Writing Systems: Crash Course Linguistics #16

All societies have spoken or signed language, but not all languages have a written form. Since writing developed in different ways in different places, writing systems differ greatly around the world. In this final episode of Crash Course Linguistics, we’ll learn about writing systems, also called orthographies, the different components that make up a writing system, the development of different writing systems over time, and more!
Want even more linguistics? Check out the Lingthusiasm podcast, hosted by the writers of Crash Course Linguistics: lingthusiasm.com
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[@Artur_M.]

Last episode? This course really flew by. I hope you'll make something related to linguistics again.

[@talideon]

On the negative side, this course was _really_ shallow. However, it was written to give you the first few moths of a first year linguistics course with an _excellent _ set of teachers. And when I say that, I'm not kidding: there are so many people involved in creating this course. Those you might perceive withfore and without the camera are but a fraction of those who presented, wrote the script, proofread, and in variousl ways created what you're now watching. The singlemost important lesson to take from linguistics is that there exist practically infinite layers in language, and that we are lessoned when we lose these layers in ways we cannot calculate. I'lll leave it at this for now.

[@metasamsara]

I'd like a cognitive sciences crash course to follow, as linguistics play a big role in it.

[@mosijahi3096]

@@talideon what do you mean shallow, are you a linguistic professor, or student?

[@Sunberries84]

In case anyone still wants more linguistics, I'd like to remind everyone that Gretchen McCulloch and Lauren Gawne (linguists and the writers of the episode) have their own podcast, Lingthusiasm. I've listened for a long time and it's one of my favorites.

[@alans.95]

Thank for the information

[@unapatton1978]

Thank you I just added them to my list. I also enjoy nativlang and not as scientifically correct and more a learner's perspective langfocus.

[@thecommabandit]

Gretchen McCulloch also has a book called Because Internet that looks at the way writing and language have been shaped by the internet, which is a really good read!

[@trungduong4040]

thank you.

[@thelizzievb]

Thank you very much for this suggestion! I listened to an episode and I loved it (: I will definitely be listening to more! ❤

[@ItsRadishTime]

Last episode! What a treat to this was to be part of making. It's been so fun learning linguistics along with you all!

[@vaughnjohnson8767]

Yo. Nice series, gotta say

[@AustinSmithProfile]

Bold choice to take a position on *both* the plural of "emoji" and the pronunciation of "gif" back-to-back at 10:30 :)

[@Hartono25277]

👁💡📔,👉🤨 ヽ(｀⌒´)ノ

[@user-vn7ce5ig1z]

Doing things correctly is a requisite part of being professional, so it's not that bold.

[@sogghartha]

emoji is japanese (絵文字) and they literally don't do plurals like that 😖

[@connollydevlin]

Last episode?! Dang, I enjoy listening to this host so much though!

[@andreluiz6023]

she has a channel! itsradishtime!

[@connollydevlin]

@@andreluiz6023 That's awesome! 🤩 Thank you for letting me (and others) know!

[@kristoohy8868]

I took a Latin class in Quebec where everyone is taught French and English and I remember the class freaking out when the professor told us that spelling was phonetic and verbs don't have exceptions.

[@rageagainstthemicrowave1313]

I love Latin because of that. At the same time I'm learning Irish and it's phonetics are, uh, interesting. Not bad, but like something that is different to a lot of languages. Pairs of letters often make sounds like bh make a v sound and dh kinda doesn't make one. So that's why names like Siobhán sound as shiv-awn.

[@elfarlaur]

Eyyy, j'apprends le Latin au Québec aussi! I just graduated from McGill.

[@mikeoxsmal8022]

@@rageagainstthemicrowave1313 Dh makes a Y sounds or Ch in loch but with a g .it is silent on the end of Words. the h isn't really a letter in this context.Russia has there own letter that doesn't have s sound But. With the previous letter makes a New sound

[@Mercure250]

@@rageagainstthemicrowave1313 But when you take the system of consonant mutations (lenition and eclipsis), writing like that does kind of make sense. Seeing "bhf" for a V sound is pretty confusing at first, sure, but I'm certain you can get used to it and how it works in synergy with its morphophonology.

[@lahagemo]

@@rageagainstthemicrowave1313 bh kinda started making sense once i realized it was a bilabial voiced fricative and not a labiodental voiced fricative, maybe that’d make it make sense for you too?

[@FairMiles]

Thank you for an(other) excellent Crash Course to the writers and all the team behind CC Linguistics. And to the lovely Taylor! (and Gavagai, of course)

[@lydia8937]

The fact that even Shakespeare wasn't sure how to spell his name comforts me

[@lapillity]

noo i don't want it to be the last episode 😭 this has been my favorite crash course series ever. crossing my fingers for a season two later down the line ;-;

[@zalambdalestes7394]

Season two: hypothetical languages of, and communication with aliens. Presenter: Elon Musk.

