Cover not available

Review In: Written Language & Literacy
Vol. 28:2 (2025) ► pp.323–343

Book review

Amalia Gnanadesikan. The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet (Second edition). Hoboken, N. J.: Wiley Blackwell, 2025. xiv + 378 pp. ISBN 978-1-394-21819-6

Reviewed by
 | Independent Scholar
This content is being prepared for publication; it may be subject to changes.
References (70)
References
Azzoni, Annalisa, and Matthew W. Stolper. 2015. “The Aramaic Epigraph ns(y)ḥ on Elamite Persepolis Fortification Documents.” Achemenet. From the Persepolis Fortification Archive Project 5. [URL]
Bloom, Jonathan M. 2001. Paper before Print: The History and Impact of Paper in the Islamic World. New Haven: Yale University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boltz, William G. 2019. “The Chinese Sexagenary Cycle and the Origin of the Chinese Writing System.” In Culture and Cognition : Essays in Honor of Peter Damerow, edited by Jürgen Renn and Matthias Schemmel, 57–66. Max Planck Research Library for the History and Development of Knowledge, Proceedings 11. N.p.: Edition Open Access, Max Planck Institute for the History of Science. [URL]
Bright, William, ed. 1992. International Encyclopedia of Linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bright, Wiliam. 1996. “The Devanagari Script.” In The World’s Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, 384–90. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bright, William. 2000. “A Matter of Typology: Alphasyllabaries and Abugidas.” In “Literacy and Writing Systems in Asia,” edited by Chin-W. Kim, Elmer H. Antonsen, William Bright, and Braj B. Kachru. Special issue, Studies in the Linguistic Sciences (Urbana) 30(1): 63–71. (Also in Written Language and Literacy 2[1] [1999]: 45–55.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cahill, Michael, and Keren Rice, eds. 2014. Developing Orthographies for Unwritten Languages. SIL International® Publications in Language Use and Education 6. Dallas, Texas: SIL International.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coulmas, Florian. 1996. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Writing Systems. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cross, Frank Moore, and Thomas O. Lambdin. 1960. “A Ugaritic Abecedary and the Origins of the Proto-Canaanite Alphabet.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research 1601: 21–26. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daniels, Peter T. 1990. “Fundamentals of Grammatology.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 1101: 727–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1991. “Is a Structural Graphemics Possible?” 18th LACUS Forum (Ann Arbor) 19911: 528–37.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1992. “The Syllabic Origin of Writing and the Segmental Origin of the Alphabet.” In The Linguistics of Literacy, edited by Pamela Downing, Susan D. Lima, and Michael Noonan, 83–110. Typological Studies in Language 21. Amsterdam and Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1993. “Linguistics in American Library Classification Systems.” In The Twentieth LACUS Forum (Chicago), edited by Valerie Becker Makkai, 706–18.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1994. “Edward Hincks’s Decipherment of Mesopotamian Cuneiform.” In The Edward Hincks Bicentenary Lectures, edited by Kevin J. Cathcart, 30–57. Dublin: University College Dublin, Department of Near Eastern Studies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1996. “The Study of Writing Systems.” In The World’s Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright, 3–17. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1997. “The Protean Arabic Abjad.” In Humanism, Culture, and Language in the Near East: Studies in Honor of Georg Krotkoff, edited by Asma Afsaruddin and A. H. Mathias Zahniser, 83–110. Winona Lake, Ind.: Eisenbrauns. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2000. “Syllables, Consonants, and Vowels in West Semitic Writing.” Lingua Posnaniensis 421: 43–55.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2001. “Writing Systems.” In The Handbook of Linguistics, edited by Mark Aronoff and Janie Rees-Miller, 43–80. Malden, Mass.: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006. “Three Models of Script Transfer.” WORD 57 (pub. 2014): 371–78. (Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the International Linguistic Association, New York, 2004.)
2008. “Rawlinson, Henry. ii. His Contributions to Assyriology and Iranian Studies.” Encyclopedia Iranica. [URL]
2009. “Two Notes on Terminology [diacritic, abugida].” Written Language and Literacy 12(2): 277–81. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2013. “The Arabic Writing System.” In Oxford Handbook of Arabic Linguistics, edited by Jonathan Owens, 412–32. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014. “The Type and Spread of Arabic Script.” In The Arabic Script in Africa, edited by Meikal Mumin and Kees Versteegh, 17–31. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018. An Exploration of Writing. Sheffield: Equinox.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2020. “The Decipherment of Ancient Near Eastern Languages.” In Blackwell Companion to Ancient Near Eastern Languages, edited by Rebecca Hasselbach-Andée, 3–26. Blackwell Companions to the Ancient World. Malden, Mass.: Wiley-Blackwell.
2023. “When Is Non-writing Writing? or, When Is Writing Non-writing?” Written Language and Literacy 26(2): 188–237. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Daniels, Peter T., and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Diringer, David. 1968. The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind, 3rd ed., edited by Reinhold Regensburger. 21 vols. (text and plates). New York: Funk & Wagnall’s. (1st ed., 1948.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Février, James-Germain. 1948. Histoire de l’écriture. Paris: Payot. (2nd ed., 1959.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Füssel, Stephan. 2018. The Gutenberg Bible of 1454: A Commentary …. Translated by Elizabeth Clegg. Cologne: Taschen. (Book accompanying the Taschen facsimile.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gelb, I. J. 1952. A Study of Writing: The Foundations of Grammatology. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. [URL]. (2nd ed., 1963.)
