The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets [2 ed.] 0415560985, 9780415560986

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The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets

The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets is a unique reference to the main scripts and alphabets of the world. The Handbook presents over sixty alphabets covering an enormous scope of languages, from Amharic and Chinese to Thai and Cree. Full script tables are given for every language and each entry is accompanied by a detailed overview of its historical and linguistic context. New to this second edition: • • • • •

new introduction discussing the basic principles and strategies utilized by world writing systems expanded to include more writing systems improved presentation of non-Roman scripts organized into ancient, contemporary and autochthonous writing systems many new entries on fascinating and lesser-known writing systems.

This handy resource is the ideal reference for all students and scholars of language and linguistics. George L. Campbell worked for the BBC World Service and was a polyglot linguist and translator. Christopher Moseley is a linguist and lecturer at the School of Slavonic and East European Studies, University of London. He is co-editor (with Prof. R.E. Asher) of the Atlas of the World’s Languages (Routledge 2007) and general editor of the UNESCO Atlas of the World’s Languages in Danger (2010).

The Routledge Handbook of Scripts and Alphabets

Second edition

George L. Campbell and Christopher Moseley

First published 1997 by Routledge This second edition published 2012 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business ©1997 George L. Campbell ©2012 George L. Campbell and Christopher Moseley The right of George L. Campbell and Christopher Moseley to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Trademark notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data A catalog record for this book has been requested ISBN: 978-0-415-56098-6 (hbk) ISBN: 978-0-415-56097-9 (pbk) ISBN: 978-0-203-86548-4 (ebk) Typeset in Times New Roman by Graphicraft Limited, Hong Kong

Contents



Preface to the second edition Acknowledgements Note on phonetic symbols



Introduction: the world’s families of scripts

Ancient writing systems Aegean scripts Anatolian scripts Aramaic   Syriac Brāhmī Coptic Egyptian Epigraphic South Arabian Etruscan see under Roman (Latin) Gothic Javanese (Kawi) Maya Ogham Persian Cuneiform Runic Turkic Runes

viii x xi 1 5 7 10 12 13 16 18 20 23 26 28 32 34 36 38 40

vi  Contents

Contemporary writing systems Arabic Armenian Batak Bengali Berber (Tifinagh) Buginese-Macassarese Burmese Cambodian Cherokee Chinese   Archaic Chinese   Classical Chinese (Wenli)   Modern Chinese Cree Cyrillic Devanāgarī Ethiopic Georgian Greek Gujarati Gurmukhi Hebrew   Yiddish Japanese Kannada Korean Lao Malayalam Mongolian Oriya Roman (Latin) Sinhalese Tamil Telugu Thai Tibetan Yi

43 45 50 53 55 58 61 63 65 70 72 72 74 77 82 84 91 94 96 98 101 103 105 106 110 115 117 121 123 125 129 132 147 149 152 154 159 164

Contents  vii

Autochthonous writing systems

167



Fraser script (Lisu) Munda language scripts N’ko Pahawh Hmong Pollard script Rongorongo Vai

169 171 173 175 177 179 180



Further reading Index

182 183

Preface to the second edition

The present volume originally appeared as a supplementary part of the late George L. Campbell’s two-volume Compendium of the World’s Languages. That work has established itself as a unique survey of the major languages of the world and very many of the minor ones as well, and in 1997 Routledge published the supplement on scripts, virtually unchanged from the version included in the larger work, as a guide to the many and diverse writing systems of the world. George Campbell created the surveys of both languages and scripts more or less single-handed, and it was the work of a virtuoso linguist. Campbell’s breadth of knowledge of languages was legendary and prodigious, but inevitably there were small errors in, and omissions from, his great work which have later come to light. It has fallen to me to prepare an enlarged, amended version of his little volume on scripts and writing systems, and in this I have tried to be both comprehensive and circumspect. George Campbell (1912–2004) was born in Dingwall, Scotland, into a bilingual Gaelic–English family, and soaked up languages avidly from an early age, studying German in Leipzig and mastering several more languages during his sojourn there. Stories of his voracious appetite for foreign languages are legion. During his working life he was employed first by the School of Slavonic and East Euro­ pean Studies in London, and the BBC World Service – the same two employers as I have had, but in the reverse order. It was only after his retirement from the BBC in 1980 that he was able to devote himself full-time to his true passion, the creation of the Compendium and the supplementary volume on Scripts which you have before you. This volume is fairly considerably amplified, but I hope it retains the spirit of the original work, and will serve as a useful guide for anyone wanting an introduction to the many and fascinating scripts in which the languages of the world have been written. The emphasis is on the contemporary, but ancient writing systems that have fallen into disuse are also given their due in these pages. For this reason I have divided the scripts and writing systems into three separate, alphabetically ordered sets:

Preface to the second edition  ix

Ancient writing systems; Contemporary writing systems; Autochthonous writing systems. By this set of definitions, an ‘ancient’ writing system is one that has long since fallen out of use, and is applied to a now dead language; a ‘contemporary’ writing system is one that is still in use for at least one language; and an ‘autochthonous’ system is one that has arisen, usually in the past couple of centuries, within or for a particular small speech community, unrelated to any system used for surrounding languages. The term ‘writing system’ is deliberately chosen to encompass the widest possible range of methods of committing a language to a permanent surface. This includes, for instance, the Maya glyphs (not previously included) and Egyptian hieroglyphics, because, although they clearly derive from pictorial images, they do obviously strive to represent the sounds of spoken language in a particular sequence that reflects that speech. What are not included in this volume are hitherto undeciphered scripts, such as the ancient script of the Indus valley (although recent work on the script has resulted in a fairly convincing decipherment), and primitive pictographic systems which cannot be said with certainty to consistently represent the sounds of spoken language. It would be rash to claim that this book’s coverage is comprehensive. Apart from the undeciphered ancient scripts, there are also small branches of the family tree of scripts that have been omitted because of great similarity to their parent scripts, and some more recent systems which have not gained wide currency. I hope we have made up for any omissions by attempting to show in family tree diagrams the complex interrelatedness of the main branches of the world’s writing systems. Christopher Moseley

Acknowledgements

The publishers would like to thank the following for permission to reproduce material in this book: Die Etruskische Sprache for The Early Western and Greek Etruscan Scripts chart from Die Etruskische Sprache, Pfiffig, A.J. (1969). Encyclopaedia Britannica, Inc for The Etruscan Script as used for Latin (1974). The British Library Board for extract of German Fraktur: © British Library website ‘images online’, ref. 060445, Gutenberg Bible, shelf mark C.9.d.4. The University of California Press and the British Museum for Maya Glyphs by S.D. Houston © 1989 by the Trustees of the British Museum, published by the University of California Press. The University of Oklahoma Press for the Cherokee Alphabet from Beginning Cherokee by Holmes and Smith (1978). Every effort has been made to contact copyright holders. If any have been inadvertently overlooked the publishers will be pleased to make the necessary arrangements at the first opportunity.

