Talk:Writing

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hej

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[edit] Major Restructuring. May 9, 2005

I apologize that I couldn't actually finish the reworking of this article. I thought it would take me only three hours or so, but I vastly underestimated the time requirements. As it is now the article is probably in worse shape that it was originally. However it is, to my eyes, in a form that makes it more easily extensible. I do plan on finishing what I started, but I can't devote any more time to it today, so I thought that I could get a little help.

As it is now the article looks terrible, much of it's content is blatently ripped from other locations within the Wikipedia, and it's horrifically incomplete. In addition there are no longer all of the sweet sweet hyperlinks in the article text and the images ( which go a long way to improve appearance ) are non-existant.

The wikipedia documentation encourages bold editing. How's this for bold? --blt 21:39, May 9, 2005 (UTC)

  • Very nice. It's much easier to read and actually has the proper branches of information. RickGriffin 04:31, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)


This article has bad information. Hieroglyphic writing WAS NOT principally logogramic. It is a mixture of semantic symbols, phonetic signs and phonograms. This is an important point, and is not included in the article. To say that hieroglyphs are prinipally logogramic is flat out wrong. 00:01, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

That's what logographic systems are. This is covered in the article. kwami 09:32, 21 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] What Needs To Be Done?

In my opinion, we should break this article up into sections. As far as I see there are three things discussed here. First is writing, a noun meaning symbols and characters that convey information, and the history of this in ancient Mesopotamia etc. Second is writing, a verb meaning to produce written material such as books, articles, etc.. A little history on the second definition might be in order as well, discussing the oldest known written works and that sort of thing. Third is other things referred to as writing, which would be the bits about ghosts, cryptography, surrealism and hard drives currently in the article. If this doesn't adiquately devide the information then maybe a disambiguation page is called for, I don't know.

Any reactions or further ideas to this would be quite helpfull. If we just continue to add more and more things that are called writing we will eventually have the worst mess on the wiki. --Shane 01:29, 31 Mar 2005 (UTC)

  • I rearranged a bunch of things. I took out the thing about writing on rice and (with) atoms, because they probably didn't belong in the opening paragraph. If you still want them, try putting them in somewhere else? RickGriffin 01:21, 19 Apr 2005 (UTC)


Is anyone able to expand on writing at near-atomic level? --Daniel C. Boyer

Typically, however, one will use a writing utensil (such as a pen or pencil) to write characters on paper; or a computer (or typewriter) to record characters to disk (emphasis added)

Er, show me this typewriter.

The day I met my girlfriend we went through the communications exhibit at the American Museum of National History, and I don't recall seeing any computer typewriters, but I'll admit under the circumstances I might not have been paying attention. --Calieber 15:52, Oct 30, 2003 (UTC)

I cut this:


An exception to the general rule that writing is an attempt to communicate is the writing in unknown scripts or languages alleged by mediums to be communicated to them by ghosts, spirits, or other, generally supernatural or extraterrestrial entities. This technique is known as automatic writing.

and this:

Rarely, "writing" is used to refer to the making of marks using various methods, that is not, strictly speaking, writing, as in the "indecipherable writing" (a type of surautomatism) developed by the Romanian surrealists; "indecipherable writing" is actually more akin to what would commonly be described as drawing or painting than writing.

because it didn't seem relevant to the general subject of writing. UninvitedCompany 23:17, 30 Mar 2004 (UTC)

Could not interactive writing be covered under this heading? Apogr 15:41, 30 Aug 2004 (UTC)

For example, the letter N in English

Is this not the Roman alphabet?

An omission was made when discussing alphabets. Why not to regard Runic Alphabet that played a great role in the development of writing of Germanic Peoples and English as a member of the group of Germanic Languages also. Not only the development of writing but the culture was affected. The symbolism of writing should not be omitted. I'll come up with something soon and you are free to edit and implement your ideas.--Beastieboy 15:59, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prehistory versus History

I do not believe that written language is the measure of history.

The extension of human memory began when events were passed from one generation to another by oral tradition.

This predates the use of script to represent language by several eons!

[edit] prehistory

As an interesting aside, historians draw a distinction between prehistory and history with the advent of writing systems. The cave paintings and petroglyphs of prehistoric peoples can be considered the precursor of writing systems, but cannot be considered as such because they relied heavily on oral tradition in order to be understood. --writing and representation are completely different means of expression. Whole paragraph ought to be dropped in my opinion.

