The history of writing encompasses the various writing systems that evolved in the Early Bronze Age (late 4th millennium BCE) out of neolithic proto-writing. A writing system is a type of Symbolic system used to represent elements or statements expressible in Language. The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced Metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use included techniques for The 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture It marks the beginning of the Bronze Age and of Writing. The Neolithic (from Greek νεολιθικός — neolithikos from νέος neos, "new" + λίθος lithos

Writing systems
History
Grapheme
List of writing systems
Types
Featural alphabet
Alphabet
Abjad
Abugida
Syllabary
Logography
Related
Pictogram
Ideogram

Contents 1 Proto-writing 2 Invention of writing 3 Bronze Age writing 3.1 Cuneiform script 3.2 Egyptian hieroglyphs 3.3 Chinese writing 3.4 Elamite scripts 3.5 Anatolian hieroglyphs 3.6 Cretan scripts 3.7 Early Semitic alphabets 3.8 Indus script 4 Iron Age and the rise of alphabetic writing 5 Writing and historicity 6 See also 7 References 8 Further reading 9 External links

Proto-writing

See also: History of communication

The early writing systems of the late 4th millennium BCE were not a sudden invention. Rather, they were based on ancient traditions of symbol systems that cannot be classified as writing proper, but have many characteristics strikingly reminiscent of writing. The musical instrument is spelled Cymbal. A symbol is something --- such as an object, Picture, written word a sound a piece These systems may be described as proto-writing and used ideographic and/or early mnemonic symbols that were able to convey information, but were probably devoid of direct linguistic content. An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write" is a Graphic symbol that represents an Idea A mnemonic device (nəˈmɒnɪk is a Memory aid Commonly met mnemonics are often verbal something such as a very short poem or a special word used to help a person remember These systems emerged in the early Neolithic period, as early as the 7th millennium BCE, if not earlier (Kamyana Mohyla). The Neolithic (from Greek νεολιθικός — neolithikos from νέος neos, "new" + λίθος lithos During the 7th millennium BC, Agriculture spreads from Anatolia to the Balkans. Kamyana Mohyla (Кам'яна Могила Каменная могила literally "stone tomb" is an archaeological site in the Molochna River valley about a

Notably the Vinča signs show an evolution of simple symbols beginning in the 7th millennium, gradually increasing in complexity throughout the 6th millennium and culminating in the Tărtăria tablets of the 5th millennium with their rows of symbols carefully aligned, evoking the impression of a "text". The Vinča signs, also known as the Vinča alphabet Vinča-Turdaş script or Old European script, are a set of symbols found on prehistoric artifacts The Tărtăria tablets are three tablets, discovered in Tărtăria, Romania. The Dispilio Tablet of the late 6th millennium is similar. The Dispilio Tablet (also known as the Dispilio Scripture or the Dispilio Disk) is a wooden tablet bearing inscribed markings ( charagmata) unearthed during The hieroglyphic scripts of the Ancient Near East (Egyptian, Sumerian proto-Cuneiform and Cretan) seamlessly emerge from such symbol systems, so that it is difficult to say, already because very little is known about the symbols' meanings, at what point precisely writing emerges from proto-writing.

Further information: Neolithic signs in China

In 2003, 2th millennium BCE radiocarbon dated symbols Jiahu Script carved into tortoise shells were discovered in China. Neolithic signs At a range of Neolithic sites in China, small numbers of symbols of either pictorial or simple geometric nature have been unearthed which were Radiocarbon dating is a Radiometric dating method that uses the naturally occurring Radioisotope Carbon-14 (14C to determine the age of "Jiahu symbols" (zh-Hans 贾湖契刻符号 refer to the 16 distinct markings on prehistoric artifacts found in Jiahu, a neolithic Peiligang Tortoises or land Turtles are land-dwelling Reptiles of the family of Testudinidae', order Testudines. China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National The shells were found buried with human remains in 24 Neolithic graves unearthed at Jiahu, Henan province, northern China. Jiahu ( 賈湖 Pinyin: Jiǎhú was the site of a Neolithic Yellow River settlement based in the central plains of ancient China Henan ( is a province of the People's Republic of China, located in the central part of the country According to some archaeologists, the writing on the shells had similarities to the 2nd millennium BCE Oracle bone script. Oracle bone script ( refers to incised (or rarely brush-written ancient Chinese characters found on Oracle bones which are animal bones or turtle shells used in ^[1] Others,^[2] however, have dismissed this claim as insufficiently substantiated, claiming that simple geometric designs such as those found on the Jiahu Shells, cannot be linked to early writing.

