140th post ,

Hayy guys , sian lo so post something , juz wna let you all see wat am i printing nw :) .


The field of study that deals with writing in the broadest sense is called grammatology. Equally appropriate terms for this subject are grammatonomy and graphonomy.
Grammatology
Three main approaches

Three main approaches to grammatology can be distinguished: descriptive-historical, typological-structural, and formal.
Descriptive-historical

The traditional descriptive-historical approach to the study of writing is by far the most common. This is a simple narrative approach to the description of writing in its historical evolution. The apparent shortcoming of descriptive-historical texts is the general lack of systematic typology—that is, systematic classification by type. Good studies on individual writings, such as hieroglyphic Egyptian and the Greek alphabet, are not wanting. What is entirely missing is theoretical and comparative evaluation of the various types of writing, such as discussions of various types of syllabaries, alphabets, word signs, and logo-syllabic writings.

The historical approach is further vitiated through confusion with considerations of a geographic nature, as evidenced by such chapter titles as “Asiatic Writings” and “American Writings,” or “Writings of Asia” and “Writings of America,” which are frequently found in the standard manuals on writing.
Typological-structural

The typological-structural approach is based on the realization of the importance of structure and typology in the study of writing. In contrast to the traditional approach, according to which the writings of the world are described in their evolutionary progress, the new approach requires first a thorough analysis of the structure of the individual writing systems and then their classification by type within the framework of writing in general.

Under “structure” is meant here primarily what is sometimes called the “inner structure,” which is concerned with the function of a writing system, in contrast to the “outer structure,” which involves its formal characteristics. Considerations of function are based on such points as word writing (logography), syllable writing (syllabography), and letter writing (alphabetography), and the typology of logographic, syllabic, and alphabetic systems of signs. Considerations of form involve such points as the contrast between the pictorial and linear systems or between the monumental and cursive writings. While, theoretically, both approaches are acceptable, the emphasis placed here on function, rather than form, may be illustrated by considering the following case. From the point of view of function, the Morse alphabet represents the same type of alphabet as the Latin writing and its descendants; from the point of view of form, the Morse alphabet is formally independent of the Latin writing. Based on considerations of function, the Morse alphabet is considered as being of the Latin type, despite its different formal, outer structure.
Formal

There are two kinds of formal approach to the field of grammatology: the traditional approach, as practiced mainly in the philological disciplines under the topic of epigraphy and paleography (see below), and the formal approach to sign analysis recently initiated in the United States. The aim of the latter is to provide a scientific account of cursive writing as practiced in that country. Its procedure consists first of breaking up the letters of the cursive writing into its component segments, which appear in the form of bars, hooks, arches, and loops, and then of providing formation rules governing the linking together of these segments into letters and into larger strings corresponding to words of the language. It is said that 18 such segments are sufficient to describe all English lower- and upper-case letters.
Subdivisions of grammatology

Three main subdivisions of grammatology can be distinguished: subgraphemics, graphemics, and metagraphemics. They are treated mainly by scholars versed in philological and linguistic disciplines.
Subgraphemics

The field of subgraphemics deals mainly with primitive forerunners of writing that utilize visual marks having no set correspondences in language. In its sublinguistic aspects, subgraphemics can be compared to kinesics, the study of the various communicational aspects of learned, patterned body motion behaviour; and cherology, the study of gesture language.
Graphemics

The field of graphemics deals with full writing or phonography, as represented in systems of writing in which written signs generally have set correspondences in elements of language. The field of graphemics thus deals with writing after it became a secondary transfer of the language, a vehicle by which elements of the spoken language were expressed in a more or less exact form by means of visual signs used conventionally. This took place for the first time about 5,000 years ago in the Sumerian and Egyptian writings.

Instead of “graphemics,” other scholars use the terms “graphics” or “graphic linguistics.” All three terms are frequently misused by scholars who limit the terms to the study of alphabetic writings, overlooking or paying scant attention to all other types of writing, such as the logosyllabic and syllabic systems.

Little work has been done in the field of relations of writing to language. Philologists have been concerned mainly with the historical evolution of writing and have paid little attention to the interrelations between writing and language. Linguists have been more concerned with the spoken language than with the written language. When interested in written languages, they have often limited their study to living written languages, neglecting the rich sources of information that can be culled from ancient written languages and from pre-alphabetic systems. The question of the relationship of writing to language has been pursued in recent years mainly by scholars with a background in linguistics. Because of their interest in modern languages and writings, this implies generally relations between the alphabet and language. A general treatment of the subject can be found in the respective chapters of the introductory manuals to linguistics. Linguists generally have stressed the independent character of writing and have studied it as an independent system rather than as a system ultimately based on and related to the underlying language.

