Awriting system comprises a set of symbols, called ascript, as well as the rules by which the script represents a particularlanguage. The earliestwriting was invented during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each writing system invented without prior knowledge of writing gradually evolved from a system ofproto-writing that included a small number ofideographs, which were not fully capable of encoding spoken language, and lacked the ability to express a broad range of ideas.
Writing systems are generally classified according to how its symbols, calledgraphemes, relate to units of language. Phonetic writing systems, which includealphabets andsyllabaries, use graphemes that correspond to sounds in the correspondingspoken language. Alphabets use graphemes calledletters that generally correspond to spokenphonemes, and are typically classified into three categories. In general, pure alphabets use letters to represent bothconsonant andvowel sounds, whileabjads only have letters representing consonants, andabugidas use characters corresponding to consonant–vowel pairs. Syllabaries use graphemes calledsyllabograms that represent entiresyllables ormoras. By contrast,logographic (alternativelymorphographic) writing systems use graphemes that represent the units of meaning in a language, such as itswords ormorphemes. Alphabets typically use fewer than 100 distinct symbols, while syllabaries and logographies may use hundreds or thousands respectively.
A writing system also includes any punctuation used to aid readers and encode additional meaning, including that which would be communicated in speech via qualities ofrhythm,tone,pitch,accent,inflection, orintonation.
The relationship between spoken, written, and signed modes of language, as modelled by Beatrice Primus et al.[1] While many spoken or signed languages are not written, there are no written languages without a spoken counterpart that they originally emerged to record.
According to most contemporary definitions,writing is a visual and tactile notation representinglanguage. As such, the use of writing by a community presupposes an analysis of the structure of language at some level.[2] The symbols used in writing correspond systematically to functional units of either aspoken orsigned language. This definition excludes a broader class of symbolic markings, such as drawings and maps.[a][4] A text is any instance of written material, including transcriptions of spoken material.[5] The act of composing and recording a text is referred to aswriting,[6] and the act of viewing and interpreting the text asreading.[7]
The relationship between writing and language more broadly has been the subject of philosophical analysis as early asAristotle (384–322 BC).[8] While the use of language is universal across human societies, writing is not; writing emerged much more recently, and was independently invented in only a handful of locations throughout history. While most spoken languages have not been written, all written languages have been predicated on an existing spoken language.[9] When those with signed languages as their first language read writing associated with a spoken language, this functions as literacy in a second, acquired language.[b][10] A single language (e.g.Hindustani) can be written using multiple writing systems, and a writing system can also represent multiple languages. For example,Chinese characters have been used to write multiple languages throughout theSinosphere—including theVietnamese language from at least the 13th century, until their replacement with the Latin-basedVietnamese alphabet in the 20th century.[11]
In the first several decades of modernlinguistics as a scientific discipline, linguists often characterized writing as merely the technology used to record speech—which was treated as being of paramount importance, for what was seen as the unique potential for its study to further the understanding of human cognition.[12]
This page uses notation for orthographic or other linguistic analysis. For the meaning of how⟨ ⟩,| |,/ /, and[ ]are used here, seethis page.
Comparison between double-storey|a| (left) and single-storey|ɑ| (right)lowercase forms of the Latin letter⟨A⟩
While researchers of writing systems generally use some of the same core terminology, precise definitions and interpretations can vary by author, often depending on the theoretical approach being employed.[13]
Agrapheme is the basic functional unit of a writing system. Graphemes are generally defined as minimally significant elements which, when taken together, comprise the set of symbols from which texts may be constructed.[14] All writing systems require a set of defined graphemes, collectively called ascript.[15] The concept of the grapheme is similar to that of thephoneme used in the study of spoken languages. Likewise, as many sonically distinctphones may function as the same phoneme depending on the speaker, dialect, and context, many visually distinctglyphs (orgraphs) may be identified as the same grapheme. These variant glyphs are known as theallographs of a grapheme: For example, the lowercase letter⟨a⟩ may be represented by the double-storey|a| and single-storey|ɑ| shapes,[16] or others written in cursive, block, or printed styles. The choice of a particular allograph may be influenced by the medium used, the writing instrument used, the stylistic choice of the writer, the preceding and succeeding graphemes in the text, the time available for writing, the intended audience, and the largely unconscious features of an individual's handwriting.
