SYLLABUS, NR EAST etc. M20: Visible Language: A Study of Writing <http://cdli.ucla.edu/staff/englund/13s_m20.html>
(Multi-listing Departments: Slavic, Near Eastern Languages and Cultures, Asian Studies, Southeast Asian, Indo-European Studies)
Instructor: Robert K. Englund <http://cdli.ucla.edu/?q=robert-k-englund>, email: englund@ucla.edu, tel. 310 825 8506
Hours: TuTh 12:30 – 1:45 PM; office hours Tu 3:00 – 4:00 PM, Humanities 396, or by appointment
Room: WGYoung CS76
Description: The course, designed for lower and upper division undergraduates, will consider the concrete means of language representation in systems of writing.
The earliest representations of language known to us are those of the Near East, dating to the end of the 4th millennium BC. While the literate civilizations of
Egypt, the Indus Valley, China and Meso-America left us little evidence of corresponding earliest developments, still their antiquity, and, in the case of China and
Meso-America, their evident isolation mark these centers as loci of independent developments in writing. The course will make a detailed presentation of the basic
characteristics of these early scripts, offer an assessment of modern, alphabetic writing systems, and present the conceptual basis of semiotic language representation.
Students should leave the class with knowledge of the origins and development of early non-Western writing systems; they should understand how the Greco-Roman
alphabet arose in the 1st millennium BC, and how this alphabet compares to other modern writing systems.
Class TAs: Michael Heinle (m.heinle@ucla.edu)
Timothy Hogue (thogue@ucla.edu)
Kathryn Reynolds
kreyno5@gmail.com
Jared Wolfe
jnwolfe2@gmail.com
Jillian Jones (jones1018@gmail.com)
Sections:
1A
Mo 2:00P-2:50P Haines 110 (Heinle)
1F
Th 3:00P-3:50P MS 5148 (Reynolds)
1D
We 2:00P-2:50P MS 7608 (Wolfe)
1G
Th 4:00P-4:50P MS 5148 (Jones)
1E
We 3:00P-3:50P Rolfe 3108 (Wolfe)
1H
Fr 1:00P-1:50P Haines A28 (Hogue)
WEEKS 1-7: PREHISTORY AND EARLY WRITING SYSTEMS (lecture - date - topic)
1.
April 2
Class introduction
2.
April 4
General classification of the types of writing
3.
April 9
Prehistory of writing
4.
April 11 Babylonian cuneiform
5.
April 16 Babylonian cuneiform
6.
April 18 Egyptian hieroglyphics
7.
April 23 Iranian proto-Elamite, local transformations of cuneiform; Proto-Indian Harappan writing
(guest lecturer: Jared Wolfe)
8.
April 25 Chinese logographic; prep for mid-term
9.
April 30 MID-TERM
10.
May 2
Visit to LACMA (see below)
11.
May 7
Film: “NOVA: Cracking the Maya Code”
12.
May 9
Meso-American 1
13.
May 14
Meso-American 2
14.
May 16
Linear A & B; Phaistos; review of non-alphabetic writing systems
WEEKS 8-10: MODERN WRITING SYSTEMS
15.
May 21
The alphabet’s origin and development (guest lecturer: Tim Hogue); PAPERS DUE!
16.
May 23
Spread of alphabets
19.
May 28
Alphabets
17.
May 30
Alphabets & related notational systems
18.
June 4
Film: “Helvetica”
20.
June 6
General review, prep for final
WEEK 11.
FINAL EXAM: Wednesday, June 12, 2013, 11:30 AM - 2:30 PM (three-hour exam) in WGYOUNG CS76
READINGS:
The required class textbook (Andrew Robinson, The Story of Writing) will act as general introduction to each section of the course. In
addition, students will read specific chapters or short articles that focus on the weekly topics (most can be downloaded from the class
website), viz
Week of April 1:
Robinson pp. 7-17; Geoffrey Sampson, Writing Systems, pp. 26-45.
Week of April 8:
Robinson pp. 52-67; Alexander Marshack, in S. Harnad et al., eds., Origins and Evolution of Language and
Speech pp. 289-311; Robert K. Englund, OBO 161/1, pp. 42-55.
Weeks of April 15 and 22:
Robinson pp. 20-51 & 72-79; Richard Parkinson, Cracking Codes: The Rosetta Stone, pp. 11-45.
