History of writing

The history of writing encompass the various writing systems that evolved in the Early Bronze Age (late 4th millennium BCE) out of neolithic proto-writing.

Proto-writing

See also: History of communication

File:Tartaria tablets.png

The Tărtăria tablets

File:China-writing.png

Writing-like markings on tortoise shells discovered in modern China were dated ca 6600 BCE.

The early writing systems of the late 4th millennium BCE were not a sudden invention. Rather, they were based on ancient traditions of symbol systems that cannot be classified as writing proper, but have many characteristics strikingly reminiscent of writing. These systems may be described as proto-writing and were ideographic and/or early mnemonic symbols that were able to convey information, but they are probably devoid of linguistic content. These systems emerged in the early Neolithic period, as early as the 7th millennium BCE, if not earlier (Kamyana Mohyla).

Notably the Vinča signs show an evolution of simple symbols beginning in the 7th millennium, gradually increasing in complexity throughout the 6th millennium and culminating in the Tărtăria tablets of the 5th millennium with their rows of symbols carefully aligned, evoking the impression of a "text". The hieroglyphic scripts of the Ancient Near East (Egyptian, Sumerian proto-Cuneiform and Cretan) seamlessly emerge from such symbol systems, so that it is difficult to say, already because very little is known about the symbols' meanings, at what point precisely writing emerges from proto-writing.

In 2003, 7th millennium BCE radiocarbon dated symbols Jiahu Script carved into tortoise shells were discovered in China. The shells were found buried with human remains in 24 Neolithic graves unearthed at Jiahu, Henan province, northern China. According to some archaeologists, the writing on the shells had similarities to the 2nd millennium BCE Oracle bone script.; others, however, have dismissed this claim as insufficiently substantiated, claiming that simple geometric designs such as those found on the Jiahu Shells, cannot be linked to early writing. The 4th millennium BCE Indus script may similarly constitute proto-writing, possibly already influenced by the emergence of writing in Mesopotamia.

The "Slavic runes" mentioned by a few medieval authors may also have been a system of proto-writing. The Quipu of the Incas may have been of a a similar nature. A historical example is the system of pictographs invented by Uyaquk before he developed the Yugtun syllabary.

Invention of writing

The oldest-known forms of writing were primarily logographic in nature, based on pictographic and ideographic elements. Most writing systems can be broadly divided into three categories: logographic, syllabic and alphabetic (or segmental); however, all three may be found in any given writing system in varying proportions, often making it difficult to categorise a system uniquely.

The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age in the late 4th millennium BCE in Sumer, developing into the archaic cuneiform of the Ur III stage.

The development of Egyptian hieroglyphs is also parallel to that of the Mesopotamian scripts, and not necessarily independent. The Egyptian proto-hieroglyphic symbol system develops into archaic hieroglyphs by 3200 BCE (Narmer Palette) and more widespread literacy by the mid 3rd millennium (Pyramid Texts).

The Indus script develops over the course of the 3rd millennium, either as a form of proto-writing, or already an archaic mode of writing, but its evolution was cut short by the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization around 1900 BCE.

The Chinese script may have originated independently of the Middle Eastern scripts, around the 16th century BCE (early Shang Dynasty), out of a late neolithic Chinese system of proto-writing dating back to c. 6000 BCE.

The pre-Columbian writing systems of the Americas (including Olmec and Mayan) also had independent origins.

Almost all known writing systems of the world today are ultimately descended from writing developed either in Sumer - see Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic - or in China. Notable exceptions include the Mayan hieroglyphs of Mesoamerica (developing from ca. the 3rd century BCE), and possibly Rongorongo of Easter Island.

Bronze Age writing

Further information: [[:History of the alphabet]]

Writing emerged in a variety of different cultures in the Bronze age.

Cuneiform script

Middle Babylonian legal tablet from Alalah in its envelope

Main article: Cuneiform script

The original Sumerian writing system was derived from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BCE, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, using a round-shaped stylus impressed into soft clay at different angles for recording numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced about 2700-2500 BCE by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), at first only for logograms, but developed to include phonetic elements by the 29th century BCE. About 2600 BCE cuneiform began to represent syllables of the Sumerian language. Finally, cuneiform writing became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers. From the 26th century BCE, this script was adapted to the Akkadian language, and from there to others such as Hurrian, and Hittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian.

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Main article: Egyptian hieroglyphs

Writing was very important in maintaining the Egyptian empire, and literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of scribes. Only people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train to become scribes, in the service of temple, pharaonic, and military authorities. The hieroglyph system was always difficult to learn, but in later centuries was purposely made even more so, as this preserved the scribes' position.

Chinese writing

Main article: Chinese writing

In China historians have found out a lot about the early Chinese dynasties from the written documents left behind. From the Shang Dynasty most of this writing has survived on bones or bronze implements. Markings on turtle shells, or jiaguwen, have been carbon-dated to around 1500 BCE. Historians have found that the type of media used had an effect on what the writing was documenting and how it was used.

