The idea of writing originated independently at least twice (maybe three times) in different parts of the world, first in Mesopotamia

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1 The History of Writing

2 History of Writing: The Beginnings Humans have been speaking language in its present form for at least 50,000 years. However, the first full-fledged fledged writing did not emerge until around 3500 B.C. Writing first evolved in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium B.C. It was developed purely for commercial purposes.

3 History of Writing: The Beginnings Why did writing first appear in Mesopotamia, and why did it take so long for writing to develop? There was no great need for writing until urban civilization and increasingly complex economies required it.

4 History of Writing: The Beginnings The idea of writing originated independently at least twice (maybe three times) in different parts of the world, first in Mesopotamia then in China and much later in Mesoamerica.

5 Mesopotamia B.C. True writing first appeared during the end of the Chalcolithic Period (Copper Age) in lower Mesopotamia. Writing was an urban phenomenon.

6 The Origin of Writing in Mesopotamia Complex clay tokens from Sumer represented agricultural and other commodities and were used in the fourth century B.C. for accounting and mercantile purposes. Complex tokens, from Susa (c B.C B.C.). Top row from left: 1 type of garment, 1 unit of metal, 1 unit of a particular oil, 1 sheep. Bottom row from left: 1 measure of honey, unknown, and 1 type of garment.

7 The Origin of Writing in Mesopotamia It eventually occurred to the Sumerians that instead of using the complex three dimensional tokens themselves, the tokens could be used to imprint their shapes on wet clay tablets, conveying the information in a less cumbersome and more economic form. Eventually, instead of using the tokens to imprint their shapes in the clay, scribes began using reed styli (plural of stylus) to draw pictures of the items being represented.

8 The Origin of Writing in Mesopotamia Administrative clay tablet with cylindrical seal impression of a male figure, hunting dogs, and boars. Uruk, c B.C. The language written is ancient Sumerian. Note that at this early stage of writing, the symbols are highly pictographic.

9 The Origin of Writing in Mesopotamia Cuneiform tablet from the Sumerian city of Ur, 21st century B.C. A reed stylus or wedge was used to imprint the symbols into tablets of wet clay. The symbols seen here have evolved, and are now minimally pictographic and are highly stylized.

10 Writing and Literacy in Mesopotamia Cuneiform writing continued to evolve in Mesopotamia. Although the script was originally used to write Sumerian for mercantile purposes, neighboring peoples borrowed and then adapted the writing system to write their own languages. They used the script to write down laws and letters, compose literature, and even to scrawl as graffiti onto public buildings. Proto-Elamite inscription from ancient Elam, third century B.C. Some scholars believe that Elamite was related to the modern Dravidian languages of India, such as Tamil and Telugu.

11 Writing and Literacy in Mesopotamia Babylonian tablet reporting the arrival of Halley s comet in 87 B.C. Only a small number of elite Babylonian scribes could read and write this complex script. Ancient Babylonian was a Semitic language, related to Arabic and Hebrew.

12 Writing and Literacy in Mesopotamia Graffiti scrawled into a Sumerian ziggurat (temple) in early pictographic Sumerian. The writer was probably a priest or government official.

13 The Spread of Writing The idea of writing spread rapidly from Sumer into neighboring regions. The Ancient Egyptians, Elamites, and Harrapans (the people of the Indus Valley Civilization) all likely borrowed the idea of writing from the Sumerians, and then created their own writing systems which were adapted for their particular languages. Unlike cuneiform, which shows many stages of development, these writing systems suddenly appeared fully developed strong evidence that these scripts were the result of cultural diffusion. Text in Proto-Elamite script, c B.C.

14 The Spread of Early Writing

15 The Evolution of Writing Systems Cuneiform began as a purely pictographic script, but later evolved into a logosyllabic, and eventually an alphabetic writing system. Pictographic systems use symbols that represent objects or ideas, but not words themselves. Logographic scripts have symbols that represent individual words. Syllabic scripts have symbols that represent syllables. Logosyllabic scripts combine logograms and syllabograms. The symbols of alphabetic writing systems represent individual sounds.

16 Ancient Egyptian Writing Egyptian hieroglyphs were used to write the Ancient Egyptian language, which was distantly related to the Semitic languages. This writing system first appeared around 3300 B.C. and persisted, more or less unchanged, for about 3000 years. This late example of monumental hieroglyphic writing is from the city of Thebes, c. 530 B.C.

