Writing as Technology and Cultural Ecology

The series «Duisburg Papers on Research in Language and Culture» presents a forum for linguistic research on the interrelationship between language and culture. The series is interdisciplinary in nature and consists of monographs and collections of papers. The main purpose of the editors is to initiate a dialogue between linguistic science and neighboring disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, semiotics, literary studies, and intercultural communication.

Harald Haarmann, PhD, born in 1946, is a linguist and cultural scientist living and working in Finland. His publications include more than forty books in German, English, Spanish, Japanese, Chinese, Hungarian and other languages. Among his recent English-language titles are (2007) and (2009). He has contributed ten chapters to the CLIO encyclopedia (4 vols, 2011). Since 2003, he has been the Vice President of the Institute of Archaeomythology (Sebastopol/California, USA) and the Director of its European branch in Finland. Among his awards are the «Prix Logos», 1999 (France), the «American Medal of Honor», 2002 (USA), and the «Plato Award», 2006 (UK).

Contents: Elementary parameters in the study of ancient writing systems · Sign systems as constructs of the abstract mind – Conditions for the transition to literacy – deconstructing a Euro-American myth – Writing technology emerging in the absence of statehood (Danube civilization, the ancient Indus civilization, ancient China, Olmec civilization) – Writing technology and cultural ecology in societies of the state model (pre-dynastic Egypt, the early Sumerian city states, Teotihuacán in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica) – Ancient scripts and their principles of writing – The composition and systematic structuring of sign inventories – The dissemination and proliferation of ancient scripts. Inhaltsverzeichnis