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The story of writing / Andrew Robinson.

P211 .R6 1995

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Format:: Book
Author/Creator:: Robinson, Andrew, 1957-
Language:: English
Subjects (All):: Writing--History.; Writing.; History.; Alphabet.
Physical Description:: 224 pages : illustrations (some color) ; 26 cm
Place of Publication:: New York : Thames and Hudson, 1995.
Summary:: In a succinct and absorbing text, Andrew Robinson explains the interconnection between sound, symbol and script. He discusses each of the major writing systems in turn, from cuneiform and Egyptian and Mayan hieroglyphs to alphabets and the scripts of China and Japan, as well as others such as the Cherokee "alphabet" and the writing of runes.
Contents:: I How Writing Works 18; Chapter 1 Reading the Rosetta Stone 20; The Classical Image of Egypt; The Wisdom of the Hieroglyphs; The Discovery of the Rosetta Stone; The Decipherment Begins; Champollion Breaks the Egyptian Code; The Essence of Egyptian Hieroglyphs; Chapter 2 Sound, Symbol and Script 36; Visible and Invisible Speech; Sign Language; Theories of Reading; Sound and Spelling; Conveying Meaning in Writing; Rebuses; Shorthand; Classification of Writing Systems; Language and Script; The Prestige of a Script; The Graphic Dimension; Pictography; Chapter 3 Proto-Writing 52; Ice Age Symbols; Tallies; Amerindian Pictograms; A Siberian Love Letter; Clay 'Tokens'; Clay Envelopes; The First Clay Tablets; Counting in the Ancient Middle East; Archaic Book-keeping; II Extinct Writing 68; Chapter 4 Cuneiform 70; Ancient Mesopotamia; The Decipherment of Cuneiform; First Successes; Rawlinson and the Behistun Inscription; Cuneiform Deciphered; Cuneiform as an Art; Cuneiform as a Craft; The Evolution of the Signs; Numerals and Arithmetic; Computers and Cuneiform; Cuneiform 'Literature'; Hittite Cuneiform and Hittite Hieroglyphs; Chapter 5 Egyptian Hieroglyphs 92; The Development of Egyptian Writing; The Direction of Egyptian Writing; The Sound of Ancient Egyptian; The Hieroglyphic 'Alphabet'; The Hidden Power of Hieroglyphs; Types of Hieroglyph; The Book of the Dead; Some Hieroglyphic Words; A Glazed Tile of Ramesses II; The Profession of Scribe; Chapter 6 Linear B 108; Arthur Evans as Decipherer; The Cypriot Clue; Deciphering Linear B; Breakthrough; 'The tablets are in GREEK'; Chapter 7 Mayan Glyphs 120; The Myth of the Ancient Maya; Who are the Maya?; Maya Numbers and Time; Maya Dates; The Dresden Codex; The Mayan 'Alphabet'; Decipherment Begins; A Mixed Writing System; A Mayan Syllabary; A Maya 'Tutankhamun'; The Birth and Death of Pacal; The Murals of Bonampak; A Maya Chocolate Cup; Chapter 8 Undeciphered Scripts 144; Difficulties of Decipherment; Seal Secrets of the Indus; The Indus Script; Cretan Linear A; The Phaistos Disc; Proto-Elamite; Greek but not Greek: Etruscan; Etruscan Inscriptions; Rongorongo; III Living Writing 156; Chapter 9 The First Alphabet 158; The Riddle of the Alphabet; The Earliest 'Alphabetic' Inscriptions; An Alphabet in Cuneiform; The Phoenician Letters; What the Greeks Heard; Chapter 10 New Alphabets From Old 168; The Family of Alphabets; The Greek and Latin Letters; Hebrew and the Aramaic Script; The Arabic Script; Indian Scripts; An Alphabet Invented by a King; Runes; Reading the Runes; The Cherokee 'Alphabet'; The Mystique of the Alphabet; Chapter 11 Chinese Writing 182; Reading the Bones; The Development of Chinese Characters; Classifying Chinese Characters; The Soothill Syllabary; The Chinese Language; Chinese Calligraphy; Forming Characters: Craft and Art; Pinyin: Romanizing Chinese; Chapter 12 Japanese Writing 198; Learning Kanji; Hiragana and Katakana; Kana Versus Kanji; The Most Complicated Writing in the World; Kanji, Kana and Romaji; The Future of Writing in Japan; The Computerization of Kanji; Chapter 13 From Hieroglyphs to Alphabets; and Back? 210.
Notes:: Includes bibliographical references (pages 218-219) and index.
ISBN:: 0500016658; 0500281564
OCLC:: 33411295

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The story of writing / Andrew Robinson.

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