17 Ancient Egyptian Writing Egyptian Hieroglyphic writing was extremely complex and was adapted to the Ancient Egyptian language. It was probably the most complex form of writing ever used in the Old World. This writing system had several different types of signs and made extensive use of the Rebus Principle.

18 Ancient Egyptian Writing The Rebus Principle Early writing from Abydos, Egypt (c B.C.) was used to label containers. These samples may represent an early use of the Rebus Principle. The Rebus Principle (from the Latin word rebus, meaning by the things ) was an important step forward in the history of writing. Although this principle was first used by the Sumerians, the Egyptians fully exploited its potential.

19 Ancient Egyptian Writing The Rebus Principle Through this principle, symbols began to be used to represent sounds instead of just objects. Egyptian hieroglyphs could represent one, two, or three consonant sounds, or an entire word. Short vowels were not indicated in the writing system. This was an adaptation to the particular morphological structure of the Ancient Egyptian language.

20 Egyptian Hieroglyphic Structure Egyptian hieroglyphs also used determinatives to clarify the meaning of potentially ambiguous signs. (1) Life (2) Writing (3) Speaking (4) Foreign Country (5) det. for abstract words (6) White (7) Man (8) syllable ta (9) syllable sha (10) syllable tha (11) Boat (12) det. for motion.

21 Uniliteral Egyptian Hieroglyphs

22 Ancient Egyptian Writing: Hieratic The Egyptian writing system had a separate handwritten version that was used for non- monumental writing. This cursive style of writing, known as hieratic, was used for writing with ink on linen, papyrus, and other perishable materials. It was first used around 2900 B.C.

23 Ancient Egyptian Writing: Hieratic An excellent example of Egyptian hieratic is the Ebers Papyrus, detailing an Ancient Egyptian treatment for asthma. Each monumental hieroglyph had a corresponding hieratic symbol.

24 Ancient Egyptian Writing The Rosetta Stone, discovered in AD 1799, records a Ptolemaic decree from the year 196 B.C. in Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Demotic (a late written form of Egyptian), and Greek. The basalt slab was instrumental in the decipherment of the Egyptian writing system.

25 Literacy in Ancient Egypt By 2600 B.C. continuous texts were produced, and any linguistic matter could be written using the Egyptian writing system. Monumental hieroglyphic writing, hieratic, and demotic had complementary functions.

26 Literacy in Ancient Egypt However, very few people were literate almost all of them state officials. Schooling was limited to the elite, and the writing system itself was so complicated that years of study and practice must have been necessary in order to reach an adequate level of literacy.

27 The Indus Valley Script Another writing system that may have developed from the diffusion of writing out of Mesopotamia was the Indus Valley script.

28 The Indus Valley Script The Indus Valley script was used by the Harappan (Indus Valley) civilization from c B.C. The script was most likely logosyllabic. It has resisted all attempts at decipherment, but was probably used to write an early form of Dravidian.

29 The Indus Valley Script The Great Bath at Mohenjo-Daro, the largest city of the Indus Valley civilization. The Harappans built great brick cities that used running water.

30 The Indus Valley Script The Harappan civilization collapsed around 1500 B.C., and all knowledge of the Indus Valley script was lost until the 20th century.

31 The Indus Valley Script This early Indus seal may be evidence of Harappan proto-writing. Most surviving examples of the Indus Valley script are short steatite (soapstone) impressions and seals. Based on the length of extant inscriptions, no evidence of literature written in this script exists. However, if such literature did exit, it was likely written on perishable materials, such as linen or papyrus, that have not survived.

32 Writing in the Ancient Aegean The complex Minoan Civilization developed on the island of Crete in the 4th millennium B.C.

33 Writing in the Ancient Aegean Example of Minoan Hieroglyphic script, c B.C. Like the Sumerians in Ancient Mesopotamia some 1500 years before, the Minoans created writing primarily to record economic transactions and to label agricultural and other products.

34 Writing in the Ancient Aegean Minoan Hieroglyphic writing did not last long. A logosyllabic script known as Linear A largely replaced it around 1900 B.C. Both scripts were used to write the Minoan language, about which little is known.

