The assumption is that most of what we know about the Romans and their history comes from Roman and Greek historians. While this is true up to a point, the reality is that there are many other primary sources which combine to give us the composite picture we have today of the Romans and their world. The Romans had in effect their own brand of social media, engineered to disseminate information, legislation, propaganda and misinformation to state and religious officials, citizens, the military and to the enemy, wherever they be. We know what the Romans did for us: roads, central heating and so on. But, just as importantly, they developed and perfected records and record-keeping and other methods of information storage and communication. It is the Roman preoccupation with record keeping and dissemination that informs the picture we have today of Roman civilisation. This is the first book to analyse what is in effect Roman social media: the keeping of records and archive material, and ways of communicating it. Uniquely, it assesses the impact this information had on and in Roman history and on our appraisal of that history.

This is a handy and colourful illustrated guide to reading, writing and understanding ancient Egyptian names, epithets, titles and phrases. The Egyptians believed that the creator god Ptah brought the world into being by naming everything in it. Names had great power, and kings often over-wrote their own names on the monuments of earlier rulers. A person's name was a vitally important part of them, and the Egyptians were very concerned that their names should be recorded, remembered and spoken. Criminals and those who had fallen out of favour could be punished - wiped out of history - by having their names destroyed or defaced. The hieroglyphic script provided a beautiful, flexible and expressive means to write the names of humans, gods and animals. Angela McDonald explains the meanings of Egyptian personal names and how they were made up (Rameses = 'Ra has given birth to him') and demonstrates how they were written in different ways to convey various shades of meaning. Royal and divine names are always given special treatment. The Egyptians were not always formal, and nicknames were common. Even the names of pet animals are recorded in tomb paintings.

An important aspect of the analysis of written language is to explain its relationship to spoken language. The volume focuses on how morphology influences forms of spelling. It brings together 8 papers, including a review of the historical development of German and Dutch orthography, a paper about the possibilities for marking morphological structure that exist in German spelling, and about the effects of such marking on the process of reading.

The decoding of Linear B is one of the world's greatest stories: from the discovery of a cache of ancient tablets recording a lost prehistoric language to the dramatic solution of the riddle nearly seventy years later, it exerts a mesmerising pull on the imagination. But this captivating story is missing a crucial piece. Two men have dominated Linear B in popular history: Arthur Evans, the intrepid Victorian archaeologist who unearthed Linear B at Knossos and Michael Ventris, the dashing young amateur who produced a solution. But there was a third figure: Alice Kober, without whose painstaking work, recorded on pieces of paper clipped from hymn-sheets and magazines and stored in cigarette boxes in her Brooklyn loft, Linear B might still remain a mystery. Drawing on Kober's own papers - only made available recently - Margalit Fox provides the final piece of the enigma, and along the way reveals how you decipher a language when you know neither its grammar nor its alphabet as well as the stories behind other ancient languages, like the dancing-man Rongorongo of Easter Island.

The languages of the ancient world and the mysterious scripts, long undeciphered, in which they were encoded have represented one of the most intriguing problems of classical archaeology in modern times. This celebrated account of the decipherment of Linear B in the 1950s by Michael Ventris was written by his close collaborator in the momentous discovery. In revealing the secrets of Linear B it offers a valuable survey of late Minoan and Mycenaean archaeology, uncovering fascinating details of the religion and economic history of an ancient civilisation.

English is increasingly becoming the world's lingua franca. If we are not native speakers of one of the many varieties of English, then we may be students of English, or use English regularly for academic or business purposes. The English Language series, which is international in focus, aims to synthesize the wealth of existing linguistic research both on and in English. Each volume in the series is designed to present these findings in an accessible, enlightening and entertaining way not only to students of English linguistics but to learners and users of English across the globe. The English Writing System describes how writing is not simply ancillary to other aspects of language but vitally important to almost everything we do, from signing our wills to sending a text message. This book discusses the mechanics of the writing systems of English; the different ways people process words on a page and the mistakes they can make; how children and second language learners acquire these systems; the historical development of the language and the progress of writing technology: in short, the effectiveness of the writing systems of English. Combining an academic perspective from linguistics and psychology with insights into everyday spelling mistakes, The English Writing System will interest students and teachers of linguistics, literature, the English language, psychology and education.

