Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
history of writing
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: history of writing
Writing systems- Cuneiform and Hieroglyphs
During the Mesopotamia and Egypt times the writing systems were both similar by representing with pictures, this system was conveyed by anything other than simple nouns, and became increasingly abstract as it becomes more of an abstract concept. Cuneiform was the world’s earliest writing that was created by the Mesopotamia’s in Sumer. Cuneiform was known to develop between 3,300 and 3,200 BCE. The writing system function was both phonetically and semantically, rather than representing only from the pictures.
Mesopotamia used cuneiform to communicate information about their crops and about taxes. Daily events, trade, astronomy, and literature were scribed onto clay tablets. According to the website
Writing is perhaps the most important building block of communication - after verbal speech, of course. Writing, like most of human civilization, has its roots in ancient Mesopotamia. The first writing systems began in a style known as cuneiform (Cuneiform, 2013). These wedge-shaped markings have their roots in Sumerian culture and were used predominantly for record keeping and accounting. At the archaeological site of Uruk in what is modern day Iraq, a great wealth of knowledge has been gained from the artifacts located there. Uruk was a ceremonial site and is home to the world’s oldest known documented written documents (Price and Feinman, 2013). The documents discovered list quantities of goods that may have been stored at Uruk, leading archaeologists to believe that writing in this part of the world was developed primarily to keep lists of transactions and stockpiled quantities of goods located at the site.
In chapter one of History begins at Sumer, Kramer states how the “Sumerian school was a direct outgrowth of the invention and development of the cuneiform system” (p.3) Essentially, the Sumerian’s were the first complex society to introduce a form of writing. It is a known fact that in modern America the people do not communicate writing by forms and variations of pictographs, but with an alphabetical system. The alphabet that is used today has evolved from what the ancient Sumerians had invented at the end of the third millennium B.C. However, the alphabet is only a stepping-stone to one of the many connections Kramer states is similar between modern times and the ancient Sumerians. According to History begins at Sumer, their writing system was a bridge to their school system. The original goal of the Sumerian school was to train the scribes. Yet, the Sumerian school was also the center of creative writing. The Sumerian school therefore, in a sense, ...
To start out, the Sumerians invented cuneiform, which had a major impact on the future. It was invented 5,000 years ago (Doc. 1). They used it to keep records about their crops, business dealings, and occasionally love letters (OI). They also used cuneiform to write myths (OI). Cuneiform was written on clay tablets, then baked
Cuneiform writing was an important part of history. Developing around 3500 BCE in Sumeria, this form of writing is still relevant in modern day life because it was the first form of written history and the first form of a phonogram, which caused writing to change from logograms to phonograms. Logograms are symbols that are drawn to show meaning, using the symbols to “paint a picture” while phonograms are words that have a “sound” to them. Starting as a pictograph, which means that pictures are used as symbols to tell a story, the language slowly evolved into a ideograph, which is when two symbols are put together to form an idea, this slowly evolved into what it ended as, a phonogram. Cuneiform writing also h...
Pearce wrote volume 1 on the Adaptation of Akkadian into Cuneiform for Towson University. This was part of her Colonial Academic Alliance Undergraduate Research Journal. Throughout her journal, she emphasized how the Sumerians tried to adapt to Akkadian. Akkadian is one of the two languages that belonged to the East Semitic language family and one of the best to rattest Semitic languages. The earliest attest phase of Akkadian is called Old Akkadian, used around 2350 BCE. It was written in cuneiform based on the rebus principle style writing and had been used to write Semitic and non-Sumerian names for centuries. Cuneiform was a very adaptable writing system that was attested in various forms for nearly three millennia. It was created to represent the language of Sumerian and its first adaptation of the cuneiform writing system that occurred with Akkadian.