35 Writing in the Ancient Aegean The mysterious and undeciphered Phaistos Disc Three forms of ancient writing found in Crete have resisted all attempts at decipherment. Minoan Hieroglyphic, Linear A, and the script used to write the Phaistos Disc cannot be read, and little is known about the language(s) which they were used to write.

36 Writing in the Ancient Aegean Linear B A fourth writing system used in ancient Crete was Linear B, which was modeled on Linear A but was used to write an unrelated language: Mycenaean Greek.

37 Writing in the Ancient Aegean Linear B Linear B was a logosyllabic script. It was used for only a short period of time (c B.C.). Although the script was first discovered in the Palace at Knossos in Crete, Linear B was used primarily by the Mycenaean Greeks to record their own language.

38 Writing in the Ancient Aegean Linear B This tablet from Pylos in Greece contains one of the longest known Linear B texts. Most Linear B texts are short lists of items, such as grain inventories or bills of sale. No literature has been found in Linear B.

39 Writing in Ancient Anatolia Hieroglyphic Luwian was a logosyllabic script used in Western Anatolia from c B.C. to write Luwian Luwian, an Indo-European language closely related to Hittite Hittite. Luwian was also written cuneiform. in a version of cuneiform

40 The Development of Writing in China Although urban civilization had developed in China much earlier, the first evidence of writing there dates only to 1500 B.C., at the earliest. The first examples of Chinese logographic writing occur on the Oracle Bones, which were used for augury.

41 The Development of Writing in China Like Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese writing suddenly appeared as a well-developed logographic system. This may indicate that the idea of writing idea of writing was brought to China from the west, or that earlier remains of the script have not yet been discovered, or have not survived.

42 The Development of Writing in China

43 The Development of Writing in China The Chinese script is the oldest writing system in current use in the world. It is also the only purely logographic writing system still in use. Most modern writing systems are either alphabetic or syllabic.

44 Literacy in Modern China Completely logographic writing systems must rely on thousands of distinct characters. This lack of economy is why most early scripts evolved phonetic and determinative elements to reduce the number of characters needed.

45 Literacy in Modern China There are over 50,000 Chinese characters in current use. However, their forms were simplified by the Chinese government in the 20th century in an effort to facilitate literacy. Traditional, more complex characters are still in use in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Simplified (top) and traditional (bottom) characters, for the word China. The first element is the character for central, the second for kingdom or country.

46 Writing in the New World Outside of the Old World (Asia, Europe, and Africa), writing originated only twice, spontaneously in Mesoamerica and, much later and likely stimulated by Spanish influence, on Easter Island in the Pacific. Left: Mayan glyphs. Right: Rongorongo inscription from Easter Island.

47 Writing in Mesoamerica This Olmec seal spells the name Ajaw, likely an Olmec king. The oldest evidence of writing in the Americas is found on clay seals and jewelry fragments from the Olmec civilization, which built some of the America s first cities, in central Mexico. They date to 650 B.C., at the earliest.

48 Writing in Mesoamerica Knowledge of writing spread from the Olmecs to other Mesoamerican groups. The most elaborated Mesoamerican writing system belonged to the Mayas.

49 Writing in Mesoamerica All Mesoamerican writing systems shared many similarities in form and function, evidence that they had a common source (the early Olmec writing system). However, they are clearly unrelated to any Old World scripts.

50 Writing in Mesoamerica Ancient Mayan Ancient Mayan cave writing indicates that the script was used for both monumental and non-monumental purposes.

51 Mesoamerican Writing Compared

52 Writing in Mesoamerica Like writing in the Old World, writing in Mesoamerica was an urban phenomenon. In fact, the idea of writing and all early writing systems developed exclusively in urban societies. Unlike writing in the Old World, however, writing in Mesoamerica does not appear to have originated for commercial purposes. Central American writing served a primarily ceremonial, supernatural function.

53 Writing in Mesoamerica Ancient Mayan temples were home to numerous Mayan inscriptions. Maya hieroglyphs were used to write the Ancient Maya language. Today, several Mayan languages Mayan languages are spoken in the Yucatan, Belize, and Guatemala. However, the writing system is no longer used.

54 Writing on Easter Island A proto-urban society began to develop on Easter Island in the 18th century AD. The native inhabitants of the island are a Polynesian tribe known as the Rapanui. Because the island lacked the resources to support a large population, however, the civilization collapsed in the 19th century.

