Writing: The ABC’s of Language

Arcelito O. Pasaylo
Zarah A. Calo

Objectives:
At the end of the topic, we will be able to:
1. trace the history of the writing system of the language;
2. know the four systems of writing; and
3. distinguish the difference between written and spoken language.

Overview

The emergence of writing systems is regarded as one of the most

significant milestones towards human civilization (Han, 2012). From primitive
tool-making to modern-day technology, Homo sapiens have come a long way
to replace their stones and bricks with pen and paper, or even smartphones
and tablets in recent decades. With at least 3,866 developed writing systems
worldwide, it is believed that the invention of writing was the result of an
improvement to an ancient system of tallies and labels, where things were
depicted pictographically to reduce ambiguity and ease the process of recall
(Fischer, 2007).b
The human language faculty appears to be biologically and genetically
determined. The ability to learn and use the language represents a historical
development. It is indeed true that writing is a basic tool for civilization. Before
we have come up with the language we are currently using, it has historical
background that needs to be traced, for these makes up what we are right now.
Thus, making it as humans’ greatest achievements.

Writing is a visual representation of our language, including handwriting,

printing, and electronic displays of written forms. It permits a society to
permanently store its literature, its history, and etc.

History of Writing

 Pictograms and Ideograms

A writing system is called pictogram if it represents objects directly and

literally. This system of writing has been found throughout the world, may it be
ancient or modern. It is even used in the international road signs, where the
native language of the region might not be understood by all travelers. The said
writing system is effective for these symbols do not depend on words.
On the other hand, these pictograms can be called ideograms when the
drawing becomes less literal, and the meaning extends to concepts associated
with the object originally pictured. Let’s take this as an example – a picture of
the sun could represent warmth, light, heat, daytime, with this, the image
becomes a representation of ideas.
When ideograms become associated with the words for the concepts
they signify, they are called logograms. This writing system are true writing
systems in a sense that the symbols already stand for the words of a language.
It was the Sumerians who first developed a pictographic writing system
to keep track of commercial transactions. It was then later expanded for other
uses and has evolved into the highly stylized cuneiform writing. This writing was
generalized to other writing systems by application of the Rebus Principle in
which this principle uses the symbol of one word or syllable to represent another
word or a syllable that is pronounced the same.

A Heritage Written in Stone

That common ancestor was a writing system developed in the Sinai

desert about 4 thousand years ago. It was inspired by the hieroglyphics of the
ancient Egyptians. This script developed into the Phoenician alphabet, one of
the most widely used alphabet systems in history.
You can still see Phoenician writing system in modern language. It was
a pictograph of an ox head, pronounced aleph, and evolved into the Roman
letter A. The Phoenician writing system spread around the Mediterranean with
the growing trade networks, and branched into the Greek and Aramaic writing
systems.
Aramaic eventually developed into Hebrew and Arabic, while Greek
became the basis of the Latin alphabet that we still use today. The Egyptians
also developed hieroglyphics. Through this, it influenced many people,
including the Phoenicians, who developed the West Semitic Syllabary. The
Greeks borrowed the Phoenician system, and in adapting it to their own
language, they used the said symbols to represent both consonant and vowel
sound segments which resulted to our First alphabet.

Modern Writing System

A writing system is a conventionalized method of representing verbal
communication visually, which is regarded as a reliable form of information
storage and transfer. Writing systems can be divided into two main types: those
that represent consonants and vowels (alphabets), and those which represent
syllables (syllabaries), though some do both. There are a number of
subdivisions of each type, and there are different classifications of writing
systems in different sources.

Word Writing System

In a word writing system or logographic system, a written character

called logograms to represent both the meaning and pronunciation of each
word or morpheme. An example of this is Chinese writing system where they
used Chinese characters to represent a word. In fact, countries such as Japan
and Korea did adopt to this writing system but only for a period of time since
they were able to come up with their own writing system.

In china, they were able to preserve their writing system for the reason
that it permits all literate Chinese to communicate even though their spoken
languages are not mutually intelligible. Thus writing has served as a unifying
factor throughout Chinese history, in area where hundreds of languages and
dialects coexist.
Syllabic Writing

When a writing system employs a system of symbols which represents

the pronunciations of syllables. This system of writing is more efficient than
word-writing systems, and they are certainly less taxing on the memory,
however, languages with a rich structure of syllables containing many
consonant clusters cannot be efficiently written with a syllabary.

With more than thirty consonants and over twelve vowels, the number of
different possible syllables is astronomical, which is why English, and Indo-
European languages in general, are unsuitable for syllabic writing systems.

