 2nd er -«k men
7V in 1st
shepherd gang

W
+ 1

of 3rd
8 sheep
n
shepherd

*'•+ 16 sheep
of 4th
shepherd

^£1 = 65 sheep

™ =
591
'IIwork-
men

figure 15. Proto-Elamite administrative accounts. Left: Account of four sheep herds (Scheil 1905.
no. 2 1 2). The graphic form and the large numerical notations, as well as the association of the cross-
shaped ideogram with other signs that bear a strong graphic resemblance to proto-cuneiform signs
known to represent domestic animals (the circled cross and derived signs), make plausible the inter-

pretation of this sign as 'sheep and goats'. The fact that the signs are on the whole abstract forms
may be suggestive either of a set of symbols commonly shared in Mesopotamia and Susiana for do-
mestic animals prior to the inception of written documents (so-called tokens), or —and
seems this

more likely —of a defective borrowing of signs already in use in Uruk (Schmandt-Besserat 1992;
Damerow and Englund 1989: 53-55). Right: Account of seven labor gangs (Scheil 1923, no. 45).
The sign for 'workman' is the most common sign used as a symbol qualifying Proto-Elamite names.
All the names in a text may be introduced by this sign; for the most part, however, only the first enti \

of a text is (Damerow and Englund 1989: 53-55).

in lines from top to bottom. The first signs on a Proto-Elamite tablet generally express
the purpose and acting person or institution of the text, followed by individual entries,

without the formal arrangement of the tablet into the columns known in proto-cunei-

form (see figure 13). Each entry normally includes an ideographic notation repre-
senting persons/institutions or quantified objects or both, followed by a numerical
notation. That all entries in Proto-Elamite texts seem to contain a numerical notation

suggests they represent more the structure of a system of bookkeeping than the divi-
sion of a spoken language into distinct sentences or comparable semantic units. Con-
tinuing analysis of the Proto-Elamite numerical systems (see figure 14), which
derived from the systems developed earlier in Mesopotamia, has been a powerful tool
in recent semantic identifications of a number of signs and sign combinations, includ-
164 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

ing those for animals, for grain products and, it seems, for humans (Meriggi 1971;
Vaiman 1972; Friberg 1978; Damerow and Englund 1987: 1 17-21, 1989: 18-30, 53-
Damerow, and Englund 1993: 75-79; see figure 15).
55; Nissen,

Bibliography

Andre, B., and Mirjo Salvini. 1989. "Reflexions sur Puzur-Insusinak." Iranica Antiqua 24: 53-72.
Brice, William. 962-63. "The Writing System of the Proto-Elamite Account Tablets of Susa." Bul-
1

letin of the John Rylands Library 45: 15-39.

Carter, Elizabeth, and Matthew W. Stolper. 1984. Elam: Surveys of Political History and Archaeol-
ogy. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Damerow, Peter, and Robert Englund. 1987. "Die Zahlzeichensysteme der Archaischen Texte aus
Uruk." In Zeichenliste der Archaischen Texte aus Uruk, by Margaret W. Green and Hans Nis-
sen, pp. 1 17-66. Berlin: Mann.
.
1989. The Proto-Elamite Texts from Tepe Yahya (American School of Prehistoric Research
Bulletin 39). Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Friberg, Joran. 1978. The Early Roots of Babylonian Mathematics, vol. 1. Goteborg: Chalmers
Technical University, University at Goteborg.
Gelb, I. J. 1963. A Study of Writing, 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
.
1 975. "Methods of Decipherment." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 95-104.
Hinz, Walter. 1975. "Problems of Linear Elamite." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 106-15.
Langdon, Stephen. 1928. Pictographic Inscriptions from Jemdet Nasr (Oxford Editions of Cunei-
form Texts 7). London: Oxford University Press.
Le Brun, Alain. 1971. "Recherches stratigraphiques a l'Acropole de Suse, 1969-1971." Cahiers de
la Delegation Archeologique Francaise en Iran 1: 163-216.
Mecquenem, Roland de. 1949. Epigraphie proto-elamite (Mission de la Delegation en Perse 31).
Paris: Presses Universitaires de France.
Meriggi, Piero. 1969. "Altsumerische und proto-elamische Bilderschrift." Zeitschrift der Deutschen
Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft Supp. 1: 156-63.
.
1971-74. La scrittura proto-elamica. 3 vols. Rome: Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei.
.
1975. "Der Stand der Erforschung des Proto-elamischen.'Vowrna/ of the Royal Asiatic So-
ciety 105.
Nicholas, Ilene. 1981. "Investigating an Ancient Suburb." Expedition 23: 39-47.
Nissen, Hans, Peter Damerow, and Robert Englund. 1993. Archaic Bookkeeping: Writing and Tech-
niques of Economic Administration in the Ancient Near East. Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press.

Reiner, Erica. 1969. "The Elamite Language." In Altkleinasiatische Sprachen (Handbuch der Orien-
talistik division 1, vol. 2, part 1-2, fascicle 2), pp. 54-1 18. Leiden: Brill.

Scheil, Vincent. 1900. Textes elamites-semitiques (Mission de la Delegation en Perse 2). Paris: Le-
roux.
.
1905. Documents en (MDP 6). Paris: Leroux.
ecriture proto-elamite
.
1923. Textes de comptabilite proto-elamites (MDP 17). Paris: Leroux.
•
'935- Textes de comptabilite proto-elamites (MDP 26). Paris: Leroux.
Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. 1992. Before Writing. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Stolper, Matthew W. 1985. "Proto-Elamite Texts from Tall-i Malyan." Kadmos 24: 1-12.
Sumner, William. 1976. "Excavations at Tall-i Malyan (Anshan) 1974." Iran 14: 103-14.
Vaiman, A. A. 1972. "A Comparative Study of the Proto-Elamite and Proto-Sumerian Scripts" [in

Russian]. Vestnik Drevnej Istorii 1972-73: 124-33. English summary, p. 133; German transla-

tion in Baghdader Mitteilungen 20 (1989): 101-14.

SECTION II

The Indus Script

Asko Parpola

Historical background and development

From the fourth millennium until about 2600 b.c.e., the Early Harappan cultures of
eastern Baluchistan and the Indus Valley used "potters' marks" but had no real writ-
ing. The Indus script came into being during the short transition period that led to the

emergence of the literate Indus Civilization around 2500. The adoption of naval
transport changed the volume and direction of internal and external trade. Towns
along the old land routes to Inner Asia and Iran withered, while new settlements were
founded on the coast. Between ca. 2400 and 1900, the Harappans traded in the Gulf
and Mesopotamia, as evidenced by forty seals with Indus script found in the Near
East (Parpola 1994A). The first seafaring Indus merchants probably saw writing being
used by their western trade partners, who had become literate much earlier. Instead
of copying foreign script signs, however, the Harappans devised their own; some at

least go back to local Early Harappan symbols. (There is a parallel in the sudden
emergence of a mature writing system based on local art traditions in Upper Egypt,
ca. 3000 b.c.e., evidently triggered by the influence of Sumerians or Proto-Elamites;

see Ray 1986: 308-1 1, Amiet 1980: 38-39.)

So far, we have not seen the Indus script in its formative phase; in its fully devel-

oped form, it has no obvious genetic affinity with any other known script. There is

little diachronic or regional development in the script until it disappears around 1900
b.c.e. with the collapse of the urban civilization that created and used it. At the re-

mote southern site of Daimabad, in Maharashtra, the script lingered on until about
1700. There is no connection whatsoever with the earliest scripts of historical South
Asia, Brahmi and Kharoshthi, which were created on the basis of Semitic and Greek
alphabets and used from the third century b.c.e.

Obstacles to decipherment
The Indus script has withstood more than fifty at decipherment made since
attempts
a stamp seal from Harappa, containing the firstknown sample of it, was published in
1875. A principal reason is the total lack of translations into known scripts and lan-
guages. Even historical information, such as names and genealogies of kings (which
helped to decipher cuneiform script), is absent. Nor do we have any definite informa-

65
166 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

tion on the affinity of the Harappan language(s). In addition, all the approximately
4000 word division is not specifically
texts are short; indicated; and sign forms have
often been simplified beyond pictorial recognition.

Characteristics

Direction of writing

There is fair agreement about the direction of writing in the Indus script. Normally
the texts are to be read from right to left; in the case of inscribed seal stamps, this ap-

plies to their impressions. But occasionally the direction may be reversed, particularly
in early "miniature tablets" from Harappa. Overlaps of lines in pottery graffiti indi-

cate in which order and direction the signs were drawn. Other external criteria are

provided by orientation and spacing of the components in asymmetric signs and un-
even distribution of the text on the available writing space. Most important is the in-
ternal evidence of sign distribution: some signs and sequences are characteristic of
the beginning, others of the end of inscriptions. The frequency patterns of sign se-
quences also show that some of the rare multi-line texts run in alternate directions

(boustrophedon).

The means of distinguishing words

The average length of the Indus texts is five signs. The minimum length is one sign,

and the longest known have 28 signs (divided into three lines on three sides of a pris-

matic amulet), 17 signs (divided into three lines on one side of a seal), and 14 signs
(a single continuous line). Word division does not appear to have been marked in any
way. Distributional analysis does not confirm the hypothesis that signs consisting of
single or double short vertical strokes may be markers of word division. The only re-
liable means of distinguishing words is comparative study of partially identical com-
plete texts of different length. Normal word length seems to vary from one to three

signs. A few signs have been suspected of representing declensional suffixes, but

these identifications remain uncertain.

Type of the script and orthography

Widely diverging estimates of the number of characters in the Indus script have been
made, but 400 different signs should be close to the truth; see table ii.i. Some
signs have a great number of graphic variants. Occasionally it is hard to say whether
two nearly similar signs are distinct symbols or merely allographs of one symbol, par-
ticularly if they have a low frequency of occurrence. Together with the short word
length and the great age of the script, the number of characters strongly suggests that
the Indus script is a logosyllabic writing system.
 SECTION 11: THE INDUS SCRIPT J 57

table 1 1 . i : Inventory of Signs

*hn» y /t\? * :*:mm«m k f 1 :*:

I* :o # :$:*4-4<?i)® <# «^rii :i:

tM J A cC X HiTIi W fFTT «<

^ * )+(? WW '

> " Hi V,V !!!!

*r r r (v;)^
1
? v $ nr

H) H C(H
1 iiii)iiii)i 11 :n; 111 hi

Hill
1

11/ I// ) 7; ) ) (

>.vj:a k k ns^w mam ox a r r»r:

? NM4>;iK ^ ^k x§Hi :x:)X(T ft X

A A

8 § oatrn o <8> <?> 0:0:0

0000000^000 M^MO
h8 § i§i
168 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

Many compound signs occur in the Indus script, consisting of two or more ele-
ments that may or may not occur also as separate signs. A compound sign and one of
the signs forming it can replace each other in identical or nearly identical contexts

(table i 1.2); this suggests some kind of redundancy for the added component(s).
There is reason to believe that some of these "redundant" elements are determina-

tives, as known from other logosyllabic scripts, i.e. auxiliary signs specifying the se-
mantic or phonetic reading of the main sign. Some signs, such as that apparently

depicting 'man' or 'human being', enter into a whole series of compound signs. They
may denote compound words representing occupational titles (such as for example
police-man or fisher-man in English), with an optional second member of the com-
pound.
The iconic nature of some Indus signs constitutes one of the chief keys to their
interpretation. Unfortunately the pictorial meaning of most Indus signs is not clear.
As in many other scripts, the demand for fluency in writing led to a radical simplifi-
cation of their shapes.
Numerals belong to the few Indus signs whose function and meaning can be de-
duced with fair certainty, partly from their form (they consist of groups of vertical

strokes, as in many other scripts), and partly from their mutual interchangeability in
fixed positions: the numerals regularly occur before specific signs. The fact that the

head word is preceded and not followed by the numeral attribute is a typological fea-
ture that helps in the identification of the Indus language.

Current state of decipherment

The failure to solve the Indus puzzle is also the result of methodological weaknesses.
Most commonly, Indus signs have been equated with similar-looking signs of other
readable ancient scripts, and the phonetic values of the latter have been transferred to
the Indus signs. However, this method has a chance of success only when the scripts
compared are closely related.
In the early logosyllabic scripts, many signs were originally pictures denoting the
objects or ideas they represented. Such an ideographically used pictogram may be
roughly understood directly from its iconic shape, irrespective of how any word cor-
responding to the sign's meaning was pronounced. But in order to express things that
are impossible to represent by pictures in an unambiguous way, the meaning of a pic-
togram or ideogram was extended from the word for the depicted object to all its ho-
mophones. A valid methodology for deciphering a logosyllabic script phonetically
can be devised on the basis of this use of the rebus principle. It may be possible to
identify the language underlying the script and to decipher some of the pictograms if

four conditions are simultaneously fulfilled: (a) the object depicted in a given picto-
gram can be recognized; (b) the pictogram has been used phonetically for a word with
the same sound as, but a meaning different from, the object it represents; (c) this in-
tended meaning (expressed by punning) can be deduced from the context; and (d) a
 SECTION 1 1 : THE INDUS SCRIPT \ 59

table 1 1 .2: Texts in the Indus Script with Partially Identical Sign Sequences"

A. 'Man' Ligatures

w ~v 3266
b
• if***!!!
1077
0488
2519 *vtr* pa on
1087 UK/i^|l4 T^nil ,,

2027 YIIWfcAPQII
2226 1X**DII
t ??# ^n H

2466° o|«8?f p Dll

r ~r 2366 VA# "aMiili !

1037
4113 Ull! T Ulll !

tfX-K 2434
2088 11**"'
3651 II K"« IVCDV
1542 II K'"

W~U 3412
3458 Ullll ?4T
3372 *Ull 1VMA4
3419 Ull IVMa>
B. Other Signs
#~€ 1052
8527

0~C1 6020 v<c»y*ucr

2657

>ili!) ~ii!l 3086 A)i5)

5056 a a

i~A 233
0732 ?6W
a ~n 2535
25.11 Vlt^6'»
1 296
vx^"$
6140
van yy
1 104 VX^Ilia*©"©
2655 VTJiilliJ*©
a. After Parpola 1994, fig. 5.3. Texts cited from Kosl:.:iriieini and Parpola 1979. 1980, 1982.
b. Cf. also 2466.
c. Cf. also 3266.
170 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

1
table 1 1 .3: Interpretations of Indus Signs ami Sign Combinations'

Sign or Shared Phonetic Shape

Combination Pictorial Meaning in Dravidian Intended Meaning

'fish' mln 'star'

'roof + 'fish' mey/may + mln 'black' + 'star' (= Saturn)

'green' + 'star' (=
'halving, dividing' + 'fish' pacu + mln
Mercury)
'white (bright, star)' +
All '(intervening) space' + 'fish' ve|i/vel(ji) + mln
'star' (= Venus)

AW 'fig tree' + 'fish' vata + mln 'north' + 'star'

IIW 'fig tree' + 'space' vata + velli 'north' + 'star'

Alii 'six' + 'fish' caru + mln 'six' + 'star' (= Pleiades)

a. After Parpola 1988: 132.

linguistically satisfactory homophony with these two meanings exists in a likely lan-
guage. If an opening can be effected, the order of the operations can be permuted.
Besides the question concerning the type of writing, the other principal problem
connected with the Indus script concerns the genetic affinity of its language. The Dra-
vidian language family, nowadays distributed throughout South India and in isolated
pockets of Baluchistan and North India, is the most likely candidate historically. Dra-
vidian loanwords are found in the Rigveda, which was composed in the northern In-

dus Valley during the latter half of the second millennium b.c.e. This hypothesis
seems to be confirmed by interlocking interpretations oi' a small number of Indus pic-
tograms, whose intended meaning can be deduced from the contexts to some extent
(table 1 1.3): Pictograms (col. i) can be interpreted as representing (Proto-)Dravid-

ian words (cols. 2-3) which are homophonous with compound words attested in Dra-
vidian languages as names of heavenly bodies (cols. 3-4), which in turn are assumed
to represent divinities (as in the ancient Near Eastern and later Hindu religions); for

detailed arguments on some two dozen tentative readings, see Parpola 1994B. The
other main contestant for the language of the Indus script in attempts at decipherment
is Sanskrit or more broadly Indo-Aryan, spoken in the Indus Valley since the second
millennium b.c.e. but probably not earlier (see Mahadevan 1982, Norman 1984).
While amulet tablets and pottery graffiti stand out among the categories of texts,
more than sixty percent of the surviving texts are seal inscriptions. Their content ap-
pears to be similar to the readable inscriptions on the Near Eastern seals used by the
trade partners of the Harappans: the latter contain personal names and titles of office
(with names of divinities as important components). The texts transcribed in
table 1 1.2 include seal inscriptions and small tablets; spaces within texts rellect
breaks between lines or sides within inscriptions.
 SECTION 1 1: THE INDUS SCRIPT \1 \

Bibliography

Amiet, Pierre. 1980. La glyptique mesopotamienne archaique, 2nd ed. Paris: Editions du Centre Na-
tional de la Recherche Scientifique.
Joshi, Jagat Pati, and Asko Parpola, eds. 1987. Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions, vol. 1: Col-
lections in India (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae B 239; Memoirs of the Archaeo-
logical Survey of India 86). Helsinki: Suomalainen Tiedeakatemia.
Koskenniemi, Kimmo, and Asko Parpola. 1979. Corpus of Texts in the Indus Script (University of
Helsinki, Department of Asian and African Studies, Research Reports 1).
.
1980. Documentation and Duplicates of the Texts in the Indus Script (University of Hel-
sinki, Department of Asian and African Studies, Research Reports 2).
.
1982. A Concordance to the Texts in the Indus Script (University of Helsinki, Department
of Asian and African Studies, Research Reports 3).

Krishna Rao, M. V. N. 1982. Indus Script Deciphered. Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan.
Mahadevan, Iravatham. 1977. The Indus Script: Texts, Concordance and Tables (Memoirs of the Ar-
chaeological Survey of India 77). New Delhi: Archaeological Survey of India.
. 1982. "S. R. Rao's Decipherment of the Indus Script." The Indian Historical Review 8/1-
2: 58-73-
Mitchiner, John E. 1978. Studies in the Indus Valley Inscriptions. Delhi: Oxford University Press.
Norman, K. R. 1984. "The Decipherment of the Indus Valley Script" [Review of Mitchiner 1978,
Krishna Rao 1982, and Rao 1982]. Lingua 63: 313-24.
Parpola, Asko. 1975. 'Tasks, Methods and Results in the Study of the Indus Script." Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society, pp. 178-209.
.
1986. "The Indus Script: A Challenging Puzzle." World Archaeology 17: 399-419.
. 1988. "Religion Reflected in the Iconic Signs of the Indus Script: Penetrating into Long-
forgotten Picto+graphic Messages." Visible Religion 6: 1 14-35.
.
1994A. "Harappan Inscriptions: An Analytical Catalogue of the Indus Inscriptions from the
Near East." In Qala 'at al -Bahrain, 1: The Northern City Wall and the Islamic Fortress (Jutland
Archaeooogical Society Publications 30:1), by Flemming Hojlund and H. Hellmuth Andersen,
pp. 304-15, 483-92. Aarhus: Aarhus University Press.

1994B. Deciphering the Indus Script. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rao, S. R. 1982. The Decipherment of the Indus Script. Bombay: Asia Publishing House.
Ray, John D. 1986. "The Emergence of Writing in Egypt." World Archaeology 17: 307-16.
Shah, Sayid Ghulam Mustafa, and Asko Parpola, eds. 1991 Corpus of Indus Seals and Inscriptions.
.

vol. 2: Collections in Pakistan (Annales Academiae Scientiarum Fennicae B 240; Memoirs o\'
the Department of Archaeology and Museums, Government of Pakistan 5). Helsinki: Suoma-
lainen Tiedeakatemia.
SECTION

Maya and Other Mesoamerican Scripts

Martha J. Macri

Archeological, linguistic, and ethnographic data confirm that the peoples of Meso-
america have been interacting with each other for thousands of years. Although many
centuries separate the stone inscriptions of the Mayas and the Zapotecs, the pictorial
manuscripts of the Mixtecs and the Aztecs, and the Quiche Popol Vuh (written in the
Roman alphabet), each records shared knowledge and beliefs about the world which
have astounded modern scholars and Scheie 1993). Associated with de-
(e.g. Freidel

tailed political histories is a knowledge of solar, lunar, stellar, and planetary phenom-
ena that can only be the result of centuries of recorded observation. Just as writing in

ancient Mesopotamia developed within the context of commerce, writing in Meso-

america is inextricably connected with an intricate calendar and seems to have devel-
oped partially in response to the desire to record astronomical observations.

Mesoamerican cultures shared a vigesimal counting system, a count of 13 days,

a set of 20 day names, combining them into a 260 day cycle; and a year of 18 named
months of 20 days each, plus a period of 5 days; and a combination of the 260- and
365-day cycles into a Calendar Round of 52 years. Several groups, including the
Maya and the Epi-Olmec, recorded Long Count dates (the total number of days since
the beginning of the current era in 31 14 b.c.e. in groups of days, 20 days, 360 days,
20 x 360 days, 400 x 360 days, etc.; Sharer 1994).
The ancient Olmec civilization known from the sites of Tres Zapotes, La Venta,
and San Lorenzo along the Gulf of Mexico had a complex iconography but left no
written texts. A column of three symbols on Monument 13, the Ambassador, from La
Venta hints that this civilization might have had a writing system (Marcus 1976: 47-
48). True writing is first attested in Oaxaca, the Gulf Coast region, and the Guatema-
lan Pacific Piedmont and Highlands between 500 b.c.e. and 150 c.e. (Justeson et al.
1985; Marcus 1976). The development of writing from an intricate iconography into
a script with increasingly larger logographic and phonetic components remains a fa-
vored hypothesis of the origin of Mesoamerican scripts. However, the relationships
between the scripts is not well understood, and there is lack of agreement about which
is the earliest.
A conservative estimate of the number of distinct writing systems identified in
pre-Columbian Mesoamerica is fifteen —
many known only from a single inscription.
Scripts for which a sufficient corpus remains to allow a meaningful analysis can be
grouped into logographic/syllabic scripts and codified pictorial systems. Features

172
 SECTION 12: MAYA AND OTHER MESOAMERICAN SCRIPTS J 73

20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

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80 81 82 83 84 85 86 87 88 89

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131 132 133 134 135 136 137 138 139

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178 179 180 181 182 183 184 185

figure 6. Sign list for La Mojarra Stela i and the Tuxtla Statuette
1

(Macri and Stark 1993, signs after drawing by George Stuart (Wintield Capitaine [988)).
174 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

used in comparisons of these scripts include arrangement of symbols (boustrophedon,

single or double column format), enlarged calendrical statements, numbers (dots
only, or bar/dot combinations for numbers over five), Long Count dates (Justeson et
al. 1985: 40), and the placement of bar/dot numbers with respect to day signs (verti-

cally with bars closest to the sign, horizontally, beneath the sign with dots above bars,

or beneath the sign with the bars above the dots).

Logographic/syllabic scripts
Three logographic/syllabic traditions existed in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica: the
Zapotec, the Epi-Olmec, and the Maya. Writing first appears at the Zapotec site of
Monte Alban on and 13 about 500-400 b.c.e. (Marcus 1976: 45-47). Al-
Stelas 12
though the study of Zapotec writing is in its infancy (Marcus 1992: 72), the arrange-
ment of signs and the abstract form of many of them suggest the script is analogous
to the logographic/syllabic Epi-Olmec and Maya scripts. Texts from Monte Alban I

and II (500 b.c.e. - 100 c.e.) have signs of regular width closely stacked in columns.
Numbers are placed beneath calendrical signs with dots above bars. Later texts from
Monte Alban III (after 100 c.e.), such as Stela 1 (Marcus 1992, fig. 10.11) and the
Lapida de Bazan (Marcus 1983B, fig. 6.7), have less regularly shaped signs placed
farther apart and have numbers beneath calendrical signs with bars above the dots.

This may reflect influence from Central Mexico.

The Epi-Olmec script is known principally from two inscriptions from Veracruz.
The Tuxtla Statuette and La Mojarra Stela 1, dated at 163 c.e. and 156 c.e. respec-
tively (Holmes 1907; Winfield Capitaine 1988), contain both historical and astronom-

ical data (Justeson and Kaufman 1993). The length of the La Mojarra text (over 500
signs) and the pattern of repetition of certain characters support the identification of
the script as mixed logographic and phonetic. The sign list (figure 16) shows sim-
ple, abstract signs which are probably phonetic (e.g. MS 22, 38, 63) and more com-
plex representational signs that are probably logographic (e.g. MS 152, 168). Other
related monuments from Veracruz and Chiapas, some with even earlier dates, such as
Tres Zapotes Stela C, dated at 32 b.c.e., bore inscriptions which are missing or are
no longer readable. Eroded texts from Cerro de las Mesas, arranged in a similar co-

lumnar format, are later examples of the same script tradition.

Maya writing

The earliest Maya writing dates from before 250 c.e., but it probably has origins at

of the Epi-Olmec script. The

least as early as those incised glyphic text on Kaminal-
juyu Stela 10 (200 b.c.e. - 200 c.e.) stands in an ambiguous intermediate position
between the Epi-Olmec and the Classic Maya scripts (Macri 1 99 1 ). figure i 7 shows
several shared characters of similar form.
 SECTION 12: MAYA AND OTHER MESOAMERICAN SCRIPTS J 75

GB S3

HM

Jfl IB

figure 17. A comparison of Maya (left) and La Mojarra (right) signs with those on Kaminaljuyu
Stela 10 (center) (after Macri 1991).

Maya writing, though not completely deciphered, is the best understood of all
Mesoamerican scripts, known from hundreds of sculptures as well as painted pottery,
and four bark paper codices. The first bishop of the Yucatan, Bishop Landa, attests

that itwas still in use among speakers of Yucatec Maya in the sixteenth century.
The last several decades have seen rapid development in its decipherment (Coe
1992, G. Stuart 1992). This has been due to a number of factors, including Yuriy Kno-
rozov's assertion that the script is composed of logographic and syllabic signs (1963.
1967), Proskouriakoff's proof of the historic content of the texts (i960, 1963), im-
proved access to texts such as the Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions edited
by Ian Graham et al. (1975- ), and detailed structural analysis of texts such as those

of Palenque (Mathews and Scheie 1974). Histories of various sites are summarized in

Houston 1993, Scheie and Freidel 1990, and Tate 1992. The Maya Hieroglyph Data-
base Project (University of California, Davis) estimates the total number of characters
at fewer than 600. table 12.1 is a chart of signs for which syllabic readings have
176 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

1
table 1 2. 1 : Maya Glyphs with Syllabic Values'

to
•0;
@ So

©e

in
 SECTION 12: MAYA AND OTHER MESOAMERICAN SCRIPTS | 77

table 1 2. 1 : Maya Glyphs with Syllabic Values" (Continued)

ts

Ch
£03

ch'

<§§)

$£9

Rl
a. Redrawn by Judy Alexander alter Thompson 1962. For a more complete syllabary see Scheie and Grube
1995: 16-17.
178 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

MR2 MR3
713a, 217b, c 217a

£3 MR8
21 8d

^3 MZ5

J^ MZA
221 a, d

MZK MZM
220e

figure 1 8. Symbols in the Maya script based on hands; beneath each one appears the grapheme
conde and the Thompson catalog number(drawing by Judy Alexander after Thompson 1962).

been proposed. Glyphs are usually read from left to right in double columns from top
to bottom. Signs within glyph blocks read loosely from upper left corner to lower
right corner, with generous allowances for artistic convention, figure 18 contains
signs consisting of hands, many of which have known phonetic values.

Sample of Maya Script

Transcription and translation by Macri based on previous work by several epigraphers
(e.g. Berlin 1963; Bricker 1986: 129, 1989; Macri 1988; Mathews 1979; Scheie
1978-93; D. Stuart 1987, 1990). Logograms (shown in uppercase letters) appear in

combination with CV syllabic signs. Variations of a single sign, as well as substitu-

tions of equivalent signs, are frequent in Maya texts. In this passage, for example,
there are five different variants for the third person marker u. The clause is part of a
longer text commemorating the ritual dressing of the ruler Pakal at twenty year cere-
monies. Although this clause contains a list of ritual costuming of which Kawil is the
 SECTION 12: MAYA AND OTHER MESOAMERICAN SCRIPTS \ 70,

k'a
/. Interp.: y-ak'aw u-pi(s)
ya u pi
2. Gloss: he.presents his-cycle
wa

WINIK xo
/. hun winik pixol
hun Pi
2. one twenty hat
ki la

u hu /. u-sak hunal u-ha(l)

na u ha 2. his-white headband
SAK la his-necklace

ch'u CHAN
1. yax ch'ul chan tun
YAX TUN?
2. green sacred sky stone
li na

tu
/. u-tup yax
u YAX
2. his-earrings green
pa u

KAWAW ch'o
/. u-kawaw ch'ok
u
2. his-helmet young. one
wa ko

ka wi k'a
/. Kawil y-ak'a-w
ya
2. Kawil it. is. given
wa

named possessor, it is not clear whether Kawil is also the subject of the sentence, or
whether the subject of this entire passage is the ruler Pakal. The presence of the third
person ergative subject marker (it- before consonant-initial roots, v- before vowels)
on the verb ak' 'give, present, offer' suggests an active-voice, ergative construction.
The postfix -wa is not well understood.

'He presents young KawiTs [a mythological personage] cycle of twenty, the

hat, his white headband, his heavenly greenstone (jade) necklace, his green ear-
rings, and his helmet.'
— From the middle panel of the Temple of the Inscriptions at Palenque (Kj-Kg).
180 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

Codified pictorial systems

The Nuine script of the Mixteca Baja region of Oaxaca, known primarily from stones
and urns bearing short inscriptions, dating from 400 to 700 c.E., shows more similar-

ity to Monte Alban inscriptions than to those from any other Mesoamerican site.
Moser (1977) numbers 142 motifs (actually over 200 different elements).
Teotihuacan, which flourished approximately from 200 b.c.e. to 650 c.E., left no
evidence of a script, but its artists clearly distinguished between pictorial imagery and
iconographic signs. Langley (1991) lists 120 signs as having clear notational signifi-

cance. Berlo (1989: 44) sees Teotihuacan as the source for the highly conventional-
ized system which later spread throughout Central Mexico.
By the time of the European invasion in the sixteenth century, the Aztecs of
Tenochtitlan, the Mixtecs of southern Puebla and northern Oaxaca (Byland 1993:
xiii-xv; Jansen 1990; Smith 1983), and the Zapotecs of Oaxaca (Marcus 1992: 69-
75) had hundreds of paper manuscripts which recorded both history and mythic tra-

ditions. However, these manuscripts, containing more logographic than phonetic

signs, relied heavily on context —on learned cultural conventions — for resolving am-
biguities; this limits the ability of modern scholars to reconstruct precise word-for-

word transcriptions. Thus we speak of the interpretation of these texts rather than of
their decipherment. Glass (1975 a, 1975B) offers a survey of both pre- and post-colo-
nial pictorial manuscripts, along with detailed ethnohistoric and bibliographic
sources.
The culture of literacy played an important role in the history of Mesoamerica.
Every language family has names for 'paper', 'book', 'scribe', and 'writing'. Unfor-
tunately, what we know of these scripts is based on a very small, and usually not rep-
resentative, sample of the texts that once existed. But even from this shadowy picture
we see the fascinating variety of graphic communication which existed in this region.

Bibliography

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91-99.
Berlo, Janet Catherine. 1989. "Early Writing in Central Mexico: In Tlilli, In Tlapalli before a.d.
1000." In Mesoamerica after the Decline of Teotihuacan A.D. 700-900, ed. Richard A. Diehl
and Janet Catherine Berlo, pp. 19-47. Washington, D.C.: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library
and Collection.
Bricker, Victoria R. 1986. A Grammar of Mayan Hieroglyphs (Middle American Research Institute

Publications 56). New Orleans: Tulane University.

— . 1989. "Notes on Classic Maya Metrology." In Fifth Palenque Round Table, 1983, vol. 7, ed.
Virginia M. Fields, pp. 189-92. San Francisco: Pre-Columbian Art Research Institute.

Byland, Bruce E. 1993. "Introduction and Commentary." In The Codex Borgia: A Full-Color Res-
toration of the Ancient Mexican Manuscript, by Gisele Diaz and Alan Rodgers, pp. xiii-xxxii.
New York: Dover.
 SECTION 12: MAYA AND OTHER MESOAMERICAN SCRIPTS 1
g]

Coe, Michael D. 1992. Breaking the Maya Code. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Freidel, David, and Linda Scheie. 1993. Maya Cosmos: Three Thousand Years on the Shaman's
Path. New York: Morrow.
Glass, John B. 1975 a. "A Survey of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts." In Guide to
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Cline, pp. 3-80. Austin: University of Texas Press.

. 1975B. "A Census of Native Middle American Pictorial Manuscripts." In Guide to Ethno-
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81-252. Austin: University of Texas Press.
Graham, Ian, et al. 1975- Corpus of Maya Hieroglyphic Inscriptions. Cambridge: Harvard Univer-
.

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Greene Robertson, Merle. 1983. The Sculpture ofPalenque, vol. 1: The Temple of the Inscriptions.
Princeton: Princeton University Press.
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Houston, Stephen D. 1989. Maya Glyphs (Reading the Past). London: British Museum; Berkeley
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.
1993. Hieroglyphs and History at Dos Pilas: Dynastic Politics of the Classic Maya. Austin:
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Jansen, Maarten. 1990. "The Search for History in Mixtec Codices." Ancient Mesoamerica 1: 99-
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Justeson, John S., and Terrence Kaufman. 1993. "A Decipherment of Epi-Olmec Hieroglyphic Writ-
ing." Science 259: 703-1 1.
1

Justeson, John S., William M. Norman, Lyle Campbell, and Terrence Kaufman. 1985. The Foreign
Impact on Lowland Mayan Language and Script (Middle American Research Institute, Publi-

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Knorozov, Yuriy V. 1963. Pis'mennost' indejcev maija. Moscow and Leningrad: Academy of Sci-

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Macri, Martha J.1988. "A Descriptive Grammar of Palenque Mayan." Ph.D. dissertation, University
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182 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

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Altun Ha, Belize, 1964-1970, ed. David Pendergast, vol. 1, pp. 791".. Toronto: Royal Ontario
Museum.
Mathews, Peter, and Linda Scheie. 1974. "Lords of Palenque: The Glyphic Evidence." In Primera
Mesa Redonda de Palenque, part 1, ed. Merle Greene Robertson, pp. 63-76. Pebble Beach, Ca-
lif.: Robert Louis Stevenson School.
Moser, Christopher L. 1977. Nuihe Writing and Iconography of the Mixteca Baja (Vanderbilt Uni-
versity Publications in Anthropology 19). Nashville.

Proskouriakoff, Tatiana. i960. "Historical Implications of a Pattern of Dates at Piedras Negras,

Guatemala." American Antiquity 25: 454-75.
. 1963. "Historical Data in the Inscriptions of Yaxchilan." Es/W/as' de Cultnra Maya 4: 177-
202.
Scheie, Linda. 1978-93. Notebooks for the Maya Hieroglyphic Writing Workshop at Texas. Austin:
University of Texas, Institute of Latin American Studies.
Scheie, Linda, and David Freidel. 1990. A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya.
New York: Morrow.
Scheie, Linda, and Nikolai Grube. 1995. Notebook for the XlXth Maya Hieroglyphic Workshop at
Texas. Austin: University of Texas.
Scheie, Linda, Peter Mathews, and Floyd Lounsbury. 1990. "Untying the Headband." Texas Notes
on Precolumbian Art, Writing, and Culture, No. 4.
Sharer, Robert J. 1994. The Ancient Maya, 5th ed. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Smith, Mary Elizabeth. 1983. "The Mixtec Writing System." In The Cloud People: Divergent Evo-
lutionof the Zapotec and Mixtec Civilizations, ed. Kent V. Flannery and Joyce Marcus, pp.
238-45. New York: Academic Press.
Stuart, David. 1987. Ten Phonetic Syllables (Research Reports on Ancient Maya Writing 14). Wash-
ington, D.C.: Center for Maya Research.
1990. "The Decipherment of 'Directional Count Glyphs'
. in Maya Inscriptions." Ancient
Mesoamerica 1: 213-24.
Stuart, George E. 1992. "Quest for Decipherment: A Historical and Biographical Survey of Maya
Hieroglyphic Investigation." In New Theories on the Ancient Maya (University Museum Sym-
posium Series 3), ed. Elin C. Danien and Robert J. Sharer, pp. 1-63. Philadelphia: University
of Pennsylvania, University Museum.
Tate, Carolyn. 1992. Yaxchilan: The Design of a Maya Ceremonial City. Austin: University of Texas
Press.
Thompson, J. Eric S. 1962. A Catalog of Maya Hieroglyphs. Norman: University of Oklahoma
Press.

. 1 97 1. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction, 3rd ed. Norman: University of Okla-

homa Press.
Winfield Capitaine, Fernando. 1988. La Estela 1 de La Mojarra, Veracruz, Mexico (Research Re-
ports on Ancient Maya Writing 16). Washington, D.C.: Center for Maya Research.
SECTION 13

Rongorongo of Easter Island

Martha J. Macri

Easter Island, over 3600 km west of Chile and 2600 km east of the island of Manga-
reva, was first visited by European sailors in 1722. In 1862 Peruvian ships kidnapped
over 1400 islanders, speakers of Rapanui (a Polynesian language). By the time Euro-
pean missionaries began to notice the rongorongo (lit. 'recitation') boards covered
with rows of incised characters, knowledge of how to read and write them had been
lost. In addition to classical rongorongo script, Barthel (1971) notes the presence of
two other scripts on the island: the tau and mama scripts, which had separate inven-
tories of signs. Fischer (1993B) lists 26 rongorongo texts, 6 ta'u texts, and 2 mama
texts. Only classical script is discussed here.

Progress in decipherment
Florentin Etienne Jaussen, the Catholic bishop in Tahiti in 1866 — working with Me-
toro Taouaoure, an Easter Islander in Tahiti —created a list of several hundred signs
grouped according to subject matter, with French and Rapanui translations (Heyer-
dahl and Ferdon 1965, figs. 83-94). In 1956 a manuscript containing rongorongo
signs with Rapanui translations in roman script, belonging to Esteban Atan, was
shown to members of the Norwegian expedition (ibid., figs. 97-1 2 1 ). Examination of
both of these sources suggests only that the writing was pictographic, giving no evi-
dence of relationships between signs with similar features and words or phrases with
similar sounds or meanings.
One of the earliest observations based purely on the structure of the script was
published posthumously by Borja Kudrjavtsev (1949), a young Russian who ob-
served a repeated sequence in the two St. Petersburg tablets (RR 17-18 in Fischer
1993B), later also observed in two additional tablets (Butinov 1990: 268). Butinov
and Knorozov (1957) called attention to a sequence of signs which they said was a
genealogy. The tablets are read left to right, from bottom to top, in reverse boustro-

phedon fashion. Barthel (1958) provided scholars with line drawings of the entire cor-
pus arranged in lines reading from left to right. He provides a list of several hundred
signs (numbers go to 778, but not all slots are filled). Barthel (1963) lists a sign in-
ventory of 150, and later (Barthel 1971) 120 sign*. Twenty years later, Barthel writes

(1993: 175) that he considers as much as ninety percent of his earlier work to be
correct.

83
134 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

& 2> C fe

a'. b'. c'. d'. e'. f'g'. h'. i'. j'. k\ I'

figure 19. Petroglyph motifs with corresponding Rongorongo symbols (marked with '), drawings
by Judy Alexander after Lee 1992: (a) Anthropomorphic figure (fig. 3.5:2), (b) Bird man (fig. 3.7:2),
(c) Turtle (fig. 3.9:9), (d) Plant (fig. 3.15:2), (e) Two-headed frigate bird (fig. 3.8.4, rotated slightly
and flipped on vertical axis), (f) Tern (fig. 3.8:2), (g) Frigate bird (fig. 3.8.4), (h) Fish (fig. 3.9.1),
(i) Eye mask (fig. 3.6:4), (j) Vulva (fig. 3.6:8), (k) Lunate (fig. 3.14:10), (1) Rei miro, a crescent-
shaped wooden pectoral (fig. 3.1 1:1, rotated 90 ), (m) Fishhook (fig. 3.13:1). (bottom) Partial list of
other symbols.

Viktor Krupa identified signs for 'moon', iizard', and the god Tane, and pro-
duced a frequency chart of human figures with varying head forms ( 1 97 1 , 1 972, 1 973,
1974). Jacques Guy of the Australian National University has contributed an interest-
ing discussion of fused glyphs (1982) and notes a sequence from the Tahua tablet

(RR 1) which occurs on three other tablets (1985).

Sergej Rjabchikov of Krasnodar claimed the script is "typical of other mixed
ideographic and phonetic writing systems, relying on ideograms proper, phonograms,
and generic determinatives" (1987: 361). He notes allographic variations of several
glyphs (1988). Criticizing his work, Guy (1988) cautions that only the Marmari tablet
(RR 2), which Barthel showed was a lunar calendar, is understood beyond reasonable
doubt. He rejects assigning readings at this stage but characterizes the script as a
mixed ideographic and phonetic system.
 SECTION 13: RONGORONGO OF EASTER ISLAND 185

(K/W
nmn
figure 20. One line of text from the Keiti tablet (RR6) (after Barthel 1958: Ev3).
Two repeated sequences are underlined.

In spite of impressive contributions by international scholars, Vignes (1990) ob-

serves correctly that the script remains undeciphered, and that we are still at the be-
ginning of rongorongo studies. In fact, many of these scholars have suggested, in
otherwise useful publications, all manner of fanciful interpretations.

A linguistic approach to decipherment

I propose a sign analysis which is both rigorous and systematic (Macri in prepara-
tion). It begins with an examination of the art of the island (Lee 1992), observing
similarities between the written symbols and those found carved on stone or wood.
figure I9a-m' is not an exhaustive list, but does establish beyond any doubt that the
script belongs to Easter Island. Even a cursory examination shows that most of the
signs are composed of fairly simple forms which appear in a number of combinations
(figure I9n, figure 20). However, signs which some researchers have considered
basic are, in fact, products of doubling (figure 21), concatenation (figure 22a)
sometimes in boustrophedon fashion, reduction of size (figure 22b), rotation
(figure 22a, e), and finally, of complex conflation of two or more signs
(figure 22b-e). Four symbols (figure 19a', b', e', and f g'), and perhaps more, have
the quality of undergoing loss of many of their elements when combined with other
symbols.
Invoking these principles, the texts can be accounted for with fewer than 70 sym-
bols — a number consistent only with a syllabary. Rapanui has 10 consonants [p t k ?
m n 13 h r v] and 5 vowels [i e a o u], so only 55 signs are required to represent all

syllables composed of a single vowel or of a consonant + vowel. In addition to the 55

signs required by a syllabary, some signs, such as the lunar crescent and the lizard,

were probably used logographically.

186 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

figure 2 1 . Doubled symbols (drawing by Judy Alexander).

This analysis is consistent with the assertion of islanders that each graphic unit
(composed of one to four or five syllabic elements) represents a single word, and with
the correlation between the number of symbols and the number of possible syllables
in the Rapanui language. Complete decipherment can only be accomplished through
the cooperative efforts of Rapanui speakers, art historians, archeologists, and lin-
guists. Texts need to be assembled and redrawn (Dederen and Fischer 1993), individ-

m - d
+ + &

*
+ oU ] +
^

%- fl

figure 22. Composite signs showing full forms of constituent symbols

(drawing by Judy Alexander).
 SECTION 13: RONGORONGO OF EASTER ISLAND \ §7

ual symbols identified, and syllabic and/or logographic values demonstrated.

Vignes's (1990) suggestion of a computer database will be an essential part of such
an analysis.

Bibliography

Barthel, Thomas S. 1958. Grundlagen zur Entzifferung der Osterinselschrift (Abhandlungen aus
dem Gebiet der Auslandskunde 64, series B, vol. 36). Hamburg: Cram, de Gruyter.
.
1963. "Rongorongo-Studien (Forschungen und Fortschritte bei der weiteren Entzifferung
der Osterinselschrift)." Anthropos 58: 372-436.
.
1 97 1. "Pre-contact Writing in Oceania." In Current Trends in Linguistics, ed. Thomas A.
Sebeok, vol. 8: Linguistics in Oceania, pp. 1 165-86. The Hague: Mouton.
.
1993. "Perspectives and Directions of the Classical Rapanui Script." In Fischer 1993 a:
174-76.
Butinov, N. A. 1990. "Decipherment of the Easter Island Script." In Culture and History in the Pa-
cific, ed. Jukka Siikala, pp. 267-82. Helsinki: Suomen Antropologisen Seura.
Butinov, N. A., and Yuriy V. Knorozov. 1957. "Preliminary Report on the Study of the Written Lan-
guage of Easter Island." Journal of the Polynesian Society 66/1 5-17. :

Dederen, Francois, and Steven Roger Fischer. 1993. "The Traditional Production of the Rapanui
Tablets." In Fischer 1993 a: 182-84.
Fischer, Steven Roger, ed. 1993A. Easter Island Studies: Contributions to the History of Rapanui in
Memory of William T. Mulloy (Oxbow Monograph 32). Oxford: Oxbow Books.
.
1993B. "A Provisional Inventory of the Inscribed Artifacts in the Three Rapanui Scripts.*"
In Fischer 1993A: 177-81.
Guy, Jacques B. 1982. "Fused Glyphs in the Easter Island Script." Journal of the Polynesian Society
91:445-47.
.
1985. "On a Fragment of the 'Tahua' Tablet." Journal of the Polynesian Society 94:
367-88.
.
1988. "Rjabchikov's Decipherments Examined." Journal of the Polynesian Society 97:
321-23.
Heyerdahl, Thor, and Edwin N. Ferdon, Jr.. eds. 1 965. Reports of the Norwegian Archaeological Ex-
pedition to Easter Island and the East Pacific, vol. 2: Miscellaneous Papers (Monographs of
the School of American Research and the Museum of New Mexico 24/2). Chicago: Rand Mc-
Nally.
Krupa, Viktor. 1971. "'Moon' in the Writing of Easter Island.** Oceanic Linguistics 10: [-10.

.
1972. "Some Human Figures and Hand Forms in the Writing of Easter Island." Asia/i and
African Studies 8: 19-26.
.
1973. "Tane in the Easter Island Script." Asian and African Studies 9: 1 15-19.
.
1974. "The Symbol for Lizard in the Writing of the Easter Island." Asian and African Stud-
ies 10: 61-67.
Kudrjavtsev, Borja. 1949. "Pis 'mennost' Ostrova Paschi" [Writing of Easter Island]. Sbornik Muzeja
Antropologii i Etnografii (Leningrad) 2: 176-221.
Lee, Georgia. 1992. Rock Art of Easter Island: Symbols of Power, Prayers to the G^/.s (Monumenta
Archaeologica 17). Los Angeles: U.C.L.A. Institute of Archaeology.
Macri, Martha J. in preparation. "The Easter Island Tablets: A Phonetic Script."*

Rjabchikov, Sergej V. 1987. "Progress Report on the Decipherment of the Easter Island Writing
System." Journal of the Polynesian Society 96: 361-67.
1988. "Allographs Variations of Easter Island Glyphs." Journal of the Polynesian Society
.
188 PART III: DECIPHERMENT

97:313-20.
Vignes, Jacques. 1990. "Is a New Approach to the Decipherment of Rongorongo Writing Neces-
sary?" In State and Perspectives of Scientific Research in Easter Island Culture, ed. Heide-Mar-
garet Esen-Baur, pp. 1 15-19. Frankfurt: Courier Forschungsinstitut Senchkenberg.
 Part IV: East Asian
Writing Systems

The East Asian scripts covered in this section are all traceable one way or
another to Chinese as their source. This is a consequence of the pervasive cultural
dominance that Chinese civilization has consistently enjoyed throughout East Asia
from the earliest historical period. The modern Chinese script, of course, as well as
Japanese (kanji and kana alike) and Korean (except for the Hankul letters) are all ei-

ther varieties of, or derived from, Chinese characters. Before the Koreans and Japa-
nese used Chinese characters to write their own languages (which may be related to
each other and in turn to the Altaic group but are not related to Chinese), they adopted
the Chinese language as the linguistic vehicle for the composition of their own liter-

ary texts, and in this they of course used Chinese characters. It was therefore a natural
next step, when they began to write their native languages, to use Chinese characters
there as well. Because these scripts arise directly from the Chinese, we may designate
them, along with Chinese proper, by the general term Sinitic. An adaptation of Chi-
nese script was also used in Vietnam, under the name elm nom, until it was replaced
by the Roman alphabet in the seventeenth century.
Medieval scripts of Inner Asia — such as those of Tangut (Tibeto-Burman) and of
Khitan and Jurchin (Altaic) —and scripts used for certain languages of South China,
such as Yi (of the Tai family), are only impressionistically based on the appearance
of Chinese characters, and bear no genuine evolutionary or cognate relation to Chi-
nese writing. As with the spatial arrangement of Korean hankul letters, the external

shape of the graphic complexes in these scripts reflects the influence of Chinese char-
acters, even though the internal structure of the graphs proper has no connection with
Chinese; the scripts themselves are in no way actual descendants of Chinese orthog-
raphy. Scripts of this type we call Siniform because they take the outward form of the
Chinese script as their basis, but are otherwise unrelated to it.

Chinese writing is the oldest of any East Asian script and is the only one to have

arisen ex nihilo, first appearing in north-central China in the second half of the second
millennium b.c.e. There is no persuasive evidence for any fully developed kind of

189
190 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

writing system, Chinese or other, in East Asia prior to this time, nor is there any indi-
cation of outside influence, e.g. from the ancient Near East, on the invention of the
Chinese script.

In recent centuries, the Siniform scripts (except for a few examples like the Yi)

have been replaced by syllabic or alphabetic scripts. The Sinitic scripts, by contrast,

have endured as viable writing systems throughout China and Japan, yielding neither
to Indie aksharas nor to European alphabets in spite of extensive cultural contacts
with both. The traditional Korean mixed script with its heavy component of Chinese
characters was replaced in North Korea in the 1 940s, largely for political reasons, by
writing exclusively in hankul. In South Korea, use of the traditional mixed script last-

ed until very recently and has still not been entirely supplanted by an exclusively
hankul writing system, although the clear tendency is to use fewer Chinese characters
as time goes on.
— William G. Boltz
SECTION

Early Chinese Writing

William G. Boltz

We know from direct archeological evidence that Chinese writing arose no later than
the last quarter of the second millennium b.c.e. in north-central China. This is the lo-
cale of the first historically attested period of Chinese civilization, the Shang or Yin
dynasty; the two names refer to the same political and cultural entity.

The first appearance of what we recognize unequivocally to be Chinese writing

comes in the form of inscribed ox scapulas and turtle plastrons from sites near modern
Anyang 3c p§ on the northern border of Henan province. These inscribed objects,
which date from about 1200 b.c.e. to the end of the Shang state 150 years later, are
records of royal divinations performed at the Shang court and are therefore often re-
ferred to as "oracle bone inscriptions." There is no proof that the Shang Chinese were
solely responsible for the origin of writing in China; but neither is there evidence of
recognizable Chinese writing from any earlier time or any other place.
It is true that Chinese archeologists have uncovered numerous neolithic pottery
fragments, some dating back to ca. 4800 b.c.e., that carry incised marks of one kind
or another (e.g. Cheung 1983); but none of these marks can be successfully identified
with the characters of the Shang inscriptions, or in any other way as Chinese writing.
Apart from the near impossibility of deciphering a few scattered graphs occurring
outside a known linguistic context, the sheer extent of time (close to 3500 years in
some cases) precludes these marks from being direct forerunners of Shang characters.
Neither is there any indication that writing was imported into China from any civili-

zation in Western Asia, or from anywhere else.

The Chinese characters in use today are the direct descendants of the Chinese
script of the Shang period. In outward appearance, to be sure, modern characters dif-

fer substantially from those of the Shang inscriptions, so that the latter are not read-

able by someone who knows only the modern forms; nevertheless, the basic
structural principles that underlie the Shang writing system are fundamentally the

same as for later stages of the Chinese script, including the modern script.
The Shang writing system is logographic; i.e., each character stands for a single
word (technically, for a single syllabic morpheme), and each character can therefore
be called a logogram. Formally there are two different kinds: those that consist of one
graphic element alone and cannot be divided into component parts, called unit char-
acters, and those that are made up of two or more component parts, called compound

characters.

191
 1

192 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 14. 1 : Shang Unit Characters

I * 'person' A ren

2 * 'large' -x da

3
<W 'eye' S mu
4 O 'sun, day' s ri

5 U 'mouth, orifice' p kou

6 Ct 'ear' ? er

7 \ 'hand' X you

8 ) 'moon, month' E yue

m
9 'rain' m yu

10 :).'
'water' * shut

1
¥ 'ox' * niii

12 * 'boat' & zhou

13 i 'king' 5E wang
14 * 'woman' ~k nu

15 'cowrie shell' M bei

16 O 'top of the head' T ding

17 X 'growing grain' 7^ he

Unit characters
Examples of unit characters of the Shang script, with modern equivalents and read-
ings, are given in table 14.1. A few of them, when we already know what words
they stand for, seem pictographically realistic, e.g., table 14.1:4, 5, 8, 9, and 14.
This suggests that the first steps of the Chinese toward a script entailed drawing real-
istic pictures of easily depictable things and letting the picture stand for the name of
the thing in question. Thus } (no. 8) was in origin presumably a pictographic repre-
sentation of a crescent moon; and $, (no. 14) portrayed a kneeling human figure, arms
crossed in front (presumably a woman, since this is the precursor of the modern char-
acter ^C for nu 'woman').
These graphs convey meaning in Shang inscriptions by standing for the names of
the objects they depict, i.e. for the words denoting those objects. Number 13, for ex-
ample, stands for the word wang (or more precisely, for the Old Chinese word that

has become modern Chinese wang). (When the Old Chinese pronunciation is perti-

nent to the discussion, I give it with an asterisk; otherwise I use modern Chinese).*
Since the word wang means 'king', the graph conveys that meaning, but only through
the medium of the word. There is nothing remotely suggestive of a 'king' in the

*The reconstruction of Old Chinese follows that of Norman (1994), except that pharyngealization is marked
s
with rather than '
.
 SECTION 14: EARLY CHINESE WRITING ]
93

graphic shape t alone. By the same token, (no. 15) stands for the word bei 'cowrie
shell', and means 'cowrie shell' only by virtue of standing for that word. Once we
know that is used to write the word bei 'cowrie shell', we may be inclined to see
an image of a cowrie shell in the character; but this is surely only after the fact.

The first important consequence of this use of graphs was the recognition that a
graph could be used to stand for a second word, pronounced like the first, but with a

different and often unrelated meaning, especially one that did not lend itself to direct
pictographic representation. This is what is commonly called the rebus use of graphs.

Thus I (no. 13) was used to write the verb wdng 'go toward'. This word had no se-
mantic link to wdng 'king'; it just happened to be pronounced very nearly the same
way. In the same way 0, standing for bei 'cowrie shell', was used to write the verb
*'
bai 'defeat', and Q (no. 16) ding (Old Chinese 'ting) 'top of the head', was used to
,

write the nearly homophonous word zheng (Old Chinese *ting) 'to mount a military
expedition'. The rebus use of characters increased the effectiveness of the writing
system significantly. Hundreds of words with meanings that were not amenable to

pictographic representation could now be written by the rebus principle.

If a graph could be used to stand for a semantically unrelated but phonetically
similar word, it could also stand for a phonetically unrelated but semantically related
word. This is called the polyphonic use of a graph; like the rebus principle, this al-
lowed the writing of numerous words that could not otherwise be written. The word
ming 'call out', for example, was written with U (no. 5), which presumably depicted
an orifice of some kind, and which represented the word kdu 'mouth'. The words
ming 'call out' and kdu 'mouth' clearly have nothing in common in pronunciation;
but just as clearly they are linked semantically. Similarly, w (no. 3) was used to write

the vtxbjian 'to see'. The character ) (no. 8), standing originally for yue 'moon', was
used to write the semantically related word ming 'brighten'.
These two extended uses of characters, by the rebus principle and by polyphony,
are simply two converse ways of doing the same thing. In both cases the graphs still

stand for words, and can still properly be called logograms, even though the words
are not necessarily those for which they were originally created. This is called by the

general term graphic multivalence.

Graphic multivalence introduced considerable versatility into the nascent Chi-

nese writing system, providing a way to write words that would not otherwise be writ-

able because their meanings did not lend themselves to direct graphic depiction. At
the same time it perforce introduced a significant measure of ambiguity semantic or —
phonetic. Often, of course, the context of a passage would readily determine which
was intended. But there must have been an unwelcome abundance of cases
possibility

when the context was not sufficient to resolve the ambiguity. Hence some other re-
course was needed to keep the writing system from succumbing to an unmanageable
burden of ambiguity.
194 PART ,V: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Compound characters

To solve the problem of ambiguity, the Chinese scribes appended secondary graphic
components, called determinatives, to ambiguous primary graphs; such components

specify either the intended meaning or the pronunciation. The addition of these sec-
ondary graphs to potentially ambiguous primary graphs gave rise to compound char-
acters.
In cases of semantic ambiguity, like that attending i, which could stand for wdng
'king' or wdng 'go toward', the determinative serves to indicate which of the two
words is intended. When i was used for the word wdng 'go toward', the secondary
graph tf (ih/^I), standing independently for zhi 'step, stop/go', was added, yielding
a compound graph | (ti). Similarly, when was used to stand for bdi 'defeat' as

opposed to bei 'cowrie shell', the secondary graph i( (jL), standing independently for
the word pu 'strike', was appended, giving compound graph "4 (lift). The secondary
a
graphs function as semantic determinatives. The rationale for their use is based on
meaning alone; their pronunciation has no bearing on their usage here.
Phonetic ambiguity was resolved in a comparable way: secondary graphs were
appended to phonetically ambiguous primary graphs, to indicate which of two or
more possible pronunciations was intended in a particular case. The character U could
stand for either kdu 'mouth' or ming 'to speak, call out'. In the latter usage, the sec-
ondary graph }, pronounced ming (with the meaning 'brighten'), was appended to

specify the pronunciation ming as opposed compound graph

to kdu\ the result was the
&J>(£i). Similarly, J (no. 17), which could stand either for the word he 'growing
grain' or for the semantically akin but phonetically distinct word nidn 'harvest' (>
'year'), was written f (^) with the graph ) (A) ren (Old Chinese *znen) added un-

derneath to determine the pronunciation nidn (Old Chinese * ''zneri) unambiguously.

The secondary graphs function as phonetic determinatives; their intrinsic meaning is

irrelevant to these usages.

Like unit characters, compound characters could be used either polyphonically
or as rebuses; thus they were susceptible of receiving additional added components
as determinatives. The graph ^ ming 'call out', consisting of two components, was
used as a rebus for the homophonous word ming 'inscription (on a bronze vessel)';
later it acquired the semantic determinative # referring to 'metal', thus coming to be
written % with three graphic components in all. (Characters can in theory have an un-
limited number of components, in practice as many as five or six, e.g. St luo 'naked'
with five, Hf yu 'worried' with six; characters with more than six are distinctly un-
common.) Early scribes, sensing the structural principles that underlay the emerging
writing system, probably created additional new compound characters outright, even
if the underlying unit character had not actually been used multivalently before.
Examples of compound characters in the Shang script, with modern equivalents
and readings, are given in table 14.2.
 SECTION 14: EARLY CHINESE WRITING ]
95

TABLE 14 2: Slicing Compund Characters

I
i 'go toward' ti wang
2 % 'defeat' m bai

3 I
'harvest, year' ¥ nian

4 »j>
'call out, name' £ ming

5 » 'mount a military expedition' !E zheng

6 V
ft 'dusk' M mu
7 1 'catch' zhl

8 jft
'illness' £ ji

9 iY 'male animal' tt mu
10 f 'spring season' # chun

1
$ 'dream' w meng
12 # 'change' n yi

With the versatility that compound characters brought to the script —together
with the fact that they, like unit characters, could be used multivalently — the Chinese
writing system achieved a form that allowed for full expression of the language, while
still remaining fundamentally logographic. In a given written context any character,
compound or unit, stood for a single syllable, and as far as we know, that syllable al-

ways corresponded to a single word. Some characters always stood for the same
word; others, thanks to the multivalent feature of the script, could stand for one of
several possibilities, depending on context. No character ever stood for an "idea" in-
dependently of a word. Chinese characters stood, and continue to stand, for words,
and only by extension for the ideas those words convey. The word "ideogram" (or

"ideograph") is thus inapplicable to Chinese characters.

Apart from a few oracle texts, texts from the early Zhou are known only in the

form of inscriptions cast on bronze vessels. Cast inscriptions, because they are made
initially in soft clay, impose fewer constraints on the execution of the characters than
incised inscriptions; thus the outward appearance of the script of bronze inscriptions
differs substantially from that of the Shang oracle bone texts. Later texts came to be

written in ink on bamboo, wood, and silk, allowing for the same orthographic versa-
tility as the bronzes. This greater latitude in executing characters, combined with in-

numerable idiosyncratic and independent regional developments, gave rise to a large

number of different ways for writing the same words from text to text and place to
place. None of this diversity affected the basic structural rules of the writing system.
Orthographic irregularity had become so widespread by the end of the third cen-
tury b.c.e., when the state of Qin succeeded in uniting all of China for the first time
into a single empire, that standardization of the script became one of the Qin emper-
or's earliest social goals. The Emperor's Grand Councillor LT SI is credited with es-

tablishing and promulgating a type of script intended to serve as a standard, called the
196 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

"Small Seal" or sometimes the "Qin Seal" script, in contrast to an earlier "Large Seal"
script. Both scripts were ostensibly used, as their names imply, for seals, i.e. signets,

of officials and noblemen.

The actual orthographic consequences of this official policy are not clear. The ev-
idence of recently discovered silk manuscripts dating from around 200 b.c.e. suggests
that, even a generation after the Qin attempts at standardization, the writing system
was still characterized by much orthographic instability and variation. Some of these
manuscripts even hint at impending desemanticization of a few graphs, which would
have allowed them to function almost as syllabograms. Had this tendency fulfilled it-

self, it might have added a genuine syllabary to the Chinese writing system. But that

did not happen. The tendency toward desemanticization was arrested by a conscien-
tious use of semantic determinatives as an intrinsic part of a character's structure, al-
most as if the intellectuals of the time were consciously committed to thwarting any
movement in the direction of a syllabary and to reaffirming the logographic structure
of the script.

Tangible evidence of a genuine orthographic standardization does not appear un-

til 100 when the Shud wenjie zi
c.e., WiSCM^ 1 'Explaining the unit characters and
analyzing the compound characters', a lexicon of about 9,500 characters, was com-
piled by Xu Shen W\%. Taking the Small Seal form of characters as basic, Xu ex-
plains and analyzes nearly the entire inventory of known characters of his time within
a framework of structural categories that constitutes a de facto standardization of the

script. Against this framework he is able to identify nonstandard forms of characters,

implicitly curbing their use.
The Shud wenjie zi classifies characters at three different levels. The most fun-
damental is the bipartite distinction between unit characters (wen ~SC) and compound
characters (zi *f)\ this classification is implicit but unambiguous. The next is accord-
ing to a set of 540 different graphic elements, which we now call semantic classifiers.

One of these 540 occurs in the graphic structure of every character, and this compo-
nent is deemed indicative of the semantic class of the word for which the character
stands. The character is therefore entered in the lexicon under that classifier. Charac-
ters often contain more than one of these components, -but only one of them is taken
as the primary semantic indicator, i.e. the semantic classifier under which the charac-
ter will be entered.
While this seems at first to produce a 540-way classification scheme, it is in fact

a way of rendering all compound characters bipartite, regardless of how many com-
ponents the character actually has, by singling out a single component as the semantic
classifier. This in effect imposes a hierarchy on the components of compound charac-
ters with more than two elements; simultaneously, it ratifies earlier efforts to ensure
that semantic constituents remain an integral part of characters and thus that the char-

acters themselves remain unfalteringly invested with meaning as well as sound. The
effect is to preclude any further movement toward desemanticization and the devel-

opment of syllabograms.
 SECTION 14: EARLY CHINESE WRITING J 97

At the third level, Xu Shen ascribes characters to one of six different classes; four
are based on graphic structure, and two on usage. These classes are known tradition-
ally as the liu shii f\1f, the 'six [classes of] script'; they do not recapitulate the actual
historical development of the writing system, although it is sometimes claimed that
they do. Instead they constitute a set of explicitly descriptive, and perhaps implicitly
prescriptive, rules accounting for the graphic structure and usage of characters in the
writing system of the first century c.e.

(1) Zhlshi #f(l 'indicating the matter'; unit characters that are graphically
suggestive in some impressionistic sense of the meaning of the word they write,
e.g. _h shang 'above', T xia 'below'.
(2) Xidng xing %$& 'representing the form'; unit characters that are ostensi-
bly graphic representations of the thing in question, e.g. § mu 'eye', If er
'ear'.

(3) Xing sheng W>% 'forming the sound'; compound characters comprising a
semantic determinative and a sound-bearing element, e.g. ift bai 'defeat' (from
Jl bei), BE zheng 'mount a military expedition' (from IE zheng).
(4) Hui yi ffM 'conjoining the sense'; compound characters that are ana-
lyzed as if the meaning of the word for which they stand were reflected by the

combination of graphic constituents in the character, e.g. fjtf xin 'trustworthy'

(as if from A ren 'person' and fi ydn 'speech', "a person keeping his word"),
Si wil 'martial' (as if from ih zhi 'stop' and ~Jc ge 'spear', "putting a stop to the

use of weapons"). In origin actual characters are never formed this way; this is

an artificial, retrospective category.

(5) Zhudn zhu $$&. 'redirected characters'. This and the next are classes of
usage, not of character structure; it is not clear what exactly the process of
"redirecting" characters was, but it seems to have had to do with writing etymo-
logically related words with related, but not identical, characters. The usual
example is # kdo 'aged' and ^ Ido 'old'; the process that this is intended to
exemplify is not obvious.
(6) Jidjie iPlflf 'borrowed characters'. Like the above, this is not a descrip-

tion of graphic structure. name for the use of a character to write a word
It is a
different from, but homophonous or nearly homophonous with, the word that
the character in question conventionally writes. For example, ^ ling 'com-
mand' used to write lidng 'fine' (usually written M.).

The Small Seal script that Xu Shen took as basic did not become the quotidian
script of his time; but it did devolve into a simplified form called li shii HH 'clerical

script', which was widely used in administrative contexts. It is this script that under-

lies virtually all subsequent forms of the Chinese writing system. For comparison of
character forms, see table 14.3.
By the Qing dynasty (1644-19 1 1), the number of Chinese characters had grown
Kangxi Emperor appointed a panel of schol-
to several tens of thousands. In 17 10 the

ars to prepare a new comprehensive dictionary; this was completed in 1716, and is

known as the Kangxi zididn SlSB^ft The Kangxi character dictionary'. It was ar-
198 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

a
table 14.3: Comparison of Script Forms

Oracle bone Bronze 5ma// Sea/ Clerical Modern

inscription inscription script script character Pronunciation Meaning

1 X X X. 5 wu 'five'

\ t t T ling 'command'

•^ ming
\ ^ * 'fate'

xian
f 1 n *> 5fe 'prior'

f 5: s ke 'conquer'
* »
1 ft f — it yu 'parturition'

1 * m xiao 'filiality'
\ 1
1 * « m shi 'affair'
\

t K n * s shou 'receive'

f f H geng 'change'
7 1

t £ # C II zhu 'expel'

Jin 'advance'
$ * 11 f 5i

¥ * *B *© ffi xiang 'inspect'

Q\ ft * * ft qu 'take'

«\ * fl * £ ji 'sacrifice'

% $ $ & K shou 'animal'

¥ T ¥ ¥ T gan 'stalk'

f « 1 mai 'buy'
8 f
S g I ffi
M meng 'covenant'

N n t JR. j§ ding 'cauldron'

3 i « * a wu 'martial'

1 f * ^ * fang 'area'

I ft i 4?? ^ an 'settled'

4 J 6 * * qu 'depart'

r t ft *S 4 zai 'located'

a. Columns 1-3 from Gao Ming 1980; column 4 from the Qin Han Wei Jin zhuan li zixfng bido (1985).
 SECTION 14: EARLY CHINESE WRITING \ C)g

ranged according to a scheme of 214 semantic classifiers, a considerable reduction

from the 540 of Xu Shen's Shud wenjiezi. Conversely, it contains over 47,000 char-
acters, as compared to the approximately 9,500 in the Shud wen. Within each seman-

tic classifier category, classifiers are entered in order of increasing number of residual
strokes, i.e. number of strokes in that part of the character exclusive of the classifier.
The Kangxi dictionary has become the standard authority for the whole range of Clas-
sical Chinese literature, and its scheme of 214 semantic classifiers, now commonly

called radicals, remains basic for Chinese reference works of all kinds, in spite of re-

cent sporadic and arbitrary efforts at simplification.

Bibliography

Boltz, William G. 1986. "Early Chinese Writing." World Archaeology 17: 420-36.
.
1 994. The Origin and Early Development of the Chinese Writing System (American Orien-
tal Series 78). New Haven: American Oriental Society.
Cheung Kwong-yue. 1983. "Recent Archaeological Evidence Relating to the Origin of Chinese
Characters." In The Origins of Chinese Civilization, ed. David N. Keightley, pp. 323-91. Ber-
keley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
DeFrancis, John. 1984. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii
Press.

Gao Ming M^M- 1980. Gil wen zi lei bidn [Tables of ancient characters] ^yC^$^M- Peking:
Zhong hua 4 P. 1

Karlgren, Bernhard. 1940. Grammata Serica. Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities
(Stockholm) 12.

.
1957. Grammata Serica Recensa. Bulletin of the Museum of Far Eastern Antiquities
(Stockholm) 29.
Keightley, David N. 1989. 'The Origins of Writing in China: Scripts and Cultural Contexts." In The
Origins of Writing, ed. Wayne M. Senner, pp. 171-202. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Norman, Jerry. 1994. "Pharyngealization in Early Chinese." Journal of the American Oriental So-

ciety 1 14: 397-408.

Qin Han Wei Jin zhudn li zi xing bido [Tables of the 'seal' and 'clerical' characters from the Qfn,
Han, Wei, and Jin periods] WM
Y-^ l<- [985. Chengdu: Sichuan cishu IZ3 II
Tsien, Tsuen-hsuin. 1962. Written on Bamboo and Silk. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
SECTION 15

Modern Chinese Writing

Victor H. Mair

Since the great codification of the Chinese writing system at the end of the first cen-
tury c.e. in Xu Shen's Shud wenjie zi 'Explanation of simple and compound graphs',
the number of sinograms ('characters'; hdnzi, Jpn. kanji, Kor. hanja) has continued
to grow steadily. Xu's dictionary included a total of 9,353 characters. In succeeding

centuries, lexicographic works contained the following numbers of characters:

11,520 (compiled during the period 227-239); 12,824 (in 400); 13,734 (in 500);
22,726 (in 534); 26,911 (in 753); 31,319 (in 1066); 33,179 (in 1615); 47,043 (in
1 7 16). The most recent dictionary of single graphs published in China, Hdnyu da zi-

didn (1986-90) lists about 60,000.

So long as the script is actively used, the number of sinograms will continue to

grow because, unlike a phonetic script, the traditional Chinese writing system is

open-ended. This is due to the fact that, as in any language, words are constantly be-
ing added to the lexicon. Since the representation of these words is fundamentally
logographic —
or, more precisely, morphosyllabic —
new sinograms must be invented
when new morphemes arise in the Chinese languages or enter through borrowings.
Although the characters are made up of recurring components, their shapes and
proportions change in combination; hence each character is a distinct entity and must
be stored as a separate unit in memories or fonts. But of course the number of char-
acters in daily use is at least a factor often smaller than the total number in existence.

Massive statistical studies of a wide variety of reading material in China during

the last two decades have repeatedly demonstrated that 1 ,000 sinograms cover ap-
proximately 90% of all occurrences in typical texts, 2,400 sinograms cover 99%,
3,800 cover 99.9%, 5,200 cover 99.99%, and 6,600 cover 99.999%. The percentages
are intriguingly similar for earlier periods of Chinese history when only Classical
Chinese texts were normally composed and written (written Vernacular Chinese, a
relatively late phenomenon, had not yet come into existence; see Mair 994). 1 It would
appear that there is a natural upper limit to the number of unique forms that can be
tolerated in a functioning script. For most individuals, this amount seems to lie in the

range of approximately 2,000-2,500. Still, the command of 2,400 diverse signs — the
number considered by educators as essential for basic reading and writing skills — is

a formidable task.
The vast majority of the graphs found in the largest Chinese character dictionar-
ies are extremely rare. Many are so obscure that neither the sound nor the meaning is

200
 SECTION 15: MODERN CHINESE WRITING 20

known, only the shape; others may only have been used once or twice in all of history.
Unfortunately, they cannot be completely ignored by font-makers, lexicographers,
and classicists.

Many scholars, especially linguists and Sinologists, now agree that the Chinese
script may be described as an enormously large but phonetically imprecise syllabary,
with strong visual and semantic qualities (DeFrancis 1984, 1989). A few philosophers
still insist that the Chinese writing system is pictographic and "ideographic" (Hansen
1993), but their views have been effectively countered by empirical and historical ev-
idence (Unger 1990, 1993). Nonetheless, it must be admitted that Chinese characters
function differently from a purely phonetic script in that they have a powerful ability
to carry semantic weight in and of themselves — i.e., without entering into combina-
tions, as is necessary for the elements of phonetic scripts to convey meaning. This can
be seen in the semantic dissonance that occurs when they are used for transcriptional
purposes. Thus, because of semantic interference, readers frequently misinterpret
such expressions as Phfft/SfS'B n Tina Gudngbo Diantdi as 'Special Acceptance
Broadcasting Station' instead of as 'Turner Broadcasting Station'.
All Chinese characters, whether they have one stroke or sixty-four strokes, are
designed to fit into the same square frame; hence they are sometimes called
fangkuaizi 'tetragrams' by the Chinese. (Chinese characters were not always written
as single syllabic units occupying a square; but for over two thousand years there has
been a fixed convention of writing each character, no matter how complex, in the

same size square.) In premodern times, all genres of texts, including poetry, were cus-
tomarily written from top to bottom, right to left, in long strips of unbroken, equidis-
tantly spaced characters, with no indication of word breaks or punctuation.
Punctuation became common in the twentieth century, although it remains unstand-
ardized and not fully utilized. Except for a few unpublicized experiments, no attempt
has been made to group syllables into words. There are still no established conven-
tions for such things as emphasis and distinguishing proper names, although various
devices (such as types of underlining or sidelining) have been invented. The direction
of writing has largely shifted so that most Chinese books and journals now read hor-
izontally from left to right, by way of accommodation to international usage.

Examination and analysis of the 8,075 sinograms in the extremely popular

Xinhua zididn 'New China character dictionary' reveal that 1,348 (17% of the total)

may function independently or as semantic or phonetic components of other charac-

ters, but 6,542 (81%) are made up of a phonetic component plus a semantic "radical,"
of which there are approximately 200 (the number varies with different dictionaries).
Only 185 (2%) do not function as components in other graphs and are not composed
of such components (Zhou 1992: 179).
It must be pointed out that neither the semantic nor the phonetic components of
the sinograms provide an exact indication of meaning or sound, but only give a vague
approximation. Thus, H bid 'sprain [ankle]' is a combination of the radical JE zu
'foot' with the phonetic rtft bi 'shabby' — which, in combination with other semantic
202 PART ,V: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

elements, gives the pronunciations hie, hie, pie, pie. Readers must guess or memorize
the appropriate sound of the phonetic for each character in which it occurs; they must
also associate the graph with a word that they already know. Only then can they arrive
at the meaning of the sinogram in question. In many cases, phonetic components have
much wider latitude than in hie 'sprain'; some have as many as a dozen or more dif-
ferent pronunciations depending on the characters in which they are found. Often a

large number of pronunciations exist for the same sinogram, e.g., ES has the following
possibilities in MSM: wei, kdi, ndi, wei, yi,ji, kdi, di, mo, gdi. In such cases, the vari-
ant pronunciations may indicate multiple meanings of the graph. Conversely, hun-
dreds of different characters may be used to represent the same sound, though with
different meanings. For example, yl is the MSM pronunciation of — or Jl 'one', Jk

'clothing', f?c 'depend on', f$ 'iridium', f^" 'he/she' (used regionally), also a sur-
name, l# part of a word meaning 'squeak' or 'babble', U 'physician', H 'tantamount
to', M 'to bow with hands clasped in front', nj| 'alas' (interjection), f«f or Sf 'ripple',

il name of a district, and so on. In earlier times, many of these sinograms would have
had distinctive pronunciations, but through a long and complicated process of pho-
netic reduction, they have collapsed into a single sound.

Relationship to the Chinese languages

One of the most difficult problems in dealing with Chinese characters (zi) is that they
are frequently confused with words (ci), the assumption being that Sinitic languages
are exclusively monosyllabic (allegedly, one graph = one syllable = one word). On
the contrary, even in the artificial classical or literary written language (passages are
not intelligible when read aloud unless previously memorized), there were many
polysyllabic words. The Lidnmidn and Citong dictionaries compiled in the twentieth
century list thousands of examples drawn from ancient texts, such as hudie 'butterfly',

zhizhu 'spider', shdnhu 'coral', weiyi 'self-possessed, nonchalant', and weichi 'sinu-
ous, winding'. The latter two words can both be written with many different combi-
nations of characters; this demonstrates the primacy of sound over symbol, and of
word over graph, even in Chinese where the characters" are so powerful.
In modern Mandarin, the average length of a word has been shown to be almost

exactly two syllables. Typical words are feiji 'airplane', ddziji 'typewriter', jingji
'economies', youyong 'to swim', culfei 'to fatten \feicui 'jadeite, halcyon', and tuifei
'decadent'. The non-monosyllabic nature of Sinitic languages is even reflected in

some deviant features of the script itself, where unofficial but widely used characters
such as ]j] tushugudn 'library', ^ qidnwd 'kilowatt', and |t] wenti 'question' show
that speakers clearly recognize these words as polysyllabic, in spite of the strongly
monosyllabic features of the script.

The script is well suited for writing Classical Chinese, but it is poorly equipped
to record the vernacularsand the regional variants (fdngydn). This defect was already
evident toward the end of the second century c.e., when the first attempts were made
 SECTION 15: MODERN CHINESE WRITING 203

table 15. 1 : Phonological Variation through Time

600 B.C. E. 600 C.E. 1008 1 2 SO 1993

v
£§ 'way, track' *drog tavv tfiaw daw dao [dau]

'M 'virtue, doughtiness' *dugh taj~ tsak tsk de [cb]

Zm 'classic, file* *gwing kirj kjiaji] kejq j"ing [*iij]

table 15.2: Phonological Variation through Space

MSM (Northern) Suzhou Wenzhou Canton Amoy

h
5^ 'tea' cha [ts a] c
zo c
dzo c tfa c
ta/c te
h
^T 'thousand' qian [te J8n] c
ts'i 1
c teT c tf'in c tf*in

ff'l 'uncle' bo/bai [bv/bai] po?3 P°3 poL, pok-^/pak.,

by Buddhists to write integral vernacular texts (Mair 1994). Eefore that time, only the
barest snatches of vernacular ever appeared in writing, and there were really no con-
ventions for composing anything other than Literary Sinitic. Still today, and even for
Pekingese (which is the current foundation for Mandarin, the lingua franca), authors
complain that it is impossible to write out all their favorite expressions in characters.

In the nonstandard, regional languages, it is all the more difficult to write out unadul-
terated speech in characters, since many of the most frequently used morphemes are

not represented in the standard set of 60,000 sinograms. Consequently, to write lan-
guages such as Cantonese, Taiwanese, and Shanghainese, it is necessary to invent nu-
merous nonce characters —or simply to resort to romanization, as has often been done
since the late nineteenth century, particularly under the influence of Western mission-
aries.

Another difficult problem caused by the sharp disjunction between spoken word
and written script in Chinais that the latter has remained relatively stable for over two

millennia — while the former, like all living languages, has evolved steadily. Although
there have been stylistic variations since the standardization of the characters during
the Qin dynasty (221-207 b.c.e.), their basic shapes and construction have changed
little. In contrast, the sounds of the Sinitic languages, and consequently the pronun-
ciations assigned to individual graphs, have changed dramatically through time and
space (see tables 15. i and 15.2; diacritics preceding and following syllables indi-

cate tone).

Reform
Various Chinese scholars, since at least the twelfth century, have recognized the cum-
bersomeness of their morphosyllabic script and the superior efficiency of phonetic

scripts for conveying the sounds of language (Mair 1993). However, because of a gen-
eralconservatism of the culture and a strong emotional attachment to the characters.
they never developed a fully functioning phonetic script of their own.
204 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Around the end of the Ming dynasty (first half of the 16th century), with the ar-
rival of the Jesuits in China, many progressive ideas became current, including the
concept of romanization. The first schemes were created by Matteo Ricci (1605) and
Nicolas Trigault (1625). During the ensuing centuries, the notion of phonetic scripts
for Sinitic languages matured, especially with their widespread adoption by Christian
missionaries for the previously unwritten regional varieties. Around the end of the
nineteenth century, there was a great wave of protest against the moribund policies of
the Manchu government in the face of foreign encroachment, and a vigorous push for
reform in all areas of intellectual, political, and social life took place; many proposals
for phonetic scripts were then put forward by Chinese patriots as means for the sal-
make China "wealthy and strong," as they put it). The first
vation of their country (to
such proposal was advanced in 1892 by Lu Zhuangzhang (1 854-1 928). Lu's alphabet
was keyed to the language of his native Amoy, but he declared that it could be applied
to Mandarin and all the other varieties.
The fall of theManchu government, and with it the dynastic structures that had
lasted for more than two thousand years, came quickly (191 1). Soon thereafter, the
new Republican government replaced Classical Chinese with Mandarin as the official
written language of the state, thus setting the stage for further linguistic reforms.
One of the most influential script reforms was the creation of a National Phonetic
Alphabet {Gudyln Zimu, also called Bopomofo; table 15.3) under the Republic of
China in 19 13. This has been very useful in the movement to extend the use of Man-
darin nationwide; many books, newspapers, and journals published in Taiwan still

employ it in a Japanese furigana-like fashion, as a sound-annotating device for the

characters.
With the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949, script reform in the

1950s and thereafter basically took a two-pronged approach: simplification of the

characters, and application of romanization to more and more spheres of activity.

Simpler variants of the characters had been used among the populace for many cen-
turies as a way to cope with their time-consuming Thus they used % for jf bdo
script.

'precious', $X for M ni 'consider', ffc for ff ti 'body', and so on. The Communists

made simplification a matter of state policy and promoted it energetically, with the
result that thousands of characters and their components took on a wholly new look.
Since most of the Chinese outside of the mainland still use the complicated forms of
the characters, the script has assumed a very different appearance (see "Comparison
of Sinitic Characters" on page 252). It has now become a task for the people of China
to read and write the unfamiliar complicated forms of the characters. In contrast, it is

hard for the people of Taiwan to read and write the alien simplified script of China.
The commonest romanization used for Mandarin in the West (and to some extent
in China) was formany years the Wade-Giles system. However, the official PRC ro-
manization known as pinyin has made great strides in specific applications during re-
cent decades. It is now used for Chinese Braille, telegraphy, shipboard semaphore,
road signs, brand names, computer input, elementary education, and a host of other
 SECTION 15: MODERN CHINESE WRITING 205

TABLE I5.3: Bdp omofo, vtvY/z Pinyin Equivalents (Chinese Language Library 1985)

Initials Finals

"J b - i X u U u
k P r a -Y ia x T ua
n m z xz uo
c f t e -it ie Ut± tie

>j d 5? ai x^ uai

£ t v. ei x^ uei
"5
n iL ao -£ iao

ft 1 X ou —x iou

« g 4 an -=* ian XH uan U^ iian

"5 k 4 en -4 in Xh uen Uh tin

r h ± ang -± iang x± uang

H j
Z- eng -z. ing X A ueng
<
q XA ong UZ- iong

T X ;l er

Mi zh

f ch 7brt£.s

>'
sh - z - 1
' - = 2 » - = 3 \ Z = 4

r hi] *h level high rising low dipping high falling

1
j
z

A s

uses (for comparison of pinyin and Wade-Giles romanization, see table 15.4). Pin-
yin has been recognized by both the United Nations and the International Standards
Organization as the standard form of romanization for Mandarin. With the elabora-
tion of an official set of orthographical rules (Yin and Felley 1990; Zhou 1992: 289-
301), pinyin is now poised to take on the role of a full-fledged script. For political and
practical reasons, the government cannot now advocate such a move. Yet the facts are
inescapable: while not yet securely established as an auxiliary script, pinyin has long
been widely accepted as a handy notational system, and China may be said already to

have entered a policy of digraphia, with pinyin and the sinograms used in comple-
mentarity. Whether or not pinyin gradually displaces sinograms remains to be seen.
The pressures of technology and information processing pose severe challenges
for all users of sinograms (Linger 1987). While valiant efforts are being made by lin-

guists, engineers, and programmers to meet these challenges, it is inevitable that

economies of cost effectiveness will require additional adjustments in the script.

Nonetheless, whatever exciting developments take place during the twenty-rirst cen-
tury, they are unlikely to bring about the total elimination of the traditional characters.
which will certainly always be used in classical studies.
206 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

01
TABLE 15.4: Mandarin Transcription Systems

Pinyin W-G IPA Pinyin W-G IPA

a e [e] In ian = ien = [ien] m m [m]

a [a] before ng, u: lao = lao = n n [n]

[lay] ng ng [0]

a [a] elsewhere [u] After a: lao = lao = [lay]

h
b P [b] [0] before u: tou = t'ou = [t oy]
h h
c tz' [ts ] Before /':
ci = tz'u = [ts i] u [u] before ng: zhong = chung =
h
ts' elsewhere: cu = tz'u = [ts u] [dzun]
h h
Note chi = ch'ih =
h
ch ch' [t§ ] [t§ j] [v] elsewhere: po = p'o = [p v]
h
d t [d] P P' [p ]

e e M Before nasals: ben = pen = q ch' [tc

h
]
Before /, u\ qu = ch'ii =
h
[ban] [te y]

eh [e] after/, u, y: tie = t'ieh = r rh [J] Final: er - erh = [yj]

h
[t ie] J [J] elsewhere; note ri - jih = [j]

e [e] before /: wei = wei = [wei] s ss/sz [s] Before /: si = ssu = [si]

e/o M elsewhere: he = he/ho = [^y] s [s] elsewhere: su = su = [su]

f f [f] sh sh [§] Note shi = shih = [sj]

g k
w t t' [t
h

h h u After qj, x, v: qu = ch'ii =

to ii
[y]

i ih [fl
After ch, r, sh, zh: chi = [tc
h
y]
h
ch'ih = [ts j] u [uy] after i: diu = tiu = [diuu]
h
u [i] after c, s, z: ci = tz'u = [ts i] u [u] before a vowel: kua - k'ua
h
i [ii] after gu, ku: kui = k'uei = = [k ya]
h
[k uii] u [u] before n: sun = sun = [sun]

i [i] before/after vowels: lai = lai u [u] elsewhere: mu = mu = [mu]

= [lai] ii ii
[y] After /, n: nil = nii = [ny]

i [1] before n, ng: bin = pin = w w [w]

[bm] X hs M Before i, u: xu = hsii = [cy]

i [i] elsewhere: //' = li = [li] y y [y]-

J
k
ch m h
Before i, u: ju = chii = [dzy] z tz [dz] Before i: zi =
=
tzu =
=
[dzi]

k' [k ] ts before u: zu tsu [dzu]

I 1 [1] zh ch [d3l Note zhi = chih = [dzj]

a. The four basic tones are written a, a, d, a in pinyin, a 1

, a 2 a 3 a4
, , in Wade-Giles (W-G). Pinyin is italicized

here for clarity.

 SECTION 15: MODERN CHINESE WRITING 207

Sample of Chinese
/. Sinograms: & + m it * h
2. Piny in: chang nian Zhong guo wen zi, zui wei mei
h
J. Transcription: ts dn nien dzun, guo won dzi dzuei wei mei
4. Gloss: PAST think China script most be~ beautiful

/. ft m m &s m m ?l
2. bei, zui fan nan. Cang Shi yi Jiang, zi ru
h
3- t?ei dzuei fan nan ts an ji (Jzarj dzi ju
4. prepare also most manifold difficult Cang scribe since multiply

/. S IZ3H ± A
2. ri duo. zi dian suo shou. si wan yu zi. shi ren
duo dzi dien suo sou si wan jy dzt sj Jon
4. day many dictionary rel receive 40,000 surplus graph scholar

i.m m m m an. h!
2. du shu, bi sheng bu neng jin shf.

3. du £u bi tS31] bu nor) dzin §j

4. study lifelong not can complete recognize

'I have thought that, while Chinese characters are the most beautiful and
complete, they are also the most complicated and difficult. Since the time of
Cang Jie (the mythical inventor of Chinese characters], they have grown and
multiplied day by day. Those which are gathered in dictionaries are more than
40,000. Scholars who read books for their whole lives cannot recognize all of
them.' —Preface to Cai Xlyong 1896, cited in Ni Hdishu 1959: 34.

Cai Xlyong (1 847-1 897) was a scholar, diplomat, educator, and reformer in the late Qing dynasty.

Bibliography

Cai Xlyong HiiJl. 1896. Chudnyln kuaizi [Rapid graphs for transmitting sounds] fllTlft^^.
Hubei Guan Shuju: woodblock. Repr. Beijing: Wenzi Gaige Chubanshe, 1956.
Chinese Language Library. 1985. Chinese Characters: Unsimplified, Simplified, plus Pinyin Ro-
manization. Beijing: Foreign Languages Press.
DeFrancis, John. 1950. Nationalism and Language Reform in China. Princeton: Princeton Univer-
sity Press. Repr. New York: Octagon, 1972.
. 1984. The Chinese Language: Fact and Fantasy. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
. 1989. Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems. Honolulu: University of
Hawaii Press.
Hansen, Chad. 1993. "Chinese Ideographs and Western Ideas." Journal ofAsian Studies 52: 373~99-
Hanyu da zidian Bianji weiyuanhui [Editorial committee for the Great character dictionary of Sin-
ittl^^^^Sfitli^Ql!". 1986-90. Hanyu da -idian [Great character dictionary of Sinit-
itic]

ic] 8 vols. Wuhan: Hubei Cishu and Sichuan Cishu.

itlgA^ft,
Mair, Victor H. 1989. "Script Reform in China." The World & I (October): 635-43.
208 PART IV: EAST AS,AN WRITING SYSTEMS

.
1993. "Cheng Ch'iao's Understanding of Sanskrit: The Concept of Spelling in China/' In
A Festschrift in Honour of Professor Jao Tsung-i on the Occasion of His Seventy-fifth Anniver-
sary, pp. 331-41. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong.
.
1994. "Buddhism and the Rise of the Written Vernacular in East Asia: The Making of Na-
tional Languages." Journal of Asian Studies 53: 707-51.
Mair, Victor H., and Yongquan Liu, eds. 199 Characters and Computers. Amsterdam: IOS Press.
1 .

Ni Haishu f'jtil0?i. 1959. Qing-md hdnyu pinyin yunddng (Qieyinzi yunddng) bidnnidnshi [Yearly
chronology of the Late Qing Sinitic spelling movement (tomogrammic movement)] in^Ttn
ftfa^fj (^H^Hfj) H*F-£. Shanghai: Shanghai renmin chubanshe.
Norman, Jerry. 1988. Chinese. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pulleyblank, Edwin. 99 Lexicon of Reconstructed Pronunciation in Early Middle Chinese, Late
1 1 .

Middle Chinese, and Early Mandarin. Vancouver: University of British Columbia Press.
Ramsey, S. Robert. 1987. The Languages of China. Princeton: Princeton University Press.
Schuessler, Axel. 1987. A Dictionary of Early Zhou Chinese. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Unger, J. Marshall. 1987. The Fifth Generation Fallacy: Why Japan Is Betting Its Future on Artificial
Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press.
.
1990. "The Very Idea: The Notion of Ideogram in China and Japan." Monumenta Nipponica
45:391-411.
1993. Communication
. to the Editor. Journal of Asian Studies 52: 949-54.
Xinhua zidian [New China character dictionary] |ffij£^iBi. 1957, 1992. Beijing: Shangwu.
Yin Binyong and Mary Felley. 1990. Chinese Romanization: Pronunciation and Orthography Pe-
king: Sinolingua.
Zhou Youguang IWJ W^c- 1992. Zhongguo yuwen zdngheng tan [Desultory discussions of Chinese
language and writing] ^MtuStUtWiak. [Beijing]: Renmin jiaoyu.
SECTION I 6

Japanese Writing
Janet S. (Shibamoto) Smith

Modern Japanese is written in a mixture of three basic scripts: kanji, a logo/morpho-

graphic script; and hiragana and katakana, two syllabaries. Additionally, romaji 'ro-
manization', eimoji 'English script' (roughly, non-Japanese words written in their
[native] alphabetic script), and a variety of kigo 'symbols' are commonly interspersed
in texts.

Kanji
Kanji are graphic elements, mostly derived from Chinese, representing logo/morpho-
logical units. These characters were introduced, probably by way of Korea, from
around the third century c.E. The same character may stand, as a homograph, for sev-
eral different morphemes (each with its specific meanings and "reading," or pronun-
ciation). O/7-readings are those based on the pronunciation of the character in
Chinese, at the time of borrowing. A'z^-readings represent a Japanese morpheme cor-
responding to the meaning of a particular character. Thus the character A 'person'
has 6w-readings that include jin and nin (cf. Mandarin reri), but the A///?-reading is

hi to.

The characters, when used to represent morphemes of Chinese origin, sometimes

contain a clue to their pronunciation. Thus the characters 31 'five', t§" T, and In 'lan-
guage' all have the <?/?-reading go. However, no more than 25% of the approximately
2000 general-use kanji contain useful phonological clues to the pronunciation of one
of their <?/?-morphemes (Paradis et al. 1985: 1 1).

Kanji are used to encode primary lexical categories: nouns, verb stems, adjective
stems, and some adverbs. Polymorphemic words are represented by more than one
kanji. Kun-readings occurin compound (multi-kanji) words as well as in single-kanji

words; <9//-readings occur much more often in compound kanji. However, all combi-
nations are possible. In principle, compound words are written/read with all on or all
kun pronunciations, but there are numerous exceptions. Yuto-yomi refers to cases in
which the first element of the compound form has a kun reading while the second has
an on reading ( ^f'i yukan 'evening newspaper' from *? sekilyu 'evening' + fJ kan -
'publish', H^
mihon 'sample' from JH ken/mi 'see' + ~fc -Imoto 'origin'). Jubako-
yomi refers to the opposite case — <9/?-reading followed by /.////-reading (^Ih honbako
'bookshelf from ^ honl- 'book' + Ir sholbako 'box', fib^J maiasa 'every morning*

209
210 PART 1V: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

from % mail -goto 'every' + ^ cholasa 'morning'). Ateji are multi-kanji words
whose component characters are pronounced in accordance with a standard pronun-
ciation but whose usual meanings are irrelevant to the meaning of the word (9o9E
kdhii 'coffee' from SJP ko 'ornamental hatpin' + £# hii 'string of many pearls'). Juku-
jikun are multi-character words whose pronunciation is independent of any pronun-
ciation of the component characters (A A otona 'adult' from A dailoki 'big' + A
jinlhito 'person').
Japanese contains a great number of homophones. These are disambiguated in
writing via different kanji for each meaning (?4^ kagaku 'science', it^ kagaku
'chemistry' from ?4 ka 'division', it ka 'change', and ^ gaku 'study'). That this

function is indispensable for the reading of Japanese is one of the reasons commonly
adduced for not eliminating kanji entirely in favor of one of the kana syllabaries.
Since World War II, the government has issued two sets of "guidelines" as to

which kanji are considered as being in common use and thus appropriate to include
in the compulsory education curriculum, to use in public or official documents, etc.

These are the ftryo-kanji list (1946, rev. 1948; 1,850 kanji) and the current joyc-kanji
list (1981; 1,945 kanji). These represent characters suggested for official use. The
number of different kanji employed in newspapers and magazines in general, howev-
er, is approximately 3200-3300 (Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyujo 1962-64, 1976). One
reason that kanji proportions in texts have not dropped below this higher general level
of use is that place and family names are written with characters not otherwise used,
increasing the number of characters needed in many texts (Seeley 1991 : 157). Also,
Japanese is written without spaces between the words; thus visual cues to morpholog-
ical segmentation, afforded by kanji, are critical. When texts are written entirely in

kana or in romaji, phrases or words, respectively, are segmented by leaving spaces be-
tween the relevant units, but such texts are not typical. Nomura (1988) reports a con-
tinuous decrease throughout this century in the use of kanji for (in temporal order) the
grammatical morphemes used in kanbun 'Chinese writing by/for Japanese'; deictics,

conjunctions, and adverbs; prefixes (fflAfc o- 'honorific'), formal nouns (¥/C t

koto 'thing, fact'), and pronouns; and indigenous Japanese words. Writers are appar-
ently resolving potential problems of morphological segmentation that result from the
reduction in the proportion of kanji used, by employing a mixture of the two kana syl-
labaries, plus a sprinkling of romaji, eimoji, and other symbols (Nomura 1988, Smith
and Schmidt 1995).

Hiragana and katakana

In addition to kanji, Japanese uses two syllabaries: hiragana and katakana. The two
kana syllabaries are phonographic characters derived in the ninth century from the
borrowed logo/morphographic kanji. Kana are complete orthographies (Faber 1992);
anything that can be said in Japanese can be written in either of the kana syllabaries.
Even sounds and sound-sequences such as **? -i Nil and T* 4 /ti/, which are not na-
 SECTION 16: JAPANESE WRITING 21 1

table 1 6. 1 : Japanese Syllabaries and Romanization a

(OV Combinati 9/W CW Combinatiot s

« i u £ o ya yu yo

< h
T
fr
^
4
#
3
*
<
X.
:n

fr
&
*
^_ #* #^ §i
'-S. # ^r * * zi *+ 3r^ *3
<* ^ £> £>
g
Hi.

Ka.
Hi.
1$
if

£
t?
*
L
?
i-
frf

?
*
df

Z
^>
t^
^
t^
§?*
^3
Lcfc
S~
Ka. •fr x -fe y i/ 3
(H. shi) (H. sha) (H. shu) (H. sho)

Hi. £ D -f ff € &* Dtf> UJ;

"
Ka. if X if y° V 3
(H. ji) (H. ja) (H. ju) (H. jo)

o T t t>^ £>$ *>±

'"
Hi.
Ka.
fc
*
fc
f-
(H. chi)
5>

(H. tsu)
7" b ^
(H. cha)
^3.
(H. chu)
f-3
(H. cho)

Hi. £ £ O "<?
H %> •£# "5*
* Ka. ^ f 3> 7 s
K f> fa f*3
(H.ji) (H. zu) (H. ja) (H. ju) (H. jo)

Hi. * (C A fc <D M* iCvp K1J:

Ka. 2- — -%
* 7 —ir ^- ZL ^3
.

h-
Hi. « r> & ^> J5 t>* X>vp t>*
Ka. /\ t y •N * t\ ta t: 3
(H. fu)

Hi. « tf £ •< £ xs* t» tf J:

fe "
Ka. /\ tf
•7° /< # e> If a t"3
Hi. tf tf -55 •N. \% t» #*> t>°J:

'"Ka. /\ tr f ^ tf tr-v tr^ tr 3

Hi. £ * ts fe i> #* #.$ &£

m-
Ka. t ^ A / ^ S-V ^ a i 3

y~
Hi. * - - X
-
Ka. V - ^L 3
Hi. ^ 19 § tl h 19^ *9^> «9 J:

" Ka. "7 y ;W u P ij^ Har V 3

W~
Hi. fc>
_ - - £
Ka. 7 - - - 7
a. Hi., hiragana; Ka., katakana. The romanization used to label the rows and columns is kunreishiki; Hepburn
romanization, where it with (H.). The syllabic nasal (Hi. /v. Ka. > comes at the end of the
differs, is indicated )

list.

Vowel length is indicated in kana by doubling, or more often with a following dash: fofo or £>— is kun-

reishiki aa, Hepburn a. Geminate consonants are written in kana with a preceding subscript O tu (Ka. '7 I; thus

Hi. h^frakka(Ka.T *#).

212 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

tive to Japanese but do occur in words borrowed from other languages, can be written
in kana (Sampson 1985: 184).
Hiragana 'kana without angles' grew out of an increasingly simplified set of cur-
si vely written kanji used as man'yogana 'Chinese characters used phonetically to
write Japanese' (table 1 6. 1 ). The hiragana syllabary consists of 46 characters, sup-

plemented with a set of diacritics. Today's hiragana forms were fixed by the Ministry
of Education's 1900 regulations on standard kana signs and usage. Typical Japanese
texts are written in a mixture of kanji and kana, primarily hiragana. Hiragana is used
for particles, auxiliary verbs, and the inflectional affixes of nouns, adjectives, and
verbs — in sum, the grammatical elements of sentences.
Okurigana are hiragana added after kanji to encode inflectional elements. The
present guidelines for okurigana were issued in the Cabinet Notification "Okurigana
no tsukekata" in 1973. Issues surrounding okurigana have to do with how much of the
verb stem and the inflectional material is encoded explicitly in the kana following the
kanji verb stem versus how much material is left implicit. For example, wakar-anai
'[I] understand-NEG' can be written several ways:
fly^^feV^ WA.ka.ra.na.i
W6>feV^ WAKA.ra.na.i
^'J&V^ WAKARA.na.i
These are three possibilities for material written in hiragana as okurigana. In this ex-

ample, successively less material is provided to give the reader phonographic cues to
the relationship between the kanji and the kana portions of the word. Traditionally,
the implicit options have been favored for school texts, while increasingly explicit en-
coding via okurigana occurs in popular texts (Seeley 1991 : 158).
Like hiragana, katakana derived from man'yogana. At the beginning of the Heian
Period (794-1 192), small script that could be written between characters and/or be-
tween lines was needed in order to write down readings of, or exegetic commentary
on, Buddhist sutras (Ogawa 1982: 481). Katakana 'simple, incomplete kana' were
created by taking parts of established man'yogana, sometimes but not always the
same man'yogana that were the source for the counterpart hiragana syllable. The
present forms and conventions of use for katakana were fixed in 1900, at the same
time as hiragana. Katakana is used in contemporary texts to write foreign names and
loanwords, onomatopoeic and mimetic words, exclamations, and some specialized
scientific terminology. It is also used for words usually written in kanji or hiragana to
give special emphasis, indicate an ironic tone, signal euphemisms, and the like; young
people are particularly likely to incorporate katakana into their script mix, perhaps to
give a "conversational" tone to their written productions (Nakamura 1983; Satake
1989, 1990).
The canonical order of kana is traditionally that in which they occur in a short
poem, the "/ro/za," which uses each symbol just once (figure 34 on page 250). How-
ever, most modern dictionaries use the alternate order, shown in table 16.1, based
on that of Indie script: first vowels, then occlusives (starting with k), and then sono-
 SECTION 16: JAPANESE WRITING 213

rants (see section 30). The differences between voiceless and voiced consonants,
and between full and subscript symbols, are ignored in the ordering. Both scripts are
used asfurigana: small kana put to the side of or above kanji in order to indicate the
pronunciation or meaning of the kanji used.

Romaji
Romaji includes the Roman alphabet and Arabic numerals. Japanese texts use these
alphanumeric symbols to write train station names, street and highway signs, compa-
ny names; and Roman capitals are used to produce acronyms like OL 'office lady'

(i.e. female office worker), 2DK 'two [rooms] plus a dining-kitchen'. Arabic numer-
als are frequently used in texts, particularly those written horizontally (e.g. scientific

texts). From the Meiji Period onward there has been debate —sometimes heated
about the desirability of writing Japanese entirely in romaji, but this idea has never
taken strong hold.
There are two transliteration systems for writing Japanese alphabetically: (1) the
Hepburn system (Hebon-shiki), a system based on English spelling pronunciation de-
veloped by American missionary James Curtis Hepburn (1815-1911), and used in

this volume; and (2) kunreishiki (Cabinet Ordinance system), a phonemic system pro-
mulgated by the Japanese government (table 16. 1 ). In all, 19 syllables differ. Hep-
burn uses ji for kunreishiki zi, and j- for zy~. For vowel length, kunreishiki and
Hepburn use a circumflex accent or macron (fefe or fe— = a, a), or doubling in the
i. Geminate consonants are written in both systems by dou-
case of capital letters or
bling. Hepburn double ch The syllabic nasal /v/> is romanized by kunreishiki
is tch.

as n everywhere; but by Hepburn as m before labials, n elsewhere. Medially, syllabic

n is followed by an apostrophe to distinguish it from consonantal /7.When the revised
kunreishiki system was issued ( 1 954), the government stipulated that it was to be used
in transcribing the Japanese language, with the caveat that the Hepburn system might
continue to be used if a change would seriously affect customs and considerations of
international relations. Hepburn transliterations are required, for instance, in pass-

ports and many official application forms. Thus the Japanese, in alphabetic as well as
non-alphabetic inscription, maintain a complexly organized, multi-scriptal (or multi-
orthographic) system.

Other script elements

In commercial writing (Haarmann 1989) and in the writing of the young (Satake

1990, 1 99 1), eimoji 'English (or other foreign language) letters' and various symbols
such as v and ft are used:

U Woman: ft < &tt<£>ti»«t£

Nikkei Woman: Hataraku Josei no Johoshi
'Nikkei "Woman": News for the Working Woman'
 —
214 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 16.2: Common Japanese Punctuation

maru period

, ten comma
rj kagi quotation marks

11 futaekagi double quotation marks; used for quotation-internal quotations,

book titles, etc.

.
nakaten used optionally in place of comma in lists of nouns
- dasshu dash, hyphen

? gimonfu question mark

!
kantanfu exclamation mark

Mie-chan nante, honto kawaii ko V

'Mie is really cute v' (Satake 1990: 2)

Eimoji are used to give overtones of international sophistication. Such symbols,

allied with an extensive set of punctuation and other marks indicating stress, expres-
sive lengthening, etc., convey the intonation and feeling of spoken communication.

Direction, punctuation, and organization of texts

Vertical writing, with columns written right to left (tategaki), is still the norm in Ja-

pan, but many texts are horizontally printed or written from left to right (yokogaki).
In neither case is space left between words. Segmentation cues afforded by the normal
mixture of scripts are supplemented by numerous punctuation devices (table 16.2).

Conclusion
Throughout this century, no writing system has been written about so pejoratively as
Japanese (e.g. Sansom 1928: 44; Miller 1967: 91-140; Coulmas 1989: 122-23, J 33)-
Two apparent reasons are: (a) the multiscriptal nature of Japanese, seen as unneces-
sary by many analysts since the kana syllabaries can encode in writing anything that
can be said in Japanese; and (b) the complexities of kanjl use, involving multiple po-
tential readings for each character, choice among which is dependent on the lexical
or sometimes even the larger textual —environment. The Japanese writing system,
however, is associated with a highly literate and successful society, with a rich written
tradition which makes full use of its multi-scriptal potentialities for the creation of nu-
anced, graphically vital texts. The high degree of literacy of Japan and the high con-
sumption of published material suggest that the writing system is fully functional.
 SECTION 16: JAPANESE WRITING 215

Samples of Japanese
Passage from a contemporary essayist
/. Japanese:
2. Transliteration: tokoro ga, wakat HiTO.tachi kara kuru
J. Transcription: tokoro ga waka-i cito-tatfi kara kiurui

4. Gloss: however young-ADj person-PL from come

1. #« »,
2. TE-KAMI wa, tai-han ga YOKO-KA.ki na no de aru.
j. tegami wa taiharj ga joko-ga-ki na no de arm
4. letter top majority subj horizontally-write-ADJ nom is/are

h
ji mo, O-SHU-JI de NARA.tta ji to

mo ojuidji de narat-ta to

4. characters too calligraphy in learn-PAST character(s) QUOT

1. 1^5 ±«9, 0JH<£> Bffi (7)

2. iu yori, irasuto de aru. GEKI-GA no GA-MEN no

3. iuu jori irasmto de arm gekiga no gamen no
4. say/call (rather) than illustration is/are cartoon gen picture gen

1. f*£LBL ftif t
2. FU.ki-DA.shi de "gyaha" nado to KA.ite aru.

3. dpuikidaji de gjaha nado to kai-te arm

4. balloon in "eek!" etc. QUOT write-GER be

/. fc/vft 1^ft<D Tr&3 rii

f

2. anna ji na no de aru. naka ni wa

j. anna cb^i na no de arm naka ni wa
4. that.kind.of character adj nom is/are inside in top

1. AvT.YK^ <D i><D *>5 U

2. irasuto-i.ri no mono mo aru shi AKA ya
3. irasmto-iri no mono mo arm Ji aka ja

4. illustration-containing gen thing(s) also be and red and

/. ?v-> Kg £*<** ft T?
2. gurnn nado samazama na pen de KA.ki-WA.keta

J. gmri:n nado sama-zama na pen de kaki-wake-ta

4. green etc. various-REDUP ADJ pen with write-divide-PAST

/. <£>

2. no mo aru.

3. no mo arm
4. one(s) also be
216 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

'However, the majority of the letters that come from young people are written
horizontally. The characters, too, aren't the characters we learned in calligraphy
(classes); rather, they're graphics. They're the kind of characters you see in the

dialog balloons in the comics, saying "Eek!" or things like that. Among them,
there are ones with (real) graphics mixed in and ones with (the words) separated
by writing with various pens, like red or green pens.' —Mukdda 1980: 40-41.

Cartoon

kon kon
kon kon
knock knock

L
2. u
3.

4>
iu::::n

hmmmm l» 111
1. f£/u o
1 .MWf ^ 1
I

In 1
i

2. nan da- "(tsu)

'
fi'i
'it*.
:

lli
'111

3. nan da: 77^V?

4. what is

/. 53^(D ±0 ! !

2. urusai no yo (tsu) !!
3. uiriusai no jo
4. bothersome part part

/. K "£
1 *>

do — mo / it*
S~~>S;
'
r>
2. sumimasen -
AvO ii *
3.

4.
do::mo
indeed
siumimasen
inexusable
«W ?
<
1

-4 1 1

)
**

2. sunao
T
de
3nW
yoroshii
!

{WW fs 1LJ
3. siunao de yoroji: visitor: 'Knock-knock — Hmmmm ...

4. docile is all. right —What is — kindo-san: Go

this??!!
away!! Stop bothering [me]) —
(lit., visi-

tor: I'm — kindo-san: Good,

sorry.

you're submissive [enough]. — do-san:

a irasshai
a irajjai
Ah, welcome.'
ah welcome — Kamogawa 1979: 94.

Note: Some of the humor represented in this excerpt involves the inappropriate linguistic behavior of the char-
acter in work clothes addressing the character in a suit in a way proper only to the third character, perhaps the
employer.
 SECTION 16: JAPANESE WRITING 217

Bibliography

Coulmas, Florian. 1989. The Writing Systems of the World. Oxford: Blackwell.
Faber, Alice. 1992. "Phonemic Segmentation as Epiphenomenon: Evidence from the History of Al-
phabetic Writing." In The Linguistics of Literacy (Typological Studies in Language 21), ed.
Pamela Downing, Susan D. Lima, and Michael Noonan, pp. 1 1-34. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 1

Haarmann, Harald. 1989. Symbolic Values of Foreign Language Use: From the Japanese Case to a
General Sociolinguistic Perspective. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
Habein, Yaeko Sato. 1984. The History of the Japanese Written Language. Tokyo: University of To-
kyo Press.
—
Kajima Tadao. 1979. Nihon no Moji Hydki Taikei o Kangaeru [Japanese script: Considering the
inscription system]. Tokyo: Iwanami Shinsho.
Kamogawa Tsubama. 1979. "Makaroni horenso" [Macaroni spinach]. Shilkan Shonen Champion
[Weekly youth champion] 35: 91-102. Tokyo: Akita Shoten.
Kokuritsu Kokugo Kenkyujo. 1962-64. Gendai Zasshi Kyujusshu no Yogo Yoji {Translation goes
here]. 3 vols. Tokyo: Shuei Shuppan.
.
1976. Gendai Shimhun no Kanji [Contemporary newpaper kanji]. Tokyo: Shuei Shuppan.
Roy Andrew. 1967. The Japanese Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Miller,
Mukoda Kuniko. 1980. Mumei Kamei Jinmeiho [Directory of anonyms and pseudonyms]. Tokyo:
Bungei Shunju.
Nakamura Kumiko. 1983. "Joshi kosei no tegamibun — sono eigo shiko to hyokijo no tokucho"
[Letters of high school girls: Their inclination toward English and their special orthographic
characteristics]. Gengo Seikatsu 380/8: 88-96.

Nomura Masaaki. 1988. Kanji no Mirai [The future of kanji]. Tokyo: Chikuma Shobo.
Ogawa Yoshio. 1982. Nihongo Kyoiku Jiten Japanese language education dictionary]. Tokyo:
|

Taishukan Shoten.
Paradis, Michel, Hiroko Hagiwara, and Nancy Hildebrandt. 1985. Neurolinguistic Aspects of the
Japanese Writing System. New York: Academic Press.
Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing Systems. Stanford: Stanford University Press.
Sansom, George B. 1928. An Historical Grammar of Japanese. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Satake, Hideo. 1989. "Statistical Method to Analyze the Writing Form Variation of Japanese
Words." In Japanese Quantitative Linguistics (Quantitative Linguistics 39), ed. Shi/uo Mi-
zutani, pp. 1 19-29. Bochum: Brockmeyer.
.
1990. "Junia shosetsu to fan reta" ["Junior" novels and fan letters]. Mukogawa Joshi

Daigaku Gengo Bunka Kenkyujo Nenpo 2: 1-1 1.

99 1. "Shin-genbun-itchitai no keiry5teki bunseki" [Quantitative analysis of
.
1
the new col-

loquial style]. Mukogawa Joshi Daigaku Gengo Bunka Kenkyujo Nenpo 3: 1-14.
Sato Kiyoji, et al., eds. Kanji Koza [Kanji series]. 1 2 vols. Tokyo: Meiji Shoin.
Seeley, Christopher. 1991. A History of Writing in Japan. Leiden: Brill.

.
ed. 1984. Aspects of the Japanese Writing System (special issue). Visible Language 18/3.
Smith, Janet S. (Shibamoto), and David L. Schmidt. 1995- "Variability in Written Japanese: To-
wards a Sociolinguistics of Script Choice." Visible Language 29/4.
Twine, Nanette. 1991. Language and the Modern State: The Reform of Written Japanese. London:
Routledge.
Unger, J. Marshall. 1987. The Fifth Generation Fallacy: Why Japan Is Betting Its Future on Artifical

Intelligence. New York: Oxford University Press.

SECTION 17

Korean Writing
Ross King

Chinese writing in Korea

Chinese writing was probably known in Korea before Han times, and was used in the

Han administration of their commanderies in northern Korea from 108 b.c.e. to 313
c.e. The first evidence of the use of Chinese by Koreans is on a stone inscription of
414 c.e. The Koreans later developed three different, but related, ways to use Chinese
characters to write Korean: Hyangchal, Kwukyel, and Itwu.
The Hyangchal system, preserved in lyric texts, is reminiscent in some ways of
the Japanese man'yogana, on which it doubtless had a formative influence. The ab-
breviated characters of the Kwukyel system, a transcription for interpretation and
translation of Chinese texts, in some ways, just as the
resemble the Japanese kana
Kwukyel system for annotating Chinese texts resembles Japanese kambun traditions.
The Itwu 'clerk readings' were a system of prose transcription used widely in admin-
istrative contexts. At the time of the promulgation of the Hwunmin cengum (1446; see

below), the Hyangchal system was moribund, but Kwukyel and Itwu were still in use
long after the invention of the Korean alphabet.
Given their long experience with Chinese writing, it is not surprising that the Ko-
reans have added specifically Korean readings and/or meanings to certain genuinely
Chinese characters. But the Koreans have also invented a number of "Chinese" char-
acters; Sasse (1980) lists over 150 such characters indigenous to Korea, but they are
all quite rare, and were used in traditional times chiefly for the rendering of native Ko-
rean words as well as in personal names and place names.
Even after the promulgation of Hankul, the indigenous Korean script (see be-
low), in the fifteenth century, Chinese writing continued to dominate written culture
in Korea until the second decade of the twentieth century. Hankul was associated with
the uneducated — women and children —and was accorded low status. With the
spread of Western-style education and mass media, a Sino-Korean "mixed script"
style emerged whereby any and all morphemes of Chinese origin could be, and often
were, written in Chinese characters; native Korean words and grammatical endings
were written in Hankul. Formerly, Chinese-character transcriptions of Old Korean
poetry could include representations of morphemes meant to be read in their native
guise; but this practice (seen in modern Japanese) is not used in modern Korean.

218
 SECTION 17: KOREAN WRITING 219

Since Liberation from Japan in 1945, Korea has accorded a much less important
role to Chinese characters than in traditional, or even pre-Liberation, times. North
Korea abolished the use of Chinese characters in public writing in 1949, but continues
to teach a limited number in schools. South Korean policy has been less consistent;
certain government ministries use Chinese characters more than others, but most ma-
jor daily newspapers still use them, and students learn approximately 1800 characters

before leaving high school. The role of Chinese characters in Korean writing is a mat-
ter of heated public debate in the Republic of Korea in the 1990s.

Hankul: General characteristics

Hankul (in the Yale romanization)* designates the native Korean script; it is written
% H" in Korean, Han'gul in McCune-Reischauer, [hangil] in IPA, lit. 'Han [= Kore-
an] writing'. It is one of the most scientifically designed and efficient scripts in the

world. Invented by the sage King Seycong (r. 141 9-1450). It is one of the earliest
known examples of "sophisticated grammatogeny" (Daniels 1992; section 52).
The original name of the Korean script was IJ'IKlEilr Hwunmin cengum The
correct sounds for the instruction of the people', this also being the title of the work
which promulgated the script in 1446. Until 1910, the script was also known as cen-
gum 'correct sounds', enmun 'vulgar script', or kwukmun 'national writing'. The
name Hankul is a neologism created by Cwu Si-kyeng (1876-19 14), a Korean lin-

guist active in the movement to reform and promote the Korean language and script.

Hankul is a phonemically based alphabet with the following interesting, often

unique, features.
1 Hankul has always been written in syllable blocks, rather than having its letters

arranged in a row from left to right and written side by side — a feature usually attrib-
uted to influence from the equidimensional geometry of Chinese characters (Kono
1969). This feature, more than others, makes Hankul distinctive, and has prompted
Taylor (1979) to call it an "alphabetic syllabary."
2. Hankul appeared out of the With no warning, the Veritable Records of the
blue.

Cosen Dynasty announce its invention in the 1 2th month of Seycong's 25th year (ap-
proximately January 1444).
3. Hankul is original. It was the product of deliberate, linguistically informed
planning (Ledyard 1966). Despite numerous theories attempting to link it to, or derive
it from, other scripts (there are no less than ten different "origin theories"), the most
convincing theory of letter shape origins remains that given in the Hwunmin cengum
haylyey (HCH) 'Explanations and examples of the correct sounds for the instruction
of the people', which was lost and not rediscovered until 1940. According to the

*There are now two widely accepted schemes for romanizing Korean in the scholarly world: the McCune-
Reischauer system (see McCune and Reischauer 1939). and the Yale system (see Martin 1992). Linguists pre-

fer the Yale system, and it is used in this book.

220 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

velar bilabial glottal o 0/-/z#

figure I. Origin of shapes of basic Hankul consonants (from Kim Jin-p'yong 1983).

HCH, the basic consonant shape for each of the five places of articulation is based on
a graphic representation of the speech organ involved (figure 1 ).

The vowel signs were organized on a completely different basis, and given a
metaphysical rationale. Each vowel sign was made up of one or more of the three el-
ements Man, Earth, and Heaven (figure 2).

4. Hankul is scientific. Its invention rested on an elaborate phonological analysis

of fifteenth-century Korean, and transcended Chinese-based theories of phonology of
the time. In particular, the tripartite division of the syllable into initial (onset), medial
(peak), and final (coda) and the systematic treatment of vowels mark Hankul as the
"high peak which the eastward currents of the alphabetic system of writing attained"
(Lee Ki-moon 1983: 76).
5. Hankul keeps consonants and vowels apart conceptually and graphically.
6. Hankul has an additive structure. By doubling, or adding strokes to, the five
basic consonant shapes for k, n, s, m, ng, one derives the shapes for the aspirates, tense
unaspirates, affricates, etc. (In pre-modern Korean, the doubled letters represented
the voiced stops and affricates of Chinese.) Likewise, the three basic fifteenth-century

vowel shapes of vertical line, horizontal line, and dot combine to give all the possible

vowels, as well as diphthongal combinations. This has led Sampson (1985) to call

Hankul a featural system.

7. Hankul's combination of the typological features of alphabet and syllabary is

simple and Both Vos (1963) and Sampson (1985) note that the simplicity of
efficient.

its graphic elements promotes learnability, while its syllabic organization enhances
efficiency in processing and reading. However, there have been few psycholinguistic
tests of these claims. Hankul is currently used in the Republic of Korea (South Korea)
and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (North Korea). However, the term

Symbol of Heaven: round dot Symbol of Earth: horizontal line Symbol of Man: vertical line

figure 2. Origin of shapes of basic Hankul vowels (after Kim Jin-p'yong 1983).
 SECTION 17: KOREAN WRITING 221

TABLE I"/ . i : Vowels

Simple Vowels

1 i [i] — u [i] T" wu [u]

-11 ey [e] ] e [a] -i- [o]

fl ay [«] \ a [a]

Diphthongs

A uy Rj] -A wuy [wi]

oy [we]

vV
TT ywu Uu]
il yey lie] \ ye [JA] J_L yo [jo]

« yay B«] 1= ya [ja]

wV
4 wey [we] •A we [wa]

4 way [wae] -4 wa [wa]

Hankul is not used in North Korea, where the script is referred to as cosenkul 'Korean
script' or wuli kulca 'our script'. Hankul also serves Korean communities in the Peo-
ple's Republic of China, Russia and the former Soviet Union, and elsewhere.

The symbols

The modern vowels

The simple vowel symbols, and those that are built up from combinations of the sim-
ple symbols, are shown in table 7. i Diphthongs are formed by adding the vertical
i .

stroke of 1 i to the signs for o, wu, and u. In origin, the simple vowels ay and ey were
also diphthongs built in the same way, by adding i to a and e; but through sound
change they have become simple vowels in the modern language. By adding an ad-

ditional stroke to the six vowel signs a, e, o, wu, ay, ey, the combination y + V is
formed. Lastly, adding wu (to the mid vowels) or o (to the low vowels) results in the

combination vr + V.

The modern consonants

The consonant symbols are shown in table 17.2. Taking the schemata of figure i

as basic, something of the original designs can be discerned: an additional stroke

makes t from n and c from s, another stroke forms th ch kh from t c k. Symbols are

doubled to write the "tense," unaspirated series (here transcribed with an apostrophe).
222 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 17.2: Consonants

1 k [k] 1_ n [n] A S [s] n m [m] 0/ng [0/-q]

TZ t [t] X C [tf] ti
P [Pi
=7
kh [k
h
]
E th
h
[t ] X ch m JL ph [P
h
]
"5"
h [h]

11 kk [k'] IX [tj ss HH
tt [s'] PP [p'l

cc [tf']

e 1 [l,r]

Middle Korean pitch accent

Korean of the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries was a pitch-accent language, and
the Hwunmin cengum included a set of dots for recording the three Middle Korean
surface "tones": High, Low, and Rising (composite of Low + High). The dots were
written to the left of the syllable, as shown in table 17.3 (Low was unmarked). Syl-
lables with the old Rising tone have a long vowel in modern Seoul standard, but this
distinctive vowel length is not indicated orthographically. In this respect, Hankul un-
derdifferentiates in its representation of spoken Korean.

Forming orthographic syllables

Any written syllable in Hankul must begin with a consonant sign. In order for the
vowel signs to form the nucleus of a syllable block, they must attach to the side of or
below a consonant sign, using the following principles of stroke order, (a) Everything

"horizontal" moves from left to right. This applies to the movement of individual
strokes, as well as to writing a sequence of letters (e.g. the consonant first, then the
vowel): ti
r pa 'rope', ^]" pam 'night', (b) Everything "vertical" moves from top to
bottom: 4i so 'cow', 4: son 'hand'.
When the spoken syllable begins with a vowel, one must begin the written sylla-
ble with the °
sign representing a "zero" consonant: } a, £f wa, °\ ya, etc. This "ze-
ro sign" has an alter ego: at the end of a syllable it represents the sound [rj]. Thus, -§-

ong, °^ ang, etc. Since Korean has no basic syllables of the type [rj] + V, this is a clev-
er economy and a good example of the ingenuity of Hankul. Korean also writes the

following syllable-final consonant clusters: t* ks, v* nc, si Ik, en Im, su /p, sa is , be

Ith, se ip h, 53 lh, ha ps ; e.g. t] A ilkta 'read', ^A palpta 'treads on'.

table 17.3: Tone Marking

15th c. 20th c.

Low 3 cywuk cwuk 'rice gruel'

High .AJ •sin *1 sin 'shoes'

Rising m ••cyong cong 'slave'

 SECTION 17: KOREAN WRITING 223

Orthography and letter shapes

The 500-year history of Hankul has seen a number of changes in Korean writing, both
in its orthographic principles and in the letters and letter shapes themselves.
The history of Korean orthography is characterized by a tug-of-war between pho-
nemicists and morphophonemicists. Phonemicists wrote Korean as it was pro-
nounced, taking into account its many automatic sound changes, while morphopho-
nemicists strove to write verb and noun bases in one constant shape, ignoring
automatic sound changes. Although King Seycong himself seems to have favored
morphophonemic writing, and adopted this policy in his Welin chenkang ci kok
(1449), other fifteenth-century texts are all phonemic in their orthography.

Hankul orthography drifts from a more or less consistently phonemic approach,

in the fifteenth century, to an increasingly morphophonemic one by the twentieth cen-
tury. This trend was more pronounced in nouns than in verb:. Thus the development
in spelling nimkum-i iord-NOMiNATiVE' (using contemporary lettershapes):

15th c. i6thc. i8th/iQthc.

^a*l y-g-ul ^°1
nim'.ku.mi nim.kum.mi nim.kum.i
is earlier and more widespread than that in spelling cap-a 'catch-iNFiNiTiVE':
A*\ # ar 7
h°>
ca.pa cup. pa cap.
The morphophonemic solution did not win out until the adoption in 1933 by the
Korean Language Society (later renamed the Hankul Society) of the Draft Plan for a
Unified Orthography, and constituted nonetheless a sharp break with earlier spelling
traditions. Since Liberation from Japan in 1945, this Unified Orthography (with mi-
nor changes and amendments along the way) has served both the DPRK and the ROK
to the present day.

The twentieth century has witnessed a number of attempts to reform various as-
pects of Korean writing. Critics often point out the typographical problems imposed
by writing in syllable blocks; and the alternative of taking apart the Hankul syllable
blocks and writing the Korean letters side by side ( He" would become °f *- n —a )

was already advocated in the 1910s by Cwu Si-kyeng himself, many of whose ideas
are reflected in the 1933 Draft Plan. The side-by-side idea still has a small following
today. The Soviet authorities tried unsuccessfully in the early 1930s to abolish Hankul
and replace it with a Latinized script for use by the Korean minority in the Soviet Far
North Korea experimented with various reforms, includ-
East, but this attempt failed.
ing side-by-side writing and the invention of new letters, but these experiments were
discontinued in the late 1950s.
Letters and letter shapes (table 17.4) have changed since the fifteenth century,
too. Through sound change, a number of graphs promulgated with the Hwunmin Cen-
gum have disappeared, e.g. • lower a\ z\ z, ^ 'light p\ ~o glottal stop, and p-clus-
224 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 17.4: The Korean Alphabet Today"

Hankul Ifc/e McCune-Reischauer IPA Name

1 k k,g [k, g] ki(y)ek
T\ kk kk [k'] ssang ('double') ki(y)ek
l_ n n [n] niun
in t t, d [t,d] tikut
IX tt tt [f] ssang ('double') tikut
a 1 1, r [l,r] liul

D m m [m] mium
ti
P p, b [p, b] piup
Hti
PP PP [p'l ssang ('double') piup
A s s [s] sios
M ss ss [s'] ssang ('double') sios
O -ng -ng [0/-n] iung
o\ a a [a]

°fl ay ae [as]

o> ya ya [ja]

^ yay yae [j»]

o] e 6 [a]

i ey e [e]

<^ ye yo qa]
i yey ye Be]
5. [0]

.2. yo yo [jo]

^ wa wa [wa]
*fl way wae [wae]

3 oy oe [we]

T" wu u [u]

fl we wo [wa]
4 wey we [we]

fl wi wi [wi]

* yu yu Ljy]
o_
u u [*]

3 uy ui [«]
°1 1
1 m
L'J

c ch, j [tf,<H ciuc

M cc tch m ssang ('double') ciuc
X ch ch' [if] chiuch
h
=7 kh k' [k ]
khiukh
E th t' [t
h
]
thiuth
h
JL ph P' [P ]
phiuph
-5r h h [h] hiuh [hiit]

a. The table follows the order in which Hankul letters appear in ROK dictionaries, and also follows the ROK
names. North Korea has introduced a new alphabetical order and new letter names.
 SECTION 17: KOREAN WRITING 225

ters like d/l In addition, the original squarish, geometrical, and symmetrical shapes
of the Hwunmin cengum began to change within a decade of their promulgation. The
original letterforms soon gave way to the pressures of brush writing, and evolved into
forms more amenable to writing with the hand. The first such change joined the dots
of wo, wu, e, a, etc., to the vertical and horizontal lines: o-| > °] e, o:\><^ y e , etc.
This development is responsible, for example, for the addition of the serif to the
tip of certain consonants, and the creation of asymmetrical forms, in modern Korean
writing:

15th c. 20th c.

s A a
c A *
o o
-ng 6 °
Note that the modern-day zero/ -ng symbol is a merger of two different Middle Kore-
an symbols. In early days itwas possible to write 0a0 and ngang as well as 0ang
and nga0, though the final -0 fell into disuse almost immediately.

The relationship of Hankul to other scripts

Before the discovery of the original document explaining the rationale of the Hankul
numerous theories came and went about the origins or antecedents of
letter shapes,

various Korean graphs. The Koreans' own explanation is almost too ingenious to
doubt, but King Seycong and his scholars certainly knew of other writing systems,
and there may still be reason to believe they looked to scripts of Indie descent for the
alphabet idea, to Mongolian 'Phags pa writing for some of the letter shapes (Ledyard
1966, building on Hope 1957; section 40), as well as to Chinese writing for the idea
of writing in syllabic blocks, and perhaps even for some individual graphs.
Most accounts of Korean writing dwell on its possible antecedents, and present
the Hwunmin cengum of the fifteenth century as the final link in a long chain of script
connections. However, there is also evidence to suggest that Hankul, in its turn, had
an influence on the Manchus when they set out to adopt Mongolian writing to their
language (King 1987; section 49).

Sample of Korean
/.

2.
Sino-Korean:
Hankul:
-f3
fel
1+5H
t^s]
^
!k£
t H^
f^
a-4
a-4
3- Transliteration: wuli nalauy malun cwungkwukuy malkwa
4- Transcription: uri nara-e mar-in tfurjgug-e mal-gwa
5- Gloss: our country-'s language-TOP China-'s language-with
226 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. «*M, 31 T$- fe Ais. ^ -i^W

2. 4eM. tM-^ Ai^- * -f-^W
3- tallase hancawanun selo cal thonghaci
h
4- tall-asA hantfa-wa-nin sato tfal t orjha-(%i

5- different -so characters-with-contrast mu tually well communicate-coMP

/.
o>q ^-4. a& as. <HeH£ W ttl-ol i4BHiL*r
2. o>q *Vt}. asl E5. °1bH£: ^^#oi q-Ej-iflji*}

3- ani hanta. kulemulo elisekun payksengtuli nathanaykoca

h
4- ani ha-n-da kirAmiro ArisAg-in paeksArj-dir-i nat anae-goc^a
5- not do therefore foolish-MOD peasant-PL-NOM express-iNTENT

XMH
i.

2.

3-
^
*te

hanun
u°i
°j°i
ili
SMS.
isseto
»i%^
machimnay
4
cey
^4-fr
sayngkakul
4- ha-nin ir-i is'-A-do matPimnae tfe saer)gag-il

5- do-MOD thing-NOM exist-even-though ultimately self's thought-ACC

2. ^^ MH B|*l * ^fe *r#°l

3- et-e naye phyeci mos hanun salami
4- AdA naeA
h

p yA-c^i mo t
h
a-nin saram-i
5- obtain-and express -and unfold-coMP cannot do-MOD person-NOM

2.
nV_o_
3H4. 4^ °ii-* l-^l-XI ^^M
J- manhul kesita. nanun itulul pulssanghakey sayngkakhaye
h
4- man-il k'Aj-ida na-nin i-dir-il puls'arjha-ge saerjgak a-JA

5- many-MOD thing-be I-top this-PL-ACC pitiful-ly think-and

2. 4^. it ^a *}#
3- saylo sumwul yetelp calul mantulessnuntey
4- saero simul yAdAl tPa-ril mandir-An-ninde
v newly twenty eight graph-Ace make-PAST-and

'Our country's language is different from that of China and thus does not corre-
spond well with characters. Therefore, even should the foolish people have
something they wish to express, those ultimately unable to express and develop
their ideas are bound to be many. I have taken pity on these people, and newly
created 28 letters.'

—Modern Korean version (Kang 1990) of the first lines of King Seycong's
Preface to the Hwunmin cengum.

Bibliography

Buzo, Adrian. 1980. "Early Korean Writing Systems." Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Roy-
al Asiatic Society (Seoul) 55: 35-62.
 SECTION 17: KOREAN WRITING 227

Daniels, Peter T. 1992. "The Syllabic Origin of Writing and the Segmental Origin of the Alphabet."
In The Linguistics of Literacy (Typological Studies in Language 2 1 ), ed. Pamela Downing, Su-
san D. Lima, and Michael Noonan, pp. 83-1 10. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Gale, James Scarth. 191 2. 'The Korean Alphabet." Transactions of the Korean Branch of the Royal
Asiatic Society 4/1:1 3-6 1
Hope, E. R. 1957. "Letter Shapes in Korean Onmun and Mongol hPhags-pa Alphabets." Oriens 10:

150-59-
Kang Sin-hang. 1990. Hwunmin cengumyenkwu {Research on the Hwunmin cengum]. Seoul: Seng-
kyunkwan University Press.
Kim Jin-p'yong. 1983. "The Letterforms of Han'gul." In Korean National Commission for
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Kim-Renaud, Young-Key, ed. 1996. The Korean Writing System: Its History- and Structure. Hono-
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King, Ross. 1987. "The Korean Elements in the Manchu Script Reform of 1632." Central Asiatic
Journal 31: 197-217.
Kono Rokuro. 1969. "The Chinese Writing and Its Influences on the Scripts of the Neighbouring
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Kontsevich, L. R. 1969. "The First monument of Korean Writing (Essay in Critical Translation)."

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Ledyard, Gari Keith. 1966. "The Korean Language Reform of 1446: The Origin, Background and
Early History of the Korean Alphabet." Ph.D. dissertation. University of California, Berkeley.
Lee Ki-moon. 1963. English resume of Kwuke Phyoki-pep uy Yeksa-cek Kochal (Historical studies
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1983. "Foundations of Hunmin Chongum." In Korean National Commission for UNESCO
1983:71-79.
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1996. "The Inventor of the Korean Alphabet." In Kim-Renaud 1996.
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McCune, G. M., and Edwin O. Reischauer. 1939. "The Romanization of the Korean Language."*
Transactions of the Korea Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society 38: 1 2 1-28.

Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction. Stanford: Stanford Universi-
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Sasse, Werner. 1980. "'Chinesische' Zeichen erfunden in Korea." Asiatische Studien 34: 189-205.
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Vos, Fritz. 1963. "Korean Writing: Idu and Han'gul." In Papers of the CIC Far Eastern Language
Institute, ed. Joseph K. Yamagiwa, pp. 29-34. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan.
SECTION

Siniform Scripts of Inner Asia

Tangut
E. I. Kychanov

The Tangut script, used to write a now extinct Tibeto-Burman language, was intro-

duced in 1036 in the Tangut OX Xixia) state, located in the present northwestern
Chinese provinces of Gansu and Shenxi. The script was probably invented by "the
Teacher Iri" (If ^JfzEffil Yeli Ren-yong in Chinese) under the Imperial supervision of
the Emperor $jcJ1 Li Yuan-hao (1003- 1047). It is a logographic script, for which
the Chinese characterswere used as a model. Only a partial phonological reconstruc-
tion of Tangut vocabulary has been done; but we know it was a tone language (with
level and rising tones) and abounded in homonyms. Thus, apart from Chinese cultural
influence, the logographic script was suited to the nature of the language.
Every Tangut character, like Chinese characters, is designed to fit in a square.

Some of these units are the result of deliberate alteration of Chinese characters (or
parts of them; table 1 8. 1 ). This group of Tangut characters also performs functions
like that of the Chinese determinatives; but some of them are used as independent
characters, e.g. 1 'man' from A.
All the main structures of the Chinese script (section 14) may be found in the

Tangut script. Thus the character PA 'gate' may be classified as "figurative"

(xiangxing); it is explained in a Tangut dictionary, The Sea of Characters (12th cen-
tury, cf. Kychanov 1980), as follows: "by its appearance it resembles a gate." A sym-
bol ^ 'to ride (a horse)' can be explained in terms of a transition from figurative
z
symbols to logographic ones (hui yi). It consists of two parts, 4i 'man' and %c-
'horse'; the character simply "portrays" a man riding a horse. Many logograms are

table 1 8. 1 : Chinese Sources of Tangut Characters

Tangut Gloss Chinese Source

Jt- dog it qudn in its combining form as seen at the left of ft] gdu 'dog'

^r horse H md
^A- stone 5 shi
X 7 word i i yun
-y ^ sheep, cow ^ ydng 'sheep'

228
 SECTION 18: SINIFORM SCRIPTS OF INNER ASIA 229

made in this way: 4 'grass' plus ) 'water' = % 'rush', i.e. 'grass which grows in

water'; l\ 'red' plus *- 'stone' = |£ 'red mineral, cinnabar'; 'red' plus ^ 'metal' =
|£ 'red metal, copper'.

The "phonetic" logograms of the xing sheng group form the next category. They
are based on homonyms: one part of the character indicates its pronunciation, and the
other its meaning. The homonyms X^c 'cherry' and %*. 'cream' are constructed on
the basis of the homonymic character Z&. 'terrestrial spirit, divinity' with the addi-
-**"
tion of the determinatives 'tree' and 5 'water'.
A number of characters in the Tangut script can be classified in the Chinese tra-

dition as "inverted" {zhudnzhu), e.g.

X
H. 'man' and H 'heart, soul'.

Some characters can be attributed to the "indicatory" category of Chinese char-

acters {zhi shi). Among these are family names; thus a part of fi« 'ear' plus part of
fe- 'kin, family' is used in the family name ji$r .

A special group is formed by characters made for transcription of Chinese sylla-

bles; here the "indicatory" principle is also implied. So Tangut writes the Chinese syl-
lable fen with the character ft ; the lower part is It 'to divide', corresponding to
Chinese ft fen.
Another group of transcription symbols consists of the logograms used in Bud-
dhist texts to transcribe Sanskrit mantras: **$. om, h ya, i%% W, etc.The character
%% ken 'celestial sound' is formed from from the left part of X\ 'sound' + part of the
character ti 'stone'. A method similar to Chinese fdnqie is also used, in which the
phonetic value of a Chinese character is rendered by a pair of other characters, the
first showing the pronunciation of the initial, the second indicating the "rhyme." i.e.

the rest (vowel + tone + final consonant, if any). Thus Tangut 1% iei is formed from
II ie 'alas!' plus %\\ viei 'to be in the middle'.
Finally, numerical characters form a special group. They are complex, and only
in a few cases can a Chinese basis be traced. In f\ 'one', the upper part is perhaps
Chinese — . from the determinative i 'doubling', with Chinese
t%* 'two' is as .

part of the character. In % 'three', the upper right part shows the modified characters

H or ^. In (ft 'eight', \\ perhaps = Chinese /\. In 'nine', rv is possibly Chinese &

A. The authors of the dictionary The Sea of Characters found it difficult to explain

the numerical characters: © 'eight' is explained as ^ 'seven' without its top, then

the structure of the character ^ 'seven' is explained in a completely artificial way

it is figure ® 'eight' with parts of the characters Jt\ 'clean' and >n 'method'.

There are approximately 6,600 characters in the Tangut script. Sometime in the

middle of the twelfth century, when the script had been developing for over a hundred
years, the structure of nearly every character was explained in the dictionary The Sea
of Characters. The determinatives in the dictionary are used as parts of a limited set

of characters. In the process of script invention, characters were divided into basic
and derivative. Presumably the character *A 'rice' (which is not in the dictionary)

was derived from i 'cereal' (a modification of Chinese ^) and & 'heart, soul' (per-

haps from Chinese ;[>), suggesting 'cereal pleasant for the heart'. From *A ,
the char-
230 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

acters ^ 'rice porridge' and %_ 'rice broth' were produced. The use of logographic
principles and characters of phonetic value made it possible to create chains of char-
acters such as %Vc 'head', fefe 'initial', t^fe 'first, previous', $&* 'hair and head, hair
style', and tz* 'forehead'. Such chains of logograms are in part reflected in The Sea
of Characters, and in part reconstructable by scholars.
The Tangut script remained in use after the fall of the Tangut state, since the Tan-
gut language was still the language of Buddhist texts. But with completion of this pro-
cess of Chinese assimilation, probably in the second part of the sixteenth century, the
script went out of use.

Kitan and Jurchin

Gyorgy Kara

The Kitan Scripts

The Kitan (Khitan) dynasty flourished in the area of Manchuria from 916 to 11 25
c.e.; it was known to the Chinese as Liao. In 920, a Siniform writing system was es-

tablished for the Altaic (probably Mongolic) Kitan language. Chinese sources men-
tion it as the "large script." Another system, called "small was created by the
script,"

Kitan scholar Diela following his acquaintance with "the Uyghur language and
script" during the visit of an Uyghur embassy in the Kitan court (924 or 925). This is
why some thought the small script was a variety of the Uyghur alphabet

(section 49); but in fact, the not too numerous epigraphic monuments preserve two
distinct scripts, both resembling Chinese writing (similar graphic elements, in verti-

cal lines from right to left). The relatively simple characters of one of them (now
equated with the large script) are written one below the other, leaving equal spaces
between them. In the other system (now identified as the small script), the characters

forming a word in the text are assembled in blocks. These blocks contain two to seven

characters, usually arranged pairs below pairs. An odd-numbered final character is

centered below the element of a pair is" on the left side. In the head-
last pair; the first

ings of some same symbols appear in the "linear" style of the large
epitaphs, the
script. Up to now no character common to the two scripts has been identified with cer-
tainty.

The "large script" consists of logograms; see table 18.2. Some of them are tak-
en from Chinese, modified or unchanged ('month', 'day', 'emperor', 'horse', 'south',
etc.), but many of them cannot be identified with any Chinese sign. Some were later

borrowed into the Jurchin scripts (e.g., the Kitan large script character for 'year' re-
ceived an additional dot in the Jurchin small script). It is possible that the large script
also had ideograms for grammatical functions, perhaps syllabograms, but more mon-
uments would be necessary for the fuller decipherment of this system.
 SECTION 18: SINIFORM SCRIPTS OF INNER ASIA 231

'

TABLE I 8.2: A7tan Large Script"

Kitan Gloss Chinese Kitan Gloss Chinese

% heaven ^ % horse m
B
day & high M
fl
month H Ml west m
a
year direction 75
one dragon?
*
two ten +
— five 2 + twenty fj
Sl *
Cf. Jurchin.

The "assembled" or "small script" (see table i 8.3) is a complex of logograms,

syllabograms, and perhaps other phonograms (marking single sounds). Not only suf-
fixes are written in syllabograms, but also some stems. Syllables may be rendered by
a set of syllabograms, with one character for the initial, one for the medial, and one
for the final sound(s) — as in some deciphered Kitan transcriptions of Chinese names
and terms (cf. the Chinese fdnqie method). External similarity of a small script char-
acter to a Chinese character does not help reading; thus the Kitan logogram for 'gold'

has the shape of the Chinese character for 'mountain'. However, if the meaning of a
Kitan character is known, it is sometimes possible to find its Chinese source (cf.

'heaven'). Some 370 characters (and variants) of this small script are known from
large imperial and other epitaphs as well as minor inscriptions. A third of them have
been partially deciphered by the Mongolian scholar Chinggeltei and his team
(Qingge'rtai et 1985) with the aid of the more or less parallel Chinese text of some
al.

monuments (logograms of numerals, names of animals of the Twelve-year Cycle and

other calendar terms, 'year', 'month', 'day', 'time', 'heaven', 'emperor', 'great',
etc.). Logograms were also used as syllabograms; thus the character for 'year' also
occurs as a final phonogram marking ai, while the character for tau 'five' is the first

syllabogram in the block meaning taula 'hare'). There is no graphic difference be-
tween logograms and phonograms. The small script is attested in calligraphic and
cursive styles. The two Kitan scripts seem to have been used concurrently, and sur-

vived the fall of the Liao Empire. The Jurchins wrote in the Kitan script until 1191,
when it was suppressed by imperial order.
232 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

***.
*i *f4 *J t-t ifK fShi ^fJ»«tt
4
^^•ok-SI**'* N
****** £S
*mM3 :^*?*ItSS?^£**^

*s*.
•*>«.

mBn fill"?

r? ,j

figure 25. An inscription of 104 1 in Kitan Large Script (Chen Shu 1982).
 SECTION 18: SINIFORM SCRIPTS OF INNER ASIA 233

table 18.3: Kitan "Small Script"

4s & a & x &

5
row

% £ ^ 9
AL
10
T
20 30

tTt
100
R ^
heaven day month
#: + ^
year time
jau nair sair ai po

order rat ox hare dragon snake

s.l.b. ...ya? tan. La m.y.o

horse goat hen dog crow gold

m.r. im.a t.q.a n.q. ya.y. Jurgu

silver great big holy emperor

^ ^ %t
m.ng. m.o m.n. xwang di* + n. (gen)

xil ± ^-^r
lady general name empress
a
pu.si.n* s.iang g.iun i.r. xwang tai xeu*

a. Chinese element.
234 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Sample of Kitan Small Script

i? j8S rm J0
m
>,&
fa
3
,Ti
t
&
&
%&
K fflai t 1 •

4*
§
V «&
& 1 J4
& ;'
i&
*ifc
J&

'[<
10 % ¥
:
• i i £ £ & | $
%
*. '
'*:--% Bfi
ff .& $* JL
; k

*
i»» i-'
m
,

',.
$ tf.

&>
4*
$?
**
£
:i

Jl
JL
r.
^X>
i

:
%
:

i
Jj
^ :
!' ' ' & i* ;£- 4\
*.
5 ? »
r
'

: '• .'• ;
& St ^ %
& & ^
*
•'
- " •.
•

*| '£
*•*
:*- 3-
f
/v. ; :; j r * *, # at *fc

figure 26. Inscription of 1 134. With Chinese heading and translation

S
(text on the left side) (cf. Qingge'rtai et al. 1985, Kane 1989)-
*""

;Jl< -k &fc'4\&%>. 4 $* I
s
;

* 1
1. po ? t. iu. ? ? ? S. iau 7 4l
m
4H
2. time Heaven gathering ten two yw [blue/wood]
ib-

+- JfsM ^? ^j 1
/. qa. ya ? ai d(a). ur. ? u. ul 7

2. yaw [tiger] year middle winter ten

vy

/. ? ? b(i). o. ?

2. four day [verb of existence?]

'The time [of his return] is [the same?] jia yan twelfth year [of the period of]

Gathering by Heaven [= Chinese Tianhui], the fourteenth day of the midwinter

[month.]' —Qingge'rtai et al. 1985.
 SECTION 18: SINIFORM SCRIPTS OF INNER ASIA 235

rtTi

II!

l*fi5§iiM
?= ?i^-^v -

figure 27. Kitan Small Script. Seal Script Style. 1 101

Jurchin Script

The Jurchin language (also called Jurchi or Jurchen, Southern Tungusic) of the Gold-
en Empire (Jin, 15-1234) received its first writing system in 120 when Wanyan
1 1 1

Xiyin established the Jurchin "large script" following the Kitan model. With Emperor
Xizong's "small characters" added, the new script was officially introduced in 145; 1

see table 18.4. Like the large script of the Kitans, this system borrowed numerous
Chinese characters, sometimes adding a "diacritical" dot (see, e.g., 'month' and
'day'), sometimes distorting the original (e.g., etc.). The
'capital city', 'summer*,
same happened with characters adapted from the Kitan large script. This system is
known from manuscript fragments and epigraphic monuments of the Jurchin Empire,
from the Sino-Jurchin glossary and documents of the Ming Bureau of Translators.
and from a Ming stone inscription of 14 13; it contains logograms, syllabograms, and
perhaps other phonetic symbols (e.g. for rendering final consonants). The Jurchin
script is "linear" like the Kitan large script. Jin Qizong (1984) lists 1,384 characters
and variants from all available sources. The Ming Sino-Jurchin glossary with Jurchin
script contains some 720 characters (see Kiyose 1977; Dorji/Dao'rji and Heshig/
Hexige 1983).
236 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

TABLE 18.4: Jurchin Script

abka
=£ Sit

na
fit
edu
%
towo
* WW
£
moo
heaven earth wind fire water tree

inenggi
0, & *
ania jua
*L
bolo
* rwwe nienie

day year summer autumn winter spring

H /?/<:/
*,
en
ft
nialma
* Si &*.
weile guru—un nienie=eri

month season man deed empire springtime

&? ^f W*\ ^< m±$ $#

W^/( = /'
inda=xun muri-in gin guru=un=ni amba=an
1
dragon dog horse capital city* empire (gen) great

*-
e/ww
+
duyin
*t
nadan
4-
Juwa
£ ^
to/?MJC0/2 tanggu

one four seven ten fifteen hundred

Juwe
CZ iL
sunja
PL
jakun
-t
0/W.S0
7n
on/i
£
minggan
two five eight eleven twenty thousand

^ T i/an WWggH
*L
M^U'M/?
*
jirxon
X
gusin
^
tumen
three six nine twelve thirty ten thousand

a. *Cf. Chinese 5 jg(.

 SECTION 18: SINIFORM SCRIPTS OF INNER ASIA 237

Sample of Jurchin
/. Jurchin 2. Transliteration J. Gloss

w amba

p
4 -an
'great'

el
*5f 'place'
-xe

% juwe
ania
'two'

'year'

nadan 'seven'
~*t--

m bia 'month

The
M
(period of) Great Peace, second year, seventh
gusin

inenggi
'thirty'

'day'

moon, thirtieth day.'

. —Jurchin inscription ofAotun, 12 jo (Jin and Jin ig8o).

Bibliography

Tangut
Grinstead, Eric. 1972. Analysis of the Tangut Script (Scandinavian Institute of Asian Studies Mono-
graph 10). Lund: Studentlitteratur.
Kwanten, Luc. 1982. The Timely Pearl: A 12th Century Tangut Chinese Glossary vol. 1, The Chi-
nese Glosses (Indiana University Uralic and Altaic Series 142). Bloomington: Indiana Univer-
sity.

Kwanten, Luc, and Susan Hesse. 1980. Tangut (Hsi Hsia) Studies: A Bibliography Indiana Univer- (

sity Uralic and Altaic Series 137). Bloomington: Indiana University.

Kychanov, E. I. 1964. K izucheniju struktury tangutskoj pis'mennosti [On the study of the structure
of Tangut script] (Kratkie soobsceniya Instituta Narodov Azii AN SSSR 68). Moscow: Nauka.
. 1980. "Tangutskoe pis' mo v istolkovanii samix tangutov" [Tangut script in the interpreta-
tion of the Tanguts themselves]. In Razyskanija po obscemu i kitajskomu jazykoznaniju, pp.
209-23. Moscow: Nauka.
Nishida, Tatsuo. 1964-66. "Reconstruction of the Hsi-Hsia Language and Decipherment of the Hsi-
Hsia Script." In his Seikago no kenkyu [Research into the Tangut language], vol. 2, pp. 509-
600. Tokyo: Zauho Kankokai.
. 1967. Seiko moji [The Tangut script]. Tokyo: Kinokuniya.
.
1 98 1. Seika no moji [The Tangut script]. Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten.
. 1989. Seika moji no hanashi [The language of the Tangut script]. Tokyo: Taishukan Shoten.

Kitan and Jurchin

Chen Shu. 1982. Jin Lido wen [Jin and Liao literature]. Beijing: Zhongguo shuju.
Dorji/Dao'rji and Heshig/Hexige. 1983. Niiz.hen yiyu yatyiu [Research on the Sino-Jurchen vocabu-
lary of the Bureau of Translators]. Hohhot.
Jin Guangping and Jin QTzong. 1980. Nuzhen yuydn wenziydnjiu [Research on the Jurchin Ian-
238 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

guage and script]. Beijing: Wenwu chuban she.

Jin Qizong. 1984. Nilzhenwen cididn [Dictionary of Jurchin characters]. Beijing.

Kane, Daniel. 1989. The Sino-Jurchen Vocabulary of the Bureau of Interpreters. Bloomington: In-

dian University
Kiyose, Gisaburo N. 1977. A Study of the Jurchen Language and Script: Reconstruction and Deci-
pherment. Kyoto: Horitsubunka-sha.
Krippes, Karl A. 1988. "The Decipherment of the Jurchen Language Reconsidered." LACUS Forum
15:402-15.
Qingge'rtai, Liu Fengzhu, Chen Naixiong, Yu Baolin, and Xing Full. 1985. Qidan xidozi ydnjiu
[Research on the Kitan small characters]. Beijing: Zhongguo shehui kexue chQban she.
SECTION 19

The Yi Script
Dingxu Shi

Several Siniform scripts, which resemble Chinese characters in overall shape, are
found in southwest China. Some of these were created with components taken direct-
ly from Chinese characters, such as the Geba and Malimasa scripts used for Naxi (or
Nakhi, a Tibeto-Burman language) and the script used for Lisu (also Tibeto-Burman).
Other Siniform scripts, such as that of Yi (or Lolo, also a Tibeto-Burman language),
were invented more independently.

Classic Yi

The Yi characters, also known as Cuan [tswen] script or Wei writing, have an attested
history of five hundred years and an estimated history of up to five thousand years.
The term "classic" Yi script is applied to the characters used before the 1970s, when
an official campaign of modernization started. The total number of different charac-
ters in existing classic Yi records is estimated at eight to ten thousand.
Classic Yi characters are syllabic logographs; that is, each character represents a
syllable which is also a morpheme. They are written in a vertical pattern in which
each page starts at the left-hand side, and each line goes from top to bottom.
Yi characters apparently evolved from hieroglyphs, like the Chinese characters.
In classic Yi writing, a number of pictographs have kept, at least in part, their original
shape, e.g. 8^ so 33 'snake', Q
na 33 'eye', and 4& so 34 'fir'. (Tones are transcribed
here in terms of numbered levels, with 5 the highest.) Some other classic Yi characters
represent abstract concepts with self-explanatory symbols; thus IT mi 21 'sky' has the

shape of an overhead dome supported by a pillar.

Internal borrowing among homophonous words is another way to convey ab-
stract meanings in classic Yi writing. The character -$* Vy 21 'ground' is also em-
ployed to mean 'speak'; and & represents 'gold', 'yellow', and 'hereditary (son)', in

addition to its original meaning of 'snake'.

There are five basic strokes in Yi writing: the dot, the horizontal line, the vertical

line, the arch, Each basic stroke has a number of variations. The hori-
and the circle.

zontal line, for example, can be wavy or hooked. Strokes are combined to form sim-
33 'half:
ple units called radicals, which are usually also characters, like £D p'a
however, these elements do not have constant semantic value to the extent that they

do in Chinese. Complex characters are formed by adding strokes to a radical, as in 4?

?u 33 'ridge/head'. The added stroke occasionally carries semantic information: thus

239
 I

240 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 1 9. 1 : The Modern Yi Syllabary (Ding et ai 1991: 446)

p ph b mb m m f t th d nd n n i 1 k kh g qg h

j(* pi 1§ 8
tr h< 3 fl ><l

*r ! £ £ jl !
S I
S
i M f Jfl y fl er *r

E a 1 <g * «
§ ^
tt|3 ^ Hi « ©
dl e M X ^ tr

Jt N © P £ *
1
* &
2 4 5 * 3 X $
1 D: 1 © * § s
« Mi 6 w # # JR

9 if iii !
9 J If iJ X
X ! ^J 1 £ I B 1 * u <
rfi ft f
T d« $ ! *J 5 °<T f 8 fl If V III 4
VJ
1
6'
<B ?r_ e i_s IT f 8
(E X' ti i« |» *| *f 8
! Ji I § 50 iii e $ ! w t! is 31

J
; i

Q
j
1 i

J* «T I g i K 1
@ ? ! ¥ £
s
tf i S i I vl If I tfj <j if i
# !JL -U-8- J_
i
j* i<r i .

I
^ « i
j

jmm # H IV!
—
i
III i 11

4-a-L*- £11 v i y * : i
___
I d* i
cr 1
:

$ ;

riTrs
the circle at the right shoulder of $ bx 33 'flow,
noise made by flowing water' signi-

fies a hole from which xj> zi 21 'water' emerges. New characters can be formed also
by combining several radicals; e.g., $ 'accompany' ts*u55 of -$" 'ground' consists
beneath £D 'half. Sometimes a radical is doubled to create a new character, such as
34 'certain',
Sp ti a doubling of £D 'half.
In certain cases, radicals are combined or doubled in such a way that the meaning
of the new character can be derived from the combination of the components. Thus
^ ta 33 'hug or hold with both hands' is formed by doubling ^ la 34 'hand'. In rare

cases, semantic radicals carry phonetic information as well. The positions of strokes
and radicals in a given character cannot be altered. If the dot in -p* tu 33 'thousand' is

moved from the top right position to the bottom right, the character ~b ti
33 'one' is

created.

Modern Yi
Because of the geographic separation of Yi tribes, classic Yi writing was not always
a unified system, and internal variation is not uncommon. The character for 'stom-
ach', for example, has about forty different forms. An effort is being made to stan-
 SECTION 19: THE YI SCRIPT 241

table 19. 1 (Continued)

X Y ts tsh dz ndz s Z t§ t§h dz^ ndz; § S tc ten cfe ndz n. c z

*r ¥ FT J' S i
Si XI* £ , $ '

rf 55
k C3 1 1
* -X' ft y * 1 XI i
"3 33
c X :B :r * ff tfl n II <f:2i

JT * ft * 1 y H ^ H55
Si *r ^ 1
$ » SP K # J* £ #!^ W '^33
* if g # g #21
T T* J
l» tf )K Xf
"5" i

tf it # J e x £ 55
* £ y € © * $ $ s ft s Hf Of 33
tp

X
£
*
Nl
06 3 1
* $1 e § £
if
jr 4*f X S
1

i $
21

55
$ ft 5 * <P * is * » $ 1 M ¥ H 8 ,
B .
§ © i
e
i 33
* £ je
» & 3 * $ [X R i
* :
« !
621
X 8c A 41 s K
1

st; M $ Hi * ¥ :|"
|
jff k :

)K ! * I
^r 55
e 1 M « € * e ¥ £ 3 C 0) y 0* If It $ « '

6 33
pt

A#
i
!
i

$ J^ X" § ffl * £ %__ er $ H 3 * * £ G g _^_LQl!_1_ V21

< g * tt 55
a *r X * 9 1 17 9 * <t % 3 H $ * 33
§0 « # R 00 4 1 JS 1 * 21

1 1)1 (Oi JO s 1 © a !

g i
6 ^•55
l
M £ * ^ ?r 2*
o«
Q
^ » J ff <8 £ !

£ It! #33
lA,
i
? $ « £ :

s B ¥ § * 6 SI 8 i
S It 1
ji]
21

-4- $
I
01

N
P
•%
HJ

a
*
+
ii

i \i
k; jB
Ji
? »
^

* itti*
S (!)

*F
i

! * K s
£ '

,
ff

*
$33
/f\ 33
X X» * £ y t # S ! ib ii E B C Y ¥ 8 |
s
* Ci 33
y * ? JllJ_ * C^21
ii ^ fl i ~0 JL a ! II iff a i
j E
& $ A iE 15 X * g * fr K ^33

dardize Yi characters. A popular proposal, supported by the local government, is to

transform Yi characters into a pure syllabary, in which a single character represents

all morphemes with the same pronunciation. The total number of characters can thus
be reduced. The proposed modern Yi script has 819 characters, chosen from the clas-
sic writing. Of the four tones of a given syllable, the high level (55), mid level (33),

and low falling (2 are represented by different characters. The character for the mid
1 )

level tone is also used for the mid rising tone (34), but with an arch — above it. This

version has a horizontal writing pattern, in which each page starts at the top and each

line goes from left to right. It also has a printed style, with four basic strokes: hori-
zontal, vertical, curve, and circle (see table 19. 1 ).
242 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Samples of Yi
Prayer to the god of agriculture in classic Yi script

1. Yi:
& & Si *> •ip

2. Transcription: gu 33 zu 21 m 21
t'a
21
^<
j. Gloss: plow sow do one day

Mr *> ^ i? 1st
34 33
ga go- ?hT 21
t'a
21
p'u 55

valley 3lOW wind no encounter

G & 33
-fefc -7
34
2. ndi 21
gu- tsz 55 t'a
21
t'i

5- plain plow dew no lose

/.
•£> ft e- *> «$
2. die 21 YO 34 S3 33 fa 21 toy 33

5- edge inside snake no curl

'When the season of plowing and sowing comes, may the field plowed in the

valley not encounter wind, may the field plowed in the plain not lose rain and
dew, may the field not be infested with snakes.'
—Adapted from Md 1986: 2jj.
Phrases in printed Yi
<* i * $
ts'o
33
de 34 ts'o 34 hmo
person make person do
-
'apology'

h H J*

rn 33 pe 33 m 33 tc'e 3

horse kick horse jumi

'a horse that is kicking and jumping'

-Adapted from Chen 1986: 28$.
 SECTION 19: THE YI SCRIPT 243

Bibliography

Chen Kang. 1986. "Liangshan Yiyu siylnci cisu yiyi de dapei" [The semantic collocation of the
four morpheme words in Liangshan Yi]. In Zhongguo minzu yuydn lunwenji [Papers on mi-
nority languages in China], ed. Fu MaojT, pp. 264-85. Chengdu: Sichuan Press of National-
ities.

Coyaud, Maurice. 1984. Langues et ecritures en Chine et alentour, 2nd ed. Paris: "Pour TAnalyse
du Folklore."
Ding Chunshou, Zhu Wenxu, LI Shengfu, Zhu Jianxln, Ding JInyu, and Chen Shlliang. 1991.
Xiandai Yiyu [Modern Yi]. Beijing: Press of the Central College for Nationalities.
Ma Xueliang. 1986. Cuanwen congke [Anthology of Cuan characters]. Chengdu: Sichuan Press of
Nationalities.
Nishida, Tatsuo. 1980.A Study of the Lolo-Chinese Vocabulary Lolo I-Yu: The Structure and Lin-
eage of Shui-Liao Lolo. Tokyo: Shokado.
Zhongyang Minzu Xueyuan Shaoshu Minzu Yuyan Yanjiusuo [Institute of Minority Languages
under the Central College for Nationalities]. 1987. Zhongguo shaoshu minzu yuyan [Minority
languages in China]. Chengdu: Sichuan Press of Nationalities.
Zhongyang Minzu Xueyuan Yfwen Wenxian Bianyi Shi [Office for Collecting and Translating Yi
Records under the Central College for Nationalities]. 1993. Yiwen wenxian ydnjiu [The study
of Yi records]. Beijing:. Press of the Central College for Nationalities.
SECTION 2

Asian Calligraphy
John Stevens

Throughout Asia, the aesthetic configuration of a script is often as highly valued as

its linguistic content. Calligraphy, an essential element of traditional Asian culture,
remains an important art form in many areas today, and it has also attracted the atten-
tion of connoisseurs in the West.

Arabic was one of the last languages to be put into written form, but its calligra-

phy eventually became the principal artMuslim world, an area that

motif in the

stretched from India to Spain. Since pictorial representation was largely discouraged
in Islam, calligraphy was the main vehicle for artistic representation. From the sev-
enth century on, Arabic letters (section 50) were shaped into an incredible variety
of scripts and styles, ranging from monumental Kufic designs employed in the deco-
ration of buildings (such as the Taj Mahal) to tiny ghubar 'dust script' used to write
the Muslim profession of faith on a grain of rice (see figure 28). (The six classical
scripts of Islamic calligraphy are Thuluth, Naskhi, Muhaqqaq, Rayhdni, Riq a, and (

TawqV.) Calligraphy adorned nearly everything in the Muslim world: books, coins,
ceramics, brocades, buildings, furniture, rugs, garments, belts, hats, funeral shrouds,
pills and other forms of medicine, and even skin —Muslim women in certain areas

decorated their cheeks and foreheads with verses calligraphed in henna. Each letter

of the Arabic script was believed to be a work of Allah, and thus calligraphy was the
most potent of talismans. Calligraphers were venerated in Islamic culture — it was
said that the "angel" of each letter appeared to pious scribes —and the finest examples
of calligraphy were likened to the purest gold, the most delectable feast, and the
sweetest wine. (For numerous examples of Islamic calligraphy, see Khatibi 1977 and
Schimmel 1984.)
While some calligraphic masterpieces have been produced in Devanagari
script — usually in the realm of Tantric and Jain art — India is primarily an oral culture
and there is not a strong tradition of Hindu artistic calligraphy (as opposed to Mughal
art, which inherited Islam's veneration for the written word). However, it was in India
that the Siddham script developed, a script that was destined to "migrate to other
countries, travel to other lands, go to other worlds, always displaying the holy, abid-
ing in the hearts of all" {Aksamalikopanisad , I, i).

The symmetrical and refined Siddham letters, stemming from the western branch
of the Brahmi alphabet (section 30), were adopted by the Buddhists for their holy
texts, and even when the sutras were translated into Chinese, mantra (esoteric formu-

244
 SECTION 20: ASIAN CALLIGRAPHY 245

Muhaqqaq

kh
Diwani

Nasta'liq

Kufic

£*&6fe«k!
Ornamental Maghribi Ra\ Han

S s
Siyaqa "
i~ Ruq'ah

Thuluth

figure 28. AQur'anic passage in a variety of calligraphic styles (Zakariya 1978: 103):
}
inna halaqnakum min dakarin wa unta 'Behold, we have created you male and female'
}

(Sura 49:13).

las) were reproduced in the (figure 29). Siddham script was similar-
Siddham script
ly introduced into Korea and Japan through the vehicle of Buddhism, and the study
and calligraphic representation of this script became well established in East Asia.
 > i — 1 -

246 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

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 SECTION 20: ASIAN CALLIGRAPHY 247

figure 30. The sacred mantra om mani padme hum written in the Tibetan styles Lentsa,
Uchen, Drutsa, and Ume (Stevens 1988: 77).

East Asian Buddhists had little affinity for the intricacies of Sanskrit grammar or
pronunciation, though, and the use of Siddham scriptwas entirely calligraphic it —
was venerated for its beauty and magic. One finds Siddham script displayed all over
East Asia in mantra and as bija (seed syllables). During the twentieth century in Ja-
pan, there has even been a Siddham renaissance: the practice of Siddham calligraphy
is widespread among both Buddhist priests and lay believers, and several outstanding
Siddham calligraphers have mounted elaborate exhibitions which attracted large
crowds. (For guidance in writing Siddham script, see Stevens 1988: 31-69.)
The entrancing scripts of Tibet, too (section 40), are based on Gupta forms
which eventually branched into the following calligraphic styles (figure 30): Uchen
(dbu-can), standard block script; Ume (dbu-med), cursive hand script; Bamyik
('bamyig), decorative script for official documents; Drutsa ('brutsha), another type
of decorative script; Lentsa (lan-tsha), sacred script; and Chuyik ('khyug-yig), hand-
writing script for general use. Senior monks and government officials were expected
to be expert calligraphers, and penmanship figured prominently in Tibetan education
(figure 31). A well-produced Tibetan text, brushed in gold, silver, and black ink on
blue paper, is truly a delight to behold and an example of the finest religious art. (For

guidance in writing calligraphic Tibetan, see Stevens 1988: 81-91.)

It was in China (sections 14-15) that the calligraphic approach reached a pin-
nacle. Calligraphy, considered by the Chinese to be the ultimate art form, has been
appreciated there for over two thousand years. The five basic scripts, each with its

own "flavor," are: bold and elegant judn shii, seal script; dignified and serious li shu,
clerical script; formal and controlled kdi shu, standard script (figure 32); graceful
and polished xing shii, running script; and fluid, individualistic cdo shu, grass script.

Early on, the Chinese recognized that "Calligraphy 15 the person" — that is, a cal-
ligrapher's character is clearly revealed in the brushstrokes. Thus, specimens of cal-
ligraphy by statesmen, philosophers, scholars, generals, famous beauties, and monks
and nuns were more highly valued than pieces by professional calligraphers. Indeed,
the Chinese truly treasured calligraphy. One emperor, for instance, was so enamored
of the celebrated "Preface Written at the Orchid Pavilion" (Ldn Ting Xu) by the re-

nowned general-calligrapher Wang Xi-ji (321-379) that he offered the owner any
other treasure in his palace in exchange for it. When the owner refused, the emperor
resorted to subterfuge, finally obtaining his heart's desire. Later, the emperor insisted
248 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

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figure 31. The Heart Sutra in Tibetan —Uchen script (Stevens 1988: 128).

on being buried with the masterpiece. (Wang Hsi-chi himself described his favorite

pieces of calligraphy as being orchestras of movement, replete with billowing clouds,

falling rocks, brass hooks, venerable vines, and swift couriers.) Calligraphy in China
also supported a huge industry to supply calligraphers with the four treasures: brush,
ink, inkstone, and paper. (For guidance in writing Chinese characters, see Fazzioli
1986.)
 SECTION 20: ASIAN CALLIGRAPHY 249

if T X-
i
ft I *H.
*!
IT
f •ft
•J-
99
°5L

m
rffr

-% % A1
t ;«.
it $b
% A St
41 A ;^
t Mr
Mr as
ft
* %
# PL 31 jf.

figure 32. The Heart Sutra in standard Chinese script (kdi shu\ Stevens 1988: 123).

In Confucian Korea, calligraphy traditionally employed Chinese characters, but

in modern times some fine brush calligraphy is being done with Hankul letters
(section 17; figure 33). Japan maintains a calligraphic tradition as rich as that of
China (and indeed, many masterpieces of Chinese calligraphy are preserved in that
country). In addition to classical kanji calligraphy, delicate brushwork in kana script
is favored by female calligraphers (section 16; figure 34), and, as mentioned
above, there are a number of outstanding Siddham calligraphers in Japan. Dynamic
Zen calligraphy — "brushstrokes of enlightenment" —has had a profound impact on
Japanese aesthetics, and masterpieces by a figure such as Hakuin (1 685-1 768) con-
modern artists, East and West. (For guidance in creating Zen calligra-
tinue to inspire
phy, see Omori and Terayama 1983: 89-97.)
Mention should also be made of shaky 6 'sutra copying'. Brushing sacred texts
has always been a popular form of devotion for pious Buddhists throughout East Asia,
and many splendid examples have been produced. Since each character of a sacred
text is felt to represent a "Buddha," the calligrapher takes special care with each
stroke and the resulting brushwork is "written prayer." (For a guide to shaky6, see
Stevens 1988: 1 16-31.)
Compared to East Asian countries, calligraphy in Southeast Asian lands was ba-
sically an auxiliary art. Outstanding examples of such art include highly stylized, dec-
orative square script used on Burmese lacquer and gilt ordination texts for Buddhist
monks; texts in Cambodian Mul script; and finely detailed Javanese (section 45)
and Malay manuscripts. It should also be noted that calligraphic talismans are fre-

quently employed as tattoo designs in Asia, especially in Thailand and Japan.

250 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

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figure 33. The Heart Sutra in Korean (Stevens 1988: 129).

3
I i i k'
5 Xx ^,
tfy
^ £
/^ ;„
t*

i.
figure 34. The traditional arrangement of Japanese hiragana (each character is used
once, to spell out the following poem, attributed to the Buddhist monk Kukai):

Iro wa nioedo chirinuru wo waga yo tare zo tsune naran ui no okuyama kyo koete asaki
yume miji ei mo sezu
'The colorful [flowers] are fragrant, but they must fall. Who in this world can live forever?
Today cross over the deep mountains of life's illusions and there will be no more shallow
dreaming, no more drunkenness'
(Stevens 1988: 185; from the Zentsuji Treasury).
 SECTION 20: ASIAN CALLIGRAPHY ?5 1

Bibliography

Billeter, Jean Francois. 1990. The Chinese Art of Writing. New York: Rizzoli.
Chiang, Yee. 1973. Chinese Calligraphy: An Introduction to Its Aesthetics and Technique, 3rd ed.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Douglas, Nik. 1978. Tibetan Tantric Charms and Amulets. New York: Dover.
Fazzioli, Edoardo. 1987. Chinese Calligraphy. New York: Abbeville.
Gallop, Annabel T. 1991 Golden Letters: Writing Traditions of Indonesia. London: British Library.
.

Khatibi, Abdelkebir, and Mohammed Sijelmassi. 1977. The Splendour of Islamic Calligraphy. New
York: Rizzoli.
Lai, T. C. 1975. Chinese Calligraphy: An Introduction. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Losty, Jeremiah P. 1982. The Art of the Book in India. London: British Library.
Mookerjee, Ajit. 1975, Yoga Art. London: Thames and Hudson.
Nakata, Yujiro. 1976. The Art of Japanese Calligraphy. New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill/Heibon-
sha.

Omori Sogen, and Terayama Katsujo. 1983. Zen and the Art of Calligraphy. London: Routledge and
Kegan Paul.
Sadafi, Yasin H. 1978. Islamic Calligraphy. Boulder, Colo.: Shambhala.
Schimmel, Annemarie. 1984. Calligraphy and Islamic Culture. New York: New York University
Press.
Stevens, John. 1988. Sacred Calligraphy of the East. Boston: Shambhala.
Van Gulik, R. H. 1980. Siddham. New Delhi: Mrs. Sharada Rani.
Zakariya, Mohamed U. 1978. "Observations on Islamic Calligraphy." Fine Print 4: 97-103.
.
1979. The Calligraphy of Islam: Reflections on the State of the Art. Washington, D.C.:

Georgetown Univerwity, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies.

252 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Comparative Table
of Sinitic Characters

The following list is intended to give a sampling of Chinese characters that have
more than one form in current use: Traditional (used in Taiwan, Hong Kong, Sin-
gapore, and other overseas Chinese communities), Simplified (used in the People's
Republic of China), and Japanese. In addition, the list illustrates the differences in
pronunciation that are found as one goes from Mandarin Chinese (in pinyin roman-
ization) to Japanese on and kun readings (in the Hepburn romanization) and to Korean
(Yale system). Items are arranged alphabetically by the pinyin forms. Data were pro-
vided by Victor H. Mair, Janet S. (Shibamoto) Smith, and Ross King.

PY Tr. Si. Chinese Gloss Jp. On Kun Jpn. Gloss ifdiff. Korean

ai m ^ silly obstinacy *(ho) —

ai %t ^ love H ai ay
bing & 1\- together, moreover M hei nami line up equal
, pyeng
naraberu
narabu
narabi ni
bu m W supplement fit ho oginau po
cai m ^ just, then Wk (san (wazukani) a little, a small cay
/zan/sai) quantity
can # # blend, confused # san mairu three cham
chan m £!• cut into, carve (sen) (surudoi) going, coming (chan)
chan m ti bind up, involve M (ten) (matou) cen
chan M ;
fc
produce, estate M san umu + childbirth san
umareru
ubu
chan m tf to regret, ritual 'H (zan) cham
chang t '^ to taste, past W (sho) (nameru) sang
chang m JM/ intestines jj§cho cang
chang, n Ix long, to grow J| cho nagai cang
zh&ng
ch3ng M J shed,storehouse,factory j^ (sho) chang
che M £ cart, car J|i sha kuruma cha, ke
chen m li dust H chin chiri cin
gomi
chen m It inner garments M (shin) chun
chen, m W fitting, suitable ffc (sho) name, title ching
cheng
chi m iS slow, late M chi okureru ci

okurasu
osoi
chT ^ i§ teeth M shi ha chi
 COMPARATIVE TABLE OF SINITIC CHARACTERS 253

PY Tr. Si. Chinese Gloss Jp. On Kun Jpn. Gloss ifdiff. Korean

chong Hj ft collide, rush against % sho chwung

chong H % kindness, grace tt (cho) favor, affection chong
chou @| 3. deformed SI shu minikui ugliness chwu
chu jftn. %h place &L sho che
cong f£ M. follow, from $£ ju shitagau cong
sho shitagaeru
ju
dang M it political party It to tang
dl JSI il hand in/to, exchange JE tei chey
dong M % east M to higashi tong
dong W] $J to move id do ugoku tong
ugokasu
er |^ JL infant, boy »ji a
er Ji£ UK two, second ^t ni 1

fa ft '& put forth, start % hatsu pal

hotsu
fa 1§ £ hair (of the head) §t hatsu kami pal
fei M \ to fly ft! hi tobu Pi
tobasu
feng il Jxi wind Mfu kaze phwung
fu kaza
feng H 4^ abundant g ho yutaka phwung
fen iff ft grave, cemetery it fun pwun
fen H & spirited, earnest S fun furu pwun
feng M, jxi phoenix JH (ho) pong
fo {$ f, Buddha {A futsu hotoke pwul
fa M tik skin »fu pwu
fu H % cover 31 fuku 6u + overthrow; pok
kutsugaesu overturn
kutsugaeru
fu tS Jt again, repeat W. fuku pok
fu H g double garment $f[ fuku double pok
fu £§ $3 woman, wife *§fu pwu
gan ^ Tdry $£ kan kawaku kan/ken
kawakasu
gan ffi ^F attend to, tree trunk ^ kan miki tree trunk kan
ge fU, 1^ a measure word flko kay
w
gu Wi ft grain ^koku kok
gua M ffl to blow (of wind) SI katsu/
—
kechi
guang !if J*" broad JA ko hiroi kwang
hiromaru
hiromeru
hirogaru
hirogeru
guo 9 M country, kingdom HI koku kuni kwuk
254 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

PY Tr. Si. Chinese Gloss Jp. On Kun Jpn. Gloss ifdiff. Korean

guo m il pass by, exceed ilka sugiru error; excess kwa

sugosu
ayamatsu
ayamachi
ha m 4T frog tt(a) (kaeru) ha 'shrimp'
hai m & still M. kan return 1 hwan 'return'

han m $. Chinese rlkan han

hao m ^ appellation, mark ^go ho
heng is fl constant, persevering fe ko hang
hou « JB after \k go nochi hwu
ko
hou B fj queen Jo (ko/g o)(kisaki) hwu
hua m ^ splendor, China H ka hana + flower hwa
ke
hua m Hi picture Hga hwa
kaku hoyk 'stroke'

hua fij M to carve, mark fij (kaku) hoyk

huai w. # bosom, to cherish HI kai futokoro hoy
natsukashii
natsukashimu
natsuku
natsukeru
huan m & rejoice, happy Ifc kan hwan
hui # £ assemble, meet £ kai au hoy
e
huo m $ to reap It kaku hoyk
huo & comrade, partner
ij{ »(ka) obitadashii immense kwa
ji m Ul a mechanism 11 ki hata ki

ji 14 chicken II kei niwatori kyey

ji m |R accumulate IX seki tsumu cek
tsumoru
ji m ii attack, beat ^ geki utsu kyek
ji m Wl utmost, extreme tli kyoki i kiwameru kuk
goku kiwamaru
kiwami
U m JL how many, a few Hki iku ki

f1
m 0F border, limit H£ sai kiwa + time, occasion cey
ji m £$ connect, continue B kei tsugu kyey
jia ik f£ clasp under the arm ££ kyo hasamu + put between, hyep
hasamaru insert

ji* m \U false, borrow {Ska kari vanit) <\ tempo- ka

ke rary, Drovisional
jia m price, value
ffr fffi ka atai ka
jian m $ hardship, calamity IS (kan) (nayamu) kan
jian M '£ firm, hard ^ken katai kyen
jian K prison, oversee
{}£ ^ kan official; director kam
jidn ft frugal, economical P& ken kewashii steep; severe kern
 COMPARATIVE TABLE OF SINITIC CHARACTERS 255

PY Tr. Si. Chinese Gloss Jp. On Kun Jpn. Gloss ifdiff. Korean

jian H i£ cocoon j$9 (ken) (mayu) kyen

ji£n M M visiting card, to select J$L (kan/ (erabu) kan
ken)
jian m # introduce, recommend M sen susumeru chen
jian H JaL see Mi ken miru kyen
mieru
miseru
Jiang m # take, presently #sho + commander cang
jiang .gs. J| ginger H (kyo) (hajikami) kang
Jiang nHf i# explain, lecture !# ko kang
jie m $t steps, levels Pgkai kyey
jie m Jfe heroic, eminent $i ketsu excellence kel
jie B P joint, festival ffi setsu fushi eel
sechi
jln fi i)L barely, just iM (kin) (wazuka) kun
jin II M barely, utmost ^ jin mama as it is
cin
Jin m /•ji exhaust, uttermost ^ jin tsukusu
}

fin m ]#- advance, enter jil shin susumu cin

susumeru
j"»ng m tr. past, a classic flkei heru longitude; sutra; kyeng
kyo pass, elapse
j^ng m t& terrify, alarm ft kyo odoroku + surprise kyeng
odorokasu
jiu % in old 10 kyu kwu
jue K *sfc perceive, feel |£ kaku oboeru + remember; kak
samasu awake
sameru
kai m ff open Hf! kai hiraku kay
hirakeru
aku
akeru
lai m 3fe come ^rai kuru 'nay
kitaru
kitasu

liang wi ffi two, tael f^ ryo Vang,

nyang
id %f* donkey it (ro) 'ye

mai w ^ to buy Mbai kau may

mai m ic wheat ^ baku mugi mayk
mai m ^ to sell % bai uru may
ureru
men H fi door Pi mon kado mwun
nao 11 I& vexed, resentful t$ no nayamu distress; illness noy
nayamasu
qi W ^r equal, even ^r sei cey
qi
Jzti
a how (rhetorical) S(ki) ki, kay
qi ifc fu to open, divide # (kei) kyey
256 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

PY Tr. Si. Chinese Gloss y/7. On fiffl 7/7/2. Gloss ifdiff. Korean

qi M # reject, discard fH(ki) ki

qi M, % breath, air, temper M ki ki

ke
qian M ££ to ascend, transfer jH sen chen
qi<in m y% shallow ££ sen asai chen
qiang m tfc rifle It (so) spear, lance I

qiang m if wall if (sho) (kaki) cang

qiao ti M bridge JH kyo hashi kyo
qiao K % aperture II (kyo) kyu
qie % steal, pilfer 2tj setsu secret, stealthy eel
qln ffl, ^ relation(ship) ^ shin oya intimacy; chin
shitashii parents, relative
shitashimu
qing m JE£ congratulate, lucky H kei kyeng
qiong m fl poor, exhausted M kyu kiwameru kwung
kiwamaru
quan m #£ authority, power $1 ken kwen
gon
que m SSfc deficient, vacancy ^C ketu kakeru kyel
kaku
qu p3 E region, to distinguish E ku kwu
rang m ih waive, yield li jo yuzuru yang
rao m t& wind around ^(j6) surround yo
re & $V hot #& netsu atsui yel
ren IX recognize IS nin mitomeru in

sheng • P sound ^ sei koe seng

sho kowa
shou w % longevity ^f shu kotobuki swu
shu m M belong to H zoku sok
sul w pettybits, # sai kudaku break, smash sway
kudakeru
tiao m ^ strip, twig £j6 article, clause CO
tig m $c iron §£ tetsu chel
ting m IT hall fr cho gov' ment office cheng
wei m I'S to surround, enclose Hi kakomu wi
kakou
wei h ^/ to do, make *i (tame) + welfare wi
wu M ^c not, without 3& mu nai mwu
bu
xl W, W sacrifice 4i gi huy
XI m >J practice, habit H shu narau sup
xl m ^ic joke, theater life gi tawamuren i huy
xian lit J# salty £i (kan) ham
xian m M leisure, idle f?H kan aida interval, space han
ken ma
xiiin m S obvious $R ken hyen
xian m $ contribute it£ ken hen
 COMPARATIVE TABLE OF SINITIC CHARACTERS 2^7

PY Tr. Si. Chinese Gloss Jp. On Kim Jpn. Gloss ifdiff. Korean

kon
xian u 1: district Irken hyen
xian m % constitution M ken hen
xiang m ^ village $£kyo + native place hyang
g°
xiang W- nft noise, echo #kyo hibiku hyang
xie \w Mh mutual, to aid t&kyo hyep
xie % M to write ^¥ sha utsuru copy, picture sa
utsusu
xlng a % prosper, originate Mko okoru + interest, enter- hung
kyo okosu tainment; revive
xuan M elect xfc M sen erabu sen
xue m ^ learn, study ^ gaku manabu hak
xiin m seek ./- # jin tazuneru + ask sim
ya 55 1: ugly, inferior 3£ a rank next a
y^ m H medicine |Si uy
yi ja i: one ^ ichi il

y» m i)L etiquette, rites fi gi uy

yi m if- interpret, translate IR yaku wake yek
y
v
i m >C righteousness, mng. ii gi uy
ying m ££ ought, correspond JG& 6 Qng
yu & #. fish ^ gyo uo e
sakana
yuan HI [3 circular, a dollar Hen marui wen
yun w is transport M un hakobu wun
zha m f L write out, a memorial JL satsu fuda paper money cap/cha; chal
zhai If ^ abstain, foot, a shop ^ sai cay
zhai m fff owe, a debt fit sai chay
zhan m $& rough felt, as for rugs ft (sen) cen
zhan Wz iHc alarmed, to fight, war ilc sen ikusa cen
tatakau
zhao m $A hasten to, a surname ffi (cho) CO
zhe m #f to fold, document t/r setsu oru cep
ori

oreru
zhe m. i* this )1 (sha) crawl, creep ce
zheng m liE testify, summon tE sei cing
zheng # #f wrangle, contest #-so arasou cayng
zheng m $$ a surname iP (tei) ceng
zhl Z5Z. K measure word W (si) (tada) only; free chek
zhi #1 ft, seize, grasp #1 shitsu toru cip
shu
zhi m IR office, official duty ^ shoku cik

zhi m R only ffi (gi) national god ci 'respect'

zhong M f^ cup M (sho) gather; collect cong

zhong m i^ bell, clock ML sho kane cong
zhong H 1
ft kind, seed ^1 shu tane cong
258 PART IV: EAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

PY Tr. S/. Chinese Gloss Jp. On Kun Jpn. Gloss if d iff. Korean

zhong w- & crowd M shu cwung

shu
zhou H daytime H chu hiru cwu
zhou f1 crape, wrinkled
1$ (shu) (shiwa) chwu
zhii m jft construct H chiku kizuku chwuk
zhuan m ^ special ^f sen moppara mainly, solely cen
zhuang ffi J9E sedate, estate *£ so cang 'villa'

sho
ee sho 'level'

zhui ISg
I& to fall, sink H tsui chwu
zhuo r^ •#j turbid, stupid ffl daku nigoru thak
nigosu

Kokuji

The following are characters created in Japan, following the structural principles of
Chinese character formation (more or less); some of them have on-readings.

Jpn. On Kun Gloss

A. On THE JOYO-KANJI LIST

fi do hataraki work, effect

hataraku
1* toege mountain pass
m hata field, one's specialty
hatake
& komu be crowded; get into,

komeru include, concentrate on

w waku frame, framework

B. Not on the joyo-kanji list

it shitsuke upbringing
W kamishimo samurai; ceremonial garb of samurai
Hf yuki sleeve length
* tsuma skirt
 Part V:European
Writing Systems

Literacy spread gradually across Europe, initially with the Phoenicians and
then, when writing was adopted by the Greeks —
who (at a date which remains hotly
disputed in the scholarly community) reinterpreted certain consonant symbols as pure
vowel letters, creating the- alphabet — with their trading colonies and settlements. Al-
phabetic inscriptions in several scripts, dating to the early and mid first millennium
b.c.e., are found in the Anatolian, Balkan, Italian, and Iberian peninsulas, represent-
ing both Indo-European languages and those spoken before the arrival of Indo-Euro-
pean-speakers. The Greek communities were founded before the script was
standardized, and there is considerable variety in the alphabets and their use; in Italy,

the Etruscans wrote a very limited range of inscriptions in a fairly uniform Greek-de-
rived script, from which the Latin script evolved over a short time into a form well
suited to its language. The relative prosperity and stability of the Roman Republic and
then Empire afforded its artisans the luxury to bring to what many consider esthetic
perfection the monumental capital letters used on official inscriptions such as Trajan's
Column. (In Greece, the development was more toward geometric regularity.)

With the expansion of Roman rule across Europe, their administrators and sub-
sequently their Christian missionaries brought writing to the periphery of the conti-
nent. In the Germanic- and Celtic-speaking areas, apparently, they were anticipated
by local adaptations, Runes and Ogham respectively — perhaps inspired by contact
with the Romans. Throughout Western Europe, local chanceries and scriptoria devel-
oped local variations of the Roman alphabet; rare episodes of political unification
brought with them standardizations over lesser or wider areas. The spread of printing
in the fifteenth century finally had the result that Roman writing became almost ho-
mogeneous in appearance, although national differences in favored typeface and lay-
out design remain apparent.
In Eastern Europe, by contrast, beyond the farthest reach of Rome, as well as into

Egypt, it was the Church rather than governments that was the primary vehicle of lit-

eracy, and individual cultures adopted strictly local scripts. These generally emulated

259
260 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

the model of the Greek scriptures they received: Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, and
Gothic, as well as Glagolitic and Cyrillic (in the Slavic areas). Of these, Gothic,
Glagolitic, and Coptic sooner or later died out with their vehicular languages (the last

two persist in liturgical context). But Armenian and Georgian have survived to the

present in the formidable mountains of the Caucasus; and Cyrillic spread with the Or-
thodox church among the eastern Slavic languages. As so frequently, Russia's hege-
mony brought standardization, and successive regimes brought successive script
reforms.
— Peter T. Daniels
SECTION 21

Transmission of the Phoenician

Script to the West
Pierre Swiggers

Semitic consonantal writing, as developed and attested in the North Semitic scripts,
was the ancestor of three geographically and linguistically diversified developments:
one spreading toward India and southern Asia; the second —an offspring of the Ara-
maic consonantal script —toward Mongolia and the Manchu Empire; and the third
spreading toward the west, where it led to the creation of fully alphabetic writing sys-
tems for the Indo-European languages. It is this last development which is commonly
described as the transmission, with several adaptations, of the Phoenician consonan-
tal script (22 signs) to the Greeks (see Burzachechi 1976; Healey 1990; Heubeck
1979; Jeffery 1982; Naveh 1987; Sass 1988, 1991).
The derivation of the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician script is evident from:

the shapes of the letters, obvious despite reflection, elaboration, or simplification;

their ordering; their numerical value; and their names (see table 2 1 .
1 ). These names
have meanings only in Phoenician (or Semitic in general), not in Greek (or Indo-

European). An additional argument is the use as writing materials of leather, stone,

wood, and papyrus, as opposed to the clay of Minoan-Mycenean practice (section
7): these are also the materials used in the North Semitic area, where the quality of

clay was poor. Herodotus (V, 58) speaks of the Greek letters as ^oivncrjia ypduuaxa
'Phoenician characters'; the word (|)OivtKfjta is attested in a fifth-century inscription

from Teos (SIG 38, 1. 37) as the designation of characters. The Greeks created an al-

phabet capable of transcribing all the segmental components of the Greek language
by adding signs with vocalic value to the consonantal inventory of Phoenician (sec-
tion 5). The signs of the Greek alphabet constitute the basis of all alphabets that de-
veloped in the West.

Geographical and chronological aspects

The adoption and adaptation of the Phoenician writing system by the Greeks is geo-
graphically diversified, but structurally unified, with specific variants for the various
local states (for surveys, see Kirchhoff 1887, still a basic reference, and Jeffery 1990,
who speaks of "primary transmission" with respect to the borrowing of the alphabet
from Semites, and of "secondary transmission throughout Greece" with respect to the

261
262 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 2 1 . 1 : Comparison of the Phoenician Consonantal

Signs and the Letters of the Greek Alphabet

Phoenician Greek
Name ca. 900 B.C. E. 800-600 Attic (400) Name
>alef «Xc AAA A alpha
bet 29 £fc B B beta

glmel AA rhc r gamma

dalet A4A >AD A delta

he 33 6£E E e psilon

waw yy^i PFC (digamma)

zajin Ixl Ixl I zeta

het B RH HH H H eta

tet ®e ®eo theta

yod Z2Z
vW a i 1 iota

kaf KK K K kappa
lamed LLC U hA A labda
mem n^ rt*M M mu
nun an r r*N N nu
samek ? *£ = £ ksi
(
ayin o o O o mikron
pe >•/ rr P Pi

sade wl M (san)

qof 99* 99 (qoppa)

res 4 4 PD* P rho

sin/sin W O* * sigma
taw +X T T tau

KYV Y u psilon

CD4 <t> phi

X+ X chi

YV Y psi

^J20 a 6 mega

diffusion of the Greek alphabet). The diversity can be reduced to an archaic stage,
comprising the Dorian alphabets of Thera, Melos (largely identical to that of Thera),
and Crete (table 21.2); and two branches, Eastern and Western — Western, the ac-
cording to some scholars, younger than the Eastern —each having number of a vari-

eties(table 21.3). The Eastern alphabets, including the Ionic scripts, comprise the
alphabets of Asia Minor and the adjacent islands, of the Cyclades and Attica, of
Megara, Corinth, Sicyon, and Argos, and the Ionian colonies of Magna Graecia. The
Western alphabets include the Chalcidian alphabets, and the alphabets of Boeotia,
Phocis, Locri, Thessaly, most of the Peloponnesus, and the non-Ionian colonies of
 SECTION 21: TRANSMISSION OF THE PHOENICIAN SCRIPT TO THE WEST
263

table 2 1 .2: General Comparative Table of Early Greek Alphabets (8th-yth c. B.C.E.)

Athens Thera Crete Naxos Corcyra Boeotia

a
**« AAA A AAA AA AAA A^A AAA vv A
b
213 1 a a S B
g
11 1 A A /I
\» 1
r
d
A AdJ A AA 64A A
H MM J fl

U
1

e
3 3 MA 3 2f 3d 33 3 E
v/u
=11^1 V\ A *A \1 1 F
z
1
I Z
h(e)
B B 8 RH* BO B a H
©®@ ^© ©
h
t
e © Q®
i

mi u z <*> u
^
I
*,*> 1
til 1

k
>( i« } HH3 K XX 1
K
1

m
1 1 n z ^ A M 1^ -1 11 V A
M
A\ M n vA^v^wJ >Maj *1M MM "1M "I
n
^H 17 A^N^ ^ Ml*! MM mi A N
ks
? $
3
000° Qoo
P
11 TH im n 11 n 01 n
s
MM M AA MM MM n
q
? <p ? 9
r

s
*>
1 ^ <IM ^q< ^ 11 M4 <\

Ss*
P
I
*<i
T T T T TT T TT TT T
W
t

u
N 1 YM vy Y V 1 1
Y
h
k
X * X
p
h

© «> O

Magna Graecia. A variety of the Western Greek script, in which the shape X has the
h
value [ks], *F has the value [k ], and there is no H, underlies the Etruscan and Italic

scripts. The transmission to Italy took place at a time when the Greek writing direc-
tion was from right to left: this is the direction attested in the oldest Etruscan, Um-
brian, Oscan, and Faliscan inscriptions (section 23).
Several variants of the Greek alphabet continued to exist for more than three cen-
turies; in 403/402 b.c.e., the Ionic alphabet of Miletus was officially adopted as a
264 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 21.3: Detailed Comparison of Eastern and Western Alphabets

Eastern Alphabets Western Alphabets

Athens Miletus Corinth Boeotia . Laconic, 1 Arcadia

a XA AA AA AAN *A AA a
1
b BB J ! BB * b

g r-A r <C /*r /»

<c g
d AD a A0 A00 AD WD d

e *# /££ *K AU fi? £E e

u FF FC f u

z X T £ 1 z

h(e) HB HB B BH B B h

t"
ffi® ®© &@ ^e ®© © t
h

i
9\ 1 hi 1 1
1
i

k K t<r K K K K k

m
pr MM r/
1

m
I A /A 1

m
r/A r AA AA
n PN HA/ r A'/V IW /V n

ks #i £ + X + ks

O O O O°0 O
P CP rn rr rw rnr rn P
s
M
q ? (?) ? ? q
r
(>PD f?D W m pp ppp r

s
W( U Xi fa *z
Tf T T
s

t
t-t T T t

u/u vy V vy vpr yrv V u

p"
a>9 © ?f a>4>
f p
h

k"
x+ X x+ Vf VY •V k
h

ps VY Y? -
X* ps

n
standard in Athens, and this is what we know as the classical Greek alphabet (sec-
tion 22). By that time the left-to-right direction had prevailed.

Linguistic aspects

The Greeks, in adapting the Phoenician script, realized two types of innovations:
structural and local.
 SECTION 21: TRANSMISSION OF THE PHOENICIAN SCRIPT TO THE WEST 265

Structural innovation

The consonantal writing system became a fully alphabetic writing system that notates
both consonants and vowels (but usually not word division, and then never with any
sort of mark). The Greeks, in achieving this innovation, exploited the potential of a
system in which consonant letters were used as "reading aids" (matres lectionis) to

transcribe long vowels (section 5). In a first stage, Phoenician 'alefwas used for al-

pha [a], Phoenician he for e psilon [e], Phoenician (ayin for o mikron [o], and Phoe-
nician yod for iota [i]. Later (6th century b.c.e., starting in Miletus), the Greek alpha-
bet was enriched with two signs to distinguish long from short e and o vowels: eta
was distinguished from e psilon, with a shape derived from Phoenician het, which had
been used to denote the some Western Greek alphabets; and 6
rough breathing in

—
mega was distinguished from o mikron a new sign was created, perhaps on the basis
of the sign used for o mikron. This structural innovation was a major step in the his-
tory of writing: it made possible the exhaustive representation of the linear sequence
of the sound segments constituting a message, and thus allowed the direct, continuous
reading of any text, not requiring any grammatical information to be supplied by the
reader.

Local innovations

A number of consonantal signs of the Phoenician script were used for sounds in
Greek phonologically similar to those denoted in Phoenician: wow was used to render
h
Greek digamma [u], and also the vowel [u]; tit was used for Greek theta [t ]; go/ was
used for Greek koppa, a back variant of the voiceless velar stop; and zajin was used
for Greek zeta [dz].

Letters were later added to the inventory (after the letter T) in order to notate

sounds unknown in Phoenician: O [p h

], *F [ps], X [k h
], and 2 [ks]; the origin (Semitic,

Cypriote, or internal creation) of these added letters is disputed.

The number of signs for the sibilants was reduced. This is an intricate matter,
since there is no one-to-one correspondence among the signs within Semitic scripts,

and since different traditions were at play in the transmission (involving a redistribu-
tion of values among the signs for sibilants and the signs for aspirated stops; see
table 2 1 .4). The Phoenician samek $ survives in the Eastern Ionic alphabet with the
value [ks]; elsewhere it dropped out of the alphabet. The sign for the voiceless spirant

[s] in Greek takes its (Ionic) name sigma, but not its form, from Phoenician samek. It

is attested in two shapes, which derive, in parallel traditions, from Phoenician sdde

(the Greek prototype letter resulting from sdde was called son by the Dorians), or

from Phoenician sin. Originally these two sign shapes were probably used as free
variants or as geographically or chronologically determined alternates; in some ar-

chaic Greek abecedaries the two s-signs, descending from sdde and sin, occur togeth-
er, but apparently with one of them being retained as a non-functional unit in the
266 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 2 1 .4: Signs for Sibilants and for Aspirated Stops in Greek Alphabets

Corinthian

Euboean

Melos Cretan
Thera Naxos
Attic Ionic

[
k] Ki? K:? K:? k--9 K «:<P \c.q IC:?

W Y X X 1CB--9B kH K X +x
[ks] X X5 £ KM KM kM:9M Q( J
[p"i 4> 4> + PQ PH r <f 4>

[ps] 4>^ <M Y PM rM TM T5 Y

I I - I -
I
[dz]
K=I) ?
[s] ^ * M M M M i S

inventory. Eventually only one sign for [s], that deriving from Phoenician sin, was
maintained. In Ionic inscriptions from Asia we sporadically find a sign ITI (later called

aav7iei sanpei 'quasi-7i\ because of its shape resembling that of n /?), which proba-
bly served to notate a voiceless affricate [ts], and for which we cannot exclude Phoe-
nician sdde as the formal model. The reassignment of values by the Greeks to the
sibilant signs calls for a reconstructive study in phonological perception (see Brixhe
199 1, Swiggers 1991).

Problems
Much debate has taken place, and still does, on the agents, the date, and the place of
transmission (for recent surveys see Amadasi Guzzo 1991 and Isserlin 1991 ).

Agents
The commonly held opinion, found already in ancient Greek sources, is that the Phoe-
nicians transmitted their consonantal writing system to the Greeks, who transformed
it into a fully alphabetic script. But some scholars have claimed that the agents of

transmission were other Semitic groups —Arameans (Segert 1963, Knauf 1987) or
"North Syrians" (Helck 1979) —or even non-Semitic groups in Asia Minor (Phrygia,
Cilicia), who served as intermediaries between the Semitic and the Greek worlds (Jef-
fery 1982, Brixhe 1991, Lemaire 1991). It should be noted, however, that the Greek
 SECTION 21: TRANSMISSION OF THE PHOENICIAN SCRIPT TO THE WEST 267

letter names iota and rho point to a transmission from a Phoenician source (since in
Phoenician a > o, while this shift is absent from Aramaic); and even if there were an
Asia Minor connection, the source would still have been the Phoenician writing sys-
tem. It had been adopted by the Cilicians, but they used it only for writing inscriptions
in Phoenician, which contain autochthonous onomastic material.

Date

The date of the transmission has been the subject of a major controversy between
Classicists and Semitists (for a historiographic survey see McCarter 1975; for a list

of the datings and the scholars who proposed them, see Heubeck 1979: 75-76, who
notes all these: 1 500-1400, 1400, 1 200-1 100, 1100-750, 1100-1000, 1000-900,
900, 900-800, 900-850, 800, 800-750, 750-700). Two considerations serve as guid-
ing principles, though to be used with some flexibility: (a) the dating of the oldest
Greek inscriptions, and (b) correspondences between the oldest Greek scripts and let-

tershapes of datable Phoenician (or Semitic) inscriptions. The available materials

lead to somewhat convergent dates: the first Greek inscriptions are from around 750
b.c.e. (or 770-750), and for the oldest Greek sign shapes we find neat correspon-
dences with the characters of Phoenician inscriptions dated between 800 and 750.
This was basically the position of Carpenter (1933, adoption of the alphabet around
720-700), albeit slightly modified on the basis of new datings.
Specialists who approach the history of the alphabet from a Greek angle gener-
ally agree that the beginnings of Greek alphabetic writing go back to the (mid) eighth

century (at most 800 b.c.e.; Wachter 1989). This view avoids the difficulty of assum-
ing a (problematic) coexistence of the Mycenean syllabic script and the Greek alpha-
betic script, and reckons with a "dark age" of illiteracy between the collapse of the
Mycenean civilization and the earliest Greek alphabetic inscriptions.

Semitists, who base themselves on comparisons of letter shapes between Semitic

scripts (Phoenician, and more generally Canaanite, or even Aramaic), have tended to

set the date of transmission much higher. Bernal (1987, 1990) even goes so far as to

propose a date around 1500- 1400, postulating a wave-like spread of "alphabetic," i.e.

consonantal, scripts emanating from a Proto-Phoenician model, with successive in-

fluences from the Phoenician homeland. A lower date, but still much higher than the
traditionally accepted one, has been proposed by Naveh (1973) and his followers,
who reckon with a transmission around 1100 from Proto-Canaanite (consonantal
writing) to archaic Greek (alphabetic writing). Their arguments are twofold: (a) the
use of all possible directions (left to right, right to left, and boustrophedon) in the old-

est Greek inscriptions; and (b) the lapidary features and variable inclinations of the
archaic Greek letters (as can be seen in tables 21.1,21.2, and 21.3).

Argument (a) is weak, since such a situation can be typical of the initial stage of

any adapted writing system (moreover, the oldest Greek inscriptions are mostly writ-

ten from right to left, as is the case in Semitic); such early stages are characterized by
268 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

the slow emergence of scribal tradition and by geographic and individual diversity in

the absence of a fixed norm. Argument (b), considered in the light of our present
knowledge of Semitic epigraphy, has no solid foundation. The best parallels for ar-
chaic Greek letters are found in Phoenician inscriptions from the late 9th or early 8th
century (except for beta, which in any event is problematic to explain, especially in
view of its many local variations; see Jeffery 1990: 23). Moreover, Naveh's hypoth-
esis does not explain the early shape of mu NAr
]; his supposition of a "secondary bor-
rowing" (in a later period) of the forms for kappa and u psilon is not substantiated.
Finally, examination of the North Semitic epigraphic corpus shows a non-rectilinear
progress of the writing systems.
It is of interest to note that the fairly recently found Aramaic inscription of Tell
Fekheriye (9th century; figure 5 on page 103) shows an archaic script, at least for

several letters, and this has led some Semitists to propose a date coming nearer the
Classicists' view, and perhaps involving a transmission on the continent (North Syria
or Asia Minor; see Kaufman 1987). As a result, an unbiased comparison of Greek ar-

chaic scripts with North Semitic scripts, and the highly plausible hypothesis of a rath-
er restricted period of experimentation with the alphabet among the Greeks, lead to
the conclusion that the transmission of the Phoenician script and the constitution of a
fully alphabetic script should be placed in Greece between 800 and 775 b.c.e.

Place

A number of hypotheses, linked with views on the agents of transmission, have been
offered concerning the place of transmission of the Phoenician script to the West.
(There is no convincing archeological evidence which allows us to settle the ques-

tion.) According to some scholars, this would have happened in Greece, more specif-
ically on the islands of Crete (or Thera, less likely Melos) or Rhodes, but probably
not Cyprus (Cypriot Greeks had a syllabary of their own). These are the territories
where truly alphabetic scripts were formed —whether without the additional letters,
as in the oldest inscriptions from Thera, Melos, and Crete; or with them, as in the ar-

chaic Greek script, in both its eastern and western branches. In these areas, especially
on the islands — important points on the east-west trade route — there were sustained
contacts between Phoenicians and Greeks (cf. Coldstream 1982). Others have situat-

ed the origin of the process in Asia Minor or Northern Syria. The hypothesis of a mul-
tiple geographical origin of the alphabet, which in principle could account for the
various local varieties, is less credible, given that everywhere the same consonant
signs of the Phoenician alphabet were used to notate the same Greek vowels.

Observations
Although no definite answer can be given to the problem of the place and date of
transmission, the following principles should be observed in the discussion.
 SECTION 21: TRANSMISSION OF THE PHOENICIAN SCRIPT TO THE WEST 269

It must be assumed that the adaptation of the Phoenician script to the Greek lan-
guage met basic social needs: the transmission must have taken place in a social con-
text in which political, economic, literary, and educational needs urged the creation
of a proper notation system for the varieties of Greek.
Within this context, there must have been a certain symbiosis (i.e. not just spo-
radic contacts) between Greek-speaking and Phoenician-speaking (or Phoenician-
writing) communities, possibly in the higher circles of society, i.e. circles having a
certain level of education.
The adoption of the Phoenician script went hand in hand with adaptation, and
therefore involves a "phonological" stance — in fact, a comparative phonological
analysis —on the part of the first adapter(s); for a study of this phonological stance we
would need access to the "psychological reality" of Phoenician and Greek in the per-

ception of the possibly bilingual inventor(s) of the alphabet. (For a promising start in

this direction, see Rosen 1984 and Brixhe 1991.)

In the process of adaptation, we must distinguish between internal modifications
affecting the structure of the writing system, which were irreversible, and more ex-
ternal adaptations affecting the use of the writing system, which allowed for free al-

ternations, or alternations conditioned by the nature of the materials on which

inscriptions were written, in the absence of normative scribal conventions. Among in-
ternal modifications are (a) the introduction of signs for vowels (derived from signs
for consonants in Phoenician), which included the splitting of Phoenician wdw into a

semiconsonant di gamma and a vowel u psilon; and (b) the redistribution of the sibi-

lant signs. To external adaptation we can assign the direction of writing.

The adaptation must have taken place in a restricted circle, but may have in-

volved the cooperation of several scholars, and must have spread to other communi-
ties, each developing particular scribal traditions (a process involving, in its early

stage, a number of "mistakes"). This is the only plausible explanation for the relation-

ship between a core of constant sign values and the variance in sign shapes and direc-
tion of writing; we later find the same situation in the Etruscan and Italic scripts.

Bibliography

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Amadasi Guzzo, Maria Giulia. 1991. '"The Shadow Line': Reflexions sur Tintroduction de V alpha-
bet en Grece." In Baurain et al. 99 293-3 1 1 : 1 1

Baurain. Claude, Corinne Bonnet, and Veronique Krings, eds. 1991. Phoinikeia Grammata: Lire et
ecrire en Mediterranee (Collection d'etudes classiques 6). Namur, Belgium: Societe des
Etudes Classiques.
Bernal, Martin. 1987. "On the Transmission of the Alphabet to the Aegean before 1400 B.C." Bulle-

tin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 267: 1-19.

.
1990. Cadmean Letters: The Transmission of the Alphabet to the Aegean and Further West
before 1400 B.C. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbraun^
Brixhe, Claude. 1991. "De la phonologie a Lecriture: Quelques aspects de Tadaptation de L alphabet

cananeen au grec." In Baurain et al. 1991 : 313-56.

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Burzachechi, Mario. 1976. "L'adozione dell'alfabeto nel mondo greco." Parola del Passato?>\: 82-
102.
Carpenter, J. Rhys. 1933. "The Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet." American Journal of Archaeology
37: 8-29.
Coldstream, J. N. 1982. "Greeks and Phoenicians in the Aegean." In Phonizier im Westen, ed. H. G.
Niemeyer, pp. 261-72. Mainz: von Zabern.
Healey, John F. 1990. The Early Alphabet (Reading the Past). London: British Museum; Berkeley
and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Helck, Wolfgang. 1979. Die Beziehungen Agyptens und Vorderasiens zur Agais bis ins 7. Jahrhun-
dert v. Chr. Darmstadt: Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft.
Heubeck, Adolf. 979. Schrift ( Archaeologia Homerica 3/10). Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
1

Benedikt S. J. 1983. "The Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet." Kadmos 22: 151-63.
Isserlin,

.
1 99 1 . "The Transfer of the Alphabet to the Greeks: The State of Documentation." In Bau-
rain et al. 1991 : 283-91.
Jeffery, Lilian Hamilton. 1982. "Greek Alphabetic Writing." Cambridge Ancient History 3/1: 819-
33. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
.
1 990. The Local Scripts ofArchaic Greece: A Study of the Origin of the Greek Alphabet and
Its Development from the Eighth to the Fifth Centuries B.C., 2nd ed. revised by A. W. Johnstoa
Oxford: Clarendon, [isted., 1961.]
Johnstone, William. 1978. "Cursive Phoenician and the Archaic Greek Alphabet." Kadmos 17: 151-66.
Kaufman, Stephen A. 1987. "The Pitfalls of Typology: On the Earliest History of the Alphabet." He-
brew Union College Annual 57: 1-13.
Kirchhoff, Adolf. 1887. Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets. Giitersloh: Bertels-
mann. Repr. Amsterdam: Gieben, 1970.
Knauf, Ernst Axel. 1987. "Haben Aramaer den Griechen das Alphabet vermittelt?" Welt des Orients
18:45-48.
Lemaire, Andre. 1991. "L'ecriture phenicienne en Cilicie et la diffusion des ecritures alphabe-
tiques." In Baurain et al. 1991: 133-46.
McCarter, P. Kyle. 1975. The Antiquity of the Greek Alphabet and the Early Phoenician Scripts.
Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press.
Millard, Alan R. 1976. "The Canaanite Linear Alphabet and its Passage to the Greeks." Kadmos 15:

130-44.
Naveh, Joseph. 1973. "Some Semitic Epigraphical Considerations on the Antiquity of the Greek Al-
phabet." American Journal of Archaeology 77: 1-8.
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1987. Early History of the Alphabet, 2nd ed. Leiden: Brill.
Rollig, Wolfgang. 1 989. "Uber die Anfange unseres Alphabets." Das Altertum 3 1 : 83-9 1

Rosen, Haiim B. 1984. "Le transfer! des valeurs des caracteres alphabetiques et l'explication de
quelques habitudes orthographiques grecques archaiques. " Aux origines de Vhellenisme: La
Crete et la Grece, 225-36. Paris: Publications de la Sorbonne.
Sass, Benjamin. 1988. The Genesis of the Alphabet and Its Development in the Second Millennium
B.C. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
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199 1 . Studia alphabetical On the Origin and Early History of the Northwest Semitic, South
Semitic and Greek Alphabets. Freiburg: Universitatsverlag.
Segert, Stanislav. 1963. "Altaramaische Schrift und Anfange des griechischen Alphabets." Klio 41:
38-57.
SIG = W. Dittenberger, ed. 1915-24. Sylloge Inscriptionum Graecarum, 3rd ed. Leipzig.
Swiggers, Pierre. 1991. "Linguistic Considerations on Phoenician Orthography." In Baurain et al.

