The Idea of Writing: Play and Complexity.

• Author: Handel, Zen
• Position: Book review

The Idea of Writing: Play and Complexity. Edited by ALEX Dl VOOGT and IRVING FINKEL, with an introduction by ALEX DE VOCAT.. Leiden: BRILL, 2010. Pp. ix + 396. $169.

From their very inception, writing systems have proved remarkably versatile and adaptable. This property has been of crucial importance to their utility, enabling them to adapt to changes in spoken language across time and space, as well as to the written representation of additional languages, including ones typologically far removed from each other. Such flexibility brings with it both the burden of added complexity and the joy of manipulating that complexity toward aesthetic or ludic ends. Versatility, complexity, and play in writing systems of the world are the objects of inquiry in this edited volume of eighteen articles. The articles are grouped into four sections, which reflect the themes of the four Idea of Writing symposia from which the contributions are drawn: "Play in Writing," "Loanwords," "Polysemy," and "Towards Another Script." For the interested reader, these fascinating articles provide a wealth of information about variability and complexity in writing systems from around the world. both ancient and modern.

Three articles concerning Egyptian writing by Joachim Friedrich Quack and three articles concerning Maya writing by Erik Boot can he said to constitute the center of gravity of the book. These six fine pieces are among the best found in the collection, providing both descriptive and theoretical insight. The articles on Mayan will be particularly welcome to many readers who may be less familiar with the nature of this writing system and with the breakthroughs in its decipherment of recent decades. Indeed, Boot's writing should serve as a model for how to introduce a complex writing system to scholars in other fields. The articles begin with clear, concise introductions to the structure and function of the elements of the writing system and to the notational conventions employed, and are distinguished throughout by the use of clear visuals.

Boot's first contribution, "Substitution, Substitution, Substitution: The Many Faces of Maya Writing," in the "Play in Writing" section, begins with a seven-page introduction to Maya script (pp. 43-49) before embarking on an examination of "substitution" in the attested written variants of the name phrases of certain kings. Substitution, the "conditioned interchange of graphically different signs with the same value," has not only provided key clues for the decipherment of Maya writing, it also illustrates the way that the inherent flexibility of the writing system allows for what can loosely be called "play" (p. 50). Through manipulation of this flexibility, the...