A guide to writing systems

[bradrn]

…because I submitted my Master’s thesis a month ago, and already I’m feeling that urge again to lecture people on a topic in excruciating detail.

Less facetiously: writing systems have always been a favourite topic of mine. In fact, that (alongside phonetics) was the topic which got me into linguistics and conlanging in the very beginning: most of my early ‘conlangs’ were mere neographies. By and large, people here seem more interested in morphosyntax, so until recently I rarely got to discuss them all that much. But in the past little while I’ve seen a few threads on writing systems, so perhaps the time is now right to make this thread.

Also, I’ve been doing a lot more calligraphy recently, both in natural scripts (Latin and a little Hebrew) and conscripts (Verdurian). Along the way, I’ve come to have some very strong opinions on the importance of writing instrument choice, which seems almost criminally under-explained in existing resources for conlangers.

I therefore want to use this thread as an opportunity to delve a bit deeper into some of these under-appreciated corners of writing systems. Writing instruments are one such topic, but I’ve also been wanting to discuss topics such as typography and the evolution of writing systems. However, I don’t have much of a fixed plan for this series: I’m basically just going to write whatever comes to mind, until I run out of things to write about.

A note on sourcing: I’ll probably end up being appallingly lax with my sourcing for claims, since my knowledge of this area largely comes from accumulated reading of miscellaneous non-scholarly articles over many years. My aim will be more to highlight interesting topics which might give inspiration for conlanging. However, I have faith that the denizens of the ZBB are fully capable of promptly pointing out everything which I will, inevitably, mess up.

(Final note: I’ll be attending a physics conference over the next week, which is interesting but won’t leave me with much spare time. I’m writing this first post now, in the hope that my guilty conscience will eventually prod me into writing the next. Don’t expect it imminently, though.)

[xxx]

I've always been fascinated by exotic writing...

the different media used by each is effectively part of their form...
from chisels on stone, to brushes on tissue paper, to penknives on wood or pottery...

unfortunately, in conlang it's often pen on paper at best, otherwise the screen is predominant...
and digital technology is a powerful brake on writing con-creation...

but their form is also torn by the opposition between blind writing and writing that reflects the world,
between alphabetic functioning and logography...

[sasasha]

*buckles seatbelt*

On a personal level, this subject gets me frustrated, as I wish I had developed the kind of practical skills, and had the financial resources and organisational ability, to create the kinds of writing materials I think my conpeople would be able to access/invent ‒ to design writing systems by process of discovery, rather than just imagination.

I have this ironic theory/feeling that, in the digitally-ravaged modern world, it's probably more difficult for the average person to simulate pre-modern material cultures / technology than at most other points in human history. Who has the better chance of building a house in a c.5th Gupta-era style, for instance? (Given the same blueprints and access to the right resources.) Me, in 21st century Staffordshire, or someone from, let's say, 11th century Staffordshire? I have literally almost no discernable practical skills or experience that could be employed in such a task. I suspect the average person living in my area 1000 years ago would be far better equipped.

Anyway, writing is an interconnected element of material culture, and any thread that gets into the nitty gritty of that is one I'm looking forward to.

[bradrn]

On a personal level, this subject gets me frustrated, as I wish I had developed the kind of practical skills, and had the financial resources and organisational ability, to create the kinds of writing materials I think my conpeople would be able to access/invent ‒ to design writing systems by process of discovery, rather than just imagination.

I have this ironic theory/feeling that, in the digitally-ravaged modern world, it's probably more difficult for the average person to simulate pre-modern material cultures / technology than at most other points in human history. Who has the better chance of building a house in a c.5th Gupta-era style, for instance? (Given the same blueprints and access to the right resources.) Me, in 21st century Staffordshire, or someone from, let's say, 11th century Staffordshire? I have literally almost no discernable practical skills or experience that could be employed in such a task. I suspect the average person living in my area 1000 years ago would be far better equipped.

You certainly have a point here, but when it comes to writing it’s not necessarily as bad as you might think. Want to do runic? Go to the hardware store and get a piece of wood and a chisel. Cuneiform? Art stores sell clay, and pointy sticks are not hard to find. In fact art stores are a good place to find many calligraphic instruments — broad-edged nibs, flexible nibs and brushes are all standard. I’ve even seen a bamboo pen being sold, and not at a very large store either.

