Method
Writing system
Overview
A writing system is any conventional system for representing a particular language using a set of symbols (called a script), as well as the rules those symbols encode. The earliest of conventional writing systems appeared during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each independently invented writing system gradually emerged from a system of proto-writing, where a small number of ideographs were used in a manner incapable of fully encoding language, and thus lacking the ability to express a broad range of ideas.
Writing systems are generally classified according to how their symbols, called graphemes, relate to units of language. Phonetic writing systems – which include alphabets and syllabaries – use graphemes that correspond to sounds in the corresponding spoken language. Alphabets use graphemes called letters that generally correspond to spoken phonemes. They are typically divided into three sub-types: Pure alphabets use letters to represent both consonant and vowel sounds, abjads generally only use letters representing consonant sounds, and abugidas use letters representing consonant–vowel pairs. Syllabaries use graphemes called syllabograms that represent entire syllables or moras. By contrast, logographic (or morphographic) writing systems use graphemes that represent the units of meaning in a language, such as its words or morphemes. Alphabets typically use fewer than 100 distinct symbols, while syllabaries and logographies may use hundreds or thousands, respectively.
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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That society then which nature has established for daily support is the domestic, and those who compose it are called by Charondas _homosipuoi_, and by Epimenides the Cretan _homokapnoi_; but the society of many families, which was first instituted for their lasting, mutual advantage, is called a village, and a village is most naturally composed of the descendants of one family, whom some persons call homogalaktes…
Aristotle, Politics
States what Writing system is; the author is tied to Writing system in the knowledge graph.
In all animals with bones the spinal column is their origin. The spinal column is made up of vertebræ, and extends from the head to the hips. All the vertebræ are perforated; the upper part of the head is a bone joined to the last vertebra, and is called the skull, the saw-like part is the suture. 2. This is not alike in all animals, for the cranium of some consists of a single bone, as in the dog; in others it is…
Aristotle, Aristotle's History of Animals In Ten Books
States what Writing system is; the author is tied to Writing system in the knowledge graph.
And when we have perfected the classification of things, we shall give them names, and see whether, as in the case of letters, there are any classes to which they may be all referred (cf. Phaedrus); and hence we shall see their natures, and see, too, whether they have in them classes as there are in the letters; and when we have well considered all this, we shall know how to apply them to what they resemble—whether…
Plato, Cratylus
States what Writing system is.
Philosophers who discussed Writing system
Related ideas
- Grapheme
- Glyph
- Word
- Japanese language
- J. R. R. Tolkien
- Korean language
- Language
- Latin alphabet
- Morpheme
- Indian subcontinent
- Arabic alphabet
- Linguistics
- Phoneme
- Semitic languages
- A
- Aristotle
- Vietnamese language
- Vowel
- Writing
- Sinosphere
- Egyptian hieroglyphs
- Central Europe
- Hindustani language
Place in the tradition
Part of Language.