Writing systemsPictographsThe writer is a woman. The recipient of the letter was previously her lover, but now has gone off to live with a Russian woman . The Russian woman, naturally, has broken up the relationship between writer and addressee; nevertheless, the new ...2. An Amerindian pictograph. Again, let’s see what we can figure out about what- means-what in the pictograph on the basis of the message:A chief of the eagle totem who lives on the bank of a river, four of his war rior-kinsmen, a fifth warrior (of the catfish totem), and another chief, who is more powerful than the first leader, are all agreed in their views. They extend frien...3. Ojibwa pictograph: the three Christians.The first major point to be made about the Chinese writing system is that it is logographic - a Chinese character stands not for a consonant, a vowel, or a syllable but for a morpheme. That such a system devel oped in Chinese follows in part ...The fact that modern Chinese is logographic is made abundantly clear by Figure 26. Notice that despite being written with different characters, a large number of morphemes are homophonous. Obviously, the character stands for a meaningful morp...1. The answer to the Yukaghir pictograph:“The conifer shaped objects in Figure 1 are people. The second from the right is the writer (the row of dots represents plaited hair and thus shows that she is a woman); the next one leftwards, the recipient of the letter, was previously her ...Geoffrey Sampson. 1985. Writing systems. Stanford University Press. P. 28 (diagram); 29 (text)Don’t tell me it is fuzzy! I know!O’Grady, pp. 559-560.Summary:1. pictograph2. logograph3. syllabary4. consonantal alphabet5. full alphabet (both consonants and vowels)Tibetan in alphabetical order (a subset of the symbols):k v g xc q j ,T ] d nP [ b Mso si suu seso si su seCherokee: a subset1 2 3 4 5ge he le me new e r t ygo ho lo mo nos d f g hga ha la ma naBurmesepa pi pu popa pi pu pota ti tu tota ti tu toWriting systems 134 Writing systems Pictographs1. A Yukaghir pictograph. Although there is an obvious sense in which, if you already know the message, what is the point of writing, let’s see what we can fig-ure out about what-means-what in the pictograph on the basis of the message:The writer is a woman. The recipient of the letter was previously her lover, but now has gone off to live with a Russian woman . The Russian woman, naturally, has broken up the relationship between writer and addressee; nevertheless, the new ménage is stormy. The writer is unhappy alone in her house, and she is still think-ing of the addressee. On the other hand the addressee should bear in mind that there is another young man at home sending a tendril toward her. If the addressee want to act on this message, he had better hurry before his new household has chil-dren.Writing systems 135 2. An Amerindian pictograph. Again, let’s see what we can figure out about what-means-what in the pictograph on the basis of the message:A chief of the eagle totem who lives on the bank of a river, four of his war-rior-kinsmen, a fifth warrior (of the catfish totem), and another chief, who is more powerful than the first leader, are all agreed in their views. They extend friendship to the president of the United States in the White House. Three of the eagle totem warriors have agreed to abandon their way of life and to settle in houses, thus adopting the white man’s culture. It is hoped the president will understand the offer of friendship and return it.Writing systems 136 3. Ojibwa pictograph: the three Christians.The following “letter” was sent by a young Ojibwa woman to a young man, inviting him to her lodge. The prospective lover is given directions for finding his way and other information appropriate to such an invitation. Only the R.S.V.P. is lacking. (The letters have been added to the original for purposes of identifica-tion).The writer of the letter is a woman of the bear totem ( ). She and two com-panions, all three of whom are Christians ( ), ( ), and ( ), live in two lodges ( )near a lake ( ). A trail leads from the lodges to a main road ( ), which runsbetween two other lakes ( ) not far from the lodges. The letter is being sent to aman of the mud puppy totem ( ), who is reminded of a trail ( ) which leads fromhis lodge to the main road. A hand extending through the door of one of the dwell-ings ( ) both invites the young man (the purpose of the letter) and tells him whichlodge he should visit.Writing systems 137 Chinese next, as it is logographic. The first major point to be made about the Chinese writing system is that it is logographic — a Chinese character stands not for a consonant, a vowel, or a syllable but for a morpheme. That such a system devel-oped in Chinese follows in part from certain characteristics of the language: 1). morphemes are overwhelm-ingly exactly one syllable in length and 2). syllables are easily distinguished from one another. Chinese is, in fact, a largely analytic (that is, isolating) language in which what morphology there is is expressed by stringing phonologically-distinct morphemes together. The fact that modern Chinese is logographic is made abundantly clear by Figure 26. Notice that despite being written with different characters, a large number of morphemes are homophonous. Obviously, the character stands for a meaningful morpheme not just a syllable, a phonological unit.Writing systems 138 O’Grady, et al. p. 570Writing systems 139 1. The answer to the Yukaghir pictograph:“The conifer shaped objects in Figure 1 are people. The second from the right is the writer (the row of dots represents plaited hair and thus shows that she is a woman); the next one leftwards, the recipient of the letter, was previously her lover, but now has gone off to live with a Russian woman (plaited hair, together with a skirt with panniers, distinguishing Russian from Yukaghir costume). The Russian woman, naturally, has broken up the relationship between writer and addressee (line from the head of the Russian woman cutting through the lines con-necting the two Yukaghir); nevertheless, the new ménage is stormy (criss-cross lines linking the two). The writer is unhappy (crossed lines) alone in her house (the rectangular enclosing structure), and she is still thinking of the addressee (curly tendril reaching towards him).