Anthropology 340
LANGUAGE AND CULTURE
Writing Systems
The Beginning of History
When: Writing began about 3,400 years
ago.
Where: The earliest evidence for writing
has been found in Mesopotamia,
located in what is now Iraq.
Who: The Sumerians
Why: The earliest evidence for writing
appears to be for recording quantities
and concepts, not for representing
speech.
Types of Writing
Non-Phonetic
Phonetic
• Pictographs
1.Syllabic
• Ideographs
2.Consonantal
• Logographs
3.Alphabetic
Sumerian Script
Sumerian script began as a pictographic
writing and then became more stylized as
time went on and the Sumerians gave way
to the Babylonian and Assyrian cultures.
Pictographic Writing
Pictographic
writing tells
stories through
pictures
Pictographs
Minoan culture developed on the island of
Crete in the Aegean Sea south of Greece and
south west of Turkey at about 2000 BC.
Examples of Pictographs
Used Today
Easter Island Writing
The writing from Easter Island has not been decyphered.
It appears to be at least partially pictographic but may be
ideographic or logographic in nature.
Ideograms
1. Hittite Culture
that ruled
Anatolia (what is
now Turkey)
between 2000 and
1700 BC
2. Nigeria
in the early 20th
Century
3. Indus Valley
Modern
Idiograms
Anatolian
Hieroglyphics
(Turkey) are
Logograms
Chinese Characters as Logograms
Mixtec Logographic Script
• http://www.ancientscripts.com/mixtec.html
• Arabic Consonantal Alphabetic
• http://www.ancientscripts.com/arabic.html
Chinese (Older Version)
Modern Korean
Maya Glyphs
Egyptian
Hieroglyphics
are a
mixture of
alphabetic
and
logographic
writing.
The Transition
from
Hieroglyphic to
Phonological
Script as the
Phoenicians
borrowed and
modified the
Egyptians’
writing system
Consonantal Writing
The Phoenicians developed a
phonological writing system
based on consonants only,
depending on the reader to fill
in the vowels. This characteristic
was carried on in Hebrew until
diacritic marks were added to
consonants to fill in some of the
vowel sounds.
Syllabic Script from Cyprus
Japanese Writing Systems
• Kanji = characters of Chinese origin
(combine logographs and syllabary
symbols) used for nouns and verb stems
• Hirigana = a syllabary used for verb
ending and grammatical participles (on, to)
• Katakana = used for non-Japanese words
or loan words
Alphabetic
Writing is a
phonological
writing system
that has a
different
symbol for
each vowel
and
consonant
sound.
Runic Carving with Writing
Study Guide
Writing
Mesopotamia
Sumeria
Pictographs
Ideographs
Hieroglyphics
Glyphs
Logographs
Syllabic writing
Consonantal writing
Alphabetic writing
Kanji writing
Hiragana
Katakana
Runes