Writing systems, alphabets, scripts Books

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Book SynopsisAntonyms in Mind and Brain presents a multi-method empirical investigation of opposition with a particular focus on the processing of opposite pairs and their representation in the mental lexicon. Building on recent cognitive accounts of antonymy which highlight the fundamentally conceptual nature of antonymy, this book outlines previous literature to draw out criteria for good opposites and establish the state of the art on the question whether the strong connection of certain opposite pairs is primarily of a conceptual or lexical nature. presents a detailed cross-linguistic empirical study combining corpus data, speaker judgements and behavioural experiments for a wide range of central (e.g. big:little) and peripheral (e.g. buy:sell; wife:husband) opposite pairs to establish the contribution of individual factors. proposes a model of the representation of opposite pairs in the mental lexicon Table of ContentsPART I Theoretical foundations 1. Introduction 2. Previous perspectives on antonymy PART II Empirical investigation 3. Antonymic and associative strength: evidence from English and German 4. Processing opposite pairs: an antonym-decision task 5. Case studies PART III Theoretical implications 6. Antonyms in mind and brain: towards a psycholinguistic model of opposition 7. Conclusions

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Book SynopsisThis book, the first of its kind, examines how the phonology and grammar of the ancient Egyptian language changed over more than three thousand years of its history, from the first appearance of written documents, c.3250 BC, to the Coptic dialects of the second century AD and later.Trade Review'A major contribution to our understanding of the development of Ancient Egyptian throughout its recorded history, richly exemplified and with a wealth of original insights. Essential reading.' Mark Collier, University of Liverpool'… represents the cutting edge of Egyptological linguistics and is certain to be of interest to all researchers working in the field.' Sami Uljas, University of Basel'This new history of Egyptian-Coptic - the first synthesis of its kind in nearly two decades - presents a rich material and many innovative analyses, benefiting from the author's profound expertise in the earlier textual corpora of Egyptian.' Dr Andréas Stauder, Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Basel'Essential reading for anyone studying the development of the ancient Egyptian language or who has a more general interest in linguistics and the history of language development.' Ancient EgyptTable of Contents1. Ancient Egyptian; Part I. Phonology: 2. Coptic phonology; 3. Coptic and Egyptian; 4. Correspondents and cognates; 5. Egyptian phonology; Part II. Grammar: 6. Nouns, pronouns, and adjectives; 7. Non-verbal predicates; 8. Verbs; 9. Verbs: Egyptian I; 10. Verbs: Egyptian II; 11. Verbs: Egyptian I-II; 12. Subordination.

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Book SynopsisThis book, the first of its kind, examines how the phonology and grammar of the ancient Egyptian language changed over more than three thousand years of its history, from the first appearance of written documents, c.3250 BC, to the Coptic dialects of the second century AD and later. Part One discusses phonology, working backward from the vowels and consonants of Coptic to those that can be deduced for earlier stages of the language. Part Two is devoted to grammar, including both basic components such as nouns and the complex history of the verbal system. The book thus provides both a synchronic description of the five major historical stages of ancient Egyptian and a diachronic analysis of their development and relationship.Trade Review'A major contribution to our understanding of the development of Ancient Egyptian throughout its recorded history, richly exemplified and with a wealth of original insights. Essential reading.' Mark Collier, University of Liverpool'… represents the cutting edge of Egyptological linguistics and is certain to be of interest to all researchers working in the field.' Sami Uljas, University of Basel'This new history of Egyptian-Coptic - the first synthesis of its kind in nearly two decades - presents a rich material and many innovative analyses, benefiting from the author's profound expertise in the earlier textual corpora of Egyptian.' Dr Andréas Stauder, Swiss National Science Foundation and the University of Basel'Essential reading for anyone studying the development of the ancient Egyptian language or who has a more general interest in linguistics and the history of language development.' Ancient EgyptTable of Contents1. Ancient Egyptian; Part I. Phonology: 2. Coptic phonology; 3. Coptic and Egyptian; 4. Correspondents and cognates; 5. Egyptian phonology; Part II. Grammar: 6. Nouns, pronouns, and adjectives; 7. Non-verbal predicates; 8. Verbs; 9. Verbs: Egyptian I; 10. Verbs: Egyptian II; 11. Verbs: Egyptian I-II; 12. Subordination.

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Book SynopsisUsing a unique, tried and tested algorithm, this book teaches you how to quickly and efficiently recognise letters and common words in Ukrainian script. Whether you need to quickly be able to read and understand the words around you, or are preparing to learn Ukrainian and want to master the basics, this is the book for you. In this book you will find: ·         An introduction to Ukrainian script and the Cyrillic alphabet ·         Plenty of practice activities to help you recognise each letter of the alphabet ·         Helpful mnemonics to make you remember the shape of each letter ·         Accompanying audio files so you know how to pronounce letters and words ·         Handy tips to help you decipher co

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Book SynopsisIn a world of rapid technological advancements, it can be easy to forget that writing is the original Information Technology, created to transcend the limitations of human memory and to defy time and space. The Writing Revolution picks apart the development of this communication tool to show how it has conquered the world.Trade Review"Anyone interested in the development of writing, even without a background in linguistics, will find the book accessible, while linguists will appreciate the well chosen technical information that is included in the description of each individual system." (Language Documentation & Conservation, 2 December 2009) "In The writing revolution: Cuneiform to the internet, an engaging book that combines accuracy and readability better than any other work on orthographic practices across time and space, Amalia E. Gnanadesikan concurs with the usual view that the complex calendrical system of the Maya's predecessors, the Olmec, was ‘the intellectual stimulus' (80) for the development of writing in Mesoamerica, which she discusses in Ch. 5, ‘Maya glyphs: Calendars of kings'." (Language, 2011) "This informative, yet accessible and entertaining, book will be of interest to readers with an interest in the history and evolution of world languages, as well as to students and instructors looking for a comprehensive and enjoyable overview of the subject.." (Language in Society, 14 December 2009)Table of ContentsList of Illustrations vii Preface xi 1 The First IT Revolution 1 2 Cuneiform: Forgotten Legacy of a Forgotten People 13 3 Egyptian Hieroglyphs and the Quest for Eternity 33 4 Chinese: A Love of Paperwork 56 5 Maya Glyphs: Calendars of Kings 79 6 Linear B: The Clerks of Agamemnon 95 7 Japanese: Three Scripts are Better than One 113 8 Cherokee: Sequoyah Reverse-Engineers 133 9 The Semitic Alphabet: Egypt to Manchuria in 3,400 Years 143 10 The Empire of Sanskrit 169 11 King Sejong’s One-Man Renaissance 191 12 Greek Serendipity 208 13 The Age of Latin 229 14 The Alphabet Meets the Machine 249 Appendix: Figures A.1–A.7 273 Further Reading 281 Index 297

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Book SynopsisUsing a unique, tried and tested algorithm, this book teaches you how to quickly and efficiently recognise letters and common words in Hebrew script. Whether you''re travelling and want to understand the words around you, or preparing to learn Hebrew and want to master the basics, this is the book for you.In this book you will find: An introduction to Hebrew script Plenty of practice activities to help you recognise each letter of the alphabet Helpful mnemonics to make you remember the shape of each letter Accompanying audio files so you know how to pronounce letters and words Handy tips to help you decipher common and familiar wordsThe audio for this course can be downloaded from the Teach Yourself Library app or streamed at library.teachyourself.com.Rely on Teach Yourself, trusted by language learners for over 80 years.