Note on phonetic symbols

The following symbols from the International Phonetic Alphabet are used in this book: Χ θ β    ð 

voiceless velar fricative unvoiced dental fricative voiced bilabial fricative voiceless retroflex stop voiced retroflex stop palatalized dental nasal sonorant voiced dental fricative voiced retroflex fricative

Introduction: the world’s families of scripts

The history of human writing systems has passed through many phases. The main body of this text is not a chronological survey, but a series of alphabetically arranged entries in three groups: Ancient, Contemporary and Autochthonous, so it would be as well at the outset to show how some scripts are derived from others. For instance, the link between Phoenician, Greek, Linear B, Minoan and the later Roman and Cyrillic alphabetic systems can best be shown schematically, as a chronological family tree (Table 1). Likewise, the Indic scripts are all interrelated, and have spread well beyond South Asia. A distinction should also be made between the various kinds of writing systems: alphabets, abjads, syllabaries, and what are variously called pictographic or ideographic systems, which can be placed on a continuum of representativeness or stylization of figures. Such systems can be further typologized: those where the symbol represents a phoneme or syllable, and those representing a concept. The history of human writing embraces all of these types. Table 1  Chronological development of Western-based alphabetic systems (based on Diringer 1948) SEMITIC SOUTH SEMITIC

NORTH SEMITIC

~

GREEK

CANAANITE

~

Phoenician

Greek Cyrillic Coptic Gothic

~

Etruscan

~

Italic Runic Roman

~

~

ARAMAIC

ETHIOPIC

~

Hebrew Aramaic Arabic

2  Introduction: the world’s families of scripts

• • •

An alphabet is a system in which all phonemes, both vowels and consonants, are given their own symbols of equal value. An abjad is a system in which vowels are not, or are only minimally, indicated. The consonant symbols only provide a partial key to pronunciation. Marking of vowels by diacritics is in some cases possible but optional. A syllabic alphabet is a system in which every consonant symbol carries an inherent following vowel. It is sometimes known as an alphasyllabary. (In the languages of India, this vowel is most usually a.) If the following vowel is different, or non-existent, it may be indicated in other ways – by diacritics or special separate letters. On the other hand, a syllabary is a system in which every character represents a different syllable, usually consonant + vowel, or a vowel alone.

For a much fuller discussion of these types of writing system, please see the references on writing in general in Further Reading on p. 182.

Cherokee

• Cree

Roman

Map 1  Geographic spread of alphabetic systems

May4f

Roman

gmtfif

Roman

Autochthonous scripts

Roman

Arabic,

B = Bengali Dev = Devanagari Gj = Gujarati Gm = Gurmukhi K = Kannada M = Malayalam

Roman

J Ethnic/

^-EgyptiarA

Georgian $ Arrriehjan !&*&!. 1 ArabicV. Berber £ Xnear/) Aramaic M.C. i Hebrew, Arabic ^Arabic CopticX

Gothic Roman

A

Contemporary scripts

Ancient scripts

N'ko vAVai

OgharJ

Roma|^

■

Chinese

Mongolian

Roman

Batak\

rCambodtan

W°

Th£i>

M.C. = Mesopotamian cuneiform RC. = Persian cuneiform S = Sinhalese Tarn = Tamil Tel = Telugu

M^Xam Sin

Burmese v Pollard Oriya ' .HmonSr

CSm Dev

Cyrillic

3

Roman

Buginete^

Hanunoo

Japanese

jSrean/"

Ancient writing systems

Aegean scripts

These related writing systems of the Aegean islands, as well as Crete and the Greek mainland, can be conveniently grouped under a single heading, though they developed at different times in the ancient world. The most famous example is known as Linear B, but this was just one of several separately developed scripts used for writing on clay tablets. Excavations at Knossos in Crete by Arthur Evans and his successors revealed a system of notation – both a syllabary and a set of signs for numerals and measures for commodities – which was initially termed ‘pictographic’ or ‘hieroglyphic’. Further excavation revealed that there were in fact two scripts in evidence: an earlier, simpler variety which came to be known as Linear A, and a later, more complex version termed Linear B (so-called because the inscriptions are cut with simple lines on clay). The ultimate origin of this script has not been conclusively proven – it might be traced back to either the Minoan culture of Bronze Age Crete or the Mycenaean civilization of mainland Greece. Linear A, the earlier script (about 1800 to 1450 bc), is less well attested than Linear B, and the sound-values of the syllables are not completely agreed; even the language they represent is in some doubt. Like Linear B, the evidence consists of accounting documents on clay tablets, written from left to right with an admixture of syllabograms and ideograms to represent measurements and commodities. The surviving examples of Linear B (used from about 1550 to 1200 bc) were generally drawn with a stylus on clay tablets, horizontally, from left to right. The syllabary component of the notation system consisted of five vowel symbols and fifty-four distinct signs for syllables – see the accompanying table. The language they represented appears to be an early variety of Greek. This ancient variety is presumed to have had closed final diphthongs and consonant clusters like its descendants, and therefore a syllabary (V- or CV- syllables) cannot have represented the spoken form accurately. The texts inscribed in Linear B are exclusively concerned with accounting, and therefore the notation system for numbers and measures (called ‘sematograms’) is used alongside the syllabary. This relatively sophisticated system used symbols for weights, measures, and classes of materials, commodities and animate beings. The symbols are largely pictographic in origin.

8  Aegean

Concurrently with the Cretan system a syllabary, called ‘Cypriote’ by scholars, was developed on Cyprus. The system of V- and CV- syllable representation was generally similar to Linear B, but was written from right to left, and closed final syllables were shown by pairs of syllabograms. The Cypriot syllabary is believed to have been used down to about 200 bc. Lastly, and to be considered separately from the above scripts, is the inscription on the so-called Phaistos Disk, thought to date to about 1700 bc, and also found on Crete. On this clay disk are 242 impressions made by forty-five different stamps, inscribed on both sides of the disk. It has not yet been deciphered and the language has not been determined, though the writing appears to be syllabic – yet a separate development from the ‘Linear’ scripts.

Aegean  9

The Aegean Script a

da

ja

ka

ma

na

pa

e

de

je

ke

me

ne

pe

i

di

ki

mi

ni

pi

o

do

jo

ko

mo

no

po

u

du

ju

ku

mu

nu

pu

qa

ra

sa

ta

wa

za

qe

re

se

te

we

ze

qi

ri

si

ti

wi

qo

ro

so

to

wo

ru

su

tu

zo

Anatolian scripts

Under this heading are included a variety of scripts ranging over a long period of time, from hieroglyphic systems to true alphabets. The most ancient languages in which inscriptions are attested are Hittite and Luvian. The ancient Hittite empire in the second millennium bc was centred at Hattusha (modern Boğazköy, Turkey); however, the Hittite inscriptions, found on seals, do not display continuous texts, but only names, titles and other symbolizations, and can hardly be termed a writing system. But Luvian, an Indo-European language like Hittite, has left some passages of continuous text, mostly in monumental inscriptions carved on stone. The direction of writing of these hieroglyphs was boustrophedon, that is, alternately left-right and right-left, in a continuous arrangement starting at the top left. Certain signs reversed their orientation depending on the direction of writing. The Anatolian writing systems represent a distinct evolution from logographichieroglyphic to a phonographic-alphabetic system, and in the medial phase it was common to write a logographic symbol with a phonetic complement (a kind of syllabary at this stage, but without provision for final closed syllables). As a phonetic representation it was still rather imperfect: voicing and prenasalization of stop consonants were not indicated, and the representation of /r/ was inconsistent, depending on its position. Vowel length was not shown either, and Ca and Ci were sometimes confused. The signs in Luvian texts are generally of pictorial origin, gradually becoming more stylized. Luvian gave rise to a number of later languages, whose interrelationships are not perfectly understood from the evidence, which were written using scripts which, towards the first millennium bc, developed into true alphabets. Of these Indo-European descendant languages, those with the most clearly attested writing systems are Phrygian, Lycian and Lydian. It is clear that this development towards an alphabet took place under the strong influence of the separately developing Greek system. The similarities with archaic Greek are obvious if one looks at the accompanying table. It is thought that this alignment with Greek began around the seventh century bc.

Anatolian  11

The Anatolian Script Anatolian syllabary a

ha

ka

la

ma

i

hi

ki

li

mi

u

hu

ku

la/li/lu

mu

na

pa

ra

sa

ni

pi

ri

si

nu

pu

ru

su

ta

ia

wa/wi

ti tu za

ara/i

zi

tara/tari kar

Note: Some syllables take multiple forms.

