And a review . . .

. . . of what covered to date and where there were still areas I'd planned to explore that I hadn't or hadn't as much as I'd intended.

Areas I wanted to check were Brahmi languages and their development including the order of their alphabet, Ethiopian languages and also written language in England.

I'd also intended to look at some of the texts that David Crystal has authored (the use of 'encyclopedia' in the titles suggested something academic). And wanted to review images and videos, whether there were others that I might use here.

Brahmi language

In reviewing the Brahmi languages I clarified their connection with Aramaic. It seems to be a taken that Aramaic has influenced spoken Brahmi languages but there are different views on its influence on written Brahmi. Gnanadesikan (2005) says the 'writing in India was neither a completely independent discovery or a slavish borrowing of someone else's technology' and goes on to say with 'the presence of the Achaemenid Persian Empire at India's northwest frontier, it is reasonable to assume that Imperial Aramaic played a role in inspiring script development in India'.

Brahmi and the other principal early language in India, Kharosthi, were designed to match phonemes present in Indian Prakrits (the vernacular languages) which were quite different from the Semitic consonants of Aramaic. Anthropologists have a specific phrase for the Brahmi written language situation: stimulus diffusion which means it was different from borrowing outright or close adaptation.

The rounded forms of written Brahmi languages arose because of the tools they used to write them. Writing was usually done on palm leaves or birch bark and metal stylus used. With angular forms, the metal stylus easily tore the surface so the language developed with a more rounded form.

The Japanese kana system has the same order as Brahmi, though the characters are totally different, but this suggests the spread of Brahmi languages with Buddhism may have had an influence on this.

Ge'ez, also called Ethiopic

This is the liturgical language of the Ethiopian Orthodox Church and is still in use today in that context. Round 900BC, writing using the South Arabian alphabet moved south into Ethiopia. Over time, variants developed into Ge'ez, an Ethio-Semitic script of 26 consonants. Old Ge'ez was an abjad, ie just represented vowels but over time developed into an abugida, where the consonant letters added marks to indicate vowels. As it has evolved over time, there is the suggestion that some of these changes have been influenced by trade routes with India and hence the Brahmi language. Others dispute it as it's order is similar to the South Semitic alphabet (and also Ugaritic!!), rather than Brahmi.

Today Ge'ez, although it has influenced other regional languages such as Amharic, Tigre and Tigrinya, is only found in liturgical writings. Although it was used in the title of a film '500 years later', made in 2005, 500 years after the onset of slavery from Africa. (The film won a number of awards when it was released including one from UNESCO.)

Runic alphabet

The Runic alphabet (with letters called runes) of northern Europe was used to write a variety of Germanic languages. The earliest known evidence of these dates from 150AD. With Christianisation of northern Europe, Latin became the dominant language and runes were used only for specialised purposes after that.

It's believed runes may have developed from an early Italic writing - possibly an adaptation of the Etruscan alphabet - and taken to northern Europe by Germanic mercenaries who worked in the Roman army.

Old English, or Anglo Saxon, was first written in runes (from the mid-5th century) but then later with the arrival of Irish Catholic missionaries, the Latin alphabet was introduced to England. Unusually for Roman-occupied countries, England hadn't been left with a legacy of Latin as a result of the Roman occupation. By about the
9th century AD the Latin alphabet had replaced Anglo Saxon runes. Prior to the introduction of runes, there is no evidence remaining today of written languages in England.

Lowercase vs uppercase

Lowercase vs uppercase is another area I wanted to check. Sacks (2003) says lower case shapes were created in the Middle Ages. However, despite saying this, he also talks of Charlemagne, round 789AD, introducing what was described as Carolingian miniscule. When Charlemagne was rationalising all the versions of written Latin that had developed, he created lowercase letters as part of this rationalisation. These were easier and more economical to write than the uppercase letters, and quickly became popular.


References:

Ager, S 2010, Ge'ez script, viewed 25 May 2010, http://www.omniglot.com/writing/ethiopic.htm
Ager, S 2010, Old English/Anglo-Saxon (Englisc), viewed 25 May 2010, http://www.omniglot.com/writing/oldenglish.htm
Baron, NS 2001, Alphabet to Email: how written English evolved and where it's heading, Routledge, London
Baugh, AC & Cable, T 2002, A History of the English Language, Routledge, London
Brookfield, K 1993, Writing, Dorling Kindersley Limited, London
Comrie, B, Matthews, S & Polinsky, M 2003, The Atlas of Languages: the origin and development of languages throughout the world, Quarto Inc, London
Crystal, D 1997, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge
Firmage, RA 1993, The Alphabet Abecedarium: some notes on letters, Bloomsbury, London
Gnanadesikan, A 2009, The Writing Revolution: cuneiform to the internet, John Wiley & Sons, EBooks Corporation, viewed 28 April, 2010
Lo, L 2010, Ethiopic, viewed 25 May 2010, http://www.ancientscripts.com/ethiopic.html
Sacks, D 2003, The Alphabet, Hutchinson, London
Woodard, R 1997, Greek Writing from Knossos to Homer: a linguistic interpretation of the origin of the Greek alphabet and the continuity of Ancient Greek literacy, Oxford University Press, Oxford