ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT OF WRITING

RESOURCES: FB HISTORY AND ARCHAEOLOGY OF BUJANG VALLEY

1.0 Introduction

Writings can be defined as the encodement of entire content of a linguistic utterance of which another reader can reconstruct with a certain degree of accuracy the exact utterance written down. The history of the origin and development of writings involves the genesis of expressing language by the means of marks and other symbols. In the history of how systems of representation of language through graphic means have evolved in different human civilizations, more complete writing systems were preceded by proto-writing, systems of ideographic and early mnemonic symbol. True writing, in which the entire content of a linguistic utterance is encoded so that another reader can reconstruct, with a fair degree of accuracy, the exact utterance written down, is a later development, and is distinguished from proto-writing in that the latter typically avoids encoding grammatical words and affixes, making it difficult or impossible to confidently reconstruct the exact meaning intended by the writer unless a great deal of context is already known in advance. True form of writing only developed during the bronze age. Among the earliest Bronze Age writing include Sumerian Cuneiform, Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Chinese Writing as well as the Mesoamerican writings. However, the first writing system was not a sudden invention. They were the result of a development based on earlier tradition of symbol systems that cannot be classified as writing proper with characteristics strikingly similar to true writings.

This paper attempts to discuss the characteristics of various systems of writings on the different scripts of the main early human civilizations namely Sumerian, Egyptian Hieroglyph, Chinese, and Mesoamerican. The motive factors that influenced their origin and development will also be discussed.

2.0 Early Writing Systems

The following are some descriptions regarding the writing systems of Mesapotamia, Egypt, Cuneiform and Early China.

2.1 Mesapotamian Cuneiform

The Ancient Mesopotamian Civilisation were known to employ the Cuneiform script. Cuneiform script is one of the earliest known forms of written expression (Plate 4). Emerging in Sumeria around the 30th century B.C.E, cuneiform writing began as a system of pictographs (Breasted, 1944:146-148). In the three millennia the script spanned, the pictorial representations became simplified and more abstract as the number of characters in use also grew gradually smaller, from about 1,000 unique characters in the Early Bronze Age to about 400 unique characters in Late Bronze Age.The original Sumerian script was adapted and became the parent script of Akkadian, Hittite, Hurrian, and inspired the Old Persian alphabet. Cuneiform writing was gradually replaced by the Phoenician alphabet during the Neo-Assyrian Empire, and by the 2nd century C.E. the script had become extinct.Cuneiform documents were written on clay tablets, by means of a blunt reed for a stylus. The impressions left by the stylus were wedge shaped, thus giving rise to the name cuneiform he cuneiform script proper emerges out of pictographic proto-writing in the later 4th millennium. Mesopotamia's "proto-literate" period spans the 35th to 32nd centuries

Some ten millennia ago the Sumerians began using clay tokens to count their agricultural and manufactured goods. Later they began placing the tokens in large, hollow, clay containers which were sealed. The quantity of tokens in each container came to be expressed by impressing, on the container's surface, one picture for each instance of the token inside. They next dispensed with the tokens, relying solely on symbols for the tokens, drawn on clay surfaces. To avoid making a picture for each instance of the same object, they counted the objects by using various small marks. In this way the Sumerians added "a system for enumerating objects to their incipient system of symbols". Thus writing began, during the Uruk period 3300 B.C.E. Originally, pictograms were either drawn on clay tablets in vertical columns with a pen made from a sharpened reed stylus, or incised in stone. This early style lacked the characteristic wedge shape of the strokes. Certain signs to indicate names of gods, countries, cities, vessels, birds, trees, etc., are known as determinants, and were the Sumerian signs of the terms in question, added as a guide for the reader. Proper names continued to be usually written in purely "logographic" fashion. From about 2900 BC, many pictographs began to lose their original function, and a given sign could have various meanings depending on context. The sign inventory was reduced from some 1,500 signs to some 600 signs, and writing became increasingly phonological. Determinative signs were re-introduced to avoid ambiguity.

