Writing Systems: Crash Course Linguistics #16 - By Math and Science
Transcript
00:0-1 | Hi , I'm taylor and welcome to the last episode | |
00:02 | of crash course linguistics . All human societies have language | |
00:05 | either spoken or signed or both . But writing is | |
00:09 | a technology that got invented in different ways in different | |
00:12 | places . So not all languages have a standardized written | |
00:15 | form . The development of writing is influenced by lots | |
00:18 | of things . The structure of the languages they represent | |
00:21 | , the tools used to produce them and whose powerful | |
00:24 | in a given place in time . And this set | |
00:26 | of conventions that are used to represent a language in | |
00:28 | writing are called a writing system or an Ortho graffiti | |
00:33 | . Yeah , yeah . A writing system involves two | |
00:45 | parts . There's the symbols or graph themes and then | |
00:48 | there's what the symbols stand for . Broadly speaking , | |
00:51 | graph teams can represent three different levels of linguistic information | |
00:55 | . Individual sounds , syllables or words . Let's start | |
00:59 | with graph teams that represent the smallest amount of information | |
01:02 | . Single sounds or phonemes . A writing system where | |
01:05 | each grapheme represents . A phoneme is known as an | |
01:08 | alphabet . We've seen in earlier episodes . How the | |
01:11 | international phonetic alphabet represents each possible sound in any language | |
01:16 | with a simple , the alphabetic principle of one sound | |
01:19 | per symbol is also the case at least most of | |
01:21 | the time for the latin alphabet . This system is | |
01:23 | used for many languages in Western year , like english | |
01:26 | and Finnish , and for the ones that were influenced | |
01:29 | by european colonization , such as Vietnamese and Swahili . | |
01:32 | There are other alphabets to including the cyrillic alphabet . | |
01:35 | Used to write many languages in Eastern europe , including | |
01:38 | Bulgarian and Russian , as well as greek . There | |
01:40 | are a few reasons why alphabets get more complicated than | |
01:43 | exactly one symbol per sound . First . Many languages | |
01:47 | used accent marks or write several graph teams together to | |
01:50 | represent various sounds , especially sounds that weren't in the | |
01:53 | language they borrowed their alphabet from like the sounds english | |
01:56 | rights with th S . H . And C . | |
01:58 | H . Weren't present in latin , which we borrowed | |
02:00 | our alphabet from Second . Although languages naturally change over | |
02:03 | time , it's harder to convince people to change how | |
02:06 | they learned to write the silent K . And knee | |
02:09 | was can A . In middle english and it still | |
02:12 | hasn't gone away . Third languages often borrow words from | |
02:15 | each other and stick with the other languages spelling conventions | |
02:19 | fourth and finally , while spelling maybe standardized across the | |
02:22 | language , the pronunciation may vary greatly in english . | |
02:25 | We spell the word running with a G at the | |
02:27 | end , even though in many varieties of english it's | |
02:29 | pronounced running , even if people wanted to reform the | |
02:32 | spelling , whose version of running should they prefer for | |
02:35 | further nuance . Some researchers distinguish between alphabets proper where | |
02:39 | every phoneme gets a symbol and ab gods . In | |
02:42 | an ab dad , primarily constants get their own symbols | |
02:45 | and valves can be left unwritten . Many Semitic languages | |
02:48 | are written with ab gods including Arabic and hebrew . | |
02:51 | The next type of writing system is where each grapheme | |
02:53 | represents a syllable known as the silla bury in a | |
02:56 | silly berry . There's a different symbol for say Gava | |
02:59 | and guy rather than symbols for good . Uh , | |
03:03 | and so on . Many writing systems in the region | |
03:06 | around India are based on the new Gari scylla berry | |
03:09 | where there's a different symbol for each syllable like ca | |
03:12 | or ga . Then there's a small modification to indicate | |
03:15 | the vowel to make key or co . Finally at | |
03:18 | the upper end , we have writing systems where each | |
03:21 | grapheme can represent a whole word or more forms of | |
03:24 | any length . These systems are called log a . | |
03:26 | Graphic writing . The chinese writing system is generally considered | |
03:29 | to be an example of log a graphic writing . | |
03:32 | This character means rabbit . It can't be broken down | |
03:35 | into smaller parts . it's rabbit whether it's pronounced to | |
03:38 | in mandarin or toe . In Cantonese . Some writing | |
03:41 | systems also make use of more than one of these | |
03:43 | strategies . For example , japanese uses a log a | |
03:46 | graphic system called candy to represent many words as well | |
03:49 | as a silly berry kana , to represent syllables for | |
03:52 | adding grammatical information or loan words from other languages . | |
03:55 | Some systems work really well for some languages . Semitic | |
