Portal:Writing

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Welcome to the writing portal

Introduction

Writing is the act of creating a persistent representation of human language. A writing system uses a set of symbols and rules to encode aspects of spoken language, such as its lexicon and syntax. However, written language may take on characteristics distinct from those of any spoken language.

Writing is a cognitive and social activity involving neuropsychological and physical processes. The outcome of this activity, also called "writing", and sometimes a "text", is a series of physically inscribed, mechanically transferred, or digitally represented symbols. The interpreter or activator of a text is called a "reader".

In general, writing systems do not constitute languages in and of themselves, but rather a means of encoding language such that it can be read by others across time and space. While not all languages use a writing system, those that do can complement and extend the capacities of

libraries or other public records). Writing can also have knowledge-transforming effects, since it allows humans to externalize their thinking in forms that are easier to reflect on, elaborate on, reconsider, and revise. (Full article...

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transcribing a word or text written in one writing system

into another writing system or system of rules for such practice.
From a linguistic point of view, transliteration is a mapping from one system of writing into another, word by word. Transliteration attempts to be exact, so that an informed reader should be able to reconstruct the original spelling of unknown transliterated words. To achieve this objective transliteration may define complex conventions for dealing with letters in a source script which do not correspond with letters in a goal script.
Transliteration is opposed to
sounds of one language to the best matching script of another language. Still, most systems of transliteration map the letters of the source script to letters pronounced similarly in the goal script, for some specific pair of source and goal language. (Full article...
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Writing systems of the World

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W. Andrew Robinson (born 1957) is a British author^[1]^[2] and former newspaper editor.^[3]

Andrew Robinson was educated at the

Oxford physicist. He is based in London and is currently a full-time writer

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Robinson has written several books about the history of writing, including:

The Story of Writing: Alphabets, Hieroglyphs and Pictograms.
ISBN 0-500-28156-4.^[4]

Lost Languages: The Enigma of the World's Great Undeciphered Scripts.
ISBN 0-07-135743-2.^[5]^[6]

Writing and Script.
ISBN 9780199567782.^[3]^[7]^[8] (Full article...
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Did you know...

... that the Korean alphabet Hangul was promulgated by the Korean king Sejong the Great after being developed under his guidance by a team of researchers? It is the rare example of a writing system that is thoroughly planned after scientific points of view.

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Major topics

• Calligraphy •
Western calligraphy • Islamic calligraphy • Indian calligraphy • Chinese calligraphy • Korean calligraphy • Japanese calligraphy • Persian calligraphy • Manuscript
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Writing instruments

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Ink stone • Qalam • Quill • Dip pen • Nib • Paper • Writing slate • Pencil • Typewriter • Word processor • Dry erase marker • Touchscreen

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Verify : Creative writing, Fiction, Literature, Print culture.
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