An Exploration of Writing - Peter T. Daniels
Morphemes and Morphograms
An Exploration of Writing - Peter T. Daniels
Peter T. Daniels [+]
Independent Scholar
Peter T. Daniels, the world’s leading expert on writing systems, holds degrees in linguistics from Cornell University and the University of Chicago. His first interests were in Comparative Semitic linguistics, which built to the study of writing and decipherment. His challenge to his teacher I. J. Gelb’s influential theories of the evolution of scripts has led to a persistent search for legitimate principles of the nature and development of writing. He is co-editor (with William Bright) of and principal contributor to The World’s Writing Systems (1996) and is hte author of An Exploration of Writing (Equinox, 2018).
Description
The sixth chapter deals with the three oldest writing systems on earth, the three that appear to have arisen spontaneously and not by imitation or adoption of any preexisting script. Their characteristics are important for the author's view of how writing originally came about—but presentation of that view is withheld until Chapter 11.