I agree that this para has problems:
  • Firstly, it can be noted that any writing system relies almost exclusively upon oral tradition to be understood - writing systems are learned and explicitly taught via spoken methods (at least, until the point where one understands enough of a writing system to be able to use it to further interpret that or other systems).
  • Secondly, it might be better to be more specific re the distinction between history & pre-history, if this is to be maintained. Insofar as there is a boundary between the two concepts, the distinction usually implied by historians who adopt it is between recorded history (meaning, from that time onwards there are available texts of some sort or other which the historian can rely upon to give some near-contemporary account of events), and pre-recorded history (periods of time for which no records are extant or existed in the first place, and one must rely solely upon archaeological or other reconstructive methods to gain insight into the events of the past).
It could also be noted that such a boundary would occur at different periods in different regions, and that within the same region recorded history may lapse into the un-recorded (and back again) numerous times.
  • and finally, if it is accepted that writing divides a view of history in this way, then it would be more than just an interesting aside to make the claim...--cjllw | TALK 04:30, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)

[edit] Dates

As I tidied the article recently, I noticed that it used a mixture of BC and BCE dates, so I made it consistent. Codex Sinaiticus (talk · contribs) reverted all my edits, claiming that I was "date-warring". He continues to insist on this, without bringing it to Talk, despite the fact that he's the only one doing the warring. Do other editors here have strong feelings either way? The article has to use one or the other; which should it be? --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:35, 7 June 2006 (UTC)

Be honest, it's date warring. There was no BCE in the article before, it was a BC article. Changing it to the less popular and suposedly "politically correct" BCE without consensus is date warring, and it will be reverted. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:38, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
Ok, there was one BCE in the older version that was recently added by mistake. There are 6 BC's and this has always been a BC article. So yes, to be just, you should have "made it consistent in the other direction" as you put it on my talk page. ፈቃደ (ውይይት) 21:41, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
After edit conflict.
If Codex Sinaiticus could see past his obession with this subject, he'd see that the article was indeed originally incosistent (and that even if it hadn't been, changing the dates wasn't warring — that was instituted by the person who reverted). As I went through it I found that there were far more BCs than BCEs, but I thought it more important to make it consistent than reverse my edits so far. I repeat; if other editors have an opinion, it would be good to see if there's consensus either way. --Mel Etitis (Μελ Ετητης) 21:45, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
As you've found out, some people are extremely touchy about the use of BC or BCE, and Wikipedia guidelines are to go with whichever dating system was used at the creation of the article (see [1]), unless there is an uncontentious consensus to use a different system. As Wikipedia is not a democracy, a majority vote does not give an editor a mandate to convert an article from one system to another, as that will tend to provoke edit/date-warring which is a Bad Thing. Polls are taken not to guage which view is correct but to ascertain the spectrum and scale of divergent points of view. I believe the first version of this article to use dates here [2] uses BC, so in the absence of a compelling reason to change to BCE, the article should stay with the BC style. Hope that helps. WLD 17:56, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Punth

I have removed the following paragraph from the article:

A punth is any writing utensil, this may include: pens, pencils, crayons, markers, chalk, etc. It comes from the Latin root "punct" which means to point or prick. The word came first from inscriptions because any pointed object could be used to write, eventually the word broadened its meaning to any writing utensil.

This was added by this edit by an anonymous contributor. It seems to be a hoax/neologism, as it isn't in any online dictionary and only gets about 1,320 Google results. PeepP 21:30, 26 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Sub-Saharan African writing

Are there any records of when writing developed in Sub-Saharan or simply the non-Egyptian regions of Africa? What were these peoples' writing systems like? 152.23.84.168 02:00, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Just viewing this page for the first time and it is curious that there is no mention of African writing systems. There are a few pages that might interest you (particularly the first two) and could also be referenced in a short section on the subject in this article: Ge'ez language, Tifinagh, Vai language, N'Ko, Mandombe. Latin script usage: African reference alphabet (probably others). Arabic script usage: some notes at Arabic alphabet. An external page with links is on the PanAfrican L10n site.--A12n 15:18, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge history section

It should be merged into History of writing.-- Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus | talk  17:40, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

A brief synopissi is good for this page ... with a main to the other .... J. D. Redding 02:51, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] New World find in Vera Cruz, Mexico (the Olmec civilization)

FYI: [3] deeceevoice 18:57, 15 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Image

Writer's hand with pen
Writer's hand with pen

I don't know whether it will "pass", but should this image be included in this article somewhere? —  $PЯINGεrαgђ  21:49, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Of course, since you're left-handed like I am. xD ~crazytales56297 12:03, 4 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Suggestion

I wonder if this article might benefit from a section on handwriting? This could include types of writing, and also how people learn to write, etc. Walkerma 02:24, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "Styles of Writing" redirect to theis page

It might be better for that redirect to lead to a disambiguation page.--A12n 15:25, 29 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Professional writing

I also found the following redundant STUB. I quote it below. Whatever useful content it contains - about which I make no judgment, as I have not sudied it - should be merged into this article.