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Book SynopsisChloé Ragazzoli is Associate Professor of Egyptology at the History Faculty of University Paris Sorbonne, France. She is the author of Eloge de la Ville. Histoire et Littérature (2008) and La grotte des scribes à Deir el-Bahari. La tombe MMA 504 et ses graffiti (forthcoming).Ömür Harmansah is Associate Professor of Art History, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA. His work focuses on the art and material culture of the ancient Near Eastern world, with particular emphasis on Anatolia, Syria and Mesopotamia. He is the author of Cities and the Shaping of Memory in the Ancient Near East (2013) and Place, Memory and Healing: An Archaeology of Anatolian Rock Monuments (2015). Chiara Salvador is reading for a doctorate in Egyptology at the University of Oxford, UK. Her research treats a corpus of hieratic, hieroglyphic and figural graffiti from the temple complex of Karnak, in modern Luxor with the support of the Centre Franco-Égyptien d'ÉtuTrade ReviewThis volume highlights the enormous value of using ancient graffiti to understand the ancient environment, social interactions, and, ultimately, the human experience. * American Journal of Archaeology *Though historical specificities and differences are made clear in the essays, a shared quality does emerge over this collection. Various approaches are tapped to explain this, most compellingly the idea of marginality discussed in Janine Rogers's "Graffiti and the Medieval Margin". * Times Literary Supplement *Fascinating ... All-in-all this is a nice book which provides a different way of thinking about graffiti. * Graffiti Review *This volume actualizes a unique meeting of different corpora of graffiti, treating graffiti making as a “practice” that is well-embedded in its immediate physical and socio-cultural context. * Bryn Mawr Classical Review *These fascinating local studies demonstrate the importance of graffiti as an archival resource and as a topic of rising conceptual significance. * Juliet Fleming, Professor of English, NYU, USA *Offers an excellent introduction to, and many astute observations on, the issues and methodologies involved in studying ancient (and modern) graffiti and is thus recommended to anyone working on this fascinating category of evidence. * Bulletin of the American Society of Papyrologists *Table of ContentsPreface (C. Ragazzoli, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, France) Introduction (C. Ragazzoli, O. Harmansah, C. Salvador) Part 1: Graffiti and the Landscape (with an introduction by O. Harmansah) Chapter 1: The Scribes’ Cave: Graffiti and the Production of Social Space in Ancient Egypt circa 1500 BC (C. Ragazzoli, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, France) Chapter 2: Christian Graffiti in Egypt: Case Studies on the Theban Mountain (A. Delattre, Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), École pratique des hautes études (EPHE), Belgium) Chapter 3: Graffiti or Monument? Inscription of Place at Anatolian Rock Reliefs (Ö. Harmansah, University of Illinois at Chicago, USA) Chapter 4: Tweets from Antiquity: Literacy, Graffiti, and Their Uses in the Towns and Deserts of Ancient Arabia (M. Macdonald, University of Oxford, UK) Chapter 5: Gezi Graffiti: Shout-Outs to Resistance and Rebellion in Contemporary Turkey (C. Gruber, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor) Part 2: Graffiti and the Wall (with an introduction by C. Salvador) Chapter 6: Gladiators, Greetings, and Poetry: Graffiti in First Century Pompeii (R. Benefiel, Washington and Lee University, USA) Chapter 7: A New Look at Maya Graffiti from Tikal (E. Olton, Institute of American Indian Arts, Santa Fe, New Mexico, USA) Chapter 8: Visitors' Inscriptions in the Memphite Pyramid Complexes in Ancient Egypt (c. 1543-1292 BC) (H. Navratilova, Metropolitan Museum of Art, Egyptian Expedition) Chapter 9: Carving Lines and Shaping Monuments: Mortuary Graffiti and Jews in the Ancient Mediterranean (K. Stern, Brooklyn College, USA) Part 3: Graffiti and the Written Page (with an introduction by C. Ragazzoli) Chapter 10: Verses on Walls in Medieval China (G. Dudbridge, University of Oxford, UK) Chapter 11: Graffiti and the Medieval Margin (J. Rogers, Mount Allison University, Canada) Chapter 12: Graffiti under Control: Annotation Practices in Social Book Platforms (M. Jahjah, Université de Paris-Sorbonne, France) Bibliography Index

