Early Civilization and Literacy in Europe

i-iv -- Contents -- Preface -- Introduction -- 1. Iconography, symbolism and writing at the dawn of civilization Old Europe from the seventh to the fourth millennia B.C. -- 2. The organizing principles of Old European writing Motivated and arbitrary symbols and their affinity with the mythical symbolism -- 3. Writing from Old Europe to ancient Crete A case of cultural continuity -- 4. Literacy in ancient Crete On the social functions of linear and hieroglyphic writing -- 5. The Cretan legacy in the East: Writing systems in the multilingual society of ancient Cyprus -- 6. The spread of European writing beyond ancient Cyprus The influence of Aegean and Cypriot literacy in Asia Minor and the Near East -- 7. On the three ways of writing the oldest literary language in the world: Greek -- 8. The impact of Aegean culture on the western periphery The case of the Lipari script and the role of Etruscan writing in Italy -- Conclusion: Giving profile to a new paradigm for research into antiquity -- Bibliography -- Illustrations, figures, tables and maps -- Index

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CONTRIBUTIONS TO THE SOCIOLOGY OF LANGUAGE brings to students, researchers and practitioners in all of the social and language-related sciences carefully selected book-length publications dealing with sociolinguistic theory, methods, findings and applications. It approaches the study of language in society in its broadest sense, as a truly international and interdisciplinary field in which various approaches, theoretical and empirical, supplement and complement each other. The series invites the attention of linguists, language teachers of all interests, sociologists, political scientists, anthropologists, historians etc. to the development of the sociology of language.