The question of script was paramount in the nineteenth-century debate over Hindi and Urdu, two closely related languages that are characterised by "extreme digraphia". Rather than rehearsing the well-known story of the culturally and politically charged process of differentiation in which the two sister languages became prime markers of…

Western historians working in the first half of the twentieth century established a scheme for writing design history that continues to influence the global histories of today. The historians Douglas McMurtrie, Lucien Febvre, Henri-Jean Martin and Lawrence Wroth believed that the modern history of visual communication began with the advent and…

Notes that the term "roman" when used to describe characters of written languages, can be confusing because it is overloaded with four different meanings. Distinguishes among these four meanings and suggests alternative terms for each of them. (RS)

Notes several factors which affect the readability of a printed message and contends that current typographical devices and styles are contrary to the fundamentals of eye physiology and detrimental to established reading habits. Available from: The Journal of Biocommunication, D. Raney, 3215 Haddon Road, Durham, NC 27705. (MH)

Takes a look at some of the specific applications of the Chinese system of writing in an attempt to resolve disagreements about the language's relative efficiency. Examines (1) the arrangement of characters in dictionaries and the look-up procedures; and (2) the process of composing and reproducing Chinese texts, including typesetting,…

The process of projecting textual models onto the phenomenal world began with the invention of writing and accelerated through the manuscript culture of classical antiquity and the Middle Ages into the age of print. In Francis Bacon's work, the book (a metaphor for the phenomenal world) adapted to the demands of the printed text and reflects the…

As electronically mediated communication becomes more prevalent, print is regaining the original pictorial qualities which graphemes (written signs) lost when primitive pictographs (or picture writing) and ideographs (simplified graphemes used to communicate ideas as well as to represent objects) evolved into first written, then printed, texts of…

Outlines the structure of a printer driven program that converts Romanized texts, composed with the aid of standard word-processing software, into codes that enable a dot matrix printer to produce high-quality printouts in various non-Roman scripts. (Author/SED)

This article presents a systematic review of the research evidence on the effects of the characteristics of typefaces on the legibility of text for adult readers with low vision. The review revealed that research has not produced consistent findings and thus that there is a need to develop standards and guidelines that are informed by evidence.…

Describes an alphabetic process for cuing readers to speak the three dimensions of sound: fundamental frequency, duration, and intensity. (RB)

This style manual, published by the National Education Association (NEA) for writers and editors, has been prepared to update and clarify questions of literary usage. The manual contains sections on abbreviations and symbols, capitalization, dates and time, division of words, foreign words and phrases, italics, lists and enumerations, numbers and…

One of four International Reading Association award-winning dissertations from 1975. (RB)

Special issue on orthography. (DD)