Lycian alphabet a

w

m

r

e

z

n

s

b

θ

m

t

β

y

ñ

τ

g

k

u

a¯

d

q

p

e¯

i

l

κ

h

Note: Symbols noted as

k

and

t

are velar and dental consonants of uncertain value.

χ

Aramaic

Writing among the Aramaic peoples, a Semitic ethnic group of western Asia, speaking a member of the Semito-Hamitic branch of the Afro-Asiatic family of languages, experienced a long a complex history. Their writing systems are considered and compared together here. The term Aramaean can be traced back to the Book of Genesis, and they are mentioned even in cuneiform inscriptions of the third millennium bc. Though their original location is uncertain, they migrated to what is now Syria by the eleventh century bc. The Assyrian empire which followed in the ensuing centuries was centred around Damascus. Varieties of Aramaic speech – reinforced by the written word – spread throughout the empire. It became a lingua franca, and for more than a thousand years it was the vernacular of Israel and second only to Hebrew in religious importance. Aramaic was the mother tongue of Jesus. Aramaic scripts were varieties of the North Semitic alphabet, and the earliest extant inscriptions in it appear to date to the ninth century bc. Aramaic was written on papyrus as well as stelae. It became the written medium of com­ munication throughout the western part of the Persian empire, as well as Israel and the Levant. Its chief competitor as a system of writing was the cuneiform system of inscription. It showed its advantage over cuneiform in being adapted to a variety of surfaces and materials. Derivatives of the Aramaic alphabet include Hebrew, Nabataean-Sinatic-Arabic, Palmyrene, Syriac (for more detail see below), Mandaean and Manichaean. These scripts came to be used well beyond the confines of the Semitic languages, spread­ ing across southern Asia. Below we consider two of its offshoots in more detail: Samaritan and Syriac. Samaritan was a written and spoken form of Western Aramaic. Three stages may be distinguished in the development of the language: 1. Fourth century bc to eighth century ad: in this oldest period Samaritan was both a spoken and a written language. Samaritan translation of the Targum (Aramaic Bible translations). 2. Ninth to twelfth century: medieval period; spoken Samaritan ousted by Arabic, though the language continued to be written.

Aramaic  13

3. Thirteenth century onwards: Samaritan no longer spoken; growth of a hybrid literary language, influenced by both Hebrew and Arabic. The script, shown in the accompanying table, is consonantal, and very close to its Phoenician original. As in Hebrew and Arabic, the equivalents of y and w function as matres lectionis for /i:/ and /u:/. Certain diacritics accompanying individual words in Samaritan manuscripts have been construed as short-vowel markers: | >^ – but without universal acceptance.

Syriac Syriac, a North-West Semitic language, centred on the Mesopotamian city of Edessa (present-day Urfa in Turkey), was one of the most important derivatives of literary Aramaic. The oldest inscriptions in what is recognizably Syriac go back to the turn of the millennia. From the third to the seventh century, Syriac was the medium for a rich and important Christian literature, comprising both original writing and translation from Greek. The Syriac Vulgate is represented by the peshitta, the ‘simple’ redaction of the Old Syriac translation of the New Testament. The peshitta was more or less complete by the end of the fourth century. Until the fifth century Syriac was written in the consonantal Estrangelo/ Estrangela script (< Greek στρογυλή ‘circular’), in which the letters ālaph, yud and vau were used as matres lectionis to denote the long vowels ā, ī, ū (see Hebrew). The Syriac table shows the Estrangelo consonantal alphabet. Following the Council of Edessa (431), two successor writing systems took shape, neither of them differing to any great extent from Estrangelo. The Eastern Syrians in the Persian empire adopted the Nestorian variant, with pointing, on the Hebrew model, while the Western (Jacobite) church opted for the so-called serţo (line) script, with inverted-reversed Greek letters acting as vowel markers. Daghesh (see Hebrew): theoretically, in Syriac, the daghesh point, which marks b, g, d, p, k or t as a stop, is placed above the letter; placed under the letter, the point marks the correlative spirant. However, there is no consistency, and the rule is generally disregarded. A point placed under the verbal initial was frequently used to indicate the perfective aspect. Two points (known as ribui) may be placed over a word to indicate the plural number. A short line drawn over or under a consonant indicates that it is mute.

14  Aramaic

The Samaritan Script The Alphabet Column 1: square form; column 2: cursive; column 3: transliteration; column 4: phonetic value. 1

2

H

If

3

4

1

0, ,

l!-

f s: J

~

/

b

b

~

'1

'1

g

g

~

q'

c:;-

d

d

~

~

h

~

IJ

"

0

W

w,b,u

~

rp

z

z

~

tC;S

h

C, "

\:7

1>

~

t

~

111

y

~

.r

k

k

°

;::J

2

.;

3

4 I, t

m

m

n

n

s

s

1)

tel

IIQ

?-

t:-

da

d

lSl1

lIS»

ast,

r15lJ

ta

aJI

IU

~

..,:".

sa

s

«.Jl

IVJ

0

0

wa

w

(l(lJI

ft,f

Cl~

ltV

la

tL1

u

-fI

-A

pa

p

(lJl

Q

..

GJ

GJ

4a

/k/ and so on. The vowel symbols with their 1st and 2nd series values are also set out in the table.

66  Cambodian

Some examples from the velar, palatal and dental series: Series 1

Series 2

ff

Pr

8

Birr

/koa/ neck

~

~

/khat/ to polish

W

un tt

/kho~t/ to

e

~,

Ici~/

chaon/ interval

o.JJ

r Cll.r) ~

/flam! to eat

f!t'J

t:'YY)

I

I

fj

fJJ

fS

'im~ /I

m

~ --.-II

J9

~£

'-I

I

ff>

/k'J'J/ mute

/caa/ to inscribe

/don/ elephant command /taa/ old man

~

prevent be

/choon/ to reach out

0

.....I

lfio~m1

meat salad

rg

~~ I

/dun/alike

~

~

/ti~/

duck

Source: F.E. Huffman (1970) Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader. Yale University Press.

As can be seen from the consonant chart, certain Cambodian phonemes are not paired, e.g. series 2 mQQ has no series 1 correlative *maa. Where it is necessary to produce such a correlative, a consonant can be ‘converted’ by diacritic: converts a series 2 into a series 1 consonant, e.g. = maa. Similarly, converts a series 1 into a series 2 consonant. Conjunct consonants are frequent in Cambodian. The second component is written as a subscript, which is usually a reduced version of the base form. There are, however, several irregularities. The value of a vowel – whether it is to be read as series 1 or 2 – following an initial or a medial cluster depends on the nature of the components forming the cluster. Very briefly, all stops and spirants take precedence over continuants, and there­fore determine vocalic sequence. Thus, in /trəy/ ‘fish’, the series 1 stop /t / (taa) takes precedence over the continuant /r/ and requires the vowel sequ­ ence /əy/. Where two stops belonging to different series form a cluster, the subscript takes precedence. For instance, in /pteəh / ‘house’, the series 2 subscript /t/ (tQQ) prescribes the vowel; /ph/ > /p/ is a series 1 consonant.

Cambodian  67

Cambodian spelling is conservative, and the spoken language has changed considerably in the millennium and a half since the language was first written (carved in stone and inscribed on palm-leaves). Transliteration of Khmer into Roman has tended to be similarly conservative, generally following the Indic values of the letters. Spacing between words is not shown.

