Definition
A partial script is a writing system that can record some kinds of information very well but cannot represent arbitrary speech. The earliest Sumerian tokens and tallies — pictograms of sheep, sacks of grain, units of beer, with notations of quantity and owner — are the paradigm case. Such systems are excellent for accounting, inventory, and administration but useless for narrative, poetry, or law.
Harari uses partial script to make a point about the origin of writing. Writing did not emerge from a desire to capture the spoken word. It emerged from the bureaucratic need to track property and obligation at scales beyond what individual memory could handle. Literature came later, after the partial scripts grew expressive enough to handle full speech.
Why it matters
How it works
A partial script encodes specific categories of meaning with specific symbols. Sheep gets one mark; grain gets another; quantities get a third. The system grows by adding categories, not by expanding to general expressive range. It does not need a grammar because it does not represent sentences.
A full script emerges when scribes start using existing signs phonetically — borrowing the sign for 'reed' (Sumerian gi) to represent any syllable that sounded like gi, regardless of meaning. This rebus principle is the bridge from partial to full, and it shows up independently in Sumerian, Egyptian, Chinese, and Mesoamerican writing traditions.