Tese Doutorado Deise

7/29/2019 Tese Doutorado Deise

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Appendix

276

3 6 . 0

3 2 . 0

2 8 . 0

2 4 . 0

2 8 . 0

3 2 . 0

P h i l a e

T h e b e s

A l e x a n d r i a

R o s e t t a

D a m a s c u s

A s s y r i a

T i g r i s R

.

U g a r i t

P a l m y r a

N i n e v e h

B e h i s t u n

S u s a

U r u k

E d e s s a

A l - M

i n a

P e t r

a

S i n a i

M o a b

A m m o n

B a b y l o n

E l a m

P e r s i a

P e r s e p o l i s

S u m e r

M e s o p

o t a m i

a

S y r i a / A r a m a e a E

u p h r

a t e s

R .

H i t t i t e E m

p i r e

S a m a r i a

E d o m P a l e s t i n e

P h o e n i c i a

J e r u s a l e m

Nile R.

Egypt

3 6 . 0

4 0 . 0

4 4 . 0

A r a b i a

4 8 . 0

5 2 . 0

E a s t l o n g i t u d e

N o r t h l a t i t u d e F i g u r e A . 3

T h e a n c i e n t N e a r E

a s t .



Appendix

277

5 5 . 0

4 5 . 0

3 5 . 0

2 5 . 0

1 5 . 0

7 0 . 0

9 0 . 0

T I B E T A N

U I G H U R

T

A N G U T

J U R C H I N

M

A N C H U

M A N D A R I N

M O N G O L I A N

K H I T A N

X i n j i

a n g

K o r e a

J a p a n

C h i n a

S a m a r k a n d

B e i j i n g

A n y a n g

H a n g z h o u

H e i a n k y o /

K y o t o

N a r a E

d o /

T o k y o

Y I

M I N

H A K K A W U

G A N

X I A N G

L I S U

Y U E

1 1 0 . 0

1 3 0 . 0



T h e C h i n e s e w o r l d

.



Appendix

278

3 8 . 0

3 4 . 0

3 0 . 0

2 6 . 0

2 2 . 0

1 8 . 0

1 4 . 0

1 0 . 0 – 1 1 0 . 0

– 1 0 0

. 0

– 9 0 . 0

C o p á n

M e x i c o

I n d i a n

T e r r i t o r y

S e q u o y a h b i r t h p l a c e

F o r m

e r

C h e r o k e e

N a t i o n

O l m e c A r e a C a l a k m u l

P a l e n q u e

T i k a l

Y a x c h i l á n

H o n d u r a s

Y u c a t á n

E l S

a l v

a d

o r

– 8 0 . 0


– 7 0 . 0


M a y a n M e s o a m e r i c a a n d C h e r o k e e N o r t h A m e r i c a .



Appendix

279

4 6 . 0

4 2 . 0

3 8 . 0

3 4 . 0

3 0 . 0

6 . 0

1 0 . 0

C a r t h a g e

S a r d i n i a

S i c i l y

C r e t e

A e g e a n S e a I o n

i a

P y l o s

M y c e n a e

C o r i n t h

K n o s s o s

T h e b e s

A t h e n s

A l e x a n d r i a

C o l o n i e s

G r e e k C

r o a t i a

B u l g a r i a

M a c e d o n

i a

C o n s t a n t i n o p l e

T r o y

R o m a n i a

( D a c i a )

E t r u r i a

L a t i u

m

R o m

e

V e n i c e F

l o r e n c e 1

4 . 0

1 8 . 0

2 2 . 0


2 6 . 0

3 0 . 0

N o r t h l a t i t u d e

P h

a i s t o s

F i g u r e A . 6

T h e G r e e k a n d R o m a n w o r l d .



Appendix

280

3 0 . 0

2 0 . 0

1 0 . 0

0 . 0

– 1 0 . 0

6 5 . 0

7 5 . 0

8 5 . 0

S r i L a n k a

G u j a r a t

B e n g a l

T i b e t

P u n j a b

P a k i s t a n

I n d i a

B a y o f B e n g a l

B u r m a

T a m

i l

C o u n t r y

M a l a b a r

C o a s t

B a n g a l o r e

H y

d e r a b a d

A y u t t h a y a

H a r r a p p a

M o h e n j o – D a r o

A y o d h y a

A n d a m a n

I s l a n d s

S u l a w e s i

B a l i

J a v a

S u m a t r a

P h i l i p

p i n e s

L a o s

T h a i l a n d

M i n d o r o

V i e t n a

m

C a m b o d i a

9 5 . 0

E a s t l o n g i t u d e 1

0 5 . 0

1 1 5 . 0

1 2 5 . 0


S o u t h e r n A s i a , t h e

S a n s k r i t w o r l d .









almanac from Babylon describing the positions of the planetsfor AD 74–5.

Cuneiform continues to enrich us even now: in 1975, overfifteen thousand cuneiform tablets were discovered at Ebla

(Syria) which once comprised the official library that had burnt around the year 2300 BC. It will take scholars at least a century to read and assess this enormous wealth of information. In usefor about three thousand years – the same length of time that our complete alphabet has been known – cuneiform is today appreciated as one of humankind’s premier scripts.

proto-elamite

Perhaps a derivative of an older script that also inspired Indus Valley writing, the partly pictographic Proto-Elamite script of c .3000 BC, still undeciphered, was impressed on soft clay to

t a l k i n g a r t . 57

35 Inscription from the palace of Persepolis, c . 500 BC, in Old Persian cuneiform:

‘Darius, the great King, the King of Kings, the King of the countries, son of

Hystaspes, the Achæmenid, who built this palace’. Below the transcription (with

numbers added) are edited transliterations.



Cuneiform: Forgotten Legacy

30

(a) Old Persian

(b) Elamite

(c) Babylonian Akkadian

Figure 2.3 The first sentence of Darius the Great’s trilingual cuneiform

inscription at Behistun in (a) Old Persian, (b) Elamite, and (c) BabylonianAkkadian. Note that the Old Persian, being partly alphabetic, is the longest,

while the Babylonian version, being logosyllabic, contains more complex

signs. The sentence reads, “I am Darius, the great king, the king of kings,

the king of Persia, the king of the provinces, the son of Hystaspes, the

grandson of Arsams, the Achaemenian.” The Babylonian version is more

succinct than the other two (and, where in brackets, partly restored

through comparison with other inscriptions). For those interested in trying

their hand at decipherment, the first words of the Old Persian can be

transliterated as a-da-m da-a-ra-ja-va-u- S x- S a-a-ja-T -i-ja va-z-ra-ka (I, Darius,

great king), with signs belonging to the same word separated by hyphens.

The lone angular sign with which the sentence begins is a word divider.



Egyptian Hieroglyphs

40

Symbol Transliteration IPA Object depicted

[?] vulture

y or Q [j] or [i] reed leaf

ory [j] (usually

word–final)double reed leaf or archaicdual sign

‘ [¿] forearm

or w [w] or [u] quail chick or curl of rope

b [b] foot

p [p] stool

f horned viper

m owl

n

[f]

[m]

[n] water

r [r], later also [l] mouth

h

q

S

[h] enclosure

[ Ó] rope

[x] placenta (?)