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Book SynopsisGrounded in ethnographic and archival research on the Indonesian island of Bali, More Than Words challenges conventional understandings of textuality and writing as they pertain to the religious traditions of Southeast Asia. Through a nuanced study of Balinese script as employed in rites of healing, sorcery, and self-defense, Richard Fox explores the aims and desires embodied in the production and use of palm-leaf manuscripts, amulets, and other inscribed objects. Balinese often attribute both life and independent volition to manuscripts and copperplate inscriptions, presenting them with elaborate offerings. Commonly addressed with personal honorifics, these script-bearing objects may become partners with humans and other sentient beings in relations of exchange and mutual obligation. The question is how such practices of the living letter may be related to more recently emergent conceptions of writinglinked to academic philology, reform Hinduism, and local politicswhiTrade ReviewIn eight carefully focused and crafted chapters—each of which could stand alone—Fox explores the what, when, where, and why of writing on Bali. Fox more than delivers on his promise to add to an understanding of the local belief that the inscription itself is animated and as such venerated.... Fox more than surpasses his two stated goals: to make a "modest" contribution to the study of the Balinese system of beliefs, and to rethink human writing itself. This important work is a must for those interested in Asian religions and recommended for those interested in humanity's unique abilities. * Choice *Richard Fox has written the present book to elucidate what is going on in Bali and he has managed to do so in an attractive and readable way...The book is a breath of fresh air because of its admirable lucidity. It has been written in an accessible way and does not run away with theoretical language and thus does not alienate non-experts. This is crucial because it can now be read by non-specialists but also by specialists in other fields. It would be extremely useful if this book would be seen as an example of how indeed to study this kind of subject. -- Dick van der Meij, DREAMSEA * Archipel *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgements A Note on Orthography and Related Conventions 1. Manuscripts, Madness 2. Writing and the Idea of Ecology 3. The Meaning of Life, or How to Do Things with Letters 4. Practice and the Problem of Complexity 5. Maintaining a Houseyard as a Practice 6. Tradition as Argument 7. Translational Indeterminacy 8. Wagging the Dog Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisGrounded in ethnographic and archival research on the Indonesian island of Bali, More Than Words challenges conventional understandings of textuality and writing as they pertain to the religious traditions of Southeast Asia. Through a nuanced study of Balinese script as employed in rites of healing, sorcery, and self-defense, Richard Fox explores the aims and desires embodied in the production and use of palm-leaf manuscripts, amulets, and other inscribed objects. Balinese often attribute both life and independent volition to manuscripts and copperplate inscriptions, presenting them with elaborate offerings. Commonly addressed with personal honorifics, these script-bearing objects may become partners with humans and other sentient beings in relations of exchange and mutual obligation. The question is how such practices of the living letter may be related to more recently emergent conceptions of writinglinked to academic philology, reform Hinduism, and local politicswhiTrade ReviewIn eight carefully focused and crafted chapters—each of which could stand alone—Fox explores the what, when, where, and why of writing on Bali. Fox more than delivers on his promise to add to an understanding of the local belief that the inscription itself is animated and as such venerated.... Fox more than surpasses his two stated goals: to make a "modest" contribution to the study of the Balinese system of beliefs, and to rethink human writing itself. This important work is a must for those interested in Asian religions and recommended for those interested in humanity's unique abilities. * Choice *Richard Fox has written the present book to elucidate what is going on in Bali and he has managed to do so in an attractive and readable way...The book is a breath of fresh air because of its admirable lucidity. It has been written in an accessible way and does not run away with theoretical language and thus does not alienate non-experts. This is crucial because it can now be read by non-specialists but also by specialists in other fields. It would be extremely useful if this book would be seen as an example of how indeed to study this kind of subject. -- Dick van der Meij, DREAMSEA * Archipel *Table of ContentsList of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgements A Note on Orthography and Related Conventions 1. Manuscripts, Madness 2. Writing and the Idea of Ecology 3. The Meaning of Life, or How to Do Things with Letters 4. Practice and the Problem of Complexity 5. Maintaining a Houseyard as a Practice 6. Tradition as Argument 7. Translational Indeterminacy 8. Wagging the Dog Notes Works Cited Index

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Book SynopsisThe field of text technologies is a capacious analytical framework that focuses on all textual records throughout human history, from the earliest periods of traceable communication—perhaps as early as 60,000 BCE—to the present day. At its core, it examines the material history of communication: what constitutes a text, the purposes for which it is intended, how it functions, and the social ends that it serves. This coursebook can be used to support any pedagogical or research activities in text technologies, the history of the book, the history of information, and textually based work in the digital humanities. Through careful explanations of the field, examinations of terminology and themes, and illustrated case studies of diverse texts—from the Cyrus cylinder to the Eagles' "Hotel California"—Elaine Treharne and Claude Willan offer a clear yet nuanced overview of how humans convey meaning. Text Technologies will enable students and teachers to generate multiple lines of inquiry into how communication—its production, form and materiality, and reception—is crucial to any interpretation of culture, history, and society.Trade Review"Elaine Treharne and Claude Willan provide the big picture of the history of text—all the ways humans have recorded information from cave paintings to paper money and radar. Their work offers a rich conceptual framework and broad historical coverage to orient students and teachers amidst this fascinating landscape. Whether you are interested in theories that guide textual study, case studies about the Cyrus Cylinder or the Zoetrope, or questions of how technologies of inscription evolve, this clear and lucid book has ample material for a wide variety of curious readers."—Andrew Piper, McGill University"If there is one book to assign Humanities and Digital Humanities students that provides a wide range of knowledge about text technologies, it is this one. It introduces principal concepts along with ample historical examples, five diverse case studies, and an explanation about the way in which particular text technologies have shifted over time."—Dene Grigar, Washington State University Vancouver"A lucid and stimulating introduction to the history of text technologies, ranging from cave paintings, clay tablets, and Japanese tsunami memorials to films, mp3s, and iPads. Packed with thought-provoking examples and discussion, this book will engage a wide range of students, encouraging them to explore how the complex interplay between creativity, communication, and technology shapes global cultures."—Andrew Prescott, University of Glasgow

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Book SynopsisThe field of text technologies is a capacious analytical framework that focuses on all textual records throughout human history, from the earliest periods of traceable communication—perhaps as early as 60,000 BCE—to the present day. At its core, it examines the material history of communication: what constitutes a text, the purposes for which it is intended, how it functions, and the social ends that it serves. This coursebook can be used to support any pedagogical or research activities in text technologies, the history of the book, the history of information, and textually based work in the digital humanities. Through careful explanations of the field, examinations of terminology and themes, and illustrated case studies of diverse texts—from the Cyrus cylinder to the Eagles' "Hotel California"—Elaine Treharne and Claude Willan offer a clear yet nuanced overview of how humans convey meaning. Text Technologies will enable students and teachers to generate multiple lines of inquiry into how communication—its production, form and materiality, and reception—is crucial to any interpretation of culture, history, and society.Trade Review"Elaine Treharne and Claude Willan provide the big picture of the history of text—all the ways humans have recorded information from cave paintings to paper money and radar. Their work offers a rich conceptual framework and broad historical coverage to orient students and teachers amidst this fascinating landscape. Whether you are interested in theories that guide textual study, case studies about the Cyrus Cylinder or the Zoetrope, or questions of how technologies of inscription evolve, this clear and lucid book has ample material for a wide variety of curious readers."—Andrew Piper, McGill University"If there is one book to assign Humanities and Digital Humanities students that provides a wide range of knowledge about text technologies, it is this one. It introduces principal concepts along with ample historical examples, five diverse case studies, and an explanation about the way in which particular text technologies have shifted over time."—Dene Grigar, Washington State University Vancouver"A lucid and stimulating introduction to the history of text technologies, ranging from cave paintings, clay tablets, and Japanese tsunami memorials to films, mp3s, and iPads. Packed with thought-provoking examples and discussion, this book will engage a wide range of students, encouraging them to explore how the complex interplay between creativity, communication, and technology shapes global cultures."—Andrew Prescott, University of Glasgow