Anu Garg's many readers await their A Word A Day rations hungrily. Now at last here's a feast for them and other verbivores. Eat up
-Barbara Wallraff
Senior Editor at The Atlantic Monthly and author of Word Court
Praise for A Word a Day
""AWADies will be familiar with Anu Garg's refreshing approach to words: words are fun and they have fascinating histories. The people who use them have curious stories to tell too, and this collection incorporates some of the correspondence received by the editors at the AWAD site, from advice on how to outsmart your opponent in a duel (or even a truel) to a cluster of your favorite mondegreens.""
-John Simpson, Chief Editor, Oxford English Dictionary
""A banquet of words Feast and be nourished ""
-Richard Lederer, author of The Miracle of Language
Written by the founder of the wildly popular A Word A Day Web site (www.wordsmith.org), this collection of unusual, obscure, and exotic English words will delight writers, scholars, crossword puzzlers, and word buffs of every ilk. The words are grouped in intriguing categories that range from ""Portmanteaux"" to ""Words That Make the Spell-Checker Ineffective."" each entry includes a concise definition, etymology, and usage example-and many feature fascinating and hilarious commentaries by A Word A Day subscribers and the authors.

Writing systems avoid characters that are mirror images of one another (like b and d). The reasons for this are bound up with the way our brains work. The present study examines 41 sets of characters and signs in diachronic and contrastive terms. The results of the examination indicate that long-established, functional writing systems are subject to tensions between aesthetically motivated symmetry and the reduction of such symmetry in the interests of improved readability. Invented writing systems where readability is not a criterion (e.g. secret codes) normally draw upon symmetrical characters to extend the number of signs at their disposal.

Collection of 277 litle-known medieval manuscripts, second only in number to Durham; special strengths are scholastic theology, biblical studies and sermons 13c-15c, and early music. Worcester Cathedral Library contains 277 medieval manuscripts, the largest number of any English cathedral except Durham. Most of them belonged to the pre-Reformation Cathedral Priory and date between the eleventh and late fifteenth centuries. The collection has never been adequately catalogued before, and is consequently little known; much of the contents of the books, their physical features and history, is here described for the first time. The libraryis rich in late medieval theology and sermon-literature. Many of the books are important because of their connections with Oxford University, and constitute a valuable source for the history of studies there after c.1300. The Worcester monks tended to annotate and write their names in their books, and some seventy of them are identified. Great treasures are the Worcester Antiphoner, and the fragments of early polyphonic music, some newly-discovered and described for the first time. About half the books are in their medieval bindings, including the second-oldest intact Anglo-Saxon binding. These are described individually, and the history of binding at the Cathedral Priory traced, by Michael Gullick. The rest of the Introduction is devoted to the history of the books and library to the early 1600s. There are indexes of incipits and of manuscripts other than those catalogued, as well as a general index.R.M. THOMSON is Emeritus Professor of History, University of Tasmania; MICHAEL GULLICK..Other Cathedral library catalogues; Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Hereford Cathedral Library and Catalogue of the Manuscripts of Lincoln Cathedral Chapter Library.

The easy and accessible way to learn the Burmese writing system! With this handy guide to the Burmese alphabet, you'll quickly learn how to read, write and pronounce Burmese letters as well as hundreds of useful words and phrases--no prior knowledge necessary! Experienced language teachers and authors A Zun Mo and Angus Johnstone present consonants, vowels and tones, and words in a systematic, step-by-step approach. Start by tracing and copying individual letters before progressing to writing complete words and sentences. This interactive workbook includes: Free online audio recordings that teach you to pronounce all the sounds of Burmese correctly Fun exercises to help you learn a broad range of useful vocabulary--numbers, family and friends, Burmese foods, and more Mnemonic illustrations to help you memorize the sounds of letters Clearly structured lessons with ample opportunity for writing and reading practice A set of free downloadable flash cards A complete answer key for all the exercises This resource is perfect for self-study learners, but can also be used for classroom instruction.