There’s also ways to make your own implements. There’s a reason why household cutting implements are called ‘pen-knives’: they were originally used to make pens. Some older books (e.g. by Johnston) have instructions on making reed pens, which seems reasonably straightforward if you have any reeds growing near you. Similarly, it doesn’t seem too difficult to make quills from goose feathers.

Paper and ink seems more difficult to find, though I’m hampered here by a dislike of buying things online. All I know is that currently sold papers do come in a huge range. Calligraphers certainly don’t seem to encounter any problem getting paper or ink, even more traditional inks such as walnut. Apparently Chinese inksticks are popular too, even amongst Westerners. Alternatives to paper, such as papyrus and parchment, seem more difficult to get a hold of, though there’s probably some way if you’re dedicated enough.

[sasasha]

Oh, I quite agree that there's a degree of availability ‒ but one can't suddenly acquire the equivalent of decades of experience using such tools! And I probably should have fronted the ‘organisational ability’ and ‘financial resources’ parts of my feeling hampered...

But, this has prompted me to try to prioritise getting hold of some appropriate materials.

(I did once weave a belt out of reeds, when I found myself 9 hours walk from home with no money, no phone, no belt, and trousers that were too big. Necessity is the mother of invention... The torture of having to stop every 10 paces to mend the belt was less than the torture of having to stop every 3 paces to pull up my trousers.)

[bradrn]

Oh, I quite agree that there's a degree of availability ‒ but one can't suddenly acquire the equivalent of decades of experience using such tools! And I probably should have fronted the ‘organisational ability’ and ‘financial resources’ parts of my feeling hampered...

Of course, of course. No-one is going to become a master calligrapher in just a few weeks. But I find that learning the basics in that timeframe is quite easy. (And your handwriting is better than mine, so it’ll be easier for you.)

(I did once weave a belt out of reeds, when I found myself 9 hours walk from home with no money, no phone, no belt, and trousers that were too big. Necessity is the mother of invention... The torture of having to stop every 10 paces to mend the belt was less than the torture of having to stop every 3 paces to pull up my trousers.)

Now this is impressive. How exactly does one weave a belt out of reeds?

[zompist]

Paper and ink seems more difficult to find, though I’m hampered here by a dislike of buying things online. All I know is that currently sold papers do come in a huge range. Calligraphers certainly don’t seem to encounter any problem getting paper or ink, even more traditional inks such as walnut. Apparently Chinese inksticks are popular too, even amongst Westerners. Alternatives to paper, such as papyrus and parchment, seem more difficult to get a hold of, though there’s probably some way if you’re dedicated enough.

I've never done it, but papermaking is something people do as a hobby. Parchment, less so, but here again the art supply store is your friend.

I hope Brad is going to cover things like painting, carving into bone, incising into leaves, and knots. Plus, there's at least four ways to use clay, historically.

(People keep hoping khipu are a writing system, and they almost certainly aren't, because we can already read most of them and they are mostly numbers. But they do include codes and could be developed into a writing system.)

[sasasha]

Oh, I quite agree that there's a degree of availability ‒ but one can't suddenly acquire the equivalent of decades of experience using such tools! And I probably should have fronted the ‘organisational ability’ and ‘financial resources’ parts of my feeling hampered...

Of course, of course. No-one is going to become a master calligrapher in just a few weeks. But I find that learning the basics in that timeframe is quite easy. (And your handwriting is better than mine, so it’ll be easier for you.)

I guess, to extend this a little bit, part of what you can't have access to, as an occasional hobbyist, is the frustration felt in having to go over the same knotty processes again and again over most of your lifespan to perform your trade. Like in the belt scenario (but much more densely), this creates innovation, and guides development of form. (This is why I have so much time for reenactors. They may or may not have ‘authentic’ gear ‒ and may or may not have ever read a book ‒ but if they know how it feels to make hundreds of hammers on a charcoal forge, then I'm going to listen to them as much as a historian about how such hammers were probably made.)

