CH4: The Origins of Writing
writing and literacy generally seen as good + benevolent + beneficial ; can also be used to spread lies and cause harm , can
make people lazy just as easily as make them smarter and more diligent
^ e.g. political leaders having always used writing for propaganda purposes
“Writing,” wrote H. G. Wells in his Short History of the World, “put agreements, laws, commandments on record. It made the
growth of states larger than the old city-states possible. The command of the priest or king and his seal could go far beyond his
sight and voice and could survive his death."
writing used to establish and remind people of who held authority and power (via making it permanent/official , documenting
great achievements
^ e.g. the Battle of Kadesh fought by Ramesses II is recorded at Karnak, Egypt as the victory having been the Egyptians over
the Hittites (c. 1285 BCE) but at the Hittite capital Boghazköy, the same treaty recorded depicts it a victory for the Hittites
development of writing urged on by the need to immortalize knowledge (history , trade/transactions , achievements , one's life)
^ -> much of the writing known from the Etruscans was picked entirely off of funerary inscriptions ; an important peoples yet
the only things we know of their language comes from the dead
-> Etruscans borrowed their alphabet from the Greeks and then passed it onto the Romans, then the rest of Europe , so they
can be thanked for the mass spread of this written alphabet
a major purpose of writing was to predict the future
-> some means of fortune-telling include:
- colour painted bark-paper books bound in jaguar skin ; based on a very sophisticated written calendrical system that
extended as far back as 5 billion years ago (Maya)
- oracle bones of turtle shells and ox bones ; ask a question, then heat and brand the bones until they crack and the
cracks are then interpreted (China , Bronze Age Shang dynasty)
another major purpose: identity marking / possession claiming
-> stamps , seals , etc with one's name or signature on it to sign documents on clay tablets and lay claim
-> examples:
- cartouche with Tutankhamun's name found in his tomb
- Mesopotamia , China , Central America all have stamps/name tag systems (some places like Japan and sometimes
China , the stamp is still used for business and legal documents)
- Indus Valley peoples (c. 2000 BCE) had exquisitely carved stone seals with motifs like a unicorn etc , symbols yet
undeciphered ; doesn't appear on walls as public inscriptions, instead was probably carried around on a cord or thong and
used as a signature to indicate identity and status
writing for accounting purposes the most common of all
^ little surviving evidence of this in the remaining writings from ancient Egypt, China, and Central America but it's probably
very safe to assume that it was still a big use
-> growing populations = growing commerce and authority/elite class = memory can't keep up = need efficient writing right
now immediately
first written symbols thought to be pictograms
-> from there , the discovery of the rebus principle: the idea that a pictographic symbol could be used for its phonetic value
(think 🐝 🍃 = believe)
earliest Egyptian writing dates from 3100 BCE ; earliest from Indus Valley 2500 BCE ; earliest from Crete 1900 BCE ; China
1200 BCE ; Central America 600 BCE
(^ all approximate dates)
many scholars think that writing developed independently in the major civilizations of the ancient world
-> optimist (anti-imperialist) thinking: human societies are intelligent and inventive, they are very likely to come upon these
developments on their own independent of other communities or civilizations
-> pessimist (conservative) thinking: humans tend to copy what already exists as faithfully as they can to the original -> which
would restrict innovation until invention is absolutely necessary
^ -> typically how people understand that the Greeks borrowed the alphabet from the Phoenicians
-> many instances of taking another's script and adapting it: Romans taking the Etruscan's , the Japanese taking the
Chinese ; and changes will always be made to accommodate sounds not found or represented in the borrowed language
Japanese generally regarded as the most complicated writing system in the world because it adds its own Japanese syllabic
signs to the Chinese hanzi (characters), which number in the thousands
logograms -> semantic symbols that represent a whole word (e.g. + , , $ , 2)
all full-writing scripts operate on the same basic principle: uses symbols to represent sounds (phonetic) , and all combine into
a mixture of phonetic and semantic signs
^ thus, the only difference is the ratio of phonetic:semantic
^ higher phonetic = easier to guess word pronunciation
-> e.g. English high ratio of phonetic:semantic ; Chinese very low
worms for thought:
- why are sound-based scripts more desirable?
