Writing Systems
HU2910
Fall 2009
Evolution of Writing
Pre-Writing
Cave paintings
Proto-Writing
Ideographs
Early Writing
Cuneiform
Pre-Writing
Cave Paintings
Lascaux, France (16k yrs ago)
Pre-Writing
Cave Paintings
Altamira, Spain (16-14k yrs ago)
a
Proto-Writing (9k yrs ago)
Ideographs/mnemonic symbols:
Wayfinding signs (airports/train stations)
Arabic numerals
Formal Languages (in math & logic)
* used “worldwide” regardless of how they
are pronounced in different languages.
N.B. Iconicity
Chinese Radicals (+ semantic)
口 Mouth
父 Father
疒 Sickness
竹 Bamboo
米 Rice
耒 Plow
革 Leather
花 Flower (top horizontal w/ 2 marks)
Early Writing
Cuneiform script (2700-2500 BCE)
Begins in Sumerian civilization of
southern Iraq. Originally pictographic.
Derives from Mesopotamian accounting
system (10k yrs ago).
Inventory becomes streamlined in
number (approx 400 by 3rd m BCE) & in
form (pictographs become convention–
alized linear drawings cf. e.g.).
Ugaritic alphabet (c. 1500 BCE)
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Cuneiform script is the earliest known writing system in the world.[1] Cuneiform writing
emerged in the Sumerian civilization of southern Iraq around the 34th century BC [2] during
the middle Uruk period, beginning as a pictographic system of writing. Cuneiform was the
most widespread and historically significant writing system in the Ancient Near East.[3]
The development of cuneiform writing was an evolution of an earlier Mesopotamian
accounting system that had been used for five thousand years before.[4] Clay tokens had
been used for some form of record-keeping in Mesopotamia since as early as 8,000 BC.[5][6]
Cuneiform documents were written on clay tablets, by means of a reed stylus. The
impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform
("wedge shaped," from the Latin cuneus, meaning "wedge").
Cuneiform script underwent considerable changes over a period spanning three millennia. In
the course of the 3rd millennium BC the script became successively more cursive, and the
pictographs developed into conventionalized linear drawings, the number of characters in
use also refined from around 1,000 unique characters in the Early Bronze Age to around
400 characters in Late Bronze Age (Hittite cuneiform).
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pajama, sandal
Borrowed into English (later)
Cuneiform evolution c. 3rd m.
Cuneiform shift (in form)
Stage 1 shows the pictogram as it was drawn around
3000 BC. Stage 2 shows the rotated pictogram as
written around 2800 BC. Stage 3 shows the
abstracted glyph in archaic monumental inscriptions,
from ca. 2600 BC, & stage 4 is the sign as written in
clay, contemporary to stage 3.
Stage 5 represents the late 3rd millennium, & stage 6
represents Old Assyrian ductus of the early 2nd
millennium, as adopted into Hittite. Stage 7 is the
simplified sign as written by Assyrian scribes in the
early 1st millennium, and until the script's extinction.
Semantic extension
Pictograms originally referred to a
concrete object, then activities and
abstract concepts related to it
(becoming morphograms – N,V, Adj…)
Perennially productive (in language and
throughout our sign systems)
Phonological extension
Morphographic characters originally
symbolized entire words but came to
be associated more with
pronunciations.
Hence we began to graph:
the (much more limited number of)
phonemes, instead of
the (innumerable) morphemes.
Morphs ----------- Phones
Graph this:
Morphographic WS
Best example: Chinese
Due to massive challenge of graphing all
the morphs in a language, only a small
number of kanji are ‘all morph’ (approx
90% are mixed with phonetic part).
Using the rebus principle allows us to use
existing morphographic kanji as a spring
board for their homophones (cf. ‘I see’)
Phonographic WS
‘Mostly’ sound-based (cf. spelling
conventions –through vs. though)
What parameters for ‘graphing the phone’
syllables
(syllabary)
consonants only
(abjads)
consonants with diacritics
(abugidas)
consonants and vowels
(alphabets)
what else?