[@taffythelogolept4490]

I may or may not have gotten teary at the end. Thank you for such a lovely series and for spending so much time and resources into making this accessible and interesting to all kinds of viewers. Taylor, Lauren, Gretchen, Jessi, Stan, John, Hank, Gavagai, PBS, everybody!! GREAT JOB!!!

[@blitzwaffe]

"Since ancient times, every civilization's ruler has had the same idea: When people unite under one will, they become stronger than the sum of their parts. And what do rulers use to bring people together? Language".

[@CamelDance]

Unless it's Belgium. Or Swizerland. Or...

[@polasamierwahsh421]

It's already the final Well this was fun and informative

[@user-uz7gb7gb4v]

💗 Now we just need full individual 16-episode Crash Courses on Phonetics, Phonology, Morphology, Syntax, Semantics, Pragmatics, Sociolinguistics, Historical Linguistics, Psycholinguistics, Neurolinguistics, L1 Acquisition, L2 Acquisition, Typology, Field Work, Computational Linguistics, and Writing Systems, and we'll be set! :D

[@chillsahoy2640]

Me on episode 1: I'm not interested in linguistics but I guess I'll watch to support the channel, maybe I'll learn something new. Me on episode 16: Turns out linguistics is a really interesting field! There is so much to learn.

[@MatteaTeacherDonghwa]

I'm designing my curriculum for my Korean students and seeing Hangul mentioned made me really happy and want to fit this video into my lesson plan 😊

[@LuinTathren]

Last episode? But... but... There's so much more! I LOVED this series!

[@robertschlesinger1342]

Very interesting and worthwhile video. Excellent introduction.

[@artmichelstetter5087]

I can’t believe it’s the last episode 🥲 but I’m so glad I’ve learned so much from this

[@CMichaelEH]

linguist here, thought this was a great series, thanks and congrats!

[@NaritaZaraki]

Thank you! ^_^ This was a genuinely fun and informative ride! I hope we get to have another Linguistics related course on the channel. Thank you again to everyone on the team and special thanks to Taylor (hope I'm spelling that right) and Gavagai of course!

[@corrinmana9324]

Man, I really hope they do another series on Linguistics. This covered a lot of stuff I already knew. I was hoping for more advanced concepts.

[@mosijahi3096]

How did you know all of this ?

[@agathajohannbuenorosa175]

Such a lovely course, thanks to all the people involved with the production for bringing this content!❤️❤️❤️

[@Anthony-tl5cx]

This was a great series! My wife did post-grad Linguistic Anthropology work in college, so we've been watching together. It has been a great conversation starter, and she has been able to fill me in on a lot of the nuance that you didn't have the time to cover. If my vote counts for anything, I say that you should revisit the topic and do more episodes in the future!

[@FooBarBash]

Thanks for this Taylor! I notice that Gretchen McCulloch is a credited writer of this series. Her book "Because Internet" is a fascinating account of the way we use language on the internet, and if anyone is interested in this topic, I'd highly recommend it!

[@dannnyc93]

Thank you so much for hosting this series Taylor! Your enthusiasm for this topic is contagious. This has been one of my favorites on Crash Course and I hope there is a season 2 in the future!

[@unkknown89]

The playlist got finished so early. What a wonderful journey it has been. Enjoyed every bit of it

[@NorkNork]

Nooo last episode already? I hope you consider making a part two of this, there is so much more linguistics to cover! Thanks for the great content Taylor!

[@CSHallo]

Thank you, Taylor!

[@mistyminnie5922]

*screams* YESSS edit: Last episode?? NOOOO

[@themilkofaudhumla3729]

thank you for the series! one of my favs from Crash Course. Taylor did a great job!

[@ChrisLeeW00]

Yes, each character in Chinese represents a word or complete idea. One thing that helps with understanding, though, is that more complex characters can contain pieces of simpler characters. For example home (家) contains roof (宀) and pig (豕).

[@nekkidnora]

Thanks Taylor, this has been so interesting!! It absolutely flew by, and it's been fascinating. :) It's also been so satisfying to see sign languages being given the same consideration and respect as spoken and written language, it's absolutely wonderful.

[@ReverendMeat51]

This has been my favorite CC series since inception, thank you

[@Qboi1982]

This course was awesome

[@MrBrendyC]

Thanks so much to everyone who worked on this series. I loved it.

[@dalerivera_13]

i'll miss this course. i'm always tuning in to the content here because i'm a communication student ❤

[@ebonyblack4563]

It's been a lovely series with wonderful presentation; I wasn't expecting it to go so fast.

[@joaquinalvarez2784]

Absolutely loved this series

[@solehsolehsoleh]

5:50 Eyy, A Doraemon Reference in a US-based educational channel? Never seen that before. Also thank you so much for making this series.