For example a 23rd century digital archaeologist examining the ZBB will no doubt be able to parse and use Bbcode. But will they have the same shortcuts set up on their custom-made keyboard to be able to type the commands in a single swipe as I do? No, and in any case they will type with their eyes, or their minds, or whatever, and their thumbs will be absolutely hopeless. It would take so much work for them to become as proficient as 21st-century ZBBers at bolding out text or making a table, because they haven't even grown up using the part of their body for which we have specialised these activities to the same level.

The same type of frustration created some of the wilder medieval abbreviations you linked to recently.

But ‒ yes, we can try. It's the job of someone who creates a fictional writing system to think about how it is going to frustrate its users in the mechanical context of its use, and therefore how it is going to, inevitably, change.

(I did once weave a belt out of reeds, when I found myself 9 hours walk from home with no money, no phone, no belt, and trousers that were too big. Necessity is the mother of invention... The torture of having to stop every 10 paces to mend the belt was less than the torture of having to stop every 3 paces to pull up my trousers.)

Now this is impressive. How exactly does one weave a belt out of reeds?

1. Find reeds
2. Break 3 roughly same length bits of reed off
3. Knot ends together
4. Plait (tightly, flattening reeds as you go)
5. When you run out of one bit of reed, insert new bit of reed, and make sure these joins aren't concentrated too much in one area
6. Loop belt through belt loops and weave ends together
7. Stop maddeningly often to mend broken joins / add new material to belt in haphazard fashion praying it will help

[bradrn]

I guess, to extend this a little bit, part of what you can't have access to, as an occasional hobbyist, is the frustration felt in having to go over the same knotty processes again and again over most of your lifespan to perform your trade. Like in the belt scenario (but much more densely), this creates innovation, and guides development of form. This is why I have so much time for reenactors. They may or may not have ‘authentic’ gear ‒ but if they know how it feels to make hundreds of hammers on a charcoal forge, then I'm going to listen to them as much as a historian about how such hammers were probably made.

Ah, but here we have an advantage: most of us still write things every day! The differences between modern and older scripts aren’t actually so large — mostly they’re forced by differences in the writing instrument, which become fairly obvious as soon as you try to use them. All you have to do is, say, start copying out a blackletter text; pretty soon the advantages and disadvantages of such a script become clear.

(Of course, this doesn’t account for everything: for instance, materials were a lot more scarce back then, so abbreviations were widely used. But simply thinking logically through the situation helps a lot.)

For example a 23rd century digital archaeologist examining the ZBB will no doubt be able to parse and use Bbcode. But will they have the same shortcuts set up on their custom-made keyboard to be able to type the commands in a single swipe as I do?

For completeness, let me note that the ZBB itself defines accesskeys which browsers map to keyboard shortcuts. e.g. on my Firefox, Alt+Shift+B is bold, Alt+Shift+I is italic, and so on. For other web browsers, see the table in the link.

[quinterbeck]

…because I submitted my Master’s thesis a month ago, and already I’m feeling that urge again to lecture people on a topic in excruciating detail.

Excellent

Most of my early conlanging work was script creation too. Although, I've never posted much of it to the board, because I assumed our crowd wouldn't be interested in writing detached from a proper conlang.

Along the way, I’ve come to have some very strong opinions on the importance of writing instrument choice, which seems almost criminally under-explained in existing resources for conlangers.

I therefore want to use this thread as an opportunity to delve a bit deeper into some of these under-appreciated corners of writing systems. Writing instruments are one such topic, but I’ve also been wanting to discuss topics such as typography and the evolution of writing systems.

Agreed, and looking forward to hearing your thoughts. It's been a while since I tried evolving a writing system - in the past I never had satisfactory results. But I did recently buy brush and ink and created a writing system for the reconstructed Tangut phonology, which has turned out fairly well! I intend to post it when my brush skills improve...

[bradrn]

Along the way, I’ve come to have some very strong opinions on the importance of writing instrument choice, which seems almost criminally under-explained in existing resources for conlangers.

