Two atypical books by Dr. Seuss — one for children, but about alphabets (On Beyond Zebra!); and one for adults, though in Geisel’s usual children’s-book format (You’re Only Old Once! A Book for Obsolete Children).
Archive for the ‘Writing systems’ Category
Atypical Seuss
May 30, 2017Emoji are the hieroglyphs of the future
February 16, 2017
Two word-play cartoons
May 28, 2016
Three morning names
September 7, 2015(Some sexual topics to come.)
They’ve been piling up while other things happen. But here’s the recent crop: Futhark, eructation, sex sling. Definitely a mixed bag.
No vowels
April 11, 2015In the April 13th New Yorker, a Talk of the Town piece “The Musical Life: New Translation” by Alec Wilkinson about Cassandra Wilson:
The title of the Egyptian funerary papyrus “Book of the Dead” is more accurately translated as “Coming Forth by Day.” It was called “Book of the Dead” by Wallis Budge, who translated the manuscript for the British Museum, in 1895. “Coming Forth by Day” is also the title of Cassandra Wilson’s new record, which is an homage to Billie Holiday, who would have turned one hundred on April 7th.
The other morning, Wilson visited the Egyptian wing of the Met, waiting in the security line among schoolchildren on field trips.
… “I’ve been fascinated by Egyptology for ten years,” she said. “Ancient Egypt was called Kmt. Their language didn’t have vowels, much like Hebrew. The Greeks called the people from Kmt the Aegyptos. ‘Kemetic’ is how you refer to the culture. The Kemetics didn’t believe in death. They believed that you were always coming back and forth from the unknown to the actual. Going to the afterlife they referred to as ‘westing,’ since the sun set in the west. For me, the thought of Billie Holiday’s spirit being reinvented in the twenty-first century connected with the concept of returning, of coming forth by day.”
Whoa! The writing system is not the language. The Ancient Egyptian writing system didn’t have symbols for vowels, but the language certainly had them. Every language does.
Set of three
December 27, 2014A crop of three comics for today, on three very different topics: a One Big Happy with an inventive reinterpretation of an expression; a Zits on the evolution of writing systems; and a Zippy with another Xmas parody:
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(#2)
(#3)
One by one:
Two linguistics cartoons
September 28, 2014… in the latest (9/29/14) New Yorker: a Zach Kanin on writing systems and a Joe Dator with a snow cone snowclone:
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Early writing in the comics
January 9, 2014Today’s Bizarro:
I before E except after C.
Hangul Day
October 9, 2013Today is Hangul Day, a holiday to celebrate the Korean writing system. Here’s a video from some years ago with the great linguist Jim McCawley explaining why this is an important day in the calendar:
[Enjoy the Scottish accent. By the way, it’s the University of Chicago, not Chicago University.]
This is holiday season. From this blog on October 14th in 2011:
We’ve just had the holiday triple play — Hangul Day [October 9th], Columbus Day (U.S.) / Thanksgiving (Canada) [both the second Monday in October], National Coming Out Day [October 11th] … — and next up is Dictionary Day, October 16th, celebrated on Noah Webster’s birthday. Words running amok in the streets!
