ABSTRACT
There is too little understanding in the Western world of the nature of nonalphabetic writing systems, how they work, what their history is, and why hundreds of millions of literate people continue to use them. Partly this situation is due to long-standing views among Europeans of Asian cultures as mysterious and inscrutable. And partly it is due to a Darwinian view of the development of writing systems. In this view written language began with pictures, moved to iconic representation, then to ideographs and logographs—with the symbols representing ideas and/or words. Next they became syllabic and eventually reached the pinnacle in alphabetic systems in which the writing is tied to the sound system of the language.