1991: 115-29.
Wachter, Rudolf. 1989. "Zur Vorgeschichte des griechischen Alphabets." Kadmos 28: 19-78.
SECTION 22

The Greek Alphabet

Leslie Threatte

The Greek alphabet is currently employed to write all extant Greek texts produced in
the more than 2700 years in which it has been in continuous use; it serves also for all
purposes, literary and nonliterary, of writing in the modern world, since Greek is the
national language of Greece and is spoken by more than ten million people. In the Ar-
chaic Period (ca. 750-480 b.c.e.), when Greek alphabetic writing first appears, there
is considerable dialectal differentiation, also well documented in the classical (480-
323) and earlier Hellenistic (323-31) periods. But from ca. 350 b.c.e. a common di-

alect, or Koine (from KOivf| SidA-EKTog koine dialektos 'common dialect'), began to
evolve, and it developed rapidly in the Hellenistic period, when the old dialects did
not survive well in the new Greek cities outside Greece. The Koine developed from
the Attic dialect, a result of Athens's cultural dominance in the fifth and fourth centu-
ries, but with significant infusions from other dialects, chiefly Ionic. Except in litera-
ture and in cases of artificial archaization, the old dialects had largely been replaced
by the Koine by the mid-Roman period (200 c.e.). Medieval and modern Greek de-
veloped from the Koine; and while there is dialectal differentiation today (see New-
ton 1972: 13-15), no modern Greek dialect evolved from an ancient one, except for
Tsakonian, by now probably extinct but once spoken by a small isolated population
in eastern Laconia and certainly descended from ancient Laconian.
The Greek was a true alphabet from the beginning, and the names and order
script

of the letters were taken from Phoenician (section 2 1 ). Some of the earliest texts are
written from right to left or boustrophedon, but left-to-right writing has been standard
since ca. 500 b.c.e. (see Jeffery 1990: 43-50, 429; Threatte 1980: 52-57)- ln the first
few centuries of writing, the scripts of the various Greek cities differ; this is the reason
for the differences between the Roman and Greek alphabets, as the former is derived
from a different Greek script from the one which became standard in Greece. These
local or epichoric scripts (see Jeffery 1990) fall into larger groups (table 22.1),
sometimes still designated as green (lacking the letters S, O, X, and *F); blue, the type
ancestral to the Greek alphabet of today; or red, the type ancestral to the Latin alpha-
bet (the colors are from the map at the end of Kirchhoff 1887). The epichoric scripts
had been replaced by the eastern Ionic alphabet nearly everywhere by the early fourth
century: Athens officially abandoned its own local script in 403 b.c.e. Despite a cer-

tain conservatism — e.g., most capital letters in use today are virtually identical to

those in use in the fourth century b.c.e. —writing practices have evolved greatly since

271
272 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 22. 1 : Principal Groupings of Greek Epichoric Alphabets

h h
[p ] [k ] [ks] [ps] Locations

Green n or FIH KorKH KI nZ Crete, Thera, Melos

Blue O X or XL ¥ or OI Athens, Argos, Corinth, Ionia

Red 0> ¥ X OX Euboea, most of mainland, western colonies

the classical period: in Plato's day, Greek was written with letters of only one size,
with no diacritical marks or word separation, and little or no punctuation. The intro-

duction of the Byzantine minuscule script after 8oo c.e. was the most significant of
many changes: the modern small letters derive from this script, itself the result of a
lengthy development from cursive styles of writing employed in non-literary papyri
of ancient and early Byzantine times. Modern writing and printing practices are vir-
tually the same for ancient and modern Greek; they continue the practices of the first

printed Greek books produced in Italy in the later fifteenth century, which themselves
continued the practices of manuscripts of the late Byzantine period (after ca. 1250).

The use of these modern writing practices for ancient texts is thus to a large degree
conventional. A schematic view of the dates of the principal developments is given in
table 22.2.
There are two pronunciations employed today for ancient Greek: the modern
Greek pronunciation, normal within Greece and employed by a few scholars else-
where; and the one more general outside Greece, an approximate recreation of the
classical Attic pronunciation (e.g. ca. —
450-350) often called "Erasmian," as it is

nearly identical to that proposed by Erasmus in his 1528 treatise De recta Latini et

Graeci sermonis pronuntiatione (see Pfeiffer 1976: 88-89). Erasmus had some pre-
cursors, but it had been usual before employ the modern Greek pronun-
his treatise to
ciation for Greek of The use of an artificially recreated ancient
all periods.
pronunciation has pedagogical advantages, for it represents Greek at a stage when the
alphabet was, with only minor exceptions, phonetic —a one-symbol-per-sound script.

But numerous phonological developments have made the Greek alphabet no longer
phonetic; e.g., the seven ancient Greek spellings El, r], rj, 1, 01, D, 01, each represent-
ing a different sound in fifth-century Attic, are all pronounced [i] today. In contrast to
the Classical period, the Hellenistic and Roman periods were characterized by much
phonological change, and most of the features of modern Greek pronunciation were
already in place by the second or third century c.e., some of them quite a bit earlier
(for these developments see Threatte 1980, Allen 1987, Sturtevant 1940). Thus the
period in which the Greek alphabet was truly phonetic was fairly short, and the use
of the classical Attic pronunciation for later ancient Greek writers is in a number of
details inaccurate and artificial.

In only a very few instances does the Greek alphabet break the one-symbol-per-
sound rule for the classical Attic pronunciation: the vowels a a, 1 /, and \) u represent
both long and short vowels; ei ei and o\) ou no longer represent diphthongs (see
 SECTION 22: THE GREEK ALPHABET 273

table 22.2: Developments in Greek Writing

Ca. 740 b.c.e. Earliest example of Greek alphabetic writing (see Jeffery 1990: 426)

Ca. 450-350 Ionic alphabet replaces epichoric scripts in most Greek cities

By 350 Most letters in use approximate in appearance the modern capital letters

By ca. 200 b.c.e. Diacritical marks for accents and breathings probably invented
By ca. 400 c.e. Standard book hand is formal rounded majuscule known as uncial

835 c.e. Date of the Uspensky Gospels (see Barbour 1981: 4, no. 13), earliest preserved
example of the Byzantine minuscule script into which all ancient materials
were eventually recopied: systematic use of accent marks and breathings
(creating impression of word division and lessening need for it), some
punctuation, development of minuscule letters

1 3th century Iota subscript appears

1470s First Greek books printed in Italy, some ligatures still employed
1 8th century Abandonment of ligatures, word division systematically employed
1982 Presidential decree adopts the monotonic system, in widespread use since 1976:
breathings and circumflex accent abandoned for printing most modern Greek

table 22.4); the velar nasal [rj] has no separate symbol and is written y g; c s was
pronounced [z] before voiced stops and [m]; there was often no symbol for [h].

The symbols
All the symbols and their pronunciation in classical Attic and modern Greek are given

in table 22.3. There were five short and seven long vowels (with a a, 1 1, and v u
representing both long and short vowels). The more open T| e and co o were usually
inherited from the parent language Indo-European, while the close £i ei and ov on
were of two, originally distinct, origins: (a) monophthongized diphthongs, e.g. eijii

eimi [e:mi] T go' (IE *eimi), potiq bous [bu:s] 'cow' (IE *g wous), etc.; (b) various
vowel contractions and compensatory lengthenings, e.g. yevoix; genous [genuis] 'of
the clan' from YEVEoq geneos [geneos]; d<; eis [e:s] 'into' from evq ens [ens], xovc,
tous [tu:s] 'the' (acc.pl. masc.) from xovq tons [tons], etc. In Attica and many other
parts of Greece, ei ei and o\) ou were originally employed only for (a), while the
sounds of (b) were written e e and o o. The current practice was gradually introduced
ca.450-325 b.c.e. (see Threatte 1980: 172, 238). For the remaining diphthongs see
table 22.4. Because [a:j], [e:j], and [o:j] were early monophthongized to [a:], [e:],

and [o:], the iota in oci r|i 001 was frequently omitted in antiquity, as it normally is in

the earlier Byzantine manuscripts. The practice of writing this iota as a subscript be-

neath the vowel, a rj (p, first appears in the thirteenth century and has become usual
for most ancient Greek. Iota subscript cannot occur with capital letters, when it must
be written on the line (called adscript), e.g. Ai Ai, Hi Ei, Q\ Oi, and diacritical marks
cannot occur over this iota adscript, thus co hoi, Hi) £//, but Qi Oi.
274 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 22.3: The Greek Alphabet

Letter Name Transliteration Classical Attic Modern Greek

A a alpha a [a], [a:] [a]

B P beta b [b] [v]

r Y gamma g [g], [Y], UVJe, i];

[rj]/_[k, g, x, (m)] [nVJk, g, X ]

A 5 delta d [d] [9]

E e ei, e; e [e] [e]

later e psilon

z c zeta z [zd], later [zj [z]

H n eta e [e:] [i]

h
e thata th [t ] [6]

I 1 iota i [i], Li:] [i]

K K kappa k [k] [k]

A X lambda 1 [1] [1]

M M mu m [m] [m]
N V nu n [nj [n]

2 5 ksei (xi) ks, x [ks] [ks]

O ou, 6; [0] [0]

later 6 mikron
n K pet (pi) P [p] [P]

p P rho r [r] [r]

rh initially

zb a,
b
sigma s [s], [s],

<; finally [z] /_ [b, d, g, m] [z]/_ v, 5, y, 1, m]

T T tau t [t] [t]

Y D u; u, y [y], [yO [i]

later u psilon

O (1) pheT (phi) Ph [P

h
] [f]

X % khet (chi) kh,ch [k

h
] M
•P V psei (psi) ps [ps] [ps]

a c
CO 0; 6 [o:] [0]
later 6 mega

a. There is no standard system of transliteration, but systems differ in only a few details. That employed here
assigns the same value to a letter in all situations and one symbol to eaeh letter. Where variants are given in the
table, the first is employed here, and the seeond also enjoys considerable currency. Long a, 1, and \) are often
transliterated with a macron, here unnecessary because of the accompanying phonetic transcriptions.
For Modern Greek, there is even less standardization than for ancient Greek. The transliteration employed
here assigns a separate symbol to each letter in all situations; but often phonetically based systems are
employed, i.e. /'
is used for £i, r|, 1, 01, and \); e for ou; v for p; y for [j]; etc.

b. Or C, c. Lunate letters like c and e probably did not occur before the Hellenistic period. They are some-
times useful in printing ancient Greek, partly because there is only one form of small sigma. useful in printing

fragmentary texts when the ends of words cannot be determined. The use of -q in word-final position grew out
of certain practices of cursive and was established by late Byzantine times.
c. The letters F V, and ^ survived as numerals (see table 22.5).
,
 SECTION 22: THE GREEK ALPHABET 275

In modern Greek it is especially in the spelling of the vowels that the alphabet is

not phonetic: the five modern Greek (isochronic) vowels and their possible spellings
are: [a] a a\ [e] 8 e, at ai\ [ij t /, et ei, r\ e, ot <?/, v> it, m ui\ [o] o o, co o; [u] ou ou.
In the diphthongs au an and £\) eu, the second element has been desyllabified, be-
coming [f] before the six voiceless stops and [v] elsewhere, oa>x6 auto [afto] 'it',

Kprxoya^e kraugaze ['kravyaze] 'he shouted'. Numerous new diphthongs have aris-

en in the modern language, e.g. novdzi pondei [po'naj] 'he is in pain', oot soi ['soj]

'lineage', etc. Although diphthongal pronunciations are certainly normal in all but the

most deliberate speech, such spellings are not considered to be diphthongs by Greeks,
who adhere to the ancient terminology, e.g. Greek children are told that rcovdet
pondei has three syllables (and £i ei [i] is taught as a "diphthong"!), although no one
says [po.'na.i] rather than [po.'naj].
Ancient Greek had nine stops (modern scholars usually pronounce (|) % as fri-
h h h
catives [f 6 x] rather than true aspirates [p t k ]) and three nasals ([rj] only before
h
[k], [ks], [k ], [g], and perhaps [m]; without its own symbol and normally written y
g). Of the remaining consonants, only p r and ^ z require comment: initial p r always
has the rough breathing (p rh) and was probably voiceless (from original *sr- or
* wr-), and the original [zd] pronunciation of £ z had become [zz] or [z] by ca. 350
b.c.e. (see Threatte 1980: 25, 546-47). The laryngeal phoneme /h/ existed in initial

position, but it is best treated with the diacritical marks. Attic had no phoneme Av/,

but the letter f w, called di gamma, continued to be used for [w] in dialects which pre-
served it and survived as a numeral.
Before the end of antiquity <)), (3, 6, 8, %, and y acquired their current fricative pro-

nunciations [f v 6 x y]. The remaining consonants have stayed the same, except that
initial p r is now voiced and always written without the rough breathing, and after a
nasal k, x, k are voiced and (3, 8, ydo not become fricatives, e.g. evxouo cntomo ['en-
domo] 'insect'; gtov naxepa |iou ston patera mou [ston ba'tera mu] 'to my father';
avxpaq a ntras ['andras] 'man' (from ancient Greek dv8pot). With syncope of an ini-
tial vowel, a new series of voiced stops [b], [d], and [g] was created in word-initial

position written JJ.7T mp vx nt, yK gk, e.g. U7ico mpo ['bo] T enter', vxpo7rrj ntrope
9

[dro'pi] 'shame', etc. These are also used for [b], [d], and [g] in foreign borrowings,

e.g. UTteriq mpees ['bejs] 'bey', Mrcovx Mpont ['bond] 'Bond', vxi(3dvi ntibdni
[di'vani] 'divan', yicexo gketo ['geto] 'ghetto'. No ancient Greek dialect had 1)1 or any
rising diphthongs of the [ja] type, but [j] is frequent in modern Greek: y = [j] before

[i] and [e], and initial [j] before [a], [o], [u] is written yt gi, yet geU or 1 /, e.g. ytd gid
['ja] 'for', ysid geid ['ja] 'salut!' (shortened from Dyeta ugeia [i'jia] 'health'), yioc;

gios ['jos] 'son' (from ancient Greek moq), lotxpoq iatros [ja'tros] 'doctor'. After
consonant and before vowel, [j] has various spellings of [i], e.g. 7Co8id podia [po'dja]
'apron', noioqpoios ['pjos] 'who'. In modern borrowings, [w] is rendered ou ou, e.g.
QodotyKXOV Oudsigkton ['wasirjkton] 'Washington'; [ts] or [tf] is rendered xg ts [ts],

e.g.xaEXEK^tselepes [tsele'pis] 'kind', nmxaapidtsa ['pjatsa] 'piazza'; [cfe] is ren-

dered x^ rz, pronounced either [dz] or [<fe], e.g. T^ajiq Tzeims ['dzejms] or ['cfeejms]
276 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 22.4: Diphthongs, Monophthongized Diphthongs, Long Vowels of Later Origin

Letters Transliteration C/a meal Attic Modern Greek

ou ai [aj] [e]

oc, ai ai [a:j] -
81 ei [e:] [i]

T|,Tll ei [e:j] -
01 oi [ojj [i]

(p, COl 6i [o:j] -

Dl ui, yi [yj] [ij

av au [aw], [a:w] [af], [av]

81) eu [ew] [ef], [ev]

T10) eu [e:w] -
01) ou [0:] later [u:] [u]

'James', x^ajii tzami [dza'mi] or [<%a'mi] 'mosque'; [J] is borrowed as [s], e.g.

IiKdyKO Sikdgko [si'kago] 'Chicago', GOKsok ['sok] 'shock'.

Diacritical marks and punctuation

The diacritical marks are the rough (
') and smooth ( ) breathings; the acute (
'), cir-

cumflex O, and grave C ) accents; the coronis (

'); and the diaeresis or trema ("). The
grave accent and the coronis are usually not used in modern Greek. The breathings
and accent marks, first appearing in papyri of the second century b.c.e., had probably
been invented by the third (Turner 1971: 13-14; Pfeiffer 1968: 180); but all diacritical

marks occur only sporadically in ancient writing, more often in papyri than inscrip-

tions. Only a few manuscripts of the very end of classical antiquity show increased
use of accents and breathings, sometimes in a different hand from the lettering, and
the modern consistent use of them on every word was probably only introduced by
the Byzantines after 800 C.E. (see Barbour 1981: xxvii-xxviii).
The phoneme /h/ survived in Attic and many Greek dialects, whose epichoric
scripts employed the letter H e for it; but others, including Ionic, lost [h] early (called

psilosis) and employed H e as a vowel. Thus when the Ionic alphabet became stan-
dard elsewhere, there was often no symbol for [h]. The breathings, which are thought
to be derived from the letter H divided in half (' from !-,
'
from -I), were the Greeks'
way of dealing with /h/, which occurred only initially except in compounds: to them
all words beginning in vowels were either baavq dasus [dasys] 'rough' (= initial [h]

+ V), or \\fiX6qpsilos [psilos] 'bare, smooth' (= V without [h]). In transliterating an-

cient Greek, h is used for '
, e.g. f]|i£pa hemera [he:mera:] 'day', and '
is ignored,
dvrjp aner [aneir] 'man'.
The ancient Greek accent contained elements of pitch and stress, but pitch was
Even the late grammatical literature con-
the significant element in the earlier period.
 SECTION 22: THE GREEK ALPHABET 277

tinues to describe the accent in terms of pitch, although stress predominates in the ac-
modern language, and the process of change from a pitch to a stress accent
cent of the
had probably begun before the end of the Hellenistic period. The workings of the
pitch accent are poorly understood today, but the acute accent (') clearly denoted a
high pitch, the circumflex C) a high and a fall within a single syllable (hence it could
not occur over a short vowel), and the grave C ) either a falling or a level pitch. The
acute and circumflex functioned as word accents and were an integral part of each
word, but the grave seems to have been associated with unaccented syllables, not nec-
essarily final ones. The system of the Byzantines, followed today, restricts the use of
the grave accent to replacing an acute on the final syllable of a word when an accented
word follows, when presumably there was no high pitch because of the flow of
speech, e.g. koXoc, kalos [kalos] 'beautiful' in isolation, but kocaxx; dvfjp kalds aner
[kalos ane:r] 'beautiful man'. Accent marks aie not always indicated in translitera-
tions; and when pronouncing ancient Greek, most modern scholars pronounce the
acute and circumflex as a stress accent and ignore the grave.
Until the late 1970s the acute and circumflex accents and breathings were always
used when printing modern Greek — although almost two millennia had passed since
initial [h] ceased to be sounded, and the pitch distinctions between the acute and cir-

cumflex accents were replaced with a uniform stress accent. Recently this artificiality

has been largely given up for something called the jiovoxoviKO aoaxr|ua monoton-
iko sustema 'the monotonic system', which simply places an acute accent on any syl-

lable actually stressed. Widespread in printing since 1976, it was officially adopted
by presidential decree in April 1982. The first few words of the sample of Modern
Greek below were printed thus in an edition of 1974 according to the older system
(still preferred by some writers): Tcopoc 7io\3 e%ODV 7t£0dvei oXec, oi ypieq,

ytocytdSeq koci 7iapaytaytd5£<;, xcopa ppfjicocv ...

A mark called the coronis was used by the ancients to indicate crasis, the co-
alescing of two vowels into one over a word boundary. In modern printing it is usually
identical to the smooth breathing and not indicated in transliteration, e.g. kclk kak
[ka:k] from koci 8K kal ek, eyq)5a egoida [egoijda] from kycb 018a ego otda, %oi khoi
[k oj] from Kai 01 kai hoi, etc. The coronis is omitted when the first of the two co-
h

alescing words has a rough breathing, e.g. oi)V houn [huinj from 6 ev ho en. The di-
aeresis or trema (') occurs over 1 i and v u to show that they begin a new syllable, e.g.
ancient Greek £axx\)VCD elauno [e. law. no] T drive', but KpatiVQ) prauno [prai.y.no:]
T soothe'; modern Greek raoydq kaugds [kav'yas] 'quarrel', but kccuuoc kaumos
[kaj'mos] 'grief.
The breathings (and coronis) go underneath the circumflex accent (n,, r\) and to

the left of the acute and grave accents (fj, ff, fj, f|); all diacritical marks go above the
diaeresis (7ipa\)vco), to the left of single capital letters ('A, "E, "H, Q.). and over the
second element of diphthongs (ori, ei), Et), H\))— with one exception: when the initial

letter of a diphthong containing iota subscript is a capital, it forces the writing of the

iota as adscript, and the diacritial marks must go to the left of the initial capital, not
278 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

over the iota adscript, e.g. "Ai5rj(; haides [ha:jde:s] 'Hades'. Text entirely in capitals
never contains any diacritical marks in either ancient or modern Greek, e.g.

ErENETO egeneto [egeneto] 'it became'.

In printing ancient and modern Greek, the period (.), comma (,), semi-colon (•),

question mark (;), quotation marks (form varies according to country of printing), and
apostrophe (' for indicating elision) are used. Modern Greek also employs exclama-
tion points ( !
). In printing ancient Greek, change of speaker can be indicated by a dash
( — ); capital letters are sparingly used, for proper nouns and at the beginnings of para-
graphs or quotations, but not at the beginning of each sentence. Modern Greek em-
ploys capital letters and punctuation in a manner comparable to other modern
European languages.

Numerals
Two numeral systems were used in ancient Greece (see Smyth 1963: 104.348 A;
Threatte 1980: 1 ioff.): the acrophonic, with I for the unit and the first letter of the nu-
meral name for others, e.g. n=5 (nevxz pente 'five'), A= 10 (58K0C deka 'ten'), in-

cluding combinatory symbols, e.g. = 50 (from n = 5 + A = 10); and the still

ps

occasionally used alphabetic ("Milesian"), which assigns a numerical value for units,
tens, and hundreds to each letter of the alphabet (augmented by the three disused let-

ters f, 9, and *\ to get the necessary 27) as in table 22.5. The order was usually
higher to lower and the numeral set off by an acute accent, pK0' = 129; thousands are
denoted by a subscript acute before, ficXa = 2231. The Arabic numeral system as
employed in Western Europe is practically universal in Greece today; alphabetic nu-
merals occur occasionally in learned publications (for pagination, plate numbers,
etc.).

TABLE 22 •5 Alphabetic Numerals

a 1 1 10 P 100

P 2 K 20 a 200

Y 3 X 30 T 300
5 4 n 40 X) 400
8 5 V 50 4> 500

f or <; or ax 6 % 60 X 600

c 7 70 V 700
Tl 8 71 80 (0 800
9 V 90 >N 900
 section 22: the greek alphabet 279

Sample of Ancient Greek

/. Greek: ©oi)K\)5i8r|(; 'A0r)vaio<; ^uveypocvj/e xov

2. Transliteration: Thoukudides Athenaios ksunegrapse ton
h h
3. Transcription: t u:kydid-e:s at e:na:j-os ksynegrap-se t-6n

4. Gloss: Thucydides-NOM.SG Athenian-NOM.SG write-AOR.3.SG the-ACC.SG

/. 7iOA£jnov xcov rieA.07i;ovvr|QicDv Kai A6r|vaicov, coq

2. polemon ton Peloponnesfon kai Athenaion, hos

h
3. polem-on t-5:n peloponne:si-o:n kaj at e:naj-o:n hois
4. war-ACC.SG the-GEN.PL Peloponnesian-GEN.PL and Athenian-GEN.PL how

/. e7io^eur|aav npbq aXkr\Xo\)q, ap^djievoq evQvq

2. epolemesan pros allelous, arksamenos euthus
h
3. epolemei-san pros alle:l-u:s ark-samen-os ewt ys
4. fight-AOR.3.PL against each other-ACC.PLbegin-AOR.PART-NOM.SG immediately

/. Ka0iGTa|i£vo'D Kai eXniaaq pxyav xe

2. kathistamenou kai elpisas megan te
h
3. kat ista-men-u: kaj elpi-sa:-s mega-n te

4. arise-PRES. part-gen. sg and expect-AOR.PART-NOM.SG great-ACC.SG both

/. eoegQcli kcci a^ioA-oycoxaxov xcov

2. esesthai kai aksiologotaton ton
h
3. ese-st aj kaj aksiolog5:-tat-on t-5:n

4. be.FUT-iNFiN and worthy.of.note-suPERL-ACC.SG the-GEN.PL

/. TcpoyEyevrijiEvcov XEKjiaipouevoc; oxi

2. progegenemenon tekmairomenos hoti

3. pro-gegenei-men-oin tekmajr-6men-os hoti

4. before-OCCUr-PERF.PART-GEN.PLwitneSS-PRES.PART-NOM.SG that

/. &K|iri£ovx8<; X8 rjacxv ^ auxov . .

2. akmazontes te eisan es auton

3. akmazd-ont-es te e:j-san es awt-dn
4. be.at.the.peak-PRES.PART-NOM.PL both go-iMP.3 PL into it-ACC.SG

Thucydides Athenian wrote up the war of the Peloponnesians and Athe-

(the)
nians, (recording) how they fought with one another, having begun immediately
as it began and expecting (that) it would both be great and more worthy of note
than those which had occurred before, both bearing witness to the fact that the
two sides went into it at their peak. . .
- Thucydides, i.i.i.
.'
280 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Sample of Modern Greek

/. Greek: Tcopoc 71013 exoDv 7C80dv8i 6Xeq

2. Transliteration: Tora pou ekhoun pethanei oles

3- Transcription: 'tora pu 'e%-un pe'0an-i 'ol-es

4- Gloss: now that have-PRES.3.PL die. past-part. act all-NOM.PL

/. ot YPte<;, yiaytdSeq Kai 7tapaYiaYid8e<;,

2. oi gries, giagiades kai paragiagiades,
3. i yri-'es ja'ja5-es ke para-ja'jao-es

4. the-NOM.PL old woman-NOM.PL grandma-NOM.PL and over-grandma-NOM.PL

/. xoopa ppfJKav va ^8(|)wpc6o"oi)v jieaa llod eva

2. tora brekan na ksephutrosoun mesa mou ena
3. 'tora 'vrik-an na ksefi'tros-un 'mesa m-u 'en-a

4. now find-AOR.3.PL to sprout up-aor.subj. 3. pl inside I-gen.sg a-ACC.SG

/. ocopo aTcopieq PaGieq yia npocuma Kai

2. soro aporfes bathies gia prosopa kai
3. so'r-o apo'ri-es va'0j-es ja 'prosop-a ke
4. heap-ACC.SG perplexities- acc.pl deep- acc.pl for person-ACC.PL and

/. Tcpdyjiaxa Tca^id Kai yia rcdvxa o"Pr|0"|i£va.

2. pragmata palia kai gia panta sbesmena.

3. 'praymat-a pa'lj-a ke ja 'panda zviz-'men-a
4. thing-ACC.PL old-ACC.PL and for always extinguish-PAST.PART.PASS-ACC.PL

/. Oao ^ouaav 8K81V8(;, 58V ^epco yiaxi

2. Oso zoiisan ekefnes, den ksero giati,

3- 'oso 'zu-san e'kin-es Sen. 'gser-o ja'ti

4. As. long. as live-iMP.3 PL that-NOM.PL not know-PRES.i.SG why

I. ax£86v T1710T8 5ev fj08?ia va pcoxfjaco.

2. skhedon tipote den ethela na - roteso.

3- s^e'Son 'tipote Sen 'ieel-a na ro'tis-o

4- practically nothing not want-AOR. I.SG tO ask-AOR.SUBJ.I.SG

'Now that all the old women have died, grandmas and assorted persons of that
ilk, now they have managed to engender within me a heap of profound perplex-
ities about persons and things old and extinguished forever. As long as they

were alive, I don't know why, I practically never wanted to ask.'

—Begininng ofloannou 1974.
 SECTION 22: THE ANATOLIAN ALPHABETS 281

The Anatolian Alphabets

Pierre Swiggers and Wolfgang Jenniges

Anatolian is a geographic designation for languages spoken in Asia Minor, from the
third millennium b.c.e. into the first millennium c.e. A number of languages were
introduced into this area as official languages, and are attested in their own scripts
during this period: Akkadian, Phoenician, Aramaic, and later Greek and Latin. The
'Anatolian" languages include both non-Indo-European languages (often called Asi-
anic; see section 3, "Other languages" on page 58) — Hattic, Mitannic, and Hum-
an — and Indo-European ones.
The earlier Indo-European languages can be divided into three groups: (1) Palaic
(written in the Anatolian adaptation of cuneiform); (2) Hittite-Nesite (also written in
cuneiform; see section 3, "Hittite cuneiform" on page 65); (3) Luvian, the language
of southern Anatolia first attested in cuneiform but during the first millennium written
in its own hieroglyphs (see section 6). The historical relationships between these
groups and the later attested languages of (especially southwestern) Asia Minor are
not clear —although it is clear that Lycian shows the most resemblance to Luvian;
these later attested languages, whose internal relationship is also problematic, include
Lycian, Lydian, Pisidian, Sidetic, Pamphylian, Phrygian, and Carian. They are all at-

tested in an alphabetic script based on the Greek writing system, as is clear from the
number (the Y being included in all Anatolian alphabets) and shape of the signs in

these epichoric ('local') scripts; some of them are in fact identical with one of the ar-

chaic Greek alphabets. The details of the development of these Anatolian alphabets
remain unclear, but there is evidence that these scripts were secondary, or even tertia-

ry within the area: the oldest writing system of Asia Minor was hieroglyphic (the an-
cestor of the Luvian?), and this was replaced by a syllabic script (traces are found on
Anatolian coins). The borrowing of the Greek script or a prototype took place around
the seventh century b.c.e.
The order of presentation here reflects increasing distance from the Greek model
(Pamphylian basically uses the old Greek alphabet, illustrated in table 21.3 on
page 264, left side), and the increasing difficulty of interpreting the texts. Carian in-
scriptions constitute a major problem, given the internal variation of the script, the

historical complexities of its attestations, and the uncertainties surrounding the type
of language underlying the inscriptions. The Anatolian alphabets — which are all

traceable to one of the ancientGreek alphabets, but underwent influences from non-
—
Greek scripts are treated on their own in histories of writing, and are separated from
the main Greek lineage here. Two minor writing svstems of Asia Minor, Pisidian and
the so-called Mysian, are discussed briefly at the end.
282 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Phrygian
Both the Old Phrygian inscriptions (7th-6th century b.c.e.) and those of Neo-Phry-
gian (2nd-3rd century C.E.), reflecting an Indo-European language, use the Greek al-

phabet; the Old Phrygian alphabet is basically the archaic Greek script (table 22.6)
and belongs to Kirchhoff s "red" group (use of T for^). It contains all the signs added
by the Greeks to the Phoenician alphabet; it is also used in the problematic inscription
of Lemnos. Neo-Phrygian inscriptions are written in the common classical Greek
script.

Pamphylian and Sidetic

The Pamphylian alphabet is the same as the Old Greek alphabet of the Eastern type
( Kirchhoff s "blue" group); it sometimes has the proto-form of the Greek digamma
h and contains, at least in a later stage, the Greek additional letters, with + or X as
the sign of aspiration. In the city of Side, a special writing system was used, attested
on coins and in a very small number of inscriptions, most of them in scriptio continua
(without word division), which has been shown to be an alphabet; this "Sidetic" script

is not fully deciphered, and its precise origin is still unknown (although a few letters
can be related to those of the Old Greek alphabet).

Lycian
The Lycian alphabet (table 22.7), attested in some 180 inscriptions of the fifth and
fourth centuries b.c.e., is borrowed from a Doric variant of the archaic Greek script

( Kirchhoff 's "red" group). Lycian, nearly always written from left to right, has 29
signs (6 vowels and 23 consonants and semivowels); there are local differences in the
e shapes, but no major chronological variation (except for the nasal vowels e and a).

More than 80% of the letters can be traced to their Greek prototype; the remaining
signs, denoting Lycian sounds absent from Greek, are either original creations or, less

probably, borrowings from other writing systems — signs for q, a, e, x (or T, interpre-
tation uncertain), and h. The value of the signs v and *" is still a matter of debate: the
former is transcribed as Greek kappa or as h(e); the latter, traditionally transcribed as
H
Greek beta, probably denotes a labiovelar (£ or g"). Vowel length is not noted (inter-
vocalic -h- can suggest that a contraction of vowels has taken place); word division is

generally indicated by :, but particles and pronominal proclitics are written in scriptio
continua. Although the grammar of the language is still insufficiently known, we can
interpret several inscriptions and the coin legends, the latter on the basis of historical
information, the former on the basis of the stereotypical wording and with the help of
bilingual texts. A second dialect of Lycian, Lycian B or Milyan, is written in the same
alphabet; it is distinguished from Lycian A by the almost total absence of the sign for
q, and phonetically by changes in the dental series.
 SECTION 22: THE ANATOLIAN ALPHABETS 283

TABLE 22.6: The Old table 22.7: The Lycian TABLE 22.8: The Lydlan
Phrygian Alphabet Alphabet Alpha I: et

A a F> a A a

BB b ^ e a b
s B b
I
g b A d
A d
A+4
P 4 r \\
e

&$ e Y ^\
V
g 1
PF u A d 1
i

tt/ z E i
fl y
I i
F w X
k

fK k I z 1
1
A 1
)(
e "1 m
rr m 1
y 1 H
n

N n K k
* q q r

pn P
A 1
=F * 1 s

p>p r /v* m *\ h *
i
/V n
*? s T t

T t
X m 1
u

£ n f
Y u 8 I
h
u
4> P + q
k\ X r P a
T K
A\
T
5
e
p r
Y
X
/ s
T
T t V
•* *
* T,T c
t
V v * &* a g
* y- * rr e

+ h

v \r y r X
 :

284 part v: european writing systems

Lycian-Greek Bilingual

#MTS ME/"\eOf STOMAL &£<*#

/. Lycian: ebeija erawazija : me ti :

/ prnnawate siderija

2. Greek: TO MNHMA TOA En/OIHSATO EIAAPIOI

J- Gloss: this monument he who built Siderija

/. parm[n]/[ah] : tideimi [: h]rppi : etli ehbi se/ ladi : ehbi

2. nAPMENO/NTOI YIOE EAYTOI KAI rYN[A]/ IKI
J. Parmna's son for him own and wife own

/. se tideimi : pubie/leje :

2. KAI YIQI nYBIAAHI

3- and son Pubiele

'This monument was built by Siderija, son of Parmna, for himself, and for his
wife, and for his son Pubiele.'
— Epitaph on a sarcophagus from Limyra (the only bilingual with fully parallel
texts; the Greek begins in line 5 after .'.
), in Kalinka 1901 no. 117, with a new
reading from Neumann 1985.

Lydian
The Lydian alphabet (table 22.8), attested in more than 100 inscriptions and graffiti
from the fifth and fourth centuries b.c.e., is also based on a variant of the ancient
Greek script of the "red" group, as can be seen from the shape of the signs for k, n,

and s. Of its 26 signs, 16 can be traced to their Greek model; the others are local ad-
ditions, most often for sounds peculiar to Lydian. A special feature of the Lydian al-
phabet is the sign 8/8 for/, a remarkable coincidence with the Etruscan alphabet
(section 23). The phonetic values of some Lydian signs (especially (], probably bor-
rowed from Carian; value [j]?) are still unclear. Lydian is written from right to left (a
few inscriptions are written from left to right).
 SECTION 22: THE ANATOLIAN ALPHABETS 285

Lydian-Greek Bilinguals

T11ITSA tllAII *A3 1AT1A1

NANNAZAIONYXIKAEOIAPTEMIAI
Anmitra silavikab sannan^-

Lydian: nannas bakivalis artimuA.

Greek: NANNAI AIONYXIKAEOX APTEMIAI
Gloss: Nannas the.one.of.Bakiva to. Artemis

'Nannas, the son of Bakiva (i.e. Bacchus/Dionysus) (dedicates this statue) to

Artemis.' —From Sardis (Gusmani 1964-86, no. 20).

TVA<HAWrA8
AOHNAIHI
livcav caat vsv<—
titas saratrab^-

Lydian: vsv taac vacvil bartaras satit

Greek: IiAPTAPAZ A0HNAIHI

Gloss: this statue/pillar(?) to.Acvi Bartara has. built

'Bartara has built this statue/pillar to Asni(?) (= Athena).'

—From Pergamon (Gusmani 1964-86, no. 40; Neumann 1967; Gusmani 1986a).

Carian
Carian inscriptions have been found in Caria, in southwestern Asia Minor, and in

Egypt, where the Carians, a non-Indo-European ethnic group mentioned in ancient

sources (Homer, Herodotus, Thucydides), served as mercenaries under Psammeti-

chus I or II. The inscriptions, written both left to right and right to left, include char-
acters which formally recall signs of the proto-Greek alphabet (albeit with different
values) and also of the Cretan alphabet and the Cypriote syllabary (section 7), but
they also contain several signs unparalleled among later ancient Greek writing sys-
tems. Despite bilingual inscriptions (with Egyptian hieroglyphic equivalents for Car-
ian signs), the Carian script has not yet been fully deciphered. It is now accepted that
its script, consisting of 45 signs with variants, is alphabetic, rather than a mixture of
286 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

syllabic and monophonemic signs. In recent years the "bilingual" approach, com-
bined with a careful study of graphic alternation, has led to a revision of the values
traditionally assigned to Carian signs; a start has been made with the study of Carian
grammar (Ray 1990). In the present state of our knowledge (see Schiirr 1992), it

seems possible to identify Carian signs for some nine vowels and semivowels (tran-
scribed as: a, e, i, i/i, o, w, u, u (value ul), wld), two labials (/?, /?), three velars (%, q,

/:), three dentals (t, d, 1 = f), three sibilants (s, i, s), three liquids (r, /, X), and three
nasals (aw, w, n). In table 22.9 the more or less acceptable identifications are given;

values for the remaining signs cannot yet be assigned.

table 22.9: The Letters of the Carian Alphabet

,
A t>A a
C d
3

4
A 1

5 u (alternating with sign 28)

6 FCC r

7 I I X
9
® q
10 r r a b
11 N N m
12 O (corresponding to Greek co)

14 9 t

15 <j a q s

17 AA P\ s

19 Y V u(/u)
20 n

21 X + X
22 Y V n

24 AA £\ P
25 <D © s

26 6 0- <y i

27 e (corresponding to Greek n.)

28 9 w (/a) (alternating with sign 5)

29,30 VT7 Y k

32 m m u (or u)

38 KH t
(/!)

40 * t x(t)
4i '«' variant of 28

a. Omitted numbers refer to signs included in decipherment lists for

which no established value can yet be given.

 SECTION 22: THE COPTIC ALPHABET 287

Other languages
Brief mention must be made of Pisidian inscriptions, written in the Greek alphabet of
the Roman period. The inscriptions (word dividers are used) contain mostly proper
names. The language underlying these inscriptions is unknown; it seems to lack aspi-
rated consonants (given the absence of %, 9, <|>) and is characterized by the presence
of diphthongs and triphthongs. In 1926 an inscription was found in Uyujik whose
right-to-left script seems to be a mixture of Phrygian and Lydian; the language (4th
or 3rd century b.c.e.?) could be Mysian, which according to Strabo (XII 8, 3) was a
"Lydian-Phrygian" mixture.

The Coptic Alphabet

Robert K. Ritner

"Coptic" designates the final stage of the ancient Egyptian language and script, which
flourished in Egypt from the fourth through the tenth centuries c.e. and still survives
in restricted liturgical use by the Coptic Orthodox Church. The term "Coptic" means
simply 'Egyptian', and derives from the Arabic rendering (Qubti) of the Greek term
AiyimTioq Aiguptios, a phonetic approximation of the native theological name of
Memphis (Hw.t-k'-Pth), the primary city of ancient Egypt. While the prominence of
Coptic is due to its use as a vehicle for the vernacular translation of the Bible and oth-
er Christian texts, its initial development occurred within traditional temple circles.

By virtue of the script's use of vowels, Old Coptic glosses served to clarify the pro-

nunciation of exotic magical names in late ritual papyri (Johnson 1977: 87-88, 93-
97).
The Coptic script represents a distinct break with earlier Egyptian writing sys-
tems by its general abandonment of pictographic characters, substituting instead the
24 letters of the Greek alphabet (table 22.10). Many of these borrowed letters do
not correspond to Coptic phonology, which has neither d nor z; does not distinguish
k from g; and treats e as shorthand for t + h,x for k + h, s for k + s, <j> for/? + lu and
4> forp + s. Standard written Coptic (Sahidic dialect) has 2 1 phonemes: five voiceless

and unaspirated stops (tt /?, t f, xd [<$;], 6 q, and k k), four voiceless spirants (c s, q
/, qj s [J], and z h\ five sonants (b v, a /, m r?u n /?, and p r), four long vowels (h e, 1 /,

Y w, and o> o), and three short vowels (a a, e e, and o o).

What distinguishes the Coptic from the Greek script, however, is the former's re-

tention of several traditional signs for phonemes not represented in Greek. These sup-
plementary signs are taken from the preceding Demotic script (7th century b.c.e.-
288 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 22.10: The Sahidic Coptic Alphabet

Greek/Demotic
Letter Transcription Phonetic Value Name"' Source

A a fa] alpha A
B V [v] veta B
r k [k] kamma r
A t It] talta A
e e [e] ei E
z s [s] sata Z
H e [e:] hata H
e th [th] thita

i [i] iota I

K k [k] kappa K
A 1 [1] lauta/lole A
M m [m] me/me/mi M
N n [n] ne N
I ks [ks] ksi 3
O [o] ou O
TT P [P] Pi n
P r [r] ro p
C s [s] semma z
T t [t] tau T
Y u [u] he/ue Y
* ph [ph] phi

X kh [kh] khi X
t ps [ps] psi ¥
u> 6 [o:] 6 CO

q> s [J] sai 3

f fai '

q ffl

z h [h] hori ?

X d [« dandia IJ-

6 q [ql qima I-

t ti [ti] ti -*

a. Examples collected in Crum 1939, and cf. Vergote 1973, vol. ia: 7, citing Worrell 1942; and Kasser 1991.

5th century c.e.), in declining use when Coptic was devised. The number of such ad-
ditional signs varies widely according to dialect, particularly during the formative

stages known as "Old Coptic." In the primary standardized dialect of Sahidic they
amount to six (lower portion of table 22.10). To the Sahidic unvoiced spirant 2 //.
 SECTION 22: THE COPTIC ALPHABET 289

an unvoiced fricative velar h (|xj) is added in the Bohairic (9r) and Akhmimic (£)
dialects.

By adopting the Greek alphabet, Coptic entails several further innovations in

Egyptian writing. Contrary to earlier preference (and initial "Old Coptic"), standard
Coptic is written from left to right. More importantly, Coptic is the only native script
of Egypt to indicate vowels. The importance of this feature in the script's develop-
ment is noted above. Syllables containing sonants are often vowelless, however, and
in Sahidic such syllables are indicated by a supralinear stroke: tmntpmnkhmg
Imhlrmnkeme 'Egyptian language'. Following Greek, Coptic no longer retains the an-
word division, nor does it have
cient Egyptian system of "determinatives" to indicate
punctuation between sentences. Some
do employ limited diacritics:
scribal schools

dieresis over and \ at the beginning of a syllable (gpo'i ero'i 'to me'; mu>ychc
i

mouses 'Moses'), apostrophe to indicate the end of phonological words and clitics
(epujANTBAiuop' AqjkAkeBOA'AN' ershantvashof ashkakevo!' an' 'not if the jackal
cries out'), and a circumflex on vowels forming independent syllables (post seventh
century, thhbg teeve 'finger').

Sample of Coptic
/. Coptic: totg NfMNkHMG THpoy namoy AYUJ KHMG
2. Transliteration: tote nfmnkeme terou namou awo kerne

J. Transcription: tote n-rm-n-kems teru na-mu awo kerns

4. Gloss: then the-men-of-Egypt all FUT-die and Egypt

/. naujcdttg eqtyHq NNNOYTG MN NPMNKHMG NTOK

2. nasope efsef nfinoute fhn nrfhnkeme fitok

3. na-Jops ef-Jef n-n-nuts mn n-rm-n-kems ntok

4. FUT-become it.being-deserted by-the-gods and the-men-of-Egypt you

/. AG U) TTIGPO oyN oYZOoy NAcyCDTTG i\ir£Gte NCNOq

2. te 6 piero oun ouhoou nasope nkhetie nsnof
h
3. te o piero wun u-hou na-Jops n-k eti n-snof

4. but O river there. is a-day will-occur and-you.flow with-blood

/. N£OOY GTTMOOY ayu> NCUJMA GTMOOYT

2. nhoou epmoou awo nsoma etmoout
3. n-hou e-p-mou awo n-soma et-mout
4. in-excess than-the-water and the-bodies REL-are.dead

/. CGNAq>U>TTG GYAOCG N20YO anthng ayuj

2. senasope eudose fihouo antene awo
3. se-na-Jopa eu-d^oss n-hou an-tena awo
4. they-FUT-be they.being-high in-excess in-dams and
290 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. CGNA.PIMG AN MTTGTMOOYT NOG MTTeTON£

2. senarime an fhpetmoout nthe fhpetonh
3- se-na-rimo an m-p-et-mout n-t-he m-p-et-onh
4- they-FUT-weep not for-them-REL-are dead in-the-way of-him-REL -lives

i. ceNAMeeye mgn epoq Ae oypMNKHMe TTG

2. senameeue men erof de oufmnkeme pe

3- se-na-mewe men ero-f (%e u-rm-n-kemo pe
4- they-FUT-think then regarding-him that a-man-of-Egypt he. is

i. GTBG TGqACTTG
2. etve tefaspe
3- etva t-ef-aspo

4- because. of the-his(FEM)-language

Then all the Egyptians will die, and Egypt will be deserted by the Gods and the
Egyptians. But as for you, O river, a day will come when you will flow with
blood more than with water, and the dead bodies will be higher than the dams.
And one will not weep over him who is dead so much as him who is living.

They will even think about him that he is an Egyptian because of his language.'
— Asclepius, Nag Hammadi VI, yi, lines 14-25 (Krause and Labib 1971: 196).

The Gothic Alphabet

Ernst Ebbinghaus

The language of the East Germanic tribe of the Goths obtained historical importance
in the age of the Great Migrations by which came about the expansion of the Ger-
manic tribes in the fourth and fifth centuries c.e. It is known only through a small
number of manuscripts, containing fragments of a translation of the Bible into Gothic.
The ecclesiastical historians Philostorgius (Historia ecclesiastica IL5), Socrates
{Historia ecclesiastica IV,33), and Sozomen {Historia ecclesiastica VI, 37), writing
in the fifth century c.e., report that the Gothic bishop Wulfila (t 383) invented the
"Gothic letters" (ypd[i[iaxa yoxOiKCX), in order to write down his translation of the

Bible into Gothic. That information, preserved through the Middle Ages (Streitberg

19 19: xxivf.), has been accepted by all modern students of the Gothic language
(Braune and Ebbinghaus 198 1 : 1 1-18). The script is variously referred to as Gothic
or Visigothic; since these terms have a traditional meaning in palaeography, I prefer
the term "Wulfila's script."
It is generally acknowledged that Wulfila did not invent his script ex nihilo but
that he adapted one or more existing scripts to his purpose. Greek, Latin, and the Ger-
 SECTION 22: THE GOTHIC ALPHABET 291

manic runes have been proposed as sole models or in varying combinations in a long-
lasting debate (Bibliographia Gotica 1950, nos. 6i7ff.). It has been shown in recent
times that it is sufficient to assume the Greek alphabet as the only source (Bouuaert
1950; Ebbinghaus 1979, 1988-89; Agud Aparicio and Fernandez Alvarez 1982: 10-
11).

Wulfila's own hand is not preserved. Descended from it and preserved in manu-

scripts not older than the sixth century are two closely related types of script. The old-
er of these types I have proposed to call the Sigma Type (Braune and Ebbinghaus
1 981: 12; Ebbinghaus 1978: ioof.). It uses nasal suspension (the leaving out of a na-
sal consonant symbol) only for n, as Greek does, and its s has the shape of a minuscule
Greek sigma. The Sigma Type exists in two forms; one of them is well known
through, e.g., the Gothic text of Codex Ambrosianus S. 45, while the other is known
only as an alphabet in Codex Vindobonensis 795 (Ebbinghaus 1978: 93-102). The
second and younger type of Wulfila's script, which I have proposed to call the S Type,
shows Latin influence. It uses nasal suspension for both m and n as Latin does, and
its s has the shape of the Latin capital s. The S Type is best known through the calli-
graphically executed Codex Argenteus in Uppsala.

Special features
Wulfila's script is a phonetically based alphabetic script, written from left to right.
The script does not separate words (scriptio continua); however, sentences and dis-
tinctive members of sentences are separated by space (spatium), centered dot (medial
point), or colon. A few manuscripts show colometric writing; i.e., every colon (dis-
tinctive member of a sentence, such as a subordinate clause) occupies a separate line.

Every consonant is signaled by one letter (table 22. 1 1 ); for vowels a single let-
ter or a digraph is used (table 22.12). Vowel symbols distinguish quality, not quan-
tity.

Nasal suspension is rare and occurs mostly at the end of lines; the suspended na-
sal is signaled by a macron above the preceding letter (e.g., <pf\/?tf -pan). Ligatures,
i.e. the combining of letters with the omission of certain strokes ( like & for ei), are

even rarer. Regular is the contraction of the nomina sacra: 1I1S ins 'Jesus', xns.vzrv
'Christ', ffV/a < ^^nq^frauja 'Lord'; these contractions show inflection for case.
The tenth letter 1 i is used with diaeresis I i*(a) in word-initial position, (b) in syl-
lable-initial position after a vowel, and (c) in compounds with a verb as second mem-
ber.

Wulfila adopted the Greek "Milesian system," in which every letter of the alpha-
bet has a numerical value. If letters are employed as numbers, they are preceded and
followed by centered dots or are marked by horizontal strokes above and/or below,
e.g. »e» e- '5',.Q/ '60' (von der Gabelentz and Loebe 1846: 17; Braune and Ebbing-
haus 1981: 13).
292 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 22.1 1 : The Gothic Alphabet

S Type 27 Type Transliteration Phonetic Value Numerical Value

fi A a [a/a:] I

B U b [b] 2

r r g [g] 3
^ Z d [d/S] 4
e F e [e/e:] 5
u V q [k
w
] 6
z * z [z] 7
h h h [h] 8

* y \> [6] 9
II a i i [i/i:] 10
R /< k [k] 20
A X 1 [1] 30
ri M m [m] 40
u A7 n [n] 50
g 6o
9 J LJ]

n li u [u/u:] 70
n n P [P] 8o

M - 90
K n r [r] 100
s L s [s] 200
T T t [t] 300
Y y w [w/y] 400
F p f [f] 500
h
X X X [k ] 600
o () h) [M] 700
o z [o/o:] 800
T - - 900

TABLE 22.12: Gothic Digraphs

Open Vowels C/asr Vrnt 'c/ y

rM ai ae/ae: ei ei i/i:

,\n au d/d:

That Wulfila's script was also used for profane material is shown by the Latin-
Gothic Deed of Naples (Papyrus Marini 1 19) of the sixth century (Tjader 1982: 9 iff.

and plates 1 i6ff.). Otherwise, the preserved manuscripts contain fragments of the
Gothic translation of the gospels, the Pauline epistles, three chapters of the book of
Nehemiah, and a commentary on the gospel of John.
 SECTION 22: THE GREEK ALPHABET 293

Wulfila's script has not had any offspring or influence on other scripts. It must
have died out with the Gothic language, at a time that remains undetermined. The al-

phabet and Gothic fragments in Codex Vindobonensis 795 of the ninth century (close
to 800?) must be attributed to the antiquarian interest of the time.

All the preceding remarks should be taken as preliminary. A comprehensive

study of Wulfila's script is still lacking.

Sample of Gothic
/. Gothic: Nl hnrq \up r
ei uenQr\n rfVTrUKrVN
2. Transliteration: ni hugjau> ei qemjau gatairan
3. Transcription: ni hugjae0 k"e:mjo gataeran
4. Gloss: not think that I.have.come to. destroy

/. yiTQip (\iij;cpr\n nKr\npeTnNS Nl r \T \iKr\N

r r

2. wito]3 ai^au praufetuns ni qam gatairan

w
3. wito:0 ae00o profeituns ni k am gataeran
4. the. law or the. prophets not I.have.come to.destroy

ns£riAAq \N r
(ANGN \riK r
Ullp \ r
izyis nN^ cp r\Tei
ak usfulljan amen auk qifea izwis und t^atei

ak usfulljan ame:n ok ki0a izwis und 0ati:

but to.fulfill truly but I. say to. you until that

nsAeicpicp hlNlNS ,\iK<pr\ QQT \ r JV1N8

usleubij) himins jah air^a jota ains ai^au ains
usli:0i0 himins jah aer0a joita aens ae00o aens

vanishes heaven and earth iota one or one

STH1RS Nl nSAGllplCp fSfc yiTQ^ \ riNTG f\AA(\T \

r r

striks ni uslei^if? af witoda unte allata wairjjij)

striks ni usli:0i0 af wito:da unte allata waer0i0

4. stroke not vanishes from the. law until all becomes

Do have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come

k
not think that I

not to abolish but to fulfill. For truly I tell you, until heaven and earth pass away,

not one letter, not one stroke of a letter,will pass from the law until all is accom-
plished.' —Matthew 5:17-18 [New Revised Standard Version].

Bibliography

The Greek alphabet

Allen, W. Sidney. 1987. Vox Graeca: The Pronunciation of Classical Greek. 3rd ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Barbour, Ruth. 1991. Greek Literary Hands A D. 400-1600. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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Buck, Carl Darling. 1955. The Greek Dialects. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
loannou, Iorgos. 1974. E mone kleronomid [The sole inheritance]. Athens: Hermes.
Jeffery, Lilian H. 1990. The Local Scripts of Archaic Greece, rev. ed. with supp. by A. W. Johnston.
Oxford: Clarendon.
Kirchhoff, Adolf. 1 887. Studien zur Geschichte des griechischen Alphabets, 4th ed. Gutersloh: Ber-
telsmann. Repr. Amsterdam: Gieben, 1970.
Newton, Brian. 1972. The Generative Interpretation of Dialect: A Study of Modern Greek Phonol-
ogy (Cambridge Studies in Linguistics 8). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Pfeiffer, Rudolf. 1968. History of Classical Scholarship from the Beginnings to the End of the Hel-
lenistic Age. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
.
1976. History of Classical Scholarship from 1300 to 1850. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Powell, Barry B. 1987. "The Origin of the Puzzling Supplemental O, X, 4V Transactions and Pro-
ceedings of the American Philological Association 117: 1-20.
Reynolds, Leighton D., and Nigel G. Wilson. 1991. Scribes and Scholars, 3rd ed. Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Roberts, Colin H. 1955. Greek Literary Hands 350 B.C. - A.D. 400. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Smyth, Herbert Weir. 1963. Greek Grammar, 2nd ed., rev. Gordon M. Messing. Cambridge: Harvard
University Press.
Sturtevant, Edgar H. 1940. The Pronunciation of Greek and Latin, 2nd ed. Philadelphia: Linguistic
Society of America. Repr. Groningen: Bouma, 1968.
Threatte, Leslie. 1980. The Grammar of Attic Inscriptions 1: Phonology. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Turner, Eric G. 1971. Greek Manuscripts of the Ancient World. Oxford: Clarendon.

Anatolian alphabets
Adiego, Ignacio-J. 1990. "Deux notes sur l'ecriture et la langue cariennes." Kadmos 29: 133-37.
Altkleinasiatische Sprachen. 1969. (Handbuch der Orientalistik Division 1, vol. 2/2). Leiden: Brill.

Brixhe, Claude. 1988. "La langue des inscriptions epichoriques de Pisidie." In A Linguistic Happen-
ing in Memory of Ben Schwartz, ed. Yoel Arbeitman, pp. 131-55. Louvain: Peeters.
Bryce, Trevor R. 1987. "Some Observations on the Pronunciation of Lycian." Kadmos 26/1: 84-97.
Carruba, Onofrio. 1978. "La scrittura licia." Annali delta Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, ser. 3,

vol. 8: 849-67.
Deroy, Louis. 1955. "Les inscriptions cariennes de Cane." L'Antiquite Classique 24: 305-55.
Eichner, Heiner. 1986. "Neue Wege im Lydischen I."
'

Zeitschrift fiir vergleichende Sprachforschung

90: 203-19.
Faucounau, Jean. 1984. "A propos de recents progres dans le dechiffrement de Fecriture carienne."
Bulletin de la Societe de Linguistique de Paris 79: 229-38.
,,
.
1989. "A propos de la lecture des inscriptions cariennes. Kadmos 28: 174-75.
Friedrich, Johannes. 1932. Kleinasiatische Sprachdenkmciler. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Gardthausen, Victor. 192 1. "Kleinasiatische Alphabete." Paulys Realencyclopddie der classischen
Altertumswissenschaft I i/l, cols. 601-12.
Gusmani, Roberto. 1964-86. Lydisches Worterbuch mit grammatischer Skizze unci Inschriften-

sammlung + Erganzungsband (3 fascicles). Heidelberg: Winter.

.
1 98 1. "II lidio." In Nuovi materiali per la ricerca indoeuropeistica, ed. Enrico Campanile.
pp. 107-16. Pisa: Giardini.
.
1986A. "Zur Lesung der lydischen Inschrift aus Pergamon." Kadmos 25: 155-61
,,
. 1986B. "Die Erforschung des Karischen. In Im Bannkreis des Alien Orients, ed. Wolfgang
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.
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.
1989-90. "Lo stato delle ricerche sul miliaco." Incontri linguistici 13: 69-78.
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.
1970. "Les inscriptions de Gordion et l'alphabet phrygien." Kadmos 9: 51-74.
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Societe de Linguistique de Paris 68: 1 87-2 1 3.
Neumann, Giinter. 1967. "Der lydische Name der Athena." Kadmos 25: 155-61.
.
1978. "Die sidetische Schrift." Annali della Scuola Normale Superiore di Pisa, ser. 3, vol.
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.
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— 1985. "Beitrage zum Lykischen VII." Die Sprache 31: 243-48.

—
.

. 1 988 a. "Lydien." Reallexikon der Assyriologie und der vorderasiatischen Archaologie 7:

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— . 1988B. "Lykien." Reallexikon der Assyriologie und der vorderasiatischen Archaologie']:
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Nolle, Johannes. 1988. "Mitteilungen zu sidetischen Inschriften." Kadmos 27: 57-62.
Ray, John D. 1982. "The Carian Script." Proceedings of the Cambridge Philological Society 208:
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.
1990. "An Outline of Carian Grammar." Kadmos 29: 54-73.
.
1992. "New values in Carian." Kadmos 31: 40-42.
Schiirr, Diether. 1992. "Zur Bestimmung der Lautwerte des karischen Alphabets 1971-1991." Kad-
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Sevoroskin, Vitalij. 1968. "Zur Entstehung und Entwicklung der kleinasiatischen Buchstaben-
schriften." Kadmos 7: 150-73.
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1975. "Zur sidetischen Schrift." Kadmos 14: 154-66.
Woudhuizen, Fred C. 1984-85 a. "Lydian: Separated from Luwian by Three Signs.'* Talanta 16-17:
91-113.
. 1984-85B. "Origins of the Sidetic Script." Talanta 16-17: 1 15-27-
Zgusta, Ladislav. 1957. "Die pisidischen Inschriften." Archiv Orientdlni 25: 570-610.

The Coptic alphabet

Crum, Walter E. 1939. A Coptic Dictionary. Oxford: Clarendon.
Johnson, Janet H. 1977. "Louvre E 3229: A Demotic Magical Text." Enchoria 7: 55-102.
Kasser, Rodolphe, ed. 1991. Appendix: Linguistics, vol. 8 of The Coptic Encyclopedia, ed. Aziz S.
Atiya. New York: Macmillan.
Krause, Martin. 1979. "Koptische Sprache." In Lexikon der Agyptologie, ed. Wolfgang Helck, Eber-
hard Otto, and Wolffian Westendorf, vol. 3, cols. 73^-37- Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Krause, Martin, and Pahor Labib. 197 1 . Gnostische und hermetische Schriften aus Codex II und Co-
dex VI (Abhandlungen des Deutschen Archaologischen Instituts, Kairo, Koptische Reihe 2).

Gliickstadt: Augustin.
Quaegebeur, Jan. 1982. "De la prehistoire de fecriture copte." Orientalia Lovaniensia Periodica 1 3:
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Till,Walter C. 1955. Koptische Grammatik. Leipzig: Harrassowitz, pp. 29-53.
Vergote, Josef. 1973-83. Grammaire copte. 2 vols, in 4 parts. Louvain: Peeters.
Worrell, William H. 1942. Coptic Texts in the University of Michigan Collection (University of
Michigan Studies, Humanistic series 46). Ann Arbor.

The Gothic alphabet

Agud Aparicio, Ana, and Pilar Fernandez Alvarez. 1982. Manual de lengua gotica. Salamanca: Uni-
versidad de Salamanca.
"Bibliographia Gotica." 1950-74. Mediaeval Studies 12: 237-324 (Fernand Mosse), 15: 169-83
(Mosse),19: 174-96 (James W. Marchand); 29 (1967): 328-43 (E. A. Ebbinghaus), 36: 199-

214 (Ebbinghaus).
Bouiiaert, J. 1950. "Oorsprong en vorming van het gotisch alphabet." Revue beige de philolologie
ct d'histoire 20: 423-37.
Braune, Wilhelm, and Ernst A. Ebbinghaus. 1981. Gotische Grammatik, 19th ed. Tubingen: Nie-
meyer.
de Vries, Jan, ed. 1936. Wulfilae codices Ambrosiani rescripti epistularum evangelicarum textum ex-
hibentes phototypice, vol. 2. Turin: Molfese.
Ebbinghaus, Ernst A. 1978. "The Gotica of Codex Vindobonensis 795." In Germanic Studies in

Honor of Otto Springer, ed. Stephen J. Kaplowitt, pp. 93-102. Pittsburgh: K& S Enterprises.
. 1978-79. "The study of Wulfila's alphabet." Journal of the Department of English (Calcut-
ta) i:34-39-
. 1979. "The Origin of Wulfila's Alphabet." General Linguistics 19: 15-29.
. 1992. "Some Remarks on the Life of Bishop Wulfila." General Linguistics 32: 95-104.
.
1994. "Wulfila's Script: Facts and Inferences." General Linguistics 34.
Friesen, Otto von, et al., eds. 1927. Codex argenteus Upsaliensis jussu senatus universitatis photo-
typice edit us. Uppsala: Almqvist & Wiksell.
Philostorgius. 191 3. Kirchengeschichte, ed. Joseph Bidez. Leipzig: Hinrichs.
Socrates. 1864. Historia ecclesiastica, ed. J. -P. Migne (Patrologia Graeca67). Paris: Migne.
Sozomenus. i960. Kirchengeschichte, ed. Joseph Bidez and Giinther Christian Hansen. Berlin:
Akademie Verlag.
Streitberg, Wilhelm. 1919. Die gotische Bibel I. Heidelberg: Winter.
Tjader, Jan-Olof. 1982. Die nichtliterarischen lateinischen Papyri Italiens aus der Zeit 445-470.
Stockholm: Gleerup.
von der Gabelentz, Hans C, and Julius Loebe. 1846. Ulfilas 11,2. Leipzig: Brockhaus.
SECTION 23

The Scripts of Italy

Larissa Bonfante

Etruscan
The Etruscan alphabet (table 23.1) derives from the Greek, which derives from the
Phoenician alphabet; the Latin alphabet derives from the Greek by way of Etruscan.
The Etruscan alphabet originated from a Western Greek alphabet, that of the Eu-
boeans, the first Western Greeks, who settled in Pithekoussai and Cumae. There are
some 13,000 Etruscan inscriptions, making Etruscan second only to Latin in Italy in
amount of documentation, and first until ca. 200 b.c.e.
Etruscan did not have the voiced consonants b, g, d, and soon expelled their
letters from its alphabet; nor did it have <?, which also disappeared. Various inscribed
alphabets, including one from Marsiliana d'Albegna (mid 7th century b.c.e.;
figure 35), still preserve the Greek ("model") alphabet (26 signs, including b, g, d,

and o, though they were never used in inscriptions).

The sign B heth (Greek H, eta) kept its old value of [h].

For the sound [k], archaic Etruscan used three letters, corresponding to three
slightly different pronunciations depending on the following vowel: ka, ce and d, qu.
During the course of the fifth century b.c.e., orthography came to be simplified and
only C was used; K was sometimes used in northern Etruria.
The model alphabet of Marsiliana d'Albegna had four signs for sibilants: M sade
(sideways sigma), EB samech, % sigma, and X (like Latin X). This system was then
somewhat simplified: only two were used, aside from M, a sibilant of which we do
not know the exact pronunciation (it may have been pronounced [J]). The different

Etruscan cities varied in their use of the signs for the sibilants.
The voiceless stops >l k, T t, 1 /?, and T % (Greek ch or kh) alternate with the as-
pirates in many words (sec : se%), without any clear reason. But after the liquids J /,

°\
r, 1/w,h n, only T % was used.
The Etruscans had a sound [f] which at first they expressed with F B wh (as was
also done in Venetic); but in the sixth century a new sign 8 was (apparently) invented
and added at the end of the letter order.

Etruscan Z always had the voiceless sound [ts].

Acknowledgment: I would like to thank my father. Giuliano Bonfante. for his valuable assistance in prepar-

ing this section.

297
298 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 23.1: Etruscan and Latin- Faliscan Alphabets (after Morandi 1982: 29)

Etruscan

Marsiliana Archaic & Recent Faliscan Latin

a fl A A* A a

b b
*
c/g c/g
1 > C C
d d
D D
e e
3 * 6 fc

V V
<\
i
z [ts]
\ \ It z [ts]

h
§ Q0 B B
h

th
® O th

1 I 1 1
j
1 1
1 1

k k
* K
1

4 4 I, L
1

m *i ~1WA r~W /*• m

n 1 M H r H A" n

g ffl s

O O
P 1 1 p r
P

s
M MM s

q M
9 9 9 -
?
r r
<\
<10 Pfl p
s
>
8 ^l 5
s

t
T > > r
t

u
Y YV V YV 11

S, X
X X X X S, X

ph
9 9 © ph

ch
Y Yv K.
ch

f
t £ f
KH,8
 SECTION 23: THE SCRIPTS OF ITALY 299

figure 35. Model (Greek) alphabet on ivory tablet from Marsiliana d'Albegna
(Bonfante and Bonfante 1983, fig. 11, source :).

Etruscan writing usually runs from right to left, except in some late inscriptions
influenced by Latin. Archaic inscriptions, however, could also run from left to right,

or they could be written boustrophedon, as was a funerary stela from Lemnos of the
sixth century b.c.e., in a language very close to archaic Etruscan.

The earliest Etruscan inscriptions were written using scriptio continua, in which
the words are not divided from each other: miavilestiteiuchsiemulenike, that is. mi
aviles titei uchsie mulenike T [belong to] Aulus Titus, Uchsie dedicated [me]'. In the
sixth and fifth centuries b.c.e. there appeared in southern Etruria and Campania a syl-

labic punctuation which set off with a dot the letters that were not part of an open syl-

lable, that is, the consonants or vowels that did not fit a syllabic system (see Peruzzi
1980: 142-49). Such punctuation was normal in the Venetic alphabet, which was, cu-
riously, derived from the archaic southern, rather than from a northern Etruscan al-

phabet. From the sixth century b.c.e., it became customary to separate words by
means of one or two dots.
The earliest Etruscan inscriptions date from the seventh century b.c.e.; in the first

century b.c.e. the use of Etruscan as a written language disappears.

300 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Sample of Etruscan

®* t>« © t®
3->/j >iVirrit-rt

(DrtlVMH

flfy
\
© V
@J

figure 36. The Pyrgi tablets, with Phoenician (left) and Etruscan inscriptions.

For the analysis of the Phoenician text, see page 106.

/. Etruscan: ita • tmia • icac • he/ramasva • vatieche /

2. Gloss: this sacred.place and this statue dedicated

/. unialastres • themia/sa • mech thuta • thefa/riei velianas • sal /

2. to Uni-Astarte he. placed lord people Thefarie Velianas ?

/. cluvenias turu/ce • munistas • thuvas / tameresca •

2. ? he.gave.it this. place of.this. sacred.place promoter

# churvar
/. ilacve / tulerase • nac • ci • avi/1 • tesiameit/ale
2. on. the. one. hand established because three year(s) ? 9

/. ilacve • alsase nac • atranes • zilac/al • seleitala

[•] /

2. on.the.other.hand dedicated? because of.the.temple "king" ?

/. acnasv/ers • itanim • heram/ve • avil • eniaca • pul/umchva

2. gave. in. possession this statue year(s) ? stars

Etruscan: This the sacred place and this the statue dedicated to Uni (Juno)
Astarte the lord ruler of the people, Thefarie (Tiberius) Velianas . . . placed
(here); he gave this place, he, the caretaker of this sacred place, on the one hand
because she established him for three years ... and on the other hand because
he, the chief magistrate of the temple, gave her in possession this statue(?); and
may its years be as many as the stars.'
 SECTION 23: THE SCRIPTS OF ITALY 3QJ

Phoenician: 'For the Lady, for Ashtarat is this holy place that Thefarie Velunas,
king over Caere, made and donated to (the) temple, in the Month of the Solar
Sacrifice (which is called?) MTN, and he built (a/ the?) cella as Ashtarat had
asked of him during the third year of his reign, in the Month of KRR on the Day
of the God's Burial. And may the years of the god's statue be as many as these
stars.'

-Three gold tablets excavated in 1964 at Pyrgi, a harbor ofCerveteri. Ca. 500
B.C.E. /5.5 x 8 cm. Only a few of the Etruscan words, aside from the names, are
known with certainty fci 'three', zilac 'king/magistrate', avil 'year', and some
others). After Bonfante and Bonfante 1983: 53-56.

Other languages and scripts of Italy

The Etruscan alphabet was widely used —

by non-Etruscans as well as Etruscans — in
Etruria, in territories conquered by the Etruscans (Campania, Emilia), and in those in-
fluenced by Etruscan culture. Other inscriptions from pre-Roman Italy —with the ex-
ception of southern Italy and Sicily, which took their alphabets directly from Greek
were written with characters derived from the Etruscan alphabet (Umbrian, Oscan,
etc.). Unlike Etruscan, the languages of these other peoples of Italy, including Latin,
were Indo-European.

Latin

An Etruscan influence on the Latin alphabet (table 23. 1 ) can be seen in the third let-

ter, Greek gamma, which took the voiceless sound C before a (as in Latin Caesar [ka-
jsar]). Unlike the Etruscans, the Romans had the sound [g]; and since the Greek
gamma, T or C, was already being used to represent [k], which the Romans also need-
ed, Spurius Carvilius Rufa invented, in the early third century b.c.e., a new letter, G,
simply by adding a stroke to the existing C. This new sign was inserted in the alphabet

following the letter F, in the slot formerly occupied by the Greek letter Z, which was
at this time not used in Latin. When, in the first century b.c.e., the Romans needed
the Z to write Greek words, they reintroduced it; but it went to the end of the line, as

the last letter of the alphabet, so as to preserve the original order of the alphabet. The
h
Romans did not need the Greek letters [t ] or E [ks], or those which had been added
at the end of the Greek alphabet, O [p
h
], X [k
h
], *F [ps], and Q. [o:]; so these letters

dropped out.

Greek Y [u/y], in the form V (as in Etruscan), was used for both [u/y] and [v],

while I stood for [i] and the consonant [j]. When Y was reintroduced as a separate let-

ter in the first century b.c.e., to be used in words of Greek origin, it too was put at the

end of the alphabet, immediately before Z. The last sign to be added in antiquity, the

cross, had the value [ks] in the western Greek scripts, whence Latin X, rather than the
h
value [k ] (Greek [x]) as in the eastern Greek script (from which came classical and
302 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

modern Greek X [k J). Latin X thus had the sound of Greek E [ks]. The Roman al-
h

phabet was therefore as follows: A, B, C (= [k]), D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q,

R (instead of Greek P), S, T, V, X, Y, Z. The Greek and Latin scripts differed in other
—
ways, too Latin D, in contrast to Greek A; C (and G) as against T; L versus A; S
versus £ — no doubt because the Latin forms were western variants, which had come
into Etruscan and Latin from the Euboean colonies.
Not Renaissance was U distinguished from V and consonantal J from I
until the

(and not untilNoah Webster's 1806 Compendious Dictionary of the English Lan-
guage were they separated in alphabetical lists). The sound [f], which did not exist in
— h
Greek <t> ph [p was not pronounced [f] until Roman times was perhaps intro-
] —
duced to Europe by the Etruscans. This sound was at first written in Latin, as in early

Etruscan, with FH wh. The classic example for this usage had long been the seventh-
century b.c.e. fibula from Praeneste, near Rome, a gold pin of Etruscan style en-
graved with what was considered the earliest Latin inscription: Manios : med : fhe :

fhaked : Numasioi 'Manios made me for Numasios (Numerius)'. That this inscription
is a forgery (on a genuinely antique artifact) has recently been demonstrated (Gordon
1983: 76), though the inscription's characters and language agree with what we
would expect in this early period. By the fourth century b.c.e. the F was used alone
for [f], as in the inscription on the lid of the Ficoroni cista, an engraved bronze toilet

box from Praeneste (figure 37). The earliest Latin inscriptions were retrograde or
boustrophedon (Castor and Pollux dedication, Duenos vase, Forum cippus). Associ-
ated with Praenestine (and other) Latin is syllabic notation, where a consonant letter

represents the consonant plus a vowel, often the letter's name (Vine 1993: 323-44).

Sample of Latin
^^*»-' : .•Mrjjeyjp. v. asaagSBaBaaBg y^Kg^rW? aa asscc easzasSB S EES
e» J.!a3d
0, ^3/VI 4 .tyiAMo;x/W«v/i<i/Vlai>

Y
A/ OVloy.Pi,ttVTiO*.N'\i:D . £OM^io F F C ID

figure 37. Ficoroni cista: Latin inscription on lid. Fourth century b.c.e.
(Manino 1981: 131, fig. 36).

/. Latin: Novios Plautios med Romai fecid /

2. Gloss: Novios Plautios me Rome.LOC made

/. Dindia Macolnia fileai dedit

2. Dindia Macolnia daughter.DAT gave

'Novios Plautios made me in Rome —Dindia Macolnia gave [me] to her daugh-
ter.' —Mansuelli 1950-51.
 SECTION 23: THE SCRIPTS OF ITALY 3Q3

|0 OiOO \0

3
>\ >H >T>i ^Ji>
cfTf7 Zf3
Sims uw^raz
figure 38. Venetic alphabet and writing exercises, including the signs ALCEO and syllable
on a bronze votive tablet from Este. Third century b.c.e. (Bonfante 1 981, fig. 1 19).
practice,

Etruscan influence in the north

Etruscan merchants came to northern Europe long before the arrival of the Romans
(from Arretium 'Arezzo' is derived German Erz 'ore'), and they brought writing: ac-
cording to most scholars, the northern runes (section 25) derive from the Etruscan
alphabet.
In northern Italy (table 23.2), most inscriptions are relatively late. Ligurian and
Lepontic inscriptions were found in the region between eastern Piedmont, Lombardy,
the southern part of the Canton Ticino and Liguria, and the Lake region (Como, Luga-
no, Maggiore, and d'Orta). As in Etruscan, no distinction is made between voiceless
velar [k] and voiced [g]; the sign used, as in northern Etruscan, is K.
Only three Gallic inscriptions have been found, from Briona (Novara), Cureggio
(Vercelli), and Todi: they are late, third to first century b.c.e.
Rhaetic inscriptions, belonging mostly to the third century b.c.e., have been
found in the northern Tyrol and in the valleys of the Dolomites, at Verona, Sondrio
and Padua.
Somewhat different are the more than forty inscriptions of the Val Camuna (now
Valcamonica), mostly scratched on the rock walls.
There are over 250 Venetic inscriptions, dating from the sixth to the second cen-
turies b.c.e. These are characterized by the presence of F, as in Etruscan; by the pres-
ence of the letter O, which distinguishes them from the Etruscan model; by the

angular shape of the letters; by a syllabic punctuation (open syllables are not punctu-
ated); and by the use of the Greek and Etruscan letters X, O, and Z for the voiced [g],

[b], and [d].

304 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 23.2: Alphabets of Northern Italy (after Morandi 1982: 176)

Venetic Rhaetic Lepontic Gallic

b
rtA PtA M k a

c/g c/g
> >
d d

e e
A 33 4 &
V V
4 <\ 4
Z |ts]
** t * z [ts]

h h
M4 H
th
O th

1 1
1 1 1
1
1 1 1

k k

1
si si 4 It
1

m W|/V\/v\ *1 w, m
n
^\W "1 *IH 1* n

O O
P
A <1 1 r
P

s
M IX CXH 1X3
s

q q

r
<J < D r

s
« U a ii
s

t
xf xt ix X t

u
V V HV V u

ph ph
<> 4>
ch
V y V ch

t' t'

Tl
 section 23: the scripts of italy 3q5

Examples of punctuated Venetic

fo.u.vo.s eneijo.s doto dono. m. rumusijate. i.

Fouvos / son of Ene / gave / as a gift / to [the god] Trumusiate

'Fouvos, son of Ene, gave [this] as a gift to [the god] Trumusiate.'

mego doto vnu.g.siia volua sa.i.naled.re.i.tiia.i.o.p.vo.l.tiio.leno

me / gave / Fugsia / Volna / to Sainati [?] / [the goddess] Reitiia / as a voluntary / act

(The object speaks): 'Fugsia Volna gave me to [the goddess] Sainati (epithet?)
Reitiia as a voluntary act.'

Samples of Venetic

figure 39. Bronze stylus (writing implement) from a votive stips at Este.

Este, Museo Nazionale Atestino.

Transliteration: vza.n. - vhuxia. ur.kle.i.na/ re.i.tie.i zona.s.to

Transcription: vdan Fugia Urkleina Reitiei donasto

Gloss: object Fugia Urkleina to.Reitia gives

'Fugia Urkleina gives this object to (the goddess) Reitia.'

—After Morandi 1982: 184.

Note: vdan is the name of the Venetic alphabet (Lejeune 1974: 134).

mgMssx

figure 40. Stone (trachite) cippus from the necropolis of Este, found in 1959.

Este, Museo Nazionale Atestino. Fourth century b.c.e. Boustrophedon.

.i.aiis.s.k.uhvo%.e.^
—>vo.l.tiio.m.mni.
.i.an^
306 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Transliteration: .e.%o vhu.k.s.siia.i. vo.l.tiio.m.mni.na.i.

Transcription: ego Fukssiai Voltiommmninai

Gloss: I Fukssia.DAT Voltiommnina.DAT

i [belong] to Fukssia Voltiommnina.' —After Morandi 1982: 184.

Central and southern Italy

Faliscan, closely related to Latin, is documented by inscriptions dating from the sev-
enth to the second centuries b.c.e. Peculiarly Faliscan (table 23.1) are the shape of
the letter A, which in later times looks like an R, and an arrow-shaped sign for [f]. B
and Q are rarely used.
Northern Picene inscriptions (table 23.3) come from Novilara, Fano, and Pe-
saro. Southern Picene inscriptions are close to Osco-Umbrian: 23 are known, from
Macerata, Chieti, l'Aquila, etc. (including the one on the life-size statue of the so-
called Capestrano Warrior). Much of the Southern Picene alphabet derives from the
Etruscan, but two unusual characters definitely do not: A single dot (•) has the value
[o] (it therefore derives not from Etruscan — since Etruscan had no O—but from
Greek). Two dots (•) has the value [f]. The Southern Picene alphabet is now almost
completely deciphered.
Oscan and Umbrian are linguistically closely related; their rich epigraphic doc-
umentation (table 23.3) includes some unusual signs, and monuments handsomely
inscribed with regular, squared, rubricated letters. Of the seven famous bronze Igu-
vine tablets from the Umbrian city of Gubbio (ca. 200-100 b.c.e.) containing instruc-
tions for religious ceremonies and rituals, the earliest are written in an Etruscan type
of alphabet, the later in Latin. Oscan, the language used by several peoples of central
and southern Italy, in particular the Samnites, is known to us from the bronze tablet

from Agnone (in the British Museum), as well as inscriptions from Pompeii and Her-
culaneum; inscriptions have been found from the Abruzzi to Messina, in an area in-

cluding Campania and Lucania. Three types of alphabet were used: Etruscan (on the
Agnone tablet), with modifications (the use of b, d, and g, and two special signs for
open i and u, transcribed ilu)\ Greek; and Latin. In Lucania, below Taranto, Messapic
(several hundred inscriptions, from the 6th to the 1st century b.c.e.) is written in a
Greek alphabet.
 SECTION 23: THE SCRIPTS OF ITALY 307

table 23.3: Alphabets of Southern Italy (after Mo randi 1982: 66)

Oscan Umbrian M;>/7/7 Picene Middle Adriatic Messapic

a <q R fl ft AA AAA a

b 8 a a 1 B b

c/g
> » r c/g

d 51? d
fl !> D
e e
1 1 3 $ E & E
V ~> V
1 <\ fc c
z
z [ts]
I \ I [ts]

h
B Q am Bh h

th
O ® OK ©0 th

1 I 1 1 i
1
1 1 1
1 J

k k
K
1 J >l >J i\ A 1

m \M W| m
HHA /V\ r~ a^
n H M M /v r /s/ n

O
p
P n 1 -1 p P
s
ri M^ s

q
© 9
q

r r
<i c p Pf>
s
s
* 2^ ** 'U
t
f + T + Tl TT t

u
u
V V V
S, X
S, X
+x
ph ph

ch
n ch

f
f
8 8

I- -M i q f \^ - M i

Y '

V " d s
\|/ u
 '

308 part v: european writing systems

Sample of Oscan

MHrqvB-T32-2VrT iVTCQJl
•hyT<]ye
OlTQT-M-00 3>l'OiTnT2t</4 ill
Oi 7fq^^•^fq^rq^^.g afTH ^ •
V 3 T v vp

•0« r/Q t*- ^^^mqQ i>\ 11 Parana

M<1TM 3-1-3 >|M^iflMfq>N

•a>TflT2.^^ren n h flMiqTrtn .

•G»-T/qTe-^r3M3>'^0»-3y

».3OTTJfl*^>yav'0jrMi^TBflq<

f-rt h<i<n * h fl H (J In
BhTti T 2 i
.hnnavvrt-ha era/3
•^Trtr*-htffKJ<n>fM/*Wrt

figure 41 Tablet from Agnone with Oscan

. inscription, front (left) and back. Ca. 250 b.c.e.
British Museum.

/. Oscan: status • pus • set • hurtin • / kerriiin • vezkef •

2. Gloss: ritual. places which are in.enclosure of.Ceres for.Vensicus

/. statif • / evkluf statif • kern • statif • / futrei • kerriiaf • statif • /

2. stopping-place ... (see translation)

/. anter • stataf • statif*/ ammai • kerrfiai* statif*/ diumpafs • kerriiais

/. statif*/ lfganakdikef • entraf • statif • / anafriss • kerriiuis •

1. statif*/ maatuis • kerriiuis* statif*/ diuvei* verehasiui • statif*/

diuvef patanai •
/. • regaturef* statif*/ herekliif* keniiui* statif*/

/. piistiai • statif • / defvaf • genetaf • statif • / aasaf • purasiaf • / saahtum «

2. at. altar of. fire holy

•
/. tefurum • alttref • / puterefpid • akenef • / sakahiter • / fiuusasiafs
2. offering other be. sanctified to. Florae
 SECTION 23: THE SCRIPTS OF ITALY 3QO,

/. az • hurtum • / sakarater • / pernai • kerrfiaf • statif • / ammaf •

2. at enclosure be. sacrifice. su bj ... (see translation)

/. kerrfiaf • statif • / fluusaf • kerrfiaf • statif • / evkluf • pateref • statif • /

Reverse: /. aasas • ekask • eestfnt • / hurtuf • / vezkei • / evkluf*/ fuutreiW

2. altars these stand in.enclosure . . . (see translation)

/. anterstataf • / kerrf • / ammaf • / diumpafs • / lfganakdfkef • entraf /

/. kerrfiaf • / anafrfss • / maatufs • / diuvef • verehasiu • / diuvef • pifhiuf •

/. regaturef • / herekluf • kerrfiuf • / patanaf • pifstiai • / defvaf • genetaf • /

/. aasaf • purasiaf • / saahtum • tefurum • / alttref • puterefpfd • /

2. at.altar of.fire holy offering other

akenef • dekmanniufs
/. • / hurz • stait •

2. enclosure for.Decimani stands

The established ritual places which are in the enclosure of Ceres: The stop-
ping-place for Vensicus; the stopping-place for Euclus; the stopping-place for
Ceres; the stopping-place for Ceres' Daughter; the stopping-place for Interstita;
the stopping-place for Amma; the stopping-place for the Nymphs of Ceres; the
stopping-place for Liganacdix Interna; the stopping-place for the Rains of
Ceres; the stopping-place for the Matis of Ceres; the stopping-place for Jupiter
Juvenal; the stopping-place for Jupiter Rector, or Irrigator; the stopping-place
for Hercules of Ceres; the stopping-place for Patana Pistis; the stopping-place
for the Goddess Genita. At the Altar of Fire let a holy burnt offering be sancti-
fied every other year; to the Florae by the enclosure let there be a sacrifice; the
stopping-place for Perna of Ceres; the stopping-place for Amma of Ceres; the
stopping-place for Flora of Ceres; the stopping-place for Euclus the Father/

Reverse: These altars stand in the enclosure: for Vensicus; for Euclus; for the

Daughter; for Interstita; for Ceres; for Amma; for the Nymphs; for Liganacdica
Interna of Ceres; for the Rains; for the Matis; for Jupiter Juvenalis; for Jupiter
Pius Rector; for Heracles of Ceres; for Patina Pistia; for Divine Genita; at the
Altar of Fire a holy burnt offering every other year. The enclosure is at the dis-
posal of the Decimani. -After Bonfante iggob.
310 part v: european writing systems

Sample of Umbrian

l/Tb£
figure 42. Mars from Todi: Umbrian inscription on lappet of cuirass.
Vatican, Museo Etrusco Gregoriano. Fourth century b.c.e.

Umbrian: ahal trutitis dunum dede

Gloss: Ahal Trutitius gift gave

'Ahal Trutitius gave as a gift.' —After Morandi 1982: 73.

Bibliography

General
Amadasi Guzzo, Maria Giulia. 1987. Scritture alfabetiche. Rome: Valerio Levi Editore.
Manino, Luciano. 1981. Antologia di testi epigrafici etruschi e italici. Turin: Giappichelli Editore.
Morandi, Alessandro. 1982. Epigrafici Italica. Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider.

Prosdocimi, Aldo L., ed. 1 978A. Popoli e civilta dell 'Italia antica, vol. 6: Lingue e dialetti dell 'Italia

antica. Rome: Biblioteca di Storia Patria.

Reading the Past: Ancient Writing from Cuneiform to the Alphabet. 1990. Introduction by J. T.

Hooker. London: British Museum; Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Etruscan
Bonfante, Giuliano, and Larissa Bonfante. 1983. The Etruscan Language: An Introduction.
Manchester: Manchester University Press; New York: New York University Press.
Bonfante, Larissa. 198 1. Out of Etruria: Etruscan Influence North and South (BAR International Se-
ries 103). Oxford: British Archaeological Reports.
. 1990A. Etruscan (Reading the Past). London: British Museum; Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press. Repr. in Reading the Past 1990: 321-78.
Cristofani, Mauro. 1978. "L'alfabeto etrusco." In Prosdocimi 1978: 401-68.
.
1979. "RecentAdvances in Etruscan Epigraphy and Language." In Italy before the Romans.
ed. David Ridgway and Francesca Serra Ridgway, pp. 373-41 2. London: Academic Press.
Healey, John F. 1990. The Early Alphabet (Reading the Past). London: British Museum; Berkeley

and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Repr. in Reading the Past 1990: 197-258.
Pallottino,Massimo. 1978. "The Etruscan Language." In his The Etruscans, ed. David Ridgway, pp.

187-234. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.

Peruzzi, Emilio. 1980. Mycenaeans in Early Latium (Incunabula Graeca 75). Rome: Edizioni
dell'Ateneo & Bizzarri.
Pfiffig, Ambros. 1969. Die etruskische Sprache: Versuch einer Gesamtdarstellung. Graz: Akade-
mische Druck- und Verlagsanstalt.

Early Latin
Gordon, Arthur E. 1983. Illustrated Introduction to Latin Epigraphy. Berkeley and Los Angeles:
University of California Press.
Mansuelli, Guido. 1950-51. "L'incisore Novios Plautios." Studi Etruschi 21: 401-6.
 SECTION 23: THE SCRIPTS OF ITALY 3 \

Vine, Brent. 1993. Studies in Archaic Latin Inscriptions (Innsbrucker Beitrage zur Sprachwissen-
schaft 75). Innsbruck: Universitat Innsbruck, Institut fur Sprachwissenschaft.

OSCAN AND UMBRIAN

Bonfante, Larissa. 1990B. "Oscan: The Agnone Tablet." In Bonfante 1990A: 53-57.
Buck, Carl Darling. 1928. A Grammar ofOscan and Umbrian, with a Collection of Inscriptions and
a Glossary, 2nd ed. Boston: Ginn. Repr. Hildesheim: Olms, 1974.
Conway, R. S., J. Whatmough, and S. E. Johnson, 1933. The Prae-Italic Dialects of Italy. 3 vols.
Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Prosdocimi, Aldo. 1978B. "L'umbro." In Prosdocimi 1978A: 585-788.
. 1978c. "L'osco." In Prosdocimi 1978A: 825-912.
Vetter, Emil. 1953. Handbuch der italischen Dialekte, vol. 1. Heidelberg: Winter.

Other Italic Dialects

Giacomelli, Gabriella. 1978. "II falisco." In Prosdocimi 1978A: 505-42.
Lejeune, Michel. 1974. Manuel de la langue venete. Heidelberg: Winter.
Marinelli, Anna. 1985. Le iscrizioni sudpicene, vol. 1, Testi. Florence: Olschki.
Morandi, Alessandro. 1978. "Le iscrizioni medio-adriatiche." In Prosdocimi 1978 a: 559-84.
Prosdocimi, Aldo L. 1978D. "II venetico." In Prosdocimi 1978A: 256-380.
.
1983. "Puntuazione sillabica e insegnamento della scrittura nel venetico e nelle fonti etr-

usche.'M/T2A/5: 75-126.'
Santoro, Ciro. 1983-84. Nuovi studi messapici. 3 vols. (Saggi e testi. Sez. di glottologia e dialettolo-
gia 24-26). Galatina, Italy: Congedo.
Tibiletti Bruno, Maria Grazia. 1978 a. "Ligure, leponzio e gallico." In Prosdocimi 1978 a: 129-208.
. 1978B. "Camuno, retico e pararetico." In Prosdocimi 1978A: 209-55.
 —

SECTION 24

The Roman Alphabet

Stan Knight

There is a popular notion that the evolution of the Roman script can be plotted out like

a family tree, showing a single line of development from Roman times to the present
day. Its history, however, is far too ancient, too complex, and too widespread for that.

A multitude of influences — political, religious, esthetic, economic, or pragmatic

have been brought to bear on the way that the Roman script has been formed through-
out the ages.
The original manner in which the Latin language was written down was devised
over 2000 years ago (section 23). Since then, Roman scripts have been used not
only for Latin but also for the majority of the world's languages (section 59).
The scope of this survey allows only an indication of the historical highlights in
the development of the Roman script, and a hint of the more obvious causes and in-

fluences that created change.

Ancient Roman scripts

The earliest examples we have of Latin letters are of those carved in stone, some dat-
ing from the sixth or even seventh century b.c.e. Early Roman letters were monoline
capitals of distinct form (figure 43A), derived from earlier Greek models. Some-
times the text was retrograde, i.e. read from right to left.

By the first century c.e. the carved capitals had developed a level of sophistica-
tion and legibility which has ensured their survival to modern times in both typogra-
phy and calligraphy. The detailing of these incised letters (figure 43B), in the

balance of their thin and thick strokes and the subtle serifing, was clearly due to pre-
liminary planning with an edged pen or brush (see Catich 1968).
The scripts of ancient Rome can be grouped according to their use and their char-
acter: Cursive scripts, the informal styles used for minor documents and the everyday
handwriting of the intelligentsia, most usually written with a blunt, pointed pen or
stylus; and Calligraphic or Book scripts, those more formal scripts written by profes-
sional scribes for large-scale literary manuscripts, using a specially cut edged pen
which produces the characteristic thick and thin strokes.

312
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET 3^

a. Vatican. Dedication to Hercules, ca. 144 b.c.e.

b. Rome, Appian Way. 1st or 2nd century c.e.

c. British Library, Papyrus 229. 166 c.E. {nomine abban quern eutychon sive quo alio nomine).

U4UU5IKOKIDUUCVliy5ViTXT\Ci5QVI
d. Vatican Library, Ms. Pal.Lat.163 1 . 4th or 5th century.

e. Oxford, Bodleian Library, Ms. Auct.T.2.26. Mid 5th century.

f. Bamberg, Staatsbibliothek, Ms.Patr.87. 6th century.

I M PROP* LI D\RI SSV RGLNS

g. Vatican Library, Vat. Lat. 3256. 4th or 5th century.

A) m^y^* \]^mi^^M^
h. British Library, Papyrus 447. ca. 345 c.e. (crum comitatum vestrum tirones ex provincia).

figure 43. Ancient Roman scripts, a. Monoline capitals, b. Inscriptional capitals, c. Old Roman
Cursive, d. Rustic capitals, e. Uncials, f. Half Uncials, g. Square capitals, h. New Roman Cursive.
314 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Old Roman Cursive

The earliest known handwritten Latin document can be traced to the first century

b.c.e. Old Roman Cursive dates from some time before that and lasts into the third

century c.E. (figure 43c). The some features of the earliest Latin in-
script bears

scriptions; but since it is written quickly (cursive means 'running') and inconsistently,

there is a loss of legibility. Some letters were remodeled, others became linked togeth-
er (in ligatures), and abbreviations are common. Following the epigraphic pattern, lit-
tle or no word space is allowed. This script was ideally suited for the stylus and wax

tablet, and can even be seen in the graffiti of Pompeii (see Aris 1990: 1.4).

Rustic Capitals

The earliest fully developed Latin book script was Rustic Capitals, and we know of
examples from the first century c.E. The Gallus Fragment may even date from as early
as 22 b.c.e. (see Knight 1984, Introduction). Despite its unsophisticated name, this is

a mature, calligraphic script used for many deluxe manuscripts (figure 43D). It has
narrow letterforms and a very steep pen angle (the edge of the pen held at almost 90°
to the writing line). Following Old Roman Cursive, the A often lacks a crossbar, the
M is widely spread, and the bowl of R overlaps the vertical stem. The words are di-
vided with a centered point in the epigraphic manner.

Uncial scripts

Uncial was a popular script in common use from the fourth to eighth centuries for the

text of books (figure 43E). Most of the earliest surviving Uncial manuscripts have
their origins in northern Africa. The oldest datable Uncial script is from Hippo and
was written some time between 396 and 426 (see Lowe 1934-72 Suppl.: vii-x, also
Knight 1984: B4). Later, Uncials were used in Italy (particularly in Rome) mostly for
biblical texts; and through missionary activity the script spread to other parts of the

Empire, including Britain, where it reached a very high level of accomplishment.

However, the notion that Uncials were deliberately devised as a Christian book hand,
to replace Rustic and Square Capitals used for "pagan" classics, cannot be maintained
(see Woodcock and Knight 1992: 38).
Uncials did not evolve directly from Rustic Capitals; Rustics are constructed dif-
ferently, using a much steeper pen angle —compare the forms of A, D, E, and R. The
particular characteristics of Uncial scripts include A with a bowl, round forms of D,
E, H, M, ascenders for D, H, K, L, and descenders for F, G, P, Q.
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET ^\5

Half Uncial scripts

These scripts were first called Half Uncials in the mistaken idea that they were a de-
generate form of Uncials. However, early Uncials used a slanted, natural pen angle
evolving from scripts like that of the De Bellis Macedonis fragment (written perhaps
as early as ioo c.e.). This shows a mixed script with discernible Uncial characteris-
tics (see M. Brown 1990: 22-23; Knight 1984: Intro, fig. 5).

Early Half Uncials, which appeared in the fourth century, derived from scripts
like that of the fragment of Livy's Epitome written early in the third century (Aris

1990: 11,2; Knight 1984: Intro, fig. 1). Both use a flattened pen angle (the edge of the
pen held parallel to the writing line).

The characteristics of Half Uncials (figure 43F) are long ascenders b, d, f, h, 1

and descenders f, g, p, q; long s; round forms of a and t; "figure 5" g; m with a straight
first stroke and curving end stroke; and "capital" form of N.

Square Capitals

Written versions of Imperial carved letters were employed for the text of prestigious

manuscripts of Virgil in the fourth and fifth centuries (figure 43G). They follow the
inscriptional capitals in letterform and generous spacing, but their detailed character

was extremely difficult for the scribe and slowed down the writing. T. J. Brown (pers.

comm.) rightly regarded the use of such capitals for manuscript texts as "a late idea
and a bad one"!
Only two ancient Square Capital manuscripts survive, both in fragments: Codex
Sangallensis (St. Gallen, Stiftsbibliothek, Ms. Cod. 1394, pp. 7-49) and Codex Au-
gusteus (four folios in the Vatican, Ms.Lat. 3256, and three folios in Berlin, Deutsche
Staatsbibliothek, Ms.Lat. F.416).

New Roman Cursive

This rapid script, the result of a reform of Old Roman Cursive (completed by the 4th
century), was the administration and correspondence script of Late Antiquity
(figure 43H). The speed of writing, together with the greater use of ligatures and
cursive loops (a minimal a, and diagonal headstrokes on certain letters like c and e),

make this a difficult script to read.

New Roman Cursive, however, was widely used and would play an important
part in the development of the later Regional scripts.

Regional hands
These are the various scripts which arose in local centers as, in the fifth century, the

control of the Roman Empire declined. New Roman Cursive mixed with Half Uncial
316 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

a. British Library, Add. Ms.i 1878. Mid 8th century (citr" quia units quisque praedicator arro).

b. British Library, Harley Ms. 3063. End 8th century (thesalonicensib(us), pietatis doctrina(m) adversarii).

C. British Library, Add. Ms. 30844. 10th century (regnieis nan estia finis. Dixit au(te)m maria).

/
D. Briish Library, Add. Ms. 164 13. Early 9th century (dixit caelo esse qui nos creavit et dicimus).

figure 44. Regional scripts, a. Luxeuil Minuscule, b. Corbie ab. c. Visigothic Minuscule.
d. Beneventan Minuscule.

formed the main ingredients of these diverse minuscule scripts, which generally
flourished from the fifth through the eighth centuries (see M. Brown 1990: 32-47).
We can survey here only the most important.

Luxeuil Minuscule

This script was developed at the end of the seventh and early eighth centuries at the

French abbey founded by the Irish missionary Columbanus. It was E. A. Lowe (1972:
2.389-98) who identified the original source of this very distinctive script.
Luxeuil Minuscule (figure 44A) is a rather angular script with many unusual
letterforms —a like double c, tall, ampersand-like e, g with a looped top, and a high-
shouldered r. The use of looping ligatures, e.g. er, ro, rs, te, and tr, adds to the diffi-

culty in deciphering this script. It derives from New Roman Cursive (by way of the
Merovingian chancery) with some Half Uncial features. By this time, word separa-
tion was fairly consistently used.

Corbie ab

Another French minuscule is linked with the Abbey of Corbie, founded from Luxeuil
ca. 661 c.E. The Corbie connection, however, has been questioned (see Ganz 1990).
Corbie ab has many of the features of Luxeuil Minuscule, but a and b are partic-
ularly distinctive (figure 44B). The a looks more like u, b like a tall t. In addition, e
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET 3 J7

is tall, the strokes of o often cross at the top (especially when ligatured), it has a long
r, tall s, and a looped entrance to t. Word separation is inconsistent.

Visigothic Minuscule

This Spanish local script depends more on Half Uncial than New Roman Cursive and
this, together with the use of some Uncial letters (e.g. D and G), makes it an altogeth-
er more legible script (figure 44c).
A few simple ligatures persist. The letter a is open like a double c, t has a large
looped entrance stroke which could be confused with a round a. Other features in-

clude the distinctive abbreviation marks, heavy triangular serifs on the ascenders, and
ornate versions of x and z.

Because of its comparative isolation, Visigothic Minuscule had a long life, sur-
viving until the twelfth century.

Beneventan Minuscule

Developed in southern Italy from the middle of the eighth century, this script survived
locally until early in the fourteenth century, even in some places until the fifteenth
century. It derives some features from New Roman Cursive, but most from Half Un-
cial. E. A. Lowe (1980) made a special study of this script.
Beneventan Minuscule is a self-consciously stylish script (figure 44D). The let-

ter a has a closed double c form, d is "uncial," e looks more like an ampersand, and t

has a large, looped entrance. Some simple ligatures are retained. Overall there is a
wavy aspect to the script, particularly in i, m, n, and u, most prominent in eleventh-

century examples due to the steeper pen angle used then.

Insular scripts

Following the departure of the Romans from Britain, there developed an extensive
and coherent pattern of scripts, originating in Christian Ireland. Vigorous Irish mis-

sionary activity took the scripts to northern England and eventually many parts of Eu-
rope. Later, fine versions of Roman Uncials were incorporated into the system (but
never in Ireland).
The term Insular refers to scripts of the British Isles up to the mid ninth century
and is often used when Anglo-Saxon or Irish origin is uncertain.

Insular Minuscule

A system of minuscule scripts deriving from such everyday cursive hands as that of
St. Boniface (see Lowe 1934-72, vol. 2, p. 237) reached (by the 8th century) a mature
enough form to be used for fine manuscript books (figure 45A). Word division and
3 J 8 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

€tw(i Cbt> £wuc> Mf(kpUna> ikuiruiHecfi:

a. Oxford, Ms.B0dI.819. 2nd half 8th century (etur continue) discipline/ divinae legis).

Scru6seruinxrliioocs eucaj*y^fcoc
b. British Library, Cotton Ms.Nero.D.iv. ca. 698 c.e {scribserunt awritton lucas evangelista 6e godspellere).

Djxic mimicuy jrfjipsjuftij* canppefifbdd/pajtabo

( . British Library, Add. Ms. 37517. Ca. 1000 c.e. {Dixit inimicus perssequens comprehenda(m) partibo).

FIGURE 45. Insular scripts, a. Insular Minuscule, b. Insular Half Uncial; Anglo-Saxon Cursive (in

the glosses to the Latin text), c. Anglo-Saxon Square Minuscule.

punctuation are quite consistent. Numerous ligatures and abbreviations occur, a and
d are open; c and e are tall (especially in ligature); p, r, and s all have descenders and
are very similar in appearance. Overall, the aspect is of a compressed letterform writ-
ten with a steeply slanted pen.

Insular Half Uncial

These more formal book scripts, so characteristic of Insular manuscripts, probably

originated in Ireland as a modification of the Roman
Half Uncial. One of the earliest
known Irish manuscripts, ca. 600 c.e., reveals a script somewhere between the two
(see Lowe 1934-72, vol. 2, p. 271).

The majestic script of the Gospels written at Lindisfarne, ca. 698 c.e., shows In-
sular Half Uncial at its most developed stage (figure 45B). These are heavy, rounded
letters written with a flattened pen angle. The characteristic forms are a, b, g, 1, and
n. Alternative "uncial" forms of A, D, N, R, and S occur, perhaps due to the influence

of the nearby Wearmouth-Jarrow scriptoria and their magnificent Uncial scripts. The
interlinear gloss, added in the mid tenth century in Anglo-Saxon Cursive, is the ear-
liest surviving English translation of the Gospels.

Anglo-Saxon Minuscules
From the middle of the tenth century, Carolingian Minuscule was used in England for
Latin texts. Old English texts continued to be written in Anglo-Saxon Pointed Minus-
cule, a script which survived until the mid twelfth century. Anglo-Saxon Square Mi-
nuscules of the tenth and early eleventh centuries were perhaps an attempt to
incorporate some Carolingian influence into the local script (figure 45c).
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET 3]9

Carolingian Minuscule
The reforms of Charlemagne, in the late eighth and early ninth centuries, encouraged
the use of a legible and beautiful book script which emerged in the calligraphic cen-

ters under his influence in France. Carolingian Minuscule evolved from the ancient
Roman Half Uncial script and incorporated certain features from local minuscule
scripts. Early manuscripts from the Abbey at Corbie show how Half Uncial could be
modified to a more minuscule form (figure 46A).
Compared to the many barely readable cursive and over-elaborate regional
scripts, the mature Carolingian Minuscule was a disciplined and formal script, capa-
ble of maintaining legibility even at extremely small sizes (figure 46B).
The general aspect is of a flowing, rounded script with long ascenders and de-
scenders, creating a very even texture. It employs a slightly slanted pen angle (rather

than the flattened angle of the Half Uncial) and maintains a more defined body height.

Certain letterforms were improved —Uncial a soon replaced the Half Uncial form,
and the distinctive looped g (like the one used in Luxeuil Minuscule) replaced the
"figure 5" form. Very few ligatures are used; in some Carolingian manuscripts there
are none.
The emergence of the Carolingian Minuscule is one of the most important devel-
opments in the history of Western calligraphy. It became an international script and
was copied and adapted in succeeding centuries by scribes in all areas under Carolin-
gian rule.

\J tlAX^cr^r^xux^h mgurnxuuri!
a. Amiens. Bibliotheque Municipale. Ms. 1 1. ca. 772-781 C.E.

ant rxrm»>e-efhr eu*n?-eLi

b. British Library. Add. Ms. 10546. ca. 834-843 c.e.

a^tchac. cum earn \cm\fvcfrrcr6:.

c. British Library. Add. Ms.49598. Ca. 963-984 c.e.

ecttonem dcbertcltc afubfcms tnbu

d. Private collection, Life of St. Ursula. Mid 12th century.

figure 46. Carolingian Minuscule, a. Modified Half Uncial, b. Carolingian Minuscule, c. English
Carolingian Minuscule, d. Italian Carolingian Minuscule.
320 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

English Carolingian Minuscule

Following ecclesiastical reforms in the mid tenth century, English scribes wrote a
very distinctive version of Carolingian Minuscule (figure 46c). Larger in scale and
more formal in structure, maintains many of
it the features of the earlier French Car-
olingian Minuscule
— "uncial" a and looped
h, g, long s, and "half uncial" t. The use
of & to represent -et- within a word seems peculiar to Anglo-Saxon manuscripts. A
number of cursive ligatures occur and abbreviation is common.
English Carolingian Minuscule at its best is a supremely legible and calligraphic
script. It was generally reserved for Latin texts and lasted to the end of the eleventh
century.

Italian Carolingian Minuscule

Carolingian Minuscule reached Italy at an early stage. (Charlemagne was crowned

Holy Roman Emperor in the year 800.) It was used for books and documents from the
ninth through the thirteenth centuries, alongside Beneventan Minuscule and other
more cursive scripts, such as the Papal Documentary (see M. Brown 1990: 1 16-21).
Italian Carolingian Minuscule (figure 46D) reached its peak in the twelfth cen-

tury and rivals the achievements of English tenth-century scribes. The round, upright
letters are quite heavy, but they are well constructed and confidently written. Discreet
serifs were added to the base of the first stems of m and n.
This is the script which, later, was revived by Humanist scholars and printers.

Gothic scripts
The rise of the secular universities and the expansion of the monastic system in the

twelfth century prompted the need for many more books. Different grades of scripts

were employed during this period to cope with the demand (see M. Brown 1990: 80-
115).

Transitional Gothic

Gothic scripts developed directly from Carolingian Minuscule, and the period of tran-
sition from the mid eleventh century through the end of the twelfth produced scripts

of increasing compression and angularity, sometimes referred to as Protogothic

(FIGURE 47A).
The letterforms of Transitional Gothic are narrow, with a hint of angularity. The
"waistline" serifs are heavy, and the base terminations are more elaborate than before.
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET T>2\

ftlpcuiope>locuple$in fidfccumregfc
a. British Library, Cotton Ms. Tib. B.viii. Late 12th century.

mtDtotrtampmffwtomitwr
b. British Library, Royal Ms. 2. B.vii. Ca. 1310-20.

procurationem>• itr jrrdutmtlegx^

c. Cambridge, Fitzwilliam Museum, Ms. 298. Ca. 1300.

bum iditm cbnftis rocpirme

d. Private collection, Carvajal Missal. Ca. 1520.

e. British Library, Harley Ms. 13 19. Early 15th c. (pao le twnbel de son pere qui est assez pres sudit autel).

tftyettefby imp jEitmamctc

F. British Library, Royal Ms. ig.C.viii. Ca. 1496. (Roes de son fait La premiere).

figure 47. Gothic scripts, a. Transitional Gothic, b. Gothic Prescissus. c. Gothic Quadrata. d.

Gothic Rotunda, e. Secretary script, f. Gothic Batarde.

Gothic Prescissus

The features of fully developed Gothic book scripts from the end of the twelfth cen-
tury are lateral compression, heavy weight, and sharp angularity. Additional details
include the usual use of the "figure 2" r (when following o and other curved letters),

and the sharing of stems (biting) of certain letters (e.g. b, d, and p before e or o).
Prescissus scripts are high-grade, sophisticated scripts whose letter stems (e.g. m
and n) are cut off square at the baseline (figure 47B). Numerous alternative forms
are used —d in both round and upright forms, r in branching and "figure 2" shapes,
and s both round and long.
322 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Gothic Quadrata

Another sophisticated series of scripts, which have consistently angled baseline ter-

minations (figure 47c). The letter i, for example, is made in three movements. That
i shape is repeated as part of so many letters that it results in the ''picket fence" effect

so characteristic of Gothic scripts.

Fifteenth- and sixteenth-century versions of this script became extremely diffi-

cult to read because they are even more compressed, and the baseline terminations are
invariably made with elaborate, overlapping lozenge-shaped strokes.

Gothic Rotunda

In Spain and Italy, rigidly angular Gothic scripts were largely avoided. Instead, a book
script evolved in the thirteenth century (continuing in places until the 18th century)

which was truly Gothic, but was more rounded. Gothic Rotunda (figure 47D) was
widely used for liturgical texts, ranging from tiny, personal Books of Hours to enor-
mous ceremonial manuscripts (often with musical notation).
This script has the texture and heavy appearance of the northern Gothics, but it

maintains the roundness of the Carolingian minuscule. The letters D and h take Un-
cial form. Both forms of r and s are used (round s is reserved for word endings). The
unusual form of g is unique to Gothic Rotunda. Like all Gothic scripts, Rotunda is

written with a slanted pen angle, the square baseline terminations being completed
with a corner of the pen.

Gothic Batarde

The Gothic period saw a revival of true cursive scripts, introduced first in England at

the end of the twelfth century. Many of these scripts incorporate impressive calli-

graphic flourishes and other decorative features. The Secretary script, as its name im-
plies, was primarily used for correspondence and other informal documents
(figure 47 e). This script has an angular, pointed look with mannered pen flourishes
and a swelling applied to certain ascending letters (especially f and long s). From the
end of the thirteenth century, cursives were accepted for use as book scripts, especial-

ly those intended for universities.

Later in the Gothic period, a number of mixed scripts appeared, combining ele-
ments of cursive and book scripts, e.g. Bastard Secretary (see M. Brown 1990: io8f.).
The formalized book script evolving from Secretary, Gothic Batarde, is particu-

larly associated with the Court at Burgundy in northern France (figure 47F). It re-

tains many of the vanities and peculiar letterforms of the Secretary Script (e.g. r and
short s), while having the formality and texture of other Gothic book scripts.
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET 323

Humanist scripts

Humanist scholars at the beginning of the fifteenth century began a reformation of

scripts, in a conscious effort to improve legibility and elegance in book design. That
Humanist approach was deliberately opposed to the prevailing Gothic style of north-

ern Europe.

Humanist Minuscule
Poggio Bracciolini of Florence has been credited with the revival, in 1 402-1403, of
Carolingian Minuscule based on twelfth-century Italian models. Undoubtedly he
worked in collaboration with other scholars (see Ullman 1932: 140-43, Aris 1990:
21, Knight 1984: F3).
Humanist Minuscule is usually written small, with lengthened ascenders and de-
scenders (figure 48 a). Carolingian characteristics are retained —Uncial h, long s,

and ct and st ligatures. Later Humanist Minuscule includes short s at word endings.

Humanist Cursive
A quickly written form of Humanist Minuscule was devised by Niccolo Niccoli, ca.
1420. This new book script, which we now refer to as Italic, has a more cursive aspect
than the minuscule —a forward slant, and some letter joins (figure 48 b).

Humanist Italic

Formal versions of this Cursive script were developed by Papal Chancery scribes, like

Ludovico degli Arrighi (figure 48c). The names they gave to these scripts varied

fptrttuatcm ct corporatem mrbt f

a. British Library. Yates Thompson Ms.7. Ca. 15 15.

b. British Library, Add. Ms. 21 1 15. Late 15th century.

mum iudtcio cacfere*'utfum ejl , oratvy

c. British Library. Royal Ms. i2.Cviii. Ca. 1517.

figure 48. Humanist scripts, a. Humanist Minuscule, b. Humanist Cursive, c. Humanist Italic.
324 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

from scribe The writing master Bernardino Cantaneo distinguished two ma-
to scribe.

jor types: Cancellaresca Formata, with rounded arches on m and n and serifed as-
cenders; and Cancellaresca Corsiva, with narrower, pointed arches and hooked
ascenders.

Cursive writing from the sixteenth century

Humanist Cursive, following the cancellaresca style of the writing masters such as
Arrighi, was the handwriting of choice for Europe's intelligentsia and nobility in the

sixteenth century. Cellini, Raphael, the left-handed Michelangelo, even Queen Eliza-
beth I (figure 49 a) all wrote in the "Italian" manner.

The Secretary Hand, a cursive lightweight Gothic script, evolved in England dur-
ing the first half of the sixteenth century and endured for business use for more than
a century. A variety of Gothic cursive first seen in the sixteenth century, Kurrent-
schrift, was taught in Germany and Austria as everyday handwriting until the end of
World War II (section 63). In France the Ronde style was introduced ca. 1650, re-

taining a few Gothic letterforms, and it survived in certain places in France to the late
twentieth century.
G. F. Cresci, in his manual of 1570, introduced a rather mannered version of can-
cellaresca. It was rounder, with greater slope, looser texture, and "blobbed" ascend-
ers. Varieties of this "Italian Round Hand" were popular in the seventeenth century in
the American Colonies and many European countries.

The pointed pen

The evolution of copperplate printing for book illustrations led to the use of a flexible,

pointed pen (rather than the edged pen) to produce strongly contrasted thick and thin
strokes (figure 49B). John Ayres' Writing Book, published in England in 1680, il-

lustrated the new Copperplate style with its looping flourishes and ligatures, and its

rather over-ornate capitals.

Early American manuals, like that of Benjamin Franklin ( 1 748), relied heavily on
imported European models. It was not until one hundred years later that the uniquely
American Spencerian style emerged. P. R. Spencer developed, as a "Commercial Cur-
sive," a monoline copperplate hand with occasional, almost random, use of thick
strokes.Numerous attempts to simplify the Spencerian approach followed
(figure 49c). The two most publicized, by C. P. Zaner (1895) and Austin Palmer
(190 1), retained their influence and popularity in USA school systems throughout the
twentieth century. Their only competitor was Manuscript, recommended in 1924 by
Marjorie Wise, a skeletal Roman form taught to young children as unjoined letters
(figure 49D).
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET 325

mtflrHtk tfic netjnlfillmcx ofyour promts tcprojt

Letter written by Queen Elizabeth I of England when a young girl. 1548.

b. George Shelley, from Penmanship in Its Utmost Beauty. London, 1731.

(^C&A^zd^ ttist^^
c. H. W. Ellsworth, from The Penman's Art Journal. New York, 1907.

without asking, Hither hurried when

D. Marjorie Wise, from On the Technique of Manuscript Writing. New York, 1924.

figure 49. Cursive writing from the sixteenth century, a. Cancellaresca. b. Copperplate.
C. Commercial cursive, d. Manuscript.

In England in the early twentieth century, simplified Copperplate models, like

that of Vere Foster, were the most common in educational use, though a type of Manu-
script or Printscript superseded them.

Italic revival

A return to cancellaresca was pioneered by Alfred Fairbank with his Handwriting

Manual (1932). This italic revival has gained ground in many British schools and has
spread to certain parts of Europe, the British Commonwealth, and the USA. Along
with an English Carolingian Minuscule favored by the British pioneer, Edward
Johnston (1 872-1944), cancellaresca underlies the craft of calligraphy that has won
increasing popularity through the twentieth century.

The printed word

The invention of printing by movable metal type in the fifteenth century was, eventu-
ally, to bring to an end the very long tradition of copying books by hand. Significantly,
the early printers relied heavily on the methods, mise-en-page, and letterforms of cal-
ligraphy they knew. Some scribes became involved in the new technology by hand-
lettering initials in printed books, and even by designing typefaces.
326 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Mainz
Johann Gutenberg's experiments with movable type in Mainz, as early as 1436, led
the way in the development of a practical method for making books by means of
printing. His first printed work, the so-called 42-line Bible (ca. 1456), uses the format,

style, and late Gothic Quadrata script of contemporary German manuscripts

(figure 50A). He followed the calligraphic practice of abbreviations, ligatures, and
even biting. Marginal initials and other letters were written in by hand (usually in red,

hence rubricated).
Johann Fust and his son-in-law Peter Schoffer, a French calligrapher, using
Gutenberg's machinery (and perhaps his types), produced one of the most beautifully
printed books of all time, the Mainz Psalter of 1457 (figure 50B). It incorporates a
magnificent Gothic Quadrata typeface, large two-color initials, and small capitals ru-

bricated by hand. Some of the copies were actually printed on vellum.

The invasion of the city of Mainz in 1462, causing the dispersion of printers,

among others, hastened the spread of printing to other cities in Europe, most signifi-

cantly to Venice.
The typeface used in the first printing in England, by William Caxton (dated 13
December 1476), was based on the popular Gothic Batarde script.

Venice

As in Germany, the first printers in Venice looked to contemporary scribal manu-

scripts for their models. Thus Humanist Minuscule (ultimately derived from the an-
cient Carolingian Minuscule) provided the inspiration for the first Italian typefaces,
and the mise-en-page reflected the airiness and elegance of Humanist manuscripts.
Capitals were based on calligraphic examples of classical Roman Square Capital
forms.
Nicolas Jenson, a Frenchman who moved to Venice (probably via Mainz), pro-
duced the first Roman type for his Eusebius of 1470 (figure 50c).
Three years later, Aldus Manutius established himself as a printer in Venice. He
refined Jenson's approach and improved the presswork, using lighter inking. He col-

laborated with Francesco Griffo, a scribe and punchcutter, who designed type with
capitals slightly shorter than the ascenders (as in calligraphy) to produce a better bal-
anced page of text. This Venetian "white page" typography set the pattern which is

followed to this day.

Griffo also designed a Chancery Italic type, based on his own writing. It was first

usedin an edition of Virgil's Opera, printed by Aldus in 1501 (figure 50D). The ital-

icwas not used just for emphasis, as today. It was designed to condense the text and
make books a more convenient size to handle. Other scribes, most notably Ludovico
degli Arrighi, also designed italic typefaces.
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET 3?

tmdt wiaxwzM Ijatan pmftatt

a. Gutenberg. 42-line Bible. Ca. 1456.

objKobriu foim i abirdio plrbieQntia

b. Schoffer & Fust. Mainz Psalter. 1457.

Quare multarum quoq? gentium p

C. Jenson, Eusebius. 1470.

P rmcifio 9/€desdfibus,/httio(jifetm(U
d. Manutius and Griffo, Virgil. 1501.

figure 50. Historical type specimens, a, b. Early types from Mainz, c. The first Roman type.
d. The first Italic type.

Garamond
During the second quarter of the sixteenth century, the leadership in typography
passed to France. The new Roman type was primarily the work of the typefounder
Claude Garamond. It was still Venetian in character, but more refined and less man-
nered. The fitting of the letters was much smoother. The typeface was conceived as a
harmonious family of capitals, lowercase, and italics. The italics were intended not as

a separate book face, but to be used within the text for emphasis and contrast.
Modern versions of the Garamond style often mistakenly follow the later types
of Jean Jannon. The most "authentic" modern revival is the Adobe Garamond of 1989
(figure 5 1 a), based on an original Garamond specimen sheet of 1492. The Adobe
italics, also derived from the 1492 sheet, were originally designed by Robert Granjon,
a colleague of Garamond.

Caslon

An Englishman, William Caslon, much improved on the imported Dutch types of the
time. His first specimen sheet of 1734 showed Roman letters with more personality
than previously (figure 5 ib). His italic, supplied with many Baroque flourishes and
swash capitals, was more dependent on pointed than edged pen calligraphy. It has an
especially flamboyant &. It is noteworthy that the first printings of the American Dec-
laration of Independence and the United States Constitution used Caslon's type.
328 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Baskerville

John Baskerville, another energetic Englishman, designed a lighter, more elegant Ro-
man typeface, used first for the printing of Virgil's Georgicon in 1757 (figure 51c).
His background as a writing teacher shows especially in his italics. To be able to print
it properly he had to devise machinery, new ink, and even a smoother paper.
Baskerville typefaces are usually described as Transitional —moving away from
the sixteenth-century Old Style of Garamond (with diagonal accent, heavy thin
strokes, and angled serifs), toward the late eighteenth century Modern of Didot and
Bodoni (with vertical accent, hairline thin strokes, and horizontal serifs).

Bodoni
Radically different Roman typestyles emerged in France in the mid eighteenth cen-
tury from the typefoundries of Fournier and Didot. These were copied and refined by
Giambattista Bodoni of Parma, Italy (figure 5 id). His typefaces were dark in color
yet razor-sharp, requiring very smooth paper like that of Baskerville. They were char-
acterized by a strong thick-and-thin contrast, flat hairline serifs, and a horizontal ac-
cent (i.e. the thickest parts of the O occur at 9 o'clock and 3 o'clock).

The nineteenth century

Typography was greatly influenced in the nineteenth century by commercial advertis-
ing's demand for large, bold letters. (The first sans serif letters in type were produced
by the William Caslon Company in 18 16.) Three typical styles emerged: Egyptians,
with slab or slab-bracketed serifs (e.g. Clarendon, Rockwell, and Playbill;

figure 5 ie); Ornates and Fat Faces (e.g. Thorowgood Italic, Ultra Bodoni, and nu-
merous decorative capitals); and "Gothics," heavy sans serif letters (e.g. Franklin

Gothic and Grotesque 216).

The twentieth century

Roman type in the twentieth century has evolved in two ways: First, in the search for
"authentic" versions of classic typefaces like Bruce Rogers's Centaur (Monotype,
1929), a Jenson revival (figure 5 if); Slimbach's Garamond (Adobe, 1989); Louis
Hoell's Bodoni (Bauer, 1924); and Adrian Frutiger's Univers (Deberny and Peignot,

!957X a harmonized family of "Gothic" sans serif typefaces. Second, in innovation,

forexample like Paul Renner's Futura (Bauer, 1928), a sans serif based on geometric
shapes; and Eric Gill's Gill Sans (Monotype, 1928), a sans serif following the propor-
tions of Roman capitals. There are also unusual serif faces like Gill's epigraphic Per-

petua (Monotype, 1929); Hermann Zapf's Melior (Stempel, 1952), with its
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET 329

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz &
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
\. Adobe Garamond. Robert Slimbach. 1989.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz &
abcdefgh ijklm n opqrstuvwxyz
b. Adobe Caslon. Carol Twombly. 1990.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMrsOPQRSTUV^^XYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz &
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz
c. Monotype Baskerville. [925.

ABCDEFGHTJKLAINOPQRSTlT\\\ \YZ
abcdefgh ijkhnnopqrstm^x\ z 6c

abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwocyz
d. Bauer Bodoni. Louis Hoell. 1924.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz&
e. Stephenson Blake Playbill. 1938.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz &
f. Monotype Centaur. Bruce Rogers. 1929.

ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ
abcdefgh ijklmnopqrstuvwxyz&
G. Linotype Optima. Hermann Zapf. 1958.

figure 51. Contemporary versions of traditional and modern typefaces.

330 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

extraordinary elliptical shape; and Zapf s Optima (Stempel, 1958), a serifless Roman
(figure 51G).
Fundamentally, little has changed. The capital letters we use still follow the Clas-
sical Roman forms of 2000 years ago, and our lowercase letters depend heavily on the
ninth-century Carolingian Minuscule from France.

Bibliography

General
Anderson, Donald M. 1969. The Art of Written Forms. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston.
"A Sequence of Scripts." The Scribe (London) 41 7-12.
Aris, Rutherford. 1987. :

.
1990. Explicatio Formarum Litterarum. St. Paul, Minn.: The Calligraphy Connection.
Bischoff, Bernhard. 1990. Latin Palaeography: Antiquity and the Middle Ages, trans. Daibhi 6
Croinin and David Ganz. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (German original, 1979.)
Boyle, Leonard E. 1984. Medieval Latin Palaeography: A Bibliographical Introduction. Toronto:
University of Toronto Press.
Brown, Michelle P. 1990. A Guide to Western Historical Scripts from Antiquity to 1600. London:
The British Library.
Brown, T. Julian. 1974. "Palaeography." New Cambridge Bibliography of English Literature, vol.

1, cols. 209-20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

.
1 993 a. A Palaeographer's View: Selected Writings of Julian Brown, ed. Janet Bately,
Michelle P. Brown, and Jane Roberts. London: Harvey Miller; New York: Oxford University

Press.
. 1993B. "Aspects of Palaeography." In Brown 1993A: 47-78.
Diringer, David. 1968. The Alphabet, 3rd ed. 2 vols. London: Hutchinson; New York: Funk & Wag-
nails.

Knight, Stan. 1984. Historical Scripts. London: A. & C. Black; New York: Taplinger.
Lowe, E. A., ed. 1934-72. Codices Latini Antiquiores: A Palaeographical Guide to Latin Manu-
scripts Prior to the Ninth Century. 1 1 vols plus Supplement. Oxford: Clarendon.
.
1969. Handwriting: Our Medieval Legacy. Rev. ed. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura.
(Orig. pub. in The Legacy of the Middle Ages, ed. Charles G. Crump. Oxford: Clarendon,
1926.)
.
1972. Palaeographical Papers (1 907-1965), ed. Ludwig Bieler. 2 vols. Oxford: Clarendon.
Morison, Stanley. 1972. Politics and Script, ed. Nicolas Barker.-Oxford: Clarendon.
Thompson, E. Maunde. 191 2. Introduction to Greek and Latin Palaeography. Oxford: Oxford Uni-
versity Press.
Woodcock, John, and Stan Knight. 1992. A Book of Formal Scripts. London: A. & C. Black; Boston:
Godine.

Roman scripts
Catich, Edward M. 1961. The Trajan Inscription in Rome. Davenport, Iowa: Catfish Press.
.
1968. The Origin of the Serif. Davenport, Iowa: Catfish Press.
Lowe, E. A. i960. English Uncial. Oxford: Clarendon.
Mallon, Jean. 1952. Paleographie romaine. Madrid: Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientfri-
cas, Instituto Antonio de Nebrija de Filologfa.
Ullman, Berthold L. 1932. Ancient Writing and Its Influence. New York: Longmans Green. Repr.
Cambridge: MIT Press, 1969.
 SECTION 24: THE ROMAN ALPHABET 33]

Regional scripts
Ganz, David. 1990. Corbie and the Carolingian Renaissance. Paris: German Historical Institute.
Lowe, E. A. 1953. "The 'Script of LuxemT: A Title Vindicated." In Palaeographical Papers (1972),
2:389-98.
.
1980. The Beneventan Script: A History of the South Italian Minuscule. 2nd ed.. ed. Vir-
ginia Brown. 2 vols. Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura. (Orig. ed. Oxford: Clarendon,
1929-)

Insular scripts
Backhouse, Janet. 1981. The Linclisfarne Gospels. Oxford: Phaidon.
Brown, T. Julian. 1993c. Part 2 of Brown 1993A, pp. 93-134, 179-241.
Henry, Francoise. 1976. The Book ofKells, 2nd ed. London: Thames and Hudson.

Carolingian Minuscule
Bischoff, Bernhard. 1965. "Die Karolingische Minuskel." In Karl der Grosse: Werk und Wirkung.
an exhibition at Aachen. Dusseldorf: Schwann.
Bishop, T. A. M. 97 1. English Caroline Minuscule. Oxford: Clarendon.
1

Ganz, David. 1987. "The Preconditions for Caroline Minuscule." Viator 18: 23-44.
Knight, Stan. 1988-90. "Scripts of the Grandval Bible." The Scribe (London) 44: 13-14, 45: 6-12,
48: 3-7-
Rand, E. K. 1929. A Survey of the Manuscripts of Tours. Cambridge, Mass.: Medieval Academy of
America.

Gothic scripts
Ker, Neil R. i960. English Manuscripts in the Century after the Norman Conquest. Oxford: Clar-
endon.
Parkes, Malcolm B. 1969. English Cursive Bookhands. Oxford: Clarendon.
Thomson, S. Harrison. 1969. Latin Bookhands of the Later Middle Ages. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.

Humanist scripts
de la Mare, Albinia C. 1973. The Handwriting of the Italian Humanists. London: Oxford University
Press for L' Association Internationale de Bibliophilie, Paris.
Fairbank, Alfred J., and Berthold Wolpe. i960. Renaissance Handwriting. London: Faber and Faber.
Harvard, Stephen, ed. 1981. An Italic Copybook: the Cantaneo Manuscript. New York: Taplinger.
Knight, Stan. 1987. "Varieties of Humanist Minuscule." The Scribe (London) 33: 1 1-13.
Osley, Arthur S., ed. 1965. Calligraphy and Palaeography. London: Faber and Faber [esp. pp.47-
68, 75-79].
Wardrop, James. 1963. The Script of Humanism. Oxford: Clarendon.
Ullman, Berthold L. 1974. The Origin and Development of Humanistic Script. 2nd ed. Rome: Ediz-
ioni di Storia e Letteratura.

Cursive writing from the sixteenth century

Barbe, Walter B., Virginia H. Lucas, and Thomas M. Wasylyk, eds. 1984. Handwriting: Basic Skills

for Effective Communication. Columbus, Ohio: Zaner-Bloser.

Blunt, Wilfrid. 1952. Sweet Roman Hand. London: Barrie.

Fairbank, Alfred J. 1932. A Handwriting Manual. Leicester: Dryad. 9th ed.. New York: Watson-
Guptill, 1975.
332 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Heal, Sir Ambrose. 1931. The English Writing-Masters and Their Copy-books. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press.
Johnston, Edward. 1906. Writing, & Illuminating, & Lettering. London: Pitman [frequent reprints].

Lehman, Charles L. 1976. Handwriting Models for Schools. Portland, Ore.: Alcuin.
Nash, Ray. 1959. American Writing Masters and Copybooks. Boston: Colonial Society of America.
Whalley, Joyce Irene. 1969. English Handwriting, 1 540-1853. London: Her Majesty's Stationery
Office.

The printed word

Blumenthal, Joseph. 1973. Art of the Printed Book, 1 455-1955. New York: The Pierpont Morgan
Library; Boston: Godine.
Carter, Sebastian. 1987. Twentieth Century Type Designers. New York: Taplinger.
Chappell, Warren. 1970. A Short History of the Printed Word. New York: Knopf.
Morison, Stanley. 1943. "Early Humanistic Script and the First Roman Type." The Library. 4th Se-
ries, 24: 1-29.
Osley, Arthur S., ed. 1965. Calligraphy and Palaeography. London: Faber and Faber [esp. pp.107-
33]-
Sutton, James, and Alan Batram. 1988. An Atlas ofTypeforms, 2nd ed. Secaucus, N.J.: Chartwell.
Updike, Daniel Berkeley. 1937. Printing Types: Their History, Forms, and Use, 2nd ed. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press. Repr. New York: Dover, 1980.
SECTION 25

The Runic Script

Ralph W. V. Elliott

The runic futhark, so named from the first six symbols (\) th = runic h) in the tradi-
tional common Germanic sequence of its letters, is of uncertain origin. It may have
been the creation of an individual familiar both with the Roman alphabet, as there are
many formal parallels, and with some northern Italic alphabet or alphabets which
share some more unusual runic forms as well as the variable directions of writing
found in some runic inscriptions, but not in Latin. That the futhark was invented in
Denmark has been argued strongly by Moltke (1985: 64-65).
The earliest runic inscriptions from Denmark and Schleswig-Holstein are all on
portable objects dating from the first century c.E. Others, also using the common Ger-
manic futhark, belong to the period of the Germanic migrations and have been found
in various parts of central Europe. Despite some minor formal variations, they all

show remarkable uniformity of lettering and variable direction of writing. Their lan-

guage has been called "Runic" or, better, "Northwest Germanic."

The common Germanic futhark consisted of 24 runes (table 25.1). The value
of rune 13 T remains uncertain. The continental inscriptions suggest a high front vow-
el between [e] and [i], here written /'; but in Anglo-Saxon inscriptions the same rune
represents both vocalic [i] and consonantal [c] and [xj. The twofold function appears
to be acknowledged in a tenth-century manuscript where the letters ih are written

alongside this rune. According to Antonsen (1989: 150), J* represents [ae:], a sound
not represented in the oldest inscriptions.

table 25.1: The Common Germanic Futhark

I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8

<
f IN h r K X r

f u P a r k w
9 10 II 12 13 U 15 16

H + 1
<> S I T H

h n i
J
i
P z s

17 18 W 20 21 22 23 24

T * n M r M 2

t b e m 1 ng d

333
334 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

TABLE 25.2: Th \e Germanic Rune Names

f *fehu 'wealth'

f\ *uruz 'aurochs'

V *|?urisaz 'giant'

s
I
*ansuz 'god'

fc *raij30 'riding'

*kaunaz 'ulcer'
<
j
*kenaz 'torch'
I *kano 'skiff'

X *gebo 'gift'

r *wunjo 'joy'

H *hagalaz 'hail'

\ *nau|3iz 'need, necessity, hardship'

1
*isa- 'ice'

<> *jera- 'year, fruitful year, harvest'

J* *eihwaz 'yew tree'

C *per|> meaning unknown

r *algiz possibly 'sedge'

H *sowulo 'sun'

T *teiwaz the god Tyr, Old English Tiw

£ *berkana- 'birch twig'

n *ehwaz 'horse'

M *mannaz 'man'

r *laguz 'water'

n *inguz the god Ing

M *dagaz 'day'

X *6f>ila 'inherited land or possession'

Individual runes had names based on the acrophonic principle, except for runes
15 T and 22 °. The Germanic names are here reconstructed (table 25.2), as
original
indicated by *, based on the names of the Scandinavian and Anglo-Saxon runes pre-
served in several poems and other manuscript sources. These differ in several instanc-

es. The Anglo-Saxon Runic Poem adds five further names, for the runes r dc 'oak'.
I
s
esse 'ash', C\ yr 'bow', T ear 'earth, grave', and a twenty-ninth rune * Jar 'eel', in-

serted between yr and ear.

Direction of writing is mostly left to right, less commonly right to left or bou-
,,
strophedon. Ligatures ("bindrunes ), facilitated by the uniformly epigraphic charac-
ter of the script, occur. In early runic inscriptions writing is generally continuous,
although separate words or sense units are occasionally indicated by one or more dots
 SECTION 25: THE RUNIC SCRIPT 335

between runes. In two mid-sixth century Swedish bracteates (ornaments of thinly

beaten metal), dots separate the three groups of eight runes forming the futhark into
what, following later Icelandic tradition, are generally known as crttir 'families'.
Geminate symbols, especially consonants, even when belonging to different words,
are rarely indicated in the older Germanic inscriptions. Suprasegmental phonemes are
not written.
The epigraphic character of runic lettering, with its avoidance of curves, may
have resulted from initial scratching of runes into wood for such purposes as sending
messages or casting of lots. The use of wooden message sticks (Old Norse runakefli)
is attested from the sixth century, although actual survivals are fortuitous —and most-
ly much later, like numerous runakefli belonging to the period
the ca. 1 150 to 1350
discovered in Bergen, Norway, after a disastrous fire in 1955.

Later developments
From its continental homeland, runic writing spread north into Scandinavia and west
to the British Isles. During the Viking Age, the use of runes spread as far west as Ice-
land and Greenland, and Viking inscriptions have been found in the British Isles and
in parts of eastern and southern Europe. The several disputed "runic" inscriptions
found in North America are generally regarded as modern forgeries, albeit not with-

out some spirited attempts at their defense.

Scandinavia

Inscriptions in the common Germanic futhark continued to be made in Norway and

Sweden in the seventh and eighth centuries. In Denmark the eighth centur> witnessed
a radical reduction of the 24-letter futhark to sixteen runes, known as the "Danish"

futhark, in which ten runes retain more or less their older forms, but the runes Y k, T h,

and T m acquired different shapes. In addition, the Germanic <>

j now became + with
s
the value [a], reflecting the Scandinavian loss of initial j-. The Germanic I a rune is

retained but now represents nasalized [a], generally transcribed q, while the T z rune
represents uvular [r], transcribed R.
The Danish futhark of sixteen runes, as inscribed on the G0rlev stone from
Zealand, Denmark, is given in table 25.3.
This shortened futhark underwent further developments from the ninth century.
InNorway and southern Sweden a simplified 16-letter futhark was used in the ninth
and tenth centuries; it is known as the "Swedish-Norwegian" or "short-twig" runes,

table 25.3: The Danish Futhark

Y l\ t> r K Y T 1 1 + H T & T r I

f u \> 3 r k h n i i a s t b m 1 R
336 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 25.4: The Rok Runes

r i\ \>
r K Y t h

f u t>
a r k h n

and is often referred to as the "Rok runes" after its best known inscription, on the Rok
stone of the first half of the ninth century in Sweden's Ostergotland (table 25.4).
Other developments occurred in different parts of Scandinavia, including a local-
ized futhark found in a handful of inscriptions from the early eleventh century in Swe-
den's Halsingland — in which most of the vertical staves were discarded, producing a
kind of shorthand, known as the "staveless" or "Halsinge" runes. During the Viking
Age, to which the great majority of surviving runic inscriptions belong (mainly in the

form of memorials carved onto standing stones), a mixture of the Danish and Swed-
ish-Norwegian futharks emerged in Norway in the early eleventh century, known as
the "Norwegian" futhark (table 25.5).
The several 16-letter futharks were inadequate for indicating phonological dis-

tinctions in many cases. The several sound values which certain runes denoted are
shown in table 25.6.
The inadequacy of representing phonetic values led, from the eleventh century,
to a more conscious, albeit gradual, attempt to distinguish the different phonemes in
Scandinavian usage, culminating in a system of "pointed" or "dotted" runes, known
in Danish as stungne runer. This system led to an expansion of the 16-letter futhark
until it came to resemble a runic "alphabet" such as was employed on an inscription
of the early thirteenth century from Sweden's Vastergotland (table 25.7).

t a b l e 25.5: The Norwegian Futhark

i
s R<y

TABLE 25 6: Phonetic Values

r f, v 1
i, c

l\ u, y, 0, 0, w \ a, x
l> 6, o, d h s

r a; from ca. 1050 T t, d, nt, nd

* r I b, p, mb, mp
Y k, g, n, nk T m
T h, x r 1

\ n i z, R; y from 1 ith c.
 SECTION 25: THE RUNIC SCRIPT 337

TABLE 25.7 Medieval Runes

:

-*

A B > Y Y T I K r T h A 1

a b c d e f, v g h, x u k i m n P
j-
Y K H* 1 l> IN lf\ + *

kw r s t e, d u, w y z ae

As runic writing gave way to the Latin alphabet, the futhark became increasingly
a matter of antiquarian interest; however, in some more remote regions of Sweden,
knowledge of runes survived into modern times (see Jansson 1987: 174-75).

The British Isles

The Anglo-Saxons brought to Britain a version of the common Germanic futhark; but
contrary to the development in Scandinavia, the number of runes increased in Anglo-
Saxon England, initially to twenty-eight and reaching a total of thirty-one in epi-
graphic use. A manuscript codex of the tenth century records two further runes.
The Anglo-Saxon futhorc, so called because of the changed values of the fourth
and sixth runes, reflects phonetic changes undergone in the transition from Germanic
through a transitional Anglo-Frisian phase into Old English. Some of the new runes,
among them ¥ o, are also found in Frisian inscriptions of the fifth to seventh centuries.
The only complete epigraphic Anglo-Saxon futhorc is inscribed on a short sword,
scramasax, of the ninth century, found in the river Thames (table 25.8). A second

futhorc, with only minor variations, is preserved in a manuscript codex now in Vien-
na, probably copied in the tenth century from a northern English prototype of perhaps
two centuries earlier (Derolez 1954: 52ff.).

Comparison of table 25.8 with table 25.1 shows that, in the Thames futhorc,

phonetic changes have altered the values of runes 6, 15, 24, and 26; that formal mod-
ifications have occurred in runes 9, 12, 16, and 2 1 ; and that new runes 4, 25, 27, and
28 have been added. Especially noteworthy are the runes T and f, which occur only
in Frisian and Anglo-Saxon inscriptions; the rune H with its regular two transverse
bars; the vocalic and consonantal values, mentioned earlier, of rune 13 X suggested
by the Vienna futhorc; the combination of what appears to be the tra-
letters ih in the

ditional u rune with a small i rune inside it f\ suggesting the Old English /-mutation
of u to [y]; and the representation of the diphthong ea by a single rune.
In a later development, restricted to the north and northwest of England, the An-
glo-Saxon futhorc was augmented by three further runes intended to distinguish be-
tween the Old English front and back pronunciation of Germanic [g] and [k]. The
rune X now represents [j], asOld English name gyfu 'giving, gift' implies; the rune
its

K now represents [tf], its name being cen 'torch'. The new rune X, with the name gar
'spear', represents velar [g], and the new rune 1, with the name calc 'shoe, sandal',
represents velar [kj. A further allophonic refinement I is found in the inscription of
338 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 25.8: The Anglo-Saxon Futhorcs

Thames scramasax

12345 6 7 8 9 10 1 1 12 13 14 15 16 17 18

ri\KFfckxrNt i+itrtrTk
fujior cgwh n ij'i'px [ks] s t b

79 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

n z h r n t rpflr
e ng [i]] d 1 m oe [0J a x y ea

Vienna Codex

1234 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 75 16 17 18

Y A r r r n + 1 ^ c r h t *
f U J3
O w h n i j ih p x [ks] s t b

79 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28

n m r ^ h a r r r a
e m 1 ng [n] d oe a ae ea v

the Ruthwell Cross, Dumfries and Galloway, where the rune denotes a velar [k] fol-

lowed by a front vowel in the Old English words cyning 'king' and unket 'us both".

No name is recorded for this rune.

The conversion of Anglo-Saxon England to Christianity led to the use of runes,
as well as roman letters, in memorial inscriptions (see the text sample): to the employ-
ment of single runes as shorthand for their names in manuscripts; and for riddling pur-
poses, as in the four "signed" poems of the early ninth-century poet Cynewulf, where
runes are used to spell his name (Elliott 1991 231-47). While inscriptions in Scan- :

dinavian runes were made in the British Isles, a few Anglo-Saxon pilgrims carved
their names in runes in Italy between ca. 700 and 850. In Britain, Anglo-Saxon runic

epigraphy probably ceased in the course of the tenth century.

Sample of Ru MIC
/. Old English: t TlrHIVh ritffcHri: mn
2. Transliteration: jilsuij): araerde: aefte(r)

3- Transcription: jilswiG a:rae:rds aefte(r)

4- Gloss: Gilswith raised after

1. fcriKNTHNhn* tr\iM
2. berhtsui|3e- bekun
3. berstswicte bekun
4. Berhtswith memorial
 SECTION 25: THE RUNIC SCRIPT ^39

/. p^riKXixn^iHHri>
onbergigebiddaj)
5. on-bergi-jebidae
4. on-mound-pray

t>^: Hri\rn
(3aer: saule
c\e:r sauls
her soul

'Gilswith erected a memorial for Berhtswith on (this) mound. Pray (for) her

soul.'
— Early ninth century Anglo-Saxon inscription from Thornhill, Yorkshire.

Bibliography

Antonsen, Elmer H. 1989. 'The Runes: The Earliest Germanic Writing System." In The Origins of
Writing, ed. Wayne M. Senner, pp. 137-58. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
Bammesberger. Alfred, ed. 1991. Old English Runes and Their Continental Background. Heidel-
berg: Winter.
Derolez, Rene. 1954. Runica Manuscripta: The English Tradition. Brugge. Belgium: De Tempel.
Diiwel. Klaus. 1983. Runenkunde, 2nd ed. Stuttgart: Met/ler (ist ed. 1968).
Elliott, Ralph W. V. 1989. Runes: An Introduction, 2nd ed. Manchester: Manchester University
Press; New York: St. Martin's (ist ed. 1959)-
. 1991. "Coming back to Cynewult." In Bammesberger 1991: 231-47.
Jansson, Sven B. F. 1987. Runes in Sweden, trans. Peter G. Foote. Stockholm: Gidlunds.
Moltke, Erik. 1985. Runes ami Their Origin: Denmark and Elsewhere, trans. Peter G. Foote. Copen-
hagen: National Museum of Denmark.
Page. Raymond 1. 1973. An Introduction to English Runes. London: Methuen.
. 1987. Runes (Reading the Past). London: British Museum; Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni-
versity of California Press.
SECTION 26

Ogham
Damian McManus

Ogham (Modern Irish [o:m], Old Irish Ogam [oyom], Modern English [ogam] or
[o:m]) is the earliest writing system known to have been used by the Irish, among
whom it was the vehicle for funerary inscriptions. These are found on monuments in

Ireland, Devon, Cornwall, Wales, and the Isle of Man (see Macalister 1945; on the
Pictish Ogams of Scotland, see Jackson 1980) and date approximately from the fifth

to the seventh centuries c.E. (McManus 1991 : 78-100). The Oghams of Britain are
often accompanied by an equivalent in Latin, but this is never the case in Ireland. So-
called scholastic Oghams belong to the Irish manuscript period (i.e. post 7th century)
and are found mainly in texts dealing specifically with the alphabet, such d&Auraicept
na nEces 'The scholars' primer' (see Calder 19 17, Ahlqvist 1982). By this time
Ogham had ceased to be a functional script, though it continued to be studied in the
native schools down to the seventeenth century.

The script (often styled the Beithe-luis-nin, after the names of its first, second,
and fifth symbols) is made up of twenty tally-like symbols divided into four groups
of five. The symbols of the first three groups, all representing consonants, appear as
one to five scores cut to the right, left, and diagonally across the arris of the stone re-
spectively. Those of the fourth group, which represent vowels, generally appear as
notches cut on the arris itself, but also as horizontal short scores across it. A fifth

group — Forfeda 'supplementary

called letters', a mixture of vowels and conso-
nants —appears manuscript
in the tradition, but only the first of these is found regu-
larly on the early inscriptions. This group was later modified to represent digraphs
and diphthongs.
All symbols bear names which were meaningful words in the language and
which operate on the acrophonic principle that the initial sound in the name corre-
sponds to the value of the symbol (McManus 1988, 1989). These names were later
transferred to letters of the conventional alphabet and continued in use down to the
modern period.
The inscriptions are usually but not invariably written in boustrophedon fashion,
beginning at the bottom left-hand side of the stone and continuing around the top and
down the right-hand side. There is no word division or punctuation of any kind, nor
is there any orthographic device for distinguishing length in vowels, quality (palatal
or broad) in consonants, or the articulation of consonants as stops or fricatives; but
because stops in initial position were subject to mutation to fricatives in certain pho-

340
 SECTION 26: OGHAM 341

TABLE 26.1 Ogham Symbols

:

Ogham Stone Manuscript Name

l-i B B Beithe 'birch'

2. n L L Luis 'blaze' or 'herb'

3-m V F Fern 'alder'

4-rm S S Sail 'willow'

-*• rrrn N N Nin 'fork' or ioft'

6.1 ? H (h)Uath •fear(?)'

7.U D D Dair 'oak'

8. Ul T T Tinne 'rod of metal'

9. LIU
C C Coll 'hazel'

10. LliL
Q Q Cert/Queirt 'bush'

11./ M M Muin 'neck'

12./ G G Gort field'

13.# ? NG (n)Getal 'wounding(?)'

14.,# 7 Z Straif 'sulfur'

15./^ R R Ruis 'red(ness)'

16. .,1 A A Ailm 7

17. H, H O O Onn 'ash-tree'

18. mi, m U U Or 'earth'

19. m«, HM E E Edad 7

20. hw, h+h I I fdad ?

21.X K/E EA Ebad 7

22. ^ 01 Or 'gold'

23.* UI Uilen 'elbow'

24. t, IA Pin/Iphin 'pine'

25. AE Emancholl 'double c*

netic environments in Irish, the use of a single symbol for both is not surprising (for
initial mutations of this kind cf. Modern Irish cu [ku:] 'hound', but a chii [3 xu:J 'his

hound' by lenition and a gcu [a gu:] 'their hound' by eclipsis; see section 59,
"Irish" on page 656). Doubling of consonantal symbols is common but was never
perfected as an orthographic device for distinguishing unlenited (e.g. [t k b I: n:])

from the corresponding lenited sounds (e.g. [0 x P 1 nj; McManus 1991 : 124-26;
Harvey 1987 a). Scholastic Oghams, which are usually written horizontally from left

to right, sometimes use an arrowhead (>) as a word separator.

Problems attach to three letters (nos. 6 1, \^M and i4/#of table 26. 1 ), the early
values of which are in doubt as they are not reliably attested in the monument period
(McManus 1986, Sims- Williams 1993). The values accorded them by the manuscript
tradition have to be treated with caution, as this tiadition represents the language of
its time, and redundant symbols were given a new lease on life by slight modification
342 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

19. E

8. T 18. U

?. i 7. D 17.0

i. n 6. ? 16.A
*
figure 52. Ogham as it appears on stone, with conventional transliteration of attested symbols.

under the influence of Latin and Greek learning. Thus symbol 13/^is equated with
Greek Agma in this tradition and is called nGetal; but there are grounds for believing
that its name was Getal and that it represented the Primitive Irish labiovelar
original
g" (from Indo-European *g wh), which had fallen together with [g] by the manuscript
period.
Some scholars have sought the origins of Ogham in the Germanic runes, others
in Greek, but the majority would now embrace Latin as the most likely and most
probable candidate. The classification of the sounds of the Latin language by Latin
grammarians (as opposed to the Latin alphabet itself) bears a number of similarities

to the organization of the Ogham characters and is as close as one has come to an ex-
planation of the latter, though considerable difficulties remain. For a full discussion
see McManus 1991, chaps. 2 and 3.

Though it is likely to have been inspired by the Latin alphabet, the framers of
Ogham showed remarkable independence of mind in their choice of script, their al-

phabetic sequence, and the sounds they chose to represent (witness for example the
absence of [pi, a sound not found in Primitive Irish, and the separate representation
of [u] and [w]). The separation of vowels from consonants, the arrangement of the
vowel sequence (the back vowels [a], [o], and [u] followed by front vowels [e] and
w
[i]), and the pairing of phonetically related consonants ([d] and [t], [k] and [k ], [g]
and [g*l or [13]) show the creators of the system to have been students of their lan-
guage, with an acute awareness of its requirements.

The script

Stone inscriptions

See figure 52. The symbols ,

B, U D, W 7, LLU
C, WU
Q,/M, and/C represent [b/p],
[d/d], [t/0], [k/xj, [k /x
w w
], [m/v], and [g/y]. On British Oghams, W 7 and M Ccan also
represent [d] and [g]. Confusion of ^ C and m Q reflects the delabialization of the
 SECTION 26: OGHAM 343

M G NG

vMmm
B L

¥r& 3TU m
EA 01 Ul IA AE

figure 53. Ogham as it appears in the manuscript tradition, with contemporary transliteration.

latter, which took place during the monument period. m S represents [s], [J], and the
lenited form [hj. On bilingual inscriptions, m Vis the equivalent of Latin V; it thus rep-
resents primitive Irish [w] (later > [f]). n L, mn N, and ffl/R can represent both lenited
and unlenited sounds (i.e. [1] and [1:] etc.) in initial position; in internal and final po-
sition, the unlenited sounds, which were probably articulated with greater energy as
in later Irish, may be written double. The vowel symbols represent both long and short
vowels (i.e. A = [a] and [a:], etc.). The inherited diphthongs [ai] and [oi] are repre-
i

sented by HW+iA/ and h-h+h 01 (occasionally simply A and h O) respectively. Symbol i

21 X is used with the values [k/x]) and [e].

Manuscript tradition

See figure 53. For the most part the values are the same here as in the earlier tradi-
tion, but some significant sound changes had taken place in the interim. One of these

was the change of [wj to [f] in absolute (unmutated) anlaut — with a corresponding
change in the value of symbol 3 m , now equated with Latin /. Symbol 6 '
has been
equated with Latin h and is not pronounced in initial position; it combines with sym-
bols 8^ and 9^ to render [xj and [0]. Symbol 10 UW is redundant for purposes of writ-
ing Irish; is recommended instead of symbol 9 W when the latter is followed by [u],
it

a rule based on Latin qv. Symbol 14^ is equated with Latin z and is used in Irish
words for st\ on symbol 13^ see above. The values assigned to the supplementary
characters vary from one manuscript to the next (for details see McManus 1991 :
141-
46; Sims-Williams 1992).

Names
The names of the characters in normalized Old Irish (8th~9th century) spelling are in-

cluded in table 26. Contrary to popular belief, these, as will be clear, are not
1 .
all

names of trees (McManus 1988).

 " n

344 part v: european writing systems

Examples of Ogham

Orthodox Ogham
/. Ogham: mu ///// / '
" ///// ///// „ m
2. Transliteration: QRIMITIR RONANN MAQ COMOGANN
w
3. Transcription: k riv J
i0 ir
j J
ro:na:n j
vak WJ covoya:n J

4. Gloss: priest Ronan son. of Comogan

'(The stone of) the priest Ronan son of Comogan.'

Macalister 1945, no. 145.

j UU_KJ /////////// >

' "" Mh»> M il " II 1 H ill t-

2. CATTUVVIRR MAQI RITTAVECAS MUCOI ALLATO

w
3. ka0uwir J
vak i riGawexah mukoi al:a0o:

4. Catuviros son. of Ritavix of.the. tribe of.Allatis

'(The stone of) Catuviros son of Ritavix of the tribe of Allatis.'

—Macalister 1945, no. 250.

I. rm ' /////// ' >'/\ / m ^-^ /H ill

2. SAGRAGNI MAQI CUNATAMI

w
3. sayrayni vak i xunadavi
4. Sagragnos son.of Cunatamos

'(The stone of) Sagragnos son of Cunatamos.' Macalister 1945, no. 449.

Scholastic Ogham
ll \\\
/. n
1
i 1
H /////

2. LATHEIRT
J J
3. l:a9 ort

'Hangover' (a Qth-century Irish scribe's excuse for errors in a morning's

work!). McManus 1991: 133.

I. // 11
'
rnn — inn '
MM /
/
H 11111 MM " Mill

2. GILLA NA NAEM O DEORAIN SOND

J- gilia ns n:e:v O: d'o:ra:n J
son:

4- Gilla na Naem O Deorain here, is

i am Gilla na Naem O Deorain' (a 16th-century scribal signature).

—McManus 1991: 133.
 SECTION 26: OGHAM 345

Bibliography

A detailed bibliography of works published before 1990 will be found in McManus

1991.
Ahlqvist, Anders. 1982. The Early Irish Linguist (Commentationes Humanarum Litterarum 73).
Helsinki: Finnish Society of Sciences and Letters.
Calder, George. 1917. Auraicept na nEces: The Scholars' Primer. Edinburgh: John Grant.
Carney, James. 1975. "The Invention of the Ogom Cipher." Eriu (Journal of the Royal Irish Acad-
emy) 26: 53-65.
Harvey, Anthony. 1987A. "The Ogam Inscriptions and Their Geminate Consonant Symbols." Eriu
38:45-71.
. 1987B. "Early Literacy in Ireland: The Evidence from Ogam." Cambridge Medieval Celtic
Studies 14: 1
-1 5.
Jackson, Kenneth H. 1980. "The Pictish Language." In The Problem of the Picts, ed. Frederick T.
Wainwright, pp. 129-60. Perth: Melven.
Macalister. Robert A. S. 1945. Corpus Inscriptionum Insularum Celticarum, vol. 1. Dublin: Irish
Manuscripts Commission.
McManus. Damian. 1986. "Ogam: Archaizing, Orthography and the Authenticity of the Manuscript
Key to the Alphabet." Eriu 37: 1-3 1

.
1988. "Irish Letter-names and Their Kennings." Eriu 39: 127-68.
.
1989. "Runic and Ogam Letter-names: A Parallelism." In Sages, Saints and Storytellers:

Celtic Studies inHonour of Professor James Carney, ed. Donnchadh 6 Corrain, Liam Breat-
nach, and Kim McCone, pp. 144-48 (Maynooth Monographs 2). Maynooth: An Sagart.
.
99 A Guide to Ogam (Maynooth Monographs 4). Maynooth: An Sagart.
1 1 .

Mac Neill. Eoin. 1909. "Notes on the Distribution. History, Grammar and Import of the Irish Ogham
Inscriptions." Proceedings of the Royal Irish Academy 27: 329-70.
Sims-Williams, Patrick. 1992. "The Additional Letters of the Ogam Alphabet." Cambridge Medi-
eval Celtic Studies 23 (Summer): 29-75.
.
1993. "Some Problems in Deciphering the Early Irish Ogam Alphabet." Transactions of the
Philological Society 91:1 33-80.
Thurneysen. Rudolf. 1937. "Zum Ogom." Beitrage :.ur Geschichte derdeutschen Sprache und Lit-

eratur 61: 188-208.

SECTION 27

The Slavic Alphabets

Paul Cubberley

The historical background

Traditionally the first Slavic writing is credited to Constantine — also known as (St.)
Cyril, the name he took on becoming a monk — who, with his brother (St.) Methodius,

led a mission from Byzantium to the Moravian Slavs in the early 860s. In preparation,

they reputedly created an alphabet in which to write the liturgical texts in "Slavic."
There is no factual evidence of any writing of a Slavic language before that time.

There are, however, many formal problems with this account, all centering
around the fact that two alphabets were clearly "created" to fit Slavic needs:
Glagolitic and Cyrillic (table 27.1). Cyrillic presents little trouble: it is clearly
based on uncial (capital) Greek, and its problems are reduced to determining the ori-
gin of the letters which could not have come from Greek, such as those representing
the sounds [3, J, tf, ts], which Greek did not have.
The search for the formal origins of Glagolitic remains unsolved. One very pop-
ular view has been that Glagolitic is a totally individual creation, the corollary being

that the creator was Constantine; the advantage of this view is that it obviates the need
to find a formal model in some other alphabet. But most popular of all is the view that
Glagolitic is based on Greek cursive forms, and that it predates Cyrillic. While there
is much uncertainty about many of the derivations, the general principle seems prov-
able — that is, most Glagolitic letters can be derived from Greek cursive forms in a

way that is formally satisfying. Many other "sources" have been suggested for
Glagolitic, in fact almost any alphabet which was around the relevant area at the time;
however, none of these has been as generally accepted as the cursive Greek view.
Circumstantial arguments put forward to support the priority of Glagolitic over
Cyrillic order include: the existence of palimpsests (reused manuscripts) with Cyrillic
superimposed on Glagolitic, but none in the other direction; the identification of lin-

guistic features which unite the western (Macedonian) area with Glagolitic (e.g. no
Turkisms), and the eastern (Bulgarian) area with Cyrillic (presence of Turkisms); and
the putative superiority of Glagolitic as representative of the early Slavic phonologi-
cal system. None of these features is really of any clear significance, and all have been
challenged.
The most likely scenario is as follows: Glagolitic was formed by the adaptation
of cursive Greek by some Slavs during the couple of centuries preceding the 860s; it

346
 SECTION 27: THE SLAVIC ALPHABETS 347

was formalized by Constantine, who also added letters for the non-Greek sounds;
Constantine's disciples in Bulgaria (in the 890s) perceived Glagolitic as unsuitable
for Church books and made up a new Slavic alphabet based onthe "more dignified"
The remaining formal questions are then: Where did the added letters
uncial Greek.
come from in Glagolitic? and, Can we satisfactorily derive the non-Greek Cyrillic
ones from the Glagolitic?
Of the many Slavic sounds not existing in Greek, the most obvious are the pala-
tals [3, tf, J] —but also [ts] and [b]; and of course many vowels, especially the nasals,
thejers (mid-high /, u) m\djaf (low front e). Very little attempt has been made at find-

ing sources for the vowel letters; most attempts at finding sources for the palatals and
[ts] offer multiple sources, e.g. Coptic for [3] and Hebrew for [J], [tf], and [ts]. One
might suppose that when Constantine created the new Glagolitic letters, he would
have used some consistency in his choice of sources, and would as far as possible
have sought a single source for all these sounds; one might argue for Armenian as
such a source for the consonants, and Greek (variants) for the vowels (Cubberley
1982: 299-302).
As for the Cyrillic versions of these Slavic sounds, there are enough similarities

to allow a derivation from Glagolitic. Thus we can derive Cyrillic tk z, l| c, v c from

Glagolitic 36, S/, ft respectively; 111 s is the same in both; for the vowels we derive
t> "lu, h 71, az,xq from -8 ,-£,«€, 9°e respectively; while the symbol originally used
for jaf (e) — Cyrillic Is, Glagolitic A — has been confused through the many changes
and local reflexes of this Proto-Slavic sound (Cubberley 1984: 284-85).
The question of the naming of the two alphabets is a minor one and is probably
most simply explained by a confusion in the reporting of the creation of "the alpha-
bet," since no early source talks clearly of two alphabets or uses either of these names
(except for one 1 1 th-century one which appears to apply the name KoypHjiOBHija
kuhlovica to Glagolitic). Sources usually talk only of the bukvica or azbuka (both 'al-

phabet'), with no further Only much later did either name, whether that
qualification.

of Cyril (kirillica from Constantine's adopted monastic name, or

'Cyrillic'),

Glagolitic (glagolica), from glagol- ('word, say'), become attached to one or the
other alphabet.

Forms of letters and phonological fit in old alphabets

The original Glagolitic letters are regarded as having been a good fit for the original

system (Macedonian Slavic); unfortunately, it is likely that many of the original let-

ters have been displaced through Cyrillic influence as well as confusion through the
early spread to other dialectal areas (Moravia, Serbia, Bulgaria). Cyrillic certainly ac-
quired one set of digraph and ligature from Greek, namely the forms oy/S for [uj. It

expanded on this practice for non-Greek sounds, first in the case of the vowel [y],

which in one of its origins came from a sequence like [a] + [i], and this sound became
written first as the digraph "bi or t>m, then the ligature u (and still later bi). The original
348 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 27.1: Old Slavic Alphabets

ocs Num. Glagolitic Num. Transliteration Sound
Cyrillic Value OCS Croatian Value Name ISO LC-1991 (IPA)

d I + rfi 1 az-b a a [a]

6 - e ti 2 buky b b [bj

B 2 <# no vedi/vede V V [v]

3
r 3 5b & 4 glagoli/glagolb g g [g]

fl 4 <& N> 5 dobro d d [d]

€ 5 9 3 6 jestb/estb e e [e]

/K - 36 Dtl 7 zivete z zh W
S 6 * £ 8 (d)zelo dz z [dz /z J J

* 7 e* Pd 9 zemlja z z [z]

H 8 s 8 20 i, izei i i [i]

ill 10 cy/op ff/T 10 ize i [i]

\

h - rrf nf 30 gervb/dervb [g'/d'/j]

g g
K 20 !n A 40 kako k k M
n 30 (ft n 50 ljudbje/ljudije 1 1 [i]

M 40 X hi 60 myslite/myslete m m [m]
H 50 f p 70 nasb n n [n]

O 70 9 a 80 om> [0]

n 80 f P> 90 pokoj P P [PJ

P 100 b B 100 rbci r r [rj

c 200 2 <ff 200 slovo s s [s]

T 300 au on 300 tvrdo/tverdo t t [t]

oy/S 400 $- © 400 uk-b/ik-b u u/u [u]

4> 500 * 500 frt-b f f ra

X 600 £ ^ 600 cherb/cherb X kh [xl
tt>/(& 800 9 >s 700 OtT> [o]

LI 900 <V V 900 ci c fs [ts

J
]

V 90 » tt 1000 crvb c ch [tf

J

111
- LU 111 (800) sa s sh [P]

m - W w (800) stja St sht [Prt

"
t - -8/-e A - jerb "l-b [0/3]
"bl/tH - -8 <£7-8 °P - jery y y ffl

b - S T - jerb 7b
'

m
fe - A A - etb/jatb e e [ae/e]

K) - P ID - ju ju 1U Liu]

W - ja ja 1a Ua]
I€ - (je) je ie [je]

A 900 •e - jus-b malyj e e m

\A -
-
3€ -
-
jus-b malyj jotirovannyj je 1? m
X £€ jusi, bolbsij Q 9 [5]

\K - *e - jus-b bolbshij jotirovannyj 19

JQ [J5]

3 60 ksi ks ks [ks]

t 700 psi ps ps [ps]

Q 9 + - (thita)/fita f f [f]

V 400 * & - izica i/v V [i/v]

 SECTION 27: THE SLAVIC ALPHABETS 349

Slavic sequences of [i] + any vowel, which had by this time been reduced to [j] + vow-
el, then became written as ligatures of I + vowel (w ja, \eje, \aj%, \&jq). Interesting

here is K> —which, despite its shape, represents [ju] and not [jo], the latter still being
an impossible sequence at that time. Further, this is the only sequence of [j] + vowel
with a letter (not apparently a ligature) in Glagolitic, F ; and this may signify that it

actually represented a different sound at first, most likely [u], until this was replaced
by the ligature on the Cyrillic/Greek model (SB- u from 3o+ft v). The only obvious
ligatures in Glagolitic are those with the nasal vowels 3°€ j& 9°€ q, %£ jq, and these
too are taken to be later formations based on the Cyrillic model. One final form of
interest is the letter m st, usually taken to be a ligature of ill s and T t, which looks pos-

sible for Cyrillic but not for Glagolitic; most likely this was an original Glagolitic
form for a single sound (the reflex of Proto-Slavic *(/), which became perceived as
the letter for the sequence [Jt] in the Bulgarian area and was interpreted as a ligature.
Its numerical value also indicates that its original place was different.

Also inherited from Greek was the use of the letters for numerical value; note that
the Glagolitic letters have the values in their Slavic order, while Cyrillic follows the
inherited Greek order, including the Greek-only letters (the last four), with the non-
Greek letters/sounds assigned no numerical value. The numerical value was indicated
by a tittle over the letter(s), e.g. di = II. The tittle also had the inherited Greek func-
tion of indicating an abbreviated common word, e.g. xcb = xpwcTOCb .xristos"
'Christ'.

As for the order of letters, it followed Greek for the common letters; two non-
Greek letters, 5 b, m z, were seen as phonetic variants of Slavic sounds b v, s dz and
placed before them; the rest were added after the "omega" (o/d) o, the consonants
first, then the vowels; at the very end were placed the letters for non-Slavic sounds.

Glagolitic: Later history

After the initial period (to the end of the 9th century), Glagolitic continued to exist
alongside Cyrillic in the Bulgarian/Macedonian area, around the centers of Preslav
and Ohrid, until the beginning of the thirteenth century. However, Cyrillic steadily be-
came dominant throughout the twelfth century. (It was during this period of coexist-
ence of Cyrillic and Glagolitic that Glagolitic underwent the above-mentioned
reverse influence from the increasingly popular Cyrillic in the shapes and variants of
several letters.) Glagolitic also survived for a couple of centuries in Serbia and Bos-
nia; was even used for limited periods, in some Church practice only, in the Polish
it

and Czech areas (14th- 1 6th centuries). Its subsequent history, though, belongs almost
exclusively to the Croatian area, where it not only survived but flourished for many
centuries —
a somewhat paradoxical situation, in that these were the areas early dom-
inated by the Roman church. In fact, Glagolitic became the symbol of some indepen-
dence from Rome, and it was tolerated by Rome as a small concession permitting its
350 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

continued influence in the Balkans; it even acquired official administrative status

from the mid thirteenth century.

Formally, there was a gradual change in the lettershapes: from the original round
style, there was a shift first to a slightly more square shape, and finally to the typical

Croatian very square shape.

Glagolitic continued to be used in Croatia until the early nineteenth century, es-
pecially on the Adriatic islands; during that time it acquired a cursive form in its ad-
ministrative functions, and was printed in Church books in several major centers,
such as Venice, Tubingen, and Rome. As late as 1893 a Glagolitic Missal was printed
in Rome. However, Glagolitic ceased to be very active outside the church from the
seventeenth century.

Cyrillic: Later history

Cyrillic remained ensconced in the three basic areas in which it first developed: Bul-
garia and Serbia, then Kievan Rus (from the late 10th century). Its further develop-
ment is of a marginal nature — partly related to local phonological changes and partly
to purely graphic ones. This section discusses only the changes which took place in
the (Great) Russian area; for the other developments and adaptations of Cyrillic, see

section 60.
A general cause of trouble was the inheritance of an alphabet that was created for
another language system, especially with the multiple vowel symbols brought in from
Greek: the three letters for i (h, I/i, v), the two for o (o, co/co), and the variants for u
(oy/&); there were similar problems with the Greek consonantal letters, with two
each for z (s, X) and/(cj>, Q).

In Russia the first attempt to come to grips with these problems was Peter the
Great's "civil script" of 1708-10, introduced specifically to accommodate the print-
ing of non-Church books. Not only did this settle on simpler forms of all letters for
use in lay printing, but it also made a start on deleting redundant letters and shapes
which were marked as "Church" variants (00/co o, w ja, a %, \|/ ps); confirmed (by
omission) the earlier abandonment of some (oy u, &~q); fixed in place some earlier

shape changes (y w, in, sc, bi y)\ and introduced some new forms (s e, nja). Many of
the "superfluous" letters or variants, however, remained: s/^ z, vi/i/'i /, tf w, 5 ks, 4>/Q
/, v //v. The Academy of Sciences, initiated by Peter in 1724, made some fairly des-

ultory attempts at reform in statements of 1735 and 1738 (the only positive and lasting

change being the latter's introduction of the letter h for the sound [j] in postvocalic

position); but the debate about shapes and variants continued in disordered fashion
until 1 9 1 8, there being as yet (there as elsewhere) no mechanism for the enforcing of
a norm.
It was only the 19 18 reform, promulgated by the new regime, that once and for
all saw the removal of the redundant 1, t, and Q in all cases, and of b in its redundant
 SECTION 27: THE SLAVIC ALPHABETS 35 J

table 27.2: Modem Russian

Transliteration Sound
Letter "Italic' '
Form ISO LC 1991 (1PA) Name (I PA)

A A a a a [a] a
B 6 E 6 b b [b] be
B B B e V V [v] ve

r r r z g g [g] ge

« A a d d d [d] de
E e E e e e [G)£] je
a
(E) (e) (E) (e) e 10 [G)o] P
>K >K X MC z zh [3] 3£
3 3 3 3 z z [z] Z£

H H H U i i [i] i

b
H H M U j
I Ul i 'kratksji 'short i'

K K K K k k [k] ka
JI JI 1 A 1 1 [1] elVel

M M M M m m [m] em
H H H H n n [n] en

[0] D

n n 77 n P P IP] pe

p P P p r r [r] er

c c C c s s [s] es

T T T m t t It] te

y y y y u u [u] u

* f f [f] ef

X X X X X kh [x] xa

U u U H c ts [is] tse

H H H H c ch [tf ]
j
tPa

in III Ul IU s sh [J] Ja

m m m m sc
"
shch w/m M'a/PPa
T> T) E h - 'tvbrdij znak "hard sign*

bi bi EI bl y y * i

b b
c
E b
' '
- 'm J J
a5x k'ij znak "soft sign"

3 3 9 3 e e e e

K) K) K) W ju IU G)u j"

fl H X S\ ja ta (j)a ja

a. The letter e is used virtually only in dictionaries or language extbooks.

1

b. [j] between consonant and vowel is i ndicated with the hard/soft signs; e .g. C-bn = C[ja]: CbH = C'lja].

c. Palatalization of consonants and [j] are indicated as follows:

Context # a e i o u
Hard (Plain) C Ca (Ce/C3)Cbi Co Cy
Palatalized Cb Ch Ce Ch Ce/Ce Cio
[j] h h e e/e 10
352 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

final position. Other letters were omitted without comment, indicating that the loss of

such as s, tt>, §, ty, and v was by now assumed.

One reform frequently suggested (but to this day not implemented, mainly for
morphophonological reasons) has concerned the need for a letter for [d] after a soft

consonant; Russian still officially uses the letter e for this function as well as for "nor-

mal" [e]; in pedagogical usage the form e (first proposed in 1797) is used.

Orthography and phonotactics in Russian

Apart from occasional proposals of a phonetic principle, most Cyrillic areas (as in-

deed their Roman counterparts) have always applied the "morphological" principle
in orthography, i.e. to retain visible morphological relations in spite of surface pho-
netic facts. Of the Slavic languages, Serbo-Croatian, because of its simple phonotac-
tic rules, has been able to employ the phonetic principle, the only surface alternations
that need to be accommodated being the assimilation of voice in median obstruent
groups. Ukrainian is close behind, though it does not indicate such assimilation as it

has. Of the rest, which all have several complicating factors, only Belarusian has cho-
sen a phonetic representation of the vowels, though not of the consonants. The main
other complicating phonotactic factors are, for the consonants, devoicing of word-fi-
nal obstruents; and for the vowels, reduction in quality of unstressed vowels. Thus the
word for 'town' in Russian is written ropofl gorod, though pronounced ['gorst] —on
the principle that in all the other forms of this word, the /d/ is realized as [d], the stress
may shift, and so the root morpheme is {gorod). The derived adjective is written
ropo^CKOH gorodskoj, pronounced [gorAt'skoj]. The phonotactic rules are consistent
enough for this not to be a problem for educated native speakers.
The phonological fit in Russian is complicated especially by the fact that palatal-
ized consonants are often represented by the following vowel letter (often called io-
tated): e e, e jo, h /, K>yw, nja; whereas non-palatalized consonants are indicated by
the parallel non-iotated letters 3 e, o <9, w y, y w, a a. The orthographic advantage of
this system is that the twelve consonants which may occur also in palatalized form
require only five extra letters; but it can cause problems, certainly for learners, e.g.
TeTfl 'aunt' is phonologically to tot 'that' /tot/. Where there is no
/t'ot'a/, as opposed
7

following vowel, the soft sign h MaTb 'mother' /mat /, cBaflb6a 'wedding'
is used, e.g.
/svad'ba/. In native Russian words, consonants before Id may not be unpalatalized;
hence the absence of any spellings with the non-iotated letter 3 in this part of the lex-
icon. However, a large and increasing number of foreign borrowings, often well as-
similated lexically, do contain a non-palatalized consonant in this context; but this
remains unrecognized in the spelling, which retains the isolated letter e (e.g.
4)0HeTHKa J
[fA'net ik9] 'phonetics'.
A further complication is the representation of the phoneme /j/: while a separate
letter h does exist for this sound, it is used only in syllable-final position, e.g. Man
'tea' /caj/, Manxa 'seagull' /cajka/; elsewhere the iotated vowel letters serve for the
 SECTION 27: THE SLAVIC ALPHABETS 353

initial position, e.g. acho 'clear' /jasno/, while they in addition to the hard sign t or
soft sign b are used after consonants, r
e.g. c bQ3jx 'congress' /sjezd/, CTaTbfl 'article'

/stat'ja/. This is now the only function of the hard sign, since elsewhere the absence
of the soft sign implies "hard," e.g. tot 'that' /tot/ (see also table 27.2 note c).

The only case of dislocation between orthography and pronunciation in a specific

morphological context concerns the adjectival ending -oro (masculine/neuter geni-
tive singular), in which the letter r is pronounced [v]. The reasons for the change in

pronunciation from the original [gj, which began at the time of the rise of Moscow
(ca. 15th century), are unclear, the most likely being new contact between dialects.
The reasons for retaining the former spelling stem partly from the profusion of dia-

lects, since many of them did not undergo the pronunciation change; but mostly from
the influence of the Old Church Slavonic pronunciation [g], especially during the for-
mative period of the orthography in the nineteenth century. An additional factor is the
usual resistance in the twentieth century arising from the inertia of established tradi-
tion.

Extra diacritics may be used in particular circumstances, for example to indicate

suprasegmental features, or to aid disambiguation. For Russian these cases are: (a)

The letter e — phonetically representing stressed [o] after a soft consonant — is used
both in pedagogical functions and for disambiguation, e.g. to distinguish Bee vs'o
J
[fs o] 'all, every' (neuter singular) from Bee vs'e J
[fs e] 'all' (plural), (b) The use of an
acute accent indicates stress position in dictionaries and textbooks, e.g. ropo,n gorod.
(c) The marking of the word hto cto with an acute accent indicates the object pronoun
'what' as opposed to the clitic conjunction 'that'.
table 27.2 shows the distribution of the Cyrillic letters in modern Russian.

Sample of Old Church Slavonic

Place of stress and nature of pitch are insufficiently clear, so these have not been
marked in the transcription.

/. OCS Glagolitic: 3 <tf> -f rrf 3 Sb 5 3 Q cm -6 Sb&^oQ °P :

2. OCS Cyrillic- €Bdfienne COTB ntticbi :

3- Croatian Glago litic: 3 OH rh \W 3 [ft 8 3 VPUU <fl fftiE 4<fl ¥ :

4- Transliteration: evagelie Otb luky:

5- Transcription: evag'elie 3t(3) luki

6. Gloss: gospel from Luke

1. f9?3363 $-£§• g?f99o5 P +# «€ hi «€ • #5f 5cm5

2. Il0H€}K€ «BO MHOZM HaVAUIA •
VHHHTH
3. rn§P3tffl3 B^a- m ra^ 8 rrfi#3UI3- ^ 8 T 8 DTJ 8

4- Poneze ubo mnozi nac^se;. ciniti

5. pone3£ ubo mnozi natftje tfiniti

6. since for many began to. make

354 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. f^ A QuvS 9P-8 f + 2 <#

2. nOB^CTb- o IZB'ECT'bH'blXB BB Hact

3. RJ aQIl flj^DD T -
a W Vu Oil ft <o> DD <fl P <fl tfl^ <fl QDtfl PrW<fl
4. povestb. o izvesr/bnyx'b Vb nasi>

5. povest(i) o izvest(o)nix(o) v(o) nas(o)

6. story about known in us

/.
(
tf3^,aD^^"8• A!n3363 fbA(fc + uj<€ ? + 3? ~8 •
C-8 T^^e 3T
2. BeiUTGX-b- lBKO?K€ nplsfldiiiA HaMB« 5BIBB1UGI
m QD
3. Q11 3 111 UU 3 Ai tfl
•
ft a a [Jti 3 B fli Ul, r+i UJ 3 Prhflltfl- HJtfl TQDtfl lll3 i

4. vesteklrb. ekoze predase. nanrb. byvbsei

5. vejtex(3) ekDjo predaje nam(o) biv(o)Jei
6. things just. as passed. on to.us having. been

/. ^2h9£ 5 <£ T 2 <tf 325

2. ICKOHM CaMOBM^bLJM- cntfrti CJIOBGCM-
^ rfi m a an s [it t ^8 <? fli a mi 3 ^8
4. iskoni samovidbci i slugy slovesi.

5. iskoni samovid(i)ci i slug* sbvesi

6. from.the.beginning eyewitnesses and servants of. word

The Gospel according to Luke: For inasmuch as many have begun to compile a
narrative about things known to us. Just as they were handed down to us by
those who were from the beginning eyewitnesses and servants of the word.'
— Codex Zographensis (wth-i ith c.),foi 131.
Original in Glagolitic; Cyrillic version from Jagic 1879.
(Ligatured form of'/u/ is used in place of Jagic 's separate form.)

Sample of Modern Russian

/. Russian: Opaporpaapufl pyccKoro nncbMa
2. Transliteration. Orfografija russkogo pis'ma
3. Transcription: ArfA'grafijo 'rusk-ovo pVs ma J

4. Gloss: orthography Russian-GEN of.writing

/. pa3BHBajiacb b CTopoHy Bee 6ojiee nocjiejiOBaTejibHoro

2. razvivalas' v storonu vse boleje posledovatel'nogo
3. rozvVvalos J
'fstoronu 'fsb J
'bol iji pA'sl J
8dovot J
il
j
n-9vo
4. developed in direction always more consistent-GEN

/. npHMeHeHHH opoHeMaTHHecKoro-MopapojiorHHecKoro npuHunna.

2. primenenija fonematiceskogo-morfologiceskogo principa.

3. pr'im in en ijo J J J
fsnemA Vitfi sk-ovo-morfelA'g'itf sk-ovo 1
J
'pr intsipo

4. of.application phonological-GEN-morphological-GEN of.principle

 SECTION 27: THE SLAVIC ALPHABETS 355

/. IIpHHIJHn 3tot Tpe6yeT OAHHaKOBoro HanHcaHHa aboHeM,

2. princip etot trebujet odinakovogo napisanija fonem,
3.
J
'pr intsip 'etst 'tr
J
ebuj 1 AdVnaksv-sva n9pVsari J
iJ3 fA'n J
em
4. principle this requires identical-GEN of.writing of.phonemes

/. a TaiQKe MopcfceM CJIOB, Aaace ecjiH npoH3HOineHHe

2. a takze morfem slov, daze jesli proiznosenije
3. a "tag33 mAr'fem sbf 'da30 'jes
J j
l i prAiznA'Jen J
iji

4. and also of.morphemes of. words even if pronunciation

/. HX H3MeH5ieTC5I B pa3JIHHHWX TpaMMaTHHeCKHX 4)opMax CJIOB.

2. ix izmenjajetsja v razlicnyx grammaticeskix formax slov.

3. ix izm j
rn'aejittsso vrAz'l itfnix
J
gr3mA't J J
itfisk ix 'formox sbf
4. of.them changes in different grammatical forms of. words

'The orthography of Russian writing developed in the direction of the ever more
consistent application of the phonological-morphological principle. This princi-
ple requires the identical writing of the phonemes, and also the morphemes, of
words even if their pronunciation changes in different grammatical forms of the
words.' —Istrin 1963: 166.

Bibliography

Comrie, Bernard, and Greville G. Corbett. 1993. The Slavonic Languages. London: Routledge.
Cubberley, Paul. 1982. "Glagolitic's Armenian Connection." Wiener Slawistischer Almanack 9:

291-304.
.
1993. "Alphabets and Transliteration." In Comrie and Corbett 1993: 20-59.
De Bray, Reginald G. A. 1980A. Guide to the East Slavonic Languages. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica.
. 1980B. Guide to the South Slavonic Languages. Columbus: Slavica.
Derwing, Bruce L., and Tom M. S. Priestly. 1980. Reading Rules for Russian. Columbus: Slavica.

Gardiner, Sunray C. 1984. Old Church Slavonic: An Elementary Grammar. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Istrin, Viktor Aleksandrovich. 1963. / 100 let slavjanskoj a:huki[\ 100 years of the Slavic alphabet].
Moscow: Akademia Nauk SSSR.
Jagic, V. 1879. Quattuor evangel ioruin codex olim Zographensis nunc Petwpolitanus. Berlin.
Jones, Daniel, and Dennis Ward. 1969. The Phonetics of Russian. Cambridge: Cambridge Universi-
ty Press.

Stilman, Leon. i960. Russian Alphabet and Phonetics, 12th ed. (1st ed. 1949). New York: Columbia
University Press.
SECTION 28

The Armenian Alphabet

Avedis K. Sanjian

The Armenian alphabet, known as aybuben (a term coined on the Greek model by
combining the names of the first two letters of the Armenian script), was created in

406 or 407 c.e. by the cleric Mesrop Mastoc' (f 17 Feb. 440; cf. Koriun 1964). This
alphabet, comprising 36 characters, has been the medium for the expression of all

three phases of the evolution of the Armenian language: Classical (Grabar), Middle,
and Modern; the latter is represented by two mutually intelligible literary dialects,
East and West Armenian. In devising the Armenian alphabet, Mesrop was guided by
the principle that each letter should represent only one sound, and that all sounds in

the language should be represented by one symbol each. (According to Koriun 1964:
37, 40-41, Mesrop also invented scripts for Georgian and for Caucasian Albanian
(Kurdian 1956], but this claim is not confirmed by non-Armenian sources.)
The impetus for creating an Armenian script seems to have been to permit the Ar-

menian people access to scriptural and liturgical texts, thitherto available only in
Greek or Syriac. Until Mesrop's time, the Armenians used the Greek or Aramaic lan-

guages for all written materials; enigmatic references to a "Danielian" Armenian

script, named for a Syrian bishop Daniel in Mesopotamia, have not been satisfactorily

explained. No examples of such a script survive, and Gfanian's theory (1991-92) that
it was pre-Christian, replaced by Greek, then rediscovered, and merely supplemented
by Mesrop with vowels, is untenable.
Modeled presumably on the Greek alphabet (though other models, such as Syri-
ac, Phoenician, and Pahlavi, have been suggested), Armenian writing proceeds from
left to right. The extra letters for Armenian sounds not found in Greek are intercalated
into the order of the Greek alphabet. So perfect has been the fit of the script to the
phonology of the language that it has remained intact from its inception to the present
day.

The symbols
The Armenian alphabet originally comprised 30 consonants and 6 vowels. The vowel
o and the consonant q> were introduced in the twelfth century, the first to render the
diphthong aw, the second the foreign sound/.
Classical Armenian texts are now read according to either the East or West liter-
ary dialect of Modern Armenian. The vowels are pronounced almost identically in

356
 SECTION 28: THE ARMENIAN ALPHABET 357

both dialects. In the case of the consonants, however, the West dialect has retained
only two series, voiced and aspirated, as opposed to the original three (voiced, voice-
less, and aspirated) preserved in the East dialect.

There are two standard systems of Armenian transliteration: the Hubschmann-

Meillet scheme (Meillet 1980), which utilizes diacritical marks (and is used here),
and the Library of Congress system, which uses Roman digraphs to reflect certain

consonants. Until the adoption of the Arabic numeral system in the seventeenth cen-
tury, the Armenian script was also utilized to express numbers.
table 28.1 provides the inventory of the Armenian characters in their standard
order, the names of the individual letters, the two transliterations according to the
phonology of East Armenian, and the numerical value assigned to the letters of the

alphabet.
Evidence for the scholarly consensus that the Armenian script was basically
modeled on the Greek is the order of letters and the use of the combination o + w
(Greek ou) for the vowel w; the shapes of certain letters seem derived from a variety
of cursive Greek. The Greek alphabet could not supply all the characters that the pho-
nological system of Armenian needed; hence it is assumed that Mesrop supplemented
it either by borrowing from some other writing system, or by coining new symbols.
generally agreed that Mesrop may be credited with the invention of the letters
It is

P J z, ^ /, fu x, <} c, < h, Ay, £ c, ) y, c\ p j, v, p r, and ^ c (Godel 1975: 3).

d, <,
if

table 28.2 compares the order of letters in the Greek and Armenian alphabets.
Since its inception in the fifth century, at least four distinct varieties of the script
have been created for the writing of Armenian. The oldest is the uncial called er-

kat'agir 'iron-forged letters', also referred to as the "original Mesropian" or "Mesro-

pian erkat'agir." This script was the standard from the fifth through the thirteenth
centuries, and it remains the preferred script for epigraphic inscriptions. Created in

the tenth century, the bolorgir 'cursive' became the popular hand from the thirteenth

century onward and has been the standard script for printing of Armenian books and
periodicals since the beginning of the sixteenth century. The notrgir (minuscule)
script, created by speedwriters and notaries in the thirteenth century, was exclusively
employed during the sixteenth to eighteenth centuries, especially in the colonies of
the Armenian diaspora, and subsequently became a popular mode of printing. Finally,
the Magir 'slanted writing' has now become the most commonly used variety. Lig-
atures have been employed extensively in epigraphic inscriptions since the seventh
century, but they are not attested in erkat'agir manuscripts. In contrast, the use of lig-
atures in bolorgir and notrgir codices is very common.
As a written language, Classical Armenian preserved its grammatical structure
through the centuries, whereas the spoken dialects underwent gradual changes. It is

generally assumed that the rules of pronunciation as formulated in medieval Arme-

nian grammars date to the eleventh or twelfth century. The pronunciation rules given
here are valid for Classical as well as for the two literary dialects of Modern Arme-
nian.
 L
J

358 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 28.1: The Armenian Alphabet

11
Letter Pronun- Transliteration Numerical
Capital Minuscule Name ciation H-M LC Value
11. II ayb [a] a a 1

P r ben [b] b b(p) 2

7-
'/
gim [g] g g(k) 3
7 da [d] d d(t) 4
7
li /, ec' [je-, -e-] e b
e, y 5
8 za [z] z z 6
7
/; k e [e] e e 7
/: /'
at' [3] 3 e 8
h
0- t'o
M [t ] t' t'
9
& J ze [3] z zh
c
10
I'
p
ini [1] i i 20
L liwn [1] 1 1
30
L
III
t»
xe [x] X kh
c
40
o- d ca [ts] c ts
c
(dz) 50
'/
k
ken [k] k k(g) 60
; < ho [h] h h 70
A ja [dz] c
<j
j dz (ts) 80
tat[ c
7.
7 [y] \
gh 90
<\ ^ ce [tf] c ch(j) 100
ir if men [m] m m 200
3 yi [h-, -j-] d
J y y. h 300
1, 1 nu [n] n n 400
sa s c
r,
? [J] sh 500
n a [vo-, -o-J 600
2 c'a [tf] c' ch' 700
I
"/ u
l
pe [p] P P(b) 800
S je [<fe] J
j(ch) 900
?
ti- a ra [r] r r 1,000
ll 11 se [s] s s 2,000
/.
4
vew [v] V V 3,000
s Ul tiwn [t] t t (d) 4,000
r I'
re W h
r r 5,000
3 .'/
c'o [ts J
c' ts' 6,000
h hiwn [v, wj w w 7,000
h
4> '/'
p'iwr [p ] P'
p' 8,000
h
•n
•p
k'e [k ]
k' k' 9,000
nb II u [u] u u -
O [0] 6 -
a 7- fe [f] f f -

a. H-M, Hiibschmann-Meillet; LC, Library of Congress (West Armenian values in parentheses).

b. is used only when the letter is in initial position of a name and followed by a vowel,
This value in Classical

orthography.
c. A prime is placed between the two letters representing two different sounds when the combination might
otherwise be read as a digraph (e.g. 'htflinCufi D'znuni).

d. This value is used only when the letter is in initial position of a word or of a stem in a compound, in Classi-

cal orthography.
 SECTION 28: THE ARMENIAN ALPHABET 359

table 28.2: Greek and Armenian Alphabetical Order

Gk. a p y 5 e ^ rj i k X u v^o n pa x \)^\|/co

Arm. uj p t} 11 b ^ i^pfdd^i^jvdlj^^n^if i \i -> n s ufOrLui^wpij L ih d

a b g d e z e 3 t' z i lxckhj 1 cmynsoc'p j r s v t rc'wp'k'

Symbol-sound correspondences
Most Armenian letters are pronounced straightforwardly as shown in table 28
Some notes on the semivowels and vowels are necessary.

Semivowels
The semivowel j y occurs in all positions: jnju yoys [hujs] 'hope', m jq. ayg 'dawn';
it can occur before the unwritten shwa and the vowels w a or n o, but never intervo-
calically. In word-final position, the j y is, as a rule, not pronounced: &iuauj j caray
[tsara] 'servant'; but it is pronounced in final position after vowels in a few monosyl-
labic nouns, e.g. \unj xoy 'ram', pi;j fey 'tea'.

The consonants t/ v and «. w are in complementary distribution: i[ v occurs in

word-initial position: fi i\w )p i vayr 'down', and after the vowel „ o: <»^ «t/ hogwov
L

'with spirit'. Both */ v and L w occur either between vowels or after a vowel in word-

or syllable-final position. However, 1/ v is never found between a vowel and a sylla-

ble-final consonant, while L w Moreover, both q v and intervocalic or

frequently is.

final 1 w are pronounced [v]: ^ujhuuiuj^ hawatal [havatal] 'to believe', ^mjfiL hoviw

[hoviv] 'shepherd'. The vowel „l ow > m it, when followed by another vowel, is also

pronounced [v] or [svj: Ikumnnub Astowac [astvats] 'God'; W^ nower [nsve:j]

'gift'-

Vowels
It is presumed that Classical Armenian had no contrast between long and short vow-
els.

The vowel b e never occurs in word-final position, except in the conjunctions fcfb
h h
fe [t e:] and bpb et'e [et e:], both meaning 'that', which however were later spelled

pt r'^and bpi; et'e.

The vowel t; e, as a development of the former diphthong ei/ey, must have once
been a long vowel. In Mesrop's day, it probably contrasted with b e as a close [e] to

an open [e]; but about the tenth century b e and k e merged, except in initial position.

The k e occurs mostly in final syllables: ufipk sire 'he, she

loves', and also before
vowels: ^p^muimu'h Hreastan 'Judaea'.
The /7 i occurs in all positions and is pronounced [1]. When representing a prep-

osition with the accusative, locative, or ablative case, and followed by a word begin-
360 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

ning with a vowel, fi i becomes an inseparable j y: e.g., /? mnulfi i awani > juiLUjIjfi

yawani 'in a town', pronounced fhavani].

The vowel „ o is pronounced [vo-] word-initially, ,,£ oc [votf] 'style'; exceptions
are such words as the interrogative mj ov [ov] 'who?', ,,LJ^fiuj)jnu ovkianos [ovkianos]
'ocean'. In all other positions it is pronounced [o]. As seen earlier, the vowel o aw
was added to the alphabet in the twelfth century to replace the diphthong ml aw: m p L

awr > of, or 'day'. The o aw is often found in printed texts of Classical Armenian but
does not represent the original sound. In Modern Armenian the o aw has merged with
,* <9, except word-initially.
The letter p d is rarely written, even though shwa is the most common vowel in

spoken Armenian and must have been so in Mesrop's time as well. In this regard Ar-

menian orthography did not and still does not reflect phonological reality, for d occurs
in many positions, especially in consonant clusters. (There are words in Armenian
that contain clusters of as many as six consonants, which cannot be enunciated with-
out the insertion of the unwritten shwa: Ifptnlf krak [ksrak] 'fire', fv^h^uj^xndal [xon-
h t t

dal] 'to rejoice', pd^nLp/iLl bzskufiwn [b939jkut iwn] 'cure', mpui bQ[iL h trtnjiwn
h
[terteno^iwn] 'murmur', iubfurj^Sunuh^ anxicmtank' [anx9ytsm3tank ] 'lack of
scruple'.) The shwa is written word-initially in monosyllables and compounds de-
rived from them before if m, \i n, or q { plus consonant: pifpbif dmbem T drink';

[lljuifiji dntir 'select', p'ui^bp anker 'companion', pqAmiT aijam T wish, long for'; it

also occurs in the prepositions pb^ and 'to, at, toward' and pum ast 'according to, in

relation to'.
The following pronunciations of vowel combinations should also be noted: hm
ea [ja], as in ujmbiulj atean [atjan] 'tribunal'; b L ew [ev] before vowels and in final

position (note that the spelling fit iw for b ew is widely found in ancient Classical Ar-
L

menian texts: e.g. iffim miws for ifbm mews 'another', fi q iwi for buj ewt 'oil'); /n iw
L

h
[ju] when followed by a consonant, as in Ifa/d niwt [njut ] 'material', but this rule

does not apply to nouns ending in -/n -iw, -iu j -ay, or -„ j -oy, and ,,
j oy [oj] before a
consonant, as in
^ ju loys [lujs] 'light', except in word-final position, in which case it

is pronounced [-o]. Also to be noted are the trigraphs biu j eay and jim f
iay [ja] as in
spbm j Hreay [hrjaj 'Hebrew', Ijp^m / kriay [krja] 'frog'; bw eaw L [jav] as in jiupbiui

yareaw [harjav] 'he arose'.

Orthographic change and script reform

The orthography of Armenian has undergone three stages in its development (see
Gyulbudalyan 1973). In the first phase (5th-ioth centuries), the orthography re-
mained an almost perfect reflection of the phonological structure of Armenian. Be-
ginning in the eleventh century, phonological changes in the spoken vernacular began
to manifest themselves, but the orthography remained intact, excepting the diphthong
wl aw, which was replaced by the newly adopted vowel o.
 SECTION 28: THE ARMENIAN ALPHABET 35

The third phase was initiated by the government of Soviet Armenia in 1922,
when it decreed "reforms," ostensibly to make the orthography of Armenian more
phonetic (section 65). The vowel o o was eliminated from the alphabet; wherever
it occurred in the traditional orthography, it was replaced by the vowel » o. The use

of w was restricted to its combination with „ o to produce the vowel m u. The vowel
1

£ e was also replaced by b e in all positions. Initial £- e and ,, o were respectively

spelled jb- The diphthongs bw ea and /n iw were also changed to jiu
ye- and i\„- vo-.

ya and jm. yu respectively. Lastly, word-initial j y was replaced by < h, and silent
word-final / y was eliminated. In 1940, however, the Soviet authorities decreed the
restoration of the vowels o and £ e\ and word-initial e and o were again written b e

and n o. It is significant to note that Armenians in the diaspora never adopted the "re-
formed" Soviet orthography and have continued to employ the traditional, classical

spelling.

Sample of Armenian

/. Armenian: /' uriuihu anfid uipuu'bh bpbLnLf^in abaij ^nntn jh

2. Transliteration. I srtin gorcarani erewut'ac'eal hogwoyn
h h
J. Transcription: i ssjtin gojtsarani ejevut ats ial hogwoin
4. Gloss: in the. heart of.the.organ appearing of.the.soul

/. ujsiug [dujpt Abll h)l III On ^phi/iiLf p LJbptU

J

2. ac'ac' t'at' jerin ajoy grelov i veray vimi.

h h
3. atPats" t at dzejin ac^o gaielow i veaa vimi
4. of.the.eyes the. palm of.the.hand of.the.right writing on the. rock

1. ,/, Abmli nLuiuuii mHr %pujp\i:

2. zi orpes jean verjk' gcin kuteal uner k'am.

h
zi vojpes dzian vejo^k'
1

gstsin kutial unej k ajn

for as snow traces of. the. lines had.retained the. stone

jlljpnLEjbllll jLurioldhtju buuibn& 'bujyfipu ifbp. S uj'hnbpA

tj L
ft?
Ew yaruc'eal yalof ic n
k
estelc znsanagirs mer, handerj
jev hajuts
h
ial hayot
h
its
h
3n jesteyts aznajanaguss mej hande.13

and arising from. prayer he.fashioned the. letters our together

s,n iiihhuj'hiiuhL bb puii±i&.bLbuJi nyfipu Abnl UJLUUipLUUUl U'bupnllfUJ f.

Hrop'ianosiw kerpajeweal zgirn ar jern patrast Mesropay.

h
hrop ianosiv keapadzevial szgusn ar dzersn paUast mesjopa
4. with.Rufinus by.giving.shape the. letters by the.hand prepared of.Mesrop
362 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. ifinfijujuipbnuj ^lu jhfi^'b m\d nLpf m juli puui m\iuiu jJ<fai^nLJdhi

2. poxatrelov zhayeren at'ut'aysn ast ansayt'ak'ut'ean

h h h h
3- poxatielov ozhajejen at"ut ajson sst ansajt ak ut ian

4- altering the. Armenian the. letters according. to the. exactness

1. 11 hi II ill /'ill ijl if shl J hlllllljinlj:

2. siwlabayic' Hellenac'woc'.
h h h
3- sjuyabajits hellenats vots
4- of.the. syllables of.the.Hellenes

There appeared to the eyes of his soul a right hand writing on the rock; for the
stone retained (the shapes) as tracks are traced in snow. And arising from prayer
he fashioned our alphabet, with Rufinus, who gave shape to the script prepared
by Mesrop, altering the Armenian letters according to the exactness of the
Greek syllables.' —Moses Khorenats'i, after Thomson 1978: 320-21.

Bibliography

Abrahamyan, Ashot G. 1973. Hayoc' Gir ev Grc'ut'yun [The Armenian alphabet and paleography].
Erevan: State University Press.
Akinian, Nerses. 1938. "Hayeren Aybubeni Giwts" [The discovery of the Armenian alphabet].
Handes Amsorya 9-12: 289-3 8. J

1949. Der heilige Mashtotz Wardapet,

. sein Leben und sein Wirken Vienna: Mekhitarist
Press.
Acarian, Hrac'eay. 1926. "Hay Greru Jewap'oxut'iwnnera" [The development of Armenian writing
systems]. Handes Amsorya 9-10: 505-1 1, 11-12: 591-98.
.
1968. Hayoc' Grerd [The Armenian letters]. Erevan: Hayastan.
Godel, Robert. 1975.An Introduction to the Study of Classical Armenian. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
Gyulbudalyan, Sirak V. 1973. Hayereni Uliagrut'yan Pamut'yun [History of Armenian orthogra-
phy]. Erevan: Academy of Sciences Press.
Granian, Andranik. 1991-92. "Hetapndelov Danielian Nsanagrera" [In pursuit of the Danielian
script]. Haigazian Hayagitakan Handes n: 147-79, I2: 61-80. Beirut: Haigazian College
Press.
K'olanjyan, Suren. 1958. "Movses Xorenac'u Norahayt Erkat'agir Patarikn u Danielyan Nsanagreri
Ogtagorcman Zamanaki Hare's" [The newly discovered" Erkat'agir fragment from Movses
Xorenac'i and the question of the period when the Danielian script was used]. Banter Matena-
darani 4: 163-82. Erevan: Armenian Academy of Sciences Press.
Koriun. 1964. The Life ofMashtots, trans. Bedros Norehad. New York: Armenian General Benevo-
lent Union of America.
Kurdian, H. 1956. "The Newly Discovered Alphabet of the Caucasian Albanians." Journal of the
Royal Asiatic Society 8 1-83.
Marquart, Josef. 19 17. Uber das armenische Alphabet in Verbindung mit der Biographic des hi
Mastoc'. Vienna.
Meillet, Antoine. 19 13. Altarmenische Elementarbuch. Heidelberg: Winter.
.
1936. Esquisse d'une grammaire comparee de Varmenien classique, 2nd ed. Vienna: Im-

primerie des PP. Mekhitaristes.

Moses Khorenats'i. 1978. History of the Armenians, ed. and trans. Robert W. Thomson. Cambridge:
Harvard University Press.
 SECTION 28: THE ARMENIAN ALPHABET 353

864. "Uber den Ursprung der armenischen

Miiller, Friedrich. 1 Schrift." Sitzjungsberichte der Wiener
Akademie des Wissenschaften 46: 431-39.
,,
. 1888-90. "Zur Geschichte der armenischen Schrift. Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des
Morgenlandes 2: 245-48, 4: 284-88.
Nersoyan. Hagop. 1985-86. "The Why and When of the Armenian Alphabet.' *
Journal of the Society
for Armenian Studies 2: 51-71.
Peeters, Paul. 1929. "Pour Fhistoire des origines de P alphabet armenien."./fe\7/<y des Etudes Armeni-
ennes 9: 203-37.
Tasian, Yakobos. 1898. Aknark Md Hay Hnagrut'ean Vray [An outline of ancient Armenian pale-
ography]. Vienna: Mekhitarist Press.
Yovsep'ian, Garegin. 1912. "Hayoc' Gri Glxawor Tesaknera" [The major systems of Armenian
writing]. Taraz (Tiflis) 10: 168-72.
.
1 91 3. Grc'ut'ean Arvestd Hin Hayoc Me] [Paleographic Art Among the Ancient Arme-
nians], part 3. Valarsapat, Armenia: n.p.
SECTION 29

The Georgian Alphabet

Dee Ann Holisky

The Georgian alphabet known as mxedruli (from mxedah 'warrior') is used for writ-
ing the Modern Georgian literary language. It contains 33 characters and is written
from left to right with a space between words and a punctuation mark at the end of
sentences. Extra spaces are added between the characters of a word to indicate em-
phasis. Mxedruli uses no diacritical marks and does not indicate stress, and in printed

form the characters are not connected in any way (though cursive handwriting in-

volves numerous ligatures). There are no capitals.

The general shape of mxedruli characters can be described in terms of their posi-
tion within four imaginary horizontal lines. Four of the characters fill only the space
between the two middle lines (e.g. oa, en t), twelve have ascenders that fill the space
between the upper two lines as well (e.g. 2> b, 9 m, 6 r), twelve have descenders (e.g.

<od,<znl,^ u), and five have both ascenders and descenders (e.g. fyt, J k, ^ c). In titles
and headlines it is usual to make all characters the same height, obliterating the dis-
tinction between ascenders and descenders: ^(W^o ^9^6^™^ versus d5601"3K?0
^S^Oen^Fl^ kartuli damcerloba 'Georgian writing'. An attempt by the linguist
Akaki Shanidze (1 to introduce the characters of the Old Georgian alpha-
887-1987)
bet asomtavryii to mark proper names and sentence beginnings was unsuccessful,
though one finds asomtavruli characters used as capitals in his own works and in oc-
casionally in works written in his honor.
Historically, Georgian had no special symbols to express numbers, the mxedruli
characters being used for this purpose. The first nine characters expressed ones; the
second nine, tens; the third nine, hundreds; and the fourth nine, thousands. The final

symbol stood for 10,000.

table 29. 1 presents the characters of mxedruli. The transliteration system used
by linguists of Georgian is similar to one published in IKE (differing IKE versions are
given in parentheses). The character 3 (representing a glottalized uvular stop) is gen-
erally transliterated q (without a diacritic) because it has no nonglottalized counter-
part. (In a less satisfactory transliteration for mxedruli, that adopted by the Library of
Congress, lack of diacritic on voiceless consonants represents glottalization, while as-
piration is indicated with a diacritic; see Aronson 1992-93 for a critical discussion of
transliteration systems.)

The order of the characters of mxedruli follows that of the Greek alphabet, except
when a Greek character does not have a Georgian equivalent. In such cases, a non-

364
 SECTION 29: THE GEORGIAN ALPHABET 355

equivalent Georgian character has been inserted. Eleven other characters of Georgian
that do not have equivalents in Greek appear at the end, between j k and the last char-
acter of the mxedruli alphabet, representing a sound equivalent to Greek omega; this
character has since been lost.

Sound-symbol correspondences
The Georgian alphabet is almost perfectly phonemic, with each character standing for
a single phoneme and each phoneme represented consistently by a single character.
With a few exceptions (noted below) there are no silent letters, i.e., every letter that is

written is pronounced.
Allophonic alternations are not usually represented in the orthography; e.g., both
velarized [4-] and nonvelarized [1], allophones of the same phoneme (Robins and
Waterson 1952: 63), are represented by the character ^l. Similarly, [v], [w], and [p],
which seem to be in free variation (ibid.), are represented by 3 v. Voiced consonants
are subject to devoicing when initial, adjacent to a voiceless consonant, or final (ibid.
66), e.g. j2>o^b kbits [k'bi+s] 'tooth (dative)'. Though most devoicing is not represent-
ed in the orthography, word-final /d/ of the adverbial case ending -ad is sometimes
written 00 / and not co d: jo^ocd kargad [k'argat] 'well', also jo^oot kargat.
One may encounter characters that are written but not pronounced, particularly 3

h and b s (when marking an indirect object) and 3 m, 6 r, and ^ / (in clusters). Silent

3 h and b s are an orthographic reflection of an ongoing grammatical change. Though

required by prescriptive rules, these third person indirect object markers are frequent-
ly omitted in speech; hence they are often written but not pronounced (Robins and
Waterson 1952: 61, Aronson 1990: 173): ^00^03 hkitxav [hk'itxav] or [k'itxav] 'you

will ask him something', b^b seers [se'ers] or [e'ers] 'he writes (it) to him'. Some
speakers omit these markers in writing as well.
Silent 3 nu & r, and e^ /, on the other hand, are a reflection of phonological pro-

cesses. Initial /m/ followed by a voiceless consonant is usually voiceless and some-
times not pronounced: 3Jc>coo mcadi [mtf'adi] or [tf'adi] 'cornbread' (Vogt 1936: 13).

Georgian weakened and often deleted, particularly in medial position in clusters:

/r/ is

cD^do6cDo OT dabrjandit [dabrdzandit] or [dabdzandit] 'sit down' (ibid.). Loss of 3 m

and 6 r is sometimes represented in the orthography, e.g. Jocoo cadi 'cornbread (a sta-

ple food made from maize)', with numerous examples in Tschenkeli's dictionary, e.g.

^cbGQ&co- brjanebl given as a variant of the verb root S^doG^c?- mbrjanebl 'ruler',

-2>do6- bjan as a variant of -2>6do6- brjan 'order'. Like /r/, l\l may be lost in clusters:

home' (Vogt 1936: 15). The results of these and

bobcVdo saxlsi [saxjji] or [saxji] 'at
other phonological processes, including fast speech phenomena, are not usually re-
flected in the orthography.
366 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 29. 1 : The Georgian Alphabet

MXEDRULI Transliteration
Regular Greek IPA Standard, Library of Numerical
Character Headline Equivalent Name Value (IKE) Congress Value
6 a ani [a] a a 1

2> i P bani [bj b b 2

a Y gani [g] g g 3
c?
*? 8 doni [d] d d 4
a E eni [e] e e 5
3 vini [v] V V 6
3

<b % c zeni [z] z z 7

© 11 he [ej > e] ey/e e 8
h
en m tani [t ] t t'
9
n I ini [i] i i 10

J
a K kani [k'] k k 20
jn. K? A, lasi [1] 1 1 30
3 a H mani [m] m rn 40
6 G V nari [n] n n 50
Q je U] y(j) y 60
m n oni [0] 70
3 3 71 pari [p] p(p) p 80

3
tj zani [3] z z 90
6 & P rae [r/f] r r 100
b b a sani [s] s s 200
6 & T tani [f] t t 300
3
\) wie [wi] wi/ii w 400
"3 a
7]
01) uni [u] u u 400
h
<3
<3 pari [P ] P p' 500
h

J
d X kani [k ] k k' 600
s? gani
<5 [Yl g(Y) g 700
a
H qari [q'l q/q (9) q 800
"
3 •a sini [J] s s 900
R R rjini m c c
4
1000
(3 cani [ts] c c' 2000
d a jili [dz] j(3) z 3000
¥ tf cili [tsl c c 4000
3 tf Cari m c c 5000
b b xani [x] X X 6000
3
qari [q] q X 7000
X % Jan [*] J (3) j 8000
3 3 hae |h] h h 9000
& CO oh (hoe) [ow] ow/o 6 1 0000

a. ^a originated as a fusion of m and 3 wi, subsequently replacing 3 and assuming its numerical vail
 SECTION 29: THE GEORGIAN ALPHABET ^(fj

The development of mxedruli

The earliest example of Georgian writing is from 430 c.e., an inscription in a church
in Palestine (Tsereteli 1961). It is written in a script completely unlike mxedruli,
known as asomtavruli 'capital letter', also called mrglovani 'rounded' because of the
rounded shapes of the characters in the earliest versions. Asomtavruli was in use from
the fifth to the ninth century, after which it was gradually replaced by a more angular
script called nusxa-xucuri, also known as kutxovani 'angular', used from the ninth to
the eleventh century. Nusxa-xucuri developed into the rounder mxedruli, which ap-
peared first in the tenth century and developed into a distinctly different shape by the
thirteenth (Schanidse 1982: 1 1-13, Gamkrelidze 1990: 204-5).
Mxedruli was initially restricted to secular functions, while the two older scripts
continued to be used in religious writings. At first, characters from both were mixed
together, but eventually nusxa-xucuri prevailed, and asomtavruli was confined to use
in titles and as the initial character of sentences. The two together are often called xu-
curi (from xucesi 'priest'). Ultimately mxedruli came to be used in religious writings
as well as secular ones (Schanidse 1982: 18).
The mxedruli characters underwent remarkably little change in shape from elev-
enth-century manuscripts, to their first appearance in print in 1669, to the form stan-

dard in twentieth-century printing (see examples in Macavariani 1989). Certain minor

additions to the alphabet were introduced by Anton I in the eighteenth century, while
more significant reform was conducted under the leadership of Ilia Chavchavadze in

the 860s (Dzidziguri 1986: 474). At that time five characters that no longer corre-
1

sponded to sounds of Modern Georgian were dropped.

Although Armenian sources credit Mesrop Mashtots' with the creation of

asomtavruli, this is effectively refuted by Gamkrelidze (1990: 194-95). Popular leg-

ends as well as some scholarly treatments place the creation of the alphabet in pre-

Christian times, but Gamkrelidze (pp. 196-97) argues persuasively that it must have
followed the advent of Christianity Georgia (circa 337); the forms of the
in letters are

freely invented in imitation of the Greek model.

Mxedruli is used almost exclusively for writing the Modern Georgian literary

language, based on the Kartli dialect, but it has been used for writing in other Geor-
gian dialects as well. It has been used occasionally for writing Mingrelian, a language
related to Georgian,and was used at one time for writing Abkhaz, an unrelated lan-

guage of the Northwest Caucasian language family (Hewitt 1989: 18).