[@ardasnnnn]

Well, I hope you guys change your mind and keep doing what you're doing. By the way, whenever you've mensioned to Turkish language from the first episode to the last one, it went to my heart :) Thank you!

[@ericcheng5021]

Thanks for your splendid course Taylor!

[@lhfirex]

Taylor's a really good host/presenter, so I hope she gets another Crash Course series soon!

[@ArturoStojanoff]

Thank you for this series!!!!

[@GaaradancepartyX]

Sad to hear this course is over, it has been one of my favorites!

[@HelenRosemarySmith]

Thanks to the CrashCourse team for this really fun and interesting course!!! :D

[@donlars1]

Thanks for a really great series! Very enjoyable.

[@NikolajLepka]

The writing systems in India, that use Devanagari and Inuktitut are typically referred to as _Abugidas_, rather than syllabaries, exactly because vowel sound information is both mandatory and written, but as a diacritic or modification, rather than a stand-alone letter. This differs from abjads -- like Arabic -- where vowels are optional or missing, and differs from syllabaries where each unique syllable gets a unique symbol. Ke Ka Ko Ki in a Syllabary (Japanese): け か こ き. Note how they're all completely different Ke Ka Ko Ki in an Abugida (Hindi): के का को की. Note how they all contain क as their base symbol (apologies if I got any of the symbols wrong, Google translate isn't entirely accurate)

[@tamijane7034]

It was an amazing course! Thanks a lot for it

[@splch]

itd be cool if you covered radicals in logographies. because a way to “break” apart chinese characters would be to look for radicals like 女 or 口

[@splch]

oh no this is the final episode! 😭 im gonna miss these a lot thanks for everything crashcourse

[@esteb6544]

Great series!

[@TaylorPoteous]

What a series, thanks T!

[@challalla]

I was surprised the Nāgarī script was called a syllabary. It is a prototypical example of an abugida, a category that has features of both an alphabet and a syllabary and is contrasted with both by specialists. It is ultimately derived from an abjad (probably Aramaic) with vowel signs added on, so it is very different in origin from true syllabaries like the Japanese kanas. Inuktitut syllabics are also an abugida, though at least there is the excuse that the name makes it sound like a syllabary. But I have never seen the Indic scripts referred to as syllabaries. Abugidas are also called alphasyllabaries, so maybe that's where the confusion came from. Given the prominence of abugidas in several regions of the world (including Southeast Asia and the Horn of Africa), it would have been nice to treat them separately. Also, while talking about the Nāgarī syllabary (sic), the examples shown were of Devanagari script, one of the modern descendants of Nāgarī script. Why not just call it the Devanagari script, since that is the name most used in English? Why use a name that strictly refers to one of the early stages of the script, even if it is sometimes used interchangeably with Devanagari? If you wanted to cover all such writing systems in the region you could have referred to the Brahmic scripts or Indic scripts.

[@alejandronasifsalum8201]

I loved this course. It's not that I learned so many new things, since I've been following the subject for many years, but the way it was presented and explained... I found it very inspirational. I really hope that you get into linguistics again soon.

[@bettyreads222]

What a great series, learned a lot!

[@JayAlcala23]

Onechpactih, in motlattal. Miac tlazocamati! I've enjoyed your videos. Thanks a ton!

[@cipher3966]

They covered a lot in 16 episodes but there is so much more

[@sparkplugz75]

Thank you so much for another valuable and informative series ❤️

[@datchisan25]

I wonder if Crash Course would be able to pull off a language beginners course, I mean, they could help clarify grammar, writing, spelling rules and such that people don’t get

[@lamwingsum9532]

i had so much fun listening to this series and i would love for this to have more episodes! and yes, lingthusiam is such a delightful podcast! when im not watching uni lectures on psycholinguitcs and sociolinguistics, im crocheting and listening to lingthusiam if there is not a crashcourse linguistics episode! thank you so much for this series! i thoroughly enjoyed it!

[@franciscozabala241]

Hey, thanks for the video; just a remark. SINGLE SOUND ARE NOT PHONEMES; PHONEMES CAN IMPLY VARIOUS DIFFERENT SOUNDS DEPENDING ON THE LANGUAGE WE ARE TALKING ABOUT :)

[@DariusT32]

Last episode? I was loving this series!

[@TheGFeather]

Thank you Crash Course for producing this series. I thoroughly enjoyed it and wish there had been more!

[@anniekoruga8892]

I’m going to miss this crash course series!!

