Along with Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A is one of the first European writing systems. Since not much is known about either Linear A or Cretan hieroglyphs, they could have been part of the same writing system even though the scripts look very different. In addition to being possibly related to Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A looks similar to Linear B, which was used by the Mycenaean Greeks.
However, after comparing both languages, linguists concluded that Linear A does not represent a known Greek language. Cretan hieroglyphs was the earliest writing system used by the Minoans, who are considered the first literate culture of Europe. Not much is known about Cretan hieroglyphs and the language has not been deciphered although its been extensively studied. The reason Cretan hieroglyphs have not been translated is because the few known examples of the text are very short.
Cretan hieroglyphs most often appeared on clay seals, which most likely showed the names of the people who owned the objects that the seals are on. Most of the known Cretan hieroglyphs appear to be pictographic and ornamental, but a few examples contain more linear text — this has only added to the difficulty of deciphering Cretan hieroglyphs. In addition to being undeciphered, it is not known what spoken language Cretan hieroglyphs represented.
Elamite cuneiform was directly influenced by Akkadian cuneiform, but was not as complex and used less symbols.
There are two variants of Elamaite cuneiform, the one derived from Akkadian, which was used from the 3 rd to 2 nd millennia BCE and the simplified form used in the 1 st millennium BCE. Both variations of Elamite cuneiform are similar, but the simplified form used fewer scripts. Compared to Akkadian cuneiform, which had hundreds of different symbols, Elamite cuneiform only had about to different signs.
The most famous Elamite tablets are from the Achaemenid Persian kings, which were from the late 1 st millennium BCE and were written in three languages: Old Persian, Babylonian, and Elamite. These tablets were used to decipher Elamite cuneiform. There are about 20, known Elamite tablets and fragments and they are primarily economic records. While Sumerian and Akkadian were two very different languages, the Akkadians, who lived north of the Sumerians, adopted the cuneiform writing system and eventually transformed it.
The Akkadians started using cuneiform around BCE and continued using the writing system for the next several centuries. The phonetic transcription of personal names also played an important role in the dissemination of writing to the Indus Valley where, during a period of increased contact with Mesopotamia, c. In turn, the Sumerian cuneiform syllabic script was adopted by many Near Eastern cultures who adapted it to their different linguistic families and in particular, Semitic Akkadians and Eblaites ; Indo-European Mitanni, Hittites, and Persians ; Caucasian Hurrians and Urartians ; and finally, Elamite and Kassite.
The invention of the alphabet about BC ushered in the third phase in the evolution of writing in the ancient Near East Sass The first, so-called Proto-Sinaitic or Proto-Canaanite alphabet, which originated in the region of present-day Lebanon, took advantage of the fact that the sounds of any language are few. It consisted of a set of 22 letters, each standing for a single sound of voice, which, combined in countless ways, allowed for an unprecedented flexibility for transcribing speech Powell This earliest alphabet was a complete departure from the previous syllabaries.
Second, it was consonantal—it dealt only with speech sounds characterized by constriction or closure at one or more points in the breath channel, like b, d, l, m, n, p, etc. Third, it streamlined the system to 22 signs, instead of several hundred. The transition from cuneiform writing to the alphabet in the ancient Near East took place over several centuries.
In the seventh century BC the Assyrian kings still dictated their edicts to two scribes. The first wrote Akkadian in cuneiform on a clay tablet; the second Aramaic in a cursive alphabetic script traced on a papyrus scroll. The Phoenician merchants established on the coast of present day Syria and Lebanon, played an important role in the diffusion of the alphabet.
In particular, they brought their consonantal alphabetic system to Greece, perhaps as early as, or even before BC. The Greeks perfected the Semitic alphabet by adding letters for vowels—speech sounds in the articulation of which the breath channel is not blocked, like a, e, i, o, u.
As a result the letter Greek alphabet improved the transcription of the spoken word, since all sounds were indicated. The alphabet did not subsequently undergo any fundamental change. Because the alphabet was invented only once, all the many alphabets of the world, including Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, Brahmani and Cyrillic, derive from Proto-Sinaitic.
The Latin alphabet used in the western world is the direct descendant of the Etruscan alphabet Bonfante The Etruscans, who occupied the present province of Tuscany in Italy, adopted the Greek alphabet, slightly modifying the shape of letters. The alphabet followed the Roman armies. All the nations that fell under the rule of the Roman Empire became literate in the first centuries of our era. Charlemagne AD had a profound influence on the development of the Latin script by establishing standards.