Sample of Georgian
/. Mxedruli: bm9b^o ob^ro^o^c^o ^6c>q&o c^qqo J^ot^c^ a6<k6ob

2. Transliteration: somxuri istoriuli cqaroebi jveli kartuli anbanis

3. Transcription: somxuri ist'oriuli ts'qaroebi dzveli kartuli anbanis

4. Gloss: Armenian historical sources Old Georgian of.alphabet

368 PART V: EUROPEAN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. <3gJ96db . o9oQn 9ob(^»n3-9c>'9oonQb Soo^n^ob. 9o>a6o>9 dd:>30

2. sekmnas imave mesrop-mastocs miacers. magram amave

j. Jekmnas imave mesrop'majtots miats'ers magram amave
4. creation that.same Mesrop Mashtots' ascribes but this. same

I. 6r )6n6ob 9obn£DQOOT 9nb^ro3-9c>'3a)mQo

2. cnobebis mixedvit irkveva rom mesrop-mastocs
3. tsnobebis mixedvit irk'veva rom mesrop'majtots
4- information according.to it. is. ascertained that Mesrop Mashtots'

/. odqocd on bfo^j£noO>(D ao9n(r>oobo>Qb

2. tvit ar iqo dauplebeli kartuls rac sruliad gamohcxavs
3. tvit ar iqo dauplebeli kartuls rats sruliad gamoritsxavs
4. self not was fluent Georgian which completely rules.out

/. 3nbodQQ(Wro<!>e>b 3ob 9on^

2. sesajleblobas mis mier kartuli anbanis sekmnisas
3. Jesadzleblobas mis mier kartuli anbanis Jekmnisas
4. possibility him by Georgian of.alphabet of.creation

'Armenian historical sources ascribe the creation of the Georgian alphabet to

that veryMesrop Mashtots', but according to the same source of information, it
can be ascertained that Mesrop Mashtots' himself was not fluent in Georgian,
which completely rules out the possibility that the Georgian alphabet was cre-
ated by him.' —Gamkrelidze 1990: 19$, cf. 1994: 81.

Bibliography

Aronson, Howard I. 1989. Georgian: A Reading Grammar. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica.

.
1992-93. "Transliterating Georgian." Annual of the Society for the Study of Caucasia 4-5:
77-84.
Boeder, Winfried. 1975. "Zur Analyse des altgeorgischen Alphabets." In Forschung und Lehre, Ab-
schiedsschrift zu Joh. Schropfers Emeritierung, ed. D. Gerhardt et al., pp. 17-34. Hamburg:
Slawisches Seminar.
Deeters, Gerhard. 1955. "Das Alter der georgischen Schrift." Oriens Christianus 39: 56-65.
Dzidziguri, Shota. 1969. The Georgian Language. Tbilisi: Tbilisi University Press, esp. pp. 4 2 ~5i>
"The Origin of the Georgian Alphabet."
.
1974. Literaturul-enatmecnieruli narkvevebi. Tbilisi: Merani, esp. pp. 253-69, "Kartuli an-
banis carmosoba" [The origin of the Georgian alphabet].
.
1986. "Kartuli damcerloba" [Georgian writing]. Kartuli sabcota enciklopedia 10: 473-74.
Tbilisi.

Gamkrelidze [Gamqrelidze], Thomas V. 1990. Ceris anbanuri sistema dajveli kartuli damcerloba
[Alphabetic writing and the Old Georgian script] (in Georgian and Russian with English sum-
mary on dust jacket). Tbilisi: Tbilisi University Press. English version: Delmar, N.Y: Caravan
Books, 1994.
Hewitt, B. George. 1989. The Indigenous Languages of the Caucasus, vol. 2, The North West Cau-
casian Languages. Delmar, N.Y.: Caravan Books.
 SECTION 29: THE GEORGIAN ALPHABET 359

IKE—Iberiul-Kavkasiuri enatmecnierebis celicdeuli [Annual of Ibero-Caucasian linguistics] vol. l.

Macavariani, Elene. 1989. Mcignobrobay kartuli [Georgian writing]. Tbilisi: Kartuli sabcota en-
ciklopedia.
Robins. Robert H., and Natalie Waterson. 1952. "Notes on the Phonetics of the Georgian Word."
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 14: 55-72.
Schanidse [Shanidze]. Akaki. 1982. Grammatik der Altgeorgischen Sprache, trans. Heinz Fahnrich.
Tbilisi: Tbilisi University Press.

Tschenkeli, Kita. 1960-74. Georgisch-Deutsches Worterbuch. Zurich: Amirani-Verlag.

Tsereteli. George V. 961 1 . "The Most Ancient Georgian Inscriptions in Palestine." Zte di Kartlisa 1
1-

12: 1 1 1-30.
Vogt, Hans. 1936. "Esquisse d'une grammaire du georgien moderne." Norsk Tidsskrift for Sprog-
videnskap 9-10: 5-188.
J
 Part VI: South Asian
Writing Systems

Writing played a significantly different cultural role in traditional

South Asia (i.e. the Indian subcontinent) than in many other parts of the ancient
world. In general, writing in traditional Indian culture never achieved the status and
influence that it attained. in many other cultures such as those of the ancient Near East,
the Islamic world, or China. Oral traditions were usually more revered than written
ones in India, and sacred texts such as the Vedas or the Buddhist canon were original-
ly preserved by memory rather than in written form, which was felt to be less reliable.
This low status may account in part at least for the uncertainties about the early his-
tory of writing in India, since its principal function may have been for ephemeral doc-

uments which have not survived.

The language of the Vedas is an ancestor of Classical Sanskrit known as Vedic;
the language of the southern Buddhist scriptures is known as Pali, one of many
Prakrits — vernacular languages descended from or closely related to Sanskrit. Doz-
ens of languages of contemporary South Asia represent derivatives of the Prakrits. All
these languages belong to the Indo- Aryan (or Indie) branch of the Indo-Iranian fam-
ily, the southeasternmost component of Indo-European. Speakers of the earliest puta-

tive ancestor of these languages probably entered the region from the northwest in the
mid second millennium b.c.e., apparently displacing southward the indigenous
speakers of Dravidian languages (which cannot be grouped with any other language
family). Dravidian left its mark on Indie as the source of the "retroflex" series of con-
sonants that are so characteristic of Indian speech —and required the addition of nu-

merous letters to the script on which those of India were modeled. A third sizable

family of languages in India is Munda, a branch of Austro- Asiatic, which is oth-

the
erwise mainly confined to Southeast Asia. The Munda languages were not written un-
til recently, and no Munda language is among the fifteen "scheduled" languages of

the Indian Constitution (10 Indie, including Sanskrit; 4 Dravidian; and English); they
are classed as "tribal."

371
372 PART v,: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

The earliest writing of South Asia was the Indus script, which originated in the

third millennium b.c.e. but seems to have died out in the following millennium. This
script remains undeciphered, and in the current state of our knowledge there is no co-
gent evidence to connect it with later forms of writing in South Asia.
These later Indie scripts, namely Brahmi and Kharosthl, appear much later in

history; other than the Indus script, the earliest definitely datable written documents
in South Asia are the inscriptions of the emperor Asoka (mid-3rd century b.c.e.).

Many scholars feel that the origins of these scripts must have gone back farther than
this, but there is no conclusive proof. References to writing in literary sources from
the pre-Ashokan period are mostly vague and inconclusive and difficult to date pre-

cisely. The clearest early reference to writing as such (Sanskrit lipi) is in Panini's San-
skrit grammar, usually dated to about the fourth century b.c.e., but even here it is not
certain what type of writing is referred to. Thus although many scholars are inclined
to believe that the Indian scripts were developed around the fifth or fourth centuries
b.c.e. or even earlier, some recent studies have denied any significant prehistory to
these scripts and dated their origins to the late fourth to middle third centuries b.c.e.
The source of the Brahml and Kharosthl scripts is also controversial, but the theory
which attributes both of them directly or indirectly to a Semitic prototype, probably
Aramaic, is clearly the most convincing one.
The later history of South Asian scripts consists essentially of the development
and regional diversification of Brahml script, which became the ancestor of dozens
of scripts of South, Southeast, and Inner Asia. Early regional varieties of Brahml
eventually developed into distinct scripts, often associated with particular languages
of the Indo-Aryan, Dravidian, and other families. But in systemic terms, the Indie
scripts typically share the same basic principles of the aksara system, i.e. a modified
consonantal syllabary representing most vowels by diacritic signs attached to the con-
sonants. In recent centuries, under Islamic influence, the Arabic script has become the
written vehicle for some South Asian languages (e.g. Urdu, Sindhi, Kashmiri), and
under still more recent European influence, the Roman script has been introduced for
still others (e.g. Konkani, some Austro-Asiatic languages such as Khasi, and some
Sino-Tibetan languages such as Lushai).
— Richard G. Salomon
SECTION 30

Brahmi and Kharoshthi

Richard G. Salomon

Except for the much older and still undeciphered Indus Valley script (section i i),

the history of writing in India consists essentially of the Brahmi and KharosthI scripts
and The oldest datable records in these scripts are the rock and pillar
their derivatives.

inscriptions of the Mauryan emperor Asoka, from the middle of the third century
b.c.e. There are a few minor inscriptions in Brahmi which may be contemporary with
or even somewhat earlier than the Asokan inscriptions, but none of these are dated.
Recently, Falk (1993) has suggested that Brahmi script was most likely created dur-
ing the Mauryan Empire, possibly under Asoka himself. KharosthI was probably
somewhat older, probably having been developed in northwestern India in the fourth
or even fifth century b.c.e.
The Brahmi script is written from left to right (though several specimens running
from right to left have been found). In its early forms, it has an angular, horizontally
symmetrical, and pronouncedly monumental appearance (tables 30.1-30.4). From
the earliest attested times, Brahmi was used in all parts of India except for the north-
western regions, where KharosthI prevailed. In the early period, Brahmi was more or
less unitary all over South Asia, but it evolved over the centuries into diverse regional
variants which gradually came to be perceived as separate The earliest distinct
scripts.

regional varieties are those of South India, including the Brahmi used in the Old
Tamil inscriptions —which has a significantly different system of vowel notation,
probably influenced by the phonetic structure of the Dravidian languages (Mahade-
van 197 1). By about the third century c.e., several distinct regional subvarieties had
arisen, and these continued to differentiate until, by around 1000 c.e., the situation

approximated the modern picture in which the Brahml-derived scripts have devel-
oped to the point that they are in effect independent scripts whose common ancestry
may not be apparent to the casual observer. Particularly characteristic of the Indie
scripts is the head-mark in its numerous varieties. This was originally an incidental
serif arising from the use of a reed pen, which came to be perceived as an integral part
of the letters and was extended in various distinctive ways in the regional scripts, such
as the continuous top-line of Devanagarl, the semi-circular "umbrella" of Oriya, and
the "check-mark" of Kannada.
Brahmi, as developed in India and as exported to other parts of Asia in the first

millennium c.e., is the ultimate source not only of all of the indigenous scripts of
South Asia but also of the major Southeast Asian scripts (Burmese, Thai, Lao, Khmer.

373
374 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 30. 1 : Brahmi Primary Vowels

Short Long
Initial Diacritic Initial Diacritic

H a [3] _j. ka H-
a t a: ] ~~" "^ ^a
low central

high front .*. i [i] 4 ki T [i:] -f ki

Rounded
high back L u [u] -- "t ku t fl [u:] -= "fe ku

table 30.2: Brahmi Secondary Vowels

Long Diphthongs

Initial Diacritic Initial Diacritic

Unrounded front > e - ^ ke "> ai — % kai

Rounded back I "

T ko -" ^ kau

etc.), of Tibetan, and of other Central Asian scripts no longer in use. It thus constitutes
one of the most important "parent" scripts of the world, rivaling Aramaic and Arabic
in the number and range of its varieties and derivatives.
There is considerable confusion and inconsistency concerning the names of the
pre-modern Indie scripts, mainly because the indigenous traditions provide little in-

formation on the subject; even the terms "Brahmi" and "Kharosthl" themselves had
to be recovered by modern scholars from rare references in Buddhist and Jaina texts.

table 30.3: Brahmi Occlusives

Voiceless Plosives Voiced Plosives

Unaspirated Aspirated Unaspirated Aspirated Nasals

Velar + k [k] 1 kh A g [g] lu gh C n lnj

Palatal d c [c] d> ch E J If] Y jh ^ n [p]

Retroflex C t
[fl O th H d [4] d dh I n [id

Dental A t [t] O th > d [d] D dh 1 n [n]

Labial I P [pJ b ph D b [b] IT

1
bh « m [m]

TABLE 3O.4: Brahmi Sonorants and Fricatives

Palatal Re troflex j Dental Labial Other

Sonorants y Ul r [r] [I] V [U]

j, I J l
b

Sibilants
A * M b s [»] rt
s [s]
U h M
 SECTION 30: BRAHMI AND KHAROSHTHI 375

table 30.5: Kharoshthi Vowels

Initial Diacritic

Unrounded low central 1 a M - > ka

/
high front 4 i [i] * ki

Rounded high back u [u] - y ku

Syllabic vibrant - ^~ * kr
/

Mid front unrounded 1 e [e] 1. ke

back rounded a [0]

/— > ko

In general, the modern practice is to refer to script forms up to about the fourth cen-
tury c.E. as types of "Brahmi," loosely divided into "early," "middle," and "late," and
to later Brahml-derived scripts by regional or descriptive terms like "early Telugu-
Kannada script" or "box-headed southern script."

Kharosthl, in striking contrast to Brahml, was essentially a regional script only,

and died out no modern descendants. In South Asia, Kha-
in ancient times, leaving

was restricted to the regions of the northwest approximately corresponding to

rosthl
modern northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan, though some specimens are
found in adjoining areas of India proper. Kharosthl was always written from right to
left, and in contrast to the monumental appearance of early Brahml had a decidedly
cursive look (tables 30.5-30.7). It is well attested from the Asokan period until

about the third century c.E., when it began to fall out of use in South Asia, being re-

placed by derivatives of Brahml. In the meantime, however, Kharosthl (along with

Brahml) spread to Inner Asia, where it is abundantly attested around the second and

table 30.6: Kharoshthi Occlusives

Voiceless Plosives Voiced Plosives

Unaspirated Aspirated Unaspirated Aspirated Nasals

Velar > k [k] C kh Y g [g] * gh

Palatal ¥ c [c] ¥ ch 1 J If]

fl jh ^ a In]

Retroflex + I [fl
=1 th H d Ml T dh r n [nj

Dental ^ t [t] + th 5 d [d] 3 dh 1 n [n]

Labial h p [p] t ph *n b [b] T bh (J m [111]

TABLE 3O.7: Kharoshthi Sonorants and Fricatives

Palatal Retroflex Dental Labial Other

Sonorants A y Ul 1 r [r] i \ [1] 1 v M

h
Sibilants (1 S [c] T ? [g] r"
s [s] I [h]
376 PART V,: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 30.8: Representative Examples of Consonant Clusters

Brahmi Khar )shthi

f

khya mha ksa V rva *

1 «
tva sta tra sta ?
\ \ !z

pta rva tva !zJ spa fe

V l

sya
pra
V *t
pra b sya
i
third centuries in the oasis cities around the Tarim Basin (Xinjiang-Uyghur Autono-
mous Region, China) and in Uzbekistan and neighboring regions of western Inner
Asia. Certain documents, as yet poorly understood, from the northern Silk Route oa-
ses appear to be in local derivatives of KharosthI, possibly as late as the seventh cen-
tury; but other than this, KharosthI died out without any survivals, and unlike Brahmi
did not undergo any radical changes in form during the five centuries or so in which
it was in wide use.

Systemic features
Despite their superficial differences, Brahmi and KharosthI are systemically of es-
sentially the same type, namely diacritically modified consonant syllabic scripts, or

alphasyllabaries. This characteristically Indian script type, particularly as developed

in Brahmi, is remarkably stable, and nearly all the later Indie and extra-Indie scripts
derived from it follow essentially the same system. This system is based on the unit
of the graphic "syllable" or aksara, which by definition always ends with a vowel
(type V, CV, CCV, etc.). Syllables consisting of a vowel only (usually at the beginning
of a word or sentence) are written with the full or initial vowel signs, e.g. •*• /. But
when, as is much more frequently the case, the syllable consists of a consonant fol-
lowed by a vowel, the vowel is indicated by a diacritic sign attached to the basic sign
for the consonant; e.g. Brahmi -f ki. However, the basic consonantal character with-
out any diacritic modification is understood to automatically denote the consonant
with the "inherent" vowel a [a]; thus + ka. A graphic "syllable" consisting of a cluster
of two or more consonants followed by a vowel (type CCV, CCCV, etc.) requires that

the consonants be joined together in a conjunct character to indicate the cancellation

of the inherent a vowel of the preceding consonant(s), thus ic kta (as opposed to +A
kata); see table 30.8. Common consonantal combinations, particularly those in-
volving the sonorant r, tended to develop into special ligatures in the later forms of
both scripts and their derivatives.
Although they share the same basic system, there are significant systemic differ-

ences between Brahmi and KharosthI. Whereas Brahmi has separate signs for short
and long vowels, both initial and post-consonantal/diacritic, KharosthI indicates
vowel quality only, the same sign indicating both short and long vowels; thus >= ka
 SECTION 30: BRAHMI AND KHAROSHTHI ^11

or kd, ^= ki or kh etc. And while the initial vowel signs in BrahmT are distinct for
each vowel type (e.g. H #, •% /, L u\ in KharosthT they are all based on the sign for a,

to which are added the post-consonantal diacritics to indicate the other vowels (e.g.

1fl,1 i, u). The system of representing consonantal clusters is essentially the same
in the two scripts, but KharosthT has several anomalous ligatures of uncertain origin,
whereas all the combinations in early Brahml are visually transparent.

Linguistic features

All early documents in both Brahml and KharosthT are written in various Middle
Indo- Aryan ("Prakrit") dialects, and it appears that the scripts originally developed in
connection with these languages. The early forms of these scripts thus lack signs for
certain sounds, such as the vowels /;,/, ai, and au, the velar nasal ri, and the visarga
(unvoiced aspirate /?), which occur in Sanskrit but not in Prakrit. These characters be-
gin to appear only around the first century b.c.e., when we first find BrahmT inscrip-
tions in Sanskrit. It is also then that vowelless consonants in final position are first

represented, usually by a reduced form of the normal consonant with a horizontal line
above. From this time onward the phonetic repertoire of Sanskrit comes to be the de-
fining framework of BrahmT and the Indie scripts derived from it. Virtually all of
these, with the notable exception of Tamil script, which is heavily influenced by Dra-
vidian phonetic structures, take the sound inventory and alphabetic order of Sanskrit
as the basis of their graphic systems, with some necessary adaptations for writing oth-
er languages.

The KharosthT script is specifically linked to the Middle Indo-Aryan dialect of

the northwest, generally known as GandharT, and some of its graphic features reflect
the phonetic peculiarities of this language. For instance, intervocalic consonants often
bear a diacritic sign which is thought to mark a fricative or otherwise modified pro-
nunciation (e.g. ^ ga [ya]). An alternative character order known as Arapacana, wide-
spread in Buddhist tradition, which incorporates conjunct as well as simple aksara,
probably originated in association with KharosthT: a ra pa ca na la da ba da sa va fa

ya sta ka sa ma ga thaja sva (sva) dha sa kha ksa stajna rtha (ha, pha, ita) bha cha
sma hva tsa (sta) gha tha na pha ska ysa sea ta dha (sta) (Salomon 1990). Although
there are a few specimens of Sanskrit written in KharosthT. the script lacks characters
for some Sanskrit sounds, such as the diphthongs ai and ait. Some later KharosthT
documents have a diacritic stroke indicating a long vowel, which presumably devel-
oped in connection with the writing of Sanskrit and/or under the influence of BrahmT.

Functions
The early forms of both BrahmT and KharosthT are known primarily from epigraphic
materials, mostly inscriptions on stone and copper or other metals. They were un-
doubtedly also used for non-epigraphic purposes, but due to the destructive climate
378 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

very few such documents survive in South Asia, though we do have early non-epi-
graphic specimens on wood, leather, palm leaf, and birch bark from Inner Asia. The
surviving documents are mostly religious records, Buddhist in the case of KharosthI,
and Buddhist, Brahmanical, or Jaina in Brahml.
The Indie scripts, especially later forms of Brahml from about the fourth century
c.e., developed several notable calligraphic variants, some of which are so radically
modified as to present serious difficulties in reading. Notable among the latter class

of extreme calligraphic developments are the so-called "Ornate Brahml" and "Shell
Script" or saiikhalipi.

Origins
The origin of Brahml is controversial, the theories generally falling into two camps:
that which sees it as a derivative of a Semitic prototype, whether Phoenician, Arama-
ic, or South Semitic, and that which views it as an indigenous Indian invention, often
associated with the Indus Valley script. The Semitic theory, originally propounded by
Albrecht Weber in 1 856 and elaborated by Georg Biihler (1898), is fairly widely ac-
cepted in the West, while the indigenous origin is generally preferred in South Asia.
On the whole, the Semitic theory is much more strongly, though not conclusively,
supported by the available data. Comparisons of the forms of early Brahml letters

with presumed Phoenician or Aramaic prototypes are suggestive of a historical con-

nection, but only about half the characters can be more or less clearly associated with
corresponding Semitic letters.

More persuasive are systemic and comparative considerations; scripts of the In-
die alphasyllabic type can be readily explained as an adaptation of a consonant-syl-
labic Semitic parent, whereas the invention of such a script type ex nihilo or by
evolution from a (presumably) logosyllabic prototype (i.e. the Indus script) would be
highly untypical of the normal patterns of historical development of scripts. More-
over, certain patterns of early Brahml, for example the representation of the aspirate
consonants kha, gha, and tha by forms that can be associated with Aramaic qoph, het,

and tet respectively, are suggestive of a Semitic background. Thus, although a final
judgment should perhaps be withheld pending substantive progress toward the deci-
pherment of the Indus some connection with the Semitic syllabaries is strongly
script,

supported by the evidence. More specifically, a connection with Aramaic, suggested

by Diringer (1968: 262) among others, is much more plausible on historical and geo-
graphical grounds than the Phoenician derivation propounded by Buhler. In all prob-
ability, Brahml was developed at some indeterminate time, perhaps as late as the third
century b.c.e., as a loose adaptation of Aramaic to Indie languages.
The origin of KharosthI is much less problematic, as its formal and systemic re-
lationship to Aramaic is patently evident. Unlike Brahml, the large majority of the
characters of KharosthI can be readily connected with the corresponding Aramaic let-

ters. Moreover, the historical circumstances of such an origin are easily explained,
 SECTION 30: BRAHMI AND KHAROSHTH1 379

since KharosthT arose in the western reaches of India which from the late sixth cen-
tury b.c.e. were under the control of the Achaemenian Empire, where Aramaic was
widely used.

Development
The later history of South Asian scripts consists mainly of the development and re-
gional diversification of Brahmi, which became the ancestor of dozens of scripts of
South, Southeast, and Inner Asia, while the KharosthT script died out around the third
or fourth century c.e. Brahmi gradually developed regional varieties which became
increasingly diverse and eventually developed into distinct scripts, many of which
were associated with particular regional languages such as Bengali, Gujarati, Telugu,
and Tamil. Most of the modern Indie scripts achieved their distinct forms between the
tenth and fifteenth centuries. However, the Indian tradition itself does not record dis-

tinct names for most of the premodern scripts, so that there is no definitive standard

terminology for them (cf. page 374).

Although the earliest forms of Brahmi (known from the 3rd century b.c.e.) were
more or less standardized throughout South Asia, by the early centuries of the Com-
mon Era a broad division between Northern and Southern styles had emerged. These
developed in succeeding centuries into subvarieties which can be broadly divided into
Western and Eastern varieties in the north and into Deccan and Peninsular varieties

in the south. The dominant style in the north from about the seventh through tenth
centuries, generally known as Siddhamatrka (one of the few traditional scripts for

which we do have a traditional name), is the main source of the modern Devanagari,
the dominant script of North India (section 3 1 ); as well as of Bengali (section 34)
and Oriya (section 35), the main scripts of eastern India; and of Tibetan (section
40).
In the south, the derivatives of Brahmi in the Deccan underlie the modern Kanna-
da and Telugu scripts (section 37), while the scripts of the far south led to the mod-
ern Tamil (section 39) and Malayalam (section 38). Other branches of the
Brahml-derived family include the scripts of the western Himalayan regions, of
which the modern Gurmukhi or Punjabi script is the only important modern survivor
(section 33). The Sarada script of Kashmir, once important but now virtually de-

funct, also belongs to this group. (section 36) underwent a

The Sinhalese script

largely separate process of development from early Brahmi; it was imported from

North India but was influenced at various stages of its development by peninsular
south Indian scripts. Besides these major literary scripts, innumerable other local
scripts and varieties are known from all periods of history, some of which are still in

use in parts of modern South Asia. The modern Gujarati script (section 32) is an ex-
ample of a local variety of the Devanagari-based northern scripts which attained the
level of a distinct regional writing.
380 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

3rd C.

B.C.E. I Brahmi

1st c.

C.E.

northern scripts southern scripts

3rd c.

or
N
\
6th c.
oo

8th c. \

Cf a? &i Pal lava

10th c.

31 «wj \\
d{ (h.
\\
w
/ w
1 2th c.

/
/

m
s- ^r 131 ^r 61 ra C3 OT or) ^)
ctf C3 cd
as

o h
O m a go

figure 54. Development of na in Brahmi and its modern standard descendants.

 SECTION 30: BRAHMI AND KHAROSHTHI 3gJ

figure 54 outlines the paleographic development of a single character, the con-

sonant na, from early Brahml to the major modern scripts. The changes illustrate the
various processes of graphic alteration, such as cursivization, stroke reduction, and
development of a characteristic ductus, which account for the gradual differentiation
of the derivative scripts. Despite their very different superficial appearance, however,
which often disguises their genetic relationships, nearly all the Brahmi -derived
scripts retain the basic systemic principles of the aksara system, i.e. a diacritically
modified consonantal signary. Among the major modern scripts, only Tamil has de-
veloped a major modification of this system, in using a diacritical mark to indicate a

vowelless consonant, thereby obviating the need for the conjunct consonants which
are characteristic of Indian scripts in general.

Sample of Early (Asokan) Brahmi

/. Brahml: ->{ldil CJ,>rtl J-fl
2. Transliteration: devana-piyena piya-dasina lajina

3. Transcription: de:va:n9-pije:no pip-dssino laijino

4. Gloss: By.Beloved-of.the.Gods of.Loving-Regard the.King

/. SriXArCr/rtAl HA1 H-Ad bd^A C> QT> G-A

2. vlsativasabhisitena atana agaca mahlyite hida budhe jate
h h
3. vi:soti-vosa:b isite:n3 stono aigaico mshiijite: hida bud e: jaite

4. twenty-years. anointed himself came worshiped here the. Buddha was.born

/. A.±\}1 X rtJ-JAHi/d- *Jtk rtJ-Qi^

2. sakyamunl ti sila-vigada-bhlca kalapita sila-thabhe
h h
j. sskjsmuni: ti sila:-vigoc[3-b i:ca: ka:la:pite sila:-t 3b'e:

4. Sakyamuni because stone-inlaid-walls(?) caused.to.be.made stone-pillar

/. d LrtCdA C> n'Ai* 6-A X

2. ca usapapite hida bhagavam jate ti

h
3. cs us3pa:pite: hido b 3g3v5 jaite: ti

4. and caused.to.be.erected here the.Lord was.born because

The King, Beloved of the Gods, of Loving Regard, when he had been anointed
for twenty years, came (here) in person and worshiped, because the Buddha
Sakyamuni was born here. He caused walls inlaid with stone(?) to be con-
structed and caused (this) stone pillar to be erected, because the Lord was born
here.'

-The Rummindei Pillar Edict in Old Ardha-Magadhi Prakrit

(Hultzsch 1925: 164-65).
382 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Sample of Kharosthi
1U> L>~lfc4 £_p Vt^I ^011)1^
re-ma-ku rma-va-dra-im tre-pu sa-ga-te-stra sa-rma-va-spa-vi<—

mi-ba-thu mi-ka-a-nu-ta ti-ve-tha-ti-pra ra-ri-sa me-i e-rya-bha-sa

^AP AJWi A rir-lfl *m

ta-i-ya-pu rya-bha-ga-te-stra ya na-re-si-si go-te-stra rmo-va-spa-vi

^AP ±P1*1 A izUJH ^/Wl

ta-i-ya-pu tra-pu-va-ji ya tra-mi-su-va ja-ra-ca-pa-a su-va-dra-im

Transliteration: vispavarmasa strategasa putre imdravarma

Transcription: vicpovormoso stra:te:goso putre: indrovorma:
Gloss: Of Vispavarma Commander son Indravarma

kumare sabharyae ime sarira pratithaveti tanuakami

h h
kumaire so-b a:rja:e: ime: coriira: protij; ove:ti tequskomi
3. Prince with-his.wife these bodily relics establishes in.his.own

/. thubami vispavarmo stratego sisirena ya

h
2. t ubomi vicpovsrmo: stra:te:go: cicireiira: P
3. stupa Vispavarma Commander Sisirena and

/. strategabharya puyaita imdravasu apacaraja

h
2. stra:te:go-b a:rja: puijoita: Tdrovssu opocs-raija:
3. Commander-wife honored Indravasu Apraca-king

/. vasumitra ya jiva-putra puyaita

2. vasumitra: jo jiivoputra: puijoita:

3. Vasumitra and who.has.a.living.son honored

'Prince Indravarma, son of Commander Vispavarma, together with his wife

establishes these bodily relics in his own stupa. Commander Vispavarma and
Sisirena, the wife of the Commander, are (hereby) honored. Indravasu, King of
Apraca, and (his wife) Vasumitra, who is the mother of a living son, are
(hereby) honored.'
— Opening of an inscription in Northwestern or "Gdndhan" Prakrit

on a Buddhist reliquary of Prince Indravarma (Salomon 1996).

 SECTION 30: BRAHMI AND KHAROSHTHI 3^3

Bibliography

Bright, William. 1990. "Written and Spoken Language in South Asia." In his Language Variation
in South Asia, pp. 130-47. New York: Oxford University Press.
Biihler, Georg. 1896. Indische Palaeographie von circa 350 A. Chr. - circa 1300 P. Chr. (Grundriss
der indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, vol. 1, pt. 2). Strassburg: Trubner. Trans. J.

F. Fleet, Indian Paleography from about B.C. 350 to about A.D. 1300, Appendix to Indian An-
tiquary 33 (1904).
1898. On the Origin of the Indian Brahma Alphabet, 2nd ed. Strassburg: Trubner. Repr. The
.

Chowkhamba Sanskrit Studies, vol. 33. Varanasi: The Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office,
1963-
Dani, Ahmad Hasan. 1963. Indian Palaeography. Oxford: Clarendon Press. 2nd ed., Delhi: Mun-
shiram Manoharlal, 1986.
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1979. Kharoshthi Primer. Lahore: Lahore Museum.
Das Gupta, Charu Chandra. 1958. The Development of the Kharosthi Script. Calcutta: K. L. Mukho-
padhyay.
Diringer, David. 1968. The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind, 3rd ed. New York: Funk &
Wagnalls.
Falk, Harry. 1993. Schrift im alten Indien: Ein Forschungsbericht mit Anmerkungen (ScriptOralia
56). Tubingen: Narr.
Hultzsch, Eugen. 1925. Inscriptions of'Asoka (Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum I). Oxford: Claren-
don.
Mahadevan, Iravatham. 1971. "Tamil-Brahmi Inscriptions of the Sangam Age." In Proceedings of
the Second International Conference Seminar of Tamil Studies, ed. R. E. Asher, pp. 73-106.
Madras: International Association of Tamil Research.
Nowotny, Fausta. 1967. "Schriftsysteme in Indien." Studium Generate 20: 524-47.
Ojha, GaurTsamkara HTracamda. 19 18. Bharatiya prdcina lipimdld [The paleography of India],

2nd ed. Ajmer: Scottish Mission Industries Company.

Salomon, Richard G. 1990. "New Evidence for a Gandhar! Origin of the Arapacana Syllabary."
Journal of the American Oriental Society 1 10: 255-73.
1996. "An Inscribed Silver Buddhist Reliquary of the Time of King Kharaosta and Prince
.

Indravarman." Journal of the American Oriental Society 1 16.

Sircar, Dinesh Chandra. 1965. Indian Epigraphy. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

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1965-83. Select Inscriptions Bearing on Indian History and Civilization. Vol. 1, 2nd ed.,

Calcutta: Calcutta University; vol.2, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

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197 1. "Introduction to Indian Epigraphy and Paleography." Journal ofAncient Indian His-
tory 4: 72-136.
Upasak, Chandrika Singh, i960. The History and Palaeography ofMauryan Brdhml Script. Nalan-
da: Nava Nalanda Mahavihara.
Weber, Albrecht. 1856. "Tiber den semitischen Ursprung des indischen Alphabets." Zeitsi nrifi der
Deutschen Morgenldndischen Gesellschaft 10: 389-406.
SECTION 31

The Devanagari Script

William Bright

The script called Nagari (lit. 'of the city') or Devanagari ('divine Nagari') is phono-
log ically based, and is written from left to right. Historically, like other native scripts
o\' South Asia, it derives from the Brahmi alphabet of the Ashokan inscriptions. Ty-

pologically, it is what I call an alphasyllabary: that is, it writes each consonant-vowel

sequence as a unit, called an aksara, in which the vowel symbol functions as an oblig-
atory diacritic to the consonant; in the terminology of Daniels (section i), it is an
abugida.
Devanagari is currently used for Hindi, Nepali, and Marathi, and sometimes for
local languages such as Bhojpuri. It is the script generally used for printing Sanskrit
in modern times (in earlier times, Sanskrit manuscripts were written in a variety of
local scripts). For an overview, see Masica 1991: 133-53.

The symbols
The traditional order of symbols in the Indian scripts is based primarily on articula-
tor phonetics, as originally developed for Sanskrit by the ancient pandits. Implicit in
the order is a series of phonological tables, organized in terms of articulatory features.
Firstcome the primary vowels, i.e. those recognized as simple vowels in Sanskrit
grammar, table 3 shows the independent or initial form for each vowel, followed
i . i

by the diacritic or postconsonantal form, illustrated with the consonant ^ p. Phonetic

values used in Sanskrit in ancient times are indicated by IPA symbols in brackets. The
canonical order proceeds from each short vowel to the corresponding long vowel. The
names of the letters consist of their sounds, sometimes followed by kdra 'making';
thus 3* is called a or a-kara. Symbols exist for short and long syllabic laterals (^ / [1],

^f /), but in Sanskrit the former is rare and the latter never occurs, and they are irrel-

evant to the modern languages.

Next come the secondary vowels which, in Sanskrit, represent historical (and de-
scriptively underlying) diphthongs, again in long and short pairs. However, what
were originally ai di and au an came to be pronounced in Sanskrit as e [e:] ai [a:i]

Acknowledgments: Thanks are due for the valuable suggestions of M. B. Emeneau, Yamuna Kachm, Colin
Masica, and M. K. Verma.

384
 SECTION 31: THE DEVANAGARI SCRIPT 3^5

TABLE 31.1 : Primary Vowels

Short Long
Initial Diacritic Initial Diacritic

Unrounded
low central 3T a [a] - *T pa 3TT a [a:] -T m pa

high front § i [i] fl fa pi t I [i:] J" <ft pi

Rounded
high back
3 u luj _ q pu 3 u[u
c-
qo pu

Syllabic
vibrant
W. r [r]
T pr ^ r [r:]
T ^ pr

table 31.2: Secondary Vowels

Long Diphthongs

Initial Diacritic Initial Diacritic

Unrounded front T? e - ^ ke <t ai - ^ kai

Rounded back 3rr -T ^t ko 3?t au J" qft kau

and o [o:] au [a:u], respectively, table 31.2 again shows the initial and diacritic
forms.
Next in order come two symbols which are written only after vowels, and are nor-
mally listed in combination with a. In Sanskrit, they originally represented second-
arily derived phonetic features. The first is a nasal feature called anusvara; it is

written with a dot above the aksara and is transliterated as m (e.g. 3T am). In Sanskrit

it may originally have been a feature of nasalization, cooccurring with the preceding
vowel. However, in later usage, it is often used for a nasal consonant homorganic with
a following stop; e.g., ariga 'limb of the body' is written either with a conjunct con-
sonant symbol, as 3T^, or as amga, i.e. 3FT. A variant form for this symbol is called

anundsika or candrabindu (e.g. 3* am); it is used more explicitly to indicate nasaliza-

tion of vowels, as in 3^T amsa [sea] 'portion'.
After anusvara comes an element of voiceless breath, [h], called visarga and
transliterated h. It is written with two dots after the aksara, e.g. 3f: ah [ah]. (Note, by
contrast, that the transliteration h represents voiced or murmured breath, [h].)

Next follow the occlusive consonants, that is, the stops and nasals of Sanskrit.
table 31.3 shows the independent ox full forms of each. (The canonical order of
these and the remaining consonant symbols proceeds horizontally within each row.)
Among the nasals, velar n and palatal n are secondarily derived in Sanskrit, and
the symbols are relatively rare in the modern languages. Two letters have special vari-

ants used mainly in the Bombay area: ^ jha is replaced by W, and^T na by W.

There follow, again arranged from the back of the mouth toward the front, the

oral sonorants and the voiceless sibilants, as shown in table 31.4.

386 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 31.3: Occlusives

Voiceless Plosives Voiced Plosives

Unaspirated Aspii 'ated Unaspirated Aspirated N ASALS

Velar 35 k [k] Tf{ kh *T g [Q] ^ gh ~S n [n]

Palatal ^ c [c]
5" ch -^
J Ltl *F Jh ^T fi
M
Retroflex z ! Ill Z th S d [ell 3 dh *JT n lal

Dental FT t [t] ^ th S d [d] sr dh ^T n [n]

Labial V P [PJ ^ ph 5f b [b] *T bh *T m [m]

The label retroflex as applied to r has some justification in terms of the underlying
phonology of Sanskrit; however, it is phonetically an alveolar or dental vibrant. Note
that combinations of r with u u have special shapes: ^ ru and ^ rii.

Finally comes a miscellaneous category of sounds not classified in terms of ar-

ticulation. In all the languages, this category contains f? ha, a voiced or murmured
glottal fricative [fi]. In Vedic Sanskrit and in Marathi, the symbol «5 la
[|J, retroflex
lateral, also occurs here.
In themodern languages, especially in Hindi, a subscript dot is used beneath cer-
tain consonants to represent additional sounds. Thus, with the addition of the dot, 35
ka becomes 35 qa, *3 kha becomes ^ xa, *T ga becomes TT ya, ^ ja becomes ? za, "3

da becomes ~S ra [r], and <5 dha becomes S rha. The dot is ignored in the traditional
ordering system.
was little systematic use of word space or of punctu-
In traditional writing, there

ation.The symbols and respectively, were used in verse for minor and major pro-
I II,

sodic boundaries. Modern practice has adopted conventions of word space and
punctuation which are mainly based on European practice.
The numerals are shown in table 31.5.

table 3 1 .4: Sonorants and Fricatives -

Palatal Retroflex Dental Labial

Sonorants T{ y [j] T r [r] c* 1 HI 3 v [l>]

Sibilants ^r s [c] ^ s [s] *T s [s]

table 31.5: Numerals

1234
? R $ tf
5 6
e
7 8 9
 SECTION 31: THE DEVANAGARI SCRIPT 337

Specific features

A following short vowel a is considered inherent in each consonant symbol; thus, un-
less these letters are modified by other attached symbols, ^ is pa, and T is ra.

Each consonant is represented by a basic consonantal symbol, e.g. ^ pa, T ra.

Consonants in sequence share a continuous horizontal headstroke across the top, thus
^ para. (Letters with a break in this stroke are ^jha, ^ tha, ^ dha, and ^ bha.) When
people write on lined paper, they "hang" the symbols from the line; but in rapid hand-
writing on unlined paper, the headstroke may be omitted altogether.
Vowels other than a, when they follow a consonant, are written as obligatory di-
acritics. Some are on top of the associated consonant, some on the bottom, some on
the left side, some on the right side, and some in a combination of positions. Thus the
diacritic for a is -T on the right-hand side, as in ^ pa. That for i is f— extending from
,

the top of the consonant to its left-hand side, as in f^ pi. That for u is - written beneath
the consonant, as in ^pu. That for e is -, written above the consonant, as in M pe; and
that for o is -T, written to the right of the consonant, as in ^ po.
A vowel not occurring after a consonant — either in initial position, i.e. after a

space, or after another vowel — is written not with a diacritic, but with an independent
symbol; each one is considered an aksara in its own right, and has its own headstroke.
Thus initial a is written 3T, initial a is 3TT, initial i is J?, and so on. (In traditional San-
skrit usage, "initial" meant "at the beginning of a sentence or line of verse." In mod-
ern usage, it means "at the beginning of a word," with conventionally
usually
established word boundaries which reflect European practice.)
A consonant not occurring before a vowel — typically one in final position, i.e.

before a space rather than before a vowel — is written with a subscript diagonal stroke
which may be labeled zero voweh in other words, it "kills" the vowel. The symbol is
called virama; a consonant so affected is called halanta (Lambert 1953: 15-16). Thus
a final symbol T would be interpreted as pa; but with the added diacritic, ^ corre-
sponds to p.
Consonants may also occur in clusters, especially in Sanskrit and in words which
the modern languages have borrowed from Sanskrit; these may involve both initial
and medial sequences of two or three consonants, e.g. ty, pr, At. st, ks, str, ksm. In such
cases, conjunct symbols are used to show that only the last consonant of the sequence
is followed by a vowel. In traditional usage, most such compounds are formed by re-

ducing consonant symbols other than the last one in the sequence to an abbreviated
form, typically lacking the characteristic long vertical stroke on the right-hand side.
These reduced forms, sometimes called W/ consonants, are written to the left of the
final symbol. For example, ^ p(a) plus ^ ya combine as ^ pya; ^ t(a) plus ^ ka com-
bine as ^ tka.

Some compound letters are combined not horizontally, as above, but vertically.
This is especially common when the first symbol does not have a long vertical stroke.
388 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

such as Z. da and f? ha. In such combinations, the second symbol is attached in modi-
fied form beneath the first symbol; thus ^ d(a) plus 3" va combine as 1" dva, and I? h(a)
plus T ya as ?T /?>w. Some symbols are found in both horizontal and vertical arrange-
ments, e.g. jja as either ^ or H".

Compounds in which one element is T r(a) are handled in special ways. As the
first element in a cluster, r is written with - (called repha) above the consonant which
follows it; thus T r + ^ pa gives M rpa. As the second element in a cluster, ra is written
with r- at the foot of the consonant which precedes it; thus ^ p(a) + T ra gives $ pra.
A few consonant sequences correspond to special conjunct symbols which are
less analyzable; the commonest are as follows.

2p k + sa = ksa
*r ST
+ na = jna
^T J ^r *r

t + ta = tta
cT <T tT

+ -
<T
t
T ra ^ tra

These conjuncts may themselves occur in "half forms when they are followed

by yet another consonant; thus 3"

tt(a) + 3" va gives ^
tfva, and ST &$(#,) +^ ma gives

S*T ^m<ar. (Some typewriters lack many of the special conjunct symbols; as a make-
shift, a cluster like tta is then written with a "half t, as *T.)
Note that, where conjunct consonants are involved, the aksara does not actually
correspond to a spoken syllable: thus the word sarva 'all' would be syllabified as sar
+ va in pronunciation, but it is written with the two aksaras ST sa +h rva.

Correspondences
Correspondences of written symbols to spoken sounds, in the case of Sanskrit, are
much as indicated by the descriptive labels and the transcriptions used above. Corre-
spondences to the spoken sounds of the modern languages follow the lead of Sanskrit
in many respects. The principal departures are as follows:
In all the modern languages, short a is normally not pronounced at the end of a
word, or intervocalically in the environment VC VC. Thus <£TCT, in Sanskrit ddsa
'servant', is pronounced [dais] in the modern languages; and JMq^i, in Sanskrit upa-
desa 'instruction', is pronounced [upde:s].
In both Marathi and Nepali, there is no distinction in pronunciation between et-

ymological "short" ^ i and "long" 1 1, or between "short" 3 u and "long" 3 u. Among

the low vowels, however, a qualitative distinction exists: "short" 3T a is pronounced
[3], while "long" 3TT^ is [a].

In the modern languages, ^ ^ r,

f,
and ^ / are pronounced as if they were ri, //",

and //, respectively.

In many varieties of Hindi, the diphthongs M ai and 3TT an have come to be pro-
nounced as monophthongs [ae: o:].
 SECTION 31: THE DEVANAGARI SCRIPT 3gO,

In Hindi, the anusvdra 3* is used mainly to write homorganic nasals before stops,
as in 3FT arig [sqg] 'limb'. Before fricatives, many speakers pronounce it as [n], as in
3TST ams [snj] 'portion'. The related anunasika 3T is used consistently to write nasal-

ization of vowels, as in FT ham [ha:] 'yes'. In Marathi, the anusvdra is again used to
write homorganic nasals before stops; before fricatives, it is pronounced as [u], as in
ams [sOj] 'portion'. In still other positions, it has mainly historical significance and is

not pronounced as such.

What were originally palatal stops are in general pronounced as affricates in

modern times; e.g., ^c and ^ j become [tf] and [c^] respectively. In Marathi, ^ c,
3T

j, and ^ jh are pronounced as palatal affricates when followed by front vowels, and
also in loanwords; but they are pronounced as [ts dz dz
fi

] before back vowels in native

words.
In Hindi, ^ jn is pronounced [gj] with a following nasalized vowel; in Marathi, it

is pronounced £jn].

In Nepali, 3"
y usually merges in pronunciation with ^ b.
The sibilants 3T s and ^ s are not usually distinguished in the pronunciation of the
modern languages; both are pronounced as an alveo-palatal sibilant [J]. In Nepali,
they are further merged with ^ s.

Relations to other scripts

It should be noted that, inasmuch as Hindi and Urdu are virtually the same language
on the colloquial level, much Hindi material which is written in Devanagari is inter-

convertible with Urdu material written in Perso- Arabic script (section 62). With the
adaptations to Devanagari letters which have been made to represent borrowed
sounds of Perso-Arabic origin, it is possible for writing in Devanagari and in Urdu
script to correspond to the same spoken text.

Proposals have been made in India to replace Devanagari script with Roman
script, for modern languages such as Hindi. At present there seems little chance that

such a change will ever be implemented. The use of Devanagari is increasing contin-

ually, with the spread of education, and it has been adapted to tribal languages in

North India. Thus efforts to encourage literacy in Gondi, a Dravidian language spo-
ken in Maharashtra State, have used the Devanagari script — appropriately, since Mar-
athi is the dominant language of the area.

Sample of Sanskrit
/. Devanagari:
2. Transliteration. nainam chindanti sastrani nainam dahati pavakah
3. Transcription: naina
h
c indsnti castrainj nain5 dsfioti paiusksh
4. Gloss: not.this they.cut weapons not.this it.burns fire
390 PART V[: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. ^ %T ch^rr^lM) T ^ilN^fd tlT^T: II

2. na cainam kledayantyapo na sosayati marutah

j. ns cain5 kleidsysntjaipo: na coissjsti mairutsh
4. not and. this they.moisten. waters not it.dries wind

/. 3h*4«£l) SiiHdld) s^R^^Jt S^T "qsr =EF I

2. acchedyo 'yam adahyo 'yam akledyo 'sosya eva ca

3. 3cc"e:dyo: jam sdaifiyo: jam akleidyo: coisjs e:us ca
4. uncuttable this unburnable this unwettable undryable just and

L faq: ^tt?t: ^W^ci) szf 4HHMH: II

2. nityah sarvagatah sthanur acalo yam sanatanah

h
3. nitjsh sarusgsteh st a:r|ur scalo: j5 ssnaitensh
4. eternal all. pervading fixed immovable this primeval

'Weapons do not cut it [the soul], fire does not burn it.

Waters do not wet it, wind does not dry it.

It cannot be cut, or burned, or wetted, and cannot be dried.

It is eternal, all-pervading, fixed, immovable, primeval.'
—Bhagavadgita 2:23.

Bibliography

Kellogg, S. H. 1938. A Grammar of the Hindi Language, 3rd ed. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
Lambert, Hester M. 1953. Introduction to the Devanagari Script. London: Oxford University Press.
Masica, Colin P. 1991. The Indo-Aryan Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Whitney, William Dwight. 1889. Sanskrit Grammar. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
SECTION 32

Gujarati Writing
P. J. Mistry

The Gujarati script, used for writing Gujarati and Kacchi, is a variant of Devanagari

(section 31), differentiated by the loss of the head strokes and varying degrees of
modifications in the remaining characters. The earliest available documents are, in
handwriting, a 1592 manuscript and, in printing, a 1797 advertisement. Yet until the
middle of the nineteenth century, the script was used primarily for correspondence
and bookkeeping, while Devanagari was used for literary and scholarly works. Writ-
ten from left to right, with symbols aligned at their heads, the script is organized in
terms of the aksara 'syllable'. It has been referred to as sardphi 'banker's', vdnidsdi
'merchant's', and mahdjani 'trader's'. Its 45 basic symbols are divided into svara
'vowels' and vyamjana 'consonants' (see Parikh 1974 for a history; Lambert 1953:
134-70 and Cardona 1965: 53-60 for description).

The symbols
Vowels, listed in their conventional order in table 32.1, are grouped into historical
hrasva 'short' and dirgha 'long' classes, according to the laghu 'light' and guru

table 32.1: Vowel Symbols

Short Long
Initial Diacritic Initial Diacritic

Central *H a [a] - SHI a [a] -L hi ka

High front y i [i] P B ki tf I [i] -1 A ki

High back (3 u [u]

sD i
ku a u [u] - kQ

High back vibrant ^ r [ru 1

-, \ kf

Mid front *H e [e,e] - "i ke

•Sj

Mid front diphthong «k ai [®y] b kai

Mid back % [0. o] -I H ko

Mid back diphthong shi au [au] -I ll kau

391
392 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 32.2: Occlusives

Voiceless Plosives Voiced Plosives

Unaspirated Aspirated Unaspirated Aspirated Nasals

h h
Velar £ k [k] 1H kh [k ] ^l g [g] 61 gh [g ]

Palatal *| c [tj] &> ch [tf] */ J [<fe] 3 jh K']

h
Retroflex £ t [t] S th [f] £ d ft] * dh [c[ ] v^L n [nj

h
Dental d t [t] ^ th [t J ( d [d] H dh [d fi

] 4 n [n]

Labial H P [p] k Ph [fl <H b [b] <H bh [b

h
] H m [m]

'heavy' syllables they create in traditional verse. The historical long vowels 1 it are no
longer distinctively long in pronunciation; only in verse do syllables containing y /,

&i, (§ w, §1 w, and sfc r assume the values required by a meter.

Consonant symbols are classified into muldksara 'root letters' and joddksara
'conjunct letters', with the first group additionally subgrouped in terms of articula-
tion. The basic consonant symbols are shown in table 32.2.
The conventional order (from left to right in the tables) has 23 plosives, 4 sono-
rants, and 3 sibilants (table 32.3), and four additional characters: £ ha, a glottal fri-
fJ
cative; ila, a retroflex lateral; and two conjuncts, %\.ksa and ^Ljtla fgn].

Other signs are: anusvdra, a dot above a character, representing a nasal element,
as in j kit; visarga , a silent symbol in some Sanskrit words; and S* n [rj], a velar nasal,
also in Sanskrit. The symbols for numerals are shown in table 32.4.

Specific features

A postconsonantal ^H a has no overt mark; it is inherent in a consonantal symbol.

Thus b is ka (a slanting stroke, virdma, makes it khodo 'lame' and marks it as just a
consonant; thus i^is k). Other vowel symbols have their full form in initial and post-

table 32 3: Sonorants and Fricatives

Palatal Alveolar Dental Labial

Sonorants *4 y Ul * r [r] 1 [1] <H V [!)]

Sibilants £1 s [J] H s m s [s]

table 32.4: Numerals and Their Names

1 ? ekado 3 3 tragado 5 "4, pamcado 7 ^9 satado 9 (> navado

2 3. bagado 4 # cogado 6 <x^ chagado 8 £ athado mlmdum

 SECTION 32: GUJARATI WRITING 393

vocalic positions (e.g. *>il$lldsd 'wish', ^VSbhdi 'brother'). In postconsonantal po-

sition, they occur as diacritics juxtaposed on one or more sides of the consonant
symbol (table 32.1).
Many consonantal symbols contain a vertical line (e.g. Hpa, Hca), but some do
not (e.g. b ka, */ja). In clusters, the first letter(s) lose the vertical line, and only the
last one retains it, e.g., the combinations of rl ta, Qksa, and &/ ja with ^.ya are cH
tya, &i ksya, and atfljya.

Special conjunct forms exist for the following:

1 $.s(a) appears as * preceding a la, <H va, «i na ($H sma but *<H sla), as well as
5 ra ( ^ sra) and H ca *H sea).
(

2. 2. fa has a different shape when it is preceded by ^s(a): >! sta.

3. 3. r(a), as a first member, takes the form repha - over the following letter (e.g.

h rka). As a last member, ra is a subscript -with £ t(a), £ d(a), and S th(a) (e.g. £fra).
With other symbols, it is a diagonal stroke ^ attached at the lower left (i kra, Vipra).
The conjuncts hra, dra, and tra appear as £, £, and ^t respectively. Affixing - u and
- z7 to 3. ra results in ^
e
? ~ $ rw and 3 ril. -v.

4. <§ /zfa) combines with ^1)yz, Hma, and ^tS/- as §l/rytf, $ihma, and g /zr.

5. & <:/((7) combines with ^Ija, <H va, hdha, and Hma to result in ^dya, ^tfYa, «£
dtfTztf , and ^ Jma. It also combines with ^ r as £ Jr.
6. <M, $2, «vj~ «/, and ^<l~ */ are jd,ji,ju, andyw, respectively.
7. Geminates #a, (/(/a, ththa, and dhdha combine vertically: % k, I, and i (cf. §

tf/wz). rl rta and £ <r/aV/ are special forms.

Gujarati writing is essentially phonemic, with some exceptions. A word-final
consonant which is written Ca is pronounced as C; thus Humana is [man] 'mind'.
Deletion of a in a base morpheme, under certain conditions (cf. ^-deletion in Mistry

1995), is not indicated in the written form; thus <1 ta is pronounced [ta] in &lrR£l
katarase 'he will carve' but not in H<~R katare [katre] 'he carves'. Anusvdra has two
values: either nasalization of a vowel (<| hum [hu] T) or a nasal consonant homor-
ganic with a following occlusive (ijlramg [rorjg] 'color').
The use of visarga, virdma, the nasal S //', and ^r is restricted mainly to Sanskrit
loans. Similarly, the distinction between \sa and $lsa is only a writing convention.
The system is underdifferentiated for open/close and clear/murmur distinctions
in vowels (cf. Pandit 1966: 156-77): thus homographic Htf&mori for both [mori]
'gutter' and [mori] 'bland', and r\l\l taro for both [taro] 'star' and [taro] 'your' with
amurmured vowel.
The influx of English loans in recent years has made the representation of close
and open mid vowels critical. To represent the open vowels, a practice of inverting
the diacritics for e- and o -Lis gaining ground: HZ [bet] 'island' vs. <H2 [bast] 'bat',

vs. H1<H [bol] 'ball'. The shortcomings of the system have been
<HkH [bol] 'speak!'
ongoing proposals for reform made by two individuals: Mahendra
the basis for
Meghani from the 1950s, mainly for typographical reasons, and Dayashankar Joshi
from the early 1980s, with concern for literacy.
394 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Sample of Gujarati

/. Gujarati:
2. Transliteration: tadapatra para lakhavanl be paddhatio hatl
3- Transcription: tacjpotro par lskVani be podd'^tio hsti

4- Gloss: palm. leaf on of.writing two systems were

i. ( ?) tyLffltfl Mkl M? C-OH^l-Q Sri* (HRrt4l M«£pt

2. (I) sahlthl patro para lakhavanl uttara bharatanl paddhati
h h h
3> ek Jahit'i pstro par lok uani uttsr b ar9tni podd 3ti

4- (i) with. ink leaves on of.writing north Indian system

2. ane (2) patramam jhlnl anlvala soya vade aksaro kotarlne

3. one be pstroma ct^'im' amuaja soja ooc|e okjoro kotrine
4. and (2) in. leaf small edged needle with letters having.carved

/. M^Wl rlHl ^lliiA"i H£l M^<HI-{1 sf^l <HI*ct4l M«£pt

2. pachlthl temam sahl ke mesa puravanl daksina bharatanl paddhati
h
3. potF'it i tema Jahi ke mej puruani dak/in^
h
b arotni p9dd h oti
4. afterward in.it ink or soot of. filling south Indian system

/. W^lrlHL HcS^tl M«£pt^t rll^H^ll ^L^eU -i^/\ Ml &

2. gujaratamam pahell paddhatie tadapatro lakhayela najare pade che
h h
3. gucfe;ratma pafieli podd otie tacjpstro lok ajela nocfcpre pscje ife

4. in.Gujarat first by.system palm. leaves written sight fall is

There were two systems of writing on a palm leaf: (1) a north Indian system of
writing on leaves with ink, and (2) a south Indian system of carving letters with
a sharp needle and afterward filling the lines with ink or soot. In Gujarat one
finds palm leaves written in the first system.' —Parikh 1974: 61.

Bibliography

Cardona, George. 1965. A Gujarati Reference Grammar. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania

Press.

Lambert, Hester M. 1953. Introduction to the Devanagari Script. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Mistry, P. J. 1995. "Gujarati Phonology." In Phonologies of Selected Asian and African Languages.
ed. Alan S. Kaye. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Pandit, Prabodh B. 1966. Gujarati bhdshdnu dhvani-svarupa ane dhvani-parivartana [Sound sys-
tem and sound changes Ahmedabad: Gujarat University.
in Gujarati].

Parikh, Pravinchandra. 1974. Gujardtmdm brahmithl ndgari sudhino lipi-vikdsa [Script develop-

ment in Gujarat from Brahmi to Nagari]. Ahmedabad: Gujarat University.

SECTION 33

The Gurmukhi Script

Harjeet Singh Gill

The Gurmukhi script is used to write the Punjabi language, especially by members of
the Sikh religion, in the Indian Punjab and elsewhere in India; in the Pakistani Punjab,
Muslims continue to use the Persian script.

Gurmukhi evolved from the ancient Brahmi system, but it received its present de-
finitive form from the second Guru of the Sikhs, Guru Angad (i 504-1 552); hence the
nomenclature Gurmukhi, literally name also refers
'from the mouth of the Guru'. The
to its use in the Adi Granth, which includes the numerous hymns and compositions
of the Sikh Gurus of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, and of a num-
ber of Sufi (Muslim) and Bhakti (Hindu) saint-poets. The earliest hymns are by the
Sufi Farid Shakarganj of the twelfth century. The alphabet is sometimes called paimti
'the thirty-five', from the fact that the basic repertoire of consonant and consonant-
like symbols numbers 35.
Gurmukhi is written from left to right. The characters are normally aligned below
the line of writing. The major symbols represent consonants. Vowels other than short
a are indicated by diacritic symbols written above, below, or at the side of the conso-
nant symbols. When a syllable begins with a vowel, a "vowel-bearer" is used: ~o\ for

a a ai au, "? for i I c\ and §" for u u o.

The most characteristic feature of the Punjabi language is its three-way tonal sys-
tem: high, mid, low. The script has no separate symbols for tones, but they generally
correspond to certain consonantal signs. This is the major function of the signs for
voiced aspirates, for /?, and for conjunct consonants including //. The use of these let-

ters to indicate tones is often etymologically justified, and indeed the tones have prob-
ably developed from older */? and from voiced aspirates.

The consonants
The basic consonantal graphs of the Gurmukhi script are as in table 33. 1 , in canon-
ical order (reading across the table). Some letters have a dot diacritic to represent mar-
ginal consonants, especially in loanwords (table 33.2).
A limited number of consonant clusters are written with conjunct symbols similar
to those of Devanagari, in which the second consonant (in current usage only h. r, and
w) is subjoined; e.g. "H m(a) u p(a) + ~3 ra = *ipra\ H d(a) + ^ wa = ^
+ u ha = >f mha;
dwa. An abbreviated va forms the second member of a cluster: H d(a) + th ya = ^fi dya.

395
396 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 33. i : Gurmukhi Letters

Vowel-Bearers Fricatives

© (b ack) ~W (low) F (front) TT s W u h M

OCCL USIVES
h
Velar 5T k [k] tr kh [k ] HT g Eg] ur gh [g] 5 ri [i]]

Palatal H c Ml eT ch m H J [*] ^ jh [*] ^ n w

h
Retroflex Z t
ft] s- t
n tt ] 3- d Ml ^ dh H] ^ n I'll

Dental S t It] g th
h
[t i H d [d] IT dh [d] 75 n In]

X m
h
Labial u P (Pi ^ Ph tp ] H b [b] ¥ bh [b] [m]

Sonorants

UT y U] 3" r [z] *5 1 [1] ^ w [w] 5 r W

table 33 2: Gurmukhi Supplementary Consonants

TT H ^ 3tf .HI r 55
1

m z[z] f[f] *M YtvJ 1

to

Vowels and accessory signs

Vowels other than short a are indicated by diacritics on the consonant signs. In
table 33.3, the vowels are shown in initial form (with the proper vowel-bearer) and
with the consonant oC k.

table 33.3: Gurmukhi Vowels

Initial Diacritic Transliteration Phonetic Value

>n - oT a [>]

*P _T oP a [a]

fs f- fee i [i]

til 4 otf 7 [i]

t - ? u [u]

t - ? u |u|

•^
F ^ e [e]

* *
Sr ai M
*2
§ S [0]

*
* a au [3]
 SECTION 33: THE GURMUKHI SCRIPT 397

Of the two signs for nasalization (transcribed m), tippi - is used with the vowels
a i u and with ft when final, e.g. "H^7 mumdd [mun^a] 'boy'; bimdi- is used with all

other vowels, e.g. W3 sdmt [Jat] 'peaceful'.

Gemination is written by the sign - addak above and preceding the consonant to
be doubled; Uoft pakkl [pakki] 'ripe'. Clusters of unaspirated stop plus homorganic
aspirated stop are written by the use of addak before the letter for the aspirate: wf
pakkhl [pskkhi] 'fan'. The two geminates mm and nn are written with tippi, the sign
for nasalization: £3~Ht lammi [lsmmij 'long'.

Tones
The most characteristic feature of the Punjabi language is its three-way system of
high, low, and mid tonal accents. The high tone is phonetically a high rising-falling
contour covering one or two syllables, transcribed [a]. The low tone is a low rising
contour, again covering one or two syllables, transcribed [a]. The mid tone is a mid
rising and falling contour not marked in transcription.

When the consonants that correspond to Devanagari voiced aspirates occur

word-initially, they are pronounced as unaspirated voiceless stops plus low tone: vfe7
ghora [kdra] 'horse'. When stem-final, they are pronounced as unaspirated voiced

stops with preceding high tone: "Hmj magh [mdg] 'October'. In stem-medial position,
after a short vowel and before a long vowel, these letters are pronounced as unaspi-

rated voiced stops with following low tone: uuj'dcv paghama [psgarna] 'to melt',

"HW^7 maghana [msgana] 'to be lit'.

The letter h( a ) represents [h] when initial: UB\ harl [hori] 'green'. In non-initial

position, it has no consonantal value, but represents high tone on the preceding vow-
el: 3\u tlh [ti] 'thirty'.

The vowels i and u are normally pronounced [i] and [u], but ih and uh represent
[e] and [61 with high tone: (tfd^ kihrd [kera] 'who', otUH1 kuhrd [kora] leper'. The
1

combination of a + h + ilu is pronounced [ae]/[o]: &Soc kahind

i
[kaena] 'to say', ^rd
wahuti [woj;i] 'bride'.

Sample of Punjabi
/. Gurmukhi: %^ >r c(4x±\ cKd^l trd
2. Transliteration: bhaina maim katadl katadl huttT

3- Transcription: psena mx kstdi kstdi hotti

4- Gloss: sister I weaving weaving tired

l. Pue^Q
2. pari pacchl pichaware rih gal
3- pari psttPi pitPware rae gai

4- left cotton-stick behind left gone

398 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

2. hatth wic rih gal MP

11 1
1 1 7

h
3. hst witj" ra§ gsi

4. hand in left gone cotton

/. *>rat ^Htr fu% lild^ 1

2. agge carakha picche plhra

h
3. sgge tfork a pittTe pira
4. in-front spinning-wheel behind stool

~6~Z\

2. hatth meriom tamd tuttl

I hst
h
meno tod Mti
4.hand mine strand broken

'Sister, this weaving has tired me;

The cotton stick is left behind.
In my hand is left the cotton;
In front, the spinning wheel; behind, the stool.
The strand is broken in my hand.'
—A poem by Bulleh Shah, from Sital 1970: 101 (copyrighted;
reprinted by permission of Punjabi University).

Bibliography

Gill, Harjeet Singh, and Henry Allan Gleason, Jr. 1962. A Reference Grammar of Punjabi. Hartford,
Conn.: Hartford Seminary Foundation; 2nd ed., Patiala: Punjabi University, Dept. of Linguis-
tics, 1969.
Sital, Jit Singh. 1970. Bulleh Shah. Patiala: Punjabi University.
Uberoi, Mohan Singh. 1 97 1 . A History of Punjabi Literature, 3rd ed. Jullundur: Sadasiva Praka-
shan.
SECTION 34

Bengali Writing
TlSTA BAGCHI

The Bengali (or, to use the native term now frequently used among linguists and
grammarians, Bangla) script is historically related and similar in design to the De-
vanagari script (section 31): it has a comparable inventory of consonant and vowel
characters and ligatures, with only one or two exceptions. The script-to-pronunciation
correspondences are markedly different, however, because of the sound changes that
the Bengali language has undergone and the independent development of the Bengali
scriptfrom the Brahmi since early times (see Banerji 19 19, Chakravarti 1938). For
the inventory of Bengali vowel and consonant letters, see tables 34.1, 34.2, and

34.3. The Assamese script differs from the Bengali in just one or two consonant char-
acters, although the correspondence between pronunciation and script is also differ-
ent in a number of respects for Assamese; e.g. ^T sa [J] is pronounced [x] in Assamese.

Differences in inventory of characters

Of the differences between the inventories of characters in Bengali and Devanagari,
it is worth noting the absence of distinct Bengali characters for [b] and [u] (transliter-

ated as v): the pronunciations of the two in words of Indie origin have collapsed into
3"
ba. But Bengali has [w], written as a combination of vowel characters (usually 1? u

or <3 o followed by a vowel, or the semivowel letter ¥ y with vowel diacritic). Other
Bengali characteristics are the absence of Sanskrit long syllabic r or /, the established

use of anunasika - for vowel nasalization (rather than anusvara - of Devanagari, re-

alized in Bengali as \ m [rj]); and the contrast of ^F ya [<%] (when this is a reflex of
earlier Indie y) with the semivowel ^T ya {]].

Script-to-pronunciation correspondences

Among the most salient peculiarities of the script-to-pronunciation correspondences

is vowel carried by a consonant vowel character
the pronunciation of the inherent
when it is not accompanied by a vowel diacritic or by the hasanta 'silencing' symbol
- this vowel is pronounced either [o] or [o]. The rounded (lower-mid or mid) pro-
:

nunciation of the inherent vowel contrasts with the pronunciation of the inherent
vowel as [a] in languages that employ the Devanagari script. But the inherent vowel
is not always pronounced, and one can only partially predict whether its value is [o],

399
400 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

TABLE 34.I: Vowels

Initial Diacritic (k-) Transliteration Pronunciation

- <p a fo, 0]
~^T

=FT a [a]
^TT -T
r
5^
r- Rf i [i]

sr 5 ft I [i]

$ ~ i u [u]

u [u]
fe «T t
«« <~ f 1" [ri]

f* e [e, ae]
*a C-

^ t fr ai [oj]

G C-T C^T [0]

5' c4 C^T au [ow]

[o], or silent in any given instance. For instance, the same spelling *TT mata can rep-
resent either [mot] 'opinion, consent' or [moto] 'like, approximately' (postposition),
whereas Tr gata 'gone,
<f
past, dead' is invariably pronounced [goto]. In native Ben-
gali words and Sanskrit loanwords, the pronunciation tends to be [o] when followed
by a high vowel or semivowel ([i], [j], [u], or [w]) immediately or in the following
syllable; but [o\ otherwise.

table 34.2: Occlusives

Voiceless Plosives Voiced Plosives

Unaspirated Aspirated Unaspirated A spirated > 4ASALS

Velar W k [k] *I kh [k
h
] t g fg] *T gh [g
fi

] % n [n]

Palatal U c [tf]
5~
ch [tp] W j [<fel ^ jh [d5
h
] & a [p]

Retroflex (T t
Itl % th [j,
h
]
~5 d [qj {? dh [4 h
]
°\ n [nJ

c h '< h
Dental «
t [t] 4 th [t ] W d [d] dh [d ] =T n [n]

r
Labial '\
p [p] ^p ph [ p
h
]
3" b [b]
%/
bh [b
h
]
5T m [m]

TABLE 34.3: Sonorants and Fric aft'ves

Palatal Alveolar Dental Other

Sonorants ^ y [*] <T r [r| 1 HI

Sibilants *r s [J, sj ^ s m s [f, s] ?" h [ft]

 SECTION 34: BENGALI WRITING 4QJ

TABLE 34.4: Conjuncts (in order of sec cwd member)

Transliteration & Transliteration & Transliteration &
Conjun ct Pronunciation Conjunct Pronunciation Conjunct Pronunciation

W kk [kk] ^ nt [nt] ff sn [sn]

w rik [*] f,f ntu [ntu] ^r lp [lp]

% rk [rk] 3 Pt [pt] % sp [sp,

a
Jp]

^~
% sk [sk,
a
jk] rt [rt] «ar dm [dd(-)]

Sf ng fag] $ St [st] ^r lm [lm]

b
sr lg [ig] 1 str [str] ^ sm UL Jm ]

h
uu cc [ttf] -<[ tth [tt smr [sn/sri]
]
*F
*5 sc [ftfl ^ nth [nt
h
] ^ kr [kr]

^ cch [ttTj T sth [st

h
] 5T gr [gr]

55 cchr [ttfr] *f bd [bd] 3T tr [tr]

3t bj [b*] 5T ddh |dd"| ST pr [pr]

£f^ Jjh [dcfe'1 3T ndh [nd

h
] *r sr [sr]

k sth [Jt'l 3F kn [kn] <f kl [kl]

ro
J nd [irf] .f tn [tn] IT gl [gl]

c
if nn [nn] £ dn [dn] ST si [Jl, sl ]

* sn [Jn] fT nn [nn] «F ks [k
h
,
a
kk"]

7F kt [kt] K pn [pn] VF ksn [k nl

h

u tt [tt] *r sn [Jn, sn
c
] ^r ks [kj]

a. Initially.

b. Learned.
c. Casual.

The distinction between long and short high vowels ([i] and [u]) has been lost in
the pronunciation of Bengali but persists in the spellings, e.g. IW dina [din] 'day* vs.

^K dina [din] 'indigent'; ^T kula [kul] 'lineage' vs. ^T kula [kul] 'shore'.

The pronunciation of the letter $ or diacritic C- e is either [ae] or [e], depending

(historically, at least) on whether the vowel of an immediately following syllable is

non-high ([e], [o], [ae], [d], or [a]) or high ([i] or [u]), respectively.
Among X ^ and
the consonants, the pronunciation of the sibilant letters T sa, sa,

^ sa is noteworthy: the "default" pronunciation of all these is a "hushing" sound [J],

but before non-retroflex coronals ([t], [n], [r], and [1]) they are all pronounced [s]. En-
glish st in loanwords is written in Bengali with w sta [sjj.
402 PART V1: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 34.5: Numerals

I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

. * 3 & b b q b* ^

U
The originally retroflex T (?<? and the dental «T «« are now both pronounced the
same, as alveolar or dental [n]. The palatal ^ /?# is pronounced as a nasalized glide
|j 1 between vowels or word-finally, but as a post-alveolar [p] before U ca, ^ r/za, ^"y'tf,
or ^ jha.

Clusters

A number of consonant clusters are written as conjunct consonants as in Devanagari

(for a sampling, see table 34.4). Some of them have developed irregular pronunci-
ations: W jna— initially, [g] plus nasalization of the following vowel, e.g. &W jfidna
[gaen] 'knowledge'; elsewhere, [gg], e.g. RW bijna [biggo/biggo] 'wise', £7 hya —
[ddj*], e.g. f&J sahya [Jodcfcfo] 'tolerance, endurance'.
Clusters of C + ^ ma are pronounced as [C] initially, plus nasalization of the fol-
lowing vowel, [CC] medially, e.g. ^TTW smdraka [Jarok] 'reminiscent (of), remind-
er',
r/
M padma [poddo] iotus'.
Clusters of C + ^ ya (-T) are pronounced as [C] initially, most often with modi-
fication of a following aid to the pronunciation [ae], e.g. <\*\ byaya [baee] 'expendi-

ture', <l > I <P<1 ^T bydkarana [baekoron] 'grammar'; they are pronounced as [CC] inside
a word, with or without modification of a following aid to [ae], e.g. ^<U*I abyaya
[obboe] 'indeclinable', 2, £ J I hatyd [hotta] 'murder' (also [hottae]), t\Lt\^- pratyeka
[prottek] 'each, every'.
Clusters of C + -3 ba (^) are pronounced as [C] initially, e.g. ^Pf sbdsa [JaJ]

'breath', [CC] inside a word, e.g. WM bidbdn [biddan] 'learned'.

These irregularities have arisen out of regular sound changes in Bengali and oc-
cur mostly in Sanskrit loanwords, in which the original spellings have been con-
served.
The Bengali numerals are shown in table 34.5.

Sample of Bengali
/. Bengali: z>\<\ <<*\ ^nFIW &<U %M I T^WT^T
2. Transliteration: bharatabarsha paninira janmabhumi. takhanakara
h
3. Transcription:
H
b arotborJo paninir dpnmob umi h
tok onkar
4. Gloss: India Panini.GEN birth. ground then.GEN
 SECTION 34: BENGALI WRITING 4Q3

dine prakrtake yara lipibaddha karechilena

dine prakritke c^ara lipibodd"o koretfilen
day.LOC Prakrit.ACC rel.pron.pl script.bound make.PAST.PERF.3HON

CUT TTCW
tara chilena parama pandita. athaca prakrtera prati tadera
h
tara tPilen porom poncjit Dt otfo prakriter proti tader
they be.PAST.3HON great(ly) learned and.yet Prakrit.GEN toward their

^4&| <n<r.<ic^
abajna chila na. samskrta byakaranera cape tara
obogga tPilo na Jorjjkrito baekoroner tfape tara
contempt be. past. 3 neg Sanskrit grammar.GEN pressure. loc they

/. II If zl<P HI
2. prakrtake luptapraya karena ni. tara karana
3. prakritke luptoprae koren ni tar karon
4. Prakrit.ACC obliterated.almost do.3HON perf.neg it.GEN reason

2. bhasha sambandhe tadera chila sahaja bodhasakti.

h
3. b aja Jombond"e tader tPilo Joho(% bod h Jokti
4. language relation. loc their be. past. 3 natural understanding. power

'India is the birthplace of Panini. The people who codified the Prakrits in writ-
ing in those days were extremely learned people. Yet they did not hold the
They had not made the Prakrits disappear under pressure
Prakrits in contempt.
from Sanskrit grammar. This was because they had a natural ability to under-
stand matters of language.' —Tagore 1935: 241.

Bibliography

Banerji, Rakhal Das. 1919. The Origin of the Bengali Script. Calcutta: Calcutta University Press.

Repr. Calcutta: Navabharat. 1973.

Chakravarti, S. N. 1938. "Development of the Bengali Script from the Fifth Century a. d. to the End
Muhammadan Rule." Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Bengal: Letters 4: 351-91.
of
Dimock, Edward C, Suhas Chatterjee, and Somdeb Bhattacharji. 1987. Introduction to Bengali.
part 2: A Bengali Prose Reader, rev. Clinton B. Seely. Chicago: University of Chicago. South
Asia Language and Area Center.
Lambert, Hester M. 1953. Introduction to the Devanagari Script. London: Oxford University Press.
Tagore, Rabindranath. 1935. Bdmld sabdatattba [Bengali lexicology]. Santiniketan, West Bengal:
Visva-bharati.
SECTION 35

Oriya Writing
B. P. Mahapatra

The Oriya [orja| script is derived from the Brahmi script of the Ashokan inscriptions;

in Orissa state, specimens are found in the Dhauli and Jaugar inscriptions of the Em-
peror Ashoka (3rd century b.c.e.) and the Khandagiri inscriptions of King Kharabela
(1st century c.e.). However, unlike these inscriptions, the language of which was
Prakrit, the earliest inscription in Oriya is the Urjam inscription of 105 1 c.e. This in-
scription is in Kalinga script, the variety of Brahmi from which modern Oriya script
has evolved. It is syllabically based on the unit called the aksava in Sanskrit,

[Dkhyoro] in Oriya. The script is written from left to right.

Since a large number of tribal languages, of both the Dravidian and Munda fam-
ilies, are spoken within the geopolitical limits of Orissa state, many of these languag-
es have adopted the Oriya script in writing their languages. Sanskrit too is written in
Oriya script in Orissa.

The specific features of the Oriya script are as follows.

The vowel a, phonetically [o], is inherent in each consonant symbol, whether
simple or conjunct, unless the letter is modified by the bottom stroke called halanta.
Thus Q ka and Q ga, when marked wth this stroke as Q^, €1^, are read as k and g
respectively.
Vowels other than a, when following a consonant, are written as obligatory dia-
critics. The diacritics for a and 1 are on the right side, as in Q ka and Q1 ki. The di-
I

acritic for i goes on top of the consonant letter, as in Q ki. The diacritics for u, u, and
r go under the consonant, as in ^ ku, Q^/rt/, and Q^ kr. The diacritic for e precedes
the consonant as in CQ ke. The diacritics for o, ai, and an are discontinuous, sur-

rounding the consonant, as in £Q kai, CQ\ ko, and GQI kau. Sometimes the vowel
diacritics may be fused with consonants, e.g. Q ki, Qkn.
Similarly, secondary forms are used for consonants occurring in clusters; thus

Q^ k + Q ta yields Q kta, Q|^ s + SI tha yields g stha. Homorganic nasal + stop clus-
ters are generally written with distinct conjunct characters, such as & nka and 8
nca, but the nasal may also be written with atwsvdra, as in 2TQ for Sl^cr? anka.
A fairly large number of other consonant clusters are also written with distinct
conjunct characters which cannot be further analyzed; e.g., ^ // + Q da - Qnda,
Q^ d + d dha = G ddha. In borrowed words, however, clusters are written with
halanta attached to the first member of the cluster, as in Q^Q kca, ^^ pta.

404
 SECTION 35: ORIYA WRITING 4Q5

TABLE 35.I: Vowels

Initial Diacritic

High neutral -
2J
a [o]
Q ka [ko]

Low neutral a [a] ka [ka]

211 -1 Ql
'- >
High unrounded
Q i [i]
Q ki [ki]

High unrounded long 1 [i] kl [ki]

-1 01
High rounded
Q u [u]
V Q ku [ku]

High rounded long u [u] ku [ku]

S| IS*. «t
Syllabic vibrant kr [km]
Q r [ru]
"*
Qe
Mid unrounded
< e [e]
C- £Q ke [ke]

Mid rounded [0] ko [ko]

(5 C-l CQI
Diphthongs
9 ai [Di]
c 6<5 kai [koi]

au [ou] kau [kou]

&\ C-\ CQI
•

The symbols
The traditional order of symbols in Oriya is based on articulatory phonetics, as orig-
inally developed for Sanskrit. First come the primary vowels, followed by five series

of occlusives (including nasals) along the dimensions of voicing and aspiration. The
rest of the consonants are non-occlusives. Nasalization of vowels is written with a di-
acritic candrabindu above the syllable, as in 211 a versus 211 a ox Ql ka vs. Ql ka.

table 35.2: Occlusives

Voiceless Plosi VES Voiced Plosives

Unaspirated Aspirated Unaspirated Aspirated Nasals

Velar Q k [k] « kh [k
h
] a g [g] Q gh [g
h
]
«* A [i]]

Palatal 9 c [tf]
§ ch [tf'] 9 J I*] $ jh [<W e n M
Retroflex <3 t
ft]
th [t
h
] 9 d KU © dh [<fl ^ n [nJ

Dental t [t] a th [t ]
h
Q d [d] d dh [d fi

] s > n [n]

Labial <a P [p] er P h [p

h
]
9 b [b] Q bh [b "]
1

9 m [m]

table 35.3: Sonorants and Fricatives

Palatal Retroflex j Dental Labial Other

Sonorants a j
'
[*] £j> y Ul Q r [r] fi? ! Hi fi) 1 [i]
Q, v [w]

Sibilants €1 I [s] €1 s M g s [s] 9 h Hi]

 : .

406 PART V,: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

The set of vowels (svara), with their phonetic values, is given in table 35. 1
The inventory of consonants (vyahjana) is given in tables 35.2 and 35.3. The
palatal stops are phonetically affricates. The velar and the palatal nasals occur only in

homorganic clusters. The retroflex voiced stops d, dh have flapped variants [t, u ] fi

which occur intervocalically; a subscript dot is often used to mark these: S? r, Q rh.

Conjunct consonants
Consonant clusters {j'uktaksard) are written in Oriya in several ways. In many cases,
the second member is reduced or simplified and attached to the bottom of the first

member:
€^ s + Q pa = ^ spa

(§1^ n + O tha = <!l ntha

Q^ b + Q da = <0 bda
Q^ d + d dha = Q ddha

In other cases, it is the first member which is reduced and attached to the second:
Q d + ^ bha = Q dbha
®° ri + Q ka = (Sen* nka

The consonant t has two reduced forms, depending on whether it is first or sec-
ond member. In first position -^\

SL t + •a pa £!_ tpa

GL t + Q ka Q_ tka

In second position -:

+ e> ta pta
*l P <cl

<^ k + e> ta Q kta

In other combinations, however, t has its full form:

t + G> na = tna

Similarly, Q r has two reduced forms, in first position -:

R. r + a pa = "<ef rpa

61 r + Q ba = <$ rba

But in second position^-

«L P + Q ra = <a pra

<cf ph + Q ra = *3 phra

The consonant £1 y in second position is written as 1 after the first consonant:

Q^ k + fl ya = Ql kya

Finally, some clusters have idiosyncratic fused shapes:

Q^ k + 9 sa = S ksa

^ n + Q da = © nda
 SECTION 35: ORIYA WRITING 4Q7

Distinctive characteristics

The Oriya script in its distinctive features resembles related scripts of the eastern In-
die variety. Visually, the basic symbols for vowels and consonants can be grouped
into five types on the basis of their sharing similar features. These are:

a. A top "hoop" attached to the distinctive shape, as in Q ka and Q ca.

b. A top curve with a tail (Matson's "handle") attached to the distinctive shape, as in
Q i and Q ra.

c. A top curve with a side bar ("hatrack") attached to the distinctive shape, as in £1 ga
and £1 na.

d. A bottom curve with a side bar ("hook") attached to the distinctive shape, as in 21
a and 81 tha.

e. A few miscellaneous letters like <3 e and O tha.

Sample of Oriya

1. Oriya: giaifif aiQ© <$8« agfl© cq«i cm

2. Transliteration praniiika arata duhkha apramita dekhu dekhu
3. Transcription: pramnko aroto dukho opromito dekhu dekhu
4. Gloss: of.living.beings misery sorrow unlimited seeing seeing

2. keba sahu
j. keba sohu
4. who could.tolerate

/. CPII Q1QG> eicg

DO
2. mo jlbana pache narke parithau jagata uddhara heu
3. mo <%ibDno poche norke pofithau dpgoto uddharo heu
4. my life even. if in.hell let.it.remain world saved let.it.be

'Who could tolerate seeing the unbounded misery and sorrow of living beings?

Let my life remain in hell, but let the world be saved.'

— From a poem by Bhima Bhoi, an illiterate tribal saint of the 19th century.

Bibliography

Bhima Bhoi. 1962. Granthabali, ed. Birakisore Das. Cuttack: J. Mahapatra & Co.
Das, Nilakantha. 1958. Oriya bhdsha sdhitya, 2nd ed. Cuttack: New Students Store.
Oria aksara." Jhankara (Cuttack) 45 (Bishuba issue): 1-6.
'k
Mahapatra, B. P. 1993.
Matson, Dan. 1971. Introduction to Oriya. part 2: Oriya Writing. East Lansing: Michigan State Uni-

versity, Asian Studies Center.

Mohanty, Panchanan. 1992. "All That You Wanted to Know about Oriya Allographs." Journal of
the Board of Secondary Education, Orissa 16/4: xxii-xxvii.

Tripathi, Kunjabihari. 1962. The Evolution of Oriya Language and Script. Cuttack: Utkal University.
SECTION 36

Sinhala Writing
James W. Gair

Sinhala script is used for writing the Sinhala (Sinhalese) language, but in Sri Lanka
also Pali, and sometimes Sanskrit. It is a Brahmi derivative, with a continuous in-
scriptional and literary history from the third-second century b.c.e., though it has un-
dergone much change in form since then. The forms of its letters are distinctive,
though manifestly influenced by the early Grantha script of South India (Fernando
1949, 1950). As in most Brahmi-derived South Asian alphabets, consonants imply a
following inherent vowel a, unless marked for its absence by adding — —
or , called
(h)al kirima, to the consonant; thus O [pa] but df [p], and © [ma] but 8) [m]. The
"independent" vowel symbols €f a, <g> /, Qj u, etc. are used only word-initially. Vowels
following a consonant are indicated by modifications to the consonant, which may oc-
cur above, below, or on either side of it; see table 36. 1 . The existence of the vowels
Cfi ce, tfi cc, and a set of prenasalized stops (called "half-nasals") © nga, &) nda, ^
nda, and 3D mba are special features of Sinhala phonology represented in the script.

Some conjunct symbols are used for writing consonant clusters (including dou-
bled consonants) but most have recognizable parts, formed by truncating the first

symbol, as in £x^ nda from S? + Cr A few, however, are less transparent, such as (2^
representing nja (ss^f + C5). Special symbols exist for O r before a consonant, and for
rand C3 y following a consonant; thus, with Qs sa, we have d§ rsa, (g sra, ©E sya,
(& rsya. Consonant combinations may also be written by writing the "vowelless"
symbol on all but the last, thus d$C nda, ©eD mba;
c
this device is common in current

typed and printed works. (For a full account, see Gair and Karunatilaka 1976.)

The symbols
The full current Sinhala writing system actually contains an "alphabet within an al-
phabet." A subset of it, referred to as the Elu hodiya (boxed in the tables), reflects the
classical language {Elu), as described in the classical grammar Sidatsangard (ca.

1300 c.E.). This is still widely regarded as authoritative, and the Elu hodiya is repre-
sented in current school charts and grammars even today. The character for c is gen-
erally not included, since the Sidatsangard does not list it (though employing it in

examples). The full Sinhala alphabet, or Misra hodiya ("mixed" alphabet) includes
the symbols necessary for writing loanwords from Sanskrit and Pali, notably the as-
pirated consonants. A newer symbol O has been introduced fox fa; but often Roman

408
 SECTION 36: SINHALA WRITING 4Q9

TABLE 36.I: Vowels

Independent Diacriti -'

fa-J Transliteration Pronunciation

<?
— Q) a [a, 3]

ei —3 S>3 a [a:, a]

a
Gl -* «* as [*]

a
<Sl -i Q* ae [ae:]

? n b
S i [i]

6 jr*
b
a 1 [i:]

C ZT
a, c
Q u [u]

c
u
e^ ZJ [u:]

C3a — r [ri, ru]

£3aa — aa S)aa r [ri:, ru:]

O CSS) e [e]

a e [e:]

@© ©3 CfflCsS) ai [aj]

© ©— <3S)3 [0]

a [0:]

gft ©SB 6 ! au [aw]

a. With O r, there are alterations in the shape of some vowel diacritics: d rot, <$L rtf. O^ ru, Oj ru, & r.

b. The width of the diacritic varies with the consonant: < di, C9 pi, 'O ri, etc.

c. Attached to certain letters with a stroke down and to the right (&) k, © g, ?5) t. CD />//. G9 v ). the diacritics
take the form ——.

d. Attached to letters with a stroke up and to the left, like the /nil kirima the diacritic takes the form —
/is combined with O/?, as ©. table 36.1 shows the vowel symbols, and table 36.2
and table 36.3 (reading across) the principal consonants, in canonical order. The
"class nasal" o rn (Sinhala binduva) is listed following the vowels, but it usually rep-
resents a velar nasal [rj]. There was a limited indigenous system of punctuation, but
it has now been superseded by the comma, period, etc. of English.

Correspondence of speech to writing

Sinhala is strongly diglossic; that is, it has sharply distinct written and spoken variet-
ies (Gair 1992). Interestingly, the classical El u hodiya suffices to represent the sounds
of the current spoken language almost perfectly. The main differences are that the dis-
tinctions between (3 la and g la or S) na and &) na are now purely orthographic, and
410 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 36.2: Occlusives

Voiceless Plosives Voiced Plosives Nasals

Una. jpirated As, oirated Unaspirated Aspirated Pwre Nasals Half-nasals

Velar S) k [k] kh [k] g [g] S3 gh [g] £J n [rjl oO fig Pg]

Palatal O c Itfl ch Itfl j [<fe] €© jh [cfel €3^ n [pi

Retrorlex CJ t
[fl d) th ft] £j d [dj d) dh [41 £& n [n] e) nd[\U
n
Dental S) t ft] th [t]
^ d fd] oJ dh [d] S) n [n]
^ nd [
d]

Labial O P IP! phfp] a b [b] £D bh [b] © m [m] (3J mb m b] [

that there are only two symbols for writing the three vowels <?, a, and a. However, the
distribution of those vowels is almost entirely predictable by rule: C( represents a in

the first syllable, except in a few words. It represents a word-finally and before single
consonants (including the "half-nasals"), and represents a before double consonants
or clusters. c^3 represents a everywhere except word-finally, where it may be either a
or a depending primarily on the syllable structure of the word. Similar length rules
apply to e and 6 in final position, which may be pronounced short or long. In the writ-

ten language, the representation of final vowels is essentially fixed; but there is some
fluctuation in representing the colloquial forms, as in dialogs in fiction and drama.
Though the aspirated consonants are written in direct Sanskrit borrowings, they
are generally not pronounced differently from their unaspirated counterparts, even in

reading aloud, though speakers may attempt to distinguish them in formal settings.
The symbols ^ s and C9 s also represent a Sanskrit distinction not observed in
Sinhala pronunciation, but both are pronounced as [J]. In older village speech, they
were not distinguished from C3 s, which was the single sibilant, as represented in the
classical alphabet. Widespread literacy and loanwords, including those from English,
have now generally established a contrast between [s] and [J] in speech; but there is

some fluctuation in writing the latter sound as 02 or Gc) when there is no Sanskrit form
to use as a model.
An affix written as <3 yi, with several functions, is generally pronounced as v and
treated as a final consonant. Except for these few divergences, the fit of script to sound
isstraightforward when reading. Complications arise in the other direction, since a
number of distinctions in the literary language pertain only to spelling.

table 36.3: Sonorants and Fricatives

Palatal Alveolar Denial Labial Other

Sonorants C3 y Ul r |r] i
in v |o] ! HI

Sibilants Gd s m & s II] s |s] h [fi]

 SECTION 36: SINHALA WRITING 4\\

Sample of Sinhala
i. Sinhala: Q'^G g©C3^ OzS)@£&sfe) ©CO T
2. Transliteration: nuvara yugayata paeminenna pera dravida
3. Transcription: nuvara jugajaj;a paeminenna pera dravicja

4. Gloss: Nuvara period.DAT reach. inf before Dravidian

1. ^JS)J^C3
2. abhasaya laebu granthayak lesa nam kala haekke
3. a:ba:Jaja laebu: grantajak lesa nam kola haekke
4. reflection gOt.REL book.INDEF as name do.PAST.REL can. focus

/. S<;dTe3©03^Q. o3§ e3oefe> a s>

2. sidatsangaravayi. pali samskrta bhasavangen gat
n
j. sidatsa gara:vaj pa.ii sarjskruta baijaivaqgen. gat
4. Sidatsangarava.EMPH/AGR Pali Sanskrit languages. abl taken

/. £S&> &63 q?3^c3 qi&dl

2. nlti rlti adiya aetat me granthaye saelaesmat

3. niiti riiti a:dija aeta-t me: grantaje: saelaesmat

4. rules regulations etc. be. also this bookxoc organization. also

esjSJs^cscssf ©CDS)
2. samahara adahasut dravida sahityayen gena tibe. meya
j. samahara adahasut dravicja saihitjajeq gena tibe: meja
4. some ideas. also Dravidian literature. abl taken be.PRES this

2. viyarana granthayakma nove. mehi pradhana adahasa kavya

3. vijarana grantajakma nove: mehi prada:na adahasa kaivja
4. grammar book.EMPH not.be this.LOC chief idea poetry

SC30^)
racanayata upades dlmayi. viyarana nlti rltit

racanajata upades diimaj vijarana ni:ti riitit

composition.DAT advice giving. emph/agr grammar rules regulations. also

S)3^@oS)jadf ©^ C©S)J^ ©CDS) ^^3 ©©QjS® ££>£

kavyalamkarat ek kota gena aeti mevaenima dravida
3. ka:vjalarjka:rat ek kota gena aeti mevaenima dravida
4. poetics one do.PCPL take, pc pl be this. like. emph Dravidian

^q>^} f^C33@£) S@S. •

SOcBeajgo®' C3S) £f
2. granthayak dakunu indiyave tibe. 'virasoliyam' yanu e

j. grantajak dakunu indija:ve tibe: virasolijam janu e:

4. book.INDEF South India be.PRES Virasoliyam quot.rel that

412 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

2. granthaye namayi.
3. granteje: namaj
4. book.LOC name.EMPH/AGR

'As a book that received Dravidian influence before the Nuvara (Kandy) period,
one can name the Sidatsangarava. Although there are grammatical rules etc.

from Pali and Sanskrit, the organization and some ideas in this book have also
been taken from Dravidian literature. This is not only a grammatical treatise. Its

main idea is to give advice for the composition of poetry. A Dravidian work like
this that unites grammatical rules and poetics exists in South India. The name of
that book is "Virasoliyam."' —Baddegama Vimalavamsa ig6o: 56.

Bibliography

Archaeological Survey of Ceylon/Sri Lanka. 1904-. Epigraphia Zeylanica, Being Lithic and Other
Inscriptions of Ceylon. Vols. 1-4, London: Oxford University Press; subsequent vols., Colom-
bo: Government Press.
Fernando, P. E. E. 1949. "Palaeographical Development of the Brahmi Script in Ceylon from 3rd
Century Century a.d." University of Ceylon Review 7: 282-301.
B.C. to 7th
.
1950. "Development of the Sinhalese Script from 8th Century a.d. to 15th Century a.d."
University of Ceylon Review 8: 222-43.
Gair, James W. 1992. "Sinhala." International Encyclopedia of Linguistics 3: 439-45. New York:
Oxford University Press.
Gair, James W., and W. S. Karunatilaka (Karunatillake). 1976. Literary Sinhala Inflected Forms,
with a Transliteration Guide to the Sinhala Script. Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University, South Asia
Program and Department of Modern Languages.
Vimalavamsa, Baddegama. i960. Simhala grantha vicaraya [A critical survey of Sinhala literary
works]. Maradana: Anula Press.

-1*
SECTION 37

Kannada and Telugu Writing

William Bright

The Kannada and Telugu scripts are closely related scripts used to write two Dravid-
ian languages of South India: Kannada (Kanarese, Canarese), in the state of Karnata-
ka, and Telugu in Andhra Pradesh. They are phonologically based, and are written
from left to right. Historically, like other scripts native to South Asia, they derive from
the Brahmi script of the Ashokan inscriptions. Over the centuries, Brahmi evolved in

a variety of ways in different parts of the Indian subcontinent, with distinctive devel-
opments in the south (Dani 1986: 193-214). Among southern scripts, the Kadamba
and Calukya of the fifth. to seventh centuries c.E. are especially important. After
about the tenth century, these types took on a homogeneous form: the Old Kannada
script,which was used across the entire Indian peninsula, in the areas where both
Kannada and Telugu are now spoken. By around 1500, this script had diversified into
two closely related varieties, the Kannada and Telugu scripts. In the early nineteenth
century, separate scripts for Kannada and Telugu were standardized under the influ-
ence of printing presses established by Christian mission organizations.
Typologically, the Kannada and Telugu scripts are alphasyllabaries: that is, they
write each consonant-vowel sequence as a unit, referred to by the Sanskrit term
aksara (Ka. aksara, Te. aksaramu), in which the vowel symbol functions as an oblig-
atory diacritic to the consonant (for details, see section 3 1 ). In the descriptions be-

low, note that phonological representations reflect "reading pronunciations," used in

relatively formal situations. Pronunciations used in informal, colloquial speech vary

greatly depending on social and geographical dialect.

The symbols
The traditional order of symbols begins with the "primary" vowels, i.e. those recog-
nized as simple vowels in Sanskrit grammar, table 37.1 shows the independent or
"initial" form for each vowel Kannada and Telugu, followed by the "diacritic" or
in

postconsonantal form, illustrated with the consonant tf/3 k. The canonical order pro-
ceeds from each short vowel to the corresponding long vowel. The names of the let-

Acknowledgments. Thanks are due for the valuable suggestions of Peri Bhaskararao. Bh. Kiishnamuiti.
Harold Schiffman, and S. N. Sridhar.

413
414 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

WJ $0
£. H pi J El

^ %
^
r> 0.

7
s J5,

'5 3

Q k3

Q H3

fc
c<fO
4 ^ W Id

r>
c«l ? fr
1»l
ki

ay
g °0 s 10

Q X QJ <2J
i? *? •»7

, ,
! !

^ ^
l<U iO

h
^ *3
•a

5 ^ <3 ^3

^0 °V) \3
^>
^xo &o

a h ^1 H
I -I ? f

Tt> <*>
"S 10
•2 «
i
o i
7 r

<u o

— (U
•2 H
,c cs Q> c3
^

I M
-3 O
tU
T) -a
B <u

M "^ M fl
o
-a
—
— 3
B O
P g
 SECTION 37: KANNADA AND TELUGU WRITING 4J 5

table 37.3: Occlusives

Voiceless Plosives Voiced Plosives

Unaspi rated Aspirated Unaspirated Aspirated Nasals

Ka. Te. Ka. Te. Ka. Te. Ka. Te. Ka. Te.

Velar tf 3 k [k] SD gp kh rt ^ g [g] 2? $0 gh 22 25 n [rj]

Palatal U 6 c [tf] e^ £ ch 2xi 2d j [cfe] CLp <±p jh ^r ^ n [n]

Retroflex £J &) t
ft] G
1

6 th ^ ^ d[(jj # <$ dh EQ ra n [nj

Dental ^ eS t [t] q* <£ th rf 6 d [d] q* tf dh 7t ^ n[n]

Labial 2$ £> p [p]

5*
£ ph Id a) b[b] l3 25 bh 33 «& m [m]

ters consist of their sounds, sometimes followed by -kdra 'making'; thus Z3/& is

called a or a-kdra (Te. a-kdramu).

The "syllabic r" in borrowings from Sanskrit is pronounced [ri] or [ru], as in Ka.
dJj^j rtu [ritu], Te. zxoSj^j rtuvu [rutuou] 'season'. Corresponding symbols for syl-

labic r I /exist, in imitation of Sanskrit, but are commonly omitted from the Kannada
and Telugu inventories.
Next come the "secondary" vowels, comprising the mid vowels e and o, long and
short, with their corresponding diphthongs, table 37.2 again shows the initial and
diacritic forms.

Next in order come two symbols which are written only after vowels, and are
sometimes listed in combination with a. The first is a nasal feature called anusvara,
written as 0/0 and transliterated as m (e.g. ^o/eso am). It is most often used for a

nasal consonant homorganic with a following stop; e.g., ariga 'limb of the body' is

usually written not with a conjunct consonant symbol, but rather as amga, thus Ka.
^orY [Arjga] (Te. esoAaSu) [Arjgsmu]). When anusvara is followed by a consonant
other than a stop, or when it is word-final, it is pronounced as [m]; e.g., ^0^/^oir
simha [simha] 'lion', orroo/e)rro lagdm [Ugaim] 'bridle'.

After anusvara in the sequence comes an element called visarga, occurring prin-
cipally in Sanskrit words. It is written as 8/8, transliterated h, and usually pronounced
z§73%/£)$%punah [punsha] 'again'.
[ha]; e.g.

Next follow the occlusive consonants, i.e. the stops and nasals, table 37.3
shows the independent or '.'full" forms of each. The canonical order of these and the

table 37.4: Sonorants and Fricatives

Palatal Alveolar Dental Labial

Ka. Te. Ka. Te. Ka. Te. Ka. Te.

Sonorants oJo o& [r] S3 o5 V [u]

y Lil
1 [1]

Sibilants 3* £ s [e] [si s [s]

416 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

remaining consonant symbols proceeds horizontally within each row. Note that,

among the nasals, velar n and palatal n are associated with Sanskrit, and are relatively
rare in Kannada or Telugu.
There follow, again in order from the back of the mouth toward the front, the oral

sonorants and the voiceless sibilants, as shown in table 37.4.

Finally comes a "miscellaneous" category of sounds not classified in terms of ar-
ticulation, comprising 3o/ir° ha and <&l$la [|a].
In Kannada, when z$J m- and ojb y- occur with the vowels o o, the consonants
take reduced forms: sift mo, olll yo. To maintain the distinction between zSj m- and
£> v-, the sequence vo is written as sft (see next paragraph). In Telugu, the combina-
tions of o5) m- and oSo y- with o 6 require a special form of the vowel: ~3x> mo, oti~°

mo, 6ar> yo, car yd.

When attached to the consonants 3373 p-, 33*/ £> ph-, and £/£ v-, the vowels u u
take special forms that start beneath the consonant, e.g. c$/£) pu, E^/^T pu. This
means that sD/<iS) can only be interpreted as ma, since vw is 33/ 4). In Kannada, these
special vowel forms are also used for o 6, e.g. 03k po, sja vo.

Characteristic features

As in Devanagari (section 3 1 ), a following short vowel a is considered inherent in

each consonant symbol; thus Ka. C3", Te. 6 is da, and Ka. o*, Te. 6 is ra.

Each consonant is represented by a basic consonantal symbol, e.g. C37dS afar, tf/6

ra. Consonants lacking the characteristic headstroke at the top are sd/§&) kha, zs/as ria,

n/zja, ^r/'Stna, &J/&3 ta, cs/ra na, zo/a) fa?, and o/e) la. The headstrokes are absent
from all consonants when the vowels a i 1 are attached, as is shown below.
Vowels other than a, when they follow a consonant, are written as obligatory di-
acritics, again as in Devanagari. Thus the diacritic for a is Ka. -7), Te.=° attached at

the top right, as in cro/cr* da. That for i is Ka. -, Te. - on top of the consonant, as in
vB/^ ft". That for 1 is Ka. - on top of the consonant plus -e on the right, but Te. - on top,

as in &dh ti.

A vowel occurring in initial position is written not with a diacritic, but with an
independent symbol. Thus initial a is written Ka. £3, Te. es; initial a is Ka. £?, Te. £?;
r
initial i is Ka. D, Te. 22; and so on.
A consonant occurring without a following vowel in final position is written with
Ka. -* Te. - above it. This is called virdma (Te. virdmamu), literally 'pause'; it "can-
cels" the inherent vowel. Thus a final symbol uJ/6 would be interpreted as da\ but
with the added diacritic, C3VS corresponds to d alone.
Consonants may also occur in clusters, especially in words borrowed from San-
skrit; these may involve both initial and medial sequences of two or three consonants.
In such cases, "conjunct" symbols are used. Most such combinations are formed by
reducing consonant symbols other than the first one in the sequence to an altered
form, adjoined beneath and/or to the right of the first consonant. For example, Ka. ^,
 SECTION 37: KANNADA AND TELUGU WRITING 4] 7

Te. 6 t(a) plus ojb/coj ya combine as Ka. ^ tya, Te. eg; Ka. tf, Te. 3 k(a) plus tf/d

/•a combine as Ka. ^, Te. ^ &ra. Other examples are Ka. ^, Te. £l kka; Ka. rt, Te.
ri gga; Ka. tg, Te. xSj cai; Ka. 3^, Te. & tta; Ka. ^, Te. <3j nna\ Ka. sl^, Te. &>^ mma.
A vowel following a consonant combination is adjoined to the first of the consonants,
e.g. Ka. %j, Te. §q kri.
In Kannada, a consonant combination in which the first element is d r(a) is often
handled in a special way: the r(a) is written with -r to the right of the consonant
which follows it; thus tf r(a) + 3* ta gives 3"r rta (alternatively, tfj.

Note that, where conjunct consonants are involved, the aksara does not actually
correspond to a spoken syllable: thus Ka. rahta 'blood' would be syllabified as rak +
ta in pronunciation, but it is written with the two aksaras o* ra + ^ kta.

Correspondences
Correspondences of written symbols to spoken sounds are much as indicated by the
descriptive labels and the transcriptions used above. Some exceptions are as follows:
In the consonant cluster vJztjna, the consonant y is pronounced as a palatal stop

[t], thus Ka. izj&Tti jnana [jpama] 'knowledge' (Te. ar^oSu [mainsmu]).
The sibilants s7# sa and cS/^ sa are not always distinguished in the pronuncia-
tion of the modern languages; both may be pronounced as an alveo-palatal sibilant [J].
Consonant clusters involving 3o/ir° h as first member are sometimes pronounced
with reversal of the two consonants; e.g., Ka. i33o\ cihna 'sign' may be pronounced
[tfinha] (Te. Oir°j<*Su [tjinhsmu]).

The Telugu vowel £) e (and its secondary forms) corresponds to the pronuncia-
tion [ae:] when it occurs in the first syllable of a word which has a or a in the following
syllable, e.g. 3b & [maeira] 'mansion'. However, the same vowel [ae:] is sometimes
written with (diacritic forms of) £$ a when it occurs in the past tense suffix, e.g.
WTV& [ta:gas:nu] T drank'.
In Telugu, 6 c(a) and £ j(a) are pronounced as lamino-palatal affricates [tf (%]

before the front vowels i e (long or short); but they are pronounced as alveolar affri-

cates [ts dz] before the central and back vowels a o u in native Dravidian words, e.g.
TTW [tsa:la:] 'many', aJ^fb [dza:gu] 'delay'. Nevertheless, in loanwords from San-
skrit, the palatal pronunciations are used, e.g. &&$&j [tJAtanomu] 'motion',
a^o&j [c^Anmsmu] 'birth'.

The numerals are shown in table 37.5.

table 37.5: Kannada and Telugu Numerals

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Kannada 3 Si 35 2_

Telugu n -o 3 E_ 2 r O
418 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Sample of Kannada
/. Kannada: u&&
2. Transliteration: bahala hindina kaladalli vidarbhadalli obba
3. Transcription: bAhsla hindina kailsdalli uidortt'odslli obba
4. Gloss: much past time. in Vidarbha.in one

2. rajanidda. a desadalli bahala dinagalinda bahalavagi

3. raidpnidda a: deicsdslli bAhs[9 dinagalinda DAhslsoaigi
4. king. was that country.from much from.days much. being

ti^ttcJdft^J.
2. kallatanavagittu. idannu yarindalu kandu hidiyalu
3. kAlJstsnsuaigittu idonnu jairindolu: kArjc|u hirjjalu

4- theft.had.become this.OBJ by. whomever having. seen to.catch

^ Of

2. agade konege rajane ondu dina kallarannu

3. aigade konege raidpne: ondu dina kAUarannu
4. not.having.become to.end king. self one day thieves. obj

2. hidiyuvudakke hoguttane.
3 hirjjuoudokke h/v/mtta»tu
ho:gutta:ne
4. catch. purpose he. goes

'A long time ago, in Vidarbha, there was a king. In that country, for a long time,
there had been a lot of theft. Since whoever was doing this couldn't be caught,
. . .finally one day the king himself goes to catch the thief.'

—Beginning of a children's story from the magazine Candamama, April 1955.

Sample of Telugu
1. Telugu: <ar>6j
2. Transliteration: mlru akkadiki vejlinataruvata naku, uttaramu
3. Transcription: miiru Akkotiki uellin3taruua:ts na:ku uttaramu
4. Gloss: you to. there after.having.gone to.me letter

/. oj^^h, 3<3o
2. vrasi nenu ceyavalasina panulu teliyaceste varu
3. ora:si ne:nu tfe:J9usl3sina pAnulu telijatfeiste: ua:ru

4. having. written I must.do works if. inform they

 SECTION 37: KANNADA AND TELUGU WRITING 4JO,

3f6j
ceyavaddani ceppinappatikT mlru vrasinaprakaramu ceyadanaku
tfeiyouoddsni tjeppinsppstiki: mi:ru uraisinoprokairamu tfe:J3ra:n3ku
"don't.do" although. saying you according.to.writing to. doing

prayatnamu cestanu.
prAJstnsmu tfe:sta:nu

effort I. will. make

'After you have gone there, having written a letter to me, ... if you inform me
of the work I must do, ... although they say not to do it, I will try to do as you
have written.' —Arden 1937: 51.

Bibliography

Arden, A. H. 1937. A Progressive Grammar of the Telugu Language, 4th ed. Madras: Christian Lit-
erature Society.
Dani, Ahmad Hasan. 1986. Indian Palaeography, 2nd ed. New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
Kittel, Ferdinand. 1903. A Grammar of the Kannada Language in English. Mangalore: Basel Mis-
sion Book and Tract Repository.
Krishnamurti, Bh., & J. P. L. Gwynn. 1985. A Grammar of Modern Telugu. Delhi: Oxford Univer-
sity Press.

Spencer, Harold. 1950. A Kanarese Grammar, rev. W. Perston. Mysore: Wesley Press.
SECTION 3

Malay alam Writing

K. P. MOHANAN

The Malayalam script, like Devanagari, is written from left to right. In the traditional
script, each character represents a syllable-sized unit, but recent innovations have in-
troduced a few elements of alphabetic writing into the script.

The script is "phonemic" insofar as it encodes most contrasts at the classical pho-
nemic level of representation. With a few exceptions, a character in the script (called

an aksaram) denotes a vowel by itself, or one ormore consonants followed by a vow-

el. The inventory of fundamental aksaram Malayalam is given in their
characters in
traditional order (reading left to right), vowels (svaram) in table 38.1 and conso-
nants (vyanjanam) in table 38.2. Note that both written and spoken Malayalam, un-
like most Indian languages, contrast dental [t], alveolar [t], and retroflex [[] (albeit

only when doubled). Also contrastive are nasals in seven articulatory positions: [m],
[n], [nj, [jij, [rjj in the script, plus [n] and J
[rj ] in pronunciation.

In table 38.2, the transliteration symbols are given in terms of (abstract) con-
sonants alone; when pronounced, the aksaram is pronounced with following a, thus
* k = ka. The aksaram a&i£ ks actually represents a conjunct consonant (see below),
but is conventionally listed as a unit, near the end of the canonical order.
In simple cases, the svaram and vyanjanam characters can be simply strung to-

gether to form words: csrao ara 'room', cgt^cd ana 'elephant', oj* paka 'hostility'.
The svaram characters are used only when the vowel occurs initially in a syllable, as
in the initial syllables in 'room' and 'elephant'. Elsewhere, when the syllable begins
with a consonant, the vyanjanam character indicates the consonant-vowel sequence.
A marginal contrast between velars ([k] etc.) and palatalized velars ([k
J
] etc.) is

not reflected in the script; both series are indicated by the characters d&> k r_ kli m g
^ej gh 6tb n. The symbol nn n represents dental [n] when initial, alveolar [n] else-
where; but its geminate form nm represents both dental [nn], as in -_nnr~ [panni]

'pig', and alveolar [nn], as in c^tdI [kanni] 'unmarried girl'. The symbol n r is pro-

nounced, when doubled, as alveolar [ttj, e.g. 200 marram [maittam] 'change'; else-
where it is alveolar [r], e.g. d&ol kari [kari] 'curry'.

A vyanjanam character by itself has the value of a syllable onset followed by the
vowel a. When a syllable is followed by a vowel other than a, the vowel is indicated
by a diacritic on the letter, rather than the full svaram character. The regular diacritics
and their values are illustrated in table 38.1 with the vyanjanam -u p. The shapes
of u u are irregular with some consonants, as shown in table 38.3. However, in the

420
 SECTION 38: MALAYALAM WRITING 421

table 38.1: Vowel Symbols (svaram); Vowel-Consonant Combinations

Svaram Transliteration Pronunciation Diacritic (with p-J

(SIR) a [a] - rU
<fl!§ a [a:] -3 rU3

SQ i [i] -1 oJl

gOD I [i:] -1 aJl

S u [u]
c ^
6)11 u [u:] - rU

^ r
o
[ri] ~5
^
n0 e [e] G)— QaJ
"ffi
e [e:] Q— GrU
Qo^ ai [ai] OQ- QQclJ
63 [0] 6)—0 6)oJ3

633 6 [0:] G— GaJ3

631] au [au] G— GclJV
_a
[3]
- n_T

a. The vowel [9], which is never word-initial, has no independent symbol.

table 38.2: Consonant Symbols (vyanjanam)

Voiceless Plosives Voiced Plosives

Unaspirated Aspirated Unaspirated Aspirated N ASALS

h h
Velar cfr k [k] £U kh [k ] CO g [g] ClQJ gh [g ] 6TB n [n]

h
Palatal SL1 c [tf] sua ch [If] 9* J L<fe] CSU) jh [d5 ] 6T^ n [p]

Retroflex S t
[fl
th [f] OJU d M 019 dh 14"] 6TO n [nj

Dental CD t
ft] LQ th [f] G d [d] CJU dh [d
fi

] on n M
Labial oJ P [p] aD ph [p
h
] 60J b [b] (§ bh [b
h
] Jl m [m]

Sonorants cq; y U] (3 r [r] ej 1 [1] OJ v [u]

Fricatives era s M n23 8 [J] (TO s [s] oD h [fi]

Miscellaneous £ 1 tu C&&J ks [kj] » 1 [J] O I [r]

current revised script (see below), all these variants are replaced by uniform -] u and
-] u afer the consonant.
The consonant m, when syllable-final, is represented as the symbol (called

anusvdram): g^oXIUJo ausadham 'medicine', ojctno varum 'will come', n^ocroo

hamsam 'swan', crooGOD3coo samyogam 'joining together'.

Prepausal sonorant consonants (other than m) are represented by a special set of

characters which are called cillaksaram 'letter fragments' (table 38.4).
 -

422 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 38.3: Irregular Shapes of -u and

cfr k + u = cfr ku cfr k + u =

£ ku

CO g + u = V gu CO g + u = u gu

SLQ c + u = £& cu sua c + = cu

-Qjfo

28 j + u = gsg) ju m j + u = Jb ju

cm n + u = cm nu cm n +Q= CTTd) nu

an t +u= © tu CU) t + = © tu

m n + u = 03 nu CD n + u = OS) nu

c§ bh + u = '§ bhu (E bh + Q =:
@ bhQ

CO r +u= an ru a r +Q= © ru

CO s +u= CJ> su CO s + u = C^3 su

nf) h + u = hu Clf) h + = ^3 hu
a£>

table 38.4: Cillaksarams

6TD n > cttS JU06TT3 can 'handbreadth'

CD n> ct8 (OTOQJCTC avan 'he'

ro r> d CDEJcS malar 'popped rice'

EJ 1 > cuS rUc&iCO^ pakal 'day'

£ !
> 5o ajraCULX) aval 'she'

table 38.5: Consonant Diacritics

m n + CQJ y roj ny no^ocQjo nyayam 'justice'

nj p + ra r = caj pr co^IccdI prit 'affection'

co s + ru v = CQJ sv COJOCTDo svasam 'breath'

All word-internal sequences of consonants, except for m as mentioned above, are

represented as kuttaksaram 'conjunct characters'; these are of several types. First,

when ca> y, ro r, and ru v are second members in consonant clusters, they are repre-
sented as diacritics adjoined to the preceding consonant (table 38.5). Many other
conjuncts are formed by placing the character for the second sound beneath the char-
acter for the first sound; ej / takes the rather different shape^ (table 38.6). But
marks the doubling of a number of characters with the shape J at the right, e.g. s^ cc\
cr^ bb, oj vv (but qj pp, ej //).

However, some of the most frequent conjuncts are formed by left-to-right com-
binations (table 38.7).
In the 1970s and 1980s, the difficulties of printing Malayalam script gave rise to
the introduction of a simplified script. The most important property of the modern
 SECTION 38: MALAYALAM WRITING 423

TABLE 38.6: Vertical Conjunct s (in order of second

< member)

TO S + rfh k = CDJ sk CTOCTUJo skandham 'shoulder'

0T>

£L\ c + slcb ch = JU cch cgdjuctS acchan 'father'

S3 j + S£ j
=
% jj CD^ majja 'lymph'

s t + s t = tt (0D§1 atti 'pile'

§

~— ? + s t = n23 ?t c&infij kastam 'difficulty'

s s

no d + OJO d = OJU dd 6T)CU)£j1 iddali 'kind of cake'

OJU "^ CO)

n33 s + CTD n = n3J sn kasnam 'piece'

€TV:

rU p + OS) t = nJ Pt CTOCDOrUl samapti 'completion'

6T1j b + 3 d = CTU bd CQ6DJ0 sabdam 'noise'

G
onj s + CD n =
W sn GCT0n_Oo
m sneham 'love'

rU p + n-i P = fcl PP (STJ^o appam '(sweet) bread'

* k + ej 1 = cB? kl
0-"
klesam 'pain'

nJ p + (TO s = ps (GDnJC& apsara 'celestial dancer'

cro nnj

(TO S + CTD s = (TO ss CD CD CTO" manasss 'mind'

CTU

TABLE 38.7: Horizontal Conjunct s

l

* k + c^ k = d&D kk o_Jc9tdo pakkam 'side'

c^ k + (U) t = dDioi kt CQc&toI sakti 'power'

CT3 n + c^ k = e^ nk oja pafika 'fan'

63 n + CT3 n = 6UT3 fin _QJ6ST3eJ cannala 'chain'

6TO fi + CTU5 fi = 6TCTO nn dfr>CTUTU)1 kanni 'rice gruel'

CTU) n + JU c = ra^ fie (GD^J~ anca 'five'

CTD n + S t = CTT5 nt 6)_QJCTTS centa 'drum'

em n + OJU d = CTTU) nd ffigmjoejo mandalam 'circle'

CU5 t + an t = (UTU) tt dfoCSTU)! kutti 'stabbed'

CCj t + CD m = cutd tm coir&)arn]onj~ atmavo 'soul'

cd n + KD t = CTU) nt _QJCTU)o cantam 'beauty'

cd n + 3 d = CD nd CTJCT3la5 indira 'Indira'

m n + CJU dh = CTU) ndh crjD(TUJCT6

,

andhan 'blind'

CD n + CD n = CTD [nn] or [nn] CD CTD CD mannan 'king'

m n + 2 m = rc nm cdc^ nanma 'goodness'

C33 m + CD m = nr mm (SDjCDCD amma 'mother'

U3 s + JDJ c = Iffr | sc (GD)M3JO)A,o ascaryam 'wonder'

424 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

script is the linearization of the diacritics in such a way that a complex character can
be built by a left-to-right sequence of separate sorts for the main symbol and the dia-
critics (table 38.8).
The second innovation is the breaking up of consonant clusters into sequences of
atomic characters, using either a cillaksaram as in ortfcD for cm nma, or the diacritic -
(which otherwise writes [o]) to indicate a consonant without a vowel (table 38.9).
Given these two changes, one would expect the modern script to become increasingly
alphabetic, with each symbol representing a single segment. However, what has hap-
pened is that individual printers have opted for "modernizing" some characters but
not others, thereby creating an inconsistent script with a large number of random op-
tions.

By and large, a space between two characters corresponds to a word boundary.

However, Malayalam also allows a common style of writing in which the words of a
phonological phrase are strung together such that the space between letters corre-

sponds to a pause. For example, a cillaksaram, as stated earlier, appears before a

pause. When a sonorant consonant is followed by vowels in the same phonological
phrase, the cillaksaram is replaced by a regular character (table 38. 10). Similar ob-
servations apply to the encoding of phonological processes across words such as
shwa insertion, glide insertion, gemination, nasal deletion, and so on (Mohanan
1986). The results of these processes are quite often represented in the script. When
this happens, there is no space between the two words that participate in the phono-
logical process.
The numerals are shown in table 38.1 1.

table 38.8: Simplified Characters

Traditional Modern

pra
c^J IP-J

pu
^ ^l
pQ nJe ^1
pr oj ^J
TABLE 38.9: Simplified Consonant Clusters

Traditional Modern

kta dDioi d&i~OD

nta (TV) oScO) (with cillaksaram)

nma cm nr8(2 (with cillaksaram)

pna cu~cn
<*J

spa a33~n_J
flS
ska CTD~dfc
TK
 SECTION 38: MALAYALAM WRITING 425

table 38.10: Spelling at Phrase Break

In Pause Scriptio Continua

'

ajraruatf avan ' he (mciACoano avanata 'He is there.'

'
ava ! kshe 'Where
corsoj^o cairanjo^ajlQS avalevite is she?'

CEEJfi? malar 'popped rice' 2ejO)3CSi;1 malarayi 'The popped rice is ready.

TABLE 38.I 1: Numerals

/ 2 3 4 5 6 7 5 9

cP O- en. <fi @ OT) G^ °d 0<S 6~

Sample of Malayalam
Malayalam: (GTS) nil 3 ft) o OnlaD^l^jl^o 0.1^000)02 o dfcl§leQ)l§o

2. Transliteration: aharam
: niyantriccittum vyayamam kuttiyittum

3- Transcription: a:fia:ram
i mjamrittfijXum uja:ja:mam ku:ttijift um
4- Gloss: food controlled.despite exercise increased.despite

1. n3)(TO]6)dhOCTT5 06TD h_pc(go(/)cers)1oanoo] c^s16TUTU)3(Tt3 Ojl^OCtfTOOtf?

2. entukontaip hrdrogattinoru katinnan vilattate

errtukor|ta:n9 firidro:gattinoru katijiria:ix uiuaittate

4- what.with.is heart.disease.ACC.one harness fall.not.it

/. gIcDo (o_JC0)1 (GTa035 cfr|S^EJ0f^d^Q£3 «Tft Si Q] cfr f> 3 dftrfl 6) cftnO 6TT§1 ol dftr>2 cfii CQJ p 3 6TT5.

2. dinamprati ate kututalajukale atimakalakkikkontirikkukayumans.

dinamprati att ku:tutala:|uka[e atimaka [a ikkikkoqt irikk ukaj uma:^ J

day. every it more.people.ACC slaves. make.have.continue. also. is

/. cst^ooctdI aril an] r^lonoloej ojlejotf?

2. aranitinu pinnile villan?

3. airaiqitinu pinnile uillan

4. who.is.its behind.LOC.ACC villain

'Despite controlling diet and increasing exercise, why is it that heart disease has

not been restrained? Rather, it continues to enslave more and more people each
day. Who is the villain behind this?' - Vasudevan 1994: 40.

Bibliography
Frohnmeyer, L. J. 191 3. A Progressive Grammar of the Malayalam Language for Europeans. Man-
galore, India: Basel Mission.
Mohanan, K. P. 1986. The Theory of Lexical Phonology. Dordrecht: Reidel.
Sreekantheswaram Padmanabha Pillai, G. 1990. Sabdataaraavali [Malayalam dictionary], 14th ed.

Kottayam, Kerala, India: National Book Stall.

Syamala Kumari, B. 1981. An Intensive Course in Malayalam. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian

Languages.
Vasudevan, P. S. 1994. "Shastrakautukam." Mathruhhumi Weekly (20-26 March). Calicut.
SECTION 39

Tamil Writing
Sanford B. Steever

Historical background
The Tamil writing system, called tamiz ezuttu 'Tamil letter', derives from the south-
ern branch of Ashokan Brahmi. Its immediate predecessor, Grantha script, serves as
the basis for the Tamil and Malayalam writing systems. Traditionally written with a
stylus on palm leaves, tamiz ezuttu evolved from angular to cursive characters, as an-
gular strokes tend to rip leaves. Later, tamiz. ezuttu was engraved in stone and on cop-
per plates. While no traditional texts treat Tamil orthography, the earliest grammar,
tolkdppiyam, contains sutras that describe operations, not on sounds, but on the
graphs representing them.
Printing arrived with Europeans, who adapted the handwritten script to movable
type. European typography may have stimulated the linearization (see below) of
tamiz ezuttu.

Description
Tamil is written alphasyllabically (section 31). Virtually unique within Indie
scripts, tamiz ezuttu has evolved toward an alphabet in one respect: it has eliminated
most conjuncts, placing consonant clusters in a linear string. Some conjuncts remain
in older official documents.
Vowel symbols (table 39. 1
) have two basic allographs, initials and noninitials.

Initials represent initial vowels and "overlong" vowels (e.g. initial |§> i in @fc$> inta

'this' and Gufjgguj perliiya 'reeeally big'). In premodern orthography, initials ap-

pear at the beginning of metrical groups; in modern orthography, influenced by Eu-

ropean practice, at the beginning of words. The noninitials appear elsewhere, viz. in

combination with consonant graphs, e.g. noninitial i -3 in aSlerfl kili 'parrot'. Excep-
tions to this linearization process are the graphsu e, cj e, g ai, 9 o, 9 o, and 96T1
au.The first three precede consonants, reversing phonemic order (e.g. Q* e+k, for
phonemic ke)\ the last three are represented by "circumgraphs" around the consonant
symbol (e.g. u p + Q-rr o = Qun po).
Each basic consonant graph (table 39.2) includes the "inherent" vowel a, e.g.,
a is pronounced ka. Consonant graphs are phonemic, not phonetic: for example, a
may represent [ka], [ga], or [haj, depending on distribution (see Asher 1985). (How-

426
 SECTION 39: TAMIL WRITING 427

table 39. i : Vowel Graphs

Initial Tranlite ration Value Diacritic (p-) Variations

<&\ a [A] - u

•S a [a:] -n urr (655) rttf, (TT) ra, (63) A2tf

& i [i]
-°\ LSI lq ft'

FF I M <?
6 ic ft

2_ u [u,ui] - ^ (5 £w, © /«, (LP WW, (TT> rw, (Lg ZU, (6J3 ///

@U «M, §>J ft/, g>J HW, g^J lu, P /'«, 6p AZW

psn u [u:] ~Zi> U.

3tl ku, (5 cm, © tu, (Lp mu, (fT, rw, (TfJ zw, c^Q? /«

6^ji w«, gii m, ©fi «w, gyi lu, gii rw, @fi nu

S] e [e] Q- Qu
Q e [e:] e- Su
a ai [Ay] 60)- S5)U ?j3M nai, ?eo lai, ?jsu lai, ?m nai

9 [0] Q-n Gun Q(6®5) no, QcUJ ro, Q(g) no

9 6 [0:] £-n (Sua £(635) no, 6(rrj ra, 6(g) ho

^j>6U au [au] Q-6T1 QU6T1

ever, the graphs 5 na and 6or «# correspond to a subphonemic difference.) To represent

consonants without vowels, as in clusters, a dot - called pulli is placed over a conso-
nant sign to suppress the inherent vowel, e.g. S^ 'this' represents inta, not inata.
This was optional in early writing.
The tables present Tamil vowel and consonant symbols in canonical order. Not
all consonant+vowel combinations implied by these two charts are present in Tamil
phonology, e.g., no Tamil word uses Q6nen (au.

Adequacy in representing Tamil phonology

Tamiz ezuttu has three layers. The first adequately represents the core phonology of
Tamil (see Steever 1987). The second adds the five grantha letters, which include
signs to represent consonants and clusters borrowed from Sanskrit and, felicitously,

English, e.g. etv sa and qjd ha. The third reintroduces the ancient symbol aytam o°o into

modern orthography. When placed before up or/, the combination represents a cor-
responding fricative, borrowed from other languages into the periphery of Tamil pho-
nology; thus aytam + p '= / (as in o°oi3<s ficu [fiisui] 'fees'), and aytam + j = z
(o o^lQar[*£ru ziroks 'Xerox'). However, there are no symbols or combinations to rep-

resent borrowed vowels, such as English [ae]. While tamiz ezuttu has fewer graphs
than other Indie systems —because Tamil lacks, for example, aspirated consonants
it has not borrowed available graphs from cognate orthographies to represent bor-
rowed sounds.
428 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 39.2: Consonant Graphs

Basic Form Transcription Value Sample Forms with Vowels

as k [k, g, x, y, h] *n fcd, (g £m, ah. Am

151 ri
M ran rid, \h\ riu, (§, mm

a= c [tf, cfe, J, s] & rr co, a? cm, (5 cm

© n w O n mm, (6^1 ni, («§ m/~

i_ t
ft. 4d i_rr to, iq ft, ic ft", © to, @ to

G56\ n lal (650) MM, 6ffi)l MM, 6gg)n MM, 2605T MM/'

£ t [t, 4, 5] ^rr to, ^1 ft', $ ft", g>] to, §3J1 to

!5 n [n] [Bn mm, p fl«, rp ml

u P [p, b, p] Un /?M, L| pu, LJ /7M

LD m [mj LDn M?M, (LP M7M, (Lp M7M

UJ y ffl
LUiT }>M, LL| VM, LL^ VM

[J r [r] \) rr ra, ffl rc, ft" n, (5 /*m, (n> rw

CO 1 [1] GDn /m, g^J /m, g^n to", %d fo/

6U V [0] 6Un VM, 61| VM, Ql VM

U>
z, 1, r M LpnzM, Qflzw, (jg r/7

6n 1
tu 6n rr to", (6n, /m, Q6n, /m, 2cti lai

23 r,R [r, t, d] O fM, rpj rw, gpn n7, Qqv) ra, S([n m
60T n, N [n] (65) MM, @J MM, 260T MM/, Q (g) «0

Grantha Letters
S3 J [*] Sn 7'm, sfl y'/',
s° ju, s?® /b

Q2> s [§] o&rr 5J, a£\ si, gw su, ea& $u

£TU s [s] Qtv n sd, an5~l si, er\r su, gto® .v/7

h Qjurr mm, anjl qjtt® /m7

1

QJJJ [h] ///', qjjt ////,

a* ks 1kg] a^rr fod, &£\ fai, a^* Asm, a^ ® 1

fes«

Trends
7tfm/z <?zwm/ has not undergone the reforms that Malayalam script recently has (see

section 38). Two minor changes have, however, occurred. First, government decree
has sought to reduce the allographs for ai, which has two, 6m- and Z-, depending on
the consonant symbol with which it combines, e.g. 60)* kai but &d lai (this latter al-

lograph is called tumpikai 'elephant's trunk'). Official documents now use only the

first, e.g. 60)* kai and sr>^ lai. Second, aytam 0% is used to fricativize a following stop,
as discussed above. Occasional proposals to change the individual symbols to purely

alphabetic characters, by using vowel-initial allographs for all vowels, with conso-
nant + pulli for all consonants, have not been taken seriously; and they probably never
will be, since the existing system represents Tamil syllables very well.
 SECTION 39: TAMIL WRITING 429

Sample of Tamil
/. Tamil: ^r^sb {5 [D(P 6051 unf)n51 r£]60T L033&5T

2. Tranliteration: cirril narrun pajri nin makan

3. Transcription: tfittil nAttu:i\ pAtti nin mAyAn
4. Gloss: small. house pillar leaning your son

1. UjrT600l(b)6ri£(g) 61607 6l51&5TQJ,^jl 61607 L035607

2. yantulano ena vinavuti en makan

j. ja:r\c[ui[Ano: enA uinAuuSi en mAyAn
4. where. is. he that you. ask my son

1. Luneoor© 2_&nsJT ^li51@jld ^^IGlusjt ^(T^ld

2. yantu ulan ayinum ariyen orum

3. ja:rjc|ui u|y\n aijinium Arijein oiruim
4. where he. is that I.don't.know once

I. L\eS\ (SffCJ^gj] Surr^luj 5>eb &\?jsn Sunn)

2. puli cerntu pokiya kal alai pola
3. puli tfeirndui poiyiJA kAl A[Ay po:U
4. tiger joining going stone lair like

I. @S5TfD QJLL)](2(nr) @£}]£qJ

2. inra vayiro ituve
r
j. ind A UAJiro: iSuiue:

4. begot womb this

1. Sff,r[fi5T P6U60T LonGfsrr Gun [1*671671 £5 £F,n£607

2. tonruvan mato porkallat tane

r
J. to:nd i uoAn maido: po:rka|]At tame:
4. appear indeed battlefield only

'You stand against the pillar

of my hut and ask:

Where is your son?
I don't really know.
My womb was once
a lair
for that tiger.
You can see him now
only in battlefields.'

-Kavarpentu, Purandnuru 86 (trans. A. K. Ramanujan 1985: 184).

From Poems of Love and War, selected and translated by A. K. Pamanujan, copyright 1985, Columbia Uni-
versity Press, New York. Reprinted with permission of publisher.
430 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Bibliography

Arden, A. H. 1942. A Progressive Grammar of the Tamil Language, 5th ed. Madras: Christian Lit-
erature Society.
Asher, Ronald. 1985. Tamil. London: Croom Helm.
Burnell, A. C. 1878. Elements of South Indian Palaeography, 2nd ed. London: Triibner.

Lehmann, Thomas. 1989. /\ Grammar of Modern Tamil. Pondicherry: Pondicherry Institute of Lin-
guistics and Culture.
Ramanujan, A. K., ed. 1985.Poems of Love and War from the Eight Anthologies and the Ten Long
Poems of Classical New York: Columbia University Press.
Tamil.
Steever, Sanford B. 1987. "Tamil and the Dravidian languages." In The World's Major Languages,
ed. Bernard Comrie, pp. 725-46. London: Croom Helm; New York: Oxford University Press.
SECTION 40

The Tibetan Script and Derivatives

Leonard W. J. van der Kuijp

The Tibetan script falls into two basic types, of which the first is called ^ CT3&" dbu
can 'with a head', the second ^ q "<*K" dbu med 'acephalous'. The first is used in the

earliest available monuments of Tibetan writing: inscriptions dating from the eighth
and ninth centuries c.e., and manuscripts found in Dunhuang, Gansu Province,
China (dating not later than about the middle of the 1 ith century); it was also used in

later manuscripts and for the printing of texts. The earliest known specimen of a Ti-
betan printed text is one derived from printing blocks that were carved to completion
on 16 December 1 284 in present-day Beijing, under the patronage of the Mongol im-
perial family (van der Kuijp 1993). The dbu med script falls into several different

types, such as ^ £J/ ^0]' dpe yig, "^ [Hoy ujay 'khyug yig, and T, CW ^W 'bam yig; the
earliest extant texts using one or other type seem to date from the twelfth century
(Csoma de Koros 1834: [2], [4], [31]). A number of ornamental scripts were also used
in the Tibetan cultural area (section 20); one of these, the "new Rin spungs script,"

seems to have been developed during the time that Central Tibet was more or less un-

der the governance of the Rin spungs dynasty (1434-1565; Chandra 1982). The dbu
can script is the basis for modern printed Tibetan, as presented here. All these scripts

are phonologically based and, like Brahmi writing, are typologically alphasyllabaries

(section 31). Tibetan is written horizontally from left to right.

The Tibetan term for both the symbol and the sound representing it is ^ 5l yi ge,

the basic, irreducible building block of Tibetan writing. This sometimes results in a

confusion between graph and phoneme. The term yi ge is used as a translation of San-
1

skrit aksara 'syllable , vyanjana 'consonant', and varna 'sound'. It is also used as an

umbrella term for extra-phonological symbols.

script was traditionally created in the first half
For Tibetan Buddhists, the Tibetan
of the seventh century by a certain Thon mi Sambhota. He is said to have been a min-
ister under the first Buddhist king Srong btsan sgam po, who had sent him to north-

eastern India in order to devise a script for Tibetan. However, the Bon po religious
tradition of Tibet does not accept this scenario, and suggests different origins, includ-
ing Iranian or Central Asian ones (Tshul khrims phun tshogs 1985: 395*?-) In current

431
432 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

scholarship there is a great deal of controversy surrounding the precise origins of the
Tibetan dbu can script, and no definitive conclusion has been reached so far (for an
overview, see Rona-Tas 1985: 183-242). Some investigators postulate that the dbu
med script derives from dbu can, others maintain the reverse. Many indigenous Tibet-
an grammatological analyses of writing are based not only on the Indie grammatical
traditions, but also on the more arcane linguistic speculations found in portions of the
Buddhist tantra literature, where a close link is established between phonology and
soteriology. What follows deals mainly with the dbu can script.

Symbols and specific features

A short vowel a is taken as inherent in each of the thirty consonant symbols, here

called radicals, except the r^'^C 'a chung (^ 'a) and U\]'<£<£" a chen (tf\j a). The
phonological realization for both these is a; but in the Lhasa dialect, the former has a
high, and the latter a low tone. The 'a chung can also represent a nasal; thus £>1<£<?W
mtshams 'boundary' and <3n1£]<£' mthun 'agreement' are often written T^^^J
'tshams and 0^ E<£' 'thun. In current Central Tibetan pronunciation, neither initial 'a

nor m is realized. Further, 'a may nasalize the juncture of two morphemes as in ^3|"

0^ ^ <£" dge 'dun 'Buddhist community', pronounced [gendyn]. The name 'a chung is

a late, secondary invention of probable non-Tibetan origin, and is therefore not found

in the Tibetan texts on orthography and orthotactics (cf. Bio ldan shes rab, Bsod nams
rtse mo, Ngag dbang bstan dar). For the remaining consonants, we have names like

ka for H, kha for p, etc.

Each radical is represented by a basic symbol. In the dbu can script, these hang

from a superior baseline, which may be a single horizontal headstroke as in 3' ca, two
short headstrokes as in C]" pa, or even three headstrokes as in IM a. This seems to be
the origin of the term dbu can, since such strokes are conspicuously absent in the dbu
med scripts (for an example see figure 30 on page 247). table 40.4 shows the ba-
sic symbols for each of the thirty radicals and their phonological realization. Pronun-
ciation follows the Central Tibetan dialect as described by Goldstein (1991 3-5); the:

tones are high (acute accent), low (grave accent). As in Indie scripts, the traditional

order of symbols in Tibetan is based in large measure on the articulatory phonetics of

Sanskrit. A series of reversed symbols has been devised to represent the retroflex con-
sonants in borrowed words: rU, [J th,
7* d, ~hn, \X s.

The four vowel symbols other than a are written only diacritically, either above

or below the radical or consonant clusters (table 40.2). The diacritics — — 1, e, and
—o are written above the radical or complex ligatures; —u is written below them.

Radicals, including 'a and a, lose their a- value when they occur with one of these four
 SECTION 40: THE TIBETAN SCRIPT AND DERIVATIVES 433

table 40.1: Consonants

ka kha
h h -
T [ka]
I*
[k a] 01' ga [ka/k a] na [qa]

3' ca [tfa] <£" cha [tfa]

E' ja [tfa] na [pa]
*)

h h
ta [ta] 5" tha [t a] ^
-

da [ta/t a] 3\" na [na]

*i
h h

tr
pa [pa]
^
-

pha [p a] q" ba [pa/p a]

<K"
ma [ma]

$ tsa [tsa] *" tsha [ts a] E5

'

dza [tsa]

2j'
wa [wa] ra- za [Ja] 3" za [sa]

n "

Ca) [a] UT ya Oa] ^ -

ra [ra] '
: la [la]
s

sa [/a] sa [sa]
«J
<T
ha [ha] (a) [a]
)
<N

vowel diacritics; thus 'u and w are written Q, and IM. Strictly speaking, vowel symbols

cannot occur in syllable-initial position. °

Long vowels occur only in loanwords. Traditionally, these are usually of Sanskrit
origin, but the lexicon of Classical Tibetan also includes words borrowed from Mon-
golian, Chinese, and a few other languages. Tibetan used in the diaspora of the Indian

subcontinent has an ever growing lexicon of Hindi and English loanwords, whereas

the vernaculars used in China have adopted an enormous number of Chinese words.
The long vowels are indicated by 'a chung placed below the radical or complex liga-

ture; thus ta bla ma 'grand lama' is written ^ 'q "8\ (Tibetan ta reflects here Chinese

da 'grand') and Sanskrit sri 'lustre, wealth' is written h. Aside from loanwords, the

Tibetan script admits diphthongs only in diminutive expressions; thus the diminutive

form of d\ mi 'person' is c^Q,' men 'dwarf; of 'stone' f " rdo, fV rdeu 'pebble'.
TABLE 40.2: Vowels

Symbol Example

i 7-j ki

u n ku

e r^j ke

o m ko
434 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Tibetan script allows combinations of consonantal symbols of five types: (1) sub-
script, (2) prescript, (3) superscript, (4) postscript, and (5) post-postscript symbols.
Depending on position, some lose their full graphic form, others do not; in all cases,

they lose their inherent a and often undergo significant change in pronunciation. It is

always the topmost consonant (whether or not this is the radical) that hangs from the
baseline. Vowel diacritics are attached to the combination of symbols.

Subscript symbols

There are four consonants which, in modified form, can be affixed (btags) beneath a
select number of radicals; these are y, r, I, and w. There are seven radicals beneath
which v can appear, resulting in the following conjunct symbols: H
^-
kya, ra/
V-
khya, U\
Ti

gya, CJ" pya, ^ phya, Q" bya, and &>]' mya. For the number of radicals to which r can
TC \Z rz ^
be affixed, different listings are given. Bio ldan shes rab gives the following ten com-
plex ligatures: H' kra, ra" khra, 01" gra, fT dra, CX pra, L£ phra, O' bra, &X mra, ^J'

sra, and 5' hra. Ngag dbang bstan dar has a total of eleven, adding ^' tra and E" thra,

but omitting mra. A recent grammar of classical Tibetan registers all these plus vCi" sra

(Hahn 1985: 7). The consonant / can be subscribed to six radicals, so that we have H"

kla, 01' gla, CT bla, 3" zla, ^ rla, and SJ' sla. However, Ngag dbang bstan dar remarks
that some (including himself) claim that rla and sla involve the r and s superscripts;

thus f^J la would be the radical, rather than ra and sa. Lastly, according to Tibetan
sources, the w subscript can occur variously under twelve, fifteen, or sixteen radicals,
e.g. H" kwa and ra" khwa. Uniquely, it can also occur as a sub-subscript as in 01' grwa.

Prescript symbols

The five symbols that can be written to the left of certain radicals are g, d, b, m, and
'a chung. The consonant g may occur in front of eleven radicals, d in front of six, b
in front often, m in front of eleven, and 'a chung in front often. Examples are d^l^'
bsad [se] 'killed', S^'V dga [ga] 'virtue'. There are six radicals that never occur
with a prescript: wa, ra, la, ha, and 'a chung.

Superscript symbols

According to later Tibetan traditions, only the radicals ^ r, ^ /, and ^1 s may occur
as superscripts. Of these, r can be placed above thirteen radicals, / above ten, and s

above twelve. In clusters, the consonant r is written in full form only in ^ mya and
^ rla; otherwise it is represented by the symbol -, as in #f rka, jj rga, f ' rna, etc.
 SECTION 40: THE TIBETAN SCRIPT AND DERIVATIVES 435

Postscript symbols

The ten radicals that occur as postscripts are g, n, d, n, b,m, 'a chung, r, /, and s, e.g.

q^<£' bdun [dyn] 'seven'. However, a postscript consonant may represent not the
second consonant in a cluster, but a syllable-final consonant; in that case, vowel dia-
critics are attached to the syllable-initial consonant, e.g. ^C don [tor)] 'pit', but

^T ^i' dnos [rj0:] 'real'. When the vowel is inherent a, the sequence CC is interpreted
as CVC ( ^ ^ dag [tag] T), whereas the sequence CCV is written with an added final
'a chung (K<G\<\' dga [ga] 'virtue').

Post-postscript symbols

Two symbols can be post-postscribed, namely 5 and d. The consonant s can occur af-

ter the four postscribed symbols g, ng, b, and m (e.g. 3WSJ sems [sem] 'mind'); d
can occur after n, r, and /. The latter is called da drag; it is found inconsistently in the

Tibetan Dunhuang manuscripts as well as sometimes in later manuscripts. It was of-

ficially discontinued in the ninth century, but Bio ldan shes rab (1059-1109) states

that some writers still chose to use it. Two examples of complex syllables are:

Q^Q^j" bsgrubs [cjjub] 'established', 01^' gyurd [kjur] 'became'.

Additional features
A supplementary symbol of Tibetan script is the CJ^c&oy bar tsheg 'intermediate

dot', which serves to separate syllables from each other. It is found at the upper right-
hand corner of the radical or, in the case of a more complex syllable, at the upper
right-hand corner of the final element. This symbol permits the distinction between,

e.g., £T^|" basa and d^T bsa. The entire syllabic complex with such an intermediate
dot is sometimes called a c&oypW tsheg khyim 'dot-house'.

In Tibetan dictionaries, the canonical order applies first to the radical of each syl-
lable —then to postscripts, subscripts, prescripts, and superscripts, in that order. Thus,
under the radical U\ ga, the syllables d]^' gad, 13\ gya, ^°\ dga , and tff rga occur
in that order.

A special feature of Tibetan writing, particularly in manuscripts, is the frequent

reduction of (a) a single symbol, (b) two symbols within one syllable, (c) a single syl-
lable, and (d) a multi-syllabic unit to their barest graphic minimum. There is no hard
and fast rule for this, and manuscripts frequently lack consistency. The best survey of
abbreviations is still Bacot 19 12.
The pronunciation of modern Tibetan differ greatly from that indicated by the
written language, and shows much variation among dialects (the text sample below
 :

436 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 40.3: Numerals

I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

9 \ <Zs V ^> L Q
I V

displays the Central Tibetan vernacular). In general, syllable-initial and -final clusters
are greatly reduced, and the vowel inventory is greatly increased (for details, see
Goldstein 1991).
The Tibetan numerals are shown in table 40.3.

Sample of Tibetan

1. Dbu can script: *^^ q§£" gc^]" ^' ^ ^' ^r \

2. Transliteration: spyir bstan grans ries tshig phrad dan /

h h h
3. Pronunciation: tf i ten fjarj rje ts ig [ je t arj

4. Gloss: general in number determiner word particle and

2. 'phul dan brtenpa'i spafi blan dan// dmigs gsal so sor

h h h
3- p y t arj tenpaj pan. larj t arj migse sosor
4. prefix and based.of reject accept and supplement various

1. ^Q *r| or
r
2. dbye ba ste / rnam pa lna yis bsdus pa yin /

3. jajwa te nampa ji: dypa Jin

4. adv division rubric five by summary is

'In general [the subject-matter of this text] is summarized under five rubrics: the

numerical determination [of graphs and ligatures], the particlefs], what is to be

accepted or rejected about prefix[es] and postcript[s], and various classifications
of additional matters.' — Bio Man sites rab, fol. 1.

The Lepcha script

According to tradition, the Lepcha (or Rong) script (table 40.4) was devised in

1720 by Raja Phyag-rdor-rnam-rgyal of the Tibetan dynasty in Sikkim (India). It is

based on Tibetan writing with some influence from Burmese script (section 42), and
exhibits Chinese influence in that it was formerly written in columns from right to

left. The 90 turn accounts for the unusual indication of syllable-closing consonants
with superposed diacritics rather than conjuncts (Haarh 1959; Chakraborty 1978).
 SECTION 40: THE TIBETAN SCRIPT AND DERIVATIVES 437

TABLE 4O.4: The Lepcha Script

^ ka (S kha (* g<* r na kak ka

-0 ca X cha Q ja ^ na £ kam -ei ka

A
<$ ta ^ tha * da a na kal 5* ki

3 pa tf pha ba % ma 1? kan 5* ki

o tsa o& tsha 4 za kap (•e ko

t ya r ra CO la wa kar a ko

e sa G» sa i kat
*) ku

a
\f ha X a Z fa kV,i *3 ku

kan ke

a. Must be used with a vowel sign; for short -a-, the form immediately below is used.

The 'Phags pa script

Historical background
The 'Phags pa script is named for its creator, the Tibetan monk 'Phags pa Bio gros
rgyal mtshan ( 1 235-1 280), the fifth patriarch of the Sa skya pa school of Tibetan Bud-
dhism. Having been appointed guoshi 'National Preceptor' in 1264 by emperor Qu-
bilai ("Kubla Khan," r. 1 260-1 294), he was ordered to devise a script in which all the

languages of his empire could be written, including Tibetan, Uyghur, Mongolian, and
Chinese. 'Phags pa resided in Tibet from 1264 to 1267, and returned to the imperial
court in 1268. According to such Chinese sources as the Fozulidai tongzhdn 'General
record of successive Buddhist patriarchs' by the monk Nien Chang (1284-?) and the
Yudnshi 'History of the Yuan' edited by Song Lian (13 10-138 1), he completed his
work on this script in 1269. The available literature on its creation is scanty and frag-
mentary in the extreme, and it is very curious that neither of the main biographies of
'Phags pa by his Tibetan disciples comments on it; one of these was even commis-
sioned by the heir apparent. Although this script known in the secondary literature
is

as the '"Phags pa script," this is not how it is known among the Tibetans or the Mon-
gols. The former usually refer to it as the hor gsar yig 'new Mongolian script', and
on one early occasion simply as the hor yi ge 'Mongolian script', as opposed to the

yu gur yi ge 'Uighur script'. The Mongols themselves call it the dorbeljin tistig

'square or quadratic script'. In Chinese it is variously called mengguxinzi 'new Mon-

golian script', menggu zi 'Mongolian script', gudzi 'national script', and minggu
chudnzi 'Mongolian seal script'.
438 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table
'

40.5: Phags pa Consonants

h
3T| k [k] fE5 k' [k ] =1 g [g] rcq
q [q] rig Y [y] ri [i]]

s c [if] 3B c' ItT] J [*] n=i n [P]

h
=3q c Its] =3q c' [ts ] =a 3 [dz]

rr=i t [t] B t'

h
[t ] r^ d [d] 5=q n [n]

an,
cUI p [p] S3 p
l

[p
h
] S3 b fb] C5 f [f] *4 m [m]

uu y Ul ^ i 111 =1= r [r] raj 1 [i] w [w] -a u [u]

**v| s [si SI s m ^ z [z] rs* z [3] Co h [h] rs

5
[?]

General characteristics

The 'Phags pa script, although derived mainly from the Tibetan dbu can script, is

written vertically, in columns from left to right. Typologically, 'Phags pa resembles

its alphasyllabic Indie prototype in that the basic symbols denote consonants
(table 40.5) with the inherent vowel a, and initial vowels have special symbols
(table 40.6). However, vowel diacritics are not written above and below conso-
nants, as in Indie and Tibetan; rather, they are written linearly, after the consonants

which precede them in pronunciation, as in an alphabet. Thus —o is a diacritic over

the initial consonant cluster in the Tibetan word ^"§" rdo 'diamond', written
rje
^
in 'Phags pa; in 'Phags pa, the symbol ^ o follows the consonant cluster. In addition
to the symbols adapted from Tibetan and Indie, 'Phags pa contains symbols to accom-
modate sounds peculiar to Chinese and Mongolian.

Geographic distribution

Although 'Phags pa was originally conceived as a script for Qubilai's multi-national

empire, its use during Qubilai's time and the Yuan dynasty as a whole (until 1368)
was sporadic at best. Documents surviving in it include epigraphic material, official
tablets and seals, and some printed texts, mainly in Mongolian and Chinese. (For the

table 40.6: 'Phags pa Vowels

Ini- Not Ini- Not Ini- Not Ini- Not
tial init. Tr'lit. Value tial init. Tr'lit. Value tial init. Tr'lit. Value tial init. Tr'lit. Value

C<1 <TV| 'i [i] « hi [i] m S3 "u [y] ^5 ~<* 'u [u]

a 'e fe] H ^ "6 [0] 7*Z y^. 'o [0]

UN "a [a] £J =4 "a [aej H "O [0:] Z^ /K '6

[0:]

S^ "ai |i:| m =i "ae [ei] H ^ "iie [yi] m ^ 'ue [ui]

13 W "ayi [ai] S m "ayi [ei] £ £ *oyi foil

 SECTION 40: THE TIBETAN SCRIPT AND DERIVATIVES 439

most thorough study of the script in Mongolian documents, see Poppe 1957.) While
discontinued elsewhere, it remained in use in the Tibetan cultural area, including
those areas populated by Mongols who were Tibetan Buddhists, as an ornamental
script and on seals of ranking dignitaries and religious hierarchs (Schuh 1981, Ou
Zhaogui 1 991). Some scholars believe that the Korean King Seycong (r. 14 18-1450)
was in part inspired by this script for his creation of the onmun 'vulgar script', now
known as hankul, as opposed to Chinese characters (section 17). However, he aban-
doned its relative graphic clumsiness and ambiguity, and went well beyond it in a

number of ways (Ledyard 1966: 331-70).

Sample of Mongolian
Prepared by Gyorgy Kara
i m 1 ^ s g @

^ m ^ m ^

s ^ § a
m «
I UN

an

5 *
5 s
m
5^1 Si

raj

m
i
 .

440 PART VI: SOUTH ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. Transliteration: ce ri 'u dun no yad da ce rig ha ra na ba la qa dun /

2. Normalization: ceri'ti-dtin noyad-da cerig hara-na balaqa-dun

5. Gloss: soldiers-of lords-to soldier man-to cities-of

1 da ru qas da no yad da yor ci qun ya bu qun el / ci ne

2. daruqas-da noyad-da yorci-qun yabu-qun elci-ne
3. commanders-to lords-to proceeding-PL going-PL envoy-to

1. d'ul qa que / jar liq / jiri gis q' nu / 'eo keo dee q' nu / se cen
2. dulqaqui jarliq Jinggis qanu Okodei qanu Secen
3. letting. hear edict Chinggis emperor's Ogodei emperor's Wise

/. q' nu / 'eol jee tu q' nu/ keu lug q' nu ba jar liq dur

2. qanu Oljeitii qanu Kiiliig qanu ba jarliq-dur

3. emperor's Fortunate emperor's Kiiliig emperor's also edict-in

/. do yid er ke 'ud sen shi riud '

li ba al ba qub ci ri

2. doyid erke'ud sensingud aliba alba qubciri

3. Buddhist.monks Christian.priests Taoist.priests any levies tax

/. 'eu lu 'eu jen

2. ulii iijen

3. not seeing

'Edict to be obeyed by army officers, soldiers, commandants of cities, lords,

and traveling envoys. In the edicts of the Chinggis Emperor (= Genghis Khan),
of emperor Ogodei, of the Wise Emperor (= Qubilai Sechen), of the Fortunate
Emperor (also: Temiir), and also of emperor Kiiliig, [it is stated that] Buddhist
monks, Christian priests, and Taoist priests [Chinese xiansheng] are exempt
from taxes.'
— From one of the edicts 0/1314 of the Mongol emperor Ay urbarvada
(Ligeti 1972, no. 6, lines 4-12 = Poppe 1957, pi. II).

Bibliography

Bacot, Jacques. 19 12. "L'Ecriture cursive tibet'dine." Journal Asiatique ser. 10, 19: 5-78.
Beyer, Stephan V. 1991. The Classical Tibetan Language. Albany: State University of New York
Press.
Bio ldan shes rab (1 059-1 109). Rngog Lo tsa ba: Dag yig nye mkho bsdus pa [A summary of es-
sentials of correct spelling], 9 folios. Beijing: Cultural Palace of Nationalities, ms. 004323(9).

Bsod nams rtse mo (1 142-1 182). "Yi ge'i bklag thabs byis pa bde blag tu 'jug pa" [The manner in

which graphs are read aloud: An easy introduction for children]. In Sa skya pal bka' 'bum
(Collection of texts belonging to the Sa skya pa school of Tibetan Buddhism], vol. 2. Tokyo:
Toyo Bunko, 1968, p. 345, plate 4; p. 349, plate 4.
Chakraborty, Ashit. 1978. Read Lepcha. Calcutta: Kanakdhara.
Chandra, Lokesh. 1982. Indian Scripts in Tibet. New Delhi: Sharada Rani.
 SECTION 40: THE TIBETAN SCRIPT AND DERIVATIVES 44 J

Csoma de Koros, Alexander. 1834. A Grammar of the Tibetan Language in English. Calcutta: Asi-
atic Society of Bengal. Repr. New York: Altai, 1969; New Delhi: Nawang Topgyal, 1983.
Goldstein, Melvyn. 1991. Essentials of Modern Literary Tibetan. Berkeley and Los Angeles: Uni-
versity of California Press.
Haarh, Erik. 1959. "The Lepcha Script." Acta Orientalia (Copenhagen) 24: 107-22.
Hahn, Michael. 1985. Lehrbuch der klassischen tibetischen Schriftsprache (Indica et Tibetica 10).
Bonn: Indica et Tibetica Verlag.

Junast/Zhaonasltu. 1990-91. Bdsibdzi he menggu yu wenxidn, I-II [The 'Phags pa script and the
Mongolian language monuments]. Tokyo: Tokyo Gaikokugo Daigaku.
Ledyard, Gari K. 1966. "The Korean Language Reform of 1446: The Origin, Background, and Ear-
ly History of the Korean Alphabet." Ph.D. dissertation, Columbia University.
Ligeti, Louis. 1972. Monuments en ecriture 'phags-pa; Pieces de chancellerie en transcription chi-
noise. Budapest: Akademiai Kiado.
Miller, Roy Andrew. 1956. The Tibetan System of Writing. Washington, D.C.: American Council of
Learned Societies.
Ngag dbang bstan dar (1759- ca. 1840). Yi ge'i bshadpa mkhaspai khc rgyan [An explanation of
graphs/phonemes: A scholar's mouth-ornament]. Beijing: Mi rigs dpe skrun khang, 1982.
Ou Zhaogui et al., eds. 1991. Xlzdng lidai zdng yin [Official seals in the history of Tibet]. Lhasa:
Xizang renmin chubanshe.
Poppe, Nicholas. 1957. Mongolian Monuments in hP'ags pa Script, trans. John R. Krueger (Got-
tinger Asiatische Forschungen 8). Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Rona-Tas, Andras. 1985. Wiener Vorlesungen zur Sprach- und Kulturgeschichte Tibets. Vienna: Ar-
beitskreis fur Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universitat Wien.
Scharlipp, Wolfgang Ekkehard, and Dieter Back. 1989. Einfuhrung in die tibetische Schrift. Ham-
burg: Buske.
Schuh, Dieter. 1981. Grundlagen tibetischer Siegelkunde: Eine Untersuchung uber tibetische
Siegelaufschriften in 'Phags-pa-Schrift (Monumenta Tibetica Historica 5). Sankt Augustin,
Austria: VGH Wissenschaftsverlag.
Tuna, Osman Nedim, and James Bosson. 1962. "A Mongolian 'Phags-pa text and Its Turkish Trans-
lation in the 'Collection of Curiosities'." Journal de la Societe Finno-Ougrienne 63: 3-16.
Tshul khrims phun tshogs (1783-?). "Bod kyi brda yang dag par sbyor tshul gyi bstan bcos brda
sprod nyi shu bdun pa'i rang 'grel gshen bstan gsal ba'i nyi ma" [A treatise on the correct join-
ing of Tibetan linguistic signs, an autocommentary on (a text on) linguistics consisting of twen-
ty-seven (quatrains); A sun that illuminates Gshen's teachings]. In Five Bonpo Texts for the
Study of Grammar, Poetics and Lexicography, pp. 383-583. Dolanji, Himachal Pradesh, India:
Bonpo Monastic Centre, 1985.
van der Kuijp, Leonard W. J. 1993. "Two Mongol Xylographs (hor par ma) of the Tibetan Text of

Sa skya Pandita's Work on Buddhist Logic and Epistemology." Journal of the International
Association of Buddhist Studies 16: 279-98.
Weiers, Michael. 1967. "Die Entwicklung der mongolischen Schriften." Studiwn Gene rale 20:

470-79.
 Part VII: Southeast Asian
Writing Systems

Southeast Asia consists of those Asian territories (together with their ad-
jacent seas) that lie, so to speak, "between" India and China, i.e. to the east of India
and to the south of China. It includes the modern states of Burma, Thailand, Laos,
Cambodia, Vietnam, Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines. The region is further
divided into the mainland and the islands, and a further division exists between the
coastal regions and the hinterlands. Yet another distinction is into the plains and river
valleys, on the one hand, and the hills and mountains on the other. These geographical
divisions have been important economically, politically, and culturally. For instance,
states and writing systems are found only in the lowlands of mainland Southeast Asia,
and on some of the islands.
As regards climate, the monsoons or seasonal winds have always been of im-
mense significance. Not only do they bring the rains that are necessary to life, but the
winds made it possible, before the age of motorized travel, to cross the seas by sail.

Early trade routes to Southeast Asia lay on the maritime route between China, on
the one hand, and India, Persia, Arabia, and Europe on the other. Ships on this voyage
had to pass the island of Sumatra, either up the east coast and through the Straits of
Malacca, or through the Sunda Straits and up the west coast. Not only was it neces-
sary for ships plying this route to call at ports in Southeast Asia, but Southeast Asia
also had commodities of itsown which were eagerly sought in the outside world;

hence it was a trading destination in its own right.

The significance of Brahmi-based script in Southeast Asia can be appreciated
from the fact that, until Islam introduced the Arabic script in the first half of the sec-
ond millennium, derivatives of Brahmi were the only writing systems in existence,
except in northern Vietnam (where the ancestors of the modern Vietnamese were then
living), which originally used the Chinese script. Furthermore, the national scripts of
modern Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia are simply local developments of
Brahmi. What is more, the Brahmi script spread through Southeast Asia peacefully,
so far as we can tell, in contrast to the Chinese script, which spread to Vietnam
through Chinese conquest and forced Sinicization. Brahmi-based scripts are now
used to write languages of several different families: Mon (of Burma) and Khmer (of

443
444 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

Cambodia) are Austro-Asiatic; Thai and Lao, as well as Shan (of Burma), are Tai lan-
guages; Karen (of Burma) and Burmese are Tibeto-Burman; Javanese and other lan-

guages of Indonesia and the Philippines are Austronesian.

The Brahmi script spread through Southeast Asia as part of the phenomenon of
Indianization — the spread of Indian learning (and the Sanskrit and Pali languages in
which it was expressed), Indian art and architecture, Indian epics, the Indian religions
of Hinduism and Buddhism, Indian principles of state organization and law, Indian
court ceremonies, and Indian alphabets. Because of these connections, mainland
Southeast Asia has sometimes been called Farther India. We do not know exactly how
this Indian influence began, since the dawn of Southeast Asian history presents us
with already Indianized states. But the process continued for centuries into the histor-
ical period, and took place in several successive waves. All parts of India, but mostly
the south, played a part. Curiously, the vocabulary of the ancient Indian vernaculars,
as opposed to bookish and technical borrowings, has left virtually no trace in the lan-

guages of the Indianized states of Southeast Asia.

— Christopher Court
SECTION

The Spread of Brahmi Script into

Southeast Asia
Christopher Court

The beginnings of writing

As de Casparis (1975: 12) tells us, the earliest known examples of writing in South-
some brief inscriptions on seals, intaglios, rings and similar precious ob-
east Asia are
jects, discovered at the ancient site of Oc-eo, not far from Rach-gia near the west
coast of the Ca-mau peninsula in what is now southern Vietnam. However, since Oc-
eo was an important trading center and most of the objects discovered there originate
from elsewhere (often from the Indian subcontinent), there is no proof that the objects
were actually inscribed in Southeast Asia. For this reason this script cannot properly
be classified as Southeast Asian. The inscriptions are in Indian script and are datable
to the period from the second to the fifth century c.e. The first Indian inscription of
some length found in Southeast Asia is on the stela of Vo-canh — a granite block in-
scribed in Sanskrit on two faces, found near the village of Vo-canh in the province of
Khanh-hoa, in present-day southern Vietnam. It has been assigned to the third century
c.e. and either to the ancient state of Champa or to
Funan. About the end of the fourth
century or the beginning of the some inscriptions were written in Quang-nam,
fifth,

Phu-yen, and Tra-kieu in what is now Vietnam. These are in Sanskrit, except for a
highly significant one that uses the same alphabet but is in the Old Cham language.
Not only is the latter the oldest text in a language belonging to the Austronesian fam-
ily (although its speakers lived, as their descendants still live, on the Southeast Asian
mainland), but it is in exactly the same script as the Sanskrit inscriptions; this marks
the first known instance of a Southeast Asian language being written, and written, in
fact, in an Indian alphabet.
On the Malay peninsula, inscriptions go back no further than the fourth century,
and these are in Sanskrit. In what is now Thailand
(outside the Malay peninsula), the
Sanskrit inscriptions found at Si Thep on the Sak River cannot be more recent than
the fifth or sixth century, and are some of the earliest examples of Indian script from
that territory. In the Indonesian archipelago, as Coedes says (1968: 18), the Sanskrit

inscriptions of Mulavarman in the region of Kutai, east Borneo, date back to the be-
ginning of the fifth century, and those of Purnavarman in the western part of Java, to
the middle of the fifth century.

445
446 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

It should be noted that the types of script that have spread in Southeast Asia all

seem to originate from the south of India. North Indian varieties have been employed
here and there, but unlike the South Indian forms, they have not given rise to national
alphabets (Damais 1955:368-69). As Damais goes on to say (pp. 369-70),

The type of alphabet of South India which proved to be the most important, and
whose destiny in Southeast Asia was to be so brilliant, is also the one which has
delivered the most ancient specimens known in this region [apart from those of
Oc-eo and Vo-canh]. It is called Pallava from the name of the Indian dynasty of
the Pallavas which seems to have created it. It is to be found with minor vari-
ants in Fu-nan [in present-day southern Vietnam and Cambodia], in Champa [in

the center and south of present-day Vietnam], in Cambodia, in the Mon country
[in the Chaophraya River basin in Thailand], in Sunda (West Java), in Central
and East Java, in East Kalimantan (Borneo), in Sumatra (where it lasted for a

longer time), and in the Malay peninsula.

However, Nagaraju (1984) claims that we are dealing here not just with Pallava, but
with a number of south Indian scripts (see also de Casparis 1979: 382-87). The vari-
ations in this script reflect not only the evolution of Pallava script in the course of four
centuries but also the emergence of local Southeast Asian varieties (de Casparis 1975:

14).

Indigenization of Indian scripts

The first stage of adaptation of Brahmi-based scripts in Southeast Asia consists of the
local writing of Indian languages in such scripts. Inscriptions prove that not only the
languages —mostly Sanskrit but also Pali and Tamil —but also the scripts were indeed
in use in Southeast Asia. The second stage, in which Southeast Asian languages are
reduced to writing by using Indian or Indian-derived scripts, has been mentioned with
regard to an early inscription in Old Cham; there are likewise inscriptions in Old
Khmer, Old Malay, Old Javanese, Old Balinese, etc. The third stage of Indianization
consists of local developments and variations in the scripts, with no counterpart in In-

dia. Thus one may note parallel or even identical developments of the letter shapes in
different parts of Southeast Asia, which some cases extend to south India and Sri
in

Lanka as well; but these parallel developments seem to end by the late eighth century,
when the scripts begin to diverge and adopt separate regional forms (de Casparis
1979: 387-88). A north Indian script which spread to the Deccan and South India, to

Sri Lanka, and to parts of Southeast Asia was the Nagari script in an early form (also
called Pre-Nagari or, by Damais 1955: 369, siddhamdtrka or siddham). The spread of
this alphabet into Southeast Asia was in most cases closely associated with Bud-

dhism, especially in its Mahayana variant. There are, however, non-Buddhist exam-
ples, including inscriptions in Angkor, Cambodia: as stated by de Casparis (1979:

394), Angkor contains

 SECTION 41 : THE SPREAD OF BRAHMI SCRIPT INTO SOUTHEAST ASIA 447

a dozen digraphic Sanskrit inscriptions, all giving the same text in both Early
Nagari and Early Khmer script [a development stemming from South India],
dealing with the foundation by Yasovarman (ca. 889-900) of [Hindu] hermit-
ages. . . . This Cambodian Nagari, though essentially quite similar to the script
of the eighth-century Javanese [Early Nagari] inscriptions, shows some peculiar
stylistic features, notably the [characteristic] notched head marks. These are not
found in this form in Indian Nagari, as far as known to [the writer], but are
actually identical with the head marks of the contemporary Khmer script.

In other words, in Cambodia at that time a specifically Khmer script had evolved; and
even the coexisting, recently introduced, Early Nagari script had taken on a specifi-

cally Cambodian style.

Modern times bring the contemporary national scripts such as those of the Bur-
mese, the Lao, and the Thai, as well as the obsolescent national scripts of the Mon.
Javanese, Sundanese, Balinese, Cham, etc., as well as tribal scripts in Sumatra and the
Philippines. For writing languages such as Khmer and Thai, with their non-Indie
vowels and consonants —and especially Thai with its tones —ingenious adaptations
of the scripts were undertaken. Thus Cambodian script, among other innovations,
records the distinction between ordinary voiced b [b] and d [d], now shifted to voice-
less [p, t], and implosive b [6] and d [d] (section 44). The Thai script, as well as
keeping a separate letter or sign for every sound of Sanskrit and Pali, shows additional
signs for vowels: long and short open ae [e], long and short open o [o], short close
e [e], long and short oe [v], long and short u [ui], the diphthongs ia [ia], ua [us],

u a [ui3], and the corresponding "short" diphthongs [is?, us?, uia?] (section 43).
Also distinguished are the Ancient Thai diphthong [aui] and the consonant [f], plus
the Ancient Thai consonant sounds [x], [y], [z], and [v], plus four of the five modern
tones. What is more, the Thai alphabet dispensed with Indie subscript consonants and
independent vowel symbols. Such indigenous developments, like other aspects of In-
dian-derived culture in Southeast Asia, make clear that the Southeast Asians were no
mere passive imitators of things Indian, but creative selectors, developers, and adap-
tors.

For more on Indianization, see de Casparis 1975, 1979; Coedes 1966, 1968;
Damais 1955; Mabbett 1977; SarDesai 1989; and Sarkar 1968. A concise history of
the Southeast Asian scripts is given in Hosking and Meredith-Owens 1966: 35-41.
For samples of Indian script in Southeast Asia, see Chhabra 1965, Damais 1955,
Holle 1882, Jensen 1970: 387-98, Nagaraju 1984, and Filliozat 1953. Note that Jen-
sen 1970, though giving many fine illustrations of Southeast Asian scripts, is out of
date in some of its ethnic or language names, and in its derivation of all the Southeast

Asian scripts from North India.

For an illustration of the development of a Brahmi character in several Southeast
Asian scripts, see figure 55.
448 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

JF Indian Pallava prototype

600

650

700

750

800

850

900

950
1000
1050
1 100
1 150
1200

1250

1300

1350
1400
1450
1500

1550
1600

1650

1700
1750
1800
1850
1900
1950 (1ST)

Java Lampurj Mon/ Thai Lao Khmer Cham of Cham of Tagalog

^O ^
Sumatra Burmese Cambodia Vietnam

figure 55. Family tree of the akshara ta in Southeast Asian scripts. Pallava prototype from Filliozat
r
953 697; other forms from Damais 1955,
: fig. 15.
 .

SECTION 41: THE SPREAD OF BRAHMI SCRIPT INTO SOUTHEAST ASIA 449

Bibliography

Chhabra, Bahadur Chand. 1965. Expansion of Indo-Aryan Culture during Pallava Rule. Delhi:
Munshi Ram Manohar Lai.
Coedes, Georges. 1966. The Making of South East Asia. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul.
.
1968. The Indianized States of Southeast Asia, ed. Walter F. Vella, trans. Susan Brown
Cowing. Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii.
Damais, Louis-Charles. 1955. "Les ecritures d'origine indienne en Indonesie et dans le Sud-Est Asi-
atique continental." Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Indochinoises n.s. 30: 365-82.
de Casparis, J. G. 1975. Indonesian Palaeography: A History of Writing in Indonesia from the Be-
ginnings to c. A.D. 1500 (Handbuch der Orientalistik, division 3, vol. 4, fasc. 1). Leiden: Brill.

.
1979. "Palaeography as an Auxiliary Discipline in Research on Early South East Asia." In
Early South East Asia: Essays in Archaeology, History and Historical Geography, ed. Ralph
B. Smith and William Watson, pp. 380-94. New York: Oxford University Press.
Filliozat, Jean. 1953. "Paleographie." Appendix 1 in LTnde classique: Manuel des etudes indiennes,
ed. Louis Renou and Jean Filliozat, vol. 2, pp. 665-712. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale.
Holle, Karel Frederik. 1882. Tabel van Oud- en Nieuw-Indische Alphabetten. Batavia: Bruining.
Hosking, R. F, and G. M. Meredith-Owens. 1966. A Handbook of Asian Scripts. London: British
Museum.
Jensen, Hans. 1970. Sign, Symbol and Script: An Account of Man's Efforts to Write, 3rd ed., trans.
George Unwin. London: George Allen and Unwin.
Mabbett, Ian W. 1977. "The 'Indianization' of Southeast Asia: Reflections on the Historical Sourc-
es." Journal of Southeast Asian Studies 8: 1 43-6 1

Nagaraju, S. 1984. "The Palaeography of the Earliest Inscriptions of Burma, Thailand, Cambodia
and Vietnam." In Svasti Sri: Dr. B. Ch. Chhabra Felicitation Volume, ed. K. V. Ramesh et al.,

pp. 67-80. Delhi: Agam Kala Prakashan.

SarDesai, D. R. 1989. Southeast Asia, Past and Present. Boulder, Colo.: Westview.
Sarkar, Kalyan K. 1968. Early Indo-Cambodian Contacts, Literary and Linguistic. Santiniketan.
West Bengal, India: Visva-Bharati.
SECTION 42

Burmese Writing
Julian K. Wheatley

History
The Burmese script, attested in stone inscriptions at least as far back as the early
twelfth century c.e., is a phonologically based script, adapted from Mon, and ulti-

mately based on an Indian (Brahmi) prototype. (Several other scripts closely resem-
ble the Burmese, including the Tai Yai script, which is the most widely used for the
Shan language and is of considerable antiquity. Some Karen scripts devised in more
recent times are explicitly modeled on Burmese.) Traditionally, it is thought that Mon
scribes, brought to the city of Pagan after the sack of their capital by the Burmese king
Anawrahta in 1057 c.e., provided the stimulus for adapting the Mon script to the

writing of Burmese. There have been some changes since the inscriptional period,
most notably: consistent use of the "rounded" rather than the "square" style of letters,

changes in permissible combinations of vowel and final consonant signs, and stabili-

zation of the system for marking tones.

Symbols
For the examples that follow, transliterations are given in a slightly modified version
of the "standard" Blagden-Duroiselle system (summarized by Okell 1971). This sys-
tem tends to go beyond the internal evidence of the Burmese script, assigning Mon
and Indian values to the letters.

table 42. 1 shows the 33 consonant signs of Burmese arranged in traditional or-

der (reading left to right), which, except for the final position of 30 (the vowel sup-
port), accords with Indian phonetic order. Some works, including Judson's Burmese-
English Dictionary (1966), place 3? first rather than last. Letters generally have de-
scriptive names (Roop 1972: 1 19-22), e.g. 00 so coo tha-chah-thil: 'elephant fetter
h
[t a]', though some, including most of the sonorants, are simply named by their

sound: o is [ma], 30 is [a], etc.

Boxed consonants in the table are those that occur finally as well as initially in
native syllables, though many others occur finally in Indie loanwords. (Final -y marks
a tone.) The palatal nasal p, rare as an initial, has come to be used to write only the
c c
nasalized reflexes of the -ah rhyme: thus pooo hhahh: [pi].
cog hhah [pi], but

Certain of the -m rhymes are spelled with a superscript circle - (anusvara) rather
than the ordinary consonant sign: 000 sim: [Gel], but 00 sum: [960].

450
 SECTION 42: BURMESE WRITING 45]

table 42.1: Consonants

Voiceless Stops Voiced Stops

Unaspirated Aspirated Unaspirated Aspirated Nasals

h
Velar CO k [k] s> kh [k ] g [g] yo gh [g] Q n [q]

h
Palatal © c [s] so ch [s ] @ j [z] jh [z] nn [p]
©J

n [p]
2
h
Retroflex c ! [t] Q th [t ] d [d] a dh [d] GD n [n
R
h
Dental OO t [t] CO th [t ] 3 d [d] dh [d] n [n

Labial O P [Pi O ph [p
h
] b [b] OO bh [b] m [rr

SONORANTS

y Lj] S| r [j] co 1 [1] o w [w] 00 s [9]

CO h [h] 33 P]
g i ffl

Dictionary order for rhymes is not as well established as for consonants. In gen-
eral, dictionaries agree on the Indian order of vowels a ail u u e at o 6 ui, but they
differ as to the order of tonal variants, and of irregular features such as the initial vow-
el signs and anusvara. There are two major conventions: one takes the spoken lan-

guage as basic, consistently listing tones in the order creaky, low, high, placing

anusvara with -m, placing the initial and diacritic versions of vowels together, and
placing the -ay rhyme with -at. The other tradition, current in most Burmese dictio-

naries, takes writing as basic, and thus orders tones differently, according to whether

they are inherent or not; separates anusvara from final -m, -ay from -ai\ and so on (cf.

Okell 1994 for details).

table 42.2 shows the main vowel and tone combinations in open syllables; all

diacritic vowels are given with the vowel support sign (pronounced [?]). A tall version
of the sign -o a is used when the combinations of consonant and vowel would be con-
fused with other consonants; thus o p + -o a is written ol pa [pa] to avoid confusion

with lo h. The sharply reduced distribution of vowels and finals in regular rhymes is

shown in table 42.3.

General characteristics
The main features of Burmese script are as follows.

(a) It is written left to right; spaces separate phrases, not words. Punctuation is

usually limited to the symbols 1 and 11, borrowed from Indie scripts. These correspond
roughly to comma (or semicolon) and period, respectively.
452 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 42.2: Vowels and Tones (open syllables)

Front Vowels Central Vowels Back Vowels

Tone Initial Diacritic Initial Diac ritic Initial Diacritic

Primary Vowel s

creaky en 33 i [i] 33 - a [a] u [u]

2 L
3?
©
low 33 I [i] -0 330 a [a]
3? [u]
a) 2 IT

©
high -0 330 u:[u]
33. i: [1] a: [a]
2 IL H
Mid Vowels
High O O
<3 G- G33 e [e]
3? ui [0]
low L

O O
high G-l G33 e:[e]
L
ui: [6]

O O
creaky Gr 633 e [e] 3? ui [6]
L

Low c C
-CO 33 GO ay[e] g[ooo G^3 G330 [o]
low

high 1 33 ai [e]
g G^3 G330 [0]

creaky 1 33 ai [e] G^J G330 [5]

(b) Consonants written without a vowel sign contain an inherent vowel: « war, co
/a. However, the vowel may be canceled by a "killing stroke" over the consonant; thus
§ is syllable-final m. Other vowels are indicated with diacritics (cf. table 42.2): 8
mi, «• mu, go me, go ma, g^td mo [mo], ^ mui [mo], etc. The vowel signs also contain
inherent tones. Burmese has three tones in non-checked syllables, called the "creaky"
{ma [ma], high, short with globalized voice), the "low" {ma [ma], low, long), and the
"high" {ma: [ma], high, long). Mon was not tonal, but for the vowels a, i, and u it does
have short syllables ending in glottal stop that must have sounded very similar to Bur-
mese creaky were written with what in Indie terms is the "short" ver-
tone. Since these
sion of the vowel, thesame convention was carried over to Burmese to indicate creaky
tone: <y ma [ma], 8 mi [mi], o mu [mil]. The "long" version is used for low- and high-
toned open syllables: 00 ma [ma], § mi [mi], ^ mu [mu]; 00 ma: [ma], § mi: [mi],
^ mu: [mu]. Historically closed syllables are written with the "short" vowels (yco
mat [ma?] etc.), and those ending in written nasals are inherently low-toned: o| man
[ma], y y min [meT], «I mun [mou].
Since only the three primary vowels a i u had two versions, tonal marking of the
mid vowels used entirely different devices. The mid-high vowels in open syllables are

inherently low-toned: go me
[me]; § mui [mo]. But their mid-low counterparts in
open syllables are inherently high-toned: o£ Iwai [lwe], goo mo [mo]. These are
marked for low tone as follows: c^uo Iway [lwe], with a "killed" v; and ggo mo [mo],
with the "killing stroke," which in this case derives from a killed w, o. For all cases
 SECTION 42: BURMESE WRITING 453

table 42.3: Regular Rhymes

-n -h -ft -m -* -c -/
-P

c c ,c c c
a 33C 33 00/g 33^> 33© 33 OO 33© 33 OO 330
[?1] [?i/i] [?a] [?a] L?e?] [?i?] [?a?] [?a?]
c c c c
i
33
^ 33© 33 OO 330
[?ei] Rel] [?ei?] [?ei?]
c
u 39 3^00 3^0
[?ou] [?OU] [?ou?] [?ou?]

G330C G330 00O0

[?au] [?au?]
c c
ui 3^C 3^00
[?aT] [?ai?]

where the tones are not inherent, tones are specifically marked: High tone is marked
by visarga ( , Sanskrit /?), possibly in recognition of the slight breathiness sometimes
associated with that tone; and creaky tone is indicated with a subscript dot: thus goo
[se], goo [se], goo [se].

(c) In the written syllable, final consonants are distinguished from initial by a su-
perscript hook (the "killer"), which suppresses the inherent vowel: oooo tat [ta?].

(d) In most native words, initial vowels are written as diacritics with the vowel
support sign 30 (33 1, 3^ u, G3oo o, etc.).

Points (e)-(g) concern signs or combinations of signs that are mostly found in In-
dian loanwords.
(e) In some words — particularly Indian loanwords — special initial vowel signs

(akkhard) are used: @ (= 033) e in @spooo erdwatl 'Irawaddy river'; (co (= g33o) o
in [00000 ogut 'August'; oj (=33) /", the literary demonstrative 'this'. Only the his-

torical monophthongs have special initial forms, and even then, not always with all

tones (see table 42.2).

(f) In addition to the initial vowels, a number of other signs appear primarily

(though not exclusively) with Indian loanwords. These include the letters for the In-

dian retroflex and voiced aspirate series.

(g) The convention of preserving the original spelling of (mostly) Indian loan-
words has also given rise to a number of "irregular rhymes," where "rhyme" refers to

the vowel-plus-tone portion of a syllable. These have combinations of vowel and final

consonant not usually found in native Burmese material, thus: ©loo dhat 'element'
(cf. Pali dhdtu), pronounced [da?], as if spelled 300 dat\ yco bull 'force' (cf. Pali ba-

la), pronounced [bo], as if cp bui; g©ojog uyydn 'garden' (cf. Pali uyydna\ read [liyl],

as if 33 00 c uyari. Burmese scribes also follow the Indian practice of stacking gemi-
nate and homorganic consonants (cf. Okell 1994 for details): 03 buddha (Pali bud-
454 PART V,I: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

dha) rather than o§q (regular rhyme, ^003); w^god mantale: 'Mandalay' rather
than o
I
00 g co As the last example shows, the top member of a stack
:
. is neither
"killed" nor marked for tone. In general, the second consonant of a cluster is pushed
down to subscript position; but when -ri is the first consonant it is pushed up, and
keeps its killing mark: 39o1g^ arigdne 'Tuesday' (rather than 33co1g^>). In some
cases, the lower member of a stack is abbreviated or reoriented (cf. Okell ibid., "spe-
cial stacks").

(h) The sonorant consonants 00 ya, €j ra, o wa, and uo ha have diacritical or me-
h
dial variants, -j, (3, 3, 7- Thus: ^joo khyak [c e?], [3| mran [mja], Gg mwe: [mwe],
o mha [hma], ^ rha [Ja]. Two medials may cluster on a single consonant: coj Ihya
[hlja] or [Ja]. The Old Burmese of the inscriptions shows a subscript /-, which at-

tests to an earlier medial, later lost through mergers in the standard dialect.

Pronunciation
Particularly in the Central dialects of Burmese, which form the basis of the standard
language, sound changes occurring since the language was reduced to writing have
multiplied or changed the values of many letters. The peripheral dialects, such as Ar-
akanese and Tavoyan, have preserved a number of initial clusters and final consonants
and are a closer reflection of the orthography. The main developments in the standard

language are as follows.

The sets of four final occlusives and four nasals represented in the orthography
are reduced to a single occlusive and a single nasal value. In citation, these are real-

ized as glottal stop [?] and nasalization [~] respectively; thus, coo lup [lou?]; co him:
[160].

Except for the vowel represented by a, vowels have diphthongized in historically

closed syllables, resulting in divergent readings of the sort illustrated by the following
pairs: 8, 8| spelled mi, min, but pronounced [mi], [meT]; <^, <^| spelled nu, nun, but
pronounced [nil], [nou]; ^, yen, spelled pui, puik, but pronounced [po], [pai?]; cop,
Gcpoo spelled ro, rok, but pronounced [p], [jau?].
Combinations of velar (oral) stop and medial -v- or -r- in the orthography are pro-
nounced as palatal stops: (moo krak 'chicken' [ce?]; oojo kyap (the unit of currency)
[ca?|. In all other combinations, 3; and r are read [}]. The palatalization of velars, re-
flected in the reading rule, can be regarded as the last step of a chain of developments
affecting several series of consonants: [s] > [9] (cf. ooo sip 'to put to sleep' [Gei?]),
making way for [c] > [s] etc. (cf. go cd: [sa]), making way for [kj] > [c], etc.

A number of phonological processes (cf. Wheatley 1987) are not represented in

the script. One is sandhi, which affects the realization of sounds at syllable boundaries
in certain grammatically defined contexts. E.g., cyco lu-thu 'crowd' is read [ludii] not
h
[lut u], as suggested by the script. Another process is vocalic weakening, which af-
fects the first syllables of certain words (mostly nouns and adverbs): 00 «c thaman:
h h
'cooked rice' is read [t'bmi] not [t ami]; 00 ^p hhurd: 'god; pagoda' is read [p sya],
 SECTION 42: BURMESE WRITING 455

table 42.4: Abbreviations

Glc >.s.v Source

[ywe] subordinate marker ^oS ruy in Old Burmese

§
(gii [i] genitive/declarative marker (§33 e in Old Burmese

c c
[hnai?] locative marker nhuik
§
c
qc [lagau] 'this, the same' COOO?GOOOC lann>kori:

TABLE 42.5: Numerals

O 1 2 3 4 5 678 9 10

O 3
J ? 9 3 6 ^ o e °°

h h
not [p uya]. The last example, in which initial bh is read [p ] rather than [b], is typical

of the occasional irregularities that affect initial stops.

Miscellaneous signs and modifications

There are orthographic conventions for representing foreign sounds in the transcrip-

tion, e.g., [f] is transcribed by o ph, by o b or by the otherwise very rare g bw; cf.
[v]

coo ti-bwl [tivi] 'TV. A second "killed" final consonant (sometimes in parentheses)
can be placed after a first to indicate a foreign final sound: ooco(©) bhat(c) [ba?] +
[s] to give [bas] 'bus'.

table 42.4 shows four telescoped abbreviations current in the written literary
language, followed by the spelled-out versions from which they derive. These are, in

fact, logograms and are marked <L> in the text sample.

table 42.5 shows the numerals.

Sample of Burmese
no c pc
/. Burmese: O <§> GO ©O 33 6 €|5 33 OOO I CTp

2. Transliteration. paliare:asa:sann mranmacaare:asa:kui

3. Transcription: pali-?3je?30a-3i mjama-sa-?3Je?39a-go
4. Gloss: Pali-writing-NOM Burmese-language-writing-ACC
c — CO
r > c
/. 33GCOOOC oow^soo^OD-oopoii 33 30 OO G|000 CS^G 300

2. atopaii lhwam:mui:khaihantusann. abhaykronchuiso

h
3. stobT hlQmmo-ge-hatu-Si 9be-caO-s o-(Y->

4. rather influence-DiSPLACED-appear-DECL what-reason-say-ing

 '

456 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. G^fcyoOOOO C\p- ®©©©^O:O0 G C|': OOO:: CpgOC

2. mranmacaka:lurri: caccacmyaikui re:sa:ra<L>pari
j. mjama-zogoloG si?si?-mja-go jetha-ja-hnai?-pl
4. Burma-words real-many-ACC writing-place-at-even

IO C O O C C C o C xf •*
c o
/. olgOO^O^O^OOg) cp©CO:;30C G ©^ OOD: COO o|TO OO 00 CTJ)
2. palihankuiluik<L> nhaclurrixhari re:sa:lakhaikrasanfikui
h
3. pali-ha-go-lai?-jwe hno-16u-s T jetha-la-ge-ja-Bi-go
4. Pali-appearance-ACC-follow-ing two-CLF-stack write-come-Disp-PL-DECL-ACC

/. go^ C|Goooo(moc (3©<gfin 00000011 oooo|[]2

L
1 ° c

oo IL
^SgpSii
2. twerasokrori phrac<L>. sadhaka. pakhukkumrui, cakku, kukkuipan.
3. twejadocau p'ji?-?i Gadaka pok h ou?kumjo se?ku kou?kob!
4. meet-able-GEN-cause be-DECL example (a town) paper (a tree)

'Pali writing seems to have had considerable influence on Burmese writing. The
reason we say this is that even when we write real Burmese words, we see that
we follow the Pali model, writing letters one on top of the other [i.e. in stacks].

For example: (three examples of words with stacked consonants).'

— From the introduction of the Mranmd Abhidhdn (vol. 1, p. e-5).

Bibliography

Burmese Language Commission. 1978. Mranmd Abhidhdn: akyan.khyup [Abridged Burmese dic-
tionary]. Rangoon: Burmese Ministry of Education.

Judson, Adoniram. 1966. Burmese-English Dictionary, rev. ed. Rangoon: Baptist Board of Publi-
cations.
Okell, John. 1968. "Alphabetical Order in Burmese." Journal of the Burma Research Society 15:
145-71-
.
1 97 1. A Guide to the Romanization of Burmese. London: Luzac.
.
1 994. Burmese: An Introduction to the Script. DeKalb: Northern Illinois University, Center
for Southeast Asian Studies.
Roop, D. Haigh. 1972. An Introduction to the Burmese Writing System. New Haven: Yale University
Press.
Wheatley, Julian K. 1987. "Burmese." in The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, pp.
834-54. London: Croom Helm; New York: Oxford University Press.
SECTION 43

Thai and Lao Writing

Anthony Diller

Thai and Lao (Laotian) are closely related members of the same language family, and
their writing systems are similar. The scripts are Indie in origin and written from left

to right without regular word spacing. Instead, spaces are used to indicate sentences
or phrasal units. European style paragraphing is used along with quotation marks, pa-
rentheses, and occasionally other punctuation marks. While the scripts are both pho-
nologically based, the relationship of letters to sounds is complex, especially for Thai.
Only the main features of written Thai and Lao are introduced here (see Haas 1956,
Danwiwat 1987, and Kerr 1972 for comprehensive treatments).
The two scripts are directly convertible. Thus the majority of Lao speakers, as de-
fined by linguistic criteria, actually reside in northeastern Thailand; they tend to write
their spoken language using Thai script, whereas Lao script is standard in Laos prop-
er. According to official estimates, over fifty million people are at least partly literate

in these scripts taken together. In addition to the national languages Thai and Lao, the
writing systems are used for several minority languages and non-standard dialects.
Consonant letters are considered the basis of both orthographies, with vowels
added as required diacritics. An important feature of the writing systems, indicated in
table 43.1, is an apparently excessive number of consonant letters as compared to
phoneme inventories. This relates to historical issues and modern tone marking ex-
plained below.
In both phonology and orthography, each language distinguishes the same nine
pairs of long and short vowels. In the semi-official Thai-Lao transliteration system
used here, vowel phonemes are transliterated as:

high i u u mid e oe o low ae a o' .

some
Authorities differ slightly over phonetic equivalents, a consensus being:
high [i mid [e y o]
ui u] low [as a o]
(see Henderson 1951, Haas T956). Long vowels are transliterated here with a colon.
Three diphthongs ia, ua, and ua [is uis us] are counted as part of the core vowel
systems and behave phonologically like long vowels, with rare short variants. Sounds
transliterated here as ay, aw may appear elsewhere as ai, ao (e.g. in "Thai," "Lao").
Stop + h represents aspirated stop (e.g. in "Thai"); c = [tcj; ng = [rj]. Lao v varies
h
among alternates [v ~ (3
~ w], and kh among [k ~ \ ~ %].

Transcriptions and transliterations for Thai and Lao show variation, with Lao
sometimes transcribed in a French-inspired way ("Vientiane" for [visrj-tcan]) and

457
458 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 43. i : Quantitative Comparison of Thai and Lao Inventories

Simple
Consonant Consonant Vowel Core Vowel
Symbols Phonemes Symbols Phonemes

Thai 44 21 •9 21

Lao 27 20 18 21

TABLE 43.2: Sound Changes Affecting Interpretation of Thai and Lac

Thirteenth Twentieth
Century Century

(i) Yi b ph

compare: W ph ph

(ii) vin m m
compare: U m m
(iii) u ?b b

(iv) /I bh(?) ph

Thai often showing letter-by-letter Indie etymology rather than modern pronuncia-
tion, as explained below. The Lao-English Dictionary of Kerr (1972) uses a system
close to that followed here, which differs only superficially from that of Haas (1956,
1964) for Thai, e.g. final stops are represented here as -p, -f, -k (rather than as -/?, -d,

-g, as in Haas).

Development
The diachronic background of the Thai and Lao orthographies is the key to under-
standing their modern complexity. Historically, written Thai and Lao can be traced
back to South Indian writing systems of the Grantha type (section 30), but the prox-
imate source was a form of Old Khmer script. According to the traditional account,

in 1283 King Ramkhamhaeng of Sukhothai, in what is now north-central Thailand,

adapted this source script to a language of the Thai-Lao type. He is credited with the
innovation of tone marks —arguably the first time that phonemic tone was regularly
indicated in a writing system intended for common use.

The Sukhothai writing system underwent shifting and proliferation. In addition,

according to most authorities, a set of important sound changes occurred in the spo-

ken precursors of modern Thai and Lao over the following centuries (Li 1 977)- These
changes are illustrated in table 43.2 for selected Thai labial items.
Analogous changes occurred for other consonant groups and in general:

(i) Unaspirated voiced occlusives > aspirated voiceless occlusives,

(ii) Pre-aspirated or voiceless continuants > plain voiced continuants.
 .

SECTION 43: THAI AND LAO WRITING 459

(iii) Voiced preglottalized stops > plain voiced stops.

(iv) However etymological voiced aspirates might have been pronounced in
Sukhothai times, they have now merged with voiceless aspirates.
Along with the mergers implicit in table 43.2 came a compensatory increase in
tonal distinctions, somewhat differently in the Thai and Lao cases. Earlier spelling
patterns were on the whole retained, so that letters in the writing system that had ear-
lier indicated consonantal distinctions now came to function rather as indirect mark-
ers of tone, with tonal interpretations different in Thai and Lao. These changes
provide the historical background for much of the consonant-letter proliferation of
table 43. 1 , and they motivate the column appearing in table 43.3 which identifies
particular consonants as class 1, 2, or 3 for purposes of modern tone rules (as in
table 43.9 on page 464). (Traditionally, these classes are labeled in Thai as flftlO

kla.ng 'mid', 8J0

su.ng 'high', and P11 tarn 'low' respectively —probably referring to
earlier tonal values.)

By the early sixteenth century a form of Sukhothai writing had spread to the
Mekhong River basin, and subsequently several Thai-Lao orthographic differences
began to develop (Gagneux 1983). Separate phonological changes also occurred,
which further differentiated sounds represented by the writing systems. For Lao,
changes included simplification of many consonant clusters, and shifts with merger
of r > h, ch > s, and y > h\ Thai had the reverse merger h > v.
More recently, different approaches to language standardization have been re-
sponsible for additional Thai-Lao divergences. Under successive regimes, Lao script
has been scaled down to approach a phonemic representation. (An official order of
i960 provides the Lao text sample.) By contrast, written Thai tends to incorporate un-
pronounced etymological information. Forms meaning 'language' in both Thai and
Lao are borrowed from Sanskrit bhasa 'speech' but are now pronounced segmentally
as pha.sa: (with tones as assigned in table 43.9). The text samples show that Lao
has respelled this item phonemically, while Thai retains "extra" nonphonemic letters

pointing back to the Sanskrit source consonants. Thai is also often romanized etymo-
logically, especially for proper nouns of Indie origin: Tlbl IE Vajira.vudh, pro-
nounced [wachiraiwut].
Syllable-final stop proliferation of the above type calls for special attention in

Thai schools. Phonologically, apart from final glottal stop (automatic with short vow-
els and not transcribed here), both Thai and Lao admit only three final stop-consonant
sounds: -p, -r, and -k. Lao, as officially reformed, allows only three symbols: U D.

(In initial position these represent /?-, d-, k-.) Thai, by contrast, represents these three

sounds by no less than 16 different letters, with the possibility of additional silent let-

ters as well (see table 43.3). A good example of extra finals is the word meaning
'etymology' itself, niruktisa.t, as in the Thai text sample; compare Sanskrit nirukti

'derivation' + sastra 'knowledge'.

For more historical detail see Hartmann 1986 and Li 1977. Aspects of this tradi-

tional view have been challenged in the debate presented by Chamberlain 1991
460 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 43.3: Thai and Lao Consonants

Indie 77k//* Sound Lao Sound Sound as
Prototype Thai Letter as Initial Lao Letter as Initial Class Final

A. Velar and Palatal Letters

k n k- n k- 1 -k

kh 11 kh- 2 kh- 2 -k

(kh-) 2

g kh- £1 kh- 3 -k

fi (kh-) 3
gh V kh- 3 -k

ri t ng- ng- 3 -ng

3
c 1 c- q c- 1 -t

ch % ch- 2

J % ch- £ s- 3 -t

% s- 3 -t , (-s)

jh qj ch- 3 -t

n y- 3 -n
a/

B. Retroflex and Dental (alveolar) Letters

(t) d- 1 -t
a
t (t-) 1 -t
a
th th- 2 -t
if)

d T) th- 3 -t

dh m th- 3 -t

n tu n- 3 -n

(t) n d- n d- 1 -t

t w t- n t- 1 -t

th ci th- ri th- 2 -t

d n th- tn th- 3 -t

dh B th- th- 3 -t

n u n- TJ n- 3 -n

C. Labial and Labiodental Letters

(P) U b- U b- 1
-P

P ll P- l) P- 1
-P

ph N ph- [J ph- 2 -P

*J f- gJ f- 3
b W ph- u ph- 3 -P

d f- Jj f- 3 -P, (-0

bh /I ph- ph- 3 -p

m ^ m- LI m- 3 -in
 J

SECTION 43: THAI AND LAO WRITING 45

table 43.3: Thai and Lao Consonants (continued)

Indie Thai Sound Lao Sound Sound as
Prototype Thai Letter as Initial Lao Letter as Initial Class Final

D. Residual Consonant Letters

y LI y- U n- -y
3

5 -y

r 1 r-, (1-) s h- 3 -n

r (S) 1- -n
3
1- 1-
1
ft SI 3 -n

V 1 w- V-, (w-) -w
3
s ft s- 2 -t

s tl s- 2 -t

s CI s- §3 s- 2 -t, (-s)

h VI h- 01 h- 2

1 H 1-
3 -n

•
['-] 9 ['-] 1

h-
a 3

Consonant symbols
In form, most Thai and Lao letters have small "heads" which are written first in hand-
writing. The traditional order of Thai consonants, shown in table 43.3, generally
follows Devanagari (section 31); but the sound changes mentioned above, as well
as other innovations, disguise the parallelism. Some additional shifts characterize Lao
order. Consonants are named by their sound followed by the vowel o':. To differenti-

ate consonant names in Thai, a token noun is used (see Haas 1954: 6-9).
Thai once distinguished velar fricatives, represented by °D and fl in table 43. 3 A.
The fricatives merged with stops, and the letters are no longer used; but they are still

officially recognized. The Thai letter %, representing an alveolar fricative s, is classi-

fied among the palatals. In most Lao sources, two "residual" consonants (here moved
to table 43. 3D) are included in the palatal series: a s (in the dictionary order of Thai
% ch) and U h (in the dictionary order of £1J y).

In table 43. 3B, etymologically retroflex consonants are distinguished from

dentals in written Thai but both series are pronounced as alveolars. Except for % th,

retroflex letters are unusual as initials. Parenthesized Indie prototypes indicate less

common symbols.
How the Thai letter 1 is pronounced is a strong sociolinguistic marker —norma-
tively r but colloquially /. Similarly, the Lao letter S, usually pronounced /, was for-

merly used for Indie loans spelled with /•-: but this (nonphonemic) letter has been
462 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 43.4: Compound and Conjunct Forms as Class-changing Alternates

Thai Compound 7%fli Sound Lao Compound Lao Conjunct Lao Sound Class

ng- - ng-
V\ 3 ^3 2

vm n- DITJ mj n- 2

VI u m- U1JJ uu m- 2

VIS 1- 019 1- 2
a
vn w- 010 - v-, (w-) 2

VII r-.(l-) - - 2

VI [J y- U1U, Ul£ - fi- 2

y- - (y-) 1
QEJ flJ)

officially discouraged, and 9 / is the prescribed substitute. Current use of S may relate

to political sympathies. The glottal-stop signs Thai and Lao 9 are required to begin

written syllables in the absence of other consonants since, unlike Devanagari, Thai
and Lao have no special syllable-initial symbols for vowels. Non-initial U in Lao once
had an alternate form £, but officially this is now restricted to diphthongs; see

table 43.7.
Items in table 43.4 are used for tone-marking purposes (table 43.9). In Thai,
silent VI - and - are prefixed to certain Class 3 items in table 43.3 to create alter-
nates in Classes 2 or 1. Lao makes similar shifts, with some freely varying conjunct
alternates. Lao U is etymologically associated with Thai 0£J.

Vowel symbols
In writing, some phonemes are represented directly by a simple vowel symbol. For
others, symbols combine to form complexes. Vowel symbols may occur after, over,

under, or before their associated consonant letter — that being the approximate dictio-
nary order, table 43.5 through table 43.8 show syllable-final vowel forms. Some
separate forms discussed in the following paragraphs are specified for medial posi-
tion, i.e. in the presence of a final consonant.
Medially, short -a- is written as superscript - in both languages: Thai T)f\ kat
'bite'; Lao rifl. For Thai, when a syllable ends in -u : a silent is added: FI0 ku ':. (In
spelling pronunciation, syllables terminating in short vowels are given a glottal-stop
closure and tone is assigned as in table 43.9.)
In both languages, syllables in short e and ac occurring between consonants dis-

pense with final Z. Instead, a superscript short sign is added over the initial consonant:
Thai -, Lao -. Thus Thai lIlM tern 'full'; Lao GHU. In the case of short o between con-
sonants, Lao uses a special superscript symbol -, while Thai opts for an unwritten in-
 SECTION 43: THAI AND LAO WRITING 463

table 43.5: Simple Short and Long Vowel Symbols

Thai Lao Thai Lao

CU
Q-/ -pi
—tl ns ka -1 ni -n nn ka:

cz> CD « £3 ca Ca
n n ki n n ki:

- n n ku n "3
ku:
3 <D V
CD CO ^a cd cd.

n n ku' [km] n n ku': [km:]

TABLE 43.6: 5/zorr Vowel Indicated by Final Z Added to Long-vowel Form

Thai Lao Thai Lao

\>-z t,n~ C-S Gn~ ke b- m G- Gn ke:

bb — a/ bb M a/ cc-t ccnty kae bb- un GG- GG31 kae:

b — ay b 1 1 ay U Ins ko I- In t- tn ko:

herent vowel. Thus Thai W con 'poor'; Lao 1U. In nonfinal syllables, the inherent
Thai vowel is usually -a-, whereas Lao marks all vowels overtly: Thai nu«£) kabdt 're-

bellion'; Lao n^un.

Medial o and o : are rarely distinguished from each other (viz., with the short
signs mentioned above). They are written with letters elsewhere functioning as glottal

stop: Thai Q, Lao 9. Thus Thai flQ^l kd.t 'to hug'; Lao 319H. As table 43.7 indicates,
Thai uses this sign for syllable-final -o' : as well, whereas Lao has a distinctive super-
script. Thai 0, Lao 9 also appear as components in complex vowel signs. For medial
-oe- Thai uses a form analogous to Lao. For medial -ia- Thai adds the final consonant
to the table 43.7, whereas Lao uses the simple symbol £ alone: Thai
complex in

bflHU thian 'candle'; Lao tfl&U. For medial -ua- both languages dispense with super-
scripts, employing consonant letters Thai 1, Lao alone, with implied diphthong

function. Thus Thai R1U suan 'garden'; Lao SIOTJ.

table 43.7: Compound Vowel Symbols; Consonant Symbols Used as Vowels

Thai i Lao Thai Lao

b-X bfll^ G-nt; Gnn~ ko' [ko] -0 no - n ko': [ko:]

CD CD CD

b-0^ bflQ^ G- Gn koe [kv] 1-0 bH0 c- Gn koe: [kv:]

CD

b-Ll in LI G-5, G-U cfi^, Gnu kia Ikfo] 1-0 ino G-9 Gn9 ku'a [kura]

Qy Q-/

-0 no kua [kua] 1-1 mi G-n Grin kaw [kaw]

cd ca
G-5, G-U cn^. Gnu koe:y [kYlj]
i-Li inn
 O O

464 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

TABLE 43-8: Symbols Standing for Other Vowel-Consonant Combinations

Thai Lao Thai Lao

In tn kay In Zt\ kay (< *kaui)

m kam nq ~ kri, kru'

Some miscellaneous symbols are shown in table 43.8. The Thai symbol ^, af-
ter consonants as in wri^/llPl^ phru tsaphaikhom 'May', is traditionally counted

among the vowel signs (compare Devanagari r), but it occurs initially in a few words
which are alphabetized in dictionaries after 1. It is pronounced as (i) ru , as in V\f\

rudu: 'season'; (ii) ri, as in t|TlB rit 'supernatural power'; (iii) roe:, as in V\T)°tt roeik
'asterism'. In older manuscripts and certain archaizing texts, V\ may be followed by
1, the latter in this case sometimes given a matching downward prolongation The "].

value here is technically long ru' :, but items now pronounced with the three other
sounds noted above can be found in early texts spelled with V\l. Similar principles ap-
ply to a parallel symbol f] lu\ encountered only in a few archaic contexts but still

found on official lists of vowels.

Tone rules

table 43. 9 A shows how tone is assigned to a written syllable differently for Thai —
—
and Lao through a combination of four criteria: (i) class of initial consonant; (ii)
whether the syllable is open, i.e. ends with a long vowel, nasal (-m, -n, -ng) or semi-
vowel (-w, -y)\ or closed, i.e. ends with a stop sound (-/?, -t, -k) or a glottal-stopped
short vowel; (iii) whether the syllable is unmarked or bears a superscript tone marker
(mainly used with open syllables); (iv) if closed, whether the vowel is long or short.
Tones are more standardized for Thai than for Lao. Lao values table 43. 9B like in

low falling and high falling apply to one common Vientiane dialect. The relation of

table 43.9: Main Tone Rules

Open Syllables Closed Syllables

Unmarked Marker - Marker - Short Vowel Long Vowel

A. Main Thai Tone Rules (tones marked as in Haas 1964)

v v
Class 1 mid lowf) falling (") low( ) low( )

Class 2 rising (
v
) low C) falling O lowf) low(
v
)

Class 3 mid falling high (') high (') falling

B. Main Lao Tone Rules (tones marked as in Kerr 1972)

Class 1 low mid C) high falling f ) high (

') low falling O
Class 2 low rising C) mid (") low falling C) high O low falling O
Class 3 high (
') mid (") high falling C) mid (") high falling C)
 SECTION 43: THAI AND LAO WRITING 455

table 43.10: Numerals

/ 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Thai @ k. en at & b G0> d £

Lao 9 i> 5 d i 5 n 2 cu

tone to orthography in other Lao varieties and in regional Thai dialects is subject to
the four criteria above, but specific tone values differ.
In addition to the two main tone markers -r (md:y-e:k) and - (mdy-tho:) shown
in table 43.9, two less frequent extra ones, of similar shape in Thai and Lao, are re-
stricted to Class 1 consonants: - Thai high, Lao high falling; and - Thai rising, Lao
low rising.

Markers are occasionally used with closed syllables, mainly for onomatopoetic
effect, to override the closed-syllable values given by the tone rules: Thai QQ^l 6:t
'buzz'. The exact alignment of tone markers varies, with Lao preferring placement di-
rectly over initial consonant and Thai often aligning markers right of center. When a
tone marker occurs with a superscript vowel symbol, the tone marker is aligned on
top: Thai UU nan 'that'; Lao UU nan.

Numerals and other symbols

Thai and Lao have distinctive sets of numerals as in table 43. 10. These combine in
normal decimal fashion. Other symbols: ^ repeat sign; °1 abbreviation sign; °1£H et
cetera sign; - silent letter diacritic.

Sample Texts
Below are similar passages in Thai and Lao scripts, first in unspaced form as they
would actually occur, then shown word-by-word. In the Thai transliteration, for con-
venience in identifying individual symbols, words of Indie or Khmero-Indic prove-
nance are transliterated using "Indie prototype" source consonants as indicated in

table 43.3. For other (non-Indie) lexical items, and for Lao, standard alphabetic val-
ues are used. The tone-class of each syllable-initial consonant is indicated by sub-
script numbers, both as an aid to identification in table 43.3 and to facilitate tone-

rule application in table 43.9. Tone markers md:y-e:k and md:y-tho: are indicated
by superscript I and II respectively. The homophonous vowels I and I are similarly

differentiated as ay, and ay 2 respectively. Silent-marked letters are parenthesized.

466 part vii: southeast asian writing systems

Sample of Thai

I. Thai: fin Dim Inrj Lvi llltm Will ran

2. Transliteration: kh 3 am bh 3
a:s 2 a: th 3 ai,y h2 ai2n kh ian
2 t,a:m h 2 lak
3> Transcript ion: kham phaisa: thay hay khian ta:m lak
4- Gloss: word language Thai let write follow basis

1. inavri \qr\mimi
2. k,e:n(d) n 3 ir 3 ukt,is 2 a:st(r)
5- ke:n niruktisait

4- rule etymology

'Words in the Thai language should be written on the basis of principles of ety-
mology.'

Sample of Lao

ffnwnsmano^ols^Tjnnjjsi^con

/. Lao: a'n fcnsn ano lu\ 25U mu ^3 g9i

n
2. Trans lit. : kh 3 am ph 3
a:s 2 a: l3 a:w h 2 ai 2 kh ian2 t,a:m s 2 iang vaw 11

3- Transcr.: kham phaisa: la:w hay khian ta:m siarj vaw

4> Gloss: word language Lao let write follow sound speak

'Words in the Lao language should be written according to pronunciation.'

Bibliography

Brown, J. Marvin. 1985. From Ancient Thai to Modern Dialects and Other Writings on Historical
Thai Linguistics. Bangkok: White Lotus. (Original publications, 1965-79.)
Chamberlain, James R. 199 1. The Ramkhamhaeng Controversy. Bangkok: Siam Society.
Danwiwat, Nanthana. 1987. The Thai Writing System. Hamburg: Buske.
Gagneux, Pierre-Marie. 1983. "Les ecritures lao et leur evolution du XVe au XIXe siecles."Awe du
Sud-est et Monde Insulindien 14(1-2): 75-96.
Haas, Mary R. 1956. The Thai System of Writing. Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned
Societies.
. 1964. Thai-English Student's Dictionary. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press.
Hartmann, John F. 1986. "The Spread of South Indie Scripts in Southeast Asia." Crossroads 3. 1
:6-

20. DeKalb, 111: Northern Illinois University, Center for Southeast Asian Studies.
Henderson, Eugenie J. A. 1964. "Marginalia to Siamese Phonetic Studies." In /// Honour of Daniel
Jones, ed. David Abercrombie, pp. 415-24. London: Longmans.
Kerr, Allen D. 1972. Lao-English Dictionary. Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of Amer-
ica Press.

Li, Fang Kuei. 1977. A Handbook of Comparative Tai (Oceanic Linguistics Special Publication 15).
Honolulu: University Press of Hawaii.
SECTION 44

Khmer Writing
Eric Schiller

The signary used in the Khmer language is an Indic-based script which dates back
about 1500 years. It was used in inscriptions as far back as the sixth century and re-

mains in use throughout Cambodia. The system is highly complex. Much of the com-
plexity is due to its long history, since the phonology of the language has changed
radically while the writing system has remained fairly constant.

The writing system is alphasyllabic (see section 31) and written from left to

The primary graphic element represents a consonant, with vowels indicated by

right.

symbols on either side of the consonant or hovering above or below. The consonant
is written first, and then the vowel is added, even if the vowel sign is written to the left

of the consonant. The space below the primary consonant is used for secondary con-
sonants. Diacritics which affect the interpretation of the consonant appear both above
and below the consonant, sometimes shifting position depending on the shape of the
consonant.
Modern Khmer writing uses a baseline approach, with the primary consonant sit-
ting on the baseline; some letters have descenders below the line. The remnants of a
historical "top line" are built into some letters, in the part known as the 'hair'. Khmer

was originally carved in stone and written on palm leaves.

The symbols

Consonants

There are 33 consonant symbols, presented in table 44.1, organized by phonologi-

cal characteristics representing their Indie origin. The symbols are arranged in seven
rows, five of which reflect the point of articulation of the consonant, proceeding for-
ward from the back of the mouth; the sixth and seventh rows are reserved for miscel-
laneous items. One must keep in mind, however, that these phonological
characteristics apply to an ancient form of the language, and that the presence of

voiced aspirates at that stage is doubtful. Boxed letters are "series 1," others are "se-

ries 2," and this determines the pronunciation of vowels following them (see below).
Methods of transliteration vary, especially with regard to the retroflexes and v/vv.