Textual editing, particularly thatof medieval texts, is the starting point for a good deal of the research carried out in historical linguistics. Editorial methods (and the precision which they claim to offer) have an importance going far beyond theoretical considerations, and are of interest to scholars over and above those who edit texts. The volume presents the range of methods used (while also taking into account the history of the discipline)as well asa number of case studies

Collected Studies CS1070 The present book collects 31 articles that Jacques van der Vliet, a leading scholar in the field of Coptic Studies (Leiden University / Radboud University, Nijmegen), has published since 1999 on Christian inscriptions from Egypt and Nubia. These inscriptions are dated between the third/fourth and the fourteenth centuries, and are often written in Coptic and/or Greek, once in Latin, and sometimes (partly) in Arabic, Syriac or Old Nubian. They include inscriptions on tomb stones, walls of religious buildings, tools, vessels, furniture, amulets and even texts on luxury garments. Whereas earlier scholars in the field of Coptic Studies often focused on either Coptic or Greek, Van der Vliet argues that inscriptions in different languages that appear in the same space or on the same kind of objects should be examined together. In addition, he aims to combine the information from documentary texts, archaeological remains and inscriptions, in order to reconstruct the economic, social and religious life of monastic or civil communities. He practiced this methodology in his studies on the Fayum, Wadi al-Natrun, Sohag, Western Thebes and the region of Aswan and Northern Nubia, which are all included in this book.

Written by one of the world's leading paleographers, this book poses two fundamental questions: When did human beings begin--and why have they continued--to decide that a certain number of their dead had a right to a "written death"? What differences have existed in the practice of writing death from age to age and culture to culture? Drawing principally on testimonials intended for public display, such as monuments, tombstones, and grave markings, as well as on scrolls, books, manuscripts, newspapers, and posters, the author reconstructs the ways Western cultures have used writing to commemorate the dead, from the tombs of ancient Egypt to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C.
The author argues that the relation between funereal remains and inscription is a profoundly political one. The recurring question--Who merits a written death?--demands a multifaceted reply, one that intersects such "modes" of human cultural history as the relation between the living and the dead, the control of territory, the formation and maintenance of power, the preservation of wealth, the right to individuality, and the symbolic and signifying value of written culture.
Apart from examining funerary writing in the light of this analytical model, the author also studies the quality of commemorative writing, the length and physical arrangement of the text, and its link to any representational elements, such as a likeness of the deceased, the techniques involved in executing the testimonial, the number of people who participate in creating it, and its outward appearance. Under the author's careful and informed scrutiny, such developments as unidirectional script, the separation of writing into horizontal lines, and the even spacing of individual letters are revealed as indices of social and technological change.

A vivid and superbly written account of the unravelling of one of the great intellectual puzzles, set against the backdop of Europe in the Napoleonic era. When Napoleon invaded Egypt in 1798, his troops were astonished to discover ancient temples, tombs and statues, all covered with hieroglyphs - the last remnants of an unreadable script and a language lost in time. On their return Egyptomania spread rapidly and the quest to decipher hieroglyphs began in earnest. Jean-Francois Champollion was obsessed with ancient languages from a very young age, and once he heard of the unreadable ancient Egyptian text he had found the challenge to which he would dedicate his life: the decipherment of hieroglyphs. Despite poverty he made gradual progress, although he had to fight against jealous enemies, both professional and political, every step of the way - a dangerous task when in post-Revolutionary France a slip of the tongue could mean ruin, exile or even death. Failure threatened, as he was only one of many attempting to read the hieroglyphs, and his main rival, the English Thomas Young, claimed that decipherment was imminent, but Champollion refused to be distracted and finally, in 1822, he made the decisive breakthrough: he was the first person able to read the ancient Egyptian language in well over a thousand years.

What has fifteenth-century England to do with the Renaissance? By challenging accepted notions of 'medieval' and 'early modern' David Rundle proposes a new understanding of English engagement with the Renaissance. He does so by focussing on one central element of the humanist agenda - the reform of the script and of the book more generally - to demonstrate a tradition of engagement from the 1430s into the early sixteenth century. Introducing a cast-list of scribes and collectors who are not only English and Italian but also Scottish, Dutch and German, this study sheds light on the cosmopolitanism central to the success of the humanist agenda. Questioning accepted narratives of the slow spread of the Renaissance from Italy to other parts of Europe, Rundle suggests new possibilities for the fields of manuscript studies and the study of Renaissance humanism.

Based on Daniel C. Snell's original workbook and informed by his decades of teaching, this new and improved textbook provides an introductory course in basic cuneiform signs. Using a method of repetition that asks the student to actively produce the signs as well as passively read them, it efficiently teaches more than one hundred basic signs in their Neo-Assyrian forms, all of which have been chosen for their recurrence and usefulness to the student. The workbook includes instructions and drills, frequent quizzes to reinforce retention, and notes that both provide context about the ancient cultures that used cuneiform and introduce modern scholarly conventions. Designed for beginning students of cuneiform languages and cultures, A New Workbook of Cuneiform Signs is an easy and intuitive way to learn cuneiform. It is a valuable resource for students and teachers alike.