This process is chronologically parallel to the development of Egyptian hieroglyphic orthography. In the mid-3rd millennium B.C.E, writing direction was changed to left to right in horizontal rows and a new wedge-tipped stylus was used which was pushed into the clay, producing wedge-shaped signs. These two developments made writing quicker and easier. By adjusting the relative position of the tablet to the stylus, the writer could use a single tool to make a variety of impressions. Cuneiform tablets could be fired in kilns to provide a permanent record, or they could be recycled if permanence was not needed. Many of the clay tablets found by archaeologists were preserved because they were fired when attacking armies burned the building in which they were kept.The script was also widely used on commemorative stelae and carved reliefs to record the achievements of the ruler in whose honour the monument had been erected. As time went by the cuneiform got very complex and the distinction between a pictogram and syllabogram became vague. Several symbols had too many meanings to permit clarity. Therefore, symbols were put together to indicate both the sound and the meaning of compound. The written part of the Sumerian language was used as a learned written language until the 1st century AD. The spoken language died out around the 18th century BC.

2.2 Egyption Hieroglyph

The system of writing used by the Egyptian civilisation was known as the hieroglyphs (Plate 2) (Edward and Phillip, 1974:39-40). The hieroglyph script consist of a system of combined logographic and alphabetic elements. Egyptians used hieroglyphs for religious literature on papyrus or wood. The cursive type of the script were called hieratic and demotic, but technically are not considered as hieroglyphs. The hieroglyphs were also carved in tombs and also stoneslabs, usually containing royal geneology as well as king’s deeds. Some scholars postulated that the Egyptian Script were invented under the influence of the Sumerian Script that development contemporaneously. However. There are very credible argument that lead to the notion that the hieroglyph of Egypt were independently invented. Hieroglyphs emerged from the proto-Historic period of Egypt. For example, there are symbols on Gerzean pottery from ca. 4000 BCE that resemble hieroglyphic writing. Hieroglyphs consist of three kinds of glyphs: phonetic glyphs, including single-consonant characters that function like an alphabet; logographs, representing morphemes, and determinatives, which narrow down the meaning of logographic or phonetic words. As writing developed and became more widespread among the Egyptian people, simplified glyph forms developed, resulting in the hieratic (priestly) and demotic (popular) scripts. These variants were also more suited than hieroglyphs for use on papyrus. Hieroglyphic writing was not, however, eclipsed, but existed alongside the other forms, especially in monumental and other formal writing.

Hieroglyphs continued to be used under Persian rule and after Alexander the Great's conquest of Egypt, during the ensuing Macedonian and Roman periods. It appears that the comments from Greek and Roman writers about hieroglyphs came about, at least in part, as a response to the changed political situation. Some believe that hieroglyphs may have functioned as a way to distinguish Egyptians from some of the foreign conquerors. Another reason may be the refusal to tackle a foreign culture on its own terms which characterized Greco-Roman approaches to Egyptian culture generally. Having learned that hieroglyphs were sacred writing, Greco-Roman authors imagined the complex but rational system as magical, system transmitting secret, mystical knowledge. By the 4th century, few Egyptians were capable of reading hieroglyphs, and the myth of allegorical hieroglyphs was ascendant. Monumental use of hieroglyphs ceased after the closing of all non-Christian temples in 391 CE by the Roman Emperor Theodosius I; the last known inscription is from Philae, known as The Graffito of Esmet-Akhom, from 394 CE.

2.3 Mesoamerican

Mesoamerica, like India, Mesopotamia, China, and Egypt, is one of the few places in the world where writing has developed independently. Mesoamerican can be considered as the combination of semasiographic and glottographic script (Plate 1). Semiographic is the usage of graphic or visual cue to communicate an action or idea while Glottographic is graphic signs corresponding to morphemic, syllabic, and/or phonemic units. They are often erroneously called hieroglyphic scripts, but this is an incorrect term because Mesoamerican writing was created independent of Egypt or Near Eastern cultures. Five or six different scripts have been documented in Mesoamerica. However, it is difficult to establish which was earliest and hence the forebear from which the others developed. The best documented and deciphered Mesoamerican writing system is the classic Maya script. An extensive Mesoamerican literature has been conserved partly in indigenous scripts and partly in the postconquest transcriptions in the Latin script. Other scripts of the Mesoamerican Civilization are the Olmec, Zapotec and Tahuantapec scripts (Peter and Williams, 1996:173-174).

