Writing

INTRODUCTION

 Writing is a system of graphic marks representing the units of a specific language - has been invented independently in the Near East, China and Mesoamerica. The cuneiform script, created in Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq, ca. 3200 BC, was first. It is also the only writing system which can be traced to its earliest prehistoric origin. This antecedent of the cuneiform script was a system of counting and recording goods with clay tokens. The evolution of writing from tokens to pictography, syllabary and alphabet illustrates the development of information processing to deal with larger amounts of data in ever greater abstraction. The three writing systems that developed independently in the Near East, China and Mesoamerica, shared a remarkable stability. Each preserved over millennia features characteristic of their original prototypes. The Mesopotamian cuneiform script can be traced furthest back into prehistory to an eighth millennium BC counting system using clay tokens of multiple shapes. The development from tokens to script reveals that writing emerged from counting and accounting.

Stages which show the progress of writings

1.      Tokens as Precursor of Writing

The direct antecedent of the Mesopotamian script was a recording device consisting of clay tokens of multiple shapes. The artifacts, mostly of geometric forms such as cones, spheres, disks, cylinders and ovoids, are recovered in archaeological sites dating 8000–3000. The tokens, used as counters to keep track of goods, were the earliest code a system of signs for transmitting information. Each token shape was semantic, referring to a particular unit of merchandise. For example, a cone and a sphere stood respectively for a small and a large measure of grain, and ovoids represented jars of oil. The token system had little in common with spoken language except that, like a word, a token stood for one concept. Unlike speech, tokens were restricted to one type of information only, namely, real goods. Unlike spoken language, the token system made no use of syntax. That is to say, their meaning was independent of their placement order.

2.      Pictography writing as accounting device

After four millennia, the token system led to writing. The transition from counters to script took place simultaneously in Sumer and Elam, present-day western Iran when, around 3500 BC, Elam was under Sumerian domination. It occurred when tokens, probably representing a debt, were stored in envelopes until payment. Pictographs signs representing tokens traced with a stylus rather than impressed appeared about 3100 BC. These pictographs referring to goods mark an important step in the evolution of writing because they were never repeated in one to one correspondence to express numerosity. Besides them, numerals signs representing plurality indicated the quantity of units recorded. For example, 33 jars of oil were shown by the incised pictographic sign ‘jar of oil.

3.       Logography shift from visual to aural

 About 3000 BC, the creation of phonetic signs representing the sounds of speech marks the second phase in the evolution of Mesopotamian writing, when, finally, the medium parted from its token antecedent in order to emulate spoken language. As a result, writing shifted from a conceptual framework of real goods to the world of speech sounds. It shifted from the visual to the aural world. With state formation, new regulations required that the names of the individuals who generated or received registered merchandise were entered on the tablets. The personal names were transcribed by the mean of logograms signs representing a word in a particular tongue. Logograms were easily drawn pictures of words with a sound close to that desired, for example in English the name Neil could be written with a sign showing bent knees ‘kneel. Because Sumerian was mostly a monosyllabic language, the logograms had a syllabic value. A syllable is a unit of spoken language consisting of one or more vowel sounds, alone, or with one or more consonants. When a name required several phonetic units, they were assembled in a rebus fashion. A typical Sumerian name ‘An Gives Life’ combined a star, the logogram for an, god of 7 heavens, and an arrow, because the words for ‘arrow’ and ‘life’ were homonyms. The verb was not transcribed, but inferred, which was easy because the name was common.

4.      The alphabet the segmentation of sounds

The invention of the alphabet about 1500 BC ushered in the third phase in the evolution of writing in the ancient Near East (Sass 2005). The first, so-called Proto Sinaitic or ProtoCanaanite 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 2009). This earliest alphabet was a complete departure from the previous syllabaries. First, the system was based on acrophony signs to represent the first letter of the word they stood for for example an ox head (alpu) was ‘a,’ a house (betu) was b. 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 and others. Third, it streamlined the system to 22 signs, instead of several hundred.

5.      The modern alphabets

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 11 (Bonfante 2002). The Etruscans, who occupied the present province of Tuscany in Italy, adopted the Greek alphabet, slightly modifying the shape of letters. In turn, the Etruscan alphabet became that of the Romans, when Rome conquered Etruria in the first century BC. 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. This was the case for the Gauls, Angles, Saxons, Franks and Germans who inhabited present-day France, England and Germany. Charlemagne (800 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 1450 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.

CONCLUSION

The origin of the Chinese script and the development of Mesoamerican writing are still obscure. The Mesopotamian script, however, offers a well-documented evolution over a continuous period of 10,000 years. The system underwent drastic changes in form, gradually transcribed spoken language more accurately, and handled data in more abstract terms. Finally, when the last clay tablet was written in 13 the Near East, c. 300 AD, the cuneiform script had been in use for three millennia. It replaced an age-old token system that had preceded it for over 5000 years; it was replaced by the alphabet, which we have now used for 3500 years

REFERENCES

Bagley, R. W. (2004). Anyang writing and the Origin of the Chinese writing system. In S.D. Houston (Ed.). The First Writing (pp. 190-249). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Rogers, H. (2005). Writing Systems, A Linguistic Approach. London: Blackwell.

Sass, B. (2005). The Alphabet at the Turn of the Millennium, The West Semitic Alphabet ca. 1150-850 BC - The Antiquity of the Arabian, Greek and Phrygian Alphabets, Tel Aviv: Tel Aviv University