In order to relate punctuation marks to translation theories, we searched for theories that focus on the form of the source and target text and its relation to meaning rather than theories that focus on equivalence<fnref n="4" /> or on the question of fidelity in translation. We specifically attempt to give a traductological approach to the role of punctuation in translation through the works of Eugine Nida's *Toward a science of translating* (1964) and Marianne Lederer's interpretive method of translation (1994). In order to integrate punctuation to these theories, we find it necessary to categorize<fnref n="5" /> the different roles of punctuation marks<fnref n="6" />:

1. Syntactic punctuation marks that organize knowledge in sentences and paragraphs and that hierarchize information, making some information essential to communicate in the text and other information less important or only necessary to clarify or enhance the essential information. These punctuation marks are the period, comma, double commas, semicolon, colon, parenthesis and double dashes.

2. Semantic punctuation marks that add a connotation that can only be communicated by punctuation such as quotation marks, question mark, exclamation point and ellipsis.

3. Punctuation marks that give reference to another author or speaker such as quotation marks, colon and dash.

## Form and Meaning in Translation Theories

Nida wrote his book *Toward a science of translating* to answer the dilemma translators face when translating literary work, which is whether to keep the translation literal even if this would result in a target text stylistically foreign to the target language, or to translate the meaning while changing the form to a stylistically acceptable one in the target language. This dilemma, which he calls *“the letter vs. the spirit”* (Nida, 1964, p. 3) is due to the fact that languages are very different; while translating literally is a kind of “protection” for the translator as a proof of fidelity to the text, it can hinder the communicative purpose of translation. In order to solve this dilemma, Nida referred to translation as a science rather than an art, providing a scientific description of the process of transmitting a

<footnote n="4">4. One of the results of our corpus analysis is that change of punctuation in the target text is often the result of the translator's choice to change the form of the source text. Nevertheless, we found examples of punctuation translated by a functional equivalence.</footnote>

<footnote n="5">5. This is a general categorization in order to integrate punctuation into translation theories; we suggest a slightly different categorization in our corpus analysis.</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6. Due to the multi functionality of each punctuation mark, some punctuation marks exist in more than one category, and, if one conducts a monolingual corpus analysis of punctuation, all punctuation marks can exist in all categories in some languages, such as Arabic (Awad, 2013).</footnote>
message from one language to another. By considering translation a science, we separate translation from the art of writing and in that way, when a translator chooses to change the form of the source text, he is not writing a different literary text⁷ but adapting a scientific process of translation. Nida sees translation as a practice that can be divided into three types:

1. Intralinguistic: within the same language using different words.

2. Interlinguistic: or, as he calls it, translation proper, which is the transmission of verbal signs of a language by the verbal signs of another.

3. Intersemiotic: translating from one system of symbols to another.

Nida's interlinguistic translation process incorporates Chomsky's transformational grammar theory in order to produce a "science" of the translation process (Munday, 2008, p. 57), thus turning the practice of translating into a rigorous process of transferring knowledge and to organizing this knowledge in an accepted way in the TL. Nida's science of interlinguistic translation is a process of decoding the source text and recoding the target text: a sentence or a paragraph in the source text is called, by reference to its form, a *surface structure*. When translating, the surface structure is decoded in order to understand its *deep structure* (the message it conveys), and the translator recodes this deep structure into another surface structure in the target language. In the final surface structure, the translator has to choose words and form according to the target language system in order to create a meaningful and readable content for the target audience⁸.

<figure><img src="image_185.png" /></figure>

7. In the introduction of his book, Nida cites incidents where authors and reviewers of translations were reluctant to the communicative approach of translations for not being loyal to the stylistic aspects of the source text. He gives an example of translations being criticized or rejected because the form of the target text was very different from the source text, which was "a descriptive essay of rhythmical sentences, simple phrases and well-chosen words." (Nida, 1964, p. 1), which, in result, made a back translation impossible.

8. This theory is similar to Catford's notion of "translation shifts" (Catford, 1965, p. 20), in (Munday, 2008, p. 95) and achieving a textual equivalence through different categories of shifts including structural shifts (syntactic structure) and rank shifts that refer to linguistic units such as clause, sentence etc. Although, like all other translation theories, punctuation is not mentioned, but we think that syntactic punctuation is implied as included in the "structural shifts".
We find that Nida's science of translation can be adapted in the process of translating punctuation. Creating a TL appropriate surface structure includes the formal aspects of punctuation, such as different spacing before and after a punctuation mark, and syntactic differences between two languages. An example of syntactic differences is the relationship between punctuation marks and connectors: using punctuation before, after or instead of a connector. Translating deep structure of punctuation focuses on the semantic properties of punctuation and on keeping the same hierarchy of knowledge of the ST deep structure. By applying Nida's science of translation, translators will focus on the deep structure of the source sentence and then recode it into a surface structure appropriate to the target language system instead of having a list of functions for punctuation marks and their equivalences in another language<fnref n="9" />.

The connotative nature of punctuation marks adds a meaning that cannot be transmitted by words or gives connotation of the importance of information. Translators, therefore, need to acquire the skill of interpreting the use of punctuation in the source text: is punctuation used by the ST author an "auxiliary" for grammatical and syntactic purposes, a necessary tool for semantic connotation or a stylistic tool that transmits the author's individuality and spirit? We attempt to adapt this interpretative process to Marianne Lederer's interpretative approach to translation.

The interpretative approach to translation takes into account all compositions of a text: the linguistic elements as well as the extra linguistic elements that belong to printed characters (layout). The latter should be distinguished from linguistic elements because, according to Lederer, layout of the printed text is not taught in schools as language is<fnref n="10" />. Therefore, the translator must separate sentence structure and text structure when translating. The translation process includes three levels: language (words), sentence construction and text<fnref n="11" />.

Although the different stages of the translation process in the interpretative method resembles Nida's stages (understanding, deverbalization and re-expression), Lederer is more focused on the cognitive aspect of translation. The first stage in the translation process is understating

<footnote n="9">9. It is, however, important for translators to have a list of equivalences for non-existent typographic marks (in the case of Arabic, capital letters and italics) and replacing them with punctuation when needed.</footnote>

<footnote n="10">10. On this point, we disagree with Lederer because some layout elements, such as paragraph separation, is taught in schools. However, even though paragraph separation rules are universal (separation of paragraphs is related to separation or linking distinct ideas), we can notice that the number of paragraphs slightly differs when translating from one language to another. This difference can be explained by the separation of linguistic and extra linguistic elements in the translation process.</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11. Lederer developed this process for interpretation and for written translation.</footnote>
through reading the entire text and analyzing the intentions of the au-
thor before re-expressing those intentions in a TL. This includes vocab-
ulary, segmentation, and punctuation (though the latter is not specifi-
cally mentioned by Lederer).

By applying Lederer's theory to the translation of punctuation marks, they will be considered as not only signs associated with a function, but also as holders of *cognitive complements* that are constructed in the language system and that are part of the reader's background knowledge. For example, in an Arabic reader's background knowledge, a double dash is used for parenthetical elements repeatedly written after the name of a religious or an authoritative figure. Therefore, the element between double dashes will be discarded or read with less attention. The translator would therefore translate the double dash into Arabic with another punctuation mark that holds the same cognition of the double dash in the source text. Another example is the colon that is rarely used in Arabic texts<fnref n="12" />, unlike English or French where a colon is used to coordinate clauses.

Contrastive Analysis of Punctuation and Its Role in Translation

In order to conduct a contrastive analysis of the use of punctuation
marks between a source and a target text, We would categorize punc-
tuation marks into the following:

1. Punctuation for syntactic purposes: this includes punctuation necessary for sentence structure (comma, semicolon, period) and the order of clauses. In this case, a contrastive analysis of punctuation is related to contrastive grammar. For example, how independent and dependent clauses are separated differently in two languages, how words are connected in case of enumeration (when to use a comma and when to use a semicolon, for example), and the relationship between the comma and connectors in a language. Although this contrastive analysis seems intuitive for translators, who have full master of source and target languages, questions regarding punctuation seem to occur often. For example, whether to put a space before or after a punctuation mark. Another question regarding the structural purposes is the attachment, or not, of a comma with the Arabic connectors wāw and fāʾ. Since both convey several meanings, the comma determines the meaning of those polysemic connectors. For example, when using a comma before fāʾ, the particle in this case conveys a cause/result relation, and when we don’t use a comma before fāʾ, it

<footnote n="12">12. In general, the colon is used in Arabic academic texts, dialogues (after the name of the speaker), and in newspaper titles.</footnote>
indicates the chronological order in which verbs occurred. We can
divide punctuation marks in this category into:

- Punctuation that divides clauses;

- Punctuation marks that are used with a connector;

- Punctuation marks that act as connectors: like the colon and the
  semicolon, for example.

For syntactic punctuation, literal translation is possible if both lan-
guages have similar grammatical systems (for example, Italian and
French). In general, there is a degree of universality to the gram-
matical functions: punctuation marks are either separators of clauses
or of sentences. The question of translating syntactic punctuation
therefore lies in the language's preference in relating clauses using
punctuation, another connector, or both, and in the different struc-
ture of clauses between both languages. Changes in placement of
punctuation marks is, therefore, dependent on the target language
and structuring sentences in a "native"^13 way.

2. Punctuation for hierarchization of information: to hierarchize information, double punctuation is used: a double comma, parenthesis, quotation marks for sentences, double dashes. In regards to the hierarchy of knowledge, punctuation marks have different connotations in different languages. For example, double dashes connote unimportance of information in Arabic, while in French the information would be more important if we use dashes instead of parenthesis. Extra linguistic knowledge of the role of punctuation in highlighting or marginalizing information is necessary to understand the writer's intentions and to translate them accordingly. Regarding this role, Literal translation of punctuation is not possible because each punctuation mark hierarchizes a text differently in different languages.

3. Punctuation for expressing emotions and intentions: like the exclamation point, question mark, ellipsis and quotation marks for words. In practice, translators often choose to keep punctuation for emotions and intentions as they are in the source text because they are cautious not to "over analyze" or over interpret them, even if their connotation is expressed by another punctuation mark in the target language<fnref n="14" />.

<footnote n="13">13. Changing syntactic punctuation of the source text is for the target text to become “natural” according to the target language syntactic rules so that the reader does not feel that the text is a translation. Most of the time, the target text is readable and understandable whether syntactic punctuation is translated literally or not, but the reader can notice the foreignness in language structure.</footnote>

<footnote n="14">14. For example, irony in Arabic is often expressed in Arabic literal and journal-
istic texts by an ellipsis before the word and an exclamation point after it; however,
translations usually keep the ironic quotation marks when used in the source text.</footnote>
When translators analyze the components of a source text, syntactic and hierarchical punctuation marks are considered as part of the written language system. On the other hand, punctuation marks for emotions and intentions are dependent on the author's style. Therefore, translators try to keep them as they are to protect the authenticity and the spirit of the writer who, for translators, uses punctuation marks for emotions and intentions as tacit marks that are understandable in the text, but what is understood should not be translated.

## Corpus Analysis

Our French-Arabic corpus analysis is of Amin's Maalouf's book *Les identités meurtrières* (Maalouf, 1998) and its Arabic translation (Maalouf, 2011). Our analysis process was to collect punctuation from the source and target text, classify them according to the aforementioned categories and analyze the translator's behavior in translating punctuation and why did she choose to punctuate her text differently.

After collection of punctuation in the ST and the TT, the result was that the translator used less punctuation than in the original version:

<table><thead><tr><td>Punctuation mark</td><td>Number of occurrences in the source text</td><td>Number of occurrences in the target text</td></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>Period</td><td>1,097</td><td>911</td></tr><tr><td>Comma</td><td>3,784</td><td>2,415</td></tr><tr><td>Semicolon</td><td>242</td><td>86</td></tr><tr><td>Exclamation point</td><td>25</td><td>24</td></tr><tr><td>Question mark</td><td>164</td><td>163</td></tr><tr><td>Colon</td><td>77</td><td>70</td></tr><tr><td>Double dashes</td><td>159</td><td>132</td></tr><tr><td>ellipsis</td><td>36</td><td>42</td></tr><tr><td>Quotation marks</td><td>275</td><td>275</td></tr><tr><td>italics</td><td>6</td><td>0</td></tr></tbody></table>

From the table, we see that Amin Maalouf's punctuation for this book is classified as follows:

1. Syntactic punctuation: period, comma, semicolon;

2. Punctuation for hierarchization of information: quotation marks, double dashes, and italics (as a typographical mark);

3. Punctuation for emotions or intentions: question mark<fnref n="15" />, exclamation point, ellipsis, quotation marks.

<footnote n="15">15. The question mark can also be syntactic if its use is to mark the end of a question. In this paper, we categorized the interrogative nature of the question mark as "intention".</footnote>
From the previous table, we can say that the translator chose not to translate some punctuation marks and that she chose to use connectors instead of punctuation in some sentences. We will show examples of sentences that were punctuated differently in the translation.

## Examples From the Corpus

### Quotation Marks

In the following example, both quotation marks and the words between quotation marks are omitted in the translation. The author intended to add a sarcastic connotation to the expression by using quotation marks. The translator, however, chose to omit the full segment instead of translating it. Our hypothesis is that since the segment is part of a long list of enumeration of the physical aspects of a person, the translator felt that removing a part of this enumeration would not affect the general meaning of the sentence.

Les autres lui font sentir, par leurs paroles, par leurs regards, qu'il est pauvre, ou boiteux, ou petit de taille, ou **"haut-sur-pattes"**, ou basané, ou trop blond, ou circoncis, ou non circoncis, ou orphelin—ces innombrables différences, minimes ou majeures, qui tracent le contours de chaque personnalité

فالآخرون يشعرونه، بكلامهم وبنظراتهم أنه
فقير، أو أظلع، أو أسمر البشرة، أو شديد البياض،
أو مختوناً، أو غير مختون، أو يتيمًا إنَّ كل هذه
الاختلافات العديدة، الثانوية منها والجهرية، هي
التي ترسم ملامح كل شخصية،

In the following example, the translator did not consider the importance of highlighting the word between quotation marks to draw the reader's attention. By omitting the quotation marks, the author's intention was not accomplished. The bold character<sup>16</sup> would be an equivalence for quotation marks in this case.

Si l'on vit dans un pays où l'on a peur d'avouer qu'on se nomme Pierre, ou Mahmoud, ou Baruch, et que cela dure depuis quatre générations, ou quarante; si l'on vit dans un pays où l'on n'a même pas de faire un tel "aveu", parce qu'on porte

فإذا عاش المرء في بلد يخشى فيه الإعتراف
بأن اسمه بيير أو محمود أو باروخ، وكان هذا
الوضع مستمرًا منذ أربعة أجيال أو أربعين جيلا
؛ إذا عاش المرء في بلد لا يحتاج فيه إلى
مثل هذا الإعتراف لأنه يحمل أصلاً على وجهه

<footnote n="16">16. We added the bold character both in the French text and in the Arabic translation of the example.</footnote>
déjà sur son visage la couleur de son appartenance, parce qu'on fait partie de ceux qu'on appelle dans certaines contrées "les minorités visibles"; alors on n'a pas besoin de longues explications pour comprendre que les mots de "majorité" et de "minorité" n'appartiennent pas toujours au vocabulaire de la démocratie.

لون انتقائه، ولأنه ينتمي إلى أولئك الذين يعرفون في بعض الدول « بالأقليات المرئية »، فلا حاجة عندئذ لتفسيرات مطولة كي نفهم أن مفردات على غرار « أكثرية » و « أقلية » لا تندرج دوما في قاموس الديمقراطية.

## The Comma

In the following example, the author used a double comma as a form of hierarchizing information: what is between double commas has a double role in the French sentence: it highlights the discriminating nature of the question regarding his origins and, more importantly, it expresses the feelings of the author, who is not offended by the question. Although the main meaning is the same in the Arabic sentence, the role of the double comma was not translated.

