5. The History of Writing
Pictographs
cave drawings
() <> [] {} *
Chinese, Japanese
Ideographs
! @ # $ % & ? .
Chinese, Japanese
Runes
Magic, Spells
North Germanic
Syllabary
ISU, FUNEM?
S, VFM.
FUNEX?
S, VFX.
OK, LFMNX
LE, CD puppies?
L, MNO puppies.
OSMR puppies.
CMPN?
Japanese Kanji
Phonemic Alphabet
BDFHJKLMNPRSTVWYZ
Spanish, Latin
Morphophonemic Alphabet
See next slide
97 5
6. The letters in a morphophonemic alphabet
represent meanings (morphology) as well as sounds (phonology)
• Therefore, unrelated words are spelled differently even though
they are pronounced the same:
– cite-sight-site, marry-Mary-merry, pair-pare-pear, there-
their-they're
• And related words are spelled the same even though they are
pronounced differently:
– CONSONANTS: act-action, critic-criticize, medicine-
medication, part-partial, rite-ritual, seize-seizure
– VOWELS: nation-national, obscene-obscenity, sign-
signature, go-gone
– SUFFIXES: cats, dogs, horses / jumped, died, heated
– HISTORICAL PRESERVATIONS: knight, hôtel
97 6
32. 97 32
Parody of Maurice Sendak’s
Where The Wild Things Are
• With:
– Bill Cosby
– George Lopez
– Ray Romano
– Margaret Cho
– Brad Garrett and
– Bill Engvall
• As Wild Things