Transliteration is generally based on the historical/Indie values of the letters, and

therefore it can differ greatly from transcriptions, which are based on the modern pho-

467
468 PART VI,: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 44. 1 : Khmer Consonants

Voiceless Plosives Voiced Plosives

Unaspirated Aspirated Unaspirated Aspirated Nasals

Velar R k [kl 2 kh fk
h
] n g m in gn [V] U n [rj]

m M
1
h h
Palatal c [c] fi eh [c ] a j [c] mi jh [c ] n

Retroflex u t [tf] If th
h
[t ] 8 d [cf| m dh [t
h
] tUl n [n]

h h
Dental f\ t [tj d th [t ] 8 d [t] a dh [t ] S n [n]

Bilabial U P [61 d ph [ph] n b [p] ft bh [p

h
] U m [m]

SONORANTS AND OTHERS

Misc. voiced m y Ul l r [r] w 1 HI t v [w]

Misc. voiceless W s [sj Ul h [h]

fl
! HI u ? [?]

nology. There are alternative forms of the consonants used in consonant clusters, de-
rived from these basic shapes, as shown in table 44.3.

Vowels
The vowel system of Modern Khmer is very complex, and there is still no consensus
on the number of phonemes involved. From the standpoint of the writing system, the
greatest complication is that each vowel symbol can have two different sound values,
depending on the consonant to which it is attached. There are 21 dependent vowel
signs, which must be used in conjunction with a consonant; they are transliterated in

table 44.2 with their traditional names, which begin with H ?. There are also some
independent vowel signs, used when the vowel is not attached to any consonant.
When no vowel symbol is used, an inherent vowel is assumed, which can have
three different values. If the vowel follows a consonant of the first series, it is pro-
nounced [o:], while the second series value is [o:]. In Sanskrit and Pali loans, howev-
er, [a] is often used. Sometimes words which consist only of a single consonant and

the inherent vowel are written with the diacritic asda - in order to avoid confusion

with longer words, since Khmer writing does not place spaces between words. An ex-
es

ample is M |ko:], a grammatical particle. The diacritic sannoksanna - is applied in

cases where the inherent vowel is shortened (and may be later diphthongized) , e.g.,

filrl gat [kost] 'a pronoun, usually third person singular'.

 SECTION 44: KHMER WRITING 469

TABLE 44.2: Khmer Vowel Signs and Transliterations

Independent Diacritic Transliteration Independent Diacritic Transliteration

u - U ?a ?e
I- IJJ

HI -1 m ?a u i- ra ?£

a - n ?i n m ?ay

- u ?i §,6 mi ?o
« CO
i-i

?i S 1-1 ml ?aw

- tt ?* n ?um
1 1

a 1
tt ?0 H ?om

a V V
?u -1 HI ?am

-i ?3W — JJO ?ah

81 41
V V
CB

u
?U9 u ^1
1 r
o

\- m ?5 u -l 1 r

>-] ra] ?ia n n! 1

*a
m] ?ia -nJ w I

Clusters

When a syllable begins with two consecutive consonants, the second consonant is

written as a subscript to the first; in that case, a vowel that appears below the conso-
nant is written underneath the subscript, e.g., fll phcuar [phcus] 'to plow'. In addi-
tion, geminate consonants in words borrowed from Sanskrit and Pali are often written

as doubled consonants (see table 44.3), though there is no phonological gemination

in Khmer: HffirlOUfifU ?atekecchabokkal [Tateikecchobokusl] 'fatalist'.

Special cases

There are a variety of special forms which apply to combinations of letters. Thus Ql

is used for the combination of [b] + [a:], to avoid confusion with Ul [ha:]. The letter

til (h + ph) is an artificial constuct used for the foreign sound [f], e.g., filtt/1 [ka:fe:]

'coffee'.
470 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 44.3: Khmer Consonants with Subscript Forms 11

Velar R k 9 kh g gh ii
n «S1
Palatal c ch J jh n
0- 18J
Retroflex t th d dh cm n
n I no an

Dental t d th 8 d a dh s n
n «=t

Bilabial
Hi
P d ph n
n
b
n
bh m
Misc. voiced tig y r 1 i V

Misc. voiceless WJ s in h
m 1
St
?

a. The full forms of consonants are for identification only; most of the clusters represented here do not occur
in the language.

Correspondences
The modern pronunciation of these sounds is quite far from those of Old Khmer, and
varies significantly in regional dialects. As the pronunciation of the Phnom Penh di-

alect is not very representative of Khmer as a whole, the Battambang dialect is used
throughout this section. The sound system of Khmer has undergone several radical
changes. A voicing contrast in initial consonants gave way to a contrast in phonation
type of the following vowel. The voiced consonants lost their voicing but the follow-
ing vowels retained a reflection of this voicing when they acquired a breathy phona-
tion type ("register"). Eventually this breathy phonation type disappeared, leaving
behind only an altered vowel quality. These changes are summarized in table 44.4,
which also shows the written form of these Khmer sounds. Note that the same vowel
symbol now represents two different sounds in most cases.
It should be noted that details of both transliteration and transcription vary in or-

thography. The transcription of diphthongs in particular varies widely. In fact, one

rarely finds two scholars using the same approach. The most common systems are
those described in Henderson 1952, Jacob 1968, Huffman 1970, and Diffloth 1992.
The system used here is based on Diffloth's.
The relationship betwen consonant series and vowel quality is made more elab-
orate by the use of diacritics that "switch" series. For example, to combine m, in series

2, with [a:], in series 1, one adds a diacritic, traysap -; compare HI ma [mis] 'uncle'

and H1R mak [ma:k] 'mark'. (For series 1 consonants, a musekatoDn - is used.) The
situation is further complicated by the fact that vowels and elements of the consonant
sometimes occupy the area above the main consonant. In the word fil [si:] 'to eat' the

vowel [i:] is written on top of the s, so that there is no room for a trjysap. In such cas-

es, a different diacritic is used, the kbieh kraom, which is identical to the vowel u, un-
derneath the consonant symbol.
 SECTION 44: KHMER WRITING 47 1

table 44.4: Khmer Vowel Series

First Series Second Series

Written Transliteration Transcription Written Transliteration Transcription

fi ka [ko:] R ga [ko:]

m ka [ka:] m ga [kio]

R ki [ke] fi gi [ki]

fi kT [koi] R g^ [ki:]

fi ki [ko] R g* [ki]

fi ki [koi] R g* [ki:]

r ku [ko] R gu [ku]
1
1

fi ku [kou] R gu [ku:]
V

fi kuo [kuo) R gUO [kuo]

it

Ifi k5 [kao] IR g5 [ko:]

1 ^ kio [kio] IR] gio [kio]

Ifi] kio [kio] IR] gio [kio]

tfi ke [kei] IR ke [ke:]

in ke [kae] IR ke [ke:]

tfi kay [kay] IR gay [kiy]

ini ko [kao] IR1 go [ko:]

ml kaw [kau] IR1 gaw [kiw]

r kum [kom] R gum [kum]

1 1

r kom [kDm] R gam [kum]

ri kam [kam] RI gam [koom]

Ho kah [kah] Ro gah [keoh]

In addition, Indie loanwords obey a different set of pronunciation guidelines,

which are not consistently followed. A detailed discussion is presented in Jacob 1968:
47-51. For example, the initial consonant transliterated as b tl is pronounced [p] in
such loans as Ulflftffi bdrdsit [pa:ra:sst] 'parasite', but in Indie words which have be-
come assimilated to the Khmer vocabulary it is pronounced [6], for example Ufulj
bony [bon] 'religious festival' (cf. Sanskrit punya 'merit'). Highly important reli-

gious terms are not immune to naturalization, so that the most sacred terms have been
absorbed: AS buddh [put] 'Buddha', BH dharm [toa] 'Dharma, law*. Wtij sangh
472 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 44.5: Khmer Numerals

I 2 3 4 5 6 7 ^ 9

9 19 m 6 G a d d g

[sdi]] 'Sangha, priesthood'. The word dharm also illustrates the symbol - rabdt, used
to write preconsonantal r in Indie loanwords.

Note that many final consonants are not pronounced. A sign used to indicate un-
pronounced elements of some loanwords is the toandakhiet 'kill sign' -, e.g.

ftfrlfiUflfl sitakarn [sotskail 'smile'.

The lack of consistency with regard to matters of transcription and transliteration

is even evident in the name of the country where most Khmer speakers reside. RHdl

is, in transliteration, kambujd, but the modern pronunciation is [kampucis]. This is

reflected in the official name of the country, which was Kampuchea until quite recent-

ly, when the older form (Cambodia) has made a comeback due to political changes.

The Khmer spelling has remained constant, however.

Punctuation and numerals

Words are not separated in Khmer script. A marker H khan is used to indicate change
of topic and comes at the end of what amounts to a group of sentences, though often
less than a paragraph. A special sign IQ to indicates that the previous word or group
of words is repeated. This is a common sign, because Khmer morphology applies re-
duplication for a variety of grammatical purposes. +
Some colloquial words are written with a kdkbdt - on top, e.g., 131 fiJ [cah] 're-
sponse particle used in women's speech'.
The numerals are shown in table 44.5.

Sample of Khmer

/. Khmer: tnnj ISlo rrm jn ois jS'iw hlu

2. Transliteration: pel nuh gat rut ban tri rah muay
3- Transcription: pe:l nuh koat rut ba:n trsi roh musy
4> Gloss: time that pron fish. with. basket trei-rah one

1. nnro sa Q1S 9SJ1KI V

2. h5y nin. ban dansay larj dik muay
3- hasj narj ba:n tosnsaij lo9i] tik musj
4- already then get rabbit sink water one
 SECTION 44: KHMER WRITING 473

'At that time, he fished out a trei-rah (kind of fish) and then got a rabbit which
was drowning in the water.' —From a Khmer folktale.

Bibliography

Diffloth, Gerard. 1992. "Khmer." International Encyclopedia of Linguistics, ed. William Bright,
vol. 2, pp. 271-75. New York: Oxford University Press.
Henderson, Eugenie J. A. 1952. "The Main Features of Cambodian Pronunciation." Bulletin of the
School of Oriental and African Studies 1952: 149-74.
Huffman, Franklin E. 1970. Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader. New Haven: Yale
University Press.
Jacob. Judith M. 1968. Introduction to Cambodian. London: Oxford University Press.
. 1974. A Concise Cambodian-English Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.
SECTION 45

Insular Southeast Asian Scripts

Joel C. Kuipers and Ray McDermott

In 1593, two writing systems were united on the pages of the first book published in

the Philippines, a Doctrina Christiana, which represented Spanish with a Roman

(specifically Gothic Rotunda) script and Tagalog with an Indie script (Conklin 1991).
About 2,500 years before, the two scripts had separated from their West Semitic an-
cestor and started to make their way around the world: one, Phoenician, headed west,
took on new forms in Greece and Rome, spread throughout Europe, and continued to

the Americas; the other, Aramaic, headed east, took on new forms in India, and
spread, with continuing new forms, through most of mainland Southeast Asia (minus
Vietnam) and the full extent of Indonesia before reaching the Philippines as late as
1300 c.e., probably by way of Sulawesi (Celebes). After circling the world in oppo-
site directions, the two scripts were reunited when Spanish ships crossed the Pacific
from Acapulco to Manila only years before the publication of the Doctrina.
The Insular Southeast Asian portion of the script circle developed over a millen-
nium as the South Indian scripts of the Pallava dynasty joined commerce and religion
in crossing the 3000 miles from the Straits of Malacca to the Philippines (de Casparis

1975, Noorduyn 1991, Scott 1984). Longstanding textual traditions have been attest-
ed by writings on stone and copper plates (Java and Bali, 9th century), bark books
(Sumatra: Batak and Rejang, 1 8th century), latterday copies of earlier lontar leaf
manuscripts (Sulawesi: Buginese and Makasarese, 14th century), and firsthand re-

ports by travelers and missionaries (Philippines, 16th century). Some traditions of

writing were extensive; missionary reports from the Philippines, for example, claim
universal literacy for the sixteenth century (Reid 1988). Under Western colonial in-

fluence, the Indie script traditions of Insular Southeast Asia have been in all cases
made marginal to Roman and sometimes Arabic scripts, but survive in traditional

contexts under local circumstances and in schools for children in Java, Bali, Sulawesi,
and the Philippines (Kaseng 1978, Postma 1989).

Structure and historical continuity: The Holle charts

In 1877, K. F. Holle gathered 198 exemplars of scripts from India and much of South-
east Asia and displayed them in 52 pages of charts to show conclusively that they

Acknowledgments: Harold C. Conklin, Joseph Errington, Nancy Honda, Robert H. Kasberg. Jr.. Usud
Kasidsid, Sirtyo Koolhof, and Lt. Col. Drs. Barsi Sidehabi contributed materials and wisdom to this survey.

474
 SECTION 45: INSULAR SOUTHEAST ASIAN SCRIPTS 475

-20-
E.CSUMATRAJ PHIUP
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figure 56. Page 20 from Holle (1877), showing a continuity in sixteen scripts, listed west to east

from Sumatra through Sulawesi to the Philippines.

476 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

comprised a single group of scripts. The charts were constructed by listing the names
of Sanskrit letters in the left-hand column and lining the rows with the scripts in order
from west to east; thus, columns i— 15 show scripts from India, column 20 gives us
Tibet, 28 Khmer, 55-64 Old Javanese, 11 1 Bali, 132 Toba Batak, and 142 a few
graphs from the Philippines, figure 56 displays one chart showing both the similar-
ities and the variations in graphic systems from Sumatra, Sulawesi, and the Philip-
pines. Aside from the peculiarly florid Bima script columns, the other rows all exhibit
easy-to-imagine continuities. Where the Rejang (129) give a diamond shape to the ra

syllable, the Toba Batak (132) and the Buginese (135) elevate the mid-
flatten it out,

dle. Such patterned variation provides internal coherence to individual systems of

graphs, as well as systematic contrast between them. In a small volume explicating
the charts, Holle (1882) advises that the differences among the scripts can be seen to
"have taken place in gradual fashion," and, if the intermediary forms are included,
"the sequence of changes and the relationship become clear."

Indie scripts are fairly thorough in representing consonant-vowel syllables (CV)

or, more precisely, consonants which, when unmarked, end with an inherent a sound.
Most systems also contain graphs for independent vowels, diacritics for altering the
vowel sounds accompanying the initial consonants, and a few graphs for special pur-
poses. From the scripts listed in figure 56, for example, Rejang consists of 23 con-
sonantal characters, plus 13 diacritics for changing or eliminating the inherent a
(Jaspan 1964); Toba Batak consists of 16 consonantal characters, 3 vocalic charac-
ters, 4 named diacritics that change or delete the inherent a, another diacritic that
gives a syllable a final velar nasal ri, and long curved punctuation marks indicating
paragraph boundaries and textual structures (Tuuk 1867). In South Sulawesi, the In-
die script includes three dots to mark off sentence boundaries and the use of red ink
to mark the first graph of a personal name (Hilgers-Hesse 1967).
Writers working in languages with many closed syllables (CVC as a minimum
form) have developed an interesting range of responses to the open-syllable graphs of
the Indie scripts. The Sumatran scripts developed a special mark to eliminate the vow-
el of the previous syllable, thereby leaving a consonant in a syllable-final position.
Old Javanese (Kawi) retains the Indie device of writing consonant clusters by putting
one consonant symbol below another (see the sample of Javanese on page 479). The
Sulawesi and Philippine scripts stand at the opposite extreme and leave their final
consonants with no representation. This is not surprising in the first case, for the open-
syllable languages of Sulawesi had little need to add syllable-final consonants; but the
Philippine languages, rich in closed syllables, could have used such representation,
but did not develop it. Together the two cases are taken as an argument for the Phil-
ippine scripts developing from the Sulawesi scripts: if Philippine writers had received
a script with conventions for representing closed syllables, they would have kept them
(Conklin 1949A, Scott 1984).
 SECTION 45: INSULAR SOUTHEAST ASIAN SCRIPTS 477

Cultural uses of the writing systems of Insular Southeast Asia

For graphic form, the Holle charts display both a continuity across time and space and
a diversity under local conditions. Study of the cultural use of the scripts can show the
same, although weaker pattern. At first glance, the continuities are overwhelming. In
most examples — Kawi almanacs, Batak love magic, Rejang maxims, and South Su-
lawesi medical lore — people use
a document
literacy to their entreaties to the spirit

world, to state the goals and rules governing social behavior, and to enjoy songs and
other aesthetic pleasures. Record-keeping, taxation, and science — the usually ac-
claimed uses and consequences of literacy — are subordinate or absent (as in ancient
India). There is diversity as well. Despite continuities in use across the cultures of In-
sular Southeast Asia, ethnographic accounts reveal the importance of local contexts.

Sumatra: Batak

Among the Batak, the pustaha 'tree bark manuscripts' are written in syllabary from
left to right, and sometimes Used by datu 'priests' to write the Malay, Toba,
vertically.

Dairi, Asahan, Mandailing, and Angkola languages, the Batak script is devoted large-
ly to recording magical formulae and calendrical information. Writing is said to be a

predominantly male activity.

Sumatra: Rejang

The script used by the Rejang is often called ka-ga-nga for its first three syllables, list-

ed in the usual Indie order. The Rejang use the script to represent love songs (in a lit-

erary language), spells, incantations, maxims, clan histories, and some closely
guarded epics by inscribing them on materials such as bark cloth, bamboo, rattan,
buffalo horn, and (now lost) copper plates. Jaspan (1964) found only a few hundred
literates among 180,000 Rejang speakers.

Java and Bali

Kawi (literally 'poetry') refers to both a special register of Old (and sometimes Mid-
dle) Javanese and the script {aksarajawa) by which it is represented. In contemporary

Java, the kawi speech register is wayang shadow puppet dramas

used regularly only in

when the puppeteer stops the action of the play to sing kawi verses called suliik. The
audiences and even the performers rarely understand the words. Most kawi genres are
literary and aesthetic: fables, epics, chronicles, but the script is used for almanacs as
well. In Bali, kawi is a more productive literary medium; it is still the language of tra-

ditional ritual and in law courts.

478 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 45. i : Javanese Vowels

Initial Diacritic (k-) Name

a [a] -
&* (KYI

- e, e M (KYI pepet

%
i [ij
0$ wulu
u, oe iu] suku
2 e, e/e [e,e] °]~ Ol (KYI taling

[0] y~ 2 taling-tarung
2 Ol (KYI 2

The Javanese script (written left to right) retains the essential property of its al-

phasyllabic antecedent (section 31), placing vowel symbols {sandhangan swara;

table 45. 1 ) around consonant symbols (aksara; table 45.2). The conventional or-

der of listing the consonants reflects a saying, (uykki wtkkyi (wosyi ajtajurut (ui<u)

of; cum dm mem (izna£i(v:i Hana caraka, data sawala, padha jay any a, maga bathanga
There were (two) emissaries, they began to fight, their valor was equal, they both fell
dead' (Bohatta 1892: 7-8). Consonant clusters are noted only by means of "sub-

table 45.2: Javanese Consonants

Letter 'Subscript Capital 'Subscript " Transliteration Transcription

(UYl
-ha
(Kl
na [na]

(3J)
ca, tja [tfa]

nn ra [ra]
no
(KYI (KV ka [ka]

(ta da [da]

asYi
ta [ta]
Of)

OJ) cm,, (&* sa [sa]

<U1
wa [wa]

la rial
Ul
out 1 l

(V) pa [pa]

(Ul dha, da [<M

u
(IK ja, dja [<M
c-
(Wl ya,ja [ja]
(UU1
(KYY1
nya, naa [pa]
st_
(&>
111 [ma]
€)
cm ga [ga]
cm
am ba [ba]
CO
ap tha, ta [ta]
u>
Dga [qa]
(en

[ra]
(Ul

[b]
A.
 SECTION 45: INSULAR SOUTHEAST ASIAN SCRIPTS 479

table 45.3: Javanese Punctuation

Symbol Name Function

fe)M pada-luhur introduces a letter to a person of lower rank

[*MA pada-madya introduces a letter to a person of equal rank

,<^M# pada-handhap introduces a letter to a person of higher rank

introduces a poem

1%W NN
^SP
NN
feM mady a-pada demarcates a new song within a poem

fe^ NN
^ NN
fe&0 wasana-pada concludes a poem

//
pada-bab introduces a chapter or major part

n pada-lungsi comma
^ pada-lingsa period

pada-handhegging-celathu colon, quotation marks, designates numerals

table 45.4: Javanese Numerals

012345 cm 07] Kr}fl <3 (3)

6

tf_
7
out
8

(UX cum
9

script" forms written below or after the first consonant; except that following -/- takes

the form of cakra ( -. "Capital" forms {aksara gedhe) of some letters are used
throughout proper names, etc. (not just initially). There are diacritics for four syllable-

final consonants: cecak--ng, layar--r, wignyan -? -h, and pengkal-jj -y. Vowelless-
ness is marked with -n pangku. Sounds borrowed from Arabic or Malay are indicated
with the diacritic ^ over a similar-sounding Javanese letter. The distinctive punctua-

tion marks of Javanese are shown in table 45.3, and the numerals in table 45.4.
Javanese script has largely been replaced by the Roman alphabet, and the equiv-
alences are given as the transliterations; earlier, largely Dutch-based, practice is

shown after the comma in the tables.

Sample of Javanese
/. Javanese: (U) Vl C£T\
7 (U1CC}(U\(*J)\
7'
2. Transliteration. Haja mung seneng yenlagi darbe panguwasa,
3. Transcription: o'cfeo murj sa'nsrj yen la'gi: dar'be parjuwo'so
4. Gloss: don't only happy when.in.act.of hold power

<rj(umnn a^truinncKi «$

2. sen kyen lagi hora darbe panguwasa, jalarran kuwi

3. sari? yen la'gi: ora dar'be parjuwo'so d^ata'ran ku'wi

4. unhappy when.in.act.of not hold power because it

480 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. (C7J (KYI CTU) ~JY1 (Kl Sri Sri (in <n tin oiaJi'najimrvJi'naJiw

2. bakal hana bebedune dhewedhewe.

3. ba'kal o'no bsbsdu'ne (^ewecje'we
4. result will burden oneself

'Do not only be happy when holding power, or unhappy when you do not have
power, for these attitudes have their own punishment.' —Soeharto 1987: 188.

South Sulawesi: Buginese and Makasarese

Writing is often called lontara , after the palm leaves on which it is often inscribed.
A wide range of genres is written by a palontara 'writing specialist' on special oc-
casions such as marriage. At one time both the Buginese and Makasarese extended
reading and writing to contracts, trade laws, treaties, and maps to cover extensive
commercial and maritime activities (Schwartzberg 1994).
The Buginese script comprises 18 consonant letters and one vowel letter (each
with inherent -a\ table 45.5), as well as diacritics for five vowels (table 45.6). Syl-
lable-final consonants are unexpressed. There is one punctuation mark.

Sample of Buginese
/. Buginese: y^^\X\> >^\y<V 4^<
2. Transliteration: eka' eka' gare. eka' seuwa wetu.
3- Transcript ion: srjka srjka gare? srjka seuwa wsttu
4. Gloss: was was story was one time

1. >
2. eka' seuwa aru makunrai ri luwu.
3. srjka seuwa arurj makunrai ri luwu
4- was one princess woman in Luwu

2. masala uli.

3. masala uli

4. problem skin

table 45.5: Buginese Letters

// ka [ka] *> ga [ga] X nga [na] XS ka' [nka]

*> pa [pa] * ba fba] \^- ma [ma] » pa' [mpa]

-*\. ta [ta] -> da [da] <* na [na] <> nra' [nra]

<^ ya [ja] ra [ra] W^ la [la] SKSK. wa' [wa]

sa [sa] a [a] 00 ha [ha]

TABLE 45.6: Buginese Vowels

<— e [e] * e [s -*\ 6 [0]

- i
I 'i
- u [u]
1
"
 SECTION 45: INSULAR SOUTHEAST ASIAN SCRIPTS 4g \

'Once there was a story, once upon a time, about a princess in Luwu with
leprosy.' -After Damais 1948: 379.

An arresting case: The Hanunoo of Mindoro, Philippines

With the arrival of the Spanish in the Philippines over four hundred years ago, the In-
die scripts fell into disuse in all but the least accessible places. In 1947, Conklin
(1949B) found the scripts still in use among three cultural groups, two in the moun-
tains of Mindoro (Hanunoo, Buhid) and one on the island of Palawan (Tagbanua). The
Hanunoo still use a distinctive Indie script to read, write, memorize, and exchange
messages on a wide range of topics. They use the point of a knife to incise graphs onto
—
bamboo and, to a lesser extent, trees, house beams, and whatever else comes to
hand. The main genre of writing, accounting for up to 85% of written communica-
tions, is love songs (Conklin 1949A, 1955, i960; Postma 1989). The other major

function of the script is correspondence. About 70% of the six thousand Hanunoo are
literate enough to be full participants in the rounds of courtship and poetry that dom-

inate Hanunoo leisure. Every family has a minimum of one person who can read and

write.

Literacy has a central place in Hanunoo culture, and most adolescents achieve it

quickly. Not learning carries no penalty, although it is apparently more fun to read,
write, and court than just to court (Conklin 1959). In Conklin's (i960) account, a
young girl, Maling, at the start of adolescent courtship took an interest in transcribing

and memorizing love songs. Within a few months, not long after her original practice

texts had likely been devoured by weevils, Maling could write down her own songs.
The Hanunoo do not have a conventional order for memorizing their letters, and Ma-
ling worked first with the letters of her own name and gradually added new ones. If

she had been left-handed, she could have worked in a mirror image, for the Hanunoo
read with equal skill in all directions.

Words in Hanunoo are primarily disyllabic, and syllables can be closed by a final

consonant in a CVC shape. The Hanunoo script, shown in table 45.7, represents
only vowel-final syllables.
Three graphs represent the vowels alone; fifteen graphs represent syllables con-
sisting of a consonant-vowel pair; in addition, each of the fifteen CV syllables can

have its final vowel changed by the addition of a kulit, a small diacritic on the left or

a
table 45.7: The Hanunoo Syllabary (after Conklin 1971)

q- h- P- k- s- 1- r- t- n- b- m- 8- d- v- /?- w-

-a~
b
1/ 1/ 7< y° *», * <v
h/ 7f 7 7>< 9 ^ -zo iA 7->

-u~ } (/- 76 i? -h f h, *K 7f I 7^ £ & -isi. \A~ -y+f

-i~ V, 1/ J* >3 »* *i * H? 7f 7 1* h f in iX 7-

a. Listed in the 16th-century Tagalog sequence, with the addition of r-\ no Hanunoo order is known today.

b. The symbol ~ represents any consonant or no consonant.

482 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

right of the syllable graph that changes, e.g., ^ ba to »^ bi or ^ bu. In table 45.7,
the graphs are oriented horizontally, and the kulit marks appear on the top and bottom;
graphs can be read from any direction, but all the graphs in a single line must be sim-
ilarly oriented. Each syllable can receive a final consonant, and a reader must use
word context to choose from among sixteen possibilities; for example, t^ ba can be
read as [ba], [ba?], [bab], [bad], [bag], [bak], [bal], [bam], [ban], [ban], [bap],
[bar], [bas], [bat], [baw], or [baj] (Conklin 1953: 9).

Many of the love songs, called 'ambdhan, take traditional form in a seven-sylla-
ble line. The sample text is a seven-line 'ambdhan (from among thousands available,
Postma 1989 offers a translation of 261 ranging in length from 3 to 135 lines). The
example is written in columns, from bottom to top, away from the body, as is the usual
but not required Hanunoo custom. A two-to-one closed-to-open syllable ratio holds
for most 'ambdhan, although an account of less formal writing would reverse the per-
centages. In this text, individual Hanunoo graphs are all oriented vertically with the i

diacritic appearing on the left and the u diacritic appearing on the right.

Sample of Hanunoo
This 'ambdhan is sung as a lullaby ('iyaya) to a child. Reading proceeds from bottom
to top, starting at the left.

fc £ \ \ * ^^
j§r * S S k k ^
k >n vr t & fc fc

•& * $r & & * >

§" K ^ \ nK 1^ Mv

\ % SU & ^ K *

/. Hanunoo:
2. Transliteration: da-iia ma-lu-mi-ma-lu-mi / ki-ta ma-nu-ga ku-ti /

3. Transcription: dairja maglumi-maglumi? kita madnugan ku ti?

4. Gloss: don't keep.crying we will. be. heard cat

1. *£> H? tf Hj in \/ 7< 1/' \A 7< tn in \/

2. ku-ti gi sa si-ya-iii / ma-qi-ria ma-ya-ya-hi /

3. kuti gin sa sijarji? mag?irjaw magjanjarji?

4. cat coming from Siyangi will. screech scream
 SECTION 45: INSULAR SOUTHEAST ASIAN SCRIPTS 48^

/. >° h/ } K 7^ 7 >3 >o v 7 >° 7f 7 frf

2. ki-ta qu ma qi-ba-wi / ka-ta ba-ka na-ba-ri /

3. kita ?ud maj ?iba:wi? kanta barjkaw nabairi?

4. we do. not have effective.arms our spear is. broken

1. 7° hs * v 7f (4f 7
2. ka-ta qu-ta na -lu-bi
3. kanta ?utak nalumbi?
4. our bolo is. bent. in. two

'Don't cry anymore, or we'll be heard by the wild cat

The wild cat from Siyangi, who will let out a terrifying cry
And we can't do anything about it, because our hunting spear is broken
And our bolo is bent in two.'
— From Conklin 1955, side 1, band 4 of the record; page 4 of the booklet.

Bibliography

General
Behrend, T. E., and Willem van der Molen, eds. 1994. "Manuscripts of Indonesia." Bijdragen tot de
Taal-, Land- en Volkenkunde 150: 407-629.
Damais, Louis-Charles. 1952. "Liste des principales inscriptions datees de 1' Indonesia." Bulletin de
VEcole Francaise d'Extreme-Orient 46: 1-105.
!955- "Les ecritures d'origine indienne en Indonesie
• et dans le Sud-Est asiatique continen-
tale." Bulletin de la Societe des Etudes Indo-Chinoises 30: 365-82.
de Casparis, J. G. 1975. Indonesian Palaeography (Handbuch der Orientalistik division 3, vol. 4,

part 1). Leiden: Brill.

Holle, Karel Frederik. 1877. Tabel van Oud- en Nieuw-Indische Alphabetten. Batavia: Bataviaasch
Genootschap van Kunsten en Wetenschappen.
. 1882. Tabel van Oud- en Nieuw-Indische Alphabetten: Bijdrage tot de Palaeographie van
Nederlandsch-Indie. Batavia: Bruining.
Reid, Anthony. 1988. Southeast Asia in the Age of Commerce, vol. 1 : The Lands beneath the Winds.
New Haven: Yale University Press.
Robson, Stuart. 1988. Principles of Indonesian Philology. Dordrecht: Foris.
Schwartzberg, Joseph E. 1994. "Southeast Asian Nautical Maps." In The History of Cartography,
vol. 2, book 2: Cartography in the Traditional East and Southeast Asian Societes, ed. John
Brian Harley and David Woodward, pp. 828-38 . Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Sumatra
Jaspan, Mervyn. 1964. Redjang Ka-ga-nga Texts. Canberra: Australian National University.
Tuuk, Hermanus N. van de. 1867. A Grammar of Toba Batak. Leiden: Brill. Repr. 1971.
Voorhoeve, Peter. 1950-51. "Batak Bark Manuscripts." Bulletin of The John Rylands Library }}:
283^8.

Java and Bali

Bohatta, Hanns. 1892. Praktische Grammatik der javanischen Sprache. Vienna: Hartleben.
Damais, Louis-Charles. 1948. "Ecriture javanaise." In Notices sur les caracteres Strangers anciens
484 PART VII: SOUTHEAST ASIAN WRITING SYSTEMS

et modernes, ed. Charles Fossey, 2nd ed., pp. 353-74. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France.
Molen, Willem van der. 1993. Javaans schrift. Leiden: Vakgroep Talen en Culturen van Zuidoost-
Azi en Oceani, Rijksuniversiteit Leiden.
Pigeaud, Theodor. 1975. Die Handschriften van Bali und Java. Wiesbaden: Springer.
[Soeharto]. 1987. Butir-Butir Budaya Jawa [Pearls of Javanese culture]. Jakarta: S. N.
Zurbuchen, Mary. 1987. The Language ofBalinese Shadow Theater. Princeton: Princeton Univ. Pr.

Sulawesi
Damais, Charles. 1948. "Ecriture bugie." In Notices sur les caracteres etrangers anciens et mo-
dernes, ed. Charles Fossey, 2nd ed., pp. 375-79. Paris: Imprimerie Nationale de France.
Hilgers-Hesse, Irene. 1967. "Schriftsysteme in Indonesien: Makassaren und Buginesen.".S?wJ/wm
Generate 20: 548-58.
Kaseng, Syahruddin. 1978. Kedudukan dan fungsi bahasa Makassar di Sulawesi Selatan. Jakarta:
Pusat Pembinaan dan Pambangunan Bahasa.
Noorduyn, Jacobus. 1 99 1 . /\ Critical Survey of Studies on the Languages of Sulawesi (Bibliograph-
ical series 18). Leiden: Koninklijk Instituut voorTaal-, Land- en Volkenkunde.
Pelras, Christian. 1979. "L'oral et l'ecrit dans la tradition bugis." Asie du Sud-Est et Monde Insulin-
dien 10: 271-97.
Tol, Roger. 1990. Een Haan in Oorlog/Toloqna Arung Labuaja: Een Twintigste-eeuws Buginees
Heldendicht van de Hand van I Mallaq Daeng Mabela Arung Manajeng. Dordrecht: Foris.

Philippines
Bernardo, Gabriel. 1953. A Bibliography of the Old Philippine Syllabaries. Quezon City: Library,
University of the Philippines.
Conklin, Harold C. 1949A. "Bamboo Literacy on Mindoro." Pacific Discovery 2/4: 4-1 1.

. 1949B. "Preliminary Report on Field Work on the Islands of Mindoro and Palawan."^/;/^/--
ican Anthropologist 5 1 : 268-73.
.
1953. Hanunoo-English Vocabulary (University of California Publications in Linguistics
9). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
.
1955. Hanunoo Music from the Philippines. Ethnic Folkways Library Album FE4466. New
York: Folkways Records. Reissued in 1992 as Smithsonian Institution Folkways Casette
04466.
.
1959. "Linguistic Play in Its Cultural Context." Language 35: 631-36.
.
i960. "Maling, a Hanunoo girl in the Philippines." In//z the Company of Man, ed. Joseph
Casagrande, pp. 101-18. New York: Harper and Row.
.
1 97 1. "Indie Scripts of the Philippines." Paper presented at the Oriental Club of New Ha-
ven, 1 1 November 1971.
.
1 99 1. "Doctrina Christiana, en lengua espanola y tagala, Manila, 1593: Rosenwald Col-
lection 1302." In Vision of a Collector: The Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection in the Library of
Congress/Rare Book and Special Collections Division, ed. K. Mang and P. VanWingen. pp. 36-
40, 1 19. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress.
Gardiner, Fletcher. 1943. Philippine Indie Studies. San Antonio: Witte Memorial Museum.
Postma, Antoon. 1971 "Contemporary Mangyan
. scripts." Philippine Journal of Linguistics 2: 1-1 2.

.
1986. A Primer to Mangyan Script. Panaytayan.
.
1989. Ambahan Mangyan. Manila: Amoldus Press.
Revel, Nicole. 1990-92. Fleurs de paroles: Histoire naturelle Palawan. 3 vols. Louvain: Peeters.
Romualdez, Norberto. 1914. "Alfabeto Tagbanua." Cultura Filipino 5: 53-82.
William Henry. 1984. Prehispanic Source Materials for the Study of Philippine
Scott, History. 2nd

ed. Quezon City: New Day Publisher.

 Part VIII: Middle Eastern
Writing Systems

In the Middle East, conditions prevailed that were opposite to those driving the
spread of writing in Europe: religion, rather than politics, proved to be the principal
vector. The first of the "peoples of the Book" were the Jews —
a name that becomes
when many scholars believe the text
appropriate with the post 1 Exilic period, a time
of the Hebrew Bible achieved its final form. The Hebrew language came to be, and
still is, written in a form of Aramaic square script (the earlier Hebrew script being

maintained only by the Samaritans). The Word of God inherited the sanctity of the
Deity, to such an extent that even the slightest scrap of sacred text was to be treated
with reverence and not destroyed. This attitude in part lay behind the sequestering of
the documents known as the Dead Sea Scrolls, and a thousand or more years later to

the keeping of a genizah — a place to store any written refuse, notably that in a Cairo
synagogue which has yielded thousands of fragments of documents in several lan-

guages pertaining to everyday life as well as to sacred matters.

Christian scholars and missionaries evolved two prominent scripts from epi-
graphic Semitic predecessors. Cursive developments of the Aramaic branch of the
Semitic abjad resulted in the script used for Mandaic and, in numerous Eastern
churches, that of Syriac, which has been taken over for some of the related Aramaic
languages that survive to the present. Other varieties came into use in (pagan) Iranian
empires, successors to the Persian (Achaemenid) Empire of Darius —Arsacid
(Parthian), Seleucid, and Sassanian —whence they were carried into Inner Asia.
Meanwhile, Axumite kingdom of modern Ethiopia and Eritrea, immigrants us-
in the

ing a South Arabian abjad erected imposing monuments. This was among the first
kingdoms to be converted to Christianity; with the conversion, vowel notation was
added to the script, yielding the abugida that has been used (with some systematic ad-
ditions) until the present for several languages of the area.

Another cursivization of an Aramaic forerunner came to be used to write Arabic.

When the revelations to Muhammad were written down (after the Prophet's time) to

forestall the corruption of the ipsissima verba that was a perpetual danger with oral

485
 —
486 PART VII,: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

transmission, the Arabic script became the medium of the new message. It soon de-
veloped strongly regional variations, and many of these became incorporated into the
artistic repertoire of a culture that, forbidding graphic representation of living beings,
developed calligraphy as a primary art form. The distinguishing dots, originally made
necessary by the merging of the forms of many of the letters through their evolution,
became part of the decorative resources of the civilization.
The sacred nature of the texts originally recorded in Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic
script, coupled with the need to supplement the abjad with indication of vowels
probably due to the introduction of unfamiliar foreign technical terms from languages
like Greek and Persian — led scholars who used the three scripts to introduce vocalic
notations that did not corrupt the consonantal text by invading the line of letters. The
first script to receive this treatment was the Syriac, then the Arabic, and lastly the He-
brew; in each case scholars were aware of the achievements of their predecessors. To
this day, the vocalizations are used only in sacred texts and to prevent confusion in
unfamiliar or ambiguous words in secular contexts.
The languages written in this region belong to three major groups: Semitic (itself
part of Afroasiatic), Indo-European, and Altaic. The demise of Akkadian left only
representatives of West Semitic still in use. Ethiopic represents South(west) Semitic,
and Hebrew and Aramaic together constitute Northwest Semitic; the position of Ar-
abic between those two groups is now disputed. Mandaic and Syriac are Aramaic lan-
guages (while Hebrew is not) — the prominence of descendants of Aramaic script

through much of Asia results from the use of (Imperial) Aramaic as the lingua franca
of several ancient empires, including the Babylonian, Persian, and Iranian.
The Iranian group of languages, closely related to Indie (Indo- Aryan) within the
Indo-Iranian branch of Indo-European, is diversely represented among the epigraphic
remains of the ancient world. They fall into two periods: Old Iranian includes Old
Persian, from southwest Iran, and Avestan, the language of the Avesta, the holy books
of the Zoroastrians, from the northeast. Middle Iranian languages are attested from
the first century b.c.e. (Bactrian, Parthian) to the ninth century c.e. (Khwarezmian
to the 13th century). The Western group includes Parthian and Middle Persian (de-
scendant of Old and ancestor of Modern Persian); Eastern includes Bactrian.
Khwarezmian (most texts in a slightly modified Arabic script), Sogdian, Khotanese,
and Tumshuqese (the last two written in variants of Brahmi).
The three principal language families of Inner Asia Turkic, Mongolic, and Tun- —
gusic —
are usually regarded as a single phylum, Altaic. The transmission and adapta-
tion of Aramaic scripts can be followed from Turkic Uyghur to Mongolic Mongolian

and Oirat toTungusic Manchu; the influence of Chinese script can be seen in the ver-

tical lines of writing, albeit ranged from left to right — as though a page of some ear-
lier Aramaic script were rotated counterclockwise. Compare Syriac, written vertically

but rotated clockwise for horizontal reading right to left; and Lepcha, rotated clock-
wise from the Tibetan left-to-right model to be read vertically right to left.
— Peter T. Daniels
SECTION 46

The Jewish Scripts

Richard L. Goerwitz

The story of the Jewish scripts is the story of a clash between an older, Canaanite or-
thographic tradition and a broader, pan-Near Eastern Aramaic one. It is also the story
of repeated readaptations of a simple consonant-only script (an abjad), and its ulti-

mate expansion into a genuinely alphabetic writing system. The story of the Jewish
scripts is thus a great deal more than the story of sectarian orthographic tradition: It

is an important chapter in the history of writing.

From Phoenician to Aramaic to Jewish script

Although Hebrew probably existed in some distinct form as early as the mid second
millennium b.c.e., texts broadly identifiable as such only begin to appear on the Pal-
estinian archeological scene in the ninth century b.c.e. These texts are written in a
distinctive right-to-left consonantal script that differs in its general appearance, but
not in its basic twenty-two letter inventory, from what we find in theDead Sea Scrolls,
in medieval Jewish manuscripts, and even in today's modern Hebrew texts
(table 46.1; note later medial/final alternative forms).

This oldest Hebrew script was probably borrowed from Israel's northern coastal
neighbors, the Phoenicians, whose script also consisted of twenty-two symbols
(section 5). While some Phoenician dialect might actually have possessed just
twenty-two consonantal phonemes to go with these twenty-two symbols, the Hebrew
of the early first millennium b.c.e. probably possessed at least twenty-five consonan-
tal phonemes (see table 46.2). Because the size of its consonantal inventory exceed-
ed the number of symbols in the Phoenician script, we infer that some of the borrowed
Phoenician letters must have taken on multiple values in Hebrew — the same way, for
example, that English uses th to represent the values [0] and [5]. During this period,
(
J? n h, and IP sis were probably bivalent (ft, y], [h, x], [4, J] respectively).
,

As it passed through successive generations of Israelite scribes, the Phoenician-

derived Old Hebrew script took on certain traits that distinguished it from the scripts
of its neighbors. Although the Old Hebrew script has persisted among the Samari-
tans —adherents to an ancient offshoot of Judaism —even into recent times (compare
table 46.2, col. 2, with table 5.4 on page 95), among Jews this script did not out-

live the many sociopolitical upheavals of the late first millennium b.c.e. and the early
first millennium c.e., though in a few Dead Sea Scrolls it is used for the Name of God.

487
488 PART V1II: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 46. 1 : Old Hebrew and Jewish Scripts"

Transliteration Ca. 600 B.C. E. Ctf. /25 B.C.E. Modern

f
>

X X

b
f J 3

g 1 A 31

d A 1 1

h
^ 71 n

w i
\ 1
z &. I
T

h
rt n

t
© \?
D
j
y •n -1

k
y J )
3T
1
L V
\
m D
> 4 V
n
) j )
3 I

s D
t y
<

»
y
-
P S*|
7 J
s
K& y ST
q P
Y p
r 1
i 1
s
w V »
t

^ J1
n
a. In the last two columns, the right-hand letters are word-final forms. "600 B.C.1 ."
reflects several texts; "125 b.( .1;." represents a Hasmonean Dead Sea Scroll manuscript.
 SECTION 46: THE JEWISH SCRIPTS 489

From about the twelfth century b.c.e. on, Aramaic-speaking peoples began to
diffuse into the Levant, and later into Palestine itself, leading to a slow displacement
of Canaanite-speaking peoples (of which the ancient Israelites were one, Hebrew be-
ing a southern or "inland" Canaanite dialect). A series of distinct and significantly
Aramaized powers also seized control of Palestine. These were, in turn, the Assyri-

ans, the Babylonians, and the Persians — the last of whom established one eastern di-
alect of Aramaic (what we now call "Imperial" Aramaic) as the administrative
language of the entire Near East. Within a few decades, Imperial Aramaic, and its own
Phoenician-derived script forms (see figure 57), had achieved dominance through-
out the region. We find it being used, for instance, in Aramaic papyri produced by a
fifth-century b.c.e. Jewish military colony on Elephantine Island, opposite Aswan
(Syene), Egypt. This domination persisted until the third century b.c.e. — the century
after Alexander the Great conquered the Near East and ushered in a new era of Greek
cultural hegemony over the eastern Mediterranean region.
Despite its replacement by Greek in official circles, Aramaic remained in use,

both by local administrations and by the diverse populations who knew one or another
dialect of it as their native language. No longer an official international medium of

communication, Aramaic -script forms became free to develop independently in the

various locales that used them. It is out of this milieu that a distinctive Jewish script
began to take shape. By the mid third century b.c.e., we begin to discern a local
Judean variant emerging from the remnants of the Imperial Aramaic script. After a pe-
riod of vacillation, during which the old Hebrew letter forms remained in use, Jews
finally settled on a localized Aramaic script as their standard. This script was used for
both Hebrew- and Aramaic-language documents.
Although many regional variations and stylizations have arisen over the years
(e.g. the semi-cursive Italian "Rashi" script used for rabbinical commentaries, see
table 46.2, col. 3), the basic formal Jewish script has remained fundamentally the
same all the way into modern times. Traditionally, Jews have taken great pride in their
formal script, especially the often beautifully ornamented forms utilized in the Torah
scrolls from which Rabbis read (actually, chant) scripture portions in the synagogue.
The standard reference for the history of the script Naveh 1987; on the Hebrew
is

language generally, see Saenz-Badillos 1993. There is no similar volume on Aramaic.

From consonants to vowels

One notable trait of Phoenician orthography in the early first millennium b.c.e. was
its had no means of expressing vowels. Later on
defective character. In particular, it

it also came to be written without any divisions between words. Hebrew and Aramaic

scribes, when borrowing this script, maintained the older practice of marking word
—
boundaries with a slash, dot, and later on, in Aramaic a space. They also worked —
out a way of representing vowels using "helping" consonants or matres lectionis
'mothers of reading', viz. H h, [a:] and [e:], 1 u\ [u:] and later [o:], and ^ v, fi:] and later
 —
490 PART VI1I: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 46.2: Hebrew Consonants"

Reconstructed General
Num. Trans- Mid 2nd Standard
}
Hebrew Samaritan Rashi Value literation Millennium Tiberian Israeli Name
X ft 6 I
>

m PI [7,0] 'alep

2 3 3 2 b, b Eb] [b, v] fb, v] bet

J 1 J
3 g,g [g] [g,Y] [g] gimel
1 ^ 7 4 d,d [d] [d,5] [d] dllet

n f D 5 h Eh] [h] [h] he

1 * 1 6 w [w] [w] [v] waw
c
T 43 f
7 z [z, dz] [z] [z] zayin

n ** D 8 h [h,x] [ti] [x] het

? V 9 t [f] M d
[t] tet

1
m •>
10 y [fl 01 [j] yod

31 s 31 20 k,k [k] [k, X] [k, X] kap

V 1 b 30 1 [1] [1] [1] lamed
QD ^i DO 40 m [m] [m] [m] mem
1-1 > 31 50 n [n] [n] [n] nun
e
D *? P 60 s [ts] [s] [s] samek
» V 13 70
<
P,Y] m [?, 0]
f
ayin

D») ;j sq 80 P^P [Pi [p,f] [p,f] pen

*r -ni 5T 90 s [ts', tf\ t4'] w [ts] sadeh

p p P 100 q [k] [q] [k] qop

i e 7 200 r [r] [f] M res

tp «JUU c 300 s, s [4, s, tfl [s,J] [s,J] sin, sin

n A D 400 t, t [t] [t, e] [t] taw

a. In the first and third columns, a right-hand letter is the word-final form.
b. Over- and underbarred letters represent fricative versions (i.e. in pointed texts, without dages or with rape).
c. Perhaps [3, c%J; Diakonoff 1992.
d. "Emphatic" consonant.
e. ts > s\ Faber 1984, 1992.
f. See Blau 1982; Israeli '
varies widely.

[e:]; e.g. ^HX 'dwny (Judges 13:8) ~ T7X *dny [?ado:na:j] 'lord'. At first, matres
were used only for word-final long vowels (Cross and Freedman 1952; Zevit 1980.
Though the matres brought the Hebrew and Aramaic scripts considerably closer
to what we think of as true alphabets, these scripts still fell short because they lacked
distinct vowel symbols that could be used regardless of vowel length or position in

the word. The Hebrew and Aramaic scripts, that is, still focused primarily on syllabic
frames (e.g. *qdm appears as Dp qm), representing their nuclei — that is, the vowels
only in restricted contexts, and using an imprecise modification of the consonantal
system. The development of a full, voweled alphabet did, in fact, occur during the first
 SECTION 46: THE JEWISH SCRIPTS 49

table 46.3: Tiberian Vowel Points

Sign (with m) Transliteration Tiberian Israeli Name

t9 i. /":
with yod, f [i(0] [i] hireq
-0 ^; with yod, e; with he \ eh [e:] [e] sere

-Q e: with yod, f with he

; *, eh [£()] [e] ssgol

z9 a [a(:>] [a] patah

-a a; with he\ a; [3(0] [a,o] qames; as 0,

qames hatup
-fo 0; with waw, 0; with he\ oh [O:] [0] holem
- », 1- =10 u, u\ u [u(:)] [0] qibbus, sureq

-3D e [e] [e] hatep sagol

-g a [a] [a] hatep patah
-» 6 [0] [0] hatep qames

7? 3,0 [3,0] b,0] sswa

millennium b.c.e. —but not among Canaanites or Arameans. Rather, it occurred far-

ther west among the Greeks, who adapted and extended the Semitic script to suit their
own dialects (section 21).
Despite the contemporaneous development of a full alphabet among the Greeks,
and later the Romans, etc., Hebrew scribes continued their consonant-dominated
writing tradition, eschewing truly distinct vowel symbols. Though their system gen-
erally conveyed a given writer's basic intent, various diachronic phonological
changes such as /z-apocope, '-quiescence, aw- and <ry-monophthongization, stress

lengthening, etc., created a rift between spelling and pronunciation. As this rift wid-
ened, new and extended old uses of the matres arose to bridge the gap. We obtain our
best view of these changes in the Dead Sea Scrolls of the late first millennium b.c.e.,

where Freedman and Mathews (1985) discern three spelling typologies: (a) the Proto-
Rabbinic, (b) the Proto-Samaritan, and (c) the Hasmonean. A fairly conservative
strand of the Proto-Rabbinic spelling system later became the dominant orthography
for Jewish biblical manuscripts. Other forms of literature, being less constrained by
tradition, tended to vary more widely (Weinberg 1985: 7-28).
As detail-conscious methods of biblical interpretation spread, and the correct
reading of the biblical text became progressively more critical to Jewish liturgy and
study, the nominally reformed biblical spellings became themselves insufficient, and
additional extensions arose. In the early first millennium c.e., Greek transcriptions
apparently came into use as adjuncts to the Hebrew, possibly in efforts to record the

correct pronunciation of vowels not covered by the matres (cf. Voobus 1971 4-10). :

Later on, however (about 600 c.e.), a full solution was found: specialized points or
diacritics (table 46.3) that could be combined with the consonants used in tradition-

al spellings (Yeivin 1980: 157-274).

As an example of how these diacritics worked, note the traditional spelling of the
word 'Judah\ In the main medieval reading tradition, the Tiberian — that used in the
492 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

northern Palestinian city of Tiberias — this word was probably pronounced [phuido:],
although scholars today typically transcribe it as ydhuda* The traditional consonan-

tal writing of this word is iTTW, with the 1 w and final H h functioning as matres for

fu] and [o] respectively. Combined with the special diacritics for [a], [u], and [o], the
Tiberian spelling of this word is HTTP, i.e. the original spelling augmented with some
(sometimes redundant) dots and dashes. In a standard biblical text, rTTirP would also
carry a cantillation mark (or accent) to indicate stress position and musical motif
(table 46.4). Many medieval manuscripts also show a line over the 1, called rdpeh,
which signals a voiced fricative [5] rather than stop [d] pronunciation for the 1 (so for
all the nonemphatic stops, 3 7, 15S f\[v, y, 5, x, f, 6], known by the mnemonic begad

kefat). Had the 1 been a stop, [d], itwould have been marked with a ddges, i.e., with
a central dot 1; similarly 2 a 3 D fi fb, g, k, p, t]). Ddges also marks doubling, e.g., V

stands for [11]. The question of whether a ddges indicates a geminate or stop articula-
tion for a given consonant can ultimately be resolved, but often only by reference to
(morpho)phonological processes that fall outside our scope. The two pronunciations
of tt? are distinguished as Vs [s] and W s [J]. Another mark inserted into the consonan-
tal text is the hyphen-like maqqep, connecting a word with (usually) a particle that no
longer bears primary stress: D"JN Vs kol 'dddm ~ "TX'Vs kol- 'dddm 'every person'.
Three main Hebrew diacritic vowel/cantillation systems are known to scholars
today. These are: (a) the Tiberian (mentioned above), (b) the Babylonian, and (c) the

Palestinian. All developed between approximately 600 and 1000 c.E. Toward the end
of this period, hybrid systems also proliferated. Aside from a few medieval manu-
scripts containing Aramaic Bible translations (called Targums), Jewish sacred litera-
ture (e.g. the Mishnah), or liturgical poetry (piyyutim), these diacritic systems —both
hybrid and pure —occur only in biblical texts. Their purpose was to record one or an-
other group's notion of how the biblical text ought to be correctly read; the scholars
who devised and preserved the systems are known as Masoretes. Most of the differ-

ences between the three main Masoretic traditions are purely graphic; that is, they
show the same overall cantillation patterns and vowels, but represent these by differ-

ent signs. It is true, though, that a few of the vocalic differences reflect genuine un-
derlying dialectal divergences. And, while the cantillation systems typically agree on
the placement of the main clause and verse divisions (Aronoff 1985), they often differ

substantially in their complexity and handling of lesser details.

Salient features of the major diacritic systems are described in Yeivin 1980, Rev-
ell 1970, 1977, and especially Yeivin 1985. There is still, however, a great deal of
work left for the next generation of scholars. For example, Wickes 1881, 1887 — the
still standard monographs on the Tiberian cantillation marks —have not even been up-
dated, still less replaced by more comprehensive studies. Medieval transcriptions of
Tiberian Hebrew in Arabic characters are also for the first time being systematically

*A widely used transcription of Hebrew (and related languages) uses a circumflex accent for a long vowel
marked by a mater lectionis, and a macron for a long vowel not so marked. A line under (or over, for/? and g) a
stop consonant indicates that it is pronounced as a fricative.
 ''' ' '' ' ' ' '

SECTION 46: THE JEWISH SCRIPTS 493

table 46.4: Tiberian Accents (cantillation marks)"

In the Twenty-one Prose Books In the Three Poetical Books''

Accent Name Usage Accent Name Usage

Pausal disjunctive) Accents

(

1. silluq T3T 1.
r
silluq T3T
2. atnah "91 2. - 'oleh wsyored "91

3- ssgolta *91 3-
- 'atnah "91
salselet - great rabia' IDT
1*1 4-

great zaqep - little rabta* T3T

4- "4l
little zaqep t^t 5-
- rsbia' mugras ini

5- tipha 13*7 6. - sinnor T T

6. rsbia' IDT 7- 7 dshi "IDT

T T

zarqa TDT 8. - pazer "^1

7-

8. pasta IDT 9- 1- great salselet Wl

yatib *B 10. \- 'azla lsgarmeh h*i
9- - tsbir "qt \~ mahuppak lagarmeh tel
10. - geres TDT
- gersayim

1 1. pazer t5t
great pazer TDT
J
12. great talisa "91
13- lsgarmeh hw
NON-PAUSAL (CONJUNCTIVE) ACCENTS
I. munah "91 1.
7 meraka "91

2. mshuppak ion 2.
7 tarha "91
- rneraka "91 3-
- 'azla' nD l
3-

double merska 4-
- munah "91
fll
- darga "91 5-
- 'illuy IDT
4-

5- 'azla* "IDT 6.
r mshuppah 91
6. little tslisa Tdt 7-
- galgal "IDT
.T T
y

galgal -i3i 8. - little salselet TDT

T T
7-

mayala i>nr|V] 9-
- sinnont -IDT
[8.

a. As enumerated in Wickes 1887: 10— 1 1, ll 1: 12.

b. Psalms, Proverbs, Job.

edited and published (Khan 1990). These promise to revolutionize much of what we
know about the phonology behind the Tiberian diacritics (Khan 1987, 1990, with
Garr 1990, form the basis of table 46.3, col. 3; note also Goerwitz 1990 on long pa-
tch and sdgol).
With the addition of specialized diacritics to the older consonantal system, a re-
494 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

markable change took place in Hebrew writing: it became genuinely alphabetic. Me-
dieval Hebrew script is, in fact, vastly more explicit and descriptive than printed
Western scripts because its cantillation signs include detailed information about

stress, pause (a word at the end of a syntactic unit usually assumes a somewhat dif-

ferent stress and vocalization pattern, closer to a historically earlier form), and musi-
cal pitch. The great irony here is that this system arose only after the Greeks had
borrowed the Semitic consonantal script and extended it systematically to cover vow-
els as well. Liturgical Hebrew script simply reincorporates and extends these princi-
ples, finishing the "alphabetization" process that the Phoenician-derived scripts
themselves had originally inspired. It remains unclear whether the Hebrew cantilla-
tion marks were adapted from Greek or Syriac antecedents, or whether they arose to-

gether against a common backdrop of Jewish, and subsequent Christian, modal chant.

Codification of the medieval script

By about 1200, the once diverse world of medieval Jewish pointing systems had be-
come considerably more monolithic. The reason for this change is that the Tiberian
system, by reason of its fullness and supposed greater accuracy, ended up superseding
the others (Chiesa 1979: 9-17). Since that time, almost all biblical manuscripts have
carried Tiberian vowel and cantillation marks. Adoption of the Tiberian system as the
standard for all biblical manuscripts brought to completion the process of standard-
ization that had begun over a millennium earlier, with the development of the national
Jewish variant of the old Imperial Aramaic script. It is a remarkable but verifiable fact
that anyone who can read a modern printed Hebrew Bible can, after a short period of

adjustment, read not only medieval biblical manuscripts, but also for instance the
Jewish-script manuscripts found among the Dead Sea Scrolls (see table 46.1).
Although vowel and cantillation marks assume an important role in most medi-
eval and later biblical manuscripts and editions, nonbiblical texts (as noted above)

generally do not carry vowel or cantillation signs. Furthermore, nonbiblical texts

show the same expansionistic uses of matres lectionis that were systematically ex-
cluded from the conservative biblical tradition. They also often differ in a few ancil-
lary consonantal spelling conventions, such as the use of Yl and " for consonantal w
and y respectively. Modern Israeli printed texts continue liberal, nonbiblical uses of
the matres. Much work in developing standards for their use has in fact been done
during the twentieth century (Weinberg 1985: 47-185). By way of contrast, vowel
pointing or niqqud only appears (a) in school books, (b) in prayer books and poetry,
and (c) in situations where a word, if left unpointed, might easily be misconstrued.
Cantillation marks do not appear at all any more except in printed Bible editions. In

effect, Israeli script, like most nonbiblical Hebrew orthographies, owes more to writ-

ing principles developed during the second millennium b.c.e. than to the medieval
biblical scripts —whose diacritics supply nuances of pronunciation that serve no use-
ful purpose in, and often even impede, everyday written communication.
 SECTION 46: THE JEWISH SCRIPTS 495

Sample Texts
Imperial Aramaic

/ 4| * $4 *# *j sg* ^ >*i.i#

figure 57. Introduction to a quitclaim written at Elephantine, 26 August 440 b.c.e.

(Sayce and Cowley 1906, papyrus F, lines 1-3).

kdVe) wownmx /////= nw mrrsb ill ill ill

- uv in nxV \nr n<-
'klm ssshtr* 25 tns snhpl 19 mwy wh b'l 14 b^-

na rpona mn nTimaV xnTa jidV Vrr™ to -a jpd ibx

rb hyshm trb hyhtbml 'tryb nwsl lkydr' yhp rb >yp rrrT

ddd by n n
/-,D3 pon pnv n xn Vv nrm VnV po n *r?nx xtt
r
psk 1* t
/dP n nwsb ndb yz 'nyd 1* tzyrw lgdl nws yz ymr 'yndy
( > )

/. Transliteration. b 14 Tb hw ywm 19 lphns snt 25

2. Normalization: ba 14 la-'ab hu yom 19 la-pahons sanat 25
3. Gloss: on 14th Ab that day 19 Pahons year 25

/. 'rthsss mlk* 'mr py* br phy 'rdykl lswn

2. 'Artahsasta malk-a 'amar PI 'a bar Pahl 'aradekal la-Sun
3. Artaxerxes king-the said Pia son. of Pakhi builder of-Aswan

/. bytr' lmbthyh brt mhsyh br ydny*

2. blrat-a la-Mibtahya barat Mahseya bar Yadanya
3. fortress-the to-Mibtachia daughter.of Machseia son.of Yedoniah

/. 'rmy' zy swn ldgl wryzt M dyn* zy

c
2. 'Aramay-a dl Sun la-dagsl warlzat al dlna di

3. Aramean-the of Aswan of-division.of Warizat concerning lawsuit which

c
/.
(
bdn bswn npd/rt l ksp
( c
2. abad-na ba-SOn npVd* al kasop
3. did-we in-Aswan suit(?) regarding silver

'On the 14th of Ab, that is, day 19th of (the Egyptian month) Pahons, year 25 of
Artaxerxes the king, Pia son of Pakhi, a builder of Aswan, the fortress, said to
Mibtachia, daughter of Machseia son of Yedania the Aramean, belonging to the
the Warizat division at Aswan: "Concerning the lawsuit we undertook in

Aswan — a suit(?) regarding silver (and other belongings) ...'"

—AP 14, lines 1-3 (Cowley 1923: 4i~43'> Porten and Yardeni 1989: 3$~39)-
496 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

Note: The document goes on to staie that Pia and Mibtachia's division of property is satisfactory to Pia, and
that he will not litigate any further on this matter. Note the cosmopolitan setting: this document records a prop-
erty settlement between a recently divorced Egyptian-named builder and his Jewish wife.

Hebrew with Tiberian vocalization

Stress falls on the last syllable of each word unless otherwise marked.

to 10 T T
DX nax^
sera 'ah te'* nattuy akene'ab neh un'asam mi* Qram 6yyaw<—)

jrgn nx vynyn Vx nxto

nedrayyah te' unertba'at la> azzuha'al akedaba'al t'ozzah

/. Transliteration: wayyo'msru 'im masa'nu hen bo'eneka

2. Transcription: waj-jo:m(s)r-u: ?im moi'soi-nu: he:n bsiei'neixo:
3. Gloss: and-said-they if found-we favor in-eyes-your

/. yuttan >et ha 'ares hazzo't la'abadeka la

(
ahuzza
2. juttam ?eG ho:-'io:rets haz-zo:0 lai-iavoi'oei-xo: la:-?axuzzo:
3. let. be. given ACC the-land the-this to-servants-your as-possession

/. *al ta'abirenu 'et hayyarden.

2. ?al tai-Tavii'rei-nu: ?80 haj-jarde:n
3. not may.you.cause-cross-us acc the-Jordan

Then they said, "If we have found favor with you, let this land be given to us,
your servants, as a permanent possession. Do not make us cross the Jordan!'"
—Numbers 32:5 (for the phonetics, see Khan 1990, ms. 1).

Israeli Hebrew
nr^ "mnnn ido" npTra pro kti yunV rrsniipaipn^-
borl "mutaheh rps" tqzhb nyyd* 'yh k"ntl hysnadroqnodh<r-

nrnV m'wpnV rrsniipripn ,im bw in*™*? nm ... ,tepxti

toyhl hyus (
k'ntl hysnadroqnodh ,rbd Is otymi yrhw ... rubbysh

rnynan ,Vxw»a cnx VdV itstiddi rxm pnna ^

nyyn'tmh ,1'rsyb md* Ikl
(
rze -rpsw hkrb qyzhm ylk

Mbw uniprrGroa
.unls sdoqh-ybtkb

/. Transliteration: hqonqordansyh Itn'k hy ' 'dyyn bhzqt

2. Transcription: ha-konkordants'ja la-ta'nax hi ?a'dajin b-xez'kat

3. Gloss: the-concordance to.the-Tanakh that still in-presumption

/. "spr hehatum" lrob hsybbur, .. whry l'myto si dbr,

2. 'sefer he-xa'tum 1-rov ha-tsi'bur va-ha're la-?ami'to Jel da'var

3. book the-sealed to-most.of the-public and-here as.the-truth of thing
 SECTION 46: THE JEWISH SCRIPTS 497

/. hqonqordansyh ltn'k 'suyh lhyot kli mhzyq brkh

2. ha-konkordants'ja la-ta'nax ?asuja li-hjot kli maxaziq braxa
3. the-concordance to.the-Tanakh made to-be tool holder.of blessing

/. wspr (
ezr Ikl Mm bysrl, hmt'nyyn bktby
2. v-'sefer ?ezer 1-xol ?a'dam b-jisra'Vel ha-mit?anyen b-xitve
3. and-book.of help to-every person in-Israel the-interested in-scriptures.of

/. hqods slnu.

2. ha-'kodej Je-'la-nu

3. the-holiness which-to-us

'A concordance of the Bible is still considered a "sealed book" by most of the
public. . . . But the truth of the matter is that a concordance of the Bible can
serve as a beneficial reference tool for anyone in Israel interested in our holy
scriptures.' —Even-Shoshan 1985: 1.

Note: Tanakh is an acronym for the three components of the Bible: Torah, Nevi 'im, Ktuvim "the Law, the
Prophets, and the Writings'.

Bibliography

Aronoff, Mark. 1985. "Orthography and Linguistic Theory: The Syntactic Basis of Masoretic He-
brew Punctuation." Language 61 28-72. :

Andersen, Francis I., and A. Dean Forbes. 1986. Spelling in the Hebrew Bible (Biblica et Orientalia

Rome: Biblical Institute Press.

41).
Birnbaum, Solomon A. 1954-7 The Hebrew Scripts. 1 . 2 vols. Vol. 1 , Leiden: Brill, 197 1 ; vol. 2, Lon-
don: Palaeographica, 1954-57.
Blau, Joshua. 1982. Polyphony in Biblical Hebrew (Israel Academy of Sciences and Humanities,
Proceedings 4/2). Jerusalem.
Chiesa, Bruno. 1979. The Emergence of Hebrew Biblical Pointing (iudentum und Umwelt 1 ). Frank-
furt am Main: Lang.
Cowley, A. 1923. Aramaic Papyri of the Fifth Century B.C. Oxford: Clarendon. Repr. Osnabrtick:
Zeller, 1967.
Cross, Frank Moore, Jr. 1961. 'The Development of the Jewish Scripts." In The Bible and the An-
cient Near East, ed. G. Ernest Wright, pp. 133-202. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday. Repr. Wi-
nona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns, 1979.
Cross, Frank Moore, Jr., and David Noel Freedman. 1952. Early Hebrew Orthography: A Study of
the Epigraphic Evidence (American Oriental Series 36). New Haven.
Diakonoff, Igor M. 1992. "Proto-Afrasian and Old Akkadian: A Study in Historical Phonetics."

Journal of Afroasiatic Languages 4: 1— 133.

Dolgopolsky, Aharon B. 1977. "Emphatic Consonants in Semitic." Israel Oriental Studies 7: 1-13.

Even-Shoshan, Abraham. 1985. A New Concordance of the Bible [in Hebrew]. Jerusalem: Kiryat
Sefer.
Faber, Alice. 1984. "Semitic Sibilants in an Afro-Asiatic Context." Supplement to Journal of Semitic
Studies 29/2, 189-224.
992. "Second Harvest: sibboleO Revisited ( Yet Again)? Journal ofSemitic Studies 37: [-10.
.
1

Freedman, David Noel, A. Dean Forbes, and Francis I. Andersen. 1992. Studies in Hebrew and Ar-
amaic Orthography (Biblical and Judaic Studies from the University of California, San Diego.
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2). Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.

Freedman, David Noel, and K. A. Mathews. 1985. The Paleo-Hebrew Leviticus Scroll. N.p.: Amer-
ican Schools of Oriental Research.
Garr, W. Randall. 1990. "Interpreting Orthography." In The Hebrew Bible and its Interpreters (Bib-
and Judaic Studies from the University of California 1), ed. William Henry Propp et al.,
lical

pp. 53-80. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.

Goerwitz, Richard L. 1990. "Tiberian Hebrew Segol: A Reappraisal." Zeitschrift fur Althebraistik y.
3-io.
Hanson, Richard S. 1964. "Paleo-Hebrew Scripts in the Hasmonean Age." Bulletin of the American
Schools of Oriental Research 175: 26-42.
Khan, Geoffrey. 1987. "Vowel Length and Syllable Structure in the Tiberian Tradition of Biblical
Hebrew." Journal of Semitic Studies 32: 23-82.
1990. Karaite Bible Manuscripts from the Cairo Genizah (Cambridge University Library
.

Genizah Series 9). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Millard, Alan R. 1970. "'Scriptio continua' in Early Hebrew: Ancient Practice or Modern Surmise?"
Journal of Semitic Studies 15: 2-15.
Naveh, Joseph. 1970. The Development of the Aramaic Script (Israel Academy of Sciences and Hu-
manities, Proceedings 5/1). Jerusalem.
.
1973. "Word Division in West Semitic Writing." Israel Exploration Journal 23: 206-8.
.
1987. Early History of the Alphabet, 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Magnes.
Porten, Bezalel, and Ada Yardeni. 1989. Textbook of Aramaic Documents from Ancient Egypt, vol.

2: Contracts. Jerusalem: Hebrew University.

Revell, E. J. 1970. Hebrew Texts with Palestinian Pointing (Near and Middle Eastern Series 7). Tor-
onto: University of Toronto Press.
.
1971-72. "The Oldest Evidence for the Hebrew Accent System." Bulletin of the John Ry-
lands Library 54: 2 14-22.
.
1976. "Biblical Punctuation and Chant in the Second Temple Period." Journal for the Study
of Judaism 7:181 -98.
.
1977. Biblical Texts with Palestinian Pointing and their Accents (Society of Biblical Liter-
ature Masoretic Studies 4). Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press.
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Cambridge University Press.
Sayce, Archibald H., and A. E. Cowley. 1906. Aramaic Papyri Discovered at Assuan. London: Mor-
ing.

Voobus, Arthur. 1971. The Hexapla and the Syro-Hexapla (Papers of the Estonian Theological So-
ciety in Exile 22). Stockholm.
Weinberg, Werner. 1985. The History of Hebrew Plene Spelling. Cincinnati: Hebrew Union College
Press.
Wickes, William. 88 A Treatise on the Accentuation of the Three So-Called Poetical Books of the
1 1 .

Old Testament. Oxford: Clarendon. Repr. with the following, New York: Ktav, 1970.
1887. A Treatise on the Accentuation of the Twenty-One So-Called Prose Books of the Old
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Testament. Oxford: Clarendon. Repr. with the above, New York: Ktav, 1970.
Yeivin, Israel. 1980. Introduction to the Tiberian Masorah, ed. and trans. E. J. Revell (Society of
Biblical Literature Masoretic Studies 5). Missoula, Mont.: Scholars Press.
.
1985. Mswrt hlswn h (
bryt hmstqpt bnyqwd hbbly [The Hebrew language tradition as re-
flected in the Babylonian vocalization] (Academy of the Hebrew Language Texts and Studies
1 2). Jerusalem: Academy of the Hebrew Language.
Zevit, Ziony. 1980. Matres Lectionis in Ancient Hebrew Epigraphs (ASOR Monographs 2). Cam-
bridge, Mass.: American Schools of Oriental Research.

.
SECTION 47

Aramaic Scripts

for Aramaic Languages

Peter T. Daniels

Aramaic was the lingua franca of Southwest Asia from early in the first millennium
b.c.e. until the Arab Conquest in the mid seventh century c.E. Contemporary with the

Roman Empire, several peoples used varieties of Aramaic script that had become cur-
sive (no comprehensive survey of these "Late Aramaic" scripts has yet been pub-
lished). These include the Palmyrans (Klugkist 1982) —Palmyra was a city-state in
present-day eastern Syria —and the Nabateans (see table 5.5 on page 97); the Mani-
chean script, as well, belongs in this group (section 48). The Nabateans (centered
around Petra, in present-day southern Jordan) wrote in Aramaic but spoke Arabic, and
the Arabic script (section 50) emerged from the Nabatean (Abbott 1939, Gruendler
1993). Within this Arabic- (and Iranian- and Turkic-)speaking milieu, Aramaic has
survived as the vernacular of several non-Muslim minorities (and three villages near
Damascus which have become predominantly Muslim); and as the liturgical languag-

es of two sects for which cursive scripts arose, Syriac for certain Christians and Man-
daic for Mandeans. Syriac is the vehicle for a vast literature (its Golden Age was
before the Conquest, its Silver Age after) and still serves in several contemporary
churches; Mandaic, still used by a Gnostic group in Iraq, Iran, and elsewhere, is little

known, but its script has undergone the most interesting development of any abjad.

Classical Syriac

The origin of Syriac script is not fully clear, though its development across the cen-
turies of its flowering can be followed fairly easily thanks to dated colophons (Hatch
1946). The fullest discussion of Syriac paleography is Pirenne 1963.

Three kinds of consonants

There are three main varieties of Syriac writing. Oldest is the Estrangelo; during the

Golden Age there came about a schism in the Syrian church, on Christological

Acknowledgment: I am extremely grateful to Bob Hoberman for his careful reading of and manifold
improvements to the treatment of Classical Syriac.

499
500 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 47.1 Syriac Consonants

:

ESTRANGELO Serto
"^3 ^3 "*3

Si
<*>
"a
Translit Num. ^3
S
ERATION IPA Name value 5 8
>
'alap - - - -
[?] I \< T< { t

b,b/bh [b, v] bet 2 =, 3 S3 XZL O a x> X*

g>

d,
I/gh

d/dh
[g, y]

[d,S]
gamal

dalat
3 ^^^ ^ - -
^» m. ^B»
"
^5=
~
4 1 1 5 r
h [h] he CO on
- - - -
5 CM Oi

w [w] waw 6 a - - - -
ci O 0.

z [z] zayn - - - "

7 \ V 1 V

h M het 8 M M. M -LL w *» ^ *,

t W tet
9 X X X X •A ^ i ^
y [j] yud 10 J J. _> -L V «. * *

k,k/kh [k, X] kap 20 ^\ £k D A

^N X*.
f *f*

1 [1] lamad 30 A 1 A ^ s^ >\ i. A

m [m] mlm 40 T» 7* J3 Jl >o >ci 20 -*a

n [n] nun 50 _ J J. J JL
r V T

s [s] semkat 60 QO •a A* Aft xo XO XO m

(

m c
e 70 ^ ^ ^ ^ >** >^ X*, x*.

p, p,/ph [p, fl pe 80 a 2l ^ a. a a a a
s M sade 90 * s*
- -
j j
- -

q [ql qop 100 XI XI XI XL x> XL n.

r [r] res, rls 200 - - - -

i -\ 4 t-

s [J] sin 300 x. X. X. -X a M A A

t, t/th [t] taw - - L £^
- -
400 a> Ax

grounds, with the Persian (East) Syrians becoming Nestorian Christians and the Ro-
man (West) Syrians Monophysite (or Jacobite) Christians. From the fifth century,
these two communities had nothing to do with each other, and the scripts of their
manuscripts diverged, the forms being called Nestorian and Serto 'simple' respec-
tively; there is also a very square variety used in Christian Palestinian Syriac manu-
scripts, which adds a reversed p a for a Greek labial stop (Muller-Kessler 1991).

Moller (1988), however, denies that every Syriac manuscript can be thus classified.

Each community applied its own system of vocalization to the consonantal script.
 SECTION 47: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ARAMAIC LANGUAGES 50

table 47.2: Syriac Vowels

Nestorian (Eastern) Jacobite (Western)

Diacritic With b Diacritic With b Name Transliteration

-
j 4=3 or p hbasa i, T

_ = rbasa karya, zlama qasya e

- or rbasa
— 23 rbasa arrika, zlama pslqa e

- = - or ptaha a

- -
=> or p zqapa a

(
CI CU=) sasa rwlha 0. 6

or p "sasa
u. u
(

a «=» sasa allTsa

Syriac writes the same twenty-two consonants asHebrew (section 46), but the
ductus has become cursive. Most of the letters of each word are connected, so that
some letters take on slightly different shapes according as they are attached to their

neighbors or not; eight of the letters never connect to the following letter (for the Es-
trangelo and Serto scripts, see table 47. 1 ; for the Nestorian script, see table 47.3).
Words are separated by spaces, but sometimes common phrases can be written
closed-up, and series of particles are often written as a unit. In Serto, 'alaph and la-
madh assume each other's angle at the beginning or end of a word: 7- initially is 2fc.

and / 'finally is U

Certain vowels are consistently notated using the consonantal script alone: every
final d and e is marked by *< \ every /"by j v, and every il, u, 0, and o by a w (except
in the two words \=t kl [kul] and A\p3 mtl [mefrHil]). a w and v also represent the .»

diphthongs aw and ay. In words of Greek origin, a a is often written v< \ and 8 e and
oci ai sometimes co h.

Arabic written in Syriac script is called Garshuni.

Diacritical points

A number of diacritics came into use to notate phonological and morphological prop-
erties of the Syriaclanguage (Segal 1953). The outlines of d -\ and r i (which were
very similar throughout the history of the Semitic abjad) converged, and the two let-
ters are distinguished by a dot below or above, even in the oldest inscriptions. From
earliest times, also, a plural noun or feminine(!) verb (but not an adjective) is in most
instances marked by a pair of dots (sydme) — if there is an /• in the word, they replace
its dot, i; otherwise, they appear wherever they will fit: r<=Ax» malkd "king*. rc^Aib
malke 'kings'. They are used even when the singular and plural are spelled differently.

Several native Semitic words could often be written with the same consonants,
and where such forms represent nouns of common origin, or different forms of a sin-
 —
502 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

gle verb, some sort of differentiation was required. This at first took the form of a sin-
gle dot placed over a letter to indicate a "fuller, stronger" syllable (usually with the
vowel a), and under it to mark a "finer, weaker" vocalization, or none at all: rd=as>
(
(
bd *
[?va:5a:] 'a work', re*—i^ bd '
[lavda:] 'servant'; Ai^a qtl [qa*el] 'he kills' or
[qat-frel] AVp qtl [qtal] 'he killed'. The latter sort of differentiation
'he murdered',
was generalized mark morphological distinctions even when those specific vowels
to

were not involved yam* sm [sa:m] 'he placed'. This system is already in place in the
earliest dated Syriac manuscript (41 1 c.E.); with the schism and the Conquest in the
seventh century, further specification of vowel quality became essential, and the sys-
tem of vowel points found in table 47.2, first column, began to emerge. The system
was perfected in East Syrian manuscripts of the ninth century.
In the West Syrian sphere, the pointing system was at first maintained; but Jacob
of Edessa (later 7th century), showing how complicated it had become, proposed in-

serting vowel letters into the consonantal text. This scheme was never used. Instead,
the vowel letters of Greek could be placed alongside the Syriac consonant letters

(table 47.2, second column) —above or below as space dictated; the odd orientation
of the vowel signs is explained by the Syriac scribal practice of writing downward on
the page, left to right (90 counterclockwise from the direction of reading). The date
of introduction of the Greek vocalization cannot be established more certainly than
before 1000. The vocalization systems of Syriac (etc.) are described in Morag 1961.
A further sign sporadically found is the linea occultans, which occasionally
marks a vowelless consonant, but more often an unpronounced consonant; it is placed
above or (more recently) below the affected letter, r<Auim md(n)t '
[msSitta:] 'city';
but a line below could also represent a "fuller" pronunciation.
There are also two optional dots that indicate stop versus fricative pronunciation

of the six plosive consonants b g dkp V. qussdyd, a dot above, marks the stop; ruk-
kdkd, a dot below, marks the fricative (Segal 1989). Only a stop following a vowel or
an "underlying" vowel can be fricativized, so rukkdkd is an important indicator of
morphological information.
The first lines of the two Syriac samples might look as follows, fully vocalized:

^.cozzia wA*'.^— i^ t<i\ciA\v< —^i kusnin rOv^rCi ^/iaor^ rLaL\r<a

Samples of Classical Syriac

rangelo
r^axz^a v<Avjt—iSi t<^\ci^\r< - a^.i ^voa-xa rOv^rCi ^iwK rkiLir<o<—
nyhbw 'tyr'V 'twV bkr tymdq 'nzk'd nynrT nys'n 'w<—

rOxurC nCta**-* T<A\d^r< —»^j cpxaxci K<\\cn -. t<a*cunj lOMB

>
nr'h
>
Y'psd *Vw'V bkr nwmylsw nkh 'swmn ms
 '

SECTION 47: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ARAMAIC LANGUAGES -

]

^ci*-\ an r<-^ia*»i ou53tdci . ^jnoi_irn "ta_i^r<T rOrafn^-A ^oojCI

bhyd \\h yyrwsd tymdqv. .nwhnm rqyt d mm 1 bhyw

rwsd mryhl

1. Translirerarion: \\ ns yn 'rnryn d kzn qdmyl rkb "t\\ t

2. Normalization: w-nasin amrin d-akzna qadm-ayat rakkeb atwata

J. G. and-men si that-e.g. firstly devised letters. the

J.
'

br yt wbhyn sm nmws'. hkn wslymwn rkb

2. '
ebrayata wa-b-hen sam namos-a hakartna wa-slemon rakkeb
3. Hebrew and-in-them he. set law-the likewise and-Solomon devised

/. 't\\ t dspr
'

hrn' wyhb l'mm d tyqr

2. atwata d-^epre brine w-yafc 1- amine d-etyaqqar
3. letters. the of-languages others and-gave to-Gentiles to-be.honon

1. mnhwn. wqdmyl dswryy' hw dyhb lhyrm dswr

2. men-hon w-qadm-ayat d-suryaya haw d-yab 1-hiram d-Sdr
j. bwhem and-rirst-h of-Syriac demonst that-he. gave to-Hiram of-Tyre

'Men say that as Moses >

rir^t de\ i^ed the Hebrew letters and wrote the law with
them, so Solomon devised the letters of other languages and imparted them :

the Gentiles in order to be held in honor by them. (1 3d) hrst (the lette

of) Syriac, which he gave to Hiram of Tyre.'

—Ft dadofMer nentaryon 9th center
quoted in 16.

Serto
Nn*»n* _iO .0<\ lYi ^•—«• )Lo*/.k>o ,i.Q-^? _Xo \i^J30 —
nylmsm nm nwhnm nyr dhd twr t 'bw jitwld nylh rpesc-

lkl 'vims m r psw .nyrysbw ayrysh nyd nwhnm nyrymgw

. |
«> K^n^ ,o<xX |-=»^x=> J_ia*i£v^>» |LoL I
i«\~> Uao£s»\£s^o Uriaa-^

hktsm nwhl btkb msrtmd nslb nmtltm

1
Ift \l bas.
wh '1 r\sh r psw . ynmr w ytpwg \\ ymwrw ynwyld mk
Ua^o4 \u\
nwhl 'btktmd trws ytyb nslb nmtltm spwt lkl

Ua3\ L-^jN^c
vbr w y\t\vv\\ vrb Id mk 'hktsm
504 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. Transliteration: sepr"' hlyn dlwtn. db^r'wt' dhdr'yn.

2. Normalization: sepre halen da-lwat-an d-b-atrawwata da-hdar-ayn
3. Gloss: scripts those that-at-us that-in-places that-around-us

/. mnhwn. mn msmlyn wgmyryn mnhwn dyn hsyryn

2. men-hon man msamlen wa-gminn men-hon den hassirin

3. from-them some complete and-perfected from-them however incomplete

/. wbsyryn. wspr"* ms"mly )

lkl twps* mtltmn' blsV
2. wa-bstrin w-sepre msamlayya 1-kol tupsa metlatmana b-lessana
3. and-imperfectand-scripts complete to-each type pronounced with-tongue

/. Hwt* dmtrsm' bktb *

lhwn mstkh )
'km* dlywny'
2. atuta d-metrasma ba-ktaba 1-hon mestakha akma da-1-yawnaya
3. letters that-inscribed in-writing to-them existing such. as that-of-Greek

/. wrwmy w'gwpty' w'rmny 5

. wspr"' hsyr"' V hw*
2. w-romaya w-eguptaya w-armanaya w-sepre hassire la wa
3. and-Latin and-Egyptian and Armenian and-scripts incomplete not (was)

1. lkl twps' mtltmn *

blsV byty ' swrt *
dmtktb *

2. 1-kol tupsa metlatmana b-lessana baytaya surta d-metkatba

3. to-each type pronounced with-tongue proper form that-written

1. lhwn mstkh *
'km* dl bry>
c
wswryy *
w^by*
2. 1-hon mestakha akma da-l-
(
ebraya wa-suraya w-arbaya
3. to-them existing such. as that-of-Hebrew and-Syriac and-Arabic

As for the scripts (used) by us or our neighbors, some are complete and perfect,
but others are incomplete and imperfect. For complete scripts, each distinct
sound has its own written letter, as in Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Armenian; but
incomplete scripts do not have, for each distinct sound, their own written form,
as in Hebrew, Syriac, and Arabic'
— Bar Hebraeus (1 225/6-1 286), "Book of Rays," tractate 4, chap. 1, sec. 1
(Moberg 1922: 191-92, 1907: 3-4).

Modern Aramaic
Robert D. Hoberman

—
Modern Aramaic languages the ancestral languages have developed into as many as
ten or more (Heinrichs 1990B) —
have been written with the Syriac, Hebrew, Cyrillic,
and Roman scripts, but only the Syriac script has gained widespread use, and it is the

principal topic of this section.

 SECTION 47: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ARAMAIC LANGUAGES 5Q5

table 47.3: Eastern (Nestorian) Syriac Letters

Soviet Turoyo Soviet Turoyo

Letter T? anslit Value Orthog. Orthog. Letter Translit . Value Orthog. Orthog.

1
>

[?1
- A 1
[1] 1 1

•a b [b, w] B b 13 JO m [m] m m
A g [f, ?, Y« J] g>c g<g (Oh n [n] n n

3 d [d,S] d d,d Jb s [s] s s

ci h [h] h h Jb
«

[?,?] - c

w [w] V w J P [p
h
, Pi P P

z [z] z z s [s] s s
1 *

t_M h [x] X h,x JB q [q] q q

>v t [t] \
t a r [r] r r

- y Ul j y jt s [J] s s

h
())«.* k [c , c] k k N t [t\ t, 0] t U t

a. Where more than one letter-shape is given, they are (from right to left) initial/medial, final, (final uncon-
nected).

Until the nineteenth century, modern Aramaic was only sporadically written.

During the nineteenth century, however, European missionaries working in Urmi,

Iran, created an orthography for the modern Aramaic dialect of the Christians of that
city, using the Syriac alphabet in its Eastern (Nestorian) variety. This orthography was
deliberately etymological and designed to bridge, as much as possible, the great dif-
ferences among(Maclean 1895: xv-xvii). This remains the standard written
dialects
language used today, and on it was based the spoken Aramaic koine of the Assyrians
in Iraq (Odisho 1988).
The Modern Syriac writing system is phonologically based. It consists of twenty-
two letters (table 47.3) written from right to left, plus several varieties of diacritical
marks, some of which are obligatory and others optional. Writing that includes the
full set of diacritical signs is called pointed, while writing that includes only the let-

ters and obligatory diacritics is called unpointed. Typologically, unpointed Modern

Syriac is an abjad, meaning that, as in Arabic and Hebrew, (a) the letters chiefly rep-

resent consonants, though several letters can also represent vowels, and (b) some
vowels are not indicated at all. In a pointed text, i.e. with the addition of the full set

of diacritical marks, the writing indicates all the vowels as well as the consonants, and

thus constitutes a full-fledged alphabet. Unlike Arabic and Hebrew, which are ordi-
narily written unpointed, Modern Syriac is nearly always fully pointed.
506 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 47.4: Modified Letters

Letter Translit. Value

Standard Written Language

A g [*]

.a c [tn

*
z [3]

JL z [3]

4 p [f], (with preceding # or a) [0]

Oth er Dialects

^ t [d
9

v
], [8^
9
s [d ], [S
< ]

^ p [f]

Letters and obligatory diacritics

Within a word, the letters are connected at the baseline, except for eight letters, 1 \
a d, ci h, o w, < 2, s 5, a r, and /s> f, which are connected to a preceding letter but never

to a following one. A space is left between words. There are no one-letter words, as
one-letter conjunctions and prepositions (© w- 'and', a d- 'that', A /- 'to', »a b- 'at,

by') are written connected to the following word. The letter m has different shapes
depending on whether it is followed by another letter (jo) or at the end of a word (*a),
and k and n have three shapes: ^ k, j n when connected to a following letter, ^k x
n
when final and connected to the preceding letter, and 5 k N n when final and uncon-
nected to the preceding (which is one of the eight non-connecting letters).

Furthermore, when k, m, or n appears in isolation (as in enumerating items in a

list), it is doubled — written in both its connected form and its word-final form: ^*,
)ojo, ^1. There are optional word-final ligatures: k -ta and #1 -hi.

All the letters represent consonants (including y and u). Three of the letters also

represent vowels: normally [i] and [e] are written with ** y, [o] and [u] with o w, and
word-final [a] and [1] with 1 \ The vowels [a] and [1] in the middle of a word are nor-
mally not represented by any letter. No word begins with a vowel, but many begin

with a, '
or 1 \ representing the glottal stop [?].

When a consonant sound can be represented by two different letters, the choice
is etymological. For example, in i^a [baxi] 'cry' the [x] is written with fc, while in

J-mjo I
max 1 ] 'hit' [x] is written with h.
The sounds [3], [tf], and [<%], which did not exist in Classical Syriac, are indicated

by adding to appropriate letters a tilde-like mark called magliyana (table 47.4): g

with magliyana is J^g |d$]; k with magliyana is -a c [tf]; and z and s with magliyana
 SECTION 47: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ARAMAIC LANGUAGES 507

* jsl are both z [3] (Odisho 1993). In some dialects, pharyngealized [d s ] or [b s ] are rep-
resented by adding a large dot on top of ^ t or ^ s (in imitation of the corresponding
Arabic letters J? and Ja>), and likewise [f] is sometimes represented by p with a large
dot J or a semicircle 4.
Two significant phonological features are only partially represented in writing.

Each word in the language is either emphatic (pharyngealized, indicated in phonetic

transcription with the symbol [~] before the word) or plain. The presence in a word
of a, ',
^ /, or ^ s normally indicates that
f
it is emphatic (note that ^ h or jd q do
not!), but the spelling with , t, or s is determined by etymology, correlating fairly well

but not perfectly with the modern pronunciation: there are some plain words that con-
tain one of the three letters, and many emphatic words that do not. Another feature
only partly indicated in writing
while n
is aspiration. In
h
emphatic words ^ / represents un-
aspirated [t] t is usually aspirated [t ], again with exceptions; but other than
this, aspiration is not indicated in writing.
Three additional signs are normally used in unpointed as well as pointed texts.

(a) Two large dots, called syame [sjami], are placed above a letter in plural nouns
and adjectives. In many cases the syame are the only written indication (in unpointed
h h
text) of plurality, for example ? ^\ v> mlk* [malc a] 'king', 7 S\v> mlk" ' [malc i]

'kings'. If the word contains an a r, the syame appear on it, replacing the dot which
forms part of the r: a r". If there is no r in the word, the syame are placed above any
letter, preferably near the end of the word and avoiding the ascenders A / and 1 \

(b) To help bridge the gaps between different contemporary dialects and between
them and Classical Syriac, Modern Syriac orthography makes liberal use of the sign

known as talqana, a diagonal line above a letter, indicating that it is not pronounced.
For example, the word meaning 'after' is written ata b(t)r (the parentheses translit-

erate the talqana), suggesting on the one hand its Classical Syriac form [ba:0ar] and
the pronunciation [ba0ar] some modern dialects, and on the other hand the
found in

pronunciation [-bar] in Urmi and the koine. The letters 1 \ jl, ci /?, and ^ v, written ',

on an etymological basis, are frequently silent without being marked with talqana.
(c) A large dot is written over the m of ^0 mn [man] 'who', distinguishing it from
^jo mn [mm] 'from', written with the dot beneath the m. A large dot is likewise written
over the h of the third person feminine singular suffix 01 a -///? [-0] (dialectally also ci

-ah [-ah]), the personal pronouns masculine aci hw [~aw] and feminine -ci hy [aj],

and the identically spelled demonstratives, masculine [o], feminine [e]. These dots
are a relic of Classical Syriac orthography.
The punctuation marks in traditional writing were : (comma), . (period), and *

(used at the end of a paragraph). Nowadays the full set of Western punctuation marks
is used, with (as in Arabic) the question mark reversed (5 ) and the comma inverted (0.
508 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 47.5: Vowel Diacritics

Letter Translit. Value

Diacritics Associated with Particular Letters

T [ij, iJ

6 [u]

u [uj, u]

Diacritics Added to Any Letter (shown with b)

- «=> e [i, 1, e]

-j 1 [i]

a [a]

a [a]

Optional diacritics

Pointed texts use seven additional diacritical marks, consisting of small dots, to spec-
ify the vowels (table 47.5). The correspondences between the written symbols and
the vowels as pronounced are complex, though virtually unambiguous.
The letter y with a dot beneath it ^* represents the vowel 1 [ij].The letter w with a
dot beneath it o is u [uj] or [u], and with a dot above it b is 6 [u]. The other four vowel
diacritics appear above or below any consonant letter (illustrated here with h)\ the
consonant precedes the vowel in pronunciation: j bi [bi]; *a be [bi], at the end of a
word [bi]; J ba [ba]; Ji ba [ba]. The sound [e] is represented by ay or ay, and [o] by
aw.
The transliteration symbols e, 0, and u reflect the pronunciation of these vowels
in an earlier historical period and in some present-day dialects. In Urmi, 1 and e are
distinguished as [ij] and [i] (Polotsky 1961), but they have fallen together in the koine
as [i], while u and 6, Urmi [uj] and [u], are both [u] in the koine.

The vowels i and a appear only in closed syllables, where all vowels are phonet-
ically short; f, e, and a are used in open syllables, where vowels are long. Accordingly,
1 and a indicate that a following intervocalic consonant is doubled; compare Uost> sa-

ma [samma]
'
'poison' and tits tina
}
[t
h
inna] 'smoke' with tiL* sama [saima]i
'por-
} h
tion' and Uiits te na '
[t i:na] 'fig'.

Another set of diacritical marks serves to specify modifications of the consonan-

tal sounds of some of the letters. The letters b, g, and k represent two or three pho-
nemes each: a stop, and a continuant or glide. The continuant or glide is indicated by
a small dot under the letter (transliterated with a line under the letter): «a b [w]; \g
[yL [?!, or UJ; -* i M- The stop variant may be indicated by a small dot above the
letter (shown following the letter in transcription), -a b* [b], Ji^g* [f],
-* fa [c], but this

is omitted at the beginning of a word and often elsewhere. Speakers of dialects which
 SECTION 47: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ARAMAIC LANGUAGES 5fjQ

have the interdental sounds [0] and [5] similarly indicate them with a small dot under
n t and a d, and specify the corresponding stops by dots above these letters. The se-

quences ab and ab, like aw, are pronounced [o]. Similarly, in a handful of words ap
is pronounced [o], and the p is marked with a small semicircle underneath, as in
"
?
«* \ tlaph'e
>
[-tloxi] 'lentils'.
:

Other scripts

In the Soviet Union, the same dialect of Modern Aramaic was written for a short time
with an adapted Latin script (Friedrich 1959), and later Cyrillic (Polotsky 1961). The
orthography was phonologically based, with letters corresponding nearly perfectly to
the phonemes of the language. Emphatic or plain pronunciation was efficiently indi-
cated by having two letters each for the phonemes [i] and [a]: in plain words these
sounds are represented by i and 2 respectively, and in emphatic words by b and a; for

example, axbl [-axil] 'eat', kdtiv [c

h
ativ] 'write'. A different Latin-script orthography
for the modern Aramaic language Turoyo was developed in the 1980s by immigrants
from Turkey in Sweden (Ishaq 1990). Both systems are included in table 47.3.
Jewish speakers have written Modern Aramaic in the Hebrew alphabet, in a pho-
netic, non-etymological manner (Sabar 1976).

Sample of Modern Aramaic Koine

? IT \ O i CIO lt\l ClJk-h A^a
'anasilw ,honasilb hely 'aylit 'atmu' 'adh lkd 'amayuq<^

*J* ^_»i t^N-aCNA LA.? ? iir \ a^» <iqno->S Hio

dah kya' ,'etabi"tk 'aid 'anasil dah .yhutuyarpisbw yhutabi'tkb

ici'i .lan \,i Lla ciJL* Uoi-i

'el'Tgb
>
altk( *) se'ap tib aha' .
'erotan 'aid hely 'amrak

.L^a-aaa I'i. ln\o k Jj a 2_t

'eyar'kun er'bahb 'anasilw ,

'en'ad'es

ici'i

,hely 'amhut 'aniksum nlpa' ,nanasil 'aha'

1 IS > n » % > \ > a <rS x*l©

iwah >ek '
.'er'iqh 'et'ayalid hel tT'w

LJO OljQ JO 6 L-fi>oea_Xo L-»oXiso

'eyar'pis 'en'asil na'd 'ardisb 'emuqamw 'esuwragw 'eyutpam

L-^ioaa Ua_v<nao
'eynudd 'eyar'tihrw
 . '

510 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. Transliteration: quyama dkl hda> 'umta* tilya* yleh

h h h
2. Transcription: qujama t-c ul xda ?umt a t ilje-li

3. Gloss: subsistence of-all one nation depending-is

i. blisanoh, wlisana* bkti'batuhy wbsiprayutuhy. had

h h h h h
2. b-li/an-o w-lijana b-c t iwat -u w-b-~sip rajut -u xa
3. in-language-its and-language in-writings-its and-in-literature-its one

/. lisana* dla* kt?bat"e\ 'ayk had karma yleh ' dla' nator'V.
h h h h
2. lijana dla c t iwat i ?ax xa c armeli dla -natun.
3. language without writings like one vineyard-is without keepers

/. 'aha' bit pa'es (^kila* bgiTV sVdan'V, wlisana'

h
2. ?aha bit p ajij -xila b-jilli Jidani w-lijana
3. this future become eaten by-plants crazy and-language

/. bhabr'V nukr"aye\ 'aha* lisanan, 'apin muskTna\ ^na

h
2. b—xabn -nuxraji ?aha lijan-an ?ap in muscmna ?ina
3. by-words foreign this language-our even. if impoverished but

/. mare* tuhma'yleh, w'ttleh dilayat'V hqir"e\ 'in pays!

2. man ~tuhme-li w-?it
h
li dilayat
h
i -xqin ?in p
h
eji

3. possessor.of pedigree-is and-it.has properties glorious if become

/. bugr"e\ ke hawi maptuye' wgarwuse wmaqume *

bsidra
h h h
2. bud^n c i hawi map t uj 1 w-jarwus 1 w-maqqumi b-~sidra
3. cultivated present be expand and-grow and-stand in-rank

/. d'an ITsan'e *
sipr "aye wrhi tr'aye ' ddunye *

2. d-?an lijani -sip'Yaji w-~rhitraji d-dunji

3. of-those languages literary and-eloquent of-world

'The subsistence of every nation depends on its language, and language on its

writings and its literature. A language without writings is like a vineyard with-
out keepers. The latter will be eaten by weeds and the language by foreign
words. This language of ours, even if it has become impoverished, is still of
pedigree, and it has glorious properties. If they are cultivated, they expand and
grow and stand in the ranks of the literary and eloquent languages of the world.'
— From an editorial by Addai Alkhas in Gilgamesh (Tehran), no. I

(April 12, 1952), quoted in "Ba'uta" 1993.

 SECTION 47: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ARAMAIC LANGUAGES 5 J ]

Mandaic
Peter T. Daniels

The Mandaic script changed very little over the centuries, and the earliest known doc-
uments employing it (including amulets on rolls of lead) are difficult to date. It has
therefore been difficult to determine its parentage and its relationships with the other
Late Aramaic scripts. The exchange between Coxon (1970), Naveh (1970), and
Macuch ( 1 971) is an excellent example of philological dispute, showing how plausi-

table 47.6: The Mandaic Alphabet

Letter Transliteration
11
Phonetic Value Name

a a* [a] a

JL b [b] ba

1 g [g] ga

-d d [d] da

-u_
h [h] ha

-J u [u, w] wa
z* [z] za
1

& -b eh

I t w ta

i-
i* [i.j] ya

k [k] ka
S>

la
J 1 [1]

Jn m [m] ma
n [n] na
V
s [s] sa
_^3

^ <.

[e]

P IP] pa
\?

v>*
s w sa

q [q] qa
-id

r [r]
_sd

s* [J] sa
4>
t [t] ta
j-i

d-* adu
«
a. An asterisk indicates that the letter does not connect to the next one within a word.
512 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

ble conclusions drawn from limited evidence can be challenged when the same evi-
dence is reviewed from a different perspective. Klugkist (1986) summarizes the
arguments, concluding that the question is essentially undecidable.
Mandaic orthography has usually been regarded as alphabetic: the script employs
the familiar 22 letters, plus a digraph for the relative particle di (table 47.6), but it
has extended the use of matres lectionis nearly as far as possible. The language has
> (
lost the glottal stop and the pharyngeal fricatives [? ? h], so the letters » * and -sd *

are available for other functions ([h] is spelled with ^ */?, and & *h is used exclusively
for the third person singular suffix). All [a]'s are represented by » a, all [i]'s by ^ i

(final [i(:)] is *i_), and all [u]'s by _• u ([j] and [w] rarely occur). But [o] is also written

with _* //, and the use of ^> and the representation of [e] are complicated. j=> appears
at the start of any word that begins with a vowel other than [a]: alone for [e] (but ini-

tial [e] seems only to be a prothetic vowel before the f-prefix in the passive verbs or

before a monoconsonantal word), or before *. or _i for initial [i] or [u] respectively.

Within a word, [e], like [i], is spelled with u —except that when two adjacent Js
would result, they are replaced by ^*; and ^d is preferred to 4. after the consonants
that have a point below the line (^ k^n^p,^ s)\ and ^a can be used in place of »l.

when it represents word-final [i:] (and not [ja]).

The letters with descending points enter into ligatures when they precede letters
with a vertical right edge, e.g. _|^ kl, jr\, nm. There are special forms j-^ for wt and ^,
for kd. The pronominal suffix ^ can be manipulated calligraphically in an otherwise
pedestrian manuscript in order to fill out a line.

Sample of Mandaic
^xflad^^ a^J* JT1
S/
A^j-Zl J-Lad^^ i_i ^JTl4^ v ^ nY ill
^ nY i// <—
htqapn amla nm hnim tqapnd amsin kabut kabut<—

aisib rudd aruadl hbtiuhd airas argaplu amuliql

aigulpu aniq anisd akushd amlal aitah hlukd artal

/. Transliteration: tubak tubak nisma dnpaqt minh mn

2. Normalization: tuba-k tuba-k nisma di-npaq-t min-eh min
2. Gloss: hail.to-you hail.to-you soul who-left-you from-it from

/. alma npaqth lqiluma ulsagra saria dhuitbh

2. alma npaq-t-eh 1-qiluma u-1-pagra saria di-huit-b-eh

3. world left-you-it to-corruption and-to-body stinking which-you.are-in-it

/. ldaura ddur bisia latra dkulh hatia lalma

2. 1-daura di-dur bisia 1-atra di-kul-eh hataiia 1-alma
3. for-dwelling of-abode.of evils to-place of-all-it sins to-world
 SECTION 47: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ARAMAIC LANGUAGES 5 J3

/. dhsuka dsina qina uplugia

2. di-hsuka di-sina qina u-plugia
3. of-darkness of-hatred jealousy and-dissension

'Hail to you, hail to you, soul who has departed from this world! You have left

the corruption and the stinking body in which you dwelt, the abode of evils, the
place of all the sins of the world, of darkness, of hatred, jealousy, and dissension
— From a Masiqta hymn (Macuch 1967: 54, no. 5, lines 1-3).

Note: The masiqta is a "sacramental meal (corresponding to the Christian mass), intended to assist the soul on
its way to the regions of Light" (Macuch 1967: 75 s.v. ).

Bibliography

Aramaic
Abbott, Nabia. 1939. The Rise of the North Arabic Script and Its Kur 'dnic Development with a Full
Description of the Kur 'tin Manuscripts in the Oriental Institute (Oriental Institute Publications
50). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Gruendler, Beatrice. 1993. The Development of the Arabic Scripts: From the Nabatean Ere to the
First Islamic Century According to Dated Texts ( Harvard Semitic Studies 43). Atlanta: Scholars
Press.
Klugkist. A. C. 1982. 'The Importance of the Palmyrene Script for Our Knowledge of the Develop-
ment of the Late Aramaic Scripts." InArameans, Aramaic and the Aramaic Literary Tradition,

ed. Michael Sokoloff, pp. 57-74. Bar Ilan, Israel: Bar-Ilan University Press.
Rosenthal, Franz. 1939. Die aramaistischen Forschungen seit Theodor Noldeke's Verbffentlichun-
gen. Leiden: Brill.
Rosenthal, Franz, ed. 1967. An Aramaic Handbook (Porta Linguarum Orientalium 10). 2 vols, in 4
parts. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Classical Syriac
Brockelmann, Carl. i960. Syrische Grammatik, rev. ed. Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopadie. repr.

1976 (1st ed., 1899).

Hatch, William Henry Paine. 1946. An Album of Dated Syriac Manuscripts. Boston: American
Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Moberg. Axel. 1 907-1 3. Buch der Strahlen: Die grdssere Grammatik des Barhebrdus. Ubersetzung
nach einem kritisch berichtigten Texte nut te.xtkritischem Apparat und einem Anhang: Zur Ter-
minologie. Vol. 1, Einleitung, Traktat I-III, 19 13; vol. 2, Einleitung und zweiter Teil, 1907.
Leipzig: Harrassowitz.
.
1922. Le livre des splendeurs: La grande grammaire de Gregoire Barhebraeus. Texte syri-
aque edite d'apres les manuscrits avec une introduction et des notes (Acta Reg. Societatis Hu-
maniorum Litterarum Lundensis 4). Lund: Gleerup.
Moller. Garth I. 1988. "Towards a New Typology of the Syriac Manuscript Alphabet." Journal of
Northwest Semitic Languages 14: 153—97.
Morag, Shelomo. 1961. The Vocalization Systems ofArabic, Hebrew, and Aramaic: Their Phonetic
and Phonemic Principles (Janua Linguarum Series Minor 13). The Hague: Mouton.
Muller-Kessler, Christa. 199 1 . Grammatik des Christlich-Paldstinisch-Aramdischen, part 1 : Schrift-
514 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

lehre, Lautlehre, Formenlehre (Texte und Studien zur Orientalistik 6). Hildesheim: 01ms.

Noldeke, Theodor. 1904. Compendious Syriac Grammar, 2nd ed., trans. James A. Crichton. London:
Williams & Norgate. (German orig., 1898; 1st ed., 1880.)
Pirenne, Jacqueline. 1963. "Aux origines de la graphie syriaque." Syria 40: 101-37.
Segal, Judah B. 1953. The Diacritical Point and the Accents in Syriac (London Oriental Series 2).

London: Oxford University Press.

.
1989. "Qussaya and Rukkaka: A Historical Introduction." Journal of Semitic Studies 34:

483-91.

Modern Aramaic
ixojLii "Ba'uta" [Appeal]. 1993. [Editorial]. Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society (Chicago)
7/1 : Syriac section 79.
Friedrich, Johannes. 1959. "Neusyrisches in Lateinschrift aus der Sowjetunion." Zeitschrift der
Deutschen Morgenlandischen Gesellschaft 109: 50-81.
Heinrichs, Wolfhart. 1990A. "Introduction." In Heinrichs 1990B: ix-xvii.
Heinrichs, Wolfhart, ed. 1990B. Studies in Neo- Aramaic (Harvard Semitic Studies 36). Atlanta:
Scholars Press.
Ishaq, Yusuf. 1990. "Turoyo: From Spoken to Written Language." In Heinrichs 1990B: 189-99.
Maclean, Arthur John. 1 895. Grammar of the Dialects ofVernacular Syriac. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. Repr. Amsterdam: Philo, 1971.
Marogulov, Q. I. 1976. Grammaire neo-syriaque pour ecoles d'adultes (dialecte d' Urmia), trans.
Olga Kapeliuk (Comptes Rendus du Groupe Linguistique d' Etudes Chamito-Semitiques,
Suppl. 5). Paris: Geuthner.
Odisho, Edward Y. 1988. The Sound System of Modern Assyrian (Neo-Aramaic) (Semitica Viva 2).

Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
.
1993. "Majliyana: An Orthographic Indicator of Phonological Change in Modern Assy-
rian." Journal of the Assyrian Academic Society (Chicago) 7/1 76-83. :

Polotsky, Hans Jakob 1961. "Studies in Modern Syriac." Journal of Semitic Studies 6: 1-32.
.
1967. "Eastern Neo-Aramaic: Urmi and Zakho." In Rosenthal 1967, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 69-
77-
Sabar, Yona. 1976. Pdsat Wayjhi Bjsallah: A Neo-Aramaic Midrash on Beshallah (Exodus): Intro-

duction, Phonetic Transcription, Translation, Notes, and Glossary. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Mandaic
Coxon, P. W. 1970. "Script Analysis and Mandaean Origins." Journal of Semitic Studies 15: 16-30.

Drower, Ethel Stefana, Lady. 1937. The Mandaeans of Iraq and Iran. London: Oxford University
Press.
Klugkist, A. C. 1986. "The Origin of the Mandaic Script." In Scripta Signa Vocis: Studies about
Scripts, Scriptures, Scribes and Languages in the Near East, Presented to J. H. Hospers by His
Pupils, Colleagues and Friends, ed. H. L. J. Vanstiphout, K. Jongeling, F. Leemhuis, and G. J.

Reinink, pp. 1 1 1-20. Groningen: Forsten.

Macuch, Rudolf. 1965. Handbook of Classical and Modern Mandaic. Berlin: de Gruyter.
.
1967. "Mandaic." In Rosenthal 1967, vol. 2, part 1, pp. 46-61; part 2, pp. 67-81.
.
1 97 1. "The Origins of the Mandaeans and Their Script." Journal of Semitic Studies 16:

174-92.
Naveh, Joseph. 1970. "The Origin of the Mandaic Script." Bulletin of the American Schools of Ori-
ental Research 198 (April): 32-37.
Noldeke, Theodor. 1875. Mandaische Grammatik. Halle: Waisenhaus. Repr. Darmstadt: Wissen-
schaftliche Buchgesellschaft, 1964.
SECTION 48

Aramaic Scripts
for Iranian Languages
P. Oktor Skj^rv0

During the Achaemenid period (549-330 b.c.e.), Aramaic was used as the chancery
language throughout the Empire (hence the term "Imperial Aramaic"), and subse-
quently several Iranian states adopted the Aramaic alphabet for their languages. Ex-
ceptions occurred only where there was strong competion from other writing systems,
such as the Greek script in Bactria and the Indian Brahmi (section 30) used by the
Iranians in Chinese Turkestan (Khotan and Tumshuq).
We do not know exactly when Iranians started writing their own languages using
Aramaic script. We have Aramaic texts from the early days of the Achaemenid em-
pire, while Iranian texts in Aramaic script are known only from the Parthian period
(ca. 210 b.c.e. - 224 c.e.) onward. Although they are scarce, these Aramaic texts al-

low us to follow the development of the script in various parts of Iran from its earliest

forms through its local variants. The most important are the Parthian, Middle Persian
(table 48.1), Avestan (table 48.7), and Sogdian scripts (table 48.2).
In addition, Iranian languages were written in varieties of the Syriac scripts (sec-
tion 47): the Manichean script derived from Estrangelo, used to write Parthian Mid-
dle Persian, Sogdian, and Bactrian (1 fragment); and the Christian Sogdian derived
from Nestorian script. The Manichean script was also used to write Old Turkish and
Tokharian (2 fragments; most Tokharian manuscripts use forms of Brahmi). The
Khwarezmian script is known from a few inscriptions; it was later replaced by the Ar-
abic script.

Orthographic principles

Transliteration

There are various systems in use for transliterating the Aramaic letters (representing

them by Roman letters in one-to-one correspondence).* Thus w is variously translit-

*Letters in bold type refer to the symbols (identified by their Hebrew names), with transliterations and tran-
scriptions relevant to particular languages in italics. The Greek letters p\ 6, y represent fricatives i flabio-dental
or bilabial), d, y.

515
516 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

erated as w or v, h as h or /?, s (in Iranian studies, represented by c) as c or c. Note that

the letters h (the symbol for he has a bar under it to distinguish it from h, used for
c
het), , and t are found only in heterograms (see below), which are transliterated with

capital letters O and 0. The subscript dot of h may therefore be omitted without caus-
ing ambiguity.

Use of Aramaic letters

The Aramaic script, devised for Semitic languages, contained letters for numerous
sounds not found in Iranian. Some of these were adopted to write sounds that were
not found in Aramaic — s for Iranian c, and h for the velar fricative x\ 1 in Sogdian for
$ —but even so the Aramaic alphabet contained more letters than were needed, and t,

c
and q were used only to write heterograms and numerals (differently in the Man-
,

ichean and Christian Sogdian scripts, see below). In Middle Persian, I is used more j>

often than i r (= w) to write r.

In Aramaic documents from the mid-Parthian era, there is incipient confusion of

h and h (e.g., hmw for hmw and hy 5
for hy); and in the Parthian and Middle Persian
heterograms, h tends to be confined to final position while h is written elsewhere, re-
gardless of their etymologies.
Aramaic h was used in Parthian and Sogdian for the feminine ending -a, which
resembled the Aramaic ending. This became a mere convention when the ending was
lost in both Parthian (always; written only in female names) and Sogdian (in "heavy"
stems —word stems containing at least one long vowel or a diphthong, including ar,

an, am, which attracted the stress causing loss of short final vowels). In current trans-
literations of Parthian, the final -h is variously rendered as -h, -H, -H, or -E, e.g.,
GtJhi^i ^htyH/^nhtyE (etc.) Andhid, a goddess (from Olran. *Anahitayah, gen.-
dat.). For Sogdian the final -h is commonly transliterated as -h, e.g. *^<s*i Sywth
8(u)yutd 'daughter' but^ii 5yh day 'slave woman'.
For transliterating the Manichean alphabet, h is commonly used for h and // for h.

For transliterating the Christian Sogdian alphabet, /?, /?, or h is used for h, and h
or h for h, both of which occur only in Syriac words and names. In Christian Sogdian,

>l
t is used for t and 1 1 is used for 6 in Sogdian words, though in some manuscripts
the practice is reversed.

Developments from Imperial Aramaic

The Aramaic script remained largely unchanged in Iran during the Achaemenid (549-
330 b.c.e.), Seleucid (330 - ca. 210 b.c.e.), and early Parthian (ca. 210 b.c.e. - 224
c.e.) periods. The Achaemenid text corpus comprises the Aramaic letters from Egypt,
the Aramaic inscriptions on ritual implements from Persepolis, and the Ashokan in-

scriptions from the northeast corner of the empire, modern Afghanistan and Pakistan.
 SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 5]7

There is a not yet completely interpreted inscription on the tomb of Darius (550-
486), apparently from the Seleucid period and presumably in Aramaic. In the Seleu-
cid period the coins of kings and satraps contain legends in Greek and Aramaic.
From the Early Parthian period (2nd-ist c. b.c.e.), there are a number of inscrip-
tions on rock, metal objects (including coins), pottery, and parchment. Some of these
are clearly in Iranian languages, presumably Parthian (e.g. the wine receipts from
Nisa, east of the Caspian Sea; table 48.1), although the fact is obscured by the ex-
tensive use of heterograms (see below). Other inscriptions, however, that have also
been claimed to be Parthian are more likely to be in faulty bureaucratic Aramaic.
The official Parthian script (table 48.1) had reached its standard form by the
second century c.e. and continued into the Sassanian period (224-651 c.e.); the last

Parthian inscription is from 292 (the Paikuli inscription).

The Persian variant of the Aramaic script evolved in southern Iran (Pars, modern
Fars) in the late Parthian period, as can be seen from the coins of the line of frataraka
kings, from which was to emerge Ardasher, the founder of the Sassanian dynasty.
This variant became the official script for writing Middle Persian of the Sassanian
empire (table 48.1). It remained basically unchanged as a monumental script until

the fifth century.

A variant of the Persian script used for writing on paper is the so-called Psalter
script, known from a fragmentary manuscript of the Psalms of David found in Chi-
nese Turkestan. In this script (table 48.1) the letters are much changed, and many
are now connected.
The Psalter script developed via a simplified epigraphic variant (known from nu-
merous funerary inscriptions), here called Early Cursive Pahlavi, into the so-called
(Book) Pahlavi script, so named because it is the script used in the Zoroastrian books
(table 48.1). The final stage is the almost indecipherable script used in the Pahlavi

papyri of the late Sassanian/early Islamic period.

Avestan is a composite script based on the Psalter and Book Pahlavi scripts.
The Sogdian script is known in three principal forms (table 48.2). The earliest
form is used in on paper, dating from the early fourth century c.e., and
letters written

in a few short inscriptions from northern Pakistan. The common Sogdian script is a

cursive variant found in secular documents, most importantly the royal archives dis-
covered at Mount Mug, and in Buddhist and Manichean manuscripts, where two stag-
es are distinguished: the formal or sutra script, and the Uyghur variant (section 49).
The main modern work On Iranian writing systems is found in Herzfeld 1924 and
Henning 1958. For further bibliography see the contributions on individual languages
in Schmitt 1989, and, for the locations of Iranian languages, the map therein.

Heterograms (ideograms)
The transition from Aramaic to local Iranian as the written language was apparently
a smooth one: the scribes gradually began inserting Iranian words into their texts.
 s j

518 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 48. 1 : Main West Iranian Scripts Developed from Aramaic

Principal Principal
Early Phonetic Middle Early Phonetic
Parthian Parthian Values Persian Cursive Book Values
Aramaic (Nisa) inscr' (Parthian) inscr 's Psalter Pahlavi Pahlavi (MPers.)

>

J* J* a, a M XI JJ M a, a

b > 5* b, w -J _ -J _A b, w

g > 2? g,Y J J ^3 3 g<y

A
d > =
(
,r > d,5 i ^5 O J 3 3 d,y

h(h) * O* fCJ 4 i<©

w 9 w, 6, u 2= c
,r l = c
,r
\ 1
w, 8, u

z 1 i z, z 5 I 5 z

h(h) K K h, x SI AJ 1) 4 h,x

t
O » 9
y > J y, e, I ;> 5 O * 33 y, e, 1,

k
* J7 k,g
1 1— 1 3 Kg

*}
1(8) \ 1 1
1 i J l,i

m A A m >2>
h -b 4j m
n ) J n
1 L \ »
n

s *> /7 s » 4»" JO O 33
s, h

M = d, r >= r 1= w, r 1 = w, r
\ t

P » Jb p,b <* a acy* u p,b,f

s(c) -M c
£ & d t. * c,j,z

M * >> >S> h -b <o

r
9 = d,< > = r 2 = w,< l = w, c

\ )
r

s
* * s, z -22 ^- MJ *u s

b t,d IO t.d
t
J9 r> P *
 SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 5 J9

table 48.2: Main East Iranian Scripts Developed from Aramaic

Principal
Sogdian Phonetic
Ancient Sogdian Manichean Christian Values
Aramaic Letters sutra script Sogdian Sogdian (Sogdian)
>

S **, * M I w> a, a

b oa b,p
b A, O 2rf

(B ial P

g t* «
\ V g,7

(Y)
\ ft. Y

d
> * * 1 d,5

Mb) •-*. JC- Pt 97 a,0

w * f, * * O w, 6, u

z J 4 t z

(j) z

(z) z
4 V
h(h) >4 *4 Aft y, x, h

t
% * t

y 4 -*, * % W y, ^,^

k k
J
(x) X

1(8)
\ 1 Si 6

m % *,* UO JO >)50 m
n i u. ^ * \ *
n

s
J4 >, * ^* A s

^J - <r° 5^ ft.

P
^ J>
P

(f) —£X 4 f

s(c)
~ +~
O* 3 c,j

q os* y*% JO k

r
3 >, * K * i r

s
*** s

t
I,. V 1 t,e
520 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

turning the bureaucratic language into a "mixed" or "bastardized" Aramaic, but even-
tually the entire language was Iranian. They still wrote Aramaic words, however, but
these became mere symbols (sometimes called "Semitic masks") for the correspond-
ing Iranian words (compare the use of Latin abbreviations in English: e.g. = 'for in-
stance', etc. = 'and so on'; and similar practices in the cuneiform scripts, section 3).
Thus they would write mlk for Parth., MPers. sdh, Sogd. dxsewane 'king'. These
3

Semitic "masks" were until recently called "ideograms," but today heterogram or
Aramaogram is the more common term.
It is customary to transliterate heterograms using capital letters: MLKA. In his
Pahlavi dictionary (1971), D. N. MacKenzie introduced the convention of replacing

\
c
, H, and H in heterograms with A, O, H, and E, their historical descendants. H.
Humbach later extended this convention to using Greek for T. Thus one can dis-

pense entirely with subscript diacritics.

Similar conventions have been applied to Sogdian, and a variety of systems can
be seen in the scholarly literature. Today we usually find
)
(not A) and H (not E), but
X for H XRZY (TRZY, >HRZY) arti
(earlier also T), e.g. u*»* 'and', *« XY HY) (
5

Prat 'brother', ^^ MLK? dxsewane 'king', *c^ KZNH mdS 'thus'.

In Parthian, all the Aramaic letters were still used in the heterograms, but in Mid-
dle Persian q and t were used only sporadically in the earliest inscriptions and were
then replaced by k and t, e.g., Parth. ^>»* QOLt ozad 'killed' = MPers. yi^p YK-
TLWN ozad; Parth. »> 0B new 'good' = MPers. _j£ 0B, later ivp TBw new. In Mid-
dle Persian, the letter q became identical with m and survived only in >&£& QDM (=
MDM) abar 'on'.
c
Aramaic is still a distinct letter in the earliest Nisa documents, but in the later
ones it is used only OL and is identical with r elsewhere. Similarly,
in the heterogram
in Sogdian it is found in the heterograms >^j—- OD at 'to'
in the Ancient Letters
in the letter openings and in the sutra script in 0u* ONYOWframdt 'said' (respect-

ful form; for ONOYW < 'ny 'to answer'?). In all other instances,
c
= r.

Phonetic complements

In Parthian and Middle Persian, heterograms may receive phonetic complements to

identify the specific grammatical form of the underlying Iranian word (cf. the similar
practice in cuneiform). See examples in table 48.3; note also MPers. 7.3^ LCDr
tar 'through, via'. The use of phonetic complements increased steadily with time.

table 48.3: Phonetic Complements in Parthian (f) and Middle Persian

(»)o>j=» OBDW(t) kar-edt 'he does' rt?£21 BRTE duxt 'daughter'

*3>^> OBDWm kar-dmf 'I/we do' 2re?£2i BRTEr duxt-ar gen.-dat.

o-raa AHY brad 'brother' IJo^sjl HZYTN did 'saw'

J>£;>jiaa AHYtl bra-dar gen.-dat.sg.; nom.pl p^-pzsjhHZYTNt wen-ed 3sg., 2pl.

pJjojxriAi AHYtlyn brd-darln gen.pl. lnypus^ HZYTNsn win-isn 'seeing'

 SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 521

Archaizing or ''pseudo-historical" orthography

The Parthian and Middle Persian scripts are both strongly archaizing, i.e., the orthog-
raphy remained largely unchanged from earlier stages of the languages (as in English
or French) and therefore reflects outdated pronunciation. For instance, in both lan-
guages intervocalic voiceless stops were voiced between vowels (p > b, t> d, k >g),
but the original p t k were still written. In both languages, intervocalic voiced stops
first became spirants (b>p,d>S,g> y)\ in Parthian /3 then became w, and in Middle
Persian all three spirants developed into semivowels (J3> w, 8 and y>y) —but the orig-
inal bdg were still written. Two circumstances show that these retained orthographic
conventions did not represent the actual pronunciation: the Manichean texts from the
third and fourth centuries in the Manichean alphabet, which are written in a mostly
phonetic orthography; and "pseudo-historical" spellings in Parthian and Middle Per-
sian themselves.
Pseudo-historical (or wrongly archaizing) spellings occur when the scribe
"makes a wrong guess" about the original spelling of a word. For instance, since
Old
Persian bagaddta- became Middle Persian bay ad or ba'dd, the scribes sometimes
wrote y u$A\ bgd'n for baydn (ba'dn, Man.MPers. \mm^ b"n) 'gods' from Old Per-
sian baganam. Further examples are shown in table 48.4.

In the Sogdian script, pseudo-historical orthography is found in the endings -e

and -o, which developed from older -akah, -akam, -akahya, etc. In Sogdian, final -ah

> -i (written -y, -

3

y) and -am > -u (-w, -V); we therefore find -y, -

3
y, -
5
ky for final -e.

and -
3
w, -^kw for final -6. Occasionally -
5
kw seems to be used for -e as well.

At some stage, probably toward the end of the Sassanian period, final -g [-y] was
lost in Middle Persian and Parthian (-ag, -ig, -og, -ug > -a, -i, -o, -ft), as shown by
transcriptions into Sogdian, although the final consonant was still commonly written
(-k, Man. -g). This made possible the unetymological use of -k in Pahlavi to express
Avestan long vowels, e.g., sjl-u* slwk dsro for Av. dOrd 'of the fire'.
The Manichean script shares with the Parthian and Middle Persian scripts the ar-
chaizing use of c (or j) for intervocalic Parth. z and MPers. z.

table 48.4: Pseudo-historical Spellings in Parthian (f) and Middle Persian

Iranian Translit. Notes Normal. Gloss Manichean Equivalent

lh±/ gtw cf. Avestan ^^-^aj gdOu gdhf 'throne' Man. Parth. ^M\g'h
X>2?J> km Old Iranian *akamam dgdmf 'or' Man. Parth. U3**y» g'm

ipr>*i dtwbl Olran. *datobara ddywar 'judge' Man.MPers. **%#** d vwr

imiiL, Iwbn Av -^\\?^-> uruuqnam
-
ruwdn 'soul' Man. MPers. v**V rvvn

_ipi-^ hdybl haydr 'helper' Man.MPers. «m«x hy r

,a
OSO-ul?
3
r sy Pahl. ^^ r'h < *ra~0iia rah 'road Man.MPers. ^*<\ r h

oJ>-rt2q. pwhly or oT^iq. pvvlsy < *pr0u puhl 'bridge' Man.MPers. &-m«\t\ pwhl
nyi^-mlu Iswmwky learned borrowing ahlomoy 'heretic' < Av. l^L,*-^,^.. as.ymaoyo

a. Intervocalically both 8 and s became h; cf. the next example.

522 PART VI,I: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

Samples of Parthian and Middle Persian

Parthian

W mwyshwt ynktrk WWBC ntz'y rp> NL nwgws sw 5

<—

rtsh tnw 5
ENZ yprwyd' ntz'y ytp W mYWH trktsd ntz'y

-i\ -*)b ^y>Mz> _2i& *)ohS y>>» jJbs>» o of&z j2jy?MM o y>»)
NL NM RTAB WNM syWHL TDBO ypB0 W EMS tNSHH W tOBY
JJJ7»>_> P^M -JM-HJ ^Jb^J MOvS J9J3M 5MJ>Jb 3 ctfJMJ

ynktrk W WBC ntz'y rp> syWHL tYWH whnrp W EYHY

tnWDBO ytrktsd W tnEYHY rwyd 3
tz
5

y KYA dwyshwt

/. Transliteration: 'ws swgwn LN 'pr y'ztn CBW W krtkny

2. Normalization: awas cwayon amah abar yaz(a)dan Tr ud kerdagan
3. Gloss: now like we in god.PL.OBL matter and service

1. twhsywm W 5

y ztn dstkrt HWYm W pty

3

y ztn
5
dywrpy
2. tuxsam ud yazdan dastkerd hem ud pad yazdan a5yawarlf
?. we. toil and god.PL.OBL property we. are and by god.PL.OBLhelp

/. ZNE wnt hstr YBOt W HHSNt SME W OBpy OBDt

2. im awend (x)sahr wxast ud derd nam ud newTf kerd
?. this so. much land sought and held name and bravery made

/. LHWys MNW BATR MN LN YHYE W prnhw

2. haw-iz ke pas az amah bawa5 ud parrox
3. he-too who after from us he. shall. become and lucky

/. HWYt LHWys 5
pr y'ztn CBW W krtkny twhsywd
2. ahad haw-iz abar yazdan Tr ud kerdagan tuxsa5
3. he.shall.be he-too in god.PL.OBLmatter .and service he. shall. toil

/. AYK y>zt
5
dywr YHYEnt W dstkrty OBDWnt
2. ku yazd a5yawar bawand ud dastkerd karand
3. so. that god.PL.DiR helper they.shall. become and property they. shall. make

'Now, as We toil (have toiled) in the matters and services of the gods and are
(have been) the property of the gods and by the help of the gods have sought out
and held (acquired) these many lands (and) made a name and (=of) bravery,
(thus) he too who shall be after Us and shall be lucky, may he too toil in the
matters and services of the gods so that the gods will be his helpers and and
make (him their) property!'
— From the trilingual (Parthian/Middle Persian/Greek) inscription ofSdpur I at

Naqs-e Rostam near Persepolis in southern Iran (Sprengling 1953' pl> 6)>
 SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 523

Middle Persian

"
ylt'tslpwh n tzy
3
KZ NWWHY YHORM ENL RHA WNM KYA^
32j^JL ^_mj rt*]s o£>s;> S^f^i 2 P^ Qtislz n^i^B^iisvi
yrbdh nwgw ENZ 5
ytzy cELO KYA dNWWHY yltkm'kwhW

NWWHY ENL nwgyc dNWWHY

/. Transliteration: AYK MNW AHR LNE MROHY YHWWN ZK
2. Normalization: ku ke pas amah xwaday bawad an
3. Gloss: so.that who after us lord shall.become he

/. yzt'n hwplst'tly Whwk^mktly YHWWNd AYK

2. yaz(a)dan huparistatar ud-hukamagtar bawad ku
3. god.PL.OBL obedient.coMP and-of.good.will.coMP shall.become so.that

/. OLEc yzty ZNE >wgwn hdbry YHWWNd cygwn LNE YHWWN

2. 6y-iz yazd en-6won hayar bawand ciyon amah bud
3. him-too god.PL.DiRthis-thus helper shall.become like us was

'So that whoever shall become lord after Us he will be more obedient and of
better will toward the gods so that the gods will be his helpers too the way they
have been Ours!'
—From the trilingual (Parthian/Middle Persian/Greek) inscription ofSdpur I at

Naqs-e Rostam near Persepolis in southern Iran (Sprengling 1953, pi. 9).

Psalter script

ykmh sPA ytyw'd YHORM tNWWHY wy 3

tt
J
yb <-
5

ytstp sPA YHORM LO tNETSO ydnkws WNM yhytlwbzn

LO KYMD nNWBHY AL . . . K YA ypwk>y YZ ytdzy LO tNWLBY

YHORM k>wyg hNWHKSH DO ywlb LO ynsd>nw> cALW ENYA

ypwk 5
y YZ ytdzy LO n'dywW yd
3
l

/. Transliteration:
3
by D
tt >yw YHWWNt MROHY 3
d wyty
2. Normalization: ayad-it ew bawed xwaday Dawld
3. Gloss: memory-you.OBL hort it.become lord David
524 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. APs hmky nzbwltyhy MNW swkndy OSTENt OL MROHY

2. u-s hamag nizburdlh ke sogand xward o xwaday
3. and.his.OBL all affliction who oath ate to Lord

/. APs ptsty YBLWNt OL yzdty ZY y>kwpy AYK ... LA

2. u-s padist burd 6 yazd I Yakub ku ... ne
3. and-he.ENC l promise bore to God of Jacob that not

/. YHBWNn DMYK OL AYNE WLAc 'wn'dsny OL blwy OD

2. dahan xwamn o casm ud-ne-iz onayisn o bru ta

3. I. shall. give sleep to eye and-not-also slumber to brow until

/. HSKHWNn gyw>k MROHY Pdy Wwyd n 5

OL yzdty ZY y'kwpy
2. windan gyag xwaday ray ud-wiyan 6 yazd I Yakub
3. I. shall. find place Lord for and-tent to God of Jacob

'Remember, O Lord, David and all his affliction, (he) who swore an oath to the
Lord and promised the God of Jacob that: "I shall not give sleep to (my) eye(s)
nor slumber to (my) brow until I find a place for the Lord and a tent for the God
of Jacob.'
— Psalm 1 j 1, from the Pahlavi Psalter found in Chinese Turkestan (Andreas
and Barr 1933: no and pi. 9).

Book Pahlavi script

In the Pahlavi script, numerous letters merged and became indistinguishable, while at
the same time little effort was made to develop diacritical marks to distinguish them.
When transliterating Pahlavi, therefore, it is customary to give the letters their origi-

table 48.5: Mergers of Letters in Pahlavi

Values Notes

M = h = yy, etc.

b=d=g=y occasionally

I z =y occasionally, then often with the diacritic of d (3 transliterated z)

t
w = r (= ) = n = -v transliterated as '
a

JJ 'D yy = /d, etc. = s or

1<© E = mn
}

*u s =y in Indian manuscripts

J y = b occasionally, then often with the diacritic of d (j transliterated b).

e.g. » TD = TB new 'good' (inscr. _j£)

4 * = ro yy n = sn, etc occasionally (transliterated sn, etc.)

v p and yc often confused

a. note that I is the usual character for /\ while r (= vv) is found in a relatively small set of words, most of them
hcterograms.
 SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 525

table 48.6: Examples ofPahlavi writing

Pah lav i Transliteration Normalization Gloss Notes

iW^ smn 1

as man 'sky'

M<131^ MDMENstn sahistan 'to seem'

»ri>U3 gyhn' gehdn 'world'

lt*tXXKI SDYAn dewdn 'demons'

&& QDM abar 'on'

ax^? dmyk 1

= zmyk 1

zamig 'earth' Psalter ^fV

d
»KWJ yzdn 1

yazddn 'god(s)' inscr. i-u$s;>

b
SDYAn' dewdn 'demons' inscr. ^ip.22

*ob<?<? whrmzd Ohrmazd 'God' inscr. $s>&uhis±

»«ll)»\5b nV(y)yyt' can be read as mzdysn' mazdesn

'Mazdayasnian' (inscr. \r>^s>s>)

or mh(y)st' mahist 'greatest'

(inscr. o)^oos\J>^ mhsty)
d
YNSBWN stan-, stad 'to take' inscr. )i\7>)2
e r»r ]

SDRWN, SDRWN frest- 'to send' inscr. yii^ji

f Ahrimen
hy lilinii 'the Devil' inscr. oi>2)J>-rL\i

a. Literally y"ww.
M)
b. Or even i^ooooO' etc ' lit- s ww.
c. Literally 'w'wm' — traditional Parsi "school" pronunciation anhuma.
d. Literally YWYYYWW.
e. Literally SYWWW.

f. Literally 3TWW.
g. Or —upside down — 1<>-^\

nal value as far as this can be ascertained from texts written in earlier forms of the
alphabet and from etymological considerations. If one were to give each letter only
one value, the words would be completely unrecognizable and the transliteration

would not be useful. Nevertheless, in cases where the identity of a word is in doubt,
one sometimes resorts to this kind of automatic transliteration, table 48.5 shows the
principal instances of merger of originally distinct letters.

Original final -Jy, -ey, -ydy (Ps.^^a), is variously written vn b, *i** Y*ty -", or*
-5 (transliterated - ydy ).
The verbal endings 3sg. -yt(y) and 3pl. -(y)nd are commonly written in "short-
hand" as gp and^. Various methods have been used to transliterate these signs. Two
possibilities are to transliterate gj as -yt or x,

of the two signs is still

and ^ as -

seen in manuscripts of old texts, but with time their original

ynd or x 2 . The original value

use was forgotten, and x, is used for both -yt and -t, and x 2 for both -yt and -(y)nd.
The heterogram BYN is written in a "shorthand" ligature jp BYN = x r Examples of
Pahlavi writing are given in table 48.6.
In the script of the Pahlavi papyri, further simplifications take place, and the
words have to be read as units (word symbols) rather than as sequences of letters.
526 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

Numerous systems of transcribing Pahlavi have been and still are in use. They fall

into two main groups: the "archaizing" transcriptions attempt to follow the orthogra-

phy as closely as possible; the "modernizing" transcriptions follow the pronunciation

of the Sassanian period as indicated by the unambiguous Manichean spellings. The
most important work employing "archaizing" transcription Nyberg 1964-74. The is

"modernizing" transcription is found in MacKenzie 1971. Most of the time the two
systems produce identical forms, with the possible exception of "archaic" p, t, k, c, z

vs. "modern" b, d, g, z and differences in vocalization in the case of lie and old; but

there are instances of wider discrepancies as well. Examples: t9l0n bwtk butak ~ 1

budag (Man. }^*^ bwdg) 'something that has been', sw** tcyk tank ~ tdzig 'Ar- 1

ab' ^tKiy\ bg, bgdn bag, bagdn ~ bay, bay an (Man. %±*, v*(**):s=i by, b ( )n), j h bwd
5 5

bod ~ boy (Man. %^^ bwy) 'smell', \w* dl adar ~ er (Man. *%m yr) 'below', ^JJ 5

drwc druz ~ druz 'the Lie', tKiy<K5b mtgd^n mdtag-ddn, mddiydn ~ madaydn (Man.
v* %***-» mdyn) 'book'.

Sample of Pahlavi

hys k
5 5
pswlhNWP kytsPb dzmrhw 5
Y 5
k typ 'nwgw> nyd-LYPS NWP
as ttfMT*0
KZ 'tNWWHY y^mh hynswl NYB 'kl'nk' ^ n'mz hyhywW
ttej *oai^tf
NWP hykyPt NYB 'nmhY dzmrhw 5
Y k'wygW s
5
g hynswl

tNWWHY kd^plpwz hyknfkPtzW hynsn d

5
LHA
Transliteration: PWN SPYL-dyn wgwn 1

pyt>k Y 'whrmzd
Normalization: pad weh-den owon paydag I Ohrmazd
Gloss: in Good-Religion thus apparent that Ohrmazd

blstyk PWN hlwsp ^syh Wwyhyh zmTi 1

Y 5
knik'
balistlg pad harwisp-agahlh ud-wehlh - zaman I akanarag
on. high in all-awareness and-goodness time conn unlimited

BYN lwsnyh hnVy YHWWNt 1

ZK lwsnyh g's Wgyw 5

k Y
andar rosnlh name bud; an rosnlh gah ud-gyag I

in light ever was that light seat and-place of

'whrmzd... Tilmn 1

BYN t
3
lykyh PWN AHL dYisnyh
Ohrmazd ... Ahrimen andar tariglh pad pas-danisnlh
Ohrmazd Ahrimen in darkness in backward-knowledge

/. Wzt'lk'mkyh zwplp'dk YHWWNt 1

2. ud-zadar-kamaglh zufr-payag bud

3. and-destruction-desire deep-station was
 SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 527

'In the Good Religion it is revealed that Ohrmazd was on high in omniscience
and goodness for an unlimited time in the light; that light (is) the throne and
place of Ohrmazd ... Ahrimen was in darkness in backward knowledge and
desire to destroy in the depth.' —From the Bundahisn (Codex DH 1970: 1).

The Avestan alphabet

The oldest Avestan texts are approximately contemporary with the Rigveda (2nd mil-
lennium b.c.e.), while the younger texts date from the first millennium b.c.e.; they
were transmitted orally and written down only in the mid Sassanian period, the fifth-
sixth centuries c.e. (though the oldest manuscripts date only from the 13th century).

table 48.7: Avestan Alphabet

a
•tt a «**< a h a
e- a
* f e a

w i T e e 9 5
1! IP «k \ i
i u u t, t 6
f
b
etc 'P 0) P * f
*k m,m b
C
d 5 >o t t n
>J *s a ^••e \

d
QS * g,g t y 5 k * X Qj«
h
$
i]

t
yf.g
J

yli
*
c

h
M ri
e

h
c to tits
x
* o

V*.S vh vh
x n
• * I
!>*
^ r
€
z
k ' ] gl, m
s Z s
yo i
AS J,s \i 03 *>

a. Both nasal q, used (apparently) indiscriminately in the extant manuscripts but may originally have repre-

sented nasal q and <?.

b. Voiceless(?) variant of m after h, or substituted for hm.

c. Presumably unreleased (sometimes erroneously called "implosive") dental stop [f].

d. Rare; original value unknown.

e. Palatal [p], found only before i, 1, but not used consistently.
f. Used only in initial position; the exact difference between Y and y is not known.
g. For I and u other than in initial position, the Avestan alphabet writes ii and uu, which are then to be ana-
lyzed as [ii] and [uy], cf. the Old Persian spellings iy and uv.

h. Palatalized and velarized velar fricatives and nasals; some scribes confuse x with x\ rj with rj\

i. Used only in initial position.

j. Written for n (sometimes m) before consonant (nt. nc, nb, etc.); corresponds to the unwritten pre-consonan-

tal nasal in Old Persian (e.g., bandaka).

k. Historically < ci.
1. The exact phonetic values and relationship to s at the time of the invention of the alphabet are not known.
The original opposition may have been palatal s vs. retroflex s, while s was a voiceless lateral: s is represented

in Pahlavi by hi (e.g. asauua 'righteous' > Pahl. ahlaw). In the extant manuscripts of Avestan texts the distinc-

tion between the original s ~ s ~ s is no longer observed,

J
m. Historically < t 't (i.e. voiceless r + /).
 . .

528 PART VII,: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

A new alphabet based on the Psalter and the Pahlavi scripts was created for this pur-
pose that also included letters for sixteen vowels (table 48.7).
The Avestan alphabet is phonetic (presumably modeled on the Greek alphabet)
and required a much larger number of letters than these two scripts could provide. Ad-
ditional letters were therefore created by the use of diacritics (e.g. ^ I and ^ u from *

i and j ^ p and"^ f from ^ p, which in Pahlavi had the phonetic values p, b, j3, and
u;

/), and a few seem to have been simply invented. The Avestan letter v 3 bears a striking
resemblance to the Greek 8 e.

"Pazand" refers to Pahlavi or Modern Persian written in the Avestan alphabet.

Sample of Avestan

. martsuGaraZ . tiapu . omoah . a . mutar . a . mlnauuah^-

.matnaiiauuars . acsaGag . matnaGadzoay . iriap . marta

. ehapslv . msza . miY . Tha . aran . ok . .ortsuGaraZ . tasarsp . mid . a

. eheiiag . ehax^ . asaradad . matsears . otauutsa . suahrja

.ehassma . otauunax v

/. Transliteration: hauuanlm . a . ratum . a . haomo . upait

2. Gloss: haoma.pressing at proper.time to haoma went. up. to

/. ZaraGustram . atrsm . pairi . yaozdaGantam . gaGasca .

2. Zarathustra.ACC fire.ACC around purifying. acc Gathas.ACC.and

/. srauuaiiantam. a. dim. parasat . ZaraGustro. . ko

2. reciting. acc to him. acc asked Zarathustra.NOM who.NOM

/. nara . ahl . Yim . azam . vlspahe . ar)h5us . astuuato .

2. man.voc you. are whom.ACC I.nom all.GEN world.GEN bone-ful.GEN

v v
/. sraestam . dadarasa . x ahe . gaiiehe . x anuuato . amssahe.
2. beautiful. sup I. have. seen own.GEN life.GEN sun-ful.GEN immortal.GEN

'At the proper hour of the haoma pressing haoma went up to Zarathustra, who
was ritually preparing the fire and reciting the Gathas. Zarathustra asked him:
'Who are you, man, whom I have (now) seen (to be) the most beautiful of my
entire sunny immortal life?'
—From the Avestan Horn yast 'hymn to haoma' (Yasna 9;

Geldner 1896: 38-39).

 SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 529

Sogdian script

In the Sogdian script used in the "Ancient Letters" (table 48.2), most of the letters

are distinct and do not change shape when joined. In the "formal" and "Uyghur" Sog-
dian scripts, most of the letters are joined and, owing to the use of a broad pen, are
J
frequently difficult to distinguish. In the earlier form, is still distinguished from n;
but in the later,
5
= n,
3
n = n\ Some scribes distinguish z from n by not connecting z
to the preceding letter, but others make no distinction. In the later, increasingly cur-
sive, form, other letters tend to become indistinguishable as well: y/x/s/s, r/p/y. Some
letters are distinguished only in final position (by some scribes), e.g., n ~ z, x ~ y.
z is sometimes distinguished from n or z from z by a diacritical point y, and the
foreign sound b was noted asj> p.

Samples of Sogdian

Ancient letters

PLi kk'n'k wr )3
(35ynn kk>rp w'twx wyp DO<-

wn"yP wMXyKZ YZKYA ykwn'zt'ps wyc>mn MLS rwyrp

JJ0&4M _5>»J*f \f4.**

—** J9*%+4j VJ»54>
ktnpynn ktnp 8pyx NM tsyp try(3

/. Transliteration: OD pyw xwt'w pr'kk nny5p 5) rw k'n'kk

2. Normalization: at Payu xutaw parak nane-6par kanak
3. Gloss: to lord.ACC master Barak Nana's-gift Kanak

/. iLP Prywr SLM nm'cyw sp'tz'nwky AYKZY

2. (ew-)zar prewar *afrlwan namacyu spatzanuk ka8-uti

3. thousand ten.thousand greeting(?) reverence. acc bended.knee when-that.and

/. ZKyXMw py^nw Pyrt pyst MN xypG pntk nnypntk

2. wesanu Payan(u) Pyart pist con xepG Pante nane-pante
3. them.OBL lords. obl received written from own servant Nana's-servant

'To the Divine Master Barak(?) Nanethvar Kanak a thousand, ten thousand
greetings, reverently with bended knees when received by their divinities. Writ-

ten by his own servant Nanevante.'

-From the Old Sogdian "Ancient Letters" found in a mailbag in the Great Wall
(M II, Reichelt 1931: 12 and pi 2).
530 part viii: middle eastern writing systems

Story of Rustam

ysxr nn^rpnSwp wx J
sy" smytr
5
k 8ywrp ymtswr yx y 3
tn
3
rtyw<—

tr'yz 'n(3wx NM ymtswr wx 5

tpsnm syryyw ymtswr wKZ

wrp Syz'P tny pyn

3
ntsnwr5 nn8wyn mrc )
kn8rwp wKZ cnymytp

r s
5
twy5 wk r'p8
5

p wsxr
5
Transliteration: wytr'nt y xy rwstmy prwyS'k rtyms
Normalization: wltarand yaxl Rustami parweSe rti-mas
Gloss: i mpf. they. departed brave Rustam.GEN to.seek and-then

ys xw pwSnpr nn 3
rxsy ZKw rwstmy
ayas axu P68an-paran Raxsi awu Rustami
came the.NOM perception-bearing Raxs.NOM the.ACC Rustam. acc

wyyrys mnspt 'xw rwstmy MN xwpn 5

zy
5
rt

wlyres manspat axu Rustami con xupna zyart

iMPF.he.woke iMPF.arose the.NOM Rustam. nom from sleep.ABL quickly

ptymync ZKw pwrSnk crm 5

nywSnn Srwnstn nyP'ynt
ptlmenc awu pu r 8ang-carm nyoSan Srun-stan nlpend
iMPF.he.donned the. acc leopard-skin garment bow-container iMPF.he.tied

/. p'zyS prw rxsw 5

p 8p'r kw 8ywt st
2. pazyaS par-6 Raxsu paOfar ku 8ewt sar

3. 1 mpf. mounted on-the.ACC Raxs.ACC iMPF.hurried to- demon. pl -ward

They demons) departed in search of the brave Rustam. Then came the per-
(the
ceptive(?)Rakhsh (his horse) and woke Rustam. Rustam arose out of his sleep,
quickly donned (his) leopard-skin garment, tied on his bow-case, mounted
Rakhsh, and hurried toward the demons.'
— From a (Manichean?) version of the story of Rustam (Benveniste 1940A, pis.

i93-94> 1940B: 135: Sims-Williams 1976: 54-57).

Developments from Estrangelo Syriac

Manichean script (table 48.2; Miiller 1904: 5) is based on Estrangelo (section
47). It is sometimes believed to have been invented by Mani, who founded the Man-
ichean religion in the third century c.e., but it is probably older (Erika Hunter, per-
sonal communication).
 SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 53 J

This script was used to write Manichean texts in Persian, Parthian, Sogdian, and
Bactrian (and also Turkish and Tokharian). As in the Sogdian script, Syriac 1 was used
to write 8. In addition, diacritics are used to express specifically Iranian sounds. There
is a new letter A commonly transliterated as j (cf. Christian Sogdian, below).

In Manichean Middle Persian and Parthian, initial groups of sibilant + stop de-
veloped a prothetic vowel, which is written
c
(MPers. ^a^^ sph dlispah, Parth.
wrxr^i^ c 5
sp d dlispad 'army'). In Parthian inscriptions, this prothetic vowel is
)
sometimes written {)»>7>i»?/?^ spdpty or ;»Jb>Jb>* spdpty aspaSbed 'general'). Oc-
casionally, words with e or /"
and oorw are distinguished in spelling by the use of or 5

c
e.g. MPers. J^m yg eg 'then' ~ i^ c

yg 1(g), relative particle; t*^ zwr zor

a^ zwr
,

'strength' ~ zur 'deception', ***** dwr adur 'fire' ~ **^*#« dwr

*ddur 'excrement' (Tardieu 1980).
Sometimes, in order to fit a word on a line (rather than breaking it), letters mark-
ing long vowels are left out and the omission signified by superscript or subscript dots
(thus also in the Psalter script). Note especially * w = wd and 6a s = 3
w-s. In Man-
ichean Sogdian, y and w are frequently written double, and
3
and y can be repeated to

fill out a line.

Samples of Manichean

Manichean Middle Persian

dy'p dw 3
dyr'd dwx mw' dywr g^b' dwx cnwn mw'

drx n'mhwdrm dw> myswq nymrh' w z" g'b

3
rwz dp sw 5

myzwb nymrh 3
w z
5)
c
3
n'sw' mycwmh nsyn'd dw'

/. Transliteration: 'wm nwnc xwd b g

5 5
rwyd 5
wm
2. Normalization: u-m nun-iz xwad abag rawed u-m
3. Gloss: and-me.OBL now-too self with he.goes and-me.OBL

/. xwd d'ryd
5
wd p'yd
5
ws pd zwr 'b'g "z w
2. xwad dared ud payed u-s pad zor abag Az ud
3. self he.holds and protects and-his.OBL by power with Az and

/. "hrmyn qwsym >wd mrdwhm'n xrd

5
wd d'nysn hmwcym
2. Ahrimen kosem ud mardohman xrad ud danisn hammozem
3. Ahrimen I. fight and men wisdom and knowledge I.teach

/. 'ws'n
3
c "z w ^hrmyn bwzym
2. u-san az Az ud Ahrimen bozem
3. and-them.OBL from Az and Ahrimen I.save
 a *

532 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

'And even now he himself accompanies me, and he himself keeps and protects
me. And by his power I fight with Az and Ahrimen and teach men wisdom and
knowledge and save them from Az and Ahrimen.'
— From Mani's autobiography in the Sabuhragan(?) (Andreas 1933: 307;
facsimile in Sundermann 1981, pi. 42).

Manichean Parthian
Xr<W^»ja «\ %M *a\ SAOO%JO ^»Od W^ XMOJ WXMU *XAiaM03 *%2=« <—
h'srhym w y'dwx nwsym dwb d rb
3
h's n'h's rhwb's dyb<—

sw 3
.dwb nymswd tfyks
c
nyd w gtsyrf w w
3
.zti
5
mn 5

i
^^ ^nua*^ V^%\ oqv^ «\ a**^m *%*. %«y a%s^ Voo#*t*a wVria***^
wk d'swg tfyks
c
w w gr wyn 3 5
yk wy c
tsYyw 5
n tsydwb

VSoM %*. U^oMX rj*»*V

5
ts yn r'swTi cyk

/. Transliteration: byd s^bwhr s^n sti brM bwd myswn

2. Normalization: bid Sabuhr sahan sari brad bud Mesun
3. Gloss: again Shabuhr king.PL.OBL king brother was Meshun

/. xwd 5
y u myhrsTi n'm ti'z. u
5
w frystg
5
wd dyn c
skyft
2. xwaday ud Mihrsah nam ahaz. ud o frestag ud den iskeft

3. lord and Mihrshah name was and to apostle and religion extremely

/. dwsmyn bwd. 3
ws bwdyst^n wyr^st yw ky
c
nyw
2. dusmen bud. u-s bo8-estan wirast ew ke new
3. enemy he. was and-he.OBL perfume-place arranged one which good

/. Tg'w u
c
skyft gws d 5
kw kyc h'ws'r ny
3
st

2. aryaw ud iskeft gusad ku kec hawsar ne ast

3. lovely and extremely opened so. that some like not there. is

'Moreover, Shabuhr, king of kings, had a brother, lord of Meshun, and his name
was Mihrshah. And he was extremely hostile to the religion of the apostle. And
he had arranged a garden, which was good, lovely, and extremely large(?), so
that there was none like it.'
— From a text about Mani's life (Sundermann 19H1: 102 and pi. 52).

Manichean Sogdian
\oc>V*m o*.*^a^ %$>** . %%*«*& q<. m A«y .*.jqoa Ay. m aa*v ^AH^Ja %^m<—
nstr' cwsp yt
5
. yyr'j cn'wknms nc 'nwk dn'rq yt
5
<—

•TM^aVrx %^*#* •• ^»^ «m.^* \ja\ Vm 103 *y a* t

A«y .Vm-C^Va
r\stp ytr' .. nys r s
J
nmSry'nsxwr wk r'stp
 . .

SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 533

dnzY 3
t
5
m 3
n'w dr 5
n5 w'twx ypsykt(3
3
wx t'p8yw

55bmcf 'n'm-'w myc'stp yf wn'c t'rypn

/. Transliteration: 'ty qrmd kwn' en smnkwmc j

3
ryy
2. Normalization: ati karand kuna can simnakwanc zarl

j. Gloss: and pure. pl you. make. imv from Ahrimenian poison.OBL

/.
5
ty pswc 5
rtsn pts^ kw rwxsn'yrSmn s^r syn ..
3
rty
2. ati psoc arti-san pat-sar ku roxsna-yar8man sar sen arti

3. and purify and-them.OBL after- ward to- light-paradise -ward raise and

/. ptsT wy5p 5
t xw ^tkyspy xwfw 8n Ww^n
2. pat-sar we5-pat xo apt-kispi xutaw 5an ardawan
j. after- ward that-time the seven-clime master with righteousness. pl.obl

/. m 3
t "y^znd nPyrt c
}
nw 'ty pts'cym w^-mm 3 5
fcmb55
2. mat ayazand . nperat cano ati patsacem wa-mana afcamba5
3. mother they.began to.plan how and we. arrange the-that world

'Clean them of the poison of Ahrimen and purify them. Thereafter raise them to
Paradise! — Thereupon
at that time the Lord of the Seven Climes and the

Mother of the Righteous began to plan: How shall we arrange that world?'
— From a Manichean cosmological text (Henning 1948: 311-12).

Developments from Nestorian Syriac

The Christian Sogdian script is a variant of Nestorian (section 47). It includes vowel
marks and contains a new y commonly transliterated z. (Manichean A andletter

Christian Sogdian y probably have the same origin and may be related to Tumshuq- —
ese Brahmi z. Manichean also has ^ however, which is commonly transliterated as ,

z, and so A has been assigned the reading].) The letters J 1 and ^ t are most often used

for and t respectively, but in a few manuscripts 1 1 is t and ^ t is 6. Vowels can be

marked using the Syriac pointing system, which makes this the only variety of Sog-
dian script in which the crucial distinctions between lie and ulo are noted.

Sample of Christian Sogdian

nd yq
3
s wtsyrf wq tnb tp'ytpw
3
tytsyrf tyn wn'cn'w ra'<-

sfcix 40l3» fdt^U **&**& (L *x \j t£*Jolv*l s^A oiS \fdoV ^*3«*X.

fry sm }
nyrf dymyrp 5
ynmz ytnm'zyn yts wrp n'wr ytqrys
534 PART VI,,: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

iS o ^ i^ i$Lua sJ9 $Za vo^» y*.

wr'qyn'tq rp q tny znw yq s wyd dywyq tntnyb
5
twyed

r^pmt nc yq
5
ynmz ytnrr^zyn n'wr

/. Transliteration:
3
ar wncnw nyt frystyt Vpty^pt bnt
2. Normalization: ar wan-cano nit frestet awpatyapt Pant
3. Gloss: and thus-like other.PL angel. pl participant. PL are

qw frystw qy dn syrqty rwn prw sty

ku fresto ke 8an slr-kte rwan par-o stl

5. to- angel. acc -ward who with good-done.OBL soul on-the.ACC is

/. nyz mnty zmny prymyd fryn^ ms yrf deywt ^byntnt

2. nlzamandl zamnya par-eme5 frayna mas yarf 8ewt apendand
3. going.out.OBL timexoc in-this manner also many demon. pl are. bound

/. qywyd deyw qy wnz 3

ynt q pr qfnyqTw rw n5

2. k-ewe5 8ew sa ke wanaz yandak par ktane-karo rwan

3. to-this demon -ward who made.iMPF evil in sin-maker.ACC soul

/. nyz^mnty zmny qy en tmp r

2. nlzamand-I zamn-ya ke can tambar

3. going.out-OBL time-LOC which from body

'And as the other angels are fellows to the angel which is with the soul of the
righteousman at the time of departure, so too many demons are associated with
that demon which was performing evil in the sinful soul at the time of departing
from the body.'
— From DddiscY Qatrayas commentary on the fifteenth homily of Abba Isaiah

(Sims-Williams 1985: 81, pl. 36).

Bibliography
Andreas, Friedrich C. 1933-37. "Mitteliranische Manichaica aus Chinesisch-Turkistan II," ed.

Walter B. Henning. Sitzungsberichte der Preufiischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin

292-363.
Andreas, Friedrich C, and Kaj Barr. 1933. "Bruchstiicke einer Pehlevi-Ubersetzung der Psalmen."
Sitzungsberichte der Preufiischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, Berlin 91-152.
Benvcniste, Emile. 1940A. Codices Sogdiani (Monumenta Linguarum Asiae Majoris 3). Copen-
hagen: Munksgaard.
.
1940B. Textes sogdiens (Mission Pelliot en Asie centrale 3). Paris: Geuthner.
The Codex DH: Being a Facsimile Edition of Bondahesh ... and Parts of Denkard. 1970(7). Tehran:
Bonyad-e Farhang-e Iran.
Geldner, KarlF. 1896. Avesta, the Sacred Book of the Parsis. 3 vols. Stuttgart: Kohlhammer.

Henning, Walter B. 1948. "A Fragment of the Manichaean Cosmogony." Bulletin of the School of
Oriental and African Studies 12: 306-18.
 SECTION 48: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR IRANIAN LANGUAGES 535

.
1958. "Mitteliranisch." In Iranistik (Handbuch der Orientalistik, division 1, vol. 4, fasc. 1),

pp. 20-130. Leiden: Brill.

Herzfeld, Ernst. 1924. "Essay on Pahlavi." In his Paikuli: Monument and History- of the Early Sas-
sanian Empire /, pp. 52-73. Berlin: Reimer.
Nyberg, Henrik S. 1964-74. Manual of Pahlavi, 2 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
MacKenzie, David Neil. 197 A Concise Pahlavi Dictionary. London: Oxford University Press.
1 .

Muller, Friedrich W. K. 1904. Handschriften-Reste in Estrangelo-Schrift aus Turfan, Chinesisch-

Turkistan, II (Abhandlungen der PreuBischen Akademie der Wissenschaften). Berlin.
Reichelt, Hans. 1931. Die soghdischen Handschriftenreste des Britischen Museums, part 2: Die
nicht-huddhistischen Texte. Heidelberg: Winter.
Schmitt, Riidiger, ed. 1989. Compendium Linguarum Iranicarum. Wiesbaden: Reichert.
Sims-Williams, Nicholas. 1976. "The Sogdian Fragments of the British Library." Indo-Iranian Jour-
nal 18: 43-82.
.
1985. The Christian Sogdian Manuscript C2 (Berliner Turfantexte 12). Berlin: Akademie
Verlag.
Sprengling, Martin. 1953. Third Century Iran. Chicago: University of Chicago, Oriental Institute.
Sundermann, Werner. 1981. Mitteliranische manichaische Texte kirchengeschichtlichen Inhalts
(Berliner Turfantexte 1
1 ). Berlin: Akademie Verlag.
c
Tardieu, Michel. 1 980. "prata et ad ur chez les manicheens." Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenldn-
dischen Gesellschaft 130: 340-41.
SECTION 49

Aramaic Scripts
for Altaic Languages
Gyorgy Kara

Medieval Northern Iranians transmitted different forms of the Aramaic alphabet to

the ancient Turks (6th-8th century c.e.) and perhaps to other non-Indo-European-
speaking peoples of Inner Asia at earlier dates. A mid sixth century inscription found
in Bugut, Mongolia, is an early monument showing Turkic usage of the Sogdian (Ira-

nian) language and cursive script (section 48). Non-cursive Sogdian script inspired

the runiform alphabet of the ancient Turks, a highly original writing system of the re-
gion. Manichean Estrangelo (Aramaic) and Sogdian scripts were applied to the

Turkic language of the Uyghurs and other Turks who were Manicheans or Nestorian
Christians. The Sogdian and Brahmi (section 30) scripts were used by their Bud-
dhist countrymen. In the eleventh century, Arabic script came with Islam to the Turks
of western and central Inner Asia (section 6 i ). No written document of the Huns or
Avars of Inner Asia has been found, and only Chinese sources preserved the memory
of the lost writing system of the Tabgach Empire (4th-6th century c.e.); its origin,

type, and shape remain unknown. The vertical Uyghur variant of the Sogdian alpha-
bet was applied to a Middle Mongolian dialect in Chinggis Khan's court (early 13th
century); with some modification, it is still in use in Mongolia. The mid seventeenth
century "Clear script," derived from the Mongolian "vertical" alphabet, became the
writing system of the Western Mongols or Oirats (including the Kalmyks). In the
Manchu Empire that embraced Manchuria, China, Mongolia, Tibet, and eastern
Turkestan (from the 17th century to 191 1), another modified form of the "vertical"
alphabet was used to write the official Manchu language. The latest Inner Asian de-
scendant of the Aramaic script is the Buryat alphabet (1905).

The runiform alphabet of the ancient Turks

Some early eighth century memorial inscriptions with the oldest known historical

narratives in Turkic were discovered in the nineteenth century in the valley of the
Orkhon River, Mongolia; hence the term Orkhon script. External resemblance of its

characters to the Germanic runes (section 24) evoked the name runiform alphabet
or Orkhon runes. It has simple characters, easy to carve on wood or stone, but this
does not entail the absence of curved elements. Rows read from bottom to top, char-

536
 .

SECTION 49: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ALTAIC LANGUAGES 537

table 49. 1 : The Runiform Script of the Ancient Turks

>r a/e ) n'

1
r i/i/e rr n2
(v>
s e (Yenisei) ni
> o/u > nc
p 6/ii ) n
6 b 1
H ng(n)
* b2 1 P
V y A c

6 g T c
1

» d 1

H q
X d2 < q
1

4i Z 4 q°

D y' H r 1

9 y
2
T r 2

t k S s1

R k° I s
2

J 1' ¥,Y s (or s2 = s)

Y l
2
t t
1

M it h t
2

If m • word/phrase end marker

acters run from right to left, and word division is marked by two dots like our colon.
This system of some forty characters serves to render at least 26 phonemes. In this

case, the discrepancy between characters and phonemes is not the result of applying
a rich foreign script to a relatively simple set of sounds (though it is possible that the
ancient Turks were not the first users of this script). Rather, it is the consequence of
defective vowel representation. Four characters render at least eight vocalic pho-
nemes: >T a- ale [a/e]; X i = XI i [i/i] and e [e], an allophone; V o = olu [o/u]; and \* it

= 61 u [0/y]. These form two groups according to front versus back articulation, and a
word contains vowels from only one of the two groups. This front/back harmony is

combined with rules that predict the occurrence of the rounded/unrounded and
high/mid/low vowels in the word. This system of vowels allows the simplification of
vowel rendering, but vowels often remain unwritten. To decrease ambiguity, most
consonants have two different characters, one used in back-vowel words, another
used in front- vowel ones. Moreover, some letters indicate a high unrounded/rounded-
vowel environment (e.g., the arrow-shaped 4^ q° represents [ok/uk] or [ko/ku] (a pic-
togram? cf. Turkish ok 'arrow'). There is a single "neutral" character for each of the
consonants c (beside another sign for c with a high unrounded vowel), p, nu //, ng, z,

and for the intervocalic consonantal clusters It. at, table 49.
nc\ see 1

This writing system was later used in the early Uyghur empire (8th century) and
in eastern Turkestan; its "Yenisei" variant is known from ancient Kirghiz inscriptions
 : I :

538 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

(9th century). It has distant cognates in the various runiform alphabets found in the

Talas Valley in western Turkestan, and in southeastern Europe.

Sample of ancient Turkic

^T:H¥^r9:rsrY:frAi^^:rcjs:)^M:AYcj^Tr»Tr^>r>: tiSH^:D^K:r i

s s
^^H^:rfh:4 tTr ?:4 A)^>xYNi:rfh:>rHrTr9:uHD i:T9>HVHr9> <
t

Yr'i:rfh>rHr nDH^¥:HTfYr:iDHM:>rhYr:HKHJK¥r9:rr Rh^:)YH:tTr*h

t ,

KrH^t^TfTr^^HSY^irH^t^TfYr^JHr^ir^Y^Hixriirh^fxirH^aSM
rHhf9rHr>DJKYfxri:rhRi 'h:)^as>^HJK>rtxr'^:)YH:^fYr^:R / r^h y
^r
2 2 2
Transliteration. t
2
ur k
(

b il ga iqyn
1

:
!

b uud ka
2
: ulV^m : sVmn 1
:

Normalization: tiirk bilge qayan bu odke olurtum sabimin

Gloss: Tiirk Bilge Khan this time. at sat. word, my

t
2
uk°t
2
i
2
s id gl
2 2
: u^y'u in
2 2
y giin (m)
2
/ bWbW :
2
d gut
2
i

tuketi esidgil ulayu iniyigiin(iim) bu sabimin edgtiti

wholly listen further (my).younger.brothers this word. my well

2 2 1 •i2 2-
s id : qt^d ! t^hl'a ll gr~u : kiin' ^uys'qa : b irgru : kiin'

esid katigdi tirila. ilgerii kiin toysuq(q)a birgerli kiin

isten thoroughly hearken forward sun rising. at to. the. right sun

u ... / ... t
2
iir
2
k : qyn
1
: iitVn 2 y is ulVsV il-ra :

o(rtusingaru) tiirk qayan otiiken y is olursar elte

middle. its. toward Tiirk Khan Otiiken Range sit. when country.in

2 2 2 2
b^hy'q il gr ii : snturi :
!

y ziqat gi : s
2
ul / m :

bun yoq ilgerii Santuri yaziqategi sul(edim) ... / (suledi)m

need. less forward Shantung plain. to reaching campaigned.! campaigned.!

y
2-
lr
1

yr u
I

: yr
2 2
b'y'r'q^ y
2- 2-
lr ina
•

:
Jl
t
•

gi : s ul
2-i2j2
d m b unca :

yirgaru Yir Bayirqu yirih etegi stiledim bunca

to.the.left Yir Bayi'rku land. his. to reaching campaigned.! this. much
2 2 2 1 1 2 2 2
y ir ka t gi: y'ur't'd
1

... / q°ut y b'uris^ : ncab ir iir :

yirke tegi yoritd(Ym) . qutay bungsuz anca biriir

land. to reaching proceeded.! silk need. less so.much give

 SECTION 49: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ALTAIC LANGUAGES 539

_2
/. t'b'yc : b'udV s'b'i: s iicig yis i :
y imsq : r ms 2
1

2. tabyac budun sabi" s ucig ayis 1 yi'msak ermis

j. Chinese people word. his sweet poison. his soft was

'(I), the . . . Turk Bilge Khan, reigned my word perfectly, /

at this time. Listen to
and (you too) my word of mine. Hearken
younger brothers, listen well to this

thoroughly. / Forward, where the sun rises, and to the right, where the sun cul-
minates, / When the Turk Khan reigned on the Otiiken Range, there was no
need in the country. I campaigned forward (= eastward) up to the Shantung
plain, ... I campaigned / 1 campaigned to the left (= northward) up to the land of

Yir Bayirku. I proceeded to so many lands. / (They) give so much (goods), / silk

plentiful. The Chinese people's word was sweet and its poison was smooth.'
— From Kbl Tegin's inscription, early 8th c, southern side
(Radloff 1892, pi. XIX).

The Uyghur alphabet

Sogdian cursive to the Turkic language of the Uyghur empire
script was adapted
(8th— 9th century) and was used by some Uyghur groups in Gansu (northwestern Chi-
na) until the seventeenth century. The Sogdian alphabet borrowed by the Uyghurs is
a reduced version of the Aramaic script; see table 49.2. Used for Uyghur with slight
modification, it later saw further changes. The originally horizontal lines are written
vertically, in columns from left to right. Digraphs and trigraphs help to mark the rich

set of Turkic vowels in initial syllables; thus aleph + aleph = initial a, aleph + yodh =

initial /'//, aleph + waw = initial olu, aleph + waw + yodh = initial 6 or u\ while waw
in any other syllable can render any rounded vowel according to vowel harmony.
The Semitic tradition of defective writing of vowels survives in words like tnkry

for tengri 'heaven' (where nk is a digraph for a velar nasal), kwnkwl for kongiil

'mind', or yodh + resh + hooked resh + gimel for yarliy 'command'. Medial nun and
aleph have the same form, and so do their main final forms, d is marked by lamedh
(spirant 8 in Sogdian), while hooked resh is used for / (this hook grows larger and
larger, until it becomes a distinct symbol). Gimel and heth coincided and render the

velar allophones of the voiced and unvoiced dorsal consonants (with or without
diacritical dots). Kaph represents the palatal allophones of the same dorsal stops. Pe
renders b and p. Samekh and shin merged as s. Tsadi marks the unvoiced palatal af-
fricate c.

The written word has the shape of a vertical string of letters; positional variation
of initial, medial, final, and independent forms The sequence is
is preserved. inter-

rupted by zain, which has no medial form and cannot be linked downward, and in the

case of certain orthographical rules that prefer, e.g., an independent aleph after a
gimel. Some nominal suffixes (case endings, etc.) are written separately after the
stem, with the same space between stem and suffix as between words. Bold dots (sin-
540 PART VIH MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 49.2: Uyghur Scrip f

1'
Name Uyghur Initio l Medial Final Separate Ligatures Uyghur

'aleph e/vowel + <* a

initial
^ V ka/e

4 1 |
a/e
1
4» pa/e

beth

gimel
w/v

y
4
*
<1

*
1 n 4
waw o/u
« n 1
<l
waw+yodh o/ti
3
o/u/6/ii
c
« a ko/u/o/u

po/uo/ii

zain z
^ -
^ «
-
marked z z
^.
heth X
* * *^
2-dotted q = * *» 5
*^
yodh y
A J
«i
A i; j»
ki/i

pi A
<r«i
r
kaph k/g *\ $
lamedh

mem
d/5

m
V ^ !>

ml
A H *\
«f
nun n
.1 *•
pe b/p
1 *i
tsadi c
a M *\
resh r
=* * a l
shin s
* * *.
marked s s
** ' «:
tau t
^ 3
1
hooked r 1

w -i **
a. Diacritics are often omitted. Some Uygf uir alphabets have shin for samekh before pe marked r. final />/. and
final q arc added after hooked resh
b. Hebrew name for the ancestral Aramaic letter.

c. In syllables other than the first.

 I

SECTION 49: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ALTAIC LANGUAGES 541

gle, double, square, etc.) punctuate the text. In later Uyghur, strict distinction between
the meaning of non-initial lamedh and taw is lost.

Uyghur calligraphy is based on Sogdian cursive; the Uyghurs developed their

own cursive styles. The original alphabetical order of the Uyghur script is practically
the same as that of Sogdian Aramaic. A mixed script is used in some texts where
nouns appear in Chinese characters, while the rest is in the Uyghur alphabet. These
logograms are to be read in Uyghur, as is clear from the suffixes attached to them. In-
terlinear Brahmi glosses often occur on the left side of Uyghur words of Indian origin.

Sample of Uyghur (and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit)

Kg****"

/. Transliteration: n'mw pw§ n'mw 8 rm n'mw s'nk /

:
)
:ywkwnwrmn :

2. Normalization: namo bud namo darm namo sang yukunurmen

3. Gloss: [Skt.] namo buddhaya n. dharmaya n. sangghaya [U.] prostrate.

/. "lqw pwrxn-Pr pw5ystp l'r / qwt Pr ynk' ywkwnwrmn "lqw

2. alqu burxan-lar bodistw-lar qut-lar-inga yukunurmen alqu
3- all buddha-s bodhisattva-s majestie-s-POSS.DAT prostrate.I all

/. prti k
5
/ pwd Pr twyz un sr'P'k-Pr qwi Pr ynk 3
: / ywkwnwrmn
2. prati-ka- bud-lar toziin sravak-lar qut-lar-inga yukunurmen
3. pratyeka- buddha-s noble sravakas-s majestie-s-POSS.DAT prostrate.I
542 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. "lqw "8M ryq

5
y'ntwrcTcy "8yn It q /
3
Vtswqm^q syz "8y
2. alqu ada-lar-Yy yanturdaci adin-lar-qa utsuqmay-siz : adi'

3. all danger-s-ACC returner other-PL-DAT defeat-less name.poss

/. kwytrwlmys syf / t'p

3
8ry qwtynk 3
: "ncwPyw Twr : mmynk /
2. kotriilmis Sitatapadri qut'i'nga : anculayu eriir mening
3. elevated Sitatapatra majesty.POSS.DAT thus is my
/. 'sySmys ym : ym pyr
3
wydwn 5)
Sy kwytrwl/mys str^strys
2. esidmis-im : yeme bir odiin adi' kotriilmis Strayastris

3. heard.of-mine also one time. by name.poss elevated Trayastrimsat

5
/. tnkry yyr ynC swdYm/s'l t tnkry Pr nynk yyqylqw [l]wq yn
2. tengri yer-inte Sudaramsal-ta tengri-ler-ning yi'yilyu-luq-in

3. god land-poss Sudharmasala-LOC god-PL-GEN meeting.place

'Homage to the Buddha. Homage Homage to the Community. I bow

to the Law.
before the majesty of all I bow before the majesty of
buddhas and bodhisattvas.
all pratyekabuddhas and noble shravakas. I bow before the majesty of Sitata-

patra whose name is exalted, who turns away all the dangers, and who is invin-
cible by others. Thus have I heard. At another time, He Whose Name Is Exalted
[resided] in the realm of the Thirty-three Gods, in Sudharmashala, in the

Assembly of the Gods.'

— Fragment of a Buddhist concertina-book with a Sitatapatra-text, printed in

the 14th century, found in eastern Turkistan (Miiller 1910: 51-52).

The Manichean script of the Uyghurs

Manichean Uyghurs also used another alphabet of Aramaic descent; see table 49.3.
Its lines run from right to left, with more letters retained from the Aramaic and fewer

positional variants than in the Sogdian alphabet. Principles of vowel marking are the
can be either aleph + yodh or ain
(
same as in the Uyghur script, but initial XIi -1- yodh.
Gimel is transformed into two, slightly different, characters for g: one marks the ve-
lar, the other the palatal allophone of this voiced stop (or spirant). Kaph and qoph ren-
der k\ either of them with one dot renders .\\ or with two dots, q. Daleth and lamedh
have their original values, but a second d is more often used than daleth. Samekh and
shin are distinguished. In writing a final vowel, yodh is often doubled, e.g. Hkii 'two'.

Sample of Uyghur in Manichean script

%%-^o^L»jo «%^o*A^rt*=i %«&*^*[r«] ['wjywlyy b'lgwsyy myngwsyy

'wd bwly'y •• bww yyr 'wyz n'ng
5

"nd'y tw kwyr y'lwyy "rwys

*VA.JO<tt U^qHJOM &*#* CO»«v 03»M ywq kym 'wl 'wmVr smnw
 SECTION 49: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ALTAIC LANGUAGES 543

table 49.3: Uyghur Manichean Script

Name Translit. Initial Final

'aleph e/vowel initial

'aleph+'aleph a

'aleph medial = e-, -a/-e

'aleph initial

'aleph+waw o/u

'aleph+waw+yodh 6/ii or oy/uy

beth b
gimel 1

Y
gimel 2 g \
daleth d
daleth 2 d
he h
waw w/v
waw+yodh medial o/u

in 1st syll. after C 6/ii

waw in non-ist syll. o/u/6/ii/w/v

zain z

teth t %

yodh y/i/i

kaph 1
k

kaph 2 X

kaph 3 q
lamedh 1

mem m JO

nun n A.

samekh s
( (
ain vowel initial,

pe P
tsadi c

qoph 1
k, x

qoph 3 q
resh r

shin s

tau t
 *

544 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

rl£LX%** «#i^«Vri i^a^Osa * Vjt %y. » \ \ ] [kjwycyng qwpwy wy y •• 'ync'

3 3 5

[.. .] qmy bwdwnq nwmcyq 3 5

*%^\A.V ^V ^bi %*^V\jo **^ [...] [.. .] rww mytryy bwrx n tngryy
5 5
5

r...l V<>\
,

l
WA^a. »**VJ^ri ^ %«&[V*««] Pwy]lyy k lg
3

y typ n kyg[...]
[ ] V^ \M \M »»^M %%V\JtV A^%^ [...] [...] kyrtw tngryy wylyy
3
mn mn tyg[
[... i^A.]*A*-. \%&%^ [ ... ] [ ... ]
c
ylyg bwdw[nwy ...]

[...]^MM-.] [...]d[yn]d>r [...]

/. Transliteration: [VJywlyy
5
b lgwsyy myngwsyy / Vd bwly y 3
•• bww
2. Normalization: oyuln belgiisii mingusii ud bolyay boo
3. Gloss: son.poss token. poss mount.poss bull will.be this

/. yyr Vyz nmg / 3 55 3

nd y tw kwyr y lwyy "rwys 5
/ ywq kym wl 5

2. yer iize neng anday tev kiir yelvii arvis yoq kim ol

3. earth on just such cheat fraud magic spell no who he

/. VmVr smnw / [kjwycyng^ qwpwy wy 5 5

y •• c
ync
3
/[...] qmy
2. umasar si'mnu kiicinge qopuy uyay
c
inca qamay
3. cannot.if demon f0rce.p0ss.DAT all.ACC will.be. able thus all

/. bwdwnq 3
nwmcyq 5
/[. rww mytryy bwrxm tngryy / [
5
wy]lyy
3
k lg y
5

2. budunqa nomciqa ruu Mitrii burxan tengrii oyliT kelgey

3. people.DAT teacher.DAT Mithras Buddha god son.poss will.come

/. typ'n kyg[... ]/[...] kyrtw tngryy

5
wylyy mn mn tyg[...]/[

2. tipen kig[...] ... kirtli tengrii oyln men men tig[ ]

3. saying ... true god son.poss ?say

c
i- yiyg bwdwjnwy /I ] d[yn]d r[...J
5

c
2. ilig budunuy dindar ...

3. country.ACC people.ACC elected

 SECTION 49: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ALTAIC LANGUAGES 545

The token and the mount of the [demon's] son will be a bull. On this earth
there is no such cheat and fraud, sorcery and spell that he will not be able [to

do]. He will be able [to do] all by the force of the demons. Thus [. . .] for the
whole people and the teacher, [.. .] saying that the son of the god, the Mithras
B uddha will come [...] the true son of the god [ . . . ] I [am] , I [am . . . ] the country
and the people [...] the Elected [...]."
—Fragment of a Mithras -text from eastern Turkistan, gth-ioth century
(von Le Coq 19 19: 5, lines 7-17).

The Mongolian script

At the very beginning of the Mongol empire, the Uyghur alphabet became the writing
system of the Mongols; see table 49.4. The whole set of symbols together with the
orthography was borrowed, and for several centuries no new letters were created for
the few Mongol phonemes unknown in Uyghur. This led to additional ambiguities
(e.g., initial yodh more often represents /than 3;, while medial tsadi renders both c and
/). Thus, in the orthography without diacritics, qacar 'cheek' and yajar 'place' have
the same written form. And though the Uyghur alphabet can distinguishd from t, no
initial d is marked, since this phoneme did not occur initially in Uyghur (so Mongo-
lian dalai 'ocean' is written with initial taw). Medial and final taw was later used for
syllable-final d, medial lamedh (d) for both d and t. In the late, classical orthography
(17th- 1 8th century), the angular tsadi marks c, the smooth tsadi renders medial J. Ini-

tial yodh remained ambiguous until Manchu hooked yodh was accepted for initial v
(19th century). Zain had the same value as shin = s; it became obsolete for classical
Mongolian. As in Uyghur, several schools of orthography existed, with or without di-

acritics,and attempts were made to avoid ambiguity.

Dominance of this vertical script was challenged in 1269 by the introduction of
Emperor Qubilai's square script or imperial alphabet ('Phags pa, section 40) and —
in the seventeenth century by the Manchu alphabet, the clear script, the svayambhu

script, and the horizontal square script (the latter two were invented by Jnanavajra,
the Khalkha high priest). However, none of these offered the simplicity of the Uy-
ghur-Mongol vertical script. In 1587 Ayushi created an amplified version of this al-

phabet for the exact transcription of Sanskrit and Tibetan words; his new symbol for
foreign h was taken from Tibetan. A modern version of Ayushi's alphabet replaced the
older Mongol renderings of Mandarin syllables.
The Mongol script is known in various handwritten, shorthand, printed, and or-
namental styles. There exist several alphabetical orders, different from the Aramaic.
In Inner Mongolia (China), this Mongol script now also serves for writing the Tun-
gusic language Evenki. It was replaced by Cyrillic in 1946 in the Mongolian Repub-
lic, but recent political changes favor its revival. (For the use of Cyrillic in three

varieties of Mongolic, see below.)

546 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 49.4: The Mongolian Script

Mongol. Value Initial Media ' Fmc// Separate Miscellaneous Mongol. Value

a
4 ^5
e *
-• 1 ba/e

k/ga/e

i (yodh)
i 1 *"* bi
k/gi

o/u (waw)
4 ^ «*v
o/u=waw+yodh
9 «n
in non-ist syll.
bo/u

n before vowel
*>«> k/go/u
-4
n syll./wd. final

*
-*

*
^1
q -3k *
y before vowel • ^ ^ -*-
Y syll./wd. final rl ^
b

s
<± **k

*»
^^
s final
s

(Uyg. z)
- **:=

t/d (taw) J* 3
d/t (lamedh) ^A ^1 ^3 1
1
4i ^ ^J
:$
MongYol

m ^ ^ ^ 5
c
a u
ml
j/y (medial: top,)',
bottom, y)
a -Hi

k/g ja

w/v
A «1
-^J
h

P
<
*4>

f
 )

section 49: aramaic scripts for altaic languages 547

Sample of Mongolian

/. Transliteration: tV pwp 8hy5

s
3
8wp m'h 7s 8wp
> > J > 3
ynw 5
p y
5
8wr mTk^n
2. Normalization: tere bodhi-saduva ma-ha-saduva inu bey-e-diir mergen
3. Gloss: that bodhisattva mahasattva 3poss body-DAT wise

/. k'mm / 'wq'qS'qwy : tV pwp^hys^wp m'h'Vs^wp 3 5 5

ynw serekii

2. kemen / uqaydaqui tere bodhi-saduva ma-ha-saduva inu serekui

3. saying should. know that bodhisattva mahasattva 3POSS waking

/. ba : / s'tkykwy p
3
: 'wyPtkwy kyk't : / m^kwy dwr m'rkm k'm'n
2. ba : / sedkikiii ba iiiledkiii kiged medekui-diir mergen kemen
3. and thinking and acting as. well knowing-DAT wise saying

/.
3
wq'q8 qwy 3
: / tY pwp'Shy s'Swp' m 5
h 7s 8wp
3 5 5 5
ynw twyrwn twyk'kwy
2. uqaydaqui tere bodhi-saduva ma-ha-saduva inu toron tiigekiii

3. should.know that bodhisattva mahasattva 3POSS born spreading

'You should know: that bodhisattva and mahasattva is wise in (the knowledge
of) body. You should know: that bodhisattva and mahasattva is wise in watch-
fulness, thinking, acting as well as perceiving. That bodhisattiva (is wise in the

knowledge of) the sense organs and sense objects (lit. what is being generated
and what is spreading.'
— From the printed Mongol Kanjur, vol. 49, folio 2 A. Text without diacritics.
Early 18th century blockprint
548 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 49.5: The Oirat "Clear Script"

Initial Medial Final Miscellaneous

A orb
a
A 4^ after k
_jr
e A *% «* after k orb &
1
4 A *> after k orb
<$
A 4 a
u A -4 <b
6 * K tf ko &
ii
4 A ^> kii
S>
vowel length (a) -
*
n

b <£>
* 4
<*>
^ ngg-
$
^3
y o4 "A -q
g •*> >i>±
k

X #af A
t> ka
^
m *\ +1 ^
1
•M 4-1 -u
r * j* ^
t # *
d <# ^ ^
y A •J
z-/J
M M V init. c/c med.
^
s
T~ * ir s
r>
w/v <51
4 ^ -ng

j
The "Clear script"

Derived from the Mongol vertical script by the Zaya Pandita Oktorguin Dalai (1648)
to reflect the significant changes in the spoken language of his time, Clear script be-

came the writing system of the Mongols of the West, the Oirats and Kalmyks; with
some changes, it is still used in Jungaria, eastern Turkestan (seetable 49.5). All am-
biguities of the vertical script were eliminated with the aid of new diacritics, e.g. a
circle at the right for heth = y; and new letters were derived from old variants. All

short vowels have their own symbols. Voiced and unvoiced consonants are strictly
distinguished. A new symbol (perhaps derived from an Indian alphabet) marks vowel
length of a, e, o, and o. Long 1, w, and u are rendered by double letters (while i + long-

-
 SECTION 49: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ALTAIC LANGUAGES 549

mark = iaa/iee, u + long-mark = uaa, etc.). Positional variation is mostly eliminated,

but initial vowels still have the mandatory initial aleph. Plain waw = it, while waw
with a stroke = u; both have separate medial and final variants (but plain waw repre-
sents // after a// or o — a rational abbreviation). Word-final ng is marked by a ligature.
The syllable-final velar stop q is represented by a new letter (y with a crescent), re-
gardless of vowel harmony. A modified kaph is used for a palatal k before long a. Ini-
tial yodh is y; angular tsadi is /or z, and smooth tsadi is c or c. In modern usage, two
symbols taken from the Oirat version of Ayushi's alphabet resolved this ambivalence:
marked angular tsadi =/, while marked smooth tsadi = c. In modern orthography, case
endings are written separately, like postpositions or particles, with initial aleph if nec-
essary (as also in the old, classical Oirat written language). The alphabetical order of
this script differs from those of the Mongol vertical and the Aramaic scripts. Since the

1920s Kalmyks in the (former) Soviet Union have had a number of Latin and Cyrillic
orthographies.

Sample of Oirat

flil

/. Transliteration: ... / yeke bodhidu iro/mui : togiincilen boluq/sandayini

2. Gloss: great bodhi.DAT pray doing. so become enemy.ACC

1. damn sai/tur dousuqsan oq/toryui coq kir u/gei tosu arilyan ui/leduqci

2. suppress well completed heaven glory stain-less dust cleanse maker

1. burxandu / murgumui togiincilen boluq/san dayini damn sayitur/

2. buddha prostrate doing. so become enemy.ACC suppress well

1. dousuqsan erdeniyin okiyin / gerel padma bendury a/yin gerel erdeni

2. completed gem top light lotus lapis lazuli light gem

1. dur/sutli beye togtisugsen

2. shaped body accomplished

'(I) pray for the Great Enlightenment. (I) bow before the buddha, the Glory of
Heaven, the Immaculate, he who became such (= Tathagata), he who van-
550 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

quished the enemy, he who well completed (his task), and he who succeeds in

cleansing the dust (of passion); (I bow before) the Light of the Top of the Gem,
he who became such, he who vanquished the enemy, he who well completed
(his task), and he who is perfect with a body of the appearance of the lotus, the
bright gem of lapis lazuli.'

— From a I gth-century printing block in the Institute of Oriental Studies, St.

Petersburg, with foreign h, p, n, and "subscript" Tibetan y with "inherent" a.

The Manchu alphabet

In 1599 Nurhachi, founder of the Manchu Empire, ordered that a writing system be
created for the Manchu language; see table 49.6. Erdeni Bakshi added some new
symbols to the Mongolian script, and this system, the "alphabet without dot and cir-

cle," was used until Dahai's reform of 1632, which introduced the "alphabet with dot
and circle." Positional variation of the Mongolian letters is preserved, but all the am-
biguities of Mongolian script are eliminated by diacritics and new symbols; hence
this easternmost descendant of the Aramaic script is an ideal tool for recording Man-
chu phonemes and some allophones. Additional symbols make it possible to give an
exact Manchu transcription of Mandarin Chinese. The new letters derived from those
of the Mongol script are:/(hooked beth, before vowels other than u and /, where plain
beth = w renders/); p (pe with indented bow); s (modified shin); t (round initial taw 1

for t before a, o, and Chinese i)\ d 1 (smooth lamedh for medial d before a, o)\ t 2 (point-
ed initial taw for t before e or w); J 2 (pointed lamedh for medial t before e or u)\ y
(hooked yodh, while plain initial yodh =/); crossed kaph for foreign k before a or o\
crossed shin = Chinese c (ts ); shin with vertical stroke = Chinese y (ts, pinyin z); zain
l

= Chinese zh (pinyin r).

A dot on the left marks n before a vowel. The diacritic dot and circle that appear
on the right side of the letter cannot be combined with each other. Dotted aleph = e,

dotted waw = u, dotted gimel = y, dotted kaph = g, dotted taw or lamedh = d (e.g.,

dotted round taw + waw = do, while dotted pointed taw + waw = du).
Gimel with = unvoiced velar spirant before a or o\ kaph with
circle circle = un-
voiced velar spirant [x] before e, u, or i. Gimel with double dot on the left side = syl-
lable-final q. Chinese /*, or the retroflex character of the preceding affricate (cf. pinyin
chi and zhi), is marked by a circle below c or J. After s and the alveolar affricates, a

diacritic similar to an inverted shin marks the appropriate foreign vowel. The vowel
u is marked by the digraph waw + yodh after dotted gimel and dotted kaph. If // is the
1

second element of a diphthong, no dot is added (so Manchu geu 'mare is transcribed
geo). Punctuation is single and double tear-shaped dots, for smaller and larger units.

Competing with Chinese calligraphy, many styles were designed for seals and
various ornamental purposes. The Manchu dialect of the Shibe people of China is still

written in this script; it was formerly also the writing system for Mongolic Daur, spo-
ken in China (now romanized).
 —

SECTION 49: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ALTAIC LANGUAGES 551

table 49.6: Manchu Script

Initial Medial Final Separate Ligatures

e
^
1*
«
H'
**.

<
J? ba
ke

be
J>'
i y si
^ $ z bi.ki

i
CJ
9 a>
bo

u
* q* $ $• $• bu, gu

a
o 5? 3
n before V A »«

n syll. end ^
ng
* J
q
b
2 3
q syll. end i "4
k -b

Y 4.
*.

a
b ^' /> k'a

k' *> J? k'o,

<3> <5> go
g' *>•

X £ ^
X w> >»*>

P
4> 4>
J
»_
<*

<£ <£
s
> :J*

4-
s

*
552 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 49.6: Manchu Script (Continued)

Initial Medial Final Separate Ligatures

t
1

4> a
syll. end 9
1
a
4 a-
t
2
J> A
d
2
k &
1

/* ^
m Vt -n

c
A M
J st M
y A **

r 71 A
f J <f
w*

u
c >f
ci; ci

* Manju
j; f
* bitxe

ji

a. The digraph + i (waw + yodh) is considered a compound symbol o (also transcribed u ) which denotes ;/

after q, y, or %, where the dot of the usual u cannot be used.

b. The letters q and k, yixnd g, and x and x mark the velar and palatal allophones ofq/k, ylg, and %/x. The let-

ters derived from tau and lamedh, namely /, /', /-',

d 1 and d 2
, , also define the value of aleph and waw they pre-
cede.
c. The letter w renders [f] before i and //.

d. The last eight units represent Northern Chinese segments and syllables.
 .

section 49: aramaic scripts for altaic languages 553

Sample of Manchu

/. Transliteration: amba doro . amba qooli de gemu songqoloro / temgetu be

2. Transcription: amba doro amba kooli-degemu songkoloro temgetu-be
3. Gloss: great rule great law-in all following seal-ACC

/. ba^ara . emu gisun emu yonin seme yooni doron tuwaqo / bisire be
2. bahara emu gisun emu gunin seme yooni doron tuwaku bisire-be
3. obtaining one word one mind saying whole stamp model being-ACC

1 da%ame . gurun i bitxe mingyan tangyo jalan de entexeme tutafi .

/

2. dahame . gurun-i bithe minggan tanggu jalan-de enteheme tutafi

3. obeying state-of script 1000 100 age-in eternally having.held

/. sun usi%a . sungyari birai gese abqa na i sidende entexeme

2. sun usiha sunggari bira-i gese abka na-i sidende enteheme
3. sun star Milky Way-of like sky earth-of between eternally

/. tutambi dere :

2. tutambi dere
3. hold likely
554 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

'Obtaining the Seal that wholly acts according to the Great Rule and the Great
Law, fully obeying the given example unanimously and wholeheartedly, and
keeping the script of the empire for thousands and hundreds of generations for-

ever, it is likely to keep up between Heaven and Earth forever like the Sun, the
stars, and the Milky Way.'
— From the emperor's preface 0/1708 to the Manju gisun-i buleku bitxe

[The Dictionary of Manchu] in the ijji blockprint of its revised edition called
Nonggime toqtobuyci Manju gisun-e buleku bitxe.

The Buryat alphabet

In 1905 in St. Petersburg, the learned lama Agwaan Dorzhiev (alias Vagindra) and the
Buryat scholar Tsyben Zhamtsarano invented a script for modern Buryat (Northern
Mongolian) on the basis of the Mongol vertical alphabet and the Western Mongolian
clear script (table 49.7). No positional variants are used; new letters, derived from
the old ones for the Buryat sound system, have eliminated ambivalence. Vowel length
and consonant palatalization are marked by diacritics (a vertical stroke and a small
circle respectively). This alphabet was used in handwritten and typeset forms for
some fifteen years, but was not able to replace the older, supradialectal, Mongol
script, which remained in use until the introduction of a Roman and later (1939) a
Cyrillic script for Buryat.

Sample of Buryat

>$

J* '4. ^

} s "A
/. Transliteration: nugultli xang xubiing ene devadad miing : / tere cagto
2. Gloss: sinful king son this Devadatta same that time. DAT

/. xorolxodoni Lido baril iigey tohalbay : / munocigi nasin xoro

2. hurting. dat. poss revenge holding-less helped now. too hither harm
 SECTION 49: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ALTAIC LANGUAGES 555

table 49.7: The Buryat Alphabet

Letter Transliteration Phonetic Value Letter Transliteration Phonetic Value

a
* la]
< a [a:]

Jl
e [e]
! e [e:]

i [i] « [i:]
vl VI-

a [0] 6 [0:]
a>

u [u] jQi ii [IK]

fO

6 6
u [0] u [00

u
a ii
[y] n< [y:]

g [g] w' [w J
]
«i°

T> k/x [xj

^ s' [s
J
]

-•1
ng M /lo r' [r
J
]

n z [3] -ts
r J
[1 ]

H c M ^|o h' [h J
]

a
-* n [p] V5 g [g]

^t d [d]
•^>
k m
4> t [t]
.91 J m
n In] ^t d [d]
"f

a> b [b]
•«D P tp]

V [v]
a> P [p] iO>

«« m [m] iO> f [f]

M z [z]
M J [cW

U c [ts] •^ sc [M]

CI
w [w]
•Jl
1 [i]

^ s [J] Punctuation

*- [s] question mark

s
a
y exclamation point
^i Li] 15

<* r [r]
11
comma

1 [1] period
-T" -*K

^% h [h]
^ beginning of text

The last ten letters represent Russian and other foreign sounds.
 .

556 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. xurgexudiini casin toha xurgemiiy bi : / xorolxodoni

2. sending. dat.poss thither help send I harm-doing.DAT. poss

/. xulicehentey adali boyang/ iigey : / cuxal xilentey adali niigiil

2. endured. soc similar virtue no fury hatred. soc similar sin

/. Iigey : / xoroyng xar'udo toha xegtiiy xiing / aduhang : yexe baga

2. no harm.GEN response.DAT help do.OPT human beast big small

1 yamarci amitani / xorolal iigey tuhalagtuy :

2. any. kind being. acc harm-doing-less help.oPT

'The Sinful Prince is this Devadatta. At that time, when he did harm to me, I did
not feel vengeful, but helped him. Even now, when he does harm to me, I still
help him. There is no (greater) virtue than patience against harm-doing. (And)
there is no (greater) sin than hatred. In response to harm-doing, do favor. Help
humans and beasts, big and small, all kinds of living beings, without doing
harm.'
— From a brochure typeset in St. Petersburg, Burxang bagsing gegeni xur'dngoy
namtar bolong Buyanto xang xubuni namtar orosibay [(Here) abide the Holy
Teacher Buddha 's Short Vita and Prince Buyanto 's Vila] (1906?).

Cyrillic script

Cyrillic script was introduced for Mongolic languages by Soviet authorities in 1939
(see section 65), and in1946 (table 49.8).
Mongolia in

Long vowels and diphthongs are written as vowel-i- vowel in Khalkha (i.e. Mod-
ern Mongolian) and Buryat; Kalmyk marks long vowels this way only in the first syl-

lable of a word; in syllables after the first, short vowels are omitted, and long vowels
are represented by a single letter. In Khalkha, -hh represents long ii following a pal-
atal or palatalized consonant; -bi represents long ii following a non-palatal consonant.
Khalkha orthography has complex rules specifying whether a short vowel in a sylla-

ble other than the first is to be written. "Buryat" is 6ypfla,n l

bur ad in Cyrillic Buryat,

6ypnafl buriad in Khalkha, and buriyad in Classical Mongolian. "Kalmyk" is xajibMr

khal'mg in Kalmyk, xajiHMar xalimag in Khalkha, and qalimay in Classical Mongo-
lian.

Bibliography

Benzing, Johannes. 1985. Kalmiickische Grammatik zwn Nachschlagen. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Clauson, Sir Gerard. 1962. Turkish and Mongolian Studies. London: Royal Asiatic Society.
Deny, Jean, et al. 1959. Philologiae Turcicae Fundamenta, vol. 1. Wiesbaden: Steiner.

Fuchs, Walther, et al. 1968. Tungusologie (Handbuch der Orientalistik, division 1, vol. 5, part 3).

Leiden: Brill.
 SECTION 49: ARAMAIC SCRIPTS FOR ALTAIC LANGUAGES 557

table 49.8: Mongolic in Cyrillic Script

Letter Khalkha Buryat Kalmyk

A a a a a

9 3 - - a

B 6 b b b
B 6 w (v) w
r r g g g
n h - - Y(gh)

A fl d d d

E e ye/yo ye/yo e/ye-

£ e yo yo
>K >k J J
z(zh)

>K >K
- - J

3 3 j(dz) z z

H H i i i

H H i i
y
K K (k) k
JI JI 1 1 1

M M m m m
H H n-, -ng n-, -ng n

H H - - ng

e e 6 6

n n P P P
p P r r r

c c s s s

T T t t t

y y u u u

Y Y u ii ii

O * (f)

X X X X x(kh)
n h - h -

u u c (c) c(ts)

H H c (c) c (ch)

UI III s s s(sh)

m m (sc)

-B T> mute shwa "hard sign"

BI bl long ii ei/ii

B h T palatalization

3 3 e e e initial

K) K) yu/yu yu/yu yu initial

fl H ya ya ya initial
558 PART VI,I: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

Gabain, Annemarie von. 1974. Alttiirkische Grammatik. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Gabain, Annemarie von, et al. 1982. Turkologie (Handbuch der Orientalistik, division 1, vol. 5, part

1), 2nded. Leiden: Brill.

Hamilton, James. 1986. Manuscrits oul'gours du IX-X siecle de Touen-houang. 2 vols. Paris:
Peeters.
Kara, Gyorgy. 1972. Khuzu Momo/iboaix KoneenuKoe [Books of the Mongol nomadsj. Moscow:
Nauka.
Ligeti, Louis. 1952. "A propos de l'ecriture mandchou.'Mcta Orientalia (Budapest) 2: 235-301.
Muller, Friedrich W. K. 1910. Uigurica II. Berlin: PreuBiche Akademie der Wissenschaften.
Nadeliaev, V. M., et al. 1969. flpeenemtopKCKUU caoeapb [Dictionary of Ancient Turkic; with com-
parative table of scripts]. Leningrad: Nauka.
Poppe, Nicholas. 1965. Introduction to Altaic Linguistics. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
Poppe, N icholas, et al. 1964. Mongolistik (Handbuch der Orientalistik, division 1, vol. 5, part 2).

Leiden: Brill.

Radloff, Wilhelm. 1892. Atlas der Alterthiimer der Mongolei, vol. 1. St. Petersburg: Akademie der
Wissenschaften.
Rona-Tas, A. 1991. "The Sources in Runic Script." In his Introduction to Turkology, pp. 51-61.
Szeged, Hungary: University of Szeged.
Sims-Williams, Nicholas. 198 1 . "The Sogdian Sound-system and the Origin of the Uyghur Script."

Journal Asiatique 269: 347-59.

Stary, Giovanni. 1980. Die chinesischen und mandschurischen Zierschriften. Hamburg: Buske.

Thomsen, Vilhelm. 191 6. Turcica: Etudes concernant V interpretation des inscriptions turques de la
Mongolie et de la Siberie. Helsinki: Societe finno-ougrienne.
von Le Coq, Albert. 19 19. Tiirkische Manichaica aus Chotscho II. Berlin: PreuBiche Akademie der
Wissenschaften.
Yartseva, V. N., et al. 1990. JIumeucmunecKuu 3HU,uKAonedunecKuu CAoeapb [Linguistic encyclope-
dic dictionary]. Moscow: Sovietskaia Entsiklopediia.
Zieme, Peter. 1 99 1 . Die Stabreimtexte der Uiguren von Turfan und Dunhuang. Budapest: Akade-
miai Kiado.
SECTION 50

Arabic Writing
Thomas Bauer

The North Arabic script developed as a branch of Nabatean Aramaic script (see sec-
tions 5 and 47). The earliest inscriptions date back to the fourth century c.e. Since
Aramaic has fewer consonants than Arabic, some letters came to stand for more than
one consonant. In order to eliminate these ambiguities, from the seventh century on-
ward dots over or under some of the letters were introduced. These diacritical dots

form an integral part of the letter. Especially in order to comply with the need to guar-
antee an unequivocal reading of the Holy Qur'an, further signs were introduced to de-
note the short vowels and consonant gemination. Yet even today, these signs are only
employed on rare occasions. After normalization and authoritative establishment by
the philologists and scribes in the first centuries of Islam, only minor developments
occurred in Arabic writing; thus the orthography of Classical Arabic and that of Mod-
ern Standard Arabic are essentially the same. This was only possible because the pho-
nology and morphology of Modern Standard Arabic have been taken over from
Classical Arabic without change. Insofar as Modern Standard Arabic is considered to
be the only "valid" form of expression (though it is no one's mother tongue), there
have been only a few attempts to employ the Arabic writing systems for the modern
Arabic dialects (for Maltese, see section 59, "Maltese" on page 686). But another
result of the significance of Arabic script is that it came to be used for many languages
of Islamic lands (section 62).
The Arabic script runs from right to left. Since it is a cursive script, letters within
a word have to be joined wherever possible. However, the letters a, 3 d, i d, j r, I

j and j w cannot be joined to the following letter; thus minimal spaces may occur
z,

in the middle of a word. Words are set apart by greater spaces, but lexical units which

are represented by only one letter are joined to the following word. Other than the six
letters just mentioned, each letter may occur in four different positions: initial, medi-
al, final, and isolated (as when a letter is the last letter of a word and is preceded by
one of the six letters not joinable on the left side). This may have consequences for

the shape of a letter — e.g., the curves of the final and isolated forms of letters like £h
and 'r h are omitted in initial and medial positions. Ligatures are quite often employed
in handwriting. The ligature J/+ a= I *i Id is obligatory even in print and typewriting.
The importance of calligraphy (section 20) in the Islamic arts is hardly paral-

leled in any other culture. Several calligraphic styles, developed from early times, are
not only used in books but became an integral element of architecture and crafts.

559
560 PART V,II: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 50. 1 : Arabic Letters

Trans- Transcrip- Numerical

Name literation tion Value Isolated Final Initial Medial

'alif '(a) [?] 1 1

ba' b [b] 2 UJ
ta' t [t]
400 O
ta' t,th [6] 500 O
g!m g»dj [<fe]
3
E
ha* h M 8
C
ha' h,kh LxJ 600
C
dal d [d]
4 i

dal d,dh [0] 700 i

ra' r [r]
200 j
zay z [z]
7 J
sin s, sh [s]
60 0"
sin s [J]
300 J^
sad s W 90 u* ~0
dad d [*] 800
^ J?
Ja' t w 9 b J* h k
za' z w 900 & Ji J*

'ayn <

K 70
t
gayn g(g)»gh [y] 1000
i 6
fa' f [f]
80 i
<j i

qaf q,k [q] 100 i £

j
kaf k [k] 20 j 5-

lam 1 fl]
30 J 1

mim m [m]
40
r r
nun n [n]
50
ha' h [h]
5 6
+r
waw w [w] 6 J J-

ya' y [y] 10 L*

a. The main entry is the transliteration system of the Deutsche Morgenlandische Gesellschaft. used in this

book (except a is used for 'alif for clarity throughout); the second is that of the Encyclopedia of Islam. Often
mixtures between these two systems occur.
 SECTION 50: ARABIC WRITING 561

Basic characters
The Arabic script is composed of 28 letters, which are listed in table 50. 1 . As can
be seen from the table, each letter represents exactly one consonant of the Arabic lan-
guage, and each consonant is represented by exactly one letter.

Yet there are some exceptions: The letters j w, ^j y, and I a represent not only the
consonants [w], [y], and (historically) [?], but also the three long vowels of Arabic,
namely [u:], [i:], and [a:], respectively. The vowel [a:], however, may be represented
in word-final position by I a or ^ >' (with no dots in this case, but this differentiation
is recent and only followed in some Arab countries), the choice being dependent on
y
morphological conditions; they are called alif maqsura bisilrati I- >alif and 'a I if

maqsura bisilrati l-yd \ respectively.

In order to represent the glottal stop [?], the sign < , called hamza,was introduced.
It may be used in addition to I a in word-initial position, thus giving I or I (depending
on the following vowel). It is obligatory today in word-medial and -final positions,
where it is combined with a, j w, or ^ y (without dots) or stands alone. The choice
I

depends partly on phonological, partly on morphological, and partly on purely graph-

ic considerations which are rather complicated and differ from country to country.
However, since the five signs I <-
\j j I can differentiate words (e.g. j-oL v 'nui

[ya?manu] 'he is safe' vs. j-oJj [yuVmanu] 'he is made safe, one is safe'), they must
be considered as separate "graphemes." A further addition to the graphic system must
be noted, namely the sign a (an h with two dots), which denotes the consonant [t] in
un
its function as feminine ending (e.g. Lj^ mrtbt [martabat ], where the second t is

the feminine ending).* Its name is ta

y
marbuta.
Though there are no basic characters for the short vowels, the common designa-
tion of the Arabic script as "consonantal" is incorrect, since the long vowels are rep-
resented but consonant gemination is not. Besides, the Arabic script gives a rather
neat and unambiguous representation of the consonants and long vowels of the lan-
guage. Only a few exceptions exist, e.g. in words like *DI allh [a4-4a:h] 'God' and Ijjb

hda [ha:5a:], where [a:] is not expressed in writing; or the suffix a. [-hu:, -hi:]

'him/his', where the long vowel is not indicated either.

Morphophonemic representation

In addition to the phonetically rather flat representation of consonants and long vow-
els, the Arabic script employs some devices to represent morphologically deeper
structures. Thus the definite article, which is prefixed to nouns, is always written J al I

/al-/, though the auxiliary syllable [a-] is dropped when the word occurs in the middle
of a phrase and the l\-l is often assimilated to the word-initial consonant of the noun:

*Various inflectional endings that are omitted when a word occurs at the end of an utterance are transcribed

with raised letters.

562 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 50.2: Arabic Numerals

I 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

^ r r 1 "\
V A <\

jl^jjJI Ji' A7 al-dywan [kullu d-di:wa:n], written as if it were /kullu ?al-di:wa:n/ 'all

the-administration'. Another example of morphographic writing is the addition of an

I a ( 'aliffdsila) to third person plural and imperative plural verbs, which end with the
letter j w [-u:], where the a has no phonetic value: \y>6 nhwa [nahhu:] 'remove (im-
I

per.)'. In masculine indefinite nouns, a final I a is added to mark the accusative ending
an
[-an]: liu byta [bayt ] 'a house (ace.)'.

Optional signs
One of the most characteristic features of Arabic and related scripts (Hebrew, Arama-
ic) is the presence of an added system of diacritics to express short vowels and con-
sonant gemination, neither of which is represented by the basic letters. These marks
are placed above or below a basic letter. Taking as example the basic letter 3 d, we get

3 da, i di, i du, and i d (the - indicating vowellessness), using the signs called fatha,

kasra, damma, and sukiin respectively. The endings of the indefinite noun -un -in -an,

which are omitted in pause, are indicated by doubling the vowel signs (tanwin): in the

nominative 3 -dun, in the genitive 3 -din. In the accusative, one gets -tan with fem-

inine nouns. In masculine nouns, where the accusative ending is already represented

by the letter I a, one may write li -dan. Gemination is expressed by the sign - (sadda),
a a i
which may be combined with one of the short-vowel marks: 3 dda, 3 ddi, i ddu;
2 i 1

a -ddin, i -ddun. There are further less important optional diacritics, such as a da in

those few words where [a:] is not expressed by I a; I

( 'alifmadda) in place of the se-

quence II 'a; or a stroke placed over I a (T, 'alifwasla) to show that morphologically

written I is not to be pronounced. The first clause of the sample text (page 563) would
read with optional diacritics:

JuLjo Joju Ja> ^J\ jb\b jj 4JLJI JUC Jaj

All these diacritics have in common that they are of very restricted use. They are used
throughout the text only in the Qur'an, less consistently in other authoritative reli-

gious texts, in editions of classical poetry and in textbooks for primary education, and
occasionally in linguistically rather complex texts to avoid ambiguities. In book titles,

letterheads, nameplates, etc., they may be used for decorative purposes. But they are
virtually never applied in newspapers, ordinary books, or private documents.
The numerals are shown in table 50.2; the letters can be used with their com-
mon Semitic numerical values (note that they reflect the ancestral order) for number-
ing pages, lists, etc.
 SECTION 50: ARABIC WRITING 553

The effects of defectiveness

In texts where optional diacritics are employed, every phoneme of the language is un-
ambiguously represented; but in texts where only basic letters are used — i.e. in the

overwhelming majority — a certain degree of ambiguity arises, since more than a

quarter of the phonemes remain unexpressed. So the first word of the sample text,

Jaj nzr, could be read as a verb in the active form, either as [naz-ara] 'he looked' or
as [nazzara] 'he made comparisons', and also as the corresponding passive forms
[nuzira] and [nuzzira], or as the nominal forms [nazar] 'look, glance' or [nizr] 'sim-
ilar'. Yet in practice, the problems arising from the defectiveness of normal Arabic
writing are not so great as one might suspect. First, a quarter of the non-expressed
phonemes occur in endings which are syntactically determined and omitted in less
formal speech anyway. Above all, the occurrence of short vowel phonemes is more
easily predictable in Arabic than in many other languages, since its syllabic structure
allows only syllables of the patterns CV, CVC, and CV (under certain circumstances
alsoCVC). Yet the fact remains that one can read an Arabic text correctly only if one
knows the words. This means that Arabic writing is rather highly lexicalized.
The disadvantages of this system have often been complained about by Arab in-
tellectuals, who have even proposed the introduction of Roman script. Since Standard
Arabic is no one's mother tongue, it has to be learned at school. On the other hand,
because of the defectiveness of the script, an Arabic text can be written and read de-
spite a great amount of dialectal interference without disregarding any of the notated
symbols —but this may certainly be an obstacle to learning correct Standard Arabic.
However, Standard Arabic adhering completely to the written norm (which is that of

Classical Arabic as laid down in medieval grammar books) is used only in rare and
very formal communicative situations. So it is exactly the defectiveness of the Arabic
script which makes texts readable more according to the reality of the living language,

enabling one to avoid the artificial effect of case-endings and other obsolete Classical
rules without violating the symbol-sound correspondences. Furthermore, these char-
acteristics of the Arabic script enable people to read and write Arabic more or less cor-

rectly even if they have only reached lower educational levels. Moreover, a more

lexicalized script, as defective Arabic writing in fact is, permits not only quicker writ-
ing but quicker reading as well. Above all, the fear of a complete break with tradi-
tion — cultural as well as religious, since the Qur'an, considered as eternal and
uncreated, and thus sacrosanct not only in its wording but also in the form in which
it is written — will make a drastic script reform impossible.