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Book SynopsisMedieval books that survive today have been through a lot: singed by fire, mottled by mold, eaten by insects, annotated by readers, cut into fragments, or damaged through well-intentioned preservation efforts. In this book, Michelle Warren tells the story of one such manuscript—an Arthurian romance with textual origins in twelfth-century England now diffused across the twenty-first century internet. This trajectory has been propelled by a succession of technologies—from paper manufacture to printing to computers. Together, they have made literary history itself a cultural technology indebted to colonial capitalism. Bringing to bear media theory, medieval literary studies, and book history, Warren shows how digital infrastructures change texts and books, even very old ones. In the process, she uncovers a practice of "tech medievalism" that weaves through the history of computing since the mid-twentieth century; metaphors indebted to King Arthur and the Holy Grail are integral to some of the technologies that now sustain medieval books on the internet. This infrastructural approach to book history illuminates how the meaning of literature is made by many people besides canonical authors: translators, scribes, patrons, readers, collectors, librarians, cataloguers, editors, photographers, software programmers, and many more. Situated at the intersections of the digital humanities, library sciences, literary history, and book history, Holy Digital Grail offers new ways to conceptualize authorship, canon formation, and the definition of a "book."Trade Review"Deeply learned, self-reflective and ethical, and a really good read, Holy Digital Grail represents a lifetime's worth of thinking deeply."—Siân Echard, University of British Columbia"Book history built around the precarious adventures of a single—and singularly embattled—Arthurian manuscript. Michelle Warren is among the most original, creative, and technologically alert medieval scholars of our time."—Paul Strohm, Columbia University"This is the kind of book history scholarship we need in the twenty-first century: connective, imaginative, and unafraid to follow the histories of books wherever they lead. Michelle Warren's fascinating account of a single manuscript and its many afterlives connects our digital present and the medieval past with insight and verve, deftly combining the study of manuscripts, digitization, and media history in a remarkable synthesis."—Alan Galey, University of Toronto"Warren's book is praiseworthy not just for her knowledge about MS 80, but also for her detailed understanding of the work involved in creating digital editions and the clarity with which she explains (what may be) unfamiliar technical terminology and processes to the reader. Warren's focus on the paratextual features of the manuscript, along with the attention she pays to processes of editing, collating, and preservation, make a thoughtful contribution to publishing studies in highlighting much of the unseen (and frequently unacknowledged) work that shapes audience interactions with medieval manuscripts."—Martha Claire Baldon, The Medieval Review"Warren's personal approach presents a tangible expression of how new digital platforms have allowed and even prompted new avenues in manuscript studies."—C. E. M. Henderson, Modern Philology"As with the search for the Holy Grail, the goal is not always entirely tangible, but the journey itself is very enlightening—and, in this case, also entertaining.... [Holy Digital Grail] is about much more than merely tracing the history of the records of one manuscript. The book addresses key questions about interactions between digital infrastructure and book history as well as the making and remaking of books. Ultimately, one could also see behind this a reflection of research data in the humanities, which results from the source, its digitization, and the multilayered enrichment over time."—Luise Borek, H-Sci-Med-Tech"Holy Digital Grail is a carefully constructed and refreshing account of the history of a medieval book, from the origins of its text to its digital existence. Warren's interdisciplinary and reflective approach allows her to successfully disentangle the intricate connections between text, matter, technology, politics, and people."—Renske Annelize Hoff, Jarbuch für KommunikationsgeschichteTable of ContentsIntroduction: Medieval Literature in the Digital Dark Ages 1. Translating Arthur: Books, Texts, Machines 2. Performing Community: Merchants, Chivalry, Data 3. Marking Manuscripts: Makers, Users, Coders 4. Cataloguing Libraries: History, Romance, Website 5. Editing Romance: Poetry, Print, Platform 6. Reproducing Books: Binding, Microfilm, Digital Conclusion: Indexing the Grail, Romancing the Internet

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Book SynopsisMedieval books that survive today have been through a lot: singed by fire, mottled by mold, eaten by insects, annotated by readers, cut into fragments, or damaged through well-intentioned preservation efforts. In this book, Michelle Warren tells the story of one such manuscript—an Arthurian romance with textual origins in twelfth-century England now diffused across the twenty-first century internet. This trajectory has been propelled by a succession of technologies—from paper manufacture to printing to computers. Together, they have made literary history itself a cultural technology indebted to colonial capitalism. Bringing to bear media theory, medieval literary studies, and book history, Warren shows how digital infrastructures change texts and books, even very old ones. In the process, she uncovers a practice of "tech medievalism" that weaves through the history of computing since the mid-twentieth century; metaphors indebted to King Arthur and the Holy Grail are integral to some of the technologies that now sustain medieval books on the internet. This infrastructural approach to book history illuminates how the meaning of literature is made by many people besides canonical authors: translators, scribes, patrons, readers, collectors, librarians, cataloguers, editors, photographers, software programmers, and many more. Situated at the intersections of the digital humanities, library sciences, literary history, and book history, Holy Digital Grail offers new ways to conceptualize authorship, canon formation, and the definition of a "book."Trade Review"Deeply learned, self-reflective and ethical, and a really good read, Holy Digital Grail represents a lifetime's worth of thinking deeply."—Siân Echard, University of British Columbia"Book history built around the precarious adventures of a single—and singularly embattled—Arthurian manuscript. Michelle Warren is among the most original, creative, and technologically alert medieval scholars of our time."—Paul Strohm, Columbia University"This is the kind of book history scholarship we need in the twenty-first century: connective, imaginative, and unafraid to follow the histories of books wherever they lead. Michelle Warren's fascinating account of a single manuscript and its many afterlives connects our digital present and the medieval past with insight and verve, deftly combining the study of manuscripts, digitization, and media history in a remarkable synthesis."—Alan Galey, University of Toronto"Warren's book is praiseworthy not just for her knowledge about MS 80, but also for her detailed understanding of the work involved in creating digital editions and the clarity with which she explains (what may be) unfamiliar technical terminology and processes to the reader. Warren's focus on the paratextual features of the manuscript, along with the attention she pays to processes of editing, collating, and preservation, make a thoughtful contribution to publishing studies in highlighting much of the unseen (and frequently unacknowledged) work that shapes audience interactions with medieval manuscripts."—Martha Claire Baldon, The Medieval Review"Warren's personal approach presents a tangible expression of how new digital platforms have allowed and even prompted new avenues in manuscript studies."—C. E. M. Henderson, Modern Philology"As with the search for the Holy Grail, the goal is not always entirely tangible, but the journey itself is very enlightening—and, in this case, also entertaining.... [Holy Digital Grail] is about much more than merely tracing the history of the records of one manuscript. The book addresses key questions about interactions between digital infrastructure and book history as well as the making and remaking of books. Ultimately, one could also see behind this a reflection of research data in the humanities, which results from the source, its digitization, and the multilayered enrichment over time."—Luise Borek, H-Sci-Med-Tech"Holy Digital Grail is a carefully constructed and refreshing account of the history of a medieval book, from the origins of its text to its digital existence. Warren's interdisciplinary and reflective approach allows her to successfully disentangle the intricate connections between text, matter, technology, politics, and people."—Renske Annelize Hoff, Jarbuch für KommunikationsgeschichteTable of ContentsIntroduction: Medieval Literature in the Digital Dark Ages 1. Translating Arthur: Books, Texts, Machines 2. Performing Community: Merchants, Chivalry, Data 3. Marking Manuscripts: Makers, Users, Coders 4. Cataloguing Libraries: History, Romance, Website 5. Editing Romance: Poetry, Print, Platform 6. Reproducing Books: Binding, Microfilm, Digital Conclusion: Indexing the Grail, Romancing the Internet

