History of writing

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

Proto-writing

See also: History of communication

File:Tartaria tablets.png

The Tărtăria tablets

Writing-like markings on tortoise shells discovered in modern Jiahu China were dated about 6000 BC. Example of the Jiahu symbols

The early writing systems of the late 4th millennium BC are not considered 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 used ideographic and/or early mnemonic symbols that were able to convey information, but were probably devoid of direct linguistic content. These systems emerged in the early Neolithic period, as early as the 7th millennium BC, 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 Dispilio Tablet of the late 6th millennium is similar. 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.

Further information: Neolithic signs in China

In 2003, 6th millennium BC 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 BC 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 BC 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 (sometimes called "talking knots") may have been of a similar nature. A historical example is the system of pictographs invented by Uyaquk before he developed the Yugtun syllabary.

Invention of writing

File:LimestoneKishTablet.jpg

Sumerian "Kish tablet", ca. 3500 BC, Kish

Ancient Egyptian Narmer Palette, ca. 3100 BC, Hierakonpolis

By definition, history begins with written records; evidence of human culture without writing is the realm of prehistory (see Writing and historicity, below). However, the "origin of writing is no longer a mystery."

The evolution of writing was a process involving economic practice and necessity in the Ancient Near East. Archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat determined the link between previously uncategorized clay "tokens" and the first known writing, proto-cuneiform. The clay tokens were used to represent commodities, and perhaps even units of time spent in labor, and their number and type became more complex as civilization advanced. A degree of complexity was reached when over a hundred different kinds of tokens had to be accounted for, and tokens were wrapped and fired in clay, with markings to indicate the kind of tokens inside. These markings soon replaced the tokens themselves, and the clay envelopes were demonstrably the prototype for clay writing tablets.

The original Mesopotamian writing system (ca. 3500 BC) derives from this method of keeping accounts, and by the end of the 4th millennium BC, had evolved into using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay ("cuneiform" writing). Thus the invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age in the last half of the 4th millennium BC in Sumer.

The earliest forms of writing were logographic in nature, based on pictographic and ideographic elements. However, by the middle of the 3rd millennium BC, the Sumerians had developed a syllabic adjunct to their script, reflecting the phonology and syntax of the spoken Sumerian language. This logo-syllabic script was soon adopted by Akkadian and Eblaite speakers for their own languages, and later by Hittite and Ugaritic speakers.

While it is possible that Egyptian writing is an example of trans-cultural diffusion from their trading partners in Mesopotamia, the Egyptians did not borrow Mesopotamian written symbols. Instead, they used their own artistic iconography. Archaic Egyptian hieroglyphs are attested in the 3100-BC Narmer Palette, and more widespread literacy appears by the mid 3rd millennium (the Pyramid Texts). In southern Egypt, Günter Dreyer discovered records of linen and oil deliveries which have been carbon-dated to between 3300 BCE and 3200 BCE, predating the Dynastic Period. This find challenges the prevailing view that the first people to write were the Sumerians of Mesopotamia (modern-day Iraq) sometime before 3000 BCE.

An undeciphered logographic Proto-Elamite script also emerged at this time, and evolved into Linear Elamite by the late 3rd millennium, which in turn was replaced by cuneiform adopted from Akkadian.

The Indus "script" appeared ca. 2600 BC and outlasted the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization around 1700 BC.[1] However, all records are extremely short, and it is not clear that it was a true writing system.

The Chinese script, dating from around the 12th century BC (late Shang Dynasty) was graphically independent of the Middle Eastern scripts, though as with the case of Egyptian, trans-cultural diffusion may have played a role.

The pre-Columbian scripts dating from ca. the 3rd century BC in Mesoamerica, of which only Mayan is known to have been true writing, had independent origins from the Old World. If rongorongo of Easter Island was a true script, it was likely also an independent development.

Almost all writing systems in use in the world today are ultimately descended either from the Chinese script or from the Egyptian-derived Semitic alphabets (see Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic).

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 derives from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, 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 BC 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 BC. About 2600 BC 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 BC, 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 BC. 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 BC, 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 BC.

Elamite scripts

Main article: Proto-Elamite script

The undeciphered Proto-Elamite script emerges from as early as 3200 BC 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 BC, 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 BC, MM I to MM III, overlapping with Linear A from MM IIA at the earliest). Linear B has been deciphered while Linear A has yet to be deciphered.

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 BC 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 BC) Byblos syllabary and the South Arabian alphabet (ca. 1200 BC). The Proto-Canaanite was probably somehow influenced by the undeciphered Byblos syllabary and in turn inspired the Ugaritic alphabet (ca. 1300 BC).

Indus script

Main article: Indus script

The Middle Bronze Age Indus script which dates back to the early Harrapan phase of around 3000 BC 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. Sir Mortimer Wheeler recognises the style of writing as boustrophedon, where "this stability suggests a precarious maturity".

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 BC). 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 BC. 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 BC. 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.

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 BC). In the case of Italy, about 500 years passed from the early Old Italic alphabet to Plautus (750 to 250 BC), 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

• Asemic writing
• Palaeography
• 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 BC
• Denise Schmandt-Besserat  HomePage
• Children of the Code: A Brief History of Writing - Online Video
• Scriptorium Bulletin Board — A forum devoted to writing systems