Where did writing come from? The first writing systems in the world José Joaquín Enrique Erguera Guerrero Licenciatura Lengua Inglesa Universidad de Quintana Roo- Campus Cozumel Introduction Where did writing come from? This is a question that humans have wondered. Do you know what the earliest writing systems were and where they originated? According to recent research, writing emerged in three different parts of the world.
Sumerian Writing System Writing appeared over five thousand years ago in ancient Mesopotamia (now southern Iraq). Sumerian writing was logographic. In logographic systems each character represents a separate element in meaning (for this reason, these systems are also called ideographic). The term logographic is derived from the Greek word logos, meaning “word”. Since the words of any language are structural elements that represent concepts, the written symbols of a logographic system are equivalent to words: each character used stands for a word as a hole, not for any of the sounds that make up the word. The first characters developed for logographic systems were simple pictograms. Pictograms were simply stylized drawings of concrete objects.
Later the original pictograms came to be used not just to refer to concrete objects but also to refer to activities and abstract concepts associated with the objects originally pictured. At the point where this semantic extension has taken place, the characters of a writing system are considered logograms, rather than pictograms, because they are used to represent all types of words –abstract nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc. – as well as concrete nouns.
Mayan Writing System In Central America, around the fourth century B.C, another system was developed to write down the Mayan languages. The first attempts to decipher Maya texts were made the 19th century. At that time linguists were convinced than Mayan writing was logographic, with written symbols representing a separate element of meaning. We now know that the Mayan writing system is a complex mix of logograms, syllabic symbols and phonetic characters.
Chinese Writing System The Chinese logographic writing system was created in China nearly four thousand years ago. The written characters of the Chinese writing system is largely meaning-based. For example, each symbol below stands for a word, the word “elephant”.
“Elephant”: from pictogram to logogram
The inscriptions in the oracle texts are the earliest surviving examples of written language in China. Written on animal bones and tortoise shells, the inscriptions date back to about twelve hundred BC.
“Lord Shield” (aka “Pacal”) written using combinations of logograms and phonograms
Food for thought • Where would we be without writing? Writing is a remarkable part of language and of human history. Without writing, you could reasonably ask, would history even exist?
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Evolution of Sumerian pictograms
Chinese oracle texts
Woodard, R. (2003) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the World’s Ancient Languages. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.