[...] que de fois m'a-t-on demandé, avec les meilleures intentions du monde, si je me sentais "plutôt français" ou "plutôt libanais"

فكم من مرة سألني البعض عن طيب نية إن كنت أشعر بنفسي « فرنسيا » أم « لبنانيا ».

The comma is often translated by the particle wāw, especially in enunciation.

Qu'il s'agisse de la langue, des croyances, du mode de vie, des relations familiales, des goûts artificiels ou culinaires, les influences françaises, européennes, occidentales se mêlent en lui à des influences arabes, berbères, africaine, [...]

سواء تعلق الأمر باللغة والمعتقدات وأسلوب العيش والروابط الأسرية والأذواق الفنية أو أنواع المأكلى لأن التأثيرات الفرنسية والأوروبية والغربية تمتزج في كيانه بالتأثيرات العربية والبربرية والأفريقية والإسلامية [...]

## The Colon

As we mentioned previously, the use of a colon gives an academic or journalistic aspect to Arabic text. Therefore, the translator uses connectors that convey the same meaning of the colon. In the first example, the translator translated the colon by the particle kāf (used before examples), and in the second example, she translated the colon by wa biya taqūm ʻalā (it is based on).
Puis des idées nouvelles ont
lentement réussi à s'imposer : l'idée
que tout homme avait des droits
qu'il fallait définir et respecter

[...] il y a un jeu mental éminem-
ment révélateur : imaginer un nour-
risson que l'on retirerait de son mi-
lieu à l'instant même de sa nais-
sance pour le placer dans un envi-
ronnement différent

ثم بدأت أفكار جديدة تفرض نفسها شيئاً
فشيئاً كالفكرة القائلة إن كل إنسان يتمتع بحقوق
يجب تحديدها وإحترامها،

[...] ثمة لعبة ذهنية معبَّرة للغاية، وهي تقوم
على تصور طفل رضيع فصل عن محيطه منذ
ولادته، ونقل عن بيئة مختلفة عن بيئته الأصلية،

The Period

The translator often chose to omit the period in order to connect two
sentences instead in the original text for syntactic reasons. In the first
example, the two sentences in the source text are semantically related
to each other because the second sentences is an example of *éléments* in
the first sentence. The preferred structure in Arabic would be to include
the examples in the same sentence. In the second example, the second
sentence starts with *mais* (but), and in Arabic, it is grammatically incor-
rect to use a period before *mais*, so keeping the period in the translation
is impossible in this case.

[...] une foule d'éléments qui ne se
limitent évidemment pas à ceux qui
figurent, sur les registres officiels. Il
y a, [...]

Le bon sens voudrait qu'il puisse
revendiquer pleinement cette dou-
ble appartenance. Mais rien dans les
lois [...]

[...] جملة عناصر لا تقتصر بدهيا فحسب على تلك
الواردة في السجلات الرسمية، ومن بينها، [...]

ويفترض المنطق السليم أن يستطيع هذا
الشخص المجاهرة بانتمائه المزدوج، ولكن لا شيء
في القوانين [...]

Conclusion

Although translation theories mention textual equivalence to explain
change of form and structure, they do not mention punctuation as an
important element to achieve this structure. We believe the reason for
this omission is either because translation theorists think it is a given ad-
dition not necessary to mention—because its inclusion is implied when
we say text or structure—, or because of the highly interpretative nature
of punctuation that might put the fidelity to the source text at risk if
translated. In other words, if punctuation is overanalyzed, the process
might hinder the transmission of meaning since these extralinguistic
units are highly interpretative both at the level of hierarchization of
knowledge and of adding information or “emotions”. This explains why,
according to our findings, translators prefer to omit punctuation if it
does not have a syntactic function in the original text and only translate
the main meaning of a sentence. In doing so, their translation is incom-
plete because they exclude tacit information that the author expressed
using punctuation marks, especially if it is a literary text. This omission
also proves that punctuation marks do not have universal meanings or
functions. In order to translate punctuation marks, they must be re-
garded as signs with a semantic capacity equal to words, and therefore,
should be divided into different semantic categories that are specific to
a language.

References

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Catford, John C. (1965). *A Linguistic Theory of Translation*. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Jungwha, Choi (2003). "The Interpretive Theory of Translation and Its Current Applications." In: *Interpretation Studies* 3, pp. 1–15.

Lederer, M. (1994). *La traduction aujourd'hui*. Paris: Hachette.

Maalouf, A. (1998). *Les identités meurtrières*. Paris: Grasset.

——— (2011). [*Killer Identities*]. Trans. by Nahla Baydoun
[нетلية بيضون]. دار القاراني [Dār al-Fārābī].

Mogahed, M. (2012). "Punctuation Marks Make a Difference in Translation: Practical Examples." Faculty of Education, Mansoura University Curriculum & Instruction Department, https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED533736.pdf.

Munday, J. (2008). *Introducing translation studies: theories and applications*. London: Routledge.

Nida, E. (1964). *Toward a science of translating*. Leiden: Brill.

Ponge, M. (2010). "Signes de ponctuation: indices de traduction (Analyse comparée français / espagnol)." In: *Actes du colloque "Traduction, changement en syntaxe, personne – Approches fonctionnalistes"*, Oct 2010, Corfou, Grèce, pp. 69–72.

——— (2011). "Pertinence linguistique de la ponctuation en traduction (français-espagnol)." In: *La linguistique* 47, pp. 121–136.

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<figure><img src="image_186.png" /></figure>
# Comparing the Visual Untranslatability of Ancient Egyptian and Arabic Writing Systems

Hany Rashwan

*Abstract.* The paper discusses the mechanism of visual jinās (roughly meaning wordplay?) in both ancient Egyptian and Arabic languages. It demonstrates the significance of looking into several overlooked visual aesthetics, which were mainly designed to stimulate the eyes and minds of the indigenous readers, to shape any theory related to the literary analysis of ancient Egyptian or Arabic writing systems.

Viewed linguistically, the AE language belongs to the same phylum as Arabic, which is known now as Afroasiatic¹ and shares many of the same linguistic features fundamental to literary production. Comparative linguistics has been concerned from the early nineteenth century with describing and arranging African-Asian languages and generating linguistic theories about their historical development, especially after deciphering the Ancient Egyptian and many other ancient languages. (Hodge, 1983) The Afro-Asiatic phylum has a history of scholarship acceptance almost as long as that of Indo-European, despite being a fam-

All translations of Arabic and ancient Egyptian texts are mine unless indicated otherwise. This work has received funding from the European Union's Horizon 2020 Research and Innovation Program under ERC-2017-STG Grant Agreement No 759346 and is part of the "Global Literary Theory" project at the University of Birmingham.

Hany Rashwan

<figure><img src="image_187.png" /></figure>

ID 0000-0001-6963-6603

University of Birmingham, School of Languages, Cultures, Art History and Music.
Edgbaston, Birmingham, B15 2TT, UK

E-mail: H.Rashwan@bham.ac.uk

1. The term Afroasiatic is also known as Afrasian (Diakonoff, 1981), Hamito-Semitic, Semito-Hamitic. The biblical terms such as Hamitic, Semitic, and Cushitic led to the long use of Hamito-Semitic or Semito-Hamitic for the whole phylum. Nowadays, these terms are objectionable because of their mythological origins; thus a neutral geographic term “Afro-Asiatic” or “Afro-asiatic” was generated and came into usage. The old opposition of Semitic to a certain “Hamitic” unity (into which all the African members of the family were forced) was resolved in the 1950s by Greenberg. He argued for the equal status of four African branches beside the Egyptian: Berber, Chusgitic, Omotic, Chadic.

Y. Haralambous (Ed.), *Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century 2020. Proceedings*

Grapholinguistics and Its Applications (ISSN: 2681-8566, e-ISSN: 2534-5192), Vol. 5.
Fluxus Editions, Brest, 2021, pp. 1097–1108. https://doi.org/10.36824/2020-graf-rash
ISBN: 978-2-9570549-7-8, e-ISBN: 978-2-9570549-9-2
ily of much greater internal diversity and historical time depth. (Ehret, 1995)

This proposed comparison entails a conscious rejection of imposing Eurocentric concepts and terms — according to which Euro-American researchers did not support their literary assumptions by comparing AE literary devices with those of its kindred languages. Instead, I have sought to look outside literary studies altogether, and to apply the main principle of the comparative linguistic system: “languages should never be compared in isolation if closer relatives are at hand.” (Greenberg, 1971, pp. 22–23) This statement is particularly relevant when dealing with a ‘dead’ language. Studying the AE language is archaeology of a dead language, in which cross-linguistic comparisons provide strong support for closer hypotheses on literary textual practices, to avoid Eurocentric rhetorical misperceptions and misrepresentation. Stephen Quirke looks to the use of Arabic linguistic affinities with their AE counterparts. He explains how their interaction with the Arabic literary tradition could be useful for both AE literary analysis and for challenging Eurocentrism in the field of Egyptology as a whole. He argues that European-language impositions will not fully resolve the problematic questions raised by AE literature. Therefore, Quirke encourages Euro-American scholars to give the Arabic literary world a chance equal to the one that has been offered to their Eurocentric theories. Quirke considers that active engagement with Arabic literary traditions promises fresh perspectives that may challenge the self-contained approaches of contemporary theoretical readings of AE texts:

> Classical Arabic poetry offers for certain motifs and 'genres' a resonance entirely lacking in English and other European literary traditions. The poetry genre *madiḥ* allows appreciation of compositions at or outside our literary borders, and the *fakhr* 'boast' mercifully loses in Arabic the unfailingly negative reception assigned to much rhetorical content in English language studies of both literary manuscript and 'autobiographical' inscriptions from ancient Egypt. A more systematic encounter with Arabic literary tradition would above all serve to remind the European researcher that the questions of definitions, production, and reception of ancient Egyptian literature can also be asked from within Egypt. (Quirke, 2004, p. 28)

The comparison offered is part of a new suggested discipline called Comparative *Balāghab*. This new discipline focuses on comparing the literary devices of two kindred languages productively. I mean by 'productive' that the stylistic differences between the two systems are more stressed than the similarities. (Rashwan, 2020, p. 391) This methodology argues that AE literary devices are studied most productively on a comparative basis and that Arabic, a cognate language that belongs to the same Afro-Asiatic phylum, offers a new and closer platform for exploring and studying these literary devices. The literary structure of every language is peculiar to itself. The logic of this comparison argues
that a close investigation of the literary worlds of both the premodern Arabic and AE can shed new light on the literariness of the AE writings, by highlighting the importance of rediscovering the various forms of each literary device and their semantic function inside the studied text.

The comparative reading of these AE literary devices offers the occasion for one further point of argument, and that has to do with how scholars should approach the literariness of the AE texts more broadly, opening the door to previously unexplored literary and linguistic approaches. Comparative balāghah keeps the conversation and literary engagement going. It extends the conversation, opens it out, and makes it potentially relevant to issues and interests not foreseen at the outset. Using this comparative methodology will not only supply exceptionally innovative insights into how the AE language makes literature, but it can achieve the required depth and complexity to answer many new questions that are not even envisaged by the Western literary traditions.

Using the Arabic frame to rediscover the AE literary practice does not imply forcing the investigated materials into Arabocentric concepts and definitions. Comparative balāghah aims to understand the native term first and see how it is similar or different from the Arabic and Eurocentric ones, to find a shared platform that may develop our conceptual understanding about what can be accepted as universal or neutral terms. The differences between the two languages are more important than the similarities; this point is well-illustrated in the visual jinās study of the AE writing, which rediscovers the ability of the AE writers to build visual metaphors that are carried by clever employment of the soundless determinatives that visually reflect the verbal layer.

## Visual jinās (الخط — المرسوم — التصحيح)

This term in Arabic refers to two words that have identical number and kinds of letters except for one different letter, and these two letters are graphically similar (Al-Gundy, 1954, p. 140), such as (س—ش), (د—ذ), (ر—ز), (ص—ض), (ط—ظ), (ع—غ), (ج—ح), (د—ب—ت—ث—ن), (ر—ه—ف). The writer Mohammad ibn Badr el-dīn al-bisāṭī (d. 1634) collects various examples of this type of jinās, in his book entitled, *The inherited and humorous in the art of visual jinas (al-tālid wa al-ṭārīf fī fann jinās al-taṣḥīf)*. Al-bisāṭī considers it one of the most wonderful types of jinās, because the mind of the ardent reader is being stimulated by considering the visual and verbal interactions that are rooted in the nature of Arabic script, whether in poetry (manzūm) or literary prose (manthūr) (Al-Bisāṭī, 2018, p. 32).

وَالَّذِي هُوَ يُطْعِمُونِي وَيَسْقِينِي وَإِذَا مَرَضْتُ فَهُوَ يَشْفَينِي
(God) He is the one who feeds and waters me, and when I become ill, He is the one who cures me. Q26:79-80

Visual *jinās* is represented between the two words *يَسْقِينَ*—a verb meaning ‘to make me drink water’ and *يَشْفِينَ*—a verb meaning ‘to cure my health problem’. Each word contains two graphically similar letters (س—ش) and (ف—ق).

The open question raised here is—can we apply the Arabic understanding of this visual type of *jinās* to the AE writing? i.e., the AE signs that look alike graphically<fnref n="2" />, for example, the bird pictures or human figures . I would argue that the main difference between AE writing and any other alphabetical system would be related to how the AE writers take advantage of the visual inimitability of their writing. The examples provided in this section shows how the Egyptian writer can supply the reader with various visual tools for better understanding the points he raises about the presentation and structure of information, in order to aid and clarify the visual reading process. The examples cited here for visual *jinās* confirm that visual clarification of the intended meaning is believed to be one fundamental function of the AE determinatives. A more careful analysis of the neglected role of the determinatives inside the AE sentences reveals that their functions are much more versatile literarily. The AE writer built literary texts out of words, but every word, if carefully examined in its textual context, will turn out to be a literary volcano in itself.

## Related Determinatives

The AE writer employs related ‘determinatives’ or ‘sense-signs’ as images that reinforce the sequence of his words to build a visual context that confirms for the reader’s eye the verbal message, eloquently.

<figure><img src="image_188.png" /></figure>

mi mw ḫm ibt

*Like the water when it quenches the thirst.* (Eloquent Peasant, Parkinson, 1991, pp. 34, l. 278)

<footnote n="2">2. On cryptography (the use of hieroglyphic signs to denote sounds or meanings different to their usual use often involves groups of similar signs), Darnell (2004, p. 3) argues in the introduction to his book entitled *The Enigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar-Osirian Unity:* “At no time, however, do the Egyptians appear to have considered hieroglyphic cryptography as something other than an extension of the normal hieroglyphic system, for they do not appear to have employed any separate term for “cryptography”. He cites the most highly developed play on similar signs, in this mode of “cryptography”, in the temple of Esna (Roman Period) where one hymn is written with variations of ram signs and another hymn has crocodile signs—see photographs in Hallof (2011, p. 10).</footnote>
Visual *jinās* is represented between three related sense-signs that visually stress the meaning of being thirsty: ₩mw—a noun meaning ‘water’; ₩m—a verb meaning ‘to quench (thirst) with just water as an ending determinative ₩; and ⑆ibt—an infinitive form of the verb ⑆ib that means ‘being thirsty’, with an ending determinative of a man putting his hand towards his mouth, showing his need for water, and with a leaping calf, as a thirsty creature might jump at a source of water. The repetition of the water’s sign ₩ as an ideographic sign in the word *mw* and as a soundless ending determinative in the verb *m* highlights its importance for the following word ⑆ibt, whose determinatives represent two thirsty figures from the human and animal worlds (—&—&).