[C] belly and udder

s [s], originally [z] door bolt

s [s]

[S]

bolt of cloth

s pool

q [q] hill

k [k] basket with handle

or g [g] jar stand or bag

t [t] loaf of bread

† [tS ] tether

d [d] hand

∂ [dZ] snake

Figure 3.2 Egyptian uniconsonantal signs, the so-called hieroglyphicalphabet, in rightward-facing orientation. The order is modern convention;

the ancient order is not fully known.



Egyptian Hieroglyphs

38

Some biconsonantal signs

qr wn wr pr

mn mw mt ms

z nb sw ∂d

w

(also used for o inforeign names)

rw

(also used for l inforeign names)

k b

Some triconsonantal signs

nfr ‘nS ∂‘m w s

bw n†r Spr bQt

tyw qtm qtp Qwn

n∂m rwd/rw∂ ‘ q‘ Srw

Some determinatives

woman man enemy, foreigner mummy, likeness

]

]

king, god

or

queen, goddess eye, seeing walk, run

fish horse tree house, building

pyramid desert, foreigncountry

sun, light, time book, writing,abstract concept

Figure 3.1 Some of the biconsonantal signs, triconsonantal signs, and

determinatives used in Egyptian hieroglyphs. For the phonetic values of

the transcriptions, see figure 3.2. The signs could face either rightward or

leftward, depending on the direction in which they were intended to be

read. Rightward-facing was the ordinary direction, but leftward-facing

texts were made in the interests of artistic harmony. Hieroglyphs embeddedwithin the text of this book therefore face leftward, while those in this chart

face rightward.











the vocalic values of ancient Egyptian words are generally unknown. Some values have, however, been retrieved througheducated guesswork in light of contemporaneous cuneiformand other scripts conveying ancient Egyptian proper names.)One reads hieroglyphs either from right to left or from left toright; some texts follow from top to bottom (illus. 22). Signsalways ‘face’ the start position of each line: if one should read

from right to left, then the bird’s beak, for example, is facingright. Right-to-left reading was the ‘default’ reading direction,if there was no clear reason to choose otherwise – ease of read-ing, royal respect (demanding transposition of certain royalsigns), artistic symmetry and so forth. Once formalized in such

ways, a process that apparently occurred between c . 3500 and2500 BC, hieroglyphs remained little changed for thousands of

years (illus. 23). Most writing in northern Africa and the MiddleEast has maintained a right-to-left reading direction ever since.

The individual hieroglyphs were taken or elaborated fromthe inventory of traditional Egyptian art.8 (This tendency toborrow only the idea and/or restricted functions of writing,

while expressing one’s own language through indigenous signs,

t a l k i n g a r t . 41

22 Reading Egyptian hieroglyphs: ‘the Maat of Re is strong, one chosen for Re’,

one possible translation of the prænomen, or throne name, of Ramesses II on an

inlaid tile, c . 1250 BC.

Wsr-m3‘.t-R‘-stp-n-R‘(User-maatre-setepenre)

Moved forward to show respect, the sun is the

logogram for the god Re.

Kneeling figure is the logogram for Maat,

goddess of justice.

The jackal head is the tri-consonantal sign wsr ,

also reproducing the words be strong .

God Re is again moved forward in the second

part of the image.

Adze on a block of wood is the tri-consonantal

sign stp, also reproducing the word chosen.

Water is the uni-consonantal sign n.



24 Selected signs of the three Egyptian scripts and their development.

25 The beauty of Egyptian

hieroglyphs: detail of the

‘reconstructed’ portico of

Isis’ Temple at Philæ.

HIEROGLYPHIC

2 8 0 0

2 6 0 0

1 9 0 0

c .

1 5 0 0

5 0 0 – 1 0 0

c .

1 5 0 0

1 9 0 0

1 3 0 0

c .

2 0 0

4 0 0 – 1 0 0

BOOK SCRIPT HIERATIC DEMOTIC





with sound superseding iconicity entirely. (This did not happen

with Egyptian hieroglyphs.) The most important type of writ-ing of the ancient Near East, cuneiform actually constitutes onescript used by different writing systems. (In contrast, Egyptianis one writing system used by three related scripts.) The world’sfirst complete writing, as we have seen, arose in Sumer as aresponse to economic needs. This response became an effectivetool wielded by a bureaucratic hierarchy administering goods,services and social privilege.13 As a result of the dynamism of Mesopotamian merchants, and of the imperialistic regimes thetool served and empowered, cuneiform writing prevailed in theregion for many thousands of years.14

Proto-cuneiform writing, that of the tablets of Uruk and

Jemdet Nasr, hardly differed from pictographic book-keeping

48 . a h i s t o ry o f w r it i n g

28 Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs live on, in transmuted fashion, in our own

alphabet.

Egyptian Proto-Sinaitic

Phoenician Early Greek

Greek Latin

A

B

G

E

K

M

N

O

R

T

S



61 Stages of the earliest Hebrew alphabet.

Gezer Monumental Cursive Book hand SamaritanCoinscript

ModernHebrew



The Semitic Alphabet: Egypt to Manchuria

154

AramaicSyriac

(Estrangelo)Nabataean Hebrew Transliteration

Modern Hebrewpronunciation

’ [?] or silent

b [b, v]

g [g]

d [d]

h [h]

w [v]

z [z]

q [x]

w [t]

y [j]

k [k, x]

l [l]

m [m]

n [n]

s [s]

‘ [?] or silent

p [p, f]

v [ts]

q [k]

r [‰]

s [s, S]

t [t]

Figure 9.2 The Aramaic alphabet and three of its descendants, Estrangelo

Syriac, Nabataean, and the Square Hebrew or Jewish script that is used for

Hebrew today. As in most Aramaic descendants, the letters have variant

forms according to where they occur in a word. The variants are shown

only for Hebrew, in which the one on the left is used in word-final position

(all these alphabets read from right to left). At right are the standard

transliteration and the modern pronunciation of the letters in standard

Israeli Hebrew.







elaborated diacritics indicating other vowels, is in many ways

vocalically more precise than most modern Latin alphabets.34 It even maintains the graphic distinction, lost in modern spokenHebrew, between long and short vowels. (British English dis-plays vowel length only by default, as in ‘cot’ versus ‘cart’.) TheHebrew script is thus archaic, with many redundancies. As anexample, /i/ can be written either as consonant jodh or as a dot under the preceding consonant; some writers do both. In every-day use, as with Arabic, the Hebrew script is two scripts in one:one highly marked, showing each vowel; the other highly reduced, leaving vowel identification to context alone.35 Today,Hebrew remains heavily dominated by consonants which, as inall Semitic scripts, constitute the very foundation of writing.

The Nabatæn Arabs used the Aramaic language as a specialcultural second tongue. They also wrote in the Aramaic script between the first century BC and third centuries AD (illus. 64).

The Nabatæns were a gathering of nomadic Arab tribes livingin a region stretching from the Sinai Peninsula to northern

Arabia and eastern Jordan. In the Hellenistic era following Alexander the Great’s conquests, they formed a kingdom that lasted from around 150 BC until conquest by the Romans in 105

AD; their capital was the peerless rock city of Petra. TheirNabatæn form of Aramaic writing became the immediateparent of Arabic writing.

