The Chinese Writing System in Asia: An Interdisciplinary Perspective integrates a diverse range of disciplinary approaches in examining how the Chinese script represents and actively shapes personal and social identities in and beyond Asia. It is an ideal read for students and scholars interested in a broad and culturally rich introduction to research on the Chinese writing system. It can also serve as the main text of an undergraduate course on the subject. Key features of this volume include: Insights from studies of the Chinese writing system in linguistics, script reform and technology, gender, identity, literature, and the visual arts; Examples embedded in inquiries of the cultural history and contemporary society of Asia; Rigorous yet accessible discussions of complex concepts and phenomena that assume no prior knowledge of Asian languages or linguistics; Supplementary multimedia materials and resources, including instructional support, available online.

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.

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.

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).

Readable, enjoyable and provides a clear overview of runes and their importance to reading the past. EARLY MEDIEVAL EUROPE Runes, a unique functional writing system, exclusive to northern and eastern Europe, were used for some 1300 years in Scandinavia, from about AD 200 till around the end of the fourteenth century, when the runic alphabet finally gave way to the modern writing system. They were not written, but carved - in stone, and on jewellery, weapons, utensils and wood. The content of the inscriptions is very varied, from owner and carpenter attributions on artefacts to memorials to the deceased on erected stones; contrary to popular belief, they are not necessarily magical or mystical, and the post-it notes of today have their forerunners in such runic reminders as: "Buy salt, and don't forgetgloves for Sigrid." The typical medieval runic inscription varies from the deeply religious to the highly trivial [or perhaps crucial], such as "I slept with Vigdis when I was in Stavanger." This book presents an accessibleaccount of the Norwegian examples throughout the period of their use. The runic inscriptions are discussed not only from a linguistic point of view but also as sources of information on Norwegian history and culture. TERJE SPURKLAND is Associate Professor of Nordic Medieval Studies at the University of Oslo.

Reading original documents is the only way to achieve a sound basis in historical studies and to acquire a true perspective on cultural evolution. Much modern research has been applied to Scotland's history, but until this volume there has been no comprehensive study of the country's handwriting for nearly 250 years. The main body of this book consists of facsimile texts, each facing a detailed transcript and commentary. The historical background of handwriting usage is surveyed in the introduction, with emphasis on changing fashions. There is also guidance on how to deal with early language and abbreviations. The principal aim is to assist research students, local historians, genealogists and calligraphers in their studies; but this work also recovers a lost chapter in the history of Scottish studies.

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.

An enjoyable and effective way to learn Japanese kanji! This useful reference book helps self-study and classroom students remember the meanings and pronunciations of 520 essential kanji. An otherwise daunting task, memorization is made easier with this book--which uses mnemonic techniques based on the psychology of learning and memory. Key principles include the use of visual imagery, the visualization of short "stories," and the systematic building-block approach that shows how more complicated characters are constructed from basic elements. This is a practical guide with a clear, concise, and appealing layout; it is well-indexed with easy look-up methods. The kanji in this volume give you the majority of characters you will encounter in daily life, from newspapers to street signs. It also includes the kanji required for the AP Japanese exam and N4 & N5 JLPT tests. Accompanying online audio provides recordings by native Japanese speakers to perfect your pronunciation.

A complete beginning language course for Modern Standard Arabic! This is an ideal introductory textbook--quickly teaching you everything you need to get started learning this beautiful and popular language. Spoken by over 400 million people, Arabic is the world's 5th most spoken language. Each of the 20 lessons in this book includes: A real-life, practical dialogue that increases your proficiency and ability to communicate, and online audio recordings. The free online audio recordings by native speakers help you learn how to accurately pronounce all the Arabic words and sentences provided A list of common Arabic words and phrases along with sentence patterns and grammar notes Extensive drills and exercises to reinforce the lessons and help you progress Interesting information on culture, geography, customs, pastimes and everyday life "Reflections" that allow you to record what you have learned, helping you track your progress Arabic for Beginners teaches you how to read and write the Arabic script, and comes with a set of free downloadable flash cards to help you memorize the alphabet and basic vocabulary. A glossary at the back allows you to look up the equivalents for common Arabic and English words. With the book, students learn Modern Standard Arabic (MSA), which is understood by all native Arabic speakers. Though spoken dialects vary widely by region, MSA is taught at schools throughout all Arab countries and is the prominent language of TV, print media, advertisements, signs and more. Whether you are working in an Arabic-speaking country or wish to learn more about the richness of this ancient language, Arabic for Beginners is the perfect place to start!