<table><thead><tr><th>first word</th><th>second word</th><th>third word</th><th>related images</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td></td><td>et</td><td>U</td><td>— - —</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_189.png" /></figure>

im in.tw n.i ḫt.f mɔi ḫḥfy mɔi ḫr-ib.f m

Let someone bring to me one whose front is a lion and his back is a lion and his middle like... (Khakheperreseneb text; Parkinson, 1997, p. 64)

Visual *jinās* is represented by the use of two successive words whose meanings are related to each other in a stimulating visual way: ₩—a noun meaning ‘forepart (of an animal)’, and which is always written ideographically with the front part of a lion and is transliterated ḫt; and ḫ—n—a noun meaning ‘lion’ and transliterated mɔi. The writer uses the same visual wordplay in the following sentence, in the two words ₩—a noun meaning ‘the hinder parts or hindquarters, which is always written with the hindquarters of a lion and is transliterated ḫ, and ḫ—a noun meaning ‘lion’ and is transliterated mɔi.

The writer here stresses his intended message visually and verbally, namely that the creature, which is required for this magical performance, should in some manner resemble the lion with its two special parts: the forepart and the hindquarters.

<table><thead><tr><th>first word</th><th>second word</th><th>related images</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>et</td><td>et</td><td>-</td></tr></tbody></table>
## Contrasted Words With the Same Determinative

The AE writer can use two contrasted words that employ the same soundless determinative, in order to stimulate the reader's mind about the sharp differences between the used words conceptually. In other words, this technique visualizes the existence and non-existence of the described object for the reader's eye:

<figure><img src="image_190.png" /></figure>

in wnm dp iw wšd.(t).w wšbf

The one who eats, tastes; the one who has been questioned, answers. (Eloquent Peasant, Parkinson, 1991, pp. 33, l. 247)

Visual *jinās* is represented by using one shared ending determinative Ⲁ, for four contrasted words in a stimulating way. The two words: wšd, Ⲁ—J×wšb—meaning ‘answering’ and ‘asking’. The determinative of the man putting his hand to his mouth Ⲁ refers here to the speaking activity. While the other two contrasted verbs + wnm—J×—dp—meaning ‘eating’ and ‘tasting’ have used the same determinative Ⲁ, to refer specifically to the activity of eating. This meaning is conveyed by the representation of the tongue in the verb *dpt* Ⲁ as an additional determinative representing the state of sensing the taste of the food, not the actual eating process. The writer here used *four* words sharing one image (man-with-hand-to-mouth Ⲁ) as the sole dominant determinative to represent different actions related to the mouth. These visual contrasts are useful in comparing the actions of speaking and eating.

<table><thead><tr><th>first word</th><th>second word</th><th>third word</th><th>fourth word</th><th>shared image</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>+J×</td><td>—J×</td><td>+J×</td><td>+J×</td><td>—J×</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Contrasted Words With Contrasting Determinatives

<figure><img src="image_191.png" /></figure>

sšmm.s hsw nb mi ḫt psft wīdwt

She (the sky) warms everyone who is chilled like a fire that cooks raw things. (Eloquent Peasant, ibid., pp. 34, l. 277)

Visual *jinās* is represented by the employment of two contrasting determinatives that reflect two contrasted meanings: sšmm—a sdm.f verb meaning ‘to warm’ and hsw a plural participle meaning ‘people who feel cold’. Both words have two contrasting ending determinatives that illustrate the source of the described status: the first
word uses the fire determinative Ⲁ to illustrate ‘warmth’ and ‘heat’, while the second word uses the boat’s mast Ⲁ which metaphorically represents the wind, but in this context, it represents a cold wind.

<table><thead><tr><th>first word</th><th>second word</th><th>contrasted images</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>ankh</td><td>ankh</td><td>ankh</td></tr></tbody></table>

The AE writer also visually reinforces the quality of being warmed by using a simile that employs two other words with a close relation to the fire determinative Ⲁ of sšmm. The writer uses the words Ⲁ Ⲃ Ⲁ Ⲃ—meaning ‘fire’ and Ⲁ Ⲃ Ⲁ Ⲃ Ⲁ Ⲃ—meaning ‘to cook’, in order to stress the capability of the sky to warm everyone. The repetition of the fire determinative is pushing the idea of being warmed against the undesired condition of being cold in the visual context of the sentence.

<table><thead><tr><th>first word</th><th>second word</th><th>third word</th><th>fourth word</th><th>visual sequence</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>ankh</td><td>ankh</td><td>ankh</td><td>ankh</td><td>ankh - an - an - an</td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_192.png" /></figure>

ḥpr >w ḫr m ḫwʿ ib m w} n ntt n iit m ḫʿw n ntt n ḫprt

The one who was happy (lit. with a joyful face) became like the one with grieved heart, do not scheme for something which did not come yet, do not rejoice for something which did not happen yet. (Eloquent Peasant, ibid., pp. 38, ll. 302–303)

Visual jinās is represented by employing two contrasting ending determinatives for the reversed jinās words: Ⲁ Ⲃ Ⲁ Ⲃ—meaning ‘being sad’, with a sparrow bird as a determinative that always represents negative meanings in the AE lexicon and Ⲁ Ⲃ Ⲁ Ⲃ—being happy, with a man clapping or raising his hands as a determinative to express happiness. Both words use contrasted determinatives to illustrate the contradictory nature of the two emotional states better. The AE writing uses this small negative bird (the sparrow) to reflect the emotional status of being sad, this negative bird being metaphorically related to agricultural settings, where those small birds form a dangerous threat to the farmers when they devour their grains before they have a chance to grow and thus affect the crops produced. In the case of the word for happiness, AE writing uses a cheerful human figure.

<table><thead><tr><th>first word</th><th>second word</th><th>contrasted images</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>ankh</td><td>ankh</td><td>ankh</td></tr></tbody></table>
Different Words With the Same Determinative

The visual features of AE writing allow its writers to employ two different words that are semantically related by using the same determinative, in order to illustrate metaphorical connotations that may exist between them. However, it should be stressed that the two words are not contrasted semantically.

<figure><img src="image_193.png" /></figure>

in sdrw m33 rswt

*The sleeper is the one who can see the dreams.* (Eloquent Peasant, Parkinson, 1991, pp. 33, l. 248)

Visual *jinās* is represented by using three successive, related determinatives to better illustrate the semantic context: → sdrw—a participle indicated by an image of a seated man, meaning ‘the one who sleeps’, ‘lies down’, ‘goes to rest’, or is ‘inert’, ‘inactive’, with a sleeping man over a bed as soundless determinative ☼; then m33—a sdm.f verb meaning ‘to see’, with an eye as a beginning hieroglyph ☼; and finally → rswt—a plural noun meaning ‘dreams’, with an eye as a determinative ☼. The plural noun rswt is derived from the verb rsw which means ‘being awake’, and ‘vigilance’. The writer thus considers the dreaming action during the sleeping process as a full, real, awakened state metaphorically. The shared eye determinative confirms this metaphorical similarity between the two contrasting actions. The link is related to the ability to see in both worlds, even with closed eyes during the sleeping process.

<table><thead><tr><th>first word</th><th>second word</th><th>third word</th><th>related images</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td></td><td></td><td></td><td></td></tr></tbody></table>

<figure><img src="image_194.png" /></figure>

gm.n.i nb ntrw iw m mhy bw ndm r btf šd.f sš-kd n imn nbt imn m3 bsw

*I found the master of the gods coming like the north wind and the gentle breeze before him and he saved the draughtsman of the god Amun *Amun-Nakht* the justified.*
(Neb Ra Hymn to Amun, Kitchen, 1980, pp. 653, ll. 8–9)

Visual *jinās* is represented by the visual relation between two words that have the same determinatives, artistically written beside each other: mby—a noun meaning ‘north wind’, ‘storm that comes from the north’, with a ship’s mast as an ending soundless determinative ☼, which metaphorically represents the strong wind and tšw—a collective plural noun meaning ‘wind’, with a ship’s mast as an ideogram
to metaphorically represent, in this context, the breeze or gentle wind. The creative writer highlights the ending determinative of the first word ḏ, by placing it beside another different word that has been written with a single symbol that stands for the whole word, which is the ship's mast ḏ ḏ ḏ III. The reading of its visual context may suggest that the writer aims, by using this visual correlation, at confirming two different notions related to the wind being super-fast but delicate and gentle as well, linking them metaphorically to his own praised god.

<table><thead><tr><th>first word</th><th>second word</th><th>highlighted image</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>ankt</td><td>ttt</td><td>ttt</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Using an Unusual Determinative

The AE writer can change the usual ending soundless determinative to serve the described textual context innovatively. This writing technique shows how the visual memory of the reader's eye is important to decipher the intended message from the writer's side and how each different determinative can be pregnant with an additional layer semantically. The studied examples confirm that some AE words could bear two meanings at the same time as if one of them were winking at the other and the meaning overall lay in this wink. The same word, in a different textual context, can mean different things simultaneously. The AE writer can choose between the available determinatives that fit his textual context. Therefore, I would argue that changing the determinant is the dexterous performance of an innovative trick, by which one idea is presented when using the common word root, while another meaning is substituted by changing its usual determinative. This type of visual *jinās* gives more interesting answers about the AE writing practice and the authorial intention but also difficult questions related to the ancient reader's response to such visual instruments. It may raise questions about the impact of additional social factors on the conception of creating 'beautiful speech' within a specific discourse, such as social class, race, and even education level.

<figure><img src="image_195.png" /></figure>

ity n swb} n fr k} n pt ir ḫryt Ṣt m ṣ n ṣ}sw

*The sovereign of the one who gives praise for him to the height of heaven, who made great butchery in the land of Shasw.* (Ramsess II Zigzag poem, Yoyotte, 1950, pl. VII, l. 6)

Visual *jinās* is represented by changing the common determinative of the word ḫryt. The word is always written with a fallen cow with
The visual message here is that the evildoer will find his evil-doing surrounds his harbour of paradise. The evil is metaphorically represented by the crocodile determinative. The writer here employs a horrible life experience that none of the receivers would wish to be part of in order to stress the importance of truthful speaking.<fnref n="3" /> The writer uses the expression of the tongue's truthfulness as an implied critique from the robbed farmer to the government officials that he complains about. The visual context of these words has been used by the writer to reflect the power dynamic of this verse, which in turn encourages the reader to grasp what the farmer means by saying the opposite when using the crocodile's image.

<table><thead><tr><th>first word</th><th>second word</th><th>related images</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>اَلْمَوْسَى</td><td>اَلْمَوْسَى</td><td>اَلْمَوْسَى - اَلْمَوْسَى</td></tr></tbody></table>

## Conclusion

In alphabetical writings, the sound is partly dominant, as demonstrated in Arabic visual jinās. However, it becomes a secondary element in the case of AE visual jinās as it relies more on deciphering the implied message by the comprehension of 'seeing.' The individual ability of the AE writers, in using various eye-catching features to alert the mind's eye during the reading process, should not be overlooked or underestimated in both scripts (the hieroglyphic and its cursive version called hieratic). Using the understanding of our print culture, which is more related to rigid alphabetic constructions, should not overwhelm our critical minds in encoding the AE visual messages. AE writing reflects a different practice of using pictures like a true or metaphorical medium for literary communication. This picture has the potential to create new meanings or construct a visual argument for indigenous readers. (Rashwan, 2019, p. 154) Most of the scholarly focus goes then towards the verbal meaning and usual philological problems. Therefore, the visual aspects of the AE literary expression are still overlooked. The visual jinās is almost an ignored topic of investigation because scholars depend on the phonetic transliteration, which leaves out half of the artistic productivity of the AE writing system. Egyptologists became mechanically satisfied to replace the visual poetic form of the AE writing with deceptive transliterations.

<footnote n="3">3. The writer metaphorically uses a shared life memory of the AE culture to create a religious warning. Religions construct the afterlife punishments or rewards by extracting them from happy or painful life memories that humans experience during their earthly life. Literary exaggeration is always used to reinforce these religious ideas through creative literary devices.</footnote>
References

Al-Bisāṭī, Mohammad (2018). [البساطي، محمود] *The inherited and humorous in the art of visual jinas*. Ed. by Ashraf al-Iskandrany [اشرف الإسكندراني] [القاهرة: معهد المخطوطات العربية: The Institute of Arabic Manuscripts].

Darnell, John (2004). *The Enigmatic Netherworld Books of the Solar Osirian Unity: Cryptographic Compositions in the Tombs of Tutankhamun, Ramesses VI, and Ramesses IX*. Zurich: Orbis Biblicus Et Orientalis.

Diakonoff, Igor (1981). "Earliest Semites in Asia Agriculture and Animal Husbandry According to Linguistic Data (8th-4th Millennia BC)." In: *Altorientalische Forschungen* 8, pp. 23–74.

Ehret, Christopher (1995). *Reconstructing Proto-Afroasiatic (proto-Afrasian): Vowels, Tone, Consonants and Vocabulary*. Vol. 126. University of California Publications in Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Greenberg, Joseph H. (1971). *Language, Culture and Communication: Essays*. Stanford: Stanford University Press.

Al-Gundy, Ali [الجندي، علي] (1954). *The art of Jinās: Eloquence - Literature - Criticism*. [Cairo: دار الفكر] [House of Thought].

Hallof, Jochen (2011). “Esna.” In: *UCLA Encyclopedia of Egyptology*. Los Angeles: URL: http://digital2.library.ucla.edu.

Hodge, Carleton (1983). "Afroasiatic: The Horizon and beyond." In: *The Jewish Quarterly Review* 74.2, pp. 137–158.

Kitchen, Kenneth A. (1980). *Ramesside Inscriptions, Historical and Biographical*. Vol. 3. Oxford: Blackwell.

Parkinson, Richard (1991). *The Tale of the Eloquent Peasant*. Oxford: Griffith Institute.

——— (1997). "The Text of 'Khakheperreseneb': New Readings of EA 5645, and an Unpublished Ostracon." In: *The Journal of Egyptian Archaeology* 83, pp. 55–68.

Quirke, Stephen (2004). *Egyptian Literature 1800 BC: Questions and Readings*. London: Golden House.

Rashwan, Hany (2019). "Ancient Egyptian Image-Writing: Between the Unspoken and Visual Poetics." In: *Journal of the American Research Center in Egypt* 55, pp. 137–160.

——— (2020). "Comparative balāghah: Arabic and ancient Egyptian literary rhetoric through the lens of Post-Eurocentric Poetics." In: *The Routledge Handbook of Comparative World Rhetorics: Studies in the History, Application, and Teaching of Rhetoric Beyond Traditional Greco-Roman Contexts*. Ed. by Keith Lloyd. New York: Routledge, pp. 389–403.

Yoyotte, Jean (1950). "Les stèles de Ramsès II à Tanis." In: *Kêmi, Revue de philologie et d'archéologie égyptiennes et coptes* 11, pp. 47–62.
# Mystic Messages—The Magic of Writing

Marc Wilhelm Küster

*Abstract.* This article studies how writing has been employed to pass subliminal messages not present in the spoken language, and how readers have searched for such secret messages.

The text illustrates how the intrinsic properties of both open and closed writing systems were used to create a magic of writing. It analyses examples from 1st millennium BC cuneiform acrostics to arcane readings of kanji in contemporary Japanese popular culture to show how writing is used as a non-linguistic system to encode and decipher messages.

For the first edition of *Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century*, the author has looked at open and closed writing systems. For him, open writing systems such as the cuneiform and Chinese writing systems are systems that have a core character repertoire, but can easily be extended (Küster, 2019). The character repertoires of closed writing systems such as the Greek or Latin alphabets, but also Hebrew abjads or the Hangul syl-labary are essentially fixed.

This article further explores this the way open and closed writing systems operate and how in both cases writing can be a very different sign system from spoken language. This article looks at the magic of writing as an extreme case in which writing is imbued with meaning that its linguistic equivalent does not have. Already Küster (2006) stud-ies acrostics, in which the order of the alphabet becomes a metaphor for completeness and ultimately perfection, and this remains one case cov-ered. From here to number magic and Kabbalah it is but a small step. This glance at closed writing systems is then complemented by samples of contemporary Japanese culture. Three cases illustrate approaches to a magic of writing that work quite differently from the ones showcased for closed writing systems in the West.

