Der vorliegende Band dokumentiert das vom Konstanzer Graduiertenkolleg Theorie der Literatur im Oktober 1992 an der Universitat Konstanz veranstaltete Symposium Zeichen zwischen Klartext und Arabeske, an dem SpezialistInnen aus verschiedenen kulturwissenschaftlichen Disziplinen teilnahmen. Klartext und Arabeske stecken das Feld ab fur die zu problematisierenden Zeichenbegriffe. Auf welch unterschiedliche Weisen unvereinbare Aufzeichnungsmodelle gegeneinander-gefuhrt werden und miteinander konkurrieren, wird anhand verschiedener Objektbereiche und Methoden dargestellt: Kombinatorische Textgenerierung, Kryptographie, Kalligraphie, Bild-Schrift-Relationen, Arabeskisierung des Textes im strukturellen und semantischen Bereich, Rematerialisierung und Energetisierung von Zeichen. Zwei prinzipiell zu unterscheidende Ausrichtungen bestimmen die Konzeption des Bandes. Die ersten drei Teile, Kombinatorik - Alphabet, Schrift - Bild und Kryptographie - Latenz sind unter dem Aspekt der Doppeltextualitat und Mehrfachkodierung zum ersten Teil des Bandes zusammenzufassen. In den Teilen 4 und 5, Ornament - Zeichen und Zeichen-Koerper - Energetik, dagegen steht in der Zusammenfuhrung unterschiedlicher Codes daruberhinaus der Begriff des Zeichens generell auf dem Spiel. Im Namen des Ornamentbegriffs Arabeske werden Remotivierungs- und Renaturalisierungsstrategien im Hinblick auf eine arabeske Semantik verfolgt, die Semiosen aller Art immer wieder infrage stellt und energetisch 'uberschiesst'. Diese globale Einteilung in zwei Bloecke versteht sich als systematische Gewichtung, wobei die gegenseitige Abhangigkeit der Teile untereinander immer mitreflektiert wird.

How on Earth did we fix upon our twenty-six letters, what do they really mean, and how did we come to write them down in the first place? Michael Rosen takes you on an unforgettable adventure through the history of the alphabet in twenty-six vivid chapters, fizzing with personal anecdotes and fascinating facts. Starting with the mysterious Phoenicians and how sounds first came to be written down, he races on to show how nonsense poems work, pins down the strange story of OK, traces our five lost letters and tackles the tyranny of spelling, among many many other things. His heroes of the alphabet range from Edward Lear to Phyllis Pearsall (the inventor of the A-Z), and from the two scribes of Beowulf to rappers. Each chapter takes on a different subject - whether it's codes, umlauts or the writing of dictionaries. Rosen's enthusiasm for letters positively leaps off the page, whether it's the story of his life told through the typewriters he's owned or a chapter on jokes written in a string of gags and word games. This is the book for anyone who's ever wondered why Hawaiian only has a thirteen-letter alphabet or how exactly to write down the sound of a wild raspberry.

A child's very first word is a miraculous sound, the opening note in a lifelong symphony. Most parents never forget the moment. But that first word is soon followed by a second and a third, and by the age of three, children are typically learning ten new words every day and speaking in complete sentences. The process seems effortless, and for children, it is. But how exactly does it happen? How do children learn language? And why is it so much harder to do later in life? Drawing on cutting-edge developments in biology, neurology, psychology, and linguistics, Charles Yang's The Infinite Gift takes us inside the astonishingly complex but largely subconscious process by which children learn to talk and to understand the spoken word. Yang illuminates the rich mysteries of language: why French newborns already prefer the sound of French to English; why baby-talk, though often unintelligible, makes perfect linguistic sense; why babies born deaf still babble -- but with their hands; why the grammars of some languages may be evolutionarily stronger than others; and why one of the brain's earliest achievements may in fact be its most complex. Yang also puts forth an exciting new theory. Building on Noam Chomsky's notion of a universal grammar -- the idea that every human being is born with an intuitive grasp of grammar -- Yang argues that we learn our native languages in part by unlearning the grammars of all the rest. This means that the next time you hear a child make a grammatical mistake, it may not be a mistake at all; his or her grammar may be perfectly correct in Chinese or Navajo or ancient Greek. This is the brain's way of testing its options as it searches for the local and thus correct grammar -- and then discards all the wrong ones. And we humans, Yang shows, are not the only creatures who learn this way. In fact, learning by unlearning may be an ancient evolutionary mechanism that runs throughout the animal kingdom. Thus, babies learn to talk in much the same way that birds learn to sing. Enlivened by Yang's experiences with his own young son, The Infinite Gift is as charming as it is challenging, as thoughtful as it is thought-provoking. An absorbing read for parents, educators, and anyone who has ever wondered about the origins of that uniquely human gift: our ability to speak and, just as miraculous, to understand one another.