Week of April 29:
Robinson pp. 182-197; from John DeFrancis, Visible Speech: The Diverse Oneness of Writing, chap.
“Chinese” (23 pages).
Week of May 6:
Robinson pp. 120-143; Stephen Houston, Maya Glyphs, pp. 33-51; Peter Daniels, in Daniels and
Bright, eds., World Writing Systems, “Decipherment,” pp. 139-159.
Weeks of May 13 and 20:
Robinson pp. 108-119, 152-154 and 158-174; Emmett Bennet, in Daniels and Bright, eds., World
Writing Systems, “Aegean Scripts incl. Linear B,” pp. 125-133; Joseph Naveh, Early History of the
Alphabet, pp. 23-42; Ellen MacNamara, The Etruscans, pp. 61-64.
Week of May 27:
Read F. de Saussure, “The Course of General Linguistics” by on sign theory (semiology=semiotics;
further reading: Saussure, On Signifying; Peirce’s Theory of Signs).
One class session held at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art will be dedicated to acquainting the students with real examples of
writing systems. This tour will take place on the 2nd of May, and will begin promptly at 1:00 PM. Tickets are complimentary. To make the
tour more manageable, we will divide into two groups: group one with birthdays on even-numbered days will gather at the main entrance
to the Art of the Americas Building at 12:55 to receive their tickets, and proceed to the 4th floor to begin the tour of the Mayan collection,
while group two, born on odd-numbered days, will gather at the main entrance to the Ahmanson Building at 12:55 to receive their tickets,
and will proceed to the 4th floor to begin the tour of the Islamic collections. Upon completion of the respective collections, the groups will
be given enough time to walk to the starting point of the corresponding tour, to begin promptly at 1:35. You are welcome to return to the
galleries once the tours are completed.
GRADING
MID-TERM EXAM (25% of grade): The one-hour mid-term will test your understanding of the basic concepts of writing, and of the
readings and lectures dealing with the Babylonian, Egyptian and Harappan systems.
TERM PAPER (25% of grade): Students will also be expected to write a paper on either a text artifact viewed at LACMA, or one taken
from a list of cuneiform inscriptions provided below. The paper will consist of 2000 words (ca. seven pages double spaced) excluding
bibliography, using author-date-page reference format. Topic treatment will include the geographical and temporal context within the
writing system the artifact represents; its history of (archaeological) recovery; a general description of the artifact’s salient features, its use
within the realm of text genres for which we have evidence within its writing system, the means of modern representation of this and
comparable inscriptions, including those in Roman script and in computer language. Papers are to be submitted via the class Turnitin by
May 22nd.
List of cuneiform artifacts acceptable as topics for class papers:
1.
Behistun inscription of Darius I (<http://tinyurl.com/cszgnhl>)
2.
Cyrus Cylinder (<http://cdli.ucla.edu/P386349>)
3.
Hammurapi Code (<http://cdli.ucla.edu/P249253>)
4.
Middle Assyrian Laws (<http://cdli.ucla.edu/P281779>)
5.
Gilgamesh Epic; Flood tablet (<http://cdli.ucla.edu/P273210>)
6.
ATU 7, pl. 14, W 19408,76+ (<http://cdli.ucla.edu/P003118>) (oldest theoretical surface calculations)
7.
Gudea Statue B (<http://tinyurl.com/dxuo3o9>)
8.
TCL 2, 5499 (<http://cdli.ucla.edu/P131589>) (theoretical account of an ancient dairy herd)
9.
JSS 7, 184 (<http://cdli.ucla.edu/P112404>) (21st century BC temple floor plan)
10. MSVO 3, 2 (<http://cdli.ucla.edu/P005313>)
FINAL EXAM (40% of grade): The three-hour final will consist of short IDs of important concepts, events and persons in the
decipherment of early writing systems; it will require knowledge of the so-called pristine systems: cuneiform, hieroglyphics, Chinese and
Mayan, as well as of the origin and development of modern alphabets; it will include a map identification section; and it will require the
student to identify images of examples of writing systems discussed in class and tagged in the class Powerpoint. A review sheet for the class
will be downloadable from the class webpage.
SECTIONS PARTICIPATION: 5% of grade for attendance, and 5% for participation during the section meetings.