The 4th millennium BCE Indus script may similarly constitute proto-writing, possibly already influenced by the emergence of writing in Mesopotamia. The term Indus script (Harappan script refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Harappan civilization ( Indus Valley

The "Slavic runes" mentioned by a few medieval authors may also have been a system of proto-writing. The Quipu of the Incas may have been of a similar nature. Quipu or khipu (sometimes called talking knots) were recording devices used in the Inca Empire and its predecessor societies in the Andean A historical example is the system of pictographs invented by Uyaquk before he developed the Yugtun syllabary. Uyaquk (sometimes spelled Uyakoq) was a Yupik Moravian missionary and linguistic Genius who went from being an illiterate adult The Yugtun or Alaska script is a Syllabary invented around the year 1900 by Uyaquk to write the Yugtun dialect of Central Alaskan Yup'ik

Invention of writing

By definition, history begins with written records; evidence of human culture without writing is the realm of prehistory (see Writing and historicity, below). Hieraconpolis redirects here for the ancient fortress in Egypt called Hieracon see Hieracon Nekhen, ( Greek:, Strabo xvii History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology Stone Age Paleolithic See also Paleolithic, Recent African Origin, Early Homo sapiens, Early human migrations "Paleolithic" However, the "origin of writing is no longer a mystery. "^[3]

The evolution of writing was a process involving economic practice and necessity in the Ancient Near East. The Ancient Near East refers to early Civilizations within a region roughly corresponding to the modern Middle East: Mesopotamia (modern Iraq ^[3] Archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat determined the link between previously uncategorized clay "tokens" and the first known writing, cuneiform. Denise Schmandt-Besserat is a French-American Archaeologist and retired professor of Art and archaeology of the Ancient Near East. ^[3][4] The clay tokens were used to represent commodities, and perhaps even units of time spent in labor, and their number and type became more complex as civilization advanced. For other uses see Time (disambiguation Time is a component of a measuring system used to sequence events to compare the durations of A degree of complexity was reached when over a hundred different kinds of tokens had to be accounted for, and tokens were wrapped and fired in clay, with markings to indicate the kind of tokens inside. These markings soon replaced the tokens themselves, and the clay envelopes were demonstrably the prototype for clay writing tablets. ^[4]

The original Mesopotamian writing system (ca. Mesopotamia (from the Greek meaning "land between the rivers" is an area geographically located between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers largely corresponding 3500 BCE) derives from this method of keeping accounts,^[3] and by the end of the 4th millennium BCE,^[5] had evolved into using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay ("cuneiform" writing). Thus the invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the beginning of the Bronze Age in the last half of the 4th millennium BCE in Sumer. The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced Metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use included techniques for Sumer ( Sumerian: sux-Latn [[Ki (earth ki]]-[[EN (cuneiform en]]-'''ĝir15''', Akkadian: Šumeru; possibly Biblical Shinar

