The Writing Revolution

by Amalia E Gnanadesikan

  Creel, Herrlee G. 1937. The Birth of China: A Study of the Formative Period of Chinese Civilization. New York: Frederick Ungar. A classic and readable introduction to China of the Shang and Zhou periods.

  Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Sections 14, 15, 18, and 19, by Boltz, Mair, Kychanov, and Shi.

  Fazzioli, Edoardo. 1986. Chinese Calligraphy: From Pictograph to Ideogram: The History of 214 Essential Chinese/Japanese Characters. New York: Abbeville Press. An attractive and browsable book.

  Hsu Ya-hwei. 2002. Ancient Chinese Writing: Oracle Bone Inscriptions from the Ruins of Yin. Trans. Mark Caltonhill and Jeffrey Moser. Taipei: National Palace Museum.

  Hunter, Dard. 1943. Papermaking: The History and Technique of an Ancient Craft. New York: Alfred Knopf. A fascinating volume dedicated entirely to the history of paper; it even includes samples.

  Keightley, David N, ed. 1983. The Origins of Chinese Civilization. Studies on China 1. Berkeley: University of California Press. Includes technical treatment of various aspects of ancient China.

  Mair, Victor H. and Yongquan Liu, eds. 1991. Characters and Computers. Amsterdam: IOS Press.

  Ramsey, S. Robert. 1987. The Languages of China. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. A clear description of modern Chinese, its history, script, and dialects, and its relation to other languages within China.

  Roberts, J. A. G. 1996. A History of China. Phoenix Mill, Stroud, Gloucestershire: Alan Sutton. A good overview of general Chinese history.

  Taylor, Insup and M. Martin Taylor. 1995. Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Studies in Written Language and Literacy 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Discusses the Chinese writing system and issues surrounding literacy in a logographic script.

  Chapter 5 Maya Glyphs: Calendars of Kings

  Due to the recent nature of the decipherment, works on Maya writing from before about 1985 are out of date. For the same reason, works that truly explain how the writing system functioned, as opposed to works publishing only recent conjectures and advances, are still rare. For those who would actually like to learn to read Maya glyphs, an excellent place to start is Montgomery (2002) or Coe and Van Stone (2005). I owe to Justeson (1986) the idea that the conjunction of numerals and calendar or commodity symbols inspired the first writing both in Mesoamerica and in Mesopotamia. In addition to the works cited below, see Pope (1999), cited in chapters 2 and 3, for the decipherment of Palmyrene, Phoenician and Sassanian.

  Coe, Michael. 1987. The Maya, 4th edn. New York: Thames and Hudson.

  Coe, Michael. 1992. Breaking the Maya Code. New York: Thames and Hudson.

  Coe, Michael and Justin Kerr. 1997. The Art of the Maya Scribe. New York: Thames and Hudson.

  Coe, Michael and Mark Van Stone. 2005. Reading the Maya Glyphs, 2nd edn. London: Thames and Hudson.

  Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. NewYork: Oxford University Press. Section 12, by Macri.

  Houston, Stephen. 1989. Maya Glyphs. Reading the Past. London: British Museum.

  Houston, Stephen, Oswaldo Chinchilla Mazariegos, and David Stuart, eds. 2001. The Decipherment of Ancient Maya Writing. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press. A collection of primary sources in the history of the Maya decipherment.

  Justeson, John S. 1986. The Origin of Writing Systems: Preclassic Mesoamerica. World Archaeology 17, no. 3: 437–58.

  Marcus, Joyce. 1992. Mesoamerican Writing Systems: Propaganda, Myth, and History in Four Ancient Civilizations. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.

  Montgomery, John. 2002. How to Read Maya Hieroglyphs. New York: Hippocrene Books.

  Pohl, Mary E. D., Kevin O. Pope, and Christopher von Nagy. 2002. Olmec Origins of Mesoamerican Writing. Science 298: 1984–7.

  Saturno, William A., David Stuart, and Boris Beltrán. 2006. Early Maya Writing at San Bartolo, Guatemala. Sciencexpress. www.sciencexpress.org. January 4; 10.1126/science.1121745. Recent discoveries in the field.

  Schele, Linda and David Freidel. 1990. A Forest of Kings: The Untold Story of the Ancient Maya. New York: William Morrow.

  Wichmann, Søren, ed. 2004. The Linguistics of Maya Writing. Salt Lake City, UT: University of Utah Press. Discusses ongoing issues in decipherment and linguistic analysis of Maya texts.

