Customer Reviews

The World's Writing Systems

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"The World's Writing Systems" is a model reference work. Its treatment of its subject matter is comprehensive: no language is too ancient or too obscure, if someone worked out a graphic notation for it. Notational systems for nonlinguistic fields such as music, dance, and mathematics are included, as are invented alphabets for such fictitious languages as J. R. R. Tolkien's Quenya. The presentation is clear, both about the basic facts for each system and about the historical lineages of writing systems; the editors aid this clarity by distinguishing among three different styles of "alphabetic" writing--typified by Latin, Arabic, and Sanskrit writing systems. The reader will come away with an understanding of why Chinese writing is not really "ideographic" and of the careful scientific reasoning behind traditional Korean writing. Best of all, the presentation is aesthetically delightful, with fine typographic examples of the many scripts discussed and with long passages in each that are both transliterated and translated. Anyone to whom language is not merely a tool but a pleasure should find this book a delight.

This book belongs to a rare category: Reference Works of Art. This massive volume not only brings together an amazing mass of information, but does so in a fantastically attractive manner. The coverage is comprehensive: general articles on the relationship of writing to language, linguistics, decipherment, etc. accompany page after page devoted to every script extant from Egyptian and Chinese scripts to Ogham, Cree, and Mandain. If that were not enough, the book goes on to explore other systems for conveying information in written, symbolic form, such as mathematical and musical notations. But enough with the table of contents. I've only used the book for browsing thus far, but this even is a rewarding experience. The price on this book is quite high, but is in proportion to the quantity and quality of the material it contains. If all books were so well done, there would be very little to debate in terms of the effort put forth by writers and the taste exercised by editors. It doesn't get any better than this.

Exceptionally well researched, documented, illustrated, and well-written reference work on 80 of the world's writing systems. I don't know if they're all here, but they include extinct languages such as Egyptian and Gothic, as well as modern ones that are still alive. Alphabets as diverse as the Cree syllabary and Korean phonetic alphabet are discussed, as well as phonographic and ideographic systems such as Egyptian and Assyrian cuneiform.

Much of the information in this book relating to the history and development of various writing systems can be found in Encyclopedia Britannica and Encarta articles on various languages and language groups, but the actual writing systems are usually not shown, which is where this book comes in. This book lays them all out under one cover. However, the Britannica articles are especially impressive from the standpoint of the comparative philology and historical linguistics, so you might want to consult those articles too for that information, especially as the Britannica CD is only a fraction of the cost of this book.

In addition to the real languages covered, this book even covers musical notation, body movement, and Tolkien's invented language for Middle Earth. Despite the cost, this is an extraordinary reference work on writing systems that will probably become the definitive work in its field.

A comprehensive and very reliable reference work on grammatology. It is organized into separate easy-to-find sections, each devoted to a single writing system or a family of related scripts, and written by a specialist in the field. The book covers practically every known writing system, listing the established facts about its origins, variations, and development. Sign tables are presented (in full for alphabets, representative samples for syllabaries and logographic systems), and each section is provided with a priceless bibliography. Good editing work, the sections follow a similar pattern, which makes the book easy to use. The scripts are presented meticulously and are a pleasure to behold (it must have been a staggering job from the publisher's point of view). High scholarly standards are maintained throughout, and the precise technical language is balanced with an unobtrusive sprinkling of interesting anecdotes. This book is as beautiful as the Italian Carolingian Minuscule.

For many years, I thought I was interested in languages. I suppose I am since (before a brain tumor) I was literate in 8 and could pass in another 8 or so. It wasn't the languages that interested me so much as the writing systems. This is the book that made me realize that several years ago.

Most people would consider this to be a refference book. So it is but anyone intersted in the different types of scripts will enjoy reading it straight through. It enumerates and explains almost all writing systems of note including both those that are extinct and those that are extant. For each, the system by which sounds are transmitted to a graphic medium are explained. This necessitates some basic linguistics but the text provides all that is needed.

Scripts of historic interest are explained in the same manner and so is the method of their decipherment. This alone would make it an interesting book to me but there is so much more.

A person who is interested in writing and writing systems would be hard pressed to find a better book.

The World's Writing Systems is an essential addition to the library of anyone interested in or involved in any of the myriad aspects of language, both as a fascinating browsing book and as an important reference work.

As reviewed by Laurence Urdang, in the Summer 1996 issue (Vol. XXIII, No. 1) of VERBATIM, The Language Quarterly.

Daniels, Bright, and their authors have done a great job
assembling in one weighty tome accessible summaries
of the writing systems used by the peoples of the world --
from the Sumerians of 3200 B.C.E. to Canada's 20th century Inuit.

There are of course more detailed publications for individual
regions (e.g., a handbook describing the alphabets of all
languages in use in the former Soviet Unions), or monographs
on the history of individual writing systems and families
of systems, but there is hardly anything that combines width
and breadth in such a way.

Considering that so many historical and linguistic
review books contain maps -- often rather unnecessary,
so meagre is the information they contain -- it is
rather surprising that The World's Writing Systems does
not seem to have a single map in it. An educated
reader would of course already have an idea where the
better-known languages were spoken (and written), or at
any rate would have access to a decent atlas showing such
things. But adding a few maps illustrating e.g. the
locations of the monuments of those Near Eastern languages
deiscussed in the book (Ugaritic, Luvian, etc)
less known to a non-specialist would have been quite handy.
Some maps illustrating the history of the scripts of
Inner Asia and South-East Asia would not be amiss either.

...it's missing many language script tables that I was hoping for. Don't get me wrong, this book is amazing and filled useful information and language tables - just not all of them. I was hoping for some representation (optimally in an alphabet table format) of the usage of the Arabic-based script for Hausa, Swahili, the Central Asian languages, and some complete detail of which languages have (ever) incorporated an Arabic-based script, when they did, when it was withdrawn or changed (if applicable), comparative texts with the modern scripts, etc. In conclusion, a treasury of information (a lot of which might be quite difficult to track down on your own and would be very time-consuming), marred only by my high expectations. I definitely recommend this book to language lovers and for those who can appreciate the diversity of human expression.

There is no question that this book is an extremely useful resource and the premier work in its field. The contributers and editors are respected experts. Unfortunately, this book contains a fair number of editorial oversights, inconsistency of phonetic transcription, and minor inaccuracies. One would have expected better from a work so prestigious and costly. In any case, this book remains unparalleled and well worth the expense.

The "World's Writing Systems" is a rare event for in one tome it covers all the ways of writing known to us at present. As a professional graphologist this is an absolute boon not only for what it is but because it is also on special offer. While there are other tomes of similar ilk and implication this work has no equal. Until now the study of written language has had no clearly defined reference work.

It has now. Thoroughly recommended.

Peter West