Job Discussion Forums

[killian]

i know that linguistics is the study of the "spoken" word. what discipline covers the history/diffusion of the "written" word?

not being facetious, really am wondering and at present lack the "proper" term to execute even a google search for such

[tomstone]

"Orthography"? Definition four, perhaps.

1. the art of writing words with the proper letters, according to accepted usage; correct spelling.
2. the part of language study concerned with letters and spelling.
3. a method of spelling, as by the use of an alphabet or other system of symbols; spelling.
4. a system of such symbols.

[Hadit]

I began with an interest in Hebrew alphabetic symbolism, and its numerology, and moved on to have an interest in writing evolution and alphabet symbolism in general. For books on it, look for these key words (however there always isn't much on alphabet letter symbolism or numerology):

The origin of writing systems, writing systems, etc.

and then check out omniglot.com and ancientscripts.com for a ton of scripts.

http://www.ancientscripts.com/
http://www.omniglot.com/

It seems paleography, epigraphy, etc. are good names for the branches.

[Stephen Jones]

Linguistics is not the study of the spoken word, it is the study of languages. Historical linguistics for example will study languages we have not one single piece of spoken data for.

[killian]

thanks for the imput.

both of those websites are near and dear to my heart several years now.

i'll search on all your recommendations.