Page 282 - DK Children's Encyclopedia
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Writing                                                                           SEE ALSO

                                                                                               ▸ ▸ Storytelling
                                                                                                pp.42–43

           Writing is putting the words we speak down on paper or on                           ▸ ▸ Books  p.44
           a screen. We do this using sets of characters, such as the                          ▸ ▸ Bronze Age  p.47
           letters in an alphabet. Characters represent the different                          ▸ ▸ Codes  pp.66–67

           letters or words of a language. The many different                                  ▸ ▸ Language  p.144
           languages in the world have different systems of writing.                           ▸ ▸ Philosophy
                                                                                                p.189


       Writing systems
       Written characters can be
       joined together to form
       words, or sometimes form      Cuneiform
                                     Used in ancient Iraq,
       words on their own. Different   this was one of the first
       systems are written left to   writing systems.              Have                   a
       right, right to left, or      Cuneiform means
                                     “wedge-shaped.”
       downward.

                                                                 nice                      day
                                    English
       Writing tools                The English alphabet has 26
                                    letters. These letters are used
       The first words were         by many languages across
       carved into soft clay using a   the world.
       hard reed or piece of wood.
       Today we write with          Chinese
       pencils, crayons, and pens.   These characters are formed
       Brushes can be used to       of pictures that often show an
       paint beautiful characters.  object. A character forms one                  Have a nice day
                                    word or part of a word.

                                  Cyrillic
                                  This alphabet is used to
                                  write Russian and other
                                  Eastern European and
                                  Central Asian languages.                        Have a nice day

                                  Hindi
                                  The Hindi language of India
                                  is written in the beautiful
                                  Devanagari alphabet. It
                                  has 47 different letters.                      Have a nice day




                                     Some Chinese             Emojis
                                     dictionaries list        Emoji means “picture
                                       more than              character” in Japanese.
                                                              Emojis are used on mobile
       Calligraphy brush  Fountain pen  Pencil  characters!   a quick way to show
                                       40,000
                                                              phones and computers as
                                                              feelings or words.



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