Like Hebrew, Arabic is an important religious script whose

significance, longevity and expansion are owed to its veneration

98 . a h i s t o ry o f w r it i n g

63 Genesis 1:1, 2 in the modern Square Hebrew script using the ‘Tiberias

System’ of diacritics: ‘[ 1] In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

[ 2] And the earth was without form, and void; and darkness was upon the face of

the deep. And the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.’





The Semitic Alphabet: Egypt to Manchuria

Some letters, in contrast to the norm, must not be joined to the

following one: the letter ? alif , ª, if joined to a following letter would

look just like the connected version of the letter la:m, ‚. In ÅÇ, al-

kitaab, “the book,” for example, the first (rightmost!) letter is an ? alif ,

which does not connect forward, while the next is a la:m. ? alif does join

to a preceding letter, however, and the sequence la:m– ? alif is written

with a special ligature, ±.Another part of the writing system that needed to be addressed

was the writing of vowels. Arabic has six vowels, three of which are

164

Name in IPA Arabic name Final Medial Initial Independent

s : ; < = > ? ~ ~ Ä Å @ _ ` a b c d e f g h i j k l ë

m

ª % & ' ( ) *“ 6 ‘’ + , ö ö - . / 0 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Ê

8

ªÀÕŒœ–—“ 6 ‘’÷◊ÿŸ - .‹ › fl‡·‚„‰Ó Ê

Ë

?alif ba:?ta:?Ta:?dZi:m Óa:?Xa:?da:lDa:lrA:?za:jsi:nSi:n

|A:d\A:d [A:?]A:?¿A jn‰A jnfa:?qA:f ka:f la:mmi:mnu:nha:?wa:w

ja:?

s t v w x | ~ ~ Ä Å Ç É

Ö b c à â ä ã å ç é è ê ë

Ë

Figure 9.4 The Arabic alphabet with, from right to left, the independent,

initial, medial, and final forms of each letter, plus the letter’s name in Arabic

and its pronunciation in IPA. As compared to the original Aramaic prototype,

Arabic has reordered its letters, putting similarly shaped letters together.









70 Ethiopic script: To consonants already possessing a short /a/ value, regular

series of marks in respective positions are attached to signal other vowels, thus

forming a complete alphabet.

+ a + u- + ı- + a- + e-

+e or without vowel + o-

h

l

h.

m

s

r

s

q

b

t

h.

n

’

k

w

‘

z

j

d

g

t .

p.

s.

d.

f

p



150

Ugaritic Phoenician AramaicHebrew/

MoabiteName

Probable

phonetic value

’alef [?] [?a] (Ugaritic)

bet [b]

g i mel [g]

[x]

dalet [d]

he [h]

waw [w]

zayin [z]

qet [ Ó]

wet [t¿ ]

yod [j]

kaf [k]

[S]

lamed [l]

mem [m]

[D]

nun [n]

[D¿ ]

samek [s]

‘ayin [¿ ]

pe [p]

vade [s¿ ]

qof [q]res [r]

[T]

[T]/[S]

[ƒ]

Tan/san/sin

taw [t]

[?i]

[?u]

[Ç ] ?

Figure 9.1 Ancient alphabets. At left, the Ugaritic cuneiform alphabet, with

the original set of 27 consonantal letters plus a three-letter appendix. Next,

the Phoenician 22-letter alphabet and its virtually identical daughter scripts,early Aramaic and Old Hebrew (as used also for Moabite). Ugaritic was

read from left to right, the others from right to left.



Aramaic

original

Uighur

letter

Phonetic

value

Mongolian

letter

Phonetic

value

Manchu

letter

Phonetic

value

[e] [a] [a][a/e] [e] [e]

[w/v] [i] [i]

[γ ] [o/u] [o]

[o/u] [Ø/y] [u]

[ö/ü] [u] (after [q, γ , X])

[z] [n] [n]

[Z] [q] [è]

[x] [γ ] [q]

[q] [b] [k]

[j] [s] [γ ]

[k/g] [S] [g]

[d] [t/d] [k] (in loanwords)

[m] [d/t] [g] (in loanwords)

[n] [l] [X]

[p] [m] [x]

[tS ] [tS] [b]

[r] [dZ ] [p]

[s] [j] [s]

[S] [k/g] [s]

[t] [r] [t] (before [a, o])

[l] [w/v] [d] (before [a, o])

[h] [t] (before [e, u])

[p] [d] (before [e, u])

[f] [l]

[m]

[tS ]

[dZ ]

[j]

[r]

[f]

[w/f]

Figure 9.3 Three Altaic descendants of the Aramaic alphabet. Uighur,which follows Aramaic alphabetical order, is shown next to the original

Aramaic prototypes. Initial (left) and final (right) forms only are given here,

omitting medial forms, except in a few cases where only medial forms exist.

Altaic scripts are read from top to bottom.





Linear B: The Clerks of Agamemnon

were the same, this identified the t- row and the -i column. The third

syllable of the proposed a-mi-ni-so, 6, should be in the -i column andthe n- row. It was. The second syllable, 4, should also be in the -i

column, and indeed it was. This suggested an identification of the

106

Basicsyllabary

a0 0

\

[

9

D

O

S

W

Z

]

d

g

j

o

7

r

h

k

m

p

i

l

n

q

&

t

u v

z

8

w

5

x

6

s

y

9

8

5

3

7

A

E

P

A

X

[

a

e

L

I

4

B

F

Q

ê

C

E

b

M

6

1

5

2

3

G

R

B

D

F

c

f

9

7

2

6

8

C

H

V

Y

\

N

J

e i o u

da de di do du

ja je jo ju

k = [k], [kh ],or [g]

ka ke ki ko ku

ma me mi mo mu

na ne ni no nu

p = [p], [ph ],or [b]

pa pe pi po pu

q = [kw],[khw], [gw ]

qa qe qi qo

r = [r] or [l] ra re ri ro

1

rusa se si so su

t = [t] or [th] ta te ti to tu

wa we wi wo

z = [dz] or [ts] za ze zo

Optionalsymbols

a2 (= ha) a3 (= ai) au

dwe dwo nwa

pa3? pu pte

ra2 ra3 ro2

swa? swi?

ta2 two

Unidentifiedsymbols

Figure 6.2 The Linear B syllabary. At the top are the signs of the basic

syllabary. Also listed are optional symbols that seem to have been used

occasionally to avoid certain ambiguities in spelling. At the bottom are

symbols which occur so rarely that their value has not yet been established.