The Japanese language, on the other hand, is more suited for syllabic
writing because all words in Japanese can be phonologically represented by
about one hundred syllables, mostly of the consonant-vowel type, and there are
no underlying consonant clusters.

Another rare example of an intentionally created writing system is the

Cherokee syllabary. Prior to its creation in 1810, the Cherokee language had
no system for reading and writing. Sequoyah, the author of the Cherokee
syllabary, could not himself read or write in any language. Nevertheless, he
created glyphs visually similar to those in the Greek-Latin and Greek-Cyrillic
families. Each glyph represents a syllable instead of a sound. The Cherokee
writing system enjoys an increasingly widespread usage today in the Cherokee
tribes of Oklahoma and North Carolina.

Consonantal Alphabet Writing

 Consonantal alphabets all developed from the Proto-Sinaitic script,
which was the first alphabetic writing system. A pure consonantal alphabet will
contain no vowels, although there are many alphabets that are considered to
be consonantal which do contain a few vowels. An example of a consonantal
alphabet is Arabic. Due to the global influence of Islam, the Arabic alphabet is
one of the most widespread writing systems in the world.

Such an alphabet works for these languages because consonants form

the root of most words. For example:
Ktb - write
Katab - to write
Aktib - I write
Kitab - a book
Semitic alphabets provide a way to use diacritic marks to express
vowels. This is partly out of the desire to preserve the true pronunciations of
religious writings and partly out of deference to children and foreigners learning
to read and write. In Hebrew, dots or other small figures are placed under,
above, or even in the center of consonantal letter to indicate the accompanying
vowel.

Alphabetic Writing

It is composed of symbols called letters, which represent individual

sounds (also known as phonemes) and have no meaning unless they are
combined with other letters . They are easy to learn, convenient to use, and
maximally efficient for transcribing any human language.

In Joseon Dynasty Korea, scholars typically used the classical Chinese

writing system. But the nation was facing widespread illiteracy, and classical
Chinese is notoriously difficult to learn--especially for laypeople and the working
class. So in 1443 King Sejeong created the Hangeul alphabet, which is phonetic
and deliberately easy to master.

One Confucian elitist said of Hangeul characters "a wise man can
acquaint himself with them before the morning is over; a stupid man can learn
them in the space of ten days." He meant it to be derogatory--the academic
class was unimpressed by Hangeul’s simplicity. But the writing system caught
on, and soon people were reading and writing up a storm.

In Hangeul, the rectangle shape ㅁ is simply an M sound. The vowel

ㅐlooks like an H but sounds sort of like the ‘ai’ in ‘hair.’ It’s usually transliterated
as ‘ae.’ Similarly, ㄴ looks like the roman L, but it makes a sound like an N.
 Many languages have their own alphabet, and each has developed
certain conventions for converting strings of alphabetic characters into
sequences of sounds into strings of alphabetic characters.
Writing and Speech

The development of writing freed us from the limitations of time and

geography, but spoken language still has primacy and is the principal concern
of most linguists.

The written language reflects the elements and the rules that together
constitute the grammar of the language. Writing is usually permanent and
written texts cannot usually be changed once they have been printed/written
out. Written language tends to be more complex and intricate than speech with
longer sentences and many subordinate clauses. The punctuation and layout
of written texts also have no spoken equivalent. However some forms of written
language, such as instant messages and email, are closer to spoken language.
No writing system shows the individual morphemes within a word in this
way, even though speakers know what they are. Indeed, language varies in
regard to how much punctuation is used in writing.

Writing, then, somewhat reflects the spoken language, and punctuation

may even distinguish between two meanings not revealed in the spoken forms.
However, often, the spoken language conveys meaning that the written
language does not.

Languages change over time, but writing systems tend to be more

conservative. In many languages, including English, spelling may no longer
accurately reflect pronunciation. This has led to spelling reforms in many
countries. Also, when the spoken and written forms of the language diverge,
some words may be pronounced as they are spelled, sometimes as a result of
the efforts of pronunciation reformers.

References:
Han, J. (2012). Chinese characters. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fischer, S. R. (2007). A history of language. London: Reaktion Books

Sumerian. (2017). Retrieved May 01, 2018, from

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/sumerian.htm

https://ancientscriptsengagedarchaeology.wordpress.com/2014/04/26/consona
ntal-alphabet/
https://www.daytranslations.com/blog/2017/06/phoenecian-writing-system-
9007/