The history of writing

If you've got five minutes to spare, you might like to look at a short BBC video (or slideshow, rather) on the history of writing and alphabets, narrated by Dr James Clackson from the Classics department of Cambridge University. We are shown examples of writing dating back thousands of years - from Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), Ugarit (present-day Syria), China, ancient Egypt and Central America (the Mayan civilisation) - as well as the more recent Latin and Greek alphabets.

 

The video includes pictures of baked clay tablets from Mesopotamia with the earliest (5,000 years ago) proto-writing (literally 'approaching writing') -- figures and drawings, rather than letters as such. These tablets were often used for accounting purposes - to record how much barley someone had, for instance. The video then jumps 2000 years to show examples of cuneiform (wedge-shaped) writing written on basalt stone. The Ugarit script looks cuneiform in style, but it consists of far fewer symbols than previously, an indication that an alphabet is being formed rather than a situation where a symbol represents a whole word or phrase.

 

In China the earliest examples of writing are complete sentences written on pieces of bone. Then, Mayan glyphs, including examples written on a cocoa cup, can be seen. There are also slides of Egyptian hieroglyphs written on papyrus. The first alphabet to have signs for vowels was the Greek alphabet. This alphabet was borrowed by the Romans, and that is what we use today (those of us who speak a language that uses the Latin alphabet, like English).

 

The slideshow, with narration, is here.

Comments

[Fran]

That was really interesting. Thanks. I guess I ought to know all of that, being an English teacher, but it's not often we get called on to demonstrate cuneiform.

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks, Fran. Yes, it is interesting. I don't know anyone who learnt about it at school or university, though, which is a shame.

[John]

Fascinating. I wonder why some cultures evolved alphabets and others ideograms. Any thoughts?

And...how does one spell "earthquake" in cuneiform?

[Virtual Linguist]

Thanks, John. I'm not sure, I'm afraid. Taking Chinese as an example, one suggestion is that originally all words were monosyllabic. Since many short words sounded similar, or identical, the written form was needed to distinguish them. Another suggestion is that the Chinese always attached greater weight to writing, and wanted to maintain the connection with history.

I got sidetracked looking up the answer to your question - although it was certainly fascinating. Several scholars have seen a connection between the writing processes used by a nation or civilisation, and its thought processes - using an alphabetic system leads to logic and science, for instance. Google the Soviet psychologist Luria and 'alphabet', for instance.

Oh dear, we got the news here about the earthquake on the east coast of the USA. Hope everything is ok where you are.

[John]

Thanks for the response. I've always wondered if the answer involved cultural influence on left brain, right brain dominance, hence driving image-based vs alphabet-based systems.

Yes everyone I know, including all 3 of my kids in the DC area, are fine. Thanks for asking.

[Gianmarco Lorenzi Platform]

Very, very nicely done!