- what do sound-based scripts have to do with the actual process of reading and writing?
see Writing: A Chronicle (end of chapter) for a timeline of writing developments
Plato — Phaedrus Excerpt
Plato tells of how the Egyptian god of writing, Thoth, tells then-Egyptian king Thamus about his new system of writing that will
improve people's memory once they learn it
-> Thamus counters that there is no telling how one will use a tool once it is out of their hands and that writing can be used for
both benefit and harm
-> Thamus says that it will lead to people becoming more forgetful because they do not have to exercise extra effort to
memorize since they trust that the written information will always be there for them to fall back on
-> says that they will have information without it being wisdom , that they will know without understanding
Plato then engages in a dialogue as Socrates with the character of Phaedrus to discuss intent and purpose behind writing
-> Socrates posits that those who think they can leave written instructions and have them clearly understood without fault is
naive because they cannot control how or if people are able to comprehend and interpret them correctly
^ (recall the "is technology neutral?" from the pacey reading)
-> something something i think socrates is saying that the true legitimate writing is "discourse that is written down, with
knowledge, in the soul of the listener; it can defend itself, and it knows for whom it should speak and for whom it should remain
silent."
^ i think this says something about keeping in mind intended audience/demographic or writing for oneself
Socrates: "First, you must know the truth concerning everything you are speaking or writing about; you must learn how to
define each thing in itself; and, having defined it, you must know how to divide it into kinds until you reach something
indivisible.
Second, you must understand the nature of the soul, along the same lines; you must determine which kind of speech is
appropriate to each kind of soul, prepare and arrange your speech accordingly, and offer a complex and elaborate speech to a
complex soul and a simple speech to a simple one.
Then, and only then, will you be able to use speech artfully, to the extent that its nature allows it to be used that way,
either in order to teach or in order to persuade."
if anyone writes something claiming it to be clear in its message , then they should be criticized even if the mass public praises
it
Socrates: "On the other hand, take a man who thinks that a written discourse on any subject can only be a great amusement, ...
He believes that at their very best these can only serve as reminders to those who already know. And he also thinks that
only what is said for the sake of understanding and learning, what is truly written in the soul concerning what is just, noble [etc.]
...
Such discourses should be called his own legitimate children, first the discourse he may have discovered already within
himself ... to the rest, he turns his back."
^ this is the ideal writer
Socrates: "If any one of you has composed these things with a knowledge of the truth, if you can defend your writing when you
are challenged, and if you can yourself make the argument that your is of little worth, then you must be called by a name
derived not from these writings but rather from those things that you are seriously pursuing."
^ i think this entire dialogue is about philosophy but you know.
CH7: Writing Restructures Consciousness
writing restructured the brain -> "Without writing, the literate mind would not and could not think as it does, not only when
engaged in writing but normally even when it is composing its thoughts in oral form"
establishes "context-free" language -> once it is written down, it cannot be questioned directly for clarification or elaboration
because it is inanimate and non-sentient
^ basically what Plato was saying in Phaedrus
-> detached from the author ; you can thoroughly refute an argument in a work but at the end of the day the printed words
won't change
Plato says that writing is a manufactured object that destroys memory ; the same can be said in modern times of computers
and calculators etc
also says that writing cannot defend itself the way one could in a live, spoken argument and thus it is unreal and unnatural
(again, computers)
the notion that writing makes people lazy because they don't need to put the effort in to study/read/whatever
writing also as a means of levelling the playing field -> everyone can become a wise man
except to posit this argument in the first place, Plato needed to put it to writing, which is exactly what he was arguing against
-> further, when arguing against computers, people must articulate them in articles or books printed using computer
technology something something etc etc etc
"Once the world is technologized, there is no effective way to criticize what technology has done with it without the aid of the
highest technology available. Moreover, the new technology is not merely used to convey the critique: in fact, it brought the
critique into existence."
one of the primary goals of writing is immortalization ; yet writing is vulnerable to destruction just as everything
people find it difficult to think of writing as technology, but between writing, printing, and computers, writing is the most
revolutionary and extreme
writing is artificial compared to oral speech ; does not inevitably come out of oneself , there are rules to writing right down to
the shapes used
writing as artificial yet invaluable and essential
"Technologies are artificial, but—paradox again—artificiality is natural to human beings."
-> technology enhances human life rather than degrades it
script is more memory aid than anything else ; is representative of words that someone says or is imagined to say
genuine writing systems often develop gradually from cruder memory aides
; the alphabet is the most control over interpretation , still vulnerable to things like homonyms
CH5: The Greek Legacy
with the Greeks' invention of an alphabet, they founded the basis of all literate modern thought ; founded literacy
letter shapes + values had to go through a time of tests via localization to become standardized ; always two competing
versions of the Eastern and the Western
writing democratized literacy ; made democratization possible