Writing Systems of the World: Alphabets, Syllabaries, Pictograms [Paperback]

Akira Nakanishi (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: 1990

This unique book presents 29 scripts in detail and offers examples of many more.

Editorial Reviews

Language Notes

Text: English, Japanese (translation) --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Paperback: 122 pages
• Publisher: Charles E. Tuttle Company, Inc. (1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0804816549
• ISBN-13: 978-0804816540
• Product Dimensions: 10 x 7.2 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (18 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #360,888 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #53 in Books > Education & Reference > Foreign Language Nonfiction > Japanese

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

30 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Truly Surprising, January 3, 2000

By 

J. Harris "virtualtraveler" (San Francisco, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing Systems of the World: Alphabets, Syllabaries, Pictograms (Paperback)

The map inside the front cover is worth the price on its own. I have not seen a similar map anywhere else and believe me, Ive looked. The description of the worlds writing systems is useful and the metric for inclusion (they have to be used on newspapers stamps or currency) is a clever way of identifying significant writing systems in common use. Some information on encoding of writing systems for computer use would have increased the value of the book for me but would probably turn off a great number on non-technical potential readers.

An update of this book is overdue. Much of the information is from the 1970s and a lot has changed since then. Many of the former soviet republics have changed, or are changing their writing systems from Cyrillic to either Arabic or Latin.

19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars A good, brief overview, May 7, 2004

By 

C. Jacobs (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing Systems of the World: Alphabets, Syllabaries, Pictograms (Paperback)

This book serves well as a compact catalog of the major writing systems in the world. It's not the reference I was looking for, however. It's quite brief, and the examples are almost always newspapers. The other issues I have are:

1. It's kind of out of date - the information is all from the eighties. There's been some redrawing of the borders and changes in fonts and conventions since then.
2. The quality of the reproductions is poor. Many of the beautiful scripts in here are not shown in their best light. The plain fonts and photocopy-quality examples just don't do the scripts justice.

Still, it does contain reproductions of a lot of alphabets. It would be really handy in identifying an unkown sample of writing, for example.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As beautiful as it is educational, November 3, 2000

By 

Michael J. Mazza - See all my reviews
(HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (COMMUNITY FORUM 04)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Writing Systems of the World: Alphabets, Syllabaries, Pictograms (Paperback)

Have you ever come across a label from an imported food item, or perhaps a local newspaper put out by an immigrant community, and found yourself mystified by a writing system which was utterly alien to you? Whether or not you've had such an experience, Akira Nakanishi's "Writing Systems of the World" will open your eyes to the glorious diversity of its title subject.

Nakanishi's excellent reference work organizes the writing systems geographically. Each of the major writing systems is carefully profiled, and the phonetic equivalents (in Roman characters) are given for all syllabic and alphabetic characters.

The book dramatically illustrates the major writing systems by reproducing pages from newspapers throughout the world. It is marvelous to see the Armenian alphabet, the Amharic syllabary, and many other writings systems thus used in the context of practical daily communication.

In addition to the thorough profiles of nearly 30 major systems, Nakanishi gives shorter examples of dozens more writing systems, ranging from those used with extinct ancient languages to new writing systems invented in modern times. The book also contains appendices which explain the classification system for writing systems (ideographic versus phonetic, phonemic versus syllabic, etc.) and the variations in directions in which scripts are written. A glossary, a bibliography, and an index all add to the book's usefulness.

Not only is this book informative, but it is also a visual feast which offers delights and surprises on every page. This is a reference work to be savored.