Universal Iconography in Writing Systems
Universal Iconography in Writing Systems

Author: Richard E. McDorman

Publisher: Richard E. McDorman

Published: 2009-02-16

Total Pages: 18

ISBN-13:

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Iconography has played a central role in the development of writing systems. That all independently derived ancient scripts began as arrangements of pictograms before evolving into their elaborated forms evinces the fundamental importance of iconography in the evolution of writing. Symbols of the earliest logographic writing systems are characterized by a number of iconographic principles. Elucidation of these iconographic principles provides a theoretical framework for the analysis of structural similarities in unrelated, independently evolved writing systems. Two such writing systems are the ancient Indus Valley and Easter Island scripts. Although separated by vast tracts of time and space, the two writing systems share between forty and fifty complex characters, a problem first identified by Hevesy in 1932. Previous attempts to explain the similarities between the Indus Valley script and the rongorongo of Easter Island, which have relied on notions of cultural contact or historical derivation, have proved unfruitful. In reconsidering the problem, a novel approach based on comparative iconographic principles can explain the resemblances between the two scripts as the product of the universal iconography displayed by all writing systems in their pictographic and logographic stages of development.

Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning
Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning

Author: Pamela Sachant

Publisher: Good Press

Published: 2023-11-27

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13:

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Introduction to Art: Design, Context, and Meaning offers a deep insight and comprehension of the world of Art. Contents: What is Art? The Structure of Art Significance of Materials Used in Art Describing Art - Formal Analysis, Types, and Styles of Art Meaning in Art - Socio-Cultural Contexts, Symbolism, and Iconography Connecting Art to Our Lives Form in Architecture Art and Identity Art and Power Art and Ritual Life - Symbolism of Space and Ritual Objects, Mortality, and Immortality Art and Ethics

Design, User Experience, and Usability: Designing Interactions
Design, User Experience, and Usability: Designing Interactions

Author: Aaron Marcus

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-07-10

Total Pages: 699

ISBN-13: 3319918036

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The three-volume set LNCS 10918, 10919, and 10290 constitutes the proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Design, User Experience, and Usability, DUXU 2018, held as part of the 20th International Conference on Human-Computer Interaction, HCII 2018, in Las Vegas, NV, USA in July 2018. The total of 1171 papers presented at the HCII 2018 conferences were carefully reviewed and selected from 4346 submissions. The papers cover the entire field of human-computer interaction, addressing major advances in knowledge and effective use of computers in a variety of applications areas. The total of 165 contributions included in the DUXU proceedings were carefully reviewed and selected for inclusion in this three-volume set. The 50 papers included in this volume are organized in topical sections on design, education and creativity, GUI, visualization and image design, multimodal DUXU, and mobile DUXU.

Symbols
Symbols

Author: Richard Sproat

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2023-07-31

Total Pages: 240

ISBN-13: 3031268091

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For millennia humans have used visible marks to communicate information. Modern examples of conventional graphical symbols include written language, and non-linguistic symbol systems such as mathematical symbology or traffic signs. The latter kinds of symbols convey information without reference to language. This book presents the first systematic study of graphical symbol systems, including a history of graphical symbols from the Paleolithic onwards, a taxonomy of non-linguistic systems – systems that are not tied to spoken language – and a survey of more than 25 such systems. One important feature of many non-linguistic systems is that, as in written language, symbols may be combined into complex “messages” if the information the system represents is itself complex. To illustrate, the author presents an in-depth comparison of two systems that had very similar functions, but very different structure: European heraldry and Japanese kamon. Writing first appeared in Mesopotamia about 5,000 years ago and is believed to have evolved from a previous non-linguistic accounting system. The exact mechanism is unknown, but crucial was the discovery that symbols can represent the sounds of words, not just the meanings. The book presents a novel neurologically-inspired hypothesis that writing evolved in an institutional context in which symbols were “dictated”, thus driving an association between symbol and sound, and provides a computational simulation to support this hypothesis. The author further discusses some common fallacies about writing and non-linguistic systems, and how these relate to widely cited claims about statistical “evidence” for one or another system being writing. The book ends with some thoughts about the future of graphical symbol systems. The intended audience includes students, researchers, lecturers, professionals and scientists from fields like Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning, Archaeology and Semiotics, as well as general readers interested in language and/or writing systems and symbol systems.