Greek Serendipity

211

Phoenician Name

’alef [a], [a:]

Archaic Greek Pronunciation Later Greek Name

bet

g i mel

dalet

he

waw

zayin

qet

wet

yod

kaf

lamedmem

[b]

[g] Γ

[d] ∆

[ε(:)]

[w]

[dz], then [zd]

[h], then [ε:]

[th]

[i], [i:]

[k]

[l]

nun [n]

‘ayin

samek

pe

[m]

[O(:)]

[ks]

[p]

vade

qof

res

san/sin

taw

[s]

[k]

(obsolete)

(obsolete)

[r], [r˚]

[s]

[t]

[u], [u:], then [y]

[ph]

[kh]

[ps]

[O:]

A

B

γ

δ

E

(obsolete)

Z

H

Θ

I

K

Λ

N

M

O

Ξ

Π

P

Σ

T

YΦ

X

Ψ

Ω

α

β

ε

ζ

η

θ

ι

κ

λ

ν

µ

ο

ξ

π

ρ

σ, ς

τ

υϕ

χ

ψ

ω

alpha

beta

gamma

delta

ei (e psilon)

wau (digamma)

zeta

heta/eta

theta

iota

kappa

labda (lambda)

nu

mu

ou (o mikron)

xei (xi)

pei (pi)

san

qoppa

rho

sigma

tau

hu (u psilon)phei (phi)

khei (chi)

psei (psi)

o (o mega)

Figure 12.1 The derivation of the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician. The

early Greek alphabet varied in the direction of writing and in the forms of

its letters, as shown. The pronunciation of Modern Greek is rather different

from what is shown here.



94 The Phoenician consonantal alphabet’s borrowing into Greek, each letter

represented by only one of several possible variants.

Phoeniciac . 1000–900 bc

Cretec . 750 bc

Athensc . 700 bc

Ioniac . 400 bc name / value /

’a-lep/ /

be-t/b/

gı-mel/g/

da-let/d/

he- /h/

wa- w/w/

zayin/a/

h. e-t/h/

t .e-t/t . /

yo-d/j/

ka-p/k/

la-med/l/

me-m/m/

nu- n/n/

s.a-mek/s. /

‘ayin/ /

pe- /p/

ça-de- /s /

qo-p/k /

re-s˘ /r/

sı-n/ s, s/

ta- w/t/

alpha/a,a- /

be-ta/b/

gamma/g/

delta/d/

epsilon/ e /

(digamma/w/)

ze-ta/z/

e-ta/æ- /

the-ta/t h /

io-ta/i,ı- /

kappa/k/

lambda/l/

mu/m/

nu/n/

xi/ks/

omikron/o/

pi/p/

(san/s/)

(qoppa/k/)

rho- /r/

sigma/s/

tau/t/

upsilon/y, y - /

phi/ph /

chi/k h

psi/ps/

o-mega/ - /





104 Euboean Greek’s borrowing into Etruscan, with Latin derivatives.

Euboean c. 700 bc

Etruscan c. 600 bc

Early Latin c. 500 bc

Latin c. 100 bc

A

B

C

D

E

F

G (< C)

Z ( )

H

[none]

I

K

L

M

N

[none]

O

P

[none]

Q

R

S

T

U, V

X

Y (< )

[none]

[none]

[none]

Z

the-ta

(< )

th [none]

[none]

[none]

[none]

[none]

[none]

xi

sh

ph

(>x)

f



The Age of Latin

230

( )

( )

( )

[a]

Archaic GreekEtruscan model

alphabetInscriptional

EtruscanRoman

[k]

[e]

[w]

[ts]

[h]

[th]

[i]

[k]

[l]

[m]

[n]

[p]

[k]

[r]

[s]

[t]

[u]

[s] ?

[ph]

[kh]

[f]

[S](?)

A

B

C

D

E

F

G

H

I J

K

L

M

N

O

P

Q

R

S

T

V

X

Y

Z

UW

Figure 13.1 The Etruscan and Roman alphabets, as descended from the

archaic Greek alphabet. The Etruscans learned the whole alphabet and

copied it out (second column), but in inscriptions eliminated some of

the letters (third column). The original Roman alphabet is on the left

in the right-hand column, with later additions to the right. Sources

of the additions are shown with arrows.



Greek Serendipity

St. Cyril was devoted to the cause of vernacularism, pitting himself

against the “Trilingualists,” who believed that only Hebrew, Greek,and Latin could be used to worship God. Cyril’s alphabet and his

translations served to bring the Christian faith to the Slavic people

227

Greek Gothic Cyrillic (Modern Russian)

Letter Letter Phoneticvalue

Letter

AB

Γ

∆

E

ZH

Θ

IKΛ

MNΞ

OΠ

PΣ

TY

Φ

X

ΨΩ

AB

BΓ

D

E?

ZI

J

K

L

MN

OP

R

ST

U

F

X

abB

g

d

e/

zi

j

k

l

mn

op

r

st

u

f

x

êë

ñ<

î‰Ìó

ÈòöõúùôËüÂÊÁ Íïí

Îû

[a], [a:][b]

[g]

[d], [D]

[e], [e:][kw][z][h]

[T][i], [i:]

[k][l]

[m][n][j]

[u], [u:][p][r][s][t]

[w], [y]

[f][kh]

[∑][o], [o:]

[a][b][v][g][d]

[(j)E][Z][z][i][j]

[k][l]

[m][n]

[O][p][r][s][t][u][f][x]

C

H

WQ

Æ

Y

"

:

c

h

wq

æ

y

'

;]

[

[ts][tS j][S]

[S jtS j](absence of

palatalization)[é]

(palatalization)[E]

[(j)u][(j)a]

Phoneticvalue

Letter Phoneticvalue

Figure 12.2 Two of the descendants of the Greek alphabet, Gothic and

Cyrillic. Cyrillic has added letters to the end of the alphabet so as to adapt

to the Slavic languages. The Gothic alphabet predates the development of

minuscules, so the Gothic letters have only one form each. Cyrillic uses

minuscules, but they are less different from the capitals than those of the

Greek or Roman alphabet.



The Age of Latin

eleventh century; if anyone was still using the futhorc at the time of

the Norman invasion of 1066, no one did so afterward.

Although runic literacy may never have been high, the Anglo-

Saxons knew that their language could be written down. They also

knew enough not to regard the 23 letters of the Roman alphabet

as immutable (clearly, they were barbarians!). Their language, knowntoday as Old English or Anglo-Saxon, had a different set of phonemes

than Latin. (They themselves called their language Englisc, pronounced

244

Ogham

b l f n n h d t c q

g p z r

4 3 5 1

0 1 2 3 4

: < = ? g w C n i

Y p z t b e m l F

d > a G B Z H

m

2

f

D

o

[b] [kw]/[k]

[m] [i][e][u][o][r][z]/[st][gw]/[è][g] [a]

[f] [i][n][h][w][k]/[T][o][θ]/[D][u] [g]/[j]

[j] [è][l][m][e][t][ks][p][i]/[C] [b]

[œ] [k][k][ea][æ]

r

E A

;

[r]

[s]

[y][a][d] [g]

[k][t][d][n][s][w]/[f][l] [h]

[k]/[e] appendix: inconsistent vocalic values

Anglo-Saxon runes

Figure 13.2 Non-Roman scripts of the British Isles. Above, the Ogham

alphabet, used to write Old Irish. An appendix was added to the list of

symbols in medieval times, but the values assigned to these vowel letters

were not consistent from one manuscript to the next. Below, the Anglo-

Saxon runic futhorc, derived from the common Germanic futhark, and

named after the first six runes in the alphabetical list. The runic alphabet

was the source of some letters used to write Old English in the Romanalphabet: the thorn, <, and the wynn, >, as well as the name of =, ash, applied

to æ. Both of these scripts were probably inspired by the Roman alphabet,

but their users felt no obligation to preserve Roman alphabetical order or

(especially for Ogham) letter shapes.



























