EOTO: On Language as a Tool

               First, is it fair to label writing script as a technology? One might argue that the tools we use(d) to write are the actual technology. Quill and ink, pencil, computer, brushes, and even styli used by the ancient Sumerians. But think of it like this: Technology is the tool that we use to convey information. Be it a story, political statements, how to perform a surgery, etc. And writing has many variations in the kinds of scripts we use. Allow me to elaborate. I will be skipping over Cuneiform and Hieroglyphics to get into the more interesting systems.

               First, we’ll start off with Abjads. An abjad is a writing system that only represents consonants in the script. Vowels are therefore inferred by the reader. Interestingly enough, the most common and famous use of abjad is the Arabic script. There are also things called “Impure abjads” where diacritic marks (small symbols near a consonant) help imply the vowel. So many modern abjads today, including Arabic, Hebrew, etc. include these diacritic marks (I will touch on this again soon). Although Arabic is the most famous, one of the most unknown to many people is the Phoenician abjad (Phoenician gives us the word “phonetics” when talking about sound). The Phoenicians spread their idea of an abjad writing system to the Greeks which gave us the “Alphabet.”

               The Alphabet comes from the first two characters in the Greek alphabet, “Alpha” and “Beta,” although really it would’ve been pronounced Alphaveeta. It is semi-debated by those who study linguistics how Greeks properly pronounced their words. There are many theories, but there is an idea called betacism wherein language, the /b/ sound can change and or will be confused for a /v/ sound. This is because both these sounds are pronounced in nearly the same place in the mouth. But the Greek alpha-vet became so influential that the Romans adopted it (and of course made changes) in Latin, as well as the Cyrillic script used by Russia and other Slavic countries.

               The Abugida is a writing system that represents every consonant-vowel-paring. Sounds like /bi/ or /mai/ are represented with a base glyph, being the consonant’s symbol, and connected somewhere to the glyph is a diacritic mark for the vowel sound. The most famous abugida we know about is Devanagari, the alphabet used in the Hindi language. This comes from Sanskrit, the language of ancient India, where the script was adapted over time and became widespread. Most of us are familiar with the symbol /Om/ spelled like ॐ. This is known as a sacred symbol in Indian religions which stands for ultimate consciousness basically.

               Syllabaries are like abugidas in some sense that they represent consonants and vowels, but the main difference being: In an abugida, if there is a sound starting with /b/, then the base glyph for /b/ will be used and the diacritic will be marked around or onto it in every CV pairing. As for a syllabary, even if two sounds start with a /b/ but have a different vowel after the consonant, these vowels are bound to be quite different. Think of Japanese for example.

               Lastly, Logographies. This system has a separate symbol for every grammatical word in a sentence. These can become very intricate and detailed when written. The most famous use is Chinese. Another example is the Aztec and Mayan writing systems which were famous for being rounded and blocky.

 

In this video, by Artifexian he goes over the many different styles of writing systems used in history. He also goes more into the aesthetic of the characters including the medium in which writing was used, languages that use these writing systems, and even presents ideas for how a fictional language could formulate a realistic writing system.