The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Orthography
The Cambridge Handbook of Historical Orthography

Author: Marco Condorelli

Publisher:

Published: 2023-10-12

Total Pages: 837

ISBN-13: 1108487319

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Written by a team of global scholars, this is the first Handbook covering the rapidly growing field of historical orthography. Comprehensive yet accessible, it is essential reading for academic researchers and students in the field, and in related areas such as morphology, syntax, historical linguistics, linguistic typology and sociolinguistics.

Is Law Computable?
Is Law Computable?

Author: Simon Deakin

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2020-11-26

Total Pages: 272

ISBN-13: 1509937072

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What does computable law mean for the autonomy, authority, and legitimacy of the legal system? Are we witnessing a shift from Rule of Law to a new Rule of Technology? Should we even build these things in the first place? This unique volume collects original papers by a group of leading international scholars to address some of the fascinating questions raised by the encroachment of Artificial Intelligence (AI) into more aspects of legal process, administration, and culture. Weighing near-term benefits against the longer-term, and potentially path-dependent, implications of replacing human legal authority with computational systems, this volume pushes back against the more uncritical accounts of AI in law and the eagerness of scholars, governments, and LegalTech developers, to overlook the more fundamental - and perhaps 'bigger picture' - ramifications of computable law. With contributions by Simon Deakin, Christopher Markou, Mireille Hildebrandt, Roger Brownsword, Sylvie Delacroix, Lyria Bennet Moses, Ryan Abbott, Jennifer Cobbe, Lily Hands, John Morison, Alex Sarch, and Dilan Thampapillai, as well as a foreword from Frank Pasquale.

Signs and Symbols
Signs and Symbols

Author: Adrian Frutiger

Publisher:

Published: 1998

Total Pages: 372

ISBN-13:

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Discusses the elements of a sign, and looks at pictograms, alphabets, calligraphy, monograms, text type, numerical signs, symbols, and trademarks.

Arithmetic
Arithmetic

Author: Paul Lockhart

Publisher: Belknap Press

Published: 2019-07-15

Total Pages: 232

ISBN-13: 067423751X

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“Inspiring and informative...deserves to be widely read.” —Wall Street Journal “This fun book offers a philosophical take on number systems and revels in the beauty of math.” —Science News Because we have ten fingers, grouping by ten seems natural, but twelve would be better for divisibility, and eight is well suited to repeated halving. Grouping by two, as in binary code, has turned out to have its own remarkable advantages. Paul Lockhart presents arithmetic not as rote manipulation of numbers—a practical if mundane branch of knowledge best suited for filling out tax forms—but as a fascinating, sometimes surprising intellectual craft that arises from our desire to add, divide, and multiply important things. Passionate and entertaining, Arithmetic invites us to experience the beauty of mathematics through the eyes of a beguiling teacher. “A nuanced understanding of working with numbers, gently connecting procedures that we once learned by rote with intuitions long since muddled by education...Lockhart presents arithmetic as a pleasurable pastime, and describes it as a craft like knitting.” —Jonathon Keats, New Scientist “What are numbers, how did they arise, why did our ancestors invent them, and how did they represent them? They are, after all, one of humankind’s most brilliant inventions, arguably having greater impact on our lives than the wheel. Lockhart recounts their fascinating story...A wonderful book.” —Keith Devlin, author of Finding Fibonacci

Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry
Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry

Author: Thomas Birkett

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2017-03-27

Total Pages: 225

ISBN-13: 1317070984

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Reading the Runes in Old English and Old Norse Poetry is the first book-length study to compare responses to runic heritage in the literature of Anglo-Saxon England and medieval Iceland. The Anglo-Saxon runic script had already become the preserve of antiquarians at the time the majority of Old English poetry was written down, and the Icelanders recording the mythology associated with the script were at some remove from the centres of runic practice in medieval Scandinavia. Both literary cultures thus inherited knowledge of the runic system and the traditions associated with it, but viewed this literate past from the vantage point of a developed manuscript culture. There has, as yet, been no comprehensive study of poetic responses to this scriptural heritage, which include episodes in such canonical texts as Beowulf, the Old English riddles and the poems of the Poetic Edda. By analysing the inflection of the script through shared literary traditions, this study enhances our understanding of the burgeoning of literary self-awareness in early medieval vernacular poetry and the construction of cultural memory, and furthers our understanding of the relationship between Anglo-Saxon and Norse textual cultures. The introduction sets out in detail the rationale for examining runes in poetry as a literary motif and surveys the relevant critical debates. The body of the volume is comprised of five linked case studies of runes in poetry, viewing these representations through the paradigm of scriptural reconstruction and the validation of contemporary literary, historical and religious sensibilities.