55 Writing on Easter Island Although the Rapanui are best known for carving and erecting the huge stone moai, they also created an indigenous form of writing or protowriting known as rongorongo. These stone moai were a triumph for the Rapanui.

56 Writing on Easter Island Since the writing has not been deciphered, it is not known whether rongorongo was a fully-developed writing system or an example of proto-writing.

57 Writing on Easter Island From 700 to 2000 distinct rongorongo symbols have been identified. If the rongorongo represent true writing, then the writing system must have been primarily or entirely logographic. The primary medium for this writing system was wooden tablets and boxes. Unfortunately, most of them were used for kindling wood during the collapse of Rapanui civilization during the 19th century. Eventual decipherment appears extremely unlikely.

58 Writing on Easter Island The Easter Island rongorongo did not evolve beyond an early pictographic or logographic stage due to the sudden demise of Rapanui urban civilization.

59 Writing Mystery The Indus Valley and Easter Island scripts share between complex symbols. This is surprising, since thousands of years and miles separate the two writing systems.

60 The Emergence of Alphabetic Writing The first consonantal alphabet appeared around 1900 B.C. in upper Egypt. This writing system, known as Proto- Canaanite or Proto-Sinaitic Sinaitic, was used by a Semitic-speaking people and was taken to the Levant by 1700 B.C. Example of the Phoenician Alphabet, an early descendent of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet.

61 The Proto-Canaanite Alphabet The Proto-Canaanite consonantal alphabet is the ancestor of almost all writing systems that are used in the world today (the major exceptions are Chinese and Chinese-derived scripts).

62 The Proto-Canaanite Alphabet Proto-Canaanite inscription found in a turquoise mine at Serabit-el-Khadim, a mountain to which the richer Egyptian pharaohs sent turquoisemining expeditions.

63 The Proto-Canaanite Alphabet Although it was originally thought that this script was developed in the Semitic homeland of Palestine and Syria around 1600 B.C., recent findings prove that the Proto- Canaanite alphabet was created by Semites living in Egypt a few hundred years earlier. Proto-Canaanite sample, c B.C.

64 The Proto-Canaanite Alphabet The Proto-Canaanite alphabet was invented by Semites living in Egypt. The Semites and Ancient Egyptians were distant relatives. Both groups spoke languages belonging to the Afro-AsiaticAsiatic language family.

65 The Afro-Asiatic Asiatic Language Family

66 The Semitic Languages The Semitic languages make up a branch of the Afro-AsiaticAsiatic language family. Semitic languages include Ancient Akkadian and its dialects of Babylonian and Assyrian, Ancient Phoenician and Canaanite, Hebrew, Syriac, Arabic, and Amharic (spoken in Ethiopia), among others. A Semite is any member of one of these groups.

67 The Proto-Canaanite Alphabet

68 The Proto-Canaanite Alphabet The Proto-Canaanite alphabet consisted of 22 signs, one for each of the consonants of the Proto- Canaanite language. This alphabet was usually written from right to left, although some boustrophedon texts have been found. The signs were adaptations from certain Egyptian hieroglyphs and were based on the acrophonic principle. Instead of representing entire words, syllables, or more than one consonant, each Proto-Canaanite symbol represented only one consonant sound.

69 The Proto-Canaanite Alphabet The Proto-Canaanite alphabet was based on acrophony, where the first sound of the Semitic word for an Egyptian glyph became associated with that glyph. For example, the Proto-Canaanite word for ox was pronounced ['a-leph]. The Egyptian hieroglyphic symbol for the word ox was therefore chosen to represent the first sound of this word.

70 The Evolution of Alphabetic Writing Alphabetic writing Alphabetic writing spread and evolved very quickly in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean.

71 The Spread of Alphabetic Writing The Phoenicians, a Semitic people closely related to the Canaanites, borrowed and modified the Proto-Canaanite script to write the Phoenician language.

72 The Spread of Alphabetic Writing Unlike logographic and logosyllabic scripts, which require years of study and practice to master, alphabetic writing is much easier to learn. This accounts for the dramatic and rapid spread of alphabetic writing, compared to the slower diffusion of the earlier logographic scripts. This innovation has been referred to as the democratization of writing. Vase bearing early Greek alphabetic letters.