  Chapter 6 Linear B: The Clerks of Agamemnon

  The archaeology of the Aegean Bronze Age is a subject of perennial interest, and there are many good works on the topic. On the other hand, the Minoans have been also the subject of much speculation, some of it outright fanciful, since their rediscovery by Sir Arthur Evans. The following are some sound works that I consulted in the course of writing this chapter and that I have enjoyed reading. For those who may be wondering why there is no description of the eruption of Thera in this chapter, it is because the present-day consensus is that, immense as the eruption certainly was, it occurred well before the downfall of the Minoans and did not lead to the occupation of Crete by the Mycenaeans.

  John Chadwick, who collaborated with Michael Ventris in the final stages of his decipherment, has been the foremost popularizer of Linear B (1967, 1976, 1987). A more personal view of the decipherment can be found in Robinson (2002), a biography of Michael Ventris, who died in 1956 at age 34, not long after his decipherment.

  Many questions surround the life and identity of the poet Homer. By tradition he was blind, but the evidence for this is slight to nonexistent. So little is known about him, in fact, that some have even questioned whether such a person existed – whether a single person could have composed both the Iliad and the Odyssey. But it could well have been a single person: poetic geniuses could not have been so very common. If there was a Homer, and if he was blind, then someone else must have written down his words. If he was not blind, it would probably have been easier for him to do it himself. My own presentation of him in the final portion of this chapter is admittedly speculative, but (I hope) within the bounds of plausibility. The role played in his compositions by the oral tradition on the one hand, and by literacy on the other, has received much scholarly attention in the past century. Outstanding modern verse translations of the Iliad and the Odyssey can be found in Fagles (1990 and 1996, from which I took the quotation regarding Greeks on Crete). These are accompanied by introductions by Bernard Knox that competently summarize modern speculation and research on Homer. Ong (1982) illuminates the substantial differences between oral and literate cultures, with frequent reference to epic poetry generally and to Homer specifically, though certain references to the pre-eminence of the Greek alphabet should be taken with a grain of salt.

  Chadwick, John. 1967. The Decipherment of Linear B, 2nd edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Chadwick, John. 1976. The Mycenaean World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Chadwick, John. 1987. Linear B and Related Scripts. Reading the Past. London: British Museum.

  Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Section 7, by Bennett.

  Fagles, Robert, trans. 1990. The Iliad. With introduction and notes by Bernard Knox. New York: Penguin.

  Fagles, Robert, trans. 1996. The Odyssey. With introduction and notes by Bernard Knox. New York: Penguin.

  Fitton, J. Lesley. 2002. Minoans. People of the Past. London: British Museum Press. Summarizes what is actually known about the culture and eschews overinterpretation.

  Higgins, Reynold. 1981. Minoan and Mycenaean Art, rev. edn. London: Thames and Hudson. A beautifully illustrated work that gives a good sense of the cultural achievements of the period.

  Hooker, J. T. 1980. Linear B: An Introduction. Bristol: Bristol Classical Press. Best for those already somewhat familiar with Greek.

  Horwitz, Sylvia L. 1981. The Find of a Lifetime: Sir Arthur Evans and the Discovery of Knossos. New York: Viking.

  Ong, Walter. 1982. Orality and Literacy: The Technologizing
of the Word. London: Methuen.

  Robinson, Andrew. 2002. The Man Who Deciphered Linear B: The Story of Michael Ventris. London: Thames and Hudson.

  Vermeule, Emily. 1972. Greece in the Bronze Age. Chicago: Chicago University Press. Though somewhat dated by now, still a good introduction to the archaeology of Bronze-Age Greece, including the Mycenaean period.

  Chapter 7 Japanese: Three Scripts are Better than One

  Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Section 16, by Smith.

  Gottlieb, Nanette. 2000. Word-Processing Technology in Japan: Kanji and the Keyboard. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon.

  Habein, Yaeko Sato. 1984. The History of the Japanese Written Language. Tokyo: University of Tokyo Press.

  Hadamitzky, Wolfgang and Mark Spahn. 1981. Kanji and Kana: A Handbook and Dictionary of the Japanese Writing System. Rutland, VT: Tuttle. A compact yet comprehensive volume that presents hiragana, katakana, and the full list of common kanji, together with rules for their use. For anyone who wants to learn the Japanese writing system. Less dedicated script lovers will also find it enjoyable browsing.

  Murasaki Shikibu. 1960. The Tale of Genji. Trans. Arthur Waley. New York: Random House.

  Perez, Louis G. 1998. The History of Japan. Westport, CT: Greenwood. A readable introduction for the nonspecialist.

  Shibatani, Masayoshi. 1990. The Languages of Japan. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

  Taylor, Insup and M. Martin Taylor. 1995. Writing and Literacy in Chinese, Korean and Japanese. Studies in Written Language and Literacy 3. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.

