(Glossary and FAQ)
Glossary
ideographic (logographic writing)
A system whose basic units represent word meanings.
phonogram
A written symbol that represents the sounds of language.
rebus
A visual pun in which a written sign stands for a meaning other than its usual
one by virtue of a similarity between the pronunciations of two words, as the
numeral 4 stands for in " Car 4 Sale." Informal internet language uses this
quite a bit.
syllabary ( syllabic writing )
A writing system in which each unit represents a syllable.
alphabetic writing
A writing system in which each unit, or letter, represents a single sound.
boustrophedon
A method of writing in which lines are alternately read from left to right & vice versa.
majuscule
A large or capital letter.
minuscule
A small or lowercase letter.
Cyrillic alphabet
The alphabet used to write Russian & some Slavic languages.
diacritical markings
An accent or other modification of an alphabetical letter used to differentiate it from the unmarked letter.
diersis (umlaut)
A diacritic , superposed pair of dots ,used to differentiate 1 letter from another to show that the 2nd of 2 vowels is pronounced as a separate syllable as in nai"ve.
acute accent mark
a little mark that’s real cute – no, haha—
A diacritic ( ‘ ) used in spelling some languages [ Spanish que’] and to indicate primary stress.
grave accent mark
A diacritic used in some languages to indicate secondary stress.
circumflex accent
markA diacritic used in spelling some languages & sometimes to represent reduced primary stress . ( ^ )
wedge [ hacek ]
A diacritic used in some languages, such as Czech, & some phonetic symbols.
tilde
A diacritic mark , as in Spanish senor [ over the /n/]. In Portuguese it’s used
to indicate nasalized vowels.
cedilla
A diacritic used in several languages such as French. [ , ]In the French loanword
façade, the mark is below the /c/.
bar
A diacritic used in Polish.
circle
A diacritic used in Swedish & Norwegian, which is a small circle over a letter.
hook
A diacritic used in writing some languages like Polish & by modern editors under Middle English vowels to represent their open varieties.
digraph
Combination of 2 letters to represent a single sound.[ /sh/]
trigraph
3 letters that representt 1 sound [ tch ].
ligature
Written symbol made from 2 or more letters joined together[ae].
runes [ runic alphabet]
One of the letters of early Germanic writing.
futhorc
The runic alphabet.
Insular hand
Style of writing generally used for Old English.
thorn
Letter of runic alphabet & its development used in writing Old English;
It looks similar to a lowercase /p/.
eth
Old English letter called crossed d.
wynn
Letter of runic alphabet & its development used in writing Old English.
It looks very similar to a thorn.
aesc [ ash ]
Letter of runic alphabet
long s
An Old English variation of /s/ used throughout the 18th century.
It looks very much like an /f/ in modern typography except that the horizontal stroke doesn’t go through to the right of the letter.
spelling pronunciation
An unhistorical pronunciation based on the spelling of a word.
pronunciation spelling
A respelling that suggests a particular pronunciation of a word more accurately than the original spelling does.
eye dialect
Representation of standard pronunciation by unconventional spellings.
Frequently asked Questions (FAQ)
Q. How do the drawings of preliterate societies,
such as those of the cave men or of the American Indians differ from true
writing?
A. The drawings don’t indicate specific words or sounds .
Q. In modern times, stylized drawings are still
used for some purposes, for example on road signs. What are specific examples?
A. Stop, Yield, Slow- Children at play, Deer Crossing, telephone, lodging, food, Male/ Female restroom.
Q. Arabic numerals and symbols like & or % are
basically ideograms. Can you cite other examples of ideograms in current use?
A.. # = number , @ = at, > = greater than. < = less than
Q. What evidence is there that Greeks acquired
their writings system from the Semites?
A. The Greeks used the Semitic names for the symbols , and used a similar order of letters as well as forms.
Q. In the Semitic script there was no way of
writing vowel sounds. what are the origins of the Greek vowel letters?
