Wiley-Blackwell Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach: 18 (Blackwell Textbooks in Linguistics)

Accessibly written, Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach provides detailed coverage of all major writing systems of historical or structural significance with thorough discussion of structure, history, and social context as well as important theoretical issues. Discusses systems as diverse as Chinese, Greek, and Maya. Presents each system in light of four major aspects of writing: history and development, internal structure, the relationship of writing and language, and sociolinguistic aspects. Includes glossary of technical terms, extensive illustrations, exercises and further reading suggestions to aid in teaching from the book. Review "The author and publishers can be congratulated on an excellent work; if I were teaching a class on writing systems now, this would be my first choice as a textbook." --William Bright, review in Written Language and Literacy "This is an excellent comprehensive textbook for university courses on writing systems (grammatology), with enough preliminary remarks of a theoretical nature to enable the student to master the scripts from around the world, including cuneiform of various types, Semitic, Greek, Roman, etc. It is written in a clear style with a very good glossary and up-to-date bibliography." --Alan S. Kaye, California State University, Fullerton From the Inside Flap Accessibly written, Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach provides detailed coverage of all major writing systems of historical or structural significance with thorough discussion of structure, history, and social context as well as important theoretical issues. The book examines systems as diverse as Chinese, Greek, and Maya and each writing system is presented in the light of four major aspects of writing: history and development; internal structure; the relationship of writing and language; and sociolinguistic factors. The volume is extensively illustrated and the glossary of technical terms, exercises, and further reading suggestions that accompany each chapter make Writing Systems a valuable resource for students in linguistics and anthropology. From the Back Cover Accessibly written, Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach provides detailed coverage of all major writing systems of historical or structural significance with thorough discussion of structure, history, and social context as well as important theoretical issues. The book examines systems as diverse as Chinese, Greek, and Maya and each writing system is presented in the light of four major aspects of writing: history and development; internal structure; the relationship of writing and language; and sociolinguistic factors. The volume is extensively illustrated and the glossary of technical terms, exercises, and further reading suggestions that accompany each chapter make Writing Systems a valuable resource for students in linguistics and anthropology. About the Author Henry Rogers is Professor in the Departments of Linguistics and Anthropology at the University of Toronto. He is author of Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics (2000) and Theoretical and Practical Phonetics (1990), and has published widely on both phonetics and writing systems.