Writing Systems

Throughout most of the history of linguistics, the primacy of the spoken word over the written word has been virtually axiomatic. Scholars working at what is perceived as the core of linguistic science, on grammar, sociolinguistics, phonetics, phonology, have generally perceived the written word as merely the means of representing the true matter of linguistics, spoken language, with varying degrees of efficiency. Yet the written word has demonstrably shaped the course of languages, been the means of their maintenance or, under different circumstances, their downfall. Written language has been the means of holding speech communities together. Speech communities have become writing communities and, in doing so, gained hegemony over their less literate neighbours. Because writing has for so long and so often been treated as the poor relation of speech, the serious study of writing as a discipline itself has been relegated to disparate parts of the linguistic domain. It is only in the last fifty years that scripts and writing systems, their evolution and impact, have been the subject of scholarly works.Writing Systemsaims at the widest possible sweep in collecting materials on the subject of written language and presents not only the latest research findings, but also anthologises writings on particular themes under each of these headings, both journal articles and longer works, extending over a long period of time. Itprovides an extensive bibliographical resource for scholars interested in pursuing the connections between the social, linguistic, historical, pedagogical, legal, and economic aspects of writing.

Volume I: Writing Technology and its Applications 1. Earl M. Herrick, ‘A Taxonomy of Alphabets and Scripts’, Visible Language, 1974, 8, 5–32. 2. Hsi-Yao Su, ‘The Multilingual and Multiorthographic Taiwan-Based Internet: Creative Uses of Writing Systems in College-Affiliated BBSs’, in Brenda Danet and Susan C. Herring (eds.), The Multilingual Internet: Language, Culture and Communication Online (Oxford University Press, 2007), pp. 64–86. 3. Sean Hawkins, ‘Writing and Kinship in Northern Ghana: From Cowry Payments to Paper Documents’, in David R. Olson and Michael Cole (eds.), Technology, Literacy and the Evolution of Society: Implications of the Work of Jack Goody (Lawrence Erlbaum, 2006), pp. 189–213. 4. Rutherford Aris, ‘A Sequence of Scripts’, The Scribe, 1987, 41, 7–12. 5. P. Mohanty and G. Altmann, ‘On Graphemic Representation of the Oriya Phonemes’, in Gabriel Altmann and Fengxiang Fan (eds.), Analyses of Script Properties of Characters and Writing Systems (Mouton de Gruyter, 2008), pp. 121–40.6. William C. Hannas, ‘Asia’s Orthographic Tradition’, The Writing on the Wall (LB, 2003), pp. 168–93. 7. Andrew Robinson, Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World’s Undeciphered Scripts (McGraw-Hill, 2002), pp. 244–63. 8. Heidi Swank, ‘It all Hinges on the Vowels: Reconsidering the Alphasyllabary Classification’, Written Language and Literacy, 2008, 11, 1, 73–89. 9. David G. Lockwood, ‘Phoneme and Grapheme: How Parallel Can They Be?’, LACUS, 2000/1, 27, 307–16. 10. Ramesh Kumai Mishra, ‘The Neural Representation of Orthography: Phonology Interface and the Case of Syllabic and Alphabetic Scripts’, International Journal of Dravidian Linguistics, Trivandrum, 2007, 36, 2, 57–70. 11. J. D. Bolter, ‘Beyond Word Processing: The Computer as a New Writing Space’, Language and Communication, 1989, 8, 2, 3, 130. 12. William A. Poser, ‘Use of Web Pages for Endangered Languages’, IJSL, 2002, 158, 227–37. 13. Gary Sobbing and Audra Vincent, ‘Technology, Literacy and Orality: The Case of the Coeur d’Alene Language’, in Nicholas Ostler and Blair Rudes (eds.), Endangered Languages and Literacy: Proceedings of the Fourth FEL Conference (Foundation for Endangered Languages, 2000), pp. 29–34. 14. Steven L. Thorne and Rebecca W. Black, ‘Language and Literacy Development in Computer-Mediated Contexts and Communities’, Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, Vol. 27 (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 133–60. Volume II: Orthography 15. Bernard Comrie, ‘Script Reform in and After the Soviet Union’, in P. T. Daniels and W. Bright (eds.), Writing Systems of the World (Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 781–4. 16. Rachael Gilmour, ‘British Colonial Rule in Natal: The Growth of Missionary Activity, and the Development of Language Study’, in Grammars of Colonialism: Representing Languages in Colonial South Africa (Palgrave Macmillan, 2006), pp. 126–43. 17. Sally Johnson, ‘Introduction to the 1996 Reform of German Orthography’, Spelling Trouble: Language, Ideology and the Reform of German Orthography (Multilingual Matters, 2005), pp. 1–17. 18. Steven Bird, ‘Strategies for Representing Tone in African Writing Systems’, Written Language and Literacy, 2000, 2, 1, 1–44. 