73 The Spread of Alphabetic Writing In the ninth century B.C., the Greeks borrowed alphabetic writing from the Phoenicians. They retained the original order and names of most symbols, but modified some symbols and added new ones to represent vowel sounds.

74 The Spread of Alphabetic Writing Why did the Proto- Canaanite and Phoenician alphabets use signs for only consonants, and why did the Greeks add signs for vowels? There are two primary reasons for this. The first is related to the Egyptian influence on the development of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. The second has to do with the very different morphological structures of Ancient Egyptian and Semitic languages on the one hand, and Greek on the other.

75 The Spread of Alphabetic Writing The ancient Etruscans borrowed and adapted alphabetic writing from the Greeks in the seventh century B.C. The Etruscan language was unrelated to any other known language. Although it can be pronounced, it is poorly understood.

76 The Spread of Alphabetic Writing Etruscan writing on tomb lintel, Orvieto, Italy. The early Romans borrowed and adapted the Etruscan alphabet to write Latin. The Duenos Inscription Duenos Inscription (6th century B.C.) is the secondoldest known Latin text.

77 The Spread of Alphabetic Writing The Roman alphabet underwent standardization and by the third century B.C. reached its present form. With only a few very minor exceptions, the standard forms of Roman capital letters have not changed in over 2,000 years.

78 The Roman Alphabet Roman writing of the Classical and Post-Classical Periods used only uppercase (majuscule) letters. The Romans would not have recognized the lowercase letters that you are reading now. It was not until the Middle Ages that lower-case (miniscule) letters, along with the letters j and w, were added.

79 The Roman Alphabet Haec sunt nomina filiorum Israhel qui ingressi sunt Aegyptum cum Iacob singuli cum domibus suis introierunt. These are the names of the children of Israel, that went into Egypt with Jacob: They went in every man with his household.

80 Writing in the Modern World Today, the majority of human beings speak languages that are written. However, at least 1,000 languages are still not written (at least with any regularity or with a standardized script), and probably never will be. Example of written Tamil. Tamil is a Dravidian language spoken in southern India. This script is not derived from the Indus Valley script, however.

81 The Arabic Script The Arabic alphabet (alifbā alarabīya in Arabic) is ultimately derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. It is used to write several unrelated languages in North Africa and Asia, including Farsi (Indo-Iranian), Urdu (an Indo-Iranian), and Malay (Malayo-Polynesian), in addition to Arabic.

82 Writing in the Modern World

83 Writing in the Modern World Most non- Roman writing systems are ultimately derived from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. This includes the many scripts used in India.

84 Writing in Modern India Most languages spoken in India belong to one of two major language families. Indic languages, such as Hindi and Gujarati, are spoken in the north, while Dravidian languages like Tamil and Telugu are spoken in the south. Munda and Tibeto- Burman languages are also spoken in India.

85 Writing in Modern India India boasts over 200 different scripts. However, they are all derived from one source: the Brāhmī script, which dates to the 5th century B.C. Although the early history of writing in India is poorly understood, it is generally agreed that the Brāhmī script had a Semitic origin.

86 Writing in Modern India The Devanagari script is used to write Hindi and many other related languages, including Marathi and Sindi. This writing system, like many used in India, is primarily a syllabary, with symbols that represent entire syllables, not single sounds.

87 Writing in Modern East Asia Only a few writing systems used in the world today are not descendants of the Proto-Canaanite alphabet. Most of these writing systems are used in East Asia. The Laotian, Thai, Kmer, and Burmese scripts are historically related to the Indic scripts (ultimately descended from the Brāhmī script).

88 Writing in Modern East Asia During the 4th century AD, the Japanese imported and adapted the Chinese writing system to write the Japanese language. The modern Japanese writing system is a combination of Chinese characters known as kanji and two syllabaries based on Chinese characters, known as hiragana and katakana. This sample of Japanese writing contains a mixture of kanji, hiragana, and katakana. The Japanese writing system is the only example of a logosyllabic script still in use in the world today. In this respect, it is unique.

89 Writing in Modern East Asia Why did the Japanese need to add additional symbols to the Chinese script in order to write their own language? After all, if the Chinese script was good enough to write Chinese, why wasn't it good enough to write Japanese? The reason: Chinese and Japanese are completely unrelated languages, with very different morphological structures. Chinese does not rely at all on prefixes or suffixes, while suffixes are a critical component of Japanese grammar.

