Category Archives: Logograms

Idu — 1390? AD, Korea

Posted on March 8, 2011 by ducky

As in Japan, Koreans first started writing with Chinese script, but Chinese script didn’t work well to write Korean for similar reasons that it didn’t work well for Japanese.  (Japanese and Korean are syntactically very similar.) One thing the Koreans … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolved slowly from parent, Logograms, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!", Syllabaries | 3 Comments

Kanji — 600? AD, Japan

Posted on March 6, 2011 by ducky

Kanji — the Japanese adaption of Chinese script — was the first script used to write Japanese.  Kanji is very very similar to Chinese script, but unsurprisingly, the two scripts have diverged over the course of fourteen hundred years (or … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolved slowly from parent, Logograms, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | Leave a comment

Jurchen Scripts — 1119 AD and 1138 AD, Northeast China

Posted on March 2, 2011 by ducky

The Khitan (AKA Liao) Empire was in charge in Manchuria (northeastern China) for a while, and the local Jurchen people used the Khitan script and Chinese script for their writing.  They rebelled and overthrew their Khitan overlords in 1115, and … Continue reading →

Posted in inventor known, Logograms, National pride, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!", Syllabaries | 1 Comment

Khitan scripts — 920 AD and 925 AD, Mongolia

Posted on March 1, 2011 by ducky

Emperor Taizu of the Khitan (AKA Liao) people introduced a script in 920 AD for his nomadic Mongolian nation. They had been using Chinese script, but the Chinese script was  a poor fit for the Khitan language.  Spoken Khitan had … Continue reading →

Posted in Abjad, inventor known, language unknown, Logograms, previous script didn't quite work, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!", Syllabaries, Undeciphered | 1 Comment

Demotic — 650 BC, Egypt

Posted on February 21, 2011 by ducky

Demotic was significant in the history of language understanding, as it was one of the three scripts on the Rosetta Stone (along with Greek script and Egyptian hieroglyphics).  However, it is really only a font difference from hieratic (or hieroglyphics). … Continue reading →

Posted in Abjad, Evolved slowly from parent, government-mandated, Logograms, Rating: 2 "Not all that interesting" | 2 Comments

Shorthands — <300 BC, Greece?

Posted on February 16, 2011 by ducky

Shorthands — forms of writing that sacrifices accuracy and/or shared orthography for speed — are very old.  The earliest example of shorthand comes from Greece, and was sort of an inverse abugida: the vowels were primary, and consonants were noted … Continue reading →

Posted in Abjad, Abugida, Alphabet, inventor known, Logograms, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!" | 3 Comments

Luwian hieroglyphics — 1400 BC, Turkey

Posted on January 26, 2011 by ducky

Luwian hieroglyphics — also called Anatolian hieroglyphics or (incorrectly) Hittite hieroglyphics — do not seem to be stylistically related to any other language, so it is likely this writing system was invented by the Luwians, although they pretty certainly knew … Continue reading →

Posted in Logograms, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!", Syllabaries | Leave a comment

Linear B — 1400BC?, Greece

Posted on January 25, 2011 by ducky

Ancient Crete had not one but three writing systems at roughly the same time: the Cretan hieroglyphics, Linear A, and Linear B.  Linear A and the Cretan hieroglyphics have not been deciphered, but Linear B has. Linear B has about … Continue reading →

Posted in Logograms, Rating: 3 "I did not know that", Syllabaries | 1 Comment

Hittite — 1700 BC?, Turkey

Posted on January 23, 2011 by ducky

In around 1700BC, the Hittites adapted Assyrian cuneiform (which was basically just Akkadian cuneiform which had been around long enough to evolve slightly) to their language.  They only took about half of the symbols from Assyrian cuneiform, of which roughly … Continue reading →

Posted in Logograms, Rating: 2 "Not all that interesting", Syllabaries, technology influenced | 2 Comments

Elamite cuneiform — 2200 BC, Iran

Posted on January 19, 2011 by ducky

Linear Elamite petered out after a few hundred years, ignored in favour of more prestigious languages/writing systems like Babylonian (which was an organic descendant of Akkadian in both language and script).  When the Elamite language reappeared after a few hundred … Continue reading →

Posted in Logograms, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!", Syllabaries, technology influenced | 1 Comment