03:59 | languages are well suited to the Abkhaz system because they | |
04:02 | don't have a strong focus on vowels . As we | |
04:04 | discussed , an episode to the roots of many words | |
04:07 | in Semitic languages are based on the continents and languages | |
04:10 | where there aren't very many possible syllables like inuktitut Are | |
04:14 | easier to write with a silla berry . But each | |
04:16 | system has its trade offs . It's much easier to | |
04:18 | learn . The 26 letters of the English Alphabet , | |
04:21 | Then the 4000 plus characters needed to read Chinese . | |
04:24 | But the Chinese system takes much less space to convey | |
04:27 | information . Plus it can be read by people whose | |
04:30 | languages sound very different . The development of writing systems | |
04:33 | was influenced by the tools available . Some writing systems | |
04:36 | are carved into stone . Others involve using a brush | |
04:39 | and ink on paper . Some scholars even believe that | |
04:42 | the Incas may have had a system of knotted strings | |
04:45 | called keep up to record their language . Usually the | |
04:47 | medium used to record a writing system influences the way | |
04:50 | it looks . Roman script was very angular because that | |
04:54 | was easy to carve into rock while the brush is | |
04:56 | used to write Chinese scripts influenced their flowing style . | |
04:59 | But language existed for a very long time before anyone | |
05:02 | started writing anywhere from 200,000 to 50,000 years ago . | |
05:07 | It's impossible to pin down because sounds and signs don't | |
05:10 | leave fossils . We know writing is much more recent | |
05:12 | , but unfortunately no one has left us a written | |
05:15 | record that says February 21 today , I invented writing | |
05:19 | , archaeologists have found records of proto writing , which | |
05:21 | involves using symbols to represent specific meanings but not in | |
05:25 | whole strings like a sentence as best we can tell | |
05:27 | . Writing was only invented independently three times in human | |
05:31 | history . Each of these three times the idea of | |
05:34 | writing spread to other cultures , sometimes changing shape a | |
05:37 | lot along the way and each time the leap to | |
05:39 | writing most likely was a slow process that took place | |
05:42 | over generations . Not a sudden invention by a single | |
05:45 | clever person . Let's head to the thought bubble for | |
05:48 | some time travel through symbols , invention of writing number | |
05:51 | one . In the Bronze Age around 4500 years ago | |
05:55 | a cluster of cultures developed writing systems . The earliest | |
05:58 | was the sumerian culture in Mesopotamia Modern day Iraq . | |
06:02 | They're writing system is known as cuneiform and involved pressing | |
06:05 | a stylist into soft clay . This sumerian writing probably | |
06:09 | inspired the writing systems of other major Bronze Age civilizations | |
06:12 | around the Mediterranean , like the Egyptians with their high | |
06:15 | rock cliffs , those high reliefs inspired a writing system | |
06:17 | that eventually became the phoenician writing system , Which was | |
06:20 | adapted by the Greeks and ultimately became the Latin Alphabet | |
06:23 | that English uses number two . There is evidence that | |
06:26 | at least 3500 years ago writing developed in China . | |
06:31 | The earliest examples of this writing system , known as | |
06:34 | the Oracle Bone script have been found carved onto ox | |
06:37 | phones and turtle shells which were used in divination rituals | |
06:40 | . The Chinese writing system continued to develop and today | |
06:43 | each character represents a word or one syllable of a | |
06:46 | multi syllable word number three . Around 3000 years ago | |
06:50 | . The old necklace , the oldest writing system in | |
06:53 | meso America was created in modern day Mexico . This | |
06:56 | system used a combination of word level logger , grams | |
06:59 | with syllable level symbols . A number of Mesoamerican civilizations | |
07:02 | have written records using such cliffs , including the Zapotec | |
07:05 | and the Aztecs , but the most successfully deciphered is | |
07:08 | the mayan system . Thanks for taking us back in | |
07:11 | time thought bubble . Since its origins , the latin | |
07:13 | alphabet has involved repeated borrowing from one language to another | |
07:17 | , Often unrelated language . Each time the system was | |
07:19 | changed to better represent the sands in a particular language | |
07:22 | or to fit the writing tools and surfaces used by | |
07:25 | a particular culture before getting borrowed again by another language | |
07:28 | . Some letters of the alphabet have had relatively uneventful | |
07:31 | histories . The letter B started as the letter bet | |
07:35 | , originally meaning house . It changed form to the | |
07:38 | character we recognize his B . But kept the same | |
07:40 | pronunciation . In contrast , the phoenician letter wall meaning | |
07:44 | hook has had a wild ride . It's the origin | |
07:47 | of the english letters that we know today as F | |
07:49 | . U . V . W . And Y . | |