The earliest forms of writing were logographic in nature, based on pictographic and ideographic elements. A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language A pictogram ( also spelled pictogramme) or pictograph is a Symbol representing a Concept, object, activity place or event An ideogram or ideograph (from Greek idea "idea" + grafo "to write" is a Graphic symbol that represents an Idea ^[6] However, by the middle of the 3rd millennium BCE, the Sumerians had developed a syllabic adjunct to their script, reflecting the phonology and syntax of the spoken Sumerian language. A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent (or approximate Syllables which make up Words A symbol in a syllabary typically represents an optional This logo-syllabic script was soon adopted by Akkadian and Eblaite speakers for their own languages, and later by Hittite and Ugaritic speakers. Eblaite (also known as Eblan 639-3 is an extinct perhaps East Semitic language, which was spoken in the 3rd millennium BCE in the ancient city of Ebla Hittite or Nesili is the Extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on ancient Hattusas (modern The Ugaritic language, discovered by French archaeologists in 1928 is known only in the form of writings found in the lost city of Ugarit, near the modern

Egyptian hieroglyphs appeared not long after Sumerian. Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek While it is possible that Egyptian writing is an example of trans-cultural diffusion from their trading partners in Mesopotamia, the Egyptians did not borrow Mesopotamian written symbols. Cultural diffusion, as first conceptualized by Alfred L Kroeber in his influential 1940 paper Stimulus Diffusion, or trans-cultural diffusion in later reformulations Instead, they used their own artistic iconography. Archaic Egyptian hieroglyphs are attested in the 3100-BCE Narmer Palette, and more widespread literacy appears by the mid 3rd millennium (the Pyramid Texts). The Narmer Palette, also known as the Great Hierakonpolis Palette or the Palette of Narmer, is a significant Egyptian archeological find dating from The Pyramid Texts are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom.

An undeciphered logographic Proto-Elamite script also emerged at this time, and evolved into Linear Elamite by the late 3rd millennium, which in turn was replaced by cuneiform adopted from Akkadian. The Proto-Elamite period is the time of ca 3200 BC to 2700 BC when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites began to receive influence from the Linear Elamite is a Bronze Age writing system used in Elam, known from a few monumental inscriptions only

The Indus "script" appeared ca. The term Indus script (Harappan script refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Harappan civilization ( Indus Valley 2600 BCE and outlasted the decline of the Indus Valley Civilization around 1700 BCE. The Indus Valley Civilization (Mature period 2600&ndash1900 BCE abbreviated IVC, was an ancient Civilization that flourished in the Indus River basin [1] However, all records are extremely short, and it is not clear that it was a true writing system.

The Chinese script, dating from around the 16th century BCE (early Shang Dynasty) was graphically independent of the Middle Eastern scripts, though as with the case of Egyptian, trans-cultural diffusion may have played a role. A Chinese character, also known as a Han character ( is a Logogram used in writing Chinese (hanzi Japanese ( The Shang Dynasty ( Chinese: 商[[wiktionary 朝|朝]] or Yin Dynasty ( 殷[[wiktionary 代|代]] was according to traditional sources the

The pre-Columbian scripts dating from ca. the 3rd century BCE in Mesoamerica, of which only Mayan is known to have been true writing, had independent origins from the Old World. Mesoamerica or Meso-America (Mesoamérica is a Region extending approximately from central Mexico to Honduras and Nicaragua, defined The Maya script, also known as Maya hieroglyphs, was the writing system of the Pre-Columbian Maya civilization of Mesoamerica, presently If rongorongo of Easter Island was a true script, it was likely also an independent development. Rongorongo (ˈrɒŋɡoʊˈrɒŋɡoʊ in English in Rapa Nui) is a system of Glyphs discovered in the 19th century on Easter Island that appears to be

Almost all writing systems in use in the world today are ultimately descended either from the Chinese script or from the Egyptian-derived Semitic alphabets (see Genealogy of scripts derived from Proto-Sinaitic). The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar Undeciphered scripts dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BCE and believed to be ancestral Nearly all the segmental scripts (loosely " Alphabets " but see below for more precise terminology used around the globe appear to have derived from the

Bronze Age writing

Further information: History of the alphabet

Writing emerged in a variety of different cultures in the Bronze age. The history of the Alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the History of writing. The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced Metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use included techniques for