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Book Synopsis'Marvellous . . . I read it with astonished delight . . . It is equally scholarly and entertaining.' - Jan Morris 'Quirky and compelling.' - The Times Once we've learned it as children, few of us think much of the alphabet and its familiar sing-song order. And yet the order of the alphabet, that simple knowledge that we take for granted, plays a major role in our adult lives. From the school register to the telephone book, from dictionaries and encyclopaedias to library shelves, our lives are ordered from A to Z. Long before Google searches, this magical system of organization gave us the ability to sift through centuries of thought, knowledge and literature, allowing us to sort, to file, and to find the information we have, and to locate the information we need. In A Place for Everything, acclaimed historian Judith Flanders draws our attention to both the neglected ubiquity of the alphabet and the long, complex history of its rise to prominence. For, while the order of the alphabet itself became fixed very soon after letters were first invented, their ability to sort and store and organize proved far less obvious. To many of our forebears, the idea of of organizing things by the random chance of the alphabet rather than by established systems of hierarchy or typology lay somewhere between unthinkable and disrespectful.A Place for Everything fascinatingly lays out the gradual triumph of alphabetical order, from its possible earliest days as a sorting tool in the Great Library of Alexandria in the third century BCE, to its current decline in prominence in our digital age of Wikipedia and Google. Along the way, the reader is enlightened and entertained with a wonderful cast of unknown facts, characters and stories from the great collector Robert Cotton, who denominated his manuscripts with the names of the busts of the Roman emperors surmounting his book cases, to the unassuming sixteenth- century London bookseller who ushered in a revolution by listing his authors by 'sirname' first.Trade ReviewMarvellous . . . I read it with astonished delight . . . It is equally scholarly and entertaining. -- Jan MorrisQuirky and compelling . . . She is a meticulous historian with a taste for the offbeat; the story of the alphabet suits her well . . . Fascinating. -- Dan Jones * Sunday Times *A library and academic essential. -- Libby Purves * The Times *One of the many fascinations of Judith Flanders’s book is that it reveals what a weird, unlikely creation the alphabet is. -- Joe Moran * Guardian *Judith Flanders’s A Place for Everything presents itself as a history of alphabetical order, but in fact it is more than that. Rather, as the title suggests, it offers something like a general history of the various ways humans have sorted and filed the world around them – a Collison –level view of the matter, in which alphabetical order is just one system among many.’ -- Dennis Duncan * The Spectator *Judith Flanders has a knack for making odd subjects accessible . . . In A Place for Everything, the popular historian paints alphabetisation as one of our most radical acts. . . Flanders retains a sense of fun . . . finds contemporary resonance in humanity's search for order. * i *Praise for Judith Flanders' previous book, Christmas: A Biography: 'A catalogue of colourful information, and as surprising an assortment of items as any you might find heaped up under a tree.' -- Lucy Hughes-Hallett * Observer *A well-researched account. There are more footnotes here than there are presents under a Rockefeller Christmas tree. Indeed, the book is stuffed with facts – enough to satiate even the most ravenous postprandial taste for quizzing. * Sunday Times *[An] entertaining biography . . . Following the fine tradition of light entertainment Christmas books, Judith Flanders provides lots of trivia . . . However, there is much more to it than that. Flanders is a respected social historian, best known for studies on Victorian life, and the strength of this warm book lies in its quiet erudition. * The Times *Judith Flanders . . . likes Christmas (I think), but she loves reality and its awkward, amusing facts. (A previous book of hers, Inside the Victorian Home, is deep, bright and encompassing.) * New York Times *The non-fiction I most enjoyed . . . an excellent subject, carried out with exemplary care and authority. -- Philip Hensher * Spectator *

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Book SynopsisSwim through an ocean of facts and fun in Sharkabet, 2nd Edition, newly revised with updated facts and 9 brand new images that kids (and adults!) can sink their teeth into! Featuring Ray Troll''s spectacular art, Sharkabet, 2nd Edition takes you through the ABCs of different shark varieties, both living and extinct, sharing fascinating and bizarre facts along the way. Colorful, eye-popping images accompany the catchy factoids, making this book a swimmingly good read. So dive in and learn more about these cartilaginous creatures swimming all around the world!

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Book Synopsis'Punctuation is not only an important part of our language code; an advanced system of punctuation has been a driving force in our entire Western Civilisation. Nothing less.'With the invention of printing, reading books moved from being an act only performed by priests and aristocrats into an individual, even private, activity. This change helped spark the Renaissance, the Reformation, the Enlightenment and the Industrial Revolution - in which punctuation played a crucial role. As long as texts were read out loud only by an educated elite there was no need for punctuation to mark pauses, full stops or questions.So punctuation - the full stop, the comma, the exclamation mark, the question mark and the semicolon - helped shape modern-day Europe as we know it.

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Book SynopsisThe K-Effect shows how the roman alphabet has functioned as a standardizing global model for modern print culture. Investigating the history and ongoing effects of romanization, Christopher GoGwilt reads modernism in a global and comparative perspective, through the works of Joseph Conrad and others. The book explores the ambiguous effect of romanized transliteration both in the service of colonization and as an instrument of decolonization. This simultaneously standardizing and destabilizing effect is abbreviated in the way the letter K indexes changing hierarchies in the relation between languages and scripts. The book traces this K-effect through the linguistic work of transliteration and its aesthetic organization in transnational modernism. The book examines a variety of different cases of romanization: the historical shift from Arabic script to romanized print form in writing Malay; the politicization of language and script reforms across Russia and Central Europe; the role of Chinese debates about romanization in shaping global transformations in print media; and the place of romanization between ancient Sanskrit models of language and script and contemporary digital forms of coding. Each case study develops an analysis of Conrad’s fiction read in comparison with such other writers as James Joyce, Lu Xun, Franz Kafka, and Pramoedya Ananta Toer. The first sustained cultural study of romanization, The K-Effect proposes an important new way to assess the multi-lingual and multi-script coordinates of modern print culture.Table of ContentsIntroduction: Conrad’s “timely appearance in English” 1 The K-effect, 6 • Conrad’s “timely appearance in English,” 13 • The K-effect circa 1911, 21 • Overview of the Book, 25 1 The English Case of Romanization: From Conrad’s “blank space” to Joyce’s “iSpace” 31 Defining Romanization: The Oxford English Dictionary and Joseph Conrad, 32 • Conrad’s Accusative Case: Lord Jim and Nostromo, 51 • Joycean “iSpace” and the Conradian “blank space,” 59 2 The Russian Face of Romanization: The K in Conrad and Kafka 72 Language, Script, and Reform in the Russian Empire, 77 • Under Western Eyes, A Personal Record, and “Prince Roman,” 83 • Kafka and Conrad: The Character and Function of K in Central Europe, 102 3 The Chinese Character of Romanization: Conrad and Lu Xun 117 The Chinese Script Revolution and Romanization, 118 • Conrad’s Chinese Characters: Almayer’s Folly to Victory, 127 • Conrad and Lu Xun: The Interface of Chinese and Roman Characters, 144 4 Sanskritization, Romanization, Digitization 157 Sanskritization, 165 • Sanskritization and Romanization in the OED and in Pramoedya Ananta Toer, 174 • Digitization, 179 Acknowledgments 191 Notes 195 Bibliography 217 Index 227