Sample of Arabic

*~^ji A* ^Is* jaju J^ J\ y>U? CS.

*UI Jut Jajir-
hdry mlf hbatk d'b th yV rhat nb hlla db (
rzn<—
564 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

IwJJI
J'Ji JUi
nm'y alw thla Iy 1 *
hn'f nawydla tbtrm n< adh awhn laqf

hryg ~yd<y

c
/. Transliteration: nzr bd Mlh bn t'hr My ht
(
2. Vocalization: nazara Abdullahi bnu Tahirin *ila hatti

j. Transcription: nAZ-ArA fcibduhaihi bnu t-aihirm ?i 1a xatii

4. Gloss: he. looked 'Abdallah son.of Tahir at handwriting. of

/. b d (
kt'bh flm yrdh fq'l nhw' ncT
(
2. ba di kuttabihi falam yurdihl fa-qala nahhu hada
3. baTd-i kut:ae:bi-hi: fA-Urn jurd-i-hi: fA-qaiU nAhhu: haeiOA

4. part.of secretaries-his and-not it.pleased-him and-he.said remove this

/.
(

n mrtbt 'ldywm fmh c

lyl Mht
(
2. 'an martabati d-dlwani fa'innahu alllu 1-hatti

3. <\\n mArtADAti d-di:wae:ni fA-?mnAhu: Saliilu 1-XAffl

4. from office-of the-administration for-he ill.of the-handwriting

/. wl* y'mn m (

y dy gyrh
2. wa-la yu'manu 'an yu'diya gayrahu
3. WA-Iae: ju?mAnu ?An juidiJA yajrAhu:
4. and-not one-is-sure that he-infects other-he

'

' Abdallah ibn Tahir looked at the handwriting of one of his secretaries but was
not content with it. So he said, "Remove this one from the administrative office,

for he suffers an illness in his handwriting, and one cannot be sure that he won't
infect others!'" —From as-Sfdi ig22: 52/.

Dhivehi Writing
James W. Gair and Bruce D. Cain

Dhivehi (or Divehi) is spoken by about 230,000 people in the Republic of the
Maldives in the Indian Ocean, where it is the official language. Approximately 10,000
more speakers live on the island of Minicoy (India), where it is known as Mahl or Ma-
hal. It is an Indo-Aryan language, most closely related to Sinhala of Sri Lanka, but
not mutually intelligible with it. The earliest documents (ca. 1200 c.e.) are in Evela
'ancient' script, written from left to right, similar to the Sinhala script of the time.
This developed into a script called Dives (or Divehi) Akuru 'island letters', also writ-

ten from left to right. It has been supplanted, since the early seventeenth century, by
 SECTION 50: DHIVEHI WRITING 565

TABLE 50.3: Dhivehi Consonants (thaana)

Letter Transitu Official Value Name Letter Translit. Official Value Name

y h h [h] Haa j° t th [t] Thaa

S" s sh fe] Shaviyani s 1 1

[1] Laamu

S" n n [n] Noonu j g g [g] Gaafu

-A r r [r] Raa <r n gn W Gnaviyani

ae b b [b] Baa — s s [s] Seenu

> 1 lh IB Lhaviyani 4 d d [cU Daviyani

- k k [k] Kaafu <5

z z [z] Zaviyani

- Alifu Taviyani
y»
S t t
ft]

J> V V [v] Vaavu s> y y Q] Yaviyani

? m m [m] Meemu J p p [p] Paviyani

J f f [f] Faafu ^ j j W Javiyani

S>
d dh [d] Dhaalu y c ch [c] Chaviyani

the current script known as Gabuli Tana, or simply Thaana {Tana), which is written
from right to left (like Arabic, which is also used among the Islamic population). The
script has undergone changes in shape since then, but retains its essential character.
During the administration of President Naseer, an official Roman script was devel-

oped, which proved unpopular; since the accession of President Gayoom, Thaana has
been used almost exclusively.
While influences of Arabic and of other South Asian scripts are present, Thaana
is unique in character. The basic alphabet has 24 consonantal characters, of which the
first nine are derived from the numerals 1-9 of Arabic, and the second nine from an
older set of local numerals. The remaining six letters are mainly adaptations of earlier
ones or Perso-Arabic borrowings, and appear primarily in loanwords. The location of
p and retroflex t among this latter group can be attributed to a sound change by which
inherited intervocalic [p] and [{] became respectively [f] and [sj (a retroflexed s//-like

sound, and sometimes a retroflex voiceless flap), so that the present [p] and [|j be-
tween vowels represent reborrowings.

The symbols
The consonantal characters are shown in table 50.3. The current order of symbols
is reflected in this table, but there have been changes from time to time (Geiger and
566 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 50.4: Dhivehi Vowels (fili)

Fili
y
_± 7 »p
j_ CC X <?

Translit. a a i T u u e e 6
Official a aa i ee u 00 e ey oa
aabaa eebee ooboo eybey oaboa
Name aba fili ibi fili ubu fili ebe fili ~,. obo till
fili fili fili fill fili

Bell 1 9 19, De Silva 1969). The manner of writing the independent vowels and the
vowel order are shown in table 50.4.
Like other South Asian languages, Taana writes vowels as diacritics on conso-
nants. Atypically, however, consonant letters do not carry an inherent [a]. The pres-
ence of a vowel, including [a], is specified by a diacritic on the consonant character.
There are ten vowel diacritics or fili. The fili for [i] and [i:] are written below the con-
sonant character, e.g. ^ ni, ^ ni, all The mark-
others above it, e.g. ^ na, J- nu, J-ne.
ings — — a, 1, and — u
are direct borrowings from Arabic, and have been augmented
for the — —
vowel inventory of Dhivehi. Long vowels except in the case of o and —
6— by doubling
are written A consonant with no vowel
the diacritic. is indicated by
theconsonant symbol marked with an eleventh — sukun. fili , called
One symbol, s, alifu, though listed among the consonants, represents no specific
sound, but is used as a neutral base for fili. When marked with a vowel diacritic, it is

used to write that vowel word-initially or immediately following another vowel, thus,
y, $J<* irugai 'time (locative)' (note the right-to-left order). Alifu with sukun 5, writes
a word-final glottal stop, as in Zjfa° [fa?] 'sawteeth'. Double consonants are gener-
ally written + sukun preceding the consonant being lengthened: j^2»
by using alif

ba°dalu [baddalu] 'meeting', y\^^ba°te° [bafte?] 'eggplant'. Double nasals, how-

ever, are written with n + sukun preceding the nasal: AAJI en°me [emme] 'only'.

The symbols s-s and ^ t with sukun have special characteristics: they represent
the glottal stop word-finally, but before another consonant represent doubling of that
consonant. Thus ^ •4/5 as°diha '80' are pronounced [ra?] and
ras° 'island' and
[ac|c(jha] (the change of d to retroflex d results from-the preceding retroflex conso-

nant). However, in either position, a -y- offglide is pronounced on the vowel preced-

ing t + sukun (J). Thus J^rat° 'red' is [ray?], and JJJ^ afpulu 'hand (honorific)' is
ayppulu [ajppu[u]. Like Sinhala (section 36), Divehi has prenasalized voiced stops,
which contrast with the corresponding nasal plus stop. These are written as n (without
sukun) plus the stop, and sometimes without the nasal represented at all, even though
n
it is there when spoken. Thus [ka c(u] 'sea' is l^i-kandu or i ~kadu.
Diphthongs are written by writing the second member as an independent vowel,
i.e., alifu with the relevant diacritic. The first part is written in the usual way, i.e., as

a diacritic on alifu (for word-initial diphthongs) or on the relevant consonant; hence

t~sy,s\ ais° [ais] 'having come', ^jfai [fai] 'leg'.
 SECTION 50: DHIVEHI WRITING 557

table 50.5: Additional Characters Used in Transliterating Arabic (tiki jehe tana)

Letter Arabic Transliteration Letter Arabic Transliteration

y.
c
h
^ O t

h .t
> 1>
c jC°

q
j>
I 2 3
g s
» +±s lP
I
j> J
w
^ ^ s

> i
d
^ ^ d

In writing Arabic loanwords, Arabic letters are commonly used, but there is an
additional set of characters, called tiki jehe tana, formed by adding dots to already ex-

istent Taana characters, that has been created for that purpose, and the government en-
courages its use in Taana documents. These are given in table 50.5.
On the whole, Taana fits the phonology of the language very well, and M. W. S.

De Silva has gone so far as to call it "perhaps the most scientific alphabet in South
Asia" (1969: 208). As the text sample shows, the fit is very close, though there are
some non-direct phonological representations as described earlier.

Sample of Dhivehi
In normal speech, word-final glottal stop generally assimilates completely to the fol-

lowing consonant, except before vowels and h, where it becomes the velar nasal [rj],

as illustrated in line 4.

s ->
yj>^y3
os y y
s-*'?*'
*?
jyys*
s ? < o <
fys*
?
^*v
<jc
>^»
?
*—
o pc
'-*"
os s
s-s^

Inavamid °sakamak ugadnu em°ne uri elu °sog °saham

°sakamak ugadnu em°ne uri elu °sog °saham ?°emak °nok

o t <.CP < o < o < s ? s o < * OS O < 9 ' 9S

ne .eju e °negifihin °ne iaguri itad °ne Tnav °sakamak

?°enihik Tnelu nafih

c
/. Transliteration: mahas° gos° ule iru en°me undagu kamakas
2. Transcription: maha? gos u)e: iru emme n
u dagu: kamaka?
3. Colloquial: mahag gos ule: iru emme n
u dagu: kamakad
4. Gloss: fish. to going being time most difficult thing. a.to
568 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

/. dimavanl kon° kame°? mahas° gos° ule iru en°me undagu

2. dima:va:ni: kon kame? maha? gos ule: iru emme n
u dagu:
j. dima:va:ni: korj kame? mahag gos ule: iru emme n
u dagu:
4. encountering which thing fish.to going being time most difficult

/. kamakas alugandumen nas° van! dati lrugai en~

n
2. kamaka? a[uga clumenna? vani: en dati irugai en
3. kamakarj aluga'^umenna? vani: en dati irugai en
4. thing.a.to us. to is bait scarce time. in bait

/. nihifigen e ule. en° hifan° uleni kihine ?

2. nihifigen e ule en hifan uleni: kihine?
3. nihifigerj e ule en hifaq uleni: kihine?
4. not.having.caught that being bait to. catch is. being how

'When you go fishing, what is the most difficult situation you encounter?
—When we go fishing, the most difficult thing that happens to us is when the
bait fish are scarce and we don't get the bait. —How do (you) try to catch bait

fish?' —After De Silva 1969: 202.

Bibliography

Arabic
as-SulT, Abu Bakr Muhammad (d. 946 c.e.). 1922. Adab al-kuttab [The accomplishments of the
secretaries], ed. M. Bahgat al-Atan. Cairo.
Endress, Gerhard. 1982. "Die arabische Schrift." In Grundrifi der arabischen Philologie, vol. 1:

Sprachwissenschaft, ed. Wolfdietrich Fischer, pp. 165-97. Wiesbaden: Reichert.

Fischer, Wolfdietrich. 1996. A Grammar of Classical Arabic, trans. Jonathan Rodgers. New Haven:
Yale University Press. (German orig., 1972.)

Mitchell, Terence F. 1953. Writing Arabic: A Practical Introduction to Ruq 'ah Script. London: Ox-
ford University Press.
Safadi, Yasin Hamid. 1978. Islamic Calligraphy. London: Thames and Hudson.
Wright, William. 1896-98. A Grammar of the Arabic Language, Translated from the German of
Caspari and edited with numerous additions and corrections, 3rd ed., rev. W. Robertson Smith
and M. J. de Goeje. 2 vols. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Repr. 1967.

Dhivehi
Bell, Harry C. P. 19 19. Appendixes to Geiger 19 19: 123-82.
De Silva, M. W. Sugathapala. 1969. 'The Phonological Efficiency of the Maldivian Writing Sys-
tem." Anthropological Linguistics 1 1: 199-208.
Geiger, Wilhelm. 19 19. Maldivian Linguistic Studies, trans. Mrs. J. C. Willis, ed. H. C. P. BeW, Jour-
nal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain 27 (Extra Number).
Maniku, Hassan Ahmed, and Jayaratna B. Disanayaka. 1990. Say It in Maldivian (Dhivehi). Colom-
bo, Sri Lanka: Lake House.
Nakanishi, Akira. 1980. Writing Systems of the World, pp. 31-32. Rutland, Vt.: Turtle.
SECTION SI

Ethiopic Writing
Getatchew Haile

Approximately eighty languages belonging to three families — Semitic, Cushitic, and

Nilo-Saharan — are spoken in Ethiopia. Prior to the twentieth century, not more than
half a dozen of them had been reduced to writing. On the other hand, the morphology
of one of the Semitic languages, Gs'sz (also called Ethiopic, which is more properly
the name of the subfamily of Semitic which is found in Ethiopia), has been transmit-
ted both orally and through a writing system since at least the fourth century. Gs'az
transmitted through this special writing system is, for its students, initially devoid of
meaning: in the traditional system of training, the student learns the traditional pro-
nunciation of Ethiopic from his teacher before he learns the language. Thus, at a cer-
tain level of his education, the student would read Ethiopic texts perfectly and fluently
without understanding what he was reading. This training included identifying the
proper stress, accent, and intonation. This section discusses this writing system,
which has since been adopted by a few other Ethiopian languages, including Amhar-
ic, the official language of the country.

Consonants
To become a written language, Ethiopic needed a writing system which had charac-
ters to represent its consonants, as given in table 51.1. For this it adopted the Sa-
bean/Minean script or one that is closely related to it (see table 5.7 on page 101 ).

In antiquity, 8 was probably interdental z, v* fricative s, and ^ velar h. Since then,

fl and U* have become sibilants, and 'I h is laryngeal. Now, 6 and K are s [ts]; d\ h and
1 h have become [h], like 0; and both h *
and (
represent the glottal stop [?]. These
sets of letters tend to be confused in manuscripts; lexicographers must clarify them.

Characters

As the epigraphic sources witness, two writing systems were apparently available in
the country at the time when the need for a system for writing Ga'azwas felt. These
were the South Arabian Sabean/Minean script or one related to it, and the Greek al-

phabet. In making the choice, the determining factor was obviously the relationship
Ethiopia had had with South Arabia: Ethiopic and Sabean are both members of the

family of the southern branch of the Semitic languages.

569
570 PART V1II: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

table 5 1 . 1 : Consonants

Semi-
()( CLUSIVES Fricatives SONORANTS vowels
vs vd ej vs vd ej was wt.v vd

Labials P b P m w
Labiodentals f V

Dentals t d t n 1, r

Sibilants s, s z s, d
b
Palatal s c i c s z n y
Velars k g q h
w w
Labiovelars \C g q h*
> <
Laryngeals h

a. vs, voiceless; vd, voiced; ej, ejective; nas, nasal; nns, nonnasal.
b. Amharic only, except y.

The Sabean/Minean script (or one related which Ethiopic adopted was able
to it)

to represent all consonants except for [p] [p]. The

and symbols for these became T
and ft, respectively. T seems to be a modification of the Greek n, while is a deriva- ft

tive from the Ethiopic ft s. For the labiovelars, the symbols for g, h, k, and q (respec-
tively) were modified. The mark of palatalization (for Amharic and other languages)
is a horizontal line —broken in the middle in the case of 7f z —placed on the top of the
related characters. Tl is h, representing the laryngealized ft. In the case of c, the rule
is violated: m —> ta.

By beginning with the letter l) (h, hoy), the alphabetical order of the Ethiopic
writing system (table 51.2) differs from those of the related systems, e.g. Arabic,
Hebrew, Syriac, Greek, which begin with (aleph or alpha). Arguably, the name al- '

phabet is a misnomer for Ethiopic because it does not begin with alpha or alfh (

followed by bet fl (b). Several theories have been posited to explain why the charac-
ters of the Ethiopic alphabet have been arranged so differently, but none is satisfacto-

ry. It is much better to assume that Ethiopic preserves an early or ancient branch of
the original. For the similar, though not identical, order of the ancient Sabean script,

see section 68. (In certain religious contexts, the North Semitic order — called
abugida, from the first four consonants and the first four "orders" —which is known
from the acrostic poems in the Gs'sz translation of the Hebrew Bible, is also found.)

1 '

TABLE 51. 2: The Ethiop ic Characters in Their Alphabetic Order (Amha ric phonetics)

U A A\ rm in l n (7?) t n t (T) "1 V d) h \\ (Tl)ffl a H (If) v j?, (K) 1 m (ai) ft ^ &• T

h 1 h m s r s (s) q b t (c) h n (fi)
'
k (h) w *
z (z) y d (g) g t (c) p s z f p
[h 1 h in s r s f k'b t tf h n n v k h w ? z 3 J
d ci5 g t' tf p ts ts f p|

«fe > ll- >

w w
qu[k1 hu [h ]
k ii [k ]
gu[g"]

a. Upper row, base forms; lower row, labialized forms; in parentheses, Amharic letters.
 SECTION 51: ETHIOPIC WRITING 57]

TABLE 5I.3: Vowels

Front Central Back

High i a
Mid e
3
Low a

Vowels
A few inscriptions have been discovered which show Gs'sz texts without vowel signs,
just like the Sabean/Minean (and the other Semitic scripts). The characters in these
inscriptions represented the consonant alone, or the consonant and any of the possible
vowels. The reader had to guess, with the help of knowledge of the grammar, the nec-
essary vowels and supply them. Therefore, one sign could be read, for example, as [b]
or [D3] or [ba] or [buj or [bi]. Thus [naguj3 n3g3/t] 'king of kings' was written as

llwfilwf The reader had to know the language and its grammar rather well
ngslngst.
to be able to read such texts. Many of the possible ways of reading a word are elimi-

nated when the word is in a sentence. For example, llv* ngs in lli^filwf ngslngst
cannot be other than [noguJ(3)]. However, as an isolated word, it could be [nsguj] or
[n3gaji] or [n3gja] or [nogj], since all these are real words which had to be written in
the same way because of the absence of signs indicating the vowels.
At a certain stage of the language's written life, the difficulty of using the system
without the help of vowel signs must have been felt by the majority of those who used
it. Most probably that was when the number of students who used Gs'sz as their sec-
ond language had increased significantly. Obviously, large numbers of students could
not begin their schooling by reading Gs'sz written only in consonants. Creating vow-
el signs (and modifying the characters with them) became inevitable; the appearance

of vowel signs in the epigraphic record coincides with the advent of Christianity in
Ethiopia, about 350 c.E.
There are seven vowels, see tables 51.3 and 51.4; the seven forms of each con-
sonant symbol are called orders.

Vowel signs
(1) The base character (called gaaz), the character which has no vowel sign (see
table 5 1 .2), is understood as having the first vowel, a. The character gd'az has thus

table 51.4: Vowels in Their Traditional Order

"Order" 1 2 3 4 5 6 7

Transliteration a U i a e 3

Transcription [3] [u] in la, a] [e, e] [3] [0. d]

572 PART VII,: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

lost its neutrality or ability to represent all the other possible readings. For example,
H is no longer b, but ba. In other words, the vowel [3] is represented by a zero symbol.
(In the case of the laryngeals, the vowel of the base is not [3], but [a].)

(2) A short horizontal line attached to the middle of the right side of the character
represents the vowel u. In the case of <* ru, (& wu, and £ fit, however, this system is

violated.
All horizontal lines, whether they are vowel signs or part of the base character,
bend down at the end.

(3) A short horizontal line attached to the lowest part of the right leg of the char-
acter represents the vowel i. In the course of time, a leg to carry the sign was added
to I hi, T. mi, 1 si, *E wi, X % and 1 zi. For L ri, £ yi, and Lfi, the system is violated.

(4) A vertical line attached to the bottom of a character — to the right leg of the
character, if the character has more than one leg — represents the vowel a. (The system
includes the laryngeals, which have [a] in place of [3].) If the character has only a sin-
gle leg, the line is tilted to the left to make the addition clear. In the case of £ ra, V
na, and "? ha, the rule is violated.

(5) A ring or half ring attached to the lower part of the right side of the character
represents the vowel e. A leg to carry the sign is added to *L he, °% me, °\> se, *E we,
c
% e, and 1 ze; compare (3) above. In the case of %> ye and gbp ce, the ring is attached

at the middle of the character with a short horizontal line.

(6) The sign for the vowel d and the rule defining its place on the character are
not generalized. In some cases, the sign is a short horizontal line placed on the left

side of the character, but its placement on the left side is unpredictable. In the case of
C rd, fl* wd, £ dd, £ gd, ft fid, K sd, and %fd, it is placed on the right side. In the case
of \) hd, rh hd, ¥ qa, t td, 1 nd, h % l
d d, and A id, it is placed on the head of the char-
acter. The signs for A Id, A sd, "\ hd, £ yd, and °l ga follow no rule; but those for \) hd,
\\ kd, T td, and T pd do. These observations, however, are of little use for those who
want to learn this column of characters. They have to be learned individually.

The modified character that represents the consonant with the vowel d serves also
to represent the vowelless consonant. For example, bd and b are represented by the
same character, -f). Tradition rightly identified the close relationship between the vow-
elless consonant and the consonant with the vowel [a] (cf. the Hebrew shwa), but it is

not clear why the base or gd'dz characters were not chosen for this purpose — the char-
acters without vowel signs, which are assigned to the consonant with the vowel d.

(7) Two signs to represent the vowel o are discernible. The rule for their distribu-

tion is not clear. With some characters (of which only A° lo has two or more legs) it is

a circle (taken from Greek omicron?) placed on or near the top of the character. If the
character has two or more legs, the sign is a vertical line attached to the middle bottom
of the character or to the end of the left leg. The rule is violated in the case of t\r lo, f*

yo, and 1 go.

(8) A short horizontal line attached to the right leg of most of the characters indi-
cates a combination of [u] (or |w])and |a|. A leg to carry the sign is added to the char-
 SECTION 51: ETHIOPIC WRITING 573

table 51.5: The Ethiopic Letters

Name
1234
a (a) u a
5

e
6 7 /

ua
3 4

ua
5

ue
6

U3
i 9/0 ui

h hoy 0- % 7 % W V
1 lawe A A- A. A A, A A°

h/h hiiwt rh (h- di '•i (h. fh r^

m may on a* °l ^ ^ 9° T
s sawt in ip- "f. ^ "L /" V
rra's £ <^ £ £ £ C C
ssat rt IV It A, A

s W fr ft *F ft ff F
qqaf t * t 9 *6 * * * «h ^ J «h
b bet n a a n a -n o
t tawe + + »fc ^ *t 1" f"

c T "P "E ?* "E ¥ T

h/h harm 1 *V "t 2 T. "1 -ff > -> ^ 0» "^

n nahas V > \ 9 fc ) 9*

n 7 > 1 "C "S ** *

alf h fr h. N K, h h

k kaf 11 iv ti *i h, ti i* tr ir- %s tt ir-

h Ti IV Ti ^ Ti Ti T*

w wawe fl) m. *£ T *E A> P

7 5
ayn 0- % °i % d P

z zay H fc H 1 H, H H

z If If If. Tf It If Tf

y yamiin V * £ 9 V° £ ?*

d dant £ ^ 1 8 &, £ ^
g K * ft * K * *
g garni 1 h X P L °l 1 > T- ^ 3. T-

t tayt m m* m. "l tn, T nr

C £ft £Q? GO, «* fff ^ P*

P payt fc k ^ * k ft *

s saday K fc J^ * fc, ft £

s/z dappa 6 fr 1 1 1 A f

faf £ £ <k * £, S £
P psa T T X J T T T
574 PART VIII: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

acters which need it, e.g. °H mwa. In the case of £ rwa and ¥>fwa, the sign is placed
on the head of the character.
Vowel length is not recognized.
The array of Ethiopic letters is shown in table 51.5.

Characters or diagrams
The combining of individual characters with vowel signs with so little systematiza-
tion has resulted, in many cases, in the creation of a new character with an indepen-
dent identity, a character virtually on the level of the base character. The vowel signs
have become such an integral part of the body of the character that each of the seven
forms, including the base form, is a symbol representing a consonant and a vowel.
The system is not strictly syllabic because the symbols do not always represent syl-
lables. The Ethiopic consonants may be 26 in number, but the characters are, in es-

sence 26 (plus the derivatives) times 7, plus the signs for the labiovelars (which are 4
times 5 —these four have only five vowels each: a, /, a, e, and d).

As a rule, Ethiopic characters do not extend below the line. In order not to violate
this rule, either the vertical lines representing vowels are tilted to the left, in the case
of some characters (especially those that have only one leg); or the base characters
are written above the line in smaller size, so that the added vowel sign ends on the
line. This method of modification gives the impression not of adding a sign to the base
character but of creating a new character.
The Ethiopic writing system has no sign for gemination or the doubling of a con-
sonant, although this is distinctive in the language. For example, the system does not
distinguish between [s3bha] 'to be fat' and [S3bbaha] 'to praise'; both are written
<MWh. To make this distinction and to determine the presence or absence of the vowel
d, we must rely primarily on oral transmission of the pronunciation of the lan-
guage^). Except in these two points, the Ethiopic writing system can be characterized
as phonetic, at least for Gs'az (and Amharic).

Numerals
The Gs'az numerals are developed from the Greek alphabet, borrowed possibly
through Coptic, see table 51.6. Time has of course changed them significantly. In
writing modern Ethiopian languages, one usually uses the Arabic numerals.

TABLE 51 .6: Numerals

5 1 % 6 £ 20 £ 70
I 2 % 7 «3 30 T 80

I 3 g 8 3 40 3 90
g 4 "d
9 I 50 ? IOO

£ T 10 60 w 10,000
5 ?\
 .

SECTION 51: ETHIOPIC WRITING 575

Writing Ethiopic
In the inscriptions, words were separated with a vertical line, e.g. <ngslngst>. In

manuscripts and published books, this has been replaced with two dots which look
like a colon ( ••
). This sign is being replaced with a blank space in writing the modern
languages of the country. A semicolon is expressed by the two dots with a horizontal
line above and below them ( ; ), a comma by the two dots with a horizontal line over
or between them, and a full stop by doubling the two dots ( •= ).

Ethiopic is written from left to right. The characters should be drawn starting at

the upper left side and proceeding forward and down to the lower right side; that is,

the stroke of the pen should be, as a rule, from top to bottom, never from bottom to

top or from right to left. No part should remain on the left or on top to be added. The
stroke from top to bottom may be slightly angled at its two ends if necessary only to
connect that part with the remaining body of the character.

Sample of Ge'ez

/. Ge'ez:
2. Pronunciation. wii-soba sam'a Tsaysyyas zanta nagara
3. Gloss: and-when heard. he Tsayayyas this statement

10: nr
2. 'am-'afu-homu la'agbarta saytan bo 'a haba nagus
3. from-mouth-their servants.of Satan went.he to king

Arhr .

2. wa-ysbel-o la-nagus 'o-'sgzi^-ya nahu ysbelu-ni al-bs-ka

3. and-he.said-to.him to-king ... O-lord-my behold they.tell-me not-in-you

1. I*"??. lii^f
2. sannaya nsbrata ba-mawa'sli-hu la-zs nagus za-'snbala ba-kab\
3. good life during-days-his of-this king which-but of-another

Ml Ml
2. wa-ysbel-o nagus 'alia mannu yablu-ka kama-zs.
3. and-he.said-to.him king those who say-to.you like-this

2. wa-ysbel-o Tsaysyyas la-nagus sab 'a zi'a-ya faquran-aya

3. and-he.said-to.him 'Isaysyyas to-king people of-me dear.ones-my

2. ysbelu-ni kama-za
3. they.said-to.me like-this
576 PART V11,: MIDDLE EASTERN WRITING SYSTEMS

'When Tsayayyas heard this statement from the mouth of the servants of Satan,
he went to the king and said to the king, ..."O my lord, behold, they tell me,
'You will not have a good life during the days of this king but of another one."'
The king said to him, "Who are they who say such things to you?" Tsayayyas
said to the king, "My people, my dear (friends), have spoken to me like this."'
— Getatchew Haile 1991: 67, lines 21-26.

Bibliography

Bender, M. Lionel, Sydney W. Head, and Roger Cowley. 1976. "The Ethiopian Writing System." In
Language in Ethiopia, ed. M. L. Bender, J. D. Bowen, R. C. Cooper, and C. A. Ferguson, pp.
120-29. London: Oxford University Press.
Daniels, Peter T 1991 "Ha, La, Ha or Hoi, Lawe, Haut: The Ethiopic Letter Names." In Semitic
.

Studies in Honor of Wolf Leslau on the Occasion of his Eighty-fifth Birthday, ed. Alan S.

Kaye, pp. 275-88. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.

Dillmann, August. 1907. Ethiopic Grammar, 2nd ed. by Carl Bezold, trans. James A. Crichton. Lon-
don: Williams & Norgate. Repr. Amsterdam: Philo, 1974.
}
Getatchew Haile, ed. 199 The Epistle of Humanity of Emperor Zar a Ya 'dqob (Tomard Tdshd 't)
1 .

(Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium 522, Scriptores Aethiopici 95). Louvain:

Peeters.
Grohmann, Adolf. 9 1 1 8. "Uber den Ursprung und die Entwicklung der athiopischen Schrift.'M/r/nV
fur Schriftkunde 1 : 57-87.
Hartmann, Josef. 1980. Amharische Grammatik. Wiesbaden: Steiner.

Leslau, Wolf. 1957. "The Phonetic Treatment of the Arabic Loanwords in Ethiopic." Word 13: 100-
of Research: Selection ofArticles on Semitic, Ethiopian Semitic and
23. Repr. in his Fifty Years
Cushitic, pp. 43-66. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 1988.
Ullendorff, Edward. 1955. The Semitic Languages of Ethiopia: A Comparative Phonology. London:
Taylor's Foreign Press.
 Part IX: Scripts Invented
in Modern Times

Why does someone invent a script? What is the purpose of writing? The great
majority of human societies have thrived without written records. What led some be-
yond memory alone?
There seem to be three different answers underlying the three most ancient writ-
ing systems we can interpret. In Mesopotamia, whether or not archaic counting de-
vices are implicated, and whether or not the locus is sacral —what comes to be seen
as "temple economies" — the primary impulse seems to be commerce: relations be-
tween cities, as well as administration of incipient or developed bureaucracy, of small
groups or even legions of workers with a purpose other than individualistic enterprise.
In China, the earliest writings preserve the outcomes of oracular consultations
with supernatural beings: if the gods must be consulted at every turn, there needs to
be some certain way to preserve their responses.
In Mesoamerica, what is clearest about the interpretable remains is the astronom-
ical information. Cycles spanning decades and centuries could perhaps be suspected,
but only with records reaching beyond one observer's lifetime can the details be
worked out.

What do these three cases have in common? Only, perhaps, the amount of infor-
mation and its lack of certainty or predictability (astronomical patterns can only be
discovered after much information has been determined). While it has perhaps not
been forgotten by unlettered peoples, it was (re)discovered by the West close to a cen-

tury ago that writing is not required to preserve literature and tradition. Homer and
Moses did not need to write their stories down in order for them to be cherished from
generation to generation. The poetic language and formulas of the one, the numinous
power of the other, made them live forever. Written literature piggybacked on the
mundane accountant's, or acolyte's, or observer's purely practical recording devices.
And their adaptation to recording ordinary, and then heightened, language had
happened so recently in history (by definition, remember) that Plato could have Soc-
rates decry the use of writing as detrimental to the power of memory. He was right.

577
578 PART ,X: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

It is in this sense that something happens to "civilization" when it takes up writ-

ing. It is not then that literature is invented; but it is then that it takes a new form. Only
prose is added to the repertoire of the culture; is the science of Aristotle or of Galen
more "advanced" than the ethno science that even today harvests efficacious medi-
cines from the natural world? A good case can be made taken up — at the very end of
this book — that only with printing, and the dissemination of identical, reliable copies

of expository prose, did the existence of writing have a material, beneficial effect on
human existence.
There is, of course, one exception, and it was adumbrated at the very beginning:
the sphere of religion. The religions of the West, and some of those of the East, rely
on Scripture. The dissemination of writing often serves the dissemination of scrip-

tures. From earliest times, adherents have been called to both study and proselytize.
The former activity produces new writings; the latter produces new scripts (but usu-
ally developed out of others).
But a motif found over and over in the stories of script inventors —grammatoge-
nists — is divine inspiration, often in a dream, sometimes in retreat from the world. In
almost every case, the script inventor wishes to benefit his people with a gift from
heaven. In almost every remaining case, the inventor seeks to bring to his people the
material benefits seen to be possessed by others who are able to talk to each other
across distances that are beyond earshot, or across barriers that sound cannot pene-
trate. Their stories often refer to "leaves that can speak"; they were enmeshed in a
world of communication by audition —and were freed by a sudden insight: a vision
that revealed the potential of vision.
— Peter T. Daniels
 —

SECTION 52

The Invention of Writing

Peter T. Daniels

The normal way for a society to acquire its own script is by evolving, adapting, or
adopting an existing writing system. Once in a while, though, some visionary, aware
simply of the existence of writing among nearby peoples (often missionaries), sets out
to devise his own system that will set his people apart from all others. The earliest

such system we know of is the Old Persian cuneiform (section 8); the earliest doc-
umented one is the Korean (section 17); the most celebrated, and the earliest that

was observed by interested outsiders, is the Cherokee. The scripts devised for Lepcha
(section 40), and the scripts of Cherokee, Cree, Vai, Munda languages, and Hmong,
described below, are still in use, but they represent far from a complete list of modern
"grammatogenies." The principal scholar of such things is Alfred Schmitt, whose
comprehensive treatment was published posthumously in 1980.

Observable script inventions have much to teach about the possible scenarios of
the three ancient grammatogenies (Sumerian, Chinese, Maya) —but only we ob- if

serve one distinction. There are grammatogenies by people already literate in some
language, who possess at least some knowledge of phonetics — only much if as as is

encoded in an existing script — typea I and grammatogenies by

call sophisticated;

people who cannot read in any language and who know nothing of phonetics unso-
phisticated grammatogeny. It is the study of unsophisticated modern grammatogeny
that may illuminate the ancient origins of writing.

Sophisticated grammatogenies
As with Korean and Cree, it is often the missionary impulse that leads someone to

create a script for a culture. Its external characteristics may be determined by the
availability of printing equipment (or even typewriters, in the minimal case of the ad-
aptation of the English/French/Spanish etc. alphabet to local languages), or the inven-
tor may feel free to design an entirely new set of characters. Either way, the resulting

Acknowledgments: My data on the Pollard script come from T R. Carlton of the University of Alberta, who
was able to consult a preliminary version of Enwall 1994, and from Joakim Enwall (personal communications).
Information on the Fraser script was provided by E. R. Hope ot the United Bible Societies, Translation Centre
for Southern Africa, and sample pages of text and dictionary by James Matisoff, University of California. Ber-
keley. I am extremely grateful to all four.

579
580 PART ,X: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

TABLE 52.1 : The Pollard Script

J [p] T [t] A [tU I 111 3 [k] J lq] Y [?,0]

I lp"l T [t"l A [til T It"]
3' [k
h
] r [q"l

t [ts] c
f [ts"| c [Us
h
, tc
h
]

r [f] S [s] L Ml J [ff. Q] t ixi 1 [h]

V [v] 3 [z] L [1] R M 1

[y]

|m| t [n] c to]

b
) [m] C In] c to] [m(<n)]
u [w| A [*, y]

n
[i] [y] [in] [u]
1 r ?

[1] [Y] [9]

c s

[c] [cej] [a] [0]

L '
"
[ei] [ie] [ai] [au]

script is liable to betray some degree of phonetic sophistication — all and only the dis-

tinctive segments of the language will be provided for, and similarity in phonetic fea-
tures may be reflected in similarity in shapes. Three examples may serve, two that

achieved some importance in southern China, and one comprising invented scripts in

contemporary imaginative literature. Mention should also be made of two scripts for

Cushitic languages of the Horn of Africa: an Ethiopic-based abugida for Oromo, de-
vised by Shaykh Bakri Sapalo (Hay ward and Hassan 1981), and an alphabet for So-
mali, called Osmanya from the name of the inventor, Tsman Yusuf, son and brother
of the two sultans of Olbia (Jensen 1969: 226f.). The former has been replaced
last

by a modified Ethiopic, the latter by Roman orthography.

The Pollard script

Samuel Pollard (1864-19 15) served as a Methodist missionary in southern China

from 887. In 1904 he went to the Ta Hwa Miao (Big Flowery Miao, A-Hmao) peo-
1

ple, whose language is now called Western Hmong. He devised a script (Enwall 1994)
comprising geometric symbols; it went through several stages of development, with
that of 1936 apparently the one that has become standard (subsequent proposed im-
provements do not appear in a 1983 primer). Each consonant and vowel has its own
symbol —each vowel is a diacritic, whose placement at the top, upper right, middle,
or bottom of the consonant letter denotes different tones. (Some of the Hmong lan-

guages for which Pollard script has been used distinguish consonants by voicing rath-

er than aspiration, and others replace those distinctions with a set of eight rather than
four tones.) The order in which the 32O) "big letters" are taught is: Y ?L I J p T T ts
t

r/1 h L ts 3 kT tT q Q n) m \J wV v A /,, y S s 3 z A tl L /// C ng I xJ s R zCJ mp

(T nts (C nts Q ngk (T nt CI nt (T ngq (A ntl. The total of 37 "small letters" (i.e.
 SECTION 52: THE INVENTION OF WRITING 5g]

table 52.2: The Fraser Script

p [p] T [t] F [ts] C [c] K [k]

d [P
h
]
1 [t"l d [ts
h
] [c
h
]
y\ [k
h
]

a
B [b] D [d] Z [dz] J M G [g] 9 [fi]

r [f] S [s] X [J] H [x] V [h]

w [v] a [z] R [3] a [y]

M [m] N [n] A [n]

L [1]

w
1 [i] n [ii] 1 [UI] U [u]

E [e] 3 [0] a M M
V [«] A [a]

high ,
mid ., mid mid low ;
;
low
tone rising tone tense tone tense

nasal- _ [a] -. comma = period - in ? ques-

ization names tion

a. Used only with [a] and low tone.

vowel and nasal finals) is arrived at by, again, counting compound symbols separate-
ly. The script has been adapted to about a dozen languages of Southeast Asia.

The Fraser script

About 19 1 5, J. O. Fraser, a missionary working in China on the Tibeto-Burman lan-

guage Lisu, created an Indic-style script using the Roman capital letters (upright and
inverted) and punctuation marks to indicate tone. Regular Roman letters represent

sounds that have close correspondences in English (vowels, semivowels, nasals,

stops), though in some cases greater regularity was achieved by deviating from the
traditional values. Inverted forms are used for phonetically similar sounds.

Sample of Western Hmong

/. Pollard Script: X C 3 A T r
3 V V )" I C,

2. Transliteration: ml na ku za tsz ku tu tau mau nio tsii

3. Transcription: mi 21 n a 21 ku 55 za 55 tsz 54 ku 55 tu 54 tau 44 mau 44 n o 34 cfcy 21

fi J

4. Gloss: you look I shall send I messenger be you

/. t. c A r -r c t j, > I r c,
2. tha nti za ki tsie tsii tsi ku mau nio ti tshio

3. t
h
a 22 n Jh y 22 za 55 ki 44 tsie 44 cky 21 tci
55
ku 22 m au 22
h
n o 54
J
ti
54 tc h
oey 44 ::

4. in.front he shall prepare you road part walk be place

582 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

/. Ca )- r c r y r r in a t r t
2. tsia in a ti ni sang a qi xhu hi za ki tsie

3- cfe
fi

a 22 m a 24
h
tui 55 nui 55 saiu 54 a 44 qui 44 xu 44 hi 22 za 55 ki 44 tsie 44 tsa 55

4- desert exist person voice call say shall prepare Lord

i. e Uu > It la c t iL a,
2. tsi ku mau tei xhia nii tsi ku nke
3> tqi55 ku 22 m au 22
H
tai
22
xa 22 / xia 22 n J
") tci
55 ku 22 ngV 2 - 44

4- road PART walk then build he road part straight

Sample of Hwa (Western) Lisu

/. Fraser script: NY.. N.-. NU Ml: IV: SI.. KW AW Fl DU Fl

2. Transliteration: nya na, nu ml thse si kwa qwa tsi du tsi

/. ru KO_ LO- .YI NY NU J GU YE T VU.. NY, Gl_ BV_

2. fu kua lo, ji nya nu ja gu ye ta hu nya guia bhaa

/. LO=10: d: DE.. KW L dO 11 RO au., TY_ M SV; NY-.

2. lo. tho pha de kwa la tsho thi 30 khu tyaa ma sae nya,

/. SI., d J GU NU W YE T vu. NY,- -. YI C3. T3,

2. sT pha ja gu nu va ye ta hu nya, yi c0 t0

/. T3,; BE XY,- -. BV.. LO=

2. t0 be shya bse lo

[No analysis of the Hwa Lisu text is available.]

'See, I am sending my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the
voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord, make his

paths straight.'
—Mark 1:2-3 (Hmong: Enwall 1994, 1:189; Lisu: Nida 1972 no. 736).

Fictional scripts

Familiar to many English-speaking readers will be the Tengwar and Angertha ('let-

ters' and 'runes') devised accompany the languages invented by J. R. R. Tolkien as

to
part of the creation of Middle Earth (Tolkien 1965, appendix E; see Tolkien 193 on 1

inventing languages generally). His calling as a philologist is obvious in the system-

aticity of both scripts. In the Tengwar, to be written with pen or brush, there are four
basic forms — really variations on a single shape, with open or closed bowl, facing left

or right; stops have a vertical descender, fricatives an ascender, and semivowels and
nasals no extender. Voiced occlusives and nasals have a doubled bowl. Vowels and
other consonants are written with letters that stand outside the pattern. The Angertha
take over some shapes of Anglo-Saxon runes, but not their values. Here, voicing is
 SECTION 52: THE INVENTION OF WRITING 5^3

marked with an added stroke; stops face right and fricatives face left; nasals involve

some sort of doubling; vowels involve symmetry or doubled strokes. A sophisticated

yet accessible account of Tolkien's languages and scripts is Noel 1980.
A writer whose connection with language science is by descent rather than by
profession is Ursula K. LeGuin, daughter of the great anthropologist Alfred Kroeber.
All her novels show her full command of the ways of human culture; in Always Com-
ing Home (1985: 532-34), she provides an alphabet that is in a way more realistic

than Tolkien's: some cases of graphic similarity reflecting phonetic similarity can be
seem to have diverged from a sophisticated original
seen, but in other cases, letters
due to gradual change that came about through daily use of the script.
The Klingon language of the Star Trek universe has been elaborated by a linguist,
but the Klingon script seen briefly in the first theatrical film seems to have been left

in the ether, although a commercial computer font for Klingon is sold. No information
is available on its creation, its phonetic (or logographic) nature, or its correspondence
to the language as now studied.

Unsophisticated grammatogenies
Clearly, it is from the other kind of script invention that insights into the process may
be gained. Rather unexpectedly, it turns out that virtually all unsophisticated gram-
matogenies share certain features: The resulting script is a syllabary. It includes only
signs for CV syllables. The conventional order of the signs (when one exists) is ran-

dom, and signs are not grouped together by phonetic similarity. Signs for phonetically

similar syllables share no deliberate graphic similarity. Cherokee is the earliest doc-
umented script invention of this kind, and the Cherokee script exhibits all these char-

acteristics.

Apparently some centuries older is a script used by ladies of the Chinese court,
which is called "women's writing." It is said to be a syllabary, graphically similar to
Chinese characters; whether the phonetic signs are based on appropriate Chinese
logograms is unclear, as descriptions in Western languages are limited to newspaper
accounts, and Chinese-language sources have proved unavailable in the U.S.
Sections 53 and 54 describe unsophisticated grammatologies of scripts that are
still in use. Herein I add some interesting examples that have not survived: besides

Asia, scripts have been invented in Africa, North and South America, and Oceania.

The Bamum script

Early in the twentieth century, King Njoya [njuiaja] of the Bamum tribe of central

Cameroon became aware of the writing of the missionaries, and resolved to provide
his own people with a script (Schmitt 1967B). It came to him in a dream that the way
to proceed was by inventing a picture for each object or action. He asked his subjects

to provide drawings of all sorts of things, from which he would choose an inventory
584 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

to write with. This proved impossible (we are not told why), despite some five at-

tempts. Next, Njoya tried rebus writing: words could be written with the pictures that
represented similar-sounding words. It happens that most Bamum words are mono-
syllables of the form CV(C), and the closing consonant can only be [p t mn rj]; many
words thus share a shape, with differentiation by tones, so that a quite limited inven-

tory of (logo)syllabic signs sufficed to write the language.

The Alaska script

The script created by Uyaqoq (also known by the translation of his name as Neck)
between 1901 and 1905, at a Moravian mission in southwest Alaska (Schmitt 1967A),
is unusual in being devised for an agglutinative language rather than a monosyllabic
one —words in Inuit can reach seemingly unlimited lengths. The obvious strategy of
assigning a symbol to each word immediately proved impossible, and Uyaqoq quick-
ly settled on truncating a word to use its pictograph for just its initial CV portion. He
also added a series of symbols for consonants that could close syllables. And in a

practice reminiscent of Pahlavi writing (section 48), he notated a few syllables with
marks based on the cursive writing of English words, so that a squiggle resembling
<qo&d> represents the syllable [kut].

The Ndjuka script

Afaka, a "Bush Negro" of Dutch Guiana (modern Suriname), was also told in a dream
to create a script (Gonggryp i960). Before 1916, at the rate of a sign every two or
three days, he came up with 56 characters with which to write. They are signs for CV
syllables (including a few nasalized vowels). The Ndjuka language is an English-
based Creole (an English colony in Surinam was taken over by the Dutch in 1667, but
the slaves and their descendants maintained their language; Holm 1989: 432-44),
with the attendant phonological simplification (Huttar 1986), and the script was used
only by a small fraction of the Christian minority.

The Caroline Islands script

Two distinct scripts were used to write the Woleaian language in the Caroline Islands,
Micronesia, in the early twentieth century. Type 2 includes 19 characters, all of them
clearly based on letters of the Roman alphabet, and Type 1, "at least 78" (Riesenberg
and Kaneshiro i960). All the characters in both scripts represent CV syllables. The
values of the Type 2 characters (except for the plain vowels) are all of the form [Ci],

representing the names of the letters of the Trukese alphabet, which had been brought
to that neighboring island in 1878 by an English missionary and thence, imperfectly
understood, to Woleiai in 1905. Within a couple of years. Type 1 was devised at

Faraulep Island to remedy the perceived lack of means of expressing syllables con-
 SECTION 52: THE INVENTION OF WRITING 535

taining vowels other than [i]. Some of its characters are pictographic, a few resemble
appropriate katakana (section 16), and some seem to be pure invention. The inven-
tory could be increased as need was perceived for new characters.

The origin of writing

Accounts of unsophisticated grammatogeny reveal the characteristics of an indepen-

dently invented script. Most striking is that the result of the process is always a sylla-
bary emerging from logography, never an alphabet (valuable collections on early
writing systems are Oates 1986 and Senner 1989 and, on a smaller scale, Joachim
Jungius-Gesellschaft 1969). This phenomenon seems to originate in the way people
use and process speech: various psycholinguistic and phonetic observations and ex-
periments indicate that it is syllables and not any shorter stretches of speech (i.e. "seg-
ments," the result of phonological analysis and roughly equivalent to letters of the
alphabet) that people can consciously hear —unless they have learned to read in an al-

phabetic script.
It is thus not surprising that the three known cases of independent script inven-
tion — for Sumerian (section 3), for Chinese (section 14), and for Mayan (sec-
tion 12) — resulted in logosyllabaries. But why did writing emerge only for these
three civilizations? After all, the Incas of Peru enjoyed a highly developed civiliza-
tion, yet could record only quantities, not language, with their knotted-cord quipus
(Ascher and Ascher 1981). Moreover, many —perhaps — all preliterate cultures em-
ploy pictographic records as mnemonic devices (these are often, though misleadingly,
listed as forerunners of writing).
The answer seems to me (Daniels 1988) to lie in the syllable. In Sumerian, Chi-
nese, and Mayan, most morphemes and in particular independent words comprise
single syllables. A word is the shortest stretch of speech that can be uttered by some-
one without linguistic training (an Inuit-speaker who makes a mistake can't break off
in the middle of a word and correct part of it, but after breaking off must begin to say
it at the beginning). Thus in "syllabically organized" languages like the three where
writing was born, speakers can speak single syllables. So pictograms represent things
with monosyllabic names. This in turn offers a means of representing those syllables
that are not words for picturable objects —and that sort of representation is the defin-

ing characteristic of writing (section i ). Using a picture of some object to represent

the sound of a homophonous word is known as rebus writing. While rebuses today-

are party games, at the dawn of history they were the foundation of writing.

Bibliography

Ascher, Marcia, and Robert Ascher. 1981. Code of the Quipu: A Study in Media. Mathematics, and
Culture. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Daniels. Peter T. 1988 [pub. 1992]. 'The Syllabic Origin of Writing and the Segmental Origin of the
586 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

Alphabet." In The Linguistics of Literacy (Typological Studies in Language 21), ed. Pamela
Downing, Susan D. Lima, and Michael Noonan, pp. 83-1 10. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Enwall, Joakim. 1 994. A Myth Become Reality: History and Development of the Miao Written Lan-
guage. Stockholm: Stockholm University, Institute of Oriental Languages.
Gonggryp, J. W. i960. "The Evolution of a Djuka-Script in Surinam." Nieuwe West-Indische Gids
40: 63-72.
Hay ward, R. J., and Mohammed Hassan. 1981. "The Oromo Orthography of Shay kh Bakri Sapalo."
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 44: 550-66.
Holm, John. 1989. Pidgins and Creoles, vol. 2: Reference Survey (Cambridge Language Surveys).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Huttar, George. 1 986. "The Afaka Script: An Indigenous Creole Syllabary." 13th LACUS Forum, pp.
167-77.
Jensen, Hans. 1969. Sign, Symbol and Script, trans. George Unwin. New York: Putnam's.
Joachim Jungius-Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften, Hamburg. 1969. Friihe Schriftzeugnisse der
Menschheit. Gottingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht.
LeGuin, Ursula K. 1985. Always Coming Home. New York: Harper & Row. Repr. New York: Ban-
tam, 1986.
Nida, Eugene A., ed. 1972. The Book of a Thousand Tongues, rev. ed. London: United Bible Societ-
ies.

Noel, Ruth S. 1980. The Languages of Tolkien's Middle Earth. Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Oates, Joan, ed. 1986. Early Writing Systems [special issue]. World Archaeology 17/3.
Riesenberg, Saul H., and Shigeru Kaneshiro. i960. A Caroline Islands Script. Smithsonian Institu-
tion Bureau of American Ethnology Bulletin 173: 273-333 (= Anthropological Papers 60).
Schmitt, Alfred. 1967A. "Die Alaska-Schrift." Studium Generale 20: 565-74.
. 1967B. "Die Bamum-Schrift." Studium Generale 20: 594-604.
. 1980. Entstehung und Entwicklung von Schriften, ed. Claus Haebler. Cologne: Bohlau.
Senner, Wayne M., The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press.
ed. 1989.
Tolkien, J. R. R. 1931 "A Secret Vice." In his The Monster and the Critic and Other Essays,
. ed.
Christopher Tolkien, pp. 198-223. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1980.
. 1965. The Return of the King (The Lord of the Rings 3). Boston: Houghton Mifflin. kj
SECTION 53

Cherokee Writing
Janine Scancarelli

Cherokee is written with a syllabary invented by Sequoyah (ca. 1 770-1 843), a mono-

lingualCherokee speaker. Also known by the English name George Guess (or Gist or
Guyst), he was illiterate until he invented his syllabary. He noticed that marks on pa-
per could be used to represent English, and from that observation he went on to invent
a writing system for Cherokee (see Foreman 1938). In their present form many of the
syllabary characters resemble Roman, Cyrillic, or Greek letters or Arabic numerals,
but there is no apparent relationship between their sounds in other languages and in

Cherokee. Sequoyah gave a public demonstration of the syllabary in 1821, and by

1824 knowledge of his invention had spread widely among the Cherokees. (On the
early history of the syllabary see Walker and Sarbaugh 1993.) Materials written in the

syllabary are sometimes said to be written "in Sequoyan."

The characters of the Cherokee syllabary and their arrangement

table 53.1 shows the 85 characters of the syllabary as arranged by Samuel A.

Worcester, a missionary to the Cherokees who played an important role in the devel-
opment of Cherokee printing and who devised a commonly used transliteration of the
syllabary. To the right of each character is Worcester's transliteration, which is its

name and reflects what can be considered the basic pronunciation of the character.
Charts similar to table 53.1 are well known to almost all Cherokees.
Cherokee is written from left to right. It is common to place hyphens between the
transliterations of the characters in a word.

The characters in table 53.1 are arranged by sound: the columns correspond to

the six distinctive Cherokee vowel qualities, and the rows correspond to consonants
that can begin syllables. The order of the vowels corresponds to the English alphabet-
ical order of the transliteration (v is phonetically [5] but commonly written v in lin-
guistic literature, as in Worcester's transliteration). The order of the consonants in the

remaining twelve rows likewise corresponds to the English alphabetical order of the
transliteration, with the velar stop of the second row alphabetized as g, and the alve-
olar stop of the ninth row treated as t. In the transliteration, qu (line 7) represents a
w
labialized velar stop [k ], dl and tl (line 10) represent an alveolar affricate with lateral

release 1
([t ], a sound not present in all dialects of Cherokee), and ts (line 1 1) repre-
sents an affricate which may be pronounced as alveolar or palato-alveolar [ts, tj"].

587
588 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

table 53.1: The Characters of the Cherokee Syllabary

a e i u v = [5]

1. 1) a R e T i
«)")
u i V

2. S ga ka V ge y g» A go J gu li gv
3. 1 ha ? he 3 hi I ho r hu itr hv
4. w la e le p li G lo M lu q lv

5. r ma me H mi 5 mo y mu
6. na t hna G nah A ne h ni Z no n nu nv
7. :i: qua Q que IP qui •V" quo co quu G quv
8. <i
a
s 11 sa 4 se b si * so r su K sv

9. t da w ta S de X te J di J ti V do s du (T dv
10. & dla 1; tla L tie C tli tf tlo ^ tlu P tlv

11. G tsa T tse Ir tsi K tso j tsu C tsv

12. C wa dW we wi © wo s wu 6 wv
13. c£) ya 8 ye 7) yi & yo G yu B vv

a. c€) 5 is listed in the a column; in some syllabary charts, dB .v appears to the right of I!

01
table 53.2: Orthographic Equivalences

Worcester Phonemic Feeling

g k;kh g;k
k kh k

h h h

1 1; hi = [4] I; hi

m m m
n n; hn n; hn, nh
qu kw = [k
tt

J; kwh gw; kw
s s s

d t;th d;t

t th t

dl tl = [f] dl

tl tl;tlh, hi dl; tl, hi

ts c = [ts,tQ; ch j;ch
w w; hw w; hw, wh
y y = ljl;hy y; hy, yh

a. Sequoyah's characters in general represent a wider range of consonants

than Worcester's transliteration suggests. Column lists the consonants
1

used by Worcester to represent syllabic onsets. Column 2 lists in a phonemic

notation the sounds that may correspond to characters transliterated with

those consonants. The third column lists the symbols used in Feeling's prac-
tical orthography to represent those sounds.
 SECTION 53: CHEROKEE WRITING 589

R D VV Ir G ,9 <&3 P A *)
y v$ b F o"> M tf 1

e a la tsi nah wu we li ne mo gi yi si tlv lu le ha

e> t} \\ B q J eft fi r A J ^ 4 * C IP (0 LJ

wo tlo ta yv lv hi s yo hu go tsu mu se so tli qui que sa

X Z c R h $ V F I E T C3 3 O r J
qua no ka tsv sv ni ga do ge da gv wi i u ye hv dv gu

K •r n e G G T J 6 S S G i o X ^ e* -J
tso quo nu na lo yu tse di wv du de tsa V nv te ma su tlu

i> I H \i t£) C I L t, id & a £

he ho mi tla ya wa ti tie na quu dla me quv

figure 58. Sequoyah's alphabetical order (read left to right).

table 53.2 shows the consonants of Worcester's transliteration with their equiva-
lents in a phonemic orthography and in the practical orthography used in the impor-
tant dictionary of Feeling 1975.

The sound [m] is rare in Cherokee; there is no character for mv. The symbol G

nah is not much used, and there is some controversy among speakers as to what
sounds it represents.
The Cherokee characters have been alphabetized in various ways. Usually alpha-
betical order runs across each row of the syllabary chart, starting at the top and work-

ing down the page (D R T 0") 0> i Jy P ...). Another order runs down each
column, starting at the left and working across the page (D S" 'I W 4* (, G
...). Sequoyah arranged the characters in a different order, shown in figure 58.

The appearance of written Cherokee

In printed Cherokee, words are separated by spaces, and punctuation marks are used
as in English. In some publications, larger versions of the characters serve as capital
letters, which are used as in English. Handwritten characters are similar in appearance
to the printed characters shown in table 53.1 . In manuscript materials, words may
be separated by spaces or by raised periods, punctuation may or may not be used, pe-
riods are sometimes raised rather than appearing on the baseline, and capital letters
are generally not used. Sequoyah invented a numeral system, but it was never adopt-
ed: Cherokee writers use Arabic numerals or spell out Cherokee number names in the
syllabary.
590 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

The sound and spelling of Cherokee

Except for c£ s, each character can represent a syllable. The characters in the first line

represent vowels (at the beginnings of words, as in D^ a-ma [ama] 'water') or [?V]
syllables (in other environments, as in *0D hi-a [hi?a] 'this'). The rest of the charac-
ters represent a wider range of sounds than the transliterations in table 53.1 might
suggest (Scancarelli 1992).
Each character can represent syllables with long or short vowels pronounced on
any of several different pitches. (In the transcriptions presented here, long vowels are
written with a following colon; pitch is not marked.) Thus X)4r a-ma represents both
[ama] 'water' (with low pitch on the first syllable) and [a:ma] 'salt' (with high pitch
on the first syllable).

Each character can represent syllables that end with vowels, long or short, or with

[h] or [?]. Thus #*J su-di represents [suhti] 'fishhook' and VV P ta-li represents
h
[t a?li] 'two'.

Most characters can represent syllables that begin with plain consonants or clus-
ters of plain consonants with [h]. Sequences of stop or affricate plus [h], pronounced
as aspirates, are distinguished from their unaspirated counterparts in just five cases:

S ga = [ka], Q h
ka = [k a]; I da = [ta], W ta = h
[t a]; % de = [te], % te = [t
h
e]; J di =
h
[til, J ti = [t i]; & dla = [t'a], L" da - [t
,h
a]. Thus the syllabary distinguishes the first
h
two syllables in <D&P Ka-ga-li [k a:ka?li] 'February'; but a single spelling,

AW go-la, represents both [koila] 'winter' and [k

h
o:la] 'bone'. Sequences of [h] plus
sonorant are distinguished from plain sonorants in just one case: na = [na], t. hna
- [hna]. Thus the syllabary distinguishes EG gv-na [k5:na] 'I'm alive' from
III li gv-hna [k5:hna] 'she/he is alive', but a single spelling, Ehl gv-ni-ha, repre-
sents both [koiniha] 'I'm striking it' and [k5:hniha] 'she/he is striking it'.

The letter c£> s represents [s] in syllables that begin with [sC] clusters, as in
(£)A«9 s-go-hi [sko:hi] 'ten'. It also represents [s] at the end of a syllable, as in

*9H ©cD(£) hi-yv-wi-ya-s [hij5:wi:ja:s] 'Are you an Indian?'.

To represent a consonant other than [h], [?], or [s] at the end of a syllable, a char-

acter is used that represents the appropriate consonant with some dummy vowel,
which is not pronounced. In some cases, the symbol that is chosen may reflect an un-
derlying or etymological vowel: the second symbol in the word VV P(€)A«9 ta-li-s-
h
go-hi [t a?lsko:hi] 'twenty' reflects the vowel that appears in the related word
h
VVP ta-li [t a?li] 'two'. In other cases the choice of vowel may be arbitrary, with a. /,

and v commonly used: S P*V^y ga-li-quo-gi is the common spelling for [ka4k*o:ki]
'seven'.
Similarly, consonant clusters at the beginnings of syllables (except clusters with
[h] and [s]) are written with symbols representing dummy vowels, as in E \D gv-
h
do-a [kt o:?a] 'it is hanging (of a long object)'.
 SECTION 53: CHEROKEE WRITING 59 J

Some other conventions: The symbol *V is often pronounced [k"u] rather than
u
[k oJ (see sample text). In some manuscript materials, including those attributed to
Sequoyah, [sV] syllables are written with c£ s 5V symbol. Thus Sequoyah
before the
spelled his name c£h*)T{£) s-si-quo-ya. Syllables beginning with [4] may be written

with either the /V or tlV characters. Spellings of words may vary, reflecting particular
pronunciations or individual choices in representing consonant clusters (see discus-
sion in Chafe and Kilpatrick 1963).

Uses of the syllabary

Since 1828 the syllabary has been used in legal, political, religious, and informational
publications. Manuscript materials include letters, diaries and other records, and
notebooks of medical formulas. In the late twentieth century, Cherokee is more often
read than written. The ability to read Cherokee plays an important role in traditional

Cherokee medicine and in Cherokee Christian church services. Two publications in

the syllabary are widely owned and read, the Cherokee New Testament and a hymnal.
Both are facsimiles of nineteenth-century editions prepared by Worcester with Cher-
okee collaborators. These books are familiar even to non-Christians. For some Cher-
okees, the spellings and grammatical constructions that appear in these texts define a
standard for formal language. One sometimes hears spelling pronunciations, in which
a word is pronounced in accordance with Worcester's transliteration regardless of or-
dinary usage.

Sample of Cherokee
The sample exhibits two verses of a beloved Cherokee hymn. The words are often
sung to the tune of "Amazing Grace." In line 3, the words are transcribed as they are
sung, although speakers will differ in details of pronunciation. Length of vowels is

not marked, since in singing length is determined by the tune. In line 4, the words ap-
pear as they would ordinarily be pronounced. Virginia Carey assisted with the tran-
scription and translation.

/. Cherokee: O AWOJ OtMr TSJBFT,

2. Transliteration: U-ne-la-nv-hi U-we-tsi / I-ga-gu-yv-he-i, /
h
3- Sung: uneianshi uwetsi ikak uj5heji
wh
4- Spoken: u:ne:4an5hi uiwetsi i:kak ij5:he:?i

5- Gloss: God his.offspring(SG) he.paid.it.for.us

/. t-r kr 0(^64 Tsjbi o.

2. Hna-quo tso-sv wi-u-lo-se / I-ga-gu-yv-ho-nv.
u h
3- nak u tsoss wijulose ikak uj5hohn5
u u,,
4- na:k u tso:s5 wu:lo:se i:kak ij5:hohn5

5- then heaven he. went he.paid.it.all.for.us

592 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

TCATT TGZ StfO,

2. A-se-no i-u-ne-tse-i / I-yu-no du-le-nv, /

3. asehno ijuhnetseji ijuhno tulehn5

4. a:se:hno i?u:hne:tse:?i ijuihno tu:le:hno

5- but he. spoke. again when he. arose

/ Wpa 0(PA OAC.

2. Ta-li-ne dv-tsi-lu-tsi-li, / U-dv-ne u-ne-tsv.

3. t"aline tQtsilutsiii utahne unets5

h
4. t a?li:ne t5:tsiluhtsi:4i u:t5:hne u:hne:ts5

5. second I.am.going.to.return he.said.it when. he. spoke

'God's son paid for us [paid for our sins],

Then he went to heaven, he paid it all for us.

But he spoke again when he arose,

"I am going to come back a second time," he said when he spoke.'
— From Worcester and Boudinot n.d.: $7.

Bibliography

Chafe, Wallace L., and Jack Frederick Kilpatrick. 1963. "Inconsistencies in Cherokee spelling." In

Symposium on Language and Culture: Proceedings of the 1962 Annual Spring Meeting of the
American Ethnological Society, ed. Viola E. Garfield, pp. 60-63. Seattle: University of Wash-
ington.
Feeling, Durbin. 1975. Cherokee-English Dictionary, ed. William Pulte. Tahlequah: Cherokee Na-
tion of Oklahoma.
Foreman, Grant. 1938. Sequoyah (The Civilization of the American Indian 16). Norman: University
of Oklahoma Press.
Scancarelli, Janine. 1992. "Aspiration and Cherokee Orthographies." InThe Linguistics of Literacy,
ed. Pamela Downing, Susan D. Lima, and Michael Noonan (Typological Studies in Language

21), pp. 135-52. Amsterdam: Benjamins.

Walker, Willard. 1981. "Native American Writing Systems." In Language in the U.S.A., ed. Charles
A. Ferguson and Shirley Brice Heath, pp. 145-74. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Walker, Willard, and James Sarbaugh. 1993. "The Early History of the Cherokee Syllabary." Eth-
nohistory 40: 70-94.
I
Worcester, Samuel A., and Elias Boudinot.l n.d. Cherokee Hymn Book. Philadelphia: American
Baptist Publication Society.

^k
SECTION 54

Scripts of West Africa

John Victor Singler

Surveys of indigenous writing systems among the Niger-Congo languages of West

Africa have identified as many as sixteen scripts. The best known of these, the Vai sys-
tem, was invented in the 1830s, with the others all created in the twentieth century.
The principal scholarlywork on writing systems in the region is that of Dalby 1967.
1 968, 1 969,The recency of several of the systems described by Dalby indicates
1 970.
that the creation of writing systems is a continuing occurrence in modern West Africa.

Dalby divides the systems geographically: Liberia-Sierra Leone (Vai, Kpelle,

Mende, Loma, Bassa, Gola); Cameroun-Nigeria (Bamum, Bagam, Ibibio-Efik, Yo-
ruba); Guinea-Senegal-Mali (Manding [Mandekan], Wolof, two Fula); and Cote
dTvoire (Bete, Guro). Of the fifteen systems for which information was available to
Dalby, eight were alphabets, and seven syllabaries. Three of the alphabets and one of
the syllabaries were written from right to left, while the remainder were all written
from left to right. The two with the largest current use and the greatest body of written
literature are Vai and N'ko, the Manding alphabet, and they are described here.

The N'ko alphabet

According to Dalby (1969: 162), the N'ko alphabet for Mandekan was created by
Soulemayne Kante in Kankan, Guinea, in the years following World War II. Mande-

kan (what Dalby calls Manding) encompasses Bambara, Maninka, Mandinka, Dyula.
Malinke, Kuranko, Mandingo, and various other dialects spoken widely across the
West African Sahel and the regions south of the Sahel. N'ko (literally T say' in all the

dialects) reads from right to left. There are eighteen consonants and seven vowels. A
diacritic placed below a vowel indicates nasalization, and diacritics placed above a
vowel or syllabic nasal signals length, tone, and "differences of tonal behaviour re-

sulting from different grammatical contexts" (Dalby 1969: 165). This last, according
to Dalby, primarily points to the difference in Mandekan tone patterning between
nouns and verbs.

Vai script
The Vai script was developed in approximately 1833 by Momolu Duwalu Bukele.
who told the German linguist S. K. Koelle that the inspiration for the Vai script had

593
594 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

come to him in a dream (Dalby 1967). Bukele and five friends then devised the char-
acters for the script. Evidently Bukele was aware of the existence of the Arabic and
Roman writing systems, and possibly Cherokee as well (Dalby 1968, Holsoe 1971).
The script was standardized in 1899 and again in 1962, this last at a conference at the

University of Liberia. The conference is said to have been dominated by Western-

trained Vai scholars rather than by the people who actually use the script on a daily
basis (and who The script's primary use is for correspon-
are not literate in English).
dence and record-keeping. Since knowledge of the script is acquired informally rather
than formally, there has been no mechanism for the imposition of the standardized
version. Items are occasionally published that use the script — e.g. a1989 translation
of the Gospel of Mark in Vai with the Roman alphabet on the left and the script on the
right —but the basis for the enduring popularity of Vai has been its personal uses rath-
er than more public ones.

Orthographic principles

The Vai writing system is a left-to-right system. While it has always been described
as syllable-based, the basic unit of the system is more accurately the mora. The
weight of the syllable determines the number of characters that will be used to repre-
sent it. The only closed syllables are those ending with a velar nasal. If a syllable ends
with a velar nasal consonant, the nasal is written with a separate character *%, e.g.

Ih~4/*7j? ke-fi [kerj] 'house'. The velar nasal can itself be syllabic, e.g. *% [rj] 'first

person singular'. (The velar nasal is subject to assimilation processes and is not al-

ways pronounced as a velar; but however it is pronounced, it is always written as %.)

Apart from these cases involving a nasal consonant, every syllable ends with a vowel.
When an open syllable contains only a short vowel, the syllable is written with a sin-
gle character, e.g. <*~- ji 'water'. When it contains a long vowel or a diphthong, it is

written with two characters.

There is variation as to the spelling of syllables containing a long vowel or a diph-
thong. For example, [taa] 'go' is ordinarily written rf *^p ta-ha and not *y* >f:
ta-a.

Similarly, [lakoaj 'about' is most often written tf* $? *%. la-ko-wa. Apart from loan-
words, the only Vai words which begin with a vowel are pronouns, interjections, and
conjunctions. Of these, only the pronouns are truly common in speech or writing, and
they begin with either iora: [i] 'you (singular)', [a] 'he, she', and [ami] 'they'. The
character for a is
ft
Ordinarily it is reserved for those instances when it starts a word;
.

when it occurs as the second half of a long vowel or diphthong, *~ ha or ""Z. wa is

used instead. By contrast, £ i appears both word-initially and otherwise. In the
script chart devised at the 1962 conference, a distinction made between the charac-
is

ters for mV syllables and for V syllables. However, except for wa versus a, this is
largely an artificial distinction and is not strictly observed. Thus, while it is certainly

possible to write [kuu] 'compound, home' as O *tf ku-u, instead it is usually written

Q c+J ku-wu.
 SECTION 54: SCRIPTS OF WEST AFRICA 595

table 54.1: The Vai Syllabary, 1962 Version

a
Translit. Value e 1 a u o(g) efej

P [Pi v t •V ^ # V -77°
(
b [b] "3?cA, 9~e 5^ A*T °H~*7ho *
b [6] k & G> £ *> <f /<r

mb [mb] k 9» £T ~ ^ * /r
kp [kp] T © A °r 1 0—0
mgb [mgb] ¥ •A •0- Z 0H-0

gb [gb] r & B 4 sr A ^
f m 1 C 3 o-So f c
V [v] 1 t #> r o&ofti * ff
t [t] "£ *% •r ^ h- 2f E *
d [d] 7~ IT* +1 xr & £ fc£

1 [1] 7< • ;/= » h* S

/ /

d [cf] 11 »- £1/ H-> T / i

nd [nd] ~3n ~h £27^ ^ *~P -3? '»*

s [si HI H <2P 3L V £ iaJ-_x

z [z] 1 > of S£ * W £ >> > *."/y

^u^ £ ^ >
^£ -•/•
c [c] ^> h->

j If]
\JU^t
* ./. /./.
H~> JP » 5^'

nj [nj] £ M, 3? /•/• •;•

H*> M $ ^v/^v

y H- ~f- ^ /••
m* 8 fr
k [k] H**H G w if O e T
ng fog]
>nrl
6 28 tt $ /-ffy •r
g [g] -H- "fr c xc =*!
1 .6. ¥ 2?
h [h] -£. ** TT * T 5 iff
w [w] £ & "X * 1 r e no
0T0 * 4 * 1 * b H-

%> Syllabic nasal

Nasal syllables

hj [h]
I «& w
m [m] CC H y jr llll

n [n] -% X m % 3C

ny [nj] <h u 2* %
ii [n] t-SL,
26 K
l The transliterations are not official or standard, and reflect typographic convenience.
596 PART ,X: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

A series of phonetic changes in progress in Vai is affecting the fit of the written
language to the spoken language. In the case of [rj] between like vowels, the conso-
nant is disappearing, while the surrounding vowels are becoming nasalized, e.g.
/karja/ 'box', now ordinarily pronounced [kaa]. Even though in most cases this

change is largely complete, the affected words continue to be written as if the nasal
consonant were still present, e.g. */ -^ ka-ria 'box'. A less advanced but far more
pervasive change is the variable deletion of [1], both word-medially and as the first

segment of grammatical elements such as postpositions. (The greater importance of

the change involving [1] is a consequence of the segment's widespread presence
word-internally in Vai.) In writing, the use of characters containing [1] is more con-
servative and arguably more formal than the use of [l]-less ones. There is also geo-
graphic variation in this, reflecting the degree of completion of the phonetic change
in different areas. Thus /kalo/ 'moon', most often pronounced [kao], is spelled both
V ^ ka-lo and V J/ ka-wo (and also £ ^ ka-o).
The discussion thus far has implied that vowel length is always indicated; but in

fact it is sometimes omitted, particularly in grammatical elements. This omission in-

cludes instances where the long vowel has been created by the disappearance of [1].

This can be seen, for example, in the sample of Vai script below; the assignment of
phonological length there follows Welmers 1976.
Vai has lexical tone, with two level tones and two contours (transcribed - high, -
N
low, - falling, - rising). The writing system does not indicate tone. However, as Wel-
mers notes, "Pairs or larger groups of stems that differ from each other only in tone are

not particularly common, especially within a single grammatical category" ( 1 976: 31).
As suggested above, Vai has a strict (C)V(N) syllable pattern. The final nasal is
expressed by a separate character, and vowel length also involves distinct characters.
Because of the restriction of possible syllable shape and the conventions regarding the
final nasal and vowel length, the number of possible "syllables" to be represented by
the Vai script is comparatively small, slightly more than 200.
There is no division between words. Many writers signal the end of a sentence by
writing "2^ he. Script users familiar with other writing systems, i.e. Roman or Ara-
bic,tend to replace "fy with ¥r. As noted by Scribner and Cole (1981: 142-50), the
lack of division between words makes reading the script difficult. Vai literates report
that the script is easier to write than to read. Still, various script conventions and dis-
tributional patterns among Vai's consonants make the task less arduous than it might
be otherwise (Singler 1983: 897).

The characters

The table of characters given in table 54. 1 emerged from the 1962 conference
at the University of Liberia. Most literates find the need for only forty to sixty char-

acters. In many ways, the participants at the 1962 conference "filled in the blanks,"
creating symbols where none had existed before. Thus the conference largely intro-
 SECTION 54: SCRIPTS OF WEST AFRICA 597

duced into the writing system distinctions between pairs of syllables beginning with
5 and r,/and v, vrV and V, and the palatal consonants c,j, nj, and v. Very often, a con-
trast already existed between pairs of consonants with some vowels; now it was ex-
tended to all seven oral vowels. Thus most of the seeming systematicity in the shape
of characters is artificial, imposed in 1962 and never in fact widely accepted by script
users. (According to Welmers 1976: 1 1, the system did not originally distinguish be-
tween [b] and [mb], [d] and [nd], or [k] and [rjg]; these distinctions were only intro-
duced into the writing system around 1900.) A further point about the relationship of
the chart to ordinary use is that the usual form of some characters represents an inver-
sion, reversal, or turning of the version in the chart (as Gail Stewart notes in an un-
published paper). For example, the chart lists j£ fe, but most Vai literates write it °^i

Sample of Vai

1. Transliteration: mbe-i 3 de di-fi-ye lo na ki-ba-lomu ke a me

2. Transcription: mbel de dlfi-e lo na klbalo mu ke a me
3. Gloss: May 3 day night-the in I dream rel do it this

7. na ku-lu-h mu-su wa fe-le a na n ba-la

2. na kulurj musu wa fele a na-a rj bala

3- I Kru woman emph see she come-coMP me to

1. h wo-ha mbe a ti na kpe-la-de-ii ko ke-wu-ye lo

2. rj wolo-a mbe a ti na kpiladerj ko keu-e 15

3- I want-coMP I her be my lover be dream-the in

'The night before May third, this is the dream I had: I saw a Kru woman. She
came to me. In the dream I wanted to her to be my lover.'
— From a journal originally in the collection of Oldman Gbondo Senwan in the
village ofLaa, Tombe Chiefdom, Grand Cape Mount County, Liberia. The jour-

nal dates from the beginning of the twentieth century. In it the author recorded

business transactions, major events, and dreams. Sample, translation, and anal-
ysis provided by Mohamed B. NyeL

Note: In four instances the form of the characters used in this passage has changed over time. T
<A m
di is now
written ••; a£ ke is written ^; J me is written //// ; and c^i wu
written *f> In addition the author of the is .

passage does not distinguish syllables beginning with implosives from those beginning with prenasali/ed stops.
The assignment of tone and vowel length follows Welmers 1976.
598 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

Bibliography

Dalby, David. 1967. "A Survey of the Indigenous Scripts of Liberia and Sierra Leone: Vai, Mende,
Loma, Kpelle and B as sa. " African Language Studies 8: 1-51.
1968. "The Indigenous Scripts of West Africa and Surinam: Their Inspiration and Design."
.

African Language Studies 9: 156-97.

1969. "Further Indigenous Scripts of West Africa: Manding, Wolof and Fula Alphabets and
.

Yoruba 'Holy' Writing." African Language Studies 10: 161-81.

— 1970. "The Historical Problem of the Indigenous Scripts of West Africa and Surinam." In
.

Language and History in Africa, ed. David Dalby, pp. 109-19. New York: Africana.
Holsoe, Svend E. 1971. "A Case of Stimulus Diffusion? (A Note on Possible Connections between
the Vai and Cherokee Scripts)." The Indian Historian 4/y. 56-57.

Madki.Kamba la kue sundd beebee mu Madki la a nyei Masiho Isa Id koa [The good news
Mark wrote about Jesus the Messiah]. 1989. Monrovia: The Institute for Liberian Languages.
Nyei, Mohamed B. 198 "A Three Script Literacy among the Vai: Arabic, English and Vai." Liberi-
1 .

an Studies Journal 9: 13-22.

Scribner, Sylvia, and Michael Cole. 198 1. The Psychology of Literacy. Cambridge: Harvard Univer-
sity Press.

Singler, John Victor. 1983. Review article on Scribner and Cole 1981. Language 59: 893-901.
Welmers, William E. 1976. A Grammar of Vai. Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California
Press.
SECTION 55

The Cree Syllabary

John D. Nichols

The Cree syllabary, or syllables, is a shorthand-based script written left to right, em-
ploying geometric characters, some representing syllables and some representing sin-
gle segments. Created in 1840 for two Algonquian languages of Canada, Cree and
Ojibwe, it was adapted in Canada for Athabaskan and Inuit (Eskimo) languages, and,
in China, influenced the Pollard script (section 52; Enwall 1994). Until recently it

chiefly appeared in printed translations of Christian sacred texts and liturgies, and in

handwritten letters and personal records. Syllabic typewriters and, beginning in the

1980s, personal computers have allowed control of the printing technology to shift
from missionaries to native speakers; many schoolbooks, periodicals, and official

documents now appear in the indigenous languages written in syllables. Syllables are
particulary valued for the ease and speed with which minimal literacy can be
achieved, and for their distinctiveness from the scripts of the dominant colonial lan-
guages. Syllabic text looks indisputably Indian or Inuit. In the 1990s, syllabic scripts
were being documented for inclusion in international standard character coding for
computers.

Algonquian syllabaries
The Cree syllabary was devised by James Evans (1 801 -1846), a Wesleyan mission-
ary, at Norway House in then Rupert's Land, now Manitoba. Evans had developed a
Roman orthography for Ojibwe in Ontario, based on a sophisticated analysis of its

sound system, and had presented it in a primer-style syllabary chart. Struck by reports
in the mission press of the success of the Cherokee syllabary, and familiar with non-
Roman shorthand and Devanagari scripts, Evans experimented with alphabetic and
syllabic non-Roman characters for writing Ojibwe.
Arriving at anew mission station at Norway House in 1840, he revised his sylla-
bary for Cree, the local language closely related to the Ojibwe he knew, drawing on
British shorthand for most of the characters. In 1841 he printed a hymnbook entirely

in syllables using handmade type, later replaced by type from England made to his
specifications. The syllabary was rapidly indigenized, being spread by its first Native

Acknowledgment: The author would like to thank Doug Hitch for help with Inuktitut and Athabaskan.

599
600 PART 1X: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

table 55. 1 : Algonquian Syllables"

W E w £ W E W E W E W E W E W E
C O IPA c IPA C O IPA C O IPA C O IPA C IPA C O IPA C O IPA

V A A > < <

e e
M i i
ra
1 H
|i:|
00 [0]
00
[0:]
a a
[a]
a aa
[a:]
h"h/
[h ' ?1

V A A > > < <

lpe:| [pi] [pi:] [po] [po:] [pa] [pa:]
pe pc '
pi pi pi pii po po Lr
po poo r pa pa
LF
pa paa r P p
1p1

U n h
te te
M ti ti
[ti]
ti tii
[ti:]
to^o '
t0 '

t6too
[t0:]
ta^a M tataa
[ta:]
\
»w
P P b

ttbW ki ki
[ki]
ki kii
[ki:]
koto™ kokoo
[ko:]
kaka [M ka kaa
[ka:]
k k"W
n r "" J j L 1
[tfei, Itfi, [tfi:, [tfo, [tfo:, [tfa, [tfa:,

ce ce tse:| ci ci tsi] ci cii tsi:] CO co tso] co coo tso:] ca ca tsa] ca caa tsa:] c c ts]

1 r r J J L L C L

me me
[me:]
mi mi
[mi]
mi mii
[mi:]
mo mo
[mo]
mo moo
[mo:]
mama
[ma]
mamaa
[ma:]
mm [m]
cr
„"° « ~° °"
[ne:] [ni] [ni:] [no] [no:] [na] . [na:] [n]
ne ne ni ni m nii no no no noo na na na naa n n

so so
M si si
[si]
st sii
[si:]
so so
[so]
>

so soo
[so:]
sa sa
[sa]
sa saa
[sa:]
s
.W

[Ji] [Ji:] lfol [ja] "I

sele^! si shi si shi so"ho so shoo sa"ha sa shaa I sh

7* °A
[jo] [jo:]
ya yaa u
ljc:| Ui] [ji:]
yo yo u yo yoo u ya ya u
Lja] Lja:] ul
ye ye yi yi yi yii y v

•V •A •A •> •< •<

wc we
[we:]
wi wi
[wi]
wi wii
[wi:]
wo wo
[wo]
wo woo
[wo:]
wa wa
[wa]
wawaa
[wa:]
WW [w]
A- A. ? ?
[re:] [rij [ri:] [ro] [0:] [ra] [ra:]
re re ri ri ri rii ro ro ro roo Fa ra ra raa

M
c

lTle I
|C: '
li li
[li]
IT lii
[li:]
lo^lo lolol lo:| la^la
" ;" ,-
la
\laa [la:]
;
\m
A A > > < <
ve: -
[vi, [vi:, [vo:, [va:,
l
ve,i vi, vii, vo,|.™- voo, vaa ,
v. [v. n
fi] fi:] fo1 to:1 ta| r a:
e
fi fii fo foo fa faa f

u n n C C
.he'*
1
'
thi
[5i]
thii
|oi:|
L™ tht)^ u
thaa'
[3a0
'
1™
a. W, Western syllables; E, Eastern syllables. C, Cree orthography; O, Northern Ojibwe orthography. IPA, pronun-
eiation.
 SECTION 55: THE CREE SYLLABARY 601

KEY TO THE CREE SYLLABIC SYSTEM.

VOWELa
Minh«U. ui In pin, Mlnno, Mia pun, m In pan, Flnnl
Ooo-
i 6 a a

T7 A < <3

W w4 V- we A* wo wo <• wa <3-

P pi V pe A po > pa < pa < i

T U U te n to ) to C ta C
/

KU <1 ke P ko d ka b ka o \

-
Ch chi 1 che r oho J cna I oha I

M mi 1 me r mo J ma L ma L <

N" na -o ne o* no .o na a. na o. I

<s
S si S se / so / sa k sa k

Y ya *, ye * yo r* ya S ya S

Final w . . . •

tt i •

Aspirated final k

Extra signs — X = : Chnst, J = r, i = I, = *

11
=h before a x owel.
• = s soft guttu ral h when before s consoi iant

figure 59. Western Algonquian syllabary (Book of Common Prayer n.d).

users prior to its introduction by other missionaries, who were often reluctant to adopt
it. It has been given an indigenous origin in Cree legend (Dusenberry 1962: 267-69),
although some have seen its sources in quill and bead work designs.
The Western Algonquian syllabary, in which the Cree dialects west of James Bay
are usually written, is the direct descendent of Evans's syllabary. In 1865, changes in-
troduced to this around James Bay (in the 1850s) were standardized, and additional
characters were added, to create the Eastern Algonquian syllabary, used to write Cree
and Naskapi east of James Bay, as well as Ojibwc. The most used characters of both
sets are given in table 55.1 and as syllabary charts in figure 59 (Western).
figure 60 (a Roman Catholic variant of Western), and figure 61 (Eastern).
602 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

T? • A 4 D> ° <3 * • o "

—J
me p ml _J mo k«* C B
U te n ti ^ to Cta / t

S ke P «. d ko fe ka s k

**0 ne <j- nri c> no a_ na * n

"U 1* fLli b lo d 1» s 1

^ re ^ rl 4> ro *b » x r

^ se ^ si >J ao
S » a 8

-n y» ^y* ^ yo 1> y« + y
n tee P tci Jtco ^tca - tc

V P« A Pi > po < I« * p

V« w° A "i J^S w <J.

wa © w
ww . wlw . wow waw
7.. A- P>..o

figure 6o. Western Algonquian syllabary, Roman Catholic variant (Anamie Nagamonan 1965).

In every community in which syllables are written, there are local and personal
styles in character inventory, shape, and writing conventions. There is no standard-
ized spelling for any dialect of Cree or Ojibwe; however, fitting the shorthand origins
of the system, writers may use plain syllabics, indicating only the bare outline of syl-
lable structure, or pointed syllabics, adding diacritics all the way up to phonemic tran-

scription, the full realization of which is rare. Many writers put spaces or dots
between words or prefixes; others write all the characters equally far apart with no
word division. The period is the only distinctive common punctuation mark, the oth-
ers being as in English.

Characteristic features

Vowels that begin syllables are written with a triangle syllabic, rotated through four

positions to show the vowel quality. Front vowels have a vertical axis and are related
by inversion thus: V e, A /'; back vowels have a horizontal axis and are related by re-
 SECTION 55: THE CREE SYLLABARY 6Q3

ALPHABET,
OB BATHER SYLLABABITJM.

a e, i e o oo n «
•
A V A A > \> <3 4
P V A A > > < < <

ft u n A > i c * t

k s p £ d J b t b
•

ch 1 r i* j j i I b

m n r r j J l L L

n "DO" 6- -0 A Q. A cu

8 \ i* t* #» #* S K s

ah 1 J* J* C* C* <T> ^ s

7 -S r* r* V V V S>

r -u n_ rv. ? P S < «

• • .
1

T V A A > £ < <

W •V »A *A *C» *> •< •<d

X The character for Christ.

r" dL P a. ) C L n*
nte na ke nn to tu ma tin

figure 6i. Eastern Algonquian syllabary (Horden 1925).

flection thus: > o, < a. The vowels form the first row of the chart in that order, fol-
lowing the alphabetical order of Evans's Ojibwe Roman orthography, which used the
letters a e o u for the same sounds.
Consonant-initial syllables (except those beginning with [w]) are written with
syllables in which the shape shows the consonant, and the orientation shows the vow-
el. There are two orientation patterns. First, symmetrical shapes for [p] and [t] share
the vowel orientations of the vowel triangle, e.g. V pe, A pi, > po, < pa, as does the
604 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

nonsymmetrical shape for [J]: T se, S si, rv so, ^> sa. Second, the nonsymmetrical
shapes for [k], [tf], [m], [n], [s], and [j] — consisting of a vertical line (in the case of
[n], a circle) with a differentiating angle, curve, line, or circle at one quadrant —have
the front vowels related to the back vowels by inversion, with the vowels within each
set distinguished by reflection, e.g. N se, t si, s so, \ sa. As Cree dialects from Man-
itoba west do not have [J], its row is usually left out of Western syllabaries, although
it appears in the original syllabary intended for Ojibwe. The order of the consonant
rows in the syllabary charts derives from that in Evans's Ojibwe Roman orthography
chart.

The consonants [1] and [r], needed in certain Cree dialects and in foreign words
and names, are written in the original Western syllabary with an alphabetic character,
reflected to distinguish the two as i I and * r. The Eastern syllabary has full syllabics
for [1], namely -> le, c- //*, _> lo, <_ la in the second orientation pattern; and for [r],

namely -v re, n_ ri, ? ro, S ra, with a unique orientation pattern. These sets are ordered
at or near the end of the chart. The Western Roman Catholic syllabary in figure 6o
has different syllabics for [r] and [1], and a different order of the rows.
Prevocalic [wj is written with a dot at mid line (some local styles use two dots,

one above the other). The symbol follows the syllabic in Western, but precedes it in

Eastern, and in Western as written on James Bay. The [w] syllabics thus are Western
V- we, A- M7, >• wo, <• wa, and Eastern -V -A •> •<. The [w] row may be added to
the chart after the vowel row or following the [j] row; or the [w] dot may be treated
on the side as a diacritic, or left off the chart entirely. A CwV syllable is written in the
same way, with the [w] dot written outside the syllabic although it sounds inside the
syllable, e.g. Western V- pwe, Eastern -V.

Consonants closing a syllable are written with small alphabetic characters, called
finals, originally at mid line, but now usually superscripted; local usage in writing po-
sition and relative size varies. The finals are given as a fifth column of the chart fol-
lowing the four vowel columns.
The shape of the Western finals indicates the manner of articulation of the conso-
nant, with the orientation (and in one instance, size) providing further differentiation.

A straight line represents oral stops, thus '

-p, ' -t,
N
-k, ~ -c. A vertical semicircle rep-

resents nasals, with c

-m and 3
-n distinguished by reflection. A horizontal semicircle
represents sibilants, with n
-s and u
-s distinguished by inversion. A circle represents

semivowels, large and at midline as o -w; and small and above, or as a superscript to
+
a syllabic, as ° -y, now usually written with the final -v in Western Canada.
All but the [wl and [j] finals are replaced in the Eastern syllabary with small a-
°" im-
orientation syllabics, e.g. -n, sometimes handwritten as superscripted or full-size
°"
position syllabics, e.g. -n or o- /?/'. As in the Western syllabary, a large midline circle

o stands for final [w] and a small superposed or superscripted circle ° for final []], al-

though many writers use either size of circle for both [w] and [j], or replace the [j]

circle with an ^-position [j j syllabic * or an /-position [j] syllabic . Added for word-
d
final Cw clusters in a Quebec Cree dialect are small exposition syllabics, e.g. -kw.
 SECTION 55: THE CREE SYLLABARY 605

The initial member of a consonant cluster can be written with a final, e.g. Cree
rTr N
mistik 'tree', <H~" amisk 'beaver'. In Ojibwe, writing the initial nasal of a con-
sonant cluster is optional.

[h] or [?] before vowels, or the preaspiration of consonants, may be written with
the final " -/?, e.g. Cree L"A"b 3
mahihkan 'wolf, <TP" N askihk 'kettle, pail'. This
character is often treated as the final for the vowel row in syllabary charts but is some-
times omitted from them; writing [h] is an optional feature, used mainly in pointed
syllables. In some styles the most common word-final clusters may be written with \
[hk] in Cree and [nk] in Ojibwe.
Vowel length may be marked with a dot over a syllabic, except that [ei] does not
contrast with a short vowel and is never so marked. In the earliest syllabic printing,
long vowels were shown by slashed or bold syllables; the superposed dot was intend-
ed as the vowel length diacritic only in handwriting. The marking of vowel length is

now optional, a feature of pointed syllables. Some charts add an [a:] column
(figure 59), some add three long vowel columns (figure 6i), and some treat it on
the side as a diacritic or omit it.
Modified/? and t syllables are available in Eastern for [f] and [3] in foreign words.
Barred y syllables have recently been proposed for Cree dialects with [6], only one of
several recent local innovations in character inventory and shape.

Sample of Northern Ojibwe in the Eastern Syllabary

Plain: Vo-C-b v/,

-9APAA9 b

Transliteration: a-pi-ci we-tan e-ni-ta-wkash-wke-pi-ci-pi-i-kek

Pointed: vo- ii
6b^qArA A ii
<
i
ab

Transliteration: ah-pi-ci wen-tan e-nih-ta-wkash-wke-pi-ci-plh-i-kenk

Orthography I: aahpici wentan e-nihtaa-kwaashkwepicipii'ikenk
Orthography 2: Aapiji wendan e-nitaa-gwaashkwebijibii'igeng
Transcription: a:hpi(%i we:ndan e:nihta:gwa:Jkwe:bio^ibi:?ige:ng
Gloss: very.much is. easy knowing. how.to. write. syllables

/. <Co-C<o-Xa-VJ b
,
vc ~I-A^ o-LL
2. pa-ta-ni-ta-a-ni-shi-na-pe-mok, e-ta me-wi-sha ni -ma-ma

V"C ""l-AVi o-LL

4. pah-ta-nih-ta-a-nih-shi-na-pe-monk, eh-ta. me-win-sha ni-ma-ma
5. paahtaa-nihtaa-anihshinaapemonk, ehta. mewinsha nimaamaa
6. baataa-nitaa-anishinaabemong, eta. Mewinzha nimaamaa
7. ba:hta:nihta:?anihJina:be:mong e:hta me:win3a nimaima:
8. being. able. to. speak.Ojibwe only long. ago my. mother
606 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

/. o-p<rCI>XA<Lnr <L
-<K
2. ni-ki-ni-ta-o-shi-pi-a-ma-ti-min wa-sa
j. o-Po- ii
c>XA <Lnr ,i
Q
- •<'">

4. ni-kl-nih-ta-o-shi-plh-a-ma-ti-min wah-sa
5. nkii-nihtaa-oshipii'amaatimin waahsa
6. ngii-nitaa-ozhibii'amaadimin waasa
7. i]gi:nihta:?03ibi:?ama:dimin waihsa
8. we. used. to. write. to. each. other far

/. PCSPPj><Ldh><** <r VC A-V OXAAb"

2. ki-ta-shi-ki-ki-no-a-ma-ko-ya-pan. a-mi e-ta i-we o-shi-pi-i-kan
3. PCXP ll
P-o"<]LdV L <\ <ir V"C A-V >XA"Ab"
4. kl-ta-shi-kih-ki-noh-a-ma-ko-yam-pan. a-mT eh-ta i-we o-shi-plh-i-kan
5. kii-tashi-kihkino'amaakooyaampaan. amii ehta iwe oshipii'ikan
6. gii-dazhi-gikino'amaagooyaambaan. Amii eta iwe ozhibii'igan
7. gi:da3igihkino?ama:go:ja:mba:n ami: eihta iwe: 03ibi:?igan
8. I.used.to.be.taught.there and. so only that letter/writing

/. b>rP9CL Q
-
<<r a VvT-V< b
bAXC7%
2. ka-o-ci-ki-ke-ta-man a-ni-n e-shi-we-pak ka-i-shi-ta-yan.

3. b>TP"q a CL a <cr" VX-V< b

4. ka-on-ci-kih-ken-ta-man a-nln e-shi-we-pak ka-i-shi-ta-yan.

5. kaa-onci-kihkentamaan aaniin eshiwepak kaa-ishitaayaan.

6. gaa-onji-gikendamaan aaniin ezhiwebag gaa-izhidaayaan.
7. gaiond^igihkeindamam a:ni:n e^iweibag ga:?i3ida:ja:n
8. by.which. means. I. knew how things. were. happening where. I. lived

a
o- <rs± o-p-vk
nin pa-ci-shi-ya ni-ki-we-si
6- a <rXV o-'P-VV
nin pa-ci-shi-ya nin-ki-wen-si
niin Pacishiya Ninkiwensi
Niin Bajishiya Ningiwenzi
ni:n baa^ijija ningiwemzi
I Patricia Ningewance

'It's easy to write in syllabics, only once you are fluent in Ojibwe. Long ago my
mother and I used to write to each other when I went to school far away (from
home) Letters were the only way I knew what was happening back home. I'm
Patricia Ningewance.'
— Original text by Patricia Ningewance of Lac Seul, Ontario and Winnipeg,
Manitoba, lecturer in Ojibwe at the University of Manitoba.

Note: "Orthography 1" is Northern Ojibwe; "Orthography 2" is Southern Ojibwe (the writer's preference).
 SECTION 55: THE CREE SYLLABARY 6Q7

table 55.2: Inuit Cultural Institute Inuktitut Syllabic and Roman Orthographies
A A > l> < <1 H

i [i] ii [i:] u [u] uu [u:] a [a] aa [a:] h [h]

A A > ->
< <: <

Pi [pi] pii [pi:] pu [pu] puu [pu:] pa [pa] paa [pa:] P [P]

n h D D C C c

ti [ti] tii [ti:] tu [tu] tuu [tu:] ta [ta] taa [ta:] t [t]

P P d d b b b

ki [ki] kii [ki:] ku [ku] kuu [ku:] ka [ka] kaa [ka:] k [k]

r P J 1
d U b
gi [Yi] gii [Yi:] gu [yu] guu [yu:] ga [ya] gaa [ya:] g [y]

r r J j L L L

mi [mi] mii [mi:] mu [mu] muu [mu:] ma [ma] maa [ma:] m [m]
Q.
<r 0- -D _D Q. Q_

ni [ni] nii [ni:] nu [nu] nuu [nu:] na [na] naa [na:] n [n]

r* ? S > K K ^

si [si] sii [si:] su [su] suu [su:] sa [sa] saa [sa:] s [s]

c_
C" C" _3 _J c_ c_

li [H] Hi [li:] lu flu] luu [lu:] la [la] laa [la:] 1 [1]

r^ ^ V V V V V

ji [ji] jii [ji:] ju Uu] juu Uu:] ja [ja] jaa [ja:] j III

^ ^ ^ £ « <S «

vi [vi] vii [vi:] vu [vu] vuu [vu:] va [va] vaa [va:] V [v]

s
A- rL p ? <i S

ri [Ki] rii [Ki:] ru [ku] ruu [ku:] ra [Ka] raa [Ka:] r M

V ? s
d <d s
d s
b sb

qi [qi] qii [qi:] qu [qu] quu [qu:] qa [qa] qaa [qa:] q [q]

T T \J \J <H, *C %

ngi M ngii [qi:] ngu [nu] nguu [qu:] nga [na] ngaa [na:] ng [i]J

c* c* P ^ c, 4 <-.

M, [«] Mi, [4i:] hi, [4u] 4-uu, [lu:] *a, [4a:] ±aa, [la:] h & [4]

&i &ii &u &UU &a &aa

Scripts for Inuit (Eskimo) languages

Anglican missionaries introduced syllables to the Inuit in Canada's Eastern Arctic as

early as 1856; the current form, used for most dialects of Eastern Canadian Inuktitut
and for the Natsilingmiut dialect of Western Canadian Inuktun, derives from the 1 865
reforms that also standardized the similar Eastern Algonquian syllabary (Harper
1985: 143-45, 1992: 1-2). Characters were added for some Inuktitut sounds that are
not in Cree (figure 62), but the system remained underdifferentiating until reformed
 .

508 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

nn c\>s
Ti tirausiit
c
a> OYD fc

nutaunngittut.
c c
.
nn ci>^
Titirausiq nutaaq
k

j>c
>

Old syllabic s ystem. New writing system.

e

ai/e i o/u a Ai >u «a H

a e o u *
<
Api ^pu ^ pa
V A ><: Oti Dtu Cta C
P V A ><< P ki <J ku b ka
b

t u n DC C r 9 i J gu L ga
L
k
k <\ p d b L
L
1 mi Jmu Lma
g t r J t Q_
CT* ni -Anu Q-na
m nr J l_
L
s
-o a- _0O_"
Ai r su *sa
n
c
—>lu
S^ r"^ s <— ii CI a
s

1
->«- C_ N ^iu ^ia i>-

y ^r- -<* Avi ^^ vu < Va

<
^
V V A ><< fUri Pru ^ra
^b
^p qi Oqu bqa
r ~v n_
i L

1 ngi Jngu ^ngc l

C**i ^tu W*a

c
t
Q_ o- naan it finals .- c
Q-O- NAANIIT Finals

FIGURE 62. Pre-1976 lnuktitut syllabary; Inuit Cultural Institute syllabary, from Harper 1983B: 59.

in 1976 by the Inuit Cultural Institute (along with a parallel Roman orthography). In
this standard orthography, presented in table 55.2 and figure 62, new compound
characters allow full phonemic specification. Other reforms in writing conventions
made the first column of characters for [ai] redundant.
Syllabics remain the normal script for the Inuit of the Eastern Arctic; however,
some reforms have not been accepted locally, and revisions are still under way to ac-
commodate additional dialects. Nonphonemic Roman orthographies are used in La-
brador and the Western Arctic.
 SECTION 55: THE CREE SYLLABARY 6Q9

ALPHABET
< a V e A i
> o "
TKA
N %
<] an V' en A' in D> ^>» •
£Ed«
< ba V/ be A bi > bo /
St-*
Cda |J de H^i D^o s
UTld 3
b ka qke p ki d ko
%

TJ<5
%

d la U !e J] li
b ! <>
c c
bV
|_ ma ~| me f~" mi _J mo z
L 7 rJ

Q_ na I] ne QT ni J] no V>0L +
•\j ra *> re ^ ri J- ro n ^CL
S sa S se r^ si r1 so s Q">st j
>- ya < ye ^ yi ^ yo • ><3^Q
gza |9ze Q|zi § zo *
Sr^-T
£ cha QJ che (Tl chi 3 cho h [XJ' 1 '

L, dha H dhe p dhi J dho c <«>Lj<]c

/L, tha /Q the /p thi '»J tho o VG°

C tta (J' «e fX tti D 1
tto '
'VV'UU 3
G ttha U tthe p tthi D ttho *
*<C
G t
c
a P t
c
e Q t
c
i
D t
c
o

figure 63. Chipewyan syllabary, ca. 1870 (Chipewyan Hymn Book 1984).

Roman orthographies have been used by the Inuit of Greenland since the eigh-
teenth century and a significant body of written literature created. The revised stan-
dard orthography of 1973 for Greenlandic is essentially the same as the Inuit Cultural
Institute Roman orthography (table 55.2) except that f is not required. The new
standard carries over some overdifferentiating features from the earlier orthography:
e and o are written for variants of [i] and [u] before the uvulars q and r, and double ff
for the voiceless geminate form of [v]. Two additional characters are available for
sounds occurring in some dialects: N for [n] (appearing only in a restricted morpho-
logical context) and S for [J] (Kleivan 1984: 595, Fortescue 1990: 233-37).
610 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

The New

Methodical, Easy and Complete

DENE SYLLABARY.
With A CE E I U wm A (E E I o u

A CE &c. <J > [>A V Alone Y

[> Q 9 9 9 Q l9^flM
H < > > > A V h Q G4 & \Q \Q 2 S
X < > > > A V " Q Gl 19 19 19 2 6
R < > > > A V ii

W < > ^ > A V L C O Q CJ '

Hw < > > > A V Ti c D D E> Q U

f G D O 3 O O <-

TD(1)CD33 0U Tf a D S3 ^ O
Th a d d d a o Tf G 3 S 3 C2 CS
T G D D D Q d (3)

Z C333nUz*
PBCnaDBDQO M)i^393QCI (4)

(1) S £333ffl^ s

KG, £ 333 m Kr 01 sh S B B B ffl ffi *

X, Kh a B B B 00 CO ch a s s b ff? *
K, 10 a b s b oq ra V Ts g 3 3 3 ffl 03

(2) Ts g B S 8 GQ CD

N c j j> j n u >
-

M ff/atas ' — Accessories: o *

EXPLANATORY NOTES.
(1) These letters are not differentiated in Dene. (2) - is the nasal n. (3) z

is the French;. (4) S is phonetically intermediate between s and s.

The vowels as in Italian, except as as the e in Fr. jc, te. — The r of Kr, Kr
is hardly perceptible. 21, H are v ery guttural. R is the result of uvular vibra-

tions. Kh, Th =k+/i, t+h. Q almost = ty p is a peculiarly sibilant I. The

dot accompanying consonants represents the exploding sound (rendered by { in-

corporated in the signs). ::-'

is prefixed to proper names, and o is suffixed to

syllables the vowel of which it is necessary to render long. The rest as in Engl.

figure 64. Carrier syllabary (Morice 1890, repr. in Pilling 1892).

Syllables for Sub- Arctic Athabaskan languages

Evans had attempted to write Chipewyan using a variant of his original syllabary.
Other missionaries remodeled the Evans syllabary for Chipewyan, Slavey, and other
Athabaskan languages. Although new and altered characters were added for the rich
inventory of consonants in these languages, underdifferentiation of both vowels and
consonants is frequent. A traditional syllabary for Chipewyan is given in figure 63
and a greatly elaborated syllabary created for Carrier in figure 64.
 SECTION 55: THE CREE SYLLABARY 6J \

Bibliography

Anamie Nagamonan [Hymns]. 1965. Kenora, Ont.: n.p.

The Book of Common Prayer ... Translated into the Language of the Cree Indians, n.d. Toronto:
General Board of Religious Education.
Burnaby, Barbara, ed. 1985. Promoting Native Writing Systems in Canada. Toronto: OISE Press.
A Chipewyan Hymn Book for the Keewatin and Mackenzie Districts. 1984. Brochet, Manitoba: n.p.
(repr. of i96oed.).
Dusenberry, Verne. 1962. The Montana Cree: A Study in Religious Persistence (Acta Universitatis
Stockholmiensis 3). Stockholm: Almqvist and Wiksell.
Enwall, Joakim. 1994. A Myth Become Reality: History and Development of the Miao Written Lan-
guage. Stockholm: Stockholm University, Institute of Oriental Languages.
Evans, James (1801-1846). Papers. University of Western Ontario Library, London, Ontario.
Fiero, Charles. 1985. "Style Manual for Syllables." In Burnaby 1985: 49-104.
Fortescue, Michael, ed. 1990. From the Writings of the Greenlanders/Kclaallit atuakkiaannit. N.p.:
University of Alaska Press.
Harper, Kenn. 1983A. "Writing in Inuktitut: An Historical Perspective." Inuktitut 53: 3-35.
. 1983B. "Inuktitut Writing Systems: The Current Situation." Inuktitut 53: 36-84.
.
1985. "The Early Development of Inuktitut Syllabic Orthography." Etude s/Inuit/Studies
9:141-62.
.
1992. Current Status of Writing Systems for Inuktitut, Inuinnaqtun and Inuvialuktun Yel-
lowknife: Northwest Territories Culture and Communications.
Horden, John, comp. 1925. A Collection of Psalms and Hymns in the Language of the Cree Indians
of North-We st America, rev. ed. London: S.P.C.K.
Kleivan, Inge. 1984. "West Greenlandic before 1950." In Handbook of American Indians, vol. 5:
Arctic, ed. David Damas, pp. 595-621. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
Mallon, S. T. 1985. "Six Years later: The ICI Dual Orthography for Inuktitut, 1976- 1982." In Burn-
aby 1985: 137-57-
Morice, Adrien Gabriel. 1890. The New Methodical, Easy and Complete Dene Syllabary. Stuart

Lake, B.C.: Stuart's Lake Mission.

Murdoch, John Stewart. 1981. "Syllables: A Successful Educational Innovation." M.Ed, disserta-
tion, University of Manitoba.
.
1985. "A Syllabary or an Alphabet: A Choice between Phonemic Differentiation or Econ-
omy." In Burnaby 1985: 127-36.
Nichols, John D. 1984. "The Composition Sequence of the First Cree Hymnal." InEssays in Algon-
quian Bibliography in Honour ofV. M. Dechene, ed. H. C. Wolfart, pp. 1-21. Winnipeg: Al-
gonquian and Iroquoian Linguistics.
Pilling, James Constantine. 1892. Bibliography of the Athapascan Languages (Bureau of American
Ethnology Bulletin 14). Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution.
SECTION 56

Scripts for Munda Languages

Norman Zide

Central India of the first half of the twentieth century was a place where many new
scripts were devised by members of "tribal" language communities (i.e. minority
groups outside mainstream Hindu society). Apparently it was felt by the newly con-
scious speakers of these languages that a full-fledged language in the Indian context
needed a script of its own, clearly different from those of its neighbors. More than a
dozen were made for less than half that many languages; for some, e.g. Ho, more than
four scripts were devised. Most of these scripts are no longer used, or even remem-
bered. Several of the tribal communities were, sooner or later, satisfied to use a re-
gional or international script (on factors in script choice in India, see section 65),
and speakers of these languages saw —and were pressured to see — the advantages of
learning, and in some cases replacing their native languages with, the dominant re-

gional languages: Hindi, Bengali, Oriya, Telugu, Marathi. Most of the Christian mis-
sions — in the earlier periods the chief, often the only, advocates and promoters of
literacy in the tribal and regional languages —and the communities influenced by
them in this area used the Roman script until fairly recently, when (except in northeast
India and the Nicobars) it was replaced by a local regional script.
The three scripts discussed here, Sorang Sompeng for Sora, 01 Cemet' for San-
tali, and Varang Kshiti for Ho (all languages of the Munda family, which with Mon-
Khmer makes up Austro- Asiatic), were devised by charismatic community leaders as
parts of a comprehensive cultural program, and each was offered as an improvement
over scripts used by Christian missionary linguists and their "tribal" associates. All
the devisers of these scripts were familiar with one ormore scripts used in their prov-

inces. These three scripts survive, are used in primary and adult education, and are
published in a variety of printed materials. Santali is spoken over a wide area by more
than three million people; it was —and — is written in four "older" scripts: Devana-
gari, Bengali, Oriya, and Roman. Ol Cemet' has been the most successful of the three
scripts, and there have been recent attempts by Santals to induce other "tribal" groups
in the Chota Nagpur area, both Munda and Dravidian, to adopt this improved script.

Sorang Sompeng
We know less about Sorang Sompeng than about the other two scripts; the one history
and description of this script is found in a short paper by Khageshwar Mahapatra

612
 SECTION 56: SCRIPTS FOR MUNDA LANGUAGES 51 3

table 56.1 The Characters ofSorang Sampeng

: with Transliterations

s b c d g
f
t

s 1 I \ 5
m h 1 n v p
t * 3 a 3 5
y r h k j fi

9 15 I 3 B r
a e i u e

fl -* 1 U 2 r
(1978-79). Sora has been written in a Roman-based script originated by Baptist mis-
sionaries, and also in Telugu and Oriya characters. Mahapatra describes controversy
between the promoters of Oriya and those of Telugu for the predominant influence on
the Sora people living between the Oriya- and Telugu-speaking populations in what
later became the Orissa-Andhra border area. Some "self-conscious tribal leaders,"
Mahapatra writes, "instead of choosing a side to merge themselves, endeavoured to
maintain their identity by inventing a new script for themselves." Malia Gomango, an
influential leader of the non-Christian Sora, led the movement for a separate script,
and "inspired his son-in-law, Mangei Gomango," to devise a proper script for Sora.
Mangei, "an educated person . . . conversant in Oriya, Telugu and English," retreated
to the hills, where on June 18, 1936, he received in a vision the 24 letters of Sorang
Sompeng. He founded a religious order dedicated to Akshara Brahma. The script was
widely taught, though it is unclear to what extent it is used; all the publications listed
by Mahapatra are by Mangei, though the press has also issued many ephemera.
The 24 characters are arranged in a four-row by six-column diagram, w ith the
six vowels in the bottom row. (The shwa vowel is "inherent" in the letter.) The letters
get their names from 24 gods in the Sora pantheon, e.g. s for Sundaii, t for Tsnod; no
rationale is apparent for the ordering. The names of the consonant characters are de-
rived by adding a '
to the consonant sound, i.e. sa \ ta \ etc. Mahapatra suggests that

the general shapes of the characters owe something to English cursive letter shapes;

perhaps the loops and curlicues were influenced by the Telugu script.

Divine providence does not guarantee a script linguistic efficiency. Mangei's

script does not represent the phonemes of Sora (table 56.2) as well as it might in an
efficient writing system. But it should be noted that we don't know as much about the

TABLE 56.2: Sora Phonemes

P t c k ? i i u

b 4 j g e 3

m n Ji n £ a D

r r 1 w
614 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

script as we need to, so we may be missing morphophonemic and, perhaps, dialecto-

logical information built into Mangei's writing system. Sorang Sompeng uses the h
symbol for the glottal stop [?] (there is no aspiration in Sora outside loanwords), but
seems not to write glottal stop in some of the instances where it does occur. The ret-

roflex [rj is written rd. Mahapatra claims that there is no use for c and v in Sora. The
letter i is used for [i] and [i], and o for [o] and [o]. Consonant clusters are written not
with conjunct characters (as in the Indie scripts), but by simply juxtaposing consonant
letters, so the reader must recognize the presence or absence of [s] in any particular
instance. There is no halanta-Wkt "killer" diacritic.

01 Cemet'
The Ol Cemet' or, as it is usually called now, 01 Ciki (or just Ol) script of Santali is

alphabetic; it has none of the syllabary properties of the Indie scripts. The Santali di-
alect represented in Ol is the southern one, spoken in the Mayurbhanj district of Oris-
sa. The chief phonological peculiarity is that this dialect has six vowels, whereas the
dialect of Santal Parganas (described by Bodding and others) has eight or nine. Liter-
ature from the Ol Press says nothing about how to write the additional vowels, but

Mahapatra and Mahapatra (1979) show that this is done with the vowel characters in
Raghunath Murmu, the inventor of Ol Cemet',
the table plus diacritic marks. Pandit
arranges the written characters in a diagram with the vowels in the first column. Vowel
letters are named with /V, and consonant letter names have the vowel found at the be-
ginning of their row. Thus the letters of the first row are called Ig, gt, gk\ gri, and ol.

Raghunath devised and advertised his script as "easy to learn," as compared with
Santali written in the Oriya, Bengali, Devanagari, or Roman scripts, which he called
01 Urum 'dusty', i.e. superannuated, writing. Among the features making it easier to
learn, the following are mentioned:

table 56.3: The Letters of 01 Cemet with Transliterations and Transcriptions

£> G 3 P o[o] t[t]- k' [k\ g] ftfo] 1[1]

® b i) a d a [a] k[k] c' [c\ j] m [m] \v [w]

7i Z CO Q % i[i] s[s] h[?,h] n W r[r]

[u] c[c] V [t\ d] yUl

b fi 9 (2
11 Q I'll

e[e] d n|n| rW
2 o e 2 p(pl [c|J

o[o] P' [P- b] w [w] (c)h n

3 n (D 2) a III]
 SECTION 56: SCRIPTS FOR MUNDA LANGUAGES 615

"n^

figure 65. The

z n co 2 a
pictorial origin of the letters in the<? row of Ol Cemet' (Zide 1967: 187, 1968: 251).

(a) The script makes use of signs and symbols long familiar to the Santals, e.g.
marks made on stones or trees to indicate 'danger' or 'meeting place'.

(b) The letters are "scientifically" arranged, which "facilitates the children to
learn the names of letters as there is a flow being headed by the same vowel."

(c)The shapes of the letters are not arbitrary, but reflect the names of the letters,
which are words, usually the names of objects or actions represented in con- —
ventionalized form —
in the pictorial shapes of the characters.

Most of the characters can be described in terms of a small set of components and can
be seen as contained in a more-or-less oval envelope, the letter shape tracing some
part of this envelope (Zide 1968).
Some examples of these features are seen in figure 65: le 'swelling'; ep 'to

meet, collide'; ed 'to point out a place', a symbol (previously) used for 'meeting
place'; en 'to thresh grain', from a picture of two legs threshing; er 'to avoid', from a
picture of a path that turns to avoid an obstruction or a dangerous place.
One ingenious — "scientific" —and unique feature of Ol Cemet' that certainly in-

creases the efficiency of writing Santali is the deglottalizing ghgf diacritic. This neat-
ly preserves the morphophonemic relationships between the glottalized and voiced
equivalents: the former occurs word-finally and at certain word-internal preconsonan-
tal junctures, the latter prevocalically, but never morpheme-inititally in these alterna-
tions. Thus, ok' is the name of a letter that represents both [k'] and [g]. Two further
diacritics include a horizontal loop added at the top right of the character for the as-
piration of consonants, and a raised dot for vowel nasalization.
When, thirty years ago, I asked knowledgeable people in Bihar and Orissa what
they thought of the chances of a wide — if not pan-Santal —acceptance of 01 Cemet',
almost all were skeptical. The competition of Oriya, Devanagari, etc., was too pow-
erful. But in fact, 01 Cemet' has become more and more widely accepted. Official

recognitions have been made. Pandit Raghunath Murmu has been honored by the
Orissa government. More recently, various Santal organizations have tried to promote
the script for other languages of Chota Nagpur, mostly Munda languages, but for the

Dravidian Kudux as well —without much success

616 P ART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

Ho
Ho is a North Munda language, fairly closely related to Santali. It is less conservative

in its vowel inventory than Santali, and has the standard areal five-vowel system (but,

unlike Indo-Aryan or Dravidian, without vowel length). The Varang Kshiti script of
Lako Bodra, the script to be described here, is a script for Ho Hayam — very roughly
'hieratic Ho' — and the key question here has do with the difference between Ho
Hayam and Ho Kaji 'ordinary Ho'. The amount of overlap is unclear. The authority
on the matter —and on all aspects of Lako Bodra's script — is H.-J. Pinnow. Pinnow
(1972) suggests three possibilities as to what HoH may be: (a) a (regional?) dialect of
Ho; (b) an arbitrary mixture of Ho, Mundari, Santali, and other elements; or (c) an
old, sacerdotal language kept secret until now. These alternatives are not mutually ex-
clusive.

Pinnow writes that the script exhibits highly syncretistic features, many borrow-
ings from a variety of older scripts (I suspect that he overestimates the degree of bor-
rowing), and clear borrowings from Brahmi (he sees 14 of the Ho characters as fairly
directly borrowed). Several of the letter shapes — the non-cursive forms in particu-
lar—resemble English. They are not —and this is no accident — similar to Devanagari
characters. Lako Bodra was not unaware of the Brahmi similarities. According to Pin-

now, Lako Bodra's claim was that the script was "invented in the 13th Century by a
certain Dhawan Turi and rediscovered in a shamanistic vision and modernized by Bo-
dra himself." My own conversations with followers of Lako Bodra in the late 1970s
brought out further assertions of an even greater antiquity of the script, and the claim
that the Ho script was the most ancient in the subcontinent and the (only?) survivor
of an ancient flood. There is an Institute of Ancient Culture and Science Society con-
cerned with promoting the Varang Kshiti script and related matters. Ho —any variety
of Ho, presumably —must be written in its proper script, according to Bodra's follow-
ers. The similarities between Varang Kshiti and other Indian scripts are the result of

table 56.4: The Consonants of Varang Kshiti with Transliterations

2) 3 i
n rt B 9-

db d ! E e \ H 9
fU J\f : r < L L

<V •\, y N? O 6
1 9 i
O U V
u in ! £ a i
5 5

T Y i
y V i
V ^
 SECTION 56: SCRIPTS FOR MUNDA LANGUAGES 617

table 56.5: The Vowels o fVarang Kshiti with Transliterations

V V 1 I f if - ! L 1 ! V v i z 2
Y y : H R
m a i u e

y T u

borrow ing from, not fry, Ho, according to Bodra's followers and probably Lako Bodra
himself; but according to outside observers, the script is his in that he invented it, not
rediscovered it.

Varang Kshiti is written from left to right, with the vowel characters in the order
they are spoken; the complications of vowel placement and variant forms found in
Brahmi-derived scripts are eschewed. The characters are now given in a standard tab-
ular form (table 56.4, from Lako Bodra 1963), the consonants being ranged in rows
of three, the first five of these triads having systematic phonetic properties of a kind
familiar from the standard arrangement of the Devanagari characters. The last two
rows are —again on Devanagari
largely —miscellaneous.
the pattern
Lako Bodra has created — no
certain extra characters there is call in Ho for s dis-

tinct from — apparently because he wants an

s archaic, Sanskrit-like cast to Varang
Kshiti. The letter h after a vowel indicates vowel lengthening. The sequence hb rep-
resents w, whose interpretation ([v]? [w]?) is unclear. There is a special symbol for
the mystical syllable om.
Varang Kshiti has ten vowel characters; simple vowels, mixed vowels, and liga-

tures (table 56.5, from Lako Bodra 1963). The four simple vowels (ipan bor(o)ri)
are a, i, u, and m (nasalization, cf. Hindi candrabindu and anusvara), plus the inher-
ent vowel as in Devanagari and other Indie scripts. The inherent vowel is not always
to be pronounced [a], but sometimes [o] or [e]. The two mixed vowels (sell ip(a)n

bor(o)n) are e and o, presumably following Sanskrit notions according to which these
are not "simple." The ligatures (dobri bor(o)ri), neither vowels nor consonants, are
four; the characters are composite.

table 56.6: The Numerals of the Munda Scripts

SorangSompeng
13JlltLlO
Ol Cemef

Varang Kshiti
(Pinnow 1972)
^10 >«< 20 X 30 tt 40 cS 50 V<*) & 70 j} 80 <? 90
618 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

Bibliography

Sora
Barisa jnoblcgahji [Proverbs in Saora]. n.d. Bible Society of India and Ceylon.
Mahapatra, Khageshwar. 1978-79. '"SoraN SompeN': A Sora Script." Unpublished conference pa-
per (Delhi, Mysore). Oriya version in his Oria o bhdsd, pp. 147-55. Cuttack, 1977.
lipi

Matt iu [Matthew]. 1961. Bible Society of India and Ceylon.

Three booklets in the Sorang Sompeng script. 1965, 1967.

San tali
Bodding, P. O. 1923. Materials for a Santali Grammar, part 1: Mostly Phonetic. Benegaria, Bihar,
India: Santal Mission Press.
Mahapatra, B. P., and Ranganayaki Mahapatra. 1979. "Santal Script and Texts." Work paper for the
post-plenary session of the Tenth International Congress of Anthropological and Ethnological
Sciences, Mysore, pp. 1-15.
Zide, Norman H. 1967. "The Santali Ol Cemet' Script." In Languages and Areas: Studies Presented
to George V. Bobrinskoy, pp 180-89. Chicago: University of Chicago, Division of the Human-
ities.

. 1968. "Graphemic System in the 01 Cemed Script." Papers from the Fourth Regional Meet-
ing of the Chicago Linguistic Society, pp. 238-54.
A number of pamphlets on Ol Cemet' published in the 1950s and 1960s, mostly by the 01 Press,
P.O. Rairangpur, Mayurbhanj District, Orissa, India, for the Adibasi Cultural Association. [The
author had very helpful correspondence in the 1960s with people at the Association, in partic-
ular with Mr. B. Hansdah.]

Ho
Burrows, Lionel. 19 15. Ho Grammar (with Vocabulary). Calcutta: Catholic Orphan Press. Repr.
Delhi: Cosmo, 1980.
Deeney, John J. 1975. Ho Grammar and Vocabulary. Chaibasa, Bihar, India: Xavier Ho.
. 1978. Ho-English Dictionary. Chaibasa: Xavier Ho.
Lako Bodra. 1963. Ho Hayam Paham Puti. Jhinkpani.
n.d. Ho Halan Galari (a trilingual dictionary, manuscript
. in the possession of Mr. B. Pat
Pingua of Ranchi, a follower of Lako Bodra, who provided information on Lako Bodra's move-
ment and the script). Jhinkpani.
. [Pinnow lists several additional publications not seen by the author.]
Pinnow, Hans-Jurgen. 1972. "Schrift und Sprache in den Werken Lako Bodras im Gebiet der Ho von

Singbhum (Bihar)." Anthropos 67: 822-55.

Zide, Norman. 1991. "The Munda Languages." In Worterbiicher: Ein Internationales Handbuch :ur
Lexicographic, vol. 3, pp. 2533-47. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.
SECTION 57

The Pahawh Hmong Script

Martha Ratliff

Pahawh Hmong ('DK QFT hJE Phajhauj

h h
Hmoob [p a hau m5q]) is the name of a
phonological writing system for the Hmong language of Southeast Asia (Hmong-
Mien Miao-Yao family) created by an uneducated and, at the time of its creation,
or
apparently illiterate Hmong peasant, Shong Lue Yang. Pahawh Hmong is unique
among the writing systems invented in modern times, because it is a system based
upon subsyllabic phonological units and it exhaustively represents every such unit in
the language. (Transliterations in this section are in the Romanized Popular Alphabet,
another widely used system for writing Hmong. Final consonants in RPA indicate
tones.)
The development of this writing system and the movement to preserve and dis-

seminate it are linked to a history of native messianic movements. Many Hmong be-
lieve that, throughout time, God has given them power and validation through the gift

of writing. The loss of writing is understood as divine retribution. Shong Lue Yang
believed that he himself was divine, and that the Pahawh was divinely revealed to him
for the benefit of the Hmong The
people. original version of this writing system was
created by, or through, Shong Lue Yang in 1959 in the borderlands of northern Laos
and Vietnam. During the next twelve years, he and his disciples taught the Pahawh
widely as part of a larger revival of Hmong cultural values. Shong Lue Yang worked
incessantly on modifications to the Pahawh, producing three increasingly sophisticat-
ed versions of the script, until in 1971 government soldiers, fearful of his growing in-

fluence, assassinated him. He also developed a writing system for the Khmu
language (Mon-Khmer family), but this script has not been preserved. A full account
of the development and significance of the script is given in Smalley et al. 1990: an
account of the life of Shong Lue Yang is presented in Vang et al. 1990.

Features of the system

Hmong, like other languages of the area including Chinese, is an isolating language
with monosyllabic morphemes. It has eight tones, a rich system of initial consonants,
and only one syllable-final consonant: [rj]. The most widely used Third Stage Re-
duced Version of Pahawh Hmong (QK faff LIK Will Um Phajhauj Ntsiab Duas
h
Peb [p a hau ntfia ?dua pe] 'kernel Pahawh, stage three') represents demisyllables:
the onset (consonant or consonant cluster) and the rime (vowel, final [rj], and tone

619
620 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

table 57. 104 Rime (vowel-tone) Symbols of the Third Stage

1 :

Pahawh Hmong with Romanized Popular Alphabet Equivalents

-high - low - low - high -mid - mid - low -falling-
level glottalizt id rising falling rising level level breathy

[eg]
3 3 "a a
keeb keem keed keej keev kee kees keeg
[i] A A A A Jl

kib kim kid kij kiv ki kis kig

[an] 19 ra ra ra ra CO ra ra

kaub kaum kaud kauj kauv kau kaus kaug

[u] HI Ul ui III n ri n ri

kub kum kud kuj kuv ku kus kug

[ej U U u u hi hi

keb kern ked kej kev ke kes keg

[ai] H H H H Ul ih W ui

kaib kaim kaid kaij kaiv kai kais kaig

[on] fcj U fcj U U ra

koob koom kood kooj koov koo koos koog

[ai] ri ri ri lb ra ih

kawb kawm kawd kawj kawv kaw kaws kawg

[ua] IU ru ru ru UJ LU UJ Ul

kuab kuam kuad kuaj kuav kua kuas kuag

M 01 01 01 m ra ft

kob kom kod koj kov ko kos kog

[ia] LI LJ LJ A A
kiab kiam kiad kiaj kiav kia kias kiag

[a] 'a 'a *3 l>

kab kam kad kaj kav ka kas kag

[i] Jl 31

kwb kwm kwd kwj kwv kw kws kwg

combination). In this version, illustrated here, the rime symbols are developing
unique associations with vowel qualities, while the rime diacritics are developing
unique associations with tonal values. This line of development is fully realized in

the last version of Pahawh Hmong which Shong Lue Yang created shortly before his
h
death: in this Final Version ('aft ran LTR Phajhauj Txha [p a hau ts"a] 'core Pa-
hawh'), each vowel quality is associated with one symbol, and each tone with one di-
acritic. However, the Final Version is not used by supporters of the Pahawh: although
more linguistically advanced, it is not as important culturally, and is reserved for
note-taking.
The onset and rime elements of each syllable are written in reverse order from
theway they are pronounced, that is, rime-onset, although the monosyllabic mor-
phemes themselves are written from left to right across the page. Spaces are used to
separate morphemes, which are thus typically represented by pairs of symbols.
 SECTION 57: THE PAHAWH HMONG SCRIPT 621

The fit between Pahawh Hmong and the spoken language is perfect; all distinc-
tive sounds are symbolized, including the opposition between the "hard" glottal stop

onset A and the "soft" onset for vowels C", which is here the distinctive absence of
sound. Other features of the system include the following.
The rime-onset order of the symbols in a writing system that is otherwise left-to-
right indicates that Shong Lue Yang perceived vowels and associated tones (UlUi yub

[ju]) to be primary and consonants (Lf Lfl las [la]) to be secondary.

The final [13] is not symbolized separately with the available onset symbol for [rj]

(LF); rather, it is perceived as a feature of the rime (see table 57. 1).

The eight tones are indicated by a combination of diacritic and choice of vowel
symbol. The first four tones are indicated by the choice of the first vowel symbol (U1UJ

\7IH yub teeb [ju terj] 'placement vowel') in combination with tone diacritics; the

second four tones are indicated by the choice of the second vowel symbol (U1UJ CO V
yub txaiiY [ju tsau] 'replacement vowel') in combination with a separate set of tone
diacritics (see table 57. 1
). Diacritic symbols also form part of consonant symbols,
but in this case the diacritics have no independent significance (see table 57.2).
Both tone and consonant diacritics appear centered above the basic symbols.
Initial [k] is not symbolized. The absence of an onset symbol indicates that the
word is pronounced with an initial [k].

Similarly, [au] with mid level tone is usually not symbolized. The absence of a
rime symbol indicates that a word is pronounced with mid level [au]. However, the
symbol Rf corresponds to mid level [au], and is used for disambiguation when the
symbol to the left is a rime symbol with inherent [k]. Without such an option, the rime
from the first word and the onset from the second might be incorrectly read as though
they belonged together (Smalley et al. 1990: 58).
Hmong Daw 'White Hmong' is the dialect used for exemplification here. How-
ever, the other major Hmong dialect of Southeast Asia, Hmong Leng or Hmong Njua
'Green Hmong', has regular correspondences with Hmong Daw and is equally well
represented by Pahawh Hmong, since Shong Lue Yang invented two special symbols
h
for the Hmong Leng clusters [ndl] and [nd l] (17 and D"), which do not have counter-

parts in Hmong Daw.

The symbols
Shong Lue Yang's presentation of the Pahawh symbols did not vary from one version
of the writing system to the next. He displayed vowel-tone combination symbols in
charts where rows correspond to vowel quality and columns correspond to tone

(table 57.1). Although consonant symbols are differentiated by diacritics in each

row, neither the rows (symbols) nor the columns (diacritics) correspond to any pho-
nological feature of the Hmong consonant inventory (table 57.2). Shong Lue Yang
and his associates also developed logographic symbols for numerals (table 57.3)
and certain common words, as well as punctuation marks modeled on Western writ-
622 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

table 57.2: Sixty Onset (consonant) Symbols of the Third Stage

Pahawh Hmong with Romanized Popular Alphabet Equivalents
D [v-J 6 [nt-] D [f-]

vau nrau fau

n [Ok-] h [nts-] n [t -l
h

nkau ntxau rhau

X
A [s-] A [?-] A [P-]
xau au nyau
V [c-] V [ntf
1
-] V [ts-]

cau ntshau txau

h
Ul [1-1 Ul [M-] In [?d -]

lau dau dhau

K [ntf-] K [tf-] [p
h
-]

ntsau tsau phau

M [
h
l-] M [3-] [nts
h
-J

hlau zau ntxhau

a [{-} U [mp h -] [mp h
l-]

rau nphau nphlau

j.

H [
h
n-] k [k
h
-] n [nt-]

hnau khau ntau

m [p
h
l-] m [If-] m [p-]

plhau tshau pau

M [nt"-] M [mpl-] M [nk
h
-]

nthau nplau nkhau

X
H [c -]
h
6\ [?-] it-]

chau xyau tau

X
U [n-J U [Nq-] U [Nq"-]

nau nqau nqhau

h
X
tf [ml-] l> [ ml-] [i]-]

nlau hnlau gau

X
E [q"-l E [V-] E [
h
m-]
qhau nyhau hmau
h
X
rr [h-] rr [t -] rr lpl-1

hau thau plau

X
a [pc
h
-j n [nl
h
-J a |mp-]
nchau nrhau npau
X
R [m-] R [ts"-] R [q-]

mau txhau qau

Ul U-l ib [pc-] ui [J-]

yau ncau sau

X h
U U [ndl-1 [nd l-]

'au ndlau ndlhau

 SECTION 57: THE PAHAWH HMONG SCRIPT 623

table 57.3: Numerals

^ 3 k 3 c K ks K 1 H
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10s 100s

ing conventions. Two symbols created to reflect important aspects of Hmong style

are =h, used following a word to indicate reduplication, and :•, used at the end of a line

of writing to indicate that the line be chanted rather than read (see Smalley et al. 1990,
chapter 6, for details).

Use
Although it has ardent supporters, Pahawh Hmong is not as widely used as the RPA
system developed by missionary among them William Smalley, in the
linguists, chief

1950s. Limited access to the equipment necessary to produce the script, lack of ade-
movement of political
quate published materials, and association of the script with a
resistance in Laos have kept Pahawh Hmong from
RPA. However, supplanting the
most Hmong take great pride in the accomplishment of Shong Lue Yang and in the
existence of a script created by one of their own people.

Sample of Hmong Daw

/. Pahawh Hmong: UUJ tin SlUi \?lfl "Sir <ftK A PIR IT

2. RPA: Soob Lwj yog leej neeg tsis tau mus kawm
3. Transcription: Jorj li jo lei] nerj tfi tau rnu kai
4. Gloss: Shong Lue be clf person not get go study

7. hi rxv HK win rirt Tin uirr -3LT, 'aiH Jl'U

2. kev txawj ntse los ntawm lwm haiv neeg, tab sis

3- ke tsai ntfe 15 ntai li hai nen ta Ji

4- way be. able clever source at another group person but

1. JILT oir \?m \?a rev hk mm riA ^D \?in <rtv.

2. nws muaj tsheej xeeb txawj ntse los ntawm Vaj Leej Txi.
3- ni mua tTerj serj tsai ntfe 15 ntai va len tsi

4- he have knowing heart be. able clever source at king CLF father

/. jilt ram /ia wm qui i/k oia rarr mm un uoi mu lja mm

2. Nws paub ib puas yam tsav nyob hauv lub ntiaj teb no uas yog
3. m pau ?i pua ja tfa jio hau lu ntia te no ?ua jo

4. he know one hundred kind plus exist in clf face earth this which be
 a

624 PART IX: SCRIPTS INVENTED IN MODERN TIMES

/. qd win <fiv S\ Ak hk. uri° f\u ftv rum ^o, rum

2. Vaj Leej Txi tau tsim tseg. Thiab nws txawj tshuab raj, tshuab
3. va lerj tsi tau tfj tfe t
h
ia m tsai tTua ta tfua
4. king clf father get create leave and he be. able blow flute blow

/. Crib, mm V?R urr ftv ak ^k rar? d uirr

2. ncas, tshov qeej thiab txav tsim Phaj Hauj rau haiv
h h
3. nca tP3 qeq t ia tsai tfj p a hau j^au hai
4. mouth. harp play pipes and be. able create Pahawh for group

/. ue urr uirr mm nrr ri, ha m tain &a "av m

2. Hmoob thiab haiv PubThawj kawm, es kom lawv nyias ceev tau
h h
3. 'mo i] t ia hai pu t ai kai ?e ko lai jiia cerj tau
4. Hmong and group Khmu study part cause they each concern get

/. aa <»im oir ru.

2. nyias li moj kuab.

3. jiia li m5 kua
4. each own importance

'Shong Lue was a man who had no education from any foreign country, but was
educated by the Father.He knew everything in the universe that was created by
the Father. He also knew how to play the flute, the [mouth harp] and the bam-
boo pipes. And he knew how to create the Pahawh for the use of the Hmong
and the Khmu' people, so that they could preserve their own languages.'
— Text and free translation from Vang et al. 1990: 38.

Bibliography

Smalley, William A., Chia Koua Vang, and Gnia Yee Yang. 1990. Mother of Writing: The Origin
and Development of a Hmong Messianic Script. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
Vang Chia Koua, Gnia Yee Yang, and William A. Smalley. 1990. The Life of Shong Lue Yang:
Hmong "Mother of Writing" (Keeb Kwm Soob Lwj Yaj: Hmoob 'Niam Ntawv', \? ~C UUi
Till ^Ui: UE "ULT wA"), trans. Mitt Moua and Yang See (Southeast Asian Refugee Stud-

ies Occasional Papers 9). Minneapolis: University of Minnesota, Center for Urban and Region-

al Affairs.
 Part X: Use and
Adaptation of Scripts

Three kinds of diversification of scripts — functional, religious, and political

—can be observed work in society. First to be treated in this Part is functional

at di-

versity, whereby new ways of using writing are devised as new needs arise.
Historically, the most common impetus for the adaptation of existing scripts to
previously unwritten languages is the missionary impulse. The liturgy of Western
(Roman) Christianitywas conducted in Latin, whatever the vernacular of the commu-
nity of worshipers, and it was the alphabet of Latin that was adapted for writing those
vernacular languages. Contrast the situation in areas evangelized by Eastern (Greek,
principally) Christianity, described in Part V, where worship was conducted in the

vernacular, and alphabets based on or inspired by the Greek alphabet were devised
for these languages. The sanctity of the Word in Judaism and Islam leads to a prohi-

bition of translation — the faithful Jew and Muslim are expected to study Scripture in
the original —and these People of the Book, too, more readily adapt the script of the
sacred language for the vernacular, rather than devising one that seems to set aside
the holy tradition.
In recent decades, in secular societies, it is politics rather than religion that has

prompted the choice of script on which to base writing systems for new languages.
Most notably, the Soviet Union undertook a vigorous campaign to bring Cyrillic
script to dozens of unlettered nationalities, in a few cases decoupling languages of Is-

lamic peoples from existing Arabic-based scripts, distancing them from coreligionists
in the rest of the world —and in each case distancing them from First- World, Latin-

script culture.

Contemporary Christian missionaries, who do most of the ongoing work on un-

written languages, are probably motivated more by practicality than by a sense of ei-
ther a sacred script or a political purpose in nearly always devising Roman-based
orthographies. Technology is best equipped for Roman-alphabet work; the IPA.
which can be mined for additional letters as they are needed, is Roman-based.
— Peter T. Daniels

625
SECTION 58

A Functional Classification
John Mountford

In any advanced literate society, a variety of different writing systems will be found
in use — different writing systems for different languages, as well as different writing
systems for one and the same language, distributed variously among intersecting
groups with bilingual and monolingual members. In profiling the literacy of individ-
uals (or of groups) in such a society, account must be taken not only of biliteracy, i.e.

literacy in more than one language, but of bisystemacy, i.e. literacy in more than one
writing system for any given language. Executives are rarely able to read the short-
hand their secretaries write.

The basic sociolinguistic question here is: "Who uses which writing system to
whom, in what context, and for what purpose?" Here the "whom" (in literacy even
more than in oracy) may be undetermined and indefinitely numerous; or, at the other
end of the scale, it may be no one other than the writer (addresser = addressee the —
reporter's pad is usually read only by the reporter).
The purposes for which different writing systems are used, or designed to be
used, served as the basis of a functional classification of writing systems proposed in
Mountford 1973 as a contribution to library science (adopted and amplified in Well-
isch 1978, see below). Libraries exist, historically, to store (and to make available!)
written texts. Since all written texts, whether handwritten or machine-written, are in
one (or more) language(s), and each language is realized in one (or more) writing sys-
tem^), writing systems were seen as a linguistic variable requiring principled atten-
tion in cataloguing and in bibliographical description. A functional classification by
purpose was seen as theoretically independent of the structural classifications familiar
in the historical study of writing and in linguistics.

Functional kinds of writing system

Five classes, or functional kinds, are distinguished: (i) orthographies, (ii) stenogra-
phies, (iii) cryptographies, (iv) pedographies, and (v) technographies.
(i) Orthographies are the vast majority of writing systems. They have, under-
standably and rightly, monopolized the attention of general historians of writing, and
of students of writing in its many compartmentalized disciplines. These are the most
elaborated kind of writing system: elaboration (see below) is a distinguishing feature
of modern orthographies. The reason for this is the sheer versatility that a standard

627
628 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

orthography (or, in Sampson's words, "the ordinary writing system of a society"

[1985: 123]) must sustain in order to serve the multitudinous needs, from monumen-
tal to ephemeral, of modern economies and cultures over centuries of development.
The only purposes which orthographies do not serve are those provided for by the
four specialized functional kinds which follow.
(ii) Stenographies, or shorthands, have no particular precedence among the spe-
cialized kinds; but they provide a sharp contrast to orthographies, a contrast which is

known to the general public, at least in the Western tradition (see section 70).
Stenographies are designed specifically so that they can be written faster than "the or-
dinary writing system" — fast enough to take down speech verbatim, whether by hand
or machine. In decline since the advent of convenient sound-recording, shorthand is

still an essential tool for some personnel in press-reporting, commercial and profes-
sional correspondence, court proceedings, etc., as well as being the preferred medium
of composition for some individual professional writers (Bernard Shaw was a great
advocate of Pitman's Shorthand for this purpose).

(iii) Cryptographies are similarly known, as "codes," to the layperson (if only by
repute). These are designed to conceal what "the ordinary writing system" would re-

veal; they are routinely and extensively used in diplomatic and military communica-
tions and, increasingly, in industrial and commercial activity when secrecy is at a
premium. Beside the institutionalized and highly sophisticated world of ciphers, there
are the "secret codes" of private individuals (Bertrand Russell and Beatrix Potter are
among those who have kept private journals in a writing system of their own inven-
tion).

(iv) Pedographies (cf. "pedagogical") are systemes d'apprentissage designed for

learners as stepping-stones to standard orthographies, whether of a first or of a second
language. Less familiar now than in the decades from the 1880s to the 1960s, such
writing systems were used, in Western education, in the teaching of "modern languag-
es" (especially transcriptions using the IPA, to assist the acquisition of, typically,
French pronunciation by English speakers); in teaching English as a foreign lan-
guage; and in the teaching of initial literacy in English (notably the experiments with
the Initial Teaching Alphabet [i.t.a.J in the United Kingdom and the United States in
the 1960s). The needs of learners can be borne in mind in the new orthog-
design of
raphies for unwritten languages; but the "ordinary writing systems" of many long-es-
tablished standard languages contain traditional spelling systems which may well be
user-friendly for some users, but which cannot be described as learner-friendly.

(v) Technographies are systemes de metier, tools designed and used by linguists
engaged in linguistic analysis (see Abercrombie 1967, Trager 1974, and section
7 1
). Their purpose is scientific: they were seen by Bloomfield in sharp contrast to "or-
dinary systems of writing," and this contrast is embodied in the controversy over "sci-
entific" vs. "practical alphabets" which arose in the nineteenth century (Berry 1977.
Venezky 1977). The commonest technographies are the systems of phonemic tran-

scription used for particular languages in linguistic publications, but a great variety
 SECTION 58: A FUNCTIONAL CLASSIFICATION 629

of such writing systems are employed for purposes ranging from phonetic fieldwork
to the decipherment of texts in lost languages.

General-purpose versus special-purpose writing systems

The main thrust of the classification just outlined is to bring out the nature of "ordi-
nary systems of writing" by contrasting them with non-ordinary ones. In a modern
society, the standard languages in use are served by standard orthographies (much
language planning is concerned with the creation, elaboration, and reform of orthog-
raphies), and a single orthographic writing system serves all institutionalized and in-

dividual activities which make use of writing. One institutionalized activity is

education, and education systems have the job of imparting and developing literacy
in the appropriate orthographies, which can be defined as general-purpose writing
systems.
The other functional kinds are special-purpose writing systems, each of which is

used, typically, in addition to an orthography. Letters, speeches, or dictated novels,

taken down in shorthand, are "typed up" in orthography; enciphered text is deci-
phered into "plaintext," i.e. orthography. If children learn to read with a pedography,
it is in order to graduate to "the ordinary system of writing" — for Chinese children,
this may mean a roman-letter system as a stepping-stone to the traditional orthogra-
phy based on characters. Finally, linguists' technographic texts are embedded in or-

thographic ones.

Terminology
In using orthography in this way (and not just as a synonym for "spelling"), account
must be taken of a change in terminology in this field of linguistics. Bloomfield did
not use the term writing system in his major work Language published in 1933; it did
not become current until the 1950s, when it emerged as a specifically linguistic term,
not borrowed from the existing disciplines concerned with the study of writing. Since
then, it has steadily gained ground. For example, within linguistics, an early paper by
David Abercrombie, "The Visual Symbolization of Speech," delivered at an Interna-
tionalShorthand Congress in 1937 and containing a functional classification in germ,
was reprinted by him in 1965 retitled "Writing Systems." In the historical study of
writing, Gem's well-known book The Study of Writing, first published in 1952,
I. J.

did not contain the term writing system, but Gelb made use of it later in his article
"Forms of writing" in the 1974 edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, (Both book
and article have since been superseded by works such as Sampson 1985 and Coulmas
1989, and by Olson 1988.)
The advantages to be derived from the term writing system, however, do not lie

only in its role as a superordinate term in the above classification. It is equally well
630 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

suited to fill the role of superordinate in a composition schema of whole and parts (cf.
the dimensions of "range" and "scope" in Mountford 1990: 720).

The composition of writing systems in relation to function

Just as orthography can be desynonymized from spelling, so writing system can be

desynonymized from spelling system. If we take the Standard Orthography of English
(SOE), which is the matrix writing system of this volume, it is clear that it consists of
a number of parts. These can be summarized as spelling, elaboration, and script.

In spelling, stenographies like Pitman's Shorthand, pedographies like i.t.a., and

technographies on IPA principles all differ from SOE: they are "more phonemic."
(i.t.a., being quasi-orthographic, reflected the spelling system of SOE by preserving
some digraphs, and also in distinguishing some homonyms a logographic property —
of many standard orthographies.) Cryptographies for English may also employ their
own spelling systems, typically "more phonemic" ones, but the huge edifice of enci-
pherment is built on forms of symbol substitution — originating in the schoolchild's B
for A, C for B, etc. This does not change the spelling system at all (cf. Mountford
1990: 706): the changes are only at the level of script.
Elaboration is a cover term not only for all the resources (see Vachek 1989) of
shape differentiation and spatial disposition, e.g. those deployed in this volume, but
also for other significant components of orthographies which often get overlooked
through concentration on spelling systems. In the case of SOE, these include punctu-
ation, numeric, and other non-letter symbols —and, as an indexing device, crucial to
information retrieval, an institutionalized alphabetical order. Systems of numeric
symbols are integral to writing (children learn both their letters and their numbers in

initial literacy): SOE has two at its disposal —Arabic and Roman, with roman vs. ital-

ic type and other contrasts available for both, and even upper and lower case for the
latter. The special functional kinds do not require such resources. Of the features we
take for granted in SOE, word spacing may be inimical to technographies and cryp-
tographies, while case contrast is superfluous to stenographies and pedographies.
Third, and very briefly, script. The most obvious contrast between SOE and Pit-

man's Shorthand is not the spelling systems, but the visual difference between a Lat-
in-letter script and a geometric script —just as the great systems of writing the world
over are characterized by their distinctive scripts. The choice of script in different

functional kinds may be variously motivated, e.g. by cursivity in a shorthand, by ico-

nicity in a technography, and by political considerations in an orthography.

Multiplicity of writing systems

Many writing systems of all functional kinds, including spelling reformers' orthogra-
phies, have been used, or designed to be used, for English. A grammatological profile
of other major languages will yield a similar plethora. Shorthands for Russian based
 SECTION 58: A FUNCTIONAL CLASSIFICATION 53 [

on Cyrillic script, as well as on Pitman's script, give a tiny hint of the profusion of
possible stenographies in the world: the same possibilities of multiple writing sys-

tems, based on domestic or borrowed scripts, exist for the other special-purpose func-
tional kinds. The same is true, of course, for orthography — a cultural borrowing par
excellence.

More functional kinds?

One informative study in which the proliferation of orthographic writing systems can
be explored in terms of cultural borrowing is Hans Wellisch's The Conversion of
Scripts: Its Nature, History and Utilization (1978), written from the viewpoint of li-

brary science. Wellisch starts by bringing the functional classification used above into
the computer age with the addition of machinographies, designed for the (typically
electronic) storage and transmission of texts. His ultimate object of study, however,
is transliteration (and the interplay of script and spelling system) in application —
topic of importance to others besides librarians (cartographers, archivists, descriptive
bibliographers, etc., as well as language scholars). Do transliterations constitute a

functional kind ("convertographies"?) or is transliteration merely a means to an end

in one or another of the proposed functional kinds? Wellisch accords it the latter, sec-
ondary, status. His work is a reminder that five, or six, functional kinds may not be
exhaustive. Nor must they be thought of as mutually exclusive: technographies and
pedographies overlap (see Abercrombie 1964); and Samuel Pepys, a skilled bisystem-
ate writer of "tachygraphy" in the early heyday of English shorthand, must have taken
comfort from the secrecy it bestowed on his Diary.

Conclusion
Crystal (1987: 194) has offered an interpretation of technography as "a system that
enables a specialized field to perform its function, such as phonetic transcription,
chemical notation, cartography, or computer coding." This is a different view of tech-
nography from the one adopted here, but Crystal's coverage of "Graphology," richly

illustrated, is warmly recommended. Trager (1974) accords "Special writing sys-

tems" more attention than most linguists writing on graphology.

Bibliography

Abercrombie, David. 1937. 'The Visual Symbolization of Speech." Pitman 's Business Education 4:
689-90, 698. Repr., with a few omissions, as "Writing Systems" in his Studies in Phonetics
and Linguistics, pp. 86-91. London: Oxford University Press, 1965.
.
1964. English Phonetic Texts. London: Faber & Faber.
.
1967. Elements of General Phonetics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
Berry, Jack. 1977. "The Making of Alphabets' Revisited." In Fishman 1977: 3-16.
Bloomfield, Leonard. 1933. Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston. British ed. London:
532 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Allen & Unwin, 1935.

Butler, E. H. 195 1 The Story of British Shorthand. London: Pitman.
.

Coulmas, Florian. 1989. Writing Systems of the World. Oxford: Blackwell.

Crystal, David. 1987. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-
sity Press.

Denning, Dorothy. 1982. Cryptography and Data Security. Reading, Mass.: Addison- Wesley.
Downing, John. 1967. Evaluating the Initial Teaching Alphabet. London: Cassell.
Fishman, Joshua A., ed. 1977. Advances in the Creation and Revision of Writing Systems. The
Hague: Mouton.
Gelb, I. J. 1952. A Study of Writing (2nd ed., 1963). Chicago: University of Chicago Press.
.
1974. "Writing, forms of." Encyclopaedia Britannica, 15th ed., Macropoedia 19:1033-45.
Kahn, David. 1967. The Codebreakers: The Story of Secret Writing. New York: Macmillan.
MacMahon, M. K. C. 1994. "Shorthand." In The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, ed. R.
E. Asher and J. M. Y. Simpson, pp. 3877-82. Oxford: Pergamon.
Mountford, John. 1973. "Writing-system: A Datum in Bibliographical Description." In Toward a
Theory of Librarianship: Papers in Honor of Jesse Hauk Shera, ed. Conrad H. Rawski, pp.
415-49. Metuchen, N.J.: Scarecrow.
.
1990. "Language and Writing-systems." In An Encyclopaedia of Language, ed. N. E. Col-
linge, pp. 701-39. London: Routledge.
Olson, David R. 1988. "Writing: The Nature and Origin of Writing." Encyclopedia Britannica, 15th
ed. revised, 29:1025-34.
Pitman, James, and John St. John. 1969. Alphabets and Reading: The Initial Teaching Alphabet.
London: Pitman.
Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction. London: Hutchinson.
George L. 1974. "Writing and Writing Systems." In Current Trends in Linguistics, ed. Tho-
Trager,
mas A. Sebeok, vol. 1 2, Linguistics and Adjacent Arts and Sciences, pp. 373-496. The Hague:
Mouton.
Vachek, Josef. 1989. Written Language Revisited, selected, edited, and introduced by Philip A.
Luelsdorff. Amsterdam: Benjamins, esp. "Some Remarks on the Stylistics of Written Lan-
guage," pp. 43-52.
Venezky, Richard L. 1977. "Principles for the Design of Practical Writing Systems." In Fishman
i977:37-54-
Wellisch, Hans. 1978. The Conversion of Scripts: Its Nature, History and Utilization. New York:
Wiley.
SECTION 59

Adaptations of the Roman Alphabet

Romance languages
Edward Tuttle

Transition from Latin to early Romance

Among modern European languages, the Roman alphabet was most organically in-
herited by the neo-Latin vernaculars; but ease of transmission has also carried the
handicap of culturally ordained, etymological accretions encumbering any trim, even
semi-phonemic ideal. An enduring tension between functional denotation and vary-
ing amounts of connotative reminiscence — i.e., between optimal economy and clarity

of representation and inertially prestigious, archaizing abstractions —has recurred

since the primordial ninth-century attempts atRomance spelling. The graphemes of
Late Antiquity were seamlessly transmitted by early Romance scribes who, as Wright
(1982) has emphasized, merely endowed them with their own evolving phonic values.
Before the ninth century, it seems that, as a diastratic or socially graded sermo ple-
beius 'common speech' was evolving into an ever more geographically diversified
rustica romana lingua 'rustic Roman language', scant heed was paid to the divide be-
tween speech and writing. Then, however, efforts to reform and purify the resulting
barbarous Latin (latinum circa romancium), especially in its oral liturgical role (e.g..

Alcuin's De Orthographia) had as their result an awareness of Romance autonomy

and, in consequence, of internal dialect diversity. Unconscious bilingualism (DeVo-
to's phrase, 1953) gave way to acknowledged diglossia, wherein the rustic code was
forever sundered into regionally discrete varieties. Regional scripts arose by variously
adapting graphs from common sources.

Lineal descent and internal realignment

Much of the new wine entered old bottles with little outward difficulty, local phonetic
values being smoothly projected onto ancestral graphic correspondents. Instances of
fusion admitted of easy resolution. Thus (following the convention that Classical and
Vulgar Latin forms are printed in small capitals, while both reconstructions and at-

tested Romance-language forms are in italics), -gn- had already merged with nj as
/n/ = [p:] in Italo-Romance by the time laymen began to write, and it became the pre-
ferred unified digraph (iuniu —> Florence 121 1 giu(n)gn(i)u —> mod. giugno 'June'.

uInea —> vin(g)nia —» vigna 'vineyard', on the model of cogno 'wedge' < cuneu,
legno 'firewood' < lignu, pugno 'fist' < pugnu, segno 'sign' < signu, etc.). In cas-

633
634 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

es of phonemic split, however, ready linear accomodation left a gap that demanded
some tinkering, and thus fostered diverse solutions. These are most conspicuous for
the Romance palatalizations. E.g., Latin c [k] was fronted, affricated, and assibilated
before front vowels (as [tf] or as [ts], i.e. merged in most areas with locally extant [ts]

from tj/cj). Direct continuation of Latin spelling (cena > cena 'supper', centu >
cento 'hundred' vs. cane > cane 'dog', cote > cote 'whetstone') left no simple
mode for representing [ke] and [ki]. Kappa, eschewed in Classical Latin for all but a

few lexemes, was widely resuscitated from Italy to Iberia, only to be abandoned with
the advent of Humanism. Q(u), transmitted by Classical Latin only in labiovelar con-
w
texts, could fill the breach where its vernacular simplification (k > k) was lexically
well diffused. Thus we have Hispano-Romance queso 'cheese' [keso] < caseu, que
'which' [ke] < quid; this required a later cu for [k w ]: sixteenth-century cuando
w
'when' < quando, and in tandem gu = [g] versus gii = [g ]. But where, as in Italy,
competing conservative pronunciations came to prevail, [k] before [e, i] required an-
other representation, namely ch (cf. older, substandard kando replaced by quando, vs.

che < quid).

Treatment of empty vestiges

Latin h was silent; but in the Graeco-Latin rendering ch (for the aspirate x 'chi'), it

was revitalized in Italy to represent [ke/ki] (chiedere 'to ask' < qu^erere, analogous-
ly ghelghi - [ge/gi]) and even extended superfluously (chasa 'house' for casa). In
most western dialects, this digraph was used for palatal /tf/, and thence it was extend-
ed in Old Provencal to palatalized l [a*] = Ih and n [p] = nh. In northernmost Spain,

Galician imitators of the Provencal lyric established the palatalized triad chllhlnh for
what was to become the Portuguese tradition.

Graphemes from external sources

Adapting Hellenisms, especially in the Christian period, led to the introduction of z

(e.g., baptizare 'baptize'), which probably represented palatal [<%] or alveolo-dental

[dz]/[z]. Its use flourished despite the admonitions of later grammarians, e.g. Isidore

of Seville (ca. 560-636): "Although (/as in iustitia ['justice'], malitia ['malice'],

etc. represents the sound z, since the words are Latin [and not Greek-derived], they
ought to be written with f" ( 1
9 1 1 , book 1 , chap. 27). Thence Christian transcribers of
Germanic languages, without any orthographic precedents, utilized cz for [ts]. Bilin-

gual monastic scriptoria favored transfer of cz; e.g., the Eulalie sequence (ca. 882),
like the Ludwigslied associable with the St. Amand community, documents czo 'this'

< *ecce hoc and canczons 'songs' < cantiones. (Compare the more recent adapta-
tion of German digraphs by Rumantsch writers in the Swiss Grisons; e.g. Engadine

cotschen 'red' [kotjbn], Sursilvan tgietschen [tciatfen] < COCCINU.) When scribally
condensed as a ligature, the cz digraph was abbreviated c.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 535

Abbreviations as diacritics

To return to the palatalized sonant pair, Hispano-Romance [A/ji] also derived from
ambisyllabic or fortis ll and nn, and these sources provided their graphic represen-
tation. However, in the symbol h the tilde is no longer sensed as a second n. By Late
Antiquity, scribal practice had spawned thousands of shorthand symbols and liga-

tures. Since the Carolingian reforms, such Tironian notes (Isidore attributed their sys-
tematization to a freeman of Cicero, Tiro; see section 70) have been progressively
suppressed. Besides the titulus (> tilde) just mentioned, only the subscript zedilla 'lit-

tle z, "zed" was pressed into orthophonic service. Fused with c to form c, it repre-
sented Gallo-Romance and Spanish [ts] before non-front vowels, later [s] (and
regionally [z] between vowels); it was imitated in Galego-Portuguese and, in the nine-
teenth century, utilized by Rumanian.

Collateral extension of the foregoing sources

As noted above, perceived phonetic affinities gave rise to graphic analogies and thus
encouraged the extrapolation of paired or kindred spellings (e.g. It. ch/gh, Prov.
chllhlnh). Beside gn = [n], Florentine merchants developed gl = [A"] (luglio, var.

lulglio 'July' < iuliu). Regarding such medieval variants, private mercantile and no-
tarial usage provided a seedbed for hyperphonemic experiments (recall that Italian

medial /A7 and /ji/ are ambisyllabic, hence Igl and ngn). Silent reading arose only in

the Renaissance and then only among an elite. Medieval writers "sounded out" their

text at a slow tempo; thus, in a manner reminiscent of children, they were curiously
faithful to sandhi phenomena and other subphonemic distinctions (e.g., Old Castilian
DonRramiro, honrra 'honor', Old Florentine centto '100', Dantte).

Orthographic reforms

The advent of print, the public orthoepic medium par excellence, which favored ana-
lytic word-spacing as well as fixed phonologic lexical representation, tended to prune
away such overly detailed allographs. The fixing of standards, given relative social
stability within the literate caste, has prompted periodic movements to bring orthog-
raphy back into step with pronunciation. Aside from Humanistic Latinate backtrack-
ing in Renaissance France, almost all such reforms aim at optimality or systematic
clarity and economy.

Rumanian
The only massive reform in modern times has been that of Rumanian. Cut off in its

Balkan isolation, Daco-Romance clove with its Slavic and Byzantine neighbors, in al-

phabet as in certain other areal linguistic affinities. For official and liturgical use, Mid-
dle Bulgarian (Slavic) supplanted Greek, after the tenth century (cf. Niculescu 198 1).

The earliest Rumanian documents adapt Cyrillic, e.g. a 1521 letter of the boyar Neac-
636 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

su di CTmpulung (< *campu-longu). Venetian printing technology, arriving via Ser-

bia, served to confirm Transylvanian Cyrillic, e.g. in a 1559 Orthodox catechism from
Brasov (Brasso, Kronstadt, Orasul Stalin), the response to a similar Protestant initia-

tive (1544) now lost. A Protestant hymnal of 1570 represents a first attempt at tran-

scription into the Roman alphabet, adapting Hungarian graphemes (cz [ts], sz [s], s

UK zs [3], etc.; see page 681). It was not until the nineteenth century that Italophile
and Francophile intellectuals graphically reoriented Wallachia toward the Occident
(cf. Close 1974, Onu 1989), although Moldavia (now Moldova) and Bessarabia re-

main anchored in the Cyrillic tradition. Thus the pioneer Transylvanian School intro-
duced / [3I a la francaise and the Italian opposition clg = [tj/c^] versus chlgh [k/g]
before 1, e, promptly accepted in Bucharest by Ion Heliade Radulescu (1802- 1872),
the arbiter of national culture. The Rumanian Academy's first standard (1869) was
mildly etymologizing, the better to assert Latin ancestry, a key political rallying point;
thus di, si, tilci rather than / [3], § [J], ci [tf], and a, e, i, u rather than neutralized 1 [i]

(symbolically, romdn 'Rumanian' still defies the phonetic principle [= romin]). How-
ever, because of Heliade's enthusiasm for contemporary Franco-Italian civilization,
the etymologizing tendency was less marked than in proposals of a generation before
(e.g. claue for cheie 'key' (claue), gldcie for gheatalghiata 'ice' (glacies), lacte
for lapte 'milk' (lac[te])). Subsequent reforms, promoted largely by linguists and
writers of democratic inclination — e.g. Titu Maiorescu (1840-19 17), Alexandru
Lambrior (1 845-1 883), and Hariton Tiktin (1850- 1936) —aimed at greater phono-
logic economy and fidelity. Thus, by 1904, the Academy dispensed with final -// (unit

omu mortu —> un om mart 'a dead man'), acknowledged diphthongs and other vowel
shifts (morte 'death' —> moarte 'death', omeni —> oameni 'men', in tota tera —> in

toata tara 'throughout the land'), and abandoned morphemic criteria grounded on
Latinate analogies (stela/ stele —> steal stele 'star/stars'). Interbellum debate and the
reform of 1932 are associated with Ovid Densusianu (1 873-1938) and Sextil Pusca-
riu (1 877-1948), that of 1953 with Alexandru Rosetti (1 895-1989).

Contemporary orthography
table 59.1 shows the phonological correspondences with letters of the Roman al-

phabet (including diacritics, as well as digraphs and trigraphs) in the principal mod-
ern Romance
languages. The grave accent mark in Italian, and the acute in Spanish,
indicateword accent only; the asterisk (*) is a reminder of this. Accent marks in Por-
tuguese and Catalan may indicate combinations of word stress and vowel quality; in
French and Rumanian, they refer mainly to vowel quality.
Conventions used in tables 59.1 and 59.4: Only the most general and regular

values are indicated; many exceptions are neglected. The symbol "/ " means 'pre-
ceding ...'; $ is syllable boundary; C is consonant; V is vowel; I is any front vowel.
A comma between phonetic values indicates that contrasting sounds are written with
the same letter; the symbol ~ indicates that phonetic variants are in predictable distri-

bution.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 637

table 59.1: Values of Letters in Standard Romance Languages

Italian Spanish Portuguese Catalan French Rumanian

a [a] [a] [a;e] [a; 9] [a, a] [a]

ae Ml
ai [ai] [ai] [ai] [ai] [e] [ai]

a in / $ m
an/_$ [a]

ao Ml
au [au] [au] [au] [au] [0] [au]

a [3] [a] [i]

a [3]

a [a]

b [b] [b~p] [b] [b~p] [b] [b]

c / i, e M [0](Am. [s]) [s] [s] [s] M

c (elsewh.) [k] M [k] [k] [k] [k]

ch [k] /_i, e [tfl [J] [k] (rare) [J] [k] /_i, e

5 [s] /_i, e [s] /__i, e [s] /_i, e

d [d] [d~o] [d] [d~5] [d] [d]

e [e,e] [e] [e, e; i] [e, e; 9] [e, e, s] [e]

e * [e] [c]

e [e] [e]

e * [e] [e] [e]

eau [0]

ei [ei] [ei] [ei] [ei] [e] [ei]

ein/_$ [e]

en/_$ [a]

eu [eu] [eu] [eu] [eu] [0, OB] [eu]

f m [f] [f] [f] [f] [f]

g /_i, e [*1 W [5] [*-5l [3] [*1

g (elsewh.) [g] [g~y] [g] [g-y] [g] [g]

gh [g] /_i, e [g] /_i, e

gl [*(:)]

gn [n(0] W
gu / i, e [gw] [g] [g] [g] [g] [gw]
.

gu (elsewh.) [gw] [gw] [gw] [gw] [gw]

gu [gw] [gw] [gw]

h [h]

i [i] /_Y [i] /_V, [i] /_V, [1] /_v, 111 /_V, [i] /_V,
[i] elsewh. [i] elsewh. [i] elsewh. [i] elsewh. [i] elsewh. [i] elsewh.

1
Ml
l']
Til
L*J

J to [3l [cfe~3l [3] [3]

k (in loans) M M [k] [k] [k] [k]

638 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59. 1 : Values of Letters in Standard Romance Languages (Continued)

Italian Spanish Portuguese Catalan French Rumanian

1 [1] [1] [1] [1] [1] [1]

Ih m
11 [X] (Am. [j]) [X]

1.1 [1]

m [m] [m] [m] [m] [m] [m]

n [n] [n] [n] [n] [n] [n]

nh w
n M W
[0,0] [0] [6, o; u] [6, 5; u] [0,3] [0]

6 *
[0]

6 [6] [0]

6 *
[0] [6]

6 [0]

6e [01]

ce(u) [ce]

oi [oi] [oi] [oi] [oi] [wa] [oi]

on/_$ [5]

ou [ou] [w]/__V,
[u] elsewh.

p [P] [P] [p] [p] [p] [p]

qu / i, e [kw] [k] M [k] [k]

qu (elsewh.) [kw] [k]

r [r] [n ~ r] [n ~ f] [r: ~ r] [K] [r]

rr [n] [r:] (Am. X ])

[ [n]

s [s~z] [s] [5] /_$, [s~z] [s~z] [s]

[s ~ z] elsewh.

ss [s] [s]

§ [J]

t [t] [t] [t] [t] [t] [t]

\
[ts]

u [u]/_V, [u]/_V, [u]/_V, [»] /_V. [q]/_ V, [y]/_v,

[u] elsewh. [u] elsewh. [u] elsewh. [u] elsewh. [y] elsewh. [u] elsewh.

un/_$ [ce]

V [vj [b~p] [v] [b~p] [v] [v]

w (in loans) [v, w] [w] [v, wj [w] [v, w] [v, w]

X [ks] [ks] [J, ks] [J, ks] [ks] [ks]

y (mainly in Ul [i]/_#, Ul Ul [i,j] U]

loans, except [j] elsewh.
in Spanish)

z [ts, dz] [9] (Am. [s]) [z] [z] [z] 1/1

 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 639

Samples of Romance Languages: The Tower of Babel

Italian

/. Italian: E il Signore disse, Ecco un medesimo popolo, ed

2. Transcript ion: e 1 sinore disse ekko un medezimo popolo ed
3- Gloss: and th( lord said here. is one same people and

1. essi tutti hanno un medesimo linguaggio. ... Orsu, scendiamo,

2. essi tutti anno un medezimo lirjguadd^o orsu Jendiamo
3- they all have one same language now.then let.us.descend

/. e confondiamo quivi la lor favella; sicche l'uno non capisca

2. e konfondiamo kuivi la lor favella sikke liino non kapiska
3. and let.us.confuse here the their speech so.that the.one not understand

/. il parlare dell'altro. ... Cos! l'Eterno li disperse di la sulla

2. il parlare dell-altro kozi 1-eterno li disperse di la sulla

3. the speaking of.the-other thus the-eternal them scattered from there on. the

/. faccia di tutta la terra. . Percio a questa fu dato il nome di

2. fattfa di tutta la terra pertfo a kuesta fu dato il nome di

3. face of all the earth therefore to this was given the name of

/. Babel, perche l'Eterno confuse quivi il linguaggio.

2. babel perke leterno konfiize kuivi 1 liijguadd^o

3. Babel because the. eternal confused here the language

Spanish (continental)

/. Spanish: Y se dijo: "He aqui un pueblo uno, tienen todos

2. Transcription: i se 5 1^0 e aki um pueplo uno tienen todos
3. Gloss: and self said behold here a people one they.have all

/. una lengua sola. . Bajemos, pues, y confundamos su lengua,

2. una leqgua sola ba^emos pues i konfundamos su leqgua
3. a language alone let's. descend then and let's.confuse their language

/. de modo que no se entiendan unos a otros." Y

2. de mo<3o ke no se entiendan unos a otros i

3. of manner that not self they.may.understand ones to others and

/. los disperso de alii Yave por toda la haz de la tierra

2. 10Z 5isperso be aX i jape por t65a la a0 de la tiena

3. them scattered from there Lord through all the face of the earth
 .

640 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. ... Por eso se llamo Babel, porque alii confundio Yave la

2. por eso se Aamo papel porke aXi konfundio jape la

3. through that self called Babel because there confused Yahweh the

/. lengua de la tierra toda. ...

2. lerjgua de la tiena t65a

3. language of the earth all

French
/. French: Et l'Eternel dit: Voici, ce n'est qu'un seul et meme
2. Transcription: e letetmel di vwasi so ne kce seel e mem
j. Gloss: and the.eternal said behold it is. not but.a sole and same

/. peuple: ils ont un meme langage . . Venez done, descendons, et

2. pcepl ilz 5 ce mem laga3 vane dok desado e

3. people they have one same language come then let's. descend and

/. confondons la leur langage, arm qu'ils n'entendent point

2. k5f5d5 la IceK laga3 afe kil natad pwe
3. let's.confuse there their language in.order that.they not.understand at.all

/. le langage Tun de 1' autre. Ainsi l'Eternel les dispersa de la

2. la laga3 Ice de lotK esi leteKnel le dispersa da la

3. the language the. one of the. other thus the.eternal them scattered from there

/. par toute la terre. ...C'est pourquoi son nom fut appele Babel; car
2. paK tut la teK se pu^kwa so no fy aple babel kaK
3. through all the earth that.is why its name was called Babel for

/. l'Eternel y confondit le langage de toute la terre....

2. leteKnel i kofodi la laga3 da tut la te&

3. the.eternal there confused the language of all the earth

Portuguese (Sao Paulo, Brazil)

/. Portuguese: Eis aqui um povo, que nao tern senao
2. Transcription: eiz a'ki u 'povu ki n5u tei si'nsu

3. Gloss: here. is here a people that not has but

/. una mesma linguagem; Vinde pois, descamos, e

2. 'uma 'mezma H'gwa^el 'vldi pois de'ssmus i

3. a same language come then let's. descend and

/. ponhamos nas suas lfnguas tal confusao, que eles

2. po'jiamuz nas 'susz 'llgwss tay kofu'zau ki "elis

3. let's. put in. the their languages such confusion that they
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 641

/. se nao entendam uns aos outros. Desta maneira e

2. si n5Q T'tedau uz auz 'outrus 'dests ma'neira e
3. refl not understand ones to. the others of.tiJs manner is

/. que o Senhor os espalhou daquele lugar para todos

2. ki u se'jior: uz ispa'Aou da'keli lu'gar: pars 'toduz
?. that the Lord them scattered from.that place to all

/. os paises da terra b por esta razao e que lhe

2. us pa'iziz da 'tens i por 'este r:a'z5u e ki A*i

3. the lands of earth and for this reason is that to.it

/. foi posto o nome de Babel, porque nela e que sucedeu

2. foi 'postu u 'nomi di ba'beu purki 'neb e ki suse'dey
3. was placed the name of Babel because in.it is that happened

/. a confusao de todas as linguas do mundo.

2. a kofuzsu di 'todsz az 'ITgwsz du 'mudu
3. the confusion of all the languages of.the world

Acknowledgment: The editors would like to thank Prof. Milton Azevedo for his assistance.

Rumanian
prepared by Kostas Kazazis
/. Rumanian: §i Domnul a zis: „Iata, ei sint un singur
2. Transcription: Ji 'domnul a zis 'jate jei sint un 'sirjgur

3. Gloss: and Lord. the has said behold they are one single

/. popor, §i to^i au aceeas, limba; ... Haidem! sa Ne

2. po'por Ji 'tots' au a'tfejaj 'limbs 'haidem ss ne
3. people and all have the. same language let. us that us

/. pogonm sa Tncurcam acolo limba, ca

2. pogo'rim S3 iqkur'ksm a'kolo 'limba ka
3. we.descend and that to.them we.confuse there language. the in. order

/. sa nu-§i mai Tn{eleaga vorba unii

2. ss nuj maj intse'leags 'vorba 'uni

3. that not-to.them any.more they.understand.su bj word. the the. ones

/. altora." ... §i Domnul i-a impra§tiat de acolo pe

2. 'altora Ji 'domnul ja imprsj'tjat de a'kolo pe
3. of.the. others and Lord. the them-has scattered from there on

/. toata fata pamintului; De aceea cetatea a fost numita Babel.

2. 'tgats 'fatsa ps'mintului de a'ljeja tje'tatea a fost nu'mits ba'bel
3. all face. the earth. of.the therefore city.the has been named Babel
642 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. caci acolo a Tncurcat Domnul limba intregului

2. katf a'kolo a irjkur'kat 'domnul 'limba in'tregului

3. because there has confused Lord.the language.the entire.of.the

/. pamint, §i de acolo 1
-a impra§tiat Domnul pe toata
2. pa'mint Ji de a'kolo improj'tjat 'domnul pe 'toate

3. earth and from there them-has scattered Lord.the on all

/. fa^a pamintului.
2. 'fatsa po'mintului
3. face. the earth.of.the

'And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language.
... Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not
understand one another's speech. So the Lord scattered them abroad from
thence upon the face of all the earth. . . . Therefore is the name of it called Babel;
because the Lord did there confound the language of all the earth.'
— Genesis 11:6-9 (Authorized Version, 161 1).

Germanic languages
Wayne M. Senner

The Germanic languages are traditionally classified into three branches. The Eastern
branch consists of Gothic, now extinct (section 22). West Germanic includes Old
English, with its English descendants; Old Saxon, with its descendant Dutch; and Old
High German, with its Middle and New High German descendants. North Germanic
has a Western (Scandinavian) branch, including Norwegian and Icelandic, and an
Eastern branch, which includes Swedish and Danish.

German
The adaptation of Roman script to German has historically been complicated by the
lack of a standard language and a dialectal hodgepodge of orthographies which in

some cases existed from the Carolingian period until the late eighteenth century.
Two profound linguistic changes further conditioned the adaptation of the Latin
alphabet. The first was vowel mutation (umlaut), an assimilatory process by which a
following unstressed front vowel caused the fronting of a preceding, stressed back
vowel. This feature, shown in table 59.2, is also found in North Germanic lan-

guages. Standardization of the umlaut dots for mutated vowels (e.g. ii) was not
achieved until the New High German period.

My gratitude to my colleagues for their critical comments and suggestions: Jesse Byock of UCLA, Daniel
Brink and Mark Carlsen of Arizona State University, and Jan Sjavik of the University of Washington.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 543

table 59.2: Vowel Mutation in Old, Middle, and New High German

OHG gast (sg.) OHG gesti (pi.) NHG Gaste 'guests'

OHG fuoren MHG fiieren NHG fiihren 'to lead'

OHG sconi MHG schoene NHG schon 'beautiful'

OHG gabi MHG gaebe NHG gabe 'would give'

OHG husir MHG huiser NHG Hauser 'houses'

table 59.3: OHG Consonant Shift: p, t, k

Old Norse Mod. Norweg. OHG NHG

planta plante phlanza Pflanze 'plant'

hjalpa hjelpe helphan helfen 'to help'

tfu ti zehan zehn 'ten'

bita bite beizan beiBen 'to bite'

bok bok buoh Buch 'book'

The second change was the OHG consonant shift, which distinguishes German
from the other Germanic languages. It involved the voiceless stops p, t, k, which in

most cases became fricatives in syllable-final and affricates in syllable-initial posi-

tion, as shown in table 59.3.

In the twentieth century, orthography was standardized in Germany, Austria, and
Switzerland and is based on the authority of Dude ns Rechtschreibung. The NHG and
other modern Germanic alphabets are shown in table 59.4 (see conventions on
page 636).
In spite of the authority of Duden, German orthography does not have a separate
symbol for each structually significant class of sounds in the language. The following
represent some of the major complications in the orthographic system.
First, consonantal doubling after vowels indicates vowel shortness: Betten ['betn]
'beds', beten ['be:tn] 'to pray'. However, it is not used in a large number of short func-
tion words: Mann [man] 'man', man [man] 'one'.

Second, German avoids homography for homophonous words: [mo:r] Mohr

'Moor', Moor 'moor'; [heir] her 'hither', hehr 'exalted', Heer 'army'; [ma:lsn]
malen 'to paint', mahlen 'to grind'.

Third, German retains the historical and etymological pairs e and a for [e:, e], eu
and du for [oj], ie and i for [i], u and y for [y]: [e] Enge 'narrowness', Ldnge 'length':

[oj] heute 'today', lauft 'runs'; [i] Liebe iove', Stil 'style'; [y] iiben 'to practice',

lyrisch 'lyrical'.
Fourth, some phonemes are represented by various spellings: [k] by k in Kind
'child', ck in decken 'to cover', q before u in Quelle 'source', ch before 5 in wachsen
'to grow'; [9] by ch in ich T, g after in mdchtig 'mighty'.
/'

Fifth, voiced obstruents b, d, g, v, s, and g are devoiced at the end of syllables

(table 59.5).
644 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.4: Values of Letters in Standard Germanic Languages

German Dutch Icelandic Norwegian (bokmal)
a [a, a:] [a, a] [a|

a - lau
a [e, e:]

a - [o]

aa [a:] [a]

aai - [a:i]

au [au] [0q] [««]

au [oi]

auw - [3«]
ay [ai]

ae - [aiJ [e, «]
b [p] /_$ [p] /_$ Lb] [b]

[b] elsewh. [b] elsewh.

ch [5] /i, c_ [x]

[x] elsewh.
a
ck [k]

d [t] /_$ [t] /_$ [d] [d]

[d] elsewh. [d] elsewh.

ds [dz] (in loans)

dsch [d$] (in loans)

5 - [5]

e [e, e:], [s] unacc. [e, e], [a] unacc. [e] [e, e, ae], [a] unacc
ee [e:] [e]

eg - :
[«a
eeuw - [e:u] - -
ei [ai] [ei] [ei] [*i]
er [b] unacc.
eu [oi] [0]
-
ey - [ei]

f [f] [f] [f,v] [fi

g [9] /I $, [3] in loans [x]/_$ taili- XI x]/_ _{1 Li]/_i

[k]/_$, fg] elsewh. [y] elsewh. s},[y] /v. _V, [g] [g] elsewh.
h [:]/V_;[h] elsewh. [h] [h] - [h]

hj - [?]

[i,i:] [i, 1] [1] [i]

m
ie [i:] [i]

icuw - [i:u]
- [ei]
y
j [j], [3] in loans Ul
-
[J]

k M [k] [kj]/_I [c|/_I

|k| elsewh. (k| elsewh
kk [
h
kj]/_J -
h
[
k] elsewh.

[1] [1~+] Ml HI
[m| [m] [m] [ml
[nl [n] [nl
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 645

table 59.4: Values of Letters in Standard Germanic Languages (Continued)

German Dutch Icelandic Norwegian (bokmdl)
ng [n] M M [nJ

nj - w - -
[o, 0:] [o, 0:] [0] [o,o]
6 - - [ou] -
[oe, 0:] - [0]
-
- - - [0]

oe - [u] -
0g - - - [0q]

0y - - - [0q]
00 [0:] [0]
- -
ooi - [o:i] - -
ou
p
-
[PJ
M
[p]
-

[P]
-
[p]

pf [pf] [f]
- -
ph [f](in oans) - - -
- - PP]
-
pp
qu [kv] (in loans) - - -
r [r-R - k], [?] /V_ [r,K] [r] rd, rl, rn, rs, rt: retro-

flex dental [ck, [, r\,

s, []; [r, r] elsewh.

s [z] /V _V,[J]/_{t,p} [s] [s] [s]

[s] elsewh.
sch [/]
- - -
sj
- [J]
- [J] /_]
sk - - - [J] /_I
6(ss) [s] - - -
t [t] [t] [t] [t]

tj
- [t
J

]
- -
ts [ts] - - -
tsch [tf] (in loans) - - -
tt
- - M -
-
- - [6]
F-

u [u:, u] [y,v] [Y] [«,o]

u - - [uu] -
ii [y, y:]
- - -
ui - [<Eq] - -
uu - - -
[y]
uw - - -
[y:y]
V [v] [v]
DO, in loans [v] [v]

w [v] [v] - -
[y, y:]
- [I] [y]
y
- - [ii]
-
y
z [ts] [z] - [z]

a. When a word divides at ck, -k- ends the first line and k- begins the second.
646 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.5: Obstruent Devoicing

Non -final Syllable-final

Liebe [liiba] 'love' lieblich [H:plic] 'lovely'

Tode [to:da] 'deaths' Tod [tort] 'death'

Tage [taiga] 'days' Tag [ta:k] 'day'

brave [bra:va] pi. 'honest' brav [braif] sg. 'honest'

beiges [be^as] sg.neut. 'beige' beige [be:J] undecl. 'beige'

Felsen [felzn] 'rock' Fels [fels] 'rock'

Orthographic inconsistencies are particularly evident for the voiceless sibilant

[J]: Sch Schnee 'snow', S+t Stuhl 'chair', S+p Spiel 'game', Ch Chance 'chance', Sh
Shorts 'shorts', Sc Crescendo 'crescendo'.
Finally, although NHG has generally replaced Fraktur, known in English as
Gothic script, with the Roman script (see section 63), the fourteenth-century liga-
ture^ [s], a substitute for the older sz, has been retained when word-final or precon-
sonantal, and after a long vowel: Hafi [ha:s] 'hatred', hafit [hast] 'hates', Bufie [bu:sa]
'repentance' (cf. s [z] in Busen [buizen] 'breast'). The sole example of words differ-
entiated only by ss/fi is Masse ['mass] 'crowd' versus Mafie ['maiss] 'measures'.

Sample of German
/. German: Das Wort „deutsch" erschien zuerst in der
2. Transcription: das vo^t dojtf ?£B'Ji:n tsu:'-?e:rjst ?m der?

3. Gloss: the word "deutsch" appeared to-first in the

/. lateinischen Schriftsprache als „theodiscus" und bedeutete

2. lai'tainijn 'jKift-Jpnaixs als teo'diskus ?unt bs'doiteta

3. Latin writing-language as "theodiscus" and meant

/. urspriinglich etwa „zum Volk gehorig" und bezog sich

2. ?u:rj'JpKYrjlic ?etva: tsum folk g3'h0:Kic. . ?unt bs'tsoik zic
3. originally somewhat "to.the folk belonging" and referred self

/. im friihen Mittelalter zuerst nicht auf das Land, sondern

2. Vim 'fKy:9n 'mitl-?alt^ tsu:-'?e£st ni9t auf das lant 'zonden
3. in. the early middle-age to-first not on the country but

/. auf die Volkssprache, im Gegensatz sowohl zum Latein der

2. auf di: 'folks-/pKa:x9 ?im 'geignzats zo:Vo:l tsum la'tain det?

3. on the people-language in. the contrast in. fact to.the Latin of.the

/. Gelehrten als auch zum „Walhisk" („Welsch") der romanischen

2. g9'le:Rtn als aux tsum 'vailisk velj deu ro'ma:niJn
3- educated as also to.the foreign of.the Romance
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 547

/. oder romanisierten Nachbarn im Frankischen Reich.

2. 'o:de Komaini'ziiBtn 'na:xba:e-n im 'fKerjkiJn raic

?. or Romanized neighbor-s in. the Franconian kingdom

The word "German" appeared first in written Latin as theodiscus and originally
meant something like 'in the vernacular' and in the early Middle Ages at first

did not refer to the country but to the language of the people in contrast both to
the Latin of scholars as well as to "Walhish" ('foreign tongue') of the Romance
or Romanized neighbors in the Franconian kingdom.' —Bach 1965: 144.

Dutch and Afrikaans

Dutch is the oldest name for the language; the English word comes from Duutsc,
which ultimately derives from the Latin theodiscus, also the source for Deutsch 'Ger-
man'. Although Dutch is historically closely related to Low German, favorable eco-
nomic and cultural conditions helped entrench the language and prevent it from
yielding to the advance of High German, as Low German did. Afrikaans arose within
two generations after a seventeenth-century party of Dutch established a colony at the

Cape of Good Hope. The drastic modifications of the spoken language (e.g. loss of
inflections) probably were caused by the use of pidgin with non-European slaves. By
the third decade of the twentieth century, Afrikaans had supplanted Dutch as an offi-

cial language in South Africa.

Long vowels are "overlong" before -r. Single vowels in Dutch are short in closed
syllables and before double consonants. In closed syllables long vowels are doubled.
There are a few additional features that complicate the orthography and pronunciation
of Dutch. Written consonants are doubled in polysyllabic words after a short vowel:
pil [pil] 'pilV, pillen ['pilon] (pi.); bus [dys] 'bus', bussen ['bvson] (pi.). Written dou-
ble vowels are simplified in polysyllabic words but retain their length: laan [lain] 'av-

enue', lanen ['lainon] (pi.); boom [bo:m] 'tree', bomen ['boimon] (pi.). Clusters of
consonants are entirely voiced or voiceless, with stops controlling spirants: hoofden
['ho:vdon] 'heads'; ijsbreker ['eiz.brekor] 'icebreaker'. In stop clusters, voicing dom-
inates, but in spirant clusters voicelessness is dominant: uitbreiden ['(Eyd.breidsn] 'to

expand' afzetten
; ['af.seton] 'to take off' . At the end of a syllable d is unvoiced and
between vowels frequently disappears: oud [out] 'old', oude ['oudo] (masc); goede
t'Yuijo] 'good'.

Sample of Dutch
/. Dutch: Er worden in Nederland naast het beschaafde
2. Transcription: er 'uordon in 'neidsr.lant 'naist net bo'sxaivds
3- Gloss: there are in Netherlands next. to the cultivated
648 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. Nederlands een groot aantal dialecten gesproken. In de

2. 'ne:dor,lants e:n 'yro:t 'a:ntal di:a:'lekton ys'sproikon in da
j. Dutch a large number dialects spoken in the

/. gemeenschap waarin het gangbaar is, doet een dialect als

2. yo'me.nsxap oai'nn het 'Y a rjb a:r is 'du:t e:n di:a:'lekt als

j. communities wherein it current is does a dialect as

/. communicatiemiddel met onder voor het beschaafde Nederlands.

2. komymi'katsii-.midol ni:t 'ondor voir het bo'sxa:vdo 'ne:dor,lants

j. communication-means not under before the cultivated Dutch

/. De dialectklanken zijn op zichzelf 00k niet minder mooi

2. do diiai'lekt-.klarjko zein op zix'self 'o:k 'ni:t 'mindor mo:i
3. the dialect-sounds are on themselves also not less beautiful

/. dan die van het beschaafde Nederlands.

2. dan 'di: van het bo'sxaivdo 'neidor.lants

3. than those of the cultivated Dutch

'In Holland, next to cultivated Dutch, there are a large number of dialects spo-
ken. In the communities where it is current a dialect does not yield as a means
of communication to cultivated Dutch. Dialect sounds are in themselves also
not less beautiful than those of cultivated Dutch.' —van den Berg 1958: 108.

Scandinavian languages

Icelandic and Norwegian. Vowel mutation is also characteristic of the Scandi-

navian languages and was first described linguistically in a twelfth century Old Ice-
landic manuscript, First Grammatical Treatise, which describes the "blended" vowels
as follows: <?, "a blending of a and o (rg 'yard'); e, "a blending of a and e (fer

'sheep'); "made up from the sounds of e and 6>" (0ra 'to upset'); y "made up from
the sounds of i and w" (syna 'laps').

Although most of the characters used to mark vowel mutation in Old Icelandic
have disappeared or have been replaced by other signs, the practice of employing
many ligatures, abbreviations, and gemination signs continued until the nineteenth

century in Iceland, where manuscripts played a major role in the dissemination of cul-
tural information; e.g., tj - ng, N = nn, R = rr, d. = dag 'day', sa = svarajie 'answered'
(normalized: svaradi), kngr = konungr 'king', h = harm 'he', ka = kona 'woman'.
During the Middle Scandinavian period, political and linguistic changes pro-
foundly influenced the development of the Scandinavian languages. The consumma-
tion of the Kalmar Union in 1397 brought Iceland (until 1944), Norway (until 18 14),

and Sweden (until 1523) under Danish dominion; as a result, Icelandic remained iso-

lated and retained its ancient writing traditions, while Old Norwegian gradually yield-
ed to written Danish. The strong influence of Low German helped bring the
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 649

Scandinavian languages together, and today unity is more conspicuous than the dif-
ferences. The exception to this is modern Icelandic.

Modern Icelandic. Although Icelandic has changed pronunciation greatly, it has

retained the orthography (and the grammar and lexicon) of Old Icelandic thoroughly
enough to allow Icelanders to read medieval texts more easily than any other Europe-
an people. This is particularly evident in the vowel system: the acute accents of the
FGT are retained to mark long vowels, but now serve to mark diphthongs as well.
Vowel quantity is independent of quality: short vowels precede geminates and
clusters except pp, tt, and kk.

Two rules produce additional diphthongs. First, a homorganic glide is inserted af-
ter short vowels before ng and nk: ping [Oiirjg] 'thing', enginn ['eirjgin] 'nobody',
yngri ['i'rjgri] 'younger', kongur ['kourjgyr] 'king', ungur ['uurjgYr] 'young' (masc).
Second, gi (or gj before a vowel) is pronounced [j], and before this [j] a vowel is diph-
thongized to [Vi]: stigi ['stiiji] 'ladder', segja ['seija] 'to say', lygi ['liiji] 'lie', login
['loij in] 'the law', daginn ['daijin] 'the day', bogi ['boiji] 'bow', hugi ['hYJji] 'mind'.
Although Icelandic has undergone fewer changes in the consonant system than
in the vowel system, several features complicate phonetic-graphic relationships.
Thus dissimilation and devoicing of sonorants occur: fjall [fjadl] 'mountain', steinn
[steidn] 'stone', karl [kardl] 'man', horn [hordn] 'horn', efla ['ebla] 'to strengthen',

hefna [hebna] 'to avenge'; hnifur ['hniiwr] 'knife', hofn [h0bn] 'harbor'. Palataliza-
tion of g, k, sk before front vowels is illustrated by geta ['gjeta] 'to be able to', kenna
['kjena] 'to teach', skera ['sgjera] 'to cut'.

many consonants (e.g. b, d,f, g, k, n, r, t, v) are lost in certain consonantal

Finally,

environments: b, when after m and before d, t, s, g kembdi ['kfemdi] 'combed'; d, —

—
when after /, n and before g, /?, /, k, s holdgun ['holgynj 'incarnation';/, when after
/ and before n, r, s, t
—
hdlfna ['haulna] 'to halve' and when after a, u, 6 hufa — —
[huua] 'cap'; n, when after r, t and before 5 barns [bas] 'child' (gen.).

Sample of Modern Icelandic

/. Icelandic: Island hefur alltaf att morg skald og
h
2. Transcription: 'iisland 'hevvr 'altav 'au t 'm0rg 'skauld oy
3. Gloss: Iceland has always had many poets and

/. rithofunda ad tiltolu vi5 folkfjolda. A tolftu og

2. 'nt^vvnda a5 'tilt0lY vi5 'foulks fj0lda
l
au 'toulftv oy
3. writers to proportion with population in twelfth and

/. ]3rettandu old var Island midstod menningar a Nordurlondum.

h
2. 'er£ taundY '0ld 'var 'iisland 'mi5st05 'menirjgar au 'nDrdYr.londvm
3. thirteenth centuries was Iceland center of.culture in Scandinavia
650 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. og enn byrjar bokmenntasaga allra fcjoda a Norourlondum,

2. oy 'en 'birjar 'boukmenta-.saya 'adlra '0jou5a au 'norcWr.^ndYm
3. and still begins literature-history of.all nations in Scandinavia

/. og einkum Nordmanna, a bokmenntum Islendinga. Eddukvae3i

2. oy 'eirjkYm 'norQ.mana au 'boukmentYm 'iislendiiqga '£dY-,kvai3i

3. and especially of.the. Norsemen in literature of.Icelanders Edda-poems

/. og sogurnar eru kunnar um allan hinn mennta5a heim.

2. oy 's0gYrdnar erY 'kYnar Yin 'adlan hin 'mentaoa heim
3. and sagas are known through all the civilized world

'Iceland has always had many poets and writers in proportion to the population.
In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Iceland was the center of culture in Scan-
dinavia, and the history of literature of all nations in Scandinavia, and espe-
cially of the Norsemen, begins with the literature of the Icelanders. The Edda
poems and sagas are known all throughout the civilized world.'
—Einarsson 1961:270.

Modern Norwegian (bokmal). Historically, Norwegian and Danish shared a

written language; however, spoken Norwegian retained a conservative phonology,
while spoken Danish underwent many sound changes. In the nineteenth century, two
standard varieties of Norwegian evolved: bokmal, based on the old Dano-Norwegian,
and nynorsk, based on comparative reconstruction from Norwegian dialects. Spelling

reforms have brought these two standards closer together, but bokmal remains pre-
dominant, and is the basis for the following description.
In pronouncing Norwegian it should be noted that, as in all Germanic languages,
the stress is generally on the first syllable. The stressed vowel is usually long when
followed by a single, short consonant or none.
A few rules are needed to explain the differences between spellings and their pho-
netic values. First, before front vowels, g, k, and sk are palatalized, as are consonants
v
followed by ay: kirke [cir ko] 'church', gift [J
1 ft] 'married', skip [Jip] 'ship', gjore
[gj0f roj 'to do', sju [/«:], 'seven', hjelpe [jet po] 'to help'. Note also rs and si and the
vocalization of g: slags [slaks] 'kind of, ellers [eloj] 'otherwise', jeg [jaei] T. In

some dialects r assimilates to a following alveolar: vers [vaess] 'verse', vccrt [vastt]
'been'.
Some consonants are written but not pronounced, such as final /, d, and g; and h
before another consonant: huset [hu: 'so] 'the house', hva fva:] 'what', totv [toll

'twelve', ledig [lefdi] 'vacant', kveld [kvel] 'evening'.

Finally, two suprasegmental features — pitch accent in Norwegian and Swedish,
and the glottal catch in Danish, not indicated orthographically —complicate the pro-
nunciation of these languages. Accent 1 (') in Norwegian is like the basic stress in

other Germanic languages, but Accent 2 ( ) involves a rising pitch on the next syllable.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 55 J

Sample of Modern Norwegian

/. Norwegian: Det norske spraksamfunnet er lite og det
2. Transcription: de nor sks sproik'-sarn funo aer lifts og de
3. Gloss: the Norwegian language-community is small and it

/. er begrenset hvor mange b0ker det kan ta imot hvert

2. aer bsgren'sst vor' marfgs b0:'ksr de kan' ta:' imoif vaerf
3. is limited how many books it can take toward each

/. ar. Pa den annen side er den moderne bok, en vare

v
2. o:r' po: den a:3 n sifds aer den moderns bo:k' en vaf rs
3. year on the other side is the modern book a commodity

/. som egner seg best for masseproduksjon. Det er neppe

v
2. som aein sr saei best' for mo/ss-produkjoin' de aer ne ps
3. which suits itself best for mass-production it is hardly

/. den beste forutsetning for dikterisk innsats vite at man

v v
2. den bes te for'utsetnirj for dik terisk in'sats vifts cut man
3. the best condition for poetic motivation know that one

/. skriver for en handfull mennesker.

2. skrifvsr for en honcT ful me neskar
3. writes for a handful people

'The Norwegian language community is small and it is limited in how many

books it is able to receive each year. On the other hand the modern book is a
commodity which is best suited for mass production It is hardly the best condi-
tion for poetic motivation to know that one is writing for a handful of people/
-Dahl 1975: 363.

English

Peter T. Daniels

History of English spelling. The first writings in English are the Old English or
Anglo-Saxon glosses in Latin church documents (see figure 45 b on page 318). The
earliest are from the late seventh century c.e.; literary as well as ephemeral manu-
scripts survive only from the time of King Alfred (r. 871-899).
The spelling system of English — often stigmatized as chaotic — reflects quite

well several unique circumstances that have befallen the language. Old English ab-
sorbed loanwords (and their spellings) in a normal way from Scandinavian invaders
and Greek- and Latin-speaking missionaries. But then the Norman Conquest of 1066
(the conventional boundary of Middle English) began an influx of Romance (Norman
 —
652 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

French) words, which pertained to more cultivated levels of society —domestic ani-
mals have Germanic names but their flesh is eaten in French (cow/beef, calf/veal,
sheep/mutton), for instance. Ever since, the vocabulary of science and other intellec-
tual pursuits has been formed from Latin and Greek roots rather than Germanic ones
(as has been preferred in German — it's not as if the native resources would have been
inadequate). As is often the case (cf. section 62), the spelling conventions of the
originating language have been retained aswords are borrowed.
The second unusual circumstance concerned the timing of the introduction of
printing to England, by William Caxton in 1476 (taken as the start of Modern En-
glish). He is largely responsible for establishing norms of spelling based on the usage
of the capital, London. Unfortunately, just when printers had settled on an ortho-
graphic system conforming with the general European use of the vowel letters, the

vowels were undergoing a change in pronunciation, the Great English Vowel Shift
whereby, e.g., mid front [e:] became high front [i:]. (Such wholesale reorganizations
are not unusual in the world's languages, and indeed a very similar shifting can be
observed in progress in present-day American English.) Certain other vowels merged
(meat and meet do not rhyme in many nonstandard dialects, for instance). Spelling,

however, was not reformed (the arguments against rendering all the past's literature
obsolete are powerful), so English vowel orthography is now inconsistent with that of
every other language that uses the Roman alphabet. (Seeming consonant anomalies,
such as rough/ ruff/ through/ threw, result from quite normal changes, here the loss of
velar fricatives in different contexts.) The large number of identifiable, regular spell-
ings of vowels that have merged differentially in different dialects provide a conve-

nient metric for categorizing the worldwide variety of English dialects (Wells 1982
uses the 24 keywords kit, dress, trap, lot, strut, foot, bath, cloth, nurse,
FLEECE, FACE, PALM, THOUGHT, GOAT, GOOSE, PRICE, CHOICE, MOUTH, NEAR,
SQUARE, START, NORTH, FORCE, and CURE).
Lastly, the birth of the new American nation afforded the rare opportunity to carry
out a spelling reform, led by Noah Webster: it involved mostly the omission of unnec-
essary letters such as the u in -our and the change of -re to -er. This innovation, cou-
pled with a certain conservatism in pronunciation (such as the retention of postvocalic
r in many American dialects), means that American spelling reflects the pronuncia-
tion of English a bit more faithfully than English spelling does.

Symbols. English has always used the Roman alphabet, but a number of sounds not
found in Latin have been accommodated in two different ways (Cummings 1988:
207-12). Early on, either d (called edh) or p {thorn) was used for either [6] or [5], a
symbol (wen) with a shape intermediate between p and p was [wl (an example ap-
pears in figure 45B), and 5 (yogh) was [y]; these letters are said to have Runic ori-
gins (cf. section 25). Subsequently, Norman scribes, adapting Latin usage for
rendering borrowed Greek sounds, created digraphs with // for unfamiliar English
sounds: ch represents [tf] (Old English c) — after a short vowel spelled cch, which be-
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 553

came tclv, gh represents [y] —which persists in spelling long after the sound was lost

(gh for [g] is later and irregular); ph [f], the Latin version of Greek (|>, alternates with
native/; sh [J] (Old English sc) was probably simplified from sch; th [0, 5] is the Latin
version of Greek 0; and wh [m] (sometimes becoming [w] or [hw]) also represents [h]
whole. (W is the doubling of the v shape of u for the consonantal value [u], i.e. [w];
cf. v. the Latin adaptation of Greek Y [y], which alternated with i for both [i] and [i],

i.e. [j]. X and z received their current pronunciations, differing from the Greek origi-

nals, in Latin.)

There have been a number of attempts to catalog the correspondences between

sound and spelling of English. The most successful is that of Edward Carney, who
presents both speech-to-text correspondences (1994: 134-255) and text-to-speech
correspondences (pp. 280-380, summary pp. 381-94) for British spelling. Cummings
(1988) presents the former sort of correspondence, though not exhaustively (omitting
the spellings of shwa and other unstressed vowels, p. xxvi), for American spelling.

Venezky ( 1 970) presents the latter sort, very compactly —but the laurel for compres-
sion must go to W. A. Ainsworth, whose 159 rules for driving a minimal speech syn-
thesizer from written input. can be reproduced on a single page (Carney 1994: 265).
(Contemporary speech synthesizers rely on a list of exceptional correspondences in
addition to an algorithm for generating pronunciations from spellings deemed to be
regular.)

Spelling, spelling reform, and reading instruction. Calls are continually

heard for the wholesale reform of English spelling, so that one letter would corre-
spond to one phoneme — it is argued that an alphabet ought to reflect the pronuncia-
tion of its language. But it is not difficult to demonstrate that current spelling does this
quite well, on the whole; the reflection, though, is of a slightly abstracted form of the
language, at the level of the morpheme rather than of the spoken word. A standard
example is photograph, which is pronounced several ways depending on its surround-
ings. It is /fowtsgraef/ (alone), /fatagrif/ (in photography), and /fdwtsgraefV (in pho-
tographic). If the spelling reflected the pronunciation of the words rather than the
identity of their base, their relationship would be obscured.
Another benefit of the extended resources of English orthography is the availabil-
ity of different spellings for homophones, such as to, two, and too; its and it's; and
presence and presents. Furthermore, the native versus Romance versus Classical (i.e.

Latin/Greek) origin of the word, as marked by some feature of its spelling, can indi-
cate which suffixes may be applied, on the pattern of similarity, not *similarness, cf.

sameness. An example of native versus Classical spelling is/ versus /;>// for [f]; and [3]

occurs nearly exclusively in words of Romance origin (beige, genre) as well as result-
ing from the palatalization of [z] before [j] (confusion, usual).
Words that do not obey any of the rules for these subsystems are of two kinds.
They can be borrowings from non-European languages, such as gnu and Iraq (En-
glish is unusually hospitable to foreign words, one of the features that suits it to be an
 —
654 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

international language —see Strevens 1985, little known but very insightful). Or they
can result from meddling by sixteenth- and seventeenth-century pedants who tried to

assimilate English to the Classical languages, as in debt, historically dett but awarded
a b by analogy with Latin debitus.
To the extent that the historic richness of English vocabulary and spelling result

in sets likebomb/ comb/ tomb and cove/ love/move, where each word has to be learned
separately, English writing can be considered logographic. But the spelling never de-
viates far from the pronunciation tomb can never be read 'grave', for instance. It is
thus generally agreed among linguists that strategies for teaching reading that do not
incorporate the study of phonics (correspondence between spelling and sound) are at
least inefficient, and probably ineffective as well. Spelling/sound correspondence is

highly amenable to computerization, and was in fact one of the first linguistic phe-

nomena to be so studied (Hanna et al. 1966). However, the Hanna study (despite its

title) used not a phonemic analysis of American English, but the pronunciation key in

a standard dictionary, as its input, and suffers from conceptual weaknesses as well as
the sorts of problems that beset early, massive computerized investigations (Carney
1994: 86-96). Its indeed rather chaotic findings ("English spelling is 50% regular"!)
ought not to have been cited against the phonics approach to teaching reading.
Carney (1994: 473-88) updates Mencken's (1936: 397-407, 1948: 287-316) sur-
vey of spelling reform proposals. Some of the suggestions of reformers have been
—
more or less widely accepted e.g. catalog for catalogue, thru for through but most —
have not. The case of the reformers is not advanced when they construct, by ignoring
etymology and morphophonemics, examples even more ridiculous than G. B. Shaw's
specious ghoti [fij]: gh can only be [f] at the end of a word after ou, 6> is [1] only in
the truly anomalous women, and ti is [J] only in Latinate suffixes such as -tion. Crystal

(1995: 273) reprints an epic piece of doggerel by one G. N. Trenite, writing as "Chari-
varius," which both makes and breaks the case for spelling reform: H. I. Aronson sug-
gests that in memorizing the poem, one learns every irregularly spelled English word!
The first stanza: "Dearest creature in Creation, I Studying English pronunciation, / I

will teach you in my verse / Sounds like corpse, corps, horse and worse."

Sample of English
The passage is followed by transcriptions into British "Received Pronunciation" (by
M. K. C. MacMahon) and "General American" (by P. T. Daniels, reflecting New York
origin and Chicago influence). RP is a prestigious accent spoken by a minority and
admired by many; General American is often used in formal speaking and broadcast-
ing, largely devoid of regional characteristics. Stress marks note only the location of
stress within polysllabic words; nothing is indicated of sentence-accent or intonation.

/. English: All attempts to connect particular types of

2. RP: 0] s'tempts te ka'nekt pa'tikjsls tajps 3V
n
3- Gen. Amer: 0] a'temts te k3'n£k t pj'tikjola^ tajps 3V
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 555

/. linguistic morphology with certain correlated stages of

n
2. hrj'gwistik mo'fDlsdji wid 's3t n 'koro.lejtid 'stejc^iz ov
3. hrj'gwistik moj'falid^ij wi3 'sjt?n 'kojo.lejtid 'stej(%iz ov

/. cultural development are vain, Rightly understood, such

n
2. 'kAltfar^- di'velop mont o 'vejn 'rajtli .Ando'stud SAtT
n
3. 'kAltfjf do'velQp mnt aj vejn "jajtlij .Andi'stud SAtj"

/. correlations are rubbish. When it comes to linguistic

2. .koro'lej/nz o 'rAbiJ wen it kAinz to hq'gwistik
3. .kojo'lejjnz aj 'jAbiJ Men it kAmz tuw hrj'gwistik

1. form, Plato walks with the Macedonian swineherd,

2. fom 'plejtow woks wi5 5o .maesi'downion 'swajn,h3d
3. fojm 'plej,t
h
ow woks wi5 5o 'maess.downijsn 'swajn.hjd

1. Confucius with the head-hunting savage of Assam.

2. kon'fjuwjos wi5 3o 'hed.hAntirj 'saevi(% ov ae'saem

3. kn'fjuwjis wi3 3o 'hed.hAntiq 'saevicfc^ av ,a3s'sae:m

—Sapir 1921: 219.

Note: Sapir was mistaken in placing headhunters in Assam; they occupied a neighboring area.

Celtic languages

Damian McManus

Three Continental Celtic languages are distinguished, namely Gaulish, Lepontic, and
Celtiberian. Lepontic inscriptions (from the area of Lake Lugano) are written in a

North Etruscan (North Italic) script, as are three Gaulish inscriptions from Italy. Celt-
iberian inscriptions are written in an Iberian alphabet. Gaulish inscriptions from Gal-
lia Narbonensis are in the Greek alphabet while those from eastern and central Gaul,
which are chronologically later, are usually in the Latin alphabet.
Insular Celtic languages are Irish with its offshoots Scottish Gaelic and Manx;
and Welsh, Cornish, and Breton, all deriving ultimately from British. Scottish Gaelic
orthography corresponds in essence to that of Early Modern Irish and has not under-
gone the third stage in the history of the evolution of Irish orthography (i.e. the Mod-
ern Irish Caighdean Oifigiuil; see below). There are examples of Scottish Gaelic
written according to English orthographic conventions, the most notable being in the
Book of the Dean of Lismore (16th century). Manx, known to us mainly from seven-
teenth- and eighteenth-century translations of religious texts, is also written in an or-
thography based on English orthographical conventions.
656 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Early British is known to us in the main from Classical sources and from Latin
inscriptions belonging to the Romano-British period in the Imperial province. The
main sources for Late British, Primitive Welsh, and Cornish are the Early Christian
inscriptions of post-Roman Britain written for the most part in the Latin alphabet. Old
Welsh, Cornish, and Breton appear mainly in glossed Latin texts dating from the
eighth and ninth centuries and, like Late British, are written in an adaptation of Latin
orthographical conventions based on a British pronunciation of Latin. In later sources
the influence of Anglo-Saxon and Anglo-Norman conventions are found particularly
in Cornish and Breton.

Irish

Christianity gained a secure foothold in Ireland during the fifth century, and Ogham
(section 26), inspired doubtless by contact with the Roman alphabet, is the earliest
writing system known to have been used by the Irish. Experimentation with the Latin
alphabet itself, as opposed to the Ogham script, may have been on-going during the
early centuries of the Christian period, but our oldest surviving texts date from the
seventh century, and Classical Old Irish (8th and 9th centuries) is the best starting
point for a discussion of the adaptation of the Roman alphabet to Irish.

The Irish adopted 18 Roman characters: the vowel symbols a, e, i, o, u\ the con-
sonant symbols b, c, d,f, g, I, m, n, p, r, s, t\ and /?, which for them was for the most
part a nota aspirationis —though it could also appear as a mute letter at the beginning
of short words and loans (e.g. hi [i] 'in', huar The vowel
[usr] 'hour' < Latin hora).
symbols may be said to have their Latin values, both long and short, in Old Irish; the
long vowels are served by the use of the Latin apex (acute accent), i.e. a, e, 1, 6, u. The
Irish consonants are more complicated, as each of these had a broad (velar) and slen-

der (palatal) quality (for the most part contrastive), and in initial position each had
mutated and unmutated (radical) forms. The most important developments in the evo-

lution of Irish orthography focus on establishing an unambiguous system of repre-

senting this variety in the consonantal system. As the first stage in this evolution, Old
Irish orthography is the least unambiguous and thus the most complicated.

table 59.6: Glides Indicating Consonant Quality

Old Modern Pronunciation

Fintan Fiontan f'oNton 'Fintan'

Dec Ian Deaglan d e:gla:n

J
'Dec Ian'
liaCellig 6 Ceallaigh 0: k'aL3(Y') 'O' Kelly'

ua Cennetig O Ceinneidigh 0: k'cN'eid'oy'

O Cinneide 0: k'iN'eid's 'O' Kennedy'

Erenn Ei rearm e:r'3N 'of Ireland'

a. A consonant marked with |'| is slender, otherwise it is broad.

 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 557

A system of writing on- and off-glides, which had begun early, was perfected in

time to distinguish palatal and velar quality. The front vowels i and e were associated
with the former; a, o, and u with the latter. By the Early Modern period (1200- 1650),
the rule Caol le caol, leathan le leathern 'Slender with slender, broad with broad' had
been evolved whereby consonants had to be followed, preceded, and/or flanked by
glides indicating their quality. Some examples illustrate this (table 59.6).
Modern Irish spelling, then, is characterized by the use of digraphs such as
ealealed, io/10, aildi, oiloi, uilui, etc. One member of each set serves solely to mark
the quality of a preceding or following consonant; the other serves primarily as the
main vowel but also, by its nature, indicates the quality of an adjacent consonant. The
first letter of the digraph represents the main vowel if it is long; otherwise the second
usually predominates, thus fear J
[f e:r] 'grass' but fear [far] 'man'; Seamus [s
J
e:mss]
'James' but Sean [s
J
a:n] 'John'.

In word-initial position, consonants in Irish may have their radical form; or they

may be mutated by lenition (spirantization)* or nasalization (nasalization and subse-

quent absorption of voiced stops, voicing of voiceless stops, and lengthening of
voiced continuants etc.). A good example of lenition is furnished by the name Seamus
[s
J
e:mss], vocative a Sheamuis [s he:m3s J
], whence Scottish Hamish. The final sound
of a preceding closely connected word was the governing factor in Primitive Irish
(pre-5th century): a vowel lenited a following consonant, a nasal nasalized it, any oth-
er consonant left it unmutated. But initial mutations are a feature of grammar in the
period of recorded Irish, as the final syllables which caused them were lost in or

around the fifth century. Thus the nominative, accusative, and genitive singular re-
spectively of 'man' (Modern Irish fear, fear, fir) arefet\fei\ and fir in Old Irish, but
were * wiros, * wiron, and * win at an earlier stage. Though they have the same auslaut
in Old Irish, the nom. causes no mutation, the ace. nasalizes, and the gen. lenites the

initial consonant of a following closely connected word. Similarly, the possessive ad-
jectives a 'his', a 'her', and a 'their' are identical in shape in Old and Modern Irish

but have different effects on a following initial, a 'his' leniting (< *esyo), a 'her' caus-
ing no mutation to a consonant (< *esyas), and a 'their' causing nasalization (<
*eysom). Modern Irish capall [kapsL], then, becomes chapall [xapsL] 'horse' after a
'his', remains unchanged after a 'her', and becomes gcapall IgapsL] after a 'their'.

