Writing Systems
Also known as a Script.
A system of more or less permanent marks used to represent an utterances in such a way
that it can be recovered more or less exactly without the intervention of the utterer.Languages need not have a single writing system, japanese for example:
| Writing System | Source/Purpose |
|---|---|
| Kanji | From Chinese |
| Hiragana | For grammatical Particles |
| Katakana | For loan words from other languages |
| Arabic | For numerals |
Classification
can be done along a number of dimensions:
- Directionality, eg. Top down, Left Right
- Historical derivation, derived from others (think tree).
- Relations between symbols and sound
Sound/symbol relationship generally agreed to be the best way to classify languages, but no consensus among scholars as to the best set of sub-classifications
See a [see page 7, taxonomy] of known writing systems.