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Book SynopsisWith this creative primer, little ones can learn about the alphabet and the Bible all at the same time! Just flip through the sturdy pages to discover letters from A to Z, all vibrantly illustrated with examples from the Bible. Children will develop familiarity with letters and with the people, places and things of the Bible as they read A is for Ark, J is for Jesus and more. With a padded cover and durable pages, ABCs in the Bible can withstand diaper bags, car seats and teething tots for years to come. Parents won't want to miss this dual-purpose primer that makes learning easy and enjoyable.

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Book SynopsisThe bestselling Larry Gets Lost series heads to Portland in this colorful ABC book featuring vibrant retro illustrations of this great American city and the perpetually lost pup, Larry.This modern, colorful alphabet book comes on the heels of the regional best-selling Larry Gets Lost in Portland. Larry and his friend Pete see Portland from A (Art Museum) to Z (Portland Zoo), and everything in between. H is for Hawthorne Bridge, P is for Powell’s Books, and W is for Willamette River—children can learn their ABCs and about their hometown! How many letters can you find around you?Trade Review"Portland ABC...will certainly bid for heavy rotation in Rose City Montessori classrooms and progressive playdates... The artist/writer's bold alphabetic take on Portland makes use of local icons like Voodoo Donuts and the Hawthorne Bridge." Portland Monthly "'Portland ABC' is a banner in book form to wave with PDX pride."The Register-Guard"Many of the things kids love about living in Portland are right there on the page, making this a very special little book for any young—or old, really!—Portlander. Seriously, who living in Portland wouldn’t want a beautifully illustrated book with the elephant statue in the North Park Blocks near Powell’s City of Books (that’s P) representing the letter E?" Portland Book Review

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Book SynopsisIntroduces readers to the concept of opposites through the pairing of near and far. Simple text, straightforward photos, and a photo glossary make this title the perfect primer on a common pair of opposites.

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Book SynopsisIntroduces readers to the concept of opposites through the pairing of wet and dry. Simple text, straightforward photos, and a photo glossary make this title the perfect primer on a common pair of opposites.

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Book SynopsisIntroduces readers to the concept of opposites through the pairing of near and far. Simple text, straightforward photos, and a photo glossary make this title the perfect primer on a common pair of opposites.

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Book SynopsisIntroduces readers to the concept of opposites through the pairing of wet and dry. Simple text, straightforward photos, and a photo glossary make this title the perfect primer on a common pair of opposites.

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Book SynopsisThe cultures of the world have chosen different ways to make spoken language visible and permanent. The original edition of Writing Systems represented the first time that modern linguistic principles were brought to bear on a study of this. Now this new edition brings the story up to date; it incorporates topics which have emerged since the first edition (such as electronic techniques for encoding the world's scripts), together with new findings about established topics, including the ultimate historical origin of our alphabet. Featuring a series of detailed case studies of scripts of diverse types, and giving due attention to the psychology of reading and learning to read, the book is written so as to be accessible to those with no prior knowledge of any writing systems other than our own.Trade ReviewPraise for the first edition This is a splendid book ... of outstanding interest to professional linguists and students of linguistics, and also to the large number of lay readers who are fascinated by facts about human language. British Book News A refreshing and rigorous contemporary scientific examination of writing ... Linguists on all fronts should welcome this. Choice An incredible tour de force, covering both Western and East Asian scripts, their historical development and their linguistic features. The treatment of Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts is particularly fascinating for a Western reader. ASI Newsletter I have found Sampson's book invaluable as a source of descriptive information ... it is written in a straightforward and approachable manner which makes it very engaging as general reading matter ... shows an acquaintance with recent psychological work that is seldom to be found in linguistic writing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology the best linguistic introduction to the study of writing systems now available. LanguageTable of Contents1. Introduction 2. Theoretical Preliminaries 3. The Earliest Writing 4. A Syllabic System: Linear B 5. Consonantal Writing 6. European Alphabetic Writing 7. Influences on Graph-shape Evolution 8. A Featural System: Korean Hangul 9. A Logographic System: Chinese Writing 10. Pros and Cons of Logography 11. A Mixed System: Japanese Writing 12. Writing Systems and Information Technology 13. English Spelling 14. Conclusion

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Book SynopsisThe cultures of the world have chosen different ways to make spoken language visible and permanent. The original edition of Writing Systems represented the first time that modern linguistic principles were brought to bear on a study of this. Now this new edition brings the story up to date; it incorporates topics which have emerged since the first edition (such as electronic techniques for encoding the world's scripts), together with new findings about established topics, including the ultimate historical origin of our alphabet. Featuring a series of detailed case studies of scripts of diverse types, and giving due attention to the psychology of reading and learning to read, the book is written so as to be accessible to those with no prior knowledge of any writing systems other than our own.Trade ReviewPraise for the first edition This is a splendid book ... of outstanding interest to professional linguists and students of linguistics, and also to the large number of lay readers who are fascinated by facts about human language. British Book News A refreshing and rigorous contemporary scientific examination of writing ... Linguists on all fronts should welcome this. Choice An incredible tour de force, covering both Western and East Asian scripts, their historical development and their linguistic features. The treatment of Chinese, Japanese and Korean scripts is particularly fascinating for a Western reader. ASI Newsletter I have found Sampson's book invaluable as a source of descriptive information ... it is written in a straightforward and approachable manner which makes it very engaging as general reading matter ... shows an acquaintance with recent psychological work that is seldom to be found in linguistic writing. Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology the best linguistic introduction to the study of writing systems now available. LanguageTable of Contents1. Introduction 2. Theoretical Preliminaries 3. The Earliest Writing 4. A Syllabic System: Linear B 5. Consonantal Writing 6. European Alphabetic Writing 7. Influences on Graph-shape Evolution 8. A Featural System: Korean Hangul 9. A Logographic System: Chinese Writing 10. Pros and Cons of Logography 11. A Mixed System: Japanese Writing 12. Writing Systems and Information Technology 13. English Spelling 14. Conclusion