[@IanHsieh]

Last episode? So quick!? Emojis and emoticons deserves their own episode. 😁

[@jiagengliu]

The Korean alphabet Is really invented by a single person, Emperor Sejong! He actually wrote, in a book published on October 9th, 1446 that “Today I invented a writing system for Koreans!” Further reading: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hunminjeongeum

[@clarandie]

I can't believe it's already the last episode!! I really enjoyed this series, thank you to everyone involved in making it ^_^

[@marcdefaoite]

Thank you for this series. It would be great to have this as a foundation for a future crash course that takes things a bit further.

[@wherethebirdsgo]

In Cherokee, Tsa is pronounched as cha or ja, as with all the other ts- syllables.

[@wherethebirdsgo]

this is true for all other ts- syllables as well (tse, tsi, tso, tsu, tsv)

[@Ignivomorfo]

Excellent as always!

[@Andrewism]

So sad to hear this is the last episode 😔 I Learned so much, thank you!

[@delusionnnnn]

For those of you who would like a good podcast about language, I recommend Lexicon Valley, particularly since John McWhorter took over as host. He's about to leave the show after a number of years to move on to another project, but there's a few years of him on it, and they're about 40-60 minutes a shot, and either the show's original hosts will come back or they'll get another host. I've been a fan of John McWhorter's writing on linguistics for a long time, and I was listening to the show before he was a host, so I was very happy when he took over.

[@Mr_Wallet]

McWhorter also wrote the wonderful _What Language Is_ which I can't recommend too highly as a linguistics intro, or if you want to splurge, I had fun with his _Story of Human Language_ series from The Learning Company.

[@raneerah7730]

Is it free?

[@missingfaktor]

I have loved this series so much! Thanks a lot for doing this! Just wish there had been more episodes.

[@lo-fihip-hopchill8240]

relaxing sounds from nature for you

[@gre3nishsinx0Rgold4]

Last episode.. I wonder what will replace it? I like the host.

[@brainstormingsharing1309]

Absolutely well done and definitely keep it up!!! 👍👍👍👍👍

[@Rise_and_Fall]

Thirsty to learn, that’s why here i’m ,would be be great if crash course have graphic design in channel, that would expand our learning so broad!

[@Jdksejejxnxndnd]

I'm just so sad that this is the last episode of the "Linguistics videos". I got so thrilled and excited for this when you guys posted the first video. I was def on coud 9 back then!! But anyway, thank you so much for posting such an interesting & useful content that may have surely helped so many people out there!

[@annalepper457]

Sad to see it's the last. Thanks for making the series!

[@XRaym]

Last already ! But it is only the #16 ! Well, thanks for the introduction :)

[@vigilantsycamore8750]

Well, this has been an awesome series. 10/10 from this amateur linguist

[@allertonoff4]

a dazzling explosion of information HUZZAH !

[@JJEMcManus]

Thank you for an excellent series. Hope to see you on CC again soon.

[@businessmooc8642]

thank you. it is quite a sudden that the course stopped here. I thought there are still a lot more things to go through. Anyway, thank you for the contritbution. it has been a great journey learning all these cool things.

[@mindyschaper]

Great video.

[@pogeman2345]

So sad there's no Conlanging episode. Would've really appreciated talking about stuff like Esperanto and Lojban or artlangs like Dothraki and the Sindarin.

[@augustinesim1672]

10:33 hhhmmm "jiff" ..... downvoting joking video is great

[@palomaortiz]

We definitely need a second season!

[@thomasgoodwin2648]

Enjoyable and informative. Thank you so much for the series. ❤️

[@augustlizabethmoore]

What!?? No, don't leave us! I mean I know Taylor isn't leaving, but I also love this show!

[@nateweinand4209]

This was great! I loved this! Taylor, you were a great host! Sad to see this series go!

[@lazarbukumirovic2670]

Farewell! This is one of the best series on youtube!

[@diiasdias3210]

Hello, First I would like to thank you and all the people who contributed to making this masterpiece. Second, I have a question. Did you take all the information from one source or various sources? If yes, could you please provide us with references? If no, Could you please enlighten us from where did you get the info. it would be nice if you can list them in order. Thank you, Kind regards.

[@pentalarclikesit822]

Great course. Wish it was longer

[@praenomen6290]

Seeing this right after the latest Lingthusiasm is weird and great!

[@manuchi_herrjea]

only 16 episodes?????!?!?!?!! I need you for longer in my life ㅠㅠ please make 500 ones ㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠㅠ

[@Raya-xw5ud]

Ah dang, it's already over... Well, this was wonderful, thank you so much!!

[@jiayingli6114]

omg is this already the last episode??? imma gonna cry

[@nightdreamer0000]

Thanks for this series, CrashCourse!

[@ixiladams4275]

We need more 😭

[@JimCullen]

I'm curious as to why you chose to describe many Indian writing systems and Inuktitut as "syllabaries". I've always heard them described as "abugidas" before, which is a major type of writing system that this video didn't even mention.