Language/Multiple-languages/Culture/Introduction-to-Writing-Systems

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Writing systems are visual carriers of languages. They are tools, so they can be evaluated as tools. Here are the important information about them.

In progress.

Logogram

It is the earliest form of writing systems. As what its name suggests, they are pictures (logo).

Its advantage is able to express the meaning easily. Its disadvantage is having too many glyphs to memorise.


writing system	language	region
Anatolian	Luwian	Anatolia
Aztec	Nahuatl	Mesoamerica
Cretan	Minoan	Crete
Cuneiform	Sumerian, Akkadian, etc.	Mesopotamia
Cypro-Minoan	Cyprus	Eteocypriot
Han	Chinese, etc.	East Asia
Linear A	Minoan	Crete
Linear B	Mycenaean Greek	Mycenae
Mayan	Chʼoltiʼ, Yucatec Maya, etc.	Mesoamerica
Mixtec	Mixtec languages	Mesoamerica
Yi	Yi	Southwestern China

derivatives of Han
writing system	language	region
Chữ Nôm	Vietnamese	Vietnam
Dongba	Naxi	Southeastern China
Jurchen	Jurchen	Northeastern China
Khitan large script	Khitan	Northeast Asia
Sawndip	Zhuang	Southern China
Sui	Sui	Southern China
Tangut	Tangut	Northwestern China

Han

Han writing system is the one of the logograms that are still used today.

It has several different scripts. There used to be many different writings of a characters. After the unification of China, Qin Shi Huang abolished other writings, only keeping Qin State's writing as the official one, written with the little seal script.

During its development, many modifications took place. Wrong characters and unorthodox character variants are plenty. For example, “肉” (flesh) became confused with “月” (moon) and as a result, many characters with meanings related to flesh has the radical 月.

The simplification of Han was also happening through history. For example, “爲” became “為” and finally “为”, like Picasso's bull. In People's Republic of China, there were two attempts of simplification of Han, among which one was successful and the other failed.

Currently, it is being used in China, Japan, and in Korea and Vietnam sporadically.

There have been some attempts to abolish Han. In China and Japan, they failed; in Korea and Vietnam, they were largely successful. In Republic of Korea, some people call for having Han along with Hangul in textbooks; In Vietnam, some people call for having Han as a compulsory course in liberal arts.