In particular a clear and legible minuscule cursive script was devised, from which our modern day lower case derives. The printing press invented in dramatically multiplied the dissemination of texts, introducing a new regularity in lettering and layout. The Internet catapults the alphabet into cyberspace, while preserving its integrity. Beyond the formal and structural changes undergone by writing in the course of millennia, its evolution also involved strides in the ability to handle data in abstraction.
At the first stage, the token system antecedent of writing, already abstracted information in several ways. First, it translated daily-life commodities into arbitrary, often geometric forms. Second, the counters abstracted the items counted from their context. For example, sheep could be accounted independently of their actual location.
Third, the token system separated the data from the knower. That is to say, a group of tokens communicated directly specific information to anyone initiated in the system. This was a significant change for an oral society, where knowledge was transmitted by word of mouth from one individual to another, face to face. Otherwise, the token system represented plurality concretely, in one-to-one correspondence. Three jars of oil were shown by three tokens, as it is in reality.
At the same time, the fact that the token system used specific counters to count different items was concrete—it did not abstract the notion of item counted from that of number. Certain English numerical expressions referring to particular sets, such as twin, triplet, quadruplet and duo, trio or quartet, are comparable to concrete numbers.
When tokens were impressed on the envelopes to indicate the counters enclosed inside, the resulting markings could no longer be manipulated by hand. In other words, the transmutation of three-dimensional counters into two-dimensional signs constituted a second step in abstraction.
By doing away with tokens, the clay tablets marked a third level of abstraction since the impressed markings no longer replicated a set of actual counters. The invention of numerals, which separated the notion of numerosity from that of the item counted, was a crucial fourth step in abstraction. The signs expressing the concept of oneness, twoness, etc. In turn, the phonetic units marked a fifth step of abstraction, since the signs no longer referred to the objects pictured, but rather the sound of the word they evoked.
Phonetics allowed writing to shift from a representational to a conceptual linguistic system. By the 5th century B. Over time, the Greek alphabet gave rise to several other alphabets, including Latin, which spread across Europe, and Cyrillic, the precursor of the modern Russian alphabet.
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Live TV. The problem was that people still had to learn Chinese first if they wanted to become literate. So the average people lived their lives in a state of illiteracy or semi-literacy for most of recorded Vietnamese history. In the 17th century, in an effort to ease pedagogy, the Catholics developed Quoc Ngu, a romanization of Vietnamese.
Thanks, Audrey! This lecture was fascinating. How languages are interconnected through writing is really interesting. Different cultures and perspectives that has led to creation of a system appropriate to a group of people and how we decode them today for better understanding their stories, all are absolutely interesting.
Another point that has caught my attention was destruction of other writing systems, as we see today, by using power. Today writing system and language of many minority groups around the world are being threatened to wipe out and neglected by powerful countries that promote languages which they believe is politically beneficial for various reasons.
Thank you for the lecture. Thanks, Soudeh! One of the key lessons of the study of literacies is that we can never ignore the relationship between language and power ….
Hi Ingrid! We are so fortunate to inherit such a fortune, such a gift from our ancestors. And there is no doubt about the importance of writing, the most visualized example of the vital role of writing i tell myself a little bit mocking and funny is that i would be so fool if there were no writing, no literacy, no schooling. Furthermore, this blog is very informative in such a way helping me know more how the writing was created, it was not just simple as what we are using nowadays.
Such a long time with the human revolution, the writing in many languages are perfect as they are. And the hard work of transmitting from oral form to written form, i share similar reflection with the time i went to Australian National Museum and Gallery, looked at the paintings and the writing of the Aboriginals, tried to understand what they mean.
And i got stuck every time i look at the painting, and i realised how hard the invention of writing would be. I mean, the process of working from oral form to visual form such as paiting and writing as it is in some languages chinese for instance , or in the first idea of writing of our ancestors, these processes share similar sense of how to figure it out.
Hi Ingrid I loved the way the week 2 lecture was embedded in so much history — I think it highlights the really interdisciplinary nature of linguistics. I found the issue of colonialism and how this has limited our knowledge of writing very interesting. Thanks, Monica! Ultimately, language sits at the heart of everything humans do.
Thank you very much for this interesting topic, I end up with this article my mind was load with a lot of important information that I know them for the first time. It is interesting to see how the writing was an important way of human connection in a way or another.
In addition, they first were just 22 letters, then they increased to 28 Arabic alphabets! Thank you Ingrid very much. Thanks, Arakah! Another fun fact about Phoenician and Arabic is that abjabs are perfectly suited to write these languages where so much word formation goes back to consonantal root words. This week has definitely inspired awe! What I find most intriguing is that writing was not only invented but it was invented independently at least three times. The fact that we are not sure about this is quite amazing in itself!
