Written Language (Unit 16) a.

The Rebus Principle/Rebus Writing:

 Writing: The process of Rebus Writing is a way of using existing symbols to
There are a large number of languages in the world which do not have a represent the sounds of language.
written form but they speak. Those who have a well established writing In this process, the symbol for one entity is taken over as the symbol for
system they do not use it. the sound of the spoken word used to refer to the entity. That symbol
 Writing Development of Human: then comes to be used whenever that sound occurs in any words. One
In terms of human development, writing is a relatively recent symbol can be used in many different ways, with a range of meanings. This
phenomenon. It is difficult to decide whether a piece of graphic expression brings a sizeable reduction in the number of symbols needed in a writing
should be taken as an artistic image or as a symbol of primitive writing. system. Like: /ba/ means ‘boat’ and /baba/ means ‘father’.
Much of the evidence used in the reconstruction of ancient writing  Syllabic Writing:
systems comes from inscriptions on stones or tablets found in the rubble When a writing system employs a set of symbols which represent the
of ruined cities. pronunciation of syllables, it is described as syllabic writing. In the
 Clay Tokens/Tablets: example, /ba/ means ‘boat’ and /baba/ means ‘father’, the symbol that is
Traces of human attempts found 20,000 years ago in a shape of cave used for the pronunciation of parts of a word represents a combination
drawings and clay tokens found 10,000 years ago. Clay tokens appear as an (ba) of a consonant sound (b) and a vowel sound (a). This combination is
early attempt at bookkeeping but these artifacts called ancient precursor one type of syllable. There are no purely syllabic writing systems in use
of writing. The earliest writing for which we have clear evidence is known today, but modern Japanese can be written with a single symbol which
as “cuneiform”, marked on clay tablets about 5,000 years ago. Tables represents spoken syllables and is consequently often described as having
discovered in various parts of the Middle East and South East Europe from a syllabic writing or a syllabary. In the 19th century Cherokee Indians
around 3500 BC. Large number of tablets found in sites around the River invented and used a syllabic writing system to produce written language
Tigris and Euphrates made by Sumerians. Such tablets seem to have from spoken language. The first fully developed syllabic writing system
recorded matters such as business transactions, tax account and land sales was used by the Phoenicians at around 1000 B.C.
etc.  Alphabetic Writing:
An alphabet is a set of written symbols which each represent a single type
 Types of Writing Systems:
of sound or phoneme.
a. Pictograms It introduced the Semitic languages such as Arabic and Hebrew. In written
b. Ideograms language, consonants sounds based on symbols and vowel sounds
c. Logogram supplied by the reader. This type of writing system is called a consonantal
alphabet.
a. Pictograms:
The basic order of letter symbols in the first “A-B-C-D … ” was created
Pictograms are associated with the pictures. A picture of about three thousand years ago by the Phoenicians and it is our primary
something representing a particular image in a certain way ordering device for lists in everything from dictionaries to telephone
is called pictograms or picture writing. There must be a link directories to grades for academic performance.
The early Greeks took symbols to represent the vowel sounds. In fact, for
between the pictograms and its meaning. So we can easily
some writers, it is the Greeks who should be given credit for taking the
understand what it refers to when we look at the inherently syllabic system from the Phoenicians and creating a writing
pictogram. Like: Phone Booth, Bus Stop, Coffee Shop and system with the single-symbol to single-sound. From the Greeks, this
Restaurant etc. revised alphabet passed to the rest of Western Europe through the
Romans. As a result, we talk about the Roman alphabet as the writing
b. Ideograms:
system used for English.
More abstract forms of pictograms are called ideograms.  Written English:
When a pictograms takes a more fixed symbolic form and English orthography (or spelling) is subject to a lot of
comes to be used for instance not only to represent ‘sun’ variation. Notice how often a single phoneme in the two
but also ‘heat’ and ‘daytime’, it is considered as part of a lists is actually represented by more than one letter. Part of
system of idea writing or ideograms. The relationship the reason for this is that the English language is full of
between the entity and the symbol is not easily understood words borrowed, often with their spelling, from other
like pictograms. languages, as in ph for /f/ in the Greek borrowings alphabet
The distinction between pictograms and ideograms is and orthography, where two letters are used for a single
essentially a difference between the symbol and the entity sound.
it represents. The more pictures like forms are pictograms, A combination of two letters consistently used for a single
the more abstract and derived forms are ideograms. A key sound, as in ph/f/ and sh/ʃ/ is called a digraph.
property of both pictograms and ideograms is that they do There may be a number of historical reasons.
not represent words or sounds in a particular language.

th
The spelling of written English took place in 15 century, via
c. Logograms:
printing, so Latin and French affected the written forms.
When the symbols used to represent words in a language
 Many of the early printers were Dutch, so they were not
they are called word writing or logograms. A good example
very successful in English pronunciation.
of logographic writing is the system used by the Sumerians,

th
Since the 15 century spoken English has undergone a lot
in the southern part of modern Iraq, around 5,000 years
of changes.
ago. Because of the particular shapes used in their symbols,
For example, although we no longer pronounce the initial k
these inscriptions are more generally described as
sound, we still include letters indicating the older
cuneiform writing. The term cuneiform means 'wedge-
pronunciation in our contemporary spelling of the word
shaped' and the inscriptions used by the Sumerians were
knight. These are sometimes called “silent letters.”
produced by pressing a wedge- shaped implement into soft
clay tablets that created a permanent symbol when the clay
hardened. When we consider the relationship between the
written form and the object it represents that it is arbitrary.
In Chinese writing it means ‘river’ and derives from the
pictorial description of a stream flowing between two
banks.
 Phonographic Writing:
In this development, the symbols are adopted to represent the sounds of
the words known as phonographic writing.