LLCU 110 Lecture Notes - Lecture 9: Runes, Abjad, Mixed Language
21 Apr 2017
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Document Summary
Intended to be easy to learn (perhaps true, if starting from indo-european) Intended to be perfectly regular (note that no living language will stay perfectly regular) A brief history of english writing: old english runic alphabet (futhorc, replaced by latin alphabet ca. 900ce, introduced by irish missionaries: both originally derive from italic scripts. Alphabets and abjads: an abjad is a writing system that represents only consonants. Phoenician, arabic: phoenician --> greek --> latin. Logographic systems: symbols represent words (or morphemes, examples: chinese, japanese. Syllabics vs. abugidas: abugidas are a subtype of syllabic systems. In both, major symbols correspond to consonant + vowel sequences: but in an abugida, the major symbols have a default or natural vowel, other vowels are expressed with additional notation. Tibetan: abugida (vowels: tibetan script dates to 7th century ce, songstem gampo, 1st emperor of tibet, sent a minister to india to study buddhism.