Gleitman, Lila, and Paul Rozin. 1973. “Teaching Reading by Use of a Syllabary.” Reading Research Quarterly 81: 447–83. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gnanadesikan, Amalia E. 2009. The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet. Malden, Mass.: Wiley Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2011. “Syllables and Syllabaries: What Writing Systems Tell Us about Syllable Structure.” In Handbook of the Syllable, edited by Charles E. Cairns and Eric Raimy, 397–414. Brill’s Handbooks in Linguistics 1. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2012. “Maldivian Thaana, Japanese Kana, and the Representation of Moras in Writing.” Writing Systems Research 41: 91–102. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2017a. Dhivehi: The Language of the Maldives. Berlin: De Gruyter Mouton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2017b. “Towards a Typology of Phonemic Scripts.” Writing Systems Research 9(1): 14–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2025. The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet. Second Edition. Hoboken, N.J.: Wiley Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Goswami, Usha. 2010. “A Psycholinguistic Grain Size View of Reading Acquisition across Languages.” In Reading and Dyslexia in Different Orthographies, edited by N. Brunswick, S. McDougall, and P. de Mornay Davies, 23–42. Hove: Psychology Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harris, Zellig S. 1951. Methods in Structural Linguistics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Healey, John F. 1990. The Early Alphabet. Reading the Past. London: British Museum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hockett, Charles F. 1951. Review of Nationalism and Language Reform in China, by John DeFrancis. Language 27(3): 439–45. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1958. A Course in Modern Linguistics. N.p.: Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
1997. Review of The World’s Writing Systems, edited by Peter T. Daniels and William Bright. Language 731: 379–85. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hope, E. B. 1957. “Letter Shapes in the Korean Onmun and Mongol hP’ags-pa Alphabets.” Oriens 101: 150–59. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, Mari C., and Damien Mooney, eds. 2017. Creating Orthographies for Endangered Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kim, Wonyong. 1970. “Early Movable Types.” In A History of Korean Alphabet and Movable Type, 87–133. Seoul: Ministry of Culture and Information, Republic of Korea.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ledyard, Gari K. 1966. “The Korean Language Reform of 1446: The Origin, Background and Early History of the Korean Alphabet.” Ph.D. dissertation, Oriental Languages, University of California, Berkeley.
1997. “The International Linguistic Background of the Correct Sounds for the Instruction of the People.” In The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure, edited by Young-Key Kim-Renaud, 31–87. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lee, Ki-Moon. 1997. “The Inventor of the Korean Alphabet.” In The Korean Alphabet: Its History and Structure, edited by Young-Key Kim-Renaud, 11–30. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Meletis, Dimitrios. 2018. “What Is Natural in Writing? Prolegomena to a Natural Grapholinguistics.” Writen Language and Literacy 21(1): 52–88. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Merriam-Webster, Inc. 2025. Collegiate Dictionary, Twelfth edition. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mish, Frederick C., ed. 2003. Collegiate Dictionary, Eleventh edition. Springfield, Mass.: Merriam-Webster, Inc.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Naveh, Joseph. 1987. Early History of the Alphabet. 2nd ed. Jerusalem: Magnes.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Neef, Martin. 2015. “Writing Systems as Modular Objects: Proposals for Theory Design in Grapholinguistics.” Open Linguistics 11: 708–21. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nöldeke, Theodor. 1904. “Die semitischen Buchstabennamen.” In Beiträge zur semitischen Sprachwissenschaft, 124–36. Strassbourg: Trübner. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pae, Hye K. 2024. Analyzing the Korean Alphabet: The Science of Hangul. Cham: Springer Nature Switzerland. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Poser, William J. 1992. “The Structural Typology of Phonological Writing [handout].” Paper presented, annual meeting, Linguistic Society of America, Philadelphia.
Prakash, P., D. Rekha, R. Nigam, and P. Karanth. 1993. “Phonological Awareness, Orthography, and Literacy.” In Literacy and Language Analysis, edited by Robert J. Scholes, 55–70. Hillsdale, N.J.: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ranganathan, Shiyali Ramamrita. 1963. Colon Classification. 6th ed. rev. Bombay: Asia Publishing House. (1st ed., 1933.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rimzhim, Anurag, Leonard Katz, and Carol A. Fowler. 2013. “Brāhmī-derived Orthographies Are Typologically Āksharik but Functionally Predominantly Alphabetic.” Writing Systems Research 6(1): 41–53. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Salomon, Richard G. 2006. “Kharoṣṭhī Syllables Used as Location Markers in Gandhāran Stūpa Architecture.” In Architetti, capomastri, artigiani: L’organizzazione dei cantieri e della produzione artistica nell’Asia ellenistica, Studi offerti a Domenico Faccenna nel suo ottantesimo compleano, edited by Pierfrancesco Callieri, 181–224. Serie Orientale Roma 100. Rome: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sampson, Geoffrey. 1985. Writing Systems. London; Stanford: Hutchinson; Stanford University Press. (Corrected pbk. reprint, London, 1987.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Schmitt, Alfred. 1963. Die Bamum-Schrift. 31 vols. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Share, David L., and Peter T. Daniels. 2015. “Aksharas, Alphasyllabaries, Abugidas, Alphabets, and Orthographic Depth: Reflections on Rimzhim, Katz, and Fowler (2014).” Writing Systems Research 8 (2016)(1): 17–31. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smalley, William A., ed. 1963. Orthography Studies: Articles on New Writing Systems. Helps for Translators 6. London: United Bible Societies.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stenzel, Kristine. 2009. Review of The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet, by Amalia E. Gnanadesikan. Language Documentation & Conservation 3(2): 253–59.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Swiggers, Pierre. 1984. “On the Nature of West Semitic Writing Systems.” Aula Orientalis 21: 149–51.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ziegler, Johannes C., and Usha Goswami. 2005. “Reading Acquisition, Developmental Dyslexia, and Skilled Reading across Languages: A Psycholinguistic Grain Size Theory.” Psychological Bulletin 131(1): 3–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue