Writing Systems

Logograms vs. Ideograms: There’s a Difference

Is Chinese a language of "idea-pictures"? Not quite. This common misconception confuses ideograms, which are language-independent symbols for concepts, with…

8 hours ago

The Lost Vowels of Proto-Semitic

How do you reconstruct the vowels of an ancient language when its descendants, like Hebrew and Arabic, were written without…

8 hours ago

LTR vs RTL: Why We Read The Way We Do

Ever wondered why English is read left-to-right, but Arabic and Hebrew are read right-to-left? The answer is a fascinating journey…

7 days ago

Sumerian: The First Written Language

Explore Sumerian, the world's first written language and a fascinating linguistic isolate. Discovered on cuneiform tablets, this ancient tongue challenges…

7 days ago

Hmong’s Tonal Writing System

Discover the Romanized Popular Alphabet (RPA), the ingenious writing system for the Hmong language. In this linguistic deep-dive, you'll learn…

7 days ago

OCS: The First Slavic Literary Language

Before there was Russian, Polish, or Bulgarian, there was their common literary ancestor: Old Church Slavonic. Discover the story of…

7 days ago

The Yi Script: China’s Living Logogram

While most of China uses Chinese characters, the Yi people of the southwest have their own unique writing system with…

7 days ago

Writing Your Voice: The Blissymbols System

Dive into the world of Blissymbols, a fascinating ideographic writing system designed as a universal language. Explore its logical grammar,…

7 days ago

The Tyranny of the Alphabet: How We Order Knowledge

Alphabetical order feels as natural as breathing, but this rigid system is a historical accident that silently shapes how we…

1 week ago

The Men Who Invented an Alphabet: Cyril & Methodius

Did you know the Cyrillic alphabet wasn't invented by a man named Cyril, or even by a Russian? The script…

1 week ago

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