The Invention of Writing 31st Century - 1st Century
by. Kaytlin Powell and Collin Gell
Table of Contents
Sources
Asia
Chinese, Japanese, Korean
Mediterranean
Phoenician, Greek, Latin
Egypt
Papyrus, Heiroglyphic, Cuneiform
Mesopotamia
Sumerians, Cuneiform, Old Persian
3
Chapter 1: Mesopotamia
Sumerians
The first form of writing developed
from the cultural need to keep track of how many clay tokens, which were used for counting agricultural and manufactured goods, were in sealed jars to prevent theft and loss. Ancient Sumerians first impressed pictures of the clay tokens on the surface of the clay container with a stylus. Over time, the clay tokens were no longer used and the Sumerians simply impressed the symbol of the tokens on wet clay surfaces.
The Sumerian writing system was
constantly in flux. The original writing system started out flowing from top to bottom, but around 3000 BCE the flow changed to left-right. This affected all of the signs of the language, rotating them 90 degrees counterclockwise. In addition, after 3000 BCE the ‘linear’ strokes of the early signs changed to more ‘wedge-like’ impressions. (Above) Cuneiform tablet: administrative account concerning the distribution of barley and emmer, ca. 3100–2900 B.C (Left) Cuneiform tablet impressed with cylinder seal: receipt of a dead sheep, ca. 2041 BCE.
5
Cuneiform
Developed by the Sumerians, Cuneiform is a system of writing that has
affected nearly every ancient Mesopotamian civilization in the region. It was used by Babylonians, Akkadians, Hittites, Assyrians, and other smaller groups as the universal language of the day, much how English is integrated in many countries around the world as a second or first national language.
The earliest form of Cuneiform was
called proto-cuneiform which was the pictorial form of the system. However, as the language became more complex and abstract ideas permeated the culture, they started applying wordconcepts through the strokes of the stylus. For example, some strokes would convey the concept of honor instead of drawing a word-sign of an honorable man. In 2800 BCE, the writing system started to exhibit use of phonetic elements. The Sumerian language has a high number of monosyllabic words and to combat that, there are multiple Amarna letter: from Ashur-uballit, the king of Assyria, to the king of Egypt, ca. 1353–1336 B.C
6
ways of representing words that have a similar and or identical sound.
(Lef) Cuneiform tablet impressed with cylinder seal: receipt of silver, ca. 2049 B.C. (Below) Cuneiform tablet: record of a lawsuit, ca. 20th–19th century B.C
Cuneiform was adopted by the
majority of the Middle eastern cultures, but each civilization had its own way of altering the written language to have their own style of mark. The Akkadians started using only five wedge shapes to further abstract the pictorial language of the Sumerians. After them, the Assyrians simplified long or frequently used words into logograms (symbols that represent parts of words or whole words).
7
Old Persian
When the first Persian Empire
The majority of other cultures
of the Achaemenid Dynasty erupted
relied on using logograms, and in
in the 6th century BCE and spread
fact the Old Persian writing is not
from Mesopotamia to Afghanistan,
even a direct descendent of Sumerian
there became a need to create a
Cuneiform. Instead, Darius the First of
language of their own for all the
the Achaemenid Dynasty hired scribes
subjects and conquered peoples to
to invent the language. The style of
use. Old Persian uses the same tool
cuneiform was taken out of tradition
for cuneiform, however, the actual
and the actual shape of the signs are
forms
meanings
completely original. Old Persian is
than the cuneiform system of the
primarily a syllabary writing system,
neighboring civilizations. Old Persian
with the letter forms representing
was generally used in registering
syllables instead of using logograms.
have
different
chronicles, official documents, and other sorts of written materials.
8
Old Persian forms are composed of the wedge shapes, but that is the only
similarity to the Sumerian Cuneiform and its descendents. In the form of writing, the only diagonal wedges that are used are to separate the words and letters of the language. The disuse of diagonal wedges in words allow for a simpler, easier to read, flow of ‘straight’ text that is cleaner. In addition, the number systems used were radically different than the ones of the cultures to the west.
(Opposite) Behistun Relief, Darius 1, ca. 515 BCE. (Above) Inscription in Persepolis, ca. 4th century BCE. (Right) Inscription of Xerxes, ca. 4th century BCE , Old Persian, Babylonian and Elamite.