A. It started with using the Semitic consonant symbols that didn’t exist in Greek as vowels. Then with others, the initial consonant sound of a symbol that wasn’t needed
was dropped, thereby moving to the next letter.
Q. What accounts for the difference between the
angular (Gimmel, Delta, Epsalon) and the rounded (C, D, S) forms of what
are historically the same letters?
A. The Semitic daleth became Greek delta then evolved into /D/. Epsilon
[E] & Sigma in its rounded form were adopted w/out change. The Semitic gimmel became Greek gamma, then the Romans curved
it [C]. /G/ also evolved from gamma. Angular forms were due to a cutting tool on stone ; rounded forms were made
with pen & ink.
Q. What letters and ligatures, formerly used to
write English, have passed out of use?
A. The runic thorn , wynn , & eth were used in early English but were abandoned.
The ligatures /oe/ & /ae/ evolved to "long o" & "short a" respectively.
Q. Chaucer's Wife of Bath used to berate her
husbands by asking such questions as "What rown ye with oure mayde?"
and in The Winter's Tale Leontes says, "They're here with me
already, whispering, rounding, 'Sicilia is a so-forth.'" What is the
etymological connection between the obsolete verb rown or round and runic
writing?
A. "What rowne ye with oure mayde?" means "Why whisper to our maid?"
Rowne means whisper; runic writing was cryptic, having to do with secrecy.
Q. In what ways has the Roman alphabet been
adapted for writing the un-Latin sounds of such a language as Polish, German, or
English?
A. The Roman alphabet has been adapted by diacritical markings such as the dieresis,
accents , wedge , tilde , cedilla, bar, circle and hook.
Q. What is the origin of the dot over the letter i
?
A. The dot wasn’t originally part of miniscule /i/ but is a development of the
faint sloping line that came to be put above this insignificant letter to distinguish
it from strokes of contiguous letters such as m, n , and u, as well as to distinguish
double i from u.
Q. Why do the vowel letters in Modern English
spelling represent sounds that differ greatly from the sounds represented by
letters in other languages.
A. Because in different languages there are sounds that don’t exist in English;
therefore, symbols have been adopted to correspond w/different sounds.
Q. Old english spelling was a reasonably good
representation of the sounds of the language. Modern English spelling is
notoriously bad in this respect. What causes for the widened gap between English
sound and spelling?
A. Different sounds for the same letter. For example, in Ghent, the /h/ signals to say the /g/ as in go
and not gesture. Some misleading spellings may be due to perpetuated misunderstandings; for example, /s/ had 3 distinctive shapes, the long
/s/ looked very much like an /f/ in modern typography. Early pronunciations of some words probably changed although spellings may not have.
Q. Can you show me an outline of the logical
development (not necessarily the actual historical development) of writing
systems?
A. I. Pictures
a. American Indian
II. Ideographs
a. Egyptian ideographs
b. Sumerian ideographs
III. Phonograms
a. Rebuses
b. Syllabaries
1.Cherokee
2. Japanese
IV. Consonantal writing
a.Egyptian phonograms
b.Semitic
V. Alphabets
a. Greek
b. Roman
c. Cyrillic
d. runic
Anglo-Saxon monks learned writing from Irish scribes. The Norman Conquest, introduction of printing, and spelling reform – respelling words according to etymological sources, have influenced the history of writing.
Q. What is the relationship between writing and
speech as expressions of language? In what ways is writing secondary? Does
writing ever influence speech?
A. Many people suppose that the "best" speech is that which conforms most closely to writing, though this supposition hasn’t yet been extended to such words as
through and night. Because of mass education, what is essentially a secondary factor-writing-has begun to affect pronunciation more than ever. This is reverse of earlier times, when
writing was made to conform to speech. Previously the purpose of writing was conceived to be representation of speech; now many conceive speech as the oral
representation of writing.