Marc Wilhelm Küster

3b, rue de Wormeldange

L-7390 Blaschette, Luxembourg

marc@budabe.eu

<figure><img src="image_196.png" /></figure>

0000-0002-2600-0717

Y. Haralambous (Ed.), *Grapholinguistics in the 21st Century 2020. Proceedings*

Grapholinguistics and Its Applications (ISSN: 2681-8566, e-ISSN: 2534-5192), Vol. 5.

Fluxus Editions, Brest, 2021, pp. 1109–1122. https://doi.org/10.36824/2020-graf-kues

ISBN: 978-2-9570549-7-8, e-ISBN: 978-2-9570549-9-2
# 1. Magic

Probably already the earliest human societies sought ways of controlling the environment on which their survival depended—ensuring timely rain falls, good hunts, fertility, health and the clan's general prosperity. Magic, they believed, could grant them this power.

Often the performance of magic became the domain of specialists, be they called magicians, shamans, wise women, because it was imagined that its efficiency depended on precise adherence to a given set of often complicated ceremonies, invocations, incantations, and spells. Some speculate that already prehistoric cave paintings had been painted by shamans.<fnref n="1" /> The potency of magic would often be reflected in its complexity; sloppiness in performing magic might result in the magician's death or worse and bring calamity to their societies, but if correctly executed great benefits could accrue:

> The magician does not doubt that the same causes will always produce the same effects, that the performance of the proper ceremony, accompanied by the appropriate spell, will inevitably be attended by the desired result. [...] If he claims a sovereignty over nature, it is a constitutional sovereignty rigorously limited in its scope and exercised in exact conformity with ancient usage.<fnref n="2" />

Magic existed for millennia, perhaps tens of millennia, before the invention of writing. It was therefore by necessity linked to spoken language and rituals. Its secrets were typically transmitted orally from teacher to student, with a lot of emphasis on precise repetition, though the cave paintings bear witness that even very early on practitioners seem to have wanted to persist aspects of their rituals and even thoughts and emotions.<fnref n="3" />

So it is maybe not surprising that over time writing was employed to record magic rituals, be they cuneiform tablets with incantations or (much later) grimoires and spell books.<fnref n="4" /> However, these written representations of spoken magic that just reproduce oral spells are not the topic of this article, even though they might be an interesting study in an of itself, as many grimoires invented their own script-like devices to record magic.

<footnote n="1">1. Whitley (2009), who emphasises the “undeniable association between decorated panels and the deep, dark inner sanctums of the caves” (p. 28) and its links to shamans and shamanism.</footnote>

<footnote n="2">2. Frazer (1890), Chapter IV. Magic and Religion—in this magic is truly the “bастard sister of science,” in many ways its predecessor.</footnote>

<footnote n="3">3. Whitley (2009) speaks of these paintings of “visionary images that illustrate the spirits and events of the supernatural world”. If true, these images also would be among the earliest recorded instances of story telling.</footnote>

<footnote n="4">4. See Davies (2009) for a history of spellbooks.</footnote>
Instead, we look here at the mechanisms that were employed to trans-
form writing itself into a vehicle for the performance of magic. We see
how writing was used to pass subliminal messages not present in the
spoken language and how readers searched for such secret messages, and
at ways the intrinsic properties of writing were used for this—a magic
of writing.

2. The Origins of Magical Writing

As far as we know, cuneiform writing was quite prosaically invented as
a mechanism for book keeping—a product of economic necessity to ad-
minister the increasingly complex commercial interactions in Sumerian
city states. It was from its very beginning linked to ordered lists of terms
as a key tool for memorising cuneiform characters and their hierarchi-
cal relation among each other and the concepts they represented.<fnref n="5" /> At
the beginning neither writing nor lexical lists seem have been linked to
rites or magic, though by the Early Dynastic period we have first proof
for incantations preserved on cuneiform tablets.<fnref n="6" />

2.1. Acrostics

Going beyond recording incantations and spells that were originally
transmitted orally, practitioners began to explore the internal logic of
the semiotic system of first cuneiform and then alphabetic writing to
create a magic of writing.

One of the early known ways of using a characteristic of writing for
magical purposes was acrostic poetry where each line or alternatively
each line in a stanza would begin with the same cuneiform character.
While this might look like alliteration, it was not, as “[m]ost of the acros-
tics make use of this polyphony of sign values”<fnref n="7" /> that marks many open
writing systems. In other words, while the lines share the same initial
character, they do not necessarily share the same phoneme.

The acrostic itself can transmit a hidden message:

<footnote n="5">5. Lexical lists are part of the earliest stage of script development in the Middle East, cf. Nissen (1981, p. 101) and Englund, Nissen, Damerow, and Baghdad (1993, p. 13).</footnote>

<footnote n="6">6. http://etcsl.orinst.ox.ac.uk/edition2/literature.php— "Also first attested in the late Early Dynastic period are two particular types of non-utilitarian text that had a long history in Mesopotamia: incantations and royal inscriptions. The former employ various religious and rhetorical strategies, as well as mimetic ritual, to achieve instrumental ends such as curing illness."</footnote>

<footnote n="7">7. Soll (1988, p. 307), here with reference to Babylonian acrostics.</footnote>
Akkadian acrostics are message acrostics in which the initial syllables or signs of the horizontal acrostic lines spell out a message when read vertically. Seven complete or partial acrostic texts are known from Akkadian literature.<fnref n="8" />

In the case of the Babylonian *Theodicy*, written around 1000 BC, the message read “I, Saggil-kinam-ubbib, the incantation priest, am adorant of the god and the king”.<fnref n="9" /> Other Akkadian texts would go even further and work with double acrostics with incantations encoded via both the initial and final syllables.<fnref n="10" /> This sophisticated mechanism of hiding a message could only work in writing. It is the sheer difficulty of writing such acrostic poetry that in the mind of practitioners imbued it with its potency.

The Babylonian *Theodicy* is an acrostic in its written form—“[e]ach of the 11 lines of the stanzas start with the same sign, like Psalm 119. To achieve this [...] throughout the author allows himself the liberty of using a little the polyphony of the signs”.<fnref n="11" /> In other words, in contrast to alliteration the artifice cannot be separated from writing.

The advent of the alphabet with its intrinsic order would add an additional layer—acrostics whose first letters spelled out the order of the alphabet rather than a specific message. The alphabet itself is a “ready metaphor for totality”<fnref n="12" />, a metaphor of completeness.

Alphabetic acrostics would become a staple also in wisdom literature, most prominently in a number of Hebrew psalms.<fnref n="13" />

## 2.2. *The Number of My Name*

One of the earliest known examples of number magic linked to a text—a name in this case—are foundation cylinders of the Assyrian king Sargon II (king from 722 to 705 BC) who had the wall around Dur-Sharrukin—“Sargon’s fortress”, today’s Khorsabad in Iraq, about 15 km northeast of Mosul—built in a length that corresponded to “the number of his name”.<fnref n="14" /> Sargon II. proclaimed that “Vier Sar, drei Ner, 1 Soss, 3 kâné, 2 Ellen [Summa: 16280 Ellen]—so viel mein Name bedeutet—machte ich das Mass ihrer Mauer, und auf hohem Berggestein gründete ich fest ihr Fundament”.<fnref n="15" />

<footnote n="8">8. See Brug (2010).</footnote>

<footnote n="9">9. http://www.etana.org/node/582, cited after Lambert (1996, pp. 63–89).</footnote>

<footnote n="10">10. Some such examples are the acrostics discussed in Sweet (1969).</footnote>

<footnote n="11">11. See Lambert (1960, p. 66).</footnote>

<footnote n="12">12. See Soll (1988, p. 317).</footnote>

<footnote n="13">13. Cf. also W. G. E. Watson (1982) and W. G. Watson (1986).</footnote>

<footnote n="14">14. At least four copies of this foundation cylinder are known, two each in the Louvre and in London, cf. Lyon (1883, p. XIV).</footnote>

<footnote n="15">15. Lyon (1882, 11, line 65), also Lyon (1883, p. 39). The exact number is being discussed, with current literature going for 16,283 rather than 16,280 cubits, “De 16 283</footnote>
The great city was entirely built in the decade preceding 706 BC. After the unexpected death of Sargon in battle in 705 BC, where even his body felt into the hands of his enemies (an extremely bad omen in Assyria), Dur-Sharrukin was abandoned and the capital was shifted 20 km south to Nineveh.

While there is no consensus yet on how this calculation was made and which exact numerical values should be applied for the cuneiform characters in the case of Sargon II's name, we can safely assume that the Assyrian king expected this message on Dur-Sharrukin foundation cylinders to magically strengthen the wall of his newly founded capital. Presumably the mystic equivalence of the royal name and his capital's wall was conceived to link and reinforce both. It may well be that, when Sargon II ignominiously died in battle shortly afterwards, it was this same equivalence that helped to doom his short-lived capital.

Sargon II could build on a tradition of cuneiform signs that were mapped to numbers. As Pearce (1996) elaborates in his article on *number-syllabary texts* in that late cuneiform period, the numeric value was one linked to the cuneiform signs themselves, not to their typically polyvalent readings.<fnref n="16" /> What is more, these mappings were not secret knowledge, not *Geheimwissen* (cf. p. 461), but rather accepted knowledge that became soon loaded with theological overtones—"by the first millennium, numerals frequently represented divine names."<fnref n="17" />

To map numbers and characters is not obvious in an open writing system, whereas it is a perfectly natural feature of a closed writing system with a clear order between its letters. On a purely speculative note, given the very late attestation of number-syllabary tests in the history of the cuneiform script at a time where the Phoenician and Aramaic scripts were long in current use, it could very well be inspired by the numerology of the early Semitic scripts. It would then naturally have fit in a existing tradition of acrostics and other forms of sign magic.

### 3. Kabbalah

Just like alphabetic acrostics, the Kabbalah and in particular its use of gematria to search for hidden messages in the Torah derives from the double use of Greek and Hebrew letters as number signs, which in turn reflects the order of those letters in their writing systems.

grandes coudées, le nombre de mon nom, je fis le circuit de sa muraille", cf. Contenau, 1940, p. 162. / "I made the circumference (lit., measure) of its (the city's) wall 16,283 cubits, (corresponding to) my name (*nibīt šumīya*), and established the foundation platform upon the bedrock of the high mountain" Frahm (2005, p. 48).

<footnote n="16">16. The texts "demonstrate that the scribes intended the numerals to represent only the sign form and not the possible syllabic readings of the sign" (Pearce, 1996, p. 460).</footnote>

<footnote n="17">17. See Pearce (ibid., p. 461).</footnote>
As we have seen above, the idea of finding hidden numbers and mean-
ings in sequences of letters seems to have a long tradition in the Middle
East, with Sargon II's magic just being a case in point. Number magic
cut two ways—practitioners used it to imbue texts with magic by con-
sciously encoding into them further layers of meaning, but also tried to
decipher such layers from texts that certainly were never meant to have
them.

These strategies were known in Israel in the Hellenistic period, but
are likely much older—as mentioned above, it might have been itself
the inspiration for applying number magic in the late cuneiform pe-
riod.<fnref n="18" /> At a time where the Aramaic writing system was fully established,
some Aramaic texts were even “retrofitted” into cuneiform to strengthen
this link.<fnref n="19" /> Similarly, Lieberman (1987, p. 167) traces Rabbinic gematria
squarely back to Mesopotamian practices.

3.1. The *Zohar*

While some apologists today claim that the Kabbalah go back to Tal-
mudic, if not Mosaic or even Adamic times,<fnref n="20" /> it probably came about
only in the 12th century, though building on a much older tradition of
Jewish mysticism. Its foundational work, the *Zohar*, was written—or, as
some practitioners would have it, rediscovered—in 13th century Spain.

Among many other things the *Zohar* developed an outright philoso-
phy of the role that the Hebrew letters had in the creation of the world,
starting out in the prologue where “When He desired to create the world,
all the letters came before Him in sequence from last to first”<fnref n="21" /> with Bet
ב being the letter chosen to create the world “because the letter Bet is the
first letter of the word blessing (HEB. BRACHAH)”<fnref n="22" />. Here, the Torah
starts with Bet. Aleph א is compensated by the honour to “be the first
[...] of all the letters [...] all calculations and actions of the people shall
commence with you. Therefore, all unity shall be expressed by the letter
Aleph!”<fnref n="23" />

<footnote n="18">18. For an interesting, but explicitly speculative study on occurrences of 52—the numerical value associated with the name of god—already in the Masoretic version of the Torah cf. Knohl (2012).</footnote>

<footnote n="19">19. Cf. Gordon (1937) for an example of a late cuneiform incantation tablet written in Aramaic. While the tablet itself was written only in Hellenistic times, the incantation itself may be older, since “[i]t is well known that the efficacy of an incantation is often believed to be in direct proportion to its antiquity,” p. 105.</footnote>

<footnote n="20">20. Cf., e.g., Kurzweil (2007, 35ff).</footnote>

<footnote n="21">21. Zohar, Prologue, verse 23, cited after https://www.zohar.com/zohar/Prologue/chapters/6.</footnote>

<footnote n="22">22. Loc. cit., verse 37, capitalisation in the original.</footnote>

<footnote n="23">23. Loc. cit., verse 38.</footnote>
It could be the topic of another article to look more in detail at the grafematics of the *Zohar* and of the Kabbalah as a whole. Here, let it be sufficient to state that this philosophy does not stop at the letters itself. The forms of the letters—in this case the stroke of Aleph α—is also loaded with meaning:

> Come and see: The first subject of the Torah we give to children is the Alphabet. [...] Even supernal angels and the most sublime cannot comprehend it, as these matters are the mysteries of the Holy Name. There are 14,050,000 worlds dependent upon the stroke of the Aleph α, MEANING THE STROKE OF THE UPPER YUD OF THE ALEPH, and 72 holy names are engraved in the impressed letters in them. The high and low beings; heaven, earth and the seat of glory of the King—are hanging from one side to the other side, MEANING FROM THE UPPER STROKE TO THE LOWER STROKE of the expansion of the Aleph [...]<fnref n="24" />

Given the central role of Hebrew letters and writing in general, it is not surprising that the Kabbalah sought to extract layers of meaning from the Torah that are linked to the written word itself—“Kabbalists believe that God created the world through a combination of Hebrew letters”<fnref n="25" />, as a contemporary popular introduction to the Kabbalah puts it. The classical layer of interpretation went from the “literal meaning, the homiletic meaning, the hints that the text implies, and the secret, mystical meaning”<fnref n="26" />. For this latter gematria is a common, though by no means not the only approach to extract these type of mystical meanings through the contemplation of the—in a literal sense—written word.

This love for letters also inspired a number of non-Jewish practitioners of the Kabbalah—while the Kabbalah originates in Judaism, it had adepts also in other religions. The Christian scholar Ramon Lull was one of the most prominent of them, searching in the spirit of the ecstatic Kabbalah, “combinations of letters which constitute the Divine name”<fnref n="27" />, but by far not the only one. Even today gematria is still being used in some esoteric circles in the hope of extracting deep hidden messages from written texts.

## 3.2. Kabbalah and True Names

The Middle Eastern tradition met with the Socratic search for *true names* and their numeric identities. In Greece Plato's ideas would give additional impetus, as in *Cratylos* where Plato makes Socrates say:

<footnote n="24">24. Zohar, Acharei Mot, verse 303, cited after https://www.zohar.com/zohar/AchareiMot/Chapters/50. Capitalisation in the original.</footnote>

<footnote n="25">25. See Kurzweil (ibid., p. 130).</footnote>

<footnote n="26">26. See Kurzweil (ibid., p. 218).</footnote>

<footnote n="27">27. See Idel (1988, p. 171).</footnote>
On this basis, then, you will judge the law-giver, whether he be here or in a foreign land, so long as he gives to each thing the proper form of the name, in whatsoever syllables, to be no worse lawgiver, whether here or anywhere else, will you not? (Plat. Crat. 390a)

This hunt for the proper form, the true name<fnref n="28" /> of a thing became common in the Hellenistic and post-Hellenistic world and well beyond. It influences strands of the Kabbalah, which elevated the concept of finding hidden meanings into a philosophy. In particular gematria became a major tool. The ultimate meaning of a text would not be the one indicated by the language that the writing ostensibly represents, but rather a mystical message transmitted via numbers encoded exclusively in the written word.

