Have you ever wondered how writing began? The words, alphabets, numbers? Most epigraphers and paleographers agree that the historical evolution of writing occurred in basically four stages 1. Ideographic 2. Logographic 3. Syllabic 4. Alphabetic. The development of writing is unidirectional. Meaning that it will pass through the above four stages in that order and no other. No system of writing can begin naturally with the syllabic stage or alphabet stage. No writing system ever studied has skipped through a stage.
The ideographic stage is basically composed of pictures and readily symbols, designed so that the message will be obvious. This state says there is no relationship between what is written and how actually speech sounds. In the logographic stage each written sign stands for an actual word in the spoken language maintaining basically a one-to-one relationship to the spoken words. If one wanted to say “tree”, a picture or a symbol of a tree would be enough. Now we arrive at the next major stage the syllabic. This vital step occurred when complex words were “sounded out” using separate signs. In this stage each sign represents a single syllable consonantal sound followed by vowel sounds, and on occasion ending with another consonantal sound. Last the alphabetic stage of writing. It is to the Greeks that the credit must go for the invention of a true alphabet. Since the additions of a few more signs that represent true vowel-sounds, which enabled them to follow each initial consonantal sound with the appropriate vowel-sound accomplishing the final result of a single character for every single sound, this is the definition of a true alphabet.
The first forms of writing are result of the ancient Sumerian and Egyptian civi...
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...et, any word can be communicated in writing. We may have our way on our own thoughts and how we do communicate but all of that we can do came from the imagination of the Sumerians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, and Greeks.
Works Cited
R. Cedric Leonard “The Evolution of Writing” http://www.atlantisquest.com/evolution.html
Senner, Wayne, Ed. The Origins of Writing. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1989.
Ullman, B.J. Ancient Writing and its Influence: Our Debt to Greece and Rome. New York: Cooper Square Publishers, Inc., 1963.
Woodard, Roger D. Greek writing from Knossos to Homer: A linguistic interpretation of the origin of the Greek alphabet and the continuity of ancient Greek literacy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Peters, John P. “Notes on Recent Theories of the Origin of the Alphabet.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 1901
Rengakos, Antonios. Homertext und die Hellenistichen Dichter. Hermes. Einzelschriften, Heft 64. Stuttgart, F. Steiner, 1993.
Dillon, Mathew, and Garland, Lynda. Ancient Greece: Social and Historical Documents from Archaic Times to the Death of Socrates. Routledge International Thompson Publishing Company, 1994, pp. 179-215
Burckhardt, Jacob, The Greeks and Greek Civilization, St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Ave, New York, NY 10010, 1998.
Rengakos, Antonios. Homertext und die Hellenistichen Dichter. Hermes. Einzelschriften, Heft 64. Stuttgart, F. Steiner, 1993.
Hunt, Lynn and Thomas R. Martin, Barbara H. Rosenwein and Bonnie G. Smith. “ The Greek golden age,” in the making of the west volume 1 to 1750 2012, edited by Denise B. Wydra, 75-108. Boston: Beford/St. Martin’s, 2012.
...r. "Ancient Greece." Gardner's art through the ages the western perspective. 13th ed., Backpack ed. Boston, Mass.: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010. 101, 123,129. Print.
Onians, John. Art and Thought in the Hellenistic Age: The Greek World View 350-50 B.C. London: Thames and Hudson, Ltd., 1979.
Greek classical literature is considered to be the canon of literary writing that pertains to the ancient history of Greece. Greek literature displays the classic lifestyle, culture and beliefs of the Greek race during the early portions of mainstream ancient and classical European history. Prominent Greek writers such as Thucydides, Homer, and Aristophanes produced pieces that are regarded, up to this day, as af conveyer of Greek life in the context of classical Europe. Looking deeper into their respective works, Thucydides’ History of the Peloponnesian War, Homer’s Iliad and Aristophanes’ Lysistrata all show a common theme in ancient Greek life –life in the context of war.
Homer’s The Odyssey and Virgil’s The Aeneid are both considered some of the most influential literature of ancient times. Written more than six hundred years a part it is a wonder how they have so many striking similarities. However, a look into why they were written can offer interesting insight into the history of their eras. While Homer’s The Odyssey and Virgil’s The Aeneid share many commonalities including plot and characters, they each hold respective differences. In addition to each author having a different writing style, The Aeneid is used as a form of propaganda while The Odyssey is a record of Greek myths and values.
Nardo, Don. The Ancient Greeks at Home and at Work. 1st ed. San Diego, CA: Lucent, 2004. Print.
Robin Sowerby, The Greeks: An Introduction To Their Culture. Published in 1995 by Routledge Publishers.
Humans have been using written language to communicate ideas with one another since as early as 3200 BCE in Mesopotamia. Since then, every great civilization has had a written language, each with its own unique characteristics. However, it was the writin...
civilization. They started the Olympic games. Greeks come up with the idea of an alphabet
Atchity, Kenneth John., and Rosemary McKenna. The Classical Greek Reader. New York: Henry Holt, 1996. Print.
The first symbol pictures "gal," or "great," and the second pictures "lu," or "man." Eventually, this pictorial writing developed into a more abstract series of wedges and hooks. These wedges and hooks are the original cuneiform and represented in Sumerian entire words (this is called ideographic and the word symbols are called ideograms, which means "concept writing"); the Semites who adopted this writing, however, spoke an entirely different language, in fact, a language as different from Sumerian as English is different from Japanese. In order to adapt this foreign writing to a Semitic language, the Akkadians converted it in part to a syllabic writing system; individual signs represent entire syllables. However, in addition to syllable symbols, some cuneiform symbols are ideograms ("picture words") representing an entire word; these ideograms might also, in other contexts, be simply syllables. For instance, in Assyrian, the cuneiform for the syllable "ki" is written.