This book is a great starting place for people who are interesting in the many ways people have encoded language by means of writing. The descriptions of most systems are complete enough that one can get a real feel for how they work (if not perhaps all the details of the most complex systems). It also includes brief articles on topics such as calligraphy, the status of alphabetic writing versus other systems, and the like. While some of these are subjects of heated scholarly debate, Coulmas provides balanced explanations of the issues.A wonderful overview of the intricate and beautiful ways people write the world over.Other books that would interest readers of this are:"The World's Writing Systems" from Oxford University Press is the best single reference for complete descriptions of scripts. But at nearly [$$$] in hardcover, it's relatively inaccessible to the general reader. It's also targeted to a more professional audience and is not as good for browsing around. As an anthology of articles by experts it is both more authoritative, and a bit more uneven than Coulmas."Writing Systems: A Linguistic Introduction" by Geoffrey Sampsonis more of a discussion of the issues raised for linguistics by a variety of writing systems. Sampson's book includes a detailed discussion of the Chinese system.

This is the only book that I have yet found that compares to David Diringer's -The Alphabet: A Key to the History of Mankind-.

It is not quite so complete in its coverage of obscure scripts as Diringer, and it makes far fewer attempts to analyse the history of the scripts. On the other hand, because it covers less such territory, the exemplars of the scripts and the tables of the characters and their values in this book are far more legible. The alphabetic arrangement of the material makes it easy to find which system you want.

Another of this book's strengths is that at least some attempt is made to explain how the phonemes of the many languages are expressed by the scripts in question; in many languages, from Tibetan to English, the relationship between alphabet and speech is subtle and complex. Obviously, this information will be cursory and incomplete, but having some is better than having none, and it is at least handy to know whether you are dealing with phonemic or with etymological spellings. This will help you not only to transliterate, but also to read, them.

If you are fascinated by the history of writing, and obscure scripts and arcane alphabets, you NEED this book, and will spend hours leafing through it.

I enjoyed this book very much. It was fascinating, and unlike "Reading the Past" (also very good), the information on various language families and regions of the world is interconnected.
My only criticism is that the book is in bad need of an editor. While Coulmas presents a great deal of information, he has a rather noteable tendancy of belabouring a point and rambling on and on. (He beats dead horses well past death and decomposition.) The untranslated quotes in French are a bit frustrating, and his penchant for quoting Greek seems a bit overdone. The book could easily be edited to two-thirds its size and not loose a single jewel of information.

The book details the origins of the world's writing systems and traces their development to the present day. The central relationship is set between the written and the spoken word, and poses hypothetical scenarios of the way in which writing has affected human language. While describing his views on why the Chinese pictogram, a seemingly 3000 year-old cumbersome system, is in fact very useful, the author also ranges over the Ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, the Near Eastern cuniforms and Semitic, Classical and Indo-European writing systems. The book offers many black and white drawings and illustrations.This is a highly recommended book for all, but especially those with interest in linguistics and the history, evolution and importance of writing.

This is a must read for anyone interested in European language policy. The articles cover a wide field and present a variey of opinions. One of the important points to emerge is the strong connection between national identity and language which goes back to the 19th century.