LIN501 – assignment 4 Writing systems virtual museum trip

Due – Wednesday 23·12·20 (23:55) – 35%

Create a virtual guided museum tour on the linguistics of writing systems by discussing objects that illustrate themes covered in the lectures. All your objects should come from one museum, but that museum can be anywhere in the world (The British Museum or the Ashmolean, le Musée du Louvre, the Pergamon, Museo Nacional de Arqueología y Etnología, National Museum of Iraq, the Kyoto or Tokyo National Museums, National Museum of Taiwan History, …; many major museum websites have a search function to help you find objects by keyword).

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Your assignment (about 1700 words in total) should include:

1. an introduction (about 200–300 words) where you talk about the importance of writing in human history and how linguistics and writing systems are mutually relevant (what grammatical themes does the study of writing systems reveal?).
2. discussion of three or four objects;
3. references (at the end; not part of word count).

∗ Do not include connective text between descriptions of your objects.

∗ Do not include a conclusion.

2. Objects
   1. Before discussing an object, provide, in the following format (grey text is illustrative, use black text yourself): Description: Limestone relief with Old Persian cuneiform

Origin: Persepolis

Period: Achaemenid

Age: 5th century bce

Url: www.britishmuseum.org/collection/object/W_1825-0421-1_1 Themes: decipherment, diffusion, syllabary, orthography

2. Your objects should illustrate the diverse range of themes covered in class. (Don’t do three decipherments.)
3. Decipherment is an allowed topic, but do not repeat your Assignment 1.
4. Do not choose objects covered in class.
5. If you talk about specific features of your object, include pictures of the parts you’re talking about. Put the pictures near to the text where they are discussed. (It’s hard to follow a discussion when the picture is pages away.)
6. If you don’t need to talk about specific aspects of the object, you can put a picture (if you choose to include one) at the end of your document (but the url may be enough). (This will help me to save ink/paper when printing.)
7. How to get good (or bad) marks
   1. This is a linguistics course. Discuss the linguistic importance of your chosen objects: how are they relevant to what we’ve studied in class? (Don’t copy what the museum guide says for the average nonlinguist.)
   2. Don’t try to research specific objects unless they are very famous (not everything is as important as, e.g., the lintels that Grotefend deciphered; Week 1). Instead, in some cases, you will want to pick a theme and then find an object to illustrate it (e.g., a kind of writing system, a technology).
   3. Try to find a connection between your chosen object and its theme. (Try to avoid just saying, “Here’s a thing with some devanāgarī on it. Devanāgarī is important because …”. Objects where the script is transcribed and translated may help.)
   4. Try to find at least one object that engages with the grammatical themes that make up half of the module.
   5. Surprise me. There are many themes, topics, writing systems that we have not had time to discuss in class. If you think that something would have been been a good fit, include it. (You can check with me if unsure.)
   6. Places for inspiration: museum websites, your national heritage, the BBC Secret History series, readings on QM- Plus or from your other assignments, Wikipedia.
8. Other
   1. Submit as a PDF.
   2. Use single spacing.

LIN501 – assignment 4 Writing systems virtual museum trip

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