LINGUIS 100 1st Edition Lecture 7 Writing Systems Distinguishing differences between writing systems Definitions of writing systems and backgrounds Types of writing systems Changes to writing systems How does identity play a large role in writing systems Inventory of what you know about writing systems Are these things true or false How would you answer them Do all languages have a writing system Do all languages have an alphabet People have been talking longer than they have been writing One group of people started writing and came up with a writing system and everyone copied to follow Read Chapter 16 for this week Writing system the symbolic representation of language through the use of graphic signs Yule 2014 This is a cover term to cover all of the other terms people use when referring to writing systems We use system to create and portray thought ideas etc to people who you cannot immediately communicate with verbally Writing systems are learned you could be a speaker of a language for 50 years and never be able to write it down This is the difference between writing systems and language Writing systems are much more subject to change and adaptation created by speakers Chinese China Mayan Mexico Ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphs Went to websites on Omniglot to see different writing systems and symbols and how they are related to groups of sounds Hieroglyphs have pictures that are related to sounds some just relate to one sound but others might relate to numerous sounds There are also combinations of sounds you can make with the symbols Symbols Represent Objects Logographic Writing systems ideograms logograms more simplified For example a picture of a sun in an ideogram might just be turned into a drawing of a circle which now represents the sun heat and warmth characters different character for every word of the language and can add different characters to be able to form new words Talking to each other might be not lend itself to understanding each other but if you write it down you can understand each other because it is same writing system Sounds Rebus License plate that could stand for something else which isn t the best example but shortened words for texting is an rebus system ex is turning the word to into 2 or later into l8r Syllabary consonant and a vowel for one syllable Alphabet Cyrillic alphabet used by Soviet Union Arabic based script used around Middle East and Northern Africa Look at map she has on lecture slides on D2L Tifinagh Writing system used in Morocco How do you represent sounds that aren t in your writing system This is how they get changed from one writing system to another Sound is represented by symbol then has the above verbal sound how it is written in latin alphabet and how it would appear in the IPA How do you figure out the grammar of a language without knowing anything about it prior to being immersed into it Get to know similar writing systems See Syllabary example on Lecture slides Example Capital D standing for a sound Direction of Text Left to right Right to left Top to bottom Bottom to top Combination of these options Omniglot can give you specific examples Hebrew working from right to left Mongolian goes from top to bottom Watched a video about Koren that uses an alphabet system called Hangul Seems complicated but can learn this writing system fairly quickly and easily Korean phoneme system does not have separate phonemes for r or l Depending on which way you are going you can read Korean in sort of a top to bottom form or in a triangle across and down Arabic Alphabet Has different letters and consonants from English Lesson from TA on Arabic 28 letters all consonants Some letters include dots above or below the letter Letters are directly connected with each other in writing for right to left and it is very much so like a cursive where each letter is connected to the next Each letter differs in the number of dots it has either above or below the letters Vowels in Arabic There are only three vowels a u i Optional to show vowels in Arabic Sentences always starts with verb Arabic is very small and needs to be blown up to size 20 to read because the written script is so much smaller and compact than latin letters