While the connections between language and writing are close, there has never been a one-to-one correspondence between the elements of language and the signs of writing. The “fit” (i.e., the correspondence) between language and writing is generally stronger in the earlier stages of a certain system of writing and weaker in its later stages. This is because a writing system when first introduced generally reproduces rather faithfully the underlying phonemic structure (structure of sounds). In the course of time, writing, more conservative than language, generally fails to keep up with the continuous changes of language and, as time progresses, diverges more and more from its linguistic counterpart. A good example is the old Latin writing, with its relatively good “fit” between graphemes (the written letters or group of letters that represent one phoneme or individual sound) and phonemes as compared with the present-day French or English writing, with their tremendous divergences between graphemes and phonemes. In some cases, recent spelling reforms have helped to remedy the existing discrepancies between writing and language. The best “fit” between phonemes and graphemes has been achieved in the Korean writing in the 16th century and in the Finnish and Czech writings of modern times.

Families of writings are not related to families of languages. Note, for example, that English and Finnish are written in the Latin writing but belong to two different families of languages, and that the cuneiform writing was used in antiquity by peoples speaking many different languages.

The temporal primacy of language over writing has been taken for granted by most scholars, especially the American linguists. It has been contested by some European scholars, who claim that writing is as old as oral language and gesture language. The fact is that full writing, expressing linguistic elements, originated only about 5,000 years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt and that full writing is therefore much younger than language. Only if the semasiographic stage is included under writing can the assumption of equal temporal hierarchy of writing and language be admitted. (Semasiography is the use of marks to convey meaning without the presence of linguistic elements.) As noted elsewhere, however, the semasiographic stage should not be treated as full writing, but as a forerunner of writing.
Metagraphemics

A study of the various metagraphic devices (e.g., punctuation marks, capital or italic letter forms) that are used besides or in addition to writing proper may be called metagraphemics or paragraphemics. This is still an obscure field, and its relationship to both subgraphemics and graphemics needs a thorough investigation.
Epigraphy and paleography

The investigation of writing from the formal point of view has been traditionally the prime domain of the epigrapher and paleographer. Epigraphy is concerned mainly with inscriptions written in characters that are incised or scratched with a sharp tool on hard material, such as stone or metal; paleography deals mainly with manuscripts written in characters that are drawn or painted with pen, pencil, or brush on soft material, such as leather, papyrus, or paper. Since epigraphy means “writing upon something” and paleography means “old writing,” it is clear that the distinction made above between epigraphy and paleography cannot be justified on etymological grounds. The distinction has grown artificially over the years, as one scholar or another began to apply one or the other term to his own branch of study of written sources. Because of the close interrelations between epigraphy and paleography, some scholars refuse to admit any distinction between the two and prefer to use only the term paleography.

The main characteristics of epigraphy and paleography as listed above may be applied, with some leeway, to the ancient Near East (Mesopotamia, Egypt, Anatolia), the classical world, China, India, the Islāmic world, and, in general, to the Western writings from the Middle Ages down to the introduction of the printing press. But there are some difficulties: Mesopotamian and Aegean clay tablets are soft, and the writing is cursively executed, both points characteristic of paleography, but the tablets are also durable and bulky and have incised, concave characters executed with a stylus, all points characteristic of epigraphy. Similarly, the wax tablets of the classical world are soft, perishable, and cursively executed, characteristics of paleography, but are written with concave characters, incised with a stylus, characteristic of epigraphy. There are likewise some difficulties in the classification of tablets of wood; they are soft and perishable, and the writing on them is generally cursive, characteristic of paleography, but they have characters incised or scratched with a sharp implement, characteristic of epigraphy.

Paleography and epigraphy are involved in the study of written sources from two points of view: the purely formal aspect and the hermeneutical (interpretive) aspect.

The study of the purely formal aspect, possible without any understanding of the contents or without an extended study of the contents, is concerned, for example, with the kind, form, and size of the materials; the technique of writing; and the form, order, and direction of writing. Hermeneutics, possible only with study of the contents, is concerned, for example, with the dating and localizing of written sources, their authorship, linguistic interpretation, and content evaluation.

