Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems

John DeFrancis

University of Hawaii Press, Jan 1, 1989 - Language Arts & Disciplines - 306 pages

Visible Speech is an attempt to set the record straight about the nature of writing. John DeFrancis, a noted specialist in the Chinese language, shows that writing can be based only upon a sound system and not upon any other linguistic level. He corrects the erroneous views of Chinese writing as pictographic, ideographic, logographic, or morphemic, and defends his conclusion that because of these misrepresentations, the nature of all writing continues to be misunderstood.

Using the writing systems of Sumerian, Egyptian, Arabic, Japanese, Korean, Greek, Mayan, and English, among others, to illustrate his points, Dr. DeFrancis stresses their basic identity as representatives of visible speech, while noting their secondary differences as manifested in their diverse script forms. He proposes a new classification of writing systems based on this theme of diversity and oneness, and makes an impassioned case for the essential phonetic component of all writing.

This book reflects the author's sound scholarship and novel insights, which place it in the forefront with such classics on writing as those by Gelb, Diringer, Cohen, Fevrier, and Jensen. The readable style aims at a general audience interested in understanding the nature of the symbols that first strike the eye, while the academic research involved makes it an indispensable work for scholars in the many fields related to language and linguistics.

"

What people are saying

User Review -

This book is a good compendium for linguists and philologists who want to understand the relative efficiencies of world writing systems

Contents

• Kinds of Communication: 3
• Communication Classification Scheme: 6
• What Is Writing?: 20
• The Hybrid Style of Mathematics: 23
• A Yukaghir Love Letter: 25
• Lineage of the Yukaghir Love Letter: 27
• Yukaghir Mnemonic Notation: 33
• LoneDogs Winter Count: 37
• Letter from a Cheyenne Father: 38
• Ojibwa Love Letter: 39
• Chippewa SongandDance Troupe Petition: 40
• DeFrancis Writing Classification Scheme: 58
• Sampson Writing Classification Scheme: 60
• Gelb Writing Classification Scheme: 62
• Hill Writing Classification Scheme: 63
• Syllabic Systems: 67
• Uruk IV DeadEnd Symbols: 72
• Jemdet Nasr Rebus Symbols: 76
• The Evolution of Sumerian Writing: 85
• Chinese: 89
• A 1 Pictographic Script: 97
• A 100 Syllabic Script 102103: 102
• A Simple Syllabary and a Simpler Alphabet: 118
• Mayan: 121
• Mayan Syllabic Writing: 127
• Pure Syllabic Systems: 128
• Japanese Kana Syllabaries: 137
• Yi Syllabic Writing: 148
• The Evolution of Egyptian Writing: 156
• The Egyptian Alphabet 158159: 158
• Phoenician Hebrew and Arabic Scripts: 168
• Phoenician Greek and Latin Scripts: 180
• The Korean Hangul Alphabet: 195
• Writing in Comparative Perspective: 209
• Notes: 271
• Glossary: 277
• References: 283
• Index: 299

Popular passages

Page 140 - One hesitates for an epithet to describe a system of writing so complex that it needs the aid of another system to explain it. There is no doubt that it provides for some a fascinating field of study, but as a practical instrument it is surely without inferiors.‎

Page 12 - I am told that while I was still in long dresses I showed many signs of an eager, self-asserting disposition. Everything that I saw other people do I insisted upon imitating. At six months I could pipe out "How d'ye," and one day I attracted every one's attention by saying "Tea, tea, tea‎

Page 233 - A practical orthography should be phonemic. There should be a one-to-one correspondence between each phoneme and the symbolization of that phoneme. 1 Some orthographies are based upon the syllable and have a one-to-one correspondence between each syllable and the symbol representing It. Syllabaries have proved to be effective, and in areas where syllabaries are traditionally acceptable a syllabary may still prove to be the most adequate solution.‎

Page 244 - Languages differ not so much as to what can be said in them, but rather as to what it is relatively easy to say in them.‎

Page 61 - A primitive logographic writing can develop into a full system only if it succeeds in attaching to a sign a phonetic value independent of the meaning which this sign has as a word. This is phonetization, the most important single step in the history of writing. In modern usage this device is called 'rebus writing...‎

Page 48 - Writing is not language, but merely a way of recording language by means of visible marks.‎

Page 5 - Partial writing is a system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey only some thought. Full writing is a system of graphic symbols that can be used to convey any and all thought.‎

Page 18 - West's study, has questoned whether the 'sign talk' of the Plains ever functioned as a complete language (at a conference on describing the languages of the world, Center for Applied Linguistics, April, 1970). Its use was confined to situations of fairly limited and predictable contexts. Its users always had their native languages in which to express things not covered by the sign lexicon and grammar, so that matters of moment could be referred to an interpreter or translator. That some ideas were...‎

About the author

John DeFrancis (1911- 2009) John DeFrancis (1911 2009), Emeritus Professor of Chinese at the University of Hawai'i, graduated from Yale in 1933 and immediately departed for China to pursue his interests. In three years of study and travel, he covered over 4,000 miles in Northwest China and Mongolia, across the Gobi Desert, and down the Yellow River, immersing himself in grassroots contact with the language and people. Upon his return to the United States, DeFrancis earned his M.A. and Ph.D. from Columbia University. He taught at several institutions nationwide. Dr. DeFrancis is the author of dozens of articles and books on spoken and written Chinese, among them a widely used 12-volume set of educational materials and Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems (UH Press, 1989).

Bibliographic information

• Title: Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems; Asian Interactions and Comparisons Series
• Author: John DeFrancis
• Edition: illustrated
• Publisher: University of Hawaii Press, 1989
• ISBN: 0824812077, 9780824812072
• Length: 306 pages
• Subjects: Language Arts & Disciplines / Alphabets & Writing Systems; Language Arts & Disciplines / Composition & Creative Writing