Biscriptality

A sociolinguistic typology

by Daniel Buncic, edited by Daniel Buncic, Sandra L. Lippert, Achim Rabus and with Anastasia Antipova, Carmen Brandt, Ekatarina Kislova, Henning Kloter, Alexandra von Lieven, Sandra L. Lippert, Helma Pasch, Achim Rabus, Jurgen Spitzmuller and Constanze Weth

Book cover: Biscriptality

Extent: 425 pages

Publisher: Universitätsverlag Winter

Subjects: Language & Linguistics

Series: Akademiekonferenzen

Series volume number: 24

Language: English

Paperback (Published)

(June 2016)

ISBN: 9783825366254

Price: $67.00

Out of stock

Serbs write their language in Cyrillic or Latin letters in seemingly random distribution. Hindi-Urdu is written in Nagari by Hindus and in the Arabic script by Muslims. In medieval Scandinavia the Latin alphabet, ink and parchment were used for texts ‘for eternity’, whereas ephemeral messages were carved into wood in runes. The Occitan language has two competing orthographies. German texts were set either in blackletter or in roman type between 1749 and 1941. In Ancient Egypt the distribution of hieroglyphs, hieratic and demotic was much more complex than commonly assumed. Chinese is written with traditional and simplified characters in different countries. This collective monograph, which includes contributions from eleven specialists in different philological areas, for the first time develops a coherent typological model on the basis of sociolinguistic and graphematic criteria to describe and classify these and many other linguistic situations in which two or more writing systems are used simultaneously for one and the same language.

  • By (author) Daniel Buncic
  • With Anastasia Antipova
  • With Carmen Brandt
  • With Ekaterina Kislova
  • With Henning Kloter
  • With Alexandra von Lieven
  • With Sandra L. Lippert
  • With Helma Pasch
  • With Achim Rabus
  • With Jurgen Spitzmuller
  • With Constanze Weth
  • Edited by Daniel Buncic
  • Edited by Sandra L Lippert
  • Edited by Achim Rabus