Diagram comparing the abstraction of pictographs in cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, and Chinese characters – from an 1870 publication by French EgyptologistGaston Maspero[c]
In each instance, writing emerged from systems ofproto-writing, though historically most proto-writing systems did not produce writing systems. Proto-writing usesideographic and mnemonic symbols to communicate, but lacks the capability to fully encode language. Examples include:
Quipu (15th century AD), a system of knotted cords used as mnemonic devices by theInca Empire in South America.[21]
Writing has been invented independently multiple times in human history—first emerging between 3400 and 3200 BC during theEarly Bronze Age, withcuneiform, a system invented in southern Mesopotamia to write theSumerian language, considered to be the earliest true writing. Cuneiform was closely followed byEgyptian hieroglyphs. It is generally agreed that the two systems were invented independently from one another; both evolved from proto-writing systems with the earliest coherent texts datedc. 2600 BC.Chinese characters emerged independently in theYellow River valleyc. 1200 BC. There is no evidence of contact between China and the literate peoples of the Near East, and the Mesopotamian and Chinese approaches for representing aspects of sound and meaning are distinct.[22][23][24] TheMesoamerican writing systems, includingOlmec and theMaya script, were also invented independently.[25]
With each independent invention of writing, the ideographs used in proto-writing were decoupled from the direct representation of ideas, and gradually came to represent words instead. This occurred via application of therebus principle, where a symbol was appropriated to represent an additional word that happened to be similar in pronunciation to the word for the idea originally represented by the symbol. This allowed words without concrete visualizations to be represented by symbols for the first time; the gradual shift from ideographic symbols to those wholly representing language took place over centuries, and required the conscious analysis of a given language by those attempting to write it.[26]
Alphabetic writing descends from previous morphographic writing, and first appeared before 2000 BC to write a Semitic language spoken in theSinai Peninsula. Most of the world's alphabets either descend directly from thisProto-Sinaitic script, or were directly inspired by its design. Descendants include thePhoenician alphabet (c. 1050 BC), and its child in theGreek alphabet (c. 800 BC).[27][28] TheLatin alphabet, which descended from the Greek alphabet, is by far the most common script used by writing systems.[29]
Table of scripts in the introduction to theSanskrit–English Dictionary byMonier Monier-Williams
Writing systems are most often categorized according to what units of language a system's graphemes correspond to.[30] At the most basic level, writing systems can be either phonographic (lit.'sound writing') when graphemes represent units of sound in a language, or morphographic ('form writing') when graphemes represent units of meaning (such aswords ormorphemes).[31] Depending on the author, the older termlogographic ('word writing') is often used, either with the same meaning asmorphographic, or specifically in reference to systems where the basic unit being written is the word. Recent scholarship generally prefersmorphographic overlogographic, with the latter seen as potentially vague or misleading—in part because systems usually operate on the level of morphemes, not words.[32]
Many classifications define three primary categories, where phonographic systems are subdivided into syllabic and alphabetic (orsegmental) systems. Syllabaries use symbols called syllabograms to representsyllables ormoras. Alphabets use symbols called letters that correspond to spoken phonemes (or more technically, todiaphonemes). Alphabets are generally classified into three subtypes, withabjads having letters forconsonants, pure alphabets having letters for both consonants andvowels, andabugidas having characters that correspond to consonant–vowel pairs.[33]David Diringer proposed a five-fold classification of writing systems, comprising pictographic scripts, ideographic scripts, analytic transitional scripts, phonetic scripts, and alphabetic scripts.[34]
In practice, writing systems are classified according to the primary type of symbols used, and typically include exceptional cases where symbols function differently. For example, logographs found within phonetic systems like English include theampersand⟨&⟩ and the numerals⟨0⟩,⟨1⟩, etc.—which correspond to specific words (and,zero,one, etc.) and not to the underlying sounds.[30] Most writing systems can be described as mixed systems that feature elements of both phonography and morphography.[35]
A logogram is a character that represents a morpheme within a language.Chinese characters represent the only major logographic writing systems still in use: they have historically been used to write thevarieties of Chinese, as well asJapanese,Korean,Vietnamese, and other languages of theSinosphere. As each character represents a single unit of meaning, thousands are required to write all the words of a language. If the logograms do not adequately represent all meanings and words of a language, written language can be confusing or ambiguous to the reader.[36]
Logograms are sometimes conflated withideograms, symbols which graphically represent abstract ideas; most linguists now reject this characterization:[37] Chinese characters are often semantic–phonetic compounds, which include a component related to the character's meaning, and a component that gives a hint for its pronunciation.[38]