I therefore want to use this thread as an opportunity to delve a bit deeper into some of these under-appreciated corners of writing systems. Writing instruments are one such topic, but I’ve also been wanting to discuss topics such as typography and the evolution of writing systems.

Agreed, and looking forward to hearing your thoughts. It's been a while since I tried evolving a writing system - in the past I never had satisfactory results. But I did recently buy brush and ink and created a writing system for the reconstructed Tangut phonology, which has turned out fairly well! I intend to post it when my brush skills improve...

Ooh, very interesting! I don’t think I’ve seen a brushed conscript before.

(But surely the historical Tangut script is quite bizarre enough?)

[quinterbeck]

Ooh, very interesting! I don’t think I’ve seen a brushed conscript before.

Fantastical scripts uses brush-pens for many of her designs, if that counts. I'm sure I must have seen others in the past too.

(But surely the historical Tangut script is quite bizarre enough?)

Oh definitely! But it was the phonology that caught my attention and it inspired a featural alphabet, much less bizarre than the historical script.

[bradrn]

Ooh, very interesting! I don’t think I’ve seen a brushed conscript before.

Fantastical scripts uses brush-pens for many of her designs, if that counts. I'm sure I must have seen others in the past too.

Thanks!

(Incidentally, this feels like a good site to reference when talking about the influence of writing instrument on script style… although on the other hand, I dislike the way this person talks about ‘decayed’ scripts — that’s no more correct than saying that French is a decayed form of Latin.)

(But surely the historical Tangut script is quite bizarre enough?)

Oh definitely! But it was the phonology that caught my attention and it inspired a featural alphabet, much less bizarre than the historical script.

Hmm… in that case, I wonder if it could be adapted to modern rGyalrongic languages?

[Raphael]

(I did once weave a belt out of reeds, when I found myself 9 hours walk from home with no money, no phone, no belt, and trousers that were too big. Necessity is the mother of invention... The torture of having to stop every 10 paces to mend the belt was less than the torture of having to stop every 3 paces to pull up my trousers.)

Now this is impressive.

Seconded!

[sasasha]

Ooh, very interesting! I don’t think I’ve seen a brushed conscript before.

I conceive of the Eusebaze / Seguwean syllabary we were talking about over on the Sego thread as being brush-written.

[bradrn]

OK, the aforementioned conference is over, which hopefully means I’ll be able to spend a bit more time on this series.

Let’s start off with something reassuringly vague and all-encompassing:

What are writing systems? How do they work?

I’ll begin by attempting my own definition: writing systems allow spoken language to be recorded visually such that someone else can read back the same text verbatim.

Of course, this definition immediately runs into edge cases. Most obviously, it’s possible to create a system in which text can be written, but not read back unambiguously. For one example, many shorthand systems approach this situation: the writer can usually read their shorthand easily, but others often find it far more difficult or even impossible to read. More generally, this is the case for any personal system of transcription. (Though most of the time, it’s still theoretically possible to teach a personal system to others.)

It is also possible for preexisting writing systems to become so ambiguous they are essentially impossible to read back. For instance, one extreme case was detailed in Donohue’s draft grammar of Skou (p100), which is worth quoting nearly in full:

The received wisdom on the subject of a Skou orthography was that it was no problem to write the language, but that there was no point in doing so, since neither you nor anyone else could then read what you had written. This apparent paradox has its roots in the representation for the non-back rounded vowels, and suprasegmentals.

[…]

While [in the locally-developed orthography] the grapheme ê is used a lot, it is equally clear that its use is not random. It serves several distinct and easily defined functions. This letter+diacritic ê is used:

• to mark the non-back rounded vowels in all environments;
• to mark the falling tone in all environments;
  and
• to mark nasalisation on a non-low, non-high vowel.

While consistent, and certainly not hard to learn, this orthography does suffer from the fact that, of the 39 contrasting rimes in Skou, 23 of them are represented by the same grapheme ê. this led, as mentioned above, to a writing system that is easy to learn, but pointless to apply: you can write things down with no difficulty, but noone can then read your composition. An example of this can be seen in the very plausible sentence below:

(87) Written: <Hê pe tê> for

Hòe

sago

pe=tue.