Representing these mutations unambiguously was a major challenge to Irish orthog-

raphy, and table 59.7 illustrates the Old and the Modern systems.
The most significant feature of the Old Irish system is its failure to mark the na-
salization (voicing) of voiceless stops (i.e. its t- for Modern dt- etc.) and the lenition
of their voiced counterparts and m (i.e. its d- for Modern dh- etc.). This, however, is
more apparent than real, as the Old Irish system is based on traditional Latin spelling
serving British (i.e. British Celtic) pronunciation. In British Latin the words populus,

*The unlenited forms of /. //. and r are represented in transcriptions by the small capital versions l. n. and R of
those letters: for phonetic details see Thurneysen 1946 § 135.
558 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.7: Orthographic Representation of Mutations

Radical Lenited Nasah zed

t- Old [t] th- [0] t- [d]

Modern [tj th- [h] dt- [d]

c- Old Ik] ch- [x] c- [g]

Modern fk] ch- [x] gc- [g]

p- Old [p] ph- [$] P- [b]

Modern ph- [f] bp- [b]

IpJ
V
d- Old [d] d- [5] nd- [N]
A
/
Modern Id] dh- tv] nd- [N]

g- Old [g] g- [yJ ng- to]

Modern [g] gh- [y] ng- [0]

b- Old [b] b- [p] mb- [m]

Modern [b] bh- [v] mb- [m]

m- Old [m] m- [p] m(m) [m]
Modern [m] mh- [v] m- [m]
a
l- Old [L] 1-
[1] 1(1)- [L]

Modern [L] 1- [1] 1- [L]

s- Old [s] s- [h] s- [s]

Modern [s] sh- [h] s- [s]

f- Old [f] f- (no sound) f- [p]

Modern [f] fh- (no sound) bhf- [v]

a. n and /• are treated similarly to /.

pater, and locus were pronounced (by British "lenition") with intervocalic [b], [d],

and [g], while scribo, idolum, legendum, and dominicus had intervocalic [p], [d], [y],

and |PJ respectively by the same process. In writing, the Irish simply adopted tradi-

tional Latin spelling with this pronunciation, so these words, which were borrowed
k
into Irish, appear in Old Irish as popul [pobul] 'people', palter [pad J
3r] the Lord's
prayer, a paternoster', loc [log] 'place'; and scribaid J
[skr i:p95 J
] 'writes', idol [i:dsl]

'idol', leigend [leiy'snd] 'reading', domnach [dopnsxj 'Sunday'. The letters/?, t, and
c, on the one hand, and b, d, g, and m, on the other, had two sets of values in initial

position in British, depending on whether they were "lenited" or not. This British "le-
nition" corresponded to Irish lenition in the case of the voiced stops (and m) and to

Irish nasalization in the case of the voiceless ones; and Old Irish (like Early Welsh)
simply applied the dual-value principle across word boundary (a boundary often ig-

nored in writing). Thus, as the intervocalic/? in popul [pobul] represented [b], the ini-
tialp could also represent [bj (its nasalized counterpart) in a popul [3 bobul] 'their
people' (Modern a bpobal); and as intervocalic d represented [d] in idol, the initial d
in dan 'poem' [da:n] could represent [d] (its lenited counterpart) in a dan [3 5a:n] "his

poem' (Modern a dhdn [a yarn]).

 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 659

The same mutations were indicated unambiguously, however, in the case of other
sounds. Thus the lenition of voiceless stops, unlike their voiced counterparts, was rep-
resented by Latin ch, th, and/?/?; that off and s, which involved the complete loss of
the sound in the case of the former, and reduction to [h] or some sequenc-
no sound in

es in the case of the latter (e.g. Old Irish mac [mak iNt ag3Rd ] 'son of the
int sacairt J

priest' = 'Mac Entaggart'), came to be marked during the Old Irish period by the Lat-
in punctum delens (i.e./, s), a scribal device for indicating an erroneously written let-

ter. Similarly, the nasalization of the voiced stops b, d, and g, unlike their voiceless
counterparts, was represented by Latin mb, nd, and ng.
By a process of cross-fertilization (operating in the direction indicated by the ar-
rows in table 59.7), the Old Irish devices just mentioned were gradually extended
to the ambiguous notation discussed above so that lenited initial and internal b [p], d
[5], g [y], and m [fi] came to be written b or bh, d or dh, g or gh, and m or mh (the

latter in each case winning out completely in the Modern Irish standard, where even
/and s have yielded to fh, sh). Similarly, as mb-, nd-, and ng- were pronounced [m],
[n], and [13], the principle that the first letter indicated the sound to be pronounced, the
second the radical, was extended to nasalized (i.e. voiced) initial/?-, t-, c-, and/-, giv-
ing bp-, dt-, gc-, and bhf- (after an intermediate experimentation withpp-, tt-, etc.).

When not in word-initial position, p [b], t [d], and c [g] gave way to b, d, and g; e.g.
Old Irish P atretic [pa:dreg J
] (< British Latin Patricius [padrigius]) > Modern Pddraig
[pa:drsg J
], [pa:rsg J
] in some dialects). These developments were on-going during the
Early Modern period, 1200- 1650, and manuscripts of the time often have both sys-
tems side by side. Some examples will illustrate the changes: Old hi cocad [i gogsd]
> Modern i gcogadh [i gogs] 'in a fight', Old a tech [a d ex] > Modern a dteach [s
J

d ax]
J
'their house', Old a gobae [s yope] > Modern a ghabha [a yau] 'his smith'.

The Official Modern Irish Standard (the Caighdedn Oifigiuil) established in the

twentieth century fixed these developments; if it did not represent a new departure in
orthographic convention, it did constitute a major break with tradition in taking the
modern pronunciation as its basis. Scottish Gaelic orthography did not pass through
this third stage.

Sample of Irish Words and Names

The following words and surnames (formerly patronymics) illustrate the conventions
of the three periods in Irish orthography (Old and Middle, 8th-i2th c; Modern, 13th-
20th c; Caighdedn Oifigiuil, 195 8-).

/. Old and Middle Irish. buiden [buS 9nl J

slegan [s
J
l
J
eya:n]
2. Modern Irish: buidhean J
[biy an] sleaghan [sTayain]
J J
3- Caighdedn Oifigiuil: buion [trim] slean [s l a:n]

4- Gloss: host slane, turf-spade

660 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. celebrad [k el 3pro5]
J J
mac Mathgamno [mak maGyafmo]
2. ceileabhradh [k el
J J
3pro5] Mac Mathghamhna [mak mahyopns]
3. ceiliuradh J
[k el u:r3)
J
Mac Mathiina [mak mahuino]
4. celebration son of Mathgamain 'bear' > McMahon

/. ua Domnaill [us dopnoL J

] ua Segdai [us s
J
e:y3i]
2. 6 Domhnaill (o: do^nsJ] O Seaghdha [o: s
J
e:yoo]
3. 6 Donaill [o: do:n3L J

] 6 Se [o: s e:]
J

4. grandson/descendant of Domnall grandson/descendant of Segdae

'world leader' > O'Donnell 'the propitious one' > O'Shea

Welsh
Eric P. Hamp

The orthography of Modern Welsh is the long-range result of adapting the Roman al-

phabet to the Celtic languages of Britain. The Roman alphabet corresponds to the
sounds of Modern Welsh as shown in table 59.8 (differences between South Walian
and North Walian are indicated by the abbreviations SW and NW). Digraphs consist-
ing of consonant plus h indicate, in part, changes resulting from morphophonemic
processes called mutation (see below). In addition to the symbols shown, the letter j

[<$;) is sometimes used in words borrowed from English, e.g. garej 'garage', jeli 'jel-

ly'. The letter z is occasionally used for [z] in borrowed words, but s is more usual:
sw [zu:] 'zoo'. The Welsh palatal fricative [J] is represented by the digraph si before
a vowel: siarad ['Jarad] 'talk'.
An important difference between North and South Walian pronunciation is that

the former has the additional vowels [+, i:], written with u and y. In South Welsh these
have merged with [1, i:], although the orthographic distinction remains. This holds for
the offglide segments of diphthongs as well. The pronunciation of v varies according
to its position in the word: it is SW [1, i:], NW [+, i:] in most monosyllables (e.g. dyn
'man', ty 'house'), and in final syllables of polysyllabic words. But it is [a] for both

dialects in non-final syllables, thus mynydd [Ynsn+d] 'mountain', pi. mynyddoedd

[mo'nodo+d]. The pronunciation [a] is also used in some unstressed monosyllabic ele-
ments, e.g. the definite article forms y and yr,fy 'my', dy 'your', yn 'in', yn 'predica-
tive particle', <mdyn 'preverbal particle'.
The standard literary representation and pronunciation of Modern Welsh involves
short and long vowels (except y, when pronounced [a]). Length is partly predictable
in terms of following consonants, but the circumflex accent is often used to indicate
unpredictable vowel length (often in loans): lien 'literature',/;^/ 'ball\ cor 'choir'.
plat 'plate'. The circumflex is omitted in certain common (native) words with long

ACKNOWLEDGMENT. The editors are grateful for the help of Kathryn Klar, Dorian Llewellyn, and Robert Thiel.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 66

table 59.8: Welsh Orthography

Letter Name Value Notes

a a la, a:] = [a*]; ai = [aij; an = NW [a], SW [e]; aw = [ay]

b bi [b]

c ec [k]

ch ech [x]

d di [d]

dd edd [3]

e e [e, e:] [31]; euley = NW [9+], SW [si]; ew = [eu]

f ef [v]

ff eff m
& eg [g]

ng eng to] Occasionally represents [rjg], as in Bangor; mutated form ngh is [nrj]

h hets [h] Letter name pronounced [he:tf]

i 1 [i,i:] Before a vowel, i may represent [i]. Letter name in SW is i-dot

1 el [1]

11 ell [*]

m em [m] Mutated mh = [mm]

n en [n] Mutated nh = [nn]
6 [0, 0:] oe, oi = [of]; on = NW [d+], SW [oi]
P Pi [p]

ph ffi,yff[ff] Mutated form of/?; pronounced the same as/

r ri [r]

rh rhi [rr]

s es [s] Before a vowel, si = [J]

t ti [t]

th eth [6]

u u NW: [+, i:] uw = [+u:]

SW: [i, i:] uw = [iu:]; letter name is u-bedol

w w [0, u:] u'v = [u+]; sequence gw may be [gu] before vowel

y y NW: [+, i:] In monosyllables, non-final syllables, and particles, both NW and SW
SW: [1, i:] have [a]

vowels, and one must simply learn the correct pronunciation: hen [he:n] 'old', dyn
[dim] 'man'.
Stress falls generally on the penult, and is not usually indicated by any written
mark (even when it falls elsewhere). Examples of unwritten ultimate stress include
Cymraeg [ksm'ra+g] 'the Welsh language'; the emphatic pronouns lsg. myfi, 2sg. ty-
k

di, etc.; and the class of verbal nouns ending in -(h)au, such as parhau to continue,

endure' and mwynhau 'to enjoy'. Stress is written (exceptionally) in certain suffixes.
662 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.9: Welsh Initial Consonant Mutation"

Initial Lenited Nasalized Spirantized Example Gloss 'his...' 'my...' 'her...'

P b mh ph pen 'head' ei ben fy mhen ei phen

t d nh th tad 'father' ei dad fy nhad ei thad

c g ngh ch ci 'dog' eigi fy nghi ei chi

b f m * braich 'arm' ei fraich fy mraich ei braich

d dd n * dant ddant fy nant

'tooth' ei ei dant

ng * gardd 'garden' ei ardd fy ngardd ei gardd

g
m f
* * mam 'mother' ei fam fy mam ei mam
11 1
* * llais 'voice' ei lais fy llais ei llais

rh r
* * rhosyn 'rose' ei rosyn fy rhosyn ei rhosyn

a. Asterisk indicates no change.

e.g. in caniatdu 'to allow, permit'; and the derivative nouns are written with a circum-
flex in positions where vowel length can be distinctive (caniatdd 'permission').

Sometimes the circumflex accent is used to distinguish the sequences gwy [gu+],
gwy [gui:], and gwy [gu+]: thus gwydd [gu+5] 'goose', gwydd [guild] 'woods, trees',
gwyn [gu+n] 'white'. The letter i may be a semivowel when followed by a vowel: thus
iach [iax] 'healthy', iaith [iaiG] 'language', ceiniog f'ksinpg] 'penny'. This is also
true of w, but only as a result of word-initial lenition (see below): gwaith [gwajG]
'work', but ei waith [i \vaj0] 'his work'.
Like the other Celtic languages, Welsh has a set of morphophonemic alternations
that affect word-initial sounds; these are referred to as initial mutations and are con-
ditioned by grammatical factors (with details differing slightly from Irish). The con-
sonantal changes in pronunciation, which are reflected straightforwardly in the
spelling, are shown in table 59.9, along with examples. (The order of presentation
here, from labials to velars, is that generally used by foreign linguists; however, in

Welsh pedagogy, the order c p t g b d 11 m vh is more usual.) The type of mutation

called aspiration has the effect of inserting an h before a word beginning with a vow-
el: thus enw 'name', ei henw 'her name'; avian 'money', eu havian 'their money'.
Spoken dialects of Welsh show many phonological reductions and contractions
which, in the twentieth century, are increasingly represented in writing. All dialects
show a tendency for word-final/[v] to be dropped, so that tref 'town' becomes [tie:];

South Welsh shows a similar tendency with word-final dd [d].

Sample of Welsh
/. Welsh: Yr oedd dau gyfaill rywbryd yn meddwl cerdded
2. Tvanscviption: r o+5 da+ 'gavaH 'rubr+d an 'medul 'kerded

3. Gloss: ptcl was two friends once at thinking walking

 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 553

/. trwy goed. Cofiodd un ohonynt fod y lie yn

2. tru+ 'go+d 'kovioS in o'hon-mt vod 9 4e on
3. through wood remembered one of.them being the place ptcl

/. enwog am eirth, a dywedodd with ei gyfaill, "Beth

2. 'enyog am 'oir0 a do'uedoS ur6 i 'govaii be9
3. famous for bears and said at his friend what

/. a ddigwydd inni os daw arth i'n cyfarfod?"

2. a 'Sigu+5 i'ni os 'day 'are in ko'varvod
3. ptcl happens to. us if comes bear to. our meeting

There were two friends once thinking of walking through a wood. One of them
remembered the place to be famous for bears, and said to his friend, "What will
happen to us if a bear comes to meet us?"'
— From a folktale, in Vinay and Thomas 1948: 88.

Languages of Eastern and Southern Europe

Bernard Comrie

Baltic and Slavic

Roman script is used for the Baltic languages Lithuanian and Latvian, and for the fol-

lowing Slavic languages: Polish, Czech, Slovak, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian,
Slovene, and (alongside Cyrillic script) Serbo-Croatian (cf. section 64).

Vowels, stress, and tone. Most languages use the five basic vowels of Roman
script a, e, /, o, u — in their usual continental values. Latvian, which lacks a mid
back rounded vowel in native words, uses o to represent the diphthong [uo]; but the
mid back rounded vowel is found in loanwords, and is also written o.

Acknowledgments: I am grateful for information provided by Marie Alexander, Albert J. Borg, Wayles
Browne, Helena Halmari, Tooru Hayasi, Robert Hetzron, Jose Ignacio Hualde, Istvan Kenesei. Katalin E. Kiss.
Joseba Lakarra, Jules Levin, Ronald Lotzsch, Jolanta Machevichius, Kazuto Matsumura, Leonard Newmark.
Tom Priestly, David Short, Aleksandra Steinbergs, Gerald C Stone, Tiit-Rein Viitso, and Nigel Vincent.
Remaining errors are my own responsibility. Work on this article proceeded while I was a Visiting Professor at
the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Alphabet tables: Capital letters are shown as they would appear when required at the beginning of a sen-
tence. For letters that do not occur word-initially, capital forms are shown as they would appear in a text written

in capitals throughout. Indented letters are not considered distinct for purposes of alphabetical ordering. Letters
in parentheses occur only in unassimilated loanwords. The tones on long vowels and diphthongs are marked in
the phonetic transcription as follows: rising [/|], level/rising [1], falling [\J], broken (glottal) [V].

Sample texts: Low-level morphophonemic processes, such as word-final devoicing and voice assimilation in
Polish and Czech, and palatalization assimilation in Lithuanian, are not shown orthographically. The texts that

follow are sometimes slightly adapted from the originals.

664 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Phonemically distinct more and less open non-high vowel qualities are distin-
guished in Upper Sorbian as e versus e and o versus 6\ in Lower Sorbian as e versus
e\ in Slovak as a versus e (but in Slovak the distinction is usually neutralized, even in
standard speech); in Lithuanian as e versus e. Slovene does not distinguish ortho-
graphically between its phonemically distinct open and close non-high vowels, nor
does Latvian between its open and close non-high front vowels. In Slovene, e also
represents phonemically distinct [a].

In Polish and the Sorbian languages, y represents a vowel somewhat retracted

from that represented by /, though both are arguably allophones of a single phoneme.
In Czech and Slovak, the ily opposition has no direct phonetic correlate, though it

plays a role in the indication of palatal consonant quality (see below).

Vowel length is phonemic in Czech and Slovak (including syllabic r and / in Slo-

vak), where it is indicated by means of an acute accent; in Serbo-Croatian and Slov-

ene (including syllabic r — in Slovene the pronunciation is [or]), where it is not
indicated orthographically; and in Latvian, where it is written with a macron. In
Lithuanian, short and long [i] are distinguished as i and y, short and long [u] as u and
u\ a and e represent both long and short vowels, though the distribution is largely (not
entirely) predictable. The Polish spelling 6 (homophonous with u) originally repre-
sented a long [o]; Czech u, used for [u:] except word-initially (where u is used), orig-
inally represented a diphthong [uo].

In Polish, nasal vowels are indicated by a subscript hook, although in contempo-

rary pronunciation they are realized as a sequence of oral vowel + homorganic nasal
before stops, and are denasalized before / and / (e usually also word-finally). The
hook diacritic originally indicated vowel nasalization in Lithuanian, but hooked vow-
els are now simply long counterparts of the corresponding simple vowels.
The position of stress is usually predictable, and is not marked, in Polish, Upper
Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech, Slovak, and Latvian. It is unpredictable, but not
marked orthographically, in Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, and Lithuanian. In Serbo-

Croatian, Lithuanian, and Latvian there are phonemic tone distinctions, and also in

one variety of standard Slovene (even on syllabic r in Serbo-Croatian and, as [sr], in

Slovene); these are also not represented orthographically.

Consonants. Polish makes extensive use of digraphs, but the other languages prefer
diacritics, in particular the hdcek, which was an innovation (originally a superscript
dot) of Jan Hus. The only widely used digraph is ch for [x], and even here h is used
by Serbo-Croatian, Slovene, and (usually) Latvian. The affricates [dz] and [C13] are

also represented as digraphs, dz and dz (Polish dz, Sorbian dz), even in those languag-
es where they are clearly unitary phonemes. By contrast, the affricate [ts] is represent-
ed as The palato-alveolar fricatives [J] and [3] and the affricate [tj] are represented
c.

—
by means of a diacritic hdcek as s, z, c except in Polish, which uses digraphs sz for
[J], cz for [tj], and either a diacritic z (with the original Hussite dot) or a digraph rz,

depending on etymology, for [3]. Czech also has a fricative trill, represented by r.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 555

The complications of Roman-script Slavic orthographies stem basically from the

representation of palatal and palatalized consonants. Only Serbo-Croatian and Latvi-
an have one-to-one correspondence between phoneme and symbol (counting di-

graphs as single symbols): Serbo-Croatian c, d, Ij, and nj correspond to [tc], [dz], [A*],

[p] respectively; and Latvian g, k, /, n, and obsolescent r correspond to [j], [c], [A*],

[p], and [r
J
] respectively. (In Slovene, Ij and nj represent sequences of two phonemes
before a vowel, and simple [1], [n] elsewhere.) In Czech and Slovak, only [t], [d], [n]

(and in Slovak [1]) have phonemically distinct palatal counterparts; orthographically,

they are distinguished by the vowel symbols in the case of y (after non-palatal) versus
i (after palatal), in Czech also by e (after non-palatal) versus e (after palatal). (In Slo-
vak, with a number of exceptions not indicated orthographically, only the palatals oc-
cur before e). Elsewhere, a hdcek or an apostrophe-like diacritic indicates the palatal
member of the pair. In other positions in Czech and Slovak, y and i are phonetically
indistinguishable, and written on the basis of etymology, while Czech e is pronounced
[je] (after w, [pe]). In Polish, palatalized consonants (including the alveo-palatals) are
indicated in three ways: by an acute accent word-finally or before a consonant; by a
following i rather than y; and by the letter i after the consonant before other vowels.
The Sorbian languages follow essentially the same conventions as Polish, but withy
rather than i between a palatalized consonant and a vowel, and with acute accent even
before vowels on s, z, c, and clz. Lithuanian, in which the palatalized opposition oc-
curs only before back vowels, adopts that part of the Polish convention that uses the
letter i between a palatalized consonant and a back vowel.
As reflexes of Proto-Slavic or Proto-Baltic * v, most languages use v, but Polish
and the Sorbian languages use w. In Polish and the Sorbian languages, the / versus /

opposition originally represented palatalized versus non-palatalized; but now / is [1],

and / is either [i] (in archaic and regional Polish) or [w], in the Sorbian languages
merging with w. In Czech, Slovak, Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, and Lithuanian. //

represents [fi]; this pronunciation is also found in archaic and regional Polish, but in
other varieties of Polish merges in pronunciation with ch as [x]. In Latvian, an earlier
norm distinguished voiced h from voiceless ch, but the norm consolidated during the

Soviet period merges these as the voiceless sound, written h.

Alphabetical order. Whether letters with diacritics and digraphs are considered
separate letters for purposes of alphabetical ordering depends on the individual lan-
guage, and sometimes on the individual letter. Diacriticized letters and digraphs are
usually placed after or with the corresponding simple letter. Sometimes, however,
they are placed after or with phonetically or morphophonemically related letters: ch
after h in Upper Sorbian, Lower Sorbian, Czech, and Slovak (and older Latvian): c
after / in Upper Sorbian (usually); and v with i in Lithuanian.
666 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59. o: Polish Alphabet

1

Letter* Phonetic Value Name

A a la] [a]

A q [0]; [0] before /, /; [6]

[0] + homorganic nasal before stop

B b [b] [be]

C c [ts] (when palatalized, [tc]) [tse]

C c m [tee]

D d [d] [de]

E e [ej [e]

U {' [e]; [ej before /, / and word-finally; [e]

[e] + homorganic nasal before stop

F f [f] [ef]

G 8 [g] [g e]
J

H h [x], archaic-regional [fi] [xa], [ha]

I i [i] [i]

J J Ul [jot]

K k M [ka]

L I [11 [el]

L i [w], archaic-regional [+] [ew], [e+]

M m [m] [em]
N n [n] (when palatalized, [p]) [en]

N n W [eji]

[0] [0]

6 6 [u] [0 kreskovane] 'lined o'

p P [p] [pe]

R r [r] [er]

s s [s] (when palatalized, [q]) [es]

s s [Q] [ec]

T t [t] [te]

U u [u] [u]

W w [v] [vu]

Y y [I] [igrek]

z z [z] (when palatalized, [1]) [zet]

z z w [zet]

z z [3] feet]

a. The following digraphs are not considered single letters of the alphabet:
Ch [x]

Cz
Dz |clz| (when palatalized |d/|)

Dz Id/ 1

Dz [d5l
Rz
Sz III

b. Consonants are palatalized before i [i], and are represented as C+ / before other vowels. The palatalized

consonant symbols with acute accents are used only before consonants and word-finally.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 667

table 59.11: Upper Sorbian Alphabet table 59.12: Lower Sorbian Alphabet
Letted Phonetic Value Name Letter Phonetic Value Name
A a la] [a] A a [a] [a]

B b [b] [b£j] B b [b] [bej]

C c m b
[tJej]
C c [ts] [tsej]

C c m [tPej]
C
c
c
c
[tJ]

[tP]
[tJet]
J
[tP £t], [tTej]
D d [d] [dsj]
D
Dz
E
dz
e
m
[e]
[d5 ej]

[ej]
J

DZ
d
dz
[d]

m*
[dej]

[d3 ej] J

E e [e] [ej]

E e [e]~ [ie] [et], [jet] E e [e] ~ [ie] [et]

F f [f] [ef] F f [f] [ef]

G g [g] [gej] G g [g] [gej]

H h [h] [fia] H h [h] [fia]

Ch ch [x], morpheme-initial [k
h
[xa]
Ch ch [x] [xa]
]

I 1 m
LH
b Til
UJ
I i [if [i], [ji]

d J J
J U] [jot], [jot]
J
K k [k] [ka]
K k [k] [ka]
L \ [w] [ew]
L 1 [w] [ew]
L 1 [1] [el]

L 1 [1] [el] M m [m] [em]

M m [m] [em] N n [n] [en]
d
N n [n] [en] N n [nf [ejn]
e
N ri [jn] [ejn] O [o]; [o] [o]

[o] [o]
P P [p] [pej]

R r [R] [£R]
6 c [o]~[ uo] [ot]
R f [R J
]
C
[m eke eJR ] d
J J

p P [p] [pej]
S s [s] [es]
R r [R] [£R]
s s [J] [ef]
R r [P] after k, p\ [s
J
] after / [£Rj J
]
s s [P] [Pej]
s s [s] [es] T t [t] [tej]

s s [P] [eP] U u [u] [u]

T t [t] [tej] W w [w] [wej]

C c [tP]
J
[tJ Et] Y y mb [i]

u u [u] [u]
Z z [z] [zet]

w w [w]( in loanwords, [v]) [wej]

Z z [5] feet]
a
c Z z [3
J

]
J

[3 ej]
Y y [*] [i]

Z z [z] [zet] a. [d3

J
] is an allophone of /3V.

Z J J b. [i] and [i] are allophones of a single phoneme.

z [3 ] [3 et]
c. Labials, /?, and ;• are palatalized before /'
and e;

a. For purposes of alphabetical ordering, 6 is usually their palatalization is represented as C +j before

not considered distinct from o\ and c may be ordered other vowels — and, in the case of /; and /', by an
before or after c. acute accent word-finally and before consonants.
b. An additional phoneme, J
[ts ], is represented by d. Or German: weiches nlr 'soft //
/'.

various digraphs: tr, tc, /i, ds. dc. e. [o] is largely a positional variant of [o], with [o]

c. [i] and [i] are allophones of a single phoneme. occurring after labials (but not orthographic /) and
d. Labials, n, and r are palatalized before i and e, and velars if not also followed by a labial or velar: there

their palatalization is represented as C +j before other is thus a contrast between to [wd] and wo [wo] if no
vowels. labial or velar follows.
668 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.13: Czech Alphabet

Letter Phonetic Value Name 1'

A a [a] [a:]

A a [a:] [dloufie: a:] 'longc/'

B b [b] [be:f
C c Its] [tse:]

C c [tJ] [tje:]

D d [d];as palatal [j] [de:];

D d' Ltl [je:J, [de: z fia:tjkem] 'cf with hook'

E e [e] [e:]

E e [e:] [dloufie: e:] 'long <?'

E e [e]; [jej, see text [e: z fia:tjkem] 'g with hook7[ije]

F f m [eQ
G g [g] [ge:]

H h [fi] [fia:]

Ch ch [x] [xa:]
/"
I i [i] [i:], [mjieke: i:] 'soft

I L [i:] [dloufie: i:], [dloufie: mjieke: i:] 'long (soft) V

J

K
j

k
Ul
[k]
m
[ka:]

L 1 [1] [el]

M m [m] [em]
N n [n]; as palatal [p] [en]
N n W b
[eji]

O [o] [0:]

6 6 [0:] [dloufie: 0:] 'long 0'

p P [p] [pe:]

(Q q [kv]) [kve:]
R r [r] [er]

R f [fl [er] (fricative trill)

S s Is] [es]

S s [I] [eJ]

T t [t]; as palatal [c] [te:]

f t' [c] [ce:], [te: z fia:tjkem] "t with hook'

U u [ul [u:]

U u [u:] [dloufie: u:[ 'long //'

u [u:] [u: s kroujkem] // with circle',

(informal) [kroyjkovane: u:] 'circled//'

V V [v] [ve:]
(W w [v]) [dvojite: ve:] 'double v'

(X X [ks]) [iks]

Y y [i] [ipsilon], (informal) [tvrde: i:] 'hard f

Y y [i:] [dloufie: ipsilon] 'long v\
(informal) [dloufie: tvrde: i:] 'long hard/'
Z z [z] [zet]

z z [31 feet]

a. For the consonants, combinations of the consonant sound plus (o| are more frequently used than the letter

names, e.g. in oral spelling. Short vowels may be distinctively named as [kra:tke: a:| "short a', etc.

b. The digraph on [ou] is not considered a single letter of the alphabet.

 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 669

TABLE 59. 14: Slovak Alpha bet

Letter Phonetic Value Name"

A a [a] [a:]

A a [a:] [dlhe: a:] 'long #

A a [*], [e] [a z dvoma botkami] 'a with two dots'
B b [b] [be:]

C c [ts] [tse:]

C c [tJ] [Oe:]
D d [d]; as palatal [j] [de:]
D d' 61 [je:], [maeke: de:] 'softJ'
Dz dz [dz] [dze:]
Dz
E
dz
e
m
[e]
[*K]
[e:]

E e [e:] [dlhe: e:] 'long ^'

F
G
f m M
[ge:]
g [g]
H h [fi] [fia:]

Ch ch [x] [xa:]
I i li] [i:]

I 1 [i:] [dlhe: i:] 'long V

J J Bi- De:]
K k lk] [ka:]

L 1 [l];as palatal [A] [el]

L i 11:] [dlhe: el] 'long /'

L,L' V [A] [eX], [maeke: el] 'soft f

M m [m] [em]
N n [n]; as palatal [p]
; [en]
N n W h
b
[eji]

O [o] [0:]

6 6 [0:] [dlhe: 0:] 'long o'

6 6 [uo] [0 z voka:jiom] '<? with vokdff
p P [p] [pe:]

(Q q Iky]) [kve:]
R r [r] [er]

R f [n] [dlhe: er] 'long r'

S s [s] [es]

s s [J] [eJ]

T t [t]; as palatal [c] [te:]

t t' [c] [ce:], [maeke: te:] 'soft f

U u [u] [u:]

U li [u:] [dlhe: u:] 'long u'

V V [v] [ve:]
s

(W w [v]) [dvojite: ve:] 'double v

(X X [ks]) [iks]

Y y [i] [ipsilon]

Y y [i:] [dlhe: ipsilon] 'long v'

Z z [z] [zet], [ze:]

Z z [3] feet]

a. Short vowels may be distinctively named as [kra:tke a:) 'short a\ etc. For the consonants, combinations of
the consonant sound plus [a] are more frequently used than the letter names, e.g. in oral spelling.

b. The digraph on [ou] is not considered a single letter of the alphabet.

570 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.15: Slovene Alphabet table 59.16: Serbo-Croatian

(Latin) Alphabet

Lt Iter Phonetic Value •

Name 1'
Letter Value Name
A a [a] la:] A a [a] [\|a:]

B b [b] [be:] B b [b] [Nbe:]

C c [ts| [fse:] C c [fs] [\|Fse:]

C c ItJI [tJe:] C c BJ] [Ntje:]

b
D d |dl Ide:] C c [tc] [Nfce:]

E e [e],[e], [9] [e:] D d [d] [Nde:]

F f [f] [ef] Dz dz im [Nd>:]

G g [g] [ge:] D d [dz] [Ndze:]

H h [x] [xa:] E e [e] [Ne:]

I i [i] [i:] F f [f] [\|ef]

J J Ul Ue:] G g [g] [Mge:]

K k [k] [ka:] H h [x]~[h] [Nxa:] ~ [Nha:]

L 1
[1] [el] I i [i] [Mi:]

M m [m] [em] J J [j] [Nje:], [Njot],

N n [n] [en] [HP]

O [o], [0] [0:]
K k M [Nka:]

P P (Pi [pe:] L 1 [i] [Mel]

(Q q) [kvj [ku:] Lj lj m [NeX]

R r [r| [er] M m [m] [Mem]

S s Is] [es] N n [n] [Nen]

s s m [ej] Nj nj [P] [Neji]

T t [t] [te:] O [0] [No:]

U u [u] [u:] P P [p] [Npe:]

V V [v] [ve:] R r [r] [Ner]

c
(W w) [v] [Ndvo:jni Ve:] S s [s] [Nes]

'double \-'
S s m [Nei]

(X x) [ks] [\|i:ks] -T t [t] [Mte:]

c
(Y y) LiKMI [Ni:psilon], [ipNsi :lon] U u (u| [Nu:]

z z [zj [ze:] V V [v] INve:]

z z fe] [3e:l z z [z] [Nze:]

a. An ilternutive, much more frequently used system of let-

<
z z [3] [N3e:]

ter nam :s for the consonants (except x and y) uses the sound
a. Cf. TABLE bo. 4 on page 704.
of the consonant followed by [oj, e.g. [bo]; in this system, q is

[kvo| and w is |\Jdvo:jni 'voj.

b. The digraph dz [5$] is not considered a single letter.

c. Rising and falling tones on stressed long vowels have

been indicated, although this prosodic distinction is not
required in standard pronunciation; long stressed vowels
whose tone is not indicated may be either rising or falling;
short stressed vowels can only have falling tone.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 57 J

table 59.17: Lithuanian Alphabet

Letted Phonetic Value Nameb
A
A
a

a
[a], [a:]

[a:]
m J J
[\|a \|no:s in e:] 'nasal a'
B b [b] [Nb e]
J

C c [ts] [Nfs e]
J

Ch 1
ch [x] [\|X9]

C c [tJ] [Nt7 e]
J

D d [d] [Nd e] J

c
E e [e], [e:] [Me]

e e [e:] [\Je \|no:s in e:]

J J
'nasal e'
E e [e:] [Ne:]
F f [f\ [NeQ
G g [g] [Ngfe]
H h [fi] [NfiaJ]
d
I i [i] [\Ji trum\Jpo:ji] 'short/'

J i [i:] [\|i
J
\|no:s in e:] 'nasal
J
f
Y y [i:]- [Ni il\|go:ji] 'long/'
J J ra [Njot]

K k [k] [Nka]
L 1 [i] [Nel]

M m [m] [Mem]
N n [n] [Men]

[0:]; [0] in loanwords [No]

P P [P] [Np e]
J

R r [r] [Ner]

S s [s] [Nes]

s s [J] [%J]
T t [t] [Nt e]
J

U u [u] [\Ju trum\]po:ji] 'short //'

u u [IK] [\|u
J J
Nno:s in e:] 'nasal //'

u u [IK] [\|u ilNgo:ji] 'long u'

V V [v] [Nv e] J

z z [z] [Hz>e]

z z [3] [N3'e]

a. The following digraphs are not -considered single letters of the alphabet:
Dz dz [dz]
Dz dz [dj]
Ie ie [ie]

Uo uo [uo]
plus diphthongs consisting of a or e plus i, u, /, r, m, n.

b. An alternative system of letter names for the consonants uses the sound of the consonant followed by [a],

e.g. [ba]. A traditional system gives names of the form [C'e:] to ihose letters here shown as [Ob].
c. Some speakers pronounce short e as [e] in loanwords.
d. Consonants are automatically palatalized before front vowels. Before back vowels, palatalization of a con-
sonant is indicated by the letter i between the consonant and the back vowel.
672 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.18: Latvian Alphabet

Letter Phonetic Value Name 11

A a [a] [1a:]

A a [a:]

B b [b] [1be:]

C c [fs] [1tie:]

C c m [1t7e:l, [1tja:]

D d [d] [1de:]

Dz dz [dz] [1dze:]

Dz dz [*l [Idje:], [1d3a:]

E e [e], [e] [1e:]

E e [e:], [e:]

F f [f\ [ef]

G g [g] llga:]
c

Q g It] [mi:k1stais 1ga:] 'soft^'

H h [x]; older [fi] [1xa:], [1fia:]

b
(Ch ch [x]) [Ixa:])

I i [i] [1i:]

I T m
J J ui [jot]

K k [k] [1ka:]

K k [c] [mi:k1stais Ika:] 'soft k'

L 1 [1] [el]

L ! [A] [eX], [mi:k1stais el] 'soft f

M m [m] [em]
N n [n] [en]

N n [Pi [eji], [mi:k1stais en] 'soft/?'

O [uo]; in loanwords [o], [o: [16:]

P P [p] [Ipe:]

R r [r] [er]
b
(R r [r']) [mi;k~|stais er] 'soft r'

S s [s] [es]

S s [JJ [ef]

T t [t] Mtc:]
U u [u] [1u:]

u |u:|

V V [V] [1ve:]

z z [z] [1ze:]

z z [3] [l3e:], [13a:]

a. The long vowels may be distinctively named as [1a: ar garumNziarii] 'a with length-sign' or [galrais 1a:]

'long a\ etc.
b. The letters ch and were abolished in Soviet
/' I .n\ ki. and their status since the reestahlishment of indepen-

dence is controversial (SECTION (17).

 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 673

Samples of Slavic and Baltic languages

Polish

/. Polish: Juz w rekopisach wytworzyl sie swoisty

2. Transcription: juj w rerjkop isax
J
vitfojiw ce sfojisti

3. Gloss: already in manuscripts created self characteristic

a
/. typ ortografii, w szczegolach zas wykrystalizowal sie we
2. tip ortografji f Jtjeguwax zac vikristaHzovaw ce ve
3. type of. orthography in details however crystallized self in

/. wzorowych drukowniach krakowskich. Polega on na laczeniu

2. vzorovix drukovjiax krakofsk J
ix polega on na wontjejiu
3. leading printing-houses Cracowian relies it on combination

liter alfabetu lacihskiego i na uzyciu litery i jako znaku

Piter alfabetu watcijisk'ego i nau3itcu Hten i jako znaku
of. letters of.alphabet Latin and on use of. letter i as sign

b
miekkosci/ Proby radykalnej zmiany minely bez echa.
nVenkoctci prubi radikalnej zm aniJ
m inewi
J
bez exa
3. of.softness attempts of.radical change passed without echo

'Already in the manuscripts there arose a characteristic type of orthography;

however, it was crystallized in its details in the leading Cracow printing-houses.
It is based on the combination of letters of the Latin alphabet and on the use of
the letter i as a sign of softness. Attempts at radical change have passed by with-
out trace.' —Encyklopedia Powszechna 1975: 586.
Notes:
a
The word ortografii shows the letter i representing [j] before a vowel, a possibility found in loanwords.
The adjective miqkki 'soft' and its derivatives are spelled with double k, but pronounced with single [k J
].

Czech
/. Czech: Tfebas nova Pravidla ceskeho pravopisu vysla
2. Transcription: trebas nova: pravidla tjeskeiho pravopisu vijla

3. Gloss: although new rules of. Czech orthography came. out

/. az v prubehu sazby slovnfku, bylo jeste mozno

2. aj f pruibjefiu sazbi slovjiiiku bilo je/ce mo3no
3. until in course of. setting of.dictionary it. was still possible

/. pfihlednout k nim vsude tarn, kde pripoustejf u slov

2. prihleidnout k jum f/ude tarn gde pripoujceji: u si of

3. to.take. account to them everywhere there where they.admit at words

674 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. jedinou pravopisnou podobu. Kde uvadejf podobu dvoji

2. jejinou pravopisnou podobu gde uvaijeji: podobu dvoji:

3. single orthographic form where they. introduce form double

/. (zvlaste u vypujcek z cizich jazyku), tarn byl ponechan

2. zvlaijce u vi.puijtjek s tsiziix jaziku: tarn bil ponexain
3. especially at loans from foreign languages there was left

/. pravopisny zpusob dosud obvykly.

2. pravopisni: spuisop dosut obvikli:

3. orthographic manner hitherto usual

'Although the new Rules of Czech Orthography came out during the typesetting
of the dictionary, it was still possible to take account of them wherever they
admit of a single orthographic form for words. Where they introduce two forms
(especially with loans from foreign languages), the hitherto usual way of spell-

ing has been left.' —Poldaufig^g: vi.

Serbo-Croatian (Croatian standard)

/. Croatian: Ako rijec ima vise razlicitih znacenja

2. Transcription: \|ako \|rije:tj /lima: Nvije: /|ra:zlitjiti:x /|zna:tje:jra:

3. Gloss: if word has several different meanings

/. odnosno ako medu znacenjima postoje znatnije smisaone

2. /lodnosnoNako Nmedzu /|zna:tje:jiima po/|stoje /Iznatnije: \Jsmi:saone:

3. or if among meanings exist more. significant semantic

/. nijanse, to su hrvatski prijevodi odijeljeni tockom i

2. ni/1janse \|to: su /|xrva:tski: pri/|je:vodi /1odije:Xeni NtotJko:m i

3. nuances then are Croatian translations separated by.dot and

/. zarezom, dok su sinonimi, odnosno rijeci slicnog znacenja,

2. /1za:rezom Ndok su si/inonimi /iodnosno Nrije:tji NslitJno:g /lzna:tje:jia

3. by.comma while are synonyms or words of.similar meaning

/. odijeljeni zarezom. Fraze, idiomi, uzrecice i poslovice

2. /|odije:Xeni /1za:rezom /1fra:ze idi/1o:mi /luzretjitse i /Iposlovitse

3. separated by.comma phrases idioms sayings and proverbs

/. odvojene su od prijevoda dvjema tankim uspravnim crtama.

2. /lodvojene su od pri/1je:voda /1dvje:ma /|tanki:m Nuspra:vni:m Ntsrtama

3. separated are from translation by.two thin vertical lines

'If a word has several different meanings or if among the meanings there are

more significant semantic nuances, then the Croatian translations are separated
by a semicolon, while synonyms, or words of similar meaning, are separated by
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 575

a comma. Phrases, idioms, sayings, and proverbs are separated from the transla-
tion by two thin vertical lines.' -Poljanec and Madatova-Poljanec 1973: v.

Lithuanian Text
Lithuanian: Tai buvo nedidele balta katyte. Jos menkas
Transcription: /|tai Nbuvo: n eNd id el
J J J J
e: balNta J
kaNt i:t e: j
4Jo:s /InVenkas
Gloss: it was small white kitten its poor

suliesejes kunelis visas drebejo nuo salcio it baimes;

sul ie\|s e:je:s ku:/1n Je:l is dVeNfreijo: nuo
J J J J
\|v isas J
/lJal tJ o:
J
ir \|baim e:s J

emaciated body all shivered from cold and fear

/. jos plaukai, lietaus suslapinti ir purvais apskrete, visi

2. /|jo:s plau/lkai He/ltaus su/lJla:p in

J J J
t i ir pur/lvais ap/Iskr e:t e: v
J J J j
i\|s i

3. its hairs of. rain soaked and with, mud covered all

/. kabejo sustire ir pasisiause. Radau as ja lauke,

J J J J
2. ka\jb e:jo: suNs t ir e: ir pas J
i\|J
J
auJ e: J
ra/|dau \|aj /(ja: lauNk e J

3. hung stiff . and disheveled found I it outside

/. patvory pntupusia, susirietusia, nelaiminga.

j J J J J
2. patvo:/1r i:
p r i/|tu:pus a: sus i/1r
j
ietus a: J
n elai\|m inga:
J J

3. at-fence squatting cowering unhappy

'It was a small white kitten. Its whole poor emaciated body shivered with cold
and fear; all its fur, soaked and covered with mud, hung stiff and disheveled. I

found it outside, squatting by the fence, cowering, unhappy.'

— G. Niliunas, "Kliudziai" [I hit the mark], in Vinogradov et al. 1968: 524.

Albanian

Various means of writing Albanian were used into the twentieth century, adapting
Latin, Greek, Cyrillic, or Arabic script, depending on the models immediately at hand
to the user. The Congress of Monastir (Bitola) in 1908 was a landmark in the adoption
of the currently used Latin script. Albanian dialects differ markedly from one another,
with a major division between Tosk (southern) and Geg (northern, also spelt Gheg);
the dividing line is roughly the Shkumbin River. A standard written language, based
primarily on central Tosk, has been developed since World War II; it is accepted as
such in Albania and (since 1968) in Kosovo, an administrative division of Serbia with
an ethnic and linguistic Albanian majority. In the early twentieth century, various di-
alects were used in writing; however, a variety based on the southern Geg dialect of

Elbasan was proposed as a standard, and was used as such by some people in the

1920s and 1930s. Written Geg is most readily recognizable in the use of the circum-
flex diacritic for nasalized vowels, which are phonemic in Geg but absent from Tosk.
676 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.19: Albanian Alphabet

Letter Phonetic Value Name

A a [a] [a]

B b [b] [bQ]

C c It's] [tS9]

C § [t7] [tfe]

D d [d] [ds]

Dh dh [o] [03]

E e [e] [8]

E e M [3]

F f [f] [fo]

G g [g] [ga]

Gj gj It] Lt^J

H h [hi [ha]
b
] [i, j] [i]

J J Ul LJ3]

K k [k] [k3]

L 1
[1] [13]

LI 11 [±]("dark"/) [4-a]

M m [m] [ma]
N n [n] [ns]

Nj nj [p] LP9]
[o] [o]

P P [p] [pa]

Q q [c] [C9]

R r [r] [ra]

Rr rr [r] [19]

S s [s] [S3]

Sh sh [J] [te\

T t [t]
.
[t3]

Th th [6] [63]

U u [u] [u]

V V [V] [V3]

X X [dz] [dzs]

Xh xh ld5l [*»]
Y y [yl ly]

Z z [Z] [Z3]

Zh zh [3] 133]

a. The diphthongs [ie], (ua], [ye] are written as vowel sequenees: ie, iia, ye. The nasalized vowels of Geg.
when written, take a circumflex diacritic, but are not considered distinct letters of the alphabet.
b. i is normally syllabic,./ nonsyllabic; but in some instances nonsyllabic [j] is written /'.
e.g. to preserve mor-
phological parallelism and to distinguish [nj| ni from [ji| nj, |gj| gi from |f| gj.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 677

Spoken Albanian, including even the reading of a text written in standard written
Albanian, is more likely than not to reveal phonetic features that deviate from a literal

interpretation of the written standard; thus to say that the current orthography is gen-
erally phonemic is in a sense true, but fails to note that it is a phonemic representation
of a highly idealized pronunciation —one might even argue that this idealized pronun-
ciation is a reflection of the orthography, rather than vice versa. Thus many speakers
omit word-final unstressed e [a] after a single consonant (and Geg speakers will typ-
ically lengthen the preceding vowel, thus giving rise to phonemic vowel length, not
normally marked orthographically even when Geg is written). The pronunciation of
stressed e will normally follow that of the speaker's native dialect, ranging from [5]

for Geg speakers to [ae] for southeast Tosk speakers. Word-final voiced obstruents are
likely to be devoiced by Tosk speakers, but not by Geg speakers. In this case the or-

thography is actually closer to Geg, since for Tosk speakers it is either morphophone-
mic (where there is morphological alternation between word-final voiceless and
word-medial voiced obstruents) or historical (where there is no such alternation).

Stress is partly, but not fully, predictable, given morphological information; it tends
to fall on the last syllable of the stem of the word. In particular, stress is not in general
subject to change when inflectional suffixes are added.
The date of the Monastir alphabet means that its originators had a wide range of
models to choose from. Most of the non-digraph letters of the alphabet have standard
values found in other languages of eastern Europe, while c [tj] and q [c] continue an
older Albanian tradition. The use of/ in digraphs to mark palatals is a logical choice,

adopted in part also by Serbo-Croatian (Latin script), while the uses to which h is put
in digraphs closely follow the English model. Letter names of vowels are simply the
sounds of the vowels; those of consonants are the sounds of the consonants followed
by shwa, a system also found in some other languages of the Balkans (Bulgarian,
Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian [Cyrillic script]).

Sample of Albanian
7. Albanian: Perendia, i pacjm uraten, si beri

2. Transcription: persn'dia i 'patjim u'ratsn si 'bari

3- Gloss: God to.him may.we.have the.blessing as he.made

i. ne pese dite token,. diellin dhe yjet, driten,

2. ns 'pess 'dits 'toksn 'die-Hn de 'yjet 'driten

3- in five days the.earth the. sun and the. stars the. light

I. diten e naten, bimet, malet, kafshet e

2. 'ditsn e 'natan 'bimst 'malet 'kafjbt e

3- the. day and the. night the.plants the.mountains the.animals and
678 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. gjithe c' na sheh e nuk na sheh syri, te

2. 'jiGo tjna 'Jeh e 'nuk na 'Jeh 'syri to

3- all what.for.us it.sees and not for.us it.sees the.eye the

a b
I. gyashten si pa qe keto te mira do te shkonin
2. 'jajton si pa co ko'to te 'mira do to 'Jkonin

3> the. sixth as he. saw that these good. things they.would.go

a
i. kot, ra ne mendime te thella e me ne fund
2. kot 'ra na men'dime te '0e+a e mo no 'fund

3- in. vain he.fell in thoughts deep and more in end

i. i dha udhe te krijonte robin.

2. i '6a 'udo te kri'jonte 'robin

3- to. him it.gave path that he. might. create the.person

'God, may we have his blessing, as in five days he made the earth, the sun and
the stars, the light, the day and the night, the plants, the mountains, the animals,
and all that as, on the sixth, when he
our eye sees and does not see for us, and
saw good things would go for naught, he fell into deep thought and
that these
finally it occurred to him that he might create Man.'

—Jakov Xoxa, "Lumi e vdekur" [Blessed and dead], in Camaj 1984: 299.
Notes:
a
In te mira and te thella, the particle te is required before the adjective.
h
In do te shkonin, the sequence do te 'wish that' plus the imperfect of the main verb expresses the conditional
(future in the past).

Uralic languages

Europe's Uralic literary languages, Finnish, Estonian, and Hungarian, all have high
and mid front rounded vowels, Finnish and Estonian also [ae], represented ortho-
graphically by an umlaut —
except that Finnish, like Swedish, uses y rather than ii. Al-
though archaic and rural varieties of standard Hungarian distinguish low and mid
front unrounded vowels, they are not distinguished orthographically (or in current ur-

ban speech).
All three languages have distinctive vowel and consonant length. Consonant
length is shown by doubling the consonant (or the first element of a digraph in Hun-
garian, e.g. ssz for long sz [s]). Doubling is also used for vowel length in Finnish and
Estonian; but Hungarian uses an acute accent, and combines umlaut and acute to give
the distinctive diacritic in 6 ii.

Estonian has a distinction between light and heavy stressed syllables, involving
a combination of tenseness, segment length, and pitch, but this is usually not shown
orthographically. However, for long intervocalic obstruents (except [sj) Estonian
writes /?, /, k,f, s in light stressed syllables, and pp, tt, kk,ff, ss in heavy stressed syl-

lables, e.g. kapi [kappi] 'cupboard (genitive)', kappi ["kappil 'cupboard (illative)',

where ["] symbolizes heavy stress. The short obstruents are written b. cL g, z word-
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 679

table 59.20: Finnish Alphabet table 59.21: Estonian Alphabet

Lette ," Value Name Letter Value Namea

A a [a] [a:] A a [a] [
"a:]

(B b) [b] [be:] B b [p] 1

"be:], ["nsrkk "pe:] 'weak /?'

(C c) [k], [s] [se:] (C c) [ts] |

"Fse:]
h
D d [d] [de:] (C c) [0] [
"tje:]

E e [e] [e:] D d [t] [

"de:], ["nsrkk "te:] 'weak df

(F f) [f] M, [ef] E e [e] I

"e:]
b
G g [g] [ge:] F f [f] 1
"eff]

H h [h] [ho:] G g [k] "ge:], ["ke:]

I i [i] [i:] H h [h] "ha:]

J J [fl Ui:] I i [i] "i:]

K k [k] [ko:] J J U] "jott]

L 1 [1] M, [el] K k [kk] "ka:]

M m [m] [aem] , [em] L 1 [1] "ell]

N n [nj [aen], [en] M m [m] "emm]

O [0] [0:] N n [n] "enn]

P P [p] [pe:] [0] "0:]

(Q q) fkvj [ku:] P P [PP] "pe:], [tukev "pe:] 'strong/?'

R r [r] [aer], [er] (Q q) [kv] "ku:]

S s [sj [aes], [es] R r [r] "aerr]

T t [t] [te:] S s [ss] "ess]

U u [u] [u:] S s W) Ja:]

V V [v] [ve:] z z [s] "se:]

c
(W w )
[v] ['kaksois.ve:] z z [J] r/e:]
'double v' T t [tt] "te:], [tukev "te:] 'strong f

(X x) [ks] [aeks], [eks] U u [u] >•]

Y y [y] [y:] V V [v] "ve:]

(Z z) [ts] [tset] (W w) [v] kaksisve:] 'double v'

A a [*] [«:] 6 [v] [V:]

6 [0] [0:] A a ["«:]

a. The following are not considered separate

6 [0] ["0:]

letters of the alphabet: u u [y] Yl

NG ng [rjrj]
(X x) [ks] ["ikks]
(S, Sh s, sh [J])
(Y y) IB. [y] ypsilon]
b. g has the value [g] only in unassimilated
loanwords.
a. Heavy-stressed syllables are shown by the diacritic ["]

c. w is not treated as distinct from v for pur-

before the syllable. An older system used pehme ["pehme]
poses of alphabetical ordering.
'soft' and kova ["kvva] 'hard' rather than nork ["nYikk]
'weak' and tugev ['tukev] 'strong', respectively. The names
of the letters b, </. g, :. and z are spelled (nork) bee. (nork)

dee, gee, zee, zee, respectively.

b. The status of c is controversial: it is often replaced by ts.
680 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

TABLE 59.22 Hungarian Alph abet

Letter Value Name 11

Letter Value Namea
A a [D] [0:] Ny ny [Pi [eji]

A a [a:] [a:] O [ol [0]; [r0vid 0:] 'shorts'

B b [b] [be:] 6 6 [0:] [0:]; [hossu: 0:] 'longtf'

C c [ti] [tie:] [0] [0]; [r0vid 0:] 'short

0"

Cs cs [tJe:] 6 [hossu: 0:] iong 0"

[tJl [0:] [0:];

D d [d] [de:] p P [pl [pe:]

DZ dz [dz] [dze:] (Q q) [ku:]

b
Dzs dzs [<%] [cT3 e:] R r [r] [er]

E e [e] M S s m [eJ]

E e [e:] [e:] Sz sz [s] [es]

F f [f] [£f] T t [t] [te:]

G g [g] [ge:] Ty ty [c] [ce:]

Gy gy Itl [?e:] U u [u] [u]; [r0vid u:] 'short w'

H h [h] [ha:] U u [u:] [u:]; [hossu: u:] iong u

I i [ij [ij; [r0vid i :] 'short z" U u [y] [y]; [r0vid y:] 'short iV

i 1 [i:] [i:]; [hossu: i:] iong /'

u ii [y:] [y:]; [hossu: y:] 'long W
j j Ul [je:J V V [v] [ve:]

K k [k] [ka:] (W w) [duplave:] 'double v'

L 1
[1] [el] (X x) [iks]

Ly iy U] [el ipsilon] (Y y) [ipsilon]

M m [m] [em] z z [z] [ze:]

N n [n] [en] Zs zs [3] [3e:]

a. The names of the vowels a and e are usually phonetically long, being distinguished qualitatively from the
names of a and e. For the other vowels, where qualitative distinctions are less marked, there are variant sys-
tems, as indicated in the table.
b. Dictionaries usually, but not invariably, place words beginning with dzs at the end of the d section, rather
than as a separate section; there are no words beginning with dz (other than the letter name dze) and its status as

a unitary phoneme is dubious, whence it is transcribed here as a sequence of sounds rather than as an affricate.
Since z and zs are the last letters of the alphabet, there are no examples where treating dz and dzs as single let-

ters or as sequences of d-z and d-zs would affect alphabetical order.

 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET (y$\

medially and -finally (short [f] does not occur here), but/?, t, k y f, s word-initially, as
in kabi [kapi] 'hoof
Finnish uses the digraph ng to represent [13] (which occurs only long and intervo-
calically, other than through assimilation of /n/ to a following velar), this being the
only use of g in native words.
Estonian has an extra vowel [y], written o, and also has phonemically distinct
(pre-)palatalized J
[t ], [n J ], [s J
], and [1 ]
J
in very restricted environments, the palataliza-
tion not being shown orthographically.
Hungarian has a more complicated consonant inventory, including palatals and
affricates, and like Polish it makes widespread use of digraphs: [ts] is represented by
c, as in most central and eastern European languages. A digraph with y represents a
palatal in the case of gy [j], ty [c], ny [p.]; ly originally represented a palatal lateral, but
has now merged with [j]. A digraph with 5 represents a palatal in the case of cs [tJ]

and zs [3]. Among the voiceless fricatives, Hungarian has s for [J] but the digraph sz
for [s] — a unique distribution among the modern languages of central and eastern Eu-
rope, but one found elsewhere in earlier periods. All languages have basically non-
phonemic stress, though Estonian has exceptions in words of foreign origin; stress is

not indicated orthographically. Finnish and Estonian show Scandinavian influence in

placing the special vowel letters at or near the end of the alphabet.

Samples of Uralic languages

Finnish
a a
/. Finnish: Kesainen sade rapisee parekattoon. Raystaan
2. Transcription: 'kesaeinen 'sader 'rapise: 'paerek,katto:n 'raeystae:n

3. Gloss: summery rain patters into.shingle.roof of.eaves

/. alta seinanrakoisista kay hienoinen tuulenhenkays ja

2. alta 'seinsen.rakoisista 'kaey 'hienoinen 'tu:len,herjkaeys ja

3. from.under from. wall. cracks comes gentle wind. draft and

/. hamahakinverkot katto-orsissa keinuvat ja heiluvat. Joskus

2. 'haemaehaekin.verkot 'katto.orsissa 'keinuvat ja 'heiluvat 'joskus

3. cobwebs in.roof.poles swing and sway sometimes

/. varpuset kay vat hyppimassa katolla. Hamaralla ullakolla vallitsee

2. 'varpuset 'kaeyvaet 'hyppimasssae 'katolla 'haemaerasllae 'ullakolla 'vallitse:

3. sparrows come hopping on.roof dark on.garret reigns

/. salaperainen tunnelma.
2. 'sala.peraeinen 'tunnelma
3. mysterious atmosphere
682 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

'The summer rain patters onto the shingle roof. From under the eaves a gentle
draft comes through the cracks in the wall and the spiders' webs swing and
sway on the roof-poles. Sometimes sparrows come hopping on the roof. A mys-
terious atmosphere reigns in the dark garret.'
— Veikko Huovinen, " Havukka-ahon ajattelija " [The thinker ofHavukka-aho],
in Ravila 1965: 135.
Note:
a
The words sade [sade], [sade?] 'rain' and pare [paere], [paere?] 'shingle' ended historically (and still for some
speakers) in a glottal stop; for all speakers, they geminate a following consonant, as in sade rapisee and
parekattoon.

Hungarian
/. Hungarian: Szeretnok, ha nemcsak a magyar nyelv
2. Transcription: ser£tn0:k ho nemtjok o mDjDr jielv

3. Gloss: we.would.like.it if not.only the Hungarian language

/. tortenetenek buvarai, hanem nepiink szeles retegei is

2. t0rte:nete:nek bu:va:roi hanem neipynk seilej reitegei ij

3. of.its. history its. investigators but our.people broad its. strata also

/. tudataban lennenek annak a hosi kiizdelemnek, melyet

2. tudataibon lennemek onnok o h0:Ji kyzdelemnek mejet
3. in. its. consciousness would.be of.that the heroic of.struggle which

/. Petofi vivott irodalmi s elsosorban koltoi nyelviink

2. pet0:fi viivott irodolmi J £l/0:JorbDn k0lt0:i jielvynk
3. Petofi fought literary and in.first.place poetic our. language

/. megujhodasaert.
2. megu:jhoda:Ja:e:rt
3- for. its. revival

'We would be happy if not only investigators of the history of the Hungarian
language, but also broad strata of our people, would be conscious of the heroic
struggle that Petofi fought for the revival of our literary and, especially, poetic
language.' -Gdldi et al. 1973: 135.

Turkish

On the order of Kemal Atatlirk in 1928, the Republic of Turkey switched virtually

overnight from the Arabic-based script of Ottoman Turkish (table 62.8 on

page 758) to a Roman alphabet script (Heyd 1954, Bazin 1983). Turkish has an eight-
vowel system; the front rounded vowels are indicated by means of an umlaut, the high
back unrounded vowel by dropping the dot from the letter i (the upper case equivalent
of i is /, that of / is /.) Vowel length is distinctive, in particular in loans from Arabic-
Persian, but is only rarely indicated by means of a circumflex accent. In native words,
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 6&3

table 59.23: Turkish Alphabet

Letter Phonetic Value Name

A a [a] [a]

B b [b] [be]

C c tfS [d>]

g 9 [tj] [tJe]

D d [d] [de]

E e [e] [e]

F f [f] [fe]

G g [g], [g
J

] [g e]
J

G g (see text) [jumu'Jak ,g

J
e] 'soft g
H h [h] [he], [ha]

I 1 [in] [VI]

i i [i] [i]

j J [3] fee]

K k M, [k*]
J
[k e], [ka]

L 1 •[1], [11 H'e]

M m [m] [me]

N n [n] [ne]

O [0] [o]

O [0] [0]

P P [p] [pe]

R r [r] [re]

S s [s] [se]

§ § [J] [Je]

T t [t] [te]

U u [u] [u]

u u [y] [y]

V V [v] [ve]

Y y [j] Be]

Z z [z] [ze]

vowel length arises through the historical loss of a voiced velar fricative syllable-fi-
nally, and is represented by the etymological spelling of vowel + g (between vowels,
g is silent). The representation of consonants is basically in terms of a one-to-one pho-

neme-letter correspondence. Among palatals, v represents [jl while; (as in French)

is [3]; [J] and [tj] are indicated by means of a cedilla (§, c), while [dj] makes idiosyn-
cratic but efficient use of the letter c. There is contrast in loanwords between front and
back k, g, / before back vowels (in the case of /, also word-finally); this is not usually

shown orthographically, although a circumflex accent is sometimes used on a and u

to indicate a preceding front velar or lateral. Stress is phonemic, in particular in prop-

er names and in loanwords, but is not indicated orthographically.

684 part x: use and adaptation of scripts

Sample of Turkish
/. Turkish: Bin dokuz yliz yirmi sekiz yilinda kabul
2. Transcription: 'bin do'kuz Jyz jir.mi se'k izJ
juiluin'da ka'bul J

3. Gloss: iooo 9 ioo 20 8 in. its. year acceptance

/. edilmis, olan Yeni Turk Alfabesi her ses igin ayn

J
2. edil'.mij olan je.ni 'tyrk alfabe'si 'her ,ses itjin aj'riu

3. done being new Turk its. alphabet each sound for separate

/. bir harf ve her harf icin yalniz bir ses esaslan uzerine
2. bir 'harf ve 'her ,harf itjin 'jalnuiz 'bir ,ses esasla'rui yzerine
3. a letter and each letter for only one sound its. principles onto

/. Latin harfleriyle tertip edilmi§tir. Biitiin harfler okunur.

2. 1'a'tin harfTe'rijl
J
e ter'tip edil'.mijtir by'tyn harfl er J
oku'nur
3. Latin with. its. letters organization was. done all letters are. read

/. Yalniz yumu§ak harfinin okunmadigi ve yenne

2. 'jalnuiz jumu'Jak 'g'e harfi'nin o'kunmaduiuj ve jeri'ne

3. however soft 8 its. letter not.to.be. read and to.its.position

/. gore farkli soylendigi olur. Turk alfabesi

g 0re
J J J
2. fark'lui s0jl endi'i olur 'tyrk alfabe'si

3. according different to.be.pronounced happens Turk its. alphabet

1. sade ve kullani§hdir.
2. sa:'de ve kullanuij'liudiur
3. simple and convenient.is

The New Turkish Alphabet, which was approved in the year 1928, is organized
according to the principle of a separate letter for each sound and only one sound
for each letter using Latin letters. All letters are read. However, it happens that
softg is not read, and is pronounced differently according to its position. The
Turkish alphabet is simple and convenient.' —Banguoglu 1959: 26.

Basque
Basque in many dialects over an area of northern Spain and southwestern
is spoken
France; known to be related to any other languages. Standard Basque has a
it is not
five-vowel system, using the symbols of Roman script in their usual values; some di-
alects also have a high front rounded vowel, represented by when these dialects are it

written. The representation of consonants is selectively based on principles that are

or were current in other languages of the Iberian peninsula. Noteworthy is the phone-
mic distinction between apical and laminal alveolars (fricative and affricate), indicat-

ed orthographical ly by s, ts versus z, tz. The corresponding palatals are x and tx\ these
are complemented by nasal ft and lateral //, and also by palatal stops, voiceless tt and

4
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 685

table 59.24: Basque Alphabet

Letter Phonetic Value Name

A a [a] [a]

B b [b]~[p] [be]

(C c) [k], [s] (laminal) [se]

D d [d]~[3] [de]

E e [e] [e]

F f m [efe]

G g [gMYl [ge]

H h [atje]

I i [i]~[i] [i]

J J [jHx]~Lj]~Lj] [jota]

K k [k] M
L 1 [1] [ele]

LI 11 m [eXe]

M m [m] [erne]

N n [n] [ene]

N n [p] [ejie]

O [0] [o]

P P [p] [pe]

(Q q) [k] [ku]

R r [r],[r] [ere]
b
RR rr [r] [ere]

S s [s] (apical) [ese]

T t [t] [te]

Ts ts [ts] (apical) [teese]

Tx tx BJ] [teekis]

Tz tz [ts] (laminal) [teseta]

U u [u]~[u] [u]

(V v) [b]~[[3] [ube]

(W w) [u] [ube bikoitsa] 'double v

X X [J] [ekis], [ija]

(Y y) [i]~[i] [i grekoa] 'Greek V

z z [s] (laminal) [seta]

The following digraphs are not considered single letters of the alphabet:
Dd dd [j]

Tt tt [c]

rr occurs only intervocalically, the only position where [r] and [r] contrast.
686 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

voiced dd (for some speakers, the latter has fricative allophones, paralleling the other
voiced stops). There is also a distinction intervocalically between tap r and trill rr.

(An earlier variant orthography used an acute accent rather than doubling of conso-
nant symbols.) Except in some dialects spoken in France, h is silent, serving a purely
etymological function; dialects with phonemic [h] also have phonemically distinct as-
pirated voiceless stops, indicated as th, etc., when The sym-
these dialects are written.
bol j represents, according to dialect, [j], [j], [f], or some of which overlap with
[x],

other phonemes. Some, but not all, Basque dialects have phonemic pitch-accent sys-
tems; no such distinctions are represented orthographically.

Sample of Basque
Basque: Ia urtebete da Miren Lasa Gernikatik
2. Transcription : ia urtebete da miren lasa gernikatik
3- Gloss: about whole.year is Miren Lasa from.Guernica

i. goizean goiz atera eta ahizpa ikusten baserrian izan

2. goisean gois atera eta aispa ikusten baserian isan
3- in.the.morning mornir ig left and sister seeing on.the.farm being

i. zela. Ez zaio, haatik, egun hura oraindik ahaztu. Harez

2. sela es saio aatik egun ura oraindik aastu ares
3- that.she.was not it.is.to.her however day that still forgotten that

/. gero Begona etengabe ari zaio eskutitzez eta

2. gero begojia etengabe ari saio eskutitses eta
j. after Begona constantly occupied she. is. to. her by.letter and

/. telefonoz, har dezala iaz bezala egun bat eta joan

2. telefonos ar desala ias besala egun bat eta joan
3. by.telephone take that.she.it last. year like day one and going

/. dakiola berriz ikusi bat egitera.

2. dakiola beris ikusi bat egitera

3. she.may.to.her again visit one in. order. to. do

it is about a year since Miren Lasa left Guernica early in the morning and vis-

ited her sister on the farm. However, she has still not forgotten that day. Since
then, Begona has continually been contacting her by letter and telephone so that

she might take a day like last year and go to visit her again.'
— Patxi Altuna, in Shimomiya 1979: 216.

Maltese

Maltese is an Arabic language spoken by the Christian community of Malta, and has
come under much Italian influence —even to being written with the Roman alphabet
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET £g7

table 59.25: Maltese Alphabet

11
Letter Phonetic Value Namtf*

A a [a] [a]

B b [b] [be]

C c [tJ] RJe]
D d [d] [de]

E e [e] [e]

F f m [fe], ['effe]

G 6 [d>]
G g [g] [ge]

Gh gh (see text) [a jn]

v c

H h (see text) fakka]

H h M [he]
1
1 1 [i] [i]

d
Ie ie [ie] [ie]

J J UJ [je]

K k M [ke]

L 1 [i] [elle]

M m (m) ['emme]
N n [n] ['enne]

[o] [o]

P P lp] [pel

Q q [?] [fe]

R r [rj I'erre]

S s [s] ['esse]

T t [t] [te]

U u [u] [u]

V V [v] [ve]

w w [w] [we]
X X [J] ['e/Je]

z z [z] [ze]

z z Si; [dz] [tie]

a. There is some variation in the ordering of letters: in particular, some dictionaries place gft after n. place fj

before K or place z after z (but ij usually precedes g).

b. Aquilina (1990: 1652-53) gives some letter names different from those given here (and pro\ ided b\ Mario
Alexander), namely (in Maltese orthograph) ): /? /je. z zcta. z zeta. Some speakers use English letter names.
with Maltese designations of diacritics (e.g. h is eje maqtugka 'cut /?'. h is eje mhix maqtugia 'uncut h').

c. The name of the letter gfr is spelled giajn.

d. ie is not always considered a separate letter.
 —
688 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

and following, to some extent, Italian spelling conventions. Maltese vowels may be
short, long, or pharyngealized; the pharyngealized vowels are also long, and in urban
speech merge with the corresponding unpharyngealized long vowels. Vowel length is

not usually indicated orthographically. Vowel pharyngealization is indicated by the

digraph gfa before or after the vowel symbol, or between identical vowel symbols
according to etymology and/or morphophonemics. The vowels / and u are diph-
thongized to [aj] and [ow] after g]h (in addition to being pharyngealized in dialects
that retain pharyngealization), e.g. ghid [a^jl] 'say'. The short vowels are represented
by a, e, /', and o/u; while the spelling uses both o and u for short vowels in both native
and loanwords, this does not correspond to a consistent difference in pronunciation.

The long vowels are represented by a, e, /, o, u, ie, the last ranging from [ie] to [i:].
The representation of consonants is basically one-to-one between phoneme and
symbol. Some of the choices of phoneme-symbol correspondences show Italian in-
fluence: thus z represents [ts] (and [dz] in a handful of Italian loanwords), while [z]

is represented by adding a dot. Similarly, g for [0*3] is a modified g (cf. the "soft" pro-
nunciation of g in Italian), while c for [tj] redundantly has the same superscript dot
(there is no undotted c). The use of x for [J] reflects a practice once widespread in the

Mediterranean area. The use of q for [?] (deriving from Arabic [q]) and of h for [h]
reflect Semitic transliteration practices. The digraph gh basically functions synchro-
nically as an indicator of pharyngealization (or length); but word-finally and under
obstruent cluster devoicing, it is [h]. The letter h has similar, but more restricted, func-

tions, being often simply silent. A word-final apostrophe after a reflects an etymolog-
ical gh, but has no phonetic realization.
Stress is not entirely predictable, but is not normally marked orthographically,
except for the use of a grave accent on word-final stressed vowels — a possibility that
only occurs in loans from Italian and follows Italian practice.

Sample of Maltese
/. Maltese: Il-gzejjer Maltin ghandhom storja kbira li

2. Transcription: il'gzejjer mal'tiin 'a^ndum ,sto:rja ,gbi:ra li

3. Gloss: the-islands Maltese they.have history big that

/. tifrex tul il-medda ta' hafna snin. Fiha naraw li minn

2. 'tifrej tu:l il'medda ta 'hafna 'sniin 'fi:a na'raw li min
3. stretches across the-space of many years in.it we. find that from

/. zminijiet qodma 1-poplu beda jinfirex f'inhawi differenti

2. zmini'jist ?odma l'poiplu 'beda jin'firej" fintiawi diffe'renti

3. times old the-people began it. spread indirections different

/. biex jifforma komunitajiet zghar li bil-mod il-mod

s
2. biej jifforma kumunita'jiat 'za r li bil'moid il'mo:t

3. in.order.that it.form communities small that with.the-way the-way

 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 6g9

/. bdew joktru u jikbru.

2. 'bdew 'joktru u 'jigbru

3. began they.multiply and they.grow

The Maltese islands have a long history that stretches across the space of many
years. In it we find that from ancient times the people began to spread in differ-
ent directions to form small communities that little by little multiplied and
grew.' — Guillaumier 198-7: first unnumbered page of introduction.
Notes:
a
Low-level morphophonemic processes like word-final devoicing and obstruent voice assimilation are not
shown orthographically.
b
In normal speech, short [o] and [u] are allophonically distributed.

African languages
John Bendor-Samuel

Approximately one third of the world's languages are spoken in Africa. Of these two
thousand or so distinct languages, over five hundred now have a written form, the vast
majority using a Roman-based orthography.
This has come about because, at the beginning of the colonial era, very few Af-
rican languages had developed a written form (for earlier uses of Arabic script for
African languages, see section 62). Officials needed to compile records which in-

volved writing down for the first time the names of places and people, and indeed a
whole range of geographic and ethnographic details. At the same time missionaries
gave high priority in their work to translating the Bible into these hitherto unwritten

languages. With these translations came the need for literacy materials. Inevitably at
that time the systems of writing that were developed followed the conventions of the
colonial languages, and these were all Roman-based. Since the sounds and sound
systems of the African languages vary very considerably from the sound systems
found in the European languages, the Roman alphabet had to be adapted considerably
in order to provide a system of symbols which would be adequate.
The primary colonial powers in Africa were Britain and France. They followed
different principles in developing orthographical systems for the African languages.
The British were influenced by the Royal Geographical Society's decision in 1836 to

adopt the principle "The vowels as in Italian and the consonants as in English." The
French, however, tended to stick more closely to the orthographic traditions of
French.
In 1848 the Church Missionary Society, which worked primarily in the British

colonies, published "Rules for Reducing Unwritten Languages to Alphabetical Writ-

ing in Roman characters, with reference especially to the languages spoken in Afri-
ca." These Rules set down fixed values for the letters of the Roman alphabet, avoiding
two-letter compounds for single sounds and making use of the subscript dot. It rec-
690 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

ommended s for sh [J], / for th [0], e for [e], o for [o], and a for [a]. In the mid 1850s
there was a series of alphabetical conferences which resulted in what was called "The
Standard Alphabet" devised by Richard Lepsius (see section 71) and later adapted
for African use by Professor Carl Meinhof. These alphabets continued very much
along the lines of the CMS's "Rules." Diacritical marks continued to be used for
sounds which were outside the twenty-six letters of the Roman alphabet.
When the International African Institute was founded in 1926, one of its first en-
deavors was to develop an "Africa" alphabet. In 1928 the Institute published "The
Practical Orthography of African Languages." The orthographic system it proposed
moved away from the Meinhof-Lepsius system primarily in advocating the use of a
number of "phonetic" letters in preference to a Roman letter with a diacritic, for ex-
ample e in place of e, o in place of o, 9 in place of a, rj in place of ng, fin place of s,
etc. Diacritics were to be used for marking tone and nasalization.
This "Africa" alphabet has spread widely over Sub-Saharan Africa, though it is

not used universally. In southern Nigeria, for instance, the use of diacritics to mark
vowel quality with the dot under the standard Roman symbols still prevails, rather

than the use of separate symbols. Swahili, the language in Africa spoken more widely
than any other indigenous language, still follows the CMS's "Rules" as regards the
principle "Vowels as in Italian, consonants as in English," but uses digraphs such as
sh, ng, ch, ny, instead of diacritics. While there is still a great deal of diversity across
Africa, in the last twenty years several countries, particularly in the Francophone ar-

ea, have taken steps toward standardizing the orthographies for their indigenous lan-
guages.

Problems in adapting consonants

Although the 1848 "Rules" with its slogan "Consonants as in English" has been wide-
ly followed throughout Africa, there have always been problems because of the con-
sonantal sounds in African languages which do not correspond to any English sounds.
In general three solutions have been used. The first is to develop a digraph, e.g. kh
for [%] and gh for [y]. The second solution is to use a diacritic, as in s for [J].The
third solution is to use a "phonetic" letter, introducing it as an additional symbol in
the alphabet, for example ij.

It is interesting to note that in a sample of some two hundred alphabets, mainly

developed in the last twenty years, the first solution is by far the most widely used.
Double-articulated plosives such as bilabial velars are nearly always symbolized by
digraphs (kp, gb). Similarly, digraphs are used for aspirated, labialized, and palatal-
ized sounds (e.g. ph, th, kh, bh, bw, sw, tw, gw,fy, gy, ly, etc.). The only "phonetic"
symbol used at all widely is the ij, followed by the hooked letters 5 and d. No other
phonetic letters have found a place in most of these alphabets. Diacritics are found
only rarely, e.g. s in southern Nigeria.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 69]

Problems in adapting vowels

Comparatively few African languages have as few as five vowels, so that in most lan-
guages the five Roman vowel symbols are inadequate. Again three solutions have
been used; additional diacritical marks, additional "phonetic" letters, and very occa-
sionally digraphs. A fourth solution has also been used fairly widely, namely, not dis-
tinguishing certain vowels in the alphabet even though they are known to be
phonemically distinct! It seems rather clear that the trends in recent years have been
away from the use of diacritics and toward the use of special symbols. Where the sys-
tem of using diacritics is well established, as in Yoruba, this continues to prevail and
to be extended to new systems developed for languages in geographical proximity.
Outside these geographical areas, however, there are few instances of this system be-
ing adopted. In some of the francophone countries the acute and grave accents are
still used for vowel quality, and Cote d'lvoire symbolizes central vowels a, i\ 6. Fairly

common too in Cameroon are the barred symbols i , a. The vowel symbols e, o, q are
found very widely across the continent.

Vietnamese
Nguyen Dinh-Hoa

The currently used conventional orthography in Vietnam is a Roman script called

(chit') quoc-ngit 'national language'. To letters of the Latin alphabet its inventors add-
ed diacritical marks to indicate vowel quality and/or one of the six tones of the stan-

dard dialect — that of Hanoi, the capital city. The two earlier systems of writing which
native scholars had at their disposal until the first decades of the twentieth century are
chit nom 'southern' or 'demotic script' — a system of "square characters" derived
from written Chinese —and chit Han, chit nho 'Han' or 'scholarly script', i.e. the

characters learned from the Chinese, who ruled Vietnam from

939 c.e. 1 1 1 b.c.e. to
The was Alexandre de Rhodes (1 591-1660), a
codifier of the quoc-ngit system
brilliant French Jesuit scholar/missionary from Avignon, who continued the work of

other Catholic missionaries in the creation of an alphabetic system for the new con-
verts to Christianity. Indeed, he said that he based his Vietnamese-Portuguese-Latin
dictionary, published in Rome in 1 65 1 on earlier works by Gaspar de Amaral and An-
,

toine de Barbosa, both from Portugal (cf. Rhodes 1991). Although the Roman script
was initially used only in religious writings, including catechisms and prayer books,
it eventually spread beyond the world of European missionaries and their local fol-
lowers, who found it fairly easy to learn. However, its official use began only in 19 10.
when a decree issued by the French Resident Superieur of the protectorate of Tonkin
(northern Vietnam, where Rhodes first served) icquired that all public documents be
transcribed into quoc-ngit. Orthographic changes were later suggested by French
scholars and colonial administrators, and after independence were recommended at
692 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.26: The Eleven Vowels

i [i] U' [iu| u [u]

e [e] a [3] or [Y] 6 [0]

e [e] a [a] a [a] [0]

several scholarly conferences and meetings held during the 1954-75 partition. These
changes have been focused on the representation of vocalic elements. In general, the
system reflects the phonological system of a northern dialect, which has been called
"Middle Vietnamese" (Gregerson 1969); the initial consonant letters more closely re-
flect the dialects of southern Vietnam, while the final consonants correspond more

closely to those of northern dialects. Despite a few inconsistencies, the quoc-ngit sys-
tem is easy to learn and has helped to promote literacy.

Letters of the alphabet

The shape of individual letters is not much different from that recorded in the 1651

dictionary. A typical syllable, formerly written with either one Chinese character or
one nom character, consists of a minimal vocalic nucleus V optionally preceded by an
initial onset C, and optionally followed by a coda C2 , which can be a semivowel [j,

w]. Alphabetical order is a a a b c ch d d e e g gi h i k kh I mn ng nh o 6 a p ph q r s

t th tr it w v x y.
The so-called rhyme, i.e. what follows C,, is affected by one of the six phonemic

tones T, and the syllabic structure can be represented as C, + V + C Examples are:

2 .

V, a 'oh!'; CV, hd 'to open [mouth]'; CVC, hdn 'Han, Chinese'; WW, od 'to burst into

tears' ; C WW, hod 'to change (into)' C WWC, hodn 'to exchange' The basic CVC norm
; .

can be maximally expanded to C, WWsC as in khuyen [xulsn] 'to advise'.

2,

The syllabic nucleus must be one of the eleven vowels, as shown in table 59.26,
or one of the three combinations of high vowel + glide.
The vowel [i] is written arbitrarily i in some words, y in others. The three vowel
combinations [ia uis ua] are written ia if a ua in open syllables, but in closed syllables
they are spelled ie- ua- uo-.
A front or central vowel may be followed by a [w] offglide, spelled -u or -o to
indicate the quality of the preceding vowel: hiu [hlw] '(of breeze) gentle', hieu
[hfow] 'to understand', keu [kew] 'to call, shout', heo [hew] 'pig', ndu [n5w]
'brown', cau [kaw] 'areca nut', cao [kaw] 'tall'.

A central or back vowel may be followed by a [j] offglide, spelled -v or -i to in-

dicate the quality of the preceding vowel: cm [kiuj] 'loom', ciroi [kuisj] 'to laugh',

mcri [mYJl 'to invite', tui [tuj] 'pocket', tuoi [tuaj] 'year (of age)', toi [toj] T, me*, toi

[toj] '(of cattle, poultry) to die', tai [tail 'ear', tdy [t5j] 'west', toy [taj] 'hand, arm'.
The twenty-two onsets C, are shown in table 59.27. (The digraphs ch th tr kh
ph gi gh ng nh represent not clusters, but single sounds, as indicated in phonetic

brackets.)
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 693

table 59.27: The Onsets

p t tr [t] ch [c] clklq [k]

h
th [t ]

b d[d]
ph[f] x [s] sin kh[x]
V d[z] gi [3] g(h) [y]

m n «/z [n] «#(/?) [n]

The influence of Romance orthography is clear in the writing of the velar stop; it

is k before a front vowel i e e, but c before the other vowels, and q before [w]: kim
[kirn] 'needle', ke [ke] 'millet', kem [kem] 'cream, ice cream', cam [kam] 'orange',
cam [kvm] 'cooked cam [k5m] 'mute, dumb', kam [kam] 'to resent', cum
rice',

[kum] 'flu', com [kom] 'green rice', com [kom] 'gaunt, skinny', quy [kwi] 'to kneel
down', que [kwe] 'village', que [kwe] 'stick, twig'.

The voiced dental stop [d] is written with barred d, as opposed to non-barred d,
which represents the voiced spirant [z]: compare da [da] 'banyan' and da [za] 'skin'
(modern [z] < 17th-century [d] d, whereas [d] < implosive [d] d, hence the odd-seem-
ing assignment of the letters).
The consonants [[ j 3] are typical of the central and southern dialects, in which 5

represents [J] and gi represents [3]: sa [Ja] 'to fall down', xa [sa] 'far' ; gia [3a] 'house-
hold'; cf. da [za] 'skin' (modern [s] probably < 17th-century laminal [s], and [J] <
apico-alveolar [s], which the missionaries equated with Portuguese x and s respective-
ly). Although the Hanoi dialect does not distinguish d from gi in pronunciation, there

is a contrast in spelling: danh 'to save, put aside' and gianh 'to dispute' are both pro-
nounced [zairj].

In most northern dialects, the six and chltr contrasts are neutralized: sa 'to fall'

and xa 'far' are both pronounced [sa], che 'to denigrate' and tre 'catfish' are both pro-
nounced [ce]. Some speakers even confuse lao [law] 'Laos, Laotian' and nao [ndw]
'which'.
For the velar spirant [y] and nasal [rj], a letter h is added after g or ng if the nu-

cleus is a front vowel i e e: thus ga [ya] 'station, depot', but ghi [yl] 'to record*: ngo
[no] 'corn, maize', but nghi [rjl] 'to suspect'.

The initial sequence [kw] is always written qu, as in qua [kwa] 'to cross over',

quy [kwi] 'to kneel down', que [kwe] 'village', quet [kwet] 'to sweep'. In other con-
texts, however, [w] is spelled o before a, a, e, as in hod [hwa] 'peace', toan [twan] 'to

intend', hoqc [hwa ? k] 'or', ngoac [rjwa ? k] 'brackets', khoe [xwe] 'strong, healthy',

xoe [swe] 'to spread (wings)'; but u before i, e, a, a as in toy [twi] 'although', khuy
h
[xwi] 'button', f/7w<f [t we] 'tax', tudn [twan] 'week', khuan [xw5n] 'to lug' (heavy
h
object)', thua [t wv] 'time (in the past)'.
694 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 59.28: Tone Marking

lone Orthography Phonetic Value Gloss

level ma [ma] 'ghost'

high rising ma [ma] 'cheek'

low (falling) ma [ma] 'but'

dipping-rising ma [ma] 'tomb'

high rising glottal zed ma [ma7] 'horse'

low globalized ma [ma ? ] 'rice seedling'

In syllable-final position C 2 can appear one of the stops p t ch [c] c [k], or one of
the nasals m n nh [n] ng [rj], apart from the offglides described above. Some ortho-
graphic irregularities occur: thus ach anh are pronounced [aik air)] (ach anh do not
occur), e.g. sdch [saik] 'book', anh [airj] 'elder brother'. (After the rounded vowels u
6 o, the velars take on the roundness feature, and the resulting labiovelars [kp rjm]
may be perceived as [p m] though spelled k ng.)
The diphthongs pronounced [aj aw] are spelled ai ao, while those pronounced
[aj aw] are spelled ayau; e.g., hai [haj] 'two' versus hay [haj] 'interesting', sao [saw]
'star' versus sau [saw] 'behind'.
Of the six phonemic tones, the high or mid level tone is unmarked, whereas the
other five are indicated by diacritics placed above or below the vowel letter
(table 59.28).

Sample of Vietnamese
Vietnamese: Viec sang-tac chu° quoc-ngir chac la
v
2. Transcription: vi 9k sdrj-tdk ciu ? ku3k-rjiu ? cak la

3- Gloss: task create script national-language certain be

1. mot cong-cuoc chung cua nhieu ngircn, trong do co

2. md ? t korj-ku^k curj kus jiisw qiusj jprj do ko
3- one undertaking collective of many people inside which have

/. ca cac giao-si nguai Tay-ban-nha, B6-dao-nha va Phap-lan-tay.

2. kd kdk 3dw-si ? rjuiaj t5j-ban-r[d bo-da w-na va fdp-lan-t5j
3. even pl missionary people Spain Portugal and France

/. Nhung nguoi co cong nhat trong viec ay la co

2. rtuirj qujsj ko korj r[3t ok aj la ko
3. however person have credit uppermost inside task that be father

/. Alexandre de Rhodes vi chinh ong la nguoi dau-tien dem

2. aleksddre do Ko:dz vi citi 613 la i]UJ3J dSw-tTsn dem
3. Alexandre de Rhodes because exactly he be person first take
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 695

/. in nhung sach bang chir quoc-ngu, thu nhat la

CIU ?
h
2. In nufn sac bar) kuok-r)UJ ? t LU ipt la

3- print PL book use script national-language order first is

/. mot cuon tu-dien, khien cho nguoi sau co tai-lieu ma

2. mo? t kitan tuj
?
-dion xion c5 rjiuaj saw ko tdj-li
?
3w md
3. one clf dictionary cause give people later have materials in.order.to

/. hoc va ke-cuu.
?
2. rro k vd ke-kuiw
3. study and research

'The creation of a script for the national language was certainly a collective
undertaking of many people, including missionaries from Spain, Portugal and
France. However, the person who deserved the most credit in that task was
Father Alexandre de Rhodes, because it was he who first had several books
printed in the national language script, especially one dictionary, so that later
people could have materials to study and do research.'
—Direr ng Qudng-Ham 1941: igi.

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Mouton.
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Turkish
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Repr. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1981.
 SECTION 59: ADAPTATIONS OF THE ROMAN ALPHABET 599

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SECTION 60

Adaptations of the Cyrillic Alphabet

Bernard Comrie

Cyrillic script (section 27) is used for the Slavic languages Russian, Belarusian,
Ukrainian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, and (alongside Roman script, cf. section 64)
Serbo-Croatian, and also for anumber of non-Slavic languages of the former Soviet
Union (cf. section 67) and (alongside Vertical Mongolian script, section 49) for
Mongolian. In addition, a highly idiosyncratic adaptation of Cyrillic was introduced
by Bishop Stephen of Perm for Old Permic, i.e. Old Komi, in the late fourteenth cen-
tury; it fell into disuse in the seventeenth century (Lytkin 1952).

Slavic languages

Serbo-Croatian (Cyrillic) and Macedonian have one-to-one correspondence between

sounds and symbols, using alphabets stemming from Vuk Karadzic's modification of
Cyrillic for Serbo-Croatian. For phonemes not represented by single letters in Rus-
sian, Serbo-Croatian uses h c, a derivative of an Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic letter
ft, for [tc], and a modification thereof, r) d, for the voiced equivalent [dz]; Macedonian
uses diacritics for its etymological equivalents, f g and k Ic. The palatal nasal and lat-

eral are indicated by combining the ordinary consonant symbol with the "soft sign"
b, to give h> nj and jl Ij. The use of jt dz for [d$] is an original innovation, while Mace-
donian s dz for [dz] revives an Old Church Slavonic Cyrillic letter s. The symbol j j

for [j| is a borrowing from Roman script, simplifying the complex representations of
[j] in older Cyrillic and completing the phonemic spelling of palatals.

Belarusian, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian writing systems are closer to Russian, al-

though Bulgarian has an additional vowel phoneme fs], whose usual written equiva-

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS: I am grateful for information provided by Mikhail E. Alekseev, Raisa M. Batalova.

Christopher Beckwith, Wayles Browne, Paul Cubberley, Donald Dyer, Victor Friedman, Martin Haspelmath.
Tooru Hayasi, Talanl Mawkhanuli, Peter J. Mayo, John R. Payne, Ramazan Rajabov, Ernest C. Scatton. George
Y. Shevelov, and Draga Zee. Remaining errors are my own responsibility.Work on this article was conducted
while the author was a Visiting Professor at the Institute for the Study of Languages and Cultures of Asia and
Africa, Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.
Ai I'M \Ki Tables: Upper-case letters are shown
1 as they would appear when required at the beginning of a
sentence. For letters that do not occur word-initially, upper-case forms are shown as they would appear in a text

written in upper case throughout. Transliterations used here and in the sample texts are symbol-by-symbol
transliterations, not scientific transcriptions, for the languages in question. Letters in parentheses are used only
in Russian loans. Indented letters are not considered distinct letters for purposes of alphabetical ordering. In the
transcriptions, $ stands for syllable boundary, # for word boundary, I for front vowels, and U for back vowels.
S xmi'i.e texts: The texts are sometimes slightly adapted from the originals.

700
 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 701

table 60.1: Belarusian Alphabet

Letted Translit Value A/<3/7?^

A a a [a] [a]

E 6 b [b] [be]

B B V [v] [ve]
b
r r h [y]; [g] [ye]

H fl d [d] [de]

E e e [je]; [e] /C_ . [je]

E e e [jo]; [0] /o_ . [jo]

^K >k z [3] fee]

3 3 z [z] [ze]
T
1 i 1 LiJ
m
d /"
J Ul ['i n esk+a'dovaje] 'non-syllabic
J
/", ['i ka'rotkaje] 'short

K K k [k] [ka]

JI JI 1 [1] [ell

M M m [m] [em]
H H n In] [en]
•
[0] [0]

n n P (Pi [pe]

p p r [r] [er]

c c s [s] [cs]

T T t [t] [te]

y y u [u] [u]
e
y y w [w] ['u n esk+a'dovaje] 'non-syllabic u\
J
['u ka'rotkaje] 'short w'

cD cp f [f] [ef]

X X X [x] [xa]

u n c [ts] [tse]

H H c [tj] [tie]

IU III s [J] [la]

c
BI bl y [i] [i]
' _d
B b [jer], ['m'akVi 'znak] 'soft sign'

3 3 e [e] [e]

K) K) ju [ju]; [u] lO_ _ [ju]

51 H ja [ja]; [a] IO_ _ [ja]

a. The following digraphs are not considered separate letters of the alphabet for alphabetical ordering:

flx jpk [d3]

fl3 Jt3 [dz]

b. [g] occurs only in onomatopoeia and loanwords.

c. [i] and [i] are arguably allophones of a single phoneme.
d. Palatalization of consonants and [j] are indicated as follows:
— [a] [e] [i] [o] [u]

Plain C Ca Ca Cw Co Cy
Palatalized Cb Ch Ce Ci Ce Ck)
[j] h h e e k>

[j] between a vowel and a consonant is indicated by an apostrophe followed by a yotated vowel, e.g. Ca C[ja].

e. [w] is not a distinct phoneme, reflecting the neutralization of word-final and pre-consonantal hi and /!/.
702 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 60.2: Ukrainian Alphabet

Letter Transliteration Phonetic Value Name

A a a [aj [a]

B 6 b [b] [be]

B B V [w]~ [v] [we]

r r h [R] [he]
b
r r g [g] [ge]

A A d [d] [de]

E e e [e] [e]

e e je [je]; [e] after C J

[je]

>K >K z [3] fee]

3 3 z [z] [ze]

H H y [1] [1]

I i i [i] [i]

I i ji [ji] [ji]

H H J UJ
C
[jot]

K K k [k] [ka]

JI JI 1 [1] [el]

M M m [m] [em]
H H n [n] [en]

[0] [0]

n n P [pl [pe]

p P r [r] [er]

c c s [s] [es]

T T t [t] [te]

y y u [uj [u]

o> * f [f] [ef]

X X X [x] [xa]

U H c [ts] [tse]

H H c [tJ] [t7e]

III LU s [J] [Ja]

m m sc [JtJ] . [JtJa]

K) K) ju C
[ju]; [u] after Uu]
fl H ja M; [a] after C [ja]
' c
b b [mja'kij 'znak] 'soft sign'

a. The following digraphs are not considered separate letters of the alphabet for alphabetical ordering:

A>k a>k [d3]

fl3 JX3 [dz]

b. During the Soviet period, the separate letter r g was not used, and r h served for both [h] and [g], the latter
occurring only in onomatopoeia and loanwords. With national independence, r g has been reintroduced.
c. Palatalization of consonants and [j| are indicated as follows:
- [a] [ef [i] [o] [u]

Plain C Ca Ce Cm Co Cy
Palatalized Cb Ch Ce Ci Cbo Cto
[j| h h e 1 ho 10

[j| between a vowel and a consonant is indicated by an apostrophe followed by a yotated vowel, e.g. C'h C[ja].

.*
 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 7()3

table 60.3: Bulgarian Alphabet

Letter Transliteration Phonetic Value Name

a
A a a [a] [a]

E 6 b [b] [b3j

B B V [v] [V3]

r r g
d
[g]

[d]
M
JX fl [da]

E e e [e] [e]

)K >K z [3] [33]

3 3 z [z] [Z3]

H H i [i] [i]

b
H H J Ul ['i 'kratko] "short V
K K k [k] Do]
JI JI 1 [1] [19]

M M m [m] [ma]
H H n [n] [i»]

[0] [0]

n n P IpJ [pa]

p P r [r] [ra]

c C s [s] [S3]

T T t [t] [to]

y y u [u] [u]

<p f [f] [fa]

X X X [x] [X3]

a n c t5] |tso]

H H c [tJ] [tJa]

in 111 s [J] [J3j

m m St [it] [fto]

T> T> a
'
W
_b
['er go'l'am] 'big er'

B b ['er 'malak] 'little er'

K) K) ju [ju];[u] after O Liu]

fl 51 ja [ja];[a]afterC
,a
M
a. In certain grammatical suffixes, [a] is written with a after plain consonants, and with a after palatalized
consonants and []]; [a] does not otherwise occur after palatalized consonants or [j].

b. Palatalization of consonants and [j] are indicated as follows:

- [a] [o] [u] [a]

Plain Ca Co Cy Ob (Ca)
Palatalized Cn Cbo Cio Ca
[j] H H HO K) H
704 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 60.4: Serbo-Croatian table 60.5: Macedonian Alphabet

(Cyrillic) Alphabet

Letter Translit. Value Name h Letter

11
Translit Value Name
A a a [a] ;\|a:] A a a [a] [a]

B 6 b [b] [Nba] B 6 b [b] [b3]

B B V [v] >s] B B V [v] [V3]

r r g [g] :Ngs] r r g [g] [93]

A fl d [d] ;Nd3] A B d [d] [da]

T> b d [dz] ;Ndz9] r f g

J

[g ]~ [dz] [g 3]
J

E e e [e] [Ne:] E e e [e] [e]

2K )K z [3] :n 3 3] yK )K z [3] [33]

3 3 z [z] :nzs] 3 3 z [z] [Z3]

H H i [i] [\|i:] s s dz [dz] [dzs]

J J J Ul :nj3] H H i [i] [i]

K K k [k] :Nk 9 ] J J J Ul M
Jl JI 1 [1] [Nto] K K k [k] [k3]

JL Jb lj [A*] :na-3] JI JI 1
ffl; 1] before [+3]

M M m [m] ;NJms] [i], [e], UJ

H H n [n] :Nna] JL JL U MOlon- [13]

standard [A*])
H> H> nj LP] ;Nji9]

[0] ENo:]
M M m [m] [ma]

n n [Nps]
H H n [n] [n3]
P [P]
H> H> nj LP] [P3]
p p r [r] [Nre]
[0] [0]
c c s [s] [Nsa]

T T t [t] [Nte]
n n P [p] [P3]

P P r [r] [re]
Tx h c [tc] [Ntcs]

y u
C c s [s] [S3]
y [u] Nu:]

<d cp f
T T t [t] [t3]
[f] [Nfs]

X X X [x]~[h] [\|x3]~[Nh3j
K K k [k']~ [tc]
J
[k s]

y y u [u] [u]
n u c [Fs] [Nfss] .

H H c [tJ] [Ntfe]
* f in [fa]

_ X X X [x] [X3]
u dz [d 3] [Ndja]

III HI
U c [is] [FS3]
s 111 [N/9]
M c [0] EM
a. The Roman transliteration symbols given are
IJ u dz [d3] [d>]
those 31 the Serbo-Croatian Latin-scrip t alphabet; cf.

TABLE 59- 6 on page 670. LU III s [J] [h]

a. There is also a marginal phoneme [a], used in dia-

lect words and the names of the letters of the alpha-

bet, and represented by an apostrophe.

 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 7Q5

lent is t a. In particular, the three languages use essentially the same devices for
indicating palatalization and [j], although the actual symbols used differ from lan-
guage to language; for details, see tables 60.1-60.3. Bulgarian lacks palatalization
oppositions except before nonfront vowels. Belarusian and Ukrainian use an apostro-
phe, rather than the "soft sign" h or the "hard sign" t>, to indicate [j] following a con-
sonant; this sequence does not occur in Bulgarian. Otherwise, the main characteristics
of Belarusian are a separate letter y u for [w] (though this is not a distinct phoneme),
the absence of m sc (for which ihh s-c is used), and the orthographic representation
of vowel reduction in unstressed syllables, e.g. Ba^a vada [va'da] 'water' (cf. Russian
BO,na voda [vA'da]). Ukrainian has a special letter iji to represent [ji], and a special
letter r g to indicate the voiced plosive [g] in onomatopoeia and loanwords, contrast-
ing with the voiced fricative r h [fi].

Macedonian has basically antepenultimate stress, while the other languages have
free stress. Serbo-Croatian has phonemic vowel length on stressed and post-tonic
vowels, and stressed vowels distinguish rising and falling tone. Serbo-Croatian and
Macedonian have syllabic [r]. None of these prosodic features are marked ortho-
graphically.

Samples of Slavic languages

Ukrainian

/. Ukrainian: Bo,rta npn 6epe3i noHHHajia KajiaMyraTHCb 1

2. Transliteration: Voda pry berezi pocynala kalamutytys' i

3. Transcription: wo'da pn 'berez J

i potji'nala kala'mutitis J
i

4. Gloss: water by shore began to.grow.turbid and

J. 2K0BKHVTH, pa30M z nicKOM xbhjih BHKHflana 30 flHa Mopn

2. zovknuty, razom z piskom xvylja vykydala zo dna morja
3. ^owknuti razom s p'is'kom 'xwil'a wiki'dala zo 'dna 'mor a J

4. to.yellow together with sand wave threw.out from bottom of.sea

/. Ha 6eper KaMiHHH i, TiicaioHH Ha3a«, BOJiiKJia ix no Any

2. na bereh kaminnja i, tikajucy nazad, volikla jix po dnu
3. na 'bereh ka'm inn a
J J
i t'i'kajutji na'zad woPik'la jix po 'dnu

4. onto shore stones and running back dragged them along bottom

1. 3 TaKHM rypKOTOM, Hane TaM moch BejiHKe cKperoTajio

2. z takym hurkotom, nace tarn scos' velyke skrehotalo

3. s ta'kim 'hurkotom 'natje 'tarn 'JtJos

J
we'like skreho'talo
4. with such noise as. if there something huge gnashed

/. 3y6aMH h rapnajio.
2. zubamy j
harc"alo.
3. zu'bami j
har'tjalo

4. with. teeth and growled

706 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

'The water by the shore began to grow turbid and yellow, together with the sand
the wave threw stones out from the sea bottom onto the shore and, running
back, dragged them along the bottom with such a noise, as if something huge
were there gnashing its teeth and growling.'
—M. Kocjubyns'kyj, Ha KaMem [On the stone], in Vinogradov 1966-68, 1:66.
Notes:
a
Low-level assimilations, such as voice assimilation in obstruent clusters, are not shown by the orthography.
h
The [e|~| 1 ] opposition tends to be neutralized in unstressed position.

Serbo-Croatian (Eastern Standard, Cyrillic script)

/. Serbian: CpncKOxpBaTCKH npaBonnc 6ho je ao Byxa

2. Transliteration: Srpskohrvatski pravopis bio je do Vuka
3. Transcription: srpsko/|xrva:tski: Npravopiis \|bio je do \|vu:ka

4. Gloss: Serbo-Croatian orthography been is before Vuk

/. yrjiaBHOM cthmojioiiikh, a ByK je yBeo hob, apoHeTCKH

2. uglavnom etimoloski, a Vuk je uveo nov, fonetski

3. u/|glavno:m eti/lmolojki: a \|vu:k je /|uveo \|nov /ifonetski:

4. mainly etymological but Vuk is introduced new phonetic

/. npaBonHC no npHHiTHiry »riHiiiH Kao ihto roBopHin, a

2. pravopis po principu "Pisi kao sto govoris, a

3. Npravopiis po prin/|tsi:pu /|pi:Ji Nkao jto /Igovori:/ a

4. orthography according.to principle write! as that you. speak and

/. HHTaj KaKO je HariHcaH0«; CMHcao Tora je Aa ce npoMeHe

2. citaj kako je napisano"; smisao toga je da se promene
3. /Itjitaij Nkako je /1napi:sa:no \|smi:sao Ntoga je da se Npromene
4. read! as is written meaning of. this is that self changes

/. rjiacoBa o6ejie^caBajy caivio 3ace6HHM peMHMa, a

2. glasova obelezavaju samo zasebnim recima, a

3. Nglasoiva: obele/l3a:vaju: Nsamo /|za:sebni:m /|re:tjima a

4. of.sounds they.indicate only separate words but

/. npoivieHe rjiacoBa 6JIHCK0 Be3aHHM penHMa y peHeHHUH

2. promene glasova blisko vezanim recima u recenici

3. Npromene \Jglaso:va: Nblisko \|ve:za:ni:m /|re:tjima u re/ltjenitsi

4. changes of-sounds closely linked words in sentence

/. He o6ejiexcaBajy ce.

2. ne obelezavaju se.

3. ne obele/l3a:vaju: se
4. not they.indicate self
 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 707

'Serbo-Croatian orthography was mainly etymological before Vuk, but Vuk

introduced a new phonetic orthography based on you
the principle 'Write as
speak and read as is written'; the meaning of this is that changes of sounds
should be indicated only in separate words while changes of sounds in closely
linked words in a sentence should not be indicated.'
-Mana EHU,UKfioneduj a Upoceema [Small Prosveta encyclopedia] 1978, 2:896.
Note:
"Phonetic symbols used for tone are [A] rising and [\|] falling.

Non-Slavic languages
Given the number of non-Slavic languages using Cyrillic script —over fifty in the ear-
ly 1 990s —and the typological diversity of their phonologies, the following treatment
is necessarily selective as regards both languages and phenomena. The languages that
—
appear here are classified into the following families: Indo-European (Romance)
Moldovan, (Iranian) —(Permic) Komi; Turkic—
Tajik; Uralic Azeri, Turkmen, Tatar,
Kazakh, Uzbek, Kirghiz; Northwest Caucasian — Abkhaz, Kabardian; Northeast
Caucasian — Avar; and Chukotko-Kamchatkan — Chukchee. The aim some is to give

idea of the kinds of solutions adopted in dealing with phonological problems different
from those found in the Russian alphabet, which forms the basis for the alphabets of
all the languages concerned. Two basic classes of solutions can be discerned.
(i) Some new letters are modifications of Russian letters or add diacritics to them,
such as y u for [y] in several Turkic and Mongolic languages, h, or h, ij for [rj] in var-

ious languages, or y u for [o] in Tajik.

w
(ii) Digraphs (and even trigraphs and tetragraphs) are used, such as Ky ku for [k ],
w w
Kty k "u for [q '], and Kxty kx'u for [q ] in Kabardian.
In general, solution (i) is preferred across most of the former USSR, but solution
(ii) is preferred for languages of the northern Caucasus —with the notable exception
of Abkhaz, which has the largest number of modified letters of any Cyrillic alphabet
in widespread current use. The difference between the two solutions can be seen in

orthographic representations of [q]: the usual solution is k, §, as in Kazakh, Uzbek,

Uyghur, Tajik, and Chukchee (with a variant k in Bashkir). Digraphs are found not
only in the North Caucasian languages (for which see below), but also, in the shape
of kt> k", in the Turkic languages Kumyk, Karachay-Balkar, and Crimean Tatar. In ad-
dition, letters are occasionally borrowed from other scripts, the most frequent being I

(the numeral "one" on a Russian typewriter) in alphabets of the northern Caucasus.

More sporadic are i (from Roman or pre- 191 8 Russian Cyrillic script) and h (from
Roman script); the last is found for [h] in Azeri, Tatar, Bashkir, Kazakh, Uyghur,
Buryat, and Kalmyk. The modified Cyrillic letter x,.y is used in Tajik, Karakalpak, and
Uzbek; the digraph n> g' occurs in Kumyk, Avar, Lak, Dargwa, Lezgian, and Tabasa-
ran.
708 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

TABLE 60.6: Moldovan Alphabet TABLE 60 7: Tajik Alphabet

Letter Tr'li f. Value Name Letter Tr'lit. Value Name

A a a [a] [a|
A a a [a] [a]

B 6 b [b] [be]
B 6 b [b] [be]
B B V [v] [ve]
B B V [v] [ve]
r r g [g] [ge]
r r g [g] [gel A A d [dj [de]

JX A d [d] [de] E e e Ue] /$_ ;Ue]

E e e Ue] /$_ ,
[je] [e] /C_
[e] /C_ E e e [jo] Ud]

>K >K z [3e]

yK »; z [3] fee]
[3]
3 3 z [z] [ze]
>K >k z [<%] [d>]
H i [i] [i]
3 3 z [z] [ze]
H H a
J UJ ['ii ko'toh] 'short V
H H i [i] [i] K K k [k] [ka]
H H J Ul [i skurt] 'short V Jl Jl 1 [1] [el]

K K k [kj [ka] M M m [m] [em]

Jl Jl 1
[1] [el]
H H n [n] [en]
[d] [d]
M M m [m] [em]
n n [pe]
P [P]
H H n [n] [en]
p P r [r] [er]
[0] [0] c c s [s] [es]

n n P [pJ [pe] T T t [t] [te]

p P r [rj [er] y y u [u] [u]

cD CP f [f] [ef]
c c s [s] [es]
X X X [%] foa]
T T t [t] [te]
c) [tse]
y y u [u];[w] [u]
H H c [tJe]
[0]
O cp f [f] [ef] III III s [J] [Ja]

X X X [x] [xa] cm m sc) [JtJa]

b
n u c [ts] [fse] b t> [?] [alo'mati sak'ta]
'sign of pausing'
H H c [tJ] [tJe]
(bi bi y) Ue'ri]
III 111 s [J] [Je] _a
b b [alo'mati d3udD'i]
bi bi y m m 'sign of separation'
a
b b Ul ['semnul 'moale] 3 3 e [e] /$_ [e]
'soft sign' K) 10 "ju Uu] Uu]
3 3 e [3] [9] ^ H ja Ua] Ua]
K) K) ju Iju] Uu] F F g M [ve]

H H ja LJaJ; [ea Ua]

H H 1 [i]/'_# ['ii zada'riDk]
1

accented V
a. Non-vocalic j| and [e] after a consonant are K K k [q] [qe]
indicated by the devices that usually indicate pala- y u
y [0] [0]
tali za ion n Cyri
i lie orthographies, ( i.g. 6yHb bun' X X X [h] [he]
[bunj] 'good (plural)', naTpa pjatri ['pjatra],
^ H c [d5] [d 3 e]
'stone', hhmh njamc IneamFs] 'Gen nan',
yA-JiboapK3 ud-l'oarke I'ud Toarka] 'dripping a. [ja], [jd], [je], and [ju] are indicated as h. e. e, to.

wet'. Otherwise, sequences of [j] plus vowel are respectively, initially and after a vowel; after a conso-
indicated as follows: (ja| as a, [je] as e (but be nant, b is written before the yotated vowel. Elsewhere,
after a consonant), [jo] as ho, [ju] as \o. Elsewhere, [j] is written h, including fly [jo].

[j] is written h. b. "b after a vowel is usually realized as vowel length.

 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 7Q9

table 60.8: Komi (Komi-Zyryan) Alphabet

Lettei
1'
Translit. Phonetic Value Name
A a a [aj [a]

E 6 b [b] [be]

B B V [v] [ve]

r r g [g] [ge]

H fl d [d]; as palatal, [d
J
] [de]

E e e [je]; [e] after C except [t, d. s, z, n, 1]

, [je]

E e e [jo]; [0] after [t

J
, d J
, s
J
, z J
, n J
,
1
J

] Do]
>K >k z fe] fee]

3 3 z [z]; as palatal, [z j] [ze]

H H i [i] [n J
ebid i] 'soft V
J
I i i' [i] after [t, d, s, z, n, 1] [ts orid i] 'hard/'
b
H H J [j]
[i kratkaj]

K K k Ik] [ka]

JI JI 1 [1]; as palatal, [V] [el]

M M m [m] [em]
H H n [n]; as palatal, [n
J

]
[en]
'
[0] [0]

6 [3] [3]

n n P [Pi [pe]

p P r [r] [er]

c c s [s]; as palatal, [s
J

]
[es]

T T t [t]; as palatal, [V] [te]

y y u [u] [u]

(O * f) [f] [ef]

(X X x) [x] [xa]

m II, c) [ts] [tse]

H M c [ts'J [ts
J
e]

in III s [J] [Ja]

cm m sc) [JtJa]
" _b [ts
J
orid znak] 'hard sign'
T> T>

BI LI y [i] [i]
' _b [n jebid znak] 'soft sign'
B b
3 3 e [e] /$_ and after [t, d, s, z, n,l] [e]
J J
K) K) ju [ju]; [u] after [t
J
, d\ s\ z J
, n .
,1 ]
[ju]

9l H ja [ja]; [a] after [t\ d J

, s
J
, z J
, n J
.
,M [ja]

a. The following digraphs are not considered separate letters of the alphabet:
J

fl3 ^3 dz [dz ]

ftjK ajk dz [dlj

Tin Tin ts [t§]

b. The distinction between palatal and non-palatal and the representation of [j] follow the system below:
— [a] [e] [i] [o] [u] [a] [i]

Non-palatal C Ca Ca Ci Co Cy 06 Cm
Palatal Cb C* Ce Ch Ce Cio Cb6 Cbm
[j] H A e HH e K> HO HM
Between a consonant and a yotated vowel, [j] is represented by b, e.g. Kapbflc kar'jas [kaijas] 'towns'.
710 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Representation of vowels

Orthographic representation of the "extra" (relative to Russian) front vowels [y ae]

gives a good indication of the range of different solutions to essentially a single prob-
lem. The most frequent solution is with modified Russian letters, namely v U, e o, and
9 a; this is the solution found in the major Turkic languages and in the Mongolic lan-
guages. Use of an umlaut to give y (in Chuvash, y), 6, and a is found sporadically —
in Gagauz, Khakas, Altay, Mari, and Chuvash. In languages of the northern Caucasus,
the preferred solution is a digraph, with the "soft sign" h after the corresponding back
vowel, to give yb, ol, ai>; some or all of these digraphs are used not only in Northeast
Caucasian languages (Chechen, Ingush, Lak, Lezgian, Tabasaran), but also in Turkic
languages of the area (Kumyk, Nogay). Yet a fourth solution is to use the Russian yo-
tated vowels joju, e e, and si.ja in this function, as in Karachay-Balkar and Crimean
Tatar. The third and fourth solutions are even combined in some Northeast Caucasian
and Turkic languages, with the yotated vowel symbol being used after consonants and
the digraph elsewhere, as in Kumyk ytn uc [ytj] 'three' but rK)3 gjuz [gyz] 'autumn'.
Solutions to the orthographic representation of the minimal vowel inventories of
the Northwest Caucasian languages are of interest. On at least one analysis, the lan-

guages have three basic vowels, [a], [a], and [a:], with such vowel qualities as [e] and
[o] being combinatory variants. The spelling systems of Abkhaz, Abaza, Kabardian,
and Adyghe all agree in representing these secondary vowel qualities. For the basic
vowel qualities, Abkhaz and Abaza use a a, bi y, and aa aa, while Kabardian and
Adyghe use 3 e, biy, and a a, respectively —another instance of different orthographic
solutions to the same phonological problem.

Representation of palatalization

Orthographic representations of [}] show considerable variation, depending largely on

the extent to which Russian orthographic norms are followed. A few languages have
a uniform symbol for [j] — adopting the Roman letter j as in Azeri, or using Cyrillic h
j as in Yakut, or using h i as in Abkhaz. But nearly all- other languages carry over the
Russian conventions of using the symbol h only between a vowel and a consonant or
word boundary, of using the yotated vowels to represent [j] word-initially or after a
vowel, and usually also of using some variant of h or t plus a yotated vowel to repre-
sent [j] between a consonant and a vowel. This Russian system gives rise to further

problems when the language in question has sequences of [j] plus vowel that do not
occur in Russian. Typically, the Russian system is used where Russian provides a
model, but h plus vowel where it Chukchee fcartaT jigjit Ljiyjit] 'small
does not, e.g.

intestine'. In some cases, phonemic oppositions are simply merged orthographically

after [j], as in the use of ioju to represent both [ju] and [jy] in Tatar and Mongolian.
In the (relatively few) languages that have a phonemic opposition of palatalization, or
of palatal versus non-palatal, the Russian yotated vowels can be used as in Russian,
 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 7 ]

table 60.9: Azeri Alphabet table 60.10: Turkmen Alphabet

11
Letter Tr'lit Value Name Lettei Tr'/zi \ Value Name
A a a [aj [a] A a a [a] [a]

B 6 b [b] [be]
E 6 b [b] [be]
B B V [p] [N
B B V [v] [ve]
r r g [g]~[K] [ge]
r r g [ge]
[g]
H « d [d] [de]
F F I [y] [ye] E e e Ue] /$_ .;Ue]
JX JX d [d] [de] [e] /C_
E e e [e] [e]
E e e [jo] [jo]

yK ^c z [3] fee]
8 9 a [x] [ae]
yK z [cfe] [d3e]
>K >K z [5] fee] 3 z
3 [S] [5e]
3 3 z [z] [ze] H H i [i] [i]
b
H H i [i] [i] H H j U1 Bra]

bl bl y [w] [UI]
K K k M~[q] [ka]
Jl Jl 1 [1] [el]
J UI Ue]
J j
M M m [m] [em]
K K k M, M a
[k%]
H H n [n] [en]
K K k [g
J

] [g e]
J

n *i n [i]] [en]
Jl Jl 1 [l] [el] [0] [0]

M M m [m] [em] e e [0] [0]

H H n [n] [en]
n n P [p] [pe]
p p r [r] [er]
[0] [0]
c c s [e] [ee]
e e [0] [0] T T t [t] [te]
n n P [P] [pe] y y u [u] [u]

p P r [r] [er] Y Y u [yJ [y]

cp *
c c s M [se]
X X X
f [«
[h]~[x]
[e4>]

[xa]
T T t [t] [te]
(U U c) [tse]
y y u [u] [u]
H H c [tj] [tJe]
Y Y u [y] [y] UI UI s [J] [Ja]

O * f [f] [fe] (m m sc) 00a]

")
X X X [x] [xe] CB Tj [ajuir'ma belgi'si]
'sign of separation"
n h h [h] [he]
bl bl y [UI] [UI]
H H c [t7] [tJe]
')
(b b [jumjak'liuk belgi'si]
H V c tea [d>] 'sign of softening'
in
>
UI
1
s
'
[/]
_b
m[apo'strof]
3
8
3
3
e
a
[e]

[331]
/$_ [e]

Ue:]

'apostrophe' K) K) ju [ju] [ju]

ft 51 ja [ja] [ja]
a Tn ivorHv nf Ar:ih ir rtr Rmccinn nrioin k ran
represent [k]; in indigenous words it represents a. Vowel length is not in general marked, although [y:]

[k
J
]. is written yn; [a?:] is nearly always long, [e] nearh
b. The apostrophe occurs in loans from Arabic always short.

and corresponds to an Arabic word-medial glottal b. [ja], [je], [jo], [ju] are written h. e. e. 10, even — at

stop. Its pronunciation in Azeri varies; after a least in the case of a and e — after a consonant. Else-
vowel it is usually realized as vowel length. where, [j] is written ft; thus [ j\ ] is fiy.
712 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 60. 1 1 : Tatar (Volga Tatar, Kazan Tatar) Alphabet

Letter Transliteration Phonetic Value A^«m^

A a a [a] la]
B 6 b [b] [be]
B B V [wj /$_ [we]
a
r r g [g]; [K] [ge]

A A d [d] [de]
E e e Ue];(JY]/$_;lej/C_ . De]
(E e e) [jo]

>K >K z [3l fee]

3 3 z [z] [ze]
H H i [i] [i]
b
H H J LJ] [quis'qa 'i] 'short V
a
K K k M; [q] [qa]
Jl Jl 1 [i] [el]

M M m [m] [em]
H H n [n] [en]

[0] [0]
n n P [P] [pe]
P P r [r] [er]

C c s [s] [es]
T T t [t] [te]

y y u [u];[w]/U_$ [u]
cj>
* f »] [e«
X X X [xj [xa]

(U n c) [tse]

H H c [tJ] [tJe]

III 111 s [J] [Ja]

cm m sc) [JtJa]
b
T> T> [?] /_u a -
[qalvri'lvk bilge'se] 'sign of hardness'
BI bl y [v] [v]
b
/_I a
'
B b [?]
'
[netjkae'lek bilge'se] 'sign of thinness'
3 3 e [e] /$_; [?] /_$ [e]

K) K) ju [ju]; [jy] [ju]

9l H ja [ja]; [jae] [ja]

8 9 a [ae] M-
e [0] [0]
Y Y ii [yj;[w]/l_$ [yl

>K >K z [*] [d&e]

H H n M [en]
n h h [h] [he]

a. Tatar has no special symbols to distinguish velars from uvulars. In general, velars occur in front-vowel
environments, uvularsin back-vowel environments. A uvular before a front vowel is indicated by writing the
corresponding back vowel, e.g. KapAam kardcis Iqaer'daeJ] 'kinsman'. The front value of the vowel is usuall\
retrievable from vowel harmony; if not, b is added at the end of the syllable, e.g. marbiupb lagyjf [Ja'irir]
'poet'. Exceptional syllable-final velars are indicated by means of b, exceptional syllable-final uvulars by
means of "b, e.g. naicb pak' [pak] 'pure', Barb^s viigda [wajK'daj] 'promise'.
b. [ja] and [jae] are both written h, [ju] and [jy] and [je] both e; after a consonant, b is inserted
both 10, [jv]

before the yotated vowel in front-vowel environments, back-vowel environments. The ambiguity between
"b in
front- and back-vowel pronunciations is usually resolved by vowel harmony; if not, b is added syllable-finall)
to specify the front value of the vowel, e.g. K)Hb /////' |jyn] 'cheap'. In all other cases, [j] is written ft.
 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 713

table 60.12: Kazakh Alphabet

Letter Transliteration Phonetic Value Name
A a a [a] [a]

8 9 a [as] [as]

B 6 b [b] [be]

(B B v) [ve]

r r g [g] [ge]

F F i M [na]

A A d [d] [de]

E e e [e] Be]
(E e e) [jo]

yK >K z [3] [d 3 e]

3 3 z [z] [ze]

H H i [uij], [ij] [ij]

a
H H J Ul [quis'qa 'i] 'short /'

K K k [k] [ka]

K K k [q] [qa]

JI JI 1 [IJ [el]

M M m • [m] [em]
H H n [n] [en]

H n n [q] [en]

[0] [0]

e e 6 [0] [0]

n n P [p] [pe]

p P r [r] [er]

c c s [s] [es]

T T t [t] [te]

y y u [uwj, [yw], [w] [uw]

Y ¥ u [u] [u]

Y Y ii [y] [y]

O cp f m [ef]

X X X w fca]
n h h [h] [he]

(U 11 c) [tse]

(H H c) [tJe]

IU UI s [J] [Ja]

(m m sc) [JtJa]

0> T> ") [ajui'ruw belgi'si] 'sign of separation*

bl bl [iu] [UI]
y
fil
I i 1 LiJ L1J

(b b ') [d^iijijke'lik belgi'si] 'sign of thinness"

O 3 e) [e]

K) K) ju flu], Uyl [ju]

fl a ja [ja] [ja]

a. [j] occurs only intervocalically and syllable-finally, [ja] is written a, both [ju] and [jy] are written 10: before

other vowels, [j] is written h, as is also done syllable-finally except for the special case of [uij] and [ij], both

written h. The Kazakh representation of the high vowels is unique among languages using Cyrillic script.
714 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 60.13: Uzbek Alphabet

Letter Transliteration Phonetic Value Name

A a a [a] [a]

B 6 b [b] [be]

B B V [w] [we]
r r g [g] [gel

fl A d [d] [de]

E e e [je] /$_; [ej /C_ [je]

E e e fjo] Uo]
>K >K z [d 3 ] [d>]
3 3 z [z] [ze]

H H i [i] [i]

c
H H J Lj] [qis'qa 'i] 'short /"

K K k [k] [ka]

Jl JI 1 [1] [el]

M M m [m] [em]
d
H H n [n] [en]

[D] [D]

n n P [Pi [pe]

p P r [r] [er]

c c s [s] [es]

T T t LtJ [te]

y y u [u] [u]

cp f [$] [e$]
X X X [%] [%a]

(U U c) [tse]

H H c [tJ] [t7e]

III LU s [J] [Ja]

T> Tj m e
[qattiq'liq belgi'si] 'sign of hardness',
[ad^ra'tij belgi'si] 'sign of separation'

(b b ') IjmnJoq'lik belgi'si] 'sign of softness'

3 3 e [e] /$_ [e]

K) IO ju [ju] [ju]

n H ja [ja] [ja]

y y u [0] [0]

K K k [q] Iqa]

F F g [K] [*e]

X X. X [h] [ha], [he]

a. Uzbek does not use m sc or bi >• in loans from Russian; it substitutes lum s-c and h i respectively.
b. The Uzbek variety represented lacks phonemically distinct front rounded and high back unrounded vowels.
c. [ja], [je], [jo], and [ju ] are written h, e, e, and 10, even — at least in the case of e — after a consonant, e.g.

flape dare |dar'jo| 'river'. Elsewhere, |j| is written h.

d. The digraph ht ng [rjl is not considered a separate letter of the alphabet.
e. Whether and how 1, is realized varies with speech style.
 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 7 J5

table 60.14: Kirghiz Alphabet

Lent T Transliteration Phonetic Value Name

A a a [a] [a]

B 6 b [b] Lbe]

(B B v) [ve]

r r g [g] ~ [k] [ge]

H « d [d] [de]

E e e [je] /$_; [e] /C_ [e]

E e e [jo] [jo]

3K ^K z [d5] [o^e]

3 3 z [z] [ze]

H H i [i] [i]

b
H H J [j] [ij]

K K k M~[q] [ka]

JI JI 1 [1] [el]

M M m [m] [em]

H H n [n] [en]

n h n [q] [uin]

[0] [0]

e e 6 [0] [0]

n n P [p] [pe]

p P r [r] [er]

c c s [s] [es]

T T t [t] [te]

y y u [u] [u]

Y Y ii [y] [y]

(O 4> f) [ef]

X X X W [*a]

oj U c [tse]

H H c [tJ] [tJe]

in UI s [J] [Ja]

m m sc) [JtJa]

(h i> ") [adjiuta'ru: belgi'si] 'sign of separation'

hi bi y [m] [UI]

(h h ') [itjker'ty: belgi'si] 'sign of thinness'

3 3 e [e] /$_ [e]

K) K) ju [ju] [ju]

il M ja [ja] M
a. Long vowels are indicated by doubling the vowel letter. If the first vowel symbol is yotated. the second is

the unyotated equivalent, e.g. [a'ju:] 'bear' is aioy.

b. occurs only intervocalically and syllable-finally, [ja, je, jo, ju] are written a, e, e, 10: otherwise, [j] is
[j]

written h.
716 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

e.g. in Komi cancflHb sajsjan [sajs

J
an J
] 'from behind'. Other solutions must be found
if the opposition extends to vowels before which it is not found in Russian: Komi uses
i (and the closely related Udmurt uses u i) to indicate non-palatal quality before [i],

as in ci si' [si] 'fiber', cf. ch si [s

J
i] 'hair'. Beforey Komi bi [i] and 6 6 [o], b must be
used after the palatal consonant, as in preconsonantal or word-final position, e.g. ci>6fl

s'od [s
J
sd] 'black'. In the languages of the northern Caucasus that have digraphs com-
prising consonant plus b (and also Yakut), this spelling remains even before a vowel,
as in Avar n>a6yHa g'abuna (not *m6yHa gjabuna) [habuna] 'made'.

Representation of consonants

The indication of a phonemic opposition between ejective and non-ejective (typically

aspirated) consonants, confined to the northern Caucasus, shows partial, but by no
means complete, The usual solution is consonant plus 1 1 for the ejective,
uniformity.
as in Abaza, Kabardian, Adyghe, Chechen, Ingush, Avar, Lak, Dargwa, Lezgian, and
Tabasaran nl pi [p']. With the uvulars, however, Kabardian distinguishes ejective kt>
k" [q'J from non-ejective kxt> kx" [q], probably reflecting a correct assessment of
markedness relations (some languages of the area have an ejective but no non-ejective
uvular stop). The Northeast Caucasian languages typically have a single ejective Kb
k' [q'] (but in Avar this represents [tl':]), a single non-ejective (aspirated) xt> a" [q], and
a geminate kt> k" [q:] or [q':]. Abkhaz goes its own way in writing the ejective by
means of a diacritic (usually a subscript tail) in the case of affricates, but the non-ejec-
tive (aspirated) by means of the same diacritic in the case of plain stops, e.g. ejective

h, q [Q"'] and k k [k'] versus non-ejective h c [tj] and k, /§ [k]; again, this may reflect

judgments about markedness. Ossetic also goes its own way by consistently using a
digraph with t> for ejectives, e.g. wbp" [p']. However, t> is used for [?] in Abaza, Avar,
Lak, Dargwa, Lezgian, Tabasaran, and (outside the Caucasus) several Turkic languag-
es, in Tajik, and (in some environments) in Chukchee. By contrast, Adyghe, Kabard-
ian, Chechen, and Ingush use I / for [?]. The symbol I is also used in the digraph rl
gl ft] in Abaza, Chechen, Ingush, Avar, Lak, and Dargwa.

Representation of prosodic phenomena

Prosodic phonemes are generally not marked, whatever their functional load. Thus
phonemic tone is not marked in Dunganese, and phonemic stress is not normally
marked in any of the relevant languages — as indeed it is not in Russian. Tajik idio-
syncratically but usefully distinguishes the frequent stressed derivational suffix -[i]

from the frequent unstressed grammatical linker -[i] by writing the former as h 7

word-finally, the latter as h /'.

Vowel length is indicated in some languages by doubling
the vowel letter (e.g. the Mongolic languages, Kirghiz, Tuvan, Yakut); but it remains
without orthographic representation in others, even where it contains a high function-
al load (e.g. Nenets, Turkmen, the Tungusic languages).
 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 717

TABLE 60.15 Abkhaz Alphabet

b b
Letted Translit. Value Name Letter
1'
Translit. Value Name
A a a [a] [a] M M m [m] ma]
B 6 b [b] [bo] H H n [n] na]

B B V [v] >3] [0] [0]

r r g [g] [go] Q 9 [q] [qo]

Tb rb g' [g'l [g's] n n P [Pi [p'o]

5 $ g [y] [yo] n n P [Pi [po]

5b & g [y
J

] [y's] p P r [r] [10]

A R d [d] [da] c c s [s] [S3]

fl3 T3 d m w
[d o] T T t [f] [t'o]

u U J [dzj [dZ3] T3 T3 t° m [fo]

Ub Ub r [d'z] [dza] I X t
[t] [to]

E e e [e] e] 13 13 r [ti [t"o]

C € c [ts] t§o] y y u [w, u] [u]

« « 9 m [t§'o] cp f [f] [fo]

>K X z w fe»] X X X [x] X3]

5Kb >Kb z' M Z9] Xb Xb x' [x>]

J
[X 3]

^K3 yKd z° m [2fo] X X X M [ha]

3 3 z [z] [29] X3 X3 x° m [ha]

3 5 3 [dz] [dzs] II q c [te] tS3]

w
33 33 3° [<£*] [dz 3] U3 U3 c° [tii tS 9]

H H i U,i] [i] II U c [Fs'l Tsa]

K K k [kl [ks] Us us c° [tsl ;tS"*3]

Kb Kb k' [k
r
]
[k s]
r
H H c [fc] tea]

K K H [k] [ko] H H Q m tq'a]

Kb Kb V [k
1

]
[k'o] in LU s [§] [§o]

K K * [ql [q'o] nib LUb s" [c] G3]

Kb Kb Tc' [q'1 [q 3]
r
ffla LU3 s in £*0]

JI JI 1 [1] M bl bl y [3] [3]

a. The following digraphs, in which y h indicates labialization, are not considered separate letters (contrast
those where labialization is marked by 3):

Ky ku [kl
Ky ku [k-]

Ty gu [g]
Kv Tcu [q'1

Fy [V 1

Xv [xl
b. The vowels [i], [u]. [e]. and [o] are derivatives of the basic vowels [a] and [a] in palatal and labial environ-

ments, [a:] is written aa.

718 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

TABLE 6o.l6: Kabardian (East Circassian) Alphabet

c
Letter* Translit. Va/w^ Name Letter
11
Translit. Value Name
A a a [a:] [a:] M M m [m] [ma]
b
3 3 e [a] [a] H H n [n] [no]

B 6 b [b] [ha] [0] [0]

B B V [v] [va] n n P [p] [pa]

r r g [Yl [ysj ni ni Pi [Pi [P'3]

w w
ry ry gu [g ] [g a] p P r [r] [re]

r-b r-b g" [K] [K3] c c s [s] [S3]

Pty r-by g"u M [k 3]

w
T T t It] [ta]

fl fl d [d] [da] TI tI tl [f] [ta]

A>k A>K dz [g
J

] [gfe] y y u [w, u] [W3]

fl3 A3 dz [dz] [dza] <p f [f] [fo]

E e e fja] Be] cpl 4>I fl [f] [fa]

e
(E e e) D'o] X X X [x] [xa]
w
yK 3K z [3] [33] Xy xy xu [x ] [x"a]

^Cb >Kb z' W [Z3] Xb Xb x' M [ha]

3 3 z [z] [zs] X-b x-b x" M w

bp]
H H i [i] [i] X-by xi>y x"u [% ] be"*]
d
H H J Ul [pi n a c [ts] [tea]

(K K k) [ka] u,i ifl cl m [tea]

Ky Ky ku [k
w
]
w
[k 9] H H c M J
[k 3]

KI kI kl [k
J
'] j
[k a] UI 1U s [J] [Ja]

Kly Kly klu [kn

w
[k 's] IA m sc [c] [09]

K-b KT> k" [q'l [q'a] mi ml scl [c] [09]

w w
K-by K"by k"u [q 'l [q '9] BI bi y [3] [a]

Kx-b KXT> kx" [q] [qa] O 3 e)

b
[e]
w w
Kx-by KX-by kx'u [q l [q 3] (10 K> ju) [ju]

JI JI 1
ffl Bp] 51 51 ja [ja:] [ja:]

Jl-b Jl-b I" [1] [to] I I " 1

[?] [?a]

m Jll 11 Ml [To] iy iy lu [VI [Fa]

a. b and b are not considered letters of the Kabardian alphabet, although they are used in writing loans from
Russian.
b. Note that 3 has a different alphabetical order in native words than in Russian loans.
c. The vowels [i], [u], [e], and [o] are derivatives of the basic vowels [a] and [a] in palatal and labial en\ iron

ments.
d. [ja] is written e, though this letter represents [e] after a consonant, and [ja:] is written m.

e. x represents |h| in the plural suffix -X3 -[ha].

 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 7J9

TABLE 60.17 Avar Alphabet

Letter Translit. Value" Name Letter Translit Value"

1
Name
A a a [a] [a] n n P [P] [pe]

B 6 b [b] [be] p P r M [er]

b
B B w [w] [we] c c s [s] [es]

r r g [g] fee] T T t [t] [te]

r-b rb g"
M [be] TI tI tl [f] [t'e]

Tb rb g' [h] [he] y y u [u] [u]

n rl gl P] Pe] (O <p f) m [ef]

n H d [d] [de] X X x w [%a]

E e e [je], C+[e] [je] X-b x-b x" [q:] [q:a]

E e e Do] Do] Xb Xb x' [x] [xa]

yK >k z [3] fee] XI xl xl M [ha]

3 3 z [z] [ze] a n c [fs] [tse]

H H i [i] [i] m nl cl [fs'] [ts'e]

C
H H J U1 ffl
H H c [tj] [tJe]

K K k [k] [ka] HI Hi cl [tjj [tT'e]

K-b K-b k" m [q':a] ffl UI s [J] [Ja]

Kb Kb k' [ti':] [tr:a] m m sc

"
[J:] [J:a]

KI Kl kl [k'] [k'a] T> -b [?] Uer]

d
JI JI 1 [l] [el] (BI bi y) Deri]
J
1" (B b ')
Uer
Jl-b Jl-b [4] [ei] ]

M M m [m] [em] 3 3 e [e] initial [e]

H H n [n] [en] K) K) ju [ju] Du]

[0] [0] il H ja Da] [ja]

a. The diacritic [:] indicates an "intensive" (strong, geminate) consonant; some other consonants have inten-

sive counterparts; the feature is sporadically indicated by doubling the corresponding simple letter, e.g. kk |k:|.

kIkI [k':]. Gemination in the consonants [q':], [tl':], and dialectal [H:] is nonphonemic, and there is variation in

whether or not they are phonetically geminate.

w
b. Labialization of consonants is indicated by adding b v after the consonant symbol, e.g. xbB [x ].

c [Ja], [je], [jo], [ju] are written h, e, e, K). Elsewhere [j] is written n, i.e. syllable-finally and in hh [ji]; other

than in Russian loans, [j] does not occur after a consonant.

d. Some dialects have an additional phoneme [R:], indicated by jiI 11 when forms from such dialects are writ-

ten.
720 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 60.18: Chukchee Alphabet

1'
Letter Transliteration Phonetic Value

A a a

(B 6 b)

B B v m
r r g [y]

<n A d)

E e e [je]; [e] after ji, h

E e e [jo]; [o] after ji

QK )K z)

(3 3 z)

H H i [i]

b
H H J Ul
K K k [k]

K K H [ql

JI JI 1 [4]

M M m [m]
H H n [n]

n B|
Q [q]

o [o]

n n P [p]

p P r [i]

c
c c s [s]

T T t [t]

y y u
(O cp f)

(X X x)

ffl u c)

H H c [tc]
c

(III HI s)

(m m sc)

T> T> [?] after consonants except ji, h

bl bl [3]

b b I?] after ji, h

3 3 [e]

K) IO [ju]; [u] after ji

M H [jaj; [a] after ji

d
I?] after vowel

a. The orthographic position of the symbols representing the glottal stop does not always correspond to their
phonetic position, at least in more conservative varieties of Chukchee; see further Comrie ( 1994).
b. IjaJ, [jej, [jo], [
ju ] are written «, e, e, 10; after a consonant, b is inserted before the yotated vowel symbol.
Elsewhere, |j| is written A.
c. [s] and |tc[ are allophones of a single phoneme.
d. Although the apostrophe is not listed as a letter of the alphabet in Moll and Inenlikej 1957, it is treated as

the last letter of the alphabet for purposes of alphabetical ordering.

 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 721

Letter names and alphabetical order

There are two systems of naming letters. One is essentially that of modern Russian:
the vowels have names corresponding to their sound, while the consonants have
names of the form C[e], [e]C, or C[a]. A few letters have common words in their
names ('short f 'hard sign', 'soft sign'); these last are translated into the language in
,

question. Such a system is used by the East Slavic languages and by most of the Cyril-
lic writing systems of the former USSR, with some minor variations, especially in
names for hj; however, Azeri names all consonants C[e], except that liquids and na-
sals have [e]C. The second system again has names for the vowels corresponding to
their sound, but all consonants are named C[a]; this system is used by the South Slav-
ic languages that have Cyrillic writing systems, and also by the Northwest Caucasian
languages.
The alphabetical order of those letters that occur in the Russian alphabet follows
that of Russian, with very sporadic exceptions: Ukrainian places h at the end of the
alphabet; Kabardian orders 3 e immediately after a a when it represents the indige-
nous phoneme [a], but follows the Russian order when 3 represents [e] in words of
Russian origin. Special letters are either placed after the letter to which they are most
similar (in shape or sound), or are grouped together at the end of the alphabet. Di-
graphs etc. are treated as single letters or as sequences of letters, with different lan-
guages having different rules.

Sample of Tajik
/. Tajik: KaMnnp 6a capH OTauiAOH paqYr.
2. Transliteration: Kampir ba sari otasdon raft.

3. Transcription: .kam'pir ba 'sari otaJ'dDn raft

4. Gloss: old. woman to head, link fireplace went

/. Jl,Hji6ap AacrypxoHpo rHpHcJrra 6a neuiH naAapam kviiioa,

2. Dilbar dasturxonro girifta ba pesi padaras kusod,

3. dil'bar .dastur'xonro girifta ba 'pe/i pa'daraj ku'Jod

4. Dilbar tablecloth taking to front, link his. father spread

/. 6atA 6a capH OTauiAOH paoYra Kocaxon uiyp6opo OBap^aH

2. ba "d ba sari otasdon rafta kosaxoi surboro ovardan
3. 'ba:d ba 'sari DtaJMon rafta kosa'hoi Jor'borD ovar'dan

4. then to head.LiNK fireplace going cups. link soup.ACC to.bring

/. rHpHCJDT. flap BaKTH uryp6oxypH 3aHaK 6a uiaBxapam hhjiox

2. girift. Dar val^ti surboxuri zanak ba sav^aras nilox,

3. girift dar vaqti Jor.bDxo'ri sa'nak ba Jav'haraJ ni'loh

4. began in time.LiNK soup.drinking woman to husband glance

722 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. KapAa 6o OB03H nacT ryqiT: -flaneur, HK MacjiHx,aT.

2. karda bo ovozi past guft: — Dades, jak masli^at.

3- kar'da bD d'vdzi 'past 'guft da'dej jak masli'hat

4- doing with voice. LINK low said father one conversation

The old woman went to the fireplace. Dilbar took the tablecloth and spread it in

front of his father. Then he went to the fireplace and began to bring the cups of
soup. During the soup-drinking the woman glanced at her husband and said in a
low voice: "Father, a word with you.'"
—J. Ukrcimi, Ulodu [Joy], in Vinogradov ig66-68, 1:234.

Sample of Komi (Komi-Zyryan)

/. Komi: BaacoH onic-BbiJiic BOpaJIblCb mopt. CblJIOH BOJli

2. Transliteration: Vazon olis-vylis voralys' mort. Sylon voli

3- Transcription: vajon olis vilis voralis J

mort si Ian voli

4- Gloss: long. ago lived.was hunting man his was

/. KyHM IIH, 33B eHOCb. HaHO HeJIbOH KaHHCHbl bIJIO Bopo BOpaBHbl,
2. kuim pi, zev enos'. Najo neKon kajisny ylo voro voravny,
3. kuim pi zev jonos J
najo n J
ol
J
on kajisni ilo voro voravni
4. three son very strong they four went.up distant to.forest to.hunt

/. Cbona ,n,a yp KbiHHbi. Hajibi npoMbic KyTic eHa

2. s'ola da ur kyJ n Y- Naly promys kutis ena
3. s
J
ola da ur kijni nali promis kutis jona
4. hazel. grouse and squirrel to.catch to. them catch began strongly

/. ineflHbi. HHHbbIC 6bipH. TopTO JI3HHbIHbI 33B bIJIblH, Aa

2. sedny. Njan'ys byri. Gorto leccyny zev ylyn, da
3- Jedni n an is
j J
biri gorto letts ini
J
zev ilin da
4- to.be.obtained the. bread ran.out to. home to. go. down very far and
"

/. h jibiM yen 6bi,nca BecbT. BaTb roaBHbi KyTic nn^Hjibicb:

2. i lym usi bydsa ves't. Bat' juavny kutis pijanlys':

3. i l*m us J
i bidsa ves j
t bat J
juavni kutis pijanlis J

4. and snow fell whole quarter-arshin father to. ask began from. sons

/. «Ko^i BeTjiac TOPTO HHHbJia?»

2. "KodY vetlas gorto njan'la?"
3. kodi vetlas gorto n an la
J J

4. who will. go to.home for.bread

'Long ago there was a hunter. He had three sons, very strong. The four of them
went to a distant forest to hunt, to catch grouse and squirrels. Their catch began

to be successful. The bread ran out. To go home was very far, and moreover the
 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 723

snow fell a full seven inches deep. The father began to ask his sons: "Who will
go home for bread?'" —VI. Lytkin in Vinogradov 1966-68, 3:298.

Sample of Tatar
/. Tatar: JI3KHH ce3ra KypKLIHMH K)K. JJvjIKblH HHHaKJIM
2. Transliteration. Lakin sezga kurkynyc juk. Dulkyn nicakly
3. Transcription: 'laekin sez'gae qurqY'nYtJ 'juq dul'qYn 'nitJaqlY

4. Gloss: but to.you danger not. exist wave how.much

/. KaTbi 6yjica ,na, yji ce3HeH, 6neK Tay HT9reHfl3re

2. katy bulsa da, ul sezner] biek tau itagendage
3. qa'tv bul'sa da 'ul sez'nerj bi'jek 'taw itaegendae'ge

4. strong would.be even it your high mountain at.its.foot.LiNK

/. urynygyzga KHJien 2{,HT9 ajiMaiinaK. Ce3rs tmhmh 6yjibipra,

2. urynygyzga kilep |ita almajacak. Sezga tynyc bulyrga,
3. urvnYKYz'Ka ki'lep dji'tae 'almajatjaq sez'gae tY'nYtJ bulYr'Ka
4. to. place come. and reaching will. not. take to.you peaceful to.be

/. T9p933Ji9pere3He anbin, AHH;re3 TaBbiuibm TbiHJiapra ,na aHHaH

2. tarazalaregezne acyp, diqgez tavysyn tynjarga da annan
3. taeraezaelaeregez'ne a'tjvp dirj'gez tawY'jYn tYrjlar'Ka da an'nan
4. your.windows open. and sea its. voice to. listen also from. that

/. COH, P9X9T-P9X9T Tarbm HOKbirbnra HbiMapra momkhh.

2. soi] raxat-raxat tagyn jokygyzga cumarga momkin.
3. sorj rae'xaet-raexaet ta'Kvn joqYKYz'Ka tJumar'Ka m0m'kin
4. after rest.rest again to.your.sleep to. plunge possible

'But there is no danger for you. However strong the wave may be, it cannot
come and reach your place at the foot of the high mountain. You may be peace-
ful, you may open your windows and listen to the sea and after that again

plunge restfully into your sleep.'

— G. Ibrahimov, Ee3Hen, kohhop ] Our days], in Vinogradov 1966-68, 2:152.

Sample of Kabardian
J. Kabardian, HapTX3p 3bixyeH ncoy axyHinlnH
2. Transliteration: Nartxer zyxuej psou jaxuisclri
w w
3- Transcription: nairthar zs'x aj 'psawa ja:h 3jc"r9j
4- Gloss: Narts.ABS which. need alive and.he.not.did.it.for.them

1. R h3imx
r
hiilIbh HMbirby3Tbi)Ky K-baHepn
2. L'epsc isclen imyg'uetyzu k'aneri

3- 4 ape ja'c'an J9m9K"a't939W q'aina'rsj

4. Tlepsh he.knew.it.NONFiN he.not.found.it and.he.remained.in.it

724 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. 33UI xT>yam. XbiSMbiiiiSHbiac mbix-bVM, C3T3HeH

2. zes x'uasc. Xuemysecyz scyx'um, Setenej
w w w
3- 'zaj '% a:g x am3ja'k 33 J
'q9% 3m 'satanaj

4- he. yearn it.happened he.not.endure.it it.happen.to.him Satanaya

i. ryamsM #exc Klyspn eji b3lyam,

r

2. guascem dez klueri el'eluasc.

w w w
3- 'g a:cam 'daJ3 k 'a'r3j jaia'? a:c

4- lady.OBL near.her and.he.went he.asked.her.for.something

Tlepsh could not make what the Narts needed in life. He could not find the
knowledge. He remained thus until he grew desperate. He could not bear it,he
went to Lady Satanaya and begged her.' —Colarusso 1992: 203, 208, 219.

Sample of Avar
I. Avar: r^a^H^a ijo xlaHHJi KeceK 6aTaHa XlaHTH
a
2. Transliteration: G"adida co xlanil kesek batana. Xlangi
3- Transcription: Ka'dida tso tianil ke'sek 'batana tiangi
4- Gloss: at.crow one of.cheese piece found and.cheese

1. KlaJIAH6 KKyH, rbeB 11,0 rbOTlofle 6axaHa. LI,apaAa rbe6

a
2. klaldib kkun, g'eb co g'otlode baxana. Carada g'eb
3- 'k'aldib 'k:un heb tso Ko't'ode 'banana tsa'rada heb
4- in. mouth having. seized it one to.tree ascended at.fox it

1. 6nxbaHa Ba rbent n>e6 ryKKH3e icbacA rba6yHa. U,ep r-bOTlojte

a
2. bix'ana va g'el" g'eb gukkize k'asd g'abuna. Cer g"ot 1 ode

3- 'bixiana wa hei: heb 'gukiize 'q':as:d ha.buna 'tser Ko't'ode

4- saw and by.it it to.cheat decision made fox to.tree

/. rlarapjrbaHa Ba panlrn xbBarlyjiaro rbejn> Klajrba3e 6aH6HXbaHa:

2. glagarl'ana va raclgi x'vaglulago g'el" klal'aze bajbix'ana:

3. Ya'gariana wa 'ratj'.gi Via^ulago heif k'a*4aze 'bajbixiana

4. approached and and.tail shaking it to. speak began

/. -Amp xnpH5i6 rbe,n,o !

2. — Dir xirijab g'edo!

3. 'dir ^li'rijab 'Kedo
4. my dear crow

'A crow found a piece of cheese and, having seized it in its mouth, ascended to

a tree. A fox saw it and decided to cheat it. The fox approached the tree and,
shaking its tail, began to speak: "My dear crow!"'
— B. G. Hewitt in Connie 1981: 233.
Note:
a
The locative cases rbajinfla, uapa^a and the ergative case rbejii. indicate transitive subjects.
 SECTION 60: ADAPTATIONS OF THE CYRILLIC ALPHABET 725

Sample of Chukchee
Chukchee: KbITKLITp b0rt3. r

Thpkwthp a'K,arH3Tbii|on>3. TbTjie

Transliteration. Kytkytr'og'e. Tirkytir a'^agnetyipg'e. Petle
Transcription: k3tk3t'j?oy?e 'tukstii 'a?qaynet3noy?e 'petie
Gloss: spring. began sun began.to.warm soon

/. parpT>OH H OH>IT
j j
P3KBBITTH. ABbiHK;aarbiHp3TbijibLiH hkbi>h:
2. ragr'orjipnjt rekvytti. Avynl^aagynretyryn ikv'i:

3. jaY'jTonnoipt 'jekpatti apsn'qaaysmetsiTan 'ikp?i

4. will. begin. to. calve does head.deer.herdsman said

/. B3TbIK,VH JlbOOJI^blJI Tai|aB33H. BlHpSHblMHe K;yjIHB33MbIK bl'jIbblJI

2. Vetyl^un l'ooll^yl taqaveen. Ynrecymce l^uliveemyk y'lyl

3. 'petsqun 4?ooiq3i tana'Peen sn'jetqsmtqe qirH'peemsk ?3l?3i
4. without.fail must.find good.pasture nearby at.one.river snow

/. arTbIMKbIKbIJlb3H, bl JHTHJKbl-blM HblTBa^SH KbITypKHH BtarjIbllfblH.

2. agtymkykyl'en, y'lgii]ky-ym nytval^en kyturkin vaglynjn.

3. 'aytemkaksiVen ?34yir)k3-3m nst'Paqen ks'tiukin 'pTayiarpn
4. not.deep snow.bottom-and was last.year's grass

'Spring was beginning. The sun was beginning to warm. Soon the female rein-
deer would be calving. The head herdsman said: We must without fail good
find
pasture. Nearby, by one river, the snow was not deep, and under the snow was
last year's grass.' — P. Ja. Skorik in Vinogradov 1966-68, 5:270.

Bibliography

Colarusso, John. 1992. A Grammar of the Kabardian Language. Calgary: University of Calgary
Press.
Comrie, Bernard. 198 1. Languages of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
1994. "An Evaluation of Chukchee Orthography." In Linguistic Studies in the Non-Slavic
.

Languages of the Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Republics ed. Howard
I. Aronson, pp. 55-64. Chicago: Chicago Linguistic Society.

Comrie, Bernard, and Greville G. Corbett, eds. 1993. The Slavonic Languages. London: Routledge.
De Bray, Reginald G. A. 1980A. Guide to the East Slavonic Languages. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica.
.
1980B. Guide to the South Slavonic Languages. Columbus, Ohio: Slavica.
Hanser, Oskar. 1977. Turkmen Manual: Descriptive Grammar of Contemporary Literary Turkmen.
Texts, Glossary (Beihefte zur Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde des Morgenlandes 7). Vienna:
Verlag des Verbandes der Wissenschaftlichen Gesellschaften Osterreichs.
Hebert, Raymond, and Nicholas Poppe. 1963. Kirghiz Manual (Indiana University Publications.
The Hague: Mouton.
Uralic and Altaic Series 33). Bloomington: Indiana University;
Householder, Fred W., Jr., with Mansour Lotfi. 1965. Basic Course in Azerbaijani (Indiana Univer-
sity Publications, Uralic and Altaic Series 45). Bloomington: Indiana University; The Hague:
Mouton.
Kuipers, Aert H. i960. Phoneme and Morpheme in Kabardian (Eastern Adyghe (Janua Linguarum
726 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Series Minor 8). The Hague: Mouton.

Lytkin, V. I. 1952. Drevnepermskij jazyk [The Old Permic language]. Moscow: Izdatel'stvo Aka-
demii Nauk SSSR.
.
1 961 . Komi—russkij slova^ [Komi-Russian dictionary]. Moscow: Gosudarstvennoe Izda-
tel'stvo Inostrannyx i Nacional'nyx Slovarej.
Mala Enciklopedija Prosveta. 1978. [Small Prosveta encyclopedia]. Belgrade.
Moll, T. A., & P. I. Inenlikej. 1957. C ukotsko-r us skij slovar' [Chukchee-Russian dictionary]. Len-
ingrad: Gosudarstvennoe ucebno-pedagogiceskoe izdatel'stvo Ministerstva Prosvescenija
RSFSR.
Poppe, Nicholas. 1963. Tatar Manual (Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic Series 25).
Bloomington: Indiana University; The Hague: Mouton.
. 1970. Mongolian Language Handbook. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.
Rastorgueva, V. S. 1963. A Short Sketch of Tajik Grammar, trans, and ed. Herbert H. Paper {Interna-
tional Journal ofAmerican Linguistics 29, no. 4, part 2). Bloomington: Indiana University; The
Hague: Mouton. (Russian orig. "Kratkij ocerk grammatiki tadzikskogo jazyka," in M. V. Rax-
imi & L. V. Uspenskaja, eds., Tadziksko-russij slovar [Tajik-Russian dictionary], Moscow:
Gosudarstvennoe Izdatel'stvo Inostrannyx i Nacional'nyx Slovarej, 1954.)
Sjoberg, Andree F. 1963. Uzbek Structural Grammar (Indiana University Publications, Uralic and
Altaic Series 18). Bloomington: Indiana University; The Hague: Mouton.
Street, John C. 1963. Khalkha Structure (Indiana University Publications, Uralic and Altaic Series
24.) Bloomington: Indiana University; The Hague: Mouton.
Vinogradov, V. V., ed. 1966-68. Jazyki narodov SSSR [Languages of the peoples of the USSR]. 5
vols. Moscow & Leningrad: Nauka.
SECTION 6 I

Adaptations of Hebrew Script

Benjamin Hary

Jewish "languages" or ethnolects

It is probably impossible to offer a purely linguistic definition of a Jewish "language,"
as it is difficult to find many common linguistic criteria that can apply to Judeo-
Arabic, Judeo-Spanish, and Yiddish, for example. Consequently, a sociolinguistic
definition with a more suitable term, such as ethnolect, is in order. An ethnolect is an
independent linguistic entity with its own history and development that refers to a lan-
guage or a variety and is used by a distinct language community. A Jewish ethnolect,
then, is a spoken and/or written form serving for the most part the Jewish population
of a specific area. Our knowledge of Jewish ethnolects is inadequate, as in many cases
scholars began to investigate them when it was too late and only a handful of speakers
were still using them; in worse cases, some of these ethnolects had already disap-
peared.
Jewish ethnolects share many characteristics: they incorporate Hebrew and Ara-
maic elements, not restricted to the sphere of cultural vocabulary but also found
throughout the lexicon as well as in phonology, morphology, and syntax. They have
developed distinct spoken forms as well as unique ways of translating sacred Hebrew
texts verbatim (Hary 1995) into the various Jewish ethnolects. The most obvious ex-
ternal characteristic of Jewish ethnolects, however, is the consistent use, in their writ-
ten forms, of Hebrew characters (section 46). Very frequently, Jews adopted the
spelling conventions of Talmudic orthography, employing the final forms of Hebrew
letters and sometimes adding vowel signs using existing consonants and/or symbols.
Thus, the Hebrew script symbolizes the Jewish nature of the ethnolect. It is not un-
common to use script as a religious identification for a language, as with the Arabic
script of Persian and Urdu, for example, which symbolizes the Muslim nature of the
languages.
Jewish ethnolects developed in the diaspora from local languages and were used
in both their written and spoken forms by Jews within the Jewish community. They
developed as one result of a migration, the dispersion of the Jews throughout Asia and
Europe during the early centuries of the Common Era (Birnbaum 1971: 68). The cre-

ation of these ethnolects began as a way of assimilation into the non-Jewish environ-

ment but later came to be a hallmark of "continuing Jewish consciousness and

identity" (Ben-Sasson 197 1: 771). That is, the initial adoption of a local language was

727
728 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

an attempt to assimilate into the surrounding environment and to speak like the local
inhabitants; but later, in order to become a symbol of Jewish identity and an actual
obstacle to assimilation, the language established itself as Jewish with its Hebrew
script and Hebrew and Aramaic linguistic elements.

Jewish languages are numerous, and the list reflects Jewish history and geogra-
phy. Beside Hebrew, the primary Jewish language (although see Oman 1985), Jewish
forms of Aramaic began to develop even before the beginning of the Common Era.
Before the end of the Second Temple period, Hellenistic Jews began to employ the
Greek Koine in its Jewish form — Yevanic, which many centuries later became known
in the Balkans as Judeo-Greek. After the seventh century, when Islam began to spread

across the Middle East and North Africa, Judeo-Arabic began to develop, and Jews
from Spain to Iraq adopted forms of this ethnolect. In North Africa, Judeo-Berber
emerged; and in Iran, Judeo-Persian. On the other side of the Jewish world, Latin pro-
duced six different ethnolects: Judeo-Italian (Italkian) in Italy; Judeo-Provencal
(Shuadit) in southern France, and Judeo-French (Zarphatic) more to the north; Judeo-

Catalan in the eastern part of the Iberian Peninsula, and Judeo-Portuguese in the west-
ern part; and Judeo-Spanish (Ladino, Jidyo, Judezmo) in between. After the expulsion
of the Jews from the Iberian Peninsula toward the end of the fifteenth century, Judeo-
Spanish spread to the east through the Balkans, Turkey, and Palestine, and to the south
throughout North Africa. Yiddish originated in the tenth century among central Euro-
pean Jews and spread to eastern Europe and, centuries later, to the Americas, South
Africa, Australia, and Palestine. Before the Holocaust, three quarters of world Jewry
spoke Yiddish. In the east, Kurdish Jews use Judeo-Neo- Aramaic, Judeo-Arabic dia-
lects, as well as Kurdish with mixed Hebrew, Turkish, and Arabic elements. In Central
Asia Judeo-Tajik is employed, Judeo-Tat (of the Iranian family) is used by Jews in
Daghestan in the eastern Caucasus, and Judeo-Georgian is used by Jews in Georgia
in the southern Caucasus. Judeo-Crimchak (of the Turkic family) is employed by
Crimean Jews, both Rabbanites and Karaites.
Of these languages, Judeo-Arabic, Judeo-Spanish, and Yiddish have had the larg-
est impact on Jewish culture and civilization since the dispersion of the Jews. Among
these, Judeo-Arabic holds a significant place: it has the longest recorded history of
the three, from pre-Islamic times to the present; additionally, it spans the widest geo-
graphical area, from Spain to Yemen and Iraq, and "it was the medium of expression
for one of the foremost periods of Jewish cultural and intellectual creativity" (Still-

man 1988:3-4). Judeo-Arabic is thus here the primary example of the use of the He-
brew script; Yiddish and Judeo-Spanish are treated as well.

Judeo-Arabic
Judeo-Arabic is an ethnolect which has been spoken and written in various forms by
Jews throughout the Arabic-speaking world; its literature is concerned for the most
part with Jewish topics and is written by Jewish authors for Jewish readers. Judeo-
 SECTION 61: ADAPTATIONS OF HEBREW SCRIPT 729

table 61.1: Judeo- Arabic/Arabic Consonant Correspondences

Arabic Judeo-Arabic Phonetic Value

1
X [0, ?]

2 [b]

n, n [t]

n,fi,n [t, 9]

31, a [Q,«l
c
c
n M
3/i,3/i [x]
i
: l [d]

i "f,i [d,5]

J
1 [r]

T [z]
J

LT*
D [s]

tt? [J]
J"

^ S/f, w
J* s/f,n [*,»]

±> 13 w
J* 6, x/p i , [*.*]

v PI
t
a, X"i [y]
i
ij b,s [f]

J p,p [q]

ifj 3/1 [k]

J V [1]

»/d [m]
r

V| [n]
j
* n [h]

8 n, n, n [t, h]

J ni [w]

"rt )
U]
s*

table 61.2: Vowel Representation

*
[i] 0, sometimes * [i:] usually [u] 0, frequently T [u:] usually T

*
[e] 0, sometimes * [e:] usually [0] 0, frequently "\
[0:] usually T

[a] [a] usually X

730 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Arabic has had a long history, with a dramatic change occurring around the fifteenth
century c.E., when the Jewish world severed its contact with the Muslim world and
its Arabic language and culture. This was especially true in North Africa and less so

in Yemen, where strong contact was maintained for some time. To refine and more
accurately describe the history of Judeo- Arabic, I periodize it as follows: Pre-Islamic,
Early (8th/9th-ioth centuries), Classical (ioth-i5th centuries), Later (15th— 19th
centuries), and Modern Judeo- Arabic (20th century). This scheme, however, should
not distract us from the major change that occurred in the fifteenth century: the first

three periods constitute Medieval Judeo- Arabic; the latter two, Late.
Three script usages can be identified for Judeo-Arabic: "Phonetic," "Arabi-
cized," and "Hebraized." Of the three, Arabicized orthography has had the greatest in-
fluence. In general terms, table 61.1 represents the transcription of Judeo-Arabic
consonants irrespective of the three orthographic traditions. The final varieties of He-
brew letters (shown to the right of the slant) are used in word-final position. The vow-
els are represented as in table 61.2. (Note that most Judeo-Arabic manuscripts are
written in Rashi letters, whereas printed editions use square Hebrew as well as Rashi
script.)

Arabicized orthography

Arabicized orthography, for the most part uniform, is based on imitation of the spell-

ing of Classical Arabic (section 50, which see for the technical terms used below);
and since there are fewer Hebrew characters than Judeo-Arabic phonemes, Arabi-
cized orthography very often uses diacritic points that copy those of the Arabic letters.

This is the case for ¥ d, 6 z, 1 d, H hit, t\ t,i g, j? q, and bf (although this could be
interpreted as belonging with the following set). Sometimes a phonetic principle is

used, as in the case of 5 x, i g, and occasionally n/ —allophones of D, X and n respec-

tively.

The conventions of Talmudic spelling, influential in most orthographies of Jew-

ish ethnolects, are represented in Arabicized orthography in a slight tendency to mark
short [u] with T w and in rendering (especially geminated) consonantal [w] and [y]
with Yl ww and *" yy respectively. As a whole, however, Arabicized orthography is pri-

marily based on the spelling of Classical Arabic: the long vowels are marked with
vowel letters; the definite article ( *)al is always written morphophonemically, regard-
less of its pronunciation —even when the *
is not pronounced and the / is assimilated
to the following consonant, the definite article is written Vk V. The same holds true

for 'alifwasla, and sometimes even for 'aliffdsila as well as keeping the distinction
between 'alif maqsura bisiirati I- 'alif and 'alif maqsura bisurati I -yd \ Even short

vowels, tasdid, and the madda, when marked, are sometimes written with the Arabic
signs over the Hebrew characters. This orthography is typical of Classical
Judeo-Arabic, but is also used during Early Judeo-Arabic, and to a lesser degree, dur-
ing Later and Modern Judeo-Arabic.
 SECTION 61 : ADAPTATIONS OF HEBREW SCRIPT 73 }

Phonetic orthography

Phonetic orthography, on the other hand, is used only during Early Judeo- Arabic. It

is based on phonetic principles, free from the influence of Classical Arabic orthogra-
phy. Moreover, Blau and Hopkins (1987: 124) claim, "There is no orthographical fea-
ture [in this tradition] which has to be explained as an imitation of literary Arabic
spelling habits ." The main characteristic of (broad) Phonetic orthography are as fol-
lows.

(i) Marking d and z with 1 d, as it represents the closest phoneme in Hebrew to

the pronunciation of Ja and J? (e.g. 72p qbd [qabada] 'he received', cf. Ja^
qbd; "pan hpdk [hafiz-aka] 'may He preserve you', cf. yjUai> hpzk, ibid. 133).

(ii) Marking the definite article phonetically, not morphophonemically as in

Arabicized orthography (e.g. nftpV'Q bylqmh [bilqamh] 'with the grain', cf.
}
^iJL b lqmh; DTTIX >rhm [arrahiim] 'the Merciful', cf. ^^Jl Hrhym; pm
btmn [bittaman] 'with the price', cf. j^JL b 'Itmn, ibid. 147-48).

(iii) Use of plene 'full'and "defective" writing phonetically. E.g., both short [u]
and [i] are frequently marked with 1 w and * y respectively, contrary to Classical
Arabic usage; "defective" writing of medial a (i.e. without an equivalent of
}
Classical *alif)\ and the spelling of 'alif maqsura bisiirati l-yd with X.

Both Phonetic and Arabicized orthographies were used side by side in Early
Judeo-Arabic. Scribes who were educated in Classical Arabic used Arabicized or-
thography, and those who were not used Phonetic. This, of course, explains the fact
that almost no literary texts were written in Phonetic orthography (Blau and Hopkins
1984: 26-27). The possibility exists, though, that even scribes who were educated in
Classical Arabic, and knew the principles of Arabicized orthography, may have still
used Phonetic orthography when attempting to reach a readership among the lower
strata of the Jewish population who did not know Classical Arabic and had mastered
only the Hebrew script, as was traditionally the case with Jews.
During the tenth century, Phonetic orthography vanished rapidly and was re-

placed by Arabicized. Blau and Hopkins attribute this sudden disappearance to the
publication of Sa'adya Gaon's tafsir 'translation/commentary' of the Pentateuch.
Sa'adya (882-942) was educated in Classical Arabic and subsequently used Arabi-
cized orthography. Since hiswork was widely distributed and prestigious among all
the Jewish communities in the Arab world, it opened the way for Arabicized orthog-
raphy to be adopted by Judeo-Arabic scribes. From then on, the orthography of
Sa'adya's translation of the Pentateuch, which happened to be Arabicized orthogra-
phy, became the model for Judeo-Arabic. The scribes did not need to be further edu-
cated in Classical Arabic or even to be familiar with its orthography; they only needed
to be familiar with Sa'adya's work in order to use Arabicized orthography.
732 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Hebraized orthography

After the fifteenth century, during the period of Later Judeo- Arabic, another script
type began to develop, best termed Hebraized. During this period, Hebraized orthog-
raphy existed alongside Arabicized orthography; it is characterized by three main fea-
tures.

(i) Hebrew/Aramaic influence on spelling. E.g., 'a I if maqsura bisiirati l-yd '
'

was not spelled with ' y as was the case in Arabicized orthography. Rather, it
was spelled with H h in imitation of Hebrew orthography (e.g. iTV13 nwwh
[nawwa] 'intended', cf. jjJ nw mwoVx Ibwsrh [ilbujra] 'the good news',
';

cf. jj-iJI 'Ibsr \ Hary 1992: 87-88); or with X \ as influenced by the orthogra-

phy of the Babylonian Talmud (for example, X13 nw 'intended', XftOV ywsm '
'

[jusamma] 'is named', cf. ^^^jysm \ ibid. 88). Moreover, final 'alif was often

spelled with n h (e.g. H3N >nh [?ana] T , cf. Ul >n \ TWOmttynh [tuftiiiia]

'you will give us', cf. L-k*; t'tyn \ ibid.) in imitation of standard Hebrew
orthography; and feminine nouns were spelled with a final X ', possibly a reflec-
tion of the Babylonian Talmud, which used this kind of spelling in both Hebrew
and Aramaic (e.g. X^Vp ql
i
*
[qafia] 'citadel', cf. iAs ql 7; KTtilj? qhww >

[?ahwa] 'coffee', cf. e^f* qhwt; ibid. 89-90).

(ii) Closer phonetic representation. For example, the use of plene writing to rep-
resent short vowels phonetically; marking consonantal w and y with Yl ww and w
yy respectively; marking 'alif mamduda according to its phonetic representation
(-a) with H h or X occasional phonetic spelling of the definite article (e.g.
';

0X3X V? \s [inna:s] 'the people', cf. ^Ul 'In >s; ^VD/7n/[firri:f] 'in the coun-
try', cf. duj\ ^fy Iryf ibid. 92-93); occasionally marking d with 1 d for pho-
c
netic reasons (e.g. ISD [ba'Td-] 'some', cf. Jaju, b d\ pXl d 'q [d-a:q] 'was
annoyed', cf. jL?d }
q, ibid. 94); frequently spelling the enclitic conj unction fe~
'and' as a separate word 'S fy, probably to indicate the pronunciation; and fre-
an
quently writing the accusative tannin with ] n (e.g. "[tin hzn [haz-z- ] 'pleasure',

dn
cf. Ji> hz; |bn5 kwfn [xo:f ] 'fear', cf. <Jj>xwf, ibid. 297).

(iii) The continued influence of Arabicized orthography.

In sum, Hebraized orthography differs from the Phonetic and Arabicized orthog-
raphies in different ways. Whereas the influence of Classical Arabic orthography is

not seen in Phonetic orthography, it is one element of Hebraized, albeit via Arabi-

cized. Hebraized differs as well from Arabicized orthography in that it shows greater
phonetic representation, and spelling conventions of Hebrew and Talmudic orthogra-
phy. In other words, the tradition of Hebraized orthography is based neither on the or-
thographic model of Classical Arabic exclusively, as with Arabicized, nor on phonetic
considerations exclusively, as with Phonetic. In some ways, Hebraized orthography
is a combination of Phonetic and Arabicized.
 section 61: adaptations of hebrew script 733

Sample of Later Judeo- Arabic

myrPw hsnm w ms
( >
mlf<—

]x mb irns mmax qxVd

/l* L
fU-oW ->**• *****
? n* hrf whrf mwhwk' nPlk

JL, x/>*> /**

f
on****1 * bor oVi ixh3 Vx nax xrf?b
fswy slg r*hnP hbs 'mlf

*?X XSpX Dlft "'OTDVx X*71?

P 'sq' mwt ysrwkP )

1
<

x ixsnxn naxi Vx:wx

PdrPb rm'w Pgs 5

^xpb rrr pa "topid inxisx

>qf hydy nyb wrdhf wP wk
1

"»b irtob xd dot Din ?

yf wtPf 'm fswy mwhl
™ -nbx idididx n^p
dn* ydP mwkwk* tyydq

qk 1
rmir ^ *7xp mmax
nPy hdw'y whl Pq mwkwb'

^ jm ]x f^x mxVib
figure 66. Cairo Genizah Ms. T-S Ar 30.1 13, recto kl nhn rP klm P 'n'lwm
Published here with the kind permission of the
Syndics of Cambridge University Library
)x ray
y
tys n dyb'

/. Normalization: Plama sim u (

menase wiefrayim kalam
2. Transcription: fe-lama simT-u menaje wi-efrajim kala:m
3. Gloss: and-when heard-they Menashe and-Efrayim words. of

/. axuhom farahu farhan 'azlm Plama sibih

2. axui-hom farah-u farh-an Taziim fMama s-ibih

3. brother- their rejoiced-they happiness- acc great and-when began

3
/. lnahar jalas yusuf (
ala lkursi tumma aqsa il

2. sn-nahair c^alas yuisuf ?ala 1-kursi Gumma aqs-a il

3. the-daytime sat Joseph on the-chair afterward went.deep the

3
/. asgal wPamar bPihdar a ixwato f -hudru ben
2. ajyail wi-?amar bi-?ihd-a:r 3 ixwaito fs-hudr-u be:n
3. concerns and-ordered in-bringing brothers-his and-came-they between
734 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. yadeh f'al lahom yusuf ma (

fa alto fi 'adiyyet
2. yade:-h fo-?a:l la-hom juisuf ma fa^al-to fi ?ad-ijjet

3- hands-his and-said to-them Joseph what did-you in problem.of

i. axukom illazi
(
and axuhom 'al lahu ye^da ya m
2. axu:-kom illazi Vand axui-hom 'Tail la-hu jo?uda ya m
3- brother-you r who with brother-your said to-him Judah Oh,..

i. mawlana ilmalik inna nahnu lak

(
abld in sit

2. mawla:-na il-malik inna nahnu la-k ^abiid in Ji:-t

3- master-our the-king indeed we to-you slaves if wanted-you

'And when Menashe and Ephraim heard their brother's words, they became
very glad. And when the morning came, Joseph sat on the chair, went into deep
thoughts and ordered to bring his brothers to come in front of him. Joseph then
said to them, "What did you do regarding your brother who is with your
father?" Judah answered to him, "Oh, master, we are truly slaves to you, and if

you wish, ...'"

— Egypt, ca. 1600 C.E.; from the literature on Joseph and His Brothers.

Judeo-Spanish (Ladino)
Judeo-Spanish is Hebrew characters, although there are texts written
also written in
in the Latin alphabet,table 61.3 indicates the Judeo-Spanish phonetic equivalents
of the Hebrew letters used in standard Judeo-Spanish spelling. The final varieties of
letters are used in the same way as in Judeo- Arabic and Yiddish at the end of words.

The following Hebrew letters are used in Judeo-Spanish, but usually limited to He-
brew words: D [kj, 57 0, 2? [s], and n [t].
In different Judeo-Spanish manuscripts, the letters that are here followed by an
apostrophe {"2 for [v], for example) may exhibit other diacritics, such as a line above
the letter 5, a supralinear segol 5, or even 3.

table 61 .3: Judeo-Spanish

Letter Value Letter Value Letter Value

X [0,a] T [z] 3] [n]

a [b] 'T
fe] >a [p]

'n [v] n [J, 3] D [s]

31
[g] u It] 9 [Pi

'}
W, cfe, J, 3]
•»•»
1
Ul t [f]

1 [d, 5] b II] P [k]

n [a] ^ [X] I [r]

i [v] DO [m| V [s,J]

 SECTION 61: ADAPTATIONS OF HEBREW SCRIPT 735

Yiddish
Howard I. Aronson

Yiddish is first attested in glosses to Hebrew manuscripts dating from the twelfth cen-
tury. The first printed work in Yiddish is dated 1534. Like all Jewish languages, mod-
ern Yiddish uses the square Hebrew script. Yiddish has never had the official status of
being a language of state (the so-called "Jewish Autonomous Oblast'" in Soviet Biro-
bidzhan can hardly be viewed as an exception). Consequently there has never been a
generally accepted central authority that could legislate a normative orthographic sys-
tem; this has resulted in wide variation. All the orthographic systems are, however,
basically alphabetic and can be viewed as either historically based or, preferably,

interdialectal. (There is also no single normative orthoepy; native speakers generally

speak in one of the three major dialects of the language.) Variation in the systems of
orthography is shown in figure 67.
These variations are largely correlated with different religious and political

groups, with phonemic spelling of Hebrew and Aramaic words being typical of Soviet
Yiddish as well as of non-Soviet Yiddish in the usage of radical left-wing organiza-
tions. Pseudo-etymological spelling is today found in some ultra-Orthodox Yiddish
usage. The overwhelming majority of Yiddish publications today combine the tradi-
tional spelling of Hebrew and Aramaic words with the interdialectal morphophone-
mic spelling; these we call standard systems.

Standard orthographies

The overwhelming majority of modern Yiddish publications combine the traditional

spelling of most Hebrew and Aramaic words with the interdialectal morphophonemic
spelling of words of non-Semitic origin. There are many sub-varieties of this orthog-
raphy. Perhaps the most widely used in literary works today is the so-called YIVO
orthography proclaimed by the DILTOOrN 1i7Di;Vu5X^3D 'n
,

IVUm" (XTP) Yidisher

visnshaftlekher institut (YIVO) 'Yiddish Scientific Institute' and the iWH" i7Vx"103i7^
Phonemic spelling of Traditional spelling of
Hebrew/Aramaic words~ Hebrew/Aramaic words

Interdialectal morphophonemic spelling Pseudo-etymological spelling

Redundant pointing No redundant pointing

figure 67. Yiddish orthographic systems (most common components of standard systems inbold).
736 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 61.4: The Yiddish Alphabet

Letter Name Value" YIVO c Other Notes'

1

K (shtumer) alef - -n silent; occurs initially before /, u, ey, ay, oy

X pasekh alef [a] a
K komets alef [0]

2 beys [b] b
a veys [v] v(b) D only in Semitic words; never word-initial
J giml [g] g
1 daled [d] d
n hey [h] h
1 vov [u] u (w)
1 melupm vov [u] u T *; occurs after 11 v; occurs before ' y
n tsvey vovn [v] V
*i vov-yud [3j] oy
T zayen [z] z
izn zayen-shin M zh
n khes [x] kh(h) only in Semitic words
tes [t] t(0
wo tes-shin ttn tsh
•)
yud y before or after vowel
[1] i between consonants
t-
j

] y after t, d, s, z, I, n and before a vowel indicates

the palatals in words of Slavic origin
»
khirik yud to i *; occurs after initial * v; occurs after vowels
yj
tsvey yudn [ej] ey
yj
pasekh tsvey yudn [aj] ay
3 kof [k] k 3 only in Semitic words

3.1 khof, lange khof M kh(k)

V lamed [+, 1, X] 1

», D mem, shlos mem [m] m

3,1 nun, lange nun In] n
D samekh Is] s

57 ayin fe] e( (

)
unstressed = [e] or [1], depending on dialect
5 pey [p] P
M fey, lange fey
tsadek, lange tsadek
[f]

[ts]
f(p)
ts(s)
».r
p kuf Ik] k(q)
i reysh [R] r

w shin [J] sh(s)

t? sin [s] s (s) IP only in Semitic words
n tof [t] t n only in Semitic words
n sof [s] s(t) only in Semitic words; never word-iniiial

a. A letter after a comma is the final form.

b. The values given do not necessarily apply to words of Semitic origin, which follow a distinct set of rules.
c. Yl VO transliteration; the Hebrew transliteration of the letter is shown in parentheses
d. An asterisk indicates that the letter/digraph is not treated by YIVO as a separate item for alphabetization.
 SECTION 61: ADAPTATIONS OF HEBREW SCRIPT 737

ySXniOIX-yrc? (Xim?) Tsentrale yidishe shul-organizatsye (TslShO) 'Central Yid-

dish School Organization' in Poland on September i, 1936, and first published in
1937 in Vilno under the title Takones fun yidishn oysleyg 'Rules of Yiddish orthogra-
phy'. In what follows, the YIVO system is described along with the major deviations
from it in the more commonly used standard systems, table 61 .4 gives the tradition-
al order of the Yiddish alphabet.

Variant orthographies

Most words of Semitic origin (Hebrew and Aramaic) are spelled in the traditional way
in most Yiddish orthographies, e.g., DttX >mt ['ernes] 'truth', "|Vft mlk ['mejlex] 'king',
!?3n-"|0 sk-hkl [s(e)'xakl] 'total'. However, Soviet Yiddish authors and many pro-So-
viet radical organizations spelled such words according to the phonemic principle:
OJ7BJ7, Dy^D or "j^V^E, *?pXDNO (the Hebrew system may have represented for them
"obsolete" religion; cf. Hary 1990: 79, 1992: 1 12-13 on orthographic manifestation
of competing political, religious, or cultural preference). As a consequence, the letters
that occur only in words of Semitic origin (5 b,Ti /z, D lc, W s, D r, n t) were not found
there. In earlier Soviet Yiddish, the final letters "| kh, m, ] y
n, *]/, ts were replaced
by the non-final letters: D, ft, 3, 5, 2J. In 1961 the final letters were reintroduced into
most Soviet Yiddish (with the main exception of publications from Birobidzhan).
Yiddish orthography in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries showed
a tendency to reproduce as literally as possible German orthography. We shall call

such spelling pseudo-etymological (table 61.5). In the same period certain texts
contained, in addition to the regular vowel letters of Yiddish (X a, X o, 1 u, ' /',
V e\
"
ey, * ay, "H oy), the Hebrew vowel points below the consonant: in what follows, (a) is

a text with redundant vowel pointing and (b) is the corresponding YIVO orthography
(words in italics are from Hebrew).
]vx riKa "un *n nrx pn "t ftsrn d*u *]*ix firnja x jaxn dii n (a)
]vx nxa "i*n *n *itn yy »t j^sm uxa *px pntn k pxn oxn n (b)
Di vos hobn a bitokhn oyf Got vein zey zayn azoy vi der barg Tsien.

'They that have confidence in God, they will be just like (the) Mount Sinai.'

Such orthography was found in secular works in the nineteenth century; today, when
found, it tends to be in works published by ultra-Orthodox groups.

table 61.5: Pseudo-etymological vs. Morphophonemic Spelling

German Pseudo- etymological Pronunciation Morphopl wnemic Gloss

T(h)iir -lino thur ftir] TO tir 'door'

Jude TP yud Bid] T 1

yid 'Jew*

sehr rat zehr ['zejer] T3TO zeyer 'very'

ver- -ws fer- [far] --1XD far- (verbal prefix)

ab- -as ab- lop] -9N op- (verbal prefix)

738 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 61.6: Dialect Variation in Vowel Realization

Letter YIVO Northeast Central South

N [0] [a] [a] [a]

K [0] [3] [u, u:/o, d:] [u/o]

t
[i] [«] [1, 1:] [1]

*\
[u] [u] [i, i:/u, u:] [1/0]

1? [e] [e] [e/ej] [e/ej]

">•>
[ej] [ej] [a:] [a]

it
[qj] [aj] [a:©] [ej]

*l [oj] [ej/oj] [Oj, Dlj, DW] [DJ, DW, U]

Vowel representation
As indicated above, YIVO orthography does not reflect the phonology of any of the
three major dialects of Yiddish, though it closely approximates that of Northeast Yid-
dish. Dialect differences are found mainly in the vocalic system, table 61.6 gives
the most common values of the vowel letters in the YIVO norm and in the three major
dialects.

Of the Yiddish vowel letters, only X a, X <?, and 5? e can occur word-initially, as in
U*7X alt 'old', DiDX orem 'poor', |05? esn 'eat'. The remaining vowel letters cannot oc-
cur at the very beginning of a word, but must, in this position, be preceded by the let-

ter X, the so-called shtume(r) alef 'silent alef. Note that the shtumer alef has no
marking below the line; this differentiates it from the vowels X a and X o. In initial

position the remaining vowels have the forms ^X /, "X ey, ^X ay, "HX oy, IX w, as in "pX

ikh T, I^X eyn 'one', ft^X ayzn 'iron', P1X oyg 'eye', "IS70T1X unter 'under'. As a rule,
when a word beginning with one of these vowels is preceded by a prefix, the shtumer
alef remains, e.g., p'Q'^X ['ejbik] 'eternal', jp^^XIXS [far'ejbikrj] 'immortalize'.

Consonant representation
The spelling of words of non-Semitic origin generally does not indicate such phono-
logically conditioned alternations as voice assimilation, assimilation of nasals, sim-

plification of C,C, clusters, etc.; e.g., yh "pX ikh lib ['ix 'libj T love' in the north, fix
'lip] in the south, and UOrP ?
1
M du libst ['du 'lipstj; pXH holm [hobm]
k
to have',

]pXD3X onpakn ['om'pakrj] 'cram'; J2H39X opputsn ['o'putsn] 'polish'.

Palatal fy, dy, sy, zy, and ny (occurring almost exclusively in words of Slavic ori-

gin) are marked by ^0, "H, "'0, T

'J before vowels; palatal ly before vowels is marked

by *h in words of Slavic origin, but is generally unmarked in words of Western Euro-

pean origin. Syllable-final palatals are not marked. Examples: ~|Xt? tydkh 'throb',

piftjn dyegekhts 'tar', TTDXl gdtinyu 'God (dim.)', Vp^vb lyul'ke '(tobacco) pipe',
"VxrV linol'ey 'linoleum'.
The orthography does not indicate stress, which is distinctive.
 SECTION 61: ADAPTATIONS OF HEBREW SCRIPT 739

table 61 .7: Differences between YIVO and Other Orthographies

YIVO Non-Yivo Transliteration Gloss

(a) tti 1X11 vu 'where'

wim -unman v under 'wonder'
aomin uoixnitt gevust 'known'
(b) two TPRR3 naiv 'naive'

prn p^xn ruik 'calm'

a
(c) "P TX yid 'Jew'
a
Vap bwx yingl 'boy'

(d) prc pu> sheyn 'beautiful'

r?» pp shayn 'glow'

pn pn veyn '(I) cry'

pn pn vayn 'wine'

n pa neyn 'no'

n?a P nayn 'nine'

(e) tim TOO kibed 'tribute'

main mmn tarbes 'politeness'

(f) nnofr nnraw simkhe 'party'

nyw ni?w sho 'hour'

(g) Vdd to bovl 'Babylonia'

nxs 1X2 for '(I) travel'

"INS INS por 'pair'

(h) uinrun uirim'itt ge-gawv-et 'stolen'

(i) onwft OTRPB Moyshe-s 'Moses"

OiH'WT O'inVvT Zelde-s 'ZeldaY

In some dialects these words are pronounced [id], | incH-].

Special spellings

table 61.7 exemplifies a number of spelling differences between YIVO and other
systems, (a) Sequences of v+u are spelled with the letter T for [u] in YIVO spelling,
while other orthographies generally have a shtumer a lef before the 1 . (b) After a vowel
YIVO uses the letter ? to indicate [i], while most other systems again use a shtumer
alef here, (c) The letter ? is also used after initial ' to mark the initial sequence [ji];

most other systems use the sequence "W.

Other differences between YIVO and other systems include: (d) lack of distinc-

tion between * ay and " ey\ (e) in many publications, absence of the dagesh (dot) dis-
tinguishing 3 [k] from D [x] and fl [t] from n [s]; frequently, lack (f) of the dot
distinguishing W [s] from W [J] in YIVO spelling, and (g) of the rafe (bar above a let-

ter) that serves to distinguish 3 [v] from 3 [b] and, in addition to the dagesh. to dis-
tinguish 9 [f] from D [p]. (h) Non-YIVO systems tend to separate non-Semitic affixes
from Semitic roots by means of apostrophes. Similarly, (i) the possessive s is often
separated from the noun, as in English, by an apostrophe.
740 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Sample of Yiddish
The transliteration here deviates from the YIVO system in two respects: words of
Semitic origin are transliterated according to Hebrew transliteration (italicized), with

the YIVO transliteration in line 2; and the shtumer alef is indicated by a hyphen. (In

the right-to-left transliterations, the equivalents that are digraphs are underlined mere-
ly for clarity.)

pVxDixs oxi yT uxn p?rwm ltd paw-u ps rmnn 15H 1X2<-

klofrop sod khiz toh nehmhn tim nemsrg nuf hnth red khon<—

nam rx d"s nyptDn isn is .jT'Wjq px V'w or^Vin

ngeleg hmhn zi- tyats rekitkhir red uts .ndyeshab nu- litsh tbeleg

DID p^npynxs rx nna in px i?Vsm" x uxrm j-ixrra

hsm tdk nemukegrof zi- fyr/? red nu- elegniy a taheg ,nroveg

15H ps pnyiur'nx "pr oxn yrrV ywoayaift Vn:w n .Vxwn

red nuf nsiregsyora khiz toh ebil etshtnebeg litsh id ./ 'rsyw

T*nS 1SH i« trwpaxjft oxn px tpytt&'nm lyprnwairDns

(
dyerf red ni- treknaeg toh nu- tyektmyotseg rekid/ yns-murf

pxn nrx --vVyi^a yVra" p-nniDrnra

mi- yez nboh yoza —
elednem elegniy nkidtwptwsb reyez nuf

«0 5TTO ps ymf?s H .piftift J57DX3

kstok nuf yas mydds edyeb nuf nretle id nbegeg nemon

.nm OXnjft pybvi ps ?0 px

Jhn yez nuf taheg nboh melekh nuf yas nu-

/. Transliteration. nokh der /z/a/? fun grsmen mit nhmhen

2. Normalization: nokh der khasene fun Gershemen mit Nekhomen
3. Transcription: noy der 'xasene furj ger'Jemen ne'xomen
mit
4. Gloss: after the marriage of Gershom.DAT with Nekhame.DAT

/. hot zikh dos porfolk gelebt shtil -un basheydn. tsu der
2. hot zikh dos porfolk gelebt shtil un basheydn. tsu der
3. 'hotsex dos por'folk ge'lept Jti4- un ba'Jejdn tsu der
4. has REFL the married. couple lived quiet and modest to the

/. rikhtiker tsayt -iz nhmh gelegn gevorn, gehat a yingele -un der
2. rikhtiker tsayt iz Nekhome gelegn gevorn, gehat a yingele un der
3. 'nxtiker 'tsajt iz ne'xome ge'legrj ge'vorn ge'hat a 'jirjgele un der
4. correct time is Nekhame gave. birth had a boy and the
 SECTION 61: ADAPTATIONS OF HEBREW SCRIPT 74 J

i. bryt -iz forgekumen kdt msh wysr 7

2. bris iz forgekumen kedas Moyshe ve-Yisroel
3. 'bris is 'forge'kumen ke-'das 'mojje ve-jis'roel
4. ritual. circumcision is occurred according.to-law.of Moses and-Israel

/. di shtil gebentshte libe hot zikh aroysgerisn fun der frum-

2. di shtil gebentshte libe hot zikh aroysgerisn fun der frum-
3. di 'Jtil ge'bentfte 'libe 'hotsex a'rojzge'nsn fun der 'frum-
4. the quietly blessed love has refl wrested from the pious-

(
/. sny tdiker getsoymtkeyt -un hot geankert -in der freyd fun
2. tsniesdiker getsoymtkeyt un hot geankert in der freyd fun
3. 'tsniesdiker ge'tsojmtkejt un (h)ot ge'arjkert in der 'frejt fun
4. virtuous.DAT restraint and has anchored in the joy from

/. zeyer bswtpwtdikn yingele mendele — azoy hobn zey -im a

2. zeyer beshutfesdikn yingele mendele — azoy hobn zey im a

3. 'zejer be'Jutfesdikrj 'jirjgele 'mendele a'zoj Trobm 'zej im a

4. their joint boy Mendele so they.have they him a

/. nomen gegebn. di eltern fun beyde sddym, say fun kotsk

2. nomen gegebn. di eltern fun beyde tsdodim, say fun kotsk
3. 'nomen ge'gebm di 'e+ter-n fum 'bejde 'tsdodim 'sqj furj 'kotsk

4. name given the parent-s from both side-s both from Kotsk

1. -un say fun khelem, hobn gehat fun zey nht.

2. un say fun khelem, hobn gehat fun zey nakhes.

3. un 'sqj fun 'xe+em 'hobm ge'hat fun 'zej 'naxes
4. and both from Khelem have had from they pleasure

'After the marriage of Gershom and Nekhome, the married couple lived quietly
and modestly. At the proper time Nekhame gave birth, had a boy, and the ritual

circumcision occurred according to the law of Moses and Israel. A quietly

blessed love arose from their pious and virtuous restraint and became anchored
in the joy of their common boy Mendele — so they had named him. Their par-
ents on both sides, both from Kotsk and from Khelem (two Polish towns), had
pleasure from them.' -Erlikh 1977: 49.

Bibliography

Bar-Asher, Moshe. 1988. "The Sharh of the Maghreb: Judeo-Arabic Exegesis of the Bible and
Other Jewish Literature — Its Nature and Formation" [in Hebrew]. In Studies in Jewish Lan-
guages: Bible Translations and Spoken Dialects, ed. Moshe Bar-Asher, pp. 3-34- Jerusalem:
Misgav Yerushalayim.
Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel. 197 1. "Assimilation." Encyclopaedia Judaic^ 3: 770-83.
Birnbaum, Solomon Asher. 197 1. "Jewish Languages." Encyclopaedia Judaica 10: 66-69.
742 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

.
1979. Yiddish: A Survey and a Grammar. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.
Blanc, Haim. 1981. "Egyptian Arabic in the Seventeenth Century: Notes on the Judeo- Arabic Pas-
sages of Darxe No' am (Venice, 1697)." In Studies in Judaism and Islam Presented to Shelomo
Dov Goitein, ed. Shelomo Morag, I. Ben- Ami, and Norman Stillman, pp. 185-202. Jerusalem:
Magnes.
Blau, Joshua. 1980. A Grammar of Medieval Judeo-Arabic, 2nd ed. [in Hebrew]. Jerusalem:
Magnes.
.
1 98 1. The Emergence and Linguistic Background of Judaeo- Arabic, 2nd ed. Jerusalem:
Ben-Zvi Institute.

.
1988. Studies in Middle Arabic and Its Judaeo-Arabic Variety. Jerusalem: Magnes.
Blau, Joshua, and Simon Hopkins. 1984. "On Early Judaeo-Arabic Orthography." Zeitschrift fiir
arabische Linguistik 12: 9-27.
.
1987. "Judaeo-Arabic Papyri: Collected, Edited, Translated and Analysed." Jerusalem
Studies in Arabic and Islam 9: 87-1 60.
Erlikh, B. E. 1977. Khelemer dertseylungen. Tel- Aviv: Farlag Mikhoel.
Fishman, Joshua A., ed. 1985. Readings in the Sociology of Jewish Languages. Leiden: Brill.

Hary, Benjamin. 1990. "The Importance of the Orthography in Judeo-Arabic Texts." Proceedings of
the Tenth World Congress of Jewish Studies, division D, vol. 1, pp. 77-84. Jerusalem: World
Union of Jewish Studies.
.
1 "The Tradition of Later Egyptian Judeo-Arabic Orthography" [in Hebrew]. Massorot
99 1 .

5-6: H9-37-
.
1992. Multiglossia in Judeo-Arabic. With an Edition, Translation and Grammatical Study
of the Cairene Purim Scroll (Etudes sur le judaisme medieval 14). Leiden: Brill.
.
1995. "Judeo-Arabic in Its Sociolinguistic Setting." Israel Oriental Studies, vol. 15: Lan-
guage and Culture in the Near East: Diglossia, Bilingualism, Registers, ed. R. Drory and Shlo-
mo Izre'el.

Katz, Dovid. 1987. Grammar of the Yiddish Language. London: Duckworth.

Komisye durkhtsufirn dem eynheytlekhn yidishn oysleyg. 1961. Yidisher ortografsher vegvayzer.
New York: Tsiko-bikher-tsentrale. [Contains the 1937 Takones.]
Marcus, Simon. 1965. The Judeo-Spanish Language. Jerusalem: Kiryat Sefer.
Oman, Uzzi. 1985. "Hebrew Is Not a Jewish Language" [in Hebrew]. Leshonenu 48/49: 199-206.
Summarized inFishman 1985: 22-24.
Sephiha, Haim Vital. 1986. Le Judeo-Espagnol. Paris: Editions Entente.
Stillman, Norman A. 1988. The Language and Culture of the Jews ofSefrou, Morocco: An Ethnol-
inguistic Study. Louvin: University of Manchester.
.
1991. "Language Patterns in Islamic and Judaic Societies." In Islam and Judaism: 1400
Years of Shared Values, ed. Steven Wasserstrom, pp. 41-55. Portland, Ore.: Institute for Judaic
Studies in the Pacific Northwest.
Weinreich, Uriel. 1968. Modern English-Yiddish Yiddish-English Dictionary. New York: YIVO In-

stitute for Jewish Research.

— . 1976. College Yiddish. New York: YIVO Institute for Jewish Research.
Weinriech, Uriel, and Beatrice Weinreich. 1959. Yiddish Language and Folklore: A Selective Bibli-
ography for Research. The Hague: Mouton.
Wexler, Paul. 1981. "Jewish Interlinguistics: Facts and Conceptual Framework." Language 57: 99-
149-
SECTION 62

Adaptations of Arabic Script

Alan S. Kaye

The Arabic writing system (section 50) has been and is used to write many non-
Semitic languages. It is now, after the Roman alphabet, the most used segmental
script in the world. The Arabic alphabet or abjad (see section i) is employed today
to write the literary variety of Arabic (Classical or Modern Standard); but Maltese,
historically a form of Arabic, is written in the Roman alphabet (section 59,
page 686). Arabic has also been written in Syriac script (Karshuni or Garshuni,
section 47), and Middle Arabic — the Judeo- Arabic and Christian Arabic dialects
has a long literary tradition written in Hebrew and Arabic script respectively (see

section 61). There is also a continuing trend of writing colloquial Arabic dialects,
particularly Egyptian, in Arabic script: cartoons, plays, advertisements, etc.
Among the more important non-Semitic languages using Arabic script are: the

Berber languages of North Africa, except Tuareg with Tifinigh (section 5, "The
Berber Scripts" on page 112); the Iranian languages Persian, Pashto, Kurdish, and
Balochi; Indo- Aryan Urdu (see section 65), Sindhi, and Kashmiri; Dravidian
Moplah (a dialect of Malayalam); and Austronesian Sulu, Malagasy, and Malay. For
the Turkic and Caucasian languages using Arabic script —besides Osmanli (Ottoman)
Turkish from about 1300 c.e. to 1928, and (along with Hebrew script) the literary lan-
guage Karaite (Diringer 1968, 1 439-40 ) — see table 67. on page 782. In some re-
i

publics of the former Soviet Union, Arabic script is now once more competing with

Cyrillic for writing Turkic and Iranian languages (section 67). Thus the Arabic
script has become much more widespread than the Arabic language itself.

Spread of Arabic script

With the spread of Islam from Spain to Indonesia and much of Africa —and along
with it the Holy Qur'an, which according to custom and tradition must be studied in

the original Arabic along with the faithful's Classical Arabic prayers — there soon de-
veloped a powerful influence of both the Arabic language and on the new
its script

converts. Under the first three caliphs, Islam reached Damascus (633), Jerusalem
(637), Cairo (641), and Persia (646). Under the Umayyads (661-750), who ruled in
Damascus, the Maghreb and Andalusia were added to the Empire (e.g. Tunis, 699).
In 750, the Umayyads fell to the Abbasids (750-1258), whose capital was Baghdad.
During the rule of the Ottomans (141 2-1 9 18) and of the Safavids of Persia (1500-

743
744 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

1779), Turks and Afghans conquered India, establishing the Mughal Empire (1526-
1730). From India, Islam spread to Malaysia and Indonesia. Arabic script replaced lo-

cal scripts wherever it reached —notably in Iran, and among the Islamic peoples of
South and Southeast Asia. Unlike the Copts of Egypt, however, these peoples have
not given up their languages in favor of Arabic; they have absorbed many loanwords.
Still other languages used to be commonly written in the Arabic script and may
occasionally still be, especially by well-educated Muslim scholars and by others as
well. Particular mention should be made of Swahili, Kanuri, Hausa, and Fulani. Still

other languages have been so written by Muslims (e.g. Semitic Harari in Ethiopia; Al-
banian; Slavic Serbo-Croatian in Bosnia, Polish, and Belarusian, for which see Wex-
ler 1 971; and even Japanese, Nairn 1971 : 1 17 n. 7). It is the reverence Muslims have
for Arabic and its script that explains, on the one hand, the appreciation and high re-

gard for Arabic calligraphy; and, on the other, why the Muslims of Spain, having
come to speak Spanish as a native language, wrote it in Arabic characters (aljamiado
is the term for the Arabic script used to write Spanish). Political factors as well can
impact that reverence, as when the Roman-Turkish alphabet replaced centuries of Ar-
abic-script tradition for Ottoman Turkish on November 28, 1928 (modern-day Turks
are still Muslims); but during the course of its long history Ottoman Turkish was also
written in Armenian, Cyrillic, Greek, and Hebrew characters. Although an older gen-
eration of Turks knew Osmanli Turkish, few Turkish-speakers today are literate in it.

Note also that a language such as Somali fits the circumstances for being written
in Arabic script (Somalia is predominantly Muslim, has some Arabic-Somali bilin-

guals, and is even a member of the Arab League); yet the attempt by Shaikh Awes (d.

1909) did not succeed (Diringer 1968, 1:236). However, the order of the letters and
long vowel representations of the Osmanya script (section 52) are based on the Ar-
abic script, and some letters indeed look like Arabic. Somali is today written in the
Roman alphabet.

Minor adaptations of the Arabic script

This section does not deal with the intricacies of all the languages which have been
written in the Arabic script, nor with the various highly prized calligraphic styles (see
section 20). Note also the very unusual case of Divehi (section 50), which uses
the Arabic numerals and certain other signs from Arabic in its script.

The Malagasy script

Malagasy, the native language of Madagascar, is the only Austronesian language spo-
ken in Africa. Diringer (1968, 1 1232-33), noting that Malagasy's first script, sorabe,
was based on Arabic (Munthe 987 gives a sample of English so written),
1
cites a letter

from Bishop Ronald O'Ferrall of Madagascar (dated 1940): "The Latin script intro-

duced by missionaries early in the nineteenth century soon drove out the Arabic
script, and it is now only used in a few out-of-the-way villages, though the books arc
 SECTION 62: ADAPTATIONS OF ARABIC SCRIPT 745

still used by diviners." A peculiarity of the Arabic script is that it is written from top
to bottom (the bishop does not state whether it is read horizontally, cf. Syriac prac-
tice). That development may be, according to Diringer, due to Chinese influence.

The Yezidi cryptic script

Diringer (1968, 1:233-34 —repeating verbatim his 1948: 296 account) describes the
25,000 Yezidis, who live in Iraq, Syria, Turkey, and the Caucasus. They speak both
Kurdish and Arabic. Their two holy books are written "probably in a cryptic" script,

which "is based partly on the Perso-Arabic writing, and partly on the Latin alphabet."
Diringer also believes that it is possible that these texts were first written in the Perso-
Arabic alphabet before being "transcribed in the new cryptic script."

General characteristics of Arabic-based writing systems

Arabic script has been quite flexible as it was adapted to the phonological structure

of other languages. All the Arabic characters are borrowed, so that Arabic loanwords
can preserve their original spelling, whereas their pronunciation will differ depending
on the borrowing language. Since, according to Arab tradition, Arabic {lugat udddd)
is the only language in the world with a voiced emphatic dental stop, Je dad [d-], this

consonant must, of necessity, change — it is pronounced [z] in Persian, Urdu, etc. The
Arabic emphatic, interdental, and pharyngeal consonants are quite rare in the lan-
guages of the world, so various Arabic letters have acquired different pronunciations.
Even in Arabic dialects, Ja may be [B-] (Iraq) or [z] (Egypt).

Ottoman Turkish, or Swahili in Arabic characters, had several noticeable defi-

ciencies in the script, perhaps moreso than other languages which have borrowed it.

Some may claim that, in fact, these deficiencies were so severe that they led to the

demise of the Arabic script for such languages. For example, Arabic J /^/renders, in

addition to [k], Ottoman Turkish [g] (the Persian o gdf, the kdf with an additional
stroke on top, is not common) and n [p] (it can also be dJ with three dots, although
they are rarely used). The Swahili drawbacks (see Maw 198 1 : 227-29) are problem-
atic even for native-speaker learners. There are no distinct symbols, e.g., in the more
traditional orthography for [p], [g], [tf], [v], [p], and [rj]; the Persian forms yp and £
c plus non-Persian ig and <J v, or ^ c, a variant of £, are used in the early learning
period, but rarely beyond. Also, the kasra diacritic can represent either [i] or [e], while

damma may render [o] or [u]. Furthermore, as with all languages employing the Ar-
abic script, there is a choice of two or more symbols for the same phoneme (cf. Per-
sian or Urdu [s], which may be written with ^, o, or ^; or [z], which may be written
with j, i, Je, or J*). For example, Swahili has no uvular point of articulation, so there
is little synchronic justification for writing rafiki 'friend' with q rather than k other
than paying homage to the Arabic etymon J-Jj rfyq [rafiiq]. Since early Swahili writ-
ers were bilingual in Arabic, this was unproblematic.
746 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

In addition to borrowing all 28 or 29 Arabic letters, new ones needed to be creat-

ed, depending on the language, for the different non- Arabic phonemes. Particular di-

acritics were often employed to create these new letters, which have assisted the new,
expanded writing system to become more "feature"-oriented (Daniels 1992). In Urdu,
for example, ^jp is ej b with three dots below the basic configuration, and xc is r g
with three dots below the basic configuration; j z is j z with three dots above the basic
configuration (as Arabic ^ s modifies ^ s by marking palatality with three dots); a

superscript J? t (or sometimes two or four dots in various publications) marks retrof-

lexion consistently, as in <Jj t [[], J d [4], or j r [rj; lastly, connected h allographs rep-
resent the aspirated phonemes: +> bh, 4^ ph, ^ th, 4$ th, 4>jh, ^> ch, *$dh,*i dh, /bj

rh,j£ kh, and ^ gh. Daniels is quite correct to stress "the regularities involved in the
additions." He also notes: "Since Persian polities were responsible for much of the
spread of Islam into Asia, these additional Persian letters are found in most of the Ar-
abic scripts of the continent."

Scripts of Islamic literary languages

Each table includes the transliteration according to the Library of Congress system
(Barry 1991 ) and an IPA transcription. Since the LC system does not transliterate alif,
in the discussion and texts here I is rendered a. The major languages are in roughly
chronological order of assuming the script; related languages are grouped with them.

Persian

table 62. presents the Persian script (Paper and Jazayery 1955).
i

The following revaluations of Arabic letters are found in Persian, and hence
widely in the Islamic world: (a) h d, J? z, and Ja d —> [z]; (b) o t and ^a s — > [s]; (c)
i / -> [t]; (d) ^h -> [h]; (e) jw-) [v]; (f) ^
(
and I a -> [?] or [0] (^ '
may often
represent a preceding long vowel, especially in informal styles).

(g) Arabic tanwin (nunation) and sadda (gemination mark) are normally not writ-
ten. However, they need to be marked in a transcription since they are often pro-

nounced: LJLJi> hqyqta [haqiiqatan] 'really' (Arabic L > );

2j a JjI a\i [avval] 'first'

(Arabic JjI). Gemination, however, is a feature of the higher registers. The Arabic
short vowels are rarely written.
(h) Other "irregularities" in the phoneme-symbol correspondences are men-
tioned by Nairn (1971: 1 19), such as the fact that [e] finally is "irregularly" » h (4jl>
khanh [xai'ne] 'house'). Barry ( 1 99 1 : 147-50) also presents "irregularities" ([a:] may
be written as ,jy, ^aLua* mstfy Imostafa:] 'Mustafa'; j v is not pronounced after
e.g.

r kh, e.g. jJuJ^> khwabydn [xa:bi:dan] 'to sleep').

(i) The new letters not occurring in Arabic are ^j p. o g, z c, and j z. All add

three dots to the Arabic letters (<S may be analyzed as JT with the three dots evolved
into a parallel stroke).
 SECTION 62: ADAPTATIONS OF ARABIC SCRIPT 747

table 62. 1 : The Persian Abjad

LC Transliteration Transcription Isolated Final Initial Medial

- [?, o, ae, 0] I I
- -

b [b] O c^ j h

P [P] c-* j *
t [t] O C* j i
s [s] O c* j fe

[*] > J*.

J
E £
ch M E £ > >t

h [h,0] > Pt
C £
kh [x] > ^.
c e
d [d] 9 JL
- -

z [z] : i - "

r [r]
- "
j J
z [z]
- -
j J
- -
zh M J J
s M O- O" Ml >Mk

sh 01 «uU -1
C^
s [s]
U^ u* -^? *a

z [z]
u^ J* J? Ja

t [t] J> Ja t ^
z [z] J* Jk JP Ji

c
[?, 0], preceding V — > V: X- A
t £
gh [Y]/V_V; [q, g, x] i- A
t e
f m cJ ei i i.

q [q,G] J J i £

k [k] J a 5-
5;

g [g] uf ^ r £
J 1
1 [i]
J j

m [m]
r r
-a A
n [n] J A
i>

V [v, u, 0, ow] - -
j j-

h [h, 0, e, ae], Arab. fern, [t] 6, 6 ^* A 4

y [He] J <-*
j
*
 >

748 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 62.2: The Consonants of the Kurdish Alphabet

LC Transliteration Transcription Isolated Final Initial Medial

- [?] 1
I
- -
b [b] 1* j -.

P [pl <— *—*

V
j
7
-
t [t] C* J £

[<W > >t

J
e £
ch m £ e > £1

h [h] > ^%
C e
kh [x] > Pt
C e
d [d] i JL
- -
r [r] - -
j v
r m A -?
- -
z [z] - -
j i
zh [3]
i " -
J ^
s [s]
a- O* - *»

sh [J] 0" lT A -1

s w ^ c^ ~a ^1
<
pi £. A
t e
gh lY] £. A
i 6
f [f] ui i a

V [v] ui J a

q [q] J J i a

k [k] J 4 5-
£
g [g] J Jl r 1
1 [1] J J j 1

j M J j j i

m [m]
p r
.« A
n [n] j i>
j i

w [w] - -
j >
h [h,9] »
" A.
A 4
y U,i:,e:] j ij * »

TABLE 62.3: The Vowels of the Kurdish Alphabet

a [3] A A
• (1) 4
a [a] 1 I
- -

u [u:, «, 0]
- -
j J"

u [u:| - -
jj 3y
I |i:| ~j
L^- ur? 9»

e [e:] -
J {J *

[0]
-
J i i
 SECTION 62: ADAPTATIONS OF ARABIC SCRIPT 749

Sample of Persian

J\ ^j aU I J^L^j> I il

shabshvx ytsshn rga ykhr ham ab shabshvkh /ytsm hdab z rga maykh^-

(
shabshvx ytsh ytsyn ragna / tsa ytsyn nahj rak tbqa nvch

/. Transliteration: khyam agr z badh msty khvshbash

2. Normalization: xayyam agar ze bade mastl xosbas
3. Transcription: xaejjom aegaer ze bode maesti xojboj
4. Gloss: Khayyam if from wine drunk.you.are happy.be

/. ba mah rkhy agr nshsty xvshbash

2. ba mah roxl agar nesastl xosbas
3. bo moh roxi aegaer nejaesti xojboj
4. with moon face, a if you.are.sitting happy.be

/. chvn 'aqbt kar jhan nysty ast

2. cun 'aqebate kare jahan nlstl 'ast

3. tjun ?Dyebaete kore d^aehon nisti ?aest

4. since end. of work. of world nonexistence is

/. angar kh nysty chv hsty xvshbash

2. 'engar ke nlstl co hastl xosbas
3. ?erjgor ke nisti t/o haesti xojboj
4. suppose that nothing when you.are happy.be

'And if the Wine you drink, the Lip you press,

End in the Nothing all Things end in Yes —
Then fancy while Thou art, Thou art but what
— —
Thou shalt be Nothing Thou shalt not be less.'
— From the Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam (Tajvidi 1963: 120);
trans. Edward Fitzgerald, no. 42 (1st ed.).

Kurdish

The Kurdish script (Nairn 1971, following McCarus 1958) is a true alphabet, since
notating all vowels is obligatory, table 62.2 shows the consonants of the Kurdish

alphabet, and table 62.3 the vowels.

Pashto

table 62.4 presents the Pashto script (MacKenzie 1987: 55 2 ~53)-

(a) Features (a)-(d) and (0 under Persian also apply for Pashto.
(b) The g occurs in two varieties: the Persian gdfS or the foj/with a circle added
below the upper stroke <*S.
750 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 62.4: The Pashto Abjad

LC Transliteration Transcription Isolated Final Initial Medial

- [?,0, 3, a(:), i, u] 1 I
- -
b [b] u j -.

P [p] <-j i** j *

t [t] O Ck J &
t
[fl J
A
s [s] c* J 1
[*] > J*.
J
E £
ch [tf] > ^t
E e
h [h,0 > .X.
C e
s [ts]
C >A A
z [dz]
c 6 > A
kh [x]
c 6 > A
d [d] i a - -
d M] J j.
- -
z [z] 5 1 - -
r [r] - -
j j
r [r]
- -
i> i
z [z] - -
J j
zh [3]
- -
j
zh [zj - -
j •j.

s [s]
O- 0* m Uk

sh [J] j* -i -1
J*
sh Ls]
Js u? 4 -*

s [s]
c U* ^> ^
z [z]
^ J* J? Ja
.t [t] 1> Ja i> k
z [z] J* Ja £ k
<

l?,0, a], preceding V—>V: ^ A

t .e
gh [y] £. A
I c
f [f] (J t-A i A

q LqJ J J i i
k M J d <r £
g [g] J* JL 2 1
1 [i] J J-
j 1

m [m]
r
^ A
r
n [n] j *
i>
n w * *
j

w [w, u(0] - -
j j-

h [h,a, 3, 0], Arab. fem. [t] 6, 3 4., i * 4

y U. e aJ> KO]
'
J, J c?» or
j
a-
 SECTION 62: ADAPTATIONS OF ARABIC SCRIPT 75 \

The following have been invented specifically for Pashto: Of[[],ri [ts], f i
(c)

[dz], i d [qj, j r [rj, ^ z/z [zj, j* sh [s], and j ft [nj. Furthermore, ^ is used for [e], and

^ for [aj]. The latter occurs only finally and is not used in Peshawar (Penzl 1962: 5).
According to MacKenzie (1987: 553), ^ is used for nominals, whereas lj is used for
verbals. MacKenzie also notes that [e] and [aj] are written with the Urdu ^ in Paki-
stani Pashto. Penzl remarks that the distinction of [i] ^ and [e] ^ "is not as yet sys-

tematically carried through in all Pashto publications" (1962: 8).

(d) The short vowels are normally not written. Final [a] or [o] is written t> h.

(e) In Pakistan, Pashto retroflexes Of, i d, and s r can be written in Urdu fash-
ion —O, 5, and j respectively.
The hamza is occasionally used
(f) in the standard script to represent [a], e.g. &j

zh [zs]
'
T (MacKenzie 1987: 553).
(g) Plene spelling is an option, with ^ indicating [i] or [el, and j for short [u] or

[u]. Thus, j?6\ or yk^\ [indzsr] 'fig', ior^i [de] 'your', J^ or J^ [gul] 'flower'

(ibid.).