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.

The field of text technologies is a capacious analytical framework that focuses on all textual records throughout human history, from the earliest periods of traceable communication—perhaps as early as 60,000 BCE—to the present day. At its core, it examines the material history of communication: what constitutes a text, the purposes for which it is intended, how it functions, and the social ends that it serves. This coursebook can be used to support any pedagogical or research activities in text technologies, the history of the book, the history of information, and textually based work in the digital humanities. Through careful explanations of the field, examinations of terminology and themes, and illustrated case studies of diverse texts—from the Cyrus cylinder to the Eagles' "Hotel California"—Elaine Treharne and Claude Willan offer a clear yet nuanced overview of how humans convey meaning. Text Technologies will enable students and teachers to generate multiple lines of inquiry into how communication—its production, form and materiality, and reception—is crucial to any interpretation of culture, history, and society.

The Last Language on Earth is an ethnographic history of the disputed Eskayan language, spoken today by an isolated upland community living on the island of Bohol in the southern Philippines. After Eskaya people were first 'discovered' in 1980, visitors described the group as a lost tribe preserving a unique language and writing system. Others argued that the Eskaya were merely members of a utopian rural cult who had invented their own language and script. Rather than adjudicating outsider polemics, this book engages directly with the language itself as well as the direct perspectives of those who use it today. Through written and oral accounts, Eskaya people have represented their language as an ancestral creation derived from a human body. Reinforcing this traditional view, Piers Kelly's linguistic analysis shows how a complex new register was brought into being by fusing new vocabulary onto a modified local grammar. In a synthesis of linguistic, ethnographic, and historical evidence, a picture emerges of a coastal community that fled the ravages of the U.S. invasion of the island in 1901 in order to build a utopian society in the hills. Here they predicted that the world's languages would decline leaving Eskayan as the last language on earth. Marshalling anthropological theories of nationalism, authenticity, and language ideology, along with comparisons to similar events across highland Southeast Asia, Kelly offers a convincing account of this linguistic mystery and also shows its broader relevance to linguistic anthropology. Although the Eskayan situation is unusual, it has the power to illuminate the pivotal role that language plays in the pursuit of identity-building and political resistance.

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.

This is the very first 'teach yourself' book on palaeography, covering all the skills that the genealogist needs to read any document that might be found at any date in English archives. Using a series of graded exercises in transcription, Teach Yourself Palaeography works backwards in time in easy stages from the modern handwriting of the nineteenth century to the court hands of the medieval period, focusing on records that are of particular interest to family and local historians. The book provides a unique, self-contained reference guide to palaeography, and to all the different letter forms, symbols and abbreviations that have ever been used in English records.

The scholarship and teaching of manuscript studies has been transformed by digitisation, rendering previously rarefied documents accessible for study on a vast scale. The Cambridge Companion to Medieval British Manuscripts orientates students in the complex, multidisciplinary study of medieval book production and contemporary display of manuscripts from c.600-1500. Accessible explanations draw on key case studies to illustrate the major methodologies and explain why skills in understanding early book production are so critical for reading, editing, and accessing a rich cultural heritage. Chapters by leading specialists in manuscript studies range from explaining how manuscripts were stored, to revealing the complex networks of readers and writers which can be understood through manuscripts, to an in depth discussion on the Wycliffite Bible.