## 4. Magic in Open Writing Systems

Gematria and alphabetic acrostics work best for closed writing systems. They depend on a mapping between letters and numbers, typically via the supposedly eternal alphabetic order of letters in the writing system.<fnref n="29" />

Though open writing systems also partially adopted these techniques, they had to find also other techniques to elicit hidden meanings from a written text. Contrary to Sumerian writing, the oldest examples of notably Chinese characters are actually directly linked to magic, more specifically pyromancy, divination by fire. Questions would be carved on bones in what is the oldest surviving form of Chinese writing from around 1200 BC. The diviner—often the king in person—would then heat the bone and interpret the resulting cracks to elicit an answer to the question. Sometimes this interpretation would be noted on the bone to compare it with the actual event later.

In Chinese culture this link between writing and ritual would never be fully broken, a trait that also of the Japanese writing system inherited. In Japan ema—wooden plaques—became a standard way to transmit wishes to the gods. The wish is inscribed on the plaque and hung at the shrine in question before being burned. Its written message is thereby posted to the god to whom the shrine is dedicated. This practice is still very much alive—some shrines figure prominently also in popular culture and some ema even figure characters from Japanese popular culture.<fnref n="30" />

In this article I will look at three contemporary examples from popular culture that exploit properties of Japanese writing:

<footnote n="28">28. The latter a concept explored, e.g., in Le Guin's Earthsea cycle, Le Guin (2012).</footnote>

<footnote n="29">29. See Küster (2006, 181ff).</footnote>

<footnote n="30">30. As described in Reader (1991), one such example is the real-life Shirakawa Hachiman Shrine that became a target of pilgrimage for fans of the *Higurashi—When They Cry* visual novel and anime franchise. The fans celebrate this shrine as the ficti-</footnote>
## 4.1. Magic in Polyphony

Magic in Hayao Miyazaki’s animated masterpiece *Spirited away* features the ability of the witch Yubaba to enslave the humans that request to work for the spirit world bathhouse which she manages. She takes away their liberty and their identity of her applicants by re-baptizing them. However, this power seems constrained; she can only operate on a written contract and shorten her victim’s written name, allowing her workers a tenuous link to their previous existence.

This specific constraint is lost in the English translation, where the name of the protagonist, Ogino Chihiro, inexplicably morphs into Sen. The logic behind this it is much more visible in the original Japanese title, **千と千尋の神隠し**, *Sen and Chibiro’s Spiriting Away*, and it is immortalized in the scene where Chihiro is forced to sign away her name and with it her identity. Yubaba makes all parts of Chihiro’s signature disappear except for the single character **千**, the first kanji in Chihiro’s first name **千尋**:

<figure><img src="image_197.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 1. Miyazaki (2001), position 38:41</figcaption></figure>

Like most Japanese kanji, **千** is the polyphonic grapheme which has two main syllabic readings, *chi* (the Japanese *kun* reading), but also *sen* (the “Chinese” *on* reading of the character).

Yubaba’s magic thus relies on her ability to operate through writing and on *written* words. It exploits the polyphony of Japanese characters

<footnote>tious Furude Shrine in the equally fictitious village of Hinamizawa, addressing ema to some of the *Higurashi* characters. Andrews (2014) studies other examples.</footnote>
to manipulate associations between identity, the written and the spoken word in ways that transcend spoken language.

Furthermore, by choosing the On-reading for Chihiros new name, Yubaba seems to remove Chihiro from her true Japanese roots. In addition, 千 also stands for 1,000, an implicit statement of capitalistic values usurping Chihiro's true personality. She has to start on a long inquiry<fnref n="31" /> to reestablish her true identity and values.

## 4.2. Radical Magic

The *Monogatari* series of Japanese popular novels, authored by Nishio Isin, often situates itself with reference to a Shintoist pantheon and Shintoist magic. This magic very often turns around more esoteric interpretations of writing in general and kanji in particular. Even the animated rendering of the novels regularly showcases tablets of written texts to underline links that the spoken language cannot show.

One such story centres around helping a desperate girl, Hachikuji Mayoi, trying to find her mother. She claims to be a lost snail:

<figure><img src="image_198.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 2. Itamura (2009), position 22:44. In the series written passages like this one regularly complement the story.</figcaption></figure>

<footnote n="31">31. The second kanji 寻 of Chihiro's first name is also the stem of the verb 寻ねる, to inquire, though now with the alternative reading *tazu* rather than *hiro*—another association that only works in the written language.</footnote>
蜗牛 is the spelling that the story adopts for snail; it is a less common out of a number of possible forms of writing the underlying phonemes.<fnref n="32" /> However, it is only on the choice of this particular spelling on which the magic works:

- The first of the two kanji, 蜗, contains the radical 畝 for evil and dishonest, associating the girl with negative forces

- The second of the kanji, 牛, symbolises cow, situating the story in a family of myths of entities who lure innocent wanderers astray

These same plays on specifically the written language are equally prevalent in the source material (Nishio, 2006).

The magic is in the letters themselves—by interpreting the underlying kanji characters in a arcane way, the author manages to associate the innocent and at first glance innocuous concept of a lost snail with other, more established ideas in myth.

### 4.3. The Servant's Three New Names

In Adachi, 2014, the Shinto god Noragami binds a new servant (“shinki”) to his services. He literally inscribes a “property mark” in the form of a kanji on his servant and joins this with three different readings—his everyday name Yuki, his functional name, Setsu, and a third, true name that is not voiced. It is ultimately this third, secret reading of the servant that only he as a god can sense and that ultimately gives him power over his servant.

While coming from a very different cultural background, the idea of this third, hidden name bears strong similarity to the Platonic concept of a person’s or object’s true name. Finding this true name is envisioned to confer power over the named person or object—a vision obviously shared between Shintoism, much of the neo-platonic school, and the Kabbalah.

## 5. Summary

Using a number of examples this article demonstrate how the intrinsic properties of writing systems can carry mystical messages in the mind of practitioners. These messages depend only on an esoteric interpretation of the written language that hides or reveals these messages.

The concrete methods of doing so depend on the logic of the writing system in question. In our selected examples we have encountered:

<footnote n="32">32. Cf. https://www.linguee.com/english-japanese/translation/snail.html, last consulted on 2020-01-19.</footnote>
<figure><img src="image_199.png" /><figcaption>FIGURE 3. Adachi (2014, p. 177)</figcaption></figure>
- acrostic poetry that imbues its text with messages hidden in its first and sometimes also last characters;

- number magic through numeric values associated with characters that are supposed to encode a text's deeper, secret truths, which the practitioner hopes to exploit or to which he hopes to gain access;

- links created between concepts by exploiting the internal structure of characters;

- polyphony that allows multiple readings of characters, creating again associations and messages that are pure artefacts of writing.

These techniques may not be the most prevalent use of writing. However, they demonstrate how writing systems can (partially) emancipate themselves from their underlying spoken languages and find new, non-linguistic ways to transmit meaning. For closed writing systems these mechanisms mainly exploit the writing system's internal structures, whereas open writing systems rely more on arcane features of the characters themselves. However, in both cases they succeed in creating a new system—a magic of writing.

## References

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# Index

## A

abbreviation, 14, 15, 32, 33, 60–63,
76, 77, 91, 269, 282, 378,
514, 631, 719, 819, 946,
1078

marker, 15

abjad, 51, 53, 54, 60, 76, 134, 178,
180, 228, 625, 781, 807–
811, 820, 822, 910, 1109

Abkhaz, 115

abstract, 561, 563, 565, 567
object, 9

abugida, 54, 162, 163, 165, 177,
180, 184, 228, 625, 807–
811, 818–820, 822

acrophonic, 208, 232
principle, 168, 224, 232

acrostics, 1109, 1111–1113, 1116

Adobe, 441

Aegean, 807, 809

Aidarus, 980

Ajami, 971

Akkadian, 59, 116, 117, 216, 218,
929, 1112

al-Busiri, 980

al-Inkishafi, 977

Albanian, 166, 373, 392

aleph, 466, 1114, 1115

Algerian (typeface), 397

Algernon, 276, 278

*Alice in Wonderland*, 350, 351

alloglottoepy, 790

alloglottography, 790

allography, 129, 134, 136, 232, 233

alphabet, 89, 144–148, 150, 152,
154, 155, 157, 166, 168–
170, 172, 177, 180, 182,
185–187, 218, 223–230,
232, 234–236, 241, 242,
244, 429, 432, 463, 473,
569, 763, 765, 807, 810,
811, 822, 825, 829, 831,
837, 841, 888, 907, 908,
910, 916, 1109, 1112

a monument to hidebound
conservatism, 114

Arabic, 910

Aramaic, 166

Armenian, 166, 185, 186

Bougainvillian, 837

Carian, 181, 182, 232, 233

consonantal, 208, 218, 810,
811

Coptic, 184, 775, 776, 778, 780

Cyrillic, 115, 154, 1068, 1070,
1080

dual, 14

English, 825

Entlehnungs-, 150

Etruscan, 170, 171, 916

Georgian, 793

Gothic, 166, 224

Greek, 115, 167–171, 182, 187,
225, 226, 230–232, 234,
775–779, 781

Hebrew, 231, 497

history, 157
Korean, 807
Latin, 147, 151, 154, 171, 176, 182, 300, 305, 443, 445, 762, 999, 1068, 1070, 1077

linear, 231

Lycian, 233

manual, 1060

North Italic, 146

origins, 207, 217

Otomaung, 825, 826, 829, 831, 837, 840, 844

Phoenician, 146

phonemic, 580

proto-, 167, 182

Roman, 111, 115, 154, 155, 174, 177, 228, 650, 651, 832, 844, 908

Romanian, 1075

Russian, 1071

Shavian, 905, 912, 914, 915

Ur-, 170

Venetic, 172, 186

vowelled, 208

alphabetic, 120

Altaic, 209

Amharic, 373, 392

Amiri (typeface), 969

amulet, 806

analogy, 742–744

Anatolian, 223, 226, 230, 232, 234, 928, 929, 932, 939

*Andika!*, 967–971, 973, 974, 981–983

ANRT, 439, 444–446, 452, 457

ants, 566, 569

apostrophe, 14, 28–30, 61, 269, 276, 290, 293, 719, 720, 725–727

special, 490

Apple, 441, 442

Arabic, 14, 35, 36, 52, 54, 60, 111, 112, 114, 116, 117, 159, 173, 203–207, 209–212, 217, 223, 265, 267, 350, 373, 377, 392, 394, 398, 410,

476, 478, 479, 497, 498, 530, 564, 568, 580, 622, 625, 760, 810, 835, 905, 907–910, 912, 913, 919, 963–972, 977, 978, 980–983, 986, 1044, 1083–1086, 1088–1094, 1097–1100, 1107

classical, 1098

Quranic, 217

Arabism, 497

Aramaic, 59–61, 76, 115, 164, 166, 178, 179, 181, 206–209, 211, 495, 787–794, 797, 799, 912, 1113, 1114

arbitrariness, 742

archaeology, 144, 146, 179, 225, 523, 544, 788, 791, 873, 874, 929, 957, 1098

*are you? you are*, 311

Arial (typeface), 420, 913

Ariekan, 283, 310–312

Armazian, 792–794, 797

Armenian, 155, 166, 182, 184–186, 373, 392, 789, 810

Arnold Böcklin (typeface), 398, 399

ARPA, 440

Art, 561

artificial intelligence, 96

artificial language learning, 215

ASCII, 342–345, 423, 440, 441, 444, 504

ASL, 1040, 1047–1049

ASLphabet, 1049

asomtavruli, 791

association, 744

Assyrian, 202, 789, 906, 1112, 1113

asterisk, 251, 254, 275, 717, 718, 720, 726, 731, 863

ateji, 295, 307–309, 637

Athapaskan, 116

attitudinal factor, 781

audibility, 86, 87, 96

Austroasiatic, 115
Austronesian, 111, 829

awareness, 84, 99

Ayka (typeface), 430

Azeri, 111

Aztec, 810, 812, 816, 817, 820

Aśoka, 178, 179

## B

B B B, 323

BabelStone Naxi (typeface), 995

Bajuni, 972, 978

Bakery (typeface), 397

Bamum, 174, 827, 828

Bantu, 111, 115

Bastian Balthazar Bux, 284, 285, 320–324

Bauhaus, 316

BCCWJ, 586–588, 602, 603, 636

Beatles, 11

Behistun, 160–164

Berber, 204, 205, 210, 212, 217, 1097

Kabyle, 210, 212, 217

biliteracy, 113

Blackletter (typeface), 303, 373, 378

●, 328

boldface, 203, 205, 211, 212, 216, 301, 319, 324, 325, 347, 348, 374, 832, 865, 1057, 1092

Book Antiqua (typeface), 914

Bookman (typeface), 397

Bosnian, 373

Bougainville, 825, 826, 829, 830, 832, 833, 835–838, 840, 844, 845

brackets, 13

braille, 631

Bronze Age, 945–947, 960

brute-force attack, 927, 931–933, 941

Brāhmī, 178–180, 208, 209, 217

Bulgarian, 165, 373, 392, 910

## C

Cafe (typeface), 397

Cambria (typeface), 913, 914

Canapés<sup>S.O.S.</sup>, 309

Carian, 181, 182, 212, 226, 228, 232, 233, 235

Catalan, 373, 392

Catholicism, 74, 721, 724, 730, 837

Caucasian, 115, 166, 182, 787, 799

Northwest, 115

cave painting, 1110

Celtiberian, 182

Celtic, 184

cenemic, 48, 53, 625

CETI, 516, 519, 523

chaos hypothesis, 181, 226

character component, 278, 279, 648–651, 657, 660, 664, 668, 669, 675–677

Charlie Gordon, 276–278

chat communication, 20

chatbot, 344

chereme, 1048

Cherokee, 111, 112, 114, 173, 174, 181, 184, 185, 530, 626, 826

Chi-square test, 746

Chihiro, 1117, 1118

Chimwiini, 210, 211, 969

Chinese, 14, 25, 26, 35, 37–39, 41, 48, 49, 51–57, 63, 64, 66–68, 70–72, 75, 76, 108, 109, 112–115, 118, 128, 134, 159, 175, 176, 201, 209, 216, 223, 230, 300, 373, 393, 459, 530, 580, 582, 636, 645–651, 654, 657–659, 664, 668, 675–677, 683–685, 687, 711, 712, 781, 805, 810, 818, 823, 851, 906, 966, 986–992, 994, 998, 1000, 1001, 1109, 1116, 1117