  Chapter 8 Cherokee: Sequoyah Reverse-Engineers

  The life and deeds of Sequoyah were poorly documented during his lifetime. What remain are a few descriptions of reminiscences (or translations thereof) on the part of Sequoyah and those who knew him. Foreman (1938) contains a collection of several of these, many of them conflicting somewhat in detail but agreeing on the basic story. Lowery and Payne (1977) contains some as well. The account I present here relies on the common elements of these descriptions and my best guesses in cases of conflict.

  Holmes and Smith (1976) is an introduction to the Cherokee language, using Sequoyah’s syllabary. It also contains photographs of Sequoyah’s handwriting and signature. Walker and Sarbaugh (1993) discuss the early history of the syllabary, adducing evidence that Sequoyah himself was responsible for certain modifications that gave the characters their modern forms, and not Samuel Worcester as has sometimes been claimed (as, for example, in Holmes and Smith).

  Bender, Margaret. 2002. Signs of Cherokee Culture: Sequoyah’s Syllabary in Eastern Cherokee Life. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press.

  Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Section 53, by Scancarelli.

  Ehle, John. 1988. Trail of Tears: The Rise and Fall of the Cherokee Nation. New York: Anchor. An engrossing history of the Cherokee Nation during Sequoyah’s lifetime.

  Foreman, Grant. 1938. Sequoyah. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

  Holmes, Ruth Bradley and Betty Sharp Smith. 1976. Beginning Cherokee. Norman, OK: University of Oklahoma Press.

  Hutchins, John. 1977. The Trial of Reverend Samuel A. Worcester. Journal of Cherokee Studies 2, no. 4: 356–74.

  Lowery, George, with introduction and transcription by John Howard Payne. 1977. Notable Persons in Cherokee History: Sequoyah or George Gist. Journal of Cherokee Studies 2, no. 4: 385–93.

  Walker, Willard and James Sarbaugh. 1993. The Early History of the Cherokee Syllabary. Ethnohistory 40, no. 1: 70–94.

  Chapter 9 The Semitic Alphabet: Egypt to Manchuria in 3,400 Years

  Naveh (1982) is a classic reference on the early alphabet, but see Sass (2005) for arguments that the Phoenician alphabet is younger than the 1050 bc date generally accepted, and Hamilton (2006) on the origins of the alphabet. For the Altaic languages, see also Ramsey (1987), listed under chapter 4. For Ugaritic, see also Watt (1987) under chapter 2.

  Bender, M. L., J. D. Bowen, R. L. Cooper, and C. A. Ferguson, eds. 1976. Language in Ethiopia. Ford Foundation Language Surveys. London: Oxford University Press.

  Beyer, Klaus. 1986. The Aramaic Language: Its Distribution and Subdivisions. Trans. John F. Healey. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck und Ruprecht.

  Brustad, Kristen, Mahmoud Al-Batal, and Abbas Al-Tonsi. 1995. Alif Baa: Introduction to Arabic Letters and Sounds. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

  Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Sections 5, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 61, 62, and 68, by O’Connor, Swiggers, Goerwitz, Daniels, Hoberman, Skjærvø, Kara, Bauer, Haile, Hary, Aronson, and Kaye.

  Dunstan, William E. 1998. The Ancient Near East. Fort Worth, TX: Harcourt Brace. Gaur, Albertine. 1994. A History of Calligraphy. London: British Library.

  Hamilton, Gordon J. 2002. W. F. Albright and Early Alphabetic Epigraphy. Near Eastern Archaeology 65, no. 1: 35–42.

  Hamilton, Gordon J. 2006. The Origins of the West Semitic Alphabet in Egyptian Scripts. Monograph Series 40 Washington, DC: Catholic Biblical Quarterly.

  Healey, John F. 1990. The Early Alphabet. Reading the Past. London: British Museum.

  Hourani, Albert. 1991. A History of the Arab Peoples. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

  Kaltner, John and Steven L. McKenzie, eds. 2002. Beyond Babel: A Handbook for Biblical Hebrew and Related Languages. Resources for Biblical Study 42. Atlanta: Society of Biblical Literature.

  Khan, Gabriel Mandel. 2001. Arabic Script: Styles, Variants, and Calligraphic Adaptations. Trans. Rosanna M. Giammanco Frongia. New York: Abbeville Press.

  Lipiski, Edward. 2000. The Aramaeans: Their Ancient History, Culture, Religion. Orientalia Lovaniensia analecta 100. Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters. A dense tome only for the truly dedicated.

  Millard, A. R. 1986. The Infancy of the Alphabet. World Archaeology 17, no. 3: 390–8.