Architectural inscriptions are a fascinating aspect of Islamic cultural heritage because of their rich and diverse historical contents and artistic merits. These inscriptions help us understand the advent of Islam and its gradual diffusion in Bengal, which eventually resulted in a Muslim majority region, making the Bengali Muslims the second largest linguistic group in the Islamic world. This book is an interpretive study of the Arabic and Persian epigraphic texts of Bengal in the wider context of a rich epigraphic tradition in the Islamic world. While focusing on previously untapped sources, it takes a fresh look into the Islamic inscriptions of Bengal and examines the inner dynamics of the social, intellectual and religious transformations of this eastern region of South Asia. It explores many new inscriptions including Persian epigraphs that appeared immediately after the Muslim conquest of Bengal indicating an early introduction of Persian language in the region through a cultural interaction with Khurasan and Central Asia. In addition to deciphering and editing the epigraphic texts, the information derived from them has been analyzed to construct the political, administrative, social, religious and cultural scenario of the period. The first survey of the Muslim inscriptions in India ever to be attempted on this scale, the book reveals the significance of epigraphy as a source for Islamic history and culture. As such, it will be of interest to students and scholars of Asian Studies, Asian History and Islamic Studies.

Created in London c. 1340, the Auchinleck manuscript (Edinburgh, National Library of Scotland Advocates MS 19.2.1) is of crucial importance as the first book designed to convey in the English language an ambitious range ofsecular romance and chronicle. Evidently made in London by professional scribes for a secular patron, this tantalizing volume embodies a massive amount of material evidence as to London commercial book production and the demand for vernacular texts in the early fourteenth century. But its origins are mysterious: who were its makers? its users? how was it made? what end did it serve? The essays in this collection define the parameters of present-day Auchinleck studies. They scrutinize the manuscript's rich and varied contents; reopen theories and controversies regarding the book's making; trace the operations and interworkings of the scribes, compiler, and illuminators; teaseout matters of patron and audience; interpret the contested signs of linguistic and national identity; and assess Auchinleck's implied literary values beside those of Chaucer. Geography, politics, international relations and multilingualism become pressing subjects, too, alongside critical analyses of literary substance. SUSANNA FEIN is Professor of English at Kent State University and editor of The Chaucer Review. Contributors: Venetia Bridges, Patrick Butler, Siobhain Bly Calkin, A. S. G. Edwards, Ralph Hanna, Ann Higgins, Cathy Hume, Marisa Libbon, Derek Pearsall, Helen Phillips, Emily Runde, Timothy A. Shonk, Miceal F. Vaughan.

Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook is a new beginner Mandarin Chinese course which enables you to quickly learn the basics of the language. The 24 lessons in this book are meant to be used in 3 hours per week of class instruction over one academic year. Students will need another 2-3 hours of outside practice and review for every hour of class time, using the materials in the accompanying Elementary Mandarin Chinese Workbook. These books can also be used by self-study learners due to the extensive explanations and free supplementary materials available -- including online audio and video recordings and flash cards. The entire course can be completed in 25 to 35 weeks and teaches you the basic skills of speaking, reading and writing Mandarin Chinese at a conversational level. Each lesson starts with a dialogue and includes a list of new and supplementary Chinese vocabulary along with questions and grammar notes about the dialogue, a reading section and extensive exercises (that are in the Workbook). Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook offers the following significant advantages over other similar textbooks: Common, everyday Chinese dialogues are used--complete with vocabulary lists and questions and storylines based on actual everyday experiences in China Chinese grammar is explained in simple, non-technical terms with useful notes and tips given Reading exercises are provided for all new words and phrases in each lesson Free online audio recordings by native speakers from different regions of China help you not only acquire correct pronunciation, but also to understand Chinese speakers who have different accents Illustrations and supplementary video clips add authenticity to the materials in the book A Chinese-English dictionary, downloadable flash cards and supplementary exercises are all provided Both Chinese characters and Pinyin Romanized forms are given throughout the book (except for the reading exercises), so this book can be used by students who wish to focus on learning the spoken language, as well as those who are learning to read and write the Chinese characters simultaneously. This textbook should be used in conjunction with Elementary Mandarin Chinese Workbook and the included audio files, which can be downloaded free directly from the Tuttle website.

