Semantography (Blissymbolics):A Logical Writing or an Illogical World. by BLISS, C,. K - 1965

Sydney: Semantography (Blissymbolic) Publications, 1965. Second edition. Thick octavo. 882 pp. Custom full green morocco (signed in gilt on front turn-in in 2023 by K.M.M.), smooth spine with five panels elaborately gilt and one with gilt lettering, gilt turn-ins. Very faint (almost unnoticeable) and small stamp on copyright page. else a beautiful coy.Blissymbolics was conceived by Austro-Hungarian expatriate Charles K. Bliss (1897–1985), born Karl Kasiel Blitz to a Jewish family in the town of Czernowitz (now Chernivtsi in modern-day Ukraine). He was introduced to signs and symbols at an early age in the form of circuit diagrams – his father’s many occupations included mechanic and electrician – which he understood immediately as a “logical language”. Bliss (then Blitz) attended the Vienna University of Technology for chemical engineering and went on to become chief of the patent department at the German TV and radio company Telefunken, a career that was cut short in early 1938 when the Third Reich annexed Austria. Bliss was sent to Dachau concentration camp, and then to Buchenwald, before settling in Australia. At the age of 45, Bliss was inspired to develop a non-alphabetic writing system that could be mastered in a short period of time and read by anyone regardless of their spoken language. This work remained the focus of his lifeThe writing system – originally named World Writing in 1942, then Semantography in 1947, and finally Blissymoblics in the 1960s – contains several hundred basic geometric symbols (“Bliss-characters”) that can be combined in different ways to represent more complex concepts. It is still in limited use today. Since 1971 Blissymbolics have been used mainly as a communication aid for people with communication, language and learning difficulties. Such people have limited or no ability to use ordinary spoken and/or written language but manage to learn Blissymbolics.