The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems

Rating:
Summary: Great overview of a fascinating tpic
Review: This book is a great starting place for people who are interesting in the many ways people have encoded language by means of writing. The descriptions of most systems are complete enough that one can get a real feel for how they work (if not perhaps all the details of the most complex systems). It also includes brief articles on topics such as calligraphy, the status of alphabetic writing versus other systems, and the like. While some of these are subjects of heated scholarly debate, Coulmas provides balanced explanations of the issues.A wonderful overview of the intricate and beautiful ways people write the world over.Other books that would interest readers of this are:"The World's Writing Systems" from Oxford University Press is the best single reference for complete descriptions of scripts. But at nearly [$$$] in hardcover, it's relatively inaccessible to the general reader. It's also targeted to a more professional audience and is not as good for browsing around. As an anthology of articles by experts it is both more authoritative, and a bit more uneven than Coulmas."Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction" by Geoffrey Sampsonis more of a discussion of the issues raised for linguistics by a variety of writing systems. Sampson's book includes a detailed discussion of the Chinese system.

Rating:
Summary: A fascinating vademecum
Review: This is the only book that I have yet found that compares to David Diringer's -The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind-.

It is not quite so complete in its coverage of obscure scripts as Diringer, and it makes far fewer attempts to analyse the history of the scripts. On the other hand, because it covers less such territory, the exemplars of the scripts and the tables of the characters and their values in this book are far more legible. The alphabetic arrangement of the material makes it easy to find which system you want.

Another of this book's strengths is that at least some attempt is made to explain how the phonemes of the many languages are expressed by the scripts in question; in many languages, from Tibetan to English, the relationship between alphabet and speech is subtle and complex. Obviously, this information will be cursory and incomplete, but having some is better than having none, and it is at least handy to know whether you are dealing with phonemic or with etymological spellings. This will help you not only to transliterate, but also to read, them.

If you are fascinated by the history of writing, and obscure scripts and arcane alphabets, you NEED this book, and will spend hours leafing through it.