The world's major writing systems have tended to simplify over time, with a notable exception: New research shows that the Chinese writing system has become increasingly complex over the course of its ...

We all know what a typewriter looks like, and how this has been translated directly into the modern day computer keyboard, or at least many of us think we do. Many cultures do not use a writing system ...

At this very moment, the words you are reading are entering your mind at the speed of thought. Below your awareness, strings of letters are retrieving words and meanings as effortlessly as oxygen ...

Research shows a small set of high-frequency building blocks shaped the writing system through a principle of economy Modern simplified Chinese characters form a tightly connected network from just ...

Two books on Chinese writing illustrate how tumultuous technological evolution can be. Every second of every day, someone is typing in Chinese. In a park in Hong Kong, at a desk in Taiwan, in the ...

Of all the cultural heritages and legacies that have evolved in the world, none is more significant than the human language. Of all the existing languages, none is equal, in terms of longevity, to the ...

We learn about orthographies, the different components that make up a writing system. All societies have spoken or signed language, but not all languages have a written form. Since writing developed ...