Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction

Rating:
Summary: The title sounds dry, the contents are not
Review: This book is the one that got me interested in writing systems as a part of linguistics. If you teach reading or language, the linguistic background this book provides will inform your professional knowledge far more than you can ever imagine. There are basically three kinds of writing systems in use in the world today: alphabetic, syllabic and logographic. Sampson gives sufficient historical background to help you understand how, where and with what languages these types developed. You will find out why the term 'ideograph' does not really accurately refer to any writing system in use. You'll learn how Egyptian hieroglyphs actually worked. And you'll be surprised to find out how reading Japanese is somewhat similar to reading ENGLISH!

This book is in itself an education in linguistic background knowledge that non-linguists don't usually have, but don't worry, Sampson is such a clear writer and excellent teacher, that the non-specialist can usually follow the discussion without stopping.

If you have an interest in language and languages for personal or professional reasons, this book will greatly enrich your life.

A perfect companion volume is the more recent but equally wonderful, 'Story of Writing'by Andrew Robinson (who is book review editor for the Times Higher Education Supplement).

Rating:
Summary: Excellent! Straightforward, clear, and fun!
Review: This, years ago, was just about the first book I read on a linguistic topic, and it's still my favorite. It covers writing systems, using such various interesting cases as Korean, Chinese, and Modern Hebrew. I know of no single book that covers so well such a large (and important) aspect of linguistics as this book, nor does it no intelligently. Plus it's fun.

This book does use linguistic terminology, but is totally accessible to non-linguists.

This book is great for reading on one's own, or could be useful as reading in a linguistics course. It should also be required reading for anyone interested in internationalization of software and any other kind of text processing that could involve non-Roman scripts.