Revelatory Scripts, ‘the Unlettered Genius’, and the Appearance and Disappearance of Writing

Abstract

This chapter builds on the work of those who have linked writing and revelation and consider these scripts as a class of writing systems that develops with some frequency among peoples who are being colonized by expanding nations and empires. It suggests that scripts this sort are not uncommon, and that although they sometimes enter into conventional usage, it is more likely they disappear without leaving much of a trace.