found: Britannica online, viewed Feb. 29, 2024:writing (writing as a system of signs; "A writing system may be defined as any conventional system of marks or signs that represents the utterances of a language." Writing encodes both meaning and sound patterns; types of writings systems called script or orthography; logographic writing system = character represents meaningful unit, such as morpheme or word (e.g. Chinese); character represents a syllable = syllabic writing system (i.e. syllabary); character represents segment of a syllable = consonantal writing system/unvocalized syllabary (e.g. Semitic writing); character represents a phoneme = alphabetic writing system; character set includes articulatory features that underlie the phoneme, including voice and place of articulation = featural writing system (e.g. Hangul); character set representing oral sounds only is a phonetic alphabet (i.e. the International Phonetic Alphabet); no orthography is a pure system, so no language is exclusively one type) Indic writing systems (alternate title: Indian alphabets; writing systems include syllabic Kharosthi, semialphabetic Brahmi scripts; Gupta script came from Brahmi, and developed into Tibetan and Khotanese systems; from Tibetan came Lepcha (Rong) and Passepa writing system; Grantha alphabet, basis of Dravidian, Sinhalese, Khmer, Mon, and Kavi; also Thai, Burmese, Lao, Buginese, Batak, Tai, Shan, ancient Cham all are ongoing descendants) language (has section on Evolution of writing systems)
found: A dictionary of media and communication (3rd ed.), via Oxford Reference, viewed Feb. 29, 2024:writing systems ("particular modes of linguistic representation within which verbal texts are graphically constructed and recorded...Phonological systems are either syllabic or alphabetic, and represent sounds rather than meanings. In syllabic systems, the 'syllabograms' represent individual spoken syllables (as in the Japanese katakana syllabary); in alphabetic systems, the 'phonograms' or letters represent phonemes with varying degrees of regularity (English being very irregular; Spanish being very regular). Non-phonological systems are either: pictographic, where the pictograms or pictographs resemble real-world entities (see also iconic); ideographic, where the ideograms or ideographs represent either real-world entities or abstract concepts in a more conventionalized way; or logographic, where the logograms or logographs represent words (as in Chinese and in the derivative Japanese kanji). In practice, most writing systems involve a combination of modes. Cuneiform is a form of writing (originally pictographic) using wedge-shaped marks to represent both phonological and non-phonological languages; hieroglyphic is a form of pictography, where the signs, or hieroglyphs, include ideograms, phonograms, and also determinatives, which indicate different senses of otherwise identical signs.")
found: Google N-gram viewer, Feb. 29, 2024:"writing system" (phrase started in 1950s and increased significantly into the 2000s)