A syllabary is a set of written symbols (calledsyllabograms) that represent eithersyllables ormoras—a unit ofprosody that is often but not always a syllable in length.[39] Syllabaries are best suited to languages with relatively simple syllable structure, since a different symbol is needed for every syllable. Japanese, for example, contains about 100 moras, which are represented by moraichiragana. By contrast, English features complex syllable structures with a relatively large inventory of vowels and complexconsonant clusters—for a total of 15–16 thousand distinct syllables. Some syllabaries have larger inventories: theYi script contains 756 different symbols.[40]
An alphabet uses symbols (calledletters) that correspond to the phonemes of a language, e.g. its vowels and consonants. However, these correspondences are rarely uncomplicated, andspelling is often mediated by other factors than just which sounds are used by a speaker.[41] The wordalphabet is derived fromalpha andbeta, the names for the first two letters in theGreek alphabet.[42] Anabjad is an alphabet whose letters only represent the consonantal sounds of a language. They were the first alphabets to develop historically,[43] with most used to writeSemitic languages, and originally deriving from theProto-Sinaitic script. Themorphology of Semitic languages is particularly suited to this approach, as the denotation of vowels is generally redundant.[44] Optional markings for vowels may be used for some abjads, but are generally limited to applications like education.[45] Many pure alphabets were derived from abjads through the addition of dedicated vowel letters, as with the derivation of the Greek alphabet from the Phoenician alphabetc. 800 BC.Abjad is the word for "alphabet" in Arabic: the term derives from the traditional order of letters in theArabic alphabet ('alif,bā',jīm,dāl).[46]
Anabugida is a type of alphabet with symbols corresponding to consonant–vowel pairs, where basic symbols for each consonant are associated with aninherent vowel by default, and other possible vowels for each consonant are indicated via predictable modifications made to the basic symbols.[47] In an abugida, there may be a sign fork with no vowel, but also one forka (ifa is the inherent vowel), andke is written by modifying theka sign in a way consistent with howla would be modified to getle. In many abugidas, modification consists of the addition of a vowel sign; other possibilities include rotation of the basic sign, or addition ofdiacritics.
While true syllabaries have one symbol per syllable and no systematic visual similarity, the graphic similarity in most abugidas stems from their origins as abjads—with added symbols comprising markings for different vowels added onto a pre-existing base symbol. The largest single group of abugidas is theBrahmic family of scripts, however, which includes nearly all the scripts used in India and Southeast Asia. The nameabugida was derived by linguistPeter T. Daniels (b. 1951) from the first four characters of an order of theGeʽez script, which is used for certain Nilo-Saharan and Afro-Asiatic languages of Ethiopia and Eritrea.[48]
Originally proposed as a category byGeoffrey Sampson (b. 1944),[49][50] a featural system uses symbols representing sub-phonetic elements—e.g. those traits that can be used to distinguish between and analyse a language's phonemes, such as theirvoicing orplace of articulation. The only prominent example of a featural system is thehangul script used to write Korean, where featural symbols are combined into letters, which are in turn joined into syllabic blocks. Many scholars, includingJohn DeFrancis (1911–2009), reject a characterization of hangul as a featural system—with arguments including that Korean writers do not themselves think in these terms when writing—or question the viability of Sampson's category altogether.[51]
As hangul was consciously created by literate experts, Daniels characterizes it as a "sophisticatedgrammatogeny"[52]—a writing system intentionally designed for a specific purpose, as opposed to having evolved gradually over time. Other grammatogenies includeshorthands developed by professionals andconstructed scripts created by hobbyists and creatives, like theTengwar script designed byJ. R. R. Tolkien to write the Elven languages he also constructed. Many of these feature advanced graphic designs corresponding to phonological properties. The basic unit of writing in these systems can map to anything from phonemes to words. It has been shown that even the Latin script has sub-character features.[53]
In the initial historical distinction,linear writing systems (e.g. the Phoenician alphabet) generally form glyphs as a series of connected lines or strokes. Systems (e.g. cuneiform) that instead used discrete, generally more pictorial marks—such as those made with a wedge into clay—are sometimes termednon-linear. The historical abstraction of logographs into phonographs is often associated with a linearization of the script.[54] Linear writing is most common, but there are non-linear writing systems where glyphs consist of other types of marks, such as incuneiform andBraille.Egyptian hieroglyphs andMaya script were often painted in linear outline form, but in formal contexts they were carved inbas-relief. The earliest examples of writing are linear: while cuneiform was not linear, its Sumerian ancestors were. Non-linear systems are not composed of lines, no matter what instrument is used to write them. Cuneiform was likely the earliest non-linear writing. Its glyphs were formed by pressing the end of a reed stylus into moist clay, not by tracing lines in the clay with the stylus as had been done previously. The result was a radical transformation of the appearance of the script.