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Book SynopsisAn Exploration of Writing is a book about our alphabets, our syllabaries, and all the other kinds of writing that people use and have used for 5000 years. It introduces the general public to a topic that hardly anyone has heard about, so it clarifies basic linguistic terms as they occur. For linguists exploring the growing field of graphonomy-the study of writing systems-in which the author has long been a pioneer, it weaves together the many threads of theory into a tapestry showing a fuller picture of what all our scripts are seen to share. An Exploration of Writing begins with more familiar kinds of writing considered in unfamiliar ways-starting with English viewed syllabically--and leads the reader across the Old World and the New to less familiar kinds of writing, showing how all writings share a fundamental essence, however diverse they appear to be, because all writing represents language. The more familiar (Hebrew, Chinese, Korean) leads on to the less familiar (Udi, Pahlavi, Javanese). Featured are some of the world's most recently elucidated scripts, and some that are long known but long neglected, such as those for Central Asian languages, and some of the most recent interpretations of long-mysterious scripts, such as Sumerian and Mesoamerican. An Exploration of Writing is in the tradition of and in part a response to A Study of Writing (1952/1963), by I. J. Gelb. It encapsulates more than thirty years of the author's work and his dozens of articles on writing systems, ranging from investigating the physical process of writing to bringing to light the achievements of those who had deciphered forgotten scripts to developing a theoretical approach to the origins of writing which leads to insights into the nature of writing itself.Trade Review"Peter Daniels has thought more and more deeply about writing than anyone else around. This very engaging book reflects both. It incorporates the taxonomy of types of writing systems that he pioneered and is organized very nicely around the various ways in which a writing system reflects its (spoken) language. The book presupposes little linguistic knowledge and is clearly written." Professor Mark Aronoff, Stony Brook University "No student of linguistics, nor educator, psychologist, or social scientist concerned with literacy, can afford to remain ignorant of the fundamentals of writing systems. It is a great honor to commend to the reader a work of such exceptional scholarship." Professor David L. Share, University of Haifa (from the Foreword)Table of ContentsForeword David L. Share, University of HaifaIntroduction1. Syllables and Syllabaries2. Segments and Alphabets3. Consonants and Abjads4. Moras and Kana5. Clusters and Abugidas6. Morphemes and Morphograms7. Words and Heterograms8. Hybrids and Innovations9. Recoveries and Decipherments10. Pictograms and Mysteries11. Origins and Characteristics12. Graphonomy and Linguistics

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Book SynopsisAn Exploration of Writing is a book about our alphabets, our syllabaries, and all the other kinds of writing that people use and have used for 5000 years. It introduces the general public to a topic that hardly anyone has heard about, so it clarifies basic linguistic terms as they occur. For linguists exploring the growing field of graphonomy-the study of writing systems-in which the author has long been a pioneer, it weaves together the many threads of theory into a tapestry showing a fuller picture of what all our scripts are seen to share. An Exploration of Writing begins with more familiar kinds of writing considered in unfamiliar ways-starting with English viewed syllabically--and leads the reader across the Old World and the New to less familiar kinds of writing, showing how all writings share a fundamental essence, however diverse they appear to be, because all writing represents language. The more familiar (Hebrew, Chinese, Korean) leads on to the less familiar (Udi, Pahlavi, Javanese). Featured are some of the world's most recently elucidated scripts, and some that are long known but long neglected, such as those for Central Asian languages, and some of the most recent interpretations of long-mysterious scripts, such as Sumerian and Mesoamerican. An Exploration of Writing is in the tradition of and in part a response to A Study of Writing (1952/1963), by I. J. Gelb. It encapsulates more than thirty years of the author's work and his dozens of articles on writing systems, ranging from investigating the physical process of writing to bringing to light the achievements of those who had deciphered forgotten scripts to developing a theoretical approach to the origins of writing which leads to insights into the nature of writing itself.Trade Review"Peter Daniels has thought more and more deeply about writing than anyone else around. This very engaging book reflects both. It incorporates the taxonomy of types of writing systems that he pioneered and is organized very nicely around the various ways in which a writing system reflects its (spoken) language. The book presupposes little linguistic knowledge and is clearly written." Professor Mark Aronoff, Stony Brook University "No student of linguistics, nor educator, psychologist, or social scientist concerned with literacy, can afford to remain ignorant of the fundamentals of writing systems. It is a great honor to commend to the reader a work of such exceptional scholarship." Professor David L. Share, University of Haifa (from the Foreword)Table of ContentsForeword David L. Share, University of HaifaIntroduction1. Syllables and Syllabaries2. Segments and Alphabets3. Consonants and Abjads4. Moras and Kana5. Clusters and Abugidas6. Morphemes and Morphograms7. Words and Heterograms8. Hybrids and Innovations9. Recoveries and Decipherments10. Pictograms and Mysteries11. Origins and Characteristics12. Graphonomy and Linguistics

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Book SynopsisWriting is not just a set of systems for transcribing language and communicating meaning, but an important element of human practice, deeply embedded in the cultures where it is present and fundamentally interconnected with all other aspects of human life. The Social and Cultural Contexts of Historic Writing Practices explores these relationships in a number of different cultural contexts and from a range of disciplinary perspectives, including archaeological, anthropological and linguistic. It offers new ways of approaching the study of writing and integrating it into wider debates and discussions about culture, history and archaeology.Table of ContentsList of contributors Acknowledgements Abbreviations 1. Introduction: writing practices in socio-cultural context Philip J. Boyes, Philippa M. Steele and Natalia Elvira Astoreca 2. Towards a social archaeology of writing practices Philip J. Boyes 3. The lives of inscribed commemorative objects: the transformation of private personal memory in Mesopotamian temple contexts Nancy Highcock 4. A cognitive archaeology of writing: concepts, models, goals Karenleigh A. Overmann 5. The materiality of the Cretan Hieroglyphic script: textile production-related referents to hieroglyphic signs on seals and sealings from Middle Bronze Age Crete Marie-Louise Nosch and Agata Ulanowska 6. Visual dimensions of Maya hieroglyphic writing: meanings beyond the surface Christian M. Prager 7. Visibility of runic writing and its relation to Viking Age Society Sophie Heier 8. Words beyond writings: how to decrypt the secret writings of the masters of psalmody (Yunnan, China)? Aurélie NévotContents 9. A script ‘good to drink’. The invention of writing systems among the Sora and other tribes of India Cécile Guillaume-Pey 10. Why did people in medieval Java use so many different script variants? A.J. West 11. Cultures of writing: rethinking the ‘spread’ and ‘development’ of writing systems in the Bronze Age Mediterranean Theodore Nash 12. Script, image and culture in the Maya world: a southeastern perspective Kathryn M. Hudson and John S. Henderson 13. Writing and elite status in the Bronze Age Aegean Sarah Finlayson 14. Why με? Personhood and agency in the earliest Greek inscriptions (800–550 BCE) James Whitley 15. Names and authorship in the beginnings of Greek alphabetic writing Natalia Elvira Astoreca 16. Marking identity through graphemes? A new look at the Sikel arrow-shaped alpha Olga Tribulato and Valentina Mignosa Bibliography