It is a sad fact of history that those who seek power and to rule others, have little regard for the cultures of those they overpower. When it comes to the destruction of writing systems such as the Spanish destroying Mayan script, we can see too however, the inherent power of literacy as conquerors feel they must strip their new subjects of it.
Thanks for the interesting lesson! Thanks, Peter! You are right that those in power have always feared the education of their subjects, and have tried to limit it in various ways, even if not always as blatantly as in the example. Hi Ingrid and everyone, Thank you for the interesting lecture. It is hard to imagine our current life without writing. We are so lucky to have everything ready use and did not realize importance of the existence of it.
Our ancestors were so smart and it is always fascinating to know originality and transformation. Your lecture reminds me of a famous old movie in my country.
For example, he symbolizes squire as a mare and if there is a dot inside the squire it is a pregnant mare if the dot is next to the squire it means mare with foal etc. I tried to upload a photo of that scene from the movie, but unsuccessful. Hi Ingrid, hi everyone! Thank you so much Ingrid for providing us with the reading last week, which sets the perfect foundation for the knowledge I gain in this post and the video. The three parts tie together incredibly well!
Before gaining such knowledge, I used to think that just like the invention of different languages, writing was developed by each community for the purpose of recording verbal communication.
Writing is indeed a valuable property of humanity, and it has definitely played a fundamental role in bringing us to where we are today. Thanks, Lilly! Thank you for presenting this interesting topic. First of all, I considered it that Japanese languages were developed from Chinese characters.
I have been reading the comic to learn Chinese history because the history of China in this era is related to make the rule for governing Japan with the language. Japan have developed as country since writing system transmitted from China. Characters used for various purpose, such as trade and commerce, but it can be said that culture, tradition, and country have been created as a major purpose. Thanks, Yuta! Good point that writing may have been invented for prosaic reasons but it certainly has become a major instrument and vehicle of civilization.
Thank you, Ingrid, for yet another very fascinating read! It is really eye-opening to see the path that the written language has taken. In all honesty, I was not aware of the exact origins of the written language, even though I have heard the word Mesopotamia said a few times over the years.
Being of Greek origin, and knowing a thing or two about Linear B, it always amazes me how interconnected all languages are through the written form. One language borrows from another, then creates a totally new language, all of which giving some credit, where needed, to the original origins. Nevertheless, no matter how old you become, or how long you have been studying, you always learn something new every day that passes. Although I almost type or write every day, I never consider the situation without writing system.
I found that I know too little about ancient literature, they are not only language expression, but also an artistic heritage. I feel very honored to be able to see the text content left over generations, and it is a pity for the disappeared language that we have never seen before.
Thanks, Han! Thank you for giving me an opportunity to read such an interesting article. Through this article, I learnt how different written languages were developed. After that, Japanese ancestors created Hiragana and Katakana by referring to Kanji to make Japanese language easier, and these three type of Japanese still exist. This is really interesting that Katakana and Hiragana are also somehow derived from Chinese characters, even though they look totally different. Thanks, Kyohei! First of all thank you Ingrid for a well presented academic lecture on the topic of early invention of writing.
It was interesting to learn about where writing was first invented, why it was invented and how. It was an early form of information technology that was invented for the purpose of record keeping, like an excel spreadsheet now! It completely make sense when we see the early form of writing as a pictogram for the purpose of trade and commerce drawn on the walls of the caves.
It would be worth to learn about the differences in writing systems in different languages as for example, Roman, Greek, Chinese, Egyptians etc. As for example, in early years of English acquisition,to develop writing skill, we start teaching from letters as signs that represent a particular sound.
And for word formation we teach sound out technique and then say the sound, visualise the letters corresponding to the sound and then write it. In Chinese as each letter represent a character or as it is defined as Logogram, it must be different technique to teach the art of writing.
It would be interesting to know more about this. Thanks, Nusrat! How to best teach English spelling, which is a combination of alphabet and logographic writing, is the million dollar question …. Hi Ingrid, such an interesting topic. In each week, your lecture makes me be interested more and more in literacy. Therefore, this is the reason why people in each society have invented the writing and the writing has a revolution and improved continually in each generation of that society following their cultural society.
Thank you again for your attractive topic. Thanks, Chalermkwan! As you stated, it is curious how one might think writing was invented because of the urge to maintain stories and culture in general for generations to come. In all honesty, I used to be part of that crowd until moments ago.
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