Decoding World Writing Systems

3 Credits · Level: Graduate

From Asp to Zed: Decoding the World's Writing Systems The thousands of languages in the world have been written down in hundreds of different orthographies: alphabets, abjads, logograms, hieroglyphs, runes, syllabaries, "visible speech," and more. In this class, we'll take a hands-on approach to deciphering the many relationships between spoken and written language. Each class we'll take a sample of a different writing system, and work together to figure out how the symbols and the sounds match up. We'll explore the history and social importance of each code, practice creating new messages, and create some new orthographies of our own. Do you think you can do better than the Ancient Egyptians?