CNI Publications is the name of the series published by the Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies at the University of Copenhagen and Museum Tusculanum Press. The volumes in the series are written mainly in English, but also in French and German, and appeal to an international audience primarily within the fields of Assyriology, Near Eastern Archeology and Egyptology. While the publications are principally written by scholars working in the Danish research environment on Middle Eastern antiquity, including scholars from the Papyrus Carlsberg Collection, the Centre for Canon and Identity Formation, and the Old Assyrian Text Project, it also includes contributions by a wide array of distinguished international scholars.

Of the four most ancient civilizations of the Old World only the South Asian or Harappan civilization's writing has not been deciphered. Ever since the discovery of that civilization in the early part of the 20th century, almost innumerable efforts have been made by scholar and amateur alike to solve the puzzle of the ancient writing. The author, building on the most enlightened of these efforts and on his intimate experience in the archaeology of the Indus River region has created a methodology which makes possible a major breakthrough for the decipherment of the Harappan writing.
The book describes in detail what this methodology is and applies it to the writing. Over 4,000 inscriptions were studied from which a compilation of these signs used in the script writing, identification of each of the 419 signs involved, and their probable representation of words and sounds in the Harappan language, was made possible.
The book furnishes a model which can be tested. Sign identification lists, possible translations and a beginning of a grammar are included. The motifs associated with the writing are also studied and that relationship analyzed. The consequence of this understanding of the writing and the motif coupled with the already known archaeological evidence is the restoration of ancient life as it was lived in the Western part of the Indian Subcontinent in the 3rd Millennium B.C. While not a claim for decipherment, the model may yet be the most advanced step for decipherment yet taken.

This book presents 17 selected papers from the 4th International Graphonomics Society Conference, held at the University of Trondheim (Norway) in July 1989. It focusses on different aspects of automatic processing of handwriting by computer. The book is divided into three sections. The first one surveys the research works done on automatic signature verification over the last 25 years. The second section deals with problems related to the design of on-line cursive script recognition and the implementation of this technology into an electronic pen pad. The third section focusses on the integration of contextual knowledge in these systems.

As a child I would often wonder when I saw an illustration of a stone tablet, and ask myself: What did the inscription mean? How did these people sound when they talked? What would that piece of clay say if it could speak!The enigma of the Phaistos Disc is revisited here in the light of new findings. From the various interpretations of the origin of the symbols depicted on the disc.Kober, Ventris, Chadwick and Bennett, the cryptologists are remembered for paving the way for us to understand the language and culture of early societies.Archaeological excavations, archaic languages and Myths are explored, together with theories of archaic Cretan relations as far away as the Black Sea. If this book enthuses just one person to forge ahead to uncover new information to allow "The Stones to Speak," then I will be satisfied.

Striking an inviting balance of seriousness and humor, Jack Shreve's writing draws students' attention to his subject, making them feel involved and interested. College Vocabulary Development, 3e presents much more than merely so many lists of words, the meanings of which must be memorized out of the context of their regular usage. Rather, this text provides firm cognitive anchors through head notes, arrangement of material, and detailed questions that are all integral parts of each unit. This unique approach helps students expand their vocabularies in a far more natural manner than allowed by most vocabulary texts. In turn, students find themselves prepared not only to use their expanded vocabulary, but to understand what they're saying, as well.