19. V. Cook, ‘Written Language and Foreign Language Teaching’, in V. Cook and B. Bassetti (eds.), Second Language Writing Systems (Multilingual Matters, 2005), pp. 424–41. 20. S. Detey and J.-L. Nespoulos, ‘Can Orthography Influence Second-Language Syllabic Segmentation?’, Lingua, 2008, 118, 1, 66–81. 21. Rizwan Ahmad, ‘Urdu in Devanagari: Shifting Orthographic Practices and Muslim Identity in Delhi’, Language in Society, 2011, 40, 3, 259–84. 22. Peter Unseth, ‘The Sociolinguistics of Script Choice’, IJSL, 2008, 192, 1–4. 23. Andrew Savage, ‘Writing Tuareg: The Three Script Options’, IJSL, 2008, 192, 5–14. 24. Doris E. Blood, ‘The Ascendancy of the Cham Script: How a Literacy Workshop Became the Catalyst’, IJSL, 2008, 192, 45–56. 25. William Fierman, ‘The Introduction of Latin Letters’, Language Planning and National Development: The Uzbek Experience (Mouton de Gruyter, 1991), pp. 97–124. 26. Richard Sproat, ‘Reading Devices’, A Computational Theory of Writing Systems (Cambridge University Press, 2000), pp. 1–32. 27. Mark Sebba, ‘Postcolonial Orthographies’, Spelling and Society: The Culture and Politics of Orthography Around the World (Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 81–96. 28. Pamela Innes, ‘I Can’t Read that Way of Writing: Linguistic and Indigenous Systems Clash in the Apache Language Revitalization Movement’, in R. McKenna Brown (ed.), Endangered Languages and their Literatures (Foundation for Endangered Languages, 2002), pp. 39–45. 29. Lynley Hatcher, ‘Script Change in Azerbaijan: Nets of Identity’, IJSL, 2008, 192, 105–16. 30. Victoria Clement, ‘Emblem of Independence: Script Choice in Post-Soviet Turkmenistan’, IJSL, 2008, 192, 171–90. 31. T. S. Barthel, ‘Perspectives and Directions of the Classical Rapanui Script’, in S. R. Fischer, Easter Island Studies (Oxbow Books, 1993), pp. 174–7. 32. Francene Patterson, ‘Pathway to an Acceptable Orthography’, in Nicholas Ostler and Blair Rudes (eds.), Endangered Languages and Literacy: Proceedings of the Fourth FEL Conference (Foundation for Endangered Languages, 2000), pp. 25–9. 33. David L. Morse and Thomas M. Tehan, ‘How Do You Write Lisu?’, in Nicholas Ostler and Blair Rudes (eds.), Endangered Languages and Literacy: Proceedings of the Fourth FEL Conference (Foundation for Endangered Languages, 2000), pp. 53–62. 34. Blair Rudes, ‘When You Choose, Must You Lose? Standard Orthography Versus Dialect Diversity’, in Nicholas Ostler and Rudes (eds.), Endangered Languages and Literacy: Proceedings of the Fourth FEL Conference (Foundation for Endangered Languages, 2000), pp. 74–7. 35. Eckart Scheerer, ‘Orthography and Lexical Access’, in Gerhard Augst (ed.), New Trends in Graphemics and Orthography (de Gruyter, 1986), pp. 262–86. 36. R. Venezky, ‘Principles for the Design of Practical Writing Systems’, Anthropological Linguistics, 1970, 12, 7, 265–70. 37. Eda Derhemi, ‘The Endangered Arbresh Language and the Importance of Standardized Writing for its Survival’, International Journal on Multicultural Societies, 2002, 4, 2, 248–69. 38. Christina Eira, ‘Authority and Discourse: Towards a Model for Orthography Selection’, Written Language and Literacy, 1998, 1, 171–224. 39. Nancy H. Hornberger, ‘Five Vowels or Three? Linguistics and Politics in Quechua Language Planning in Peru’, in J. W. Tollefson (ed.), Power and Inequality in Language Education (Cambridge University Press, 1995), pp. 187–205. 40. Keren Rice, ‘Developing Orthographies: The Athapaskan Languages of the Northwest Territories, Canada’, in Insup Taylor and David Olson (eds.), Scripts and Literacy (Kluwer, 1995), pp. 77–84. 41. Peter Mühlhäusler, ‘"Reducing" Pacific Languages to Writing’, in J. R. Joseph and T. J. Taylor (eds.), Ideologies of Language (Routledge, 1996), pp. 187–205. Volume III: Literacy 42. Jack Goody and Ian Watt, ‘The Consequences of Literacy’, in Goody (ed.), Literacy in Traditional Societies (Cambridge University Press, 1968), pp. 27–67. 43. Florian Coulmas, ‘Development of Orthographies’, in D. Wagner, R. Venezky, and B. V. Street (eds.), Literacy: An International Handbook (Westview Press, 1999), pp. 137–42. 44. Sarah Gudschinsky, ‘Ways to Test an Orthography’, A Manual of Literacy for Preliterate Peoples (SIL, 1973). 45. Brian V. Street, ‘The "Ideological" Model’, Literacy in Theory and Practice (Cambridge University Press, 1984), pp. 95–125. 46. Randal Holme, Literacy: An Introduction (Edinburgh University Press, 2004), pp. 236–42. 47. Ram Frost, ‘Orthography and Phonology: The Psychological Reality of Orthographic Depth’, in Pamela Downing, Susan D. Lima, and Michael Noonan (eds.), The Linguistics of Literacy (Benjamins, 1972), pp. 255–74. 48. Jan Blommaert, ‘Writing as a Problem: African Grassroots Writing, Economics of Literacy and Globalization’, LS, 2004, 33, 5, 643–71. 49. Shirl