3SG.F=3SG.F.do

‘She cooked sago’.

[…]

Possible plausible interpretations for <hê pe tê>: [omitting glosses] ‘She yawned’, ‘She accused’, ‘She bled/menstruated’, ‘She did something else’, ‘She make a roof’, ‘She whistled’, ‘She cooked sago’, ‘She hammered’, ? ‘She had sex with a woman’, ‘She considered’.

Arguably, something similar occurred historically in Book Pahlavi (about which I hope to say more later). Generally speaking, writing systems which become this ambiguous seem to fall out of use pretty quickly.

(On the other hand, it does seem like orthographies can tolerate a high amount of ambiguity: consider English and Chinese, for instance. Is there a maximum amount of tolerable ambiguity? Probably, but I have no idea what it is. In fact, until now I’ve never even considered the question.)

We can also consider the reverse case: a system which can be unambiguously read, but not written. Obviously, this case is practically nonexistent in natural scripts — but some particularly perverse conscripts have come very close. A quick scroll through Omniglot reveals some cases: for instance Timescript (which is animated), Betamaze (which is maze-based), Undine (based on cephalopod skin), and Pipeline 3D (which is, well, a 3D pipeline). Without a computer, these would be almost completely unusable for humans.

---

In any case, the overwhelming majority of scripts can easily be both written and read. This implies two key facts: it must be easy to physically create glyphs using the writing materials on hand, and there must be a reasonably straightforward correspondence between those glyphs and the spoken sounds. We can identify these as the form and function of the script respectively.

Note that these are more or less orthogonal concepts. It is common for one script to have many different stylistic variants: these usually change the form of glyphs without changing their functions. Conversely, when a script is adapted to a different language, the glyph forms can stay the same, but acquire a very different correspondence to the spoken language. (For instance, this occurred dramatically in the use of Hebrew/Aramaic script for Yiddish.)

At this point I’ve used the term glyph a few times, so I’d better clarify what that means. To be honest, it feels to me like a somewhat ambiguous term, alongside its close relative grapheme. Consulting Wikipedia, it defines a ‘grapheme’ as the smallest meaningful unit of writing (analogous to ‘phoneme’ and ‘morpheme’), and a ‘glyph’ as its specific written realisation (analogous to ‘phone’). This seems reasonable to me, so let’s go with that.

However, it would also be nice to have a higher-level term, since writing systems very often group graphemes together to form higher-level units. This is the case, for example, for Latin-script diacritics around letters, for Indic or Hebrew consonant+vowel combinations, and for Hangeul syllable blocks. Since I’m not aware of any formal name for these, I’ll just call them ‘blocks’ or ‘units’.

On this basis we can create a functional classification of writing systems, in terms of which phonological units are represented by their graphemes, and in what way those units are represented. For those who aren’t yet familiar with this, the most common classification scheme is as follows:

• Abjads, in which one grapheme corresponds to one consonant;
• Alphabets, in which one grapheme corresponds to one phoneme;
• Syllabaries, in which one grapheme corresponds to one syllable;
• Abugidas, in which consonantal graphemes can be used on their own or with a vocalic modifier to form syllabic blocks; and
• Logographies, in which one grapheme corresponds to one word.

Arguably, ‘semi-syllabaries’ can also be added to the list, though they seem distinctly rarer than the other systems. Possibly ‘semi-abugidas’ too, but at this point the different categories start to become hard to distinguish.

I won’t be saying very much about logographies in this series — partly because they’re just so different from the other systems, but mostly because zompist’s ALC already has an excellent chapter on the subject. However, I’ll be aiming to talk a little bit about each of these categories, as well as some scripts which don’t fit well into any of them.

At a slightly lower level, we can talk about the orthography of individual languages: that is, the specific rules to map graphemes to sounds. While some languages have highly regular orthographies, almost all display some degree of irregularity (generally as a result of historical sound change). This can often end up distorting the nice picture presented by the high-level classification: for instance, by removing the inherent vowel of an abugida, or by creating many-to-many correspondences in alphabets. (I’ve even seen a serious argument that English has become a near-logography; alas, I seem to have lost the paper.)