77 Hindi.

78 Gurmukhi.

80 Assamese.

81 Manipuri.

82 Maithili.

79 Bengali.



rated its own script based on the Bengali script (illus. 83). TheGujarati (illus. 84) and Kaithi scripts (illus. 85), conveyingGujarati and Bihari, are closely related to the Bengali script;however, Devanagari is now used to write Bihari instead.

Sarada was another Gupta daughter that yielded the Takri

script. In turn, this generated the Kashmiri script of Kashmir. A further Gupta daughter, Pali script, was parent to the many

scripts (Siamese or Old Thai, Burmese, Kavi, Sinhalese andothers) that were specifically elaborated for writing Prakrit lan-guages – any one of the vernaculars of northern and centralIndia, arising from or connected with Sanskrit – involved withBuddhism. As Buddhism expanded, so did the many Pali scripts.

There are no Pali scripts in India today. The several that surviveare to be found in the Buddhist countries of Central and South-East Asia, as well as in the Indonesian islands, where they haveprovided a model for many new scripts. The Siamese or Old

Thai script uniquely developed a method for indicating phone-

mic tone.50 Because the Thai language changed after writing’s

114 . a h i s t o ry o f w r i t in g

85 Kaithi.

84 Gujarati.

83 Oriya.



and the Maldives, is based on Pali conventions but is also heavily influenced by the Malayalam script of Southern Indian (illus.87).

Another important Northern Indian member perhapsderived directly from Gupta – and thus a sister script to Nagari,Sarada and Pali – is Tibetan (illus. 88).52 However, the Tibetanlanguage wears this foreign Indo-Aryan script most uncomfort-ably. The script retains the Indic consonantal alphabet with dia-critic attachments to indicate vowels – but with only one vowelletter, the /a/, which is the same as the system’s own ‘default’ /a/.

This /a/ letter is then used to attach other diacritics in order toindicate further vowels. Because the Tibetan language has

changed greatly since c . AD 700 (when the script was first elabo-rated from Gupta) while the script has remained almost unchanged, Tibetan is extremely difficult to read today. Itsgreatest problem is that it marks none of the tones of its tonallanguage. Though Tibetans have long tried to adapt written

Tibetan to spoken Tibetan, high illiteracy has been the price of failing to achieve this. Tibetan schools in Tibet, by governmen-tal decree, now teach only the Chinese script and in the Chineselanguage.

There are two main Mongolian scripts, both alphabetic:Phags-pa and adapted Uighur. Phags-pa represents a remodel-ling of the Tibetan script by Grand Lama ’Aphags-pa-blo-

gros-rgyal-mthsan in 1260, by decree of the Mongol emperor


88 Tibetan.

87 Sinhalese.



of China Kublai Khan. Uighur is ultimately of Aramaic origin; Mongolian scribes borrowed some signs and marks from Tibetan to remodel Uighur in the 1300s in order to create amore serviceable alphabet, called Galik. The modern

Mongolian script (illus. 89), written in vertical columns fromleft to right, emerged out of this.

The Southern Indian scripts chiefly convey the subconti-nent’s principal native language family, Dravidian, just as theNorthern Group generally, but not exclusively, represents the

intrusive Indo-Aryan branch of Indo-European, which arrivedin the region c . 1900 BC. Southern Indian is not as large or influ-ential as Northern, its scripts transmitting Tamil, Telugu,

Malayalam, Kanarese and others. Already two hundred yearsbefore Nagari’s elaboration, varieties of more than five different Southern scripts were being written. The early Kadamba script

was the model for the Old Kanarese, which itself inspired sev-eral scripts with large regional importance in southern India.

Around AD 1500, the later form of this, Kannada (illus. 90), and Telugu (illus. 91) began to develop into their modern recogniz-able scripts – southern India’s two most important ones.

Another consequential Southern Indian script was Grantha.

Some eight hundred years ago, it served as the model for the

s p e a k i n g s y s t e m s . 117

89 Modern Mongolian.



Malayalam script, which conveyed Malayalam as well as theSanskrit of southern India (illus. 92). (Today, in the south, it conveys only Malayalam, but in the west also Telugu.) Granthahad already generated the Tamil script around AD 750; it is func-tionally similar to the scripts of Northern Indian, perhapsthrough Nagari. The writing of traditional Tamil is known forits simplicity and ease of reading; the writing of modern Tamil isfraught with difficulties (illus. 93).53 The old written language of

Tamil did not need to indicate aspirated consonants like /ph/ orspirants like /f/, and so its repertoire of about 20 letters wassmall. (In contrast, Old Kanarese had about 40 letters, and

Malayalam 53.)

Northern and Southern Indian share the original Brahmi


93 Tamil.

92 Malayalam.

91 Telugu.

90 Kannada.



The Empire of Sanskrit

181

Vowels (initial form above, added to k below)

Devanagari( )

Kannada

Tamil

Roman/IPA a [å] a [a: ] i [I ] i [i: ]

e [e] e [e: ] ai [ai] o [o] o [o: ]

u [u: ] r [j]u[m/rI/rU]

a[m: /ri: /ru: ]u [U]

Devanagari

Kannada

Tamil Diacritics

Roman/IPA au [au] nasal s nasal

( )

q [h]no

vowel

k [k] kh [kh] g [g] gh [gí] N [è] c [T] ch [Th] j [D ] jh [D í] ñ [ê]

w [Ê ] wh [Êh

] p [Î ] ph [Î í

] t [≤] t [O] th [Oh

] d[è] dh [èí

] n [M]

p [p]

( ) ( )( )

ph [ph] b [b] bh [bí] m [m] y [j] r [Q] l [l] v [V] o [S]

v [ß ] s [s] h [í] zh [„ ] r [Ò ] t- [t]/[Q] n– [n]

Consonants (pronounced with following a)

Devanagari

Kannada

Tamil

Roman/IPA

Devanagari

Kannada

Tamil

Roman/IPA

Devanagari

Kannada

Tamil

Roman/IPA

Devanagari

Kannada

Tamil

Roman/IPA

(Tamil appendixletters in parentheses)

Figure 10.2 The Devanagar i , Kannada, and Tamil scripts, all descended

from Brahm i and following the same alphabetical order, though Tamil hasreduced the number of letters.



The Empire of Sanskrit

186

Consonants

InitialFinalClass

InitialFinalClass

InitialFinalClass

Initial

FinalClass

[k][k]M

[kh][k]H

[kh][k]L

[kh][k]L

[è][è]L

[T][t]M

[Th][t]H

[Th][t]L

[s][t]L

[Th][t]L

[j][n]L

[d][t]M

[t][t]M

[th][t]H

[th][t]L

[th][t]L

[n][n]L

[d][t]M

[t][t]M

[th][t]H

[th][t]L

[th][t]L

[n][n]L

[b][p]M

[w]

[w]L

[s]

[t]H

[s]

[t]H

[s]

[t]H

[h]

H

[l]

[n]L

zeroconsonant

M

[h]

L

[p][p]M

[ph][p]H

[f][p]H

[ph][p]L

[f][p]L

[ph][p]L

[m][m]

L

[j][j]L

[r][n]L

[l][n]L

[O:] [a](final)

[a]medial

[ua] [a:] [am] [i] [i:] [¨] [¨:] [u] [u:]

[e:] [e] [@: j] [@:] [@] [e] [aw] [O] [@:] [ia] [ia] [¨a]

[E:] [E] [E] [o:] [o] [aj] [aj]

Tone

marksTone varies withclass high rising

Vowels (shown on “zero consonant,” )

Figure 10.3 The Thai script, descended from the southern form of Brahm i ,

and preserving Sanskrit alphabetical order. The Thai language does not

distinguish all the consonant phonemes of Sanskrit, so many letters are

pronounced alike. Word-finally even fewer consonants are distinguished.

