How did Homo sapiens become Homo scribens? Was writing originally an attempt to represent speech? Did it evolve from prehistoric art? What types of sign were the precursors of the alphabet and the hieroglyph? Undoubtedly, one of the most important developments of humankind has been writing, but often people are unaware of how long and complicated this path has been. The birth of writing is a long and very interesting process and I'm convinced that by the end of this article, you will want to know more about this topic.
Before Writing Began
There are many theories about how writing emerged, but it is generally thought that writing began with accounting. Being able permanently to record numbers of animals, amounts of grain, and recipes for beer became essential to support ancient societies organised around temple and palace. Clay tokens of different shapes have been found at many Middle-Eastern sites from as early as 8000 BC. These tokens may have been used for counting when the amount of information needed for trade exceeded the average human memory. Similarly the Inca empire of South America stored information using quipu, which were groups of strings of different colours, knotted at intervals to record census statistics and taxes.
When did the Need of Writing Arise
Eventually, symbols developed that were used to represent words or ideas, rather than numbers. The earliest writing was probably pictographic, using drawings of real things to convey meanings, such as are seen in Ice Age cave paintings. We still use many pictograms today – just look at the signs on the doors of any public toilets.
The Beginning
The concept of writing in essence, is the transference of thought or language into a re-readable form. The earliest forms of this art have long been considered to be represented by pictograms, simple images which enabled the transfer of information through pictures, but writing itself has not generally been considered until recently to have any great antiquity before the flourish of writing witnessed in the Middle east and Asia c. 3,500 - 3,100 BC. While it is still generally considered that writing emerged 'independently in at least three different places - Egypt, Mesopotamia and Harappa between 3,500 BC and 3,100 BC'(2).
However, modern research is now questioning this hypothesis with results from different academic sources confirming the presence of a group of recurring symbols in Palaeolithic art, suggestive of sharing a common meaning, and therefore being considered a proto-language.
Evolution of a Script
We have until recently had little understanding of how and why this happened. The discovery of the Vinca script and (mother) culture c. 5,500 - 3,500 BC, has offered a possible clue as to this evolution, but more importantly, symbols in the Vinca script can be seen to have roots that trace back as early as Palaeolithic times, as revealed by the exhaustive examination of 'geometric' symbols in 150 prehistoric caves in France by Petzinger, 2009. While there is still much work to be done in order to confirm the hypothesis, it is now suspected that these Palaeolithic geometric symbols represent a 'proto-script' from which all other scripts can trace ancestry.
As writing develops, a standardized method of doing it begins to emerge. This is essential to the very purpose of writing, making it capable of carrying a message over unlimited distances of space or time. Doing so depends on the second scribe, in a faraway place or the distant future, being able to read what the first scribe has written
The idea of assigning a phonetic (sound) value to a symbol was a radical step forward in the development of writing. The earliest writing identified is cuneiform script, which dates to around 3300 BC and was probably invented by the Sumerians, in the area that is now known as southern Iraq. Other scripts were later created in Egypt (3100 BC), the Indus Valley (2500 BC), Crete (1900 BC), China (1200 BC), and in Central America (600 BC).
Cuneiform Writing
The term cuneiform writing comes from the fact it is composed of signs that look like small wedges, in Latin: cuneus. Yet, in the beginning cuneiform writing was not at all composed of wedges and on the clay tablets scribes engraved the shape of the designated objects and the possible numerical signs. Usually, the domestic animals and the agricultural products were represented by conventional signs, while for other objects and wild animals they used drawings that represented their distinctive characteristics. Unfortunately, when scribes were carving clay with a pointed tip they caused chips and detachment of clay fragments. This required continuous cleaning of the drawings while they were carved on the tablets. To avoid this mishap, they began to impress straight marks by mean of a stylus.
Significantly the chief official of many Sumerian temples is known by a word, sangu, which seems to mean 'accountant'. But however non-literary the purpose, these practical jottings in Sumer are the first steps in writing.
Hieroglyphic Writing
The origin of the hieroglyphic writing was nearly contemporary to the cuneiform one. It did not evolve in the cuneiform structure, but it kept a pictographic representation of the signs. The second civilization to develop writing, shortly after the Sumerians, is Egypt. The Egyptian characters are much more directly pictorial in kind than the Sumerian, but the system of suggesting objects and concepts is similar. The Egyptian characters are called hieroglyphs by the Greeks in about 500 BC, because by that time this form of writing is reserved for holy texts; hieros and glyphomean 'sacred' and 'engrave' in Greek.
Because of the importance of hieroglyphic inscriptions in temples and tombs, much of the creation of these beautiful characters is by painters, sculptors in relief and craftsmen modelling in plaster. But with the introduction of papyrus, the Egyptian script is also the business of scribes.
The term hieroglyph is Greek and it means sacred writing, in fact for the Egyptians the writing was divine. If you think that when we are reading we hear a voice in our mind, you can well imagine how this surprising phenomenon could be considered divine in those times. For the Egyptians, the hieroglyphic scripts was sacred and its symbols kept the properties of the objects that they refer to, so they were alive, magical, they exerted an influence and a power of their own. Egyptians were allowed to write the same things by choosing different symbols. By means of the mythological references which it was possible to find in the symbols they used, their writing was enriched with meanings and shades that it was not possible transmit or obtain from the alphabetic writing.
The Seals of the Indus Valley: From 2500 BC
As in the other great early civilizations, the bureaucrats of the Indus valley have the benefit of writing to help them in their administration. The Indus script, which has not yet been deciphered, is known from thousands of seals, carved in steatite or soapstone.
Usually the centre of each seal is occupied by a realistic depiction of an animal, with above it a short line of formal symbols. The lack of longer inscriptions or texts suggests that this script is probably limited to trading and accountancy purposes, with the signs establishing quantities and ownership of a commodity.
Chinese Characters: From 1600 BC
The last of the early civilizations to develop writing is China, in about 1600 BC. But China outdoes the others in devising a system which has evolved, as a working script, from that day to this. Chinese characters are profoundly ill-suited to such labour-saving innovations as printing, typewriting or word-processing. Yet they have survived. They have even provided the script for an entirely different language, Japanese.
The Non-phonetic Chinese script has been a crucial binding agent in China's vast empire. Officials from far-flung places, often unable to speak each other's language, have been able to communicate fluently in writing.
It is not known how much one culture influenced the development of writing in other cultures, or whether writing was a completely independent invention in some cases. What is clear is that numerous writing systems have been developed around the world, many of which look and sound unique. Nonetheless they all do the same important job, allowing us to communicate through writing.
A lot of other writings have been composed during history and in different parts of the world. Unfortunately, in this introductory article we cannot deal with all of them and with some books indicated in the bibliography you could fulfill any wish to deepen your understanding of the subject. The history of writing is a riveting and much more complex topic than I have described it to you. It is worth reading more about!
BIBLIOGRAPHY
http://www.funsci.com/fun3_en/writing/writing.htm#1 The History of Writing
http://historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistoriesResponsive.asp?ParagraphID=asg#c3517. History of Writing
http://www.canterbury.ac.nz/ancientwriting/origin/index.shtml#
A Short History of Writing
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