An Exploration of Writing - Peter T. Daniels
Hybrids and Innovations
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
When we consider scripts that did not develop organically out of earlier ones, like all those seen in the first seven chapters, we find that human ingenuity has led any number of times to writing systems that do not conform to the patterns seen in the majority of script transitions. The order of treatment continues to be from better known to less well known.