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Book SynopsisThis volume, with origins in a panel at the 2018 Celtic Conference in Classics, presents creative new approaches to epigraphic material, in an attempt to 'shake up' how we deal with inscriptions. Broad themes include the embodied experience of epigraphy, the unique capacities of epigraphic language as a genre, the visuality of inscriptions and the interplay of inscriptions with literary texts. Although each chapter focuses on specific objects and epigraphic landscapes, ranging from Republican Rome to early modern Scotland, the emphasis here is on using these case studies not as an end in themselves, but as a means of exploring broader methodological and theoretical issues to do with how we use inscriptions as evidence, both for the Greco-Roman world and for other time periods.Drawing on conversations from fields such as archaeology and anthropology, philology, art history, linguistics and history, contributors also seek to push the boundaries of epigraphy as a discipline and to demonstrate the analytical fruits of interdisciplinary approaches to inscribed material. Methodologies such as phenomenology, translingualism, intertextuality and critical fabulation are deployed to offer new perspectives on the social functions of inscriptions as texts and objects and to open up new horizons for the use of inscriptions as evidence for past societies.Trade Review[T]his volume presents creative new approaches to epigraphic material in an attempt to “shake up” how we deal with inscriptions. * New Testament Abstracts *Table of ContentsList of figures List of abbreviations Editor’s acknowledgments 1. Introduction: Thoughts on the nature of inscriptions Eleri H. Cousins 2. Towards a theoretical model of the epigraphic landscape Kelsey Jackson Williams 3. Materializing epigraphy: Archaeological and sociolinguistic approaches to Roman inscribed spindle whorls Alex Mullen 4. Written to be (un)read, written to be seen: Beyond Latin codes in Latin epigraphy M. Cristina de la Escosura Balbás, Elena Duce Pastor and David Serrano Lozano 5. Epigraphic strategies of communication: The visual accusative of Roman Republican dedications of spoils Fabio Luci 6. Inscribing the artistic space: Blurred boundaries on Romano-British tombstones Hanneke Salisbury 7. When poetry comes to its senses: Inscribed Roman verse and the human sensorium Chiara Cenati, Victoria González Berdús and Peter Kruschwitz 8. Lassi viatores: Poetic consumption between Martial’s Epigrams and the Carmina Latina Epigraphica Alessandra Tafaro 9. Epigraphy and critical fabulation: Imagining narratives of Greco-Roman sexual slavery Deborah Kamen and Sarah Levin-Richardson

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Book SynopsisWriting in the ancient Mediterranean existed against a backdrop of very high levels of interaction and contact. In the societies around its shores, writing was a dynamic practice that could serve many purposes – from a tool used by elites to control resources and establish their power bases to a symbol of local identity and a means of conveying complex information and ideas.This volume brings together contributions by members of the Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) research team and visiting fellows, offering a range of different perspectives and approaches to problems of writing in the ancient Mediterranean. Their focus is on practices, viewing writing as something that people do within a wider social and cultural context, and on adaptations, considering the ways in which writing changed and was changed by the people using it.Trade Review[T]his volume, as a contribution to the research output of the CREWS project, encapsulates how the research of the CREWS core team and wider family has revolved around questions of the contexts and relatedness of writing systems and traditions * New Testament Abstracts *Table of ContentsApproaches to writing in the ancient Mediterranean and Near East Philippa M. Steele Relations between script, writing material and layout: the case of the Anatolian Hieroglyphs Willemijn Waal Word division in Sicilian inscriptions Robert Crellin What is an Alphabet good for? Csaba La’da Measuring particularity and similarity in archaic Greek alphabets with NLP Natalia Elvira Astoreca Borrowing, invention, remodelling: Observations on the rare letters of the Phrygian alphabet and the problem of formation of Anatolian alphabets Rostislav Oreshko Cypro-Minoan and its potmarks and vessel inscriptions as challenges to Aegean Scripts corpora Cassandra Donnelly Ductus in Cypro-Minoan writing. Definition, purpose and distribution of stroke types Martina Polig The introduction of the Greek alphabet in Cyprus, a case study in material culture Beatrice Pestarino The death of alphabets at the end of the Bronze Age. How does the Deir ‘Alla alphabet fit the picture? Michel de Vreeze Early Egyptian writing from the perspective of the embodied practitioner Kathryn Piquette The magic of writing Philip J. Boyes

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Book SynopsisWriting does not begin and end with the encoding of an idea into a group of symbols. It is practised by people who have learnt its principles and acquired the tools and skills for doing it, in a particular context that affects what they do and how they do it. Nor are these practices static, as those involved exploit opportunities to adapt old features and develop new ones. The act of writing then has tangible and visible consequences not only for the writers but also for those encountering what has been produced, whether they can read its content or not – with potential for a wider social visibility that can in turn affect the success and longevity of the writing system itself.With a focus on the syllabic systems of the Bronze Age Aegean, this book attempts to bring together different perspectives to create an innovative interdisciplinary outlook on what is involved in writing: from structuralist views of writing as systems of signs with their linguistic values, to archaeological and anthropological approaches to writing as a socially grounded practice. The main chapters focus on the concepts of script adoption and adaptation; different methods of logographic writing; and the vitality of writing traditions, with repercussions for the modern world.Contexts of and Relations between Early Writing Systems (CREWS) is a project funded by the European Research Council under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No. 677758), and based in the Faculty of Classics, University of Cambridge.Table of ContentsAcknowledgements List of Tables and Figures Introduction Cretan Hieroglyphic, Linear A and Linear B (and their Cypriot cousins) Chronology Theoretical perspectives and terminology 1: Exploring script adoption How do we know that Linear B adopted Linear A syllabographic sign values with little change? Can we use Linear B sign values or structural features to reconstruct Minoan phonology or other linguistic features? How should we understand the nature of the transition from Linear A to B? 2: Exploring logography Classifying signs in writing systems Linear B Linear A Cretan Hieroglyphic Understanding logography in the Bronze Age Aegean 3: Exploring vitality Cretan Hieroglyphic Linear A Linear B Syllabic writing in Cyprus Relationships between writing and language vitality The vitality of writing traditions Epilogue: writing for the future Bibliography

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Book Synopsis

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