There have recently been discoveries of tortoise-shell carvings dating back to c. 6000 BCE, like Jiahu Script, Banpo Script, but whether or not the carvings are of sufficient complexity to qualify as writing is under debate. If it is deemed to be a written language, writing in China will predate Mesopotamian cuneiform, long acknowledged as the first appearance of writing, by some 2000 years, however it is more likely that the inscriptions are rather a form of proto-writing, similar to the contemporary European Vinca script. Undisputed evidence of writing in China dates from ca. 1600 BCE.

Elamite scripts

Main article: Proto-Elamite script

The undeciphered Proto-Elamite script emerges from as early as 3200 BCE and evolves into Linear Elamite by the later 3rd millennium, which is then replaced by Elamite Cuneiform adopted from Akkadian.

Anatolian hieroglyphs

Main article: Anatolian hieroglyphs

Anatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenous hieroglyphic script native to western Anatolia first appears on Luwian royal seals, from ca. the 20th century BCE, used to record the Hieroglyphic Luwian language.

Cretan scripts

Main articles: Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B

Cretan hieroglyphs are found on artifacts of Minoan Crete (early to mid 2nd millennium BCE, MM I to MM III, overlapping with Linear A from MM IIA at the earliest). They remain undeciphered.

Early Semitic alphabets

Main article: Middle Bronze Age alphabets

The first pure alphabets (properly, "abjads", mapping single symbols to single phonemes, but not necessarily each phoneme to a symbol) emerged around 1800 BCE in Ancient Egypt, as a representation of language developed by Semitic workers in Egypt, but by then alphabetic principles had a slight possibility of being inculcated into Egyptian hieroglyphs for upwards of a millennium. These early abjads remained of marginal importance for several centuries, and it is only towards the end of the Bronze Age that the Proto-Sinaitic script splits into the Proto-Canaanite alphabet (ca. 1400 BCE) Byblos syllabary and the South Arabian alphabet (ca. 1200 BCE). The Proto-Canaanite was probably somehow influenced by the undeciphered Byblos syllabary and in turn inspired the Ugaritic alphabet (ca. 1300 BCE).

Indus script

Main article: Indus script

The Middle Bronze Age Indus script which dates back to the early Harrapan phase of around 3000BCE has not yet been deciphered. It is unclear whether it should be considered an example of proto-writing (a system of symbols or similar), or if it is actual writing of the logographic-syllabic type of the other Bronze Age writing systems.

Iron Age and the rise of alphabetic writing

Main article: History of the alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet is simply the Proto-Canaanite alphabet as it was continued into the Iron Age (conventionally taken from a cut-off date of 1050 BCE). This alphabet gave rise to the Aramaic and Greek, as well as, likely via Greek transmission, to various Anatolian and Old Italic (including the Latin) alphabets in the 8th century BCE. The Greek alphabet for the first time introduces vowel signs. The Brahmic family of India probably originated via Aramaic contacts from ca. the 5th century BCE. The Greek and Latin alphabets in the early centuries of the Common Era gave rise to several European scripts such as the Runes and the Gothic and Cyrillic alphabets while the Aramaic alphabet evolved into the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic abjads and the South Arabian alphabet gave rise to the Ge'ez abugida.

Meanwhile, the Japanese script was derived from the Chinese from ca. the 4th century CE.

Writing and historicity

Historians draw a distinction between prehistory and history, with history defined by the presence of autochthonous written sources. The emergence of writing in a given area is usually followed by several centuries of fragmentary inscriptions that cannot be included in the "historical" period, and only the presence of coherent texts (see early literature) marks "historicity". In the early literate societies, as much as 600 years passed from the first inscriptions to the first coherent textual sources (ca. 3200 to 2600 BCE). In the case of Italy, about 500 years passed from the early Old Italic alphabet to Plautus (750 to 250 BCE), and in the case of the Germanic peoples, the corresponding time span is again similar, from the first Elder Futhark inscriptions to early texts like the Abrogans (ca. 200 to 750 CE).

See also

• Palaeography
• Cuneiform script
• History of the alphabet
• History of communication
• Writing
• History of writing numbers
• List of languages by first written accounts
• Early literature
• Oral tradition
• Oral literature

Further reading

• Saggs, H., 1991. Civilization Before Greece and Rome Yale University Press. Chapter 4.
• Hoffman, Joel M. 2004. In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language. New York University Press. Chapter 3.
• Hans J. Nissen, P. Damerow, R. Englund, Archaic Bookkeeping, University of Chicago Press, 1993, ISBN 0-226-58659-6.
• Denise Schmandt-Besserat    HomePage, How Writing Came About, University of Texas Press, 1992, ISBN 0-292-77704-3.
• Steven R. Fischer A History of Writing, Reaktion Books 2005 CN136481

External links

• BBC on tortoise shells discovered in China
• Fragments of pottery discovered in modern Pakistan
• Egyptian hieroglyphs c. 3000 BCE
• Denise Schmandt-Besserat  HomePage
• Children of the Code: A Brief History of Writing - Online Video
• Scriptorium Bulletin Board — A forum devoted to writing systems