In this distinguished collection the deeper cognitive aspects of writing systems are for the first time added to the perceptual and physiological dimensions and brought into a coherent whole. The result is a multifaceted understanding of alphabets and other scripts in which none of the major factors that shape those systems, and thus distinctively reveal attributes of the human mind, are slighted. The systems through which language is realized on the page are compared in nature and complexity with those through which language is realized as sound, and are seen in their true perspective. Long the object of intensive inquiry, the process of change in phonological systems is now joined to the evolution of graphological systems, and new light is cast on the nature of the relevant human cognitive processes in their diversity and underlying unity. The authors, each eminently qualified in his or her field, are drawn from Europe, Asia, and North and South America.

I: Reading, Writing, and the Difference.- 1 Orthography, Reading Disability, and Cerebral Organization.- 2 Predicting Reading Ability from the "Invented" Spellings of Kindergarten Children.- 3 A Note on Teaching Writing to Rio Slum Children.- 4 Spelling as Culture.- II: Writing-Systems.- 5 Some Graphotactic Constraints.- 6 Some Thoughts on a Historico-Genetic Theory of the Lettershapes of our Alphabet.- 7 Developmental Morphographemics II.- 8 Determinacy Analysis and Contrastive Orthography.- 9 Curves as Angles.- 10 Empirical Methods for Evaluating Generative Semiotic Models: An Application to the Roman Majuscules.- 11 Hieratic is Beautiful: Ancient Egyptian Calligraphy Revisited.- 12 Forerunners of Writing: The Social Implications.- 13 On the Interaction of Greek Orthography and Phonology: Consonant Ousters in the Syllabic Scripts.- III: The Scribal Tract.- 14 Sensory and Motor Functions of the Hand.- 15 Handwriting and the Writing Hand.- Authors' Affiliations.