At 09:35 -0500 2002-06-03, Martin Heijdra wrote:
>For all script enthousiasts:
>
>A supplement (bekkan) to the Sanseido Encyclopaedia of Linguistics
>(Japanese: Gengogaku Daijiten) has appeared under the title Sekai Moji
>Jiten: (Scripts and Writing Systems of the World). It is a very dense, hefty
>volume of 1222 pages. It treats historical and current scripts, in general
>in much, much greater detail (and many more varieties; Nora script, anyone?)
>than Bright & Daniels. A great strength is of course Asian scripts (India,
>China, SE Asia), which tend to get short shift in general Western
>publications. It's definitely a major work, combining the characteristics
>of, but going beyond both books of the Bright & Daniels variety, and those
>of the Dirringer/Jensen compendia kind.
>
>Of course, the entries (which have bibliographies, many in Western
>languages) are in Japanese; I don't think the numerous illustrations are
>sufficient for a non-Japanese reader, even if headings have an English
>equivalent. Moreover, it is very pricy: I just checked at Amazon Japan, and
>the price quoted is Y48,000. Nevertheless, if you're serious about scripts
>and know Japanese, you should check it out.

That's EUR 416.70, or USD 363.25.

I'm serious about scripts and *don't* know Japanese, beyond being
able to find things in a dictionary without any speed whatsoever. And
that's expensive, Martin. Still... would the numerous illustrations
be sufficient for ... ME?
--
Michael Everson *** Everson Typography *** http://www.evertype.com