This workbook is designed for use with the Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook and offers a wealth of carefully-designed practice activities to help you solidify every aspect of your Chinese skills in listening, speaking, reading, and writing. It includes extensive interactive drills, exercises and other practice materials. Online audio files are available for use in the relevant exercises. The lessons in this workbook correspond to the 24 lessons in the Elementary Mandarin Chinese Textbook. The materials in this workbook are meant to be completed by students outside of class to strengthen and consolidate their understanding of the materials in the textbook. Lessons 1 and 2 of the Workbook contain exercises to learn to read and pronounce the Pinyin alphabet along with simple classroom expressions. They also introduce 48 basic Chinese characters. Beginning with Lesson 3, each lesson of the workbook contains two parts. Each part has two sets of listening comprehension exercises, one translation exercise, one character practice sheet, and one reading and writing exercise. Lessons 13 and 24 of the textbook are review lessons and therefore have no corresponding workbook materials.

The Chinese Writing System in Asia: An Interdisciplinary Perspective integrates a diverse range of disciplinary approaches in examining how the Chinese script represents and actively shapes personal and social identities in and beyond Asia. It is an ideal read for students and scholars interested in a broad and culturally rich introduction to research on the Chinese writing system. It can also serve as the main text of an undergraduate course on the subject. Key features of this volume include: Insights from studies of the Chinese writing system in linguistics, script reform and technology, gender, identity, literature, and the visual arts; Examples embedded in inquiries of the cultural history and contemporary society of Asia; Rigorous yet accessible discussions of complex concepts and phenomena that assume no prior knowledge of Asian languages or linguistics; Supplementary multimedia materials and resources, including instructional support, available online.

Albinia de la Mare (1932-2001), OBE, FBA, Professor of Palaeography at King's College London, was one of the last century's outstanding palaeographers and the world's leading authority on Italian Renaissance manuscripts. In November 2011 a conference was held at King's College and the Warburg Institute to honour her memory, and this volume offers revised versions of most of the papers read on that occasion, as well as three additional contributions. Tilly de la Mare had exceptionally wide interests, including key individuals involved in manuscript and literary production, as represented here by studies on Vespasiano da Bisticci, Sozomeno da Pistoia, Matteo Contugi da Volterra, Lorenzo di Francesco Guidetti, Giorgio Antonio Vespucci, Bartolomeo Sanvito, Bartolomeo Varnucci, Francesco Petrarca, Pier Candido Decembrio, Leonardo Bruni and Marsilio Ficino. Important themes in the history of palaeography - the emergence of humanist script; the relationship between script and illumination; the competing methods of palaeography and philology; the social, political, academic, geographical and cultural contexts of manuscript copying and production; and the role of palaeography in the transmission of classical texts - were also in the compass of her scholarship and are treated in this collection. The volume concludes with sixteen colour plates and indices of manuscripts, incunabula and names.

This book is an exploratory adventure to defamiliarize calligraphy, especially Persian Nastaliq calligraphic letterforms, and to look beyond the tradition that has always considered calligraphy as pursuant to and subordinate to linguistic practices. Calligraphy can be considered a visual communicative system with different means of meaning-making or as a medium through which meaning is made and expression is conveyed via a complex grammar. This study looks at calligraphy as a systematic means in the field of visual communication, rather than as a one-dimensional and ad hoc means of providing visual beauty and aesthetic enjoyment. Revolving around different insights of multimodal social semiotics, the volume relies on the findings of a corpus study of Persian Nastaliq calligraphy. The research emphasizes the way in which letterforms, regardless of conventions in language, are applied as graphically meaningful forms that convey individual distinct meanings. This volume on Persian Nastaliq calligraphy will be inspirational to visual artists, designers, calligraphers, writers, linguists, and visual communicators. With an introduction to social semiotics, this work will be of interest to students and scholars interested in visual arts, media and communication, and semiotics.

With contributions by: Barns, J. W. B.; Unknown function: Carswell, J.

