Florian Coulmas (Deutsches Institut für Japanstudien, Tokyo) The future of writing

This paper considers some aspects of the development of writing and what can be learnt from them about the future of writing and written language. It is not risky to call writing the single most consequential technology ever invented. With a felicitous expression Jack Goody has called it ‘the technology of the intellect’. Its mastery has evolved from an elitist privilege in antiquity to a general condition of full participation in modern life. ‘Access,’ the catchword of the knowledge society, means access to written intelligence.

To conceive of writing as a technology has a number of implications. One is that writing more clearly than language is an artefact. Every writing system has been made, and many continue to be subject to deliberate intervention and planning. From this follows another consequence of the notion of writing as technology. Like other technologies, writing can be evaluated for its merits. In all of its three meanings as system, orthography and script, writing can be good or bad, something we hesitate to say about languages.

Writing is an adaptive technology serving certain functions in a certain environment. What are the forces that promote or impede the adaptation and improvement of this technology? It is often claimed that the market ensures that the superior technology prevails. Can the case be made for writing systems? If not, why not? Is the emergence of the “best code” for written representation just a matter of time?

By studying these questions we can contribute to a better understanding of what writing is, how it works and what its future developments will likely be like. This paper addresses the issue of the quality of writing systems and what it has to do with their development and spread. The most salient feature of writing is that it is visible. Since the future is invisible, it is prudent to seek direction in the past which, thanks to writing, we can see.