Middle, 71, 72
Old, 48, 55, 56, 216

chirography, 441, 446

CIA, 338, 339

cipher, 182, 624, 625, 633, 832,
844

script, 832

clicks, 115

clitic, 28

Cloister Black (typeface), 303

coda, 203, 216, 629, 645, 646, 654,
664-668, 671-673, 677,
757

*Codex Mendoza*, 812

codification, 4

Codman's Paradox, 1030

cognition, 84, 86, 89, 94, 103,
104, 106-108, 116-119,
132, 134, 137, 223, 225,
228-230, 235, 261, 265,
341, 362, 366, 404, 429,
442, 491, 523, 528, 546,
565, 585, 615, 732, 742-
744, 775, 776, 778, 806,
883, 886, 940, 985, 986,
1000, 1010, 1041-1043,
1045, 1049, 1083, 1088,
1089

coherent discrimination, 907

coherent thought, 12

Comic Sans (typeface), 405

comics, 16

comma, 6, 12, 15, 17, 21, 29, 126,
321, 530, 714, 717, 719,
720, 722, 723, 726, 727,
729, 730, 732, 874, 967,
1056, 1075, 1084-1086,
1089-1091, 1093

community of practice, 776

Comoro Islands, 967, 971

complete thought, 12

componentness, 712

conceptual, 561, 742

conceptualism, 9

concrete, 561, 565, 567

conditions of well-formedness, 8

congruence, 744

connector, 1084, 1088-1090,
1092, 1093

connotation, 72-75, 137, 276, 303,
362, 365, 373, 384, 390,
402, 407, 411, 418, 422,
432, 491, 501, 521, 530,
535, 538, 596, 605, 740,
742, 906, 1085, 1086,
1088, 1090, 1092, 1104

consonant, 61, 105, 113, 159, 162,
163, 177, 205-215, 218,
228, 622, 629, 631, 718,
751, 755, 758, 759, 763-
765, 769, 777, 779, 807,
810, 811, 820-822, 829,
910-912, 916, 935, 939,
999, 1071, 1077

affixal, 214

ambisyllabic long, 629

coda, 216, 664

conjunct, 180

double, 758

final, 232

full, 207

geminate, 213

high-frequency, 744

initial, 177, 482, 746

intervocalic, 33

labial, 105

low-frequency, 744

middle, 217

nasalized, 998, 999

null, 209

palatalised, 1071

pharyngeal, 491

prenasalised, 977

retroflex, 999

romance, 759, 764

root, 217

subscript, 819

uvular, 998

vocalized, 810

voiced, 998, 999

voiceless obstruent, 629
weak, 808, 916
content, 742
contingency coefficient, 746
continuum, 95
Cooper Black (typeface), 399
copresence, 86, 87, 96
Coptic, 182, 184, 775–781
Coreguaje, 116
correlation, 744
correspondence, 744
cotemporality, 86, 87, 96
Courier New (typeface), 905, 912, 914
COVID-19, 223, 501, 506, 508, 511, 639, 825, 826, 829, 837, 855, 1026
Cratylos, 1115
Cree, 218
critical period, 107
Croatian, 373, 714, 721, 724, 726
cryptanalysis, 523, 931, 932
Cthulhu, 534
cultural heritage, 964
cuneiform, 57, 59, 114, 116, 117, 160–164, 167, 178, 207, 444, 818, 821, 851, 1109–1111, 1113, 1114
Cyrillic, 114, 115, 154, 155, 173, 182, 223, 267, 305, 373, 442, 810, 823, 905, 908–910, 912, 915, 920, 971, 1067–1073, 1075–1077, 1079, 1080
Czech, 305, 373, 539, 724, 725, 732
Czechoslovak, 93

D

dada, 244, 334, 856
Dakota, 985
Danielian, 166
Danish, 93, 111, 150, 325, 373, 714, 724, 725, 1022

dash, 251, 254, 269, 277, 293, 299, 517, 728, 732, 1052, 1086, 1090, 1091
double, 1086, 1089–1091
em-dash, 325
en-dash, 726
deafness, 1042
decimal point, 15
decipherment, 85, 169, 181, 445, 514, 515, 522–525, 528, 530, 534, 535, 541, 544, 545, 791, 812, 821, 848, 852, 858, 868, 869, 878, 879, 883, 888, 928–933, 938, 940, 941, 945–947, 1043, 1044, 1050, 1085, 1097, 1105–1107, 1109
deep, 756
definition of writing, 119 (deleted), 342
deliteracy, 964
Demotic, 182, 184, 775–781
Devanagari, 105, 109, 112, 223, 373, 819, 821
Dhivehi, 108, 117
diachronic, 760
diadocal movement, 1030
dichotomy, 92
differentiation, 821
digital arena, 96
era, 87
media, 88
digitisation full, 966
digraph, 115, 768
DIN (typeface), 368, 378, 388
distinctiveness, 907
Dongba (typeface), 987
dongba, 821, 985–1003
<dī>, 63
dual alphabet, 14
Duisburg-Marxloh, 361, 373, 393, 397–403, 410, 415
Dur-Sharrukin, 1112, 1113
Dutch, 111, 138, 295, 318, 344, 373, 724, 725, 727, 730, 758

E

Earth chauvinism, 533

École Estienne, 304

economic theory, 562

economists, 562

efficiency, 907

Egyptian, 53, 57, 155, 207, 208, 218, 224, 496, 775-777, 779, 781, 807, 809, 810, 817, 818, 820, 821, 851, 877, 907, 935, 966, 1001, 1097, 1098, 1100, 1106

Electroharmonix (typeface), 110

electronic era, 87

ELIZA, 343

ellipsis, 16

אלקים lqym, 490

Embassytown, 283, 310, 312

emblem, 480, 809, 810, 812-814, 816-820, 822, 885

EMERGE, 565

Emergence, 566

eminent sign, 242

emoji, 348, 419, 424, 432, 442, 446, 459, 501-511

Emojipedia, 503, 506

emoticon, 419, 422-425, 428, 429, 432, 435, 502, 823

Ø (empty set), 350

end punctuation mark, 15

English, 1-3, 5-7, 11, 13, 14, 16-18, 20, 21, 26, 29, 30, 33-35, 39, 40, 50-54, 56, 59, 60, 62, 76, 104, 105, 109-113, 116, 118, 126, 130, 131, 134, 138, 173, 184, 204, 207, 212-216, 250, 252, 253, 275, 276, 278, 280-282, 288, 290, 291, 295, 297-299, 304, 308, 310-312, 322, 325, 342,

344, 373, 375, 377, 392, 394, 427, 441, 503, 530, 540, 544, 546, 580, 592, 622, 624-626, 628, 633, 634, 647, 648, 653, 659, 664, 714, 724, 726-728, 730, 741, 755, 757, 758, 825, 832, 837, 840, 860, 862, 876, 890, 905, 907-912, 914-916, 965, 968, 969, 972, 975, 981, 982, 987-989, 994, 1001, 1033, 1040, 1048, 1068, 1075, 1084, 1089, 1098, 1117

Middle, 916

Old, 739-742, 745, 746, 748, 750, 751

Enlightenment, 713, 715, 716, 725, 726, 728-732

equality, 744

equivalence, 744

error, 6

Ersu Shaba, 985

Estonian, 373, 392

Ethiopic, 212

ETI, 514-516, 521, 523-527, 530-532, 534, 535, 538, 539, 542-544, 546, 547

Etruscan, 155, 156, 170-172, 184, 203, 226, 446, 459, 461, 472, 473, 916

exclamation mark, 5

exotype, 109

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, 313, 335, 339, 345

eye dialect, 274-276, 278-282, 491, 494

F

Face-to-Face-SL, 1054-1060

Facebook, 442, 491, 501, 502, 505, 507, 837

facilitation, 908

falsification, 858
Feersum Endjinn, 279

Fidel, 212

filler, 28

finite verb, 11

Finnish, 52, 373, 392, 622, 724, 905, 908–912, 914, 915, 921

Flowers for Algernon, 276

Flying Letters, 249

foot

binarity, 32

graphematic, 30

foreign accent, 107, 112

form, 742

fortissimo, 62

4KCW, 579, 584–588, 594, 597, 599–616

Fraktur (typeface), 303

frame of reference, 888, 1013, 1015, 1027–1034

Franklin Gothic (typeface), 913

French, 53, 54, 60, 86, 111, 113, 116, 130, 138, 250, 261, 275–277, 279, 280, 283, 285–287, 289, 291, 293, 295, 297–301, 304, 307, 310, 312, 318, 320, 325, 337, 342, 344, 373, 392, 419, 422, 427, 439, 516, 517, 531, 627, 634, 714, 724, 758, 760, 1011, 1033, 1039, 1042–1049, 1053, 1084, 1089–1093

Québecois, 327

1000110, 342–344

full stop, 5

Futura Light (typeface), 316, 327

futurism, 244

Fuzzy Sets, 293, 312, 318, 338

fußpark, 145, 146, 148–151, 166, 183, 185, 186

G

γ-paragraph, 264, 266, 271–273, 321, 322, 328, 329

γ-word, 263, 264, 266–270, 272, 290, 302

Gabriola (typeface), 913

Ganzsatz, 7

GARBLE, 296

gematria, 149, 1113–1116

genericity, 1017–1019

Georgia (typeface), 913

Georgian, 166, 787, 789–793, 797, Old, 789, 791

German, 1–5, 7, 12, 13, 15–21, 26, 29, 30, 33–35, 40, 104, 105, 111, 126, 127, 130, 136, 138, 145, 146, 148, 149, 152, 173, 176, 183, 184, 211, 214, 242, 254, 275–277, 279–283, 285, 288, 289, 295, 297, 299, 300, 303, 310–312, 318, 319, 322, 325, 344, 366, 373, 377, 378, 392–395, 402, 410, 495, 501, 505, 622, 627, 628, 632, 633, 714, 724, 726–728, 730, 741, 758, 794, 854, 916, 965, 1022, 1040, 1068

GestualScript, 1011, 1016, 1021, 1026, 1027, 1034

gesture, 1, 2, 84, 251, 254, 291, 309, 417, 520, 537, 563, 568, 650, 652, 654, 659, 660, 677, 828, 1009, 1010, 1016–1019, 1021, 1025–1027, 1032, 1034, 1035, 1040, 1042, 1047

GitHub, 484, 1075, 1078, 1079

Glagolica, 167

Glagolitic, 155, 165, 182, 187

globalization, 87, 307

glottography, 47, 53, 54, 625, 790

Google
Meet, 97, 508–510

Translate, 96

GORILA, 930–932, 939, 946, 948, 951

GPL3 license, 967

Graeco-Egyptian, 779

grammar, 9, 19, 88, 90, 103, 118, 120, 178–180, 201, 202, 209, 214, 217, 265, 432, 582, 626, 627, 645, 646, 649, 650, 660, 713–733, 735, 761–763, 1045, 1046, 1087, 1089

generative, 34

grammatologist, 155, 173

grammatography, 3

grammatology, 3

graphematic

foot, 31, 32

hierarchy, 31

solution space, 627, 633

surface, 29

syllable, 31, 32

word, 33

definition, 26, 28, 29

grapheme, 14, 26–28, 40, 50, 51, 92–94, 129, 134, 135, 137, 146, 147, 150, 151, 153, 156, 226, 229, 232, 233, 263–265, 268–271, 273, 274, 300, 302, 307, 328, 334, 344, 352, 428, 457, 491, 685, 739, 740, 742, 746–749, 751, 755–759, 761–765, 768, 769, 777, 778, 809–811, 821, 822, 881, 916, 990, 993, 1010–1012, 1071, 1075–1078, 1117

clitic, 28

filler, 28

grapheme-phoneme correspondence, 145, 160, 182, 755–758, 760, 761, 765, 767, 769, 770, 1071

graphemic

complexity, 756

quarantine, 496

reduplication, 235

graphemics, 3, 10, 31, 32, 41, 138, 139, 225, 262, 264, 489, 622, 627–629, 639

Egyptian, 496

German, 627

Hebrew, 497

Italian, 756

Japanese, 632

semio-, 751

structured, 632, 639

suprasegmental, 30, 39, 41

graphetics, 127, 129, 137, 138, 247, 262, 266, 361, 363–365, 625

grapho-phonological inconsistency, 755

grapholinguistics, 1–4, 13, 20, 53, 126–132, 134–139, 515, 622, 625, 1009

graphonomy, 3

graphophoneme, 92

graphotactics, 36, 37, 40, 41, 134

Great Black Bull, 906

Greek, 63, 115, 138, 146, 154, 155, 165–173, 179–182, 184, 187, 207, 208, 212, 213, 217, 223, 225, 226, 228, 230–235, 267, 288, 289, 305, 373, 439, 441, 445, 456, 461–463, 469, 470, 480, 482, 489, 529, 561, 717, 719, 724, 742, 760, 775–781, 789, 790, 792, 793, 810, 822, 905, 908–912, 914–916, 922, 928, 930, 946, 947, 966, 1109, 1113

Archaic, 459, 469

Classical, 213

Koinê, 778

Gutenberg, 455
Project, 252

## H

Haghia Triada, 928, 931, 951, 953, 954

Hairdresser (typeface), 397

Haitian Creole, 111

Hamburg Notation System, 1011, 1014–1016, 1047–1049

handwriting, 109, 112, 326, 373, 381, 384, 393, 441, 442, 446, 624, 649, 652, 660, 674, 731, 732, 851, 853

hangul, 117, 159–161, 166, 184, 373, 392–394, 410, 911, 985, 1109

hanzi, 108, 109, 112, 113, 115, 117, 373, 392–394, 410, 683–687, 711, 712

Harlow (typeface), 398

Hausa, 971

Hausdorff distance, 905, 909

Hayat (soap), 568, 569, 576

hearing, 85

Hebrew, 60, 118, 203–205, 207, 211–215, 217, 223, 226, 231, 267, 373, 459, 461, 474, 475, 489–497, 499, 760, 780, 788, 789, 905, 907–909, 911, 914–916, 923, 929, 1081, 1109, 1112–1115

Biblical, 213, 493

Modern, 491, 493, 495–497, 499

hentai kanbun, 54

hentaigana, 64, 67, 68

heterogenization, 908

heterography, 52, 53, 59–62, 76, 759, 761, 762, 822

hieroglyphic, 807, 809, 817, 818, 820, 877, 881, 966, 1100

Higurashi, 1116, 1117

Hindi, 105, 373, 530, 622, 625, 1081

hiragana, 35–37, 40, 41, 51, 57, 58, 70, 176, 275, 278, 580–584, 623, 631, 633, 634, 639, 677

“holy” letters, 490

homogenization, 908

homography, 52, 344, 492, 758, 761, 762

Horizon (typeface), 398

Hungarian, 373, 392, 539, 716, 724, 726

hyphenation, 263, 266, 270, 293

nonstandard, 293, 313

without hyphen, 294

## I

Iberian, 146, 178, 182, 208, 217, 223, 226, 461, 787–789, 791, 793

Icelandic, 305, 373, 724

iconicity, 740, 742–745, 817, 829, 906, 917, 1014, 1015, 1040, 1060

identity, 744, 755

ideography, 49

ideophone, 740

Igbo, 373, 392

illiteracy, 106

Impact (typeface), 913

inconsistency, 755

indentation, 270, 861

☞, 421

☞, 726

index

phonetic, 998

radical, 992, 998

semantic, 985, 987, 992, 997, 1000, 1001

India, 112

individuality, 86

Indo-European, 115

Indonesian, 111, 373, 392
inertia, 908

infinitive construction, 11

initial

grapheme, 742

sound, 742

inscribability, 1017

Instagram, 502, 505

instant messaging, 96

interdependence, 84

interjection, 32, 297, 327, 819

interlinear annotation, 264, 266, 267, 271, 307, 309, 310

Internet communication, 16

interrobang, 428, 436

interword spacing, 38

inverted exclamation mark, 17

inverted question mark, 17

iotification, 1076

IPA, 276, 439, 628, 909–911, 987, 989, 998

Iranian Love Story, 346

Iranian

Middle, 59, 61, 62, 76, 792, 793

Irish, 305, 373, 392, 447, 721, 724, 859, 860, 890

ironieteken, 437

irregular data, 9

ISESCO, 968

Islam, 116

ISO/IEC 9995-8, 345, 346

isomorphism, 742, 743

Italian, 73, 104, 105, 111, 130, 138, 287, 288, 295, 298, 299, 318, 325, 342, 344, 373, 392, 446, 472, 632, 714, 724, 727, 728, 730, 755–763, 765–770, 1033, 1044, 1076, 1090

palatal lateral, 769

italics, 252, 256, 290, 292, 297, 299, 316, 317, 325, 374, 523, 580, 582, 585, 677, 1057, 1091

## J

Janson (typeface), 340

Japanese, 25, 26, 35–37, 40, 41, 49, 51, 52, 54, 57–59, 63–76, 109, 110, 115, 130, 136, 174–177, 218, 271, 275–278, 288, 295, 297, 307, 308, 324, 325, 350, 373, 393, 502, 503, 579–583, 585–587, 589, 592, 598, 600, 607, 608, 610, 613–616, 623, 629–636, 638, 639, 649, 677, 809, 820, 821, 823, 986, 1022, 1109, 1116–1118

