Biblical Hebrew Forum

["M & E Anstey" <anstey AT raketnet.nl>]

Dear b-haverim,

The UBS newsletter TIC Talk, no.48, 2001 has a brief discussion on writing
systems. Daniels well-known typology of writing systems is presented:
1. logosyllabary - the characters denote words or morphemes/syllables
(Chinese)
2. syllabary - the characters denote syllables (Cree)
3. abjad - the characters denote mainly consonants (Arabic; Hebrew)
4. alphabet - the characters denote consonants and vowels (English);
5. abugida - the characters denote a consonant with a specific vowel and
other vowels change the consonant symbol (Indic);
6. featural - the shapes of the characters correlate with distinctive
features of the language's segments (Korean).

However, these various systems really represent points on a basic spectrum,
where at one end are syllabic/phonemic scripts and the other is
morphemic/lexemic scripts. Moreover, nothing of linguistic import can
probably be derived from this dichotomy, as there is arguably an essential
conceptual/pragmatic unity underlying all scripts.

The most pertinent linguistic fact to be observed is that it is the
dominance of the study of alphabetic-type script languages that has been
linked to the dominance of the phoneme in linguistic theory, as opposed to
the syllable which is most likely the dominant psycholinguistic unit.

The development of a particular script is tightly connected to the language
structure. So in English and Dutch, there are over 15,000 unique
(orthogrpahic) syllables, making a syllabary untenable. It is also tightly
connected to social-cultural factors and sometimes accidental historical
factors.

For bibliography for the TIC TALK article go to www.ubs-translations.org and

look from there.

With regards,
Matthew Anstey
------------------------------------------
Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam
Faculteit der Godgeleerdheid
"Werkgroep Informatica"
anstey AT raketnet.nl

+31 (0)20 - 444-6626 (W)
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