Turning now to the form of glyphs, there’s less that one can say synchronically. Basically any shape is usable for a glyph, as long as it’s easy enough to write. Like I said, different writing instruments do tend to produce different shapes, but talking only goes so far: by far the best way to understand that is to try them out yourself.

However, form is a central issue when considering the evolution of writing systems over time. As I see it, the basic drivers are similar to the rest of historical linguistics: the desire to clearly distinguish glyphs is counterbalanced by the requirement to make writing quick and easy. Areal effects can also play an important role, though possibly less so than in spoken languages. However, there are also a few factors which are unique to written scripts: most notably, a change in writing tool will generally cause a dramatic change in glyph form.

Another unique phenomenon is the high prevalence of conscripts (alternately, neographies). It is vanishingly rare for conlangs to acquire native speakers, but there have been many instances throughout history when writing systems have been invented from whole cloth. (Most famously Hangeul and Cherokee, but also Canadian Aboriginal Syllabics, N'Ko, Adlam, Thaana, Ol Chiki, Vai, Kpelle and a host of others.)

In fact, since all writing is to some extent a conscious activity, it can be difficult to determine a boundary between neographies and ‘naturally’ evolved scripts. Major improvements in writing systems, such as the inventions of the abjad and alphabet, are often considered to be human inventions, rather than spontaneous evolution.

The final area I want to cover in this series is typography. I will use this term in a rather broad sense, to encompass anything involving the arrangement of glyph units on a page to form coherent texts and documents. This ranges from details such as writing direction, to the punctuation and spacing required to make texts readable, to the layout of structured text on pages. Typography in this sense overlaps with both form and function, but isn’t particularly closely connected with any one particular writing system.

In general, the most intricate typographical traditions have developed in the West, so I’ll be focussing on that a lot. (Unlike the other areas, which are equally relevant for all writing systems.) But I will try to talk about what I know of other cultures, when applicable.

…and with that, I’ve noticed the time is 2am, so I should probably stop around here. Do let me know if I missed anything important.

Next up: abjads and alphabets, most probably. (Unless I change my mind, of course.)

[bradrn]

I hope Brad is going to cover things like painting, carving into bone, incising into leaves, and knots. Plus, there's at least four ways to use clay, historically.

Somehow I only just noticed this post. Painting I plan to deal with as part of brushed scripts, on the basis that it shouldn’t really matter whether the brush holds paint or ink. The use of bone I don’t know much about, other than that it was used in ancient China. Incising into leaves is an interesting one, and I’ll definitely talk about the influence of palm-leaf manuscripts on SE Asian scripts. Knots… the only knotted system I’m aware of is khipu, and that’s probably not even a full writing system.

Also, what are the four ways to use clay? Cuneiform is one, obviously, and presumably using a stylus is another. What are the others?

[Raphael]

Thank you for your work!

What are writing systems? How do they work?

I’ll begin by attempting my own definition: writing systems allow spoken language to be recorded visually such that someone else can read back the same text verbatim.

Of course, this definition immediately runs into edge cases.

Well, that's what definitions usually do, right? When people bring up definitions, I always have to think of zompist's old Never define rant: http://www.zompist.com/rants05.html (It's the entry for April14th.)

[Richard W]

[*] Abugidas, in which consonantal graphemes can be used on their own or with a vocalic modifier to form syllabic blocks; and
...
Next up: abjads and alphabets, most probably. (Unless I change my mind, of course.)

You've fallen into the 'old men and women' ambiguity. Is a system which uses consonant graphemes with a vocalic modifier to form syllabic blocks and uses consonant graphemes on their own an abugida? I'm thinking of English and modern Lao.

[xxx]

Well, that's what definitions usually do, right? When people bring up definitions, I always have to think of zompist's old Never define rant: http://www.zompist.com/rants05.html (It's the entry for April14th.)

we might as well be content with a dialogue of the deaf...
Or only talk to people who agree with us, stupidly selected by algorithms...

And yet, even if we spend our time repeating our masters, .
sometimes we try to understand the world around us
and define it so that we can really live it...