Old, 57, 65–72

Javanese, 223

JavaScript, 950

jinās, 1097, 1099–1107

<Jš>, <Jš>, 63

JSON, 950

Judaism, 1115

Judeo-Arabic, 205, 206, 497

Judeo-Spanish, 211

## K

Kabbalah, 1109, 1113–1116, 1119

Kanembu, 210

kanji, 35–37, 41, 110, 175, 176, 271, 275, 278, 279, 307, 308, 579–585, 588, 590, 592, 598, 602, 608, 612–616, 623, 631–639, 1117–1119

Kanuri, 210

Karbardian, 115

katakana, 35, 36, 41, 51, 54, 57, 70, 110, 176, 278, 297, 580–584, 623, 631, 633, 634, 637, 639

Kayah Li, 826

誌 (keep reckerds), 278

keneme, 1048

key, 564
keyboard, 422, 429, 432, 484,
968-971, 987, 988, 1022-
1026

Arabic, 968, 969

art, 423

English, 968, 969

layout, 969

mapping, 969

virtual, 987, 1014, 1024

Kharoṣṭhī, 208, 209, 217

Khorsabad, 1112

kissing, 565

Klingon, 912

knowledge

industry, 983

of language, 8

Korean, 54, 113, 115, 117, 130, 138,
159, 175, 285, 373, 393,
622, 807, 810, 811, 819,
822, 905, 908, 909, 911,
912, 914, 924, 925

kungana, 66-68, 175

Kurdish, 373, 971

Кхопин, Фрédéрик, 1077

L

L₁, L₂, 103, 105, 107, 112–114, 116,
117, 119

La horde du contrevent, 344, 350

<figure><img src="image_200.png" /></figure>

λ-calculus, 950

language, 8, 561, 568, 569

acquisition device, 107

contact, 230, 929

excentric, 289

instinct, 107, 119

primary, 103–107, 113, 114,
117, 118, 120, 121

system, 9

use, 8

Las Vegas, 408

Lascaux cave, 906

Le petit sauvage, 291, 292, 303, 315,
326, 330, 350, 351

left middle frontal gyrus, 113

legibility, 264, 379, 384, 390, 835,
956, 1012

Les Furtifs, 304

Les identités meurtrières, 1083, 1084,
1091

letter, 13, 89

uppercase, 11–14, 16, 19, 21,
272, 911

lemmatic unit, 1040

lexeme, 742

lexical foreignism, 497

lexicon, 9

Limba Noastră, 1069

Linear A (typeface), 933

Linear A, 544, 927–941, 945–950,
952–954, 956–960

Linear B, 53, 167, 218, 811, 927–
931, 947, 956, 960

linguistic

determinism, 261

factor, 217, 756, 781

realism, 9

relativism, 261

sign, 742

theory, 120

linguistics

non-derivational, 621, 622,
626, 629, 639, 741

structural, 1, 6, 7, 20, 89, 94,
103, 104, 106, 107, 120,
127, 129, 130, 138, 177,
224, 265, 324, 372, 496,
645, 742, 744, 959

lip-reading, 1042, 1044

list mode, 16

literacy, 89, 104–106, 108, 112,
120, 137, 146, 149, 155,
158, 159, 174, 178, 179,
182, 183, 185, 205, 210,
225, 227, 231, 232, 375,
497, 713, 730–732, 761,
778, 779, 790, 825–827,
829, 831, 837, 844, 890,
959, 967, 971, 986, 1043, 1044, 1079

bi-, 113

mono-, 105

literalness, 569

loanword, 32, 35, 54, 56, 64, 75, 232, 497, 498, 629, 634, 777, 780

local aliens, 543, 545

LOGIN, 440

LOGLAN, 518

logography, 47–52, 55, 60, 138, 224, 230, 275, 621–626, 631, 633, 635–639, 806, 821, 843, 844, 850, 851, 881, 905, 906, 985, 990, 997, 1000, 1001, 1009, 1010, 1012, 1015, 1018, 1020, 1021

longing look, 347

*Lost Memory*, 274

♥, 507

love point, 427

lowercase letter, 11

Luwian, 59, 230, 928–930, 932, 936, 937, 939

Lycian, 228, 233, 459, 461, 480–482, 930

Lydian, 228, 233, 461

M

Macedonian, 910

MagDa, 283

magic, 149, 228, 304, 566, 569, 741, 806, 823, 874, 875, 880, 884, 885, 889, 1101, 1109–1114, 1116–1119, 1121

Malay, 111, 209, 373, 392, 971

man'yōgana, 57, 176

Manchu, 115

Manchurian, 209

Mandinka, 210

manga, 1120

manicule, 421

mapping, 744

principle, 781

mapping principle, 781

Marathi, 105

mark

acclamation, 427

authority, 427

certitude, 427

doubt, 427

elrey, 437

exclamation, 1, 5, 6, 12, 15–17, 21, 29, 296, 346, 350, 352, 419, 427, 428, 719, 720, 724–727, 730

friendly period, 437

irony, 427, 428, 436

paragraph, 720, 726, 727, 731

question, 1, 5, 6, 12, 15–17, 21, 29, 346, 352, 418, 419, 427, 428, 432, 631, 719, 720, 722, 723, 725–727, 729, 732, 951, 1086, 1090, 1091

quotation, 13, 14, 16, 17, 21, 29, 418, 419, 427, 432, 717, 726–728, 732, 1084–1086, 1090–1092

sarcmark, 437

sarkmark, 427

section, 726

snark, 437

whisper, 437

markedness, 134, 664, 755, 756, 764, 765, 768–770

Maštoc', 166

matres lectionis, 170, 203, 205, 207–209, 212, 217, 493, 779, 808

matter, 561

Mayan, 53, 57, 59, 218, 444, 541, 810, 818, 1001

memory, 569

Menzerath's law, 649, 651, 654, 655, 675–677
Merkspruch, 168, 170, 172, 178, 185

Meroitic, 208, 217, 218

meronymy, 263

Mesopotamian, 207, 787, 797, 1114

μεταχαρακτηρισμός (chaos hypothesis), 181

metaphor, 130, 175, 227, 243, 291, 294, 310, 311, 316, 335, 561–568, 570, 809, 822, 888, 1040, 1058, 1099, 1103–1107, 1109, 1112

chemical, 566

dead, 563

economic, 562

for totality, 1112

synesthetic, 565

METI, 516, 529, 531, 534

metonymy, 243, 809

Microsoft, 442, 508, 909, 938, 940

Middle Ages, 87, 91, 183, 715

Middle Iranian languages, 59

mimography, 1010

Minoan, 927–930, 938, 940, 941, 945, 946, 959, 960

minority languages, 116, 119

mise à nu, 334

Miyazaki, 1117

modern era, 87

Modular Theory of Writing Systems, 10, 13, 622–629, 632, 633, 635, 638, 639

modularity, 1017, 1021

Moldovan, 1067–1072, 1074, 1076, 1077, 1079, 1080

Mombasa, 970

Mongolian, 209, 265, 267

Mongolic, 115

Monogatari, 1118

monoliteracy, 105

mora, 807

morpheme, 109

morphography, 48–55, 76, 138, 585, 635, 637, 638, 807, 822

morphological constancy, 51

morphonography, 54

Moso, 986, 998, 999

Music school (typeface), 397

mute melody, 564

Mwana Kupona, 975

Mycenaean, 927, 928, 947

N

N'ko, 826

Na, 986

Naasioi, 825, 826, 829, 831, 832, 834–845

Nabataean, 206, 456, 459, 461, 476, 478–480

NASA, 520, 528, 533, 543

national identity, 770

native script effect, 103, 104, 114, 116, 117, 119, 120

Naturalness Theory, 133–136

Naxi, 985–989, 991, 992, 998, 999, 1001

negative transfer, 107, 113

Nepali, 105, 373, 392

neuropsychology, 94

Nineveh, 1113

noise, 86, 294, 675, 828

nominalism, 9

Non-arbitrariness, 742

Norwegian, 111, 136, 138, 373, 392

Noto (typeface), 447, 479

nucleus, 645, 646, 659–667, 670, 671, 677

Nudisme, 333

O

obfuscation, 313, 335–337, 340–342, 344–346, 352

Одержимый, 300

Ogam, 146, 155, 182, 187

Old Testament, 298

Ω, 445

ongana, 66, 67, 175

onomatopoeia, 740, 744
onset, 33, 159, 203, 208, 615, 645,
646, 654, 659, 660, 662-
671, 673, 677, 739, 746,
749, 751, 779

maximization, 33

ontology, 259, 262–265, 274, 352,
687, 712

Oolong, 109

OpenType, 459, 1019, 1021, 1024

Optimality Theory, 13, 118

Orphée, 333

orthographic

change, 964

depth, 51, 53, 755–757, 807,
822

policy, 120

orthography, 2–4, 10, 11, 13, 16,
20, 26, 51, 58, 61, 65,
69, 77, 104, 113, 115, 116,
120, 138, 139, 159, 162–
164, 177, 183, 207, 216,
232, 489, 490, 492, 493,
495, 497, 581, 628, 634,
714, 718, 720, 722, 725–
728, 730–732, 756, 757,
793, 827, 906–908, 910–
912, 914, 915, 929, 967,
978, 989, 998, 1061, 1080

conventional, 628, 633

design, 116

German, 4

reform, 4

German 1996, 4

systematic, 10, 622, 627–629,
633–635, 639

אוסלו (Oslo), 491

Oto-Manguean language, 116

Otomaung (typeface), 845

Otomaung, 825, 826, 829, 831,
832, 834–841, 843–845

ownership, 564

P

Pahawh Hmong, 174, 807, 810

Papuan, 830

Parnavaz, 790

Pashto, 971

'pataphysique, 290

Pate, 977

Pearson's Chi-square, 746

percontativus, 427, 436

Persian, 209, 210, 212, 373, 463,
480, 788, 968, 971

Middle, 60, 792

Old, 160–164, 167, 177, 178,
788

'Phags pa, 117

Phaistos Disc, 523, 525

phenomenology, 241, 242

pheromone, 566

Phoenician, 146, 167–171, 184,
203–205, 207, 208, 213,
225, 226, 230, 232, 233,
456, 459, 461, 463–466,
474–476, 479, 911, 912,
915, 916, 1113

phonaestheme, 740, 744

phoneme, 27, 28, 49, 53, 61, 62,
92–94, 113, 120, 127, 137,
149, 150, 171, 179, 208,
209, 212, 227, 231, 234,
274, 302, 495, 497, 651,
656, 740, 742, 744, 755–
759, 761–765, 767, 768,
777, 810, 821, 830, 831,
908–912, 915, 916, 919,
920, 922, 923, 932, 1000,
1010, 1012, 1014, 1048,
1111

phoneme-grapheme correspondence, 757, 758, 1070

phonemic

opposition, 764

system, 84

phonetics, 127, 208, 660, 714, 1010

phonocentrism, 92

phonography, 47

phonological

theory, 120
word, 33
phonotactical constraint, 33
PHP, 1067, 1072, 1075, 1079, 1080
phraseography, 808
Phrygian, 170, 228, 233
physical, 561, 563
*pianissimo*, 62
pictography, 348
pinyin, 108, 109, 987, 989, 991, 998, 999, 1001
Pioneer, 10, 520, 521, 523, 524, 526, 533, 534
Pioneer Club, Las Vegas, 408
pleremic, 48, 53, 625
Polish, 305, 373, 518, 634, 724, 725, 727, 728, 730, 731
Portuguese, 63, 73, 74, 111, 288, 295, 305, 328, 373, 716, 721, 724, 760
positive transfer, 107, 113
possession, 564
PostScript, 441
pragmatics, 12
Prakrit, 179, 209
pre-literate, 89
pre-recorded video, 98
Pretorian (typeface), 398
primary language, 106
prime numbers, 331, 332, 518, 540
printing revolution, 91
private correspondence, 20
productivity of components, 686
prominence, 652, 653, 655, 656, 659, 662, 664–666, 668, 670, 672, 674, 825
properties, 744
prosody, 6, 12, 31, 39, 41, 216, 309, 629, 645, 647, 651–654, 656, 660, 662, 672, 718, 726, 728
Protestantism, 721, 724, 729, 730
pseudo-archaeology, 298
pseudologography, 50
psycholinguistics, 4, 8, 36, 39, 84, 94, 126, 129, 131, 135–137,

223, 235, 579, 585, 586, 589, 615, 645, 650, 674, 677
punctuation, 1, 4, 7, 10, 13–18, 21, 28, 29, 40, 216, 245, 254, 264–266, 270, 322, 323, 344, 346, 350, 417–419, 421, 422, 424, 425, 427–432, 436, 437, 624, 633, 713–732, 1055, 1056, 1061, 1083–1092, 1094, 1095
emotional, 418, 427
Punic, 202, 204, 205, 461, 466, 467
Python, 739, 745, 746, 909, 927, 928, 931, 932, 940

## Q

*Qasida Hamziyya*, 972, 980
*Qasida ya Burda*, 980
quantal theory, 765
question mark, 5
quotation marks, 13
*Qur’ān*, 116

## R

radical harmony, 636
readability, 390, 457, 781, 1016–1019, 1059, 1061, 1062, 1085
rebus, 55, 174, 177, 216, 598, 637, 810, 812–814, 816, 817, 820, 829
record, 95
recorded audio, 96
REDRUM, 286–289
俛 (reeding), 278
referential meaning, 742
referentiality, 255, 740, 745
reform, 4
Renaissance, 91, 92, 713–716, 719, 729, 731, 732
resemblance, 744

Restaurant (typeface), 397

retransliteration, 1077

reviewability, 86, 87, 96

revisability, 86, 87, 96

Revue (typeface), 398, 401

rhyme, 32, 757, 966, 974, 980, 983, 1000

right inferior frontal gyrus, 113

ritual, 169, 172, 562–564, 570, 828, 868, 889, 930, 999, 1110, 1111, 1116

Roberta (typeface), 401

Robofont, 1021

Roman, 14, 105, 109, 114

alphabet, 35, 111, 115, 154, 155, 174, 177, 228, 650, 651, 832, 844, 908, 915

Romance, 760

Romanian, 111, 288–290, 305, 373, 726, 760, 1067–1080

Romanization, 108, 119

rongorongo, 445, 514, 544, 545, 847–863, 865–867, 869–873, 875–891, 893, 895, 897, 899, 901, 903, 986

root, 88, 202, 203, 214–217, 296, 564, 568, 761, 806, 813, 1099, 1105, 1118

Semitic, 202, 214, 229, 490, 822, 929, 1106

Rotokas, 830, 831

round-tripping, 971

Russian, 93, 115, 130, 261, 300, 373, 714, 724, 725, 727, 728, 730, 910, 1068, 1070–1072, 1074, 1075, 1077, 1079, 1080

Ryōri monogatari, 64

rōmaji, 35, 36, 41, 580, 581

S

S₁

conversion to S₂, 972

manuscripts, 968

partial representation, 977

spelling, 971

standardisation, 971

typing, 972

usage, 971

S₁, S₂, 103–105, 107–114, 116–119, 964–975, 977, 978, 981–983

S₂

replacement script, 964

standardisation, 967

sans-serif, 291, 303, 315, 316, 368, 374, 378, 379, 381, 384, 388, 393, 406, 409, 421, 909

