Journal of Research in Reading, 30(2)

Information on the latest issue of Journal of Research in Reading (Vol. 30, No. 2) is now available from the publisher's website.

The Asahi Shimbun on Kokuji

漢字にも「方言」　早大教授が１００以上の地域文字発見 (Google cache) - The Asahi Shimbun (April 16, 2007)

This article focuses on Japanese kokuji (国字), Siniform characters constituting a subclass of the kanji script. The kokuji characters were created in Japan using the organisational principles of the kanji characters, which had been originally developed in and adopted from China. While some of the kokuji characters encode such basic lexemes as 'farming field' and '(to) work', others represent more vernacular ones such as family names, place names and local commodities. The article introduces the reader to a survey conducted by Professor Hiroyuki Sasahara (笹原 宏之) of Waseda University, in which he has collected more than 100 vernacular characters from communities across Japan. Until now these characters were virtually unattested because they had been known only to particular members of the individual communities. According to Professor Sasahara, kokuji reflect the culture and history of the people's struggle to write their own words.

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Written Language and Literacy, 9(2)

The latest issue of the journal Written Language and Literacy (Vol. 9, No. 2) has been published. See details.

Typology of Writing Systems

Typology of Writing Systems
Date: September, 2008 (date not yet announced)
Place: University of Braunschweig, Brunswick, Germany
URL: http://www.ru.nl/WrittenLanguage/workshops.html

A Chinese Signboard Written in the Jawi Script

I went on a short trip to Johor, Malaysia, in October 2006. It was quite fascinating to see lots of signs written in the Jawi script, an Arabic-derived script devised to represent the Malay language. One of the most exciting moments was when I saw this signboard at a Chinese-owned bank called Hong Leong Bank (豊隆銀行), which was written in Chinese, Latin and Jawi characters. The Jawi part would be transliterated as something like hong lyong bengk, with the notable ε-shaped velar nasal character - 'ayn with three dots on it - which is not found in the original Arabic script.

I found this particularly interesting because it was an actual example of the Jawi script used to write a Chinese name. While there are similar cases attested in historical texts, I am not certain if such usage is still wide-spread in Malaysia today. My impression is that the use of Jawi is on the rise among the Malays especially in the southern part of the country, where I met several people who would write their names in this script.

Origins of Early Writing System

Origins of Early Writing System
Date: October 5-7, 2007
Place: Institute of Ancient Near Easter Language and Civilizations, Peking University, Beijing, China
URL: www.caeno.org/origins/home.html

A Workshop On Scripts, Non-scripts and (Pseudo)decipherment

A Workshop On Scripts, Non-scripts and (Pseudo)decipherment
Date: July 11, 2007
Place: Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
Website: http://compling.ai.uiuc.edu/2007Workshop/
Programme: http://serrano.ai.uiuc.edu/2007Workshop/abstracts.html

CAASL-2

The Second Workshop on Computational Approaches to Arabic Scipt-based Languages (CAASL-2)
Date: July 21-22, 2007
Place: Department of Linguistics, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA
URL: http://www.zoorna.org/CAASL2/

Welcome to K's Writing System Research Blog!

I am a postgraduate student doing research on the Japanese writing system from a linguistic perspective. I started this blog to collect (and, hopefully, provide) information about research on the world's writing systems.

In the past decades there has been an upsurge of academic interest in linguistic issues related to aspects of writing systems. These issues are being actively explored by specialists, discussed on various occasions and published as journal articles and books. We can access a wide range of information about these activities at ease through useful websites run by organisations and individuals. However, there are so many fragments of information dispersed over the Internet that it is quite difficult to go through everything and remain updated.

This blog is basically intended as a personal notebook which I will use for coping with the situation described above. Nevertheless, I will keep it open to anyone who finds the contents interesting, useful or both. Most posts will be brief notes on or reminders of events, publications and media reports related to writing system research. At times I will also post notes on other miscellaneous issues. The posts will be archived and sorted by topic for an easy access.

While I will try to be very careful about the fitness of each post, it will be greatly appreciated if you could kindly notice me of any flaw or inadequate content. In case you want to contact me, please leave comments on specific posts or give me a general feedback. Suggestions will be most welcome.

(Updated on January 28, 2008)

このブログは、大学院で言語学の立場から日本語の文字・表記体系を研究している筆者が、世界の文字・表記体系の研究に関する情報を集め、（可能であれば）発信していくために立ち上げたものです。

近年、文字・表記体系の諸相に対し、言語学的な観点からアプローチしていこうという動きが盛んになっています。様々なトピックが専門家によって盛んに研究され、議論され、学術論文や専門書の形を取って刊行されています。私たちは、研究機関や個人によって運営されている多くのウェブサイトを通じ、これらの研究活動について幅広い情報を集めることができます。一方、インターネット上には無数の情報が散乱しているため、そのすべてに目を通し、常に最新の情報にアクセスするのは大変難しい状況です。

このブログは、原則として、そのような状況に対処するための個人的な備忘録として運営しているものです。しかし、その内容が皆様にとって興味あるものであったり、有用な情報であったりすれば幸いと考え、公開という形を取っています。ここに掲載される記事の多くは、文字・表記体系の研究に関連するイベント、刊行物、報道などについての簡単なノートや覚え書きです。この他にも、折にふれて様々な事柄に関する記事を掲載していく予定です。記事は内容によって分類し、アーカイブしていきます。

記事の内容については細心の注意を払っていますが、万一誤りや不適切な内容があるようでしたら、ご一報いただければ幸いです。その場合、個々の記事に対するコメントか、全般的なフィードバックをいただければと思います。ご提案やご指摘などもお待ちしています。

(更新：2008年1月28日)