9
Chapter 2: Egypt
Papyrus
The Egyptians began their writing system around the same time as the
Sumerians, and they even wrote on many of the same surfaces as the Sumerians; clay, stone, bone, metal, and leather were all used for writing in the ancient world. However, the Egyptians used a material that was found in abundance along the Nile Delta and in the Sudd of Southern Sudan. Papyrus was a wetland sedge that was a highly versatile material that became a staple in the lives of the Egyptians and other surrounding cultures, and because of it’s abundance and relative ease to make, became the paper material of choice for hieratic script and some hieroglyphics.
The
papyrus
invention paper
of
the
allowed
for
other uses of the papyrus reed to come about. Not only did the Ancient Egyptians use papyrus as a writing material, but also as employing it commonly in the construction of reed boats, mats, rope, sandals, baskets, Papyrus; Abnormal Hieratic text, receipt for shabtis of Petekhons, ca. 1070-712 BCE.
and other common household items. Papyrus was also used to form book-form codices by early in
Christian
the
writers
Greco-Roman
and
world.
11
Papyrus is a thick paper-like material derived from the pith of the
papyrus plant. It was very cheap and easy to produce, however it was fragile and susceptible to both moisture and excessive dryness. Unless the papyrus was of perfect quality and stored in perfect conditions, the writing surface would be irregular and the range of media that could be used was also limited.
(Top) The Weighing of the Heart from the Book of the Dead of Ani, 13th Century (Above) Book of the Dead Papyrus with Chapters 100 and 129, 5th Century
12
Hieroglyphics
Hieroglyphics developed out of the cultural need to identify a pictorial
representation with either a royal individual, such as a pharaoh, or to label a specific and unique event, such as a particular battle or successful hunt. Those needs allowed for the creation of using hieroglyphics for writing on monumental contexts. The addition of hieroglyphics to an illustration allowed the relief to become specialized; the writing reflected a new attitude toward time and a view of history as unique events in time. The Egyptian hieroglyphics is a very complex but relatively straightforward system, with the usage of logograms, phonograms, and
determinatives.
The
use
of pictograms is some of the most detailed and widely used out of the pictorial languages.
The Egyptian culture retained a close relationship to the fine
arts when designing the pictures of the living beings or inanimate objects. The same models formed the basis of both writing and art,
(Left) Akhenaten and family ca. 12th century.
and the style of the writing symbols usually changed with the art style. The same craftsmen painted or incised both the writing symbols and reliefs. The hieroglyphs of objects that became obsolete and no longer needed were still used however because of the recognizability, similar to how the floppy disk is still the save icon on many programs.
13
Hieroglyphics
reserved areas
for
of
culture.
were
important
the
Egyptian
Before
Hieratic
script became the script of
choice,
priests
used
hieroglyphs to write down prayers, and
magical
worshipping
texts, the
gods. So it makes sense that
Hieroglyphs
were
adorned on many walls in
tombs,
even
on
palaces,
and
semiprecious
stones or rare woods and then inlaid into the walls or (Above and Right) Hieroglyphics from Luxor temple, ca. 13th-12th century.
14
pieces
of
furniture.
Hieratic and Demotic Script
Hieratic script developed along
The development of hieratic script
with the monumental hieroglyphics
and hieroglyphics at the same time is
for use on smaller scrolls. It is a
one of the first situations out of the
“priestly” script extensively used on
ancient culture writing systems. They
manuscripts and paintings, but it’s only
are related, parallel developments,
a rather cursive form of hieroglyphics.
rather
Demotic
script
Demotic is derived from Hieratic,
for everyday use in the 5th century
and it became much more slanted
and onward. Some demotic signs
and easier to write for commoners.
replaced
hieratic
translate into more than one hieratic or hieroglyphic signs, so there isn’t a one-to-one
correspondence
than
a
single
linear
one.
(Above) Edwin Smith papyrus on surgical trauma, ca. 15th century.
between
demotic and the other two systems.
15
Hieratic script is always written and read from right to left. Before the
12th dynasty, hieratic could be written in either columns or horizontal lines, but during the reign of Amenemhat III horizontal writing became the standard. Hieratic is characterized by its cursive nature and use of ligatures for a number of characters, and much more standardized orthography than hieroglyphs. Like Hieratic, Demotic script is written and read from right to left and is a highly cursive script of hieratic script that barely resembles the parent form of hieroglyphs.
Demotic script on Rosetta Stone, ca. 196 BCE
16
Chapter 3: Mediterranean
The
Phoenician Phoenician
alphabet
is
amongst one of the oldest alphabets in the world, and was spread rapidly due to the maritime trading culture of Phoenician merchants who spread it into North Africa and Europe. Phoenician had longterm effects on the social structures of the civilizations which came in contact with it. Its simplicity not only allowed it to be used in multiple languages, but the easy to write forms allowed common people to learn how to write. The usage of writing by commoners upset members of the royal and religious hierarchies of society, and thus the phoenician alphabet disintegrated many of these class divisions in certain cultures.