Source: Huffman, F.E. (1970) Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader. Yale University Press.

b

oob 001

CCM

1M

DDS

S

ooq

'I

cCI

I-J

a us N

e m s rn

U

'11

CCU

'I~

t:1

l'

~

'I:J

9

DDql

'11

:J

~

CCl

1

'II

{;3

ooqd

p

(,J

ecd

d

ttl

J,I

ecqd

lfd

u

.fJ

ccw

UJ

CCA

A

CCl

J

'Id

ccqi

DDl

1

p

n

ODq

q

OOU ccqi

cep noq;

DDp

U

(j1J

:J

!JJ

'I

e,

tt'l

ro

emf} ~

'1'1

'I

ccy ccq~

CC~

DDq~

DD~

ccu

ccq)f CC)( ODq){ 00)(

~

W

av ~ .£;t

a t( r[7, ~

6 ~

Consonants

The Cambodian Script 68  Cambodian

Cambodian  69

Vowels Values Symbol

Name

1st Series

Values 2st Series

Symbol

Name

2st 1st Series Series

sraq qaa

aa

~~

f-

sraq qei

ei

ee

sraq qaa

aa

ie

T-

sraq qae

ae

EE

sraq qeq

e

I -

sraq qay

ay

iy

~

sraq qey

ay

ii

r-?

sraq qao

ao

00

~

sraq

a

i

l-~

sraq qaw

aw

iw

~

sraq qei

iii

u

sraq qom

om

um

sraq qam

am

um

-1 ~

-

q~q

~

0

I 0

sraq qoq

0

u

sraq qou

ou

uu

-1

sraq qam

am

osm

sraq que

ua

ua

-.

sraq qah

ah

eah

l~

sraq qaa

aa

aa

r::J

sraq qia

ia

ia

r-J

sraq qio

is

is

J i/ IV

0

Ct

Source: Huffman, F.E. (1970) Cambodian System of Writing and Beginning Reader. Yale University Press.

Cherokee

Cherokee is a member of the Iroquoian group of the Macro-Siouan family. The language is spoken today – exclusively as a second language – by about 20,000 to 30,000 Cherokees in Oklahoma, with a residue in North Carolina. Ousted in tribal warfare from their original habitat in the Great Lakes area, the Cherokee moved south to Georgia and the Carolinas, where they proceeded to model their way of life and institutions on those of the European settlers. By the early nineteenth century they had achieved a remarkable degree of administrative, economic and cultural stability. In 1819 and 1820, Sequoyah (1770?–1843), a monolingual Cherokee halfbreed, invented a syllabary of eighty-six characters, some of which are borrowed from the Roman alphabet, though with different phonetic values. The spread of literacy in the script among the Cherokees was rapid, and in 1828 a Cherokee weekly newspaper, the Cherokee Phoenix, was launched, a unique event in the annals of the American indigenes. Parts of the Bible, tracts and hymn-books soon appeared in the new script. The script notates the vowels /a, e, i, o, u/ and a nasalized central vowel usually transliterated as , and seventy-nine combinations of consonant plus vowel, making a total inventory of eighty-five. It does not notate vowel length, the intrusive /h/ or the glottal stop. It is partially inconsistent: for example, in the velar series /ka/ and /ga/ are distinguished, the other five values are not. What is transliterated as and is an alveolar affricate released laterally; what is rendered in Roman as is a labialized velar stop [k◦]. (These transliteration conventions date back to Samuel Worcester’s nineteenth-century Cherokee hymn book, which is still in use today.) Sequoyah included serifs and contrasting thick and thin strokes in his syllabary characters, based on what he had seen in printed English. These are an integral part of the writing system, and they make handwriting somewhat laborious. There is no distinction between upper and lower case, but larger versions of the charac­ ters are sometimes used for capitalization.

Cherokee  71

The Cherokee Script The Syllabary

Da

Re

Ti

l)

It'

ge

Y

gi

Ago

0

.1 V

gu

.E

hu

&r hv q lv

-S-

ga

+-

ha

r

he

.D

hi

~

ho

J r

W

la

t

Le

.r

Ii

6

lo

M Lu

a

me

H

mi

~

mo ~ mu

h

ni

Z

no

V

ka

~ma

e

na"t- hna

G nah J\. ne

•

CPu

~ nu

gv

0' nv

'rqui

-r quo(i) quu 8

~ se

b

si

t

daWta

S-

de1)te

J

di ]"tiV do

"

dla..c tla

L

tie

C tli

'tJ

tlo ~ tLu

P

tLv

'f

tse

It

tsi

K

tso

if

tsu

G

tsv

G

wa

8wi

e

wo

s

wu

e wv

tt)

ya

~ yi

.6

yo

c.; yu B

m qua

(i)

If

sa Ws

t

~ tsa

que

' " we

8

ye

so

If su R

S

Source: Holmes, R. B. and Smith, B. S. (1976) Beginning Cherokee, Norman, OK.

du

quv sv

~ dv

yv

Chinese

Archaic Chinese The earliest fragmentary examples of the Chinese writing system date from about 2000 bc. The first sizeable corpus of connected texts, however, is provided by the oracle inscriptions on animal bones and tortoise shells which were used in divination rituals by the rulers of the Shang Dynasty (c. 1400–1100 bc). From 1899 onwards, great numbers of these inscriptions have been excavated at the site of the ancient capital, Anyang, and elsewhere. Their content is largely stereotyped along the lines that one would expect to find in an economy based on agriculture: Is it going to rain? Will the harvest be plentiful? The question was apparently incised on one half of a shell, for example, which was then heated; the cracks which appeared in the other half were interpreted as the answer, and written in. A typical oracle inscription falls into four sections: first, the day and place of the ritual are specified, the day being given in terms of the sixty-day cycle generated by the Ten (Heavenly Stems) and the Twelve (Earthly Branches); the name of the oracle may be added; this section always ends with the word zhēn (asks). The next section gives the text of the question, and the third section contains the answer, which is usually introduced by the stock phrase wáng zhān yŭe ‘the ruler read the answer’. Finally, the concluding section indicates the outcome of the prediction. While large numbers of inscriptions are identical as regards both content and form, small variations do occur: character sequence may change, certain words may be left out or replaced by others. Krjukov (1973) emphasizes the importance of this factor for close analysis of the Shang language. An example of a Shang oracle text is given on the following page. Script The three basic elements – pictograms, ideograms and phonograms – of Chinese script are all present in the Shang script, which points to a lengthy period of anterior development.

Chinese  73

Example of Shang oracle inscription (from Krjukov 1973):

du shou wo yu

du

bu

wo ci shou yu

Glossary: du (heaven); shou (give); wo (us); yu (help); bu (not); ci an adverbial whose meaning is uncertain. Translation: Will Heaven give us help? Heaven will not give us help. Examples of pictograms are: (= modern

mà) ‘horse’

(= modern

yŭ) ‘rain’

Examples of ideograms: (=

xià) ‘under, below’

(=

shàng) ‘above, up’

Phonograms: a phonogram is in origin a pictogram, chosen, for reasons which are not as yet clear, to notate a homophonic word. For example, the pictogram depicting the ear of wheat, came to be used to denote the word lai ‘to come’ (modern Chinese ). About two thousand characters have been identified, a figure which represents a much larger corpus of ‘words’. This is because the Shang characters (apart from the pronouns) might be described as semantically multivalued nuclei whose valences depend on locus and function in the utterance as a whole. Thus (modern ) can mean any of the following: ‘son’, ‘filial’, ‘to be filial’, ‘to regard oneself as filial’, ‘befitting a son’ and so on. Up to a point, the modern Chinese graph shares the polyvalence characteristic of both Shang and Classical Chinese. There is, however, an essential difference between the Shang character and its Classical/Modern Standard Chinese derivative. The Shang character for ‘horse’, for example (see above), is like a child’s drawing of the animal; it is impressionistic, and the component strokes cannot be used to make other characters. In contrast, the character – standardized since the Shuo Wen dictionary of ad 100 (see Classical Chinese, below) is a conventional diagram: it is constructed according to a prescribed order of stroke, from a prescribed number of

74  Chinese

standardized elements – in this particular case, from three horizontal strokes , two vertical , one dextro-rotary angle and four dots . The graph is reducible to those elements, all of which are used consistently as com­ ponents in thousands of other Chinese characters. The Shang graph is not so reducible. There was no consistency in character delineation, and variants abound. In Modern Standard Chinese, again, the great majority of ‘words’ combine a semantic determinant – the radical – with a phonetic element. In Shang Chinese this combination is rare; according to Krjuchkov (1973) only about a dozen are to be found in the Anyang corpus. In these inscriptions one sees the beginnings of the diachronic process which was to yield the typical Modern Standard Chinese ‘word’. Shang characters which share a phonetic element can, on that basis, be grouped as sharing some common feature of pronunciation. But exactly what that pronunciation was remains, at best, conjectural.