82).” According to Walter Ong, the act of communication through writing heightens ones consciousness and begins to change the way in which the writer thinks. This in turn facilitates the development of increasingly sophisticated technological advancements. Early pictographs were typically monotone and very simplistic in nature. However, as the technology evolved, humankind developed multi-hued writing media that improved the visual accuracy of the images created and subsequently improved the complexity of the message delivered. Essentially more visual detail equals a more complex symbology and abstraction. Some major milestones in the evolution of communication technology include the simplification of earlier literal depictions in the late Paleolithic era, the development of the first “alphabets” as quasi-abstract symbols representing the basic sounds of spoken language. These early alphabets were extremely complex and cumbersome until the Phoenicians developed a “totally abstract and alphabetical system of twenty-two simple phonetic signs, replacing the formidable complexity of cuneiform and hieroglyphs (Higgins, 2003).” The inhabitants of Greece and Rome adopted this system of writing which was in effect by 1500 B.C. and later developed what we know as the
The Aztec’s hieroglyphics were their way of writing called Nahuatl. They used it to write down anything that was important that happened. This artifact is “The wind God Ehecatl” and it is prized in all aspects. This is the most preserved Aztec’s Hieroglyphic up today. They used
...ritten on papyrus plant. People in Ancient Egypt would write the names of kings and queens in hieroglyphics inside oval-shaped containers called cartouches, too, and cursive hieroglyphs were used for religious writing. In short, hieroglyphics are a very interesting language.
Without writing, civilization would be underdeveloped and underinformed. Writing and literacy, the ability to effectively and efficiently communicate, provides clear understanding. Everyone, no matter what country or culture, can communicate and connect. Earlier civilizations shared information through word of mouth. These preliterate cultures had the the wisest elder or the strongest warrior communicate through stories or actions. It was much harder to pass information along. Since communication was spoken orally, information could be changed or altered in some way. The original message could be distorted in such a major way that it is completely different. Without writing, we would continue the process. However, writing changed that. Cuneiform
Egyptian hieroglyphs were carved in stone, and later hieratic script was written on papyrus. However, Olmec glyphs was discovered on cylinders. Hence, Egyptians and Olmec had different types of writing, and different places to write.
When discussing the topic of the development of early writing systems, one cannot do so without first thinking of the Mayans. The Mayans were the only ones to form the only writing system that was native to the Americas, and were also considered to be the masters of the art of mathematics. The Mayan writing system was often referred to as hieroglyphics, due to their resemblance to the method of Egyptian writing, although there is no relation. These symbols, called glyphs, were a combination of symbols used for the phonetic spelling of words today, and other characters. It is the only writing system of the Pre-Columbian New World that can completely represent spoken language to the same degree as the written language of the old world. Translating the Maya writings has been a long, and very tedious process. Some parts of it were first translated in the late 19th and early 20th century (mostly the parts having to do with numbers, the calendar, and astronomy), but major developments started in the 1960s and 1970s and kept coming thereafter, and now, the majority of Mayan texts can be read almost completely in their original languages. During the translation of the Ma...
The earliest writing in Mesopotamia was a picture writing invented by the Sumerians who wrote on clay tablets using long reeds. The script the Sumerians invented and handed down to the Semitic peoples who conquered Mesopotamia in later centuries, is called cuneiform, which is derived from two Latin words: cuneus , which means "wedge," and forma , which means "shape." This picture language, similar to but more abstract than Egyptian hieroglyphics, eventually developed into a syllabic alphabet under the Semites (Assyrians and Babylonians) who eventually came to dominate the area.
One thing that sparked my curiosity, was how all of the ancient civilizations used hieroglyphics or symbols to communicate in writing. Today, many countries and cultures do not. They use the letters for their words and phrases. In fact, hieroglyphics is not really used in any place. The closest thing is probably Hebrew and Arabic which were derived from the ancient civilizations.
Hieroglyphics were a traditional form of writing used by the Egyptian people. These carvings are one of the earliest examples contributing to current knowledge of ancient Egyptian mathematics. Inscriptions of early hieroglyphic numerals can be found on temples, stone monuments and vases. Such carvings typically include groups of inscriptions. Although hieroglyphs indicate the use of mathematics in early Egyptian civilization, they shed little light on any ...
There were more than 700 different hieroglyphics! Egyptian writing was done with ink and pen on paper made from papyrus. The pens they used were very sharp, thin, reeds. The Egyptians got the ink from plants by crushing them and mixing them with water. Writing was used in scribe school, fields, tombs, the army, government, and in temples. Writing was used everywhere! Writing was important when decorating the tombs. The writing on the walls of the tombs, helped the Pharaoh get to the afterlife. By keeping records, the government could keep track of how the country was doing. For example, “They could see how much grain or animals were collected in taxes.” This was very important because it kept the civilization organized and advanced.