Sample of Pashto

^ shk
Jl>
lah
j*
yd
*j

hp
ij
,w
jj£ ^l>
ywsh barkh
jjil?J
nwflyt
^-U >_*
rydm hwy d hkwt<—
i *Oj;<-

3 lP a ji-^ J^ 'ti^b-^ ^ ^-^ ^-° e^L> *OJ ^f Ji

d yd d rydm wn ydnazhyp hn rydm rgm yghar htrw yrs wy

rt hkhm d yk hraksh la'f naz ht yrs yd w hch hrap

zkrm —lbyk :hfk yy ghzh ,yk htrwp nwflyt yy yntshwp

hkar tsayr wta'wbtm d

/. Transliteration: twkh. d ywh mdyr tylfwn khrab shwy

2. Vocalization: toko, da yaws mudir tilifun xarab shawsy
3. Transcription: 'fpks ds jaws mu'dir jrli'fun xa'raib 'Jswsj

4. G/oss: joke of one director telephone out.of.order got

/. w, ph dy hal ksh yw sry wrth raghy mgr

2. wu, pa de hal ksi yaw saray warts raghsy magar
3. wu ps 'de hail ksi jaw sa'raj war-te raiyaj 'magar
4. had in this condition in one man him.to he.came but

/. mdyr nh pyzhandy. nw mdyr d dy d parh chh w

2. mudTr ns pezandsy. no mudir da de da pars ci wa
3. mu'dir ns pe3a:n'dsj no mu'dir ds de ds pa:rs tfi wa
4. director not he. knew then director of this for.the.sake that to
 —

752 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. dy sry th zan fa
(
l shkarh ky d mkhh tr pwshtny
2. de son to zan fa'al skara l ki do maxa tor pustonl
3> 'de ss>'ci to dza:n faa:l skai'ra ki do 'maxa tor pug'toni

4- this man to oneself active clear he. makes before question

i. yy tylfwn pwrth ky zh gh yy krh kybl—

2. ye tilifun ports koy zagh ye kro kebol
3> je tili'fun 'porto koj 'zPY je kro ke'bol

4- by.him telephone upward he. made sound by.him was. made cable

/. mrkz...! d mtbw'atw ryast rakh.

2. markaz.. ,.! da matbo'atu riyasat rako
3- mar'kaz do matboa:tu riyai'sat raiko

4- center of publications department give.to.me

'A Joke —The telephone of a director had gotten out of order. At this time a man
came to him, but the director did not know him. Then the director, in order to
reveal himself to this man as active, before (any) question lifted the telephone
(receiver). He shouted: "Operator, operator! Give me the Press Department.'
—From Penzl 1962: 18-21, 26.

Kashmiri

table 62.5 presents the Kashmiri script (Barry 1991: 72-75, Zaxarin and Edelman
197 ). The aspirated stops are as in Urdu 0$j ph, 47 th, ^ th, 4> ch, j£ kh) plus 4J tsh.
1

Undotted ^ palatalizes the preceding consonant, e.g. ^1 apyr J

[op or].

Urdu
table 62.6 presents the Urdu script (Bright and Khan 1958).
(a) Since Urdu script is adapted from that of Persian (rather than directly from
Arabic), many features of Persian script and pronunciation, as described above, also
apply to Urdu.
(b) The retroflex phonemes use a small superscript J? (or 2-4 dots as variations)
modifying the closest non-retroflex counterpart: <1> t, 5 d, and j r. There are also three
aspirated retroflexes 4^ th, a 5 dh, and *j rh. The latter two are allophones, however
(Nairn 1971: 134).
(c) Aspiration is marked with digraphs of the consonant and h, listed on page 746
(see Nairn 1971: 132, and for criticisms of Nairn's account, Daniels 1992, n. 25).

(d) All the nasalized vowels, which are phonemic, are written with j, undotted n,

finally. Elsewhere, they are written as j n, e.g. L>ujl awnca [utfa] 'tall, high'.

(e) In words of Arabic origin, etymological 1 1 is sometimes replaced by O t.

(0 Final e is generally written ^, e.g. ^j} like [lorke] 'boy(s)'. Final i is ^, e.g.

^/r^llotki]'girr.
 SECTION 62: ADAPTATIONS OF ARABIC SCRIPT 753

TABLE 62.5: The Kashmiri Alphabet

LC LC
Tronsli t. Value Isolated Final Initial Medial Translit. Value Isolated Final Initial Medial

b [b] ^J U* j * k [k] J 4 $ $.

P [p] cJ C* j
£ g [g] J ^ t i.

t [t] O C* j * 1 [l] J J J 1

t
ffl O C* j ate m [m]
r r
<o A
s [s] O C-. J * n [n]
o c>
j h

- -
J [<U
£ £
> ^ V [w] j J-

c [tf] > PL h [h] a &. 4. A 4

2 &
h [h]
c C
> ^ y ffl d c j -

kh [k
h
> ^.
a [a]
1 - 1 -
]
c C
d [d] : A. - - a [a:]
1 1 1 t

d M 3 i - - a M i
1 1 -

z [z] 3 A - - a [3:] 1 t i t
[i:]
r [r] i 1 1

j J 1

r
— — I [1] j
J c*

z [z] - - u' [«]

j J 1
r
1

7
ts [ts]
— u' [i]
i

j
1

j > >
u [m] 1 i
s [s] *A

u [u] ji
If
ji
s [J]
J~ *N -1 i J
J"
s [s]
^ U* ~0 -a [0:]
ji 3 ji 3
[0] ji
z [z]
J* J* J? ~-2 ji J 1
j

t [t] ±> Ja y k [o]

ji s*
ji -3

z [z] J> Ji b Ji M w V,
- -

e [e]
<
P,0] £ A ^ c.
31 j.
^
t £
e [e:]
gh [g] £. A <J c ,1
6«
I e
h
y
J
-
f [f, P ] ui UA i i.
[ ]

cj LS rf»*

q M J J i A
754 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 62.6: The UrduAbjad

LC Transliteration Transcription Isolated Final Initial Medial

- ic_ [a] ;[9] I I

- -
b [b] u c* j -.

P lp] ^ ImA j Mta

t [t] O C-. j £
t It) <^» <Ju j hi

s [s] O C* j £
J [*]
£ £ > ^
c m E £ > >t

h [h] > ^.
C C
kh [x] > ^t
c e
d [d] : A - -
d i - -
M] 5

z [z] i i - -
r [r] - -
j J
r M - -
J J
z [z] - -
j J
zh - -
[3] j J
s [s]
a* lT- 4Ji ~»

sh [J] -4 -1
L^ lT-
s [s]
L^ U* ~& U
z [z]
C^ J* J? Ja
.t [t] J> J* J> I2

z [z] J* J* £ li
<
/c_ [a] [0, V, 3] £ A
,

t £
gh IyJ i. A
I e
f [f] <J LA i i

q [q] 3 J i i
k [k] J 4 5-
£
g [Qj J £ t £
1 [1] J J J Jl

m [m]
r
^ a
r
n [n]; nasalization j j i
i>
n nasalization j j *
u-
V [v, u u 0, ow] - -
,
3 j-

h /_# a]; [h, 0| 6 4. A 4

t [t] (Arabic feminine) I i - -

y [j,i, e, E]
J L*
j
*
 SECTION 62: ADAPTATIONS OF ARABIC SCRIPT 755

(g) There are many irregularities (see Barry 1991: 204-8), including: ( 1 ) in some
words of Arabic origin, a final ^v is pronounced [a]; (2) [a] is sometimes omitted in

writing; (3) final a h is often not pronounced.

(j) The two variants of medial h used in Arabic have been assigned different func-
tions in Urdu. As seen above, the "eyeglass" shape of h 4 marks the aspirated conso-

nants (and is used in final position as well); whereas the pointed shape r represents
consonantal h (with the Arabic-style final form *). Typical of handwriting is an alter-

native initial form of h: j, thus jL^jJifc or jLl^jJCJ hndwstan [hindustain] 'India'.

Sample of Urdu

y'abml yk sa .eh klm arb kya ak ayshya ybvnj natsvdnh<—

gbh gl kt nrvmk pyk nym bvnj rkyl es rymshk nym lamsh

rp nj nyh rahp hylmh nym lamsh ek klm .eh lym razh vd

nyh ytlkn naydn es thb es nvrahp na .eh ythr frb rbh las

.nyh ythb nym nadym ylamsh rwa

/. Transliteration: hndvstan jnvby ayshya ka ayk bra mlk hy. *s

2. Normalization: Hindustan janQbl Eshia ka ek bara mulk hai. us

3. Transcription: hindustan dpnubi ejja ka ek bsra mulk he us

4. Gloss: India southern Asia of one big country is it

/. ky lmba'y shm'l myn kshmyr sy lykr jnvb myn kyp

2. ki lamba'i shimal me Kashmir se lekar janQb me Kep
3. ki tombai Jimal me kajmir se lekar o^snub me kep
4. of length north in Kashmir from starting south in Cape

7. kmvrn tk lg bhg dv hz'r myl hy mlk ky shm'l myn

2. Kamorin tak lag bhag do hazar mil haimulk ki shimal me
3. kamorin tsk tog b 3g
h
do hazar mil he mulk ki Jimal me
4. Comorin up.to approx. two thousand mile is country of north in

7. hmlyh prTr hyn jn pr s'l bhr brf rhty hy. m

2. himaliya pahar he jin par sal bhar barf rahtl hai. un
h
3. himalija pahar. he cfem par sal b 3r barf rshti he un
4. Himalaya Mountain are which on year full snow stay is those
756 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

/. pharvn sy bht sy ndyan nklty hyn awr shmly

2. paharo se bahut si nadiya nikaltl he awr shimali
3. paharo se bshot si nsdija nikslti he or Jimali
4. mountains from many INTENS rivers emerge are and northern

/. myd'n myn bhty hyn.

2. medan me bahtl he.

3. medan me bshti he
4. plains in flow are

'India is a large country of South Asia. Its length from Kashmir in the north to
Cape Comorin in the south is approximately two thousand miles. In the north of
the country are the Himalaya Mountains on which snow stays year round.
Many, many rivers emerge from those mountains and flow in the northern

plains.' —From Gumperz and Nairn i960: 123.

Sindhi

table 62.7 presents the Sindhi abjad, which has created new letters using the basic
Arabic shapes plus diacritics for its aspirated and implosive series — fifteen of them
(Yegorova 1971, Barry 1991: 168-69, Nairn 1971: 128-30).

Ottoman Turkish
table 62.8 presents the Ottoman Turkish script (Nemeth 1962: 28-32); the IPA tran-

scription is based on a probable older pronunciation of the language.

(a) Features (a-g) under Persian also apply for Ottoman Turkish.
(b) The o g and J> h are, more often than not, written without the upper stroke
and three dots, respectively.
(c) The letters for Arabic emphatic consonants are associated with back vowels,
and the corresponding plain letters with front vowels: ^ s, 1? t,
Jq versus ^i,uf,
Jk.
(d) Arabic and Persian loanwords are almost always spelled as they were spelled
in those languages. There are, thus, from the Turkish point of view, many irregulari-

ties and inconsistencies (underlined romanizations used here are modern orthogra-
phy): Uilj is vakia 'in fact', j£J is lakin 'but', aJuu is badehu 'thereafter'; however,
iLjco is [muitat] 'customary' = mutad. Some Turkish pronunciations of the loan-
words point to colloquial Arabic as the donor rather than Classical Arabic; however,
the words are spelled in Classical fashion (e.g. sahra 'desert' written * \j*~& shra \

sometimes without the hamza). A word such as siret 'moral character' can be spelled
O^— (< Persian) or lj~* (< Arabic) syrt; however, note u*> ceji [o^ep] 'pocket' for
Arabic c^> gyb [o^ajb], \JLsfqra for Arabic * lyii [fuqara:?] 'poor people', or jly
Kur'an 'Qur'an' for Arabic jly [qur?a:nl.

,
 SECTION 62: ADAPTATIONS OF ARABIC SCRIPT 757

TABLE 62.7: The Sindl [/ Abjad

LC LC
Translit. Value Isolated Final Initial Medial Translit. Value Isolated Final Initial Medial
- /C_[« 1] I
- - z [z] - -
1

j j
b [b] cj u j - s [s]
L^ U" Ml M
b [6] sh [J] -1
Of <4 i f L^ J" •Ml

h
bh [b ]
^ a
j
8
s [s]
C^ u* -<£? ~-2

t [t] C* J * z [z]
c^ J* ^ Ja
th [t
h
]
s
Ua n
J
a
t [t] i Jt t k
t
IB U j 1 z [z] J> Ja £ k
'
th [f] CJ L* J
t
[0] X- A
I £
s M La j * gh [y]
i e
i. A
P [p] <--> (fe*4 J * f [f] «J ul i i

J m E £.
> zy ph [p
h
]
n 8
2

J m E £ >1 t
q [k]
J J i I
Jh wi ** ** 4> ** k [k] ^ ^ ^ S
n w £ £ > 9y kh [k
h
] jf j; 5-
^
c [ffl
E £ > *y g [g] J J. r ^
ch [tT]
E £ > Jgfc g [<f] ^ 4 ? ^
h [h]
C C > X. gh [g"J 4 ^ <* ^
kh [x]
c e > &. h M Z ^ r S.

d - - m J
[d] i JL 1
J j l

dh [d
h
] 3 1 - - m [m] JS a
r r
d [rf] i 1 - - n [n] J *
i>

d w i JL
- - n CnJ 6 L>
J i
dh [41 - - V [v, u, 0] - -
5 4 j >
z [z] i - - h [hj
3 6 '4 6 A>
4
r [r] - - y [j, i, e] j *
j j- .
(£ LS
r W n - -
J v

(e) There are variations in vowels, as [o] could be spelled either plene or not; e.g.

ordu 'army' is jijl ardw or jijjl awrdw, and t/orr 'four' is Ojji t/uvY or Oji drt.
There is also variation in [y], e.g. ^1 ^yyljA 'ayw [ajy] (= Modern Turkish axi )
'bear', kara 'black' can be spelled ly qralijKk qarhlbjS qrh. The word Cw«jl> //c//;//

'service' was pronounced hizmet (originally, a graphic error for i dl). The [e] in ^?
drbh darbe [darbe] 'stroke' is indicative of a loanword from colloquial Arabic darbe.
758 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 62.8: The Ottoman Turkish Abjad

a
LC Transliteratior Transcription Isolated Final Initial Medial
- [a,0] sometimes [0, e] I I
- -

b [b,p] ^ u* j
£

P [p] ^J C-* j Mi

t [t] O C* j Jb

s [s] O C* j £
c 1<M1 > ^.
E £
5 m E £ > •

h [h] > >u

C £
h [h] > i*.
E e
d [d,t] i JL
- -

z [z] i JL
- -

r [r] - -
j J
z [zj - -
J j
- _
J [5] j J
s [s]
a* O" •Ml **

§ [J]
L^ J" +JJ MM

s [s]
u* u* ,-£? -*
z [z,d] Jo J* .M? Ja
t [t,d] J» J» h k
z [z] J> Ji S> *
'
[0,a] £. A
t £
g [y,g, k, h] i A
t t
f [f] <J ui i A
k [k]
J J i

k [k,j] J -
d if £
g [g,k] Lf ^ t 1
n [p] dJ & - £
1
HI J J J 1

m [m] «o A
r r
n fn] *
j o-
J

V [v,0, U, LU, y, 0, oe]

-
,
j j-

h [h,a, i , e], Arab. fern, [t] 6, 6 JL, 4. > *

y IK i, y> e, ej, a, u, UI] J L5 j -

a. These are the letters used in contemporary orthography (cf. table 59.23 on page 683), except that g is

more or less the equivalent of t.

 SECTION 62: ADAPTATIONS OF ARABIC SCRIPT 759

Sample of Ottoman Turkish

L*
§mya rdya rk§ mh rara mh §mtya 'yaz ynbkrm hcavh<—

rga .mrvyydya rk§ hmgydmnlwb hdnrzva .rl§mrvs yrk§t bbs

§myd mdrvlva b'ag

M
rbarb hd nb mdyanvlvb

Transliteration: hvach mrkbny zay aytm§ hm 'arar

Mod. Turkish: Hoca merkebini zayi etmis, hem arar
Transcription: hocb^'a merkebi'ni zaji et'mij 'hem a'rar
Gloss: teacher his. donkey lost he. made both searching.for

hm §kr aydr aym§ sbb t§kry svrm§lr.

hem §ukr eder imis, sebebi te§ekkiiru sormusjar.
'hem Jykr eder I'miJ se'bebi tejekiyry sormuj-'lar
and thanks he. made PAST the. cause. of thanks asked-they

avzrndh bwlnmdygmh §kr aydyyvrm. agr

uzerinde bulunmadigima s,ukr ediyorum. eger
yzer-inde bulunmadiuyui'ma Jykr edi'jorum e:'er

it-on my.because.of.not.being thanks I. am. making if

bvlvnaydm bn dh brabr ga *b avlvrdm dym§

bulunaydim ben de beraber kayip olurdum demi§
bulu'najduim ben de bera'ber 'kajiup o'lurdum de'mij
I.had.been I also together lost would. have.been he. replied

The teacher lost his donkey. He was both searching for it and was expressing
his thanks. They asked the cause of being grateful. "Because of my not being on
it, I am expressing my thanks. If I had been (on it), I, too, together (with it)

would have been lost," he replied.' —From Nemeth ig66: 18-ig.

Uyghur
table 62.9 presents the Uyghur alphabet (Hahn 1991: 97). Uyghur is exceptional
among Islamic languages in not preserving the Arabic spelling of Arabic loanwords.

Malay
table 62.10 presents the Malay script (Lewis 1958), now largely replaced by the
Roman alphabet. Malay represented the common Austronesian morphological fea-
ture of reduplication with a raised numeral 2:
r
jj& ngry [nsgsri-nsgari] 'countries'.
Arabic loanwords could receive pronunciation-spellings (Nairn 197 1 : 137-39).
 ]

760 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

table 62.9: The Uyghur Alphabet

LC Transliteration Transcription Isolated Final Initial Medial

[a] I I

[3] 6 A,

b [b]

P [Pi

t [t]

> ^
J [<fe]
E e
ch [tf] > ^
E &
kh [x] > ^C
C c
d [d] i A - -

r [r] - "
j -r

z [z] -
J i
zh - ~
[3] J J
s [s]
cr" lT- •wu Mh

sh [J]
c^ jt «Mf M4

gh [y]

f [f]

q [q] (J L* A A
k [k] J 4 $ £
g [g] J= Jl t 1
ng [0, n] di di t £
1 [1] J J J 1

m [m] ja ^
r r
n [n]
j j *
i>

h [h] ^ . 4 Jb
4
o [o] - -

u [u] "
j j-

6 - -
[0] j i
fy]
- -
j j-

v [v] - -
J
e [ej
* <* i T
i
HI L*
j -
ci?

y Ul j <J?
j
*
>

la 1 la
 SECTION 62: ADAPTATIONS OF ARABIC SCRIPT 75 J

table 62.10: The Malay (or Jawi) Abjad

Transliteration Transcription Isolated Final Initial Medial

- [0] I I
- -

b [b] u j -.

t [t] Cj <JU j £
th [s] O C* j

[*] > >.

J
g £
ch M E e
>
h [h] > S*.
C c
kh [x, k] > *.
I c
d [d] i A - ~

dz [dz] i JL
- -

r [r]
- -
J -r

z [z,(%] - -
J i
s [s]
U" U~ *A M
sh [J, s] <u
J« U^ J2t

s [s]
^ c^ ~& U
d [z,*] J* J* *jp Ja

t [t] J» Ja h k
z [z] Jj Ja b k
<

[0] £ A
t £
gh [Y.r] i A
I 6
ng [i]] £- A
I 6
f [f,p] iJ ui i A
a
P [p] »Jl J A

k [k] J J i i

k M J dl
5-
£
g [g] ^ s. IT £
1 [1] J J J 1

m [m]
r r
^> *
n [n] J -
j i>

w [w] - -
j j-

h [h] 6 4. a 4
la [la] ? * - -

>
c c - *
[0]

y LJ] C?
j -
S*

ny [p] J 0- j
?
762 PART X: USE AND ADAPTATION OF SCRIPTS

Bibliography

Barry, Randall K., comp. 1 99 1 . ALA-LC Romanization Tables: Transliteration Schemes for Non-
Roman Scripts. Washington, D.C.: Library of Congress.
Bright, William, and Saeed A. Khan. 1958. The Urdu Writing System. Washington, D.C.: American
Council of Learned Societies. Repr. Ithaca, N.Y.: Spoken Language Services, 1976.
Daniels, Peter T. 1992. "The Protean Arabic Abjad." Paper presented at North American Conference
on Afroasiatic Linguistics, Cambridge, Mass. To appear in Humanism, Culture, and Language
in theNear East: Studies in Honor ofGeorg Krotkoff, ed. A. Afsaruddin, M. Zahnisser, and K.
Stowasser. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.
Diringer, David. 1968. The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind, 3rd ed. 2 vols. London:
Hutchinson.
Gumperz, John J., and C. Mohammed Nairn, i960. Urdu Reader. Berkeley, Calif.: Center for South
Asian Studies.
Hahn, Reinhard F. 1991. Spoken Uyghur. Seattle: University of Washington Press.
Lewis, M. B. 1958. A Handbook of the Malay Script. London: Macmillan.
MacKenzie, D. N. 1987. "Pashto." In The World's Major Languages, ed. Bernard Comrie, pp. 547-
65. London: Croom Helm.
Maw, Joan. 1981. "Arabic and Roman Writing Systems for Swahili." In Towards a History of Pho-
netics: Papers Contributed in Honour of David Abe rcrombie, ed. R. E. Asher and Eugenie J. A.
Henderson, pp. 225-47. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.
McCarus, Ernest N. 1958. A Kurdish Grammar: Descriptive Analysis of the Kurdish of Sulaimaniya,
Iraq (Program in Oriental Languages, Series B, Aids 10). New York: American Council of
Learned Societies.
Munthe, Ludwig. 1987. "The Arab Influence on Madagascar." In Religion, Development and Afri-
can Identity (Seminar Proceedings 17), ed. Kirsten Hoist Pertersen, pp. 103-10. Uppsala:
Scandinavian Institute of African Studies.
Nairn, C. Mohammed. 1971. "Arabic Orthography and Some Non-Semitic Languages." In Islam
and Its Cultural Divergence: Studies in Honor ofGustave E. von Grunebaum, ed. Girdhari L.

Tikku, pp. 1 13-44. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.

Nemeth, J. Grammar (Publications in Near and Middle East Studies, Series B 1),
1962. Turkish
trans. T. Halasi-kun. The Hague: Mouton.
— 1966. Turkish Reader for Beginners (Publications in Near and Middle East Studies, Series
.

B 2), trans. T. Halasi-kun. The Hague: Mouton.

Paper, Herbert H., and Mohammed Ali Jazayery. 1955. The Writing System of Modern Persian.
Washington, D.C.: American Council of Learned Societies. Repr. Ithaca, N.Y.: Spoken Lan-
guage Services, 1976.
Penzl, Herbert. 1962. A Reader of Pashto. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Tajvidi, Mohammed, ed. 1963. Rubaiyyat of Omar Khayyam, 2nd ed. Tehran: Amir-Kabir. The
Rubaiydt of Omar Khayyam, Comprising the Metrical Translations by Edward Fitzgerald & E.
H. Whinfield and the Prose Version of Justin Huntly McCarthy: with an Appendix Showing the
Variations in the First Three Editions of Fitz.Gcrald's Rendering, ed. with an introduction by
Jessie B. Rittenhouse. Boston: Little, Brown, 1900.
Wexler, Paul. 1971. Review of Belorusskie teksty. pisannye arabskim pis' mom. i ix grafiko-

orfografideskaja sistema, by A. K. Antonovic. General Linguistics 1 1: 43-53.

Yegorova, R. P. 1971. The Sindhi Language, trans. E. H. Tsipan. Moscow: Nauka.
Zaxarin, B. A., and D. I. Edelman. 197 1 . Jaz.yk kashmiri {The Kashmiri language]. Moscow: Nauka.
 Part XI: Sociolinguistics
and Scripts

Linguists, social anthropologists, and sociologists have long recognized

that a special relation exists between language and Language provides its
society.
speakers with the terminology and the communicative machinery which allow social
life as we know it to exist. Through language, we learn social traditions from the gen-
erations that have preceded us. In turn, society provides the mechanisms that permit
the transmission of language; the development of language as a tool and its change
over time are both mediated by social structures. The importance of areas of study la-

beled "sociology of language" or "language in society" is well established.

Since the 1960s, however, an interdisciplinary field called "sociolinguistics" has
come to the fore, in which contemporary modes of analysis, both of language and of
society, have been brought to bear. The focus has been on the importance of linguistic
diversity: the types of variation in linguistic behavior that are related to the social
identity of the "sender" (in oral communication, the speaker), or the social identity of
the "receiver" (or hearer), or the social situation in which communication occurs. Ex-
amples of such phenomena are the differences between the speech of upper-class vs.

lower-class speakers, the differences between polite and non-polite language, and the
linguistic differences between a formal situation (such as that of a business letter) and
a non-formal situation (as in letters among friends). In bilingual or multilingual soci-

eties —say Quebec or Belgium or India — the choice may be not between two varieties
of a single language, but between two different languages. In all such cases, linguistic
and social factors are in constant interaction; e.g., in communication between two
strangers, choice of language or style serves to set up a social relationship, but is itself

simultaneously determined by that evolving relationship. If the communication oc-

curs in Montreal or Brussels or Delhi, the choice of language may not only have in-
terpersonal importance, but be politically significant as well.
Pioneering research in sociolinguistics tended to focus in particular on spoken
usage. However, it is clear that variation involving written language is equally impor-
tant. In some parts of the world, formal and informal speech are conducted in lan-

763
764 PART XI: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

guage variants so different that they are not mutually intelligible; such a situation of
"diglossia" exists, for example, in the Arab world, where the language of formal ad-

dress or of religious worship is relatively uniform over a large geographic area, but is

not intelligible in terms of the many regional dialects used for informal conversation.
But formal spoken Arabic is closely linked to "Classical" written Arabic — for which
the Qur'an, a written document, is the ultimate standard.
The development of sociolinguistics in recent years has been increasingly fo-
cused on the social role of written language as compared to spoken language; on the
mutual influence of written and spoken language; on the social values associated with
internal variation within specific written languages, or with the choice among them;
on the relationships of literacy (or its absence) to psychological, cultural, and social
phenomena; and on the nature of the confrontation between literate and non-literate
societies which has been going on through history and seems likely to continue into

the indefinite future. Discussion of all these topics could fill another book at least as

large as the present one. In this book, however, we merely offer some case studies
dealing specifically with sociolinguistic choices among competing scripts. We hope
to make the reader aware that the choices people make when they put language into
written form — in effect, the choices represented by the writing systems described
elsewhere in this volume — are not purely linguistic ones. They involve questions of
social interaction; they are complex; they often involve controversy, and sometimes
conflict.
— William Bright
SECTION 63

Germany: Script and Politics

Gerhard Augst

While the humanist minuscule script was spreading throughout Europe in the six-
teenth century, Fraktur writing was developed in the German-speaking countries,
emerging as a modification of Textura, an angular script. From the sixteenth to the
twentieth centuries, then, there were two forms of writing in Germany. This Fraktur
script, together with the handwritten "Kurrent" script, is typically called "German
script" — in contrast to Antiqua, whose printed and handwritten form is also called the
Latin script.
There is no difference in orthography between Fraktur and Antiqua; see
table 63.1. Lower-case s in Fraktur distinguishes the long s (f) and syllable-final s

(5). Another noticeable difference in Fraktur is number of ligatures (characters con-

a
taining two letters united, e.g. ft st, d) ch, d ck, § tz). A new character, ft, was developed
from the ligature combining long s f with 3 z. This character was also adopted in the
Latin script as^L
The cooccurrence of two forms of writing assumed the following distribution: all
foreign texts and foreign quotes, and often even foreign words and names, were writ-
ten in Antiqua. In the Baroque period, German poetic works were published in Frak-

tur, while technical and scientific publications more often appeared in Antiqua. By the
eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, Fraktur had become the normal writing system
employed in printing; Antiqua represented a divergent form, being associated with at-

tributes such as "international," "educated," "cosmopolitan," and "scientific."

The writing system of the German language is also characterized by a second pe-
culiarity. The capitalization of proper names, which is found in all European languag-

table 63.1: Latin Script, Fraktur Script, and Kurrent Script

A 21 a a * 3 J ; Q Q / Y
% y*»
I i
q

B £g 4 R Z
C
93

d
b

c jT *
J

K
3
8
1

it S
r

A
3
n

D V b i# S L fi 1 & / T t 7 / O 6

E <£ c g n M aic U u u 2i +p u u

F S f
S/ N SR n 0£ ** V 93 d 2° <o 6 ft

G (5 g ?# O Cf *<r w 9B w 3<? tiO tz li

H 6 * ¥/ P <P p ?p X 3E

765
766 PART XI: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

es, was extended in the sixteenth century to include all nouns. By the eighteenth
century this process was complete, and capitalizing nouns became the norm, as ex-
emplified by its codification in grammars such as Gottsched's (1762).
There is no satisfactory explanation of why writing in the German-speaking areas
developed in this particular way. The most plausible answer lies in the influence of
Protestantism: For instance, the retention of Fraktur also persisted longer in the Scan-
dinavian countries of Norway, Sweden, and Denmark —countries also strongly influ-
enced by Lutheranism and Luther's Bible. This also pertains to the adoption and
retention of capitalizing the first letter of nouns, which also experienced a great im-
petus through Luther's translation of the Bible. Fraktur has noticeably large majus-
cules, and it is possible —although research has not yet confirmed this — that the

practice of capitalizing the first letter of nouns and the retention of this orthographic
peculiarity in the German-speaking areas, as well as in the Scandinavian countries, is

closely linked to the retention of Fraktur.

Throughout the centuries there have been many attempts on the part of scholars
and other leading figures to put an end to these exceptional developments in the Ger-
man-speaking countries. Fraktur was ultimately discarded, but the capitalization of
nouns was retained. Seen in the larger context of German intellectual history, howev-
er, the fight for the retention of Fraktur and the capitalization of nouns are both inte-
grally linked with the fight to rid the German language of foreign words. The
following aspects are relevant: In the nineteenth century Fraktur became increasingly
associated with German national pride. The fight to keep Fraktur and to continue cap-

italizing nouns, as well as the fight to rid the language of foreign words, were all part

of this era. Friedrich Soennecken's Verein fur Altschrift 'Association for Antiqua
Script', an organization created in 1886 and devoted to the abolition of Fraktur, was
countered by Adolf Reinecke, who founded the Allgemeiner Deutscher Schriftverein
'General German Writing Association' in 1890; its name was changed in 19 18 to
Bund fur Deutsche Schrift und Sprache 'Association for German Writing and Lan-
guage'. Initially, those supporting the retention of Fraktur had the upper hand. In
1 9 1German Reichstag voted 75% in favor of this writing.
1 the
In Nazi Germany, Fraktur became the graphic symbol of a nationalistic move-

ment, and the number of books printed in Fraktur increased tremendously (42% in
1932, 60% in 1936). In the schools, only German writing (Fraktur and Kurrent) was
taught, and rune-like variations of Fraktur were created, having highly emotionalized
national-socialist names like Tannenberg, Potsdam, National. A radical change oc-
curred in March 1940, however, when Joseph Goebbels ordered that all propaganda
material to appear abroad be published in Antiqua "normal" writing. On January 3,

1 94 1 , the use of German

was prohibited nationwide on the tactical but incor-
writing
rect grounds that it was a Schwabacher Judenletter 'Schwabacher Jewish script'. The

motive here is clear: Fraktur was illegible in those countries conquered by the Nazis.
The emotional fight between Antiqua and Fraktur was thus abruptly halted, and the
450-year period of coexistence came to an end. Since 1 945 Fraktur has not been
 SECTION 63: GERMANY: SCRIPT AND POLITICS JftJ

taught in schools. Today the handwritten form (Kurrent) is practically unknown, and
printed Fraktur serves as a marked form used for special occasions (advertisements,
certificates, etc.). It is now associated with attributes such as "ornamental," "old,"
"traditional," and "conservative," as well as with German national pride. It is also
closely tied to the memory of the Third Reich. Because of this stigma, an organization
supporting the reintroduction of Fraktur is not likely to enjoy any success.
The capitalization of nouns was attacked most decisively in the nineteenth cen-

tury by historical linguists, above all by Jakob Grimm. However, at Orthographic

Conferences held at Berlin in 1876 and 1901, pragmatically minded participants
were able to push their ideas through. German orthography became official and thus
binding in all German states, in spite of the fact that no sweeping reform had been
accomplished. Subsequent to these conferences there were again many proposals
calling for the abolition of noun capitalization. Such proposals came mainly from
printers and teachers, who felt that the rules were too complex. All proposals present-
ed, for example 1954 and Wiesbaden in 1959, ultimately failed be-
at Stuttgart in

cause of conservative politicians supported by conservative circles in German society.

Even the latest proposal (1992), calling for an international study group with repre-
sentatives from all German-speaking countries, has been rejected by the governments
of Germany, Austria, and Switzerland.

Sample Text
/. Fraktur: Weben ber latehufcfjen 9Iusgangsftf)rtft farm man f iir bie
2. Transliteration: Neben der lateinischen Ausgangsschrift kann man fiir die

3d)retbung ber beutfdjen 3prad)e aud) bte fogenannte beut)a> 3cl)rift

Schreibung der deutschen Sprache auch die sogenannte deutsche Schrift

certoenben.Unter btefen Uberbegrtff roerben bie bret ©attungen gebrodjenet

verwenden. Unter diesen Uberbegriff werden die drei Gattungen gebrochener

£rudftf)rift = (Sotifd), 3d)mabad)er unb grattur = fotnte bte beutfd)en fpt^cn

Druckschrift - Gotisch, Schwabacher und Fraktur - sowie die deutschen spitzen

3d)retbid)riften 3ufammengefafet. 23is in ben 3tnetten SBeltfrteg binein uuube eiu

Schreibschriften zusammengefaBt. Bis in den Zweiten Weltkrieg hinein wurde ein

©roBtetl bes beutfefjen 3d)rtfttums in btefen 3d)rtften gebrucft bod) [tub r

fie ab
GroBteil des deutschen Schrifttums in diesen Schriften gedruckt, doch sind sie ab

1941 auf s
-8efef)l §ttler5 allmarjlid) uort t^rcm alten ^Ia^ oerbramit
s
unb burd) bie

1 94 1 auf Befehl Hitlers allmahlich von ihrem alten Platz verdrangt und durch die

Iatetnt)d)e 3d)rtft erfe^t worben.

lateinische Schrift ersetzt worden.
768 PART X1: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

'Besides the Latin script, what is called "Deutsche Schrift" can also be used to
write German. This cover term refers to three types of broken-line printed
scripts: Gothic, Schwabacher, and Fraktur, and also includes German angular

handwriting. Until World War II, most published material appearing in Ger-
many was printed in these scripts. Beginning in 1941, though, they were gradu-
ally displaced, on Hitler's orders, by the Latin script.'
— Poschenrieder and Stang 1993: 91.

Bibliography

Augst, Gerhard. 1983. "Spelling-Reform in Germany and its Implications in German-Speaking

Countries: A Historical Overview and Some Recent Trends.""' Folia Linguistica 4: 81-99.
Gottsched, Johann Christoph. 1762. Vollstandigere und neuerlauterte deutsche Sprachkunst
Leipzig: Breitkopf.
Heiderhoff. Horst. 197 1 . Antiqua oder Fraktur? Zur Problemgeschichte eines Streits. Frankfurt am
Main: Polygraph.
Intcrnationaler Arbeitskreis. 1992. Deutsche Rechtschreibung: Vorschlage :.u Hirer Neuregelung.
Tubingen: Narr.
Poschenrieder, Thorwald, and Christian Stang. 1993. Gutachten zu ausgewahlten des Rechtschreib-
Erneuerungsentwurfes. Hannover: Bund fur deutsche Schrift.
Reunecke. Hans Otto. 1988. "Zur Geschichte der Schwabacher." Die deutsche Schrift: Vierteljahrs-
schrift zur Forderung von Gotisch, Schwabacher, Fraktur 55: 2-14.
Stiebner, Erhardt. and Leonard Walter. 1980. Bruckmann's Handbuch der Schrift. 2nd ed. Munich:
Bruckmann.
Strunk, Hiltraud. 1992. Stuttgarter und Wiesbadener Empfehlungen: Entstehungs geschichte und
politisch-institutionelle Innenansichten gescheiterter Reformversuche von 1950 bis 1965.
Frankfurt: Lang.
SECTION 64

Serbo-Croatian:
A Biscriptal Language
Laurie Beth Feldman and Dragana Barac-Cikoja

Linguistic conditions in several regions of the former Yugoslavia (Republics of Bos-

nia-Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and Serbia) provide an interesting example of
two writing systems in concurrent use. Until recently, the Roman and Cyrillic alpha-
bets were used interchangeably and fluently by most skilled readers to write Serbo-
Croatian, the official language. In fact, according to the educational policy in effect
until the republics separated, all school children were required to demonstrate and
maintain proficiency in "both alphabets by varying the script in which they wrote
classroom exercises. In most cases the alphabets were interchangeable, although they
were seldom mixed within one text. Convention dictated that, in a Cyrillic document,
names of Western authors were transliterated into Cyrillic, and the original spelling
in Roman was optionally added in brackets; however, in Roman documents, names

were preserved in their original spelling. Although official policy as laid out by the
Novosadski Dogovor 'Novi Sad agreement' of 1954 held the scripts to be equivalent
(Pravopis srpskohrvatskog jezika 1970), some regional differences were evident. In
the eastern (Serbian) region, Cyrillic predominated. In the western (Croatian) region,
Roman predominated. Alphabetic preference reflected the influence of the Slavic Or-
thodox church in the east, and of the Catholic Church in the west. Government policy
was sensitive to regional differences; thus the order in which the alphabets were
taught in the first and second grades of school, as well as the script used for official

documents, street signs, and daily publications, varied by region. Reinterpreted in

terms of the current political situation, alphabet use in the former Yugoslavia was tied
to national identities and religion. With evolving nationalism, the process of institu-

tionalizing regional tendencies has emerged; and as tolerance between ethnic groups
deteriorates, the association between alphabet and ethnic group is exaggerated. For
example, Cyrillic has been eliminated from schools in Croatia (except in regions

where Serbs predominate), and the use of Roman script in Serbia is diminishing.
The Cyrillic script is an adaptation of the Greek uncial alphabet of the ninth cen-
tury c.e., and the Roman script is a variation of the Latin alphabet. In both cases, the

scripts had to be modified to represent sounds not present in the original language (see
sections 59 and 60). The orders of letters in the Cyrillic and Roman alphabets are
not identical (see table 64.1) and reflect their respective origins.

769
770 PART XI: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

In both Croatia and Serbia, the writing system was reformed in the Pan-Slav
movement of the nineteenth century so that the mapping of letter to sound is consis-
tent and regular. However, many dialect variations are represented in script, so that

spelling as well as pronunciation varies across regions. For example, the word for
'milk' is written mleko in the dialects spoken near Belgrade (Serbia), but mlijeko in
those near Split (Croatia). Accent (rising/falling, long/short) is not captured in writ-
ing, even though it can differentiate two semantic interpretations of a letter string. For
example, luka can mean 'port' with a long rising accent (luka), 'onion' with a short
falling accent (luka), or be a personal name with a long falling accent (Luka). This
means that Serbo-Croatian is a semi-tonal language (Lehiste 1970). Nevertheless,
Serbo-Croatian is frequently cited in the psycholinguistic literature as an example of
a "shallow" orthography, one which tends to maintain a consistent and simple map-
ping between letter and phoneme. But in some respects it is morphophonemic; e.g.,

the first D in predsednik 'president' is unvoiced to A/.

Although most letters of the Roman and Cyrillic alphabets are unique to one al-

phabet or the other, a subset is shared by the two alphabets. Of the shared characters,
the common letters (A, E, J, K, M, O, T) receive the same phonemic interpretation in
both alphabets, whereas the ambiguous letters (B, C, H, P) represent different pho-
nemes in Cyrillic and in Roman (see table 64. 1 and figure 68). Comparisons be-
tween isolated words composed exclusively of shared letters (i.e. words with two
phonemic interpretations) and words that include at least one non-shared letter (i.e.

alphabetically unique words) provide the basis for studies of phonological processing
in reading (Feldman and Turvey 1983; Turvey, Feldman, and Lukatela 1984). For ex-
ample, CAMOBAP is bivalent because, by treating it as Cyrillic, it can be read as
/samovar/ 'samovar', and by treating it as Roman it is /tsamobap/, which has no

Ambiguous'

figure 68. Letters unique to the Roman and/or Cyrillic alphabets and letters shared by the two.
Shared letters with a single phonemic interpretation are classified as common; shared letters with
two phonemic interpretations are ambiguous.
 SECTION 64: SERBO-CROATIAN: A BISCRIPTAL LANGUAGE 77 J

table 64. 1 Letters Unique to the Roman and/or Cyrillic Alphabets

:

and Letters Shared by the Roman and Cyrillic Alphabets

Roman Roman Cyrillic Cyrillic Cyrillic Roman

letter phoneme phoneme '
Classification letter phoneme phoneme Classification

A a a common A a a common
B b V ambiguous B b Cyrillic

C ts s ambiguous B V b ambiguous
C tf Roman r g Cyrillic

C tf
j
Roman H d Cyrillic

D d Roman To * J
Cyrillic

D # Roman E e e common
Dz * Roman >K 3 Cyrillic

E e e common 3 z Cyrillic

F f Roman H i Cyrillic

G g Roman J J J
common
H h n ambiguous K k k common
I i i v common JI 1 Cyrillic

J J J
common JB U Cyrillic

K k k common M m m common
L 1 Roman H n h ambiguous
Lj U Roman JB nj Cyrillic

M m m common common
N n Roman n P Cyrillic

Nj nj Roman p r P ambiguous
O common c s ts ambiguous
P P r ambiguous T t t common
R r Roman Ti tf' Cyrillic

S s Roman y u Cyrillic

s J Roman o f Cyrillic

T t Roman X h Cyrillic

U u Roman n ts Cyrillic

V V Roman H tf Cyrillic

z z Roman u <*5 Cyrillic

z 3 Roman IU J Cyrillic

a. Shared letters with one phonemic interpretation are common; shared letters with two phonemic interpreta-

tions are ambiguous.

meaning. The form SAMOVAR can only be read in Roman as /samovar/ 'samovar'.

When words are presented in isolation and readers must either read them aloud or
make judgments as to their meaningfulness, readci s are slower for bivalent forms than

for forms with only one reading. This outcome indicates that phonological complex-
ity influences the reading process. In a typical text, bivalent words are presented in
 -

772 PART XI: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

the context of other words that render the form meaningful by specifying alphabet. In

experimental reading tasks that limit the availability of alphabet information, howev-
er, alphabetic contexts defined by another word or a meaningless letter string do not
fully eliminate the effect of phonological bivalence (Lukatela et al. 1989). Alphabetic
context has no effect on words that are not ambiguous with repect to pronunciation,
however (Feldman and Moskovljevic 1987).
The psycholinguistic implications of the experimental results described above
arc that skilled readers of Serbo-Croatian rely on phonology, and that the alphabet

context serves to constrain the mapping between letter and phoneme when it is am-
biguous. Sociolinguistically, the maintenance of two scripts reflects more than idio-
syncratic linguistic preferences or arbitrary convention; it attests the interaction

between two cultures. Whereas the coexistence of two alphabets for Serbo-Croatian
reflected the influence of two churches in the past, more recently it has been under-
mined by a state-mandated policy whose goal is to highlight differences between Ser-
bian and Croatian cultures.

Bibliography

Feldman, Laurie B., and Jasmina Moskovljevic. 1987. "Repetition Priming Is Not Purely Episodic
in Origin." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Learning, Memory and Cognition 13: 573-
81.
Feldman, Laurie B., and Michael T. Turvey. 1983. "Word Recognition in Serbo-Croatian Is Phono
logically Analytic." Journal of Experimental Psychology: Human Perception and Performance
9: 288-98.
Lehiste, Use. 1970. Suprasegmentals. Cambridge: MIT Press.
Lukatela, Georgije, Laurie B. Feldman, Michael T Turvey, Claudia Carello, & Leonard Katz. 1989.
"Context Effects in Bi-alphabetic Word Perception." Journal of Memory and Language 28:
214-36.
Pravopis srpskohrvatskog jezika sa pravopisnim recnikom [Orthography of the Serbian language
with spelling dictionary], i960. Novi Sad, Zagreb: Matica Srpska, Matica Hrvatska.
Turvey, Michael T, Laurie B. Feldman, and Georgije Lukatela. 1984. "The Serbo-Croatian Orthog-
raphy Constrains the Reader to a Phonologically Analytic Strategy." In Orthographies and
Reading, ed. Leslie Henderson, pp. 81-89. London: Erlbaum.
SECTION 65

South Asia: Coexistence of Scripts

Colin P. Masica

From the standpoint of writing systems, South Asia presents a striking paradox. On
the one hand, with the exception mainly of the relatively recent Islamic component
(and even this has been affected), it has been a civilization which has valued the oral
above the written word. Its most sacred texts have been transmitted orally, through
memorization, rather than by copyists. (One exception is the relatively recent sacred
book of the Sikhs, the Guru Granth Sahib [early 17th century], the very existence and
status of which undoubtedly owes something to Islamic models. However, the adher-
ents of the Jain religion in western India have treasured books and maintained librar-
ies in a tradition quite independent of Islamic influence.) Writing seems to have been
more a practical affair of merchants and administrators than one of priests, although
the Brahmans, in their capacity as a class not only of priests but also of scholars and
literati, were not slow to take advantage of this tool and to play a major role in turning

it to higher purposes.

On the other hand, nowhere else in the world do we find such a profusion of
scripts —each originally with a distinctive set of numerals besides (although some
have now made a concession to the machinery of wider communication, and employ
international numerals). To be sure, all except those of Perso- Arabic and Roman der-
ivation stem ultimately from "Northern" or "Southern" variants of ancient Brahmi;
but superficially at least they appear far more divergent than Greek, Latin, and Cyril-
lic. What accounts for this development? A history of political disunity is not the
whole story: this has also been true of Europe, even that part of it which uses the Ro-
man alphabet. However, there have been periods when much of the South Asian sub-
continent was united under great empires. Nor is sheer creative exuberance the
explanation, although it too undoubtedly played a role. Many of these scripts are aes-

thetically very pleasing —although, again paradoxically, the art of calligraphy is not
cultivated (but see section 20), certainly not to the extent it is in Islamic (including

South Asian Islamic) or East Asian cultures (cf. King 1974: 30).
This seemingly impractical variety of scripts — which does impose an additional
barrier to communication (note the contrast with the situation in China) in an area
with many languages, to say nothing of adding to the cost and complication of print-
ing and education —does appear to have a function. That function would seem to be
to mark boundaries (and identities) in a region with a solid shape conducive to the ex-
istence of dialectal continua, and quite different from that of Europe with its distinc-

773
 —

774 PART XI: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

tive peninsulas andThe crossing of an invisible geographic and often rather

islands.

arbitrary linguistic boundary is marked by a very visible shift in script. Where this
solution has not prevailed, e.g., in the wide swath of northern India known as the
"Hindi area," the distinction between language and dialect remains unclear.
In South Asia there is indeed a widespread feeling that a self-respecting language
should have its own unique script to confirm its status as a language, a feeling which
has led to recent attempts to create special scripts for Munda (see section 56) and
Konkani. It is characteristic that foreigners, who are less influenced by this consider-

ation or by indigenous cultural components of linguistic identity, have tended to dis-

cern more "languages" in the "Hindi area" than have Indians. William Carey's
missionary press in Serampore was barely two decades old when it brought out Bible
translations in such languages as Bikaneri, Magahi, Awadhi, Bagheli, Kanauji,
Harauti, Kumaoni, Garhwali, and Marwari (Kesavan 1988, 1:426-27). Hence the
myth of an India wallowing in a linguistic chaos of "thousands of dialects."
The introduction of printing played a major role in producing the situation we
have today. On the one hand — after a last-minute rush in the nineteenth century to

give status to local dialects by casting as many exotic typefaces as possible, many of
which (mainly in small Himalayan kingdoms) did not endure — it eventually brought
a halt to further differentiation (except by deliberate design as noted above), and a
standardization to the major scripts, which had often exhibited considerable local and
personal variation (Kesavan 1988, 1 1176). On the other hand, it froze in place for all

time the differentiation that had already taken place, including such minor differenti-
ation as separates the Kannada and Telugu scripts (section 37).
Printing from movable type established itself in different parts of the subconti-
nent (originally at the behest of missionaries and colonial administrators) at widely
different times: as early as 1556 in Goa, thence elsewhere in the Peninsula, and more
than two hundred years later in Calcutta. Tamil was the first Indian script to be print-
ed (1579); Sinhala type was cast in the 1720s; Bengali type was first used in 1778 (for
Nathaniel B. Halhed's Grammar); Nagari type was first used in India in 1796 (for
John B. Gilchrist's Grammar, published in Calcutta). Only with the establishment of
Fort William College in 1800 did the printing revolution begin to make inroads into
the remainder of the subcontinent; it gained momentum with the repeal of the Press
Act in 1835, allowing natives of India to own presses, and was in full swing by mid-
century, along with its concomitant shaking-out process. Gujarati opted to discard the
Nagari script employed up to that point, in favor of its present distinctive script (sec-
tion 32); but Marathi opted for Nagari (section 31) over the distinctive regional
Modi, still used for private letter-writing by some.
Nagari had an uphill battle for acceptance even in its own ostensible heartland
northern India, where the Perso- Arabic script (section 62) held sway with official
support through the nineteenth century, except in remote Kumaon-Garhwal and parts

of present-day Madhya Pradesh —and the cursive Kaithi continued to be a potent rival
(Grierson 1 899). But the Nagari script has continued to gain adherents in this century:
 SECTION 65: SOUTH ASIA: COEXISTENCE OF SCRIPTS 775

it has replaced traditional scripts of both Maithili (a language of northern Bihar and
adjoining parts of Nepal) and Newari (a major Tibeto-Burman language in Nepal).
However, this process has probably gone about as far as it is going to in the foresee-

able future; the logical and practical extension of Nagari to all South Asian languages
does not appear to be in the offing, although this has had its advocates among a na-
tionalist elite. (The idea of adopting the Roman script, advocated by a few European
officials and scholars and even some Indians, e.g. S. K. Chatterjee, never got off the
ground.) Resistance to Nagari is much stronger in Bengal and in South India, where
old traditions of distinctive writing (and printing) are entrenched. It might also rea-
sonably be claimed that the various scripts have evolved to suit the languages for
which they are employed. Even in Punjab, where the language is closely allied to
Hindi —and partly for that very reason (demarcation again) —Nagari is unlikely to re-
place the Gurmukhi script. Where it has prevailed, as in Nepal and Maharashtra, local
identity is safeguarded by an international boundary in the former case, and by dis-

tance in the latter, as well as by distinctive letters and/or spelling conventions.

It is with Hindi and Urdu that script plays the ultimate differentiating role. Al-
though some registers of each language are strongly differentiated by choice of vo-
cabulary also, it is ultimately the choice of the Devanagari or the Perso- Arabic script
that is the most important factor in identifying the language as "Hindi" or "Urdu"
(King 1974: 121-22; Shackle and Snell 1990).
The traditional tools of writing — the pen in the north and the stylus in the south
influenced the original forms of South Asian scripts, leading to rounded forms where
the latter was used (including Orissa, whose script is actually akin to Bengali and not
to southern scripts, despite superficial resemblances to the latter; section 35). Sim-
ilarly, modern tools of writing subsequent to the printing press — the typewriter and
the word processor in particular —have begun to influence the form of South Asian
scripts. For example, about twenty years ago, Malayalam, the South Asian language
with the highest percentage of literacy, replaced, at least in print, complicated old lig-

atures of consonant which varied from consonant to consonant and

+ long and short m,
sorely taxed the ingenuity of keyboard designers (although they were no problem for
manual typesetters, and even a convenience for handwriting), with a more linear and
uniform representation of these vowels, after the consonant and separate from it (sec-
tion 38).
Perso- Arabic script, especially in its favored nasta'liq form, has presented spe-
cial difficulty for typingand typesetting. Although word processing programs have
recently been worked out, this has meant that Urdu books and newspapers, represent-
ing a tradition more oriented toward the written word, ironically continued to be litho-
graphed from handwritten text long after this process (itself invented only in the

1790s) was abandoned for Brahmi-based scripts.

Large portions of the population of South Asia, however, are not concerned with
these matters: they have, as it were, leapt directly from a preliterate to a postliterate
stage without passing through a literate stage in between — that is, they have gone
776 PART XI: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

from a culture rich in oral literature and performance to a culture of films, videotapes,
and audiocassettes. Vendors and renters of these are ubiquitous in South Asia as well
as in South Asian communities abroad; but booksellers in South Asian languages (as
contrasted with those catering to the English-reading minority) are —except in certain

language areas — few, especially in the "Hindi area," despite a prodigious output of
published titles and official encouragement. Visitors even to remote Hunza in Paki-

stan report that local tape libraries have sprung up, catering to Burushaski connois-
seurs of their own oral literature — a more congenial vehicle for its dissemination and
enjoyment, apparently, than writing it down and then deciphering it from that alien

medium would be. In any case, although the reading public is very large in absolute
terms, it is the film, audiocassette, and television, rather than the book, that are be-

coming the premier vehicles of mass cultural consumption today. To be sure, South
Asia may not be unique in this respect. On a more traditional note, poetry — essential-
ly an oral art —continues to maintain a popular appeal in South Asia that is probably
unparalleled elsewhere. Meanwhile, printing has obviously facilitated the establish-
ment of an interesting new "tradition," namely the ritual reading, particularly by
women, of devotional texts.

Bibliography

Blumhardt, James Fuller. 1892. Catalogue ofMarathi and Gujarati Printed Books in the Library of
the British Museum. London: Quaritch.
Grant, Sir Alexander. 1867-69. Catalogue of Native Publications in the Bombay Presidency up to
31stDecember 1864. Bombay: Education Society's Press, Byculla.
Grierson, George A. 1899. A Handbook to the Kaithi Character. Calcutta: Thacker, Spink.
Kesavan, B. S. 1988. History of Printing and Publishing in India: a Story of Cultural Re-awakening,
vol. South Indian Origins of Printing and Its Efflorescence in Bengal; vol. 2, Origin of Print-
1 :

ing and Publishing in Karnataka, Andhra, and Kerala. New Delhi: National Book Trust, India.
King, Christopher Rolland. 1974. "The Nagari Pracharini Sabha of Benares, 1893- 19 14: A Study
in the Social and Political History of the Hindi Language." Ph.D. dissertation, University of
Wisconsin, Madison.
Priolkar, Anand Kukba. 1958. The Printing Press in India: Its Beginning and Early Development,
3 vols. Bombay: Marathi Samrhodhana Mandala.
Shackle, Christopher, and Rupert Snell. 990. Hindi and Urdu since 1800: A Common Reader. Lon-
1

don: University of London, School of Oriental and African Studies.

Singh, Arvind Kumar. 1991. Development of the Nagari script. Delhi: Parimal.
SECTION 66

Christian Missionary Activities

Allan Gleason

Since 1500, Christian missionaries — Catholic, Protestant, and Orthodox —have es-
tablished writing systems for more than a thousand languages; exact figures are not
available. Perhaps two thirds of these date from the twentieth century and another
quarter from the nineteenth. Activity is on-going. By "established" is here meant that
literature was published and circulated, and at least some
community be- part of the
came literate enough to use it for at least some time.
The quality has been very uneven. Some are poor or worse; some from early in
the nineteenth century are very good, even when judged in the light of phonologic
ideas they anticipated by a century or more. Some, perhaps with minor revision from
time to time, have persisted; others were soon abandoned or replaced. Success or fail-

ure depends on many factors beyond linguistic adequacy.

The earliest of these missionaries simply applied Spanish conventions as best

they could to the Amerindian languages they were recording. They seem to have been
unable or extremely reluctant to depart very far, though; for example, some wrote h
(silent in Spanish) for ?; others did not take even that liberty. Some early grammars

comment to the effect that // is to be pronounced as in Latin, not as in Spanish. That

same pattern has been repeated by missionaries of other backgrounds. However, there
seems to be increasing freedom by the nineteenth century. Some missionaries were
some could not.
able to use that freedom constructively;
Though we have plentiful records of what was produced, we have little of why or
how. However Schiitz (1985: 8-54) has pieced together a fairly detailed and very re-
1

vealing account of the course of development in Fijian (brought to near-final form in

1839). This is one of the good and successful ones, coming about as near as orthog-
raphies ever do to being phonemic, economical, and practical.
It would seem that productive innovations were generally the result of some com-
bination of high competence through long immersion in the language and culture,
some special language aptitude, sensitivity to native reactions as preliminary versions
were taught, an occasional fortunate accident, and increasing understanding of the na-
ture of language.

Academic interest in non-European languages grew steadily through the nine-

teenth century. Much of the data came from missionary grammars and dictionaries.
In turn many missionaries followed with interest some of the new discoveries. Simi-
larly, some missionaries followed the development of phonetics largely, but not ex- —
777
778 PART XI: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

clusively, as an aid to language learning for new missionaries. These academic inputs
did not, before the World Wars, provide much in the way of specific techniques for

language analysis or orthography design; but combined with information running

through the missionary networks, they did markedly broaden views of language.
Most of the systems were modifications of existing scripts. In South and South-
and in a few other areas, it was usually, but not always, an indigenous script:
east Asia,
Devanagari, Burmese, Thai, Amharic, etc. In areas with Muslim dominant popula-
tions, it was often the Arabic script. Across northern Asia it was Cyrillic (and into
America for the Aleut language). Elsewhere it was usually the Latin alphabet, some-
times with radical reassignment of letters, modification of some letter shapes, addi-

tion of letters, or diacritics. For samples of writing systems as used in Bible

translations, see Nida 1972; cf. also Smalley 1976.
Usually the basis from which modification started is apparent. So, for example,
in Kate (developed in pre- World War I German New Guinea), w is used for [v],y for

the palatal semivowel, and z for [ts], but c and q for [kp]; one di-
is reassigned for [?]

acritic is used for a low back vowel a (particularly appropriate because a and a inter-
change in various contexts); and three new letters are added. The result is quite
satisfactory orthography.
English missionaries came work very generally on the slogan "Consonants as
to

in English; vowels as in Italian." Manyof them seem to have been aware of, and in-
fluenced by, the dictum that an ideal orthography would allocate one letter for each
sound and one sound for each letter. Trivial as these things may seem, they apparently
opened up new possibilities.

Attempts to establish uniform conventions in British and French Africa (and

there were several) were largely unsuccessful, even sometimes for the same language.
Partly this was because of different backgrounds for the missionaries, but also (and
perhaps more importantly) as response to government preferences or dictates.
There seem to be only three successful attempts to create fundamentally new sys-
tems, though all three were subsequently adapted to neighboring languages. The first

is the Evans syllabary, described in section 55. It has been reported that within ten
years the community was essentially 100% literate, so that this is not just one of the
most innovative of the missionary-designed systems, but also one of the most suc-
cessful. For the Pollard and Fraser scripts, see section 52. Pollard (first publication

1907), which was developed for a Miao (Hmong) language in Southwest China, is ap-
parently still in use, but is being supplanted by a more recently designed Latin-based
system. The Fraser script was developed about 19 15 for a dialect of Lisu in the Bur-
ma-Thailand-China border area.

When a language has had a traditional writing system, that has usually been used
by missionaries and the churches. Insome instances, missionary presses cut the first
types, thus helping to establish the modern form of a script. In India, printing in the
native scripts was started when Lutherans sent out a printer and three typecasters.
 SECTION 66: CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY ACTIVITIES 779

The last half of the twentieth century has seen significant changes: most mission-
aries involved in language work now have some background in linguistics. Often this

is one or two summers of intensive field-oriented training, often provided by the Sum-
mer Institute of Linguistics at several sites across the world. Sometimes it is univer-
sity work leading to an M.A. or Ph.D. degree. Generally those expecting to work in
"new" languages, and those expecting to do pioneer translation work —which in-

cludes almost all that will have any part in writing system development — get at least
enough to profoundly affect their attitudes and instill a willingness to seek help when
needed.
The Bible Societies through the nineteenth century were passively involved as
publishers of translations prepared by others. In the twentieth they have moved into
research, publication of various helps, and operations on the field where translation is

occurring. The latter is through a corps of highly trained consultants who have access
to, among other things, a large mass of research and practical experience on ortho-
graphic problems. Landmarks in this are Nida 1947, with a chapter on orthography
(pp. 100-29), and Smalley 1964.
From the beginning missionaries worked with native helpers; then the helpers be-
came colleagues. Today, in all language work, the missionary is more likely to be a
consultant to a committee of native speakers. Missionaries are no longer exclusively
westerners: Asians are working in Africa, and Latin Americans in the Pacific. That is

not wholly new; the first publication of the British and Foreign Bible Society, in 1804,
was the Gospel of John in Mohawk translated by a Cherokee!
In 1550, Charles V decreed that all work with natives of Mexico should be in

Spanish. The religious orders successfully lobbied for repeal. That pattern has persist-
ed through all the colonial empires and the independent states that have succeeded
them Heath 1972). Where missions are allowed, they are almostly always circum-
(cf.

scribed, paricularly in language matters. But increasingly, governments have been

specifying not only what language might be used by churches and missions, but many
details, including how they should be written.
The design of writing systems, today, is often a process involving missionaries,
academic linguists, and government bureaucrats. The latter may have (and take) good
technical advice, or they may operate solely on the basis of political expediency. In
either case, government has the last word. Even when the team seems to be working
on its own, very tight constraints are often imposed by government or by influential

elements in the ambient society. In this sort of situation, it is becoming less and less

easy to identify writing systems created by missionaries; but the input from church
workers — local people or missionary consultants —may still be significant. In the
near future, we may expect a dozen or so new writing systems each year in which
church workers have made a major contribution.
780 HART XI: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

Bibliography

Heath, Shirley Briee. 1972. Telling Tongues: Language Policy in Mexico, Colony to Nation, New
York: Teaehers College.
Nida, Eugene A. 1947. Bible Translating: An Analysis of Principles and Procedures with Special
Reference to Aboriginal Languages. New York: American Bible Society.
Nida, Eugene A., ed. 1972. The Book of a Thousand Tongues, rev. ed. London: United Bible Societ-
ies.

Schi.it/., Albert J. 1985. The Fijian Language. Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press.
Smalley, William A., ed. 1964. Orthography Studies: Articles on New Writing Systems. London:
United Bible Societies.
, ed. 1976. Phonemes and Orthography: Language Plann ing in Ten Minority Languages of
Thailand (Pacific Linguistics, C-43). Canberra: Australian National University.
Wonderly, William L., and Eugene A. Nida. 1964. "Linguistics and Christian Missions." Anthropo-
logical Linguistics 5 (1): 104-44.
SECTION 67

Script Reform in and after the

Soviet Union
Bernard Comrie

In the early 1980s, some sixty languages were officially used, to differing degrees, as
written languages in the Soviet Union. In some cases, these written languages directly
continued pre-Soviet written traditions; in others they resulted from policies initiated
in the 1920s and 1930s to spread native-language literacy. The loosening of internal
controls from the 1 980s meant that some other languages acquired limited status as
written languages, e.g. for the recording of folkloric material, using either Cyrillic or
Roman script. Since the breakup of the Soviet Union, responsibility for script policy
has devolved on the individual, newly independent states.

Script replacement

Script usage for most of the official written languages of the Soviet Union is given in
table 67.1. Some languages used the same script throughout the life of the Soviet
Union and continue to do so today.
Most of the other written languages of the former Soviet Union used Roman
script from the late 1920s or early 1930s (occasionally earlier), replacing this with
Cyrillic script in the late 1930s or early 1940s (occasionally later). In some cases Ro-
man script was the first script used for the language; in others, an earlier script was
replaced —most commonly Arabic, but also vertical Mongolian, and even Cyrillic.
The shift from Roman to Cyrillic script followed the ideological shift from the earlier

commitment to world revolution, with Roman script as a symbol of internationalism,

to the later commitment to socialism in one country, with Cyrillic script as a symbol
of Sovietness. The structural argument advanced by advocates of Cyrillic, that the
Cyrillic alphabet contains more letters than the Roman alphabet, is spurious: some of
the letters (e.g. yotated vowels) are usually redundant outside Slavic, while the exist-
ence of special letters like in, )k, h for [J], [3], [tj] is balanced by the absence of letters

Acknowledgments: I am grateful for information provided by Ju. D. Deseriev, Andrej Kibrik. Tooru
Hayasi, Lars Johanson, John Perry, and Aleksandra Steinbergs. Remaining errors are my own responsibility.

Work on this article was conducted while I was a Visiting Professor at the Institute for the Study of Languages
and Cultures of Asia and Africa. Tokyo University of Foreign Studies.

781
782 PART XI: SOCIOLINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

table 67. 1 : Script Use for Selected Languages in the Former USSR

Languages with No Change of Seript

Cyrillic script:

Russian, Belorussian (Belarusian), Ukrainian; Mari (Cheremis), Mordvin (Erzya, Moksha),

Udmurt (Votyak); Chuvash, Gagau^
Roman script:

Latvian, Lithuanian; Estonian

Armenian script:

Armenian
Georgian script:

Georgian
Hebrew script:

Yiddish
Languages with Roman, then Cyrillic Script

Khanty (Ostyak), Mansi (Vogul), Nenets (Yurak Samoyed); Tuvan, Yakut (Sakha); Even
b b
(Lamut), Evenki (Tungus), Nanay (Gold); Abaza; Tabasaran; Chukchee; Eskimo
(Siberian Yupik)

Languages with Arabic, then Roman, then Cyrillic Script

Tajik; Azeri (Azerbaijani), Bashkir, Crimean Tatar, Karachay-Balkar, Karakalpak, Kazakh.

Kirghiz, Kumyk, Nogay, Tatar (Volga Tatar, Kazan Tatar), Turkmen, Uyghur, Uzbek;
Adyghe (West Circassian), Kabardian (East Circassian); Avar, Chechen, Ingush, Darg-

wa, Lak, Lezgian; Dunganese (Hui)

Languages with Cyrillic, then Roman, then Cyrillic Script

Ossetic (in Russia); Komi; Altay, Khakas, Shor

Languages with Vertical Mongolian, then Roman, then Cyrillic Script
Buryat, Kalmyk (Oirat)

Special Cases (scripts in chronological order)

Abkhaz:
Cyrillic, Roman, Georgian, Cyrillic

Kurdish (in Armenia):

Armenian, Roman, Cyrillic
Moldavian (Moldovan):
as language distinct from Rumanian, Cyrillic only
Ossetic (in Georgia):
Cyrillic, Roman, Georgian, Cyrillic

a. Gagauz only from 1957.

b. Aba/a and Tabasaran were sporadically written in Arabic script.
c. Some of these languages are written in Arabic script outside the former Soviet Union.

for [h], [(I3], [q], and [w]. One interesting aspect of the shift to Cyrillic was the deci-
sion, valid for most languages, that loanwords from Russian should be written exactly
as in Russian.
 SECTION 67: SCRIPT REFORM IN AND AFTER THE SOVIET UNION 7g3

Finally, three languages went through a period of using a different script: Abkhaz
and (in Georgia) Ossetic used Georgian script from the late 1930s to the mid 1950s;
in Armenia, Kurdish used Armenian script in the 1920s.

Intra-script reform
Major orthographic reforms not involving script changes were (a) an experiment un-
dertaken in the 1920s, with languages then using Arabic script, of using only indepen-
dent forms of Arabic letters, rather than distinct independent, initial, medial, and final
forms; and (b) an attempt during the period of Roman script to unify the alphabets of
the Soviet Union (the "New Alphabet"), with partial success in, for instance, the Uni-
fied Turkic Alphabet introduced from the late 1920s, replacing alphabets idiosyncrat-

ic to individual Turkic languages. (By contrast, the Cyrillic orthographies introduced

from the 1930s often involve different solutions to the same phonetic problem in dif-

ferent languages; section 60.) In addition, various changes took place in the ortho-
graphic systems of languages of the Soviet Union to improve the fit between spelling
and pronunciation. Russian itself gave a lead by reforming its writing system in 191 8,

removing some historically motivated spellings. Soviet Armenian orthography was

simplified by abolishing some etymological spellings. In Yiddish as used in the Soviet

Union, the spelling of words of Hebrew-Aramaic origin was modified to fit the pro-
nunciation. The Latvian alphabet was modified by dropping the letter r (in favor of/)
and the digraph ch (in favor of/?), reflecting the merger for some (not all) speakers of

the oppositions [r], [r

j
] and [x], [ft]. Other changes have less obvious motivation, such
as the replacement of k, and ^ by k and h, for [g
J
] and [dj] respectively, in Azeri in

1958, although the same reform also introduced j as a uniform solution to the writing
of[j].

Post-Soviet developments

Developments in the late Soviet and immediate post-Soviet period can be character-
ized in terms of tension between, on the one hand, wanting to reverse features that are
viewed as obviously Soviet (especially where these contradict usage outside the
former Soviet Union, or traditions that are still valued), and, on the other hand, the
feeling that there has already been enough tampering with script and orthography,
making this at least a lower priority than other pressing social and economic prob-
lems. Major changes and proposed changes include the following.
Moldova, the notion of a language separate from Rumanian, and therefore the
In
use of Cyrillic rather than Roman script, were abandoned in 989. In Tajikistan, a pre- 1

independence language law of 1989 specifies that Arabic script is to be promoted,

while a post-independence language law of 1992 promises to revive and teach Arabic
script in all educational institutions and to revert to Arabic script officially in the near

future; at present both Cyrillic and Arabic scripts are in use. The newly independent
784 PART XI: SOC10LINGUISTICS AND SCRIPTS

Turkic-speaking republics (Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan,

Uzbekistan) are considering adopting Roman script, in the form of the OrtakTtirk Al-
fabesi 'Common Turkic Alphabet', i.e. the Turkish alphabet with the addition of five
letters for use in those languages that need them: a [ae] (though in Azeri a is used), x
[x], q Iq] (but in Azeri |g], while [g
J
] is g), n [rj], and w [w] (Final Communique;
MTAS). This alphabet is currently in use, alongside Cyrillic script, for Azeri in Azer-
baijan. Latin script is also being introduced for Chechen in Chechnya. As an example
of less far-reaching consideration, in Latvia controversy has arisen over whether the
letter /\ and perhaps even the digraph ch, should be reintroduced, while in Ukraine the
separate letter r has been reintroduced to represent [g] in onomatopoeia and loan-
words. In the early 1990s, many such situations are very fluid.

Bibliography

Bokurev, E. A., & Ju. D. Deseriev. 1959. Mladopis'mennye jazyki narodov SSSR [New written lan-
guages of the peoples of the USSR]. Moscow & Leningrad: Izdatel'stvoAkademii NaukSSSR.
Connie, Bernard. 1981. Languages of the Soviet Union. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fierman, William. 1991. Language Planning and National Development: The Uzbek Experience.
Mouton de Gruyter.
Berlin:
Final Communique, Conference on Alphabet and Spelling, Ankara, 8-10 March 1993.
MTAS 1992. = Milletlerarasi Turk Alfabeleri Sempozyumu 18-20 Kasim iggi [International sym-
posium on Turkic alphabets 18-20 November 1991] (Marmara Universitesi Yayinlan, 509,
Tiirkiyat Arastirmalan, 1.) Istanbul: Marmara University.
Perry, John, forthcoming. "From Persian to Tajik to Persian: Culture, Politics and Law Reshape a
Central Asian Language." In NSL-8: Linguistic Studies in the Non-Slavic Languages of the
Commonwealth of Independent States and the Baltic Republics, ed. Howard I. Aronson. Chi-
cago: Chicago Linguistic Society.
Vinogradov, V. V., ed. 1966-68. Jazyki narodov SSSR [Languages of the peoples of the USSR],
5 vols. Moscow & Leningrad: Nauka.
Wurm, Stefan. 1954. Turkic Peoples of the U.S.S.R.: Their Historical Background, Their Languages
and the Development of Soviet Linguistic Policy. London: Central Asian Studies Centre.
 Part XII: Secondary
Notation Systems

In this part are grouped uses and adaptations of the Roman alphabet whose pur-
poses are other than strictly the recording of language: the alphabet as a vehicle of
literacy, as an ordering tool, as a mnemonic device; its embodiment other than on a
conventional page. In legal and commercial contexts, scripts have been devised
usually alphabet-based — that could be written at the speed of speech, nearly. Lin-
guists need a medium for recording the phonetic detail of any language without a
prism of phonological analysis, and phonetic notation has often (though not always)
been alphabet-based. Lastly, language is not the only communicative system that can
be notated: priority goes to numerical notation systems. As Western art music devel-
oped, so did a complicated, partly iconic, but universally employed notation system.
Emerging out of the need to record dance movement, systems have been devised that

now exhibit sufficient rigidity to write the emic units of American Sign language, and
sufficient flexibility to record both dance and gesture language. These topics occupy
the sidelines of the pageant of writing, but sometimes the sidelines are the best place
to look for insight into the principal action.
— Peter T. Daniels

785
SECTION 68

The Alphabet as a Technology

M. O'Connor

Writing systems are used to convey and preserve language across time and space, and
this primary function of writing systems has been the principal subject of this volume.
There are two related problems to be addressed. First, how do people learn to write,
i.e., how do they master the system so that they can use it? Second, how do people
use elements of writing systems to order the world around them, i.e., how are writing
systems adapted to purposes other than conveying and preserving language? (On
script as a native-speaker analysis of a language, see O'Connor 1983.) These two
problems are intertwined in various ways, most importantly in the matter of the order
of the alphabet.
Most people think of the alphabet as a writing device in terms of the order in
which they learned it; and they look at other orders of the alphabet, e.g. the order in
which the letters of the Western European alphabets are set out on typewriter key-
boards, as deviant or weird. In fact, there is nothing that intrinsically binds an alpha-
bet to the conventional order in which its elements are learned. Every alphabet has an
order and has had nearly since the beginning of alphabetic writing, but the alphabet
and its order are distinct phenomena. The alphabetic order is a crucial element in at-
taining literacy; the fact that it is so often taken for granted does not gainsay its im-
portance.

How do people learn how to write?

Learning to write is a demanding process that involves numerous aids. Chief among
these is a large class of devices that give memorable shape to the units or characters

of the writing system. The major types of writing system use a variety of such devices.
If the writing system is logosyllabic (e.g. Chinese or Mesopotamian cuneiform),
the mnemonic devices include both semantic (or broadly referential) and graphic pat-
terns across groups of characters, as well as schemes for counting the strokes or
wedges and for visualizing the writing of their characters, i.e. their growth (by giving,
say, "left" priority over "right," "top" priority over "bottom," a longer containing line
priority over shorter contained groups of lines, etc.). Such devices, intended to aid the

learning of the writing system, do not aim at providing a scientific breakdown of its

parts. These pedagogic devices work —Chinese people learn to write Chinese charac-

ters, as do Japanese and other East Asians (according to a variety of schemes), and

787
788 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

ancient Mesopotamian scribes learned the cuneiform system. Such devices are not
used exclusively for learning the writing systems; they also form the basis of dictio-
naries and specialized word lists as well as other indexing and arranging schemes.
If a writing system is syllabographic (or includes a syllabographic component, as
Japanese does), the devices involved in learning the system are apt to be simpler and
more reliable, although because the type of system itself is simpler, some syllabo-
graphic systems have no standard order. The representations may be graphic, as are
the grids conventionally used by linguists to exemplify syllabic systems. Non-graphic
representations can also come into play. The Ethiopic syllabographic abugida, for ex-
ample (section 51), has a fixed order of consonants and another of vowels; both
these series are susceptible of memorization. The system of writing can be learned
easily because it can be learned in part aurally. The Japanese syllabary (section 16)
was traditionally taught through the "Iroha uta," a short piece of rhythmic prose that

uses all but one of the syllabographs; the graphic features of the kana play little part
in this device (figure 34 on page 250; Uwano 1983). The "Iroha" order is used in

numbering schemes e.g. of front matter in books; such use is also familiar to alpha-
betic readers.
The types of writing system in which each sign, i.e. each written unit, in principle

represents a simple linguistic segment —namely, the abjad and the alphabet —present
a curious profile when we seek to examine the device (or devices) by which they are
learned. The device and the system itself tend to merge in the eyes and ears of an al-

phabetic culture. Those raised on the alphabet tend to conceive of the writing system
as fused with the device by which we learn the system, i.e. the alphabetic order (Faber
1992, Daniels 1992). The fixed order of the alphabet is a metalinguistic fact, not in-
volved in the structure of the sound-symbol mapping. This fusion in understanding
is not limited to naive users of the alphabet; it has also affected historians of writing,
who tend to regard the invention of the alphabet as coincident with the invention of
the alphabetic order. Even if the issues were as simple as they are sometimes taken to

be, this view is historically groundless: the earliest form of the ancestor of the alpha-
bet (section 5) is associated with two different alphabetic orders.

The order of the alphabet

The orders of the various alphabets of the European languages are derived from what
we can call the Levantine order; the Levant is a general term for the eastern end of the
Mediterranean Sea, the region in which segmental writing arose. This is the order
used, with variations, for the Hebrew abjad and its close relatives and for the alpha-
bets of Greek (from which Cyrillic orders derive) and Latin (from which Western Eu-
ropean alphabet orders derive). Some of the sources for the various forms of this order
are epigraphic, and some are literary.
Abecedaries or ABC texts are found in the earliest major body of segmental writ-
ing; the texts from late second millennium Ugarit in northern Syria use the wedge (cu-
 SECTION 68: THE ALPHABET AS A TECHNOLOGY 7g9

table 68. 1 : Order of the Reduced Levantine Abjad

bgdhwzhtyk lmns (
psqrs t

i 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 io ii 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22

TABLE68.2: Ancestral and neiform) abjad (Bordreuil 1982). The order of the
Modern Orders of the Phoenician-Hebrew linear abjad, whichis known from

English Alphabet abecedaries and from acrostic poems (in which the first
Heb rew English lines form an alphabet) in the Hebrew Bible (Christian
>
Old Testament), is shown in table 68. 1
1 a I

There are 22 letters in the abjad. Letter #2 1 had two

b 2 b 2
values in one major dialect of ancient Hebrew; the
g 3 c 3
graphic differentiation between these two values is pre-
d 4 d 4
served by making of letter #2 1 two different characters
h 5 e 5
(section 46), and tt? s is conventionally ordered before
f 6
s. Older, Late Bronze Age forms of the abjad had 27
tfj

w 6
units or 30 units (table 5.2 on page 92; Kochavi 1977.
g 7 Demsky 1977). The 22-unit abjad was the source of the
h 8
Phoenician-Hebrew script and also the oldest Aramaic
z 7 abjad.
h 8 Other forms of the Levantine alphabet can be de-
t
9 rived from the 22-letter Phoenician-Hebrew form. Two
y 10 i
9 general conditions are important. First, the Semitic gut-
j 10 turals (\h,h, (
) are adapted for use as vowel signs (a, e,

k 1 k 1 Greek e, o), as is the consonant y (/) (section 2 1 ). Sec-

1 12 1 12 ond, "extra" letters are "added," usually at the end
m 13 m 13 (Ryckmans 1987: 316). For the sake of simplicity, we
n 14 n 14 can take the English alphabet as typical (table 68.2).
s 15 Some of the differences can be explained briefly.

(
16 15 English letters #9 and #10 were a single letter in Latin

17 16 and have been separated only since the European inven-

P P
s 18
tion of printing, with #9 used as a vowel and #10 as a

consonant; English #25 was derived from

letter /' at
q 19 q 17
about the same time, and German, for example, uses the
r 20 r 18
j the way English uses v. (English letters #2 1 and #22 are
s/s 21 s 19
a similarly late split; in older English spelling i andy, and
t 22 t 20
u and v interchange.) Hebrew letter #3 is similar in
u

V
21

22
sound to English letter #3 — the split between c and g
was introduced in Latin; g was inserted later in the order
w 23
(section 23). The sibilants, sounds of hissing and
X 24
hushing (English letters #19, 26), form a confusing
y 25 would be difficult to trace their wanderings
group, and it

z 26
through the alphabet.
790 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

table 68.3: Order of the South Semitic Abjad

h 1 hmqws rbts'knhs 3
p ' * dgdgt zdyt sz
1 2 3 4 5 67 8 9 1 o 1 1 1 2 1 3 1 4 1 5 1 6 1 7 1 8 1 9 20 2 1 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29

Until recently, the alphabetic order attested in several South Semitic forms (Old
South Arabian, Ethiopian) was thought to be a late phenomenon, one unrelated to the

early history of the alphabet (Daniels 1991). It has recently been shown that a Late
Bronze Age text has a form of the South Semitic order (table 68.3), which is thus
more or less as old as the Levantine order (Lundin 1987; Puech 1986, 1991 Ryck- ;

mans 1985). One important byproduct of distinguishing the alphabet from the alpha-
betic order is that it allows us to recognize the Levantine order and the South Semitic
order, which must be independent of each other, as being of comparable antiquity
(Ryckmans 1985: 358, 1987: 324). The Ethiopians also use a form of the Phoenician-
Hebrew order (called abugida) for indexing, counting, and arranging purposes (sec-
tion 51).
It would seem that graphic similarities, such as were mentioned above in connec-
tion with learning logographic systems, would be a logical way to learn an alphabet
as well. The major alphabetic order used in Arabic (section 50) is based on a mix-
ture of the standard Levantine order and such graphic similarities. Like the Ethiopi-
ans, Arabs use a form of the Phoenician-Hebrew order (called abjad) for outlines,
counting, etc.

Letter names
How does the alphabetic order work as a mnemonic device? Most significantly, it

works by brevity: a series of 22, 25, 27, or 30 words or syllables is easily learned. Re-
markably enough, it seems that the linguistic character of the words or syllables them-
selves is of little importance.
There are two major sets of letter names associated with the earliest alphabetic
order: the names in the Jewish tradition (first attested in the fourth century c.E.), some
of which are Hebrew words or similar to Hebrew words; and the names in the Greek
and Arabic tradition, which are mostly derived from the Jewish names. It is some-
times said that the letter names in Phoenician, Hebrew, and related languages are
transparent, i.e., that they are ordinary common nouns (e.g. Millard 1985: 41*). This
is true in some cases, but other The Greeks and Arabs took over
names are obscure.
for the most part the Northwest Semitic names; because in Greek and Arabic these
were meaningless, they were simplified. The Romans, evidently unwilling to contin-
ue with such names, created a new and simpler set, similar to those we use in English
(Gordon 1973). In any language, however, letter names are a type of name, and all
names have a certain degree of autonomy from ordinary language usage, the degree
of their comprehensibility notwithstanding (Swiggers 1986).
 SECTION 68: THE ALPHABET AS A TECHNOLOGY 79 J

Unlike Greek and Arabic, most languages that have taken over the alphabet have
not adopted the letter names but have elaborated their own, rather uniform system.
The Latin names [a:], [be:], [ke:], [de:], etc. (which have come into English as [e:j],

[bi:j], [si:j], [di:j]), are good

rhyming but otherwise without meaning. The Latin
for
names presumably replaced the Greek ones because the Greek ones had no great
mnemonic value.
Some letter names are adjectival. In Greek we find d mikron 'short (lit. little) o'
distinguished from 6 mega 'long (lit. big) o'; and e psilon 'naked e', distinguished
from eta; there is no partner for u psilon 'naked u'. Adjectival letter names in modern
languages are not perceived as notably different from other letter names: English w
{double u) and French y (i grec 'Greek i') fit right in the flow of the other names.

Elements of writing systems used for various purposes

A variety of uses for parts of writing systems is found in the speech and daily life of
literate peoples. In China, a Phillips-head screwdriver is called a 'number 10 screw-
driver' because the cross shape on the head looks like the number 10.

Modern alphabet users are familiar with various alphabetic marking systems
(e.g., "Insert tab A into slot B"). Such use is extremely archaic. Ancient Near East-
erners used fitters' marks, single letters of the alphabet apparently used to indicate the
order in which various building materials are to be assembled. Various decorative ivo-
ry pieces from Nimrud, Iraq, were letter-coded to show the order in which they were
to be inserted into furniture (Millard 1962: 49-51). In a temple at Petra, Jordan, ar-
cheologists found "large, individually letter-coded, ashlar blocks spread along the
floor of [a] room ... in the temple structure" (Hammond, Johnson, and Jones 1986:
77). In a 97 1 salvage expedition of a ship downed off Marsala, Italy, Honor Frost
1

discovered "letters at key places where wood was to be joined ... the ship assembly
[was thus] a colossal game of carpentry by letters, like a modern paint-by-numbers
project" (Soren, ben Khader, and Slim 1990: 96). A related use is quality labeling: jar-
label inscriptions in Phoenician include an 'aleph, the first letter of the alphabet,
standing independently, presumably indicating that the commodity in the jar is first-

class (Naveh 1987).

Letter names can be used in various strictly linguistic codes. In the military "pho-
netic" alphabet — the "NATO alphabet" —common nouns and proper names replace
the letter names because they are longer and thus clearer in long-distance transmis-
sion. Demanding communication situations have led to various transformations of the
alphabet. At sea the semaphore system of two-flag units (one flag per hand) in various

combinations was developed to convey alphabetic messages, and it has been adapted
to other settings. Telegraphy prompted a greater simplification, using only three ele-
ments instead of a roster of flags: Samuel F. B. Morse (1791-1872) devised a code
system based on the dot, dash, and space to convey letters (and numbers) by flashes
or sounds. These representations of the alphabet are shown in table 68.4.
792 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

table 68.4: Secondary Forms of the English Alphabet

Military Phonetic American

d
or NATO alphabet 1
Semaphore
17
Morse Codec Braille Finger-Spelling

Alpha «$
Bravo "t
Charlie *t ^
Delta 1
Echo r
Foxtrot t°
Golf/Gulf t»
Hotel B*
Indigo **
Juliet %
Kilo £
Lima t£
Mike CftjS

November eta

Oscar %
Papa «-f

Quebec etf
Romeo B±a
Sierra Pfcj

Tango *f
Uniform *^
Victor %
Whiskey ^
X-Ray if
Yankee *fel

Zulu *»
a. Earlier forms: World War II era — Able, Baker, David, Easy, Fox, Now, Peter, Year, Zebra: pre- Vietnam

era — Apple, India, Kangaroo.

b. Numeral sign A , word break J.

e. Numerals: o— , 1 • , 2 • • , 3 • • " 14* • • • — . 5 6 — ••

7 •••,8— — ••, 9 •; period • — — —

• • , comma • • , question • •

d. See table 70. 1 on page 8 1 6.

 SECTION 68: THE ALPHABET AS A TECHNOLOGY 793

The various sign languages used by deaf and hearing-impaired people are, it is

generally agreed, true languages, independent of the spoken languages used in the en-
vironment those people live in (and are, in Western Europe and the Americas, literate

in). In sign language, frequently-used names have signs of their own. Sign languages
in literate regions generally supplement their own sign systems with a finger-spelling
system. Finger-spelling is used when a name is newly introduced in a conversation or
is rare, or when an unusual word, for which no sign exists (or is known to both sign-

ers), is required. Most sign languages are two-handed systems, i.e. signs are regularly
formed with both hands, and the signs are defined over the signing space (the face and
torso, as well as the space slightly above and to the sides); for a notation system for
American Sign Language (ASL), see figure iii on page 863. Finger-spelling is

simpler; first, it is indifferent to location in the signing space (you can spell in front

of your mouth as well as in front of your chest); second, it can be one-handed, as is

ASL finger-spelling (British finger-spelling, in contrast, is two-handed).

There are also religious uses of the alphabet. The acrostic poems of the Hebrew
Bible reflect the comprehensive or encyclopedic ambitions of the wisdom tradition

(Ceresko 1985). The completeness of the poem (as praise of God and of God's cre-
ation) is signaled by the use of the alphabet as a structural device. It is not clear what
such usage means for general literacy. Some scholars, observing the wide distribution
of abecedary texts in the ancient world, have wondered if they were not only learning
tools but also magical or religious devices (Millard 1985:39* with references; Patrich

1985).
Whether or not ancient abecedaries were magical devices in the sense of tools to
manipulate a transcendent reality is difficult to say. Certainly abecedaries and similar
devices based on writing systems are tools useful for manipulating mundane reality.

They provide points of guidance in such practical matters as assembling ships and
toys. They complement counting systems, often providing a backup system that can

easily be kept separate from a main series of numbers. Most importantly, they supple-
ment language, clarifying speech when it is being exchanged under adverse or unusu-
al conditions and rounding out sign language. As a matter of principle, linguists claim
that speech (or rather, the primary medium, be it speech or signing) is integral and
that writing is dependent on it, but in the everyday lives of literate people, elements
of writing systems are often called on to make speech (or signing) more effective.

Bibliography

Bordreuil, Pierre. 1982. "Quatre documents en cuneiformes alphabetiques mal connus ou inedits."
Semitica 32: 5-14.
Ceresko, Anthony R. 1985. "The ABCs of Wisdom in Psalm xxxiv." Vetus Testamentum 35: 99-104.
Daniels, Peter T. 1991. "Ha, La, Ha or Hoi, Lawe. Haut: The Ethiopic Letter Names." In Semitic
Studies in Honor ofWolfLeslau, ed. Alan S. Kaye, pp. 275-88. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.
. 1992. "The Syllabic Origin of Writing and the Segmental Origin of the Alphabet." In Down-
ing, Lima, and Noonan 1992: 83-1 10.
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Demsky, Aaron. 1977. "A Proto-Canaanite Abecedary Dating from the Period of the Judges and Its

Implications for the History of the Alphabet." Tel Aviv 4: 14-27.

Downing, Pamela, Susan D. Lima, and Michael Noonan, eds. 1992. Linguistics and Literacy (Typo-
logical Studies in Language 21). Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Faber, Alice. 1992. "Phonemic Segmentation as Epiphenomenon: Evidence from the History of Al-
phabetic Writing." In Downing, Lima, and Noonan 1992: 1 1 1-34.
Gordon, Arthur E. 1973. The Letter Names of the Latin Alphabet (University of California Publica-
tions: Classical Studies 9). Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.

Hammond, Philip C, David J. Johnson, and Richard N. Jones. 1986. "A Religio-legal Nabataean
Inscription from the Atargatis/al-'Uzza Temple at Petra." Bulletin of the American Schools of
Oriental Research 263: 77-80.
Kochavi, Moshe. 1977. "An Ostracon from the Period of the Judges from'IzbetSartah." Tel Aviv 4:

Lundin, A. G. 1985. "Quelques lettres des alphabets semitiques." In Robin 1985: 239-44.
. Shemesh."Le Museon 100: 243-50.
1987. "L'abecedaire de Beth
Millard, Alan R. 1962. "Alphabetic inscriptions on ivories from Nimrud."/rag 24: 41-51.
.
1985. " >BGD ... —
Magic Spell or Educational Exercise?" Eretz-Israel 18: 39*~42*.
Naveh, Joseph. 1987. "Unpublished Phoenician Inscriptions from Palestine." Israel Exploration
Journal 37: 25-30.
O'Connor, M. 1983. "Writing Systems, Native Speaker Analyses, and the Earliest Stages of North-
west Semitic Orthography." In The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of David
Noel Freedman in Celebration of His Sixtieth Birthday, ed. Carol L. Meyers and M. O'Connor,
pp. 439-65. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns.
Patrich, Joseph. 1985. "Inscriptions arameennes juives dans les grottes d'El-'Aleiliyat."/tevw£ bib- >

lique 92: 265-73.

Puech, Emile. 1986. "Origine de l'alphabet: documents en alphabet lineaire et cuneiforme du He
millenaire." Revue biblique 93: 161-213.
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1 99 1 . "La tablette cuneiforme de Beth Shemesh: Premier temoin de la sequence des lettres

du sud-semitique." In Phoinikeia Grammata: Lire et ecrire en Mediterranee, ed. Claude Bau-

rain, Corinne Bonnet, and Veronique Krings, pp. 33-47. Namur, Belgium: Societe des Etudes
Classiques.
985. Melanges linguistiques offerts a Maxime Rodinson (Comptes Rendus du
Robin, Christian, ed. 1

Groupe Linguistique des Etudes Chamito-Semitiques Supplement 12). Paris: Geuthner.

Ryckmans, Jacques. 1985. "L'Ordre alphabetique sud-semitique et ses origines." In Robin 1985:
343-59-
.
1987. "Aux origines de l'alphabet." Bulletin des Seances/Academie Royale des Sciences
d'Outre-Mer / Mededelingen der Zittingen/Koninklijke Academie voor Overzeese Wetenschap-
pen (Brussels) 32: 31 1-33.
Soren, David, Aicha benAbed ben Khader, and Hedi Slim. 1990. Carthage: Uncovering the Mys-
and Splendors of Ancient Tunisia. New York: Simon & Schuster.
teries
Swiggers, Pierre. 1986. "La Nature du nom propre selon Joseph Vendryes." Beitrage zur
Namenforschung 2 1 267-7 : l

Uwano Zendo. 1983. "Iroha poem." Kodansha Encyclopedia of Japan 3:332. Tokyo: Kodansha.
SECTION 69

Numerical Notation
John Soren Pettersson

Forerunners of numerical notation

Notches in bones, some more than 20,000 years old, and in sticks are commonly re-
garded as the earliest representation of numerals (Marshack 1972). Pebbles have also
been used for numerical record-keeping, and herdsmen of some cultures
illiterate still

use them (see table 69. 1 for classification of ways of expressing numbers).
Knotted cords have been used in many parts of the world for storing numerical
information, and the practice is still used insome places. An extremely elaborate sys-
tem, the quipu, was used by the Incas of South America before the Spanish arrived.
A quipu consisted of a main cord with a few to several thousand subsidiary cords (in-

cluding subsidiaries to subsidiaries, and so on). On each substring, one or two num-
bers were represented by knots. A base 10 positional system was used, but how
calculations were performed is not known. Quipus with interrelated numerical con-
tent have been found. From extant quipus it has been inferred that the Incas computed,
at the least, addition, division into equal or proportional parts, and multiplication of
integers by integers or by fractions (Ascher and Ascher 198 1: 151-52).
For numerical memory aids in literate cultures, different notational devices may
coexist: the tally stick was used by the British Royal Treasury until 1826 (Menninger
1969: 236-40). In old Sumerian cuneiform tablets, numbers were written either by
cuneiform signs or by punch marks (for cuneiform, see section 3; for punch marks,
see figures 70 and 7 1 The occurrence of the latter
). has been connected with a
si-

multaneous use of counters, the punch marks being representations of pebbles. For
later times as well, when writing was exclusively in cuneiform, it has been concluded

that accounting was done simultaneously in writing and by storing assemblages of

counters (Oppenheim 1959).
Denise Schmandt-Besserat (1992) tried to go even further. She investigated small
clay objects from ancient sites in the whole of the Middle East. These tokens, as she

calls them, are of fairly simple forms like disks, ovoids, and tetrahedra. They start to

appear as early as 8000 b.c.e. — that is, at the dawn of agriculture and animal husband-
ry. Schmandt-Besserat views the tokens as a simple accounting device of early fann-
ers, using different shapes for different commodities. Further, she connects an
increase in types of token during the fourth millennium with a probable increase in
types of goods during the contemporary formation of town and state constellations.

795
796 PART X,,: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

table 69. 1 : Terminology

Number. A unit belonging to an abstract mathematical system, subject to laws of succession, addi-
tion, and multiplication.

Numeral. A conventional symbol that represents a number.

Additive. A simple grouping system, like the Roman numeral system where = I 1, II = 2, III = 3.

Sign-value notation. To express large numbers, different symbols are used; again the Roman sys-
tem serves as an example with its I = I, V= 5, X = 10, L= 50, C= 100, D = 500, M=
1 ,000. Thus Roman XXXVIII = 38.

Subtractive. The Romans also employed & subtraction principle: IX = 9 * XI = 11 (however, IX

for Villi did not become standard until the time of the printing press).

Multiplicative. In some sign value notations, small numerals denote the number of the bigger
units of the system; if the Romans had written XXXVIII thus, it could have looked like
this: X 111
V 1

I . Similar notations have actually been used, with M and C as superscripts

over I's and V's.

Positional systems utilize the concept of place value; they are like a multiplicative system but
without explicit signs for the higher ranks (cf. the abacus). To illustrate: rewriting XXXVII
by use of place value, it would look like this: III I II, where the first position, from right to
left, denotes ones, the second five, and the third tens. When initial and medial positions are
not used, they must be marked by empty spaces (as on an abacus) or by a special sign,

called zero.

Base of a numerical system is a magnitude greater than 1 that has a particular expression in the

system, and powers of which are also marked specifically. Base systems are named as fol-
lows:

binary quinary octal decimal hexadecimal vigesimal sexagesimal

2 5 8 10 16 20 60
Examples:

Modern Western: The digits o, 1,2, ...,9, used in the ordinary way, constitute an example of a
non-additive, decimal positional system. (Non-additive systems are sometimes called
ciphered.)

Aztec: additive vigesimal: • = 1, •• = 2, ..., ••• = 19, and special signs are used
for three powers of 20 (an axe for 20, an object that looks like a feather for 400, and a
purse for 8,000; see Ifrah 1985: 224).

Mayan: The additive Mayan system may be called either vigesimal (positional) or quinary
vigesimal. 1-6: *, •, i, !, I, 'I; 15: III; 19:^.0: «*», 20: •«*». The head variants forthe
numerals are shown in figure 69. The Maya also had several systems for counting time
(none quite vigesimal), including ciphered systems.

Interestingly, the numerals and number words used by a people rarely fit well: e.g., Aztec number
words for 1 -19 are quinary, and Maya words for 1-19 are decimal (Menninger 1969: 53, 59-64).

Then the ancients began to secure the count of tokens by enclosing them in hol-

low lumps of clay with seal impressions covering the entire surface. Gradually, im-
pressions of the tokens began to appear on the outside of the clay balls, obviously to
make the tokens sealed inside countable. Finally, the envelopes collapsed into tablets
 SECTION 69: NUMERICAL NOTATION 797

779^
\(\Z mm
°
'"•

[ L.**>

\j^ 5^.7/

0, mi 5, ho 10, lahun 15, holahun

1, hun 6, uac 11, buluc 16, uaclahun

2, ca 7, uuc 12, lahca' 17, uuclahun

3, ox 8, uaxac 13, oxlahun 18, uaxaclahun

4, can 9, bolon 14, canlahun 19, bolonlahun

figure 69. Head

variants for the Maya numbers (with equivalents
in spoken Yucatec).
Coe notes that '13' through '19' are "skull variants" of '3' through '9'.
Reproduced with permission from Coe 1992: 113; artist: John Montgomery. © Michael D. Coe.

with token (or blunt stylus) impressions and sealings. (The relationship between early
envelopes and numerical tablets was originally elaborated by Pierre Amiet and Mau-
rice Lambert, as cited in Schmandt-Besserat 1992: 9.)
798 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

/^nJ
- Stylus

Surface
of clay
tablet

Circular Cup-formed

figure 70. The making of circular and cup-shaped numerals.

E> D>
figure 7 1 . Two sizes resulting in four different signs.

Secondarily, incised signs, which evolved into cuneiform signs, were added to
the numerical notations to specify the type of goods and the sender or receiver. When
the notation no longer mixes number and item in the same sign, the numerical signs

are true numerals, as they stand for abstract numbers. For more on the suggestions of
Schmandt-Besserat and criticism of them, see section 2.

The following presents material in a more or less chronological order so as to

suggest possible (but as yet unclear) influences among cultures.

Ancient Near East

Mesopotamia
From the protoliterate period on (see section 10), several different systems of count-
ing were used, each system being connected with specific types of measurement.
Eventually, the sexagesimal system became dominant in the cuneiform world (see
"Sexagesimal System S" figure 14 on page 162). When cuneiform signs started
in

to replace the numerical punch marks (see figures 70 and 7 1 ), the size of the wedge

for 60 was larger than the wedge for and 3,600 was written as an outline of the ear-
1 ,

lier large circular punch seen in figure 14. That is, the technique of sign-value no-
tation was still used.
A true positional system, including fractions, evolved around 2000 b.c.e.
(table 69.2). Originally, no zero existed; furthermore, the ideal use of blank space,
as exemplified in table 69.2 for 3,601, 61, and 2, was not always followed by the
scribes. Signs to denote an empty position became common in the third century
b.c.e. but except for astronomical tables, they were not used at the beginning effrac-
,

tions nor at the end of numbers. This failure to mark the size of the numbers should
perhaps be seen as a consequence of a parallel use of tabulated standard calculations
 SECTION 69: NUMERICAL NOTATION 799

table 69.2: Mesopotamian Sexagesimal Place-value Notation

I 2 3 4 ... 9 10 II 12 ... 50 60
r it m v m < <t <n * !

The numerals for 1-50 show a decimal system at work within the sexagesimal system:

Number: 2 1 6,000 36,000 3,600 600 60 10 1

Old sign value: t& 3> O ? T < !

Place value:
Sign: ! < ! < ! < T
3 2 1
Position: 4th (60 ) 3rd (60 ) 2nd (60 ) ist(6o°)

Note 2, 61, 3,601: }], H, 1 !

The subtraction principle could be used: « f" J

= 20 -1 = 19; earlier, 00 f" D.
In Akkadian cuneiform, only 1-99 were written with numerals, while special signs for 100 and
1,000made it possible to express numbers in decimal notation, conforming to the structure of
number words in Semitic languages. An example:

360 1 : TTT <!^ m [— ! '3 thousand 6 hundred 1

table 69.3: Example of How Calculation Was Aided by Standard Tables

alb —» a x {\lb) previously calculated

A division 7/5 was transformed to a multiplication 7 x (1/5). For 1/5, standard tables of recipro-
cals would be employed; such a table gives 1/5 = ^JJ, i.e. 12 rather than o;i2 (= 12/60)
[the semicolon separates representations of units from sixtieths].

Product table for 7 then gives 7 x 12 = ] « ]}

'1 24', where the } signifies 60, and by considering
the size of the original numbers, one realizes that the correct quotient is 1 ;24 (= 1 .4 in our nota-
tion). (For sexagesimally non-finite fractions, the Babylonians used approximations.)

(see table 69.3); by not respecting the size of the original numbers, standard lists

could be applied in a wide range of computations. Did the lack of a medial zero ham-
per earlier Babylonian accountancy and mathematics? Probably not. Sixty as a base
is much greater than ten, and thus the risk for confusion was small. However, several
precautions were taken by the scribes: numerals could be written in columns, for in-
stance, or words were used to give the size of specific numerals. The Babylonian sex-

agesimal system has survived in our present-day minutes and seconds.

Egypt
The Egyptian system had ten as its base but did not need the zero, since it was built
up like the older Mesopotamian systems with different symbols for different magni-
tudes; see table 69.4. Fractions are also shown: note that they are unit fractions i/iu

where n is awhole number. Special signs could be used for '/, 2/„ and V4 A frequent .

problem in the Rhind papyrus (1600 b.c.e.), one of the principal sources of knowl-
edge about ancient Egyptian mathematics (Robins and Shute 1987), is doubling of
 "

800 PART XI,: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

TABLE 69.4: Egypt

I 10 100 1,000 10,000 100,000 1,000,000

< 1 1 ^ *

/3 /4 /5 /10 ... A
T^ "nif m
1 1
"^ ^r

4%,,= i/
3 + >/4 + '/
3 V7 =V 28 +Vi
1 1 1 mi 1 1 1 1111 I^T "^nTi

table 69.5: The Egyptian Horus-eye

<L O __ £>- \j> 1

1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/ 1/
'2 '4 '8 '16 '32 '6

unit fractions (for some reason these are never written additively as \ln \lri). For frac-
tions of the hekat, a unit of volume, the Egyptians used parts of the Horus eye; see
table 69.5. Multiplications and divisions were not computed in the Mesopotamian
fashion but "by breaking up any higher multiple into a sum of consecutive duplica-
tions" (Neugebauer 1957: 73f.). In the hieratic hand, the individual occurrences of the
basic signs were simplified to small strokes, dots, or angles on cursive variants of the
basic signs. In this way, special symbols emerged for each number 1-9, 10-90, 100-
900, 1,000-9,000. The demotic system was also non-additive. During the Monarchic
period of ancient Israel/Judah, hieratic-inspired numerals were used in the Old He-
brew script (section 5).

Linear A and B
The structure of the numerical system for whole numbers in Linear A and B (section
7) resembles the Egyptian; the shapes of the signs are shown in table 69.6. The

table 69.6: Linear A and Linear B

I 10 100 1,000 10,000

Linear A • or ?

Linear B '
" ° *
Cretan hieroglyphic writing displays a similar system (with • for 10).

Concrete fractions in Linear B: VVM"

The example shows a measure of olive oil: 3 units (of -30 liters), 2 thirds, and 2 eighteenths (i.e.

the second fraction is one-sixth the first fraction). From Knossos tablet Fpi (Chadwick 1987: 14).
 SECTION 69: NUMERICAL NOTATION gQl

stroke for 'one' and the word-divider are often distinguishable from each other by the
former being raised to the top of the line. In Linear A tablets, a great many signs for
true fractional numbers have been found, although they have not yet been definitively
interpreted. In Linear B tablets, on the other hand, another way of dealing with parts
is encountered: the ordinary unit signs are used together with special signs for frac-
tional measures, which differ depending on whether volume or weight is measured.
However, several of the Linear B fractional signs are derived from Linear A (for de-
tails, see Ventris and Chadwick 1973: 53-60).

Northwest Semitic

In (North) West Semitic writing, numbers were often written out in words. True nu-
merals in the Aramaic script begin to appear from the eighth century b.c.e. (see
figure 57 on page 495) and are then found in Phoenician and other inscriptions.
These numerals are vertical strokes for 1-9 (grouped in threes for easier reading),
pairs of the horizontal 10-stroke to denote tens (thus 50 was written as -==), and spe-
cial signs for hundred, thousand, and ten thousand (to be used multiplicatively).

South and East Asia

Indus script

It is reasonable to propose an original base eight system for the undeciphered Indus
script (section i i), since one to seven strokes appear fairly often (see figure 72),
while larger assemblages of strokes are very rare. Surprisingly, numerals appear in
seal inscriptions. Perhaps they were used syllabically (rebus-style) to write names, or
else they may be signs for gods, which are often parts of mortals' names (in mystic
religious cuneiform texts, one actually finds ordinary god names replaced by num-
bers; S. Parpola 1993). Fairservis (1992) has proposed identifications of signs used
for 8-12 and suggests, specifically, that these were used to denote the months of the
year. This is, however, a highly uncertain interpretation. It is probably safer to inter-

pret numerals on Indus pottery and bronzes as signifying volume and weight. How-
ever, the state of preservation of inscribed objects makes it hard to check even this
hypothesis. It seems as if semicircles signified 'eight' or 'ten', and strokes 'one', but
there were also tilted rows of four strokes: were these for fractions (halves?) or for
non-numerical concepts?

figure 72. Two variants in the Indus script of the number '7' in a frequently attested context.

Many of the actual contexts for '7' are longer than indicated here.
although most Harappan inscriptions are very short.
 .

802 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

TABLE 69.7: China

— 1 Example:
— 2 279,5 4 : = (2 X 10 + 7])x io,ooo + 9X 1,000 + 5 x 100 + (1 x) 10 +4
*.

3 —
m 4 +
£ 5 •fc

/N 6 X
•fc 7 a
A 8 t
% 9 £
-v
10
B
H 100 (-)
^P
1,000
+
M or 7J 10,000
H
China
The earliest known Chinese notational system is contemporary with the earliest script

remains, the oracle bones (see section 14). Present-day Chinese numerals (also used
in Japan and Korea) are shown in table 69.7. However, today the "Arabic" digits o-
9 are in common use in East Asia —though the abacus is still widely used, and for sim-
ple commercial calculations is competitive in speed with electronic calculators. The
Chinese system constitutes a multiplicative system, as the example in table 69.7
shows. Additional signs have been employed in scientific works to express large num-
bers. Not later than the third century b.c.e., a bamboo-stick arithmetic had been
established (figure 73). These rod numerals were adapted to writing. Negative num-

Units,
hundreds,
1 0,000s

Tens,
... T T ¥ ¥
thousands,
1 00,000s .

The Chinese rod system used five small sticks of bamboo or wood to form two sequences of the
numbers 1-9. Such numbers were laid in the squares of a checkered counting board which facili-
tated representation of position (powers of 10). Because there were two sequences, there was no

pressing need for a special sign for zero when rod numerals were adapted to writing. In this exam-
ple, the 6 cannot be interpreted as 60, nor can the 3 stand for 300:

sT "3" "6" k
I

T'

3000 + 600+ 1 =3601

figure 73. Chinese rods

 SECTION 69: NUMERICAL NOTATION gQ3

bers were perhaps introduced as early as the rod arithmetic. From about 1200 c.e.
there are, in writing, different notations of negativity: positive numbers written in red

color, negative in black; or negative numbers are indicated by a diagonal stroke over
the last numeral of the number. Fractions were for a long time written in words. From
the eighth century on, empty position (zero) was marked by a blank space, and from
the thirteenth century a circle was used, paving the way for positional fractions (e.g.
005 meaning 0.05). Lam Lay-yong (1988) has argued that the conceptual (although
not the graphic) origin of our decimal system is the Chinese rod system.

Classical Greece and Rome

Greece

The Greek acrophonic system, called Attic or Herodianic, used the first letter of the
words YIENTE pente 'five', AEKA deka 'ten', HKATON hekaton 'hundred', XIAIOI
khilioi 'thousand', MYPIOI myrioi 'ten thousand'. In its structure, it resembles the
Roman system (in table 69.8, note that there existed composite graphs for 50, 500,
5,000, and 50,000).
However, possibly to make it easier to write numbers, the Greeks invented anoth-
er system, the alphabetic (see section 22). Strokes were used to indicate thousands
(,£ = 5,000, for instance). Without multiplication being simplified, computing addi-
tion required more skill in the alphabetic system than in the acrophonic system. In any
event, this system, at first frequently found only in scientific texts, became common
in the second century b.c.e. and supplanted the acrophonic totally, lasting into the

Byzantine era. The Greek letter numerals were used, and occasionally still are, in

Ethiopia (section 51), where, however, only the first nineteen letters (1-9, 10-90,
100) are employed, higher numerals being expressed by the multiplicative principle.
Probably under Greek influence, other alphabets (see under each of these scripts
in parts V and VIII) began to be used as numerals: Hebrew from before the Common
Era, Gothic from around the fourth century c.e., Georgian and Syriac (Serto and
Nestorian) from the seventh century c.e., and Arabic from the eighth century (where
the 28th letter is used for 1 ,000 and multiples of 1 ,000 are expressed multiplicatively).
A curious use of the numerical value of the letters is Hebrew gematria, where the val-

table 69.8: Gt •eek (Attic system)

1 1 P 500

P 5 X 1,000

A 10 P 5,000

P 50 M 10,000

H 100 pi 50.000
gQ4 P ART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

table 69.9: Roman

P 500 C|D 1,000

1* 5,000 C(|3) IO,000

l» 50.000 (H|» 1 00,000

ues of the letters in a word or name are computed and manipulated and compared; 'the
number of the beast' of the Book of Revelations is similar. There have been several
kinds of gematria systems.

Rome
For the Roman numerals, see the illustration in table 69. 1 . The Roman numerals are
not acrophonic even though C for 100 {centum in Latin) and M for 1,000 (mi lie) may
suggest this. In fact, the source of the original graphs is not clear, but they were obvi-
ously later adapted to the shapes of the letters of the Roman alphabet. Early forms of
thousands,some used as late as the nineteenth century, are shown in table 69.9. A
composite way of denoting thousands was especially employed in the Middle Ages:
a bar over I denoted 1,000, a bar over II denoted 2,000, and so on. Although Roman
numbers (and acrophonic Greek) may seem long and complicated, they are very suit-
able for addition (and subtraction); it was just a matter of heaping similar symbols and
then replacing them by greater powers as needed.

0-9
Our ordinary numerals, 0-9, are often called Arabic, but some historians of mathe-
matics prefer Hindu-Arabic because the Arabic numerals were originally Indian. The
original numerals spread not only to Europe and the Arab world, but in different guis-

and Southeast Asia (see figure 74 for a diagram presenting the his-
es also to Central
tory of one of them). They first appeared in the Brahmi script (section 30) in the
second century b.c.e. At this stage the numerals 1-3 were still one to three strokes,
while 4-9 were actually ciphered. There were signs for 10-90, 100, and 1000; thus
no zero was needed, nor any principle of position. Around 600 C.E., the numerals 1-
9 appear in a positional system. Finally, the concept of zero also entered this system.
Around the year 800 the Indian decimal system, with zero, was introduced in Muslim
areas. The earliest European use of "Arabic" numerals is found at the end of the first

millennium, but the gradual replacement of abaci and other devices did not begin be-
fore the twelfth century, and not until the fifteenth century did the digits 0-9 become
common (and graphically standardized). The European forms have spread world-
wide, and their sole global rival is ... the barcode!
 SECTION 69: NUMERICAL NOTATION gQ5

INDIA
Nasik, Mathura, ^
T
O _*
5S-3 ,X-*<^-^
™ET MONGOL
Kusana, Andhra^ NEPAL KASHMIR
INDIA/ X O^^^-^h.^—?
S 5 ? &Gwa Uor
r edee
/
/ CHAMPA '

INDIA / inscriptions / - ^-*-^T—

^-^^
*- V^
JAVA
Valhabi inscriptions— _
* \f
_£.
— CAMBODIA
I
^_ _, Kavi
INDIA SOUTHEAST
Pali &
VJT V~7
CAMBODIA
ASIA
s J T Oriya
(Bangka)
INDIA CAMBODIA
5 Ksatrapa coins
INDIA
Nagan &
y #*
Pali

INDIA
JAVA
Kavi
^r ^^ Smdhi
Marathi INDIA
INDIA Teluga & Kanara
Gupta inscriptions
INDIA
Nagari, Pali, & Punjabi

INDIA INDIA
Manuscripts
Ksatrapa
Teluga & Kanara
inscriptions EASTERN ARABS

$ $ S
9 C 9
WESTERN ARABS T ]
88SS8 8*9»*S» 8
EUROPE (apices) EUROPF
(algorisms)

figure 74. Origin and evolution of the numeral 8

(reproduced with permission from Ifrah 1985: 488).

Further reading
Ifrah 1985 is a highly commendable volume on numerals through all of history
(though it contains an unfortunate attempt at deciphering Proto-Elamite numerals,
and has nothing on the enigmatic Indus numerals). The French original (1981) may
be consulted for its comprehensive bibliography. A book which focuses on both num-
ber symbols and number words is Menninger 1969. Cajori 1928-29 gives the history
of mathematical notations. For mathematics and its applications, one can profitably
turn to Newman 1956, Neugebauer 1957, Needham 1959, and Gillispie 1978, though
there are many other good works on the history of mathematics.
806 PART XI,: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

Bibliography

Ascher, Marcia, and Robert Ascher. 1981. Code of the Quipu. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Press.
Cajori, Florian. 1928-29. A History of Mathematical Notations. 2 vols. Chicago: Open Court. Repr.
in 1 vol., New York: Dover, 1993.
Chadwick, John. 1987. Linear B and Related Scripts (Reading the Past). London: British Museum;
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Coe, Michael D. 1992. Breaking the Maya Code. New York: Thames and Hudson.
Damerow, Peter, and Robert K. Englund. 1987. "Die Zahlzeichensysteme der Archaischen Texte aus
Uruk." In Zeichenliste der Archaischen Texte aus Uruk, pp. 17-66. Berlin: Mann. 1

Dilke, O. A. W. 1987. Mathematics and Measurement (Reading the Past). London: British Museum;
Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press.
Fairservis, Walter A. 1992. The Harappan Civilization and its Writing. Leiden: Brill.
Friberg, Joran. 1990. "Mathematik" [in Englishl. Reallexikon der Assyriologie und vorderasiatis-
chen Archaologie 7: 531-85. Berlin: de Gruyter.
Gillispie, Charles Coulston, ed. 1978. "Topical Essays." In Dictionary of Scientific Biography 15
suppl. 1: 529-818. New York: Scribner's. Repr. as vol. 8, 1981.
Ifrah, Georges. 1985. From One to Zero: A Universal History of Numbers. New York: Viking Pen-
guin (French orig., Histoire universelle des chijfres, 1981).

Lam Lay-yong. 1988. "A Chinese Genesis: Rewriting the History of Our Numeral System." Archive
for the History of Exact Sciences 38: 101-8.
Marshack, Alexander. 1972. The Roots of Civilization: The Cognitive Beginnings of Man 's First Art,
Symbol and Notation. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Menninger, Karl. 1969. Number Words and Number Symbols: A Cultural History of Numbers, trans.
Paul Broneer. Cambridge: MIT Press (German orig., 1958). Repr. New York: Dover, 1992.
Needham, Joseph. 1959. Mathematics and the Sciences of the Heavens and the Earth (Science and
Civilization in China 3). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Nemet-Nejat, Karen Rhea. 1993. Cuneiform Mathematical Texts as a Reflection of Everyday Life in

Mesopotamia (American Oriental Series 75). New Haven: American Oriental Society.
Neugebauer, Otto. 1957. The Exact Sciences in Antiquity, 2nd ed. Providence: Brown University
Press. Repr. New York: Dover, 1969.
Newman, James R., ed. 1956. The World of Mathematics. New York: Simon and Schuster. Repr. New
York: Microsoft Press, 1988.
Oppenheim, A. Leo. 1959. "On an Operational Device in Mesopotamian Bureaucracy." Journal of
Near Eastern Studies 18: 121-28.
Parpola, Simo. 1993. "The Assyrian Tree of Life: Tracing the Origins of Jewish Monotheism and
Greek Philosophy." Journal of Near Eastern Studies 52: 161-208.
Robins, Gay, and Charles Shute. 1987. The Rhind Mathematical Papyrus: An Ancient Egyptian Text.

London: British Museum Publications; New York: Dover.

Schmandt-Besserat, Denise. 1992. Before Writing, vol. 1: From Counting to Cuneiform. Austin:
University of Texas Press.
Ventris, Michael, and John Chadwick. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek, 2nd ed. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
SECTION 70

Shorthand
Peter T. Daniels

Only one even somewhat detailed history of shorthand seems to have appeared in En-
glish in the last century (and the literature in other languages is hardly more promis-
ing). That was a long series of short articles by John Robert Gregg
( 1 867-1948) in his

magazine The Business Education World published between 1933 and 1940. (The se-
ries, brought down to the end of the 18th century, was interrupted by "more pressing

war work," and inquiries as to whether any continuation survives among his papers

have gone unanswered.) This survey is perforce largely based on those reports.
Shorthand may be characterized as a notation system for recording words as fast

as they are spoken. A written shorthand record is called notes, and the act of making
shorthand notes is reporting. The process is not complete until the report is tran-

scribed into ordinary orthography, and even the best reporter needs to do the tran-
scription before the material reported has totally vanished from recall, as elimination

of redundancy, and even the introduction of ambiguity, may make the report virtually
unrecoverable. A secondary advantage of shorthand in the workplace or lawcourt is

confidentiality: while another reporter may be able to decipher someone's notes, they
are fairly secure from casual interception.

Historical survey

The earliest known materials that might be considered shorthand are a genre of Meso-
potamian cuneiform documents in which virtually all the phonographic characters
have been eliminated; only logograms are left to carry the content of the text, with the
grammatical relations largely unexpressed. This seems to have been done less for

concision than to maintain secrecy; the texts involved are magical and technical, re-
cording confidential procedures and recipes.

Classical era

The search means of writing more quickly seems almost as old as Greek alpha-
for
betic writing:two stones inscribed with experimental schemata for abbreviated writ-
ing have been found, which were dedicated one at Athens and one at Delphi, dating
from the fourth century b.c.e. (Boge 1974 surveys Classical and Medieval shorthand,
with detailed bibliography. He contends that Greek shorthand developed out of the
Roman system of Tironian no tee, named for Tiro, ex-slave, secretary, and companion

807
808 PART Xll: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

A^^ rV eKT€
•<
CKiiWf---- (75 9 )
^l
mm*** 7
v\ Ti^pf§L, :
(7 6o) r "^
/ o7rot7ecrta
#<

figure 75. Excerpt from the Greek shorthand manual, Commentary (Milne 1934, pi. I and p. 64).

to the great orator M. Tullius Cicero [106-43 b.c.e.], who is said to have devised it.)
The system known as Greek tachygraphy 'fast writing' consisted of a Syllabary
and a Commentary, to which were added signs for complete phrases. The Syllabary
included signs for vowels (four of the seven the same as the ordinary letters), for diph-
thongs (compounded from parts of the vowel signs), for syllables vowel plus con- —
sonant, consonant plus vowel, and more elaborate combinations and for —
grammatical inflections. In the Commentary, groups of four words, usually chosen ar-
bitrarily, are associated with symbols whose shapes can sometimes be related to the

Syllabary. Each of these four words is notated with the word-symbol accompanied by
a sign related to the word's last syllable placed in a particular location alongside it

(figure 75). Manuals of the system survive among papyri discovered at Oxyrhyn-
chus (in Egypt) from the third or fourth century c.e., and the edition of those frag-

ments gives 810 signs with their tetrads (Milne 1934: 21-67).

A A b M ~\
N 7- \A
A A A
B 3 alius alienus avium

C O J~ 'other' 'foreigner 'trackless'

D P
A
E :k, Q
F R 1 P attonitus
'thunderstruck'
Andron

G S
H vi T 1 b b .b b
I 1 V V arbiter amicus ager animus

K k X f- 'eyewitness' 'friend' 'field' 'intellect'

L U Z 1 1
figure 76. The Tironian alphabet and some wordsigns beginning with a(BEW Feb. 1934: 284-85).
 SECTION 70: SHORTHAND 809

n m
a b c-k-q d e
r i
f
r
g
i
h
r
i-j-y
r
1 m
i i
n
m
o p
r
r
t
s t
f t
u-v-w

/ book 7~~7 bird cf—> skill metal

y | almanac /"""7
f crane <H""> 1 baker vr—Q *j brass

commentary
/—? *1 dove J— :> ( carpenter
f tin

pamphlet (\ pheasant J— * <J ? lead

treatise 7—7 p raven <)

— -> tailor lr— ( copper
/ -f>

volume /—7-j* turkey J —O <p weaver I/—"D

f iron

figure 77. Alphabet and composite words in Bright's Characterie (BEW May 1934: 532-33).

The acme of Greek tachygraphy was in the Byzantine administration, in the sev-
eral centuries before the Arab Conquest (7th century c.E.). A more detailed system
was in use during the ninth through twelfth centuries.
In Rome, public affairs and business matters were recorded by stenographers em-
ploying Tironian notae. The system shows similarity to the Greek. The main principle
is that a word is recorded according to its initial letter, the symbol for which is slanted
in different degrees to denote the following vowel; supplementary dots, dashes, and
other marks distinguish particular words (figure 76). Roman stenography continued
in limited use by the Merovingian and Carolingian chanceries, and by scholars until
the tenth century. The most complete study remains Kopp 1817-29, supplemented by
the important work of Schmitz 1893 (Thompson 191 2: 73-74; I am indebted to
Michael K. C. MacMahon for information and references).

Renaissance

Medieval manuscripts are full of abbreviatory devices (Cappelli 1929), but these
served to save precious writing materials (and a bit of time), rather than to facilitate

swift reporting; they are largely transparent and would not have presented any diffi-

culty to the reader. It is not until Elizabethan England that shorthand again appears:
in 1588, Timothe Bright, M.D., published Characterie. This worked somewhat like

Roget's Thesaurus: 537 signs for basic concepts (the shapes taken from arbitrary
symbols of their initial letters) served as key, or master, words; to note a related word,
was written with beside it the initial of the desired word, synonyms to the left,
a sign
antonyms to the right. Many words were treated as genus and species (figure 77).
Almost nothing written in Characterie has survived, but Friedrich (191 8) suggests
810 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

that it was the means by which the texts of Elizabethan plays were recorded for pub-

lication; he substantiates his claim with a detailed study of variants between the edi-
tions of Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor. This is followed by an even more
detailed study of the publication history of Romeo and Juliet (Schottner 1918).
Bright seems to have been aware of Renaissance research into the nature of the
Tironian notae, but did not himself incorporate any of the ancient symbols into his
own system. This was first done by John Willis, author of the first phonetically

grounded shorthand system, The Art of Stenographie (1602). Willis wrote the sign for
the initial letter full size; the following vowel was indicated by writing the next con-
sonant small in one of six positions around the main letter. Subsequent consonants of
a cluster were attached to the bottom of the letter (figure 78).
Gregg recognizes John Willis's importance in creating phonetic shorthand, but
credits Edmond Willis with the first practical shorthand (161 8), inasmuch as its sym-
bols are much easier to write. He adapts some of the earlier devices, for instance sim-
plifying vowel representation by not using positions to the left of the main letter.

Gregg devotes several pages each to a number of seventeenth- and eighteenth-

century innovators, whose achievements must be reduced to a few words apiece:
Thomas Shelton (1626) found a new way to write diphthongs (his is the system used
by the famous diarist Samuel Pepys and advocated by Thomas Jefferson). Jeremiah
Rich ( 1 646) used the dot of "i" to stand for /, apparently stimulating others to use sim-
ple, separate signs for vowels; and he used length of stroke to distinguish two letters,

m and n. William Mason (1672, 1682, 1707) almost completely abolished the use of
"arbitraries" or "symbolicals," wordsigns that had nothing to do with phonetics.
Through such
ABCDEFGHIJKLM
characters, shorthand systems became enmeshed in the Enlightenment

a n < + K>r3u 1
1 1 I

\ c / c V ) >> Y Z
CH SH TH CL ST

Double Consonants X o o "T )

/V are <C- eat c\^ ire C^ on n

U mad \J med \J mid lT ™d l> mud

C storms k knocks C
^* thrown J
><
whippe /\ annoy

< Essex X
^ N
,vL
China
r
VV vicar VV violate /
• c
poetrie

#
' v» abate A, a!mos t I dialogue \ Norwich ^"]
c dutie

figure 78. Consonants, vowels, and words in J. Willis's Stenographie (fi£WOct. 1934: 96-97)-
 SECTION 70: SHORTHAND gJJ

search for a "universal language," wherein great scholars such as Leibniz and Newton
applied themselves to such endeavors (Slaughter 1982).

Modern
It was the practical needs of reporting Parliamentary debates that gave rise to the
shorthand systems whose descendants have not yet quite given way to mechanical
court stenography and to office voice-recording devices. The House of Gurney had
been, at the time of Gregg's writing, Official Shorthand Writers to the House of Com-
mons and the House of Lords for well over a century —they were appointed in 18 13
(the first time any such office had been recognized anywhere); the system they used
was based, by Thomas Gurney (1750), on that of William Mason. The most celebrat-
ed user of Gurney 's was Charles Dickens, who worked as a Parliamentary reporter
between the ages of 1 8 and 20.
Gregg identifies a second stream in the development of shorthand beginning with
John Byrom (1720), who introduced geometric shorthand, with signs based on seg-
ments of circles; grouped consonants phonetically; and used dots exclusively for
vowels. All consonants were joined together, and vowels were largely optional. Wil-
liam Williamson (1775) applied the theories of Byrom in a more practical way. Gregg
includes two more names in this group — Samuel Taylor (1786) and William Mavor
(1789) —but this is where his narrative breaks off. Instead of continuing with the

achievements of Isaac Pitman and his descendants (they were his chief rivals in the

sale of shorthand instruction, and perhaps he wished to avoid the appearance of con-
frontation), he skips to the First International Shorthand Congress, held in London in

1 887. (The 19th century saw shorthand come to France, with the brothers Abbe Emile
and Gustave Duploye; to Germany, with F. X. Gabelsberger; and elsewhere.) He then
takes up the theoretical bases of shorthand, and does not fully succeed in avoiding po-
lemics. Polemics pervade discussions of shorthand, for it must not be forgotten that

the shorthand industry was a huge business through most of the twentieth century.
Isaac Pitman (18 13-1897) used Taylor's system for seven years, and "was invit-

ed" to prepare for publication a system of his own in 1837 (Abercrombie 1937: 101).
This he did within a few months (figure 79), and Pitman Shorthand is the leading
system used in Great Britain, and the second most popular in the United States. Pit-

man is probably the first shorthand creator who was a sophisticated phonetician
(Kelly 1 98 1), and he incorporates the graphic device of shading (lighter and heavier
lines), along with length differences, to indicate phonetic similarity. (For another
shorthand created by a linguist, the celebrated phonetician Henry Sweet, see MacMa-
hon 1 981; Karlgren 1978: 133 n. 1 claims it is difficult to write with Sweet's system,
since he has not ensured that vowels can be conveniently connected to consonants!)
John Robert Gregg (Leslie 1964, Cowan 1984) born in rural Ireland, raised in —
—
Glasgow as a youth suffered a disciplinary blow to the head that partly deafened
him and gave him a reputation for dull-wittedness. When a wise old friend pointed
 — —

812 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

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/,, /.';-}', 'i* -/"/*<£>, >>. "/' /f/t ' art.« viiyVeriK as n« go ci»1 b ~-x y
ttit !«ft u/"pti-penc).cuHr4 tuning iA»i«

ftrimritiVx. o:\x»ft^.or6t.os nisi «re«f1««iftM well «ye>0ape\owl

w
"J «/- U»h.ffi nox«ouS '^r? q awfe k i/i'tr /'oncf aba v« KoruonUl itrokti.
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'

At^-i, of f'ti-. wifhtutthe ttp/rafyoi Quten^"'^u«rl #r under, fff Jo*^1oqK 'Sigh^covi

H V'/tiw/jo rA*» comrrnnciny « 6. Th i yewtt*' places ar* countsd
f tylteafe. in which case fhta /wer *«w/- from Mtbe^inniri^ oflhtcansl*.* a)
fl. CIC(. / ^ 1 »>f jff./'A combirxjlron milhtnotnr ****> their dtmttiw /riaMt fin\ pfaca.
« U»/7/ 4»^/T(/</ 7^<y/*« ox/sjtktm&t os
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as »he-/Ld»*l'ply\
she -/.ds* P ply*N weak-jioije
weak-noije
L
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ft J.
Y
°^5hir»«-V west* %rife S- *->to>t*\f <1.0..> /*«//- tkrivatntti
/. eyeJFlAy,
/-art- f uA*U> v/t-Cf/t. J \*-£sMabJfy'cttfm
Eiptoally observe the
rhc fraptr
fin/ptr sauna"
afthi short rptttft «m»^
ft At
fa th* second
Ac the p/act »/rniddl«^/
ttcond'jtfoct o/rniddl«<w
afwhioh the tonkas vAT oatH 'jppeVKachej.
»>re
<*t \.
~T in thecam man hand 'is cur jfp/att oirfoiHf a.o i their derm/Hies Aav*
'7- r thus, neet*"! I«riir'~l ag«/'edj»/' /A« third pfoce or end.«j P«N. Ioo<"

{/ml { ,/twyU ps»lm —

^ S*m (StmuoI'l^N.r**^' duel, now ^* housed, youth J[
<

'Ami/, r»t/l tone t- tun t-po oil V" pullV* 9. rVA#^ i.llo *7» /v/ n? <r^ii?

9* "/" (
//^/ /A™ i. Pronounce fAt vowaJs #J they thty may point any ear. wAen
;oun<f in rhi o/phebtttco t mor/s ihey standalone for wg/jxi lAiy
/S A.\r end awamplas pleoad to them. r%. olwayi ttanto die nght. as whom »
touttct ay*ry consonant at once ay 10- A vowel betweaOl t*o cons?
'means of the small vo*tt put Ho it. (A/ttithtfOfthem the loop %)isto it
~„„,/c> aj*/ • ue» r.., o <*/»*i*'. 'A> •*•*/. •"?/!<-! !
***** 'Ai' Ltorti by h*art the. natural order of placed tAus. • f r tt or % ec o n d /)/<?<•« i

the sinatt ratraJs It si no I* tonsanottts,. n?ir«/ affer tht fii jl coms! aj teamL
as bx/d*. Miw noma art fhan to some corrTJ-Tweedirrfifle^void*. ne1~1
&//> U.JSU /ft/fftJ ^si-n/o- « ft /c. O trr-ftf/M' Ptewutftvau </, of nit sinole eons? to ttprass their boat^ /lthirdl*/»f« rmttfffu before
tme sound, or to keep mem in uniftn the list cons.'wii.li^loorn^duke
4. Mortt Mi diffarano* between L» man ~yr mouths shaft
^
spispr. Sjirfr. eehAschr, jklcsUr. 11. /V?e loopt'dol s hfheno tJMul
i*>a/r ^ roiftd is pttt close to one. it
at th* co«ri"ienc«mont«» "itevrftoA» be/enfsic tht cons.' oonnuhd with
,

cii rp». blots, chs* rchs, ks k rks itot bast's/ secure i^fcslclile »_
\\l 1/ y _
/rlwo vowels come between tro
etme vorK,\\ii\of\of*atd;.$uJ0><nnf &bft cans? one one hr eoch. os p*e+^
12.

-1^2 DOUB LE: VgW njb^toma+aaai

r,
-
vfi. yevrs M we. be/ween.
& Yates H JKfl 7- way. wAere.
<i i » r/o-w/ r Bd. * [W/f «—
£>-*.it»i fyrscL-ic Pitman. Mitu/grcyohe r? yawn «^ 5^?*/: rW///^
'

" t»f>g »V>J'* »<

Mt/t,2. WOC*f\
,
fW you-r-S. aul * W£S>
~ in. tt, sin «t^ * f/7«ey. /^« ^ *jth.
h
!
/W/1
and. on. at
sent ( M
iyA
j«f/;
yfrdJ
ye'ster
[doy.
well.

thwack (_j
»>'C
when,
rf L

^ ^
of. not. y/cL 6t,ypnd. itl was." what,
x
nuf^ sufi*±> YQi£ig. young- were won
, put shou/d-st. #;f Isrer^l &Cl would -st
tff Tht underlined lefttrs (It) l by. tA^ 01 fit) voice, (now.
indicate me sounds of A£ OIL (&b)tAojj about.

the vowt/s. Liters

ctftAus Hart
mork-
foreign
't

J4Z
^*^^t 6 TREBLE
n ..
«QJIa9
.

""*
.,. [— m
VOWELS ,.*•*., ^,w
uaZL pip*
.
[.,*<)*

kprovin&'ei sounds. ma (6*6) t(avW I WQU

PJALM 100 ^-w. . /*<or c r

•-;, .:
t
f/i^/<,vi-' - ? c I
/Vv r ° • | •• C• I -Y« *

* r rV-^/> /»»>
/</i /»£»>«! lessens from the Author by pot*yrwtyifavsJy. £ocA fas

/i^V..ntJk;^
,
?
£ V=

\ y i

JBcdfirM- ZithwoptyJtritbt.

figure 79. (left) Pitman's original 1837 publication; (right) his 1840 "penny plate"
(after Drucker 1995: 249-50).
 SECTION 70: SHORTHAND 813

Mounted an Can*oM Mound in Oofh. fetteredwit* two chgpAw? /him the N . T (MatSifatytsodditwSeieri^tttfLOMOO* S Bapster, l& ftrervuHter tip*. M4C
I). wfun r»o vowels be IC4/«4f A4« stroke I //> M«M \%JVnen jh#rl stands alone, ooant the IS Ditjefn Prefixes i Affiles, as
or and a word put on trios cojrj only, when a "Ota" voweH'p/eces downwards.*/ ihoa / /V5- or
inrorestT Phonogrsphv W
k>h* other i< a Hide n cento-ins only tet vowel, law^aUcw.r Jf»«* etthtr letter c' pi ura l-»/1Tjt /*/ s. aJTlrtrtTcfi 0- ^
Wi:iB.' «Ota'H. oi Si* «f yes-)sigh J wa«fl i joined to me loop i »v»/v. */»'* // tipniVj lenamanrsi'^ earldoms
air
^J
ltiilh*X.ViCtori| i")pe»ted. a/ ctsie.'iij! obwnwords.et iiiuu J
lace f sale r" 27 Com i con «7-« »/-;'*sw ej- a
J
rfr I i

H.rVtver/oin a $ho :ej \also %rbcn a word ltuw*<ftf*reWshn *r/W 4 tick *^4" dot beforarhe n*nr cons.'*/ comply
llreight/«MVM*>* S to ins with «v»*»' foJ- i/Mer /r^ar stands a lent, osor/ rye •" ^ consider ' A accom tya Keas
y
it a i mays J Sou til lewed ^y I, as a »kl_ or oceans / *-.* it u succeeded by the
•

it accomplished ^^
or treble COnsi to a andj wtthtvewd pre c e- loop t on/y.os arise «-*a<rs ^ oceer.5 >• M^rm^^i/rff small dor after 1

tetter in the s a m • d* ded *r &.<rj teod eoc>i 20. Thekffus ohn t rch must new
rha last consr<v startir)C fM* e/4'/p/
rectiO", hutmnte the * whenever you worn stond alone, ^cr ir/M the loop s inbs /> # larde doi.cj wo/kin flj
j
..
/

—
Single coos!" topufavwttlto tat a/j/J' odded. bt cause of sht * rl Is /r*« w#ry reaches too row. <v-
ttktvTrht*
Tthep*nos\»a sumptuous^ C/, 'V 41 foch letter in till Alpha b*t stands rffaaj' not join well.A>Jre off the pen.
bor^. nol^ snHinj UAH rulis rdotioa Vr *rth» word* put to it lexctpr the as constituted |l ctiaraeable X
j™ tjorpm/rjmrwd (Bf tht sharp consoeonts i to triples in short Aon a? t a// JO Choose tht_ U-
l5.Sfln«fl»rn4r. «/>/f p. t.oh, k.f. th. *. jh, of the tamt found, or " I and 9yo,tc a as pert rW
it/bftr.a curved thus • art also appiitof-ltto for other wordt write oil tht oonsonont 31 Gtnerol/f ontii
OS nations,/" portion their correspond^ flats, that sound.Qoinmg /ham together.) t of brevity.
^/missionary b. d.j. g. v. th rzh. tht principal vowei. of appeered S 32 Afintp/aoe
42. 5 may he added to an Alphabetic/.' the begin nind of a ward, should be
werdwithout taking off the pan. written point of timt. before tht coos'. m
at word j J thoughts (. hends o t» whtth/tittloctdas peaceable
thinks ^ Other fetters must it stpo- flCVfflS. Write the droits thus. M
roted.es established X distinction"* 0. /. 2. 3. 4. S. 6. I <?. 9.
23.M< horizontal*, half sized oons. C . ( V. "^ •) >
(km.ndlcl. »At/> representing writ, rut alt other numbers in short-
I , ^
stand c* the top cf tfit line for words hand words, as 20 ) orjoin t^V
contain.' first place vowels, and of tht digits. plovng o line under
tht bottom for words tont? second k 3S6 (j 666\ I94C I 6662 I
third p fact vowels. /n tha Alpha btt. 34 STOPS. Conrmo Stprttolon
''

these words ore divided by o colon Colon " i%hod.. or kav* T if II inch
14. rill middle place voweh(o we. &cj spaces Hyphen... Irony f dxc/nmo-
when standing elone.^o at the bottom iion[])aall oftitr stops i marks
\\ of tht line, as sway. yot. one os usual /folic. See fjo/m /£}. .

'15- Compound words must be redu- Accent decent

f ndblo ^VdenyX-
]

r»m2rrj«ariKss=aai!cns'aES2r= as;EC23 ,

ced to /heir primitives, end written n tarry

Ml fBreient^oreSerif^ Inflec-
ney together, as within without 1 tions. to ris*'fallS<«rs if so or Sot* V/'tt
' 1

Reader fnfcfise 4 ferstvere A ~\J\**

.*,.- m. M Si NUt* 9ft OOUBLt CON SONANTS.^
Jsh
although scorf
preserve*^
^h on. any: no.
«r*inco7unco"
///y: co&, sowsodetom We<sh IT
wmppadS* object JBtTac/Jfavg*!. 1

utSJwfJcOfOiV
ateVahctksAn
Mlr
* {color
olrtady
T aorth. forth
worthy.
want.itiK

unto\r\\t, arrV
wentn

fir/ndp/t. tolicahjlctii
tOlfKf^OiJtOltl. f\.t „ — OtRisrcor^ scription Jm ALHtCHtt. marsh 'D hand under
h
Jx-w. hut tut con not ca/T.\Z. his-has. whose, Jn falievt^ * \curfed^ frencffyynd .

Uhv*. biliry C. five-n: goye if is. Israel R r" are. or. sf reel, rule. change,/
M
&/
\
\
"robbed /^ go. too«t/>er\!!&\
Coo: good
shaft jfop
washed^ tp
our. rectrt:
shares ^
Urm^oncern?
morning
journal^,
nor honoroblt

\ rt/nemher. g/or#\ glad sh.1 *-v^6*w/[sfiire St/burosS. mf* me. may ^C thing Snglff/t

i ovf, feme. ^wir graph if Ss% asstin. shan, he art, short, am multiment language
t/ r t'U. /iff/e. beg/n-ning. shti ouction^ wjrd heard. important, *? distinct

lr i frvth. tra'ns. ogam - .?£ ZH. enthusiast churxshy^coonh. .mf I met/might, think: thoni,

t,n /BV7 /<7IV/J. for/fa/Hoti + [azute t* charges/ amidstmodi. single ong

0.. </<7y. 0c*/»e\ afhr left r- ihl usuol. work, \bosy3. \n>ercy. he. htm hoa
disco? rJom. Ml. follow. iA treasury \. burg Sweden- U mere, mo
r
hare, (hood,

4 r deliver y from, frt- zAA cccosion+j SUHhXfff(/tt»5/Na r awS?<9Mul*scZfemirc*n6. 2Liauids. 3 Nasal:./Aspnit,

Lord, also, ftvrvt/va e%t> c/Me W TR.8UL CONSONANTS oronatOT^p rrj Opt l.rt.rj ^JVfJ.&
a, 1 dioc OS often. tyuvit A.

down London. V hove. Ivtr. he/A{\y.e\\ T«tJ dhe/wthsnsejds addedtoo hooked letter by mating it half length, as
V .

CHv loved r^ elbow \ tlitldf titierj^rTirvd •>deservedJi mtseTnthMCons'rrepresent the pasttenses of

/ retched volume difficult-y dtt verts p laced'to the DoubJcCons?'from which they are oicr/vtdes earned -
tcAt\ \ evil,

chJ\ / (.hildrtfr. inaty.^dvon/f hold, world. Noft: ypf^represents spiritual, slrl strong, strength skr.— scriplor V
THE LOROs INVITATION hiotrhew H. 28 to 30. Written in full.
c/>A / even. htoven. flkJ,^lold\
*~
f s -y
fCv^,0'\ -,
3-
<Arr J quts-tion-'y'Db thoughtheth. /ndu/gt) r^ -C
;
f " ( r^\ < / t • . /
/ mt/k*-^, Lr:-^-^- :
- ^— td *- >
S\
i
Bethel
I. Jesus. o*y>troi
ob/igtd S> fhrouoh
^ \»o/f\ * <t<? r.3<? w ^) <~* *5 t ^ v) )
f
J
.

lpneuOfeimifUmiieeinlndk)gfadkelnl!^dth^tKeiir/ht sound ofsomt tents

individual.
Jerusalem
TH
flW
Mar. the?
^Xwithred'^
o/fihabetioot
resofvt K ftwch L>y<JtLHlyl ~^->^ — 1 .
r >—
tnaroi fhi/f whehitr^ health.

verses from the Bib/e. tearing spaces between the lines tor the corrections
stew must baendosedinopoidhnar. Thep-upvl eon wnhj about a doten

out that he was "dull o' hearing, ... but no dull o' brain," he resolved to do something
with his life (he was ten years old). As everyone in his family had studied shorthand
and failed, he resolved to study shorthand and succeed. He began (as Pitman had)
with a version of Taylor's; but he was obsessed, and tried to master every system he
could find. His wide experience with more or less suitable systems, and his study of
various learned analyses, drove him to devise une of his own that would incorporate
as many reasonable principles as possible. He eschewed shading, and differentiation

by positioning; he adopted cursive rather than geometric styling; he admitted more

814 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

CONSONANTS

KGRLNMTDTH
Written forward:

Written downward:
P B F V CH J S SH
f f J
H
/ NG
/ /
NK
ror, /

VOWELS
a O r o 6 <• U
a O e aw c, 66
a O e o
/
6
/
» oo

] OIPHTHONGS
Composed Composed
of of

u e-oo as in &«*£ <r 0/ aw-e as in oil J

0^ a-oo as in cw/ ^ i a-e as in isle o
BLENDED CONSONANTS
The consonants are so arranged that two strokes
joining with an obtuse or blunt angle may assume the
form of a large curve, thus:

ten, den f ent, end ~s def-v, tivt (J

tern, dem r emt, emd — ^ jent-d, pent-d C^
figure 8o. The Alphabet of Gregg Shorthand (Gregg 1929: xvi).

than one shape per sound, to permit facile combinations; and above all he studied the
frequency of combinations of sounds in English — the easiest shapes should render
the most common sounds, so that for Gregg a particularly natural stroke sequence is

pr, which for Pitman is In, and for Sloan-Duploye (an adaptation of the principal
French system, at one time strong competition for Pitman and Gregg) is ws.

Gregg migrated first to Liverpool, where his system was published in 1888
(figure 80), then to Boston, Chicago, and finally New York. Within a few years, his
system had become preeminent in the U.S. (except, oddly, in New York City), due not
only to its inherent quality but also to his energetic self-promotion and salesmanship.
In the wake of Gregg's American success, there seems to have been a decline in
publication of competing shorthand systems (though for "Teeline," recently popular
 SECTION 70: SHORTHAND g|5

in Great Britain, see MacMahon 1994); instead, a large number of alphabet-based

,,
shorthands is available. The best known has been "Speedwriting, whose ubiquitous
advertising slogan "if u c rd hs u c gt a gd jb" stimulated many a joke; "Notescript"
includes instructions for "Notetyping" (Hawkins 1964: 109).

Typology
Some authors (e.g. MacMahon 1994; also, apparently, J. R. Gregg) see shorthand fall-

ing into two categories: geometric and The former covers systems whose
cursive.
signs are based on circles, straight lines, etc.; the latter refers to those whose shapes
are taken from those found in current handwriting. Pitman and Gregg exemplify the
two types, respectively.
I prefer (as elsewhere in this volume) to classify systems by function rather than
form: by whether they encode words, letters ("literal"), or sounds. This division also
corresponds to the historical order of the development of shorthand.

Logographic

Although even Greek tachygraphy and Tironian notae rested ultimately on a literal

foundation, they were primarily logographic, and the eventual catalog of some 8,000
signs was far too cumbersome for efficient use. Bright's Characterie likewise over-
whelmed the user, and logography was soon abandoned as the exclusive basis for
shorthand. Nonetheless, every shorthand system includes at least a few wordsigns for
the most common particles, since it would be folly not to take advantage of the sta-

tistics of speaking (the 15 most frequent words in any text make up 25% of it; the first

100, 60%; and the first 1000, 85%: Crystal 1987: 87).

Alphabetic

Since everyone interested in writing faster is already competent in writing, it makes

sense to build on existing ability. Words are composed of letters, and letters are what
are written, so we ought merely to find a faster way of writing letters. Such was the

practice of the pioneers like Willis and Shelton. But there is an additional wrinkle: not
until the early nineteenth century was there a standard means of distinguishing two
meanings of letter, viz. 'speech sound' and 'written character' (Abercrombie 1949).
Essentially, the shorthand inventor who made shapes for "letters" was recording both
speech and writing.
It is recent alphabetic systems that take advantage of existing knowledge of writ-
ing, in that they take the standard spelling of English, rather than its pronunciation, as
the base, and offer systematic instructions for omitting redundant letters. We know
that whole-word-shape plays a part in word recognition, so that know is easier to read

than know —we know that know is tall at the front, so we do not omit the "silent'* k:

in Notescript, for instance, know and its derivatives are "&/?.". Note that Karlgren

1978: 1 19 denies that "abbreviated longhand" is a form of shorthand at all.

16 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

table 70. 1 : The 63 Braille Shapes Arranged by Dot Pattern (Loomis 1942)°
• •
• •
•• •• • •• •• • •
• • •
• • • • • • •
•• •• • ••

A B C D E F G H I J

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
a but can do every from go have just
• • •
•• •• • •• •• • • • •
• •
• • • • •• •• • •
••
• •
• •
• •
• •
• •
• •
• •
• • •

K L M N O P Q R S T
knowl-edge like more not people quite rather so that
• • •• •• • •• •• • • • • •
• • • • •• •• • ••
•• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• •• ••

U V X Y Z c E A E U
us very it you as and for of the with
• • •• •• • •• •• • - • •
• • • • •• •• ••
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •

A E i 6 E i' u 0(E W
child shall this which out will

ch gh sh th wh ed er ou ow
• •
• •
•• •• • •• •• • • • • • •
• • • • •• •• ••

"
1
() ?

bb cc dd en gg; were in

• • • • •
•• •
• •
•• •• • •
• •
••

I 6 AJE 5
-

fraction line numeral

St ing sign ar
• • • • • •
• •
• •
• •
• • • • • • •

numerical literal recurring italic sign letter capital

index index decimal decimal sign sign
accent mark wordlets point

a. Numerous rules govern the use of various grades of braille.

Braille. (American) braille is not simply a transposition of English words, letter by

letter, into patterns of embossed dots that are perceived by a blind person's fingertips.
Not just 26 of the possible combinations of six dot positions (table 68.4 on
page 792) are used, but all 63. (The 64th possibility, absence of all dots, is the space
character.) Some of the "extra" characters index the following one(s) as e.g. numerals
or capitals or "italics"; some are punctuation marks; many represent common letter

combinations; and there is a large complement of "contractions" and abbreviations

that function very like the equivalents in written shorthands (AAWB et al. 1984;
table 70. 1
). In Hamp
and Caton 1984, "an analysis of American English braille as
a written code was undertaken from a linguistic viewpoint. The object was to view
and analyze the braille code internally and not as an encipherment of printed Ian-
 SECTION 70: SHORTHAND g\-J

table 70.2: Outline of Braille Terms (after Hamp and Caton 1984)
Letters
a. Alphabetic letters (26)

b. Nonalphabetic letters (12)

i. 0-9
decimal point
fraction bar
ii. other braille units with abstract letterlike function
accent sign
apostrophe
asterisk •*••

ellipsis

hyphen or dash —when used to indicate missing letters in words

Grams a
a. Phonograms (e.g. ed in red l***Jor in forest K: V, gh in ghost '.!'. r )

b. Morphograms (e.g. in indecent ;?:?:?::?;:? or input .'V..:', th in seventh ll '\)

111 .\

c. Logograms
i. letter word (24) {a, but, can, ..., it, you, as)
ii. wordlet (about ::?:, above ::M., day **, there -'ll, these :?:!, their ill, ...)

Modulations
a. Punctuation
i. look back
colon period
comma question mark
exclamation point semicolon
ii. enclose
bracket or brace (in pairs)
comma (in pairs)

parenthesis (in pairs)

quotation marks, single (in pairs)
quotation marks, double (in pairs)
iii. link
bar long dash
hyphen bracket or brace (one)
dash
b
;gister

capital sign, single letter sign

capital sign, double number sign

italic sign, single termination sign
italic sign, double

a. Grams are segmental in value, but they have no single counterpart in print.

b. Register signs "look forward," and have no segmental counterpart in print.

guage" (cited from an augmented version kindly provided, along with other relevant
material, by Eric P. Hamp, to whom I here express my appreciation). This analysis
classifies the units of the code — including those comprising more than one shape that
are recognized as units — as in table 70.2. The purpose of the analysis was improve-
818 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

ment of materials for the education of braille users (for whom braille is not a variety

of English orthography, which they have never learned to read, but rather an indepen-
dent writing system), and it has been put into practice in Caton et al. 1993.

Phonotypic

Phonotypy is Isaac Pitman's —

word for a featural script (section i) whether short-
hand or reformed spelling — inwhich the shapes of characters correspond to phonetic
features of the sounds they stand for (Kelly 198 1). Thus, in Pitman, t is a light down-
ward vertical, and J is a heavy downward vertical; in Gregg, / is a short upward
straight line (sloping to the right), and d is a longer upward straight line (and ted is a

very long upward straight line). No one seems, even in the heyday of shorthand re-
search in the mid twentieth century, to have investigated whether phonotypy, as op-
posed to the random assignment of sounds to shapes, has a practical effect on speed
or accuracy of shorthand reporting or transcription. One might expect a decrease,
since confusion might arise with (near) homonyms being (near) homographs as well.
Such questions are touched on by Karlgren (1978) —apparently the only article on
shorthand in the entire linguistic literature? — citing earlier European shorthand
scholars. (As between alphabetic and phonotypic shorthand, one instructor reported
that Speedwriting is easier to learn than Gregg, but Gregg is easier to use; see Daniels
1992: 88, with n. 15 on the needlessness of teaching phonetics to shorthand students.)
An earnest pamphlet (O'Keefe 1920 for the New York State Shorthand Report-
ers' Association Committee on Shorthand Standards) may help account for the pri-
macy of Pitman in New York. Ostensibly a review of the sort of exaggerated claims
by shorthand advertisers that used to pollute the print media, its supposedly objective
evaluations of the two principal systems and three heavily promoted rivals are based
on Dewey 1920. Godfrey Dewey was the son of the library scientist and spelling re-

former Melvil Dewey; his objective data on the frequency of English sounds and
spellings come from an analysis of 100,000 words of connected English (the basis of
Dewey 1923, 1970). But his terribly scientific arrangement of "axioms and defini-
tions," "canons," and "theorems" —which are the subdivisions of "General consider-
ations," "Fonetic or sounds," "Geometric or signs," "Assignment of signs to sounds,"
"Manual or writing," "Visual or reading," and "Mental or remembering" — belies the
fact that his every statement is unsupported, unargued opinion. Thus he presents his
analysis of English sounds into 40 of what were soon to be recognized as phonemes;
asserts that they fall into a particular set of what are now called natural classes; insists
that any shorthand must provide representation for each sound so identified; and re-

quires that sounds in any of the classes must be assigned similar signs. (Some of his
rules are attributed to an otherwise unidentified Dr. R. G. Latham writing "more than
half a century" earlier; p. 26. This was an English philologist, 1812-1888.)
The analyses take into account that there are potentially three types of shorthand
uses: professional reporting (in court or legislature; a few thousand practitioners),
 SECTION 70: SHORTHAND gJ9

commercial dictation (a few hundred thousand stenographers), and general personal

use (then, very few; now, almost the only users). For Pitman, they include two pages
of "strength" and three pages of "weakness"; for Gregg, one and five respectively.
(For Pitman: "The very valuable device of position is hopelessly overburdened," p.

61 for Gregg: "Exclusion of position subtracts

; more . . . than it adds," p. 70.) Yet Dew-
ey's criteria are clearly designed to favor Pitman, even sometimes explicitly; and the
two main "weaknesses" of Gregg would now be recognized as particular strengths: it

does not provide distinct signs for certain sounds of low functional load (such as [5]

and [3]); and it groups the vowels more according to their spelling than according to
their sound (thus accommodating speakers of various dialects of English, rather than
requiring them to report at great speed in essentially a non-native language).
Gregg's (1923: 141) seven basic principles of shorthand follow. As John Robert
Gregg was probably unique in combining practical experience of a wide variety of
shorthands, a lifetime of intense thought about the problems involved, and creation of
a highly successful system, his conclusions should underlie any future research on the
nature of shorthand:

1. Based on the ellipse or oval —on the slope of longhand

2. Curvilinear motion
3. Elimination of obtuse angles by natural blending of lines
4. Joined vowels
5. One thickness —elimination of shading
6. One position —elimination of writing"
"position

7. Lineality — the easy, continuous flow of the writing along the line

Bibliography

Specific shorthand publications are not cited here, unless they have been directly
quoted; for bibliography, see Rockwell 1884, Brown and Haskell 1932-34.
Abercrombie, David. 1937. Isaac Pitman[: A Pioneer in the Scientific Study of Language], London:
Pitman. Abridged repr. in Abercrombie 1965: 92-107.
.
1949. "What Is
4
a Letter' T Lingua 2: 54-63- Repr. in Abercrombie 1965: 76-85.
.
1965. Studies in Phonetics and Linguistics (Language and Language Learning 10). Lon-
don: Oxford University Press.
American Association of Workers for the Blind; Association for Education of the Visually Handi-

capped; and National Braille Association. 1984. English Braille American Edition 1959, re-
vised 1972. With Addenda 1980, 1987. Louisville, Ky.: American Printing House for the Blind.
Asher, R. E., and Eugenie Henderson. 1981. Towards a History' of Linguistics: Papers Contributed
in Honour of David Abercrombie. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Boge, Herbert. 1974. Griechische Tachygraphie und Tironische Noten (Altertumswissenschaftliche

Texte und Studien 2). Hildesheim: Olms.
Brown, Karl, and Daniel C. Haskell. 1932-34- "The Shorthand Collection in the New York Public
Library" (28 parts, April 1932 - October 1934). Bulletin of the New York Public Library.

Cappelli, Adriano. 1 929. Dizionario di abbreviature latine ed italiane. Repr. Milan: Ulrico Hoepli. 1 973-
1993. Patterns: The Primary Braille Spelling and English Program
Caton, Hilda, et al.
Level B. Teach-

er's Edition to Accompany Building Blocks. Louisville, Ky.: American Printing House for the Blind.
820 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

Cowan, Leslie. 1984. John Robert Gregg. Oxford: The Pre-Raphaelite Press at Oxford.
Crystal, David. 1987.The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge Univ. Pr.
Cylke, Frank Kurt, comp. 1990. World Braille Usage. Paris: UNESCO; Washington, D.C.: Library
of Congress, National Library Service for the Blind and Physically Handicapped.
Daniels, Peter T. 1992. "The Syllabic Origin of Writing and the Segmental Origin of the Alphabet."
In The Linguistics of Literacy (Typological Studies in Language 21), ed. Pamela Downing, Su-
san D. Lima, and Michael Noonan, pp. 83-1 10. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Dewey, Godfrey. 1920. "The Science of Shorthand." In O'Keefe 1920: 13-44.
1923. Relativ Frequency of English Speech Sounds. Cambridge: Harvard University Press
.

(rev. ed., 1950).

.
1970. Relative Frequency of English Spellings. New York: Teachers College Press.
Drucker, Johanna. 1995. The Alphabetic Labyrinth: The Letters in History and Imagination. Lon-
don: Thames and Hudson.
I riedrich, Paul. 19 18. "Studien zur englischen Stenographic im Zeitalter Shakespeares: Timothe
Brights Characterie entwicklungsgeschichtlich und kritisch betrachtet." Archiv fur Schrift-
kunde 1: 88-140, 147-88.
Gregg, John Robert. 1923. The Basic Principles of Gregg Shorthand. New York: Gregg.
.
1929. Gregg Shorthand: A Light-line Phonography for the Million, anniversary edition.
New York: Gregg.
1933-40. "The Story of Shorthand" (45 parts, September 1933 - November 1940). The
.

Business Education World (published 9 times a year).

Hamp, Eric P., and Hilda Caton. 1984. "A Fresh Look at the Sign System of the Braille Code." Jour-
nal of Visual Impairment and Blindness 78: 210-14. Augmented version to appear in Four An-
alytic Studies of the American Literary Braille Code, by Eric P. Hamp, Hilda Caton, et al.

Louisville, Ky.: American Printing House for the Blind.

Hawkins, Laurence F. 1964. Notescript. N.p.: Barnes & Noble.
Karlgren, Hans. 1978. "On the Arbitrariness of Shorthand Signs." Studia Linguistica 32: 1 19-36.
Kelly, John.98 1 "The 1 847 Alphabet: An Episode of Phonotypy." In Asher and Henderson 1 98 1 248-64.
1 . :

Kopp, Ulrich Friedrich. 1817-29. Palaeographia critica. 4 vols. Mannheim.

Leslie, Louis A., ed. 1964. The Story of Gregg Shorthand Based on the Writings of John Robert
Gregg. New York: McGraw-Hill, Gregg Division.
Loomis, Madeleine Seymour. 1942. The Braille Reference Book [for Grades I, I/2 and
, II]. New
York: Harper.
MacMahon, Michael K. C. 1981. "Henry Sweet's System of Shorthand." In Asher and Henderson
1 981: 265-81.
.
1994. "Shorthand." The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics 7: 3877-82. Oxford:
Pergamon.
Milne, H. J. M. 1934. Greek Shorthand Manuals: Syllabary and Commentary (Graeco-Roman
Memoir 24). London: Egypt Exploration Society.
O'Keefe, David H., comp. 1920. Shorthand Systems Analyzed: Gregg Pitman K. I. Paragon and
Boyd Syllabic. Brooklyn, N.Y.: author.
Rockwell, J. The Teaching and Practice of Shorthand. United States Department of the In-
E. 1884.
terior, 2. Washington, D.C.: Govt. Printing Office.
Education Bureau, Circular of Information
Schottner, Adolf. 1918. "Uber die mutmaBliche stenographische Entstehung der ersten Quarto von
Shakespeares 'Romeo und Julia.'" Archiv fur Schriftkunde 1: 229-340.
Schmitz, W. 1893. Commentarii Notarum Tironianarum .... Leipzig.
Slaughter, M. M. 1982. Universal Languages and Scientific Taxonomy in the Seventeenth Century.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Thompson, E. Maunde. 191 2. An Introduction to Greek and Latin Paleography. Oxford: Clarendon.
SECTION

Phonetic Notation
Michael K. C. MacMahon

The term phonetic notation refers both to the repertoire of phonetic symbols and di-

acritics used in the transcription of spoken language, and to the employment of such
symbols and diacritics in creating a transcription of pronunciation. Because of its sci-

entific basis, it has come to be regarded as superior to more traditional methods of no-
tating speech, namely the use of an alphabetic orthography or (for certain languages
like Chinese and Japanese) a syllabary. Phonetic notation focuses exclusively on the
articulatory dimension of speech, i.e. the postures and movements of the speech or-

gans. There is no equivalent notational system for the acoustic dimension, i.e. the pat-
terns of air-pressure changes set in motion by the movements of the speech organs
and transmitted to the listener's ears.

A comparison of four words in traditional orthography and in phonetic notation

will illuminate the difference between the two methods of transcription. The English
word hat, consisting of three letters, suggests that — certain regional dialects except-
ed — there are three sounds in the word; the phonetic notation [hat] indeed confirms
this. The word hath, with four letters, contains, however, only three sounds; hence the
phonetic notation [ha0]. That, with four letters but only three sounds, has a different
th sound at the beginning compared with the th at the end of hath: the phonetic nota-
tion is therefore [oat]. A phonetic notation of hate, with its four orthographic charac-
ters, will show that there are only three sound-units in the word: [h], a vowel, and [t].

The notation of the vowel, however, will depend on the speaker's pronunciation. It

could be transcribed as [het], [he:t], [heit], [heit] or [haeit]; yet other possibilities ex-
ist. (The double-vowel notation in the last three transcriptions indicates that the

sound-unit is a diphthong, i.e. a sound in which there is movement of the tongue

and sometimes also the lips. In hat the vowel is, for most speakers, a monophthong,
a stationary vowel.)

The International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA)

The alphabet devised and promulgated by the International Phonetic Association (al-

so IPA) main phonetic alphabet in use today throughout the world, and contains
is the
an extensive set of symbols and diacritics (figurf 8 i ). In the transcription of any one
language, however, only a subset of these will be required.

821
 p —

822 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

CONSONANTS (PULMONIC)
Bilabial Labiudeutal Dental Alveolar Postalveolai Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal

Plosive
P b t d t 4 c J k g q G ?
(j
Nasal m n] n n. ? q N

B r R
Trill
ISI
Tap or Flap r t

Fricative
* P f V e 5 s z J 3 § \ 9 j x y X K h Y h fi

Lateral
fricative
sarf : ..£
* 6
Approximant V j \ j ni

Lateral
approximant l
I X L
Wlierc symbols appear iu pairs, tlieone to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible.

CONSONANTS (NON-PULMONIC) SUPRASEGMENTALS TONES & WORD ACCENTS

Clicks Voiced implosives Ejectives
Primary stress
LEVEL CONTOUR
.founa'tijan ~ -i Extra
Bilahial B Bilabial as in: Secondary stress C high
or I 6 or /I Rising

d k Long 6»
Dental Dental/alveolar p Bilabial
e "1 High 6 N Falling
C
1

'
Half-long
! (Posl)alveolar
S Palatal I Dental/alveolar
e H Mid 6 High rising
Extra-short C I

^- I'alatoalveolar
rf Velar k Velar
e -I low
. Syllable break li.aekt 6 <H Low rising

Alveolar lateral tf Uvular S Alveolar fricative

I | Minor (foot) group
e jgr C I Rising-falling

Major group a etc.

VOWKLS || (intonation)
>l Downstep /* Global rise

Front Central Back Linking (absence of a break) T Upstep \ Global fall

Close 1 ^ v- DIACRITICS Diacritics may be placed above a symbol with a descender, e.g. lj
I Y U
\ Voiceless FI d Breathy voiced D 3. Dental t d
Close-mid eN i <7i qlf) -V *
V
Voiced S t Creaky voiced CI Apical t d

Open-mid oe— 3^0 —A < i

h
Aspirated
fh
L dh Linguolabial L Ci
a
Laminal I G
a
W fW Ayi
6
More rounded 3 .
Labialized I CI Nasalize*!

a\cE — — a<
J

Open ^ '
D Less rounded
?
J
Palatalized t
J
d J
Nasal release CI

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right

Y
represents a rounded vowel. Advanced U* Y Velarized t dY Lateral release Q
OTHER SYMBOLS _ CI No audible Q
Retracted i Pharyngealized I release

M Voiceless labial-velar fricative Q? Alveolo-palatal fricati

W Voiced lahial-velar approximant .1 Alveolar lateral flap

Centralized e - "" Velarized ot pharyngealizet *
X
II Voiced labial- palatal approximant IJ Simultaneous
J and X Mid-centralized
_g| Raised e (J = voiced alveolar fricative)

Xi Voiceless epiglottal fricative Affricatesand double articula-

can be represented by two
tion. ! 1
Syllabic j Lowered 6 (
s voiced bilabial approximaoO
T Voiced epiglottal fricative symbols joined by a tie bar if
necessary.

T Non-syllabic e Advanced Tongue Root

?
Epiglottal plosive
|^ J""*
* Rlioticily & Retracted Tongue Root e
figure 8 1 . The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 1993).

A number of important principles of phonetic notation emerge from the exposi-

tion so far.

( 1 ) Some of the symbols used in phonetic notation — at least those of IPA

are the same as in traditional orthography, e.g. [h], [a], [t], [e], but their sound
values may differ from those normally associated with the orthographic charac-
ters.
 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION g2^

(2) Each symbol has, generally, a specific sound-value associated with it.

Thus the [a] of [kat] cat cannot be used for the vowel in hate. For this, [e] or
[e:] etc. must be used (see above).
(3) Some symbols hark back to an older, extended Roman alphabet for
English, still sometimes used — as well as, simultaneously, to the modem Scan-
dinavian alphabets. The phonetic symbols [ae] and [ce], for example, occasion-
ally occur today in words like encyclopaedia and homoeopathic.
(4) Some symbols are taken from the Greek alphabet, e.g. [9] and [e].

(5) Some symbols are modified versions of Roman letters or punctuation

marks, e.g. [1] and [?].

(6) Other symbols derive from more specialized alphabets. For example,
[J], used for the sh sound in e.g. she, is very like the integral symbol in mathe-
matics. And the ["] diacritic, marking extra-high tone, is taken from the Hungar-

ian version of the Roman alphabet, where it marks a long rounded front vowel.
(7) A final category, not so far illustrated, consists of phonetic characters
which are not based on any specific alphabet but have been created de novo:
e.g. the diacritic for a dental articulation [-], and the diacritic for no audible
release [-].

Transcriptions of caught [ko:t] and team [ti:m] show [o], the reversed form of the
phonetic symbol [c], and [:] (which indicates that the preceding vowel is long), a
more elaborate version of The word nurse, as pronounced
the orthographic colon :.

by most speakers in England, would be transcribed [n3:s]. The [3] is both a reversed
Greek epsilon 8 and a Russian zemla 3 z. A transcription of most American pronunci-
ations of nurse will require an additional element ["] to indicate the positioning of the

tongue for an r sound; the word is transcribed [n3"s]. Because of different historical

changes in pronunciation, the English of England has, by and large, lost any trace of
an r before the [s], and the pronunciation is thus more out of line with the orthography
than is the case with the majority of American English accents.

The structure of the International Phonetic Alphabet

An examination of the 1993 International Phonetic Alphabet (figure 8 ) shows that: 1

(a) Many of the symbols and diacritics are direct or partial derivatives of symbols and

punctuation marks of the Roman alphabet, (b) Lower-case forms predominate; where
upper-case letters are used, they are normally in the form of small capitals, (c) All
characters are in Roman type; italic type is not used, (d) There is, generally, little sys-

tematic connection between the shape of a symbol and the sound it represents. Excep-
tions are the symbols for nasal sounds (top box, second row), which are all based on

the letter n; the symbols for retroflex sounds (top box, middle column), which all have
a descender ending in a curl to the right below the baseline; and the symbols for
voiced implosives and ejectives (left side, middle box), which respectively have a
right-turning hook on top and a following apostrophe. Some phonetic alphabets, how-
ever, but not IPA, do consistently reflect articulatory features in their symbol-
824 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

shapes —see "Iconic notation" on page 838. (e) Considerable care has been taken in
the design of the font to ensure that there is visual harmonization of the symbols.

Ever since the first IPA chart was published, in 1888, one of its underlying prin-
ciples has been that a sound should be symbolized only if it has phonemic status in at

least one language in the world. What this means is that, even if a particular sound is

used in a language, it will not be assigned an individual symbol unless it contrasts

meaningfully with an articulatorily similar sound in the same language. (Technically,
there has to be a phonemic contrast between the two sounds.) Thus there are symbols
for the [s] and [z] sounds in IPA because of the meaningful contrast between [pi:s]

piece, peace, and [pi:z] peas; but no separate symbol for the third sound in the word
cupful, if it is pronounced slightly differently from the [p] sound in cup — i.e. with the
upper teeth and lower lip in contact, rather than the two lips. However, since IPA
serves the needs of all languages, it is inevitable that separate symbols will have been
created for contrasts in certain languages which can be utilized in transcriptions of
languages where the sounds in question do not contrast phonemically. For example,
the [rrj] symbol, for a voiced labiodental nasal, can be used to transcribe this sound in

many speakers' pronunciations of the m in words like symphony and triumph, where-
as for the labiodental plosive in cupful, an arbitrary notational solution has to be
sought: namely adding a dental diacritic [-] to a bilabial [p] symbol — thus [p]. To in-

dicate that a phonetic symbol represents a phoneme, slant brackets // enclose the tran-
scription; square brackets [ ] indicate a sound regardless of its phonemic status. The
same symbol, therefore, can sometimes have noticeably different interpretations. For
example, /t/ in English refers not just to an alveolar place of articulation, but to dental,
and postalveolar —and even glottal. But [t] in English can mean only an alveolar
sound. In French, III will represent a dental sound. In Malayalam, where the distinc-

tion between [t], [t], and [t] is phonemic, separate phoneme symbols are required (cf.

section 38).
Strictly speaking, then, the IPA is not a universal phonetic alphabet in the sense
of an alphabet that will provide a notation for every conceivable sound used in a nat-
ural language. Rather, it is a selective phonetic alphabet which is constrained by the
requirement of phonemic contrastivity.

Consonant and vowel sounds

The top box on the IPA chart follows the traditional method of setting out the articu-
lator features, together with their symbols, of consonant sounds which utilize air

from the lungs {pulmonic). Eleven places of articulation run in columns i.e. areas —
of the vocal tract where there can be a degree of constriction to the airflow, from the
lips on the left to the larynx on the right — and eight manners of articulation, in rows,

which define the extent of the constriction and how the air is channeled out of the vo-
cal tract. The meanings of the terms are set forth in table 7 1 . 1 . An empty cell, e.g.

at the intersection of Labiodental and Trill, or Retroflex and Lateral fricative, indi-
 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION g25

table 7 1 . 1 : Labels for Consonant Sounds

1 '

Definition Examples

Alveolar The alveolar ridge (= teeth-ridge [d] den, [z] busy

behind the upper front teeth) is one of
the articulators

Alveolo-palatal A more forward place of articulation [c], [z] Polish wies 'village', tie
than palatal 'badly'

Approximant The gap between the articulators is [j] yes, [w] wet
greater than for a fricative, and the
sound does not cause turbulence (fric-

tion)

Bilabial Both lips are used as the articulators [b] big, [m] ha mm er
Click A sound made by reducing the air pres- [|] (pre-1989 symbol [1]) tsk, [||] (pre-

sure quickly in the mouth during the 1989 symbol [S]) Xhosa (an African
closure for a stop sound; lung air is not language), [!] (pre-1989 symbol [q])

used Zulu [!a!a] 'explain'

Dental The back of the upper front teeth is [n] tenth, [8] think, [t] French ton
one of the articulators

Ejective Air is jerked out of the mouth by push- [k'] Quechua [k'ujuj] 'to twist'

ing the larynx upward quickly

(
Epiglottal Using as an articulator the epiglottis, the ain [?] in several forms of Ara-

the cartilage which folds over the neck bic and of Oriental Hebrew
of the larynx during swallowing

Fricative Because there is a small gap between [s] sing, [/] shin, [x] Scots loch

two articulators, the airflow becomes

turbulent and the effect of "friction" is

heard

Glottal The glottis is the space between the [?] in many pronunciations of kitten,
vocal cords (folds), depending on the what
position of the vocal cords. When the

cords are completely together, a glottal

plosive ("stop") is produced

Implosive The opposite motion from an ejective: [gT] Sindhi [(fanuj 'handle'; some-
air is sucked inward by downward times heard in English, e.g., if a stut-

movement of the larynx terer attempts to say the [g] in get

and prolongs the sound

Labial-palatal There are two constrictions to the air- [14] French lui

flow through the mouth: at the lips and

at the hard palate

Labial-velar There are two constrictions to the air- [m] in many pronunciations of when.

flow through the mouth: at the lips and [w] in all pronunciations of wet.

at the softpalate French Louis

Labiodental The lower lip and the upper front teeth [rnj symphony, Italian invidia 'envy';

are the articulators [\']fincl, [u] German Quelle 'source'

826 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

table 7 1 . 1 : Labels for Consonant Sounds (Continued)

Definition Examples®

Lateral The gap between the articulators is [1] [end, [A] Italian figlio 'son'
approximant greater than for the equivalent frica-
tive, and the air leaves the mouth over
the sides of the tongue

Lateral fricative The friction occurs between the edges [4] Welsh llan 'church, parish', [I5]

of the tongue and the roof of the mouth Zulu dhla 'eat'

Nasal The soft palate (velum) is lowered and [m] map, [n] pin, [rj] song_. Note that
all the air is directed into the nose a word like finger contains both a
nasal [rj] and a plosive [g]

Palati The hard palate, situated between the [t] Hungarian nagj 'big', [c] Persian
alveolar ridge and the soft palate, is yak 'one'
one of the articulators

Pharyngeal The pharynx is the upper half of the [h], [T] Arabic [hamma:m] 'bath',
throat. Generally, pharyngeal sounds [Tamm] 'uncle'
involve creating constrictions of sev-
eral muscles in the throat

Plosive There is a brief and complete blockage [p] Hin, [g] aghast
to the flow of air in the mouth. When
the blockage is removed, a mild
"ex/?/arion" of air results

Postal vcolar The area behind the alveolar ridge is [j] bash, [3] measure
one of the articulators
Retroflex This describes the shape of the tongue: [l\ in many, especially American, pro-
the tip and blade are curled back nunciations of red, [[] Swedish kort
'card'. Retroflex sounds are common
in many languages of the Indian sub-
continent, e.g. Hindi, Malayalam
Stop A general term often used for click,
ejective, implosive, and plosive
Tap or Flap A brief tapping sound made by an artic- [r] often heard in varieties of British
ulator against another English in words like three and
bring; in American English, a typical
pronunciation in latjer and ladder
Trill An articulator beats rapidly but loosely [rj an exaggerated stage pronuncia-
against another tion in words like ragged, grow, or in

some forms of French, regrette rien

'regret nothing'

Uvular The uvula, the grape-like object which [k] French rite 'street', [g] Arabic
forms the very end of the soft palate, is q_om, [n] Eskimo enina 'melody'
one of the articulators
Velar The soft palate (velum) is one of the [k] cat, [g] get, [13 J sang, [x] Scots
articulators loch, |y] Spanish ahogado 'lawyer'

a. English, unless otherwise indicated.

 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION g27

cates that the sound in question is not known to be used as a separate phoneme in any
of the world's languages. If subsequent research shows the contrary, then the IPA will
consider creating appropriate symbols for such sounds. The shaded cells indicate in-
tersections of place and manner which are judged to be physiologically impossible:
e.g. Velar + Trill, which would involve the rapid and fairly loose movement of the
back of the tongue against the soft palate — something that the human articulatory ap-
paratus cannot achieve. Where two symbols occur in a cell, that on the right repre-
sents a sound produced with voicing, i.e. vibration of the vocal cords (= vocal folds),
and the sound is described as being voiced; that on the left, a sound without voicing:
the sound is voiceless. Compare the [z] (voiced) and [s] (voiceless) sounds in the
words razor and racer.
The smaller box below the pulmonic consonant box gives the place (and some-
times also the manner) of consonants which do not utilize air from the lungs in their
production (non- pulmonic). The click sounds in the tsk-tsk expression of disapprov-
al/annoyance in English would be written [| |].

For more detailed symbolizations of consonant sounds —usually at the level of

narrow transcription — the box at the lower right of the chart provides a set of special
diacritics. A diacritic is placed, depending on its phonetic value and shape, either be-
low the symbol, e.g. [d]; through it, e.g. [4-]; above it, e.g. [e]; or as a superscript to
h
the right of the symbol, e.g. [t ].

As with most consonants, the symbols for vowel sounds (left side, two-thirds
down) employ traditional Roman (or modified Roman) symbols; but there is little sys-

tematicity in the choice of symbols. Again, there is a historical reason for this, namely
the preference for certain symbols during the early years of the IPA's existence. The
trapezoidal shape devised by the British phonetician Daniel Jones on which the vowel
symbols are located is known as the Cardinal Vowel chart (D. Jones 1962: 31-39)
although for technical reasons not all the symbols indicated there are Cardinal Vowels
(seeCatford 1988: 138-71).
Beneath the vowels is a set of additional symbols with their descriptors. In some
cases (e.g. alveolar lateral flap, which contains three significant features), they cannot

easily be fitted into the two-dimensional Consonants box at the top of the chart; in
other cases, the symbols are very recent (e.g. those for the epiglottal fricatives and
plosive).

Prosodic features

Prosodic features, also called suprasegmentals* are features of pronunciation which

extend beyond the domain of a single segment, e.g. stress, intonation, and rhythm.
Pronouncing aloud the words impish and impossible will reveal a different pattern of
stress (or emphasis) between the two words. The IPA convention is to mark the be-

ginning of the stressed syllable {not the vowel in the stressed syllable, as in many dic-

tionaries) by means of a raised vertical mark: thus, 'impish, impossible. The word
828 PART XI,: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

1
z 3 3-
t
rx
r
^2 ?>

4 « r

R
r
&
Y

V
r
A

ae
•^t n
i i- ae.
^
* &
? 4>
f fi ft rj -a.

6 & P p M v-
3 a-

cf % 6- u v I
7^
n.
?3 6 % J
?
CD •o-

n J S * Y -^
7 i
ji 3 C D 2X
J1 lr c«
n z X e £ Y y
y
± 4 j otr- a 2
a. a UI -UL

4 4- §
M a a
a
&
*
b %> z.
^£ CT
&
I

i
u 9 £ € 9^

SV
*
A* c £ oe -te

'r to be written >*-(not jc) m languages containing r and t.

2
The latter in languages not requiring a.

figure 82. The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 1949): Cursive forms.

examination, if said fairly slowly, will require an extra mark to indicate a secondary
degree of stress, i.e. examination. Sometimes, to indicate a particularly heavy stress

{emphatic "
stress), a double is used, e.g. She "cant come, although this symboliza-
tion is no longer sanctioned by the IPA.
Intonation, i.e. the melody of the voice, can be notated using diacritics for tones
and word accents —some of them IPA (middle, right side), others arbitrary — or with
more precision by means of an iconic transcription, an arrangement of the segmental
notation, be it phonetic, phonemic, or orthographic. An example is:

Diacritical:

I \don't think °they'll be "pleased.

/a 1 \dount Girjk °6eil bi "pliizd/

Iconic:

d ° Uni P1K
"'Ok aei] h z
d

The IPA chart lacks a dedicated set of symbols or diacritics for notating the rhyth-
mic structure of speech. Conventions from the work of earlier prosodists (e.g. w for a

short syllable, and - for a long syllable), are generally employed, although these do
not have, as yet, IPA approval. Furthermore, misunderstandings can occur: e.g., the

diacritic - on the chart stands for an extra-short sound, not a short syllable.
 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION 829

Extensions to the IPA

One area in which IPA notation has been used extensively is the speech and language
pathology clinic. For the notation of various forms of pathological speech, however,
the limitations inherent in the available repertoire of symbols and diacritics, together

with articulatory categories, have led to the devising of extra symbols and diacritics,
which have the approval of the IPA (Duckworth et al. 1990, Ball 1991: 39-40).
Relatively recent studies of voice quality have led to the creation of additional
notational features. Voice quality is the auditory effect of the long-term settings of the
vocal tract that individual speakers employ. For example, one speaker may use, vir-
tually consistently, a nasalized voice ("talking through the nose"), another one a whis-
pery voice, etc. Symbols for certain voice qualities are provided by the IPA (e.g. for

creaky voice and nasalized voice); appropriate symbolizations of many other voice
qualities can be found in Laver 1994: 423. Specifically for the notation of phonation
types (i.e. modes of vibration of the vocal cords and the ventricular (= false) cords),
as well as for the indication of loudness levels and types of pauses in speech, addi-

tional symbols and diacritics are now also available (Ball 1991: 41).
IPAs symbolsand diacritics, including those in the "extensions" set, have
All the
been assigned an individual ISO computer code, to permit the unambiguous electron-
ic transmission of phonetic notation (Esling and Gaylord 1993, Ball 1991). Also, the
method of mapping of many (but not all) of the phonetic symbols onto the ASCII
character set has been regularized (Wells 1987, Laver 1994: 103). At the other end of
the technology spectrum, handwritten symbols have been devised for the printed
symbols and diacritics of the IPA, but they are rarely used nowadays (figure 82).

Using IPA notations

A variety of professionals use phonetic notation on a day-to-day basis, e.g. phoneti-

cians, linguists, speech and language therapists, speech scientists, dialectologists, for-

eign-language teachers, lexicographers, and persons engaged in certain sorts of Bible

translation work. There are, however, a number of different ways in which the sym-
bols and diacritics can be employed.
The IPA allows some latitude in the choice of symbols, especially in a phonemic
transcription. Thus an English English pronunciation of What a fool not to see the

good and the bad things might be symbolized in several ways:

(1) /wot a fu:l not ta si: da gud and da bad einz/

(2) /wDt a fu:l not ta si: da gud and da baed einz/
(3) /wot a fu:l not ta si: da gud and da baed einz/
(4) /wot a fuul not ta sii da gud and 6a bad einz/

Yet further notations can be devised (Abercrombie 1964). The choice of symbols de-
pends largely on the purpose of the notation. For example, the needs of a student
learning a foreign language are quite different from those of a dialectologist con-
830 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

& b 5& ±» g T3 S

5 T3 '5
* 6C

>
,a
d 2 3 „• "3 as
a
S 3
a Oo
-Q -
i
» w b
• O

I* "H € *E *

C :
1=1
J* I
cq 3

I
«£ _2
II' 2 ~ •
.2-
d g
i .§ ft S d» ' —

^o w bt 1 "
N "3 •« .5

.2 * 5 ^
2 >» ?

J]
I !

a T3
i ^h
I .2
> £ •3 S
11

a H?rs: M-C *

ft >>
1.
- "3
=
1
m IS] go
>
ft ^ ft d ~
*
& 9 ft
—« -Si
«
^ S>, **
I.
<D

—.
S
<->
c5 en
-
wH

o +_>
3 q
5* >
s *
;

t) V 5. |
o O J liss «> 9
*0« ^ CO
3 ^ )
ft
3 | d - ^
^
d o
2J (
15 a 2
d 5 $ a
|1
~ s «
2
5 !

rt d E-
21 o w o
'E 4> £
fed „a w

SINVNOSNOO
H
^ ^
1!

ST3AV0A
5 ** J o
<D
o
I
-2

figure 83. The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to [932).

corned with capturing certain phonetic and phonological features as accurately as

possible. The student would probably find version (1) valuable; the dialectologist is

more likely to prefer version (2).

The term phonemic transcription indicates that analysis of the speech data has
already led to setting up a system of contrasting sounds (phonemes). Hence the term
 SECTION 7 1 : PHONETIC NOTATION g3 J

systematic transcription is often used in its place. An allophonic (sometimes called a

narrow) transcription notates the individual sounds, regardless of which phoneme or
phonemes they are associated with. A third type of transcription, known as impres-
makes no reference whatever to the phonemic status of the sound or in-
sionistic, —
deed, if necessary, to the segmentation of the stream of speech. Nor need word
boundaries be marked. The focus is exclusively on the characteristics of the articula-
tory adjustments taking place in the vocal tract. An example of an impressionistic
transcription of a pronunciation of the sentence When shall I come? is:
w u
[uu38nn J 8l^e?kB^mrn]

Different IPA alphabets

During the last hundred years and more, nearly a dozen IPA alphabets have been pub-
lished, each slightly different from the preceding one. A comparison of, for example,
the 1932 alphabet (figure 83), the 1989 (endpapers), and the 1993 version (fig-
ure 81) shows have been: (1) slight changes to the typefaces for some of
that there

the symbols; (2) changes of name for some phonetic categories; (3) additions to the
Alphabet (e.g. [jj, [ce], and various diacritics; (4) deletions from the Alphabet (e.g.

[o\K [\])' Going further back still, to the earliest official Alphabet, in 1888 (Passy
1888, see figure 84), one finds, in comparison with 1993, only two symbols which
have since been removed, [a! and [u], some different terminology ("glottal catch" and
"narrow" vowel), and different allocations for some of the symbols (e.g. [q] would be
[y] in 1993, and [q] is now used for a sound unsymbolized in 1888). Because overall
the changes have largely been minimal, it is comparatively easy to read IPA phonetic
notation from earlier periods.
The immediate source for many of the IPA symbols when the alphabet was being
created in 1888 was the Revised
—
Romic system "Romic" is equivalent to "Ro-
man" —devised for English and various other languages by the English phonetician
Henry Sweet (1880-81, 1971 270-85). This in turn is based on the Phonotypic Al-
:

phabet, devised by Isaac Pitman (of shorthand fame, see section 70) and Alexander
J. Ellis, 1847 (Kelly 198 1). Indeed, much
an English phonetician and philologist, in

earlier examples of some of the symbols are attested: [3] is an Old English and Old

Icelandic symbol; [rj] was first used by the English schoolteacher Alexander Gill the
Elder, in 161 9; and [1] by the English grammarian Charles Butler a few years later, in

1633 (see also Kemp 1994, Abercrombie 198 1).

Other alphabetic notations

Interest in phonetic notation can be traced back, in England, to the late sixteenth cen-
tury and the work of the diplomat and scholar Sir Thomas Smith and the phonetician
John Hart, both of whom published examples of their notations. An unpublished no-
tational system used for transcribing Algonkian, devised in the late sixteenth century
832 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

in akordans, az moelc az posabl, v/Vb <5iz prinsiplz, wi v tcouzn ba

faloiN list d\ sainz (ba lelarz markt wib a star* ar provi3anl ceips, an wil
bi ripleist hwen serkamstansiz wil alau).

ceip vaelju

iNglic frenc dSwrmdn osodr IcBNgtoidZiz

p az in put joas pferd

b toit 6as foot
t ten /ant tot
d den dent da
k /rind Aepi Jhih

g grood #ai gui

m way ma wein
n wo won wein
N re^we ital. re^wo.
*N thiw# diw^ ital. awche.
1 /utf la /ang
'i f\lle (in ba sauG) sp. #ano, ital. g\i.

r red ra?-e rot (tceN-paint r)

ii rare rot (bak r). — dan. trae
u qwer flem. wrocht, span, bxbiv.
M bwis
w we\ ou\ ital. qwesto
f full /bu roll

V vain win w?ein

e thin span, ra^on
b *Aen dan. gade
s seal sel weiss
z .zeal ^ele weise
"c she chat fisch swftd. sAraet, dan. sj®\, ital lascia

3 leisure ;eu genie

c \ch

J you yak ia swed.ja, ital. j en a,

X ach span, jota
q wa^en
figure 84. (above & right)T\\Q first IPA (Passy 1888); note the text in English, transcribed in IPA.

by the English explorer Thomas Harriot, has recently come to light (see Salmon
1992). However, it is the period from the end of the eighteenth century to the early

part of the twentieth that witnessed the greatest activity in devising phonetic nota-
tions. Each system was devised with a specific purpose in mind. One of these was the
need to incorporate information about pronunciation into dictionaries; this led to a
number of special notations. Some, like that employed in the famous Critical Pro-
nouncing Dictionary of 179 1 by the English elocutionist, actor, and phonetician John
Walker, involved the use of superscript numbers placed on top of orthographic vowel
 SECTION 71: PHONETIC 1*
833

h Aigh (Aaut) /ioch

u fall COM nuss
soul pot soil
not note ilal. notte
A pas vater swid. sal
*a father it a). mano, swid. mann.
a eye, how patte mann
SB man
c air air baer
e men in? nett
pit ro rmt
*(B Iwt, fwr
oe sewl ko?nnen
*(E pew so?hne

y nu dtfnn
*n f#r
a never J* gabe
*
glotl kaetc

-u, u-, wik strest u ftiz madifikeicanz

)
u, U', u, stroN strest w aplai
u:, Ion u tu 51 letarz
m neizl o? ( [ar eni cefor vaual)
u Ion an naero u (or ani oefcar vaual)
hi, lh voislis £ (ar eni ceftar kansanant)
I mark av leN0.

letters to indicate particular sounds (Walker 1791). Thus, a represents the vowel
sound in fate, a the stressed vowel m father, a the vowel sound of fall, and a the
vowel of fat. The notation by James Murray for the first edition of the Oxford English
Dictionary is closer to, though not identical, to IPA (MacMahon 1985); the latest edi-
tion (OED2), however, does use IPA.
The quickening of interest toward the end of the eighteenth century in the study

of the languages and cultures of Asia led, inevitably, to the question of whether their
pronunciation could be represented by the characters of the Roman alphabet. Sir Wil-
liam Jones, a British judge based in Calcutta and the linguist who first gave currency
to the Indo-European hypothesis of language family relationships, proposed in 1 788
a system whereby Roman letters, modified where necessary by a set of diacritics,
could be used for the notation of many Asian languages. His repertoire of symbols is

reproduced in figure 85. An example of his transcriptional technique is his reduc-

tion of an extract of the Zend into a romanized orthography (figure 86).
The indigenous languages of North and Central America, well removed in struc-

ture from English and the other major Indo-European languages, also attracted atten-
tion. Following Jones's example, the American iawyer-cum-linguist John Pickering
produced an equivalent Roman-based orthography for several North American lan-
guages (Pickering 18 18). His main modification was to use the cedilla hook with
834 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

(^fat-ana Xa/vr (JU/wMttfos

a or e ha hha
Foive/s Di/>/it/io/fgs and S<>r////>oH'efo

a. a. a, a e e y a

i i o 6 W3l

u u a i a u r a

r 1 r i lri lri 1 a

a a e e i i uu a a
Co/tso/uwfs
!

ca cha jc'hai
\
ga ha
ka kha f ghaj
sa sha ZA z ha s a
ta Thai (dhai
aa h a
Vdhaf

ta

pa
a da

ba
jd'hai
Idha)
(b'ha)
na

ma
Ivaf
"omjtfouna's.

cha ch.ha ja jha hya

za za za c sha jiiya

figure 85. "The System of Indian, Arabian, and Persian Letters" of SirWm. Jones (1788/99, pi. 1).

Az pid u mad che ce pid u mad ne khoshnud bid hargiz bihisht ne

vinid; be jayi cirfah bizah vinid: mehan ra be azarm nic darid,
cehan ra be hich gunah mayazarid: aj khfshavendi -dervish nang me-
darfd: dad u vendad i khaliki yecta beh car darid; az ristakhfzi ten
pasin endfsheh nemayid; mabada ce ashu ten khish ra duzakhf
cunid, va anche be khishten nashahad be casan mapasendid va ma cunid:
herche be giti cunid be mainu [az] aiieh pazfrah ayed.

'If you do that with which your father and mother are not pleased, you shall never see heaven;
instead of good spirits, you shall see evil beings: behave with honesty and with respect to the
great ; and on no account injure the mean: hold not your poor relations a reproach to you: imitate
the justice and goodness of the Only Creator: meditate on the resurrection of the future body; lest

you make your souls and bodies the inhabitants of hell; and whatever would be unpleasing to
yourselves, think not that pleasing to others, and do it not: whatever good you do on earth, for
that you shall receive a retribution in heaven.'

FIGURE 86. Sir William Jones's transcription and translation of a Persian text in Avestan alphabet
(after W. Jones 1788/ 1799, pi. 7 and p. 217).
 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION 835

a, a, a, a, 5, a, a, >«, /a; 6, £, 6', £; c", c ,

?
c\ c;
d, <?, d, d, <F, d, d, d, d; d, 3; e, <?, c, e, <F, e, e, e, e, e, e,

f, hf* /» ^> / 5 #, 9% </> g\ r, y, y; * 3 #; h h *, ?, h b h

h h }>> h i> i; K h *', k\ k>, i\ k, k, k>; x, i, i; i, h i\

h *i h 1>
m -> ™i ™i ™> n > ** &> ^> »« *l
\ y-> v-> *» ?; °) o? ^
o, <?, 0, p, p, p, p, <(?5
0.
_p 5 ^ p ', p, ; q^
qr
; r^ ^ £y ^^
^ *S fi
m

f> 8 r *> s 5 *, ?, *, *; *, f, t, t, f, ?, r, t, I, t%
f\ t; tf; u,u, u, w, w, u, w ? w, #, #; v, w, v; w, w, w;
t/, y; s, 0, z, z, i, i„« *, s; /, /,, /, /; -', -i, -*, -i .
? #f
T
"\l '15 •

figure 87. The inventory of characters in Lepsius's Standard Alphabet (1863: 18); cf. figure 84.

vowel 4> Q)
letters (e.g. for nasalized work was
vowel sounds (ibid. 353). A similar
the Analytic Orthography of Samuel Haldeman, a professor of zoology and later com-
parative philology at the University of Pennsylvania (Haldeman i860). It combines a
discussion of articulations in various languages, questions concerning the choice of
phonetic notation, and examples of the notation in practice. Like Jones and Pickering,
Haldeman used a modified Roman alphabet.
Missionary and linguistic activity by various branches of the Christian church in

the nineteenth century in Africa and elsewhere led to the devising of several different
Roman-based alphabets for the notation of native languages, until eventually, in the
early 1850s, moves were made to standardize a single set of symbols and diacritics

for use in the mission-fields (cf. section 66; "African languages" on page 689 in

section 59). An "Alphabetical Conference" was convened in London in 1853 at

which the German Egyptologist (Carl) Richard Lepsius presented the notational sys-
tem he had been working on. This was quickly accepted and adopted as the Church
Missionary Society's standard and was published, first in German (1853), then in En-
glish (1854), under the title "Standard Alphabet" (Lepsius 1 863/1 981). It is based al-

most entirely on the italic shapes of the Roman alphabet —some Greek characters are
included —with the addition of numerous diacritics (figure 87). To this extent, it

bears a certain resemblance in its basic design principles to IPA. It consists altogether
of 186 characters. The second edition, in 1863, included sample transcriptions, to-
gether with accompanying commentaries, for over a hundred languages. Despite its
success, it was later eclipsed by IPA, because the modern-language teachers who
formed the nucleus of the International Phonetic Association felt that its range of
symbols and diacritics was unnecessarily complex for their particular requirements.
The study of the local dialects of various languages of Europe led to the devel-
opment of several language-specific notational svstems (cf. Heepe 1928: 31-95). For
transcribing English dialects, the English phonetician and philologist Alexander J. El-

lis created several systems (Palaeotype. Glossic, and variants), some of which he con-
 —
836 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

10. 1 i wer ugh'ut 13 waanm — sez sire for

2 „ wcz wamm twee's sliii

waar winmin — ,,, ii

3
4
„
„ war
Bgh'l3t ,,

,, waanm — „ she sez

fe
for
5 „ waar
>>

u wnanin — sez sheV

,,

6 „ wcr
j,

wamm — shu
ii

fe
7
t) ,,

waanm — n n ,,

8 »
ii n ft

-Bgeetit
,

h
,

a — M j»

for
9 i,
>»

wtrz — plfrmm vwdev

»l

10 „ II
— gr&enm — — &lne sez
If

> I

1 *><?lil tf waald laak tcv x, sh'nk beeun vr B

2 aal n wold let'k , , bacUi ?> >r ii

3 jal }|
waald laak „ , B&Bk bznm }* n
4 aal j j *» >> f > i» beetm t* ii

5 6ot?1 n wold letlt ,

I II baan ft ii

6 jal th waald fiz turn BZ ,

I n been ii ii

7 „ t' i >
laak , , siik becun »> >»

8 aa'tj! n >> >> i ,

sz/uk beexjn ii n
9 6ot?l ii
wold le*k , ,
badl* tf >i
els „
10 ool woold lo'z'k ,
* j/ II ft >i

1 laal las ev v tivi.

2 ht'l i» » „ frzmt.
3 laal >i >> „ tiW.
4 „ >» *t) s phrevtsh.
5 ldil >> t 13 tjoreft'n.

6 laal >> >> ,, j ume.

i

7 latl >> >» ,, puuk.

8 litre! >» u ,
, mwendj.
9 laat'l „ — wtmprni.
10 „ g.i el — fretm.

figure 88. The sentence He was whining away, says she, for all the world like a sick child, or a
little girl in a fret in ten Yorkshire dialects, transcribed in Dialectal Palaeotype (Ellis 1 889: 509-10).

sidered to be candidates for a reformed orthography of English. His "dialectal

Palaeotype," used for a major survey of (mainly) rural pronunciations in Britain in
the 1 880s, is based on the Roman alphabet —hence palaeotype, the 'old alphabet'
extended by means of different fonts, turned letters, and punctuation marks. The re-

sult is a very extensive symbol-repertoire of over 250 characters (Ellis 1889: 78*-
88*). figure 88 shows an example of the notation in practice: a transcription of part
of a test sentence pronounced in ten Yorkshire dialects. See figure 89A for the sym-
bols of his earlier Palaeotype of 1869.
Since about 1925, the IPA's alphabet has had few competitors, although there
have been deliberate (but usually relatively small) adjustments to it for specific pur-
poses, for example for notating pronunciation in dictionaries. Among certain linguists

in North America, a modified IPA alphabet has been in use for many years. This dif-
fers from IPA mainly in using the symbols [sj and [z] for IPA [J] and [3], [cj and [j]

for IPA [tf] and |<%], [y] for IPA [j] and hence [ii] for IPA [y]; and in the names of cer-
tain phonetic categories (e.g. low vowel, rather than the IPA's open vowel). A conve-
nient listing of phonetic symbols, IPA and non-IPA, is Pullum and Ladusaw 1986.
 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION §37

1 ft 1 ft 1 4 5 b |
7 8 y 1

a |
kh jh | rh 1
ph
'

# | Y 1 H« |
• a
b kwh. s | sh. |
wh r a a e * I

1
doul
linn b
c /h ljh | lh f 1, j cf | ah B ' j c

A Iwh.

k
th
tj
| th
t
fh 1
m
B
a
jf
ah
I

e A
( ., d
p.
1 p j e

f qh njh | nh mh H # 83 ae Hwh i f
Bh j r bh *«C u U 1 6 Hi 9
h gwh. z | zh w W oh ?
(> +
+ h
i 1 lj 1 1 V y A ah ?h 1
4 i

k Iw dh | db. vh j^ W «h y I" t k
I g dj I
d b u,w oh ce §* I

m nj |
n m 'h oh aeb ft
•
m
3
i 2 3 4 | 5 6 7 8 9

1 2 | 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
a c 1
t
i> I I O — a
b O nlO D I »
b
c c O 3 CO h I X i c

d c 2J 3 I 1 f d
e "ff Q D D 2 1 ? e

f a a O D > I <^ <

9 € O 3 £ I $
*>
9
h e ^ to B \ e <s h
t 8 00 CO 3 i * c
8
•

h OS e I \
,
3 k
"CD CD 3 I 1 & « I

m Q CD CD B I 2 I 1 m
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

• 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
a X 9 r $ v
UI i i h a
w
b x s J M K A 3 e
''

b
c L A 1 f j g 3 e ? hiatus c
w
d L 9 4 fY J Y e 1
C) abrupt d
~ n
e k c t
P B n b e e

f q Ji n m a B ae whistle
ingress.
airflow f
w
8 Y i
r P a u ti Y trilled
8
w w
h Y z 3 w K e fi click h
-
i L £ 1 V y B* ce _ i

w
k L 5 fe
vv j* u e y 3
k
w lateral
I g i d b 5 ce ± artic.
I

m P n m « D D GH T
coartic-
ulated
m
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

figure 89. The characters of (a) Paleotype and (b) Visible Speech (Ellis 1869: 15),

with (c) transliteration into IPA (1993).

838 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

Iconic notation

Iconic notations involve the use of symbol-shapes which convey explicit information
about particular articulatory features of the sounds (cf. Korean hankul in section
17). The most famous is Alexander Melville Bell's Visible Speech of 1867 (figure
89B), although it has predecessors in the systems of e.g. Bishop John Wilkins (1668),
Francis Lodwick (1686), Charles de Brosses (1765), and Ernst von Briicke (1863);
see Kemp 1994: 3044. Bell was a Scottish phonetician and the father of Alexander
Graham Bell, the Scottish-Canadian inventor of the telephone.

In the subtitle of Visible Speech are the words "self- interpreting physiological let-

ters," which reveal much about the concept behind the notation. Each symbol dis-

plays sufficient visual information about the articulation for the reader to be able to
work out what the symbolized sound is. In other words, a knowledge of the values of
the component elements of the symbols allows the reader to interpret all and any of
the symbols.
For example, Bell's iconic symbol for [n], CD, contains the following pieces of
information. The bowl-like shape represents a turned letter C — for consonant. Its po-
tential open area, though closed here, points upward toward the roof of the mouth: the
alignment indicates an alveolar articulation. The small vertical represents the appear-
ance of the vocal folds when they are vibrating —they are practically together. The
line along the top of the C-bowl contains two separate elements: a straight line to the
left, which represents total closure — in this case between the blade of the tongue and
the alveolar ridge —and a wavy line, which if turned through 90 would suggest the
appearance of the soft palate in its lowered position. Putting these features together,
one can calculate that the sound must be a voiced alveolar nasal consonant. (It should
be noted that Bell viewed the vocal tract from the right side of the head and neck, not
the left as in IPA. As a result, sounds involving the lips are on the right side.)
Bell's system won wide support in America in the nineteenth century in schools
for the deaf as a means of illustrating the component properties of sounds to deaf chil-
dren learning to speak. Among phoneticians, the degree of support was less enthusi-

astic —mainly on the grounds that the notation bore no observable connections with
an alphabetic system of notation. However, it is a relatively easy system to use once
the underlying principles have been grasped. Bell claimed that it was a general pho-
netic alphabet: that is, like the IPA alphabet, it can be used in the notation of any lan-
guage on earth. However, unlike IPA, it allows for many more shades of
pronunciation to be symbolized. It can be handwritten in cursive form using special
modified symbols (Bell 1867, pi. XII).

A revision of Visible Speech was published in 1880, not by Bell but by his one-

time pupil Henry Sweet, under the title Revised Organic Alphabet (Sweet 1880-81:
203-35). One of his revisions (which were based on many years of practical experi-
ence of the system) was to make some of Bell's symbols easier to read. For example,
 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION §39

ll UI III Ixi li iii III fxt

}« \xe [ce 3aa Ixe Ccc

JJO II a XX ae jj a li a XX x
liu Ixu ffy li u Tae ti fxjy

}io 1.8 {** fao fco {xa

JJD p3 I* oe jf :> p 3'

jx 02

# + * ?
• >
:

.(•) v = < > - ] )

> j * 2
? *l AC) v(J s(") !(«)

*C) -« <(,) (J < + >t ( * v'

V } ) V & M> * s «* 11 iC »§§ "§

s n j r oh sh •h) :/i I A

I AV •0 : 4 J ,'
•n >o

j c X 09 r v]> S S *S + O AV >f
ohft e| 0/ col O 1, 3«|>*

x ; ak Q C at Ot, Dp
J
S ^ y l n >?« r m

« J es *>j (D r w 6 s z e 3 3P w > V

6} CO/ col COi- lt 3 p*

ag mj a d a* d, Db
jq l n l n •> n< p m
figure 90. The Revised Organic Alphabet, with equivalents in Romic. 7b/?, vowels; middle,
"general symbols"; bottom (two boxes), consonants (Sweet 1880-81: 220-21, 1971: 282-83).

Sweet removed the C bowl element in nasal sounds and notated [n] solely as i. The
horizontal line still indicates, as in Visible Speech, total closure between the blade of
the tongue and the alveolar ridge, and the wavy line the soft palate in its lowered po-
sition.The marker for voicing is, of course, retained, though repositioned. See fig-
ure 90 for the complete character set; also Sweet 1971: 256-85, esp. 283-85. In
Britain, Sweet's Organic Alphabet soon came to be used more than Bell's Visible
840 PART X,,: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

JironchialesJaryngaksJl-oulaires. Uila'irts. falatales. 2)en tales. J)etitt,-labio.Les ^abiules.

— X
r

D Ol Q CD a 9 a e D B D D
1 2J 1. 2J t n re re J 2 J 3
U LU n m £E £1E 3 3
fc) U U bl <*z c c
e b b U bl *(T (Tff I> 33
(D o O u u u u n n C1SS-SSCC 3 T D 13

il il U U hh ...( _r ...r _c > r 3" J~

J 1 U

J i h

4 f r

1 TT
1 | 1

Laryn- Uvu-
FeZaires Palatales Dentales , , . , Labiales
chiales gales laires laotales !

9
q g k 9 tH &-* tl- d>- pn ^ P b

n n |
rj rj nn m n^ ni- nn nn m m
1< In Ik lh * #
_: l °
_._
•

i At R r flTh RTh r-rn tt h r-rh r-i- 1

* R R fli- Ri- j-h rn r> rt-

H Q h H fi "if x S- 9 J S J 13 s z <* f V V ID

0t Ft Dt
I 1

.l-r 't (Jt fr Vt

xn i' i
1

a e e

a a s

a cih a

figure 91 The Organic Alphabet, with key (below)

. in IPA (Passy and Jones 1907: 2-3).

Speech — at least by the country's small coterie of phoneticians. A later alphabet, not

by Sweet but also called the Organic Alphabet, which bears only partial resemblances
to either Bell's or Sweet's system, was published in 1907 by Paul Passy and Daniel
Jones (figures 91 and 92). It seems to have been little used by phoneticians gener-
ally.
 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION g4J

D n& ehp n aheatia hap e acL-e, o n£ n adep

d >hs btr-ho, dog o<$ unoci-a ocrolua vi ebn c

p-ans du, ^p o ns h sn rn pahachE.

)ih <pde sqj eiLtq cih dih-es ciha oh wpKr ohs

qjcsn BhcDdaC sdc, ciho oasqjprih Bngn-rhc nc

om so6 cda Dpins Biho ohx prihgLn-sanu ephD.

kar dj0 a telmat e:me 1 m5:d, k il a done / s5 fis ynik, pur kg kik5:k krwat a lqi n / pe:ris pa,
me k il e la vi eternel.

'Car Dieu a tellement aime le monde, qu 'il a donne sonfils unique, pour que quiconque emit a
lui ne perisse pas, mais qu 'il ait la vie eternelle.'
fa god sou Uvd 5a wa:ld 3at hi geiv hiz / ounli bigotn saii, 5st husoueva bilirvie in / him Jud
not perij bat haev evslaistirj laif.

'For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believe in him
should not perish but have everlasting life.'

figure 92. Samples of French and English in the Organic Alphabet, with key (be low) in

contemporary IPA (Passy and Jones 1907: 6).

Linear and parametric notations

The transcription that a phonetician makes may be either linear (i.e., it notates the
stream of speech as though it consisted of discrete sound segments that follow one
another in time), as in the example of [hat] discussed above, or parametric (i.e., it rep-
resents parameters — potentially variable features of speech production, which may
last less than or more than the duration of the allegedly single, discrete segment). Al-
most all phonetic notation, both now and in the past, has been made on a linear basis.

The parallelism noted earlier between orthographic hat and phonetic [hat] sug-

gests that a phonetic notation will be based on the perceived number of sounds in a

word. This is not necessarily so. Native users of English will comment that the pro-

nunciation [hat] contains three sounds, which make up a single syllable; phoneticians
will show that depending on the purpose of one's phonetic analysis and notation, a
varying number of sounds can be uncovered. For example, the [h] at the beginning of
hat has precisely the same tongue position as the following [a] vowel sound — the dif-
ference lies in the absence of voicing in the [h]. In terms of what the entire vocal tract
842 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

increased level

Respiratory activity

open
Vocal cords vibrating

Back of tongue rest

position

Front of tongue rest position

Mandible rest position

closed lowered
Lips

opened and rounded

—r I

0.2 0.4 0.6 0.8 1.2 1.4 1.6

Seconds

[-'
figure 93. Parametric analysis of the articulatory actions of some of the vocal organs in the

production of the English (RP) word horse /hois/ (Laver 1994: 102).

does in the production of hat, only two major settings must be achieved: the body of
the tongue positioned for [h] and [a]; and second, the totally new setting of the tip and
blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge behind the upper front teeth for the [t].

An alternative parametric interpretation, however, which pays much closer atten-

tion to the finer adjustments of the vocal tract in the pronunciation of hat, would show
that, during the [a] vowel, the tip and blade of the tongue begins to rise upward to-

ward the alveolar ridge. The concept of an [a] followed by a [t] is, strictly speaking,
erroneous. Sounds flow into and out of one another, and there is usually no precise
dividing line between them. No standardization of parametric notation has been at-
tempted. An example of a parametric notation is seen in figure 93.

Analphabetic notation
By analphabetic notation is meant those notations which delineate the individual
phonetic features of a sound by means of (usually) a long, sequential notation often
involving different symbol systems; an analogy is chemical formulas such as H :
for

'water'. Several such systems have been devised since the early eighteenth century,
including one by Erasmus Darwin, grandfather of Charles Darwin, in 1803 (Kemp
1994: 3048). Later examples are the Analphabetic Notation of the Danish phonetician
 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION 843

table 71.2: Qualities of the 'a' Vowel in Several Languages (Jespersen 1889: 80)

Analphabetic Notation IPA (i 9 93f

b
English father a<8 pgf y7j 50 81 [9J
German Gabe a8 b Pgf 7>7j 50 £i [a]

French pas a>8 ba pg y7jk 50 £i [a]

Swedish hatt a<8 bc pf Y7jj 50 £i Rfl

Danish mand a<8 b Pf yTjj 50 £i fa]

mane a<8 b pfe y<7ij 50 £i [a]

rat a8 b Pgf y8 kj 50 £i [a]

a. IPA cannot notate the slightly different lip and tongue-tip positions (a and P) for these vowels; a verbal
description is therefore necessary.

Otto Jespersen (1889) and the Functional Analphabetic Symbolism of the American
phonetician Kenneth Pike (1943).
For IPA [n], Jespersen writes a„(30 fy„52£i^3. This provides information about
what he calls the "elements of sounds," i.e. the component features (Jespersen 1889:

7). The symbol a denotes the lips, (3 y the upper surface of the
the tip of the tongue,

tongue, 5 the soft palate, £ the vocal folds, and £ the lungs. Note the systematic pro-
gression from the lips back to the lungs employing the first six letters of the Greek
alphabet — precisely as in the left-to-right arrangement of the IPA chart (except that

the latter does not have a specific "place of articulation" for the lungs). The letters or
numbers after the Greek letters provide more specific information about the activity
(or otherwise) of the particular speech organs. The symbol „ indicates a "neutral or
passive" state of an articulator or articulators. indicates complete closure between
two articulators. Superscript
r
indicates the alveolar ridge. 2 is the third position of an

articulator: in the case of 52, this is the lowered position of the soft palate for nasal

consonants like [m], [n], and [rj]. (50 would be complete closure between the soft pal-
ate and the posterior pharyngeal wall; and 51 would indicate the "nasal twang" of cer-
tain American accents.) 1, a symbol taken from Bell's Visible Speech and Sweet's

Organic Alphabet, stands for voicing in chest register. 3 is the middle degree of stress
(in the sence of the respiratory reinforcement of syllables) on a scale from 1 (weak)
to 5 (extra strong).

Although inevitably baffling at first sight, the analphabetic notation has an excel-
lent internal logic, since any phonetic analysis needs to be able to specify the precise

component elements in an articulation, quite independently of being able to provide

a notation for the sound; Jespersen achieves both at the same time. An alphabetic no-

tation like the IPA, even with diacritics associated with its symbols, does not have
ready-made the same precise (and expandable) repertoire of classificatory subtleties

that are available in an analphabetic notation. Few phoneticians, however, have used

Jespersen's notation, table 71.2 shows how the notation can highlight slightly dif-

ferent articulations.
844 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

Pike's notation of IPA [n] as

MalldDeCVoeIpvnnAP/?a«t^tlmransn^fS/7vavJtlvmranss5fT/7g«gJtlwvritvransn5f,SrpFSs

is based on precisely the same principles as Jespersen's, but Pike makes the analysis
even more detailed —and uses only Roman letters. The notation, which, like Jesper-
sen's, is totally indecipherable without a knowledge of the coding principles behind
it, lists information about the airstream mechanism (in this case, air being expelled
from the lungs), the position of the soft palate (lowered away from the back wall of
the pharynx), the precise setting of the blade of the tongue against the alveolar ridge,
and the role of the sound within a syllable. Pike is describing here an [n] which is op-
erating as a syllable in its own right, as in the pronunciation of the word and, said very
quickly in a phrase like back and forth, where the and is simply a single [n] sound
with no vowel before it and no consonant after it (Pike 1943: 155).

