“Writing is the visual representation of language through the use of an established selection of markings” (“The Significance”). The development of written forms of languages is one of the most important developments in the history of the world. Imagine living in a world without texting, emails, or books. The only way people could communicate with each other would be with their voices. The many devices used for communicating exist because we have a way of writing our language down. Not only would we not have the communication devices, but also we would not have an idea as to how the people who lived on this earth before us lived. With nothing to write down, learning a new language would be extremely hard as well. Many awe-inspiring books have been written, but, without written language, the very thought of a book would be beyond our comprehension. Because of these reasons, the development of written languages carries a large amount of importance through the centuries (Palmer).
The Egyptians were the earliest people who created a written form of their language. Hieroglyphics are found on pyramid walls, inscribed on tombs, and on papyrus. Writing was found on practically every surface the Egyptians were able to write on. They illustrated some parts of what was written to make things easier to understand even though some characters used in Egyptian hieroglyphics resemble what they refer to. A myriad of the characters represent more than one letter. For example, the illustration of a head stood for the sound that the two consonants t and p would make. It is illustrations like these that made it harder for the students during ancient times to learn the written form of their respective language (Carboni).
Because the Egyptian civili...
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Writing is one of the many factors which can lead to an unequal world. Writing was “One of the most important inventions in human history” (Prososki, “Writing”). It was believed to come from the Fertile Crescent called Sumer around 5,000 years ago. Over the years, writing has advanced as people created writing and printing systems, which were able to reach
A civilization without any written language would be at a loss. Its ability to communicate and record anything because before man could speak they wrote words down to communicate. Writing is important for civilization because it helps us do things we need everyday, like It helps us create business transactions, It helps us write treaty's, It helps us choose what foods to eat, It helps us give directions. Communicate with others without writing would be no solid form of communication. This impact is in two ways: 1. The ability to accurately record history. That is, to know for sure exactly what someone said or did. This is critically important for passing down knowledge between generations, as it allows for the accumulation of more knowledge than could possibly be kept via oral histories. 2. The impact of this is that writing allows for a system society with a much larger gain of knowledge base than otherwise possible. What we see as technology is really predicated on a foundation of writing. Writing allows for the accurate description of an idea, and one which does not depend on all carriers of that written idea to understand even a little of that idea. Most importantly, writing is required for specialization of a society like, in order to have farmers, merchants, political bureaucrats, soldiers, etc, one must haves in writing. Otherwise, everyone is a hunter-gatherer or farmer. Why was writing so
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
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.
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.
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Literature and the Writing Process. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 10th ed. Upper Saddle River: prentice, 2014. 155-161.
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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...
... World Literature. Ed. Martin Puncher. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 2012. 441. Print.
Pike, David L., and Ana Acosta. "Chapter 10 "The Story Of An Hour"" Literature: A World of Writing. New York: Longman, 2009. 442-44. Print.
Walker, Alice. “Everyday Use.” Literature and the Writing Process Compact Edition. Ed. Elizabeth McMahan et al. Boston: Pearson/Longman, 2010. 157-163. Print.
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Glaspell, Susan. Trifles. Literature and the Writing Process. Elizabeth Mahan, Susan X Day, and Robert Funk. 6th ed. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice, 2002. 977-986
Baron, Dennis. “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literary Technologies.” Writing Material. Ed. Evelyn Tribble. New York. 2003. 35- 52.
Literary works continue to be recorded thousands of years after the initial writings of the ancient world. Up until the last hundred years, this consisted strictly of works that were recorded by an author and then made available to the masses. The invention of the printing press greatly increased the availability of literature. No longer were books required to be hand copied and c...