| | Featured Article
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 Neolithic of the late 4th millennium BCE. The first writing system is generally believed to have been invented in Sumer, by the late 3rd millennium developing into the archaic cuneiform of the Ur III stage. Contemporaneously, the Proto-Elamite script developed into Linear Elamite.
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.
Copyright © 2005 Excellent Articles on All Books. All rights reserved. |
| |