Summary
The relationships between the various, and sometimes radically different, styles of
phonetic notation that have evolved over the past 400 years can be shown as in fig-
ure 94. Of these, the type that has formed the basis of most phonetic notations has
been the Linear, particularly a linear alphabetic notation which provides a single sym-
bol for each identifiable sound segment (or phoneme).

Notation

Linear Parametric

One sound, One sound, more

one symbol than one symbol

Alphabetic Iconic Analphabetic

figure 94. Styles of phonetic notation.

 SECTION 71: PHONETIC NOTATION g45

Bibliography

Abercrombie, David. 1964. English Phonetic Texts. London: Faber and Faber.
.
1 98 1. "Extending the Roman Alphabet: Some Orthographic Experiments of the Past Four
Centuries." In Asher and Henderson 1981: 207-24.
Asher, Ron E., and Eugenie J. A. Henderson, eds. 1981. Towards a History of Phonetics. Edinburgh:
Edinburgh University Press.
Ball, Martin J. 1991. "Computer Coding of the IPA: Extensions to the IPA." Journal of the Interna-
tional Phonetic Association 2 1 : 36-41
Bell, Alexander Melville. 1867. Visible Speech: The Science of Universal Alphabetics; or, Self-in-
terpreting Physiological Letters, for the Writing of All Languages in One Alphabet. London:
Simpkin, Marshall.
Catford, J. C. 1988. A Practical Introduction to Phonetics. Oxford: Clarendon.
Duckworth, M., G. Allen, W. Hardcastle, and M. J. Ball. 1990. "Extensions to the International Pho-
netic Alphabet for the Transcription of Atypical Speech." Clinical Linguistics and Phonetics
4: 273-80.
Ellis, Alexander J. 1869-89. On Early English Pronunciation. Part 1, London: Asher. Part 5, Lon-
don: Trubner.
Esling, John H., and Harry Gaylord. 1993. "Computer Codes for Phonetic Symbols." Journal of the
International Phonetic Association 23: 83-97.
Haldeman, Samuel S. 1 860. Analytic Orthography: An Investigation of the Sounds of the Voice, and
Their Alphabetic Notation: Including the Mechanism of Speech, and ItsBearing upon Etymol-
ogy. Philadelphia: Lippincott.
Heepe, Martin. 1928. Lautzeichen und ihre Andwendung in verschiedenen Sprachgebieten. Berlin:
Reichsdruckerei. Repr. Hamburg: Buske, 1983.
International Phonetic Association. 1932. "The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 1932)."

Le Maitre Phonetique 37 (January-March) loose insert.

1949. The Principles of the International Phonetic Association, Being a Description of the
.

International Phonetic Alphabet and the Manner of Using It, Illustrated by Texts in 5/ Lan-
guages. Supplement to Le Maitre Phonetique 91, January-June.
.
1989. "The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 1989)." Journal of the International
Phonetic Association 19/2 centerfold.
.
1993. "The International Phonetic Alphabet (revised to 1993)." Journal of the International
Phonetic Association 23/1 centerfold.
Jespersen, Otto. 1889. The Articulations of Speech Sounds Represented by Means of Analphabetic
Symbols. Marburg: Elwert.
Jones, Daniel. 1962. An Outline of English Phonetics, 9th ed. Cambridge: Heffer.
Jones, William. 1788. "A Dissertation on the Orthography of Asiatick Words in Roman Letters.*'

Asiatick Researches; Or, Transactions of the Society, Instituted in Bengal, for Inquiring into the
History and Antiquities, the Arts, Sciences, and Literature, of Asia 1: 1-56. Repr. in his Works,
vol. 1, pp. 175-228. London: G. G. and J. Robinson; R. H. Evans, 1799.

Kelly, John. 198 1. "The 1847 Alphabet: An Episode of Phonotypy." In Asher and Henderson 1981:
248-64.
Kemp, J. Alan. 1981. Introduction. In Lepsius 1 863/1 981: i*-99*.
.
1994. "Phonetic Transcription: History." In The Encyclopedia ofLanguage and Linguistics.
ed. Ron E. Asher and J. M. Y. Simpson, vol. 6, pp. ^040-51. Oxford: Pergamon.
Laver, John. 1994. Principles of Phonetics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Lepsius, Richard. 1863. Standard Alphabet for Reducing Unwritten Languages and Foreign
 1

846 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

Graphic Systems to a Uniform Orthography in European Letters, 2nd ed. London: Williams &
Norgate. Repr. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1981.
MaeMahon, Michael K. C. 1985. "James Murray and the Phonetic Notation in the AW English Dic-
tionary.'" Transactions of the Philological Society 72-1 12.

Passy, Paul. 1888. "Our Revised Alphabet." The Phonetic Teacher August-September, pp. 57-60.
Passy, Paul, and Daniel Jones. 1 907. Alphabet phonetique organique, avec les formes correspondan-
tes Valphabet phonetique usuel Suppl. to Le Maitre Phonetique May-June, pp. 1-8.
de
Pickering, John. 1818. "On the Adoption of a Uniform Orthography for the Indian Languages of
North America." Memoirs of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences 4/2: 319-60. Sepa-
ratim, An Essay on a Uniform Orthography .... Cambridge, Mass., University Press, Hilliard
and Metcalf, 1820.
Pike, Kenneth L. 1943. Phonetics: A Critical Analysis of Phonetic Theory and a Technic for the
Practical Description of Sounds. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
Pullum, Geoffrey K., and William A. Ladusaw. 1986. Phonetic Symbol Guide. Chicago: University
of Chicago Press.
Salmon, Vivian. 1992. "Thomas Harriot (1560-1621) and the Origins of Algonkian Linguistics."
Historiographia Linguistica 19: 25-56.
Sweet, Henry. 1880-81. "Sound Notation." Transactions of the Philological Society 177-235, * 19
(see also Sweet 1971 256-85). :

97 1 The Indispensable Foundation: A Selection from the Writings of Henry Sweet, ed. Eu-
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1 .

genie J. A. Henderson (Language and Language Learning 28). London: Oxford University
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Ternes, Elmar. 1983. Einleitung. In Heepe 1928/1983: vii-xxviii.

Walker, John. 1791 . A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English Language ....

London: G. G. J. and J. Robinson.

Wells, John C. 1987. "Computer-coded Phonetic Transcription." Journal of the International Pho-
netic Association 17: 94-1 14.
SECTION 72

Music Notation
James D. McCawley

This section is concerned only with the notational tradition of European classical mu-
sic. The family of notational systems standardly used within that tradition has
evolved as means of indicating what performers are to sing or play in performing the
works in question. They thus provide detailed information as to the notes, their timing
and duration, and their dynamics, though at most indirect information about musical
structure.

Pitch

Notes are represented on the lines and spaces of a staff of five parallel horizontal lines,
supplemented when necessary by subsidiary partial lines and spaces above and below
the staff, with acoustically "higher" notes (= greater number of vibrations per second:
the unit of measure is the Hertz, Hz) represented on graphically higher lines and spac-
es. The notes making up a diatonic scale, i.e. notes corresponding at least roughly to
the white keys on a piano, appear on consecutive lines and spaces of the staff. Other
notes are represented with # and t» (sharp and flat), which indicate respectively raising
or lowering the pitch by an increment equal to the difference between the large and
small intervals of the diatonic scale. (In a diatonic scale, there are five instances of a
large interval —C-D-E and F-G-A-B —and two instances of a small interval —E-F
and B-c.)*
In the "12 equal interval" tuning system that has been standard in European art

music since about 1800, in which the large interval is exactly twice the small interval,
the increment corresponding to It and \> can appropriately be called a "semitone";
however, that term is avoided here, since the use of I and \> is exactly the same even
with reference to tuning systems in which there is no such thing as a semitone — as in

the "Pythagorean" tuning scheme that was standard in medieval music, in which the
small interval of the diatonic scale is less than half the large interval, and the "mean-
tone" tuning scheme that was standard in Renaissance and baroque music, in which
the small interval is more than half the large interval. The differences among these

*In a commonly used system for designating particular octaves (registers). C stands for the lowest note on a
pipe organ keyboard, with a wavelength of ca. 64 Hz; c stands for the next higher octave, c' is "middle C" (ca.

256 Hz), a' is "A 440". c" is the note near the middle of a soprano's range, and so on (Read 1969: 44).

847
 —

848 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

go j ')
i ^ \

treble clef soprano clef alto clef tenor clef bass clef

figure 95. Clefs

tunings reflect differences in the tuning of the interval of a fifth — the interval from C
up to G: in Pythagorean tuning, the fifth is tuned "pure," i.e. to a frequency ratio of

3/2 = 1 .5, with the consequence that the major third — the interval from C up to E
is painfully sharp; in meantone tuning, the major third is tuned pure, that is, to a fre-

quency ratio of 5/4 = 1.25, which makes the fifth somewhat flat (frequency ratio
1
.4953); in twelve equal interval tuning, the fifth is flat enough (frequency ratio
tuned
1 .4983) to make the large diatonic interval twice the small interval, which makes the
major third slightly sharp (frequency ratio 1.2599). As a consequence of the relative
sizes of the large and small diatonic intervals, F# is higher than Gl? in Pythagorean
tuning, lower than it in meantone tuning, and equal to it in twelve equal interval tun-

ing.

The five-line staffs of standard notation are marked with a clef that identifies one
of the lines of the staff with a particular note. The clefs that are in standard use orig-
inated as script letters G, C, and F, marking those notes on particular lines; middle C
is represented as in figure 95 with different clefs.
Tonal music is generally written with a key signature to the right of the clef; e.g.,

in a piece in the key of A major, the clef will be followed by It s on lines and spaces
corresponding to the notes F, C, and G, indicating that the notes of the A major scale
are to be played (thus Fjt rather than F, C# rather than C, and Gil rather than G) except
where the contrary is indicated. Deviations from the scale indicated by the key signa-
ture are indicated by a # , I, or \ (natural, canceling out a # or I?) to the left of the note

in question.

Duration
Temporal sequence is represented iconically on the left-right dimension; notes pre-
cede those that appear to their right. Vertical alignment indicates simultaneity, both
within a single staff and on multiple staffs that are grouped together into a system (as
in a score in which the parts for the different instruments are written on separate
staffs, or in piano music, which is generally written on two staffs). This interpretation
of vertical alignment applies not only to notes but also to the various diacritics that
are written above or below the staff, indicating such things as dynamics, accents, and
changes of tempo, e.g. a ff indicates that the note or chord below/above which it is

written is to be played fortissimo (very loud).

The metrical organization of a piece of music is partially indicated by vertical

bars that divide the music into measures (also called bars). Each measure begins with
 SECTION 72: MUSIC NOTATION $49

whole
» (J

half
'
r
quarter

figure 96. Notes

p
eighth
m
sixteenth 32nd

pips Jl ll
JT n
figure 97. Beams (the three groups represent identical pitch and duration)

a metrically strong beat. At the beginning of the piece (or at a point where the meter
changes), there is a time signature indicating the metrical composition of the mea-
sures (e.g. 4/4 indicates that each measure is to consist metrically of four quarter-

notes, 6/8 that each measure is to consist metrically of six eighth-notes, etc.). The
time signature is usually written with the "numerator" on the upper lines of the staff
and the "denominator" on the lower lines.

Each note is represented by an oval centered on the appropriate line or space of

the staff. The duration of the note is represented by various typographical adornments
of the basic circle (figure 96). The unadorned oval is a "whole note"; an oval with
a vertical stem represents a half-note, whose duration is half that of a whole note; a
filled-in oval with a vertical stem represents a quarter-note; and adding "hooks"
(called flags) to the quarter-note converts it successively into an eighth-, sixteenth-,
thirty-second- (etc.) note.
When there are successive eighth-, sixteenth- (etc.) notes, they may be connected
by beams that replace the flags; e.g., two eighth-notes followed by two sixteenth-
notes can be represented in various ways (figure 97).
A dot to the right of a note (or of another dot) increases its duration by half; e.g..

in a passage that is counted in quarter notes, a dotted whole note is held for six beats,
a dotted half-note for three beats, a dotted quarter note for one and a half beats, and a
3 Numerical used to represent
double-dotted quarter note for i /4 beats. diacritics are

other ways of dividing beats. Thus, when one beat of 4/4 time is to be divided in three,

three eighth-notes are written and bracketed with a 3 and when a measure of 2/4 time
is to be filled by a sequence of five notes of equal duration, five eighth-notes are writ-

ten and bracketed with a 5 (figure 98).

figure 98. Chopin, Nocturne no. 5

850 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

whole half
i
quarter eighth

figure 99. Rests

&
sixteenth 32nd

Each of the notational devices for the duration of notes has a counterpart in the
notation for rests (i.e. for places where nothing is to be played in the given part), with

a different kind of "hook" used in the notation for eighth-, sixteenth- (etc.) rests, and
dots again used to increase the duration of a rest by half (figure 99).
The grouping that is indicated by beams is sometimes a metrical grouping
(as

when four sixteenth-notes that make up one beat of 4/4 time are beamed together),
and sometimes melodic constituent structure (as when a "pick-up" to a beat is beamed
together with a note that is on the beat). In the latter case, beams sometimes cross bar
lines. Beams sometimes skip over rests, as when sixteenth-notes on either side of a

sixteenth-rest are beamed together (figure 100).

In runs of sixteenth and shorter notes, breaks in the multiple beams are some-

times used to indicate grouping of the notes, as in figure 10 i, where the sixteenth-
notes are grouped in threes.
A ligature (called a tie) joining the head of a note in one measure to the head of
a note on the same line or space at the beginning of the next measure indicates that
the former note is simply prolonged into the next measure and not re-struck; this de-

vice thus allows one to indicate that a note that begins in one measure ends in a later
measure. A very different use of the ligature (called a slur) is to indicate phrasing; in

this case, the ligature usually does not connect two note heads, but is rather written
over or under a sequence of notes that are to be played as a phrase (figure i 02). Here
the upper ligature is a tie indicating that the note is prolonged into the first full bar,

while the lower ligature is a slur indicating that the triplet and the following note are
to be played as a phrase.
The direction of the stems of notes is sometimes distinctive, sometimes not.

When a staff contains a single voice, the stems of notes are generally pointed up or

figure 100. Schumann, Grosse Sonate no. 1

m
figure 101. Chabrier, Pieces Pittoresques
 SECTION 72: MUSIC NOTATION 85 1

figure 102. Brahms, Intermezzo, op. 1 18, no. 4

down in such a way as to minimize the extent to which they extend above or below
the staff; i.e., for notes above the middle line of the staff, the stem will point down,
and for notes below the middle line it will point up. However, when two or more voic-
es are written on a single staff, one voice will be written with stems up and the other
with stems down, so as to keep the identity of the voices clear, as in the Brahms in-

termezzo, figure 103 illustrates two ways in which musical overlap can be repre-
sented by overlapping notational devices. A single note-head with two stems indicates
a note that belongs simultaneously to two voices, and a white note-head combined
with a beam indicates a half-note whose beginning is simultaneously the first of a se-
quence of eighth-notes in a different voice.

Dynamics and articulation

Dynamics are indicated below or above the staff by boldface initials of corresponding
Italian words (e.g. pfmp for piano 'soft', forte 'loud', mezzo -piano 'medium soft'),

with repetition of the letter to indicate added degrees (pp for pianissimo 'extra soft',

and ppp or even pppp for still lower volume). Increases or decreases in loudness are
indicated either by the words crescendo and diminuendo respectively (often abbre-
viated) or by a symbol whose two volume increases,
lines either spread apart as the

or narrow to a point as the volume decreases. The latter symbol extends from (below
or above) the note where the crescendo or diminuendo begins to the place where it
ends, as in figure ioo.
The "scopes" of symbols such as cresc. and dim. are often indicated by a broken
line that extends from the symbol to the end of its scope; i.e., the maximum or mini-

mum volume is to be reached at the point where the broken line ends. However, the
scopes of these symbols, as of many others, are often not explicitly indicated, but are

subject to the convention that a symbol for a state or process remains operative until

figure 103. Schumann, Davidsbiindlertanze

852 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

-i^J J

TJ ^ tJ A

figure 104. Beethoven, Bagatelle, op. 1 19, no. 7

another symbol supersedes it. Thus markings for dynamic levels remain in effect until
the next symbol that calls for a different dynamic level; e.g., pp will appear at the be-
ginning of a (possibly long) passage that is to be played pianissimo. By contrast, sym-
bols for events such as sf (sforzando, lit. 'forcing', indicating a loud onset and rapid
decay) apply only to the notes on which they are marked, except when there is an ex-
plicit marking (such as sempre staccato) indicating that the same mode of attack is to
be used throughout a passage.

Structure

Sections of a piece that are to be repeated are marked by a bold-face double bar whose
function as a bracket around the repeated part is marked by dots after the "left brack-
et" and before the "right bracket" (figure 104).
The status of repeat signs as brackets is often emphasized by extending the dou-
ble bar above and below the staff, and bending it in the direction of the repeated mat-
ter. A repeated section often has to have different endjngs, as when a repeated passage
that leads from tonic to dominant has to return to the tonic the first time it is played,
but stay in the dominant the second time. In such cases, a 1 is written above the staff
where the "first ending" begins, and a horizontal line runs from the 1 to the repeat sign
where the first ending ends; the second ending is marked similarly, with a 2 and a hor-
izontal line. Obvious extensions of this notation are used for cases where a section is

to be played more than twice in succession. The notation is sometimes supplemented

by ad hoc devices indicating where the player is to go at the end of each repetition;
such ad hoc notations are used extensively in many Beatles songs.
When the beginning of the repeated matter is the beginning of the piece itself, the
"left bracket" is omitted entirely; i.e., on coming to a "right repeat sign," the player

goes back to the corresponding "left repeat sign" if there is one, otherwise to the be-
ginning of the piece. When a repeated section is immediately followed by another re-
 SECTION 72: MUSIC NOTATION §53

fAli s
figure 105. Mendelssohn, String Octet, fourth violin part

peated section, the abutting repeat signs are generally superimposed, i.e. there are not
four vertical lines but only two — but with dots on both sides of the double bar, indi-
cating the end of one repeated section and the beginning of another.
The symbol v. indicates repetition of a measure or even part of a measure; it is

used, e.g., in keyboard music when one hand repeats an accompanying figure. Over-
lapping symbols can also be used to indicate repetitions, as when repeated sixteenth
notes are indicated by a quarter- or half-notewhose stem is crossed by a double beam,
or when a tremolo is indicated by half-notes connected by beams (figure 105). In
both cases, the beams indicate the duration of the individual notes, while the note
—
heads indicate the duration of the repeated figure which in one case is a single note,
and in the other case a sequence of two notes; the beams implicitly connect the note(s)
to an appropriate number of copies of itself/themselves.
Small print is used for notes that are extrametrical either in the sense that the note

simply doesn't count metrically (as when the meter is interrupted by afermata —a di-

acritic on a note or rest instructing the performer to prolong it at will —and the notes

precede the resumption of the normal meter) or the sense that it serves as an ornament
(either on the beat, usurping part of the duration of its host note, or before the beat,
usurping part of the duration of the preceding note). The latter types of ornament
sometimes appear with slashes through the stems, emphasizing their extrametricality.

In figure 106, a slash is combined with small type to indicate two levels of extra-

metricality — the first d' is an extrametrical onset to a group of notes that is itself an
extrametrical onset to what follows.

Modifications

The standard notational system is modified in numerous ways in particular musical

genres and milieus. For example, "Sprechstimme," in which a vocalist uses a voice
quality closer to speech than to singing, is notated in an adaptation of standard nota-
tion that represents rhythms precisely, but indicates only approximate pitches: note-
heads are either omitted or replaced by x's, and the relative heights of the stems and
x's indicate relative pitch. Composers such as Hindemith have sometimes indicated
isolated deviations from the ambient meter by writing a time-signature above the be-

figure 106. Chopin, Nocturne no. 1

854 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

ginning of the measure that is metrically special, e.g. a single 3/8 measure in the mid-
dle of a 2/4 passage. The various musical instruments have spawned numerous
diacritics that indicate techniques of playing those instruments, e.g. the different ways

of using the bow on a string instrument and the different ways of tonguing wind in-
struments.

Bibliography

Boretz, Benjamin, and Edward T. Cone. 1976. Perspectives on Notation and Performance. New
York: Norton.
Blackwood, Easley. 1985. The Structure of Recognizable Diatonic Tunings. Princeton: Princeton
University Press.
Cole, Hugo. 1974. Sounds and Signs: Aspects of Musical Notation. Oxford: Oxford University
Press.
Donato, Anthony. 1963. Preparing Music Manuscript. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall. Repr.

New York: Amsco, n.d. (Everybody's Favorite Series 130).

Kaufmann, Walter. 1967. Musical Notations of the Orient. Bloomington: Indiana University Press.
McCawley, James D. 1992. "Linguistic Aspects of Musical and Mathematical Notation." In The
Linguistics of Literacy (Typological Studies in Language 21), ed. Pamela Downing, Susan D.
Lima, and Michael Noonan, pp. 169-90. Amsterdam: Benjamins.
Read, Gardner. 1969. Music Notation: A Manual of Modern Practice, 2nd ed. New York: Crescendo.
Repr. London: Gollancz, 1974; New York: Taplinger, 1979.
Ross, Ted. 1970. The Art of Music Engraving and Processing. Miami Beach, Fla.: Hansen.
SECTION 73

Movement Notation Systems

Brenda Farnell

In contrast to notation systems for writing vocal gestures (speech), movement writing
systems provide the means to write bodily actions whose modality is visual rather
than vocal. Like the history of writing systems for speech, however, the history of
movement writing reveals a tremendous variety of solutions to problems of transcrip-
tion, and several ways of identifying basic units that form the basis for a script. In

contrast to various forms of mnemonic devices, such as word glosses or static picto-
graphic representations of the human body in diagrams or photographs, movement
scripts represent a genuine technological breakthrough because they provide the
means to become literate in relation to the medium; that is, they provide a means to

apperceive, read, write, reconstruct, think, and analyze in terms of graphic symbols
that represent the movement itself (see Farnell 1994, 1995; Williams and Farnell
1990).
Extant records show that at least 87 movement writing systems have been used
in Europe and North America since the fifteenth century. Many were invented to
record one specific movement system, such as an idiom of dancing or a gestural sys-
tem, and disappeared from use when the movement system itself changed or disap-
peared. It is only in the mid twentieth century that generalized systems have emerged
that are adaptable to wider needs. The scholarship in this field remains extremely

meager, and we know virtually nothing of movement writing systems in areas of the
world outside Europe and North America. Hutchinson-Guest (1984) and Key (1977)
provide useful discussions and bibliographies of known systems.

Historical developments in Europe

Historical records show that, in fifteenth-century Europe, movement notation systems
began to appear as mnemonic devices for social dances. Renaissance dancing masters
in the courts of Italy, France, and Spain were highly esteemed as purveyors of an elab-
orate etiquette that involved displays of wealth and power in the form of elegant
dress, stately dances, and correct deportment. The earliest known treatises on dance
technique (e.g., Ebreo 1463, written in Milan; Cornozano 1465) recorded dances then
popular at court. Known as Basse danses 'low dances', each dance was composed of
different combinations of five basic step patterns, each of which had a name. Tran-
scribing a particular dance sequence was easily accomplished by listing the initial let-

855
 —

856 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

)h #*#- HH-
* H *»•

*^ 'M « %* MM
M *W N WW H HM

M Ww
^ N-
-*- to-
rn*

figure 107. From The Dance Book of Margaret of Austria (ca. 1460), also known as the Golden
Manuscript and the Burgundian Manuscript (Royal Library, Brussels); reprinted, with permission,
from Hutchinson-Guest 1984: 44. It first belonged to Marie de Bourgogne and later to her daughter
Margaret of Austria. The steps are: R, reverencia 'reverence', a bow to start the dance; b, branle, a
swaying step; s, simple, a step forward followed by closing the feet together; d, double, three
forward steps followed by closing feet together; r (looks like z), represa 'reprise', a backward step.

ter of each step, figure 107 shows an example from a collection of dances written
ca. 1460, in which the steps are written by placing the appropriate letter under the mu-
sical notes. The most widely translated and reprinted book that uses this letter system
is Orchesographie (1 589/1967) by Thoinot Arbeau, a pseudonym for one Jehan
Tabout, a Jesuit priest, who, unlike most of his fellow clerics, was in favor of dancing.
This primitive system served its limited mnemonic purpose well at the time, but
many essential elements of correct performance were assumed to be common knowl-
edge and so were not recorded. This has left historians of Renaissance court dances
unable to reconstruct fully the actions of the arms, head, and torso, as well as essential
features such as correct gaze, posture, precise choreographic forms, and floor pat-
terns. An unidentified Catalonian dancing master of the same period provides the ear-
liestknown example of using arbitrary but iconically motivated signs to represent
movement in these court dances (figure 108).
The movement notation found in John Playford's popular The English Dancing
Master ( 65 ) represents a transitional stage, in that he used some of these letter ab-
1
1

breviations but added graphic signs for repeats, as well as diagrams of basic floor pat-
terns with signs that distinguished male and female dancers. However, the actual
sequences of movements were described in words. Many books written about the
popular European dances of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries follow this pat-

tern, showing floor plans and accompanying music, with the steps described briefly
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS 857

figure 108. A mid 15th c. dance step notation system from Catalonia. Anonymous ms., Cervera
Municipal Archives, Spain; reprinted, with permission, from Hutchinson-Guest 1984: 45. The
letters normally used to represent dance steps have been replaced with a horizontal stroke that

represents forward movement. Two horizontal lines represent two 'simple' steps; three horizontal
lines the 'double' step; and I
— , the reverencia, represents the forward body movement of a bowing
action. A vertical stroke represents a step in place; e.g. II for the branle step (swaying from side to
side equals two steps in place). A stylized z, j, represents the represa.

in words. They too, however, act primarily as mnemonic devices and do not facilitate
accurate reproduction.
As European dance forms changed and more detail was required, other notation
systems were invented, such as the Beauchamps-Feuillet system used in France circa
1700. Although invented by Pierre Beauchamps, a famous ballet-master, it was the
younger Raoul Auger Feuillet who first published a book on the subject. King Louis
XIV's passion for dancing set a social climate in which a system of notation for danc-
ing could flourish. As dancing was a required social grace at court and among the ed-
ucated classes, instruction in the art became necessary. The Academie Royale de la

Danse was established by the King in 1661, and there followed a period when the
ability to read dances using the Beauchamps-Feuillet notation was an expected skill

of any educated person in the courts of Europe. Feuillet's books were quickly trans-
lated into Englishand German, and collections of the latest dance compositions by
famous teachers were published almost yearly between 1700 and 1722. Indeed, as Jo-
seph Addison wrote in The Tatler in 1709, "there is nothing so common as to com-
municate a dance by letter" (cited in Hutchinson-Guest 1984: 64).
This excursion into movement literacy lasted almost a hundred years but de-
clined along with the demise of the French aristocracy during the French Revolution.
The emergent French middle class practiced the simpler contredanses "country danc-
es' from England. In contrast, theatrical dance forms, which were basically the same
858 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

P*sf plic. Pms Pas / fiute. Premiere PoJItitn. Sectnde Pefitign. Trujlcmt r»Jit, 0n
f ele-ve. .

£*itrieme Cinquiimt Ptfnitn.

a 5 Ptfititn.

tomkc. Pds < cabriole.

Pas f tfift. P** (

i $
c -
i
—^ V
fe ^2) d
-+0+- -<
figure 109. The Beuchamp-Feuillet notation system for the court dances of Europe (Feuillet
1700A). Above: (a) Variations in steps, (b) positions of the foot, (c) arm movements, (d) taking and
releasing the hands. Right: An example of a dance.

as the court dances in the early eighteenth century, developed into classical ballet.
Such dance forms became elaborate and highly skilled, and altogether separate from
movement literacy declined because professional the-
social dancing. In this milieu,
atrical dancers were not members of literate elites. In addition, not all influential

teachers were in favor of writing dances (e.g. Jean George Noverre). As a conse-
quence, the Beauchamps-Feuillet notation system was never developed sufficiently
to accommodate the new complexities of an enlarged ballet vocabulary, and by the
turn of the century the tradition of literacy had been broken. Theatrical dancing re-
verted to an oral-visual tradition, with disastrous consequences for our knowledge of
the historical development of European choreography.
The Beauchamps-Feuillet writing system is based upon a center line that traces

the dancer's path across the floor (figure 109). Indications for steps are somewhat
iconic; a dot indicates the start of a step, a line traces the direction of its path, and an
angular line at the end represents the foot. Strokes added to the basic step sign allow

for ornamentation such as bending the knee, rising on toe, a springing step, or a glid-

ing step. Positions of the feet in relation to each other can be written, along with some
arm movements, and there are signs for indicating the taking or releasing of hands.
As with the earlier notation systems, focus was on the intricate footwork, while
knowledge of elegant carriage and graceful use of the arms was taken for granted. The
Beauchamps-Feuillet system did not distinguish steps (weight-bearing) from leg ges-
tures in the air, nor did it accommodate ornamental and pantomimic arm gestures and
use of the torso and head. Theatrical dances of the period increasingly involved a
large number of dancers moving simultaneously, and so the track system, upon which
the Beauchamps-Feuillet system was based, became unworkable (Hutchinson-Guest
1984: 62-66).
During the nineteenth century, several new dance notation systems emerged,
some of which centered on stick-figure representations of the body, others on adapta-
Zorn 1887). Most notable in this pe-
tions of musical notation (e.g. Saint-Leon 1852,
riod, perhaps, is the system invented by Vladimir Ivanovitch Stepanov (1892).

Although a dancer of the Maryinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Stepanov also studied
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS 859

*' 1 ,

l| l
r
:
"
i'i
1
l

l
ii't *f -

ill l
l '

iiiiP Viii lMi

l

<7lU

$
\'

anatomy and anthropology at the University of St. Petersburg, and was sent to Paris
to further his studies. Alexander Gorsky refined the system after Stepanov's untimely
death in 1896, but it was Gorsky's assistant Nikolai Grigorevich Sergeyev who put it

to work. He and his assistants recorded a large number of ballets and used the notation
to reconstruct the latest choreography on new companies such as the Diaghilev Bal-
lets Russes, the Latvian National Theater, the Paris Opera, and London's Vic-Wells
(now the Royal Ballet).
860 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

b. On the floor, in the air

Left leg & ,

left arm eJ J ' » JJ t J

(b) Lower limb movements.

Body, Right leg & ^ "1 "1

f •n i r (c) Movements of the *| •[
head right arm ^ — extremities.
^ dj
to" 2, do -•»

Arms
^r i *
TO ti
j» c. In the hip joint (of the body)
Legs 5 3- °*
at 45* at 90' at 135'
•
2 3 i t i
vi y TT
3 o *Tf!U
o 3 oogooogoo O g"o*
? « 1
S
« S3
p.2.0 l5R-S??R-?i
ej«^(»6;(»^(»w o
a-
W — H i S
•4 *
St'"" O 2. =• m n a :. » —
3. § g.a

jQU^/rttcUlcJo.

o?. ^ (5.

fi

/
**
d''
t
.<k

figure i io. Stepanov system (i 892). faj Staff for the placement of body parts, (b) different forms
of the note signs, (c) notation of flexion and extension of hip joint, (d) an example of writing, (e)
floor plans. Redrawn after Gorsky 1978: 1 1, 13, and 56; and Hutchinson-Guest 1984: 73.
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS $6\

Stepanov was the first to base a notation system on an understanding of the ana-
tomical structure of the human body. Musical notes form the basic signs (an idea used
previously by Bernard Klemm in 1855), and the time value of a note is the same as in
music. A modified musical staff provides sections on which to indicate movements of
the legs, arms, body, and head (figure iio). Square-headed music notes indicate
steps in contact with the ground, whereas round-headed notes indicate leg gestures.
Note stems that go upward represent the left leg or arm; note stems going down, the
right leg or arm. Additional notations on the stem indicate movements involving flex-

ion, extension, adduction, abduction, twisting, turns, and circular movements. As

these terms indicate, Stepanov's taxonomy of the body and classification of move-
ment is clearly based on his anatomical training. An innovation was to indicate the
degree of turn with numbers distributed around a circle, and floor plans were also in-

cluded.
Despite that fact that Stepanov's system was officially tested and approved by his
Russian superiors before being put to practical use, by 1920 it was moribund. The rea-
sons for its demise are complex, but they certainly involve the personalities and pol-
itics of the day, as well as its technical shortcomings (see Hutchinson-Guest 1984: 74,
Wiley 1978: xii-xvii). An important factor, however, and one which continues today
in European and American professional dance subcultures, was skepticism toward, or
complete rejection of, the very idea of notation by principal figures. There was (and
is) an overwhelming focus on the continual invention of new choreography, and so
ballet-masters desired to create their own versions of the classics according to the
skills and strengths of new dancers, rather than copy their predecessors. Thus classic

works that carried the same name frequently contained entirely new choreography.
For example, Marius Petipa, a leading nineteenth-century Russian choreographer,
was "completely convinced (pray God that I may be wrong) that worthy ballet mas-
ters will not use [Stepanov's] method of notation" (Petipa 1892, cited in Wiley 1978:

xiii). One can only wonder whether Petipa's prayer suggests a faint glimmer of aware-

ness about the long-term consequences that such self-serving attitudes would have for
the history and subsequent academic status of his art form.

Dancing is not the only context in which the notation of movement has been at-

tempted. A system was developed in 1806 by Gilbert Austin for the notation of ges-
tures and body positions during public speaking, and this was combined with
notations for vocalizations. Austin used letter abbreviations that referred to a specific
classification of gestural actions (see figure hi). Many subsequent studies in non-

verbal communication have repeated this type of abbreviation, using checklists of

graphic signs or word glosses that represent different positions of head, eyes, lips, and
mouth as movement possibilities to be checked off if and when they occur (see exam-
ples in Key 1977). It should be noted that these methods tend to focus on position
rather than movement, and their aim is usually statistical analysis according to these
predetermined units, rather than movement literacy and a score that would allow full

reproduction of the flow of movement. In addition, Birdwhistell (1952) invented a

 !

862 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

^±3

C.
THE MISER AND PLUTUS.

R. Bvhf r q. I peq
^ i

1-2. The wind was high, the window shaikes;

veq c— vhx c

3. With sudden start the miser wakes

tRix •

figure iii. Austin's notation system for gesture and speech in oratory (1806: 363-69). (a) Foot
shown by degrees of shading;
patterns with weight distribution are (b) arm movement is described
with coordinates determined by placing the body in an imaginary circle divided into vertical and
horizontal planes; (c) letter abbreviations classify hand, arm, head, and eye movements: e.g. (letters

above the spoken text) R, round look of eyes; B, both hands; v, vertical presentation of palms; h,
horizontal arms; f, arms forward in transverse direction; r , motion right; q, arms stop at oblique
position; (letters below the spoken text) a,R.2., advance right foot to second position.

movement notation system for use in functional-anatomical descriptions of "behav-

ior" in an approach to movement research known as kinesics.
Also of note are systems invented since the 1960s for writing signed languages.
figure 1 1 2 shows a script for American Sign Language (ASL) invented by William
Stokoe (i960) and adapted for the notation of Australian Aboriginal sign languages
by Adam Kendon (1989). Valerie Sutton (1973) devised a pictographic system for
writing ASL called Sign Writing. This application, largely a mnemonic device, fol-
lowed her attempt to create a "shorthand" for writing classical ballet. La Mont West,
Jr. (i960) also invented a notation system for Plains Indian sign language.
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS §53

Tab symbols 27. V "victory" hand; index and second fingers extended and
zero, the neutral place wliere the hands move, in contrast spread apart
with all places below 28. W three-finger hand; thumb and little finger touch, others
face or whole head extended spread
3
n forehead or brow, upper face 29. X hook hand; index finger bent in hook from fist, thumb tip

U mid-face, the eye and nose region

may touch fingertip
30. Y "horns" hand; thumb and little finger spread out extended
^ chin, lower face
from fist; or index finger and little finger extended,
) cheek, temple, ear, side-face
parallel
IT neck 31-. 8 (allocheric variant of Y); second finger bent in from
[] trunk, body from shoulders to hips spread hand, thumb may touch fingertip
\ upper arm Sig symbols
/ elbow, forearm upward movement
0. wrist, arm in supinated position (on its back) downward movement .ertical action
D wrist, arm in pronated position (face down) up-and-down movement

Dez symbols, some also used as tab rightward movement

A compact hand, fist; may be like 'a', 's', or Y of manual leftward movement sideways action
13.
alphabet side to side movement
14. 8 flat hand movement toward signer
spread hand; fingers and thumb spread like '5' of manual
15. 5 movement away from signer

16. C
numeration
curved hand; may be like V or more open
to-and-fro movement >
supinating rotation (palm up)
17. E contracted hand; like V or more clawlike pronating rotation (palm down) ^ rotary action
18. F "three-ring" hand; from spread hand, thumb and index twisting movement }
finger touch or cross
nodding or bending action
g* or sometimes
19. G index hand; like ' like 'd'; index finger
opening action (final dez configuration shown in brackets)
points from fist
closing action (final dez configuration shown in brackets)
20. H index and second finger, side by side, extended
wiggling action of fingers
"pinkie" hand; little finger extended from compact hand
circular action
22, K like G
except that thumb touches middle phalanx of
second finger; like 'k' and 'p* of manual alphabet convergent action, approach

23. L angle hand; thumb, index finger in right angle, other contactual action, touch
fingers usually bent into palm linking action, grasp
interaction
24. 3 "cock" hand; thumb and first two fingers spread, like crossing action
'3' of manual numeration entering action
25. tapered hand; fingers curved and squeezed together over divergent action, separate
thumb; may be like V of manual alphabet interchanging action
26. R "warding off" hand; second finger crossed over index
finger, like V
of manual alphabet

TAB (< Tabula) = location orientation represented by Some signs show the change in handshape as part of the mo\ ement
DEZ (< Designator) = handshape subscripts on handshape notation, and also indicate the final shape in raised brackets.
SIG (< Signation) = movement compound notation used to represent
-5 ?t°)
D [] 5< f>]
signs with two locations IV. COMPOUND SIGNS
I. BASIC FORMS Signs which require contact at two locations are often notated in
S
Each sign must have one TAB, one DEZ, and one SIG in that order TD compound form. Many of these signs arc historically dec mposable
[
]A
X
Ax 0W D intotwo separate meaning components.
Some signs have two handshapes TDD S
Compound symbol II

0BB > 0L ••* GL x

Examples X X
5 fll[ ]5 or 5 II[ ]5
X

Some two simultaneous movements TD* or TDD^

signs have []5 X ?II05 O 5 OV
D
[]¥¥ x DI X ¥x V. Miscellaneous leftovers
Some signs have two sequential movements TD SS or TDD SS A few signs require simultaneous contact in two different locations.
W x>x
l
v>
V XuX or"V XDX The two necessary notations are shown in vertical arrangement and
Some signs have both sequential and simultaneous movements TDf etc. are joined together by square brackets. TuGxl
X >X uV XW a
[
]K V \B J I55 L0A o J
Repeated movement is shown by a dot following the sig symbol TD S
Diacritical marks are additions to the symbol set that modify in

Dl
x
3A X 0YY w small ways the symbols that are seen as basic.
Alternating movement is shown by a tilde (-) followins the sig symbol A B H R among others can show thumb extension
\\l~ 0GGf~ []AAf~ D 5" V O among others can show curved or 'bent'
II. ORIENTATION fingers
Orientation of the hands to the signing spaceshown by a subscript on is A movement symbol means sharp, strong single
dot () above a
V
the DEZ symbol. Orientation symbols look like SIG symbols, but they movement TO' TD to the right of a movement symbol means
mean starting position, not movement. TD S (,
repetition ...

0B a Ba N - 03 D 3 N
~
"Or? A shows one hand in front of the other: however it can be
x x
Yx dV- v 0X > 'X < interpreted in two ways. TD A D
S

III. RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE TWO HANDS G When this TAB appears before signs with two DEZ symbolsr
In signs involving both hands, symbols are sometimes used to show the that the movement applies to both hands.
positions of th£hands as related to each other. OGG x
XX^" x/X
x
A A AX 0H + H n If no is present and the sign has two DEZ symbols, then the first is

Some signs use the non-dominant hand as the TAB. In these cases the the base hand and the second is the active hand. Only the active hand
first DEZ symbol represents the non-dominant hand, and the second moves.
indicates the dominant. GG?
»
5°G U I "I l*X°

figure 1 12. (above) Table of symbols from William Stokoe's writing system for ASL (Stokoe,
Casterline, and Croneberg 1965: x-xii); (below) instructions for use (after Frishberg 1983: 28).
864 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

(i) (")
behind in front level

extremity extremity extremity

center joint center joint center joint

X +
figure 1 13. Benesh notation system: Above: (a) body parts and staff: (i) matrix representing the
performer; (ii) arm raised sideways (redrawn after Benesh and Benesh 1956: 11. (b) direction

symbols for the third dimension. Right: (c) Signs under the staff indicate stage direction faced,

turning, stage location, and direction traveled (redrawn after Hutchinson-Guest 1984: 99, 100).
(d) An example of writing from McGuinness-Scott 1983: 1 17.

The emergence of general movement scripts

The writing systems mentioned so far have been little used because they were devel-
oped to meet the needs of one particular movement system, dance style, or research

project. The problem facing investigators has been to develop a script capable of writ-
ing all anatomically possible bodily action that would preserve the identity of the
movement, make possible accurate reproduction of it, and maintain its semantic con-
tent. This entails a concern with recording action rather than gross physical move-
ment (see Best 1974: 193, Williams 1991: 19-20, Farnell 1994). It is only in the
twentieth century that such generalized systems have emerged, and in this they aim
to provide the movement equivalent of an International Phonetic Alphabet (section
7 1 ); such systems are not dance notation systems, any more than the Roman alphabet
is a poetry writing system. Three such comprehensive movement writing systems are
currently in use: Labanotation, also known as Kinetography Laban (Laban 1928); Be-
nesh Choreology (Benesh and Benesh 1956); and Eshkol-Wachmann notation (Esh-
kol and Wachmann 1958). It is important to note that the inventors of these three
systems had different aims, came from different cultural backgrounds, and were fa-
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS &65

face the audience s->v a half-turn right,

end facing upstage

a file of six persons .[_ / a line of six traveling

sideways to the right

a line downstage entering upstage

d.
Yj

Ribbons
on left stage 1 through right wing

Z =^=W=
I
V_ S ^ //-H
direction of reading —
time: bar lines follow the same convention as a musical score

miliar with different movement systems. These factors influenced the choices they
made in solving basic problems of transcription.
English ballet dancer Joan Benesh and her husband Rudolph designed their sys-
tem at the outset to record ballet, and so the writing system itself underscores a con-
cern with line and the visual results of movement. The Benesh system relies on an
iconic visualization of the body placed within a horizontal five-line staff (figure
i 13). In addition to ballet, however, the Benesh system has been expanded and ap-
plied to other forms of dancing, as well as to physical therapy.
Eshkol-Wachmann notation was invented by Israeli modern dance choreographer
Noa Eshkol and Israeli architect Abraham Wachmann. Both were interested in the

complex articulations of any moving object in space. The system utilizes numbers de-
rived from a planal division of space, together with a few other graphic signs such as
arrows, all of which are written on horizontal columns assigned to major divisions of
the body (figure i 14). The Eshkol-Wachmann system has been used in non-human
contexts such as computer graphics, architectural design, and animal behavior stud-
ies, as well as the recording of traditional Israeli dances, contemporary choreography,
and Israeli sign language.
866 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

(i)
(ii)

c -(i) clockwise rotation vertical rising

(positive) (positive)

anticlockwise rotation vertical sinking

^\ (negative) (negative)

clockwise horizontal positive conical

progression (positive) movement

anticlockwise horizontal negative conical

progression (negative) movement

(ii) 1 = 45- /T\

figure 1 14. Eshkol-Wachmann notation system. Above: (a) Organization of space: (i) coordinates
of the horizontal plane, (ii) coordinates of the vertical plane (redrawn after Hutchinson-Guesti984:
1 12). (b) Circular motion: (i) Conical movement, (ii) planal movement (redrawn after Eshkol and
Wachmann 1958: 10, 11). (c) Symbols: (i) Signs for motion, (ii) numbers added to each of the signs
for motion to state the degree of displacement (redrawn after Hutchinson-Guest 1984: in).
Right: (d) The full staff: body parts (redrawn after Eshkol and Wachmann 1958: 8). (e) An example
of writing (redrawn after Hutchinson-Guest 1984: 109).

Labanotation was invented by the Austro-Hungarian choreographer and dancer

Rudolf Laban (1 879-1958), who set out to devise a system that could record any hu-
man movement. He was intrigued by Greek concerns with mathematics, the motions
of planetary spheres, and crystal forms, as well as the Bauhaus movement in visual
art and architecture in Germany. He studied human movement in many diverse situ-
ations, from manual labor in industrial settings to mime. Current applications include
the creation of a historical library of Western theater choreography and the traditional
folk dances of Eastern Europe, socio-cultural anthropology, religious studies, Plains
Indian sign language, and kinesiology. A related system for analyzing movement dy-
namics, known in the United States as Effort-Shape, has been applied to child devel-
opment, dance in education, dance therapy, and personality analysis (Dell 1977).
Labanotation is the system I have chosen to use, and it is used here to illustratehow
some of the fundamental issues involved in the process of transcribing movement
have been solved.
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS §57

Hand 20
Forearm 1 9
.eft
Upper Arm 18
Shoulder 1 7

Hand 16
Forearm ?5
Rigr
1
Upper
rr i
Arm
1 1
14
Shoulder 1 3

Head 12
Nec(c 1 1

Torso (upper part) 10

Pelvis |
1
9

1
Thigh 8
Rigt" t Lower Leg 7

1
Foot 6 J

1 Thigh 5
] Left Lower Leg 4

1 1
Foot 3

Weight |
2 }

Front '

time

(?)
(5)|l (6)1(0 Wfi («)J(o

(?) (l)j I (2)1(0 Mfi (2)J(0

M- (0)
£ -? f(o)

(?) (6)| R f 2 f « f
(
>lf$ (5)J (°>J*$

Mt? [d)t (5)U j^t

! 1« f

r* 1 1 1 t

• •
I
I
£ V
.

V 1 . L e , L-r ^. L

1
^ 1
*
t .

i
J,M
6 /t .
t fr\M
6
\ t.

1 Jm »»• 1
t«
•
V L h !* V L »Li uU ^.

2 1 • 2 3 .

(7) T (0) *M A 0) xW
reading direction
868 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

Problems in the transcription of human movement

A comprehensive movement writing system has to resolve several difficult technical

issues. Human actions take place in three dimensions of space and one dimension of
time and mobilize many parts of the body simultaneously. An inventory of graphic
signs is therefore required to represent (i) all parts and surfaces of the body; (2) the
three-dimensional space in which those parts move; (3) time; (4) dynamics; and (5)
relationships between the moving body parts of one person, and between persons and
objects in the form space of the dance or movement event. In addition, orthographic
conventions must be established to distinguish simultaneous action from sequential
actions through time, and to provide syntactic order. The task is complex, surely, but
not insurmountable. The conventions of Labanotation furnish the illustrations.

Body
figure 116 illustrates how Labanotation solves the problem of representing the
joints, limbs, and surfaces of the body. The graphic signs are arbitrary, but iconically

motivated. They thus offer an aid to memory but the number of signs required is great-
ly reduced in comparison to a system that attempts a pictographic representation of
the body. Such specification also provides a system of finite differentiation between
body parts. Taxonomies of the body differ across cultures, and the degree of flexibility
offered by the Laban system, rather than being redundant, accommodates such an-
thropological concerns.
Vertical columns assigned to major body parts create a basic staff that also pro-

vides syntactic order (figure 1 17). This basic staff can be adapted, if necessary, to
the needs of a specific system. For example, figure i 17 shows the basic Labanota-
tion staff adapted to the needs of writing Plains (Indian) Sign Talk (Farnell 1995).

Space
In order to create a finite model of the space in which the body moves, Laban, using
a Euclidean view, conceived of the body as being surrounded by a sphere of space as
if inside a balloon. This spherical space is divided along three dimensions by three

_ head
left arm — right arm
body body (torso, chest, pelvis)

left leg gestures — right leg gestures

support on left — support of body weight/steps

LEFT RIGHT
CENTER LINE
figure 1 15. The basic Labanotation staff provides syntactic order for the symbols of the script.
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS £59

C (head)
shoulder hip

elbow knee

wrist 3 E ankle

i I hand foot

fingers q p toes
left right left right

2nd
I thumb !«fingerfirst
knuckle
joint
etc.

LIMBS
A double line II on the side of a joint sign indicates the limb
a limb
above that joint e.g. ,CJ
upper arm, l§ lower arm etc. The
neck surfaces of limbs can be specified when necessary as shown
below:
t both arms
SURFACES OF LIMBS
11 IT whole arm
H H 1\ II'

ir both legs
outer or under or thumb little finger
1 ir whole leg top back or big or little toe

left right toe side side

AREA SIGNS
SURFACES OF HAND OR FOOT
D basic area sign

R back of hand or top of foot

BQ shoulder area
H palm of hand or sole of foot
m chest
1
fingertips or tips of toes
a pelvis
f !

M heel of hand or foot

I whole torso
Tl thumb or big toe side
unit from knee to head, etc.
n* little finger or little toe side
n area of hand or foot

Sides of an area can be specified using a set of minor directional pins I low,
1 middle i high: e.g. ^ upper front side of chest,^ lower left back diagonal side of pelvis, £]
front middle area of head, i .e. face. Signs for parts of the face are also built out of these

units e.g. Tgf eyes, (h- right ear, (£ chin.

figure 1 16. Labanotation system: graphic signs for body parts and surfaces
(Farnell 199s. with permission).
 a

870 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

head
other body parts other body parts
left palm/thumb side of hand right palm/thumb side of hand
left hand shape and orientation hand shape and orientation
right
movement path of left hand movement path of right hand
(lower arm action) (lower arm action)
left arm right arm

LEFT RIGHT
CENTER LINE
figure 117. The Labanotation staff adapted for writing Plains Sign Talk.

axes perpendicular to each other (up/down, right/left, front/back), with the body at the

center. Each of these major directions and their intermediate divisions is assigned a

graphic sign, as shown in figure 118. The script utilizes this simple set theory rather

than mensurational measuring. Each graphic sign that refers to spatial direction is

built out of the basic rectangle |_L A change of shape denotes the dimensions [_J front
versus Lr back and \J left versus / right, and — ^ in high, L3 middle, B low—
change of shading accommodates the up/down dimension.
This same spatial scheme provides a framework for indicating the direction of
pathways for the whole body (as when a person moves from one location to another).
Locating a smaller imaginary cross of axes at each joint specifies the direction of in-

dividual limbs and smaller body parts. Spatial direction for any body part is judged
by the relationship between the distal (far) end of a limb and the proximal end (nearest
to torso). For example, if one raises one's right arm in front of the torso, so that the
hand is higher than the shoulder, then the movement is designated as being in a for-

ward high direction $£j If the hand is then moved until it is the same level as the
.

shoulder, the movement of the arm would be described as going toward forward mid-

dle [£] , and if it continued moving until it was lower than the shoulder it would be I
forward low. When the arm rests at the side of the torso, it is in a "default" position

(assumed unless stated otherwise) and is described as I , having moved to, or being
in, "place low."
As with taxonomies of the body, there are cultural and linguistic variations to
spatial orientation as well as to the semantic values attached to spatial directions.
Such features can become components of movement texts written with Labanotation

through the use of spatial orientation keys. These inform the reader which particular
conception of space is in operation, much as the key of C# minor might operate at the

N S
W^E " E^W
start of a musical score: ° N . This key refers to a difference be-
tween Euro-American and Assiniboine (Nakota) conceptions of the four cardinal di-
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS §7 \

Spatial direction is determined by both the shape of the graphic sign and by different
shading.

up or high middle
down or low

LJ forward right diagonal

U forward
k] back right diagonal
\r backward

V to the right
1/ back left diagonal

<] to the left D forward left diagonal

down

The three dimensional cross of axes that

organizes spatial direction: the body is in

the centre of this kinesphere

stepping forward

stepping to
P>
the right

stepping back
\l right diagonal

Gestural data: a smaller cross of axes is Track data: direction symbols for moving the
imagined at the centre of each joint so whole body from one place to another. These
that direction for each part of a limb can would be placed in the central support column
be specified. on the staff.

figure 1 18. Labanotation system: graphic signs for specifying spatial direction
(Farnell 1995, with permission).
 —

872 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

Relationships:

^ ^ touching; fingers
touching
fc
"
v movement toward

>'~ ""
movement away from
^ near to
A
/
x "^\ grasping
phrasing bow
^-*-n penetrating
)
passing state: deviation from a
path — e.g., deviation place low
sliding while touching (down)
passing state: movement led
passing not touching by a body part— e.g., fingertips

r inclusion bow— e.g., including

"J
addressing upper arm

supporting

Minor direction signs and relationships:

1
\> </ v ^ S

S ' S
' T *T * T

e.g. -o- directly above to the left side of but level with
o- above and to the right of to the left side of but below

\ below and diagonally backward

Pathways
vertical circular path
a straight gestural path
Q e.g., straight forward
to left and right (in
lateral plane)

U circular paths, left

and right (in
horizontal plane)

vertical circular paths

< circular path, specific
axis stated
left
—
diagonal high
backward left
e.g., forward
to
diagonal

II forward and backward

(in sagittal plane)
low

figure 1 19. Labanotation symbols for the designation of relationships between parts of the
mover's body, or between people and/or objects; minor directions and relationships:
and spatial pathways.
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS 873

rections. Assiniboine people consider south to be the most salient direction and view
nort, south, east, and west as four quarters or areas from which certain kinds of power
come toward a person. This contrasts with the conventional Euro- American perspec-
tive in which mapmaking conventions locate north at the top of a page and each di-
rection is conceived to be a straight line pointing out from a central location, figure
120 shows how this key is used on the first page of my transcription and translation
of an Assiniboine storytelling performance with Plains Sign Talk (PST): 'Long ago,
the people who live here now, did not always live here.' PST, like ASL, is a sign lan-
guage that is fully developed grammatically. It served as a lingua franca across the
Plains of North America until English gradually assumed this function early in the
twentieth century. PST survives in storytelling and ceremonial contexts in many
Plains Indian cultures (Farnell 1995).
Another important feature of the Laban system is that action is written from the
mover's perspective rather than from the standpoint of an observer, and so one
records and reads from an agentive perspective.

Time
Scripts of all kinds deal with time by assigning a direction for reading —an axis for
the sequential flow of sound or action. Labanotation reads from bottom to top. This

was not an arbitrary choice for Laban: he originally devised a script that read from
left to right but changed it in order to retain an iconicity between left and right sides
of the reader's body and left and right sides of the written text of the action. Labano-
tation is written from the mover's perspective, not an observer's, so the reader imag-
ines performing the action while reading along. Graphic signs for forward spatial
direction point upward, while signs for backward point down (figure 118). This ico-

nicity assists rapid reading as the flow of time appears to move forward and up as one
reads (a direction which is itself iconic of Western metaphors concerning "time" and
"progress" moving forward and up). The horizontal axis provides for actions that oc-
cur simultaneously, and actions that occur sequentially are shown in vertical succes-
sion. When the timing of actions is controlled by music or other rhythmic divisions,
the time axis of the staff can be divided up in a manner similar to standard music no-
tation (section 72). Spatial direction signs normally lengthen vertically to indicate
the time taken for performance, but they can also be given a standard length in action
sign systems where absolute timing is not important (e.g. sign languages).

Additional dynamics

A body movement always involves some degree of muscular tension or strength; so

that dynamics such as acceleration or deceleration, the impetus or initial point for the

action, accents, vibration, and phrasing may also be added to the description.
874 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

NOT
(negative marker)
7^ -H-

LIVE/STAY
upisi, -I (human)

p 1

I::

_L
ec'ake HERE
k

i'j

ypi LIVE/STAY
(human)
id
r
Nak'ota NAKOTA
== = *.

nen HERE

(juncture)

Direction of
reading Wana kas LONG AGO

SV
& 4
N
-:::

31
W$E
S N
figure 1 20. Assiniboine storytelling with Plains Sign Talk and spoken Nakota:
page one of the Labanotated score (Farnell 1995, with permission).
 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS 875

Relationships

Relationships between body parts, and between the person acting and objects or other
people, are important components of social action and can be described with a series

of relationship signs such as V 'moving toward', /\ 'moving away from', \^J

'addressing' something or someone, f ^ 'touching', ^'^^ 'passing near to',

and 'grasping' (figure 119).

Reading the action

A detailed exegesis of the utterance shown in figure i 20 will provide an example of

how these parameters are utilized when writing actions with the Laban script. A
"sign" in a sign language such as Plains Sign Talk can be viewed as a combination of
four parameters: (a) handshape(s), (b) hand orientation(s), (c) location in the sign
space, and (d) movement(s). In order to read figure 120, note that the center line

divides the right side of the body from the left side, and that the direction of reading
is from the bottom of the page upward. The utterance consists of seven signs.

1) LONG AGO
movement path: movement path:

toward side left toward back

right diagonal

left hand right hand

orientation: forward orientation: forward

right diagonal left diagonal

left handshape: right handshape:

index finger index finger
extended extended

location of sign:
center of signing space

The first sign involves making the same handshape with both hands. The index finger

\ (e.g. right index finger) points toward the forward left diagonal |_|. The orienta-

tion of the palm does not need to be written because it is in a "default" position, that

is, the wrist is not rotated in any way. Both hands are located in the center of the sign-

ing space HH , in front of the torso. The right hand moves along a straight horizontal

path _L toward the back right diagonal \| , while the left hand takes a shorter X nor-
876 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

izontal path toward side left \| . The length of the movement path sign _L indicates
timing — the longer the path sign, the more time it takes to perform.
Additional graphic signs add further information. For example, the movement of
the right hand involves an important semantic component. The intention is to move

the right hand away from the left hand, in contrast, say, to a conception of moving the

hand into the back right diagonal. Such a difference in the action is not observable, of

course, but highlights the difference between writing actions as opposed to merely

A
gross physical movements. This component of the action is written ^ : the graphic

sign for the left hand 2 is followed by a sign indicating 'movement away from'. After
the movement paths are complete, both hands relax Q_y and return to the center of the

-II-
signing space . The left hand plays no further role in this utterance.

2) HERE

I The right hand again takes up the pointed index shape K

i , this time pointing
\J

^ forward and down || with the thumb side of the hand -fl facing side left

i
3) NAKOTA
The tribal sign for the Nakota people follows, as the right

N hand ^ extends |/| with the fingers oriented toward (point-

ing to) side left \] . This hand is located so that the thumb
m
side of the hand -fl takes upa 'passing near to' relationship
c
^- ^ with the neck || , as the hand makes a movement

path that slides toward side right _L Additional information shows that the hand
folds three degrees ^ (i.e. bends at the knuckles) during the latter half of the move-
ment path, and that the 'passing near to' relationship ceases thereafter ^ (release
sign). The head C is also involved in this performance. The signer tilts his head to side

right high W while turning

ft (i.e. Vt turn to the right). The tilt and turn of
it slightly
the head take place simultaneously, and this is indicated by the small connecting bow

C . The head then returns to its normal upright position 0.

 SECTION 73: MOVEMENT NOTATION SYSTEMS 877

4) LIVE/STAY

H The handshape is again \ , but is now oriented in the direction for-

ward high The thumb side of the hand is facing side right and

r the hand makes three minor movements back and forth between right
1—

and left i_ .

5) HERE
The handshape does not change but the hand turns over \l (a half-turn to

T I the left) and makes a short path straight up _J_ in preparation to come di-

! rectly down _L with the finger pointing forward low fa . The small caret
> placed before a direction symbol indicates 'same body part', which in

this case refers to the same handshape.

6) live/stay

The fourth sign in the utterance is now repeated, but is preceded by ]/ a half-turn to
the right which returns the hand to its previous orientation.

7) NOT
*"
I The final sign in the utterance marks the negative in Plains Sign Talk. The

7^ +4- hand remains in the same space O (a "space hold") while the wrist ^

|0
folds forward three degrees ^ . The hand returns to "normal" , that is,

it is not entirely relaxed but not held in any special shape. The next action

then folds the wrist over backward (outward) 7^ while the hand 44- extends and
spreads (a three-dimensional extension). This action is performed with a slight accent

or emphasis Jr .

This example illustrates how a writing system creates concepts specific to the
medium. While descriptions of gestures in words are certainly possible, representa-
tion in graphic signs that do not relate to the medium under investigation distort that
medium and make accurate reproduction or analysis of structure and semantics im-
possible. In emphasizing this, I am not suggesting that spoken language concepts are
not involved. When learning any notation system, of course, spoken language de-
scriptions are necessary as part of the learning process (as illustrated by the exegesis
above). The point is that, once the reader is literate, this intermediary function is aban-
doned and a direct reading of the action occurs. The parameters of the body, space.
878 PART XII: SECONDARY NOTATION SYSTEMS

time, dynamics, and relationships, and the Labanotation signs that specify them, pro-
vide a means with which to record "talk" from the body — to record the agentive pro-

duction of meaning using the semiotics of body movement. A movement script,

therefore, offers much more than a new methodology for inquiry into human move-
ment. The possibility of movement literacy opens up an important theoretical alter-
native to objectivist talk about the body or phenomenological-subjectivist talk o/the

feeling of body movement (see Farnell 1994, Varela 1993).

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Zorn, Friedrich A. 1887. Grammatik der Tanzkunst. Leipzig: J. J. Weber. English trans.. Grammar
of the Art of Dancing, ed. A. J. Sheafe. Boston: Heintzemann, 1905. Repr. New York: Dance
Horizons, 1975.
 Part XIII: Imprinting
and Printing

Before writing, all learning was passed on orally. A culture's tradition

consisted of what its wisest members could remember. Poetry and formula and mne-

monic devices played a part; but the sum total was limited. The innovation of writing
made it possible for a culture to include more knowledge than a single mind could
encompass. Records of all kinds could be kept, both important and ephemeral.
The growth of populations created a demand for multiple copies of visual mate-
rials. There were illustrations, then there was text accompanying illustrations. Text
could be recreated in toto each time it was needed; eventually, in Korea and China,
then in Europe, ways were found to reproduce texts by printing from movable type.
This was not so much a single invention, as the insight to combine the techniques of
numerous crafts — the press from wine-making or oil production, the ink from chem-
ists, the paper from ragpickers, and especially the precisely machined and matched,
intricate, minuscule pieces of type from the jeweler's or goldsmith's skill.

Printing was essential for several intellectual revolutions: the spread of religious
reform, as the essential texts, and their commentaries, became available to believers;
the development of science, as observations could be reproduced accurately for those
who could not travel to distant lands; the distribution of classics and the composition
of literature to be savored by readers who could not afford individually produced
manuscripts.
It is possible that the present dissemination of electronic communication is as sig-
nificant as the print revolution of the fifteenth century. It is barely possible that phys-
ical books will no longer be produced. It is impossible that writing itself —the
recording of language in a phonetically based, durable form — will be superseded.
— Peter T. Daniels
SECTION 74

Analog and Digital Writing

Peter T. Daniels

There are 26 letters in the English alphabet. The number is an accident of history
(Greek has 24, Hebrew 22, Russian 32, Arabic 28), but its size — its order of magni-
tude — is of the utmost significance to modern civilization. We could do with a few
more: around 40, so we would not need to use digraphs for single segments like th [0,

5] and sh [J], and it would take at least 60 to include all the information given by our
supposedly awkward and inefficient way of spelling English; but 26 is what have been
used for about two centuries.
Just two centuries! The first edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, in 1768, al-

phabetized I and J, and U and V, together. It was only then that I and U were coming
to be used for vowels only, and J and V for consonants; previously they had been sim-
ply graphic variants. At the time of Shakespeare and the Authorized Version of the Bi-
ble, in 161 1, love looked like hue, because the lower-case letter was rounded on the
bottom and the capital was pointed. (J started as a variant of lower-case i at the end
of a word. Regular s likewise appeared only at the end of a word, long s everywhere
else.) Were there, then, 26 letters, or 27, or only 24? In 1768, that was not a particu-
larly important question —but now it is.

Dichotomy
To understand the importance of the small number of letters in our alphabet, we can
use a pair of words from computer technology: analog and digital. An analog com-
puter represents numbers by varying some physical quantity in proportion to a num-
ber being represented. An old crank-operated adding machine was an analog
computer, because the digits it manipulated were represented by how far a gear-wheel

turned. A rotary telephone -dial is also an analog computer: turning the dial a certain
arc clockwise loads a spring; upon release, the wheel turns back again, making and
breaking an electrical contact that sends as many pulses into the system as contacts
the wheel crosses during its counterclockwise spin.

Acknowledgments: I experimented with a Hammod typewriter courtesy of Matthew W. Stolper, Oriental

and with a VariTyper courtesy of Bernard A. Lalor. formerly Geography Department, both University
Institute,

of Chicago. This section originated as an invited lecture in the symposium "The Alphabet as a Technology"
organized by Ephraim Isaac, Institute of Semitic Studies. Princeton. N.J.. April 9, 1989.

883
884 PART X,I,: IMPRINTING AND PRINTING

On the other hand, a digital computer, which iswhat virtually all electronic com-
puters now in use are, represents quantities not by some proportionate amount of elec-
tricity, but by turning the measured quantities — the data being manipulated — into
numbers that can be represented by electronic switches. The easiest things for a
switch to do, of course, are to turn on and turn off; so electronic computers are based
on binary arithmetic — just zeros and ones, offs and ons. A digital computer, however,
need not be binary-based. A push-button telephone works by sending out two of seven
pure tones, one assigned to each row and column of the keypad. The electronic
switching equipment interprets the twelve unique two-note chords as the ten digits
and two symbols used for phone numbers and instructions.
What does this have to do with the size of the alphabet? The topic under consid-
eration is the mechanization of writing. There are two kinds of ways to do that: analog
ways and digital ways. Analog mechanization, which has been with us for five thou-
sand years and more, reproduces a whole text of some sort all at once. The most fa-

miliar example is the print. An artist carves an image in a block of wood, applies ink
to it, presses paper onto it, and lifts the paper off with a copy of the image. The image,
of course, can include or can be writing.
Digital mechanization, which goes back maybe twice as far as analog, reproduc-

es a text character by character, so that individual pieces of it are individually acces-

sible. Analog looks at an entity as a whole, without analyzing it into meaningful

components; digital encodes the separate significant parts. Other names for these two
classifications might be the linguist's synthetic and analytic, respectively, or the pop-
psychology terms "right-brain" and "left-brain."

History
Fifty centuries ago, Sumerians made analog reproductions of pictures and writings
when they impressed stamp seals on clay surfaces —no from
different official seals

impressed in wax on official documents to this day —or when they rolled cylinder
seals across the clay to make a permanent continuous record of the information
carved onto the side of the cylinder. Each cylinder was unique in its carving and
served to identify its owner, as a signature; but it produced the same design each time
it was used. Thus at or even before the beginning of history, we have the two charac-
teristics of analog printing: reproducibility and immutability.
And even before we can recognize Sumerians specifically in the Mesopotamian
cradle of civilization, going back perhaps ten thousand years, from Iran to Syria, there
was digital record-keeping in the form of tokens. Three sheep and two goats might be
represented by three of one kind of token and two of another. The next day's shep-
herding might involve a record of two sheep and six goats; a new "document" could
be produced to memorialize that situation. Again, the characteristics of digital print-

ing: ease of assembling the elements of the text — the characters —and uniqueness of
the resulting document.
 SECTION 74: ANALOG AND DIGITAL WRITING 885

We now return from ancient history to recent history, keeping in mind the analog
and digital ways of looking at text reproduction. Until printing with movable type, in-
vented first in China in the mid eleventh century by Pi Sheng and, perhaps indepen-
dently, in Germany in the fifteenth, by Johannes Gutenberg or his associates, there
was only analog reproduction: In the first place, creating a document individually
with ink and pen or brush on any receptive surface, or with stylus on soft clay, or with
chisel on stone. Secondarily, making a print as described above, from a carved origi-
nal on wood or (in the Orient) on ceramic; or by making a rubbing, where charcoal or
a similar substance is rubbed on paper laid over a raised or depressed carving.
Printing with movable type represents the introduction of a digital technique into

text reproduction. The typesetter selects the individual characters one by one and
places them in a frame in the significant order that represents the text in a language.
Mistakes can be corrected, changes made. When the text is finalized, the array of
characters is locked into place and the type matrix has become an analog device to
make a print from.
With hand-set type — the only option for over four hundred years — it did not mat-
ter how many different characters the typesetter had to choose from. In East Asia,
Chinese texts could involve thousands of different characters. These necessitated a
very large cabinet and a good memory for its organization; yet it was apparently more
efficient to use movable type than to carve entire texts, a page at a time, on wood-
blocks — the technique of printing that had been used in China for centuries before the
new invention. Even Gutenberg, setting the Bible in Latin, with its 24 letters —double
that to count the capitals, and add a few numbers and punctuation marks —used not

70 or so sorts (a sort is an individually designed piece of type), but over 400. He want-
ed to imitate handwritten manuscripts, complete with abbreviations and ligatures. In-

stead of that kind of complexity, modern printing require italic, small capital,
bold, and decorative types. As long as one person was picking out individual pieces
of cast lead (or whatever) from a typecase, there could be any number of sorts.
This made it possible for printing to follow, or even accompany, missionaries
from Christian Europe to literate civilizations throughout the world and disseminate
the Scriptures in translation. The first specimen sheets for foreign alphabets (called
exotic types) were produced by the papal printers in the early 1500s. (Books were
printed from Hebrew type in the 1480s.) By the early nineteenth century, one could
print from type just about any language that possessed an indigenous script.

Certain scripts, though, most notably the Arabic, have a long and superb tradition
of calligraphy. Even the most workaday Arabic hands use ligatures that do not cling
to a horizontal line: they possess a fluidity and grace that could not easily be incorpo-
rated into the blocky nature of rectangular type. The appearance of Arabic types was
a less than happy compromise between art and technology. Nonetheless, by the late
nineteenth century books were being printed in Bulaq, modern Cairo, that transcend
the rectangular frames of the pieces of type and are close to indistinguishable from
unornamented handwriting.
 —

886 PART XIH IMPRINTING AND PRINTING

People
As the scope of digital printing expanded, so did the techniques of analog: after wood
engraving came steel engraving, and etching, and lithography. Each of these could be
and was used for reproducing texts, but always texts of a special kind: William
Blake's poems, whose first incarnations incorporated the author's drawings; the illus-
trations in scholarly journals of newly discovered inscriptions in languages that did
not yet have type cut for them some cases, whose scripts had not even been de-
or, in

ciphered. (Yet even the most intricate new writings were soon reduced to type
Mesopotamian cuneiform type, scarcely used by Assyriologists; and Egyptian hiero-
glyphic type, still found on virtually every page of an Egyptological publication.) The
most widespread analog process of all, though, was photography —an amalgamation
of physics, chemistry, technology, and art that might be seen as a pinnacle of the
Industrial Revolution.

"Industrial Revolution" may be too simplistic a notion for modern historians to

tolerate. But it is useful for considering the technology of writing. The handset type
described so far was fine for an age with time to spare: Reaching for each individual
letter, and much more so for each individual Chinese character, takes time. The soci-

ety that had invented mechanical printing presses and wood-pulp paper (the bane of
archivists, but quick of manufacture compared to rag paper) could not long wait for
the hand typesetter to laboriously turn out page The machine tool industry
after page.

developing in Britain meant that precision equipment would be available as needed.

The United States was expanding westward across a continent. Business offices were
becoming swamped as clerks like Dickens's Bob Cratchit spent their ill-lit days hand-
—
copying documents. Even language scholars philologists and the new profession of
linguists —could not be assumed to be able to read every foreign script.

Yet none of these proved to be the impetus for the first effective digitization of
writing. That honor goes to a scholar working for those who could not perceive an
analog representation of a text: Louis Braille, who in 1830 invented writing for the
blind. Various schemes for embossing letter shapes had been tried, but the intricate
curves proved too difficult to perceive with the fingertips. It occurred to Braille, as it

had apparently not occurred to anyone else, that the letters of the alphabet could be
represented by arbitrary combinations of more easily perceptible shapes. He chose a
rectangle of six dots: three high, two wide. This number of dots, each one either
present or absent, allows 64 different characters, and the simplicity of the pattern
makes it easy for the practiced reader to feel each character with a fingertip. (The
principle is identical to that used in a computer, where bytes of eight bits —characters
of eight dots —allow sets of 256 characters.) Braille documents at first were simply
transpositions of print, letter by letter, to the new mode, but shortcuts were soon
adopted that turned braille into a quite distinct orthography that is very like alphabetic
shorthand. Students learn English orthography only after mastering the other.
 SECTION 74: ANALOG AND DIGITAL WRITING gg7

Something similar was devised in the first digitization of the alphabet to widely
affect society in general: the telegraph, of 1838. Not only did Samuel F. B. Morse
have to figure out how to transmit an electrical impulse across many miles of wire; he
had to devise a way for that electrical impulse to carry a message. The only signal he
had to work with was the click on or off of his apparatus. He could have simply de-
creed that each letter was to be represented by a different number of clicks, from 1 to

26; but obviously this would have been less than practical or practicable. Braille was
free to arrange his single unit of significance, the dot, in a two-dimensional matrix,
height by width; but Morse had only a single dimension time, or a straight line in — —
which accommodate his message. So Morse chose to use two different units of sig-
to

nificance, a short click and a long click, or a dot and a dash. It was now possible to
devise an alphabet where each letter took no more than four symbols, dots and dashes,
in a single dimension. A little extra time separates the letters.
Quite a different sort of digitization achieved standardization during the nine-
teenth century, in the form of phonetic notation. As mentioned above, with the growth
of knowledge of the languages of the world, it was no longer possible for a scholar to
be familiar with all the world's scripts. It had long been the practice, of course, to

write approximations of foreign words in familiar orthography: Hindu was long

spelled Hindoo because 00 spelled [u] in English (only). The still-current Moslem in
place of the more accurate Muslim is a relic of those days. The name of the state of
[.i+i'noj] is the English pronunciation of the French spelling Illinois [ili'nua] of the
Algonquian word elenwa meaning, apparently, 'one who sounds normal'. Scholars,
though, had conventions by which they represented the sounds of foreign languages
in the Roman alphabet — or, more often, by which they represented the characters of
their scripts in a transliteration. But different languages tend to have different sounds
in them, and the orthography for one language, in general, cannot simply be applied
to another. For instance, Polish has three voiceless sibilants, English two, but Latin
only one —so that the Roman alphabet has only one letter for all of them, s. Among
the spellings for the sibilants are s, s, s, sch, sh, and sz. Clearly, much confusion could
arise as linguists from different native orthographies tried to communicate about for-

eign languages. The phonetic notations devised during the period of digitization at
once assigned unique significance to letters and diacritics, and laid the foundation as
well for demonstrating that the languages of the world could be described in terms of
a limited number of symbols, rather than as completely unique entities.

Machines
Consider again the 26 letters. In the middle of the nineteenth century, all type was still

being set by hand: the typesetter reached to the typecase for each successive character.
It did not matter how many different characters were needed for a text, so long as they
were carefully arranged and accessible. It might take as long to locate the single sort

for a syllable in the larger typecase as it did to locate the two or more characters that
 —

888 PART XIII: IMPRINTING AND PRINTING

compose it in an alphabetic transliteration. Until printing was mechanized, then, the

typology of writing was not an important factor in typesetting efficiency. Even so,

with a widely agreed universal alphabet, it was no longer necessary to maintain the

large stock of exotic types for reproducing foreign texts. Let us return, however, from
the scholar's study to that outer office where Bob Cratchit copied documents all day
for Ebenezer Scrooge. Perhaps his handwriting was crabbed. Perhaps he occasionally
made a mistake or a blot. Perhaps he got tired of writing the same thing several times
over for hours at a time. He needed a typewriter.
The first practical typewriter was invented in 1867 by Christopher Latham
Scholes —one historian says his was the 52nd idea for a personal writing machine
and was placed on sale in 1873 by Remington. It had 44 keys, accommodating the
capital letters, the numbers, and some punctuation. Suddenly, the number of charac-
ters in a script became important to the business world. If a language was to benefit
from the efficiency inherent in digitalization, its script had to fit into the confines of
the typewriter. Of course the shift key was soon added, and ordinary typewriters could
handle 88 to 92 characters.
It was in fact the alphabet that made the typewriter possible. China was famed for
its mechanical wonders from the time of Marco Polo on. It was certainly not beyond
the inventive capability of a Chinese mechanical engineer to devise the combinations
of levers and springs involved in a typewriter. But would the idea ever occur that one
could assemble enough of those mechanisms to provide a key for each needed char-
acter? Similarly, in Japan or India or Ethiopia, who might suppose that hundreds or
even scores of symbols could be accommodated in a manageable box? The small size

of the alphabet made possible —and thinkable— a mechanical device for printing the
script.

Soon after, analog technology followed along: carbon paper appeared before
1 880. It was now possible to make more than one copy of a business document at a
time —or of any document produced by a pressure device: drawings as well as type-
script. The telephone, too, is an analog information transmission device. The tele-

graph sent a digitized message over the wires; the phone sends an analog
representation of the sound waves that lie behind the written message and converts it

back to sound.

Other visual analog devices began to appear, perhaps less ubiquitous than carbon
paper used to be, but of considerable importance: office duplicators. These fall into

two categories. One kind uses a stencil through which ink is squeezed onto paper, or
which picks up ink on areas from which a water-repellent coating has been removed,
and offsets it to the paper. This is the mimeograph machine. The other kind creates a
master with the pigment added in the desired patterns, and transfers an infinitesimal
layer of it to paper moistened with a solvent. This is the purple ditto once so common
in schools.

Mark Twain was the first writer to submit the manuscript of a novel in typescript.
Suddenly an author could turn out a text faster than a typesetter could typeset it! How-
 SECTION 74: ANALOG AND DIGITAL WRITING gg9

ever, this advantage was not to last long. In the 1880s, Ottmar Mergenthaler devised
the Linotype, which was the first successful typecasting machine. It and Tolbert Lan-
ston'sMonotype work by casting new type each time a character is used (the machine
arranges the molds for the type into the lines of text, and then injects the molten
lead hot type — creating the printing plate). This equipment can accommodate a
larger selection of sorts than the typewriter —Linotype holds 180 Monotype
sorts,

220 — in ordinary work, they would be roman, italic, boldface, and small capitals
but do not approach what is needed for the syllabaries or logographies of the world.
Again, it is clear that the alphabet drives the technology, and the technology
serves the alphabet. Now and then, there were compromises. The imperialist West
recognized that it might sometimes be practical to use a native orthography; so for in-

stance a four- or five-digit numerical code was assigned to each Chinese character so
that telegrams could be sent in Chinese. The message was encoded; the telegraph op-
erator transmitted the numbers; the numbers were decoded at the recipient's end.

Another typewriter inventor, James B. Hammond, was disconcerted that his news
reports from Civil War battlefields were misinterpreted by telegraphers and type-
setters in the process of getting into the newspapers. He wished for a portable printing
machine, and began to cogitate and sketch. In 1881 he produced the Hammond type-
writer, which worked totally differently from the Scholes design (which uses type
elements on levers that, as their keys are struck, swing to hit an ink-impregnated rib-

bon that impacts the paper) that became the model for nearly all typewriters until the
IBM Selectric (which places 92 characters on a spheroid, whose whirling and tilting

is electronically controlled). Hammond's typewriter incorporates what is called a

type shuttle: an arc, a segment of a cylinder, maybe half an inch high, about a third of
the circumference of a circle, with three rows of type characters around it. Pressing
the key for a letter rotates the shuttle around its circular frame so the appropriate char-
acter is at the striking point, and makes a lever bang the paper forward gently to re-

ceive the impression of the character through an ink-bearing ribbon. There are three
levels of shift, with 30 characters per level; two shuttles can be mounted in the ma-
chine simultaneously; and they can be changed with almost no effort.
Therein lies the importance of the Hammond typewriter. Now it was possible for

any office to write in any script. Type shuttles were prepared for dozens of scripts.

Hammond came as close as anyone to integrating the analog and digital approaches
to mechanical writing.
Unfortunately, the Hammond was never very popular; it languished until the
company was succeeded by VariTyper, which marketed the technology not as an
office or scholar's typewriter, but as a machine for producing print copy for offset re-

production. It added more and more features to imitate the capability of hot-metal

typesetting, such as varying widths of characters (proportional spacing, always a

property of metal type, which had been sacrificed in the design of typewriters) and
justified margins. VariTypers were in use until 1970 or so, when the company had
switched to electronic phototypesetting —among the last components of the story.
890 PART X,II: IMPRINTING AND PRINTING

Photography had been around since 1837. Gradual improvements in optics and
in photosensitive chemicals have made it possible to create print materials with no
type at all. Older phototypesetting machines, driven by primitive computers, used
precisely calibrated lenses and whirling opaque glass disks with transparent letter de-

signs arranged in circles. Light was sent through each letter in turn and focused on
photographic paper to produce black images in the desired size. This paper was
passed through developing and fixing chemicals to become a photo-offset master. In
later models, the beam of light was controlled not by a transparent image in a black
disk, but entirely electronically: a beam of electrons was sent to a cathode-ray tube,
and the glow of the screen was what flashed onto the paper —not one character at a

time, but several inches of text. Filmsetters now create entire 16-page signatures from
computer files without human intervention.
Thus in the newest typesetting equipment, analog and digital again have merged,
but with the intermediary of the electromechanical or the electronic interface. The
first home computers similarly sent digital signals — selected from the 256 bytes — to

a daisy-wheel or dot-matrix printer, which translated them into a spinning wheel or a

pattern of dots impressed on paper; the present-day ink-jet printer is similar.

In recent decades, still another analog technology was introduced: the photo-
copier. Here, any image at all is reproduced when it is projected onto a polished metal
drum, causing patterns of electric charge (as in magnetic tape recording). Black pow-
der is attracted to this drum, and then heat-bonded onto paper as it rolls past. In desk-
top publishing equipment, the same sort of electronic pattern is painted by a computer
onto the drum of the laser printer, which turns out high-quality pages; in using Adobe
Systems' PostScript page description language, the transition from digital to analog
is made within the computer, and not at an external interface. Scanning and printing
devices have been attached to telephones to produce fax machines. In an inadvertent
homage to the first digital writing, a braille panel can be driven by a computer, so the
user's fingers can read each line —but software is now available that can turn written
standard English (or other languages) into readily intelligible, synthesized speech. A
few years ago, this involved massively subsidized, dedicated hardware available only
to the blind; now it is a component of a mid-price word-processing program. Commu-
nication at a distance is again analog.

Consequences
Two other aspects of the alphabet, one very new, one very old, take us from a technical
to a humanistic approach to writing. Very new is the place of the computer, the word
processor, in the act of creative writing. It has both advantages and drawbacks. The
obvious advantages include the spelling checker and the elimination of erasing and of
retyping. Drawbacks include the insistence on immediate improvement rather than
careful consideration of the text, and the lack of earlier drafts to consult.
 SECTION 74: ANALOG AND DIGITAL WRITING %g\

The development of the computer network brings its own share of rewards and
problems. One reward is access to vast quantities of information stored in databases
around the world, available to anyone who can navigate through the labyrinth of
cyberspace. Another is the virtually instant communication with people anywhere
within reach of the interconnections. But the problems arise in the very vastness and
instantaneity of the system. There is the risk of being overwhelmed by quantities of
information, all clamoring equally for attention, in the absence of a librarian skilled
at retrieving the most reliable materials and at suggesting caution in the use of the
rest. The databases themselves are mutable in a way physical documents are not: they
can be updated, yes, but they can also be undetectably falsified. One cannot be certain
of retrieving the same content tomorrow as yesterday. The availability of immediate
reply to an interlocutor brings the practice — in hindsight, inevitable —already dubbed
flaming: the instant transmission of a hostile response. Reconsideration is not avail-
able; one cannot tear up an e-letter on the way to the e-mail, nor recall it from the re-

cipient's mailbox. A new etiquette must evolve to forestall such hurt.

A pair of essays published a few weeks apart in The New Yorker celebrate both
the old way and the new way of recording information. In "This Living Hand" (Janu-
ary 1 6, 1995), Edmund Morris meditates on the letter in which Ronald Reagan re-
vealed his affliction with Alzheimer's disease:

Script's primary power is to convey the cursive flow of human thought, from
brain to hand to pen to ink to eye —every waver, every loop, every character
trembling with expression. Type has no comparable warmth; matrix dots and
laser sprays and pixels of L.C.D. interpose their various screens between writer
and reader. If Mr. Reagan's letter ... had been keyboarded to the world, instead

of handwritten and issued in facsimile, its poignancy would have been reduced
by half. (p. 66)

In "Byte Verse" (February 20 & 27), Anthony Lane delights in the power of a four-
CD-rom set of English Poetry, which contains the complete works of some twelve
hundred fifty poets —approximately 165,000 poems.
You can call up all the poems by one writer, or every poem from one era; you
can hunt for something half remembered you can cough up a first line, a title,
if

or even a particular word. And that word itself can come from anywhere: from
the text, the dedication, the epigraph. Oh, and you can read a poem, which is
always nice. . . . The uncharitable view of "English Poetry" is that it will turn

students into sluggards (which is hardly a major overhaul); that it relieves them
of the need to grapple with literature, and encourages them to wing it instead:

and that, most perilous of all, they will forget the physical textures and habits,
the ageless stuff, of which reading is made. The download killeth, say the pur-
ists, but the letter giveth life. The charitable view, on the other hand, is that

nothing dies, and that the database will send you back to books feeling none the
—
worse pretty well tuned, in fact. It doesn't do the work for you, it does the leg-
work; time previously devoted to the long grind can now be freed up for the
892 PART XIII: IMPRINTING AND PRINTING

really scary part, which is called thinking. Once you have a printout of your ...
findings, the onus is then on you, as never before, to wonder what on earth they
might mean; the computer hasn't a clue. (pp. 103, 104)

One last aspect of the 26 letters — the very old one — is recalled by one more New
Yorker essay. The miniaturist Nicholson Baker, in the 27 indignant pages of "Dis-
cards" (April 4, 1994), describes the process by which library catalogs are transferred
from card files to computers —and much information is lost (notably, the ability to
find what one was not looking The card catalog itself was only about a century
for).

old; previously, a library's holdings were listed in bound books that were continually

interleaved and on occasion completely redone. The advantage of cards derives di-
rectly from the magnitude of the number 26 —
and from the fact of a canonical order
of the letters. Any list of words can be alphabetized. An alphabetical list is infinitely

expandable. But scripts with more than a fewscore characters lose this property. There
was no list of all the cuneiform characters; there are many competing lists of Chinese
characters, and they are arranged by differing principles, so that compilers of Chinese

lists may finally concede to the alphabet and order the characters by their pinyin

equivalents, as Japanese directories order the kanji by their kana equivalents.

Cultural historians quarrel over the importance of writing itself, and of alphabet-
ical writing in particular, for the development of the modern world. With printing,
though, factual information could for the first time be widely disseminated in identi-
cal copies —so long as publication required the hand copying of treatises, their distri-

bution was necessarily limited; but also, accuracy of data could not be assured from
copy to copy. Modern science relies on facts that are reliable —and procedures that

are reproducible. It could come about only when every researcher began with the
same database, and proceeded through reliable publication. Publications began to
mount up, and their information had to be retrieved. Alphabetical lists were the key.
Writing makes civilization possible. Printing makes science possible. Indexing
makes them accessible.

Bibliography

The history of recent printing technology and business machines has not been told, to

my knowledge. I have found useful the summaries in the 15th edition of Encyclo-
paedia Britannica (1974), under "Office Machines," "Printing," and "Telegraph."
Beeching, Wilfred A. 1974. Century of the Typewriter. New York: St. Martin's.
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. 1979. The Printing Press as an Agent of Change: Communications and Cul-
tural Transformations in Early-modem Europe. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Olson, David R. 1994. The World on Paper: The Conceptual and Cognitive Implications of Writing
and Reading. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Hundred Years of Printing. Harmondsworth: Penguin. (1st ed., 1955.)
Steinberg, S. H. 1966. Five
Tsien Tsuen-hsuin. 1985. Paper and Printing (Science and Civilisation in China, by Joseph
Needham, vol. 5, Chemistry and Chemical Technology, part 1). Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press.

_
 Index

Africa 88, 1 12, 580, 583, 593- Allen, W. Sidney 269, 272, 293,
598, 689, 743, 778 695
abacus 802
Africa alphabet 690 allophonic transcription 831
Abaza 710, 782
African languages 689 almanacs 477
Abba 95
Afrikaans 647 alphabet 4, 26, 74, 88, 109, 219,
Abbasid dynasty 743
Afroasiatic 112, 486 259.261,487,505,570,
Abbott, Nabia 499, 513
Agnone 306, 308 787-794
abbreviations 455
Agud Aparicio, Ana 291, 296 alphabetic numerals 278, 349,
Abdullah, Yusuf 98, 1
1
Agwaan Dorzhiev 554 357< 364, 803
abecedaries 265, 793
Ahiram, king of Tyre 91 alphabetic scripts 85
Abercrombie, David 5, 13, 628,
Ahlqvist, Anders 340, 345 alphabetic shorthand 815
631,811,815,819,829,831,
A-Hmao 580 alphabetical order 10, 224, 301,
845
Ainsworth, W. A. 653 349^357,364,377-570.6i3.
abjad 4, 24, 26, 27, 485, 487, 499,
Akhmimic 289 701, 787, 892
505, 743, 788
Akinian, Nerses 362 see also canonical order
Abkhaz 367, 707, 717, 782
Akkadian 5, 7, 19, 25, 37, 58, 145, alphabetization 892
Abou-Assaf, Ali 103, 116
160, 281,486, 799 alphasyllabary 4, 376. 384, 413,
Abrahamyan, Ashot G. 362
Akkadograms 68 426,431,478
Abruzzi 306
aksara 190, 372, 376, 384, 391, Alster, Bendt 43, 70
abugida 4, 26, 27, 100, 151, 384,
404,413,420 Altaic 189, 230, 486, 536-558
485, 570, 580, 788
Akshara Brahma 613 Altay 710, 782
Academie Royale de la Danse
Alaska script 584 Altuna, Patxi 686
857
Albacete 108 Alvarez Delgado, Juan 115. 119
Acarian, Hrac'eay 362
Albanian 675, 744 alveolar 825
accent 277
Albanian (Caucasian) 356 alveolo-palatal 825
Achaemenid Empire 59, 96, 134,
Albright, William Foxwell 29, 30, Amadasi Guzzo, Maria Giulia
379,485,515
81,87 266, 269, 310
acrophonic numerals 278, 803
Alcoy 108 Amaral, Gaspar de 691
acrophonic principle 25, 123, 334
Alcuin 633 ambiguity 193
acrostic poems 793
Alekseev, Mikhail E. 700 American English 652
adaptation of scripts 625-762
Aleut 778 American Indian languages 599,
Addison, Joseph 857
Alexander, Judy 177, 184 777
additive numeral system 796
Alexander, Marie 663, 687 American Sign Language 793.
Adi Granth 395
Alexander the Great 489 862
Adiego, Ignacio-J. 294
Alfred the Great, King of England Amharic 569. 778
Adobe Systems. Inc. 327, 328,
65' Amiet, Pierre 22, 30, 165, 171,
890
Algeria 1 12 797
Adriatic region 350
Algonkian 831 Ammonite 89. 95
Adyghe 710, 782
Algonquian 599 Amorite 58
Aegean 20, 22, 24, 28, 90, 96,
Alicante 108 Amoy 204
125-133
aljamiado 744 analog computer 883
Aegean scripts 153
Alkhas, Addai 510 analog writing 883
Afaka 584
Allahabad 150 analphabetic notation 842
Afghan Empire 743
Allen. G. 829, 845 Anatolia 20. 37, 61. 96. 1 20. 250
Afghanistan 100, 160. 375, 516
Anatolian 24

893
 3

894 index

Anatolian alphabets 281-287 Aramaic scripts 261, 374, 487- Assyriology 141
Anatolian hieroglyphs 120-124 558,559,801 Astour, Michael 24, 30
Anawrahta 450 Aramaograms 520 astronomical information 577
ancient Near East 19-137 Arameans 94, 266 Aswan 489
Andalusia 108, 743 arapacana syllabary 377 Atan, Esteban 183
Andersen, Francis I. 497 Arbeau, Thoinot 856, 878 Atatiirk, Kemal 682
Anderson, Donald M. 330 arbitrary signs 12 Ateji 210
Anderson, James M. 1 18 archaizing orthography 521 Athabaskan 599, 610
Andhra 6 1
Arctic 607 Athens 264, 271, 807
Andhra Pradesh 413 Ardasher 517 Attic 271
Andre, B. 160, 164 Arden, A. H. 419,430 Attic numerals 803
Andreas, Friedrich C. 524, 534 Ardha-Magadhi 381 Attica 262
Angad, Guru 395 argillographic texts 90 Augst, Gerhard 768
Angertha 582 Argishti, king of Urartu 146 as contributor 765-768
Angkola 477 Argos 262, 272 Austin, Gilbert 861, 878
Angkor 446 Aris, Rutherford 314, 323, 330 Australia 728
Anglo-Frisian 337 Aristotle 578 Australian Aboriginal sign lan-
Anglo-Norman 656 Armazi 89, 98 guages 862
Anglo-Saxon 333, 582, 651, 656 Armenia 88, 98, 782 Austria 324, 643, 767
Anglo-Saxon Cursive 318 Armenian 260, 347, 356-363, Austro- Asiatic 444, 612
Antiqua 765 367, 782 Austronesian 444, 445, 743, 744
antisemitism 23, 27 Armenian script 744 Avar 707, 719, 724, 782
Anton I, Catholicos of Georgia Aronoff, Mark 492, 497 Avars 536
367 Aronson, Howard I. 364, 368, 654 Avesta 486
Antonsen, Elmer H. 333, 339 as contributor 735-741 Avestan 144, 486, 515, 527
anunasika 385, 399 Arrighi, Ludovico degli 323 Avignon 691
anusvara 385, 392, 399, 404, 415, Arsacid Empire 98, 485 Awadhi 774
421,450, 617 articulation 821 Awes, Shaikh 744
Anyang 191 Asahan 477 Axumite kingdom 485
Apocalypse 804 ascenders 364 Ayres, John 324
apostrophe 701 Ascher, Marcia 585, 795, 806 Ayurbarvada 440
approximant 825 Ascher, Robert 585, 795, 806 Ayushi 545
Aquilina, Joseph 687, 698 Asclepius 290 Azerbaijan 784
Arab Conquest 499, 809 Asher,Ron E. 426, 430, 819, 845 Azerbaijani see Azeri
Arab League 744 Ashokan 384, 404, 413, 426, 516 Azeri 707, 711, 782
Arab world 764 Ashurbanipal 38, 40 Aztec 796
Arabia 88, 98, 149, 443 Asia 261, 373, 583 Aztecs 172, 180
Arabic 88, 14, 149, 244, 287,
1 Asia Minor 262, 281
372,443,479,485,499,501, Asianic 281
559-564, 565, 570, 675, ASL see American Sign Lan- B
682,686,711,728,764,778, guage Babel 6
781,790, 803, 825 Asoka, emperor of India 100, 151, Babylonia 146, 160
Arabic numerals 213, 278, 357, 372, 373 Babylonian 19, 37, 61
630, 802 aspiration (Welsh) 662 Babylonian Empire 486
Arabic script 2, 4, 26, 374, 492, Assamese 399 Babylonian Masoretes 492
499,515,536,594,625,689, Assiniboine 870 Babylonian Talmud 732
727, 743-762, 883, 885 as-SulI, Abu Bakr Muhammad Babylonians 489, 799
Aragon 108 564, 568 Bach, Adolf 647, 695
Arakanese 454 Assur 98 Back, Dieter 441
Aramaic 19, 27, 58, 81, 88, 144, Assyria 146 Backer, Mireille 878
267,281,356,378,474,487, Assyrian 19, 37 Backhouse, Janet 331
499-514,727,783,789 Assyrians 489 Bacot, Jacques 435. 440
Aramaic Koine, Modern 504-510 Assyrians, Modern 505 Bactria 515
Assyriologists 886 Bactrian 486, 515, 531
 index 895

Bagam 593 Bauer, Thomas Bessarabia 636

Bagchi, Tista as contributor 559-564 Best, David 864, 878
as contributor 399-403 Bauer Typefounders 328 Bete 593
Bagheli 774 Baurain, Claude 130, 133, 269 Beyer, Stephan V. 440
Baines, John 13, 16 Bazan 174 Bhaskararao, Peri 413
Baker, Nicholson 892 Bazin, Louis 682, 698 Bhattacharji, Somdeb 403
Bali 474 beams 849 Bhojpuri 384
Balinese 446, 447 Beauchamps, Pierre 857 Bible 6, 29, 141, 287, 290, 314,
Balkan Peninsula 21, 259, 349, Beauchamps-Feuillet system 857 485,494,570,689,766,774,
635,728 Beckwith, Christopher 700 778, 789, 793- 829. 883
Ball, Martin J. 696, 829, 845 Beeching, Wilfred A. 892 Bible Societies 779
ballet 858 Beer, E. F. F. 144, 155 Biggs, Robert D. 44, 70
Ballets Russes 859 Behistun6i, 134, 140 Bihar 615. 775
Balochi 743 Behrend, T. E. 483 Bikaneri 774
Baluchistan 165 Beijing 431 bilabial 825
Bambara 593 Belarusian 352, 700, 701, 744, bilingual inscriptions 143
Bammesberger, Alfred 339 782 tilingualism 763
Bamum 583, 593 Belgium 763 biliteracy 627
Bamyik 247 Belgrade 21, 770 biliterals 75
Banerji, RakhalDas 399, 403 Bell, Alexander Graham 838 Billeter, Jean Francois 251
Bangla 399 Bell, Alexander Melville 838, Bima 476
Banguoglu, Tahsin 684, 698 -
845 binary arithmetic 884
Baptist church 613 Bell, Harry C. P. 565, 568 bindrunes 334
bar code 804 Belorussian see Belarusian binduva 409
Bar Hebraeus, Gregorius ben Khader, Aicha ben Abed 79 1 Birdwhistell, Ray L. 861, 878
abu 1-Faruj, called 504 794 Birnbaum, Solomon A. 116, 497,
bar/dot numbers 1 74 Bender, M. Lionel 576 727,741
Barac-Cikoja, Dragana Bendor-Samuel, John Birobidzhan 735
as contributor 769-772 as contributor 689-691 Bischoff, Bernhard 330, 331
Bar-Asher, Moshe 741 Benedict, Warren C. 71 Bishop, T. A. M. 331
Barbe, Walter B. 331 Benediktsson, Halinn 695 biting 321

Barber, Elizabeth J. W. 153, 155 Benesh Choreology 864 Bitola 675

Barbosa, Antoine de 691 Benesh, Joan 864, 865, 878 Black, R. 696
Barbour, Ruth 273, 293 Benesh, Rudolph 864, 865, 878 Blackwood, Easley 854
bark paper 175 Beneventan Minuscule 317 Blagden-Duroiselle system 450
Barr, Kaj 524, 534 Bengal 775 Blake, Stephenson 329
Barry, Randall K. 746, 762 Bengali 379, 399~403, 612, 774 Blake, William 886
bars 848 Benidorm 108 Blanc, Haim 742
Barthel, Thomas S. 183, 187 Benko, Lorand 698 Blau, Joshua 497, 742
Barthelemy, Jean-Jacques 6, 144, Bennet, John 133 Bio ldan shes rab 432. 440
155 Bennett, Emmett L. 125, 133 Bloomfield, Leonard 10. 15.628.
Barton, David 13, 16 as contributor 125-133 631
base of a numerical system 796 Ben-Sasson, Haim Hillel 727, 741 Blumenthal. Joseph 332
Bashkir 707, 782 Benveniste, Emile 530, 534 Blumhardt. James Fuller 776
Baskerville, John 328 Benware, Wilbur A. 695 Blunt, Wilfrid 331

Basque 684 Benzing, Johannes 556 Bodding, P. O. 614. 618

Bassa 593 Berber 112-116,743 Bodoni. Giambattista 328
Bastard Secretary script 322 Berlin 767 Bodra, Lako6i6, 618
Batak 474, 476 Berlin, Heinrich 144, 154, 155. body positions 861
Batalova, Raisa M. 700 178, 180 Boeder. Winfried 368
Batarde, Gothic 322 Berlo, Janet Catherine 1 60 Boeotia 262
Batram, Alan 332 Bernal, Martin 23, 30, 267, 269 Boge. Herbert 807. 819
Bauer, Hans 144, 153, 155 Bernardo, Gabriel 484 Boghazkoi 66. 1 20
Berry, Jack 628. 631 Bohairic 289
 1 1 1 3 1 ,

896 INDEX

Bohatta, H. 478 British and Foreign Bible Society Byrom, John 81

Bokarev, E. A. 784 779 Byzantine civilization 803, 809
bokmal 644 British Isles 335 Byzantine Greek 272, 635
Boltz, William G. 199 British Museum 148 Byzantium 346
as contributor 189-190, Brixhe, Claude 266, 269, 294
[91-199 Brockelmann, Carl 5 1

Bon po 43 broken writing 60, 65

Bonfante, Giuliano 297, 310 Bronze Age 89, 90, 125, 789 Cadmus 5
Bonfante, Larissa 310, 31 1 Brown, J. Marvin 466 Cai XTyong 207
as contributor 297-31 Brown, Karl 819 Cain, Bruce D.
Boniface, St. 317 Brown, Michelle P. 315, 322, 330 as contributor 564-568
Bonnet, Corinne 269 Brown, T. Julian 330, 331 Cairo 485, 743, 885
book hand 81 Browne, Wayles 663, 700 Cairo Genizah 733
Book Pahlavi 517 Briicke, Ernst von 838
Cajori, Florian 805, 806
bopomofo 204 Brussels 763 Calcutta 774, 833
Bordreuil, Pierre 103, 116. 159, Bryce, Trevor R. 294 Calder, George 340, 345
789, 793 Bsod nams rtse mo 432, 440 Calendar Round 172
Boretz, Benjamin 854 Buccellati, Giorgio 70 calendars 184
Borg, Albert J. 663 Buck, Carl Darling 294, 311 Caliphate 743
Borneo see Kalimantan Buddhism 26, 141, 203, 212, 229, calligrams 81
Bosnia 349, 744 244,371,374,431,444,446, calligraphic scripts 312
Bosnia-Herzegovina 769 517,536 calligraphy 244-251, 541, 550,
Bossert, H. Th. 124 Budge, E. A. Wallis 155
559, 744, 885
Bosson, James 441 Buginese 474, 480 Calukya 413
Boudinot, Elias 592 Bugut, Mongolia 536 Camaj, Martin 678, 697
boustrophedon 121, 166, 174, Buhid48i Ca-mau 445
183,267,271,299,334,340 Georg 378, 383
Biihler,
Cambodia 249, 443, 446, 447, 467
Bouiiaert, J. 291, 296 Bukele, Momolu Duwalu 593 Cambodian see Khmer
Boyle, Leonard E. 330 Bulaq (Egypt) 885 Cameroon 583, 691
Bracciolini, Poggio 323 Bulgaria 346 Cameroun 593
brackets 852 Bulgarian 635, 677, 700, 703 Campania 301, 306
Brahmans 773 bullae 36 Campbell, Lyle 172, 181
Brahmi2, 144, 151, 165,244,372, Bulleh Shah 398 Campello 108
373-383, 384, 395^ 404, Burgundy 322 Canaanite 2, 25, 58, 88, 92, 267,
408,413,426,431,443,445, Burma 443, 778 487
450,486,515,533,536,616, Burmese 249, 373, 436, 444, 447, Canada 599
773, 804 450-456, 778 Canarese see Kannada
braille 204, 816 Burnaby, Barbara 61 Canary Islands 1
15
Braille, Louis 886 Burnell, A. C.
430 Cancellaresca 324
Bra:>ov 636 Burnouf, Eugene 144, 146, 155 candrabindu 385, 617
Brasso 636 Burrows, Lionel 618 canonical order 2 1 2, 384, 39 1

Braune, Wilhelm 290, 296 Burushaski 776

392,395,405,409,413,420,
Breton 655 Buryat 536, 707, 782 427,432.450,461,467,478,
Brice, William 160, 164 Buryat alphabet 554 481,565,583.587.589.603.
Bricker, Victoria R. 178, 180 Burzachechi, Mario 261, 270 604, 621, 892
Bright, Timothe 809 Bush, Frederic W. 71 see also alphabetical order
Bright, William 3, 4, 383, 752, business hand 81 Cantaneo, Bernardino 324
762 Butinov, N. A. 183, 187 cantillation marks 492
as contributor 384-390, Butler, Charles 831 Cantonese 203
4 3-41 1 9, 637-642, 763-764 Butler, E. H. 632 Cape of Good Hope 647
Brink, Daniel 642 Bu/.o, Adrian 226 Capestrano Warrior 306
Briona 303 Byblos 25, 29, 90, 143 capital letters 278, 312, 479
Britain 340 Byland, Bruce E. 180 Cappelli, Adriano 809, 819
British (Celtic) 655 Byock, Jesse 642 carbon paper 888
 index 897

cardinal vowels 827 Chakravarti, S. N. 399, 403 Christian Sogdian 516. 533
Cardona. George 391. 394 Chalcidian 262 Christianity 26. 84. 259. 287, 314.
Carello, Claudia 772 Cham 445 338,367,413^485,494,499,
Carey, Virginia 591 Chamberlain, James R. 459, 466 57i,59i,599,6i2,625,634,
Carey. William 774 Champa 445 656, 686. 777-780. 835
Carian 281, 285 Champollion, Jean-Francois 144. Christianity, Orthodox 260, 287,
Carlsen. Marit 642 148, 155 636, 769. 777
Carlton. T. R. 579 Chandra, Lokesh 431, 440 Christianity, Protestant 636, 766.
Carney, Edward 653, 696 Chaophraya River 446 777
Carney, James 345 Chappell, Warren 332 Christianity, Roman Catholic
Caro Baroja, Julio 1 18 Characterie 809 349,601,691.769.777
Caroline Islands 584 Charivarius 654 Christology 499
Carolingian dynasty 635, 809 Charlemagne 319 chu' nom 189, 691
Carolingian Minuscule 318 Charles V, King of Spain 779 Chukchee 707, 720, 725, 782
Carpenter, J. Rhys 267, 270 Chatterjee, S. K. 775 Chukotko-Kamchatkan 707
Carrier 610 Chatterjee, Suhas 403 Church Missionary Society 689.
Carruba, Onofrio 294 Chavchavadze, Ilia 367 835
Carter, Elizabeth 164 Chaytor, Henry J. 13. 16 Chuvash 710, 782
Carter, Sebastian 332 Chechen 710, 782, 784 Chuyik 247
Carthage 113 Chechnya 784 Cicero. Marcus Tullius 635. 808
Carthaginians 1 12 Chen Kang 242, 243 Cigarralejo 108
cases 38 Chen Naixong 231, 238 Cilicia 266
Caslon, William 327 Chen Shiliang 240, 243 ciphers 142
Caspian Sea 517 Chen Shu 232, 237 Circassian 718. 782
Casterline, Dorothy 863, 879 Cheremis 782 Civil, Miguel 70
Castilian 635 Cherokee 579, 587-592, 594, 599 civilization 1.21.26. 139.578
Castor 302 Cheung Kwong-yue 191, 199 Clanchy, M. T. 13. 16

Catalan 636 Chhabra. Bahadur Chand 447, Classical Egyptian 74

Catalonia 108, 857 449 classifiers 35
Catford, J. C. 5, 13,827,845 Chia Koua Vang 619, 624 Clauson, Sir Gerard 556
Catich, Edward M. 312, 330 Chiang, Yee 251 clay tablets 38, 92. 798
Caton, Hilda 816,819,820 Chiapas 174 Clear script 548
Caucasian, Northeast 61, 707, Chiesa, Bruno 494, 497 clef 848

716 Chieti 306 Clement of Alexandria 73

Caucasian, Northwest 367, 707, Chile 183 Cleopatra 14S
710 China 2, 21, 189, 191, 200, 221, clerical script 197

Caucasus 728, 743, 745 239,247.252.371.376.443. click 825

Cavigneaux. Antoine 47. 70 536,577,580,599,773.778. Clodd, Edward 6. 13

Caxton, William 326, 652 791,802.881.885 Close. Elizabeth 636. 695

Celebes see Sulawesi Chinese 140, 141, 151, 189, 209, clusters 406
Cellini, Benvenuto 324 218,244.433.436.536.579. codes 142,628
Celtiberian 108. 1 15. 655 619, 629, 691, 745. 787, 802, Codex Ambrosianus 291
Celtic 108. 259. 655 885 Codex Argenteus 291
Central America 833 Chinese writing 2. 7. 35, 53, 191- Codex Augusteus 315
Central Asia see Inner Asia 199. 200-208. 209, 218. Codex Sangallensis 3 1

Ceresko, Anthony R. 793 228. 230, 239. 252-258, Codex Vindobonensis 29]
Cerro de las Mesas 174 486, 583, 892 Codex Zographensis 354
Cerveteri 301 Chinggeltei see Qingge'rtai Coe, Michael D. 154. 155. 175.
Chabot. Jean-Baptiste 113. 119 Chinggis Khan 536 181. 797, 806
Chadwick, John 129, 130, 133. Chipewyan 609. 610 Coedes. Georges 445. 449
144, 155. 800. 806 Chomsky, Noam 11. [3 Cohen, Marcel 7. 14. 115. 1 ig

Chafe, Wallace L. 592 choreography 858 Colarusso, John 724. 725

Chaker. Salem 115, 119 Chota Nagpur 612 Coldstream. J. N. 268. 270

Chakraborty, Ashit 436. 440 Christian Palestinian Svriac 500 Cole. Hugo 854
 6 1 , , 1

898 index

Cole, Michael 13, 17, 596, 598 Court, Christopher Cyrillic 260, 346, 504, 545, 556,
Colless, Brian E. 1 16 as contributor 443-444, 625,631,635,663,675,
colometric writing 291 445-449 700-726, 743, 769, 773,
Columbanus, St., Abbot of Lux- Cowan, Leslie 81 1, 820 778,781,788
euil and Bobbio 316 Cowley, A. E. 495, 497, 498 Cyrillic alphabet 883
Communists 204 Cowley, Roger 576 Cyrus II, king of Persia 1 34
Como, Lake 303 Coxon, P. W. 503, 511,514 Czech 349, 663, 668, 673
complex cuneiform signs 41 Coyaud, Maurice 243 Czechoslovakia 1

composite signs 81 Cree 579, 599

compound characters 191 crescendo 851
compound cuneiform signs 41 Cresci, G. F. 324
compound signs 168 Cretan 285 Daco-Romance 635
computers 890 Crete 100, 125, 129, 262, 272, 800 Dadiso Qatraya 534
Comrie, Bernard 355, 697, 720, Crimea 728 Daghestan 728
725, 784 Crimean Tatar 707, 782 Dahai 550
as contributor 663-689, Cristofani, Mauro 310
Dahl, Willy 651, 695
700-726, 781-784 Croatia 769 Daimabad, India 165
Cone, Edward T. 854 Croatian 348, 769 Dairi 477
Confucianism 26, 249 Croneberg, Carl 863. 879 Dalby, David 598, 699
conjunct consonants 376, 387, Cross, Frank Moore, Jr. 92, 1 16, Damais, Louis-Charles 446. 449,
392, 395, 402, 404,408,416, 490, 497 481,483
420, 426 Crum, Walter E. 288, 295 Damascus 96, 743
Conklin, Harold C. 474, 48 1 , 484 cryptanalysis 141 Damerow, Peter 70, 160, 164,806
consonant clusters 476 cryptographic writing 81 Dani, Ahmad Hasan 383, 413.
consonantal writing 261 cryptographies 628
419
consonantary 25 Crystal,David 63 1 632, 654, 696,
,
Daniel, bishop 356
Constantine, Byzantine mission- 815,820 Daniels, Peter T. 4, 8, 14, 15, 24,
ary 346 Csoma de Koros, Alexander 43 1
26, 31, 88, 1 16. 142, 143,
Conway, R. S. 31 441 144, 156,219,227,384,576,
Cooper, Jerrold S. 3,5, 1 4, 70, 7 1 Cuan 239 585,752,762,788.790,793.
144, 155 Cubberley, Paul 347, 355, 700 818,820
as contributor 37-57 as contributor 346-355 as contributor 1-2, 3-17,
Copperplate 324 Cumae 297 19-20,21-32,57, 139-140,
Coptic 26, 73, 84, 140, 148, 260, Cummings, Donald Wayne 652, 141-159,259-260,485-
347, 574 696 486,499-504,511-513,
Coptic alphabet 287-290 cuneiform 2, 6, 20, 22, 24, 33-72,
577-578. 579-586, 625,
Copts 744 92, 120, 134-137, 142, 145, 651-655, 785, 807-820.
Corbett, Greville G. 355, 697, 725 165,281,579,787,795,807, 881,883-892
Corbie ab 3 1 886 Danish 336, 642, 843
Corcyra 263 Cureggio 303 Dano-Norwegian 650
Corinth 262, 272 cursive scripts 85, 3 1 2, 485, 499, Danwiwat, Nanthana 457, 466
Cornish 655 541,559 Dao 235, 237
Cornozano, Antonio 855, 878 cursive shorthand 630, 815 Dargwa 707, 782
Cornwall 340 cursive writing 346, 364 Darius king of Persia 61,
I. 1 34.
Corre, Alan D. 144, 156 Cushitic 569, 580
146,485,517
Correa, Jose A. 108, 118 Cwu Si-kyeng 219 Darwin, Charles 842
Cote d' I voire 593 Cyclades 262 Darwin, Erasmus 842
Coulmas, Florian 7, 14, 214, 217, Cylke, Frank Kurt 820 Das Gupta, Charu Chandra 383
629, 632 Cynewulf 338 Daur 550
counters 795 Cypriote 21, 125, 144, 151,265, Davies, W. V. 75, 87, 144. 156
counting devices 577 285 day names 172
counting system 172 Cypro-Minoan 125, 130 De Bray, Reginald G. A. 355,
Cyprus 20, 28, 100, 125, 268 697. 725
Cyril, St. 346 de Brasses, Charles 838
 INDEX $99

de Casparis. J. G. 445, 449, 474, 4 1

6, 420, 467, 476, 478, 492, Drawer, Ethel Stefana, Lady 514
483 559' 566, 620, 664, 690, 821 Drucker, Johanna 812, 820
de Castell, Suzanne 13, 16 Diaghilev, Serge 859 Drutsa 247
de Hoz, Javier 1 18 Diakonoff, Igor M. 490, 497 Duckworth, M. 829, 845
de Mare, Albinia C. 331
la dialectology 829 ductus 501
De Silva, M. W. Sugathapala 565, diaspora, Jewish 727 Duden 643
568 diatonic scale 847 Duenos 302
de Vries, Jan 296 Dickens, Charles 811 Duhoux, Yves 132, 133
Dead Sea Scrolls 485, 487 Didot family, typographers 328 Dumfries 338
Deberny and Peignot, typefound- Diela 230 Dunand, Maurice 30, 31
ers 328 Dietrich, Manfried 116, 117 Dunganese 716, 782
Deccan 379, 446 Diffloth, Gerard 470, 473 Dunhuang 431
decipherment 28, 139-188 digital computer 883 Duong Quang-Ham 695, 699
Dedanite 98 digital writing 883 Duploye, Emile, abbe 81
Dederen. Francois 186, 187 digitization 887 Duploye, Gustave 81
Deeney, John J. 618 diglossia 409, 633 duration 848
Deeters, Gerhard 368 digraphia 205 Dusenberry, Verne 601. 61
DeFrancis, John 3, 7, 14, 199, digraphs 291, 512, 550, 690, 701, Dutch 479, 642, 647
201, 207 883 Dutch Guiana 584
Delhi 763 Dilke, O. A. W. 806 Duwel, Klaus 339
Dell, Cecily 866, 878 Diller, Anthony Dyer, Donald 700
Delphi 807 as contributor 457-466 Dyula 593
Demotic 73, 85, 148, 287 Dillmann, August 576 Dzidziguri, Shota 367, 368
Demsky, Aaron 789, 794 diminuendo 851
Dene 610 Dimock, Edward C. 403
Denmark 333, 335, 766 Ding Chunshou 240, 243
Denning, Dorothy 632 Ding JTnyu 240, 243 E. Kiss, Katalin 663
Densusianu, Ovid 636 diphthongs 275 Eana 33
dental 825 Diringer, David 4, 6, 7, 14, 330, East Asia 189-251.773.787,801,
Deny, Jean 556 378, 383, 743, 762 885
Derolez, Rene 337, 339 Disanayaka, Jayaratna B. 568 Easter Island 140, 183-188
Deroy, Louis 294 discovery 140 Eastern Europe 259
Derrida, Jacques 3 distributional analysis 143, 166 Ebbinghaus, Ernst 290, 296
Derwing, Bruce L. 355 Dittenberger, W. 270 as contributor 290-293
descenders 364 ditto machine 888 Ebbitt, Wilma R. 10, 16
descriptive linguistics 10 Divehi see Dhivehi Ebla 37, 46
Deseriev, Ju. D. 781, 784 diversification of scripts 625 Eblaite 58, 143
determinatives 24, 43, 61, 73, Doblhofer, Ernst 142. 156 Ebreo, Guglielmo 855, 878
184, 194 Dolgopolsky, Aharon B. 497 Edelman, D. I. 752. 762
Deuel, Leo 143, 156 Dolomites 303 Edessa 98
Devanagari 244, 373, 384-390, Donaldson, Bruce C. 696 Edessan 89
391,399,416,420,461,599, Donato. Anthony 854 Edzard. Dietz Otto 71
612,778 Donner, Herbert 106, 113, 116, Effort-Shape 866
Devon 340 119 Efik 593
DeVoto, Giacomo 633, 695 Dorian 262 Egan. Kieran 13, 16
Dewey, Godfrey 818, 820 Dorji 235 Egypt 1 9, 24, 37, 96, 112. 148.
Dewey, Melvil 818 d'Orta, Lake 303 1 65. 259, 285. 287. 489. 5 6, 1

Dhauli 404 Dougga 1

13 744. 799
Dhawan Turi 616 Douglas, Nik 251 Egyptian 2. 19. 23. 33, 35, 73-87.
Dhivehi 564-568, 744 Downing, John 632 90, 123, 140. 287. 886
Dhorme, Edouard 30, 31, 144, Downing, Pamela 12, 16, 794 Egyptian Arabic 743
153. 156 Dravidian 58, 170, 371, 373, 389, Egyptians 61
diacritics 127, 273, 289, 372, 374, 404,413.612.743 Egyptologists 886
384, 393, 395, 400. 404. 409. Driver. Godfrey Rolles 7, 14 Egyptology 141
 , 7 1 1 1 1 1

900 INDEX

Eichner, Heiner 294 Estrangelo 499, 515, 536 Feldman, Laurie Beth 770, 772
eimoji 209 Eteocretan 29 as contributor 769-772
Einarsson, Stefan 650, 696 Eteocypriote 29 Felley, Mary 205, 208
Eisenstein, Elizabeth L. 13, 16, Ethiopia 2, 26, 88, 485, 744, 803, Ferdon, Edwin N., Jr. 183, 187
892 888 fermata 853
ejeetive 825 Ethiopic 4, 88, 98, 486, 569-576, Fernandez Alvarez, Pilar 291,
Elam 98, 160 788 296
Elamite 58, 142, 160 Ethiopic script 580 Fernando, P. E. E. 408, 412

Elbasan 675 ethnolects 727 Feuillet,Raoul Auger 857, 878

Elche 108 ethnoscience 578 Fevrier, James-Germain 4, 7, 14,
Elephantine Island 489 Etruria 301 118
Elizabeth queen of England 324
I, Etruscan 28, 140, 263, 284, 297, Ficoroni 302
Elliott, Ralph W. V. 338, 339 655 Fierman, William 784
as contributor 333-339 Etruscans 259 Fiero, Charles 61
Ellis, Alexander J. 831, 835, 845 etymological information 459 Fife, James 696
Ellsworth, H. W. 325 etymology 505 fifth 848
Elymaic 89 Euboea 272 Figulla, Hugo H. 70, 72
Elymais 98 Euboeans 297 Fijian 777
Emeneau, Murray B. 699 Europe 13, 20, 21, 139, 141, 259- filler strokes 81
Emilia 301 369,443,765,881 Filliozat, Jean 447, 449
emphatic consonants (Semitic) Evans, Arthur 125 Finegan, Edward 696
65, 490, 507 Evans, D. Simon 697 finger-spelling 793
Endress, Gerhard 568 Evans, James 599, 611, 778 Finnish 678, 679, 681
Endzelins, Janis 697 Evans, Mary Stewart 878 First Dynasty 73
Engadine 634 Even 782 Fischer, Henry George 24, 3 1 80, ,

England 13, 27, 320, 652, 857 Evenki 545, 782 87

English 4, 9, 27, 1 39, 37 1 , 427, Even-Shoshan, Abraham 497 Fischer, Steven Roger 186, 187

433, 520, 628, 630, 642, 65 1 evolution 8 Fischer, Wolfdietrich 568

744, 789, 824, 843 Fishman, Joshua A. 632, 742

English alphabet 883 Fita, F. 112, 118
Englund, Robert K. 33, 36, 70, Fitzgerald, Edward 749
160, 164, 806 Faber, Alice 210, 217, 497, 788, flags 849
as contributor 1 60- 641 flaming 891
794
envelopes, clay 22 Fairbank, Alfred flap 826
J. 325, 331
Enwall, Joakim 579, 586, 599, Fairservis, Walter A. 801, 806 flat 847
611 Faliscan 263, 298, 306 Fletcher Vails, Domingo 1 18
epichoric scripts 271, 281 Falk, Harry 373, 383
Florence 323, 633
epiglottal 825 Fano 306 Florentine 635
epigraphic texts 90 Far East 24 Florida, Nancy 474
epigraphy 230, 334, 357, 377 Fara 36 Forbes, A. Dean 497
Epi-Olmec 172 Faraulep Island 584 foreign words 4
Epistological script 82 Farnell, Brenda 855, 864, 878, Foreman, Grant 587, 592
Erasmian pronunciation 272 forerunners of writing 3, 2
879
Erdeni Bakshi 550 as contributor 855-879
formality 763
Eritrea 485 Forrer, Emil 144, 156
Fars 5 1

Erlikh, B. E. 741, 742 Farther India 444 Forstemann, Ernst 154

Errington, Joseph 474 Fort William College 774
Faucounau, Jean 294
Erzya 782 Faulmann, Karl 6, 14 forte 85
Noa 864, 865, 878
Eshkol, Fazzioli, Edoardo 248, 25 Fortescue, Michael 609, 61
Eshkol-Wachmann notation 864 featural system 4
fortissimo 848
Eskimo see Inuit
Febvre, Lucien 13, 16 Forum, Roman 302
Esling, John H. 829, 845
Feeling, Durbin 592
Fossey, Charles 7, 14, 144, 156
Este 305 Fekheriye 100 Foster, Vere 325
Estonian 678, 679, 782

.
 INDEX 901

Fournier family, typographers Gale, James Scarth 227 Gezer 91

328 Galen 578 Gheg 675
Fox Talbot, W. H. 155 Galician 634, 635 Giacomelli, Gabriella 31
Fraktur 646, 765 Gallia Narbonensis 655 Gibson, Eleanor J. 12, 16
France 108, 1 12, 319, 635, 684, Gallic 303 Gibson, John C. L. 117
689, 728, 855 Gallop, Annabel T. 251 Gilchrist, John B. 774
Franklin. Benjamin 324 Galloway 338 Gilgamesh 28
Fraser. J. 0.581,778 Gallus 314 Gill, Alexander, the Elder 831
Fraser script 579, 581 Gamkrelidze, Thomas V. 10, 15, Gill, Eric 328
Freedman, David Noel 490, 491, 367, 368 Gill, Harjeet Singh 398
497 Gandhari 377 as contributor 395-398
Freidel,David 175, 181, 182 Gansu 228, 431, 539 Gillispie, Charles Coulston 805,
French 4, 9, 139, 521, 628, 636, Ganz, David 316, 331 806
640, 652, 683, 689, 79 1 , 824, Gao Ming 199 Gimbutas, Marija 21,31
843 Garamond, Claude 327 Gist, George 587
French Revolution 857 Garbini, Giovanni 91, 117 Glagolitic 260, 346
Friberg, Joran 164, 806 Gardiner, Alan H. 29, 31, 75, 87 Glass, John B. 180, 181
fricative 825 Gardiner, Fletcher 484 Gleason, Allan 398
Friedman, Victor 700 Gardiner, Sunray C. 355 as contributor 777-780
Friedrich, Johannes 7, 14,72, 1
15, Gardthausen, Victor 294 Glossenkeil 53
119,143,144,152,153,156, Garhwali 774 Glossic 835
294,509,514 Garr, W. Randall 493, 498 glottal 825
Friedrich, Paul 809, 820 Garshuni 501, 743 Gnia Yee Yang 619, 624
Friesen, Otto von 296 Gaul 655 Gnosticism 499
Frishberg, Nancy 863, 878 Gaulish 655 Goa 774
Frisian 337 Gaur, Albertine 6, 14 Godart, Louis 132, 133
Frohnmeyer, L. J. 425 Gaylord, Harry 829, 845 Goddard, Ives 11,15
Frost, Honor 791 Gayoom, Maumoon Abdul, presi- Godel, Robert 357, 362
Frutiger, Adrian 328 dent of Maldives 565 Goebbels, Joseph 766
Fuchs, Walther 556 Geba 239 Goerwitz, Richard L. 493, 498
Fula 593 Ge'ez 89, 98, 569 as contributor 487-498
Fulani 744 Geg 675 Goetze, Albrecht 72
Funan 445 Geiger, Wilhelm 565, 568 Gola 593
Functional Analphabetic Symbol- Gelb,I.J. 3, 14,37,43,71,73,87. Gold 782
ism 843 88, 1 17, 141, 144, 152, 156, Goldberg, Jonathan 13. 16

functional diversity 625 160, 164,629,632 Golden Empire 235

furigana 204, 2 1
Geldner, Karl F. 528, 534 Goldstein, Melvyn 432. 441
Fust, Johann 326 gemination 559, 574 Gomango, Malia 613
futhark 333 genealogies 165 Gomango, Mangei 613
generative phonology 1 Gomez-Moreno, Manuel 1 18
Genghis Khan see Chinggis Khan Gondi 389
genizah 485 Gong, Y. 71
Gabain, Annemarie von 558 geometric shorthand 815 Gonggryp, J. W. 584, 586

Gabelsberger, Franz X. 81 Georgia 98, 728, 782 Goody, Jack 13, 16, 21, 31

Gadd, Cyril Georgian 260, 364-369, 782, 803 Gordon, Arthur E. 302, 310, 790,
J. 71
Gaelic 655 German 634, 642, 652, 667, 737. 794
Gagauz 710, 782 765-768, 789, 825, 843 Gordon, Cyrus H. 24. 29. 3 1 . 140.

Gagneux, Pierre-Marie 459, 466 Germanic 259, 333, 342, 536, 143, L56

Gaia, king of Numidia 13 1

634, 642 Gordon, Frank G. 29. 3

Gair, James W. 408, 412 Germany 324, 643, 765, 885 Gorlev 335

as contributor 408-41 2, Gesenius, Wilhelm 144, 149, 156 Gorsky. Alexander 859, 878
gestures 861 Gothic 260. 642. 803
564-568
Galand, Lionel 113, 119 Getatchew Haile 576 Gothic alphabet 290-293

Galdi, Laszlo 682, 698 as contributor 569-576 Gothic Rotunda 474

 1 5

902 index

Gothic (style of Roman) scripts Grotefend, Georg Friedrich 144, Halmari, Helena 663
320 146, 157 Halsingland 336
Goths 290 group writing 74, 81 Hamilton, James 558
Gottsched, Johann Christoph 766, Grube, Nikolai 177, 182 Hammond, James B. 889
768 Gruendler, Beatrice 90, 1 17, 499, Hammond, Philip C. 791, 794
Graff, Harvey J. 13, 16 513 Hammurabi 40
graffiti 166, 284 Guanche 15 1 Hamp, Eric P. 816, 820
Gragg, Gene B. 146 Guatemala 172 as contributor 660-663
as contributor 58-70 Gubbio 306 Han [= Chinese] 218
Graham, Ian 175, 181 Guess, George 587 Han [= Korean] 219
grammatogeny 219, 578, 579 Guillaumier, Alfie 689, 698 hanja 200
grammatology 1-17 Guinea 593 Hankul 26, 189, 218, 249, 439,
Granian, Andranik 356, 362 Gujarati 379, 391-394, 774 838
Granjon, Robert 327 Gulf of Mexico 172 Hanna, Jean S. 654, 696
Grant, Sir Alexander 776 Gulf region 165 Hanna, Paul R. 654, 696
Grantha 408, 426, 458 Gumperz, John J. 756, 762 Hanoi 691, 693
grapheme 3 Guoyln Zimu 204 Hansdah, B. 618
graphic multivalence 193 Gupta dynasty 247 Hansen, Chad 201, 207
graphology 3, 631 Gurmukhi 379, 395-398, 775 Hanser, Oskar 725
Graubard, Stephen R. 13, 16 Gurney, Thomas 81 Hanson, Richard S. 498
Great Britain 314, 689 Guro 593 Hanunoo 481
Great English Vowel Shift 27, Guru Granth Sahib 773 hanzi 200
652 Gusmani, Roberto 285, 294 Harappa 165, 801
Great Wall of China 529 Gutenberg, Johannes 326, 885 Harari 744
Greco-Latin 634 Guterbock, Hans Gustav 72 Harauti 774
Greco-Roman 28 Guy, Jacques B. 184, 187 Hardcastle, W. 829, 845
Greco-Roman era 74 Guyst, George 587 Harper, Kenn 607, 611
Greece 5, 13, 125, 259, 271, 803 Guzzo Amadasi, M. G. 107, 1
17 Harriot, Thomas 832
Greek 5, 20, 22, 23, 37, 66, 73, 88, Gyulbudalyan, Sirak V. 360, 362 Harris, Martin 695
no, 1 12, 145, 146,259,261, Harris, Roy 15
271-280, 281, 287, 290, Harris, William V. 13, 17

342,346,356,486,489,500,
H Harris, Ze 11 ig S. 141, 157
634,651,675,728,744,769, Haarh, Erik 436, 441 Hart, John 831

788, 790, 803, 807, 823 Haarmann, Harald 14,213,217 Hartell, Rhonda L. 698
7,
Greek alphabet 2, 8, 108, 141, Haas, Mary R. 457, 466 Hartmann, John F. 459, 466
165, 259, 261, 271-296, Habein, Yaeko Sato 217 Hartmann, Josef 576
297,312,346,356,364,515, hacek 664 Harvard, Stephen 331
528, 569, 625, 655, 773, 883 Hadramauti 98 Harvey, Anthony 341, 345, 696
Greeks 259,491 Hagiwara, Hiroko 209, 217 Hary, Benjamin 727, 737, 742
Green Hmong 621 Hahn, Michael 434, 441 as contributor 727-734
Green, Margaret W. 70 Hahn, Reinhard F. 759, 762 hasanta 399
Greene Robertson, Merle 181 Hakuin 249 Hashimoto, Mantaro 699
Greenland 335, 609 halanta 387, 404 Haskell, Daniel C. 819
Gregerson, Kenneth J. 692, 699 Haldeman, Samuel Hasmonean dynasty 95
S. 835, 845
Gregg, John Robert 807, 811, 820 half consonants 387
Hasmonean orthography 491
Gregoire, Jean-Pierre 36, 70 Half Uncial scripts 3
Haspelmath. Martin 700
1

Grierson, George A. 774, 776 Halhed, Nathaniel B. 774 Hassan, Mohammed 580, 586
Griffith, Francis Llewellyn 85, 87, Hall, Christopher 696
Hatch, William Henry Paine 499,
144, 152, 156 Hall, Robert A., Jr. 10, 15 5L3
Griffo, Francesco 326 Halle, Morris 11,15
Hatra 98
Grimm, Jakob 767 Halley, Edmond 6 Hatran 89, 98
Grinstead, Eric 237 Hattic 58, 281
Halliday, Michael A. K. 11, 15
Grisons 634 Hattusha 58, 1 20
Hallock, Richard T. 47, 137, 147.
Grohmann, Adolf 576 Haudricourt. Andre-Georges 699
157
 index 903

Haugen. Einar 696 Hexige 235, 237 homophony 35, 58, 62, 123, 239
Haupt. Paul 144, 157 Heyd, Uriel 682, 698 Hong Kong 252
Hausa 744 Heyerdahl, Thor 183, 187 honorific transposition 80
Havelock, Eric A. 13, 27, 31, 88, Hieratic 25, 73, 800 Hope, E. R. 225, 227, 579
117 hieroglyphic scripts 85, 120, 125, Hopkins, Simon A. 742 14,
Hawkins, J. David 24, 3 1 , 121, 239,281 Horde n, John 603, 611
122. 124, 144, 157 Hieroglyphics 2, 24, 73, 886 Horn, Heinz Gunter 1 19
Hawkins, Laurence F. 815, 820 High German 647 Horus eye 800
Hayasi, Tooru 663, 700, 781 Hildebrandt, Nancy 209, 217 Hosking, R. F. 447, 449
Hayward, R. J. 580, 586 Hildyard, Angela 13, 17 Householder, Fred W., Jr. 4, 14,
Head, Sydney W. 576 Hilgers-Hesse, Irene 476, 484 725
head-marks 373 Hill, Archibald A. 9, 15 Houston, Stephen D. 175, 181
headstrokes 387, 432 Himalayas 379, 774 Hrozny, Bedfich 29, 31, 144, 152,
Heal, Sir Ambrose 332 Himyaritic 144 158
Healey, John F. 261, 270, 310 Hincks, Edward 144, T46, 149, Hualde, Jose Ignacio 663, 698
Heath, Shirley Brice 779, 780 155, 157 Hubbard, Philip 698
Hebert, Raymond 725 Hindi 384, 433, 612, 774, 775, 826 Hubschmann-Meillet translitera-

Hebrew 2, 6, 19, 26, 37, 88, 1 15, Hinduism 28, 170, 395, 444, 447, tion 357
140, 141, 145,347,485, 612 Huffman, Franklin E. 470, 473
487-498,501,515,570, Hintze, Fritz 87 Hui 782
743, 788, 825, 885 Hinz, Walther 134, 137, 160, 164 Hultzsch, Eugen 381. 383
Hebrew script 727-742, 782, 8o"o, Hippo 314 humanism 635
883 hiragana 209, 250 Humanist scripts 323, 765
Heepe, Martin 835, 845 Hispano-Romance 634 Humbach, H. 520
Heian period 212 history 1 Hungarian 636, 678, 680, 682,
Heiderhoff, Horst 768 Hitch, Doug 599 823, 826
Heinrichs, Wolfhart 514 Hittite 9, 19, 25, 28, 58, 65, 142, Hunger, Hermann 57, 71
Hejaz 99 152, 281 Huns 536
Helck, Wolfgang 84, 87, 266, 270 Hittite Empire 120 Hunter, Erika 530
Hellenisms 634 Hittites 61 Hunza 776
Hellenistic period 271 Hmong 579, 580, 619, 778 Huovinen, Veikko 682
Hempl, George 28, 31 Hmong-Mien 619 Human 25, 58, 61, 120, 281
Henan 191 Ho 612, 616 Hus, Jan 664
Henderson, Eugenie J. A. 457, Hoberman, Robert D. 499 Hutchinson-Guest, Ann 855, 878
466, 470, 473, 819, 845, 846 as contributor 504-5 10 Huttar. George 584, 586
Henderson, Leslie 12, 17 Hodges, Richard E. 654, 696 Hwunmin cengum 218, 219. 226
Henning, Walter B. 517, 533, 534 Hoell, Louis 328 Hyangchal 218
Henry, Francoise 331 Hoernle, A. F. Rudolf 144, 157 Hystaspes 146
Hepburn, James Curtis 211,213 Hoffmann, Karl 1 36, 1 37
Hepburn romanization 252 Hoffner, Harry 72
I
Herculaneum 306 Hogg, Richard M. 696
Herdner, Andree 1 16 Holisky, Dee Ann Iberian 108-1 12, 655
Herodianic numerals 803 as contributor 364-369 Iberian Peninsula 259. 634, 684,
Herodotus 73, 146, 261, 285 Holle, Karel Frederik 447, 449, 728
Herr, Larry G. 89, 117 474, 483 Ibibio 593
Herrick, Earl M. 9, 15 Holm, John 584, 586 IBM Selectric typewriter 889
Herzfeld, Ernst 517, 535 Holmes, W. H. 174, 181 Ibrahimov, G. 723
Heshig 235, 237 Holocaust, Jewish 728 Iceland 335, 648
Hesiod 28 Holsoe, Svend E. 594, 598 Icelandic 335. 642, 648
Hesse, Susan 237 Homer 28, 285, 577 iconic shape 168
heterograms 517 Hommel, Fritz 144 iconic signs 41
Hetzron, Robert 663 homographs 209 iconicity 630
Heubeck, Adolf 261, 267, 270 homonyms 27, 42, 229 iconography 172
Hewitt. B. George 367, 368, 724 homophones 210 Idalion. Cyprus 1 s 1
 . 5 1

904 index

ideograms 9, 73, 125, 134, 168, Inuit Cultural Institute 607 Jannon, Jean 327
184, 195,517 Inuktitut 599 Jansen, Maarten 180, 181
ideographic scripts 162, 201 invention of scripts 577-624 Jansson, Sven B. F. 339
ideography 8, 120 Ioannou, Iorgos 280, 294 Japan 2, 219, 245, 888
Ifrah. Georges 805, 806 Ionia 272 Japanese 1 1, 53, 88, 189, 204,
Iliberris 108 Ionic 262, 271 209-217, 218,744,787
Illich, Ivan 13, 17 IPA see International Phonetic Japanese writing 252, 892
immutability 884 Alphabet, International Jaspan, Mervyn 476, 477, 483
Imperial Aramaic 516 Phonetic Association Jaugar 404
implicational universals 1 1 Iran 22, 36, 37, 58, 165, 485, 505, Jaussen, Florentin Etienne,
implosive 825 728, 884 bishop of Tahiti 183
impressionistic transcription 831 Iranian 98, 1 34, 486, 499, 5 1
5- Java 445, 474
Inanna 34 535, 707, 728, 743 Javanese 249, 444, 446, 476, 478
Incas 585, 795 Iranians 536 Jawi 761
indexical signs 41 Iraq 61, 728, 745,791 Jazayery, Mohammed Ali 746,
India 2, 6, 20, 26, 107, 149, 170, Ireland 317, 340, 656 762
244, 261 373, 395,413, 43
, 1
Iri 228 Jefferson, Thomas 810
443,445,450,474,564,612, Irish 340, 655, 662 Jeffery, Lilian H. 261, 270, 271.

743, 763, 774, 778, 888 Iroha 212, 788 294

Indian culture 444 Iron Age 9489, Jemdet Nasr 36, 160
Indian Ocean 564 Isaac, Ephraim 883 Jenniges, Wolfgang
Indian subcontinent 371 Ishaq, Yusuf 509, 514 as contributor 281-287
Indie 26, 88, 190, 212, 371,458, Ishodad of Merv 503 Jensen, Hans 7, 14, 447, 449, 580,
465, 474, 486 Isidore of Seville 634, 695 586
Indo- Aryan 170, 371, 377, 486, Islam 100, 112, 149,244,371, Jenson, Nicolas 326
564,616,743 443,536,559,565,625,727, Jerusalem 743
Indo-European 10, 19, 21, 25, 29, 773 Jespersen, Otto 843, 845
108, 120, 147,261,273,281, Israel 96, 487, 800 Jesuit 691

301,342,371,486,707,833 Isserlin, Benedikt S. J. 266, 270 Jewish "languages" 727

Indo-Iranian 371, 486 Istrin, Viktor Aleksandrovich 8, Jewish scripts 89, 487-498
Indonesia 443, 445, 474, 743 '5,355 Jewish tradition 790
Indus script 140, 165-171,372, i.t.a. see Initial Teaching Alpha- Jews 1
1

801 bet Jidyo 728

Indus Valley 165 Italian 635, 636, 639, 686, 825 Jin dynasty 235
Inenlikej, P. I. 720, 726 Italian Round Hand 324 Jin Guanpfng 237
Ingush 710, 782 Italic 263, 333 Jin Qjzong 235, 237, 238
inherent vowel 376, 387, 392, italic type 630 Jin Qizong 237
399, 452 Italkian 728 Jnanavajra 545
Initial Teaching Alphabet 628 Italo-Romance 633 Johanson, Lars 781
initial vowels 374, 384, 391, 396, Italy 259, 263, 272, 297-3 1 1 , 3 4-1
John, gospel of 292, 779
400, 405, 408, 4 4, 426, 452,
1 320, 634, 655, 728, 791 ,
855 Johnson, David J. 791, 794
453, 469, 478 Itwu 218 Johnson, Janet H. 75, 87, 287, 295
Inner Asia 2, 26, 96, 165, 189, Iverson, Erik 73, 81, 87 Johnson, S. E. 31

228-238,372,375,431- Johnston, A. W. 294

441, 485, 536-558, 728, 804 Johnston, Edward 325, 332
inscriptions 140 Johnstone, William 270
Insular scripts 317
Jackson, Kenneth H. 340, 345, Jones, Daniel 355, 827, 840, 845,
International Phonetic Alphabet
696 846
5,384,625,628,821,864 Jacob, Judith M. 470, 473
Jones, Morgan D. 697
International Phonetic Associa-
Jacob of Edessa 502 Jones, Richard N. 791. 794
tion 821
Jacobite Christians 500 Jones, Sir William 6, 833. 845
interpretation 142, 180 Jordan 96.499, 791
Jagic, V. 354. 355
intonation 828
Jainism 244, 374, 773 Joshi, Dayashankar 394
Inuit 599, 607, 782 Joshi, Jagat Pati 171
James Bay 601
 ndex 905

joyo-kanji 210 Kanarese see Kannada Kazazis, Kostas

jubako-yomi 209 Kanauji 774 as contributor 641-642
Jiicar 108 kanbun 210 Keightley, David N. 14, 199
Judah 800 Kane, Daniel 234, 238 Keller, Rudolf E. 696
Judaism 100, 487, 625 Kaneshiro, Shigeru 584. 586 Kellogg, S. H. 390
Judaism, Orthodox 737 Kang Sin-hang 226, 227 Kelly, John 81
1, 820, 845

Judea 489 Kangxi 197 Kemp, Alan 831, 838, 845

J.

Judeo-Arabic 727, 728-734 kanji 189, 200, 209, 249, 892 Kendon. Adam 862, 878
Judeo-Berber 728 Kanjur 547 Kenesei, Istvan 663
Judeo-Catalan 728 Kankan 593 Kennedy, Alan 12, 17

Judeo-Crimchak 728 Kannada 373, 379, 413-419, 774 Kent, Roland G. 137
Judeo-French 728 Kante, Soulemayne 593 Ker, Neil R. 331
Judeo-Georgian 728 Kanuri 744 Kerkha River 160
Judeo-Greek 728 Kara, Gyorgy 558 Kerr, Allen D. 457, 466
Judeo-Italian 728 as contributor 230-238, Kesavan, B. S. 774, 776

Judeo-Neo-Aramaic 728 439-440, 536-558 Key, Mary Ritchie 855, 878

Judeo-Persian 728 Karachay-Balkar 707, 782 key signature 848
Judeo-Portuguese 728 Karadzic, Vuk 700 Khakas 710, 782
Judeo-Provencal 728 Karaite 743 Khalkha 545, 556
Judeo-Spanish 727, 728, 734 Karaites 728 Khan, Geoffrey 493, 498
Judeo-Tajik 728 Karakalpak 707, 782 Khan, Saeed A. 752, 762
Judeo-Tat 728 Karakorum, Mongolia 151 Khandagiri 404
Judezmo 728 Karatepe 124 Khanh-hoa 445
Judson, Adoniram 450, 456 Karen 444, 450 Khania 129
Jugurtha, king of Numidia 113 Karjalainen, Merja 698 Khanty 782
Jukujikun 210 Karlgren, Bernhard 199 Kharabela, king of India 404
Junast 441 Karlgren, Hans 811,818, 820 Kharoshthi 144, 165, 372, 373-
Jungaria 548 Karnataka 413 383
Jurchen see Jurchin Karshuni see Garshuni Khasi 372
Jurchi see Jurchin Kartli 367 Khatibi, Abdelkebir 244. 251
Jurchin 189, 235-237 Karunatilaka, W. S. 408, 412 Khitan see Kitan
Justeson, John S. 8, 1 1, 15, 1 6, Kasberg, Robert H., 474 Jr. Khmer 373, 444, 446. 458. 467-
172, 181 Kaseng, Syahruddin 484 473- 476
Kashmir 379 Khmu 619
Kashmiri 372, 743, 752 Khotan 515
K Kasidsid, Usud 474 Khotanese 486

Kabardian 707, 710, 718, 723, Kasser, Rodolphe 288, 295 Khwarezmian 486, 515
Kassite 58 Kibrik, Andrej 781
782
Kabyle 112 katakana 209 Kievan Rus 350
Kate 778 kigo 209
Kacchi 391
Kadamba 413 Katz, Dovid 742 Kilamuwa 100
Kahn, David 142, 158, 632 Katz, Leonard 772 killing stroke 452
Kaithi 774 Kaufman, Stephen A. 94, 1 17, Kilpatrick, Jack Frederick 592

Kajima Tadao 217 268, 270 Kim Jin-p'yong 220. 227

Kalakh 40 Kaufman, Terrence 174 Kim-Renaud. Young-Key 227

Kaufmann, Walter 854 kinesiology 866
Kalimantan 445, 446
Kalinga 404 Kavanagh, James F. 12, 17 Kinetography Laban 864

Kalinka, Ernst 284, 295 Kawi 476 King. Christopher Rolland 773.

Kalmyk 707, 782 Kawil 178 775, 776

Kalmyks 536, 548 Kaye, Alan S. King, Gareth 697

kambun 218 as contributor 743-762 King. Leonard W. 61. 72

Kaminaljuyu 174 Kazakh 707, 713, 782 King. Ross 225. 227

Kamogawa Tsubama Kazakhstan 784 as contributor 218-227. 252

216. 217
kana 189. 218. 249. 788, 892 Kazan Tatar 712, 782 Kintgen. Eugene R. 13. 17
 1 , 1 1

906 index

Kirchhoff, Adolf 26 1 , 270, 27 1 Kronstadt 636 Lambert, Hester M. 390, 391,

282, 294 Krupa, Viktor 184, 187 394, 403
Kirghiz 537, 707, 715,782 Kubla Khan see Qubilai Lambert, Maurice 797
Kitan 189, 230-235 Kuchler, Friedrich 57, 71 Lambertz, Max 697
Kittel, Ferdinand 419 Kudrjavtsev, Borja 183, 187 Lambrior, Alexandru 636
Kiuru, Silva 698 Kudux 615 Lampui] 448
Kiyose, Gisaburo N. 235 Kufic 244 Lamut 782
Klar, Kathryn 660 Kuipers, Aert H. 725 Landa, Diego de, bishop 154, 175
Klein, Jeffrey J. 120, 124 Kuipers, Joel C. Landsberger, Benno 47, 71
Kleivan, Inge 609, 61 as contributor 474-484 Lane, Anthony 891
Klemm, Bernard 861, 879 Kumaon-Garhwal 774 Langdon, Stephen 161, 164
Klingon 583 Kumaoni 774 Langley, James C. 180, 181
Klugkist, A. C. 499, 512, 513, 514 Kumyk 707, 782 language learning 142
Knauf, Ernst Axel 266, 270 kun-readings 209, 252 language planning 13
Knight, Stan 314, 330, 331 kunreishiki 21 Lanston, Tolbert 889
as contributor 312-332 Kuranko 593 Lao (language) 373, 447, 457-
Knorosov, Yuri see Knorozov, Kurdian, H. 356, 362 466
Yuriy Kurdish 728, 743, 749, 782 Laos (nation) 443, 457, 619
Knorozov, Yuriy V. 144, 154, Kurds 61 l'Aquila 306
158, 175, 181, 183, 187 Kurman, George 698 Large Seal 196
Knossos 125, 129, 800 Kurrent 324, 765 Laroche, Emmanuel 124
Kober, Alice E. 144, 153, 158 Kutai 445 Lassen, Christian 144, 146, 158
Kochavi, Moshe 789, 794 Kwanten, Luc 237 lateral 826
Kocjubyns'kyj, M. 706 Kwukyel 218 Latin 5, 37, 66, 82, 1 10, 113, 140,

Koelle, S. K. 593 Kychanov, E. I. 237 281,290,301,312,333,340,

Kohrt, Manfred 14 as contributor 228-230 520,625,633,651,675,728.
Koine, Greek 271, 728 Kyrgyzstan 784 777> 788, 885
Koine, Modern Aramaic 504-510 Latin alphabet 108, 259, 297, 655,
K'olanjyan, Suren 362 765
Komi 700, 707, 709, 722, 782 Latvia 784
Konig, Ekkehard 696 La Mojarra 173 Latvian 663, 672, 782
Konig, Friedrich W. 65, 72 La Venta, Mexico 172 Latvian National Theater 859
Konkani 372 Laban, Rudolph (von) 864, 866, Laver, John 5, 14, 829, 842, 845
Kono Rokuro 219, 227 Le Brun, Alain 160, 164
879
Kontsevich, L. R. 227 Labanotation 864 Leander, Pontus 153. 155
Koolhof, Sirtyo 474 Labat, Rene 71 Lebanon 91, 96
Kopp, Ulrich Friedrich 6, 14, 809, labial-palatal 825
Ledyard, Gari K. 2 1
9, 227, 439,
820 labial-velar 825 441
Korea 2, 26, 209, 218, 245, 881 Labib, Pahor 290, 295 Lee Don-Ju 227
Korean 4, 189, 218-227, 252, labiodental 825 Lee, Georgia 184, 187
439. 579, 838 Labrador 608 Lee Hwan-Mook 227
Koriun 356, 362
Lac Seul, Ontario 606 Lee Ki-moon 220, 227
Koskenniemi, Kimmo 169, 171 Laconia 271 LeGuin, Ursula K. 583. 586
Kosovo 675 Ladefoged, Peter 14 Lehikoinen, Laila 698
Kpelle 593 Lehiste, Use 770, 772
Ladino 728, 734
Krause, Martin 290, 295 Ladusaw, William A. 836, 846 Lehman, Charles L. 332
Krebernik, Manfred 35, 70 Lafon, Rene 1 18
Lehmann, Thomas 430
Krings, Veronique 269
Lagash 39 Leibniz, Gottfried Wilhelm 81
Krippes, Karl A. 238
Lai,T. C. 251 Lejeune, Michel no, 119. 295.
Krishna Rao, M. V. N. 171
Lak 707, 782 305,3H
Krishnamurti, Bh. 413, 419
Lakarra, Joseba 663 Lemaire, Andre 266, 270
Krispijn, Th. J. H. 35, 70 Lalor, Bernard A. 883
Lemnos 282, 299
Krocber, Alfred 583 Lam Lay-yong 806 lenition (Celtic) 657
Kroll, Barry M. 13, 17 Lentsa 247
 INDEX 9Q7

Lepcha 436, 486, 579 loanwords 393, 395, 402, 410, M

Lepontic 303, 655 417,433,453,471,701,744,
Lepschy, Giulio C.
Ma Xueliang 242, 243
5. 14 757, 759
Mabbett, Ian W. 447, 449
Lepsius, (Carl) Richard 144, 149, Locri 262
Lodwick, Francis 838
Mac Eoin 345
Neill,
152, 158,689,698,835,845
Macalister, Robert A. S. 340, 345
Leslau, Wolf 576 Loebe, Julius 291, 296
MacAulay, Donald 696
Leslie, Louis A. 811, 820 Logan, Robert K. 13, 17
Macavariani, Elene 367, 369
Levantine order 788 logoconsonantary 24
Macedonia 346
Levin, Harry 12, 16 logograms 9, 45, 59, 61, 65, 74,
Macedonian 677, 700, 704
Levin, Jules 663 122, 191, 229, 230
Macerata 306
Lewis. G. L. 698 logographic scripts 162, 174, 191,
Machevichius. Jolanta 663
Lewis, M. B. 759. 762 200, 239
machinographies 631
Lezgian 707, 782 logographic shorthand 815
MacKenzie, David Neil 520, 526,
Lhasa 432 logography 4, 23, 24, 26, 58, 92,

Li, Fang Kuei 458, 466 122, 142, 172

535, 749- 762
Maclean, Arthur John 505, 514
Li Shengt'u 240, 243 logosyllabary 4, 24, 43, 142, 166,
MacMahon, Michael K. C. 632,
LI ST 1 95 239, 378, 585
Yuan-hao 228 Lolo see Yi
809,811,820,833,846
LI
as contributor 654-655.
Liao 230 Loma 593
821-846
Liberia 593 Lombardy 303
Macri, Martha J. 173, 178, 181,
library catalogs 892 London 652
185, 187
Library of Congress 746 Loomis, Madeleine Seymour
as contributor 172-182,
Libya 1 12 816,820
183-188
Libyan 1 12 Loretz, Oswald 116, 117
Macuch. Rudolf 511,513.514
Lieberman, Stephen J. 23, 32, 71 Losty, Jeremiah P. 251
Madagascar 744
ligature (music) 850 Lotfi, Mansour 725
Madatova-Poljanec, S. M. 675.
ligatures 81,85, 1 15, 291, 334, Lotsch, Ronald 663
697
357, 364, 376, 540, 559* 765< Louis XIV, king of France 857
Madhya Pradesh 774
885 Lounsbury, Floyd 144, 154, 158,
Magahi 774
Ligeti, Louis 440, 441 , 558 181, 182
Maggiore, Lake 303
Liguria 303 love songs 482
Maghreb 743
Ligurian 303 Low German 647
Magna Graecia 262
Lihyanite 98 Lowe, E. A. 314, 316, 330, 331
Mahadevan, Iravatham 170. 171.
Lima, Susan D. 12, 16, 794 Lower Sorbian 667
373. 383
Lindisfarne Gospels 318 Lu Zhuangzhang 204
Mahal 564
Linear A 2 1 , 25. 29, 1 25, 800 Lucania 306
Mahapatra, B. P. 614, 618
Linear B 7, 10, 20, 25, 29, 125, Lucas. Virginia H. 331
as contributor 404-407
140, 141, 153, 800 Luddeckens, Erich 87
Mahapatra. Khageshwar 6 1 2 .
(-> 1

linear notations 841 Lugano, Lake 303, 655

Mahapatra. Ranganayaki 614.
linear signs 12 Lukatela, Georgije 770, 772
618
linearization 424 Luke, Allan 13, 16
Maharashtra 165, 389
lingua francas 139 Lundin, A. G. 790, 794
Mahayana 446
linguistics 1 Lushai 372
Mahl 564
Linotype 889 Luther, Martin 766
Mainz 326
Lisu 239, 581,778 Lutheranism 766, 778
Maiorescu. Titu 636
literacy 12, 28. 55, 259, 477. 627. Luvian 7, 20, 25, 66, 120, 144,
Mair, Victor H. 24. }2. 200. 208
764 152,281
as contributor 200-208. 252
literature 577 Luwian see Luvian
Maithili 775
Lithuanian 663, 671, 675, 782 Luxeuil Minuscule 316
Makasarese 474
Liu Fengzhu 231. 238 Lycian 281, 282
Maktar 131
Liu Yongquan 208 Lydian 281. 284
Malagasy 743. 744
Livy 315 Lytkin, V. I. 700, 723, 726
Malay 249. 445. 446. 477- 479-
Llewellyn, Dorian 660
743. 759
 1 1

908 index

Malayalam 379, 420-425, 426, Mari 47, 710, 782 McLane, Joan Brooks 12, 17
743, 775, 824, 826 Marie de Bourgogne 856 McLuhan, Marshall 13, 17
Malayo-Polynesian see Austrone- Marinelli, Anna 31 McManus, Damian 340, 345
sian Mark, Gospel of 594 as contributor 340-345,
Malaysia 443, 743 Marmari 184 655-660
Maldives 564 Marogulov, Q. I. 514 McNamee, Gillian Dowley 12, 17

Mali 112, 593 Marquart, Josef 362 measures 848

Malimasa 239 Marsala (Italy) 791 mechanization of writing 884
Maling 481 Marshack, Alexander 795, 806 Mecquenem, Roland de 161, 164
Malinke 593 Marsiliana d'Albegna 297 Mediterranean region 2, 20, 94,
Mallon, Jean 330 Martin, Henri-Jean 13, 16, 17 489
Mallon, S.T. 611 Martin, J. R. 11, 15 Mediterranean Sea 88
Malta 93, 686 Martin, Malachi 30, 32 Megara 262
Maltese 559, 686, 743 Martin,Samuel E. 219, 227 Meghani, Mahendra 394
Maluquer de Motes, Juan 1
19 Marwari 774 Meid, Wolfgang 697
mama script 183 Maryinsky Theater 858 Meiji Period 213
Man, Isle of 340 Masica, Colin P. 384, 390 Meillet, Antoine 357, 362
Manchu 204, 225, 486, 536 as contributor 71?>-ll€> Meinhof, Carl 690
Manchu alphabet 550 masiqta 513 Mekhong River 459
Manchu Empire 261, 536 Mason, William 810 Melchert, H. Craig
Manchuria 230, 536 Mason, William A. 6, 14 as contributor 120-124
Mandaic 89,485,499, 51 1-5 13 Massilian 1 12 Melos 262, 272
Mandailing 477 Massinissa, king of Numidia 1
13 memorization 788
Mandarin 202, 209, 545 Masson, Emilia 22, 32 Memphis (Egypt) 74, 287
Mandean 98 Masson, Olivier 130, 133, 295 Mencken, H. L. 654, 696
Mandeans 499 Mathews, K. A. 491, 498 Mende 593
Mandekan 593 Mathews, Peter 175, 178, 182 Mendenhall, George E. 30, 32
Mandell, Sara 3 Matisoff, James 579 Menninger, Karl 795, 805, 806
Manding 593 matres lectionis 94, 265, 489, 512 Meredith-Owens, G. M. 447, 449
Mandingo 593 Matsumura, Kazuto 663 Mergenthaler, Ottmar 889
Mandinka 593 Matthews, Peter Hugoe 11, 16 Meriggi, Piero 124, 144, 158, 160,
Mangareva 183 Mattingly, Ignatius G. 12, 17 164
Mani 530 Mauryan dynasty 373 Meroe 84
Manichean script 499, 515, 530, Mavor, William 811 Meroites 84
536, 542 Maw, Joan 745, 762 Meroitic 82, 84-86, 144, 152
Maniku, Hassan Ahmed 568 Mawkhanuli, Tanlant 700 Merovingian dynasty 809
Manila 474 Maya 2,9, 140, 141, 154, 1
72— Merovingian period 316
Maninka 593 182,579,796 Merriam-Webster 10
Manino, Luciano 302, 310 Maya writing 174 Mesha, king of Moab 95
Manitoba 599 Mayo, Peter J. 700 Mesoamerica 2, 5, 172-182, 577
Mann, Michael 699 Mayurbhanj 614 Mesopotamia 5, 19, 24, 33-72,
manners of articulation 824 McCarter, P. Kyle, Jr. 92, 1 16, 90, 96, 142, 160, 165. 577.
Mansi 782 270 787, 798, 807, 884
Mansuelli, Guido 302, 310 McCarus, Ernest N. 749, 762 Mesrop Mastoc' 356, 367
Manutius, Aldus 326 McCawley, James D. 854 Messapic 306
Manx 655 as contributor 847-854 messianic movements 619
man'ydgana 212, 218 McCone, Kim 697 Messina 306
Marathi 384, 612, 774 McCune,G. M. 219, 227 Methodius, St. 346
Mara/./i, Massimiliano 120, 124 McCune-Reischauer romaniza- Mexico 174, 779
Marchand, James W. 296 tion 219 mezzo-piano 85
Marco Polo 888 McDcrmott, Ray Miao 580, 778
Marcus, Joyce 172, 174, 180, 181 as contributor 474-484 Miao-Yao see Hmong-Mien
Marcus, Simon 742 McGuinness-Scott, Julia 864, 879
Margaret of Austria 856 McKitterick, Rosamond 13, 17

«..
 index 909

Michalowski, Piotr 3, [3, 17, 23, Modi 774 Moscow 353

32, 70 Mogente 108 Moser, Christopher L. 180, 182
as contributor 33-36 Mohanan, K. P. 424, 425 Moses 577
Michelangelo 324 as contributor 420-425 Moses Khorenats'i 362
Michelena, Luis 19 1 Mohawk 779 Moskovljevic, Jasmina 772
Micipsa, king of Numidia 1
13 Moksha 782 Mosse, Fernand 296
Micronesia 584 Moldavian see Moldovan Mountford, John 632
Middle Ages 804 Moldova 636, 783 as contributor 627-632
Middle Earth 582 Moldovan 707, 708, 782 movement notation 855
Middle East 485-576. 728 Molen, Willem van der 483, 484 Mozia 93
Middle Egyptian 74 Moll, T. A. 720, 726 Mug. Mount 517
Middle English 651 Moller, Garth I. 500, 513 Mughal Empire 244. 743
Middle Kingdom 74 Moltke, Erik 333, 339 Muhammad, Prophet of Islam 485
Middle Korean 222 Mon 444, 446, 450 Muhaqqaq 244
Middle Persian 515 Monastir 675 Mukoda Kuniko 216, 217
Milesian numerals 278, 291 Mongol Empire 431 Mul 249
Miletus 263 Mongolia 151, 261, 536 Mulavarman 445
military "phonetic" alphabet 791 Mongolian 225, 433, 486, 536, Muller, Friedrich W. K. 363, 535,
Millard, Alan R. 103, 1 16, 270, 700, 781 542, 558
498,790,79L793,794 Mongolic 486, 707 Muller. W. W. 98, 117
Roy Andrew 214, 217,441
Miller, Mon-Khmer 612, 619 Muller-Kessler, Christa 513
Millet, N. B. Monophysite Christians 500 multilingualism 139.763
as contributor 84-86 monotonic system 273 multiplicative numeral system
Mills, A. J. 86, 87 Monotype 889 796
Milne, H. J. M. 808, 820 Monotype Corporation 328 Munda languages 371, 404, 579,
Milyan 282 Monte Alban 174 612-618
mimeograph machine 888 Montenegro 769 Mundari 616
Mindoro48i Montgomery, John 797 Munthe, Ludwig 744, 762
Minean 98, 569 Montreal 763 Murdoch, John Stewart 61
Ming dynasty 204, 235 Mookerjee, Ajit 251 Murmu. Pandit Raghunath 614
Mingrelian 367 Moorhouse, Alfred C. 6, 14 Murray, David 13, 17

Minicoy 564 Moplati 743 Murray, James A. H. 833

Minoan 28, 125, 261 Morag, Shelomo 502, 5 1
Murray, Stephen O. 11. 16

minuscule script 272, 357, 765 Morandi, Alessandro 298, 310, Mursili II. king of Nesia 70
Mishnah 492 31 1 music 847-854
missionaries 26, 203, 413, 579, Moravia 346, 347 Muslims 1 1 2. 244, 395. 744
599,625,689,691,777- Mordvin 782 mutation (Celtic) 656, 660
780, 835 Morice, Adrien Gabriel 610, 61 Myanmar see Burma
missionaries, Christian 183, 259, Morison, Stanley 330, 332 Mycenae 129
317,612, 623 Morocco 1 1 Mycenean 261, 267
missionaries, Moravian 584 morphemes 3, 4 Mycenean scripts 29, 125
Mistry, P. J. 393, 394 morphographic writing 562 Mysian 281. 287
as contributor 391-394 morphology 3
Mitanni 61 morphophonemic transcription 9

Mitannic 281 morphophonemic writing 737,

N
Mitchell, Terence F. 568 770 Nabatcan 29, So. 97, 144. 559
Mitchiner, John E. 171 morphophonemics 223 Nabateans 499
mixed systems 74 morphosyllabic script 200 Nadeliaev, V. M. 558
Mixteca Baja, Mexico 180 Morpurgo Davies, Anna 124, 144, Nag Hammadi 290
Mixtecs 172, 180 157 Nagaraju. S. 446. 441)
mnemonic devices 787, 790 Morris, Edmund 891 Nagari 384- 446. 774
Moabite 95, 96 Morris-Jones, John 697 Nairn. C. Mohammed 744. 746.
Moberg, Axel 504. 513 Morse, Samuel F. B. 791, 887
752, 762
Modern Greek 271 Morton, Herbert C. 10. 16 Nakamura Kumiko 212. 217
 1 1 1

910 INDEX

Nakanishi, Akira 7, 15, 568 New Kingdom 74 North Semitic 261

Nakata, Yujiro 251 New Roman Cursive 315 Norway 335, 648, 766
Nakhi 239 New Testament 591 Norway House 599
Nakota 870 Newari 775 Norwegian 642, 648
names 4, 35, 85, 229 Newman, James R. 805, 806 notational systems 847
Nanay 782 Newmark, Leonard 663, 698 notes 807
Nanna 53 Newton, Brian 271, 294 Notescript 815
Naples 292 Newton, Isaac 81 Novara 303
Napoleon 148 Ngag dbang bstan dar 432, 441 Noverre, Jean George 858
Naqs-e Rostam 522 Nguyen Dlnh-Hoa 699 Novilara 306
narrow transcription 831 as contributor 691-695 Nowotny, Fausta 383
nasal 826 Ni Haishu 207 Nubia 152
nasalization 389, 393 Niccoli, Niccolo 323 Nubian 84
nasalization (Celtic) 657 Nicholas, Ilene 164 nuclear writing 43
Naseer, Ibraheem, president of Nichols, John D. 61 Nuine 180
Maldives 565 as contributor 599-61 numerals 23, 100, 127, 162, 168,
Nash, Ray 332 Nicobar Islands 612 174,229,278,364,386,392,
Naskapi 601 Niculescu, Alexandru 635, 695 4I7,424,455,465,472,479»
Naskh 244 Nida, Eugene A. 6, 15, 582, 586, 560,562,574,621,795
nasta'llq 775 779, 780 numerical notation 795-806
Native American 1 1 Niebuhr, Carsten 145, 158 Numidia 112
NATO alphabet 791 Nien Chang 437 Nurhachi 550
Natsilingmiut 607 Niger (nation) 1 12 Nuzi 22
natural 848 Niger River 1 12 Nyberg, Henrik S. 526, 535
Naveh, Joseph 92, 1 17, 261, 270, Niger-Congo languages 593 Nyei, Mohamed B. 597, 598
489,498,511,514,791,794 Nigeria 593, 690 Nylander, Carl 134, 137
Naxi 239 Nile Valley 19,84 nynorsk 650
Naxos 263 Niliunas, G. 675
Nazism 766 Nilo-Saharan 569
Ndjuka 584 Nimrud (Iraq) 40, 791
o
Neacsu di Cimpulung 635 Nims, Charles F. 81,87 6 Baoill, Donall 697
Near East 2, 7, 19-137, 165, 190, Nineveh 47 6 Cufv, Brian 697
371,485-535.559-564, Ningewance, Patricia 606 6 Murchii, Mairtin 697
791. 795»798 Nisa 517 Oates, Joan 586
Neck 584 Nishida, Tatsuo 237, 243 Oaxaca, Mexico 172
Needham, Joseph 805, 806, 892 Nissen, Hans J. 70, 164 Ober, J. Hamilton 6, 15
Nehemiah 292 Njoya, king of the Bamum 583 Oceania 583
Nemeth, 759, 762 N'ko 593 Oc-eo 445
Nemet-Nejat, Karen Rhea 806 Noel, Ruth S. 583, 586 O'Connor, M. 3, 106, 1 17, 787,
Nenets 716, 782 Nogay 710, 782
794
neosyllabary 4 Noldeke, Theodor 514 as contributor 88-107, 1 1
2-
Nepal 775 Nolle, Johannes 295
116,787-794
Nepali 384 Nomura Masaaki 210, 217 Odisho, Edward Y. 505, 514
Ncrsoyan, Hagop 363 nonverbal communication 861 O'Ferrall, Ronald, bishop of
Nesite 281 Noonan, Michael 12, 16,794 Madagascar 744
Nestorian 803 Noorduyn, Jacobus 474, 484 Ogawa Yoshio 212, 217
Nestorian Christianity 536 Norman French 651 Ogg, Oscar 6, 15
Nestorian Christians 500 Norman, Jerry 192, 199, 208 Ogham 259, 340-345, 656
Nestorian script 515, 533 Norman, K. R. 170, 171 Ohrid 349
Neu, Erich 66, 72 Norman, William M. 172, 181 Oirat 486, 782
Neugebauer, Otto 800, 805, 806 Norris, Edwin 158 Oirats 536, 548
Neumann, Giinter 124, 144, 157, North Africa 100, 112, 141,728 Ojha, GaurTsamkara HTracamda
284, 295 North America 335, 583, 833, 836
383
New Guinea 778 North Korea 219 Ojibwe 599
 INDEX 911

O'Keefe, David H. 818,820 Ottoman Empire 743 Parpola, Asko 165, 171
Okell. John 450, 456 Ottoman Turkish 743, 756 as contributor 1 65-1 71
Oktorguin Dalai 548 Ou Zhaogui 439, 441 Parpola, Simo 801, 806
okurigana 212 Oxford English Dictionary 833 Pars 5 1
OlCemet' 612,614 Oxyrhynchus 808 Parthian 98. 486, 515, 531
OlCiki 614 Parthian Empire 485
Olbia (Somalia) 580 Pashto 743, 749
Old Church Slavonic 353, 700 Passover 115
Old Coptic 288 Padua 303 Passy, Paul 831, 840, 846
Old English 337, 642, 651, 831 Pagan 450 Patrich, Joseph 793, 794
Old High German 642 Page,Raymond I. 339 Pattison, Robert 13. 17
Old Icelandic 831 Pahawh Hmong 619-624 Paul, St., epistles 292
Old Kannada 413 Pahlavi 356, 524, 584 Payne, John R. 700
Old Kingdom 74 Paikuli 517 Pazand 528
Old Persian 60, 134-137, 486, Pakal, ruler of Palenque 178 pedographies 628
52 1,579 Pakistan 100, 375, 395, 516, 751, Peeters, Paul 363
Old Roman Cursive 314
776
Peirce, C. S. 41
Old Saxon 642 Palaeotype 835 Pekingese 203
Old Testament 28 Palaic66, 281 Peloponnesus 262
Old Turkish 5 1 Palaima, Thomas G. 130, 133
Pelras, Christian 484
Olivier, Jean-Pierre 129, 132, 133
palatal 826 Pentateuch 731
Olmec 172 palatalization 701 Penzl, Herbert 751, 762
Olson, David R. 13, 17, 28, 32, Palawan 481 Pepys, Samuel 631, 810
629, 632, 892 Palenque 175 Pergamon 285
Omar Khayyam 749 paleographic texts 90 Permic 700, 707
Omori Sogen 249, 251 paleography 40, 499 Perry, John 781, 784
Ong, Walter J., S.J. 13, 17
Paleo-Hebrew 95 Persepolis 145, 516
onomatopoeia 701 Paleo-Hispanic 108 Persia 107. 160,443,743
on-readings 209, 252 Palestine 19, 22, 91, 367, 487, Persian 81, 107, 134, 149,395-
Onu, Liviu 636, 695 517,531,682.727.743.746.
489, 728
Oppenheim, A. Leo 22, 32, 795, Palestinian Masoretes 492 826
806 Persian Empire 20, 64, 96, 485,
Pali 371, 408, 444, 446, 468
Oppert, Julius [Jules] 155 palimpsests 346 486
oracle bones 802 Pallava 446, 474 Persians 489
oracular consultations 577 Pallottino, Massimo 310 Perso 389
Orasul Stalin 636 Palmer, Austin 324 Perso-Arabic 565, 773
Orissa 404, 613, 775 Palmyra 98 Peru 585
Oriya 373, 379, 404-407, 612 Peruzzi, Emilio 299, 310
Palmyrans 499
Orkhon River 151, 536 Palmyrene Pesaro 306
89, 97, 144, 145
Orkhon script 144, 536 Pamphylian 281, 282 Peshawar 751
Oman, Uzzi 728, 742 Pandit, Prabodh B. 393, 394
Peter the Great, czar of Russia
Oromo 580 Panini 372 350
Ortak Turk Alfabesi 784 Petipa. Marius 861
Papal Chancery 323
orthograms 8 Petra (Jordan) 499. 791
Paper, Herbert H. 59, 72, 134,
orthographies 627 Pettersson. John Soren
137,746,762
Oscan 263, 301, 306 papyri 272, 287 as contributor 795-806
Osing, Jiirgen 87 paradigmatic relations 10 Pfeiffer. Rudolf 294
Osley, Arthur S. 331, 332 Paradis, Michel 209, 217
Pfiffig. Ambros 3 o 1

Osmanli see Ottoman parametric notations 841 'Phags pa 26. 225. 437-440. 545
Osmanya 580, 744 Pardee, Dennis 159
Thags pa Bio gros rgyal mtshan
Ossetic 782 Parikh, Pravinchandra 391, 394 437
Ostergotland 336 Phaistos Disk 29. 133
ParisOpera 859
Ostyak 782 Parkes, Malcolm B. 331
Pharaoh 6]
Otto, Eberhard 87 Parma 328 pharyngeal 82(^
 1

912 INDEX

Philippines 443, 447, 474 places of articulation 824 Proskouriakoff, Tatiana 144, 154,
Philistine 96 Plains Indian Sign Language 862, 158, 175, 182
philology 1 868 prosodic features 827
Philostorgius 290, 296 Plato 272, 577 Proto-Canaanite 92
Phocis 262 Playford, John 856, 879 proto-cuneiform 33, 161
Phoenician 5, 8, 24, 30, 88, 1 1 1, plene writing 25, 63, 65 Proto-Elamite 36, 140, 160-164,
1 13, 124, 141, 151,271,281, plosive 826 805
297,35M78.474.487.789. Pogoni, Bardhyl 698 Proto-Rabbinic orthography 491
801 pointed texts 505 Proto-Samaritan orthography 491
Phoenicians 259 Poldauf, Ivan 674, 697 Proto-Sinaitic 25, 29, 82, 90
phonemes 3, 12 Polish 349, 666, 673, 681 , 744, Provencal 634
phonemics 223, 824 825, 887 Psalms 517
phonetic complements 75, 122, politics 765 Psalter script 517

520 Poljanec, R. F. 675, 697 Psammetichus 285

phonetic notation 887 Pollard, Samuel 580, 778 pseudo-alphabet 4
phoneticism 42 Pollard script 579, 580, 599 pseudo-historical orthography
phonetics 5, 821 Pollux 302 521
phonograms 74, 184, 230 Polotsky, Hans Jakob 508, 514 psycholinguists 12
phonography 24, 122, 148, 172 polyphonic script 193 Ptolemaic Period 82
phonology 3 polyphony 58, 62, 193 Ptolemy 148
phonotypic shorthand 818 polyvalence 94 Puebla 180
phonotypy 4 Pompeii 306, 314 Puech, Emile 1 17, 790, 794
photocopier 890 Pope, Maurice 143, 158 Pulleyblank, Edwin G. 24, 32, 208
phototypesetting 889 Popol Vuh 172 Pullum, Geoffrey K. 836, 846
Phrygia 266 Poppe, Nicholas 439, 441, 558, punch marks 795
Phrygian 281, 282 725,726 punctuation 201, 214, 278, 299,
Phu-yen 445 Porten, Bezalel 495, 498 364,451,472,476,507,550,
Phyag 436 Portugal 108, 691 621
Pi Sheng 885 Portuguese 139, 634, 636, 640, Punic 89, 112, 141
pianissimo 851 691 Punjab 395, 775
piano 85 Poschenrieder, Thorwald 768 Punjabi 379, 395-398
Picene 306 positional analysis 152 Purnavarman 445
Pickering, John 833, 846 positionalnumeral system 796 Puscariu, Sextil 636
Pictish 340 postalveolar 826 Pylos 129
pictograms 3, 24, 41, 80, 168, 585 Postma, Antoon 48 1 , 484 Pyrgi 300
pictographic script 125, 192, 201, Potter, Beatrix 628 Pythagorean tuning 847
239 Powell, Barry B. 294
pictography 3, 24, 34 Praeneste 302
Piedmont 303 Prakrit 25, 371, 377, 404
Pigeaud, Theodor 484 prehistory 19 Qasr Ibrim 86
Pike, Kenneth L. 843, 846 Pre-Nagari 446 Qatabanian 98
Pilaret de Santa Quiteria 1 12 Prescissus scripts 321 Qin dynasty 195, 203
Pilling, James Constantine 610, prescriptivists 10 Qing dynasty 197
61 1 Pre slav 349 Qingge'rtai 231, 238
Pinnow, Hans-Jurgen 616, 618 Priese, Karl-Heinz 87 quadrants 75
pinyin 204, 252, 550, 892 Priestly, Tom M. S. 355, 663 Quadrata, Gothic 322
Pirenne, Jacqueline 499, 514 Prifti, Peter 698 Quaegebeur. Jan 295
Pisidian 281, 287 Prinsep, James A. 144, 151, 158 Quang-nam 445
pitch 276, 847 printing 325, 881-892 Qubilai 437, 545
pitch accent 222 Priolkar, Anand Kukba 776 Quebec 604, 763
Pithckoussai 297 Pritchard, James B. 107, 17 1
Quechua 825
Pitman, Isaac 628, 81 1, 831 proper names 143 Quiche 172
Pitman, James 632 Prosdocimi, Aldo L. 310, 31 1
quipus 10, 585, 795
piyyutim 492 prose 578 Qur'an 115.559.743.764
 INDEX 913

Revelations, Book of 804 Rong 436

Revell, E.J. 492,498 rongorongo 183-188
Rabbanites 728
Revised Organic Alphabet 838 Roop, D. Haigh 450, 456
Rach-gia 445
Reynolds, Leighton D. 294 Rose, Mike 13, 17
radicals 199, 432
Rhaetic 303 Rosen, Haiim B. 269, 270
Radloff,Wilhelm 539, 558
Rhind papyrus 799 Rosenthal, Franz 513
Radulescu, Ion Heliade 636
Rhodes 268 Rosetta Stone 82, 140, 148
Rajabov, Ramazan 700
Rhodes, Alexandre de 691, 699 Rosetti, Alexandru 636
Ramanujan, A. K. 429, 430
Rhys-Jones, T. J. 697 Ross, Ted 854
Ramesses 149
Ricci, Matteo 204 Rbssler, Otto 119
Ramkhamhaeng 458
Rich, Jeremiah 810 Rotunda, Gothic 322
Ramsey, S. Robert 208
Riesenberg, Saul H. 584, 586 Royal Ballet 859
Rand, E. K. 331
Rigveda 170, 527 Royal Geographical Society 689
Rao, S. R. 171
Riq'a 244 rubricated letters 326
Raphael 324
Ritner, Robert K. 81,87 Rudorf, Edwin H., Jr. 654, 696
Rashi script 489, 490, 730
as contributor 73 -87, 287- Rufa, Spurius Carvilius 301
Rashid (Egypt) 148
290 Riiger, Christoph B. 1
19
Rask, Rasmus 146
Rjabchikov, Sergej V. 184, 187 Ruijgh, C. J. 127, 133
Rastorgueva, V. S. 726
Roberts, Colin H. 294 Rumanian 635, 641. 782
Ratliff, Martha
Robin, Christian 794 Rumantsch 634
as contributor 619-624
Robins, Gay 799, 806 runes 151, 259, 291, 303, 333-
Ravila,Paavo 682, 698
Robins, Robert H. 365, 369 339< 342, 536, 582
Rawlinson, Henry Creswicke
Robson, Stuart 483 Runic 24, 652
144, 146, 155, 158
Rockwell, J. E. 820 runiform alphabet 536
Ray, John 144, 158, 165, 171,295
rod numerals 802 Rupert's Land 599
Rayhanl 244
Rodiger, Emil 144, 149, 158 Russell, Bertrand 628
Read, Gardner 847, 854
Rogers, Bruce 328 Russia 221. 260, 350, 782
reading 12
Rogers, R. W. 144, 159 Russian 9, 350, 555, 630, 700,
Reagan, Ronald 891
Roget, Peter Marc 809 782, 823
rebus writing 35, 42, 69, 168, 193,
Rok 336 Riister. Christel 66, 72
584,585,801
Rollig, Wolfgang 71, 106, 113, Rustic Capitals 314
Received Pronunciation 654
116, 119, 270 Ruthwell Cross 338
reduplication 759
romaji 209 Ryckmans, Jacques 98. 1 17, 789.
reform of script 781-784
Roman 769, 773, 781 790. 794
registers 120, 847 Roman alphabet 189, 213, 271,
Reichelt,Hans 529, 535
312-332,333,372,389.
Reid, Anthony 474, 483
408,474,479,505,563,565,
Reinecke, Adolf 766
580,594,612,625,633- Sa skya pa 437
Reiner, Erica 37, 45, 71, 72, 160,
699,700,743,769,773,778, Sa'adya Gaon 731
164
823,887 Sabar, Yona 514
Reischauer, Edwin O. 219, 227
Roman Cursive 314. 3 1 Sabean 98, 569
Rejang 474, 476
Roman Empire 314, 499 Sadafi, Yasin H. 251
Remington Corporation 888
Roman numerals 630. 803 Saenz-Badillos. Angel 489. 498
Renaissance 5. 13, 635, 856
roman type 630 Safadi, Yasin Hamid 568
Renner, Paul 328
Romance 633, 653, 707 Safaitic 98
repeat sign 852
Romanian see Rumanian Safavid dynasty 743
repetition 853
romanization 203 Sahara 12 1
repha 388
Romans 112, 491, 790 Sahel 593
reporting 807
Rome 13,113, 259, 3 1 4, 349. 69 1
Sahidic 287
reproducibility 884
804, 809 St. Amand 634
rests 850
Romic 831 St. John, John 632
retroflex 826
Romualdez, Norberto 48 1
St. Petersburg 183.858
retrograde writing 80, 312
Rona-Tas, Andras 432. 441. 558 Saint-Leon. Arthur 858. 879
Reunecke, Hans Otto 768
Ronde style 324 Sak River 445
Revel, Nicole 484
 7 1

914 INDEX

Sakha 782 Scandinavian 334, 642, 648, 651, Seeley, Christopher 210, 217
Salmon, Vivian 832, 846 681,823 Segal, Judah B. 501, 514
Salomon, Richard G. 377, 383 Scatton, Ernest C. 700 Seger, Joe D. 1
17
OS contributor 371-372, Schabert, Peter 698 Segert, Stanislav 1 17, 266, 270
373-383 Schanidse, Akaki see Shanidze, Segura 108
Salvini, Mirjo 160, 164 Akaki Seijong see Seycong
Samaria 93 Scharlipp, Wolfgang Ekkehard Seleucid Empire 485, 516
Samaritan 89 441 Seleucid period 37
Samaritan 490 script Scheil, Vincent 161, 164 semantic association 41
Samaritans 485, 487 Scheie, Linda 175, 177, 178, 181, semantic classifiers 196
Samnitcs 306 182 semaphore 791
Sampson, Geoffrey 7, 15, 212, Schenkel, Wolfgang 24, 32, 73, semasiography 132, 148
217, 220, 227, 628, 629, 632 81,87 semisyllabary 4
Samu, Imre 698 Schiffman, Harold 413 Semitic 2, 6, 19, 37, 58, 74, 88-
San Lorenzo, Mexico 172 Schiller, Eric 107, 141, 165,261,378,474,
Sanders, Barry 13, 17 as contributor 467-473 485,491,516,539,569,688,
Sanjian, Avedis K. Schimmel, Annemarie 244, 251 736, 743, 799
OS contributor 356-363 Schleswig-Holstein 333 semograms 74
Sanmartin, J. 1 17 Schmandt-Besserat, Denise 22, Senegal 593
Sanskrit 37, 107, 151, 170, 229, 32,36,70, 163, 164,795, Senn, Alfred 697
372, 384, 402, 404, 408, 4 1 3, 806 Senner, Wayne M. 586
427,431,444,445,459,468, Schmidt, David L. 210, 217 as contributor 642-65
476,541,617 Schmidt, Moriz 144, 151, 159 separation of words 45, 53, 77, 85,
Sansom, George B. 2 4, 2
1 1
Schmitt, Alfred 579, 586 92, no, 113, 1 15, 121, 126,
Santal Parganas 614 Schmitt, Rudiger 134, 137, 517, 134, 166,201,214,230,282,
Santali 612 535 289, 29 1 299, 335, 364, 386,
,

Santoro, Ciro 31 1 Sehmitz, Philip C. 107, 117 451,472,487,489,501,537,

Sapalo, Bakri, shaykh 580 Schmitz, W. 809, 820 559,575,589,596,602,620,
Sapir, Edward 655, 696 Schmoll, Ulrich 119 730,734,737.816,831
Sapur I, king of Persia 522 Schoffer, Peter 326 Sephiha, Haim Vital 742
Sarada 379 Scholes, Christopher Latham 888 Sequoyah 587
Sarbaugh, James 587, 592 Schottner, Adolf 810, 820 Serabit el-Khadem 29, 90
SarDesai, D. R. 447, 449 Schroeder, Otto 64, 72 Serampore 774
Sardinia 100 Schuessler, Axel 208 Serbia 21, 347, 675, 769
Sardis 285 Schuh, Dieter 439, 441 Serbian 769
Sargon II, king of Assyria 40 Schultz, Fr. Ed. 147 Serbo-Croatian 352, 663, 670,
Sarkar, Kalyan K. 447, 449 Schurr, Diether 286, 295 674, 677, 700, 704, 706, 744.
Sass,Benjamin 90, 17, 261, 270 1 Schutz, Albert J. 777, 780 769-772
Sassanian Empire 485 Schwabacher 766 Sergeyev, Nikolai Grigorevich
Sassanian period 98, 517 Schwartzberg, Joseph E. 480, 483 859
Sassanian script 144 Scotland 340 Serto 500, 803
Sasse, Werner 218, 227 Scots 825 Sevoroskin, Vitalij 295
Satake, Hideo 212, 213, 217 Scott, William Henry 474, 484 Seycong, king of Korea 219. 439
Sato Kiyoji 217 Scottish Gaelic 655 sforzando 852
Satzinger, Helmut 87 scribes 19 Shackle, Christopher 775, 776
Saulcy, F. de 113 Scribner, Sylvia 13, 17, 596, 598 Shah, Sayid Ghulam Mustafa 171
Saussure, Ferdinand de 10, 16, scriptio continua 291, 299 Shahr-i Sokhta 160
67, 72 Scripture 578 Shakarganj, Farid 395
Sayce, Archibald H. 144, 152, seals 550 Shakespeare, William 810, 883
159,495,498 seals, cylinder 36, 884 Shan 444, 450
Scancarelli, Janine 592 seals, stamp 166, 884 Shang dynasty 191
as contributor 587-592 secondary forms 404 Shanghainese 203
Scandinavia 766 Secretary Hand 324 Shanidze, Akaki 364, 367, 369
Secretary script 322 Sharer, Robert J. 172, 182

J
 INDEX 915

sharp 847 Sinhala 379, 408-412, 564, 774 Sorang Sompeng 6 1

Shaw, George Bernard 628. 654 Sinhalese see Sinhala Sorbian 663
Shell Script 378 Sinicization 444 Soren, David 791, 794
Shelley. George 325 Siniform 189 sorts 885
Shelton. Thomas 810 Siniform scripts 228-238, 239 South Africa 647, 728
Shenxi 228 Sinitic 189, 202 South America 583, 795
Shetter, William Z. 696 sinograms 200 South Arabian 8, 88, 98, 112, 149,
Shevelov, George Y. 700 Sino-Korean 218 569. 790
Shi, Dingxu Sino-Tibetan 372 South Asia 2, 96, 165, 371-441,
as contributor 239-243 Sircar, Dinesh Chandra 383 564-568, 744, 773-776,
Shibe 550 Sital, Jit Singh 398 778. 801
Shimomiya, Tadao 686, 698 Siwa 112 South India 170, 373, 446. 474.
Shin Sang-Soon 227 Sjavik, Jan 642 775
Shong Lue Yang 619 Sjoberg, Andree F. 726 South Korea 219
Shor782 Skjaerv0, P. Oktor South Semitic order 790
Short, David 663 as contributor 515-535 Southeast Asia 2, 372, 373, 443-
shorthand 599, 628, 807-820 Skorik, P. Ja. 725 484, 581, 619. 744, 778, 804
Shuadit 728 Slaughter, M.M. 811,820 Southwest Asia 499
Shute, Charles 799, 806 Slavey 610 Soviet Union 221, 361. 509, 549,
Si Thep 445 Slavic 260, 635, 700, 738, 744, 625,700,735.743,781-784
Sicily 301 769,781 Sozomenus 290, 296
Sicyon 262 Slavic alphabets 346-355 Spain 100, 108, 244, 317, 634,
siddham 244. 446 Sledd, James 10, 16 684, 728, 743, 855
siddhamatrka 379, 446 Slim, Hedi 791, 794 Spanish 11. 139. 474, 635, 636.
Side 282 Slimbach, Robert 328 639, 744, 777. 826
Sidehabi, Barsi 474 Sloan-Duploye shorthand 814 Speedwriting 815
Sidetic 281, 282 Slovak 663, 669 Speiser, Ephraim Avigdor 28, 32
Sidon 93 Slovene 663, 670 spelling630
Sierra Leone 593 slur 850 Spencer, Harold 419
sign language 10, 793 Small Seal 196 Spencer, John 699
Sign Writing 862 Smalley, William A. 619, 623, Spencer, P. R. 324
signifieds 12 624, 699, 778, 779. 780 Spencerian hand 324
signifiers 12 Smith, George 144, 151, 159 Split 770

signs 12 Smith, Janet S. (Shibamoto) 210, Sprechstimme 853

sign-value notation 796 217 Sprengling, Martin 522. 535
Sijelmassi, Mohammed 251 as contributor 209-217, 252 Square Capitals. Roman 315
Sikhism 395, 773 Smith. Mary Elizabeth 180, 182 Sreekantheswaram Padmanabha
Siles, Jaime 191 Smith, Sir Thomas 831 Pillai. G. 425

SilkRoute 376 Smyth, Herbert Weir 278. 294 Sri Lanka 408. 446. 564
Siloam 95 Snell, Rupert 775,
776 Sridhar. S. N. 413
Silvestre de Sacy, Antoine Isaac Sobelman, Harvey 30, 32 Srong btsan sgam po 431
144, 146, 159 society 763 staccato 852
simplified script 422 sociolinguistics 763-784 staff 847
Simpson, David 13, 17 sociology of language 763 Standard Alphabet 689, 835
Sims-Williams, Nicholas 530, Socrates 577 Stang. Christian 768

534< 535^558 Socrates (historian) 290, 296 Star Trek 583

Sims-Williams, Patrick 341, 345 Soeharto 480, 484 Stark, Laura M. 173. 181
Sinai 25, 90, 98 Soennecken, Friedrich 766 Stary. Giovanni 558
Sinaitic 29, 144 Sogdian 486, 5 1
5. 529. 53 1 , 536 Stawell. F. Melian 29, 32
Sindhi 372, 743, 756, 825 Somali 580, 744 Steever. Sanford B. 427. 430
Singapore 252 Sondrio 303 us contributor 426-430
Singh, Arvind Kumar 776 Song Lian 437 Steinberg, S. H. 892
Singler, John Victor 596. 598 Sora 6 1 Steinbergs. Aleksandra 663. 781
as contributor 593-598 sorabe 744 Steiner. Richard C. 81,87
 1

916 INDEX

Steinkeller, Piotr 35, 70 Sundanese 447 Tahua 184

stem 849 Sundermann, Werner 532, 535 Tai 189, 444
Stempel Typefounders 328 suprasegmentals 827 Tai Yai 450
stenography 628 Suriname 584 Taiwan 204, 252
Stepanov, Vladimir Ivanovitch Sursilvan 634 Taiwanese 203
858, 879 Susa 22, 160 Taj Mahal 244
Stephen, Bishop of Perm 700 Susiana 163 Tajik 707, 708, 721, 782
Stephens, Laurence D. 8, 15 Sutton, James 332 Tajikistan 783
Steve, Marie-Joseph 59, 72 Sutton, Julia 878 Tajvidi, Mohammed 749, 762
Stevens, John 246, 251 Sutton, Valerie 862, 879 Talas Valley 538
as contributor 244-251 Swahili 690, 744 tally sticks 795
Stewart, Gail 597 Sweden 335, 509, 648, 766 Talmud 727
Stiehner, Erhardt 768 Swedish 335, 642, 678, 826, 843 Tamasheq 1 12
Stillman, Norman A. 728, 742 Sweet, Henry 811,831, 846 Tamazight 1 12

Stilman, Leon 355 Swiggers, Pierre 3, 88, 118, 266, Tamil 373, 379, 426-430, 446,
Stokoe, William 862, 879 270, 790, 794 774
Stolper, Matthew W. 164, 883 as contributor 108-1 12, Tane 184
Stone, Gerald C. 663 261-270, 281-287 Tangut 189, 228-230
stop 826 Swinton, John 144, 159 tantra 432
Strabo 287 Switzerland 634, 643, 767 Tantric 244
Straits ofMalacca 443, 474 Syamala Kumari, B. 425 Taouaoure, Metoro 183
Strang, Barbara M. H. 696 Syene 489 tap 826
Street, Brian V. 13, 17 syllabary 4, 24, 26, 58, 88, 109, Taranto 306
Street, John C. 726 125,241,583,587,599 Tardieu, Michel 531, 535
Streitberg, Wilhelm 290, 296 syllabic notation 302 Targums 492
stress 276, 827 syllabic scripts 123, 174 Tarim Basin 376
Strevens, Peter 654, 696 syllabics 599 Tartaria 22
Stronach, David 134, 137 syllables 4, 35, 376, 417, 476 Tartessian 108
Strunk, Hiltraud 768 syllabograms 196, 230 Tasian, Yakobos 363
Stuart, David 178, 182 syllabography 92, 788 Tatar 707, 7 1 2, 723, 782
Stuart, George E. 173, 175, 182 Symington, D. 40, 71 Tate, Carolyn 175, 182
Stubbs, Michael 13, 17 syntagmatic relations 10 tategaki 214
Sturtevant,Edgar 72, 272, 294 Syria 19,37,61,96, 120, 153,499, ta'u script 183
Sturtevanfs Law 66 745, 788, 884 Tauli, Valter698
Stuttgart 767 Syriac 2, 26, 89, 98, 145, 356, 485, Tavoyan 454
stylus 19, 38, 92, 314, 798 499-504,515,570,745,803 TawqT' 244
subscripts 273 Syriac script 743 taxograms 76
subtractive numeral system 796 Syrians 266 Taylor, Insup 219, 227
Sudan 84, 152 Syro-Hittite 100 Taylor, Isaac 6, 15

Sufi 395 systematic transcription 831 Taylor, Samuel 81 1

Sukhothai 458 Szarzyhska, Krystyna 70 technographies 628

Sulawesi 474 Sznycer, Maurice 29, 32 technology 787-794
Sulkala, Helena 698 Teeline shorthand 814
Sulu 743 Teima 99
Sumatra 443, 446, 474 telegraph 887
Sumerian 2, 19, 33, 37, 58, 73, Ta Hwa Miao 580 telegraphy 791
165,579,795
142, Tabasaran 707, 782 telephone 888
Sumerians 5, 24, 73, 884 Tell Fekheriye 268
Tabgach Empire 536
Sumerograms 9, 68 Tabout, Jehan 856
Tell Uqair 36
Summer Institute of Linguistics Tabuk 99 Telugu 379. 413-419. 612. 774
779 temporal sequence S4S
tachygraphy 808
Sumner, William 164 Tagalog448,474 Tengwar 582
S unda 446 Tenochtitlan 180
Tagbanua 481
Sunda Straits 443 Tagore, Rabindranath 403
Teos 26
 INDEX 917

Teotihuacan 180 Tiro, Marcus Tullius 635, 807 Tunisia 1 12

Terayama Katsujo 249, 251 Tironian notae 635, 807 Turdetanian 108
Ternes, Elmar 846 Tiryns 129 Turkestan 515
Testen, David D. Tjader, Jan-Olof 292, 296 Turkey 40, 61, 509, 682, 728, 745
as contributor 134-137 Toba Batak 476 Turkic 151, 486, 499, 536, 707,
tetragrams 201 Todi 303 728, 743, 783
Textura 765 tokens 21, 795, 884 Turkish 531, 682,728
Thai 373, 447. 457-466, 778 Tokharian 515, 531 Turkish Empire 743
Thailand 249, 443, 445, 457- 77$ Tokuyama, Kijun 246 Turkmen 707, 711, 782
Thames River 337 Tol, Roger 484 Turkmenistan 784
Thamudic 98 Tolkien, J. R. R. 582, 586 Turks 346, 536
Thebes 129 tones 395, 432, 447, 452, 459, Turner, Eric G. 294
Thera 262, 272 619,828 Turoyo 509
thesaurus 809 Tonkin 692 Turvey, Michael T. 770, 772
Thessaly 262 Torah 489 Tuttle, Edward
Thiel, Robert 660 Torrance, Nancy 13, 17 as contributor 633-636
Thomas, Rosalind 13, 17 Tosk 675 Tuuk, Hermanus N. van de 476,
Thomas, St., the apostle 26 Tovar, Antonio 1 19 483
Thomas, W. O. 663, 697 toyo-kanji 2 o 1 Tuvan 716, 782
Thompson, E. Maunde 330, 809, Trager, George L. 628, 632 Tuxtla 173
820 Trajan's Column 259 Twain, Mark 888
Thompson, J. Eric S. 154, 159, Tra-kieu 445 Twine, Nanette 217
177. 182 transcription conventions 41, 45, Twombly, Carol 329
Thompson, Laurence 699 74,94,492,515,560 Tylor, Edward Burnett 6. 1

Thompson, Reginald Campbell Transjordan 98 type, exotic 885

61,72 transliteration 631 type, movable 881, 885

Thomsen. Marie-Louise 37, 71 transliteration conventions 204, typewriter 888
Thomsen, Vilhelm 144, 151, 159, 213,219,274,364 typology 8, 142
558 transmission of alphabet to the Tyrol 303
Thomson, R. L. 697 West 261-270
Thomson, Robert W. 362 Transylvania 636
Thomson, S. Harrison 331 Trenite, G. N. 654
U
Thon mi Sambhota 431 Tres Zapotes, Mexico 172, 174 Uberoi, Mohan Singh 398
Thornhill 339 Trigault, Nicolas 204 Uchen 247
Thoth 73 triliterals 75 Udmurt 716. 782
Threatte, Leslie 271, 294 trill 826 LIgarit 788
as contributor 271-280 Trukese 584 Ugaritic 9, 24, 88, 140. 141. 153
Thucydides 279, 285 Tsakonian 271 Ukraine 784
Thuluth 244 Tschenkeli, Kita 365, 369 Ukrainian 352, 700. 702, 705. 782
Thurneysen, Rudolf 345, 657, 697 Tsereteli, George V. 367, 369 Ukrami, J. 722
Tiberian Masoretes 491 Tshul khrims phun tshogs 431, Ullendorff, Edward 576
Tibet 247, 476, 536 441 Ullman. Berthold L. 323. 330. 33
Tibetan 26, 247, 374, 431-441, Tsien Tsuen-hsuin 892 Umayyad dynasty 743
486, 545 Tsien, Tsuen-hsuin 199 Umbrian 263. 301. 306
Tibeto-Burman 189, 228, 239, Tsyben Zhamtsarano 554 Ume 247
444,581,775 Tuareg 112, 743 umlaut 642
Tibiletti Bruno, Maria Grazia 31 Tubingen 350 Uncial scripts 314
Ticino 303 Tucker, Archibald N. 699 uncials 273
tie 850 Tumshuq 515 Unger, J. Marshall 201. 208. 217
Tifinigh 743
1 14, Tumshuqese 486. 533 Ungnad. Arthur 24, 32
Tigris River 88 Tuna. Osman Nedim 441 unit characters 191
Tiktin, Hariton 636 Tungus 782 United Bible Societies (>

Till, Walter C. 296 Tungusic 235, 486, 545 United Kingdom 628
time signature 849, 853 Tunis 743 United Nations 130
 1 1 1 1 1 1

918 INDEX

United States 13,628 Ventris, Michael 144, 153, 159, W

universal language 81 801,806
Wachmann, Abraham 864, 865,
unpointed texts 505 Vercelli 303
878
Untermann, Jiirgen 108, 112, 119 Vergote, Josef 288, 296
Wachter, Rudolf 267, 270
Upasak, Chandrika Singh 383 Verona 303
Wade-Giles romanization 204
Updike, Daniel Berkeley 332 verse 392
Wales 340
Upper Serbian 667 Vetter, Emil 31
Walian 660
Uralic 678, 707 Vic-Wells (London) 859
Walker, Christopher B. F. 71
Urartian 58, 120, 144, 147 Vienna 337
Walker, John 832, 846
urban society 1 Vientiane 457
Walker, Willard 587, 592
Urdu 372, 389, 727, 743, 752, 775 Vietnam 189, 443, 445, 474, 619,
Wallachia 636
Urjam 404 691
Walter, Leonard 768
Urmi, Iran 505 Vietnamese 691
Wang Xi-ji 247
Uruk 33, 39, 163 Vignes, Jacques 185, 187, 188
Wanyan Xiyin 235
Uspensky Gospels 273 Viitso, Tiit-Rein 663
Ward, Dennis 355
uvular 826 Viking Age 335
Wardrop, James 331
Uwano Zendo 788, 794 Vimalavamsa, Baddegama 412
Wasylyk, Thomas M. 331
Uyaqoq 584 Vinay, J. P. 663, 697
Waterman, John T. 696
Uyghur 230, 376, 437, 486, 517, Vinca 21
Waterson, Natalie 365, 369
707, 759, 782 Vincent, Nigel 663, 695
wax-covered writing boards 40,
Uyghur alphabet 539 Vine, Brent 31
Vinogradov, V. V. 697, 706, 722,
314
Uyujik 287
Weber, Albrecht 378, 383
Uzbek 707, 714, 782 723, 725, 726, 784
Weber, Otto 70, 72
Uzbekistan 376, 784 virama 387, 392, 416
Webster, Noah 302, 652
Virgil 315
Wei 239
Virolleaud, Charles 1 18, 144,
Weiers, Michael 441
153. 159
Weinberg, Werner 491, 494, 498
virtual bilinguals 143, 146, 151,
Vachek, Josef 11, 16, 632 Weinreich, Beatrice 742
Vagindra 554 153
Weinreich, Uriel 742
Vai 579^ 593 visarga 385, 392,415,453
Weissbach, Franz H. 144, 159
Vaiman, A. A. 162, 164
Visible Speech 837
Wellisch, Hans 627, 631, 632
Val Camuna 303 Visigothic 290
Wells, John C. 652, 696, 829, 846
Valcamonica see Val Camuna Visigothic Minuscule 317
Welmers, William E. 596, 598
Valencia 108 vocalization systems 2, 26, 486,
Welsh 655, 660, 826
van den Berg, Berend 648, 696 502
Wesleyan 599
van der Kuijp, Leonard W. Vo-canh 445
J. 43 West Africa 593
Voegelin, C. F. 9, 15, 142, 159
44 •
West, La Mont, Jr. 862, 879
as contributor 431-441
Voegelin, F. M. 9, 15, 142, 159
West Semitic 8
VanGulik, R. H. 251 Vogt, Hans 365, 369
Westendorf,Wolfhart 87
Van, Lake 64, 147 Vogul 782
Westergaard, Niels Louis 144,
Vang Chia Koua 619, 624 Volga Tatar 7 2, 782 1

159
Vanstiphout, Herman von der Gabelentz, Hans C. 291,
38, 71 Western Asia 191
Varang Kshiti 612, 616 296
Wexler, Paul 742, 744. 762
Varela, Charles 878, 879 von Le Coq, Albert 545, 558
Whalley, Joyce Irene 332
VariTyper Corporation 889 von Soden, Wolfram 71
Whatmough, Joshua 3 1 1

Viistergotland 336 Voobus, Arthur 49 498 1 ,

Wheatley, Julian K. 454, 456

Vasudevan, Voorhoeve, Peter 483
P. S. 425 as contributor 450-456
Vedas 37 Vos, Fritz 220, 227
White Hmong 62
Vedic 28, 386 Votyak 782
Whitney, William Dwight 390
velar 826 Vulgar Latin 633
Wickes, William 492, 498
Venetic 28, 297, 303
Wiesbaden 767
Venezky, Richard L. 628, 632,
Wiley, Roland J. 861,879
653, 696 Wilhelm, Gemot 72
Venice 326, 350, 636
Wilkins, John, bishop 838
 INDEX 919

Williams. Drid 855, 864. 879 Yin Binyong 205, 208

Williams. Stephen J. 697 Yin dynasty 191
Williamson. William 81 YIVO 735
Willis, Edmond 810 yokogaki 214
Willis. John 810 Yon, Marguerite 159
Wilson. Nigel G. 294 Yorkshire 339, 836
Windfuhr. Gemot L. 137 Yoruba 593, 691
Winfield Capitaine. Fernando Young, Thomas 144, 148, 159
173, 182 Yovsep'ian, Garegin 363
Winn. Shan M. M. 21, 32 Yii Baolin 231, 238
Winnipeg. Manitoba 606 Yuan dynasty 438
Wise, Marjorie 324 Yucatec 175
Woleiai atoll 584 Yugoslavia 21, 769
Wolof 593 Yupik 782
Wolpe, Berthold 331 Yurak Samoyed 782
"women's writing" 583 Yusuf, isman 580
Wonderly, William L. 780 yuto-yomi 209
Woodcock, John 314, 330 Zabala 34
Worcester, Samuel A. 587, 592 Zakariya, Mohamed U. 245, 251
word boundaries 424, 489 Zaner, C. 324
P.

word division see separation of Zapf, Hermann 328

words Zapotecs 172
words 4 Zarphatic 728
Worrell, William H. 288, 296 Zaxarin, B. A. 752, 762
Woudhuizen, Fred C. 295 Zealand, Denmark 335
Wright. Roger 633, 695 Zee, Draga 700
Wright, William 568 Zen 249
Wulfila 290 zero vowel 387
Wurm, Stefan 784 Zevit, Ziony 490, 498
Zgusta, Ladislav 295
Zhaonasitii 441
X Y Z Zhou dynasty 195
Xerxes, king of Persia 146 Zhou Youguang 201, 205, 208
Xing Full 231, 238 Zhu Jianxln 240, 243
Xinjiang 376 Zhu Wenxu 240, 243
Xlxia 228 Zide, Norman 615, 618

Xizong 235 as contributor 6 2-6

1 1

Xoxa, Jakov 678 Zieme, Peter 558

Xu Shen 196, 200 Zimansky, Paul 23, 32
Yakut 710, 782 Zorn, Friedrich A. 858, 879

Yale romanization 219, 252 Zoroastrianism 486, 517

Yardeni, Ada Zurbuchen, Mary 484

495, 498
Yartseva, V. N. 558 Zyryan 709
Yasovarman 447
Yazihkaya 120
Yegorova, R. P. 756, 762
Yeivin, Israel 491, 498
Yemen 101. 728
Yenisei 537
Yevanic 728
Yezidi 745
Yi 189, 239-243
Yiddish 727. 735-741,782
Yiddish Scientific Institute 735
 Colophon

( In approximate order of use) MalayalamLaser InuitCanadaS

Ecological Linguistics fonts TamilTimesGH PahawhHmong
CuneiformOriental family Tibetan96 AbkhazCIS
IPATimes family Lepcha AzerbaijanCIS
EuroTimes family Phagspa family KashmiriUSA
Eurolranica family BurmanTimesJO KurdishUSA
VietnamTimes family Chiengmai (Thai) PashtoUSA
Assyrian family (cuneiform) LaossPost (Lao) SindhiUSA
Meroitic KhmerJrieng Uyghur/MalayUSA
Ugaritic Javanese Semaphore
FRHebrewRoman Buginese Braille
SouthArabian Hanunoo GallaudetTT
Iberic SamaritanUSA DaysCodex (Maya)
Numidian family RashiUSA
Tifinagh EstrangeloUSA Adobe Systems fonts
Mycenaean family SertoUSA TimesRoman family

Cypriot EastSyriacUSA Times Small Caps & Old

PersianCun (Old Persian) MandaicUSA Style Figures

GreekTimes ALSogdian Helvetica

CopticG Avestan Wittenberger Fraktur

GothicAlph BSogdian
Runes CSogdian Oriental Institute fonts
OghamPD FunPahlavi
Cleo family (Hieroglyphs)

TambovCyrillic family Manichean Cleo Mirrored family

TambovOCS NisaParthian
Demotic

Glagolitic Pahlavi
Proprietary fonts
Armenian Parsig
Indus
Geolllya (Georgian) Parthian
TbilisiMaj (Georgian) Psalter
Apple Computer, Inc., fonts
BrahmiRGS Orkhon
Li Sung Light (Chinese)
KharoshthiPD BuryatUSA
Song (Simplified Chinese)
NepaliExt BaghdadUSA (Arabic)
Hon Mincho (Japanese)
DevanagariExt Cyprea (Dhivehi)
Myungjo (Korean)
GujaratiLaser EthiopicCDS
BengaliCS Pollard
Shareware fonts
OriyaPD Fraser Constantin and Methodius
SriLankaLaser (Sinhala) Cherokee
CanareseOldKG (Kannada) CreeCanadaK Softkey fonts
AndhraKG (Telugu) CreeWCanadaK Koffee

920
THE INTERNATIONAL PHONETIC ALPHABET (revised to 1989)

CONSONANTS
Bilabial Labiodental Dental Alveolar Postalveolar Retroflex Palatal Velar Uvular Pharyngeal Glottal

Plosive
P b t d t 4 c j k g q G 7

Nasal m rg n 1 P N

Trill B r R

Tap or Flap r C

Fricative
* p f V e a s z 1 3 § \ 9 i x Y X K h <T h fi

Lateral
fricative
* b
Approximant V j \. j q
Lateral
approximant i
1 k L

Ejective stop
p t'
t*
c' k' q

Implosive
P 6 £ (f <? J K rf cf tf

Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a voiced consonant. Shaded areas denote articulations judged impossible

DIACRITICS
w
o
Voiceless n d o >
More rounded Labialized rd w Nasalized C-*

n An
Voiced s
V t
c
Less rounded
j
Palatalized t
j
d j
Nasal release vl

h h
Aspirated t dh Advanced u+ Y
Velarized t
Y
dY Lateral release vl

<.

Breathy voiced b a Retracted Pharyngeali No audible release CI

Creaky voiced b a Centralized e Velarized or pharyngeal ized I

X X
" Linguolabial t d M id-centralized e X
Raised eX (j
X
= voiced alveolar fricative)

n
Dental t d Syllabic j
i T
Lowered
?<e = voiced bilabial approximant)

Apical t d r\
Non-syllabic e H
Advancec Tongue Root e
4

Laminal t da Rhoticity
y
Retracted Tongue Root e

Archbishop Mrtty High School

Library
5000 Mitty Way
San Jose, CA 95129
 About the Editors

Peter T. holds degrees in linguis-

tics from l niversity and the Uni-
versity of C he has taught at the

University oi v,nsin-Milwaukee and

Chicago State University. He has published
VOWELS numerous articles and reviews on writing
Front Central Back systems, Semitic languages, and languages
TIT ^ of the world.
^y LU { ••

—
c lose i
\
I Y \ U William Bright is Professor Emeritus of

Close-mid C • V- X i»
Linguistics, University of California, Los
Angeles, and Adjunct Professor, University
\ 9 e
\ of Colorado. Among his principal interests

Open-mid e\oe V A <i are sociolinguistics and the languages of

North America and South Asia. He was the
ae\ "e \
Language for 22 years
editor of the journal

Open
Where symbols appear
aW —^~ -cm
in pairs, the one to the right
» and also edited the four-volume Interna-
tional Encyclopedia of Linguistics (OUP,
represents a rounded vow. el.
1992). He is currently the editor of the
journal Language in Society and of the
monograph series Oxford Studies in
SUPRASEGMENTALS
Anthropological Linguistics.
Primary stress
.founa'tijsn
i
Secondary stress

T
Long e:
T
Half-long
w
Extra-short e
• Syllable break ji.aekt

1
Minor (foot) group

II
Major (intonation) group

w Linking (absence of a break)

/ Global rise

\ Global fall

TONES & WORD ACCENTS

LEVEL CONTOUR
XT
e or 1 Extra high C or /I Rising

e 1 High C N Falling

e 1 Mid C 1 High rising

V
e — 1 Low C xH Low rising

e 1 Extra low C 1
£ 1 Rising-falling
etc.

i Downstep

T Upstep

Jacket design by Ann Lam*

 ARCHBISHOP MITTY LIBRARY

T 29271

dV4fr$<V*V|i> '"5 C^fC4VC5

(

f
Covers all scripts officially used throughout
the world — as well as their historical antecedents

Clearly explains and demonstrates how writing

systems convey meaning

Articles offer text samples with

full explanation and useful bibliographies m

No comparable work in English exists

&

90000

9 780195"079937 l

ISBN 0-19-507993-0