Classical Chinese (Wenli) In a narrow sense, the term ‘Classical Chinese’ refers to the Chinese language and its literature from the sixth century bc to the third century ad, a period which includes the lives and works of Confucius, Mencius, Lao Tzu, Han Fei, Mo Tzu and Chuang Tzu, to mention only the six philosopher-sages who were to have such a far-reaching effect on subsequent Chinese thought. In a broader sense, Classical Chinese begins with the Shih Ching (‘Book of Odes’), which was compiled between the eleventh and sixth centuries bc, and which was in fact co-opted, during the second period, to form one of the ‘Five Classics’ (wu jing). The other four are: I Jing (‘Book of Changes’); Shu Jing (‘Book of History’); Li Ji (‘Book of Propriety’), and Chun-Chiu (‘Spring and Autumn Annals’). After the Burning of the Books by the Qin Emperor Shi Huang Di (213 bc), when most of this material was destroyed, the text of the Classics had to be arduously reconstructed. This took place in the early years of the Han Dynasty, whose espousal of Confucianism determined the lineaments of Chinese literature for many centuries to come. In the Confucian hegemony three factors were crucial: (1) the sacrosanctity of the Classical texts; (2) the examination system based on these texts and their commentaries; (3) the supremacy of the literati who expounded the classics and set the examinations. Outside the examination halls, a succession of poets – especially in the Tang and Sung Dynasties – some of them disreputable by Confucian standards, went on producing a lot of the world’s most attractive poetry. The main source for the character inventory used in the central Classical period is the Shuo Wen (‘explain character’) dictionary of the Later Han Dynasty (published about ad 100). Here, the characters are arranged under 540 radicals (reduced to 214 in the late Ming Dynasty). The main categories of the Shuo Wen classification are:

Chinese  75

1. Simple characters, a few hundred in number, subdivided into (a) pictograms: mù ‘tree’ shán ‘mountain’ mén ‘gateway, door’ (b) demonstratives: èr ‘two’ shàng ‘above’ xià ‘below’ 2. Compound characters, subdivided into (a) ideograms, made from two or more simple characters: zuò ‘to sit’, formed from rén ‘man’, reduplicated, placed over tŭ ‘earth’ nán ‘man’ formed from tián ‘field’ and lì ‘power’. (b) phonograms – the most numerous class, made from two elements: the radical fixing the character as belonging to this or that semantic group, and the phonetic, which suggests the pronunciation. Example: wén ‘to hear’

composed of the radical ĕr ‘ear’ and mén.



That is, the following information is given: the word has to do with hearing, and should rhyme with /mén/.

The nature of the script, and one standard method of looking up characters in a Chinese dictionary, are now illustrated by means of (a) eight full-form characters in bold printed form; (b) the same eight characters in standard written form (not in the so-called ‘grass script’, căozi, which is a highly personalized cursive); (c) stroke order and number; (d) the radical system; (e) search procedure in a Chinese dictionary.

76  Chinese

(a) Eight full-form printed characters:

fffj

t-f-

~

~

zhong

hili

cha

fan

middle

sea

tea

food

~ ~

f*l

- " p ~

qian

long

wen

shf

money

dragon hear

~

know

(b) the same characters in standard written form:

(c) Stroke order is illustrated here by means of four of the above characters: chá 10 strokes fàn 12 strokes wén 13 strokes shí

18 strokes

Chinese  77



It will be seen that by writing a Chinese character in the correct order we arrive at the correct number of component strokes. The number of components underlies both the radical system and the indexing of characters in a Chinese dictionary. (d) The radical system is set out on the following pages in traditional form, as a table of 214 radicals, beginning with one stroke and rising to seventeen. This is reproduced from Matthews’ Chinese-English Dictionary. The radical table is followed by a specific example – the list of all characters having the seven-stroke radical . (e) To sum up, looking up characters in a Chinese dictionary involves the follow­ ing steps. 1. Identify the radical; with experience this becomes automatic. The correct radical is usually obvious, but there are many cases where the radical is obscure, or where there is a choice. 2. Count the strokes remaining in the character after the radical has been subtracted. 3. Find the radical in the index of characters. All characters having this radical are listed in order of number of strokes; inspection in the correct section yields the desired character.

As example, we take the character having the seven-stroke radical . After subtraction of radical 149, the character has twelve strokes. By inspection in the twelve-stroke section of radical 149 we find numbered 5825. Turning to 5825 in the body of the dictionary, we find the character with translation and many examples of usage.

Modern Chinese Essentially the same script as described above is in use in China today. But there have been several attempts at simplification, or reduction of the profusion of characters. In the twentieth century, after the fall of the Qing Dynasty in 1911, progressive attempts to simplify the script continued – especially after the formation of the People’s Republic in 1949. Between 1956 and 1964, what has become known as the First Round of Simplifications, comprising a reduction in the number of strokes for several hundred characters, was put into effect and gained wide acceptance. Some components (phonetic or radical) were removed from certain characters, reducing the number of strokes required. A Second Round, which coincided with the Cultural Revolution in China from 1966 to 1978, failed to gain widespread public approval and was withdrawn. The changes implemented in the first round, however, remain in effect today in the People’s Republic and in Singapore.

The 214 Radicals

The Chinese Script

x

L.

r-

35

34

33

32

31

30

?( g.

±

±

IJ

IJ

3 strokes

29

28

27

ll.e

I'

25

26

-~

-c

24

23

22

r=

104,-.

73

72

71

70

69

1==1

13

1i JG JC

rr 109

108

107

106

a,PQ

146

145

144

Bl. JIB.

143

142

141

140

139

138

137

136

135

134

133

132

131

130

129

128

127

a

105 1~

101

~~

~

68

66

65

67

l00~

991t

98

J1 JL

:i: 3£.:f..:E

Ji.1t 3t

-¥.~

p

jt

97

96

95

5 strokes

Jft l02lU 103 JE

64

63

62

61

~ IL',)I) .'1·'

~

4 strokes

60

t

21

~

94~.~

~1l

58

~.~

93

~

57

59

]J, ~J 11

20 ~

19

18

.!jl, rs

rlJ

A,-*'

~

~J:

PM!fi 1f

~

•

~~

180

179

if

~

178.

fi

1fi

jj 177

176

9 strokes

175

174

173

172

171.

170

169

168

167

Jfl

!It

1ti

'I~,*

Jit 1l f!

~

~

a

~

~

G!

ilJ.JI •

~

•

..

" •

,

•

m

208

207

206

205

Jil

n

mJ

Ii

13 strokes

204

203

202~

201.

12 strokes

200

199

198

8 strokes

!It

Jt! 196 197

166

*If

~

150

8

149

~

148

1'1

1699

1059

1174

at

iii!

JE

3

i\~

iiJ it

rr

2

it

6194

3473

•

•

3117

2750

2820

567

2943

6461

1954

456

2391

6386

7334

149

-~ if II: ifl

5

~

NJ

2-4

3575

6230

3804

148

II Il II.

