Introduction to Writing Systems: How Writing Encodes Language

In this video, the author starts by discussing what writing encodes and the persistent confusion of writing and language, and some common fallacies; the different definitions of “writing” that people (implicitly) assume; writing is for people who already know the language, and is often a quite imperfect representation of linguistic information.

The video then takes a deep dive into different kinds of writing systems: syllabaries and moraic

systems; alphasyllabaries or abugidas; abjads or “consonantal alphabets”; alphabets; the distinction between “script” and “writing system”; morphographic (logographic) systems and some common misconceptions about morphography. The author also gives a brief introduction to the original evolution of writing, by showing which modern systems derive from which ancient systems, and by discussing a couple of the more “scientific” systems that were invented later.

In the end, the author touches upon other relevant topics and explains how segmentation is an issue in writing systems that do not use word delimiters, why some written languages have rather chaotic spelling systems. The video is aimed at a general audience and tries as much as possible to avoid

assuming too much background knowledge.