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.

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.

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.

This is the first Dictionary of English Manuscript Terminology ever to be published. Dealing with the subject of documentation - which affects everyone's lives (from every-day letters, notes, and shopping lists to far-reaching legal instruments, if not autograph literary masterpieces) - Peter Beal defines, in a lively and accessible style, some 1,500 terms relating to manuscripts and their production and use in Britain from 1450 to the present day. The entries, which range in length from one line to nearly a hundred lines each, cover terms defining types of manuscript, their physical features and materials, writing implements, writing surfaces, scribes and other writing agents, scripts, postal markings, and seals, as well as subjects relating to literature, bibliography, archives, palaeography, the editing and printing of manuscripts, dating, conservation, and such fields as cartography, commerce, heraldry, law, and military and naval matters. The book includes 96 illustrations showing many of the features described.

This unique, ambitious and entertaining book presents twenty-nine scripts in detail and offers examples of a hundred more. Written in nontechnical prose and organized into brief but comprehensive sections, it will serve as a handy reference for world travelers, stamp collectors, and calligraphers, along with providing hours of reading enjoyment to those who are fascinated by the written symbol itself. The scripts covered here are from all over the world. A few, like Greek or the Cyrillic script used for Russian, may be familiar to readers of Western languages. But others may seem strange, such as Pakistan's Urdu, which is written in a style so fine that newspapers are not typeset but reproduced from pages laboriously written out by hand. Each of the script sections includes charts of the symbols, reading tips, forms of numerals, and other features that help explain how the language is written. Further enhanced with maps, illustrations, a glossary, and useful appendixes, Writing Systems of the World is a remarkably concise and organized look at what is perhaps mankind's greatest achievement, the written language.

Japanese Made Easy is a complete self-study guide that allows readers to begin using simple, everyday Japanese vocabulary and sentences from the first day! This handy resource features: Practical exercises to teach you the 30 most common Japanese sentence patterns Notes on the key points of Japanese grammar, sentence structure and vocabulary A detailed glossary of Japanese words and an index of vocabulary and grammar Sentences for everyday social situations encountered by visitors to Japan In this completely revised edition, vocabulary and sentences are shown in Japanese script, as well as romanized Japanese and English. This book includes many new dialogues, cultural notes, illustrations and updated vocabulary.

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.

The purpose of this book is to dispel misunderstanding about the genesis of the Homeric poems and other knotty problems in oral studies, such as the meaning of "orality," "literacy," "tradition," "memorization," and "text." The study is about the nature and history of writing--how it was used in the Ancient Near East, and especially in Greece, and its relationship to Homer. It suggests that a Semite invented the Greek alphabet, heir to an ancient bilingual Eastern tradition of recording poetry by dictation.

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.

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

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.

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.

This is a study of the books of Salisbury Cathedral, and their scribes, in the late eleventh and early twelfth centuries. These manuscripts form the largest collection to have survived from any English centre in the period following the Norman Conquest, and they bear witness to the energetic scribal and scholarly activities of a community of intelligent and able men. Teresa Webber traces the interests and activities of the canons of Salisbury Cathedral from the evidence of their books. She reveals to us a lively Anglo-Norman centre of scholarship and religious devotion. This is a scholarly and original study, which combines detailed palaeographic research with an intelligent understanding of medieval cultural and intellectual life. It is a distinguished contribution to medieval studies.

The shaky handwriting of the thirteenth-century scribe known as `the tremulous hand of Worcester' appears in at least twenty manuscripts dating from the late ninth to the twelfth century, glossing perhaps 50,000 Old English words, sometimes into Middle English, but much more often into Latin. This book examines the full range of the scribe's work and addresses some important questions, such as which of the Worcester glosses may be attributed to him, why he glossed the words he did, what the purpose of the glossing may have been, and how well he knew or came to know Old English. Christine Franzen argues that the scribe went through a methodical learning process, one step of which was the preparation of a first-letter alphabetical English-Latin word list, the earliest known in the English language. This first full-scale study of the Worcester glosses is important for the wealth of information it provides about the work methods of the tremulous scribe, the English language at a transitional point in its history, and about the ability to read Old English in the thirteenth century.

This collection of 243 letters, only a handful of which have previously appeared in print, illustrates the full range of Humfrey Wanley's interests as Anglo-Saxonist, palaeographer, and the greatest librarian of his age. Covering the years from his arrival in Oxford in 1694 to his death in 1726, they show the genesis and growth of Wanley's great Catalogus, his comprehensive account of Anglo-Saxon manuscripts published in 1705. They also chart his formulation of palaeography as a discipline for English scholarship from an immense range of ancient materials, and illustrate the skill and energy with which Wanley, as library-keeper to Robert Harley, built up the Harleian collection (subsequently one of the foundation collections of the British Museum).

The Third Edition of this classic account of the inside story of one of the major intellectual breakthroughs of our time - the last great decipherment of an ancient script - revised and brought right up to date with the latest developments. 113 illustrations bring to life the people and texts that have enabled us to read the Maya script. The original edition, which sold over 40,000 copies in English, was hailed as 'a masterpiece that transcends the boundaries between academic and popular writing'. 'Coe's thrilling account of the cracking of Mayan is like a detective story ... great stuff' - The Observer 'Told with great vigour by Professor Michael Coe, who was himself involved; he offers an insider's story with strong views of the personalities, competence and abilities of some colleagues' - History Today 'An entertaining, enlightening and even humorous history of the great searchers after the meaning that lies in the Maya inscriptions' - Anthony Burgess

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.

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.

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.

The unique relationship between word and image in ancient Egypt is a defining feature of that ancient culture's records. All hieroglyphic texts are composed of images, and large-scale figural imagery in temples and tombs is often accompanied by texts. Epigraphy and palaeography are two distinct, but closely related, ways of recording, analyzing, and interpreting texts and images. This Handbook stresses technical issues about recording text and art and interpretive questions about what we do with those records and why we do it. It offers readers three key things: a diachronic perspective, covering all ancient Egyptian scripts from prehistoric Egypt through the Coptic era (fourth millennium BCE-first half of first millennium CE), a look at recording techniques that considers the past, present, and future, and a focus on the experiences of colleagues. The diachronic perspective illustrates the range of techniques used to record different phases of writing in different media. The consideration of past, present, and future techniques allows readers to understand and assess why epigraphy and palaeography is or was done in a particular manner by linking the aims of a particular effort with the technique chosen to reach those aims. The choice of techniques is a matter of goals and the records' work circumstances, an inevitable consequence of epigraphy being a double projection: geometrical, transcribing in two dimensions an object that exists physically in three; and mental, an interpretation, with an inevitable selection among the object's defining characteristics. The experiences of colleagues provide a range of perspectives and opinions about issues such as techniques of recording, challenges faced in the field, and ways of reading and interpreting text and image. These accounts are interesting and instructive stories of innovation in the face of scientific conundrum.

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.