90 Writing in Modern East Asia Chinese characters were designed to represent whole words, which in Chinese means one syllable without any prefixes or suffixes. In order to write Japanese, some way of indicating suffixes and other affixes was needed. The hiragana syllabary hiragana syllabary evolved from a number of Chinese characters that were used for their pronunciation, a practice that began in the fifth century A.D.

91 Writing in Modern East Asia Hiragana consists of 46 signs which represent syllables. Hiragana is primarily used to write out grammatical suffixes, to spell words without kanji representation, or to indicate pronunciation. It is also used to help children and foreigners learn kanji.

92 Writing in Modern East Asia The katakana syllabary also consists of 46 syllabograms. In Modern Japanese, katakana are used mainly for transcription or to write words borrowed from foreign languages (excluding Chinese). They are also used to write most non-east Asian place names and personal names. Katakana symbol for the syllable za. Katakana are also sometimes employed to "spell out" words with difficult or obscure kanji, or to indicate emphasis.

93 Writing in Modern East Asia Although adapted forms of Chinese writing were used to write the Korean language for close to 2000 years, today Korean is written in an alphabet known as Hangeul. This alphabet was invented in AD However, most Koreans who could write continued to do so using either in Classical Chinese characters or in Korean using systems based on Chinese writing. Although the Hangeul had low status for many centuries, today it is used almost exclusively to write Korean.

94 Writing in Modern East Asia Hangeul is a phonemic alphabet organized into syllabic blocks. Each block consists of at least two of the 24 Hangeul letters (jamo): at least one of the 14 consonants and 10 vowels. Historically, this alphabet has had several additional letters, which are now obsolete.

95 Writing in Modern East Asia The Hangeul writing system was created de novo in order to more naturally accommodate the structure of the Korean language. Korean, like Japanese, is totally unrelated to Chinese, although Korean has borrowed a large percentage of its vocabulary from Chinese due to extensive historical contact. Korean may be distantly related to Japanese and the Altaic languages, including Turkish and Mongolian.

96 Writing Modern English Modern English spelling, while largely phonemic, has more complicated rules than many other spelling systems used by languages written in alphabetic scripts, and contains many inconsistencies between spelling and pronunciation. These inconsistencies have become greater over time. Anglo-Saxon Chronicle entry for year AD 828.

97 Writing Modern English Her eft Wiglaf onfeng Myrcna rice 7 [ond] Aþelwoldbisceop forðferde 7 [ond] þy ilcan geare lædde Ecgbriht cyning fyrde on NorðWealas 7 [ond] he hi ealle him to eaðmodre hyrsumnesse gedyde. A.D This year Wiglaf recovered his Mercian kingdom, and Bishop Ethelwald departed this life. The same year King Egbert led an army against the people of North-Wales, and compelled them all to peaceful submission.

98 Writing Modern English Modern English has a complicated spelling system for several reasons. While the pronunciation of English words has changed greatly over the last 1000 years, the spelling has not. For example, the word knight today has only three sounds [na i t] but is written with six letters. However, in Old English (c. AD ), the word cniht was pronounced [kniçt]. All written letters were pronounced.

99 Writing Modern English In addition, English has borrowed many words from other languages, especially French. English has tended to preserve the original pronunciation and spelling at the time of the borrowing. For example, in the 13th century the French j came to be pronounced zh, and ch became sh. Early borrowings (i.e., before the 13th century) thus have the ch and j pronunciations, as in charge, change, chamber, chase, chair, chimney; just, jewel, journey, majesty, gentle. Later borrowings (i.e., after the 13th century) have the zh and sh pronunciations: chamois, chaperone, chiffon, chevron, rouge.

100 The Future of Writing During the last hundred years, many languages that were either not previously written (such as Haitian Creole and many Native American Indian languages spoken in North and South America) or that used non-roman based writing systems (such as Vietnamese) have adopted the Roman alphabet. Even Chinese can be written using Roman characters. In fact, in China, children usually learn the Romanized pinyin system before learning Chinese characters.

101 The Future of Writing This street sign from the Chinese city of Shanghai uses both Chinese characters and pinyin Romanization. The growing use of English as an international lingua franca, and the simplicity of the Roman alphabet have contributed to its worldwide popularity.