On the other hand, Thai has added symbols for its many vowel phonemes.

Consonants fall into three classes, which influence the tone on the upcoming

vowel. Vowels do not have initial forms; when word-initial they are added

to a dummy “zero consonant.” Thai does not use spaces between words.



combination of a wén and one of these two identifiers.By compounding in this way, Chinese writing could express

the full range of Chinese speech. Any character, no matter how complex, conveyed a single syllable that, it appears, stood for asingle word. A few characters always stood for the same word,but most offered several possibilities.

However, just as with the wén, scribes soon gave compound zì characters multiple meanings and multiple sounds. Once thecompounds were themselves compounded, a third level of complexity was added to the system. A solution to this new problem was to add more character components to a sign inorder to identify its meaning and/or sound. (In this way, asmany as six character components can now occur in onecommon Chinese sign – such as yù for ‘worried’, composed of

six individual components. And even more than six occur in

t h e e a s t a s i a n ‘ r e g e n e s i s ’ . 171

125 Development of some important Shang Dynasty characters in derivative

scripts.

Swamp

1400 – 800 bc

until 800 bc

800 – 220 bc

until 209 bc

until 200 bc

200 bc – ad 200

c. ad 100

c. ad 400

Fire Thunder Wind Water Mountain Earth Sky



S h a n g o r i g i n s o f m o d e r n c h a r a c t e r s

H i s t o r i c a l f o r m s o f t h r e e c h a r a c t e r s

S h a n g

“ S t a n d a r d ”

t r a d i t i o n a l

P r o n u

n c i a t i o n

a n d m e a n i n g

S i m p l i f i e d

O r a c l e b o n e

n

y

“ w o m

a n ”

L a r g e s e a l

w á n g

“ k i n g ”

S m a l l s e a l

r ì “ s u n ”

C l e r i c a l s c r i p t

y u è

“ m o o n ”

S t a n d a r d ( t r a d i t i o n a l )

y ä

“ r a i n ”

M o d e r n s i m p l i f i e d

m ù

“ w o o d ( t r e e ) ”

C u r s i v e

g u i

“ t u r t l e ”

m x

h

ä

l ó n g

M o d e r n p r o n u n c i a t i o

n

m x i

“ b u y ”

“ h o r s e ”

“ t i g

e r ”

“ d r a g o n ”

M e a n i n g

F i g u r e 4

. 1

A t l e f t , a f e w

o f t h e S h a n g c h a r a c

t e r s t h a t h a v e i d e n t i fi a b l e m o d e r n d e s c e n d a n t s . A t r i g h t , t h e s t a g e s o f

e v o l u t i o

n o f t w o c h a r a c t e r s f r o m o r a c l e b o n e s

t o m o d e r n s t a n d a r d a n d c u r s i v e s c r i p t s . A b o u t 2 , 2 0 0 c h a r a c t e r s r e c e i v e d

s i m p l i fi e d f o r m s i n t h e P e o p l e ’ s R e p u b l i c o f C

h i n a i n t h e m i d - t w e n t i e t h c e n t u r y . S o

m e o f t h e s e c h a r a c t e r s , s u c h a s t h a t f o r

“ t u r t l e , ”

s e e m t o h a v e b e e n b e g g i n g f o r s i m p l i fi c a t i o n .









classification of each character, no matter how complex; andassigned each Chinese character to one of six (four graphic, twousage) different classes.

Xu Shèn’s liù shu, or ‘six writings’, of characters best illustratehow Chinese characters are composed (illus. 128). The first class is pictographic: ‘tree’, ‘sun’ and so forth. The second classis symbolic (or ideographic), like the numerals ‘one’, ‘two’,‘three’. The third class is the compound analytic, such as ‘tree’plus ‘sun’ yielding ‘east’. The fourth class comprises the pho-netic loan or rebus, as seen in lai , or ‘a kind of wheat’, which is

also used for ‘to come’ since it was once homophonous (pro-nounced the same). The fifth and most important class includesthe semantic-phonetic compounds – that is, characters that have a signific for sense and phonetic for sound: ‘sugar’ is writ-ten with the classifier ‘cereal’ and the phonetic táng . The sixthclass contains chuan chù, or ‘mutually interpretative symbols’,

whereby a character conveys a word of the identical or similarmeaning but with a different pronunication: for example, the

yuè character for ‘music’ could also be used to convey lè, or‘pleasure’. Whereas class five embraces some 90 per cent of allChinese characters, class six is found in only one out of twothousand.

Xu Shèn himself used Li Su’s Small Seal Script as the basis of

176 . a h i s t o ry o f w r i t i n g

128 Xu Shèn’s liù shu, or ‘six writings’.



X]^cZhZlg^i^c\VcYXVaa^\gVe]n

,+

symbols into their modern forms by a process of simplification and abstraction,

during which details were left out and curves were changed into straight lines.

As a result, modern characters are far removed from their original pictures, al-though they sometimes still show traces of the objects they represent. Although

these are the most frequently used examples of pictographic characters, modern

people without any knowledge of Chinese characters, when seeing these sym-

bols, would make no connection to their referents before the similarities were

explained. The character ᰛ rì , “sun,” for example, looks more like a window,

while the character ᴾ yuè , “moon,” resembles a stepladder. Generally speaking,

without knowing the meaning of these characters, one cannot decode them by

merely looking.

Although pictographic characters are the best known type among people who

are not very familiar with Chinese written signs, their number is much smaller

than one might think. Even in the earliest wr iting we know of, the Shell and BoneScript (ca. 1400–ca. 1200 BCE), pictographic signs were a small portion of char-

acters, about 23 percent. Even then the majority of written symbols did not depict

physical shapes of objects. The decline of pictographic signs was well under way by

the Han dynasty. When Xu Shen did his study based on Small Seal characters (see

Chapter 8), pictographic signs comprised only 4 percent of all Chinese characters.2

Picture Evolution Modern character English

Figure 6.1. The evolution of pictographic characters.



[dgbVi^dcd[X]^cZhZX]VgVXiZgh

,,

In modern Chinese, even fewer characters show their pictographic origin clearly.

A more common function of these “pictographic” signs today is to indicate the

semantic category of a compound character (see below).

INDICATIVES

An indicative is a character made by adding strokes to another symbol in order to

indicate the new character’s meaning. For example,

rèn, “blade.” A dot is added to dāo, “knife.”

ᰜ dàn, “morning.” A horizontal line is added underneath ᰛ rì ,

“sun” to show the time when the sun is just above the horizon.

ᵢ běn, “root.” A short line is added to ᵞ mù, “tree.”

