What is writing -- The origins an development of writing -- Where did our alphabet come from? -- The fubark, a Germanic alphabet -- Chinese, a logosyllabic script -- Japanese, the world's mos complex script -- What is decipherment? -- The five pillars of decipherment -- Epigraphic illustration -- The history of language -- Proper nouns and cultural context -- Bilinguals, biscripts, and other constraints -- Egyptian, the first great decipherment -- What do Egyptian hieroglyphs say? -- Old Persian: cuneiform deciphered -- What does cuneiform say? -- Mycenaean linear B, an Aegean syllabary -- Mayan glyphs, an new world logosyllabary -- What do the Mayan glyphs say? -- Aztec hieroglyphs, a recent decipherment -- Etruscan and Meroitic, undeciphered scripts -- Han'gul, Tengwar, and other featural scripts -- Medium and message -- The future of writing.