Before the phoenician alphabet came the earliest
known alphabetic inscriptions which are known as the Proto-canaanite script through the Middle and Late Bronze Age. The Phoenician alphabet is a direct continuation of the “Proto-Canaanite� script of the Bronze Age collapse period. The simple forms also allowed for commoners and lesser citizens to learn to write.
18
(Top and Above) Phoenician bowl fragments, ca. 389 BCE
The Phoenician alphabet is a “consonantal
alphabet� and only contains letters representing consonants. While directly descended from the Hieroglyphic script from Egypt, the style of the forms are very angular and seem to resemble cuneiform. The angular styles became the basis for the Greek alphabet and thus the baseline for all western alphabets.
(Above) Terra cotta pot with Phoenician inscription, ca. 7th century BCE. (Right) Phoenician bowl fragment, ca. 389 BCE.
19
Greek The Greeks were the first Europeans to learn to write with an alphabet, and from them writing spread to the rest of Europe. But before the Greeks developed their alphabet, they tried to use a form of writing called Linear B, which was created by the Mycenaean people.
But the Linear B alphabet wasn’t well suited for Greek grammar. After that,
they adopted the Phoenician alphabet. Each local dialect had its own variants of the alphabet to suit the needs of the culture. The Ionian alphabet was eventually adopted in all Greek-speaking states, but before that the Euboean variant was carried to the Italic peninsula and adopted by Etruscan and eventually Latin. (Above) Greek inscription on a pedestal, Acropolis of Lindos in Rhodes, Greece, ca. 8th Century BCE.
When the Greeks adopted the Phoenician
(Opposite) Fragmentary marble inscription, ca. 4th3rd Century BCE.
letters for consonants. To remedy that, they found
alphabet, they used the whole alphabet. However, unlike Greek, the Phoenician alphabet only had letters in the Phoenician alphabet that represented sounds not found in the Greek language and modified them to represent vowels. The Phoenician
20
letter ‘aleph’ became the Greek letter alpha.
The Greek alphabet is an angular styled alphabet, resembling
the styles of the Phoenician alphabet. Early Greek was written rightto-left, but eventually its direction changed to boustrophedon which means “ox turning”, where the direction of writing changes every line. for instance, at the end of the ‘right-to-left’ line, the next line changes to ‘left-to-right’. The orientation of the letters also change when the writing direction changes. Inscriptions in Greek have been found on pillars and small, short, pedestals next to temples, buildings, and ‘acropoli’.
21
Latin
The Latin language developed from the Etruscan writing system, where
the Latium (where Latin is spoken and Rome is located) and Etruria (where the Etruscan language is spoken) regions are directly next to each other. The very first examples of the Latin alphabet resemble the Etruscan alphabet. Nearly all the letters were adopted with the same phonetic values and graphical shapes along with the writing directions. The Romans then altered this language over hundreds of years and over hundreds of miles during the conquests of the Empire.
The Latin writing system became one of the most spread
languages throughout the world, and is the basis for all western alphabets. It is the most ubiquitous writing system in the world.
22
The classical Roman Latin
alphabet only has an uppercase form, and it uses straight and strong strokes that have an imperialistic view. Because of its strong characterization, Roman inscriptions can be found on a large variety of buildings, either on friezes or on pillars and walls. The Pantheon in Rome, Italy has one of the most well known inscriptions on its frieze. (Opposite) Inscribed marble base, ca. 2nd Century CE. (Above) Arch of Titus Inscription, ca. 1st Century CE. (Right) Pantheon Inscription, ca. 126 CE.
23
Chapter 4 Asia
Chinese
Writing in China developed from earlier non-linguistic symbolic
systems. During the Late Neolithic period, in the latter half of the 3rd millenum BCE, many symbols or “pictograms” started to be incised on pottery and jades. These symbols are thought to be family or clan emblems that identify the ownership or provenance of the pottery or jades.
The
earliest
form
of
Chinese writing is called the oracle bone script, used from 1500 to 1000 BCE. This script was etched onto turtle shells and animals bones, which were then heated until cracks would appear. By interpretating the pattern of the cracks, Shang court officials would make divinations of future events, Night-Shining White, ca. 750 CE.
hence giving the name “oracle
Scholars have conveniently divided different
bones” to these animal bones.
styles of Chinese writing into a number of “scripts”. Jiaguwen, or Oracle Bone Script. Dazhuan, or Greater Seal. Xiaozhuan, or Lesser Seal. Lishu, or Clerkly Script. Styles of Lishu: Kaishu, or Standard Script, Xingshu, or Running Script, Caoshu,
or
Grass
Script
25
Japanese
The first ”japanese’ language
is Hiragana, which was scorned by literate men as Chinese was the “cultured”
language.
