Reviews the history and development of the Pinyin grapheme system for the transcription of Chinese, and contrasts Pinyin graphemes with those of several other systems for Chinese. It is argued that Pinyin should be accepted as the standard system for Chinese transcription. (JL)

The evolution of writing systems of the Aramaic languages is discussed, stressing the importance of looking beyond simple character forms as they occur in space and time to the interaction of scripts with languages, and the interactions of writing systems with minds and civilizations. First, the invention of the alphabet is discussed from a…