AnyBook4Less.com
Find the Best Price on the Web
Order from a Major Online Bookstore
Developed by Fintix
Home  |  Store List  |  FAQ  |  Contact Us  |  
 
Ultimate Book Price Comparison Engine
Save Your Time And Money

Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction

Please fill out form in order to compare prices
Title: Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction
by Geoffrey Sampson
ISBN: 0-8047-1756-7
Publisher: Stanford Univ Pr
Pub. Date: February, 1990
Format: Paperback
Volumes: 1
List Price(USD): $14.95
Your Country
Currency
Delivery
Include Used Books
Are you a club member of: Barnes and Noble
Books A Million Chapters.Indigo.ca

Average Customer Rating: 5 (2 reviews)

Customer Reviews

Rating: 5
Summary: Excellent! Straightforward, clear, and fun!
Comment: This, years ago, was just about the first book I read on a linguistic topic, and it's still my favorite. It covers writing systems, using such various interesting cases as Korean, Chinese, and Modern Hebrew. I know of no single book that covers so well such a large (and important) aspect of linguistics as this book, nor does it no intelligently. Plus it's fun.

This book does use linguistic terminology, but is totally accessible to non-linguists.

This book is great for reading on one's own, or could be useful as reading in a linguistics course. It should also be required reading for anyone interested in internationalization of software and any other kind of text processing that could involve non-Roman scripts.

Rating: 5
Summary: The title sounds dry, the contents are not
Comment: This book is the one that got me interested in writing systems as a part of linguistics. If you teach reading or language, the linguistic background this book provides will inform your professional knowledge far more than you can ever imagine. There are basically three kinds of writing systems in use in the world today: alphabetic, syllabic and logographic. Sampson gives sufficient historical background to help you understand how, where and with what languages these types developed. You will find out why the term 'ideograph' does not really accurately refer to any writing system in use. You'll learn how Egyptian hieroglyphs actually worked. And you'll be surprised to find out how reading Japanese is somewhat similar to reading ENGLISH!

This book is in itself an education in linguistic background knowledge that non-linguists don't usually have, but don't worry, Sampson is such a clear writer and excellent teacher, that the non-specialist can usually follow the discussion without stopping.

If you have an interest in language and languages for personal or professional reasons, this book will greatly enrich your life.

A perfect companion volume is the more recent but equally wonderful, 'Story of Writing'by Andrew Robinson (who is book review editor for the Times Higher Education Supplement).

Similar Books:

Title: The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems
by Florian Coulmas
ISBN: 063121481X
Publisher: Blackwell Publishers
Pub. Date: March, 1999
List Price(USD): $39.95
Title: The Story of Writing
by Andrew Robinson
ISBN: 0500281564
Publisher: Thames & Hudson
Pub. Date: 01 September, 1999
List Price(USD): $19.95
Title: Writing Systems of the World: Alphabets, Syllabaries, Pictograms
by Nakanishi Akira, Akira Nakanishi
ISBN: 0804816549
Publisher: Charles E Tuttle Co
Pub. Date: October, 1990
List Price(USD): $16.95
Title: Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Undeciphered Scripts
by Andrew Robinson
ISBN: 0071357432
Publisher: McGraw-Hill/Contemporary Books
Pub. Date: 25 April, 2002
List Price(USD): $34.95
Title: The World's Writing Systems
by Peter T. Daniels, William Bright
ISBN: 0195079930
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Pub. Date: March, 1996
List Price(USD): $200.75

Thank you for visiting www.AnyBook4Less.com and enjoy your savings!

Copyright� 2001-2021 Send your comments

Powered by Apache