M

•

iM

tX

~

fit

at:

H

ill

5

ii

iDi Vi

~

~I

239

1622

2817

I303

306

4055

82

1343

6818

fi

iil:;

~,..,

If 5783

108

3530

3513

:: ~~

11

783

3423

ISO

3626

3599

2923

2813

1672

3191

2273

=aJ: lin

iii

til

JIiJ ul fi

ttt

~

1816

5711

~

_

6

2728

7220

5732

Radical index nos. 147–150

7165

5004

..

8

iii

~

~ft n-

•

Iii

itt

art

11

iR

•

~

1133

762

7538

5567

3602

2338

5803

628

381

3113

973

. . 6051

II

ii=f-

~J!:;

2M7

4795

4621

7641

1833

1172

5923

7437

2163

2874

~

5251

. . 7374

. . 6208

itt

6923

m

i_ ii'1

;;a!I

•

It

9

~

Itt

~

nn

_

!~

W It tiM i»

;1

It II il

10

5900

4919

5645

2630

842

2428

3364

5476

645

885

1893

37

2357

2369

.. -

it Mf

~iJ 11174

4539

1166

If

~t$

tl

II

jfk

•

II

ill

i~

12

_

357

4789

758

323

6563

5825

416

1435

464U

2159

. . . 4591

~

ff II

,~

7364

4795

279

6521

'1.77

90)

2190

:}1333

7()91

' " 5245

If

II II

16

:1".. {I

II

ill

IS

it mI

3587

"

3587

.2445

.1416

_

970

i;

~

-m:

~

It

~

M~

itt

4

~

5136

423

5504

jf

Ie

iI

H adt JII

2204

ft

•

M

M

7-18

:}626

~t

6

257

1700

2825

2813

5726

5558

4609

4789

786

431

2385

2914

5634

6157

357

2864

5494

5306

1552

131

6971

3461

2966

2112

3423

5147

7591

6196

. . . 3891

~~

1*

ire

. . 6956

mE

,t

jp iVF

~

iii iii itli

iill

~A

3IU iii

~

•

•

Ii II

7

B8 iR

~

m

Ii '-f ftf:

~

M IU

3288

7204

7651

2215

5939

3329

2215

4242

2827

2579

III

2308

1352

3011

5798

~

"Ii

31 GIl

III

Ii Eit

~

d Ml

_

jJk

~

Ii

"

if

iiJ.it

~

174

370

6078

3394

5733

6051

2108

2994

7101

6298

6804

5529

1591

4253

1490

3947

5802

2546

5726

2875

4578

6322

847

7324

5795

II

i~

~

II

4747

2329

7613

7079

2839

1362

m

•

, . 7538

fi Btl if 11 1.1

•

g

•

BI

~

62

5674

279

4823

4451

4736

2273

1308

6185

7290

5802

4468

il6734

. . 4338

&

ii

•

til

II

Ii!

•

:II ii

SI

•

i, =f3

~

•

2218

4211

-1=

14

•

if WI VI

~

1it

•

It

13

7617

5167

152

3006

3064

2329

5386

1139

5443

6()

yu

J:

yo

kyu

G'9> gyu shu

ja

cha

'9> ~ '9> ju chu

t

ja

nya hya bya pya mya rya

t) '9>

,: '9> l} '9> ~ to> rJ to> lJ. to> ~ '9> nyu hyu byu pyu myu ryu

ju

~! ~! G! t! ~! t)! ,:! l}! ~! rJ! lJ.! ~J:

kyo gyo sho

jo

cho

jo

n

ri

mu me

b Iv

wa

nyo hyo byo pyo myo ryo

~ 0

114  Japanese

Katak ~'

T

J\

J"

J'\

7

::;,

ry 71 /'

da

na

ha

ba

pa

ma

ra

wa

e

~

eo

,""'"

1)

71

hi

bi

pi

mi

ri

fi

7

j;

jJ -+t -+f

a

ka

ga

sa

za

1

.:r

;f

s-

... " ~

T 7

ki

gi

shi

ji

chi

r)

7

7~~

.A

.A~'

''Y

'1~

;(

7

7~

7° A

u

ku

gu

su

zu

tsu

zu

nu

fu

bu

pu

I;- 7'

~ se

-{!'

T

T

-~

t,

~

~

ze

te

de

ne

he

be

r~

./

do

no

*

bo

po

~ l'

to l' ~1' 1) l'

.r; e

ke

ge

~

:J

:J~

'.J

'.J~'

0

ko

go

so

zo

~ ta

"

to

ji

ni

ho

-e

~

V

7x

pe

me

re

fe

.:r:

t1

7t

=]

mo

ro

fo

0

~

,

~1' ~ l' 7 l' kya gya sha ja cha

7 l' .::l' t l'

.::L

f-.:l ;f.:l

~.:l ~.:l 7.:l kyu gyu shu ju chu

T.:l '::.:l t.:l ~' .:l t°.:l

yu

3

f-3 ;f3

~3 ~3 73 kyo gyo sho jo cho

73 '::3 t3 ~3 to 3

yo

ja ju jo

nya hya bya pya mya rya

~

Iv

').:l

~

3 1) 3

nyo hyo byo pyo myo ryo

aka-san;

and in Katakana by adding-, e.g.

T -

~.:l

nyu hyu byu pyu myu ryu

Long vowels are notated in Hiragana by adding ~,

10 1J~ ~

)L,-

ru

ya

-V f-1' ;f l'

7~}~ teburu.

Syllabic final consonants other than Inl are notated by ":J in Hiragana and by''} in Katakana, e.g.

t \ '"? t:::.. itta, and 7 ''} T matchi.

n

mu

~

I

fa

t \, '5, ;l, or 10, e.g.

Kannada

The Kannada (also known as Kanarese) script is a derivative of Brāhmī. Between the Brāhmī source and the Kannada script, as it appears from the fourteenth century onwards, a transitional script was in use which also underlies Telugu. Both of these are Dravidian languages of south India. The table shows the modern Kannada inventory of consonants and vowels: the latter given firstly as independent (initial only) and then as applied to the consonant /k/. As in most Indian scripts, the short vowel /a/ is inherent in each base consonant: thus is /ka/. A diacritic is written above a consonant without a following vowel (virāma). Standardization of the script came about through the introduction of printing presses by Christian missionary organizations. Conjunct consonants are in general formed by subscription of the second component, which is often abbreviated. The script is written from left to right.

116  Kannada

The Kannada Script Consonants

5 ka

n

~

~ kha

ga

gha

nga

~~ jha

~

nya

W

~ ca

~

~

cha

ja

~

~

t;3

~

~

fa

tha

f/,a

f/,ha

r.za

~ ta

~ • tha

d

Q

~

da

dha

na

~ pa

~

tJ

~

~

pha

ba

bha

rna

~

d

~

~

ya

ra

fa

va

~ sa

~ sa

~ sa

as

~ fa

ha

Vowels

»

«

^

3s

a

a

i

I

en) ens &b u

u

B

e

e

ai

o

6

au

ru

Vowel signs: here illustrated as applied to ka:

~

~

ka,

0-

ki,

o-e ta.

