"Writing is one of the most significant technological advancements of human history and has enabled every development of human society. Writing allows people to communicate across vast distances and to protect against the loss of knowledge across generations, and ultimately the use of writing has changed the way we conceptualize speech and language and shapes our use of spoken language. The Writing Revolution, Second Edition, is an interdisciplinary examination of the history and development of writing across generations of human civilization, from the ancient world to the present day. Bringing together examinations based in linguistics, history, culture studies, and technology studies, this valuable text offers readers an analysis of the greater significance of writing for human history through a geographically organized consideration of some of the major writing systems of history, beginning with cuneiform and ending with binary. Readers will learn the different reasons different scripts came to be andthe various ways that spoken languages relate to their written forms. Readers will also come to understand how writing has enabled a modern technological revolution, allowing communication from human to machine and between machines. The new edition will be updated to account for new research that has emerged since 2008 and to renew and replace figures throughout the text, where advancements in documentation and script research have provided more reliable reproductions of historical script. In the new edition, the 'Alphabet Meets Machine' chapter will also be divided into two chapters, offering more space to chart the modern progression of scripts and writing from typewriters to emojis"--
An exploration of the original Information Technology – the writing systems of history
The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet explores the origins, historical development, adaptations, linguistic properties, cultural context, and social impact of one of humankind's greatest inventions: writing systems.Now in its second edition, this popular book traces the history of writing from the earliest proto-cuneiform tablet to the latest AI-generated text. Author Amalia E. Gnanadesikan offers an engaging, highly readable narrative account of how different writing systems originated, how they evolved over time, and how they have represented languages around the world.
Concise, easy-to-digest chapters cover each of the world's major written traditionsacross time and space, including Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese characters, Bronze-Age Linear B, New World writing systems, the Roman alphabet, and many others. Updated throughout, The Writing Revolution features new and expanded coverage of the Digital Age, including Unicode, the World Wide Web, emojis, generative AI, and more.
Investigating how the creation of writing made the modern world possible, The Writing Revolution:
- Covers the world’s major writing systems as well as a selection of lesser-known scripts
- Discusses papyrus, paper, the printing press, digital writing, and other associated technologies
- Features engaging examples throughout, including Egyptian funerary texts, Maya calendars, Arabic calligraphy, Morse code, and modern text messaging
- Interweaves ideas from cultural studies, archaeology, linguistics, literature, anthropology, and information science
The Writing Revolution is a must-read for students of writing systems, linguistics, information science, and intellectual history, as well as general readers with an interest in the history of written language.
List of Illustrations vii
Preface xi
1 The First IT Revolution 1
2 Cuneiform: Forgotten Legacy of a Forgotten People 17
3 Egyptian Hieroglyphs and the Quest for Eternity 39
4 Chinese: A Love of Paperwork 63
5 Maya Glyphs: Calendars and Kings 89
6 Linear B: The Clerks of Agamemnon 107
7 Japanese: Three Scripts Are Better than One 127
8 Cherokee: Sequoyah Reverse- Engineers 149
9 The Semitic lep- Bt: Egypt to Manchuria in 3,500 Years 163
10 The Empire of Sanskrit 191
11 King Sejongs One- Man Renaissance 215
12 Greek Serendipity 233
13 The Age of Latin 255
14 The Alphabet Meets the Machine 277
15 Writing Goes to Bits 299
Appendix: Figures A.1A.9 321
Further Reading 331
Index 361
AMALIA E. GNANADESIKAN served as the Technical Director for Language Analysis at the University of Maryland Center for Advanced Study of Language. Now retired, she has taught writing, linguistics, and writing systems at the University of Maryland, West Chester University, and Rutgers University. Her linguistics publications include works in writing systems, phonology, and language description. She is the author of Dhivehi: The Language of the Maldives.