07:52 | Other symbols were influenced by technology . English . Used | |
07:55 | to use the symbols thorn and ev to represent the | |
07:58 | sounds at the beginning of the and thing . But | |
08:01 | they weren't available on early printers from continental europe . | |
08:04 | So people started using th or why instead . That's | |
08:08 | why ye olde tea shop is just another spelling of | |
08:11 | the old tea shop . Once the idea of writing | |
08:14 | as a technology spread , some writing systems were built | |
08:17 | from scratch without directly borrowing systems and symbols . In | |
08:20 | some exceptional cases , these newly created writing systems became | |
08:24 | the Ortho graffiti for a whole language . The Cherokee | |
08:27 | scylla berry was created by native american polymath sequoia in | |
08:31 | the early 18 hundreds . It quickly led to many | |
08:33 | Cherokee language newspapers and other publications and is still in | |
08:37 | use today . Although some symbols in the Cherokee scylla | |
08:40 | berry resemble latin letters . They stand for completely different | |
08:43 | sounds , such as these three , which stand forth | |
08:46 | psychology or Cherokee . Another example is Hung Gle , | |
08:50 | the writing system used for korean . It was devised | |
08:53 | by King Sejong the Great in 14 43 as a | |
08:56 | replacement for chinese characters , which weren't well suited for | |
08:59 | the structure of korean . Mango is especially cool , | |
09:01 | linguistically speaking , because the shapes of the symbols are | |
09:04 | based on the position of the mouth while producing them | |
09:07 | . For example , no looks like the tongue touching | |
09:10 | the front part of the roof of the mouth , | |
09:11 | whereas gaga looks like the tongue touching the back part | |
09:14 | of the roof of the mouth instead , and the | |
09:16 | evolution of writing systems hasn't stopped . Sometimes these changes | |
09:20 | are political , like when the Turkish moved from the | |
09:22 | Arabic script to latin in 1928 as part of President | |
09:26 | Ataturk's political reforms . And after the american revolution , | |
09:29 | lexicographer , Noah Webster had some luck differentiating american english | |
09:34 | from british english with spelling reforms like color without the | |
09:37 | U and the center instead of center . But regularized | |
09:41 | spelling itself isn't even that old . There was lots | |
09:44 | of inconsistency in the spelling of even basic words . | |
09:47 | In the earliest written english medieval manuscripts were written by | |
09:51 | monks who wrote in ways that reflected their own accents | |
09:54 | and even Shakespeare spelled his own name six different ways | |
09:57 | . When the printing press was invented , it got | |
09:59 | easier and cheaper to produce written material , which led | |
10:02 | to greater regularization in spelling and more widespread literacy . | |
10:06 | English spelling is in many ways a reflection of where | |
10:08 | the languages that four centuries ago when the standardization started | |
10:12 | the internet made producing and sharing writing even easier , | |
10:16 | a social media post can go viral without passing through | |
10:18 | the hands of an editor or a printer . And | |
10:21 | the average person writes a lot more often than before | |
10:23 | . We had things like phones and texting . So | |
10:25 | people are using creative re spelling like repeated letters and | |
10:28 | all caps and visual editions like emojis , emoticons and | |
10:32 | gifts to convey more than the literal meaning of words | |
10:35 | . They can express sarcasm , irony and other kinds | |
10:37 | of nuances that usually come from tone of voice or | |
10:40 | gesture and speech . We can see our writing system | |
10:43 | evolving before our eyes . People also use more recent | |
10:46 | technology to sidestep the need for writing altogether . For | |
10:50 | languages that haven't historically been written down as often , | |
10:52 | including many signed languages . People often send audio or | |
10:56 | video files through social media . And here in crash | |
10:59 | course linguistics we've been using the Internet to learn about | |
11:01 | linguistics . We've learned about how language is made up | |
11:04 | of smaller pieces like sounds and hand shapes , which | |
11:07 | combined into larger ones like morphine signs and words and | |
11:11 | into even larger sentences and conversations . We've also learned | |
11:14 | that all forms of language are worth getting excited about | |
11:18 | . Language is the world's greatest collaborative project and we're | |
11:21 | all participating in it every day . So the next | |
11:24 | time you find yourself distracted from what someone saying by | |
11:26 | wondering about how they're saying it . Congratulations . You're | |
11:31 | thinking like a linguist . Thanks for watching the final | |
11:33 | episode of crash course linguistics . If you want to | |
11:36 | help keep all crash course free for everybody forever , | |
11:39 | you can join our community on Patreon . |
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