Ling 115: Writing Systems
Course description

Prof. Gene Buckley

Please note: Since these materials are from a semester that has now ended, not all of the links continue to function.

This page gives a description of Linguistics 115: Writing Systems at the University of Pennsylvania. For further information, see the syllabus and course outline. See also the list of links related to the topic of writing systems.

There are no prerequisites. This course satisfies the General Requirement in History and Tradition (Sector II).

Ling 115 is a survey of the ways in which natural languages have been, and are today, represented graphically throughout the world.  We focus on the following topics:

The historical origin of writing in Sumeria, Egypt, China, and Mesoamerica

• How did the first writing come about?
• How many times in world history was writing independently invented?
• To what extent did these ancient systems inspire or influence each other?

The transmission of writing across languages and cultures, including the route from Phoenician to Greek to Etruscan to Latin to English

• How did the letters Y, F, U, V, W all develop out of a single Phoenician consonant?
• Why does the Greek alphabet have K but not C, even though they have the same original pronunciations and the Latin alphabet is derived from the Greek?
• Why are the Greek letters X and H pronounced unlike the Latin letters with the same appearance?
• How is Etruscan responsible for the fact that Latin Q is used only before U?
• In what ways does English spelling actually make a lot of sense?

The development of writing systems over time

• Why did Sumerian develop from carved pictures to cuneiform?
• What's the difference between Egyptian hieroglyphic, hieratic, and demotic writing?
• What's the crucial role of kana in Japanese and hangul in Korean, and why doesn't Chinese need the equivalent?

The traditional classification of written symbols

• Ideographic (general concepts): Is this really "writing"? How is that defined?
• Logographic (words): Does any language actually have a symbol for each word?
• Syllabic (consonant + vowel combinations): Is "syllable" the right notion?
• Alphabetic (separate symbols for consonants and vowels): Did the alphabet as we know it arise by the genius of the Greeks, or by linguistic accident?

Related issues

• How are ancient languages deciphered?
• In what ways does writing represent more, and less, than spoken language?
• What effect does literacy have on the development of individuals and of societies?