An accessible account of Norwegian runic inscriptions from their first appearance around AD200 until their demise around 1400. Runes, a unique functional writing system, exclusive to northern and eastern Europe, were used for some 1300 years in Scandinavia, from about AD 200 till around the end of the fourteenth century, when the runic alphabet, called futhark after the six first characters, finally gave way to the modern writing system. Runes were not written, but carved - in stone, and on jewellery, weapons, utensils and wood. The content of the inscriptions is very varied, from owner and carpenter attributions on artefacts to memorials to the deceased on erected stones; contrary to popular belief, they are not necessarily magical or mystical, and the post-it notes of today have their forerunners in such runic reminders as: "Buy salt, and don't forget gloves for Sigrid." The typical medieval runic inscription varies from the deeply religious to the highly trivial [or perhaps crucial], such as "I slept with Vigdis when I wasin Stavanger." This book presents an accessible account of the Norwegian examples throughout the period of their use. The runic inscriptions are discussed not only from a linguistic point of view but also as sources of information on Norwegian history and culture. TERJE SPURKLAND is Associate Professor of Nordic Medieval Studies at the University of Oslo.

Mini Japanese Dictionary is the most up-to-date Japanese pocket dictionary available. This dictionary is completely up-to-date with the latest vocabulary for IT, smartphones and social media. It is the perfect dictionary to take with you when you travel to Japan for any reason. This powerful pocket reference contains the following essential features: Bidirectional English-Japanese and Japanese-English sections Covering over 13,000 essential words, idioms, and expressions Japanese words given in Romanized and native script for easy pronunciation Latest computer, Internet, smartphone, and social media terms Whether you need a travel size dictionary for your trip to Japan or are learning the Japanese language in a formal setting, this mini dictionary is an essential resource.

Singapore boasts a complex mix of languages and is therefore a rich site for the study of multilingualism and multilingual society. In particular, writing is a key medium in the production of the nation's multilingual order - one that is often used to organize language relations for public consumption. In Choreographies of Multilingualism, Tong King Lee examines the linguistic landscape of written language in Singapore - from street signage and advertisements, to institutional anthologies and text-based memorabilia, to language primers and social media-based poetry - to reveal the underpinning language ideologies and how those ideologies figure in political tensions. The book analyzes the competing official and grassroots narratives around multilingualism and takes a nuanced approach to discuss the marginalization, celebration, or appropriation of Singlish. Bringing together theoretical perspectives from sociolinguistics, multimodal semiotics, translation, and cultural studies, Lee demonstrates that multilingualism in Singapore is an emergent and evolving construct through which identities and ideologies are negotiated and articulated. Broad-ranging and cross-disciplinary, this book offers a significant contribution to our understanding of language in Singapore, and more broadly to our understanding of multilingualism and the sociolinguistics of writing.

"Cultural Graphology" could be the name of a new human science: this was Derrida's speculation when, in the late 1960s, he imagined a discipline that combined psychoanalysis, deconstruction, and a commitment to the topic of writing. He never undertook the project himself, but he did leave two brief sketches of how he thought cultural graphology might proceed. In this book, Juliet Fleming picks up where Derrida left off. Using his early thought and the psychoanalytic texts to which it is addressed to examine the print culture of early modern England, she drastically unsettles our knowledge of the key vehicle of modern writing: the book. Fleming shows that the single most important lesson to survive from Derrida's early work is that we do not know what writing is. Channeling Derrida's thought into places it has not been seen before, she takes on topics such as errors, spaces, and print ornaments that have hitherto been marginal to our accounts of print culture and excavates the long-forgotten reading practice of cutting printed books. Proposing radical deformations to the meanings of fundamental and apparently simple terms such as "error," "letter," "surface," and "cut," Fleming opens up exciting new pathways into our understanding of the book as a material and cultural object.

This book narrates the history of English spelling from the Anglo-Saxons to the present-day, charting the various changes that have taken place and the impact these have had on the way we spell today. While good spelling is seen as socially and educationally desirable, many people struggle to spell common words like accommodate, occurrence, dependent. Is it our spelling system that is to blame, and should we therefore reform English spelling to make it easier to learn? Or are such calls for change further evidence of the dumbing-down of our educational standards, also witnessed by the tolerance of poor spelling in text-messaging and email? This book evaluates such views by considering previous attempts to reform the spelling of English and other languages, while also looking critically at claims that the electronic age heralds the demise of correct spelling.