Professional writing is writing that is traditionally done in a formal or professional setting, though this isn't always the case. Those who pursue careers in professional writing often end up in technical and scientific communication jobs, public relations, authoring web content, information design, writing and editing, translation, journalism, and education.[1] [2] Neil Nixon 16:33, 2 September 2007 (UTC) I'm against merging Professional Writing and writing, mainly on the grounds that Professional Writing is a growing academic discipline, notably in the US and UK and is developing its own identity outside of Creative Writing. The paragraph above isn't especially helpful but it is driving at the same point I am making.

[edit] Sources

  1. ^ Perdue.edu
  2. ^ Design Sensory

[edit] External links

Yours truly, --Ludvikus 14:28, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Writing

I strongly recommend, immediately after the Introduction, a section on the "History of writing"!!!

--Ludvikus 16:11, 26 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] History of Writing

I'm not going to try to do an edit (too much work for an anonymous newbie), but it seems to me that the current History Of Writing section is bizarrely ethnocentric in its contention that the only writing systems that matter are the alphabets. "It is irrefutable that without one writing remains tremendously hindered in its absence"? Mildly incoherent, and patently untrue: one of the world's most literate cultures still prefers a logographic/syllabic system.

In fact, wouldn't you be better off splitting the whole technical topic of writing systems and their history off from this verbiage about writers and what they do?

-- monkey number six billion 80.176.227.229 03:07, 24 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Writing, in historical perspective

Is there any reason for this section to be in the article? In addition to having npov problems, it seems redundant given that it references History of writing as a main article, which article is also referenced as a main article by the Writing in Historical Cultures section. -Hgebel 12:40, 3 February 2007 (UTC)

What are the NPOV problems? J. D. Redding 02:54, 2 June 2007 (UTC)
A brief outline here is not a bad thing ...
But main article tag it ... as it is now ... should be good ... J. D. Redding 02:53, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Dubious -- pinyin a "phonetic component" of Chinese writing?

No writing system is wholly logographic: all have phonetic components (such as Chinese Pinyin or Hanyu Pinyin) [...]

I don't consider Pinyin to be part of the Chinese writing system. One never need write pinyin when writing Chinese, and it's rare to see it used inline with Chinese characters. I also disagree with the statement that "no writing system is wholly logographic", because, as far as I know, phonetic components and the like are not excluded from the definition of "logogram". - furrykef (Talk at me) 21:20, 15 July 2007 (UTC)

Mm, I'm withdrawing the second half of my comment because the logogram article seems to agree that no writing system is wholly logographic. OK, whatever. - furrykef (Talk at me) 21:24, 15 July 2007 (UTC)
You're right. I'm deleting the Pinyin comment. (Hanzi do have a phonetic component - about 90% are radical-phonetic compounds). kwami 16:47, 9 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Removals

Removed the following unencyclopaedic and unnecessary paragraphs:

Writing also presupposes, at a minimum, three other activities.
Letter and word recording used to presuppose penmanship, and in earlier times, there were professional scribes who were especially talented in that regard. In more recent times, a new requirement emerged - the skill of typing. But today, one-, or two-fingered typing is sufficient, though inefficient, a new skill is presupposed, though not necessary: the knowledge of dedicated software, such as WordPerfect, and Word. The elements of such writing are, of course, the letters of the alphabet and the alphanumeric character set included within the standardized ASCII family of signs or symbols. When appearance factors such as legibility and aesthetics of the words are of greater concern, graphic design-related letter and word recording skills such as typography and typesetting may be required.
The next skill required is the ability to spell words, or significant knowledge of the contents of a dictionary, and the rules of grammar. However, with the advent of the computer a useful new tool has emerged, the so-called spell check, which automatically checks, and, or, corrects, often both spelling and grammatical mistakes or errors. But even the best program cannot find all errors, so spelling is still an important skill.
But the most important skill in writing is considered to be talent, which is believed to be an inborn ability. Nevertheless, courses and schools exist which, if they do not promise to teach one how to become a writer, at least are recognized as being able to improve one's technical skills on the road to improving one's writing ability.

The article is about human representation of language in a textual medium. The above is basically irrelevant. It is also not very well written and presupposes a Western anglophone worldview. Donama 03:14, 29 September 2007 (UTC)