The Origin of Writing - Couverture rigide

Harris, Michael

 
9780812690354: The Origin of Writing

Synopsis

Book by Harris Roy

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Présentation de l'éditeur

How did Homo sapiens become Homo scribens? Was writing originally an attempt to represent speech? Did it evolve from prehistoric art? What types of sign were the precursors of the alphabet and the hieroglyph? This book proposes a new approach to an age-old complex of problems, and offers some iconoclastic solutions. Surveying present-day attempts to explain what might have set our ancestors on the road to writing, it exposes the weaknesses of current theories and shows how the mystery surrounding that first step across the threshold of literacy is generated by projecting back modern assumptions into prehistoric times. But this is not essentially a book about the distant past. Its conclusions are equally relevant to contemporary concepts of cultural evolution and contemporary debates about the basic tenets of linguistics.

Biographie de l'auteur

Roy Harris is Emeritus Professor of General Linguistics at the University of Oxford, UK.

Les informations fournies dans la section « A propos du livre » peuvent faire référence à une autre édition de ce titre.

Autres éditions populaires du même titre

9780715622605: Origin of Writing

Edition présentée

ISBN 10 :  0715622609 ISBN 13 :  9780715622605
Editeur : Gerald Duckworth & Co Ltd, 1988
Couverture souple