History of writing
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Writing systems evolved in the 4th millennium BC out of neolithic proto-writing.
Proto-writing
Examples of proto-writing systems of symbol, thought to be ideographical and not to contain language-specific information include the Vinca script (see also Tărtăria tablets) and the early Indus script. In both cases there are claims of decipherment of linguistic content, without wide acceptance.
In 2003, symbols carved into 8,600-year-old tortoise shells were discovered in China. The shells were found buried with human remains in 24 Neolithic graves unearthed at Jiahu in Henan province, northern China. According to archaeologists, the writing on the shells had similarities to written characters used thousands of years later during the Shang dynasty, which lasted from 1700 BC-1100 BC.
Invention of writing
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 BC. The first writing system is generally believed to have been the Sumerian script, which developed into cuneiform. Egyptian hieroglyphs, and the undeciphered Proto-Elamite script and Indus Valley script also date to this era, though a few scholars have questioned the Indus Valley script's status as a writing system.The Chinese script may have originated independently of the Middle Eastern scripts, around the 16th century BC (early Shang Dynasty), out of a late neolithic Chinese system of proto-writing. The pre-Columbian writing systems of the Americas (including among others Olmec and Mayan) are also generally believed to have had independent origins.
The first pure alphabets (properly, "abjads", mapping single symbols to single phonemes, but not necessarily each phoneme to a symbol) emerged around 2000 BC in Ancient Egypt, but by then alphabetic principles had already been inculcated into Egyptian hieroglyphs for a millennium (see Middle Bronze Age alphabets).
See also
Further reading
- Saggs, H., 1991. [Civilization Before Greece and Rome] Yale University Press. Chapter 4.
- Hoffman, Joel M. 2004. [In the Beginning: A Short History of the Hebrew Language.] New York University Press. Chapter 3.
External links
- [BBC on tortoise shells discovered in China]
- [Fragments of pottery discovered in modern Pakistan]
- [Egyptian hieroglyphs c. 3000 BCE]
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