~e ke,

~

kai,

i!~ ko, ~~~

ku,

~

eo. ~

ku,

t

kru,

i!

ke,

kau

Numerals

r\ -D 9- V 3 i

2

3

4

5

e 6

I7 68

i 9

o 0

Korean

Buddhist missionaries from China and Buddhist texts in Chinese reached Korea around the turn of the millennium, and by the fifth century Korea was a Buddhist state using Chinese as the language of administration and culture. The subsequent spread of Confucianism in the Korean Middle Ages reinforced the status and the use of Chinese. It is not surprising that after nearly two thousand years of unre­ mitting exposure to Chinese influence, well over 50 per cent of Korean vocabu­ lary consists of Chinese borrowings. By the seventh century, however, scholars were looking for ways of using Chinese characters to notate native Korean words. Among the earliest examples extant are the hyangga folksongs. The problem of adapting the morphemic Chinese script to the requirements of a highly inflected, agglutinative language was being faced at very much the same time in Japan; and, as in the analogous case of Japanese, three possible paths were explored: (a) semantic transfer: a Chinese character was used to denote its Korean semantic equivalent; in a lan­ guage as heavily Sinicized as Korean this must have seemed an attractive solu­ tion; (b) phonetic representation: Chinese characters were used to ‘spell’ Korean words; (c) Chinese characters, functioning as semantic nuclei, were supplied with phonetic diacritics to indicate the additional material (inflections, particles) re­ quired by Korean grammar and syntax (as in the okototen system in Japanese). A practical solution such as was developed in Japan in the shape of the elegant and tractable wabun script eluded the Korean scholars. In the middle of the fifteenth century, however, a group of scholars under the aegis and direction of the fourth monarch of the Yi Dynasty, King Sejong (reigned 1419–50), produced the phonetic syllabary of twenty-eight letters known as Hangŭl. It was promul­ gated in 1446 in a work entitled Hwunmin cengum (‘The correct sounds for teaching the people’) and within a year or two of its promulgation, the new script had been used in the poetical work Yong.pi ŏch’ŏn ka (Dragon(s) Flying to the Heavens). Only for the past century has the script been known as hangul; previ­ ously it was known by various names, such as cengum (‘correct sounds’) and enmun (‘vulgar writing’). The Korean syllabary has been described as ‘one of the most scientific alphabets in use in any country’ (Encyclopedia Britannica). It was created all of a piece,

118  Korean

not gradually, and not under any single influence (except Chinese in the squared shape of its characters). The shapes of the basic consonant symbols can be seen as graphic representations of the points of articulation in the mouth. Likewise the forms of the vowel symbols have a significance, in that a round dot symbol­ izes Heaven; a horizontal line the Earth, and a vertical line Man. In fact, however, for the next four hundred years little use was made of it. Chinese remained as before the status language of the educated and influential classes. Of all the written material produced in Korea between the invention of the Hangŭl syllabary and the late nineteenth century, less than 1 per cent is in Korean; the rest is in Chinese. Towards the end of the nineteenth century, the so-called ‘mixed script’ began to gain ground. In this system, much as in modern Japanese, Chinese characters function as root morphemes, while the syllabary is used for inflections and particles. Since 1948 use of Chinese characters has been discontinued in North Korea, while in South Korea mixed script continues to be used. The syllabary is set out in the accompanying tables. The most interesting feature of Hangŭl is the way in which consonants and vowels combine in their base forms to form syllables. That is to say, vowels following consonants do not assume secondary forms as in Devanāgarī, nor are the consonants themselves modified as in Ethiopic. The consonantal inventory takes into account the three­ fold division of Korean stops into lax, aspirated and tense. The tense consonants are geminates of the lax, for example: /k/, /kk/; /p/, /pp/. To dis­ tinguish aspiration, the consonant is marked: /k/, /kh/, while palatalization is notated in the vocalic series: /ka/, /kya/. Vowels cannot stand alone, but must be supported by the bearer (not to be confused with the consonantal sign for /n/): thus /a/, /o/. It can be seen from the accompanying table that the basic symbols relate to k, n, s, m, ŋ and by adding strokes one represents different modes of articulation. Each written syllable begins with a consonant sign, beside or below which the vowel symbol is added, the order being consistently from left to right in the horizontal plane, top to bottom in the vertical. An initial vowel is preceded in writing by a ‘zero’ consonant symbol. (The same symbol represents /ŋ/ in final position.) The orthography was unified (after long conflict between phonemic and morphophonemic models of syllabification) only in 1933, and the current orthog­ raphy serves in both North and South Korea.

Korean  119

The Korean Script The Syllabary

Letter

Transcription

Letter

Transcription

~ ~

I~I

Pure vowels:

1 Jl Q

-rl --1

IiI leI lrel liil 101

luI

-,-

Ia! luI 101

Compound vowels:

t

"~II ........ "Tr

Iyal Iyrel

~l

~

Iwa Iwrel

ly~1

-r~

Iw~1

Iye/

-rll -1

lweI luil

0

101 leI lehl Ikhl Ithl Iphl Ihl

Iyol Iyul

Consonants:

,

c.

e D

tt A

Ik/ In! ItI III Iml Ipl lsI

~

"* ==1

e. .n: "ti"

Double consonants: 7J

tt 1111

Ik'l It'l Ip'l

M ~

Is'l le'l

Source: Kim, N. – K. (1987) ‘Korean’, in B. Comrie (ed.) The World’s Major Languages, London, Routledge.

120  Korean

Two sample rows follow: (a) C + V

~

7} ka

71= kya

7l

si:

.iiI.

T

it-

:::L

ka

kya

ko

kyo

ku

kyu

kl1

71

7~

7~

711

~1

:sq

-1l

ki

klE

kYlE

ke

kye

ko

ki

-l9

.iJll kWlE

kwe

kws

3l~

:zl

kwa

kwi

~l

(b) C + V + C (phonetic realizations)

zr

7J

21t:.

7,[

7J-

7J

kak

kan

kat

kal

kam

kap

~

zJ..

~

kat

A

kat

kat

z1%

kap

~

ka'

~

kak

~ kat

~

kap

7dkang

~

kat

Lao

Lao belongs to the south-western group of Tai languages, which also includes Thai, Shan, Yuan, along with many minor languages. The Lao script, the tua lao, dates from about the sixteenth century. Previously, the tham (< Pali dhamma, Sanskrit dharma) script had been used for Buddhist texts in Lao. The tua lao script bears a very close resemblance to Thai, both apparently deriving from a Proto-Thai original, referred to as the Sukhothai script, now lost. The tua lao shares the etymologically motivated but now redundant duplications found in the Thai script. The language is written from left to right. Lao has six tones. As in Thai, syllabic tone is a function of the following factors: 1. (a) grade of consonant (high, medium or low); (b) presence of transposing agent ho (as in Thai

);

2. vowel length (short or long); 3. nature of syllable final:

(a) p, t or k: closed syllable; (b) long vowel or i/y: (open); (c) m, n or ng – half-closed;

4. presence or absence of a tone marker (mai ek, mai to, etc.; see Thai). A comparison with the Thai script will show that the two scripts are directly parallel. Indeed a large proportion of Lao speakers live in Thailand and use the Thai script. The consonant symbols are given in the accompanying table; the vowels are marked with superscript, subscript, prefixed and suffixed markers, as well as a circumfix.

122  Lao

The Lao Script CONSONANTS

n

2

f)

ko

kho

kho

()

()

('l

nyo

do

to

~

po

S

;J 10

v

so

fl

ill

to

pho

o

m

wo

~

cho

tho

cJ

(J pho

ro

?

ngo

ho

~

so

U1

1J

U

tho

no

bo

to

ill e

mo

'0

ho

tf

lJ

yo

5

VOWELS Notation of the rich vocalic system is virtually identical with that of Thai (q.v.), using superscript, subscript, prefixed and suffixed markers, and circumfix. For example, if C represents a consonant, Cl == Ca, Cu == Cu, == Ci, lc"') == Cau,

e

tCl:::: = CO, TC = Co.

NUMERALS

(;) 1

~ 2

15

c:.

t.