While all writing is linear in the broadest sense—i.e., symbols are arranged spatially in a way that indicates the order in which they should be read[55]—on a more granular level, systems with discontinuous marks likediacritics can be characterized as less linear than those without.[56] InBraille, raised bumps on the writingsubstrate are used to encode non-linear symbols. The original system—whichLouis Braille (1809–1852) invented in order to allowvisually impaired people to read and write—used characters that corresponded to the letters of the Latin alphabet.[57] Moreover, that Braille and visual writing systems function equivalently to one another has indicated on a deeper level that the phenomenon of writing is fundamentally spatial in nature, not merely visual.[58]There are also transient non-linear adaptations of the Latin alphabet, includingMorse code, themanual alphabets of varioussign languages, and semaphore, in whichflags orbars are positioned at prescribed angles.[citation needed]However, if writing is defined as a potentially permanent means of recording information, then these systems do not qualify as writing at all, since the symbols disappear as soon as they are used. Instead, these transient systems serve assignals.[citation needed]
Writing systems may be characterized by how text is graphically divided into lines, which are to be read in sequence:[59]
Axis
Whether lines of text are laid out as horizontal rows or vertical columns
Lining
How each line is positioned relative to the one previous on the medium—whether above or below it on a horizontal axis, or to the left or right of it on a vertical axis
Directionality
How individual lines are read—whether starting from the left or right on a horizontal axis, or from the top or bottom on a vertical axis
For example, English and many other Western languages are written in horizontal rows that begin at the top of a page and end at the bottom, with each row read from left to right. Egyptian hieroglyphs were written either left to right or right to left, with the animal and human glyphs turned to face the beginning of the line. The early alphabet could be written in multiple directions:[60] horizontally from side to side, or vertically. Prior to standardization, alphabetic writing could be either left-to-right (LTR) and right-to-left (RTL). It was most commonly writtenboustrophedonically: starting in one (horizontal) direction, then turning at the end of the line and reversing direction.[61]
The right-to-left direction of the Phoenician alphabet initially stabilized afterc. 800 BC.[62] Left-to-right writing has an advantage that, since most people areright-handed,[63] the hand does not interfere with what is being written (which, when inked, may not have dried yet) as the hand is to the right side of the pen. TheGreek alphabet and its successors settled on a left-to-right pattern, from the top to the bottom of the page. Other scripts, such asArabic andHebrew, came to be written right to left. Scripts that historically incorporate Chinese characters have traditionally been written vertically in columns arranged from right to left, while a horizontal direction from left to right was only widely adopted in the 20th century due to Western influence.[64]
Several scripts used in the Philippines and Indonesia, such asHanunoo, are traditionally written with lines moving away from the writer, from bottom to top, but are read left to right;[65]ogham is written from bottom to top, commonly on the corner of a stone.[66] The ancientLibyco-Berber alphabet was also written from bottom to top.[67]
^This view is sometimes called the "narrow definition" of writing. The "broad definition" of writing also includessemasiography—i.e. meaningful symbols without a direct relationship to language.[3]
^This is to be distinguished from the use of notation systems designed to record signed languages, such asSignWriting.
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