Early Olmec ceramics show representations of something that may be codices, suggesting well-developed writing, existed in Olmec times. It was also long thought that many of the glyphs present on Olmec monumental sculpture, such as those on the so-called "Ambassador Monument" (La Venta Monument 13), represented an early Olmec script. Another candidate for earliest writing system in Mesoamerica is the writing system of the Zapotec. Rising in the late Pre-Classic era after the decline of the Olmec civilization, the Zapotecs of present day Oaxaca built an empire around Monte Alban. On a few monuments at this archaeological site, archaeologists have found extended text in a glyphic script. Some signs can be recognized as calendric information but the script as such remains undeciphered. Read in columns from top to bottom, its execution is somewhat cruder than that of the later Classic Maya and this has led epigraphers to believe that the script was also less phonetic than the largely syllabic Mayan script(Peter and Williams, 1996:174). These are, however, speculations.

The earliest known monument with Zapotec writing is a "Danzante" stone, officially known as Monument 3, found in San Jose Mogote,Oaxaca. It has a relief of what appears to be dead and bloodied captive with two glyphic signs between his legs, probably his name. First dated to 500–600 BCE, this was earlier considered the earliest writing in Mesoamerica. However doubts have been expressed as to this dating and the monument may have been reused. The Zapotec script went out of use only in the late Classic period. A small number of artefacts found in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec show examples of another early Mesoamerican writing system. They can be seen to contain calendric information but are otherwise undeciphered. The longest of these texts are on La Mojarra Stela 1 and the Tuxtla Statuette. The writing system used is very close to the Mayan script, using affixal glyphs and Long Count dates, but is read only in one column at a time as is the Zapotec script. It has been suggested that this Isthmian or Epi-Olmec script is the direct predecessor of the Mayan script, thus giving the Mayan script a non-Mayan origin. Another artefact with Epi-Olmec script is the Chiapa de Corzo stela which is the oldest monument of the Americas inscribed with its own date: the Long Count on the stela dates it to 36 BCE.

2.4 Chinese Writing System

Chinese is one of the oldest continually used writing systems (Plate 3) still in use. In 2003, some 16 isolated symbols carved on tortoise shells were found at Jiahu, an archaeological site in the Henan province of China (Peter and Williams, 1996:191). Since the Jiahu site dates from about 6600 BC, it predates the earliest confirmed Chinese writing by more than 5,000 years. Some scholars have suggested that these symbols were precursors of Chinese writing, but most maintain that the time gap is too great for a connection. The earliest generally accepted examples of Chinese writing date back to the reign of the Shang Dynasty (Edward and Phillip, 1974:147-148) king Wu Ding in the later part of the second millennium B.C.E. These were divinatory inscriptions on oracle bones, primarily ox scapulae and turtle shells. Characters were carved on the bones in order to frame a question; the bones were then heated over a fire and the resulting cracks were interpreted to determine the answer. From the late Shāng Dynasty, Chinese writing evolved into the form found in cast inscriptions on Chinese ritual bronzes made during the Western Zhou Dynasty (c 1066–770 BC) and the Spring and Autumn Period (770–476 BC), a kind of writing called metal script. Jinwen characters are less angular and angularized than the oracle bone script. Later, in the Warring States Period (475–221 BC), the script became still more regular, and settled on a form, called script of the six states. These characters were later embellished and stylized to yield the seal script, which represents the oldest form of Chinese characters still in modern use.