C)

3

4

5

6

n7

~ 8

cu 9

o o

Malayalam

The separation of this Dravidian language from the closely related Tamil took place gradually, and relatively recently, in the period from the tenth to the thirteenth century ad. The script now used for Malayalam was introduced in the seventeenth century, and is associated with the illustrious name of Tuñcatt’ Ezuttachan, a key figure in Malayalam literature. Structurally, and especially in the vocalization patterns, the script is largely modelled on Tamil. In contrast with Tamil, however, which reduces the typical Brāhmī-Devanāgarī positional fiveterm row to two of its members, Malayalam has appropriated the entire grid, even though many of the letters thus generated never figure in Malayalam words. It is written from left to right. The basic inventory of consonants and independent vowels is set out in the accompanying table. The table shows the retroflex row as modulated by twelve vowels (short a is inherent in the base form of each consonant). Vocalization patterns for the semi-vowels, sibilants and aspirate are similar. Conjunct consonants are not shown in the table: there are numerous consonant clusters, including geminates by duplication, linear or vertical, often with substantial deformation. Conjuncts other than geminates often employ ligatures. Because of the complexity of representing these clusters in print, attempts have been made in recent decades to simplify the system so that the elements appear in left-to-right order, but this has not been applied consistently. The Arabic numerals are now in general use. The accompanying table shows the script before some innovations made in 1971, whereby different symbols are used for the post-consonantal vowels u, u: and ru, and also for r as the last consonant in a cluster.

124  Malayalam

The Malayalam Script CONSONANTS cfb

6U kha

ka

ga

neJ gha

613 nga

(f)

.aJ ca

.a.m

tl

mu>

6TO)

cha

ja

jha

nya

S ta

0

(U)

tha

tf,a

C\.W tf,ha

6YT> f)a

(0)

L.O

a

w

m

ta

tha

da

dha

na

n.J pa

nO

~

fD

pha

6TlJ ba

bha

rna

en>

m

~

OJ

ya

ra

La

va

~

m

~f!) i

~ u

~C!) U

a

a

n.Q)

n{j}

6ln.Q)

63

~O

E)3CD

e

e

ai

0

o

au

t:3 ru

(b) as applied to letter ta: SO ia 6)

5

te

s1 ti as

Ie

6')6lS tai

tu

~ lu

~ tru

SO 10

05016

6)S«D tau

~

S'li 6)

Mongolian

The old Mongolian literary language is something of an enigma in that no known form of spoken Mongolian can be conclusively shown to be its basis. When it first appears in the thirteenth century ad, the language is already equipped with a sophisticated writing system and a literary identity, pointing to antecedent development in circumstances that can only be guessed at. The pre-Genghiz Khan Kereits and the Khitans have been seen as possible sources; both of these peoples were in contact with Nestorian Christianity and with Buddhism, and both were on a significantly higher cultural plane than the other Mongolian tribes. The immediate source of the script itself is certainly the Old Uighur script, which in its turn was based on the Nestorian version of Syriac Estrangelo. Uighur retained the horizontal right-to-left format of Syriac, and this format was still being used in the fourteenth century by the Mongol Khans in Persia. In China, however (the Mongol Yuan Dynasty ruled China from 1279 to 1368), when work began on translating the Buddhist scriptures into Mongolian, a vertical format, left to right across the page, was adopted, probably under Chinese influence. As might be expected in view of their Semitic origins, the letters have initial, medial and final forms. From the fifteenth century onwards, eight additional letters were brought into use to notate non-Mongol phonemes occurring in loan-words. The basic inventory of the Classical Mongolian script is set out in the table. Post-revolutionary writing in Mongolian (1921–40) was exclusively in the classical script. In 1941 Cyrillic was officially adopted for the notation of Khalkha Mongolian. However, the classical script continued to be used for private purposes by older people in Mongolia, and generally in Inner Mongolia and Xinjiang, where it seems to be still in use. Even before the Qing (Manchu) Dynasty came to power in China (1644), Manchu scholars had come to know and use the Mongolian script. In 1599, Nurhaci, the founder of the Qing Dynasty, commissioned his chief interpreter, Erdeni, to provide a script for the hitherto unwritten Manchu language. Erdeni was able to adapt the Mongol script to Manchu requirements, a fairly straightforward process, as the two languages are phonologically close to each other. This initial Manchu

126  Mongolian

script was systematized in 1632 by another outstanding linguist, Dahai, who also introduced a method of using diacritical points to distinguish between homographs. Thus, in the earlier script could be read as n, a or e. Dahai restricted to a, adding a point to the left for n: and a point to the right for e: .

Mongolian  127

The Mongolian Script The alphabet

Initial

Medial

Final

Transcription

~

-I

r-.J

~

a

~

...

r..J

~

e

;I

~

~

c1

~

0

d

~

u

J J A

$I

d

d.>

0

~

$I

~

c-!)

a

.-1

...

'1

~

.s

n

~

d..)

~

~

ch

~~

:~

gh

..1 s;

~

')

~

~

11

11

Q

-II

~

Z1

~

)I

b

k

g

~

m

r

128  Mongolian

Initial

Medial

Final

~

~

L

~

Transcription

f

~

d

A

A

y

A

\I

i. ds

LI

U

ts

~

~

~

~

S

"

w

11

~

s

Important ligatures are: Initial

Medial

Final

Transcription

~

~

~

ai

~

~

~

oi

Medial

Final

~ ba, be

...:? ke,ge

-d

~

bi

~

bo, bu

;?

ki, gi

~

{ io, ku ....

ng

Note: For Mongolian Cyrillic script see under Cyrillic on p. 84.

gO,gu

Oriya

This derivative of Brāhmī, which is used for writing the Oriya (also known as OÅrī) language (belonging to the Eastern group of Indo-Aryan languages), makes its first appearance in its present form in the fourteenth/fifteenth centuries. It is spoken in Orissa state in India. The order of letters follows the Devanāgarī model, but in place of the horizontal stroke above each letter, typical of most other Brāhmī derivatives, Oriya uses a curved line. This practice seems to have arisen in the days when Oriya was written on palm leaves, whose surface was less likely to be damaged by curved strokes. The script is written from left to right. The chart shows the consonantal inventory of Oriya, along with the independ­ ent vowels, the secondary vowel signs in combination with /ga/, and the numerals. As in all New Indo-Aryan languages and Sanskrit, the short vowel /a/ is inherent in the base form of the consonant. In Oriya /a/ is realized as [ɔ]. Conjunct consonants in Oriya are numerous and unpredictable, individual components being often substantially transformed in combination.

130  Oriya

The Oriya Script The horizontal line drawn over letters in Devanāgarī is replaced in Oriya by a curved line. Consonants ~

Q ka

"

kha

ga

G-

Q gha

nga

a

G

~

~

ca

cha

ja

t

0

G

Q

4:1

fa

tha

rJ,a

rJ,ha

1)a

Q

~

~

jha

nya

~

Q

Q

ta

tha

da

dha

na

t1

ct pha

'< bha

~

pa

Q ba

~

Q

Q

Q

(ja)

ra

La

fa

(1

€I

~

sa

$a

sa

rna ~ wa

~

~

ha

khya

VOWELS (a) independent:

« a

na

Q

Q I

z

IJ>

za

IJ>rr

wiT

m

la

!D AT

..u I Q,

I

tV R rir

N

fJJ riu

{lu

SfTf.lU

~

lu

~

IU

~

nu

!JIT

nu

4

pu

~

pu

(yJ

mu

r.!:P

mu

yi

UJ

yu

~

yu

"

ri

(!§

ru

e!§

ru

Ii

~

Ii

fJH

lu

iJfT

Iii

vi

6U vi

ill

vu

~

vii

zti

II' zi

sJ zi

~

ZU

~

ZU

mrr

la

.,f)

." Ii

e

lu

~

Iii

Ra

C!!I

Ra

!OJ Ri

to Ri

!f)J

Ru

!f)/T

Rii

Na

e

Na

Af)

fi5Y

tJ)J

Nu

fJ)IT

Nu

Ii

Ni

U

pi

Ni

Tamil  151 et

e

fiJ

e

eJ

(D)&

ke