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Ignace Jay Gelb (October 14, 1907 – December 22, 1985) was a Polish
Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
 - American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 ancient historian
Ancient history

Ancient history is the history from the History of writing until the Early Middle Ages in Europe, the Qin Dynasty in China, the Chola Empire in India, and some less defined point in the rest of the world ....
 and Assyriologist
Assyriology

Assyriology is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient Mesopotamia and the related cultures that used cuneiform writing....
 who pioneered the scientific study of writing systems. Born in Tarnow
Tarnów

Tarn?w is a city in southeastern Poland with 116,109 inhabitants The city has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, but from 1975 to 1998 it was the capital of the Tarn?w Voivodeship....
, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Kaiserlich und k?niglich Monarchy was a state in Central Europe ruled by the House of Habsburg, constitutionally a personal union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary....
 (now Poland
Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
), he earned his PhD
Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated Ph.D. or PhD for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", is an postgraduate academic degree awarded by University....
 from the University of Rome
University of Rome La Sapienza

Sapienza University of Rome is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy. It is the largest European university and the most ancient of the city's three state-funded universities; Sapienza was founded in 1303, University of Rome Tor Vergata in 1982, and Third University of Rome in 1992....
 in 1929, then went to the University of Chicago
University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood of Chicago. Although an older university by the same name existed prior to its founding, the modern University of Chicago credits its founding to the oil magnate John D....
 where he was a professor of Assyriology until his death.

Although writing systems have been studied for centuries by linguists
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, Gelb is widely regarded as the first scientific practitioner of the study of scripts, and coined the term grammatology
Grammatology

Grammatology is a term coined by thelinguistics Ignace Gelb in 1952 to refer to the scientific study of writing systems or scripts. It includes the typology of scripts, the analysis of the structural properties of scripts, and the relationship between written and spoken language....
 to refer to the study of writing systems. In A Study of Writing (1952), he suggested that scripts evolve in a single direction, from logographic scripts
Logogram

A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonogram , which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantics....
 to syllabaries
Syllabary

A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional consonant sound followed by a vowel sound....
 to alphabet
Alphabet

An alphabet is a standardized set of letter basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a phoneme, a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past....
s.






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Ignace Jay Gelb (October 14, 1907 – December 22, 1985) was a Polish
Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
 - American
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 ancient historian
Ancient history

Ancient history is the history from the History of writing until the Early Middle Ages in Europe, the Qin Dynasty in China, the Chola Empire in India, and some less defined point in the rest of the world ....
 and Assyriologist
Assyriology

Assyriology is the archaeological, historical, and linguistic study of ancient Mesopotamia and the related cultures that used cuneiform writing....
 who pioneered the scientific study of writing systems. Born in Tarnow
Tarnów

Tarn?w is a city in southeastern Poland with 116,109 inhabitants The city has been situated in the Lesser Poland Voivodeship since 1999, but from 1975 to 1998 it was the capital of the Tarn?w Voivodeship....
, Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary

Austria-Hungary, also known as the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dual Monarchy or the Kaiserlich und k?niglich Monarchy was a state in Central Europe ruled by the House of Habsburg, constitutionally a personal union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary....
 (now Poland
Poland

Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe. Poland is bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian Enclave and exclave, to the north....
), he earned his PhD
Doctor of Philosophy

Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated Ph.D. or PhD for the Latin , meaning "teacher of philosophy", is an postgraduate academic degree awarded by University....
 from the University of Rome
University of Rome La Sapienza

Sapienza University of Rome is a coeducational, autonomous state university in Rome, Italy. It is the largest European university and the most ancient of the city's three state-funded universities; Sapienza was founded in 1303, University of Rome Tor Vergata in 1982, and Third University of Rome in 1992....
 in 1929, then went to the University of Chicago
University of Chicago

The University of Chicago is a private university located principally in the Hyde Park, Chicago neighborhood of Chicago. Although an older university by the same name existed prior to its founding, the modern University of Chicago credits its founding to the oil magnate John D....
 where he was a professor of Assyriology until his death.

Although writing systems have been studied for centuries by linguists
Linguistics

Linguistics is the science study of natural language. Linguistics encompasses a number of sub-fields. An important topical division is between the study of language structure and the study of Meaning ....
, Gelb is widely regarded as the first scientific practitioner of the study of scripts, and coined the term grammatology
Grammatology

Grammatology is a term coined by thelinguistics Ignace Gelb in 1952 to refer to the scientific study of writing systems or scripts. It includes the typology of scripts, the analysis of the structural properties of scripts, and the relationship between written and spoken language....
 to refer to the study of writing systems. In A Study of Writing (1952), he suggested that scripts evolve in a single direction, from logographic scripts
Logogram

A logogram, or logograph, is a grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme . This stands in contrast to phonogram , which represent phonemes or combinations of phonemes, and determinatives, which mark semantics....
 to syllabaries
Syllabary

A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables, which make up words. A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional consonant sound followed by a vowel sound....
 to alphabet
Alphabet

An alphabet is a standardized set of letter basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a phoneme, a spoken language, either as it exists now or as it was in the past....
s. This historical typology
Typology

"Typology" is the study of types. More specifically, it may refer to:*Typology , division of culture by races*Typology , classification of things according to their characteristics...
 has been criticized as overly simplistic, forcing the data to fit the model and ignoring exceptional cases. Yet, despite more recent refinements of the typology by Peter T. Daniels
Peter T. Daniels

Peter T. Daniels is a scholar of writing systems, specializing in Wikipedia:WikiProject_Writing_systems. He was co-editor of the book The World's Writing Systems , and he introduced the terms abjad and abugida as modern linguistic terms for categories of writing systemss....
 and others, Gelb's rigorous study of the properties of different kinds of writing system was pioneering and innovative. Gelb believed that the Maya hieroglyphs did not qualify as true writing capable of representing language, which has now been disproven following the decipherment
Decipherment

Decipherment is the analysis of documents written in ancient languages, where the language is unknown, or knowledge of the language has been lost....
 of the Maya script.

Gelb's work in Assyriology focused on publishing editions of Akkadian
Akkadian language

Akkadian or Assyrian-Babylonian is a Semitic language that was spoken in ancient Mesopotamia. The earliest attested Semitic language, it used the cuneiform writing system derived ultimately from ancient Sumerian language, an unrelated language isolate....
 texts and a grammar and dictionary of Old Akkadian. He became editor of the Chicago Assyrian Dictionary
Chicago Assyrian Dictionary

The Chicago Assyrian Dictionary or The Assyrian Dictionary of the Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago is a multi-decade project at the University of Chicago's Oriental Institute, Chicago to compile a dictionary of the Akkadian language and its dialects....
 in 1947 and continued work on the project until his death. His other important works include works on Mesopotamian land tenure and sales, metrology
Metrology

Metrology is the science of measurement. Metrology includes all theoretical and practical aspects of measurement....
, and other aspects of economic and social history.

He was a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences
American Academy of Arts and Sciences

The American Academy of Arts and Sciences is an organization dedicated to scholarship and the advancement of learning. It serves as a nationwide honor society for the United States....
, a member of the Accademia Nazionale dei Lincei, and in 1975 he was elected as a member of the prestigious American Philosophical Society
American Philosophical Society

The American Philosophical Society is a discussion group founded in 1743 by Benjamin Franklin as an offshoot of his earlier club, the Junto....
. Additionally, from 1965 to 1966 he was president of the American Oriental Society
American Oriental Society

The American Oriental Society was chartered under the laws of Commonwealth of Massachusetts on September 7, 1842. It is one of the oldest learned societies in United States, and is the oldest devoted to a particular field of scholarship....
.