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What is the history of writing?
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The history of writing traces the development of writing systems [1] and how their use transformed and was transformed by different societies. The use of writing prefigures various social and psychological consequences associated with literacy and literary culture.
- Writing & History
- The Invention of Writing
- Writing & Literature
- The Alphabet
Writing in China developed from divination rites using oracle bones c. 1200 BCE and appears to also have arisen independently as there is no evidence of cultural transference at this time between China and Mesopotamia. The ancient Chinese practice of divination involved etching marks on bones or shells which were then heated until they cracked. The...
The Sumerians first invented writing as a means of long-distance communication which was necessitated by trade. With the rise of the citiesin Mesopotamia, and the need for resources which were lacking in the region, long-distance trade developed and, with it, the need to be able to communicate across the expanses between cities or regions. The earl...
This new means of communication allowed scribes to record the events of their times as well as their religious beliefs and, in time, to create an art form which was not possible before the written word: literature. The first writer in history known by name is the Mesopotamian priestess Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE), daughter of Sargon of Akkad, who wr...
The role of the poet in preserving heroic legends would become an important one in cultures throughout the ancient world. The Mesopotamian scribe Shin-Legi-Unninni (wrote 1300-1000 BCE) would help preserve and transmit The Epic of Gilgamesh. Homer (c. 800 BCE) would do the same for the Greeks and Virgil (70-19 BCE) for the Romans. The Indian epic M...
- Joshua J. Mark
Aug 23, 1998 · Indeed, the history of writing is in part a matter of the discovery and representation of these structural levels of spoken language in the attempt to construct an efficient, general, and economical writing system capable of serving a range of socially valuable functions.
- David R. Olson
- Writing may be defined as any conventional system of marks or signs that represents the utterances of a language. Writing renders language visible....
- While spoken or signed language is a fairly universal human competence that is commonly acquired by human beings without systematic instruction, wr...
- Of the three writing systems that were formed independently in China, Mesoamerica, and Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), the Mesopotamian system was...
- The earliest writing system comes from Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq), where, according to archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat, shaped clay toke...
Aug 23, 1998 · It has long been known that the earliest writing system in the world was Sumerian script, which in its later stages was known as cuneiform. The earliest stages of development are still a matter of much speculation based on fragmentary evidence.
- David R. Olson
The most significant development in the history of writing, since the first development of a script in about 3200 BC, is the move from a pictographic or syllabic system (characteristic of Sumerian, ancient Egyptian and Chinese) to a phonetic one, based on recording the spoken sound of a word.
Writing is the physical manifestation of a spoken language. It is thought that human beings developed language c. 35,000 BCE as evidenced by cave paintings from the period of the Cro-Magnon Man (c. 50,000-30,000 BCE) which appear to express concepts concerning daily life.
Feb 6, 2021 · Writing – a system of graphic marks representing the units of a specific language – has been invented independently in the Near East, China and Mesoamerica. The cuneiform script, created in Mesopotamia, present-day Iraq, ca. 3200 BC, was first.