Sanskrit, 56, 180, 209, 928, 986, 1045

Sayaboury, 828, 829

scarring pattern, 842

Schreckenslaut/schrei, 321

Schrifterfindungsparagraph, 160, 164, 178

Schriftlinguistik, 2–4, 126, 127

science fiction, 260, 296, 298, 317, 518, 521, 543, 547

script

adoption, 115

displacement, 964

invention, 117

invention by stimulus diffu-
sion, 114

mimicry, 109, 111

Scripture, 718, 790, 791

second-language acquisition, 103

segmental slot, 27

segmentation, 36, 39, 245, 282, 805, 820, 858, 995, 1084, 1089

Segoe Script (typeface), 914

SEI, 439, 442, 444–448, 452

self-organization, 567

self-referentiality, 241, 246, 248, 249, 253
semantic radical, 648, 649, 652-654

semantography, 49

semiographemics, 751

semiotic system, 135, 136, 363, 806, 1111

Semitic languages, 115

senmyō-gaki, 65

sensoriperceptual, 744

sentence, 1, 5-8, 10-12, 15, 17-21, 25, 34, 37, 39, 137, 214, 216, 262, 264, 265, 270, 271, 292, 296, 297, 302, 312, 316, 318, 321, 322, 324, 328, 329, 337, 338, 344, 346, 349, 350, 418, 419, 428, 429, 431, 432, 503, 539, 714, 717, 720, 722, 723, 726, 728-730, 744, 817, 835, 843, 986, 1040, 1061, 1075, 1083-1090, 1092-1095, 1100, 1101, 1103, 1106

closing mark, 5

lexical, 6

text, 6

sequentiality, 86, 87, 96

Sequoyah, 111, 114, 173, 174, 184

Serbian, 373, 910, 994, 1081

Serbo-Croatian, 539, 757, 1081

serif, 291, 315, 316, 368, 374, 381, 384, 386, 388, 393, 395, 406, 408, 410, 421, 459, 909

slab, 381, 384, 386, 393, 408

SETI, 515, 516, 518, 521, 532, 540-543

Shakespeare, 276, 280, 342, 1056

Chékspir, 279

Schäksbier, 279

Shaikspir, 279

shallow, 756

shaman, 184, 1110

Shavian, 912

Shinzwani, 967

Shuowen Jiezi, 685, 990, 1000

sight, 85

sign language, 1, 666, 677, 1009-1012, 1014-1019, 1021, 1022, 1024-1026, 1028, 1031-1035, 1039-1042, 1044-1051, 1053-1057, 1060-1062

signified, 742

signifier, 742

signography, 1010

SignWriting, 1011-1016, 1018, 1022, 1028, 1047, 1051-1057, 1059-1062

SIL, 969

SIL Scheherazade (typeface), 969

silence, 86, 337, 749, 868

silent emendation, 965

similarity, 742, 743

simultaneity, 86, 87, 95, 96, 321, 322

Sinhalese, 373, 392

sinograms, 49

Skype, 96, 97, 501, 508-510

Slovakian, 373, 726

Slovenian, 373, 714, 724, 725

SMELL ME, 565

Soap Coins, 562

Sogdian, 59, 60, 209, 210, 212

Songhay, 205

sound symbolism, 740

Spanish, 17, 21, 52, 111, 113, 116, 138, 211, 288, 295, 311, 312, 325, 373, 392, 714, 724, 725, 727, 730, 757, 760, 1044, 1081

Spanish Dancer, 310-312

Sparkie, 295-297

speculative fiction, 259-262, 274, 276, 295, 324, 352

spelling, 13

consistency, 755

process, 223, 229-234

reform, 756

subsystem, 495
variation, 489, 491, 497, 760

*Spirited away*, 1117

spoken language, 5

SSSsssIIIiiiiXXXxxx, 282

standard writing system, 20

standardization, 761

S₁, 971

S₂, 967

Star Trek, 912

Stempel Garamond (typeface),
316, 327

Stokoe Notation, 1048, 1049

Strict Layer Hypothesis, 31

stroke, 36, 374, 388, 474, 490, 647,
649–654, 663, 667, 673,
726, 821, 907, 915, 998,
1001, 1013, 1115

ballistic, 664–668, 670–673

complexity, 651, 676

group, 645, 646, 654–656,
659, 660, 663–667, 670–
677

interaction, 645, 656, 658,
659, 661, 663, 664, 668,
669, 677

order, 118

width, 447

subsyllabic constituent, 30

Sumerian, 53, 59, 114, 116, 201,
216–218, 541, 807, 818,
821, 906, 1111, 1116

cuneiform, 114, 116

😊, 506

Swahili, 111, 210, 211, 373, 392,
963, 964, 966–975, 977,
978, 980

Swedish, 111, 287, 289, 305, 373,
724, 725, 727, 1022

syllable, 109, 120

graphematic, 30, 32

synesthesia, 290, 565

conceptual, 565

syntax, 11

synthorganic, 308

systematicity, 10, 742, 743, 907

T

taboo, 311, 489, 490, 831, 880

Tahoma (typeface), 914

Tairauqitna, 285

Taiwan, 113

*Talmud Project*, 250

tamga, 806

Tamil, 373

Tango (typeface), 398

tapeworm, 340, 341

tattoo, 304, 806

Teams, 508

τέχνη, 228

*Τέχνη γραμματική*, 717, 733

teenager, 281, 494

TEI, 262

telepathy, 290, 302

telephone, 439

Tenochtitlan, 812

Text Art, 423

text

inversion, 289

mode, 16

text-clause, 6

textogram, 813, 814

texture, 250, 255, 256

Thaana, 108, 113, 114, 117

Thai, 41, 373, 392, 826

*The Demolished Man*, 290, 291, 302,
303, 309

*The Neverending Story*, 284, 285, 319,
320, 324

*The Two-Timer*, 281

*Theodicy*, 1112

theory of evolution, 740

three-letter-rule, 31

3KCW, 579, 584–593, 595–600,
602, 606–616

😊, 507

Tibetan, 54, 115, 223, 819, 994

Tibetan-Burman, 985

Tifinagh, 204

*Tiger! Tiger!*, 304

Times Roman (typeface), 441
Titania (typeface), 398

Tok Pisin, 832

toponym spellings, 69

Torah, 250, 1113–1115

totem, 806

transcription, 63, 65–67, 73, 74,
203, 209–211, 274–276,
279, 443, 455, 457, 461,
467, 472, 476, 478, 539,
590, 598, 600, 612–614,
637, 781, 793, 867, 930–
932, 939, 948, 949, 956,
957, 963, 965, 966, 974,
975, 977, 978, 980, 981,
989, 998, 1000, 1001,
1009, 1010, 1014, 1015,
1017–1019, 1021–1024,
1034, 1035, 1048, 1049,
1070

close, 965

lossy, 966

transfer unit, 1040

translation, 2, 3, 7, 37, 38, 59, 61,
62, 66, 96, 148, 160, 161,
166, 175, 176, 232, 242,
252, 253, 259, 261, 272,
273, 275, 278, 280, 282,
297, 307, 327, 344, 362,
368, 371, 374, 378, 421,
425, 448, 478, 523, 529,
538, 580, 598, 716–718,
721, 726, 741, 790, 791,
837, 841, 850, 870, 880,
973, 975, 981, 982, 987,
989, 991, 994, 996, 1048,
1050, 1055, 1068, 1117

automatic, 297

machine, 39

mental, 877

transliteration, 108, 145, 203, 205,
206, 209, 211, 467, 474,
478, 649, 793, 948, 949,
951, 956, 964–966, 972,
973, 975, 977, 978, 981,

1067, 1070–1073, 1076–
1079

automatic, 1067, 1075–1079,
1081

deceptive, 1107

phonetic, 956, 1107

problems with, 965

reliable, 949

transparency, 756, 757

graphematic, 632

orthographic, 755

semantic, 586

transposition, 858, 1040, 1057

Trebuchet MS (typeface), 914

trigraph, 115, 768

Tristram Shandy, 251, 252, 254, 255

TrueType, 987

truthbearer, 89

Tuareg, 205

Tucanoan, 116

Tungus languages, 115

Turkic, 115, 209

Turkish, 325, 373, 377, 392, 394,
397–399, 401, 402, 410,
971, 1044

Ottoman, 209

Twilight Zone, 298

2KCW, 579, 583, 584, 586, 588–
590, 592, 597, 599, 600,
602, 611–615

TYPANNOT, 2, 1009–1035

typeface, 109, 242, 244, 247, 248,
250, 251, 253–255, 364,
373, 378, 379, 381, 383,
384, 386, 388, 393–395,
397–399, 401–403, 405–
410, 421, 432, 455, 457,
459, 463, 465, 468, 469,
472, 473, 476, 478, 484,
486, 487, 1021

Algerian, 397

Amiri, 969

Arial, 420, 913

Arnold Böcklin, 398, 399

Ayka, 430
BabelStone Naxi, 995
Bakery, 397
Blackletter, 303, 373, 378
Book Antiqua, 914
Bookman, 397
Cafe, 397
Cambria, 913, 914
Cloister Black, 303
Comic Sans, 405
Cooper Black, 399
Courier New, 905, 912, 914
DIN, 368, 378, 388
Dongba, 987
Electroharmonix, 110
Fraktur, 303
Franklin Gothic, 913
Futura Light, 316, 327
Gabriola, 913
Georgia, 913
Hairdresser, 397
Harlow, 398
Horizon, 398
Impact, 913
Janson, 340
Linear A, 933
Music school, 397
Noto, 447, 479
Otomaung, 845
Pretorian, 398
Restaurant, 397
Revue, 398, 401
Roberta, 401
Segoe Script, 914
SIL Scheherazade, 969
Stemmpel Garamond, 316
Stempel Garamond, 327
Tahoma, 914
Tango, 398
Times Roman, 441
Titania, 398
Trebuchet MS, 914
Unfolded, 248
Verdana, 914
Victorian, 397

typo-graphic device, 348–352

typography, 26, 28, 40, 91, 241, 242, 244–255, 259, 263, 271, 272, 286, 314, 315, 335, 340, 350, 361–366, 368, 371, 372, 375, 383, 390, 393, 394, 396, 401, 402, 404, 409–411, 423–425, 440–442, 444–448, 459, 484, 624–626, 724, 729, 731, 832, 1009, 1011, 1014, 1017–1024, 1034, 1056, 1084, 1088, 1091
digital, 247
virtual, 247, 248, 251
typoji, 428

U

Ugaritic, 207
Ukrainian, 300, 305, 373, 392, 518, 910, 1070, 1074, 1079
undeciphered scripts
  Linear A, 928, 945, 947
  runes, 151
underspelling, 52
Unesco, 446, 985
Unfolded (typeface), 248
Unicode, 307, 330, 427, 439–448, 457, 461, 472, 503, 504, 508, 648, 668, 670, 731, 938, 956, 966, 968, 969, 987, 988, 990, 1000, 1014, 1019
Private Use Area, 969
universal hierarchy, 764
Universal Phonological Principle, 780
universal writing system, 262, 838
unobsessiveness, 576
upper limb, 1019, 1027–1029, 1031, 1033
uppercase letter, 11
Uralic, 930
Urdu, 970, 971, 1081
US Foreign Service Institute, 110
Utenzi

wa Ja'far, 974, 981, 982

wa Mkunumbi, 978

wa Mwana Kupona, 975

utterance, 12, 53, 252, 274, 281,
283, 303, 309, 311, 315,
324, 325, 342, 490, 506,
521, 888

Uyghur, 209

V

Vai, 174, 218, 826

Verdana (typeface), 914

Viber, 96

Victorian (typeface), 397

video chat, 97

Vietnamese, 115

viewword, 330

visibility, 86, 87, 91, 96, 362, 379,
386, 841

voice translation, 96

voice-guided navigation, 96

vowel, 32, 33, 40, 53, 60, 105, 115,
120, 159, 162–164, 168–
170, 177, 180, 202–218,
228, 229, 233, 482, 496,
622, 623, 629, 744, 758,
759, 768, 777, 779, 780,
809, 810, 819–822, 829,
831, 911, 912, 916, 935,
968, 969, 977, 1071, 1076,
1077

affixal, 203, 214

back, 208, 209, 493

closed central, 1071

diacritic, 821

front, 171, 493

harmony, 636, 659

indefinite, 809, 820

inherent, 105, 820

initial, 180, 213

isolated, 1076

length, 204, 210, 213, 634

long, 59, 206, 580, 808, 820,
910, 969, 972

minimal, 214

omission, 202

reduction, 653, 662

redundant, 163

root, 203, 214

short, 4, 168, 209, 910, 969,
971

single, 32

unstressed, 214

unwritten, 205, 214

value, 911

word-final, 209

Voyager 10, 260, 526, 534

W

Wadi el-Ḥôl, 207

weight

graphematic, 32

well-formedness constraint, 32

Western supremacy, 225

WhatsApp, 96, 502, 505, 506

Wikimoldia/Викимолдия, 1067,
1068, 1072–1075, 1078–
1081

word, 25, 742

analysis, 982

division at the end of lines, 4

graphematic, 25, 26, 28–36,
39–41

minimal, 31

morphological, 34

phonological, 31, 33

syntactic, 34, 37, 38

wordhood, 25

World Emoji Day, 503

writing system, 1, 3–5, 7, 9, 10,
13, 14, 18, 20, 21, 26, 27,
30, 31, 35, 38–41, 47–55,
57, 59, 61–63, 70, 76, 77,
83, 86, 89, 94, 99, 104–
106, 112, 113, 117–120,
125, 128, 132–136, 138,
139, 153, 154, 158, 159, 201, 202, 204, 206, 208, 210, 212, 213, 216-218, 223-225, 227, 228, 231, 234, 260, 263, 265, 272, 362, 371, 388, 392, 439, 440, 442, 444-448, 452, 460, 461, 472, 484, 486, 513, 514, 547, 585, 615, 621-629, 633-635, 637-639, 645, 657, 677, 755, 756, 763, 764, 775-781, 805-807, 809, 812, 822, 823, 832, 840, 876, 914, 927, 928, 938, 947, 959, 968, 985-987, 989, 999, 1000, 1035, 1046, 1048, 1050, 1057, 1070, 1077, 1078, 1113, 1116, 1119, 1121

abugida, 818

accustomed, 418

AE, 1107

Afroasiatic, 201, 202, 204, 217

alphabetic, 26, 27, 29, 30, 35, 61, 503, 775, 777, 781

ancient, 486, 821

Arabic, 476, 1097

Aramaic, 60, 1114

Chinese, 37, 38, 41, 48, 49, 51, 55-57, 75, 113, 128, 992, 1109

closed, 1109

common, 760

complex, 35

difficult, 111

Dongba, 992

donor, 76

early, 203, 460, 484, 985

Egyptian, 781

English, 5, 11, 35, 40, 50, 52, 624

established, 1072

existing, 55, 116, 155

exotic, 448

full-fledged, 55, 179

German, 5, 21, 35, 40, 628

ideographic, 985

individual, 132, 136

Italian, 759, 761, 763, 770

Japanese, 35, 37, 40, 49, 51, 58, 59, 67, 68, 70, 76, 579, 580, 621, 623, 629, 631-634, 638, 639, 1116

Korean, 113

Linear A, 932, 960

logo-syllabic, 946, 947

logographic, 48, 230, 635, 997

Mayan, 59

Minoan, 940

minor, 132

modern, 154

morphographic, 50, 76

morphosyllabic, 811

Nabatean, 459

national, 770

non-alphabetical, 41

old, 762

open, 1116

ordinary, 832

phonemic, 777

phonetic, 176

phonographic, 50, 77, 635, 806

pictographic, 985, 991, 1000

primary, 826

pristine, 218

pure, 54, 227

scholastic, 1062

secondary, 829

shallow, 755, 758, 770

SL, 1046, 1051, 1054

standard, 20, 779, 823

Sumerian, 216

supraphonemic, 780

syllabic, 927, 928

syllable-based, 180

tactile, 631

Thai, 41

typographic, 1034
universal, 262, 838

visual, 631

vocal, 1021

*Writing Systems Research*, 8, 128

written

act, 12

language, 5

language bias, 136

utterance, 1, 5, 10, 12–19, 21

Written-SL, 1054–1060

Wulfila, 166, 167, 187, 224

X

<x̂>, 63

xenography, 822

Xerox PARC, 440, 441

Xhosa, 115

Y

Yiddish, 211, 495–497

yours vs. mine, 564

Yubaba, 1117, 1118

Z

Zapotec, 116

Zeno's Paradox, 314

Zipf's principle of least effort, 916

Zohar, 1114, 1115
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