They are used principally for signature seals, or chops, which are often used in place of a signature for Chinese documents and artwork. Li Si promulgated the seal script as the standard throughout the empire during the Qin dynasty, then newly unified. Seal script in turn evolved into the other surviving writing styles; the first writing style to follow was the clerical script. The development of such a style can be attributed to those of the Qin Dynasty who were seeking to create a convenient form of written characters for daily usage. In general, clerical script characters are flat in appearance, being wider than the seal script, which tends to be taller than it is wide. Compared with the seal script, clerical script characters are strikingly rectilinear. In running script, a semi-cursive form, the character elements begin to run into each other, although the characters themselves generally remain separate. Running script eventually evolved into grass script, a fully cursive form, in which the characters are often entirely unrecognizable by their canonical forms. Grass script gives the impression of anarchy in its appearance, and there is indeed considerable freedom on the part of the calligrapher, but this freedom is circumscribed by conventional "abbreviations" in the forms of the characters. Regular script, a non-cursive form, is the most widely recognized script. In regular script, each stroke of each character is clearly drawn out from the others. Even though both the running and grass scripts appear to be derived as semi-cursive and cursive variants of regular script, it is in fact the regular script that was the last to develop.

3.0`Invention and Development

In human society, human culture and everything else that crop up from it exist due to necessity for their survival. All forms of social phenomena from the political structure to their forms of art happens due to their mode of life. The same is the case for writings. Different civilizations have different necessity for the creation of writings, all depending on the economic substructure of the society and cultural surrounding that became a motive factor that triggered the development. For the Sumerian Cuneiform, obviously the writing were created for economical purposes. The Sumerians started to produce agricultural products since the ealy Neolithic age. However, as time goes by with their population, and agricultural technology expanding, so does the output of their commodity. The large number of commodityleads to the accumulation of surplus. This further leads to trade that require certain level management of the commodities, and this became the necessity for the creation of writing to record the commodities. This is evident from the discovery of the clay tablets impressed with signs and symbols potraying the commodity. As the society become more stratified and complicated, other necessity such as administrative arose. This become the motive factor for the further development of their writing system. The Egyptian writing system may have developed under the same condition. As the society become more civilised, local literature started to bloom, and due to this writing further developed.

However, as for the Mesoamerican and Chinese script, they were initially used for different purposes. For the Mesoamerican script, the earliest discovery shows that it was used for calendar, while the Chinese script were used as oracles. Later development gives other usages for the script. A conventional writing system goes through some general series of developmental stages. The developmetal stages for each civilisation differ from one to the other. Writing systems are distinguished from other possible signs for possible communication system, that in writing system one must usually understand something from the spoken language to comphrehend the text. Examples are like symbolic system such as information signs, paintings, map do not require prior knowledge of spoken language. Thus, they are not considered as writing systems. The emergence of writing system of an area is usually preceded by several senturies of fragmentary inscriptions. These system emerged as early as 7th Millenium B.C.E. They usually consist of pictures, symbols, signs and glyphs directly represent objects and ideas or objective and ideational situation. There are two main kinds of proto-writings, namely pictographic and ideographic symbols. Pictographic glyphs represent objects or objective situations such as animals, plants, and human activites. As for ideographic glyphs, it represent ideas or idealized situations such as chronicles, notices, communications, totem, titles and names. However, those system does not directly represent utterance.

4.0 Conclusion

The invention of writing involves a long evolution preceeded by the appearance of symbols. The development of world writing involved stages of proto-writing to true writings. The earliest period of proto-writing exist in the late Neolithic age. The transitional system before developing to true writings refer not only to object or ideas, but also names.It consist of signs and symbols lacking direct linguistic context. From these kind of writing of Neolithic period, the bronze age writing was developed. The earliest known form of true writing exist independantly in few early civilisations such as Mesapotamia (3200 B.C.E) and Mesoamerica (600 B.C.E). Athough still being debated, writing may have also being developed or invented independently in China (1200 B.C.E) and Egypt (3200 B.C.E). The origin of the Indus script is still remain unsolved due to the fact that the script has yet to be deciphered. As for other syllabic forms of writings such as Phoenecians, Arabic, Greek, and Brahmi all of them were derived from the earlier scripts or created and developed under the influence of the former.

5.0 Bibliography

Breasted, J. H. (1944). Ancient Times: A History of the Early World, Boston: Ginn and Company.

Burns. E. M. and Ralph, P. L. (1974). World Civilization: Their History and Culture, New York: W.W. Norton and Company.

Daniels, T. D. And Bright, B. (1996). The World’s Writing Systems. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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