Omniglot is an encyclopedic web site detailing the structure and history of the world’s writing systems. Created in 1998 by Simon Ager, a web developer who is both polyglot (a learner of many languages) and linguist (scholar of language), it reminds me in so many ways of the Phrontistery – a site that began as one young man’s obsession and has turned into something more over the past decade. I consider it to be the best online information source for writing systems; sure, you could go to Wikipedia, whose page on the topic is currently very good, but why bother? If you can’t afford The World’s Writing Systems
Simon Ager also runs an Omniglot blog, which is primarily about second-language acquisition and topics related to multilingualism, particularly discussions of specific differences among words in different languages, but digresses into all sorts of other topics of interest to lingustically-minded anthropologists, such as literacy studies, animal communication, and language evolution. It’s all written in a very accessible and engaging style, and requires virtually no background knowledge of the subjects in order to be enjoyed. Refreshingly, he is always happy to admit when his knowledge of a topic is imperfect and to use his readers to learn more.
Recent posts of interest
Writing systems and manuscripts
Works cited
Daniels, Peter T. and William Bright, eds. 1996. The World’s Writing Systems. New York: Oxford University Press.
Glossographia 