Brain activation during reading of phonographic (Hangul) and ideographic (Hanja) words is compared using functional MRI by taking advantage of the bi-scriptal system of the Korean language. To examine the psycholinguistic difference, i.e., phonographic vs. ideographic, separately from other differences due to Hanja being a secondary script, we…

In 1909, at the height of the woman suffrage controversy and during the golden age of postcards, the Dunston-Weiler Lithograph Company of New York produced a twelve-card set of full-color lithographic cartoon postcards opposing woman suffrage. The postcard images reflect, and depart from, verbal arguments concerning woman suffrage prevalent during…

This study explores sound-symbolic, or mimetic, words in the Japanese language, the majority of which are never entered in Japanese dictionaries, and which may not be fully understood in all their nuances by native speakers. The extensiveness of the sound-symbolic system is related to the semantic under-differentiation of Japanese verbs. An…

Script reform, the modification of an existing writing system, is often confused with script replacement of one writing system with another. Turkish underwent the replacement of Arabic script by an adaptation of Roman script under Kamel Ataturk, but a similar replacement in Persian was rejected because of the high rate of existing literacy in…

An outline is presented of how "Interscript," a developing international communication system, operates. The three main elements in "Interscript" are described in turn, as follows: (1) the glyphs or symbols, which are pictographs, ideographs, arbitrary symbols, and generic symbols; (2) "Clearthink", or what would correspond to the identification…

Visual Literacy is a field that encompasses a variety of theoretical constructs and practical considerations relating to communicating with visual signs. The theoretical constructs that influence visual communication primarily fall into two closely interrelated categories: those that relate to the individuals involved in the communication process,…

In Taiwanese, approximately 5 percent of the morphemes--many of them high-frequency function words--have no appropriate, established Chinese characters to represent them. This article concerns the way in which new characters are invented or existing characters are adopted to represent Taiwanese morphemes. (Author/KM)

Describes various distinctively shaped clay tokens used in western Asia centuries before the Sumerians invented writing. These tokens appear to have served as a basis for Sumerian ideographs. ( MA)

Reviews an archaic system of notation using tokens that is the direct progenitor of Sumerian writing. (HOD)

Challenges the basis for the Gleitman-Rozin recommendation that children can be taught to read English as a syllabary. See related article by Lila R. Gleitman and Paul Rozin, CS 705 851. (Author/RB)

The Peabody Rebus Reading Program (REBUS), a beginning reading program which utilizes symbols or pictures which stand for words, is used at the Rees Thomas School (Cambridge, Great Britain) for severely mentally retarded children. The use of REBUS as a communication method for some speech handicapped children is pointed out. (SB)

Describes Grammateion, a hypertext system developed to simplify the use of ancient language symbols in scholarly work by providing basic grammatical and lexical information about Greek. A sidebar discussing the benefits of such technologies to the humanities argues that they allow teachers more time to interact with students and students to work…

In a discussion of grammatical identity of a Chinese word, the following topics are covered: word identification, word constituents, word properties, intraword structures, and interword constraints. (20 references) (LB)