Omniglot book store
Writing systems (General)
The World's Writing Systems
edited by Peter T. Daniels & William Bright
- the best reference book for writing systems on the market. Provides detailed coverage of just about every writing system, with good quality illustrations and text samples of most of them. Also includes information on musical, mathematical and other notation systems.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems
by Florian Coulmas
- an excellent reference for all major and many minor writing systems.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Writing Systems: A Linguistic Approach
by Henry Rogers
- provides detailed coverage of all major writing systems of historical or structural significance with thorough discussion of structure, history, and social context as well as important theoretical issues. The book examines systems as diverse as Chinese, Greek, and Maya and each writing system is presented in the light of four major aspects of writing: history and development; internal structure; the relationship of writing and language; and sociolinguistic factors.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
The Writing Systems of the World
by Florian Coulmas
- a linguistic study of writing and writing systems
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Writing Systems
by Geoffry Sampson
- a linguistic introduction to writing systems
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
The History of Writing
by Steven Roger Fischer
- a fascinating overview of the history of writing
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
The Alphabetic Labyrinth
by Johanna Drucker
- an interesting account of the origins and development of Western and Semitic alphabets.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
The Story of Writing
by Andrew Robinson
- a beautifully illustrated, general introduction to writing with limited coverage of individual writing systems.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts
by Andrew Robinson
- a richly illustrated book, which highlights the thrills of archeological sleuthing, recounts the many attempts at understanding ancient civilizations through the decipherment of their long-lost writing.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
The History and Power of Writing
by Henri-Jean Martin
- examines the history of writing from its invention 4,000 years ago to the present day and explores the ways writing has contributed to the development of societies.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
From Memory to Written Record: England 1066 - 1307
by M. T. Clancy
- a study of the dramatic shift from an oral to a literate culture which took place in England during the Middle Ages.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
A History of Writing: From Hieroglyph to Multimedia
by Anne-Marie Christin (Editor)
- an interesting, beautifully illustrated exploration of the history of writing. Focuses on the origins, usage and visual appearance of scripts. This is an English translation of the book shown below.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Histoire de l'écriture : De l'idéogramme au multimédia
de Anne-Marie Christin (Sous la direction de)
- trois sections ont été ménagées dans cette Histoire. La première est consacrée aux plus anciens systèmes d'écriture et aux réinventions auxquelles ils ont donné lieu dans les civilisations qui ont choisi de les adapter à leur langue et à leur culture. La deuxième se concentre sur les alphabets, leur histoire et leur diffusion. La troisième montre comment l'alphabet occidental est parvenu à réintégrer l'image dans son système à travers ses incarnations successives, manuscrites et imprimées. Elle conduit à s'interroger sur les rapports qu'entretiennent les différents systèmes d'écriture avec le support informatique.
Achetez de: Amazon.fr
Histoire de l'écriture
de Louis-Jean Calvet
- histoire fascinante de la lente élaboration de la mémoire écrite de l'humanité. Des premiers pictogrammes à la naissance de l'écriture en Mésopotamie, des cunéiformes, hiéroglyphes, runes, glyphes mayas, caractères chinois aux alphabets modernes. Un livre dense, clairement écrit avec de nombreux croquis et exemples d'écritures à l'appui.
Achetez de: Amazon.fr
L'Écriture
de Charles Higounet
- l'écriture est avant tout un procédé dont on se sert pour fixer le langage articulé, fugitif par essence même. Mais en rendant la parole muette, l'écriture ne fait pas que la conserver, elle invente un nouveau langage qui discipline la pensée et l'organise en la transcrivant. Des premières tablettes suméro-akkadiennes à la sténographie, cet ouvrage retrace l'histoire des formes d'écriture, ensemble de signes sur lequel reposent toutes nos sociétés
Achetez de: Amazon.fr
La naissance des écritures: Du cunéiforme à l'alphabet
de Collect
Achetez de: Amazon.fr
NON LEGITUR - Giro del mondo in trentatré scritture
Marco Cimarosti
- Non legitur, non si legge, scrivevano in latino i copisti medievali quando incontravano testi in scritture sconosciute.
Quante volte il turista, in India o in un paese arabo, ha provato curiosità e frustrazione di fronte a un'insegna o a un segnale stradale?
Questo libro mette in grado il lettore di capire come funzionano i diversi sistemi di scrittura e di leggerne le parole.
Acquista: http://www.stampalternativa.it/libri.php?id=88-7226-869-9
The Acquisition of a Second Writing System
by Rosemary Sassoon
- this book provides an overview of a wide range of writing systems and discusses their usage, attitudes to writing and techniques for learning different writing systems.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Asia's Orthographic Dilemma
by Wm. C Hannas
- provides an overview of how Chinese character-based scripts are or were used to write Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese; the problems involved in learning and using these scripts, and attempts to simplify them. Hannas argues that these scripts are too complex, and that schemes to simplify them, such as limiting the number of characters in use, end up making them more complex. He concludes that ultimately they will most likely be replaced by phonetic scripts.
Buy from: Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
Afrikan Alphabets: The Story of Writing in Afrika
by Saki Mafundikwa
- an illustrated introduction to writing systems invented in Africa, including Mende, Vai, Nsibidi, Bamum and Somali.
Buy from: Amazon.com