  Naveh, Joseph. 1982. Early History of the Alphabet: An Introducton to West Semitic Epigraphy and Palaeography. Jerusalem: Magnes Press, Hebrew University.

  Sass, Benjamin. 2005. The Alphabet at the Turn of the Millennium: The West Semitic Alphabet ca. 1150–850 BCE: The Antiquity of the Arabian, Greek and Phrygian Alphabets. Journal of the Institute of Archaeology of Tel Aviv University Occasional Publications, 4. Tel Aviv: Emery and Claire Yass Publications in Archaeology.

  Thackston, Wheeler M. 1999. Introduction to Syriac: An Elementary Grammar with Readings from Syriac Literature. Bethesda, MD: Ibex.

  Wilford, John Noble. 1999. Finds in Egypt Date Alphabet in Earlier Era. New York Times, November 14.

  Yardeni, Ada. 1997. The Book of Hebrew Script: History, Palaeography, Script Styles,Calligraphy and Design. Jerusalem: Carta.

  Chapter 10 The Empire of Sanskrit

  The ethnographic survey cited in the text is published as Singh and Manoharan (1993). See Farmer et al. (2004) for an argument (not fully convincing in my view) that the Indus Valley symbols could not have been a writing system.

  Abbi, Anvita. 2001. A Manual of Linguistic Field Work and Structures of Indian Languages. Munich: Lincom Europa.

  Bright, William. 1990. Language Variation in South Asia. New York: Oxford University Press.

  Coulson, Michael. 1976. Sanskrit: An Introduction to the Classical Language. Teach Yourself Books. Sevenoaks: Hodder and Stoughton.

  Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Sections 11, 30–45, 56, 65, 69, by Parpola, Salomon, Bright, Mistry, Gill, Bagchi, Mahapatra, Gair, Mohanan, Steever, van der Kuip, Court, Wheatley, Diller, Schiller, Kuipers, McDermott, Zide, Masica, and Pettersson.

  Farmer, Steve, Richard Sproat, and Michael Witzel. 2004. The Collapse of the Indus-Script Thesis: The Myth of a Literate Harappan Civilization. Electronic Journal of Vedic Studies 11, no. 2: 19�
��57.

  Government of India, Ministry of Home Affairs. Sequence of Events with Reference to Official Language of the Union. http://rajbhasha.nic.in/eventseng.htm.

  Hart, Kausalya. 1992. Tamil for Beginners. Berkeley: Centers for South and Southeast Asia Studies, University of California at Berkeley.

  Pollock, Sheldon. 2006. The Language of the Gods in the World of Men: Sanskrit, Culture, and Power in Premodern India. Berkeley: University of California Press. SarDesai, D. R. 1994. Southeast Asia: Past and Present, 3rd edn. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.

  Singh, K. S. and S. Manoharan. 1993. Languages and Scripts. People of India, National Series IX. Delhi: Oxford University Press.

  Smyth, David. 2002. Thai: An Essential Grammar. London: Routledge.

  Snell, Rupert and Simon Weightman. 1989. Hindi: A Complete Course for Beginners. Teach Yourself Books. Chicago: NTC Publishing Group. Steever, Sanford, ed. 1998. The Dravidian Languages. London: Routledge. Includes a chapter on Dravidian scripts.

  Walsh, Judith. 2006. A Brief History of India. New York: Facts on File.

  Chapter 11 King Sejong’s One-Man Renaissance

  The quotations from Sejong’s preface to the Hunmin chng’m and Chäng Inji’s postface to the Hunmin chng’m haeryae are from Kim-Cho (2001), though I have omitted bracketed material interpolated for the sake of the reader by Kim-Cho but which I consider unnecessary.

  Ahn, Sang-Cheol. 1998. An Introduction to Korean Phonology. Seoul: Hanshin Publishing.

  Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press. Section 17, by King.

  Kim, Djun Kil. 2005. The History of Korea. Greenwood Histories of Modern Nations. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.

  Kim Jeongsu. 2005. The History and Future of Hangeul: Korea’s Indigenous Script. Trans. Ross King. Folkestone, Kent: Global Oriental.

  Kim-Cho, Sek Yen. 2001. The Korean Alphabet of 1446: Expositions, OPA, the Visible Speech Sounds, Annotated Translation, Future Applicability. Amherst, NY: Humanity Books. Includes both a translation and a copy of the Hunmin chng’m and Hunmin chng’m haeryae.

  Kim-Renaud, Young-Key, ed. 1997. King Sejong the Great: The Light of Fifteenth Century Korea, rev. edn. Washington, DC: International Circle of Korean Linguistics. Readable and well illustrated.