SEMANTIC COMPOUNDS

Semantic compounds are constructed by combining two or more components

that collectively contribute to the meaning of the new character. Examples are

᱄ míng , “bright,” is a combination of ᰛ rì , “sun,” and ᴾ

yuè , “moon.”

xìn, “trust,” combines Ӱ rén, “person,” and 䀶 yán,

“words.”

ⵁ kàn, “look,” has ᢁ shou, “hand,” over ⴤ mù, “eye.”

lín, “woods,” shows two ᵞ mù, “tree.”ἤ sēn, “forest,” is composed of three ᵞ mù, “tree.”

ഐ qiú, “prison,” is represented by a Ӱ rén, “person,” in ,

“confinement.”3

The methods of character formation represented by pictographs, indicatives,

and semantic compounds are all iconic. They are limited in that new signs have

to be created for new words. As a result they could not meet the needs of a

fast-developing society and its increasing demand for new written signs. In ad-

dition, abstract ideas and grammatical terms (such as prepositions, conjunctions,

and pronouns) were impossible to represent with pictographic signs. The solu-

tion was to break away from iconic representation and to use existing writtensigns to phonetically represent the sounds of new words. This process is called

“borrowing.”




,-

BORROWING

Borrowing in this context refers to the use of existing characters to represent ad-ditional new meanings. Two frequently used examples are

lái , originally a pictograph for “wheat.” The written

character with its pronunciation was later borrowed to mean

“to come.” In time, the borrowed meaning prevailed, and the

original meaning of “wheat” died away.

ৱ qù, originally a pictograph for a cooking utensil. Later the

character was borrowed to mean “to go.” The borrowed mean-

ing also prevailed, and the original meaning died away.

In cases such as lái and ৱ qù, only the borrowed meaning has survived inmodern Chinese.

SEMANTIC-PHONETIC COMPOUNDS

Semantic-phonetic compounds are a hybrid category constructed by combining

a meaning element and a sound element. This method of character formation

thrived as a means to solve the ambiguity problem caused by borrowing. As can

be easily seen, when a particular character is borrowed to mean more and more

different things, sooner or later, the interpretation of the multiple-meaning writ-

ten sign becomes a problem. To solve the problem and to allow borrowing to

continue, a semantic element is added to indicate the specific meaning of the newcharacter. This process led to the creation of semantic-phonetic compounds.

Thus, a semantic-phonetic compound has two components, one indicating

meaning and the other pronunciation. Take ѱ zhu, “host,” as an example. In

modern Chinese, the character is used as a phonetic element in more than ten

semantic-phonetic compounds, five of which are shown in Table 6.1. The five

characters in the first column are pronounced exactly the same way, zhù, although

they are different in meaning. They share the same phonetic element, ѱ zhu ,

which is the right-hand side of the characters. The signs on the left are semantic

components, which offer some clue to the meaning of the characters.

The semantic elements, for example, ӱ “person,” ≫ “water,” and ᵞ, “tree,”

are pictographs commonly known as “radicals.” Their function is to hint at themeaning of the characters in which they appear. At the same time, they also

group semantically related characters into classes. For example, all the characters

with ӱ, “person,” as a component have to do, at least in theory, with a person or

people; all the characters with ᵞ, “tree,” as a component have to do with wood

or trees. Traditionally, Chinese characters are categorized under 214 radicals.



[dgbVi^dcd[X]^cZhZX]VgVXiZgh

,.

TABLE 6.1. Semantic-Phonetic Compounds: zhù

CHARACTER SEMANTIC MEANING PHONETIC PRONUNCIATION

PART PART

օ ӱperson live ѱ zhŭ zhù

≫water to pour (liquid) ѱ zhŭ zhù

ḧ ᵞ tree pillar ѱ zhŭ zhù

㳶㲡 insectboring

(of insects)ѱ zhŭ zhù

傱傢 horse halt, station ѱ zhŭ zhù

One way to organize characters in dictionaries is to group them under these

radicals.

Table 6.2 brief ly illustrates the combination of semantic and phonetic elementsin the formation of characters. The vertical columns group characters by phonetic

elements, and the horizontal rows group characters by semantic elements. In other

words, characters in the same column have phonetic similarities and those in the

same row share semantic features. As seen in Table 6.2, the arrangement of the

two elements in a semantic-phonetic compound can be left to right or top to

bottom (as in 㧷, ㆈ, and 㤑). Other patterns not shown here include outside to

inside, as in the character ള guó, “country.” Radicals may take any position in a

character.

In modern Chinese, the majority of characters in the writing system belong to

the category of semantic-phonetic compounds. From as early as the Han dynasty,

this became the most productive method for creating new characters. It is worthnoting, however, that there are problems with extensive reliance on semantic-

phonetic characters. Languages change over time, and Chinese is no exception.

Both the pronunciation and the meaning of characters are in a state of flux. While

the written signs remain constant, over time sound change and semantic evolution

have eroded the relationships between characters and their sound and semantic

components, making it more and more difficult to deduce the meaning and pro-

nunciation of a character from its written form. Now, as can be partially seen in

Table 6.2, phonetic elements do not indicate the pronunciation of the characters




-%

clearly and accurately; nor do semantic elements show the exact meaning of char-

acters. In modern Chinese, the value of semantic-phonetic characters resides inthe combination of these two types of information to determine a character’s

meaning and pronunciation.

THE COMPLEXITY AND DEVELOPMENTAL

SEQUENCE OF THE CATEGORIES

The five categories of characters described above represent three stages of de-

velopment in character formation. The first stage is represented by pictographs,

indicatives, and semantic compounds. At this stage, written signs were created

based on a physical resemblance of some sort. This process also corresponds to an

early mode of human cognition, perceiving the world through the senses. Of thethree categories, pictographs are the simplest; indicatives and semantic compounds

involve more complex and abstract concepts.

The second stage is phonetic borrowing. Initially, single-element characters

such as ѱ zhu , “host” were borrowed to represent additional meanings. As the

multiple meanings of single characters became a source of enormous confusion,

ѱ ZHU ˇ ਥ KE ˇ 䶈 QI -NG TÓNG

ӱ

person

օ zhù,

“live”

hé

(family

name)

qiàn,

“pretty”

dòng (name of

a minority

group)

≫water

zhù,

“to pour

(liquid)”

⋩ hé ,

“river”

qīng ,

“clear”

dòng ,

“hole”

㲡insect

㳶 zhù,

“boring by

insect”

㵱 qīng ,

“dragonfly”

tγreeḧ zhù,“pillar”

ḥ kē ,

“stem of

plant”

Ẇ tóng ,“phoenix tree”

㢯plant

㤑 kē ,

“severe”

㧷 jīng ,

“lush”

ㄯbamboo

qing ,

“bamboo

woods”

ㆈ tong , “things

in bamboo-

tube shape”

