1.

Introduction 2-3 pages (General introduction to scripts and family of scripts on south
Asia)

A writing system is an organized, regular method of information storage and transfer for
the communication of messages in a language by visually encoding and decoding with a set
of signs or symbols, both known generally as characters.
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The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of
the Bronze Age in the late Neolithic of the late 4th millennium BC.
The Sumerian archaic cuneiform script and the Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered
the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of their ancestral proto-literate symbol systems
from 34003200 BC with earliest coherent texts from about 2600 BC. It is generally agreed that
Sumerian writing was an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian
writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or was a case of cultural
diffusion.

Functional classification

pictographic script

ideographic script

analytic transitional script

phonetic script ( International Phonetic Alphabet ) The most common type of phonetic
transcription uses a phonetic alphabet

alphabetic script

Logographic writing systems: A logogram is a single written character which represents a

complete grammatical word. Most Chinese characters are classified as logograms. As each character
represents a single word (or, more precisely, a morpheme), many logograms are required to write all the
words of language.
While most languages do not use wholly logographic writing systems many languages use some
logograms. A good example of modern western logograms are the Hindu-Arabic numerals everyone
who uses those symbols understands what 1 means whether he or she calls
it one, eins, uno, yi, ichi, ehad, ena, or jedan.

Directionality

In written expression, discrete elements (the alphabet) are combined and recombined to help
convey new ideas, often using new words created to meet the needs of conveying those new
ideas.
Limitation of oral communication: oral language is limited by the memory of
the individual, leading to an emphasis on formulas and mnemonic structures. For the same
reason, oral language is additive rather than subordinative, aggregative rather than analytic,
redundant, and conservative.

Writing enabled societies not only to expand, but also to communicate across
the boundaries of space and time.
The durability of written language removes the necessity for mnemonic characteristics of oral
language; people can refer back to written text and are not constrained to organize it in ways
that encourage memory (such as setting content to songs or chants).

The lack of presence of the other is compensated for by textual cues like
punctuation, and by recognized conventions of grammar and usage that help the reader
understand who is being spoken about, for instance. In addition, writing's immobilization of
meaning on paper allows re-reading or "backward scanning" (Goody, 1977, cited in Ong, 1982,
p. 100). The reader can review the ideas presented to better understand them in terms of the
author's point.

. Increased availability and affordability of printed texts enabled the development of the
modern educational system, where the student can conduct inquiry into a body of knowledge
rather than rely solely on the knowledge of one teacher (Eisenstein, 1983).

Written expression differs from oral expression in that it is dependent entirely on the
alphabetic word and not on the visual and vocal elements that help people communicate in
face-to-face speech.

Finally, written language must have a fixed relationship with spoken language, so that people
can communicate the same thought in two different media simultaneously as in reading to
one another. These elements give writing its characteristics of permanence and completeness.
As opposed to the transience of spoken language, writing has a lasting, permanent quality

about it. Written language is less redundant, more planned. Meaning and shades of meaning
are conveyed by carefully chosen and placed words.