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Document Details : Title: Rev. P. Daniels - W. Bright (eds.), The World's Writing Systems Author(s): SWIGGERS, P. Journal: Orbis Volume: 40 Date: 1998 Pages: 331-335 DOI: 10.2143/ORB.40.1.505064 Abstract : This book fills a major gap in the list of standard works in linguistics. As a matter of fact, although there are a number of valuable (and a much larger number of popularizing) works on writing systems, there was no work offering a comprehensive survey of the nature, status and functioning, the history, the diffusion and adaptation of the writing systems of the world. The book edited by DANIELS and BRIGHT provides all this information, and in addition to that it contains chapters on the decipherment of scripts, on the sociolinguistic embedding of writing systems, on secondary notation systems, and finally on imprinting and printing. All sections are followed by a bibliography, which constitutes a reference checklist for interested readers. The status of the work as a major reference tool is enhanced by the inclusion of hundreds of tables and figures, and samples of the scripts, illustrated with a brief text (given in the particular script, with transcription/transliteration, and translation). |
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