Wordplay

Author: Hu Jianfeng
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2004-07-01
Features: This book is a popular reading material about Chinese characters, explaining their origins and characteristics with numerous illustrations. It also discusses the evolution of writing media for Chinese characters and other unique linguistic forms such as tongue twisters and secret codes. Although there is still debate in academia about the origins of writing systems, it is generally agreed that the world's earliest writing systems mainly include four: Sumerian script from Western Asia, Egyptian script from Egypt, Mayan script from Mesoamerica, and Chinese characters from China. Interestingly, of the four oldest scripts, the other three have now become extinct, while only Chinese characters are still in use. In terms of their emergence, Sumerian script appeared around 3500 BCE and was used for over 3,000 years. Ancient Egyptian script emerged slightly later than Sumerian script, but its later phonetic symbols became an important source for alphabets. Mayan script emerged around 155 BCE and became extinct during the Spanish conquest of Mesoamerica in the 16th century.