The World's Writing Systems

Rating:
Summary: How to give a book a 6-star rating?
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Exceptional reference work and coverage
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and useful
Review: 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.

Rating:
Summary: Beautiful and useful
Review: 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.