Women,
on the other hand, use hiragana primarily since they were not allowed
to
learn
the
Chinese
characters. This culminated in the Tale of Genji, the world’s first novel written by Lady Murasaki Shikibu during the Heian era (795-
(Above) Hokusai Sketchbooks, volume 4 (Denshin kaishu: Hokusai manga, yonhen), ca. 1615–1868 CE.
1192). However, this gender-based
(left) Letter to the Monk Jōjūbō, ca. 1221 CE.
segregation of literacy eventually dissolved
and
hiragana
was
became an accepted literary script.
Katakana, which has its origin
as a pronunciation aid for Chinese Buddhist scriptures, is another japanese language. Over time it came to be used to write grammatical suffixes, particles and postpositions, while kanji remained the original form, or root, of the word. In modern times, katakana has come to be used to write non-Chinese loan words.
26
Writing came to Japan from China during the 5th century CE. The first Japanese
texts were written in Chinese characters (kanji), a system called kanbun (which simply means “Chinese Writing�). However, writing in Chinese became very awkward as the grammatical syntax of the Japanese language is considerably different from Chinese. The solution to this problem is to keep the Chinese characters but use Japanese grammar.
The next problem is that Chinese is an isolating language, which led to a
writing system where each sign represented a morpheme. The Japanese language, on the other hand, has inflected verbs and postpositions, requiring concatenation of suffixes and particles to words and clauses in a sentence. So, in order to represent these extra grammatical units, the Japanese scribes used certain Chinese characters for their sound values. This means that the system was ambiguous, as it was hard to tell whether a character was to be interpreted as a logogram or a phonetic sign.
Japanese writing contains about a thousand Chinese characters, or
kanji, to write words (both native Japanese and Chinese loans). Often times, Japanese names (personal, geographical, etc) are written completely in kanji. NigatsudĹ? Burned Sutra, ca. 744 CE
27
Korean
Due to its proximity to China, it is
no surprise that writing in the Korean peninsula
started
with
Classical
Chinese. Like Latin in Medieval Europe, Classical Chinese had tremendous prestige and was employed in official and literary context. The earliest writing in Korean was an adaption of Chinese characters (called hanja) to write Korean in a system called ido. Certain Chinese characters were adapted for their sound values, whereas others for their meanings. However, often times the same character isused both for sound as well as meaning. which leads to an ambiguous system.
The Korean consonants /p/, /t/, /k/, and /ch/ have a three-way phonetic
differentiation: (Single consonant: p, t, k, ch. Unaspirated (or only slightly aspirated) and voiceless everywhere except between two vowels where it is voiced.) (Consonant followed by an apostrophe, p’, t’, k’, ch’. Aspirated (pronounced with a puff of air)) (Double consonant, pp, tt, kk, jj. Glottalized, meaning that you tense up your throat at the same time you’re pronouncing the consonant.) (Above) Bamboo in the wind, ca. 17th century CE.
28
Hangul was used side by side with hanja characters in South Korea,
like the mixture of kanji and hiragana in Japanese. However, gradually Hangul became the dominant script to write Korean, with hanja characters falling almost completely out of use by the 21st century CE. Similarly, North Korea has also completely abandoned all Chinese characters and use exclusively Hangul, albeit in a more abrupt, government-mandated switch.
(Above) Illustrated Manuscript of the Lotus Sutra, ca. 1340 CE.
29
Sources
Shanks, . Jerusalem Besieged. N.p.: n.p., 1996. Print. Met Historical Organization. Met museum. N.p., 2000. Web. 17 Feb. 2016. Ancient Scripts. N.p., 1996. Web. 17 Feb. 2016. Wikipedia. N.p., 2003. Web. 17 Feb. 2016 “Egypt Ancient, Hieroglyphics.” Egypt Ancient, Hieroglyphics. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. Brunner, Hellmut. “Hieroglyphic Writing.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, 2009. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. “Persian Online – Grammar & Resources » The Old Persian Script.” Persian Online – Grammar & Resources » The Old Persian Script. University of Texas, 2007. Web. 18 Feb. 2016. Sundberg, Paul. “Ancient Texts Relating to the Bible: El-Kerak.” Ancient Texts Relating to the Bible: El-Kerak. 2000. Web. 18 Feb. 2016.
31