Visualizing Language
•Chinese calligraphy (~1800BC): used today by more people than any other visual language system
•Chinese invented printing: (3rd c BC-3rd c AD) seals and wood block prints
•Phoenician alphabets of only 22 abstract characters in use by 1500BC. (Aramaic alphabets spread eastward)
•
Chinese calligraphy, Song dynasty, 1802
Phoenician alphabet: one sign= one spoken sound, original meanings underneath
Rosetta Stone
Detail from
Calligraphy by Su Shi [Su Shih]
Dated 1082.
Handscroll, ink on paper; 13 1/2 x 78 1/2 in. (34 x 119.5 cm).
National Palace Museum, Taipei
http://www.chinapage.com/sushi8.html

Rosetta Stone: http://mcclungmuseum.utk.edu/permex/egypt/egypt.htm
Rosetta names: http://www-helix.inrialpes.fr/article408.html
Phoenician alphabet from
http://www.designingwithtype.com/items/itemsPhoenician.html

Phoenician Inscription (from the sarcophagus of Eshmunazar II)
http://www.cts.edu/ImageLibrary/arch.cfm