A general scientific discipline of epigraphy and paleography does not exist. There are no studies that treat of the subject from a general, theoretical point of view, encompassing all the written sources, wherever they may be found. There are, for example, no treatises listing and discussing the various materials, or shapes and sizes of materials, used for writing throughout the world, just as there are no structural-typological studies that treat of the formal evolution of signs from pictorial to linear or from round to angular. Among other potential topics that await investigation are: trends in ductus (hand; the general shape and style of letters), such as individual, national, and regional; the direction of writing, indication of prosodic features (quantity, stress, and tone), and names of signs (letters). The narrow fields that are represented are, for example, West Semitic epigraphy, Arabic paleography, Greek and Latin epigraphy and paleography, or Chinese epigraphy and paleography. In all cases, these narrow fields of study form subdivisions of wider but still linguistically or geographically defined fields of study, such as Semitic or Arabic philology, classical philology, Assyriology, and Sinology.
History of the study of writing

The first students of writing were doubtless the very originators (“inventors”) of a new writing system. By “writing system” is meant here a full writing in which the individual signs of the writing stand for the corresponding elements of the language, which is to be contrasted with the forerunners of writing, in which the individual signs have but loose connection with language. As a result of a discrete analysis of the language for which a writing system was devised, lists of the elements of a language and their proposed written counterparts must have been first compiled and experimented with in actual practice. The establishment of a full system of writing also required conventionalization of forms and principles. Forms of signs had to be standardized so that the users would draw the signs in approximately the same way. Regulation of the system had to take place in the matter of the orientation of signs and the direction, form, and order of the lines, columns, and the sides of a text. Correspondences established between signs and words were paralleled by those between signs and definite syllabic values. After the initial period of trial and error, the established correspondences were conventionalized by being taught in schools.
Studies prior to the 18th century

The activities involved in setting up a full system of writing are indirectly attested in the Sumerian school texts, known almost from the beginnings of the Sumerian writing, which appear in the form of lists of signs and words, and scribal and literary exercises. The scribal activities of the Sumerians and, in the later periods, Akkadians are matched, albeit to a smaller degree, as far as actual attestation is concerned, by those of other peoples of the ancient Near East, such as the Egyptians and Hittites.

The study of the language and the corresponding writing was highly developed among the Chinese and Indic peoples, as best exemplified by the great Indic grammarian Pā??ini (about the 4th century BC) and his school, as well as among the Greeks and to a lesser degree among the Romans. Beginning in the Middle Ages, the Arabs and Jews showed great interest in matters pertaining to their languages and writings. Important contributions were made by the Arab scholars Sībawayh (8th century) and az-Zamakhsharī (1075–1143) and by the Jews Rashi (1040–1105) and David Kimhi (c. 1160–c. 1235). Interesting, but largely fantastic, is a collection of several dozen alphabets and sign lists put together by the Arab A??mad ibn Abū Bakr ibn Wa??shīyah (c. 800). Among the early Europeans were the Spanish bishop Diego de Landa (1524–79), with his analysis of the Maya writing, and the German scholar Athanasius Kircher (1602–80), with his frequently mystic ideas about writing, especially the Egyptian hieroglyphic.
Modern Western studies

Modern general studies of writing in the West began in the second half of the 18th century. This group of early studies was based almost exclusively on Greco-Latin writing, with its further developments in the Middle Ages and modern times, and supplemented by a scattering of Semitic alphabets, such as the Hebrew, Arabic, and Syriac. The books of this first period are of no more than historical interest today.

In contrast to these early studies, the second group consists of the larger and much more serious undertakings of Fran??ois Lenormant (1872), Heinrich Wuttke (1872), Carl Faulmann (1880), Isaac Taylor (1883), and Philippe Berger (1891). These books became standard manuals in the field of writing and served that function until the first half of the 20th century.

Next in time is a group of studies generally smaller in size and more limited in coverage than the group discussed just above, as represented by Walter James Hoffmann (1895), R. Stübe (1907), Theodore Wilhelm Danzel (1912), Karl Weule (1915), and William A. Mason (1920). On the basis of such monumental works on the American Indian writings as those of Henry R. Schoolcraft (1851), Garrick Mallery (1886 and 1893), and other similar works, the authors of this group of studies have emphasized much more than did the earlier scholars the importance of the forerunners of writing in the whole field of the study of writing.

The main characteristic of the next period, the first half of the 20th century, during which great manuals on writing were produced, was the descriptive-historical approach, as it was of all the preceding group of studies on writing.

The typological-structural approach to the study of writing appeared in the latter half of the 20th century, along with interest in the relationship of writing to society. Representatives of this and of the previous group are briefly characterized in the bibliography.

See i so gd girl :D . Yay for me -.- .

Hmm , juz edited some fotos coz bored ..

Looking forward to tis fri! :D . GO BK PRI SCH WOOO~ I L♥VE IT~ Coz miss all my frens & teachers . Hmm , nthng to post liao lo ..... Kk , BB~

Aftr posting pics ,

Like some pics i edited dunno go where ler x; .

Kk , BB~