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Article published In:
Diversity in Writing Systems: Embracing multiple perspectives
Edited by Amalia E. Gnanadesikan and Anna P. Judson
[Written Language & Literacy 24:2] 2021
► pp. 259–283

Areal script form patterns with Chinese characteristics

| National Chung Cheng University

It has often been claimed that writing systems have formal grammars structurally analogous to those of spoken and signed phonology. This paper demonstrates one consequence of this analogy for Chinese script and the writing systems that it has influenced: as with phonology, areal script patterns include the borrowing of formal regularities, not just of formal elements or interpretive functions. Whether particular formal Chinese script regularities were borrowed, modified, or ignored also turns out not to depend on functional typology (in morphemic/syllabic Tangut script, moraic Japanese katakana, and featural/phonemic/syllabic Korean hangul) but on the benefits of making the borrowing system visually distinct from Chinese, the relative productivity of the regularities within Chinese character grammar, and the level at which the borrowing takes place.

Keywords: Chinese characters, Tangut script, Japanese katakana, Korean hangul, writing system grammar, script outer form, areal patterns
Article outline
  • 1.Areal phonological patterns and areal script patterns
  • 2.Chinese character phonology
  • 3.Borrowing, modifying, and ignoring formal Chinese character regularities
    • 3.1Tangut script
    • 3.2Japanese katakana
    • 3.3Korean hangul
  • 4.Discussion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 21 January 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00055.mye
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