A riveting, masterfully researched account of the bold innovators who adapted the Chinese language to the modern world, transforming China into a superpower in the process What does it take to reinvent the world's oldest living language? China today is one of the world's most powerful nations, yet just a century ago it was a crumbling empire with literacy reserved for the elite few, left behind in the wake of Western technology. In Kingdom of Characters, Jing Tsu shows that China's most daunting challenge was a linguistic one: to make the formidable Chinese language - a 2,200-year-old writing system that was daunting to natives and foreigners alike - accessible to a globalized, digital world. Kingdom of Characters follows the bold innovators who adapted the Chinese script - and the value-system it represents - to the technological advances that would shape the twentieth century and beyond, from the telegram to the typewriter to the smartphone. From the exiled reformer who risked death to advocate for Mandarin as a national language to the imprisoned computer engineer who devised input codes for Chinese characters on the lid of a teacup, generations of scholars, missionaries, librarians, politicians, inventors, nationalists and revolutionaries alike understood the urgency of their task and its world-shaping consequences. With larger-than-life characters and a thrilling narrative, Kingdom of Characters offers an astonishingly original perspective on one of the twentieth century's most dramatic transformations.

From its first adoption of writing at the beginning of the Late Bronze Age, ancient Cyprus was home to distinctive scripts and writing habits, often setting it apart from other areas of the Mediterranean and Near East. This well-illustrated volume is the first to explore the development and importance of Cypriot writing over a period of more than 1,500 years in the second and first millennia BC. Five themed chapters deal with issues ranging from the acquisition of literacy and the adaptation of new writing systems to the visibility of writing and its role in the marking of identities. The agency of Cypriots in shaping the island's literate landscape is given prominence, and an extended consideration of the social context of writing leads to new insights on Cypriot scripts and their users. Cyprus provides a stimulating case to demonstrate the importance of contextualised approaches to the development of writing systems.

This volume, with origins in a panel at the 2018 Celtic Conference in Classics, presents creative new approaches to epigraphic material, in an attempt to 'shake up' how we deal with inscriptions. Broad themes include the embodied experience of epigraphy, the unique capacities of epigraphic language as a genre, the visuality of inscriptions and the interplay of inscriptions with literary texts. Although each chapter focuses on specific objects and epigraphic landscapes, ranging from Republican Rome to early modern Scotland, the emphasis here is on using these case studies not as an end in themselves, but as a means of exploring broader methodological and theoretical issues to do with how we use inscriptions as evidence, both for the Greco-Roman world and for other time periods. Drawing on conversations from fields such as archaeology and anthropology, philology, art history, linguistics and history, contributors also seek to push the boundaries of epigraphy as a discipline and to demonstrate the analytical fruits of interdisciplinary approaches to inscribed material. Methodologies such as phenomenology, translingualism, intertextuality and critical fabulation are deployed to offer new perspectives on the social functions of inscriptions as texts and objects and to open up new horizons for the use of inscriptions as evidence for past societies.

This book provides a complete course for beginning students who want to learn the Katakana alphabet! With plentiful writing and reading practice, this workbook starts with the basic letters and works up to writing words and complete sentences. Divided into two parts, the first part presents the 46 main Katakana letters in their full and contracted forms, with extensive writing spaces provided for writing practice. Recognition and pronunciation of the letters are reinforced through writing and listening exercises. In the second half of the book, students can apply their knowledge of Katakana in a Writing Practice section that contains sentences related to contexts in which Katakana words are often used, such as food and drinks, social media and tourism. Exercises are graded in difficulty from Writing Drills (from copying to writing from memory) to Dictation Practice (connecting the sounds with the letters) to Writing Exercises (writing answers that fit the situations given). Features of this language workbook include: A thorough overview of the Japanese writing system, explaining when and how Katakana is used Handwriting and stroke-order tips along with extensive writing practice sheets Online audio recordings speed up the process by reinforcing the pronunciation of the letters through a wide variety of listening and writing exercises Mnemonic illustrations for every character Printable flashcards available online for download The Japanese writing system combines three types of letters: hiragana, katakana, and kanji. Katakana is used for transcription of foreign language words into Japanese; in the writing of loan words; for emphasis; to represent onomatopoeia; for technical and scientific terms; for names of plants, animals, minerals and often Japanese companies.