TABLE 6.2. Examples of Semantic-Phonetic Compounds





















Japanese: Three Scripts are Better than One

121

0 x 2 Ò

k ]

c Ù 1 Ü

& á ' a i u e o

ka ki ku ke ko

sa shi (= [S i]) su se so

ta chi (= [tSi]) tsu te to

na ni nu ne no

ha (wa) hi fu (= [Fu]) he (e) ho

ma mi mu me mo

ya (= [ja]) yu (= [ju]) yo (= [jo])

ra ri ru re ro

wa (w)o

n(syllable-final nasal)

ga gi gu ge go

za ji (= [dZ i]) zu ze zo

da ji (= [dZ i]) zu de do

ba bi bu be bo

pa pi pu pe po

a p

5 à

? ç

" y

e s

f t

j ı

Â a

m w

’ l

o x

b q

P Î

@ î

6

h Z

7 •

A Æ

# z

K Ø

R –

‘ ~

õ g

. ¡

S Î

B ©

8 ›

T œ

/ ‹

9 ≥

d r

L Õ

U ñ

® ^

Á ã

ú h

Í [

E W

: ä

fi Ï

; í

F Ñ

M ø

fl Ö

| j

¶ ¶

G X

< ≤

ê ê

3 Ú

= ª

H æ

* â

N À

ß “

¢ _

ù f

ô i

£ o

ì \

I Y

> º

w Ì

4 Ç

Figure 7.1 The Japanese syllabaries, with hiragana on the left and

katakana on the right. The Romanization follows the Hepburn style,

with IPA interpretation where needed. The basic syllabaries are

above the double line, secondary symbols with diacritics below.

A smaller version of the tsu character is used for the first part of

a double consonant.









Japanese: Three Scripts are Better than One

A text in mixed kanji–kana conveys a considerable amount of informa-

tion that would be lost in a purely phonological script like hiragana.

At a glance, the content words – which convey what the text is actually

about – are distinguished from the grammatical words and suffixes,

the former written in kanji and the latter in hiragana (see figure 7.2).

The contrast between content words and grammatical words like the,in, at, with, and it is one that is nowhere marked in English orthography,

but it is nevertheless a linguistically real distinction. By visually marking

it, Japanese orthography gives clues to the syntactic function of its indi-

vidual words. Skimming a text is made much easier, as the important

words stand out from the grammatical window dressing.

Users of kanji also value the ability of the logograms to distinguish

between homophones, of which Japanese has a large number, especially

in its formal, Sino-Japanese vocabulary. If written in hiragana, the words

Ë “four,” È “city,” Í “paper,” Î “arrow,” plus 43 other Sino-

Japanese words would all be rendered simply as>, shi. Understandably,

writers resist such “simplification,” realizing that written language,

divorced as it is from the interactive context of speech, must work harderto avoid ambiguity. In kanji, even if it isn’t obvious whether the on or

kun reading is intended, the basic meaning will be clear. The Japanese

128

1)2)3)4) Fufu genka wa, inu mo kuwanu.5) couple quarrel (topic) dog even eat not.6) Even a dog doesn’t eat a couple’s quarrels.7) A dog, who will eat just about anything,

will not eat a couple’s quarrels – so youshouldn’t get involved either.

«»ÒnëOÓ‹¢›’LÔU&U2ò+OÓ#L¢/’LÔ

ñáñÒnëÃÓ°Õ_‹lÕÔ

(mixed kanji–hiragana–katakana)(hiragana only)(katakana only)(Romanization – romaji)(word-for-word translation)(English translation)(interpretation)

Figure 7.2 A Japanese proverb written in (1) a mixture of kanji, katakana,

and hiragana, (2) hiragana only, (3) katakana only. Also given are the

Romanization (known as romaji in Japanese), a word-for-word translation,

English translation, and interpretation. To a Japanese reader, the kanji

words for “couple,” “dog,” and “eat” stand out as content words. The use

of katakana for the word for “quarrel” indicates emphasis; in kanji it would

be æø . The grammatical words and particles (topic marker, “even,” and

negative particle) are in hiragana. Thus the first version provides more

linguistic clues than the second or third (kana-only) versions.



King Sejong’s One-Man Renaissance

198

Basic letter Added stroke Added stroke Doubled

Labial mA G K Q

P

R

T

S

L

U

M

O

F

H

∆

N

E

B

C

D

p ph p*

Lingual/Alveolar n t th t*

r/l

z (obsolete)

Dental/Sibilant s T Th s* T*

Molar/Velar k kh

è

k*

Glottal/Laryngeal (Ø) ? (obsolete) h

Figure 11.1 The derivation of the han’gãl letters from their pronunciations.

Above, the positions of the lips, tongue, and throat that Sejong used to

derive the basic shapes of the consonants. Below, the derivation of further

consonants from the basic ones. Note that andE are now a single letter.



copies the way in which the sound is formed in the mouth: the /k/, for example, depicts a tongue touching the palate. There were 28 basic letters in original Hankul, 24 of which are still inuse today. Diacritics are used systematically to provide those

phonemes not represented by letters. As King Seycong wrote in his edict of 1446: ‘The [Hankul] is

able to make a clear distinction between surd and sonant, and torecord music and song. It is good for any practical use, and eventhe sound of the wind, the chirp of birds, the crowing of cocks,and the barking of dogs can be exactly described with it.’29 Thisis almost true. Hankul’s consonants are organized according tofive different places of articulation: bilabial (lips), dental (teeth),alveolar (roof of mouth), velar (soft palate) and glottal (throat).Its three vowel shapes, however, were ‘metaphysically’ orga-nized into Heaven (round dot), Earth (horizontal line) and Man(vertical line) – ostensibly to legitimize the system philosophi-

cally to Korean scholars who demanded a Chinese-fashion con-

t h e e a s t a s i a n ‘ r e g e n e s i s ’ . 191

133 How Korea’s Hankul script combines consonants (left column) and vowels

(top row) in each ‘syllabic letter’.



The First IT Revolution

like cat has a single morpheme and a single syllable, but a word like

undesirable contains three morphemes and five syllables. Thus a logo-

graphic writing system would give cat one symbol and undesirable three,

while a syllabary would give cat one and undesirable five. That lengthens

the spelling of undesirable, but lessens the number of symbols needed

in all, as there are fewer distinct syllables in a language than there are

distinct morphemes.

So King Njoya converted a number of his symbols into syllabograms,

standing for syllables – just a pronunciation, unconnected to any

meaning. The meaning would come only when the syllabograms were

put together to make up words. He worked on his script over a period

of many years, ending with a syllabary of 73 signs, plus 10 numerals.He put the writing system to good use, compiling a law code, design-

ing a calendar, and founding schools.

8

Word undesirable

Morphemes un-desir-able

Meaning Pronunciation

Syllables

u n d e s i r a b l e

Aspect of language Example Script type Chapters

un-de-si-ra-ble

Phonemes

(None)

Logograms

Syllabary

Alphabet

Consonantalalphabet(abjad)

Ak ara(alphasyllabary)

v

Voweled (true)alphabet

n d s r b l

u nd s r ble a e

i

Chapters 2–5

Chapters 6–8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapters 11–14

C o n s o n a n t s

V o w e l s

Figure 1.1 How different writing systems represent language. Logograms

represent morphemes, both their meaning and pronunciation, while

syllabaries and alphabets represent only pronunciation. In the column of

examples, the word undesirable is used to illustrate how the various writing

systems would divide up such a word. A morphemic (logographic) system

would use three symbols, a syllabary five, and so forth. In an akvara system,

the vowels are written as appendages to the consonants.







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