Cuneiform script

Main article: Cuneiform script

The original Sumerian writing system derives from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BCE, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, using a round-shaped stylus impressed into soft clay at different angles for recording numbers. The 4th millennium BC saw major changes in human culture It marks the beginning of the Bronze Age and of Writing. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced about 2700-2500 BCE by writing using a wedge-shaped stylus (hence the term cuneiform), at first only for logograms, but developed to include phonetic elements by the 29th century BCE. A logogram, or logograph, is a Grapheme which represents a word or a Morpheme (a meaningful unit of language About 2600 BCE cuneiform began to represent syllables of the Sumerian language. Sumerian ( " native tongue " was the language of ancient Sumer, spoken in Southern Mesopotamia since at least the 4th millennium BC Finally, cuneiform writing became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers. From the 26th century BCE, this script was adapted to the Akkadian language, and from there to others such as Hurrian, and Hittite. Hurrian is a conventional name for the language of the Hurrians (Khurrites a people who entered northern Mesopotamia around 2300 BC and had mostly Hittite or Nesili is the Extinct language once spoken by the Hittites, a people who created an empire centered on ancient Hattusas (modern Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian. The Ugaritic alphabet is a Cuneiform Abjad (alphabet without vowels used from around 1500 BCE for the Ugaritic language, an extinct The Old Persian language is one of the two attested Old Iranian languages (besides Avestan)

Egyptian hieroglyphs

Main article: Egyptian hieroglyphs

Writing was very important in maintaining the Egyptian empire, and literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of scribes. Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek Only people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train to become scribes, in the service of temple, pharaonic, and military authorities. The hieroglyph system was always difficult to learn, but in later centuries was purposely made even more so, as this preserved the scribes' position.

Chinese writing

Main article: Chinese writing

In China historians have found out a lot about the early Chinese dynasties from the written documents left behind. Written Chinese comprises the written symbols used to represent Spoken Chinese and the rules about how they are arranged and punctuated China ( Wade-Giles ( Mandarin) Chung¹kuo² is a cultural region, an ancient Civilization, and depending on perspective a National From the Shang Dynasty most of this writing has survived on bones or bronze implements. The Shang Dynasty ( Chinese: 商[[wiktionary 朝|朝]] or Yin Dynasty ( 殷[[wiktionary 代|代]] was according to traditional sources the Markings on turtle shells, or jiaguwen, have been carbon-dated to around 1500 BCE. Turtles are Reptiles of the Order Testudines (all living turtles belong to the Crown group Chelonia) most of Historians have found that the type of media used had an effect on what the writing was documenting and how it was used.

There have recently been discoveries of tortoise-shell carvings dating back to c. 6000 BCE, like Jiahu Script, Banpo Script, but whether or not the carvings are of sufficient complexity to qualify as writing is under debate. "Jiahu symbols" (zh-Hans 贾湖契刻符号 refer to the 16 distinct markings on prehistoric artifacts found in Jiahu, a neolithic Peiligang The Banpo Symbols (半坡陶符 is a name sometimes given to the 27 markings on prehistoric artifacts found in Banpo in Shaanxi, related to the Yangshao culture ^[1] If it is deemed to be a written language, writing in China will predate Mesopotamian cuneiform, long acknowledged as the first appearance of writing, by some 2000 years, however it is more likely that the inscriptions are rather a form of proto-writing, similar to the contemporary European Vinca script. The history of writing encompasses the various Writing systems that evolved in the Early Bronze Age (late 4th millennium BC) The Vinča signs, also known as the Vinča alphabet Vinča-Turdaş script or Old European script, are a set of symbols found on prehistoric artifacts Undisputed evidence of writing in China dates from ca. 1600 BCE.

Elamite scripts

Main article: Proto-Elamite script

The undeciphered Proto-Elamite script emerges from as early as 3200 BCE and evolves into Linear Elamite by the later 3rd millennium, which is then replaced by Elamite Cuneiform adopted from Akkadian. The Proto-Elamite period is the time of ca 3200 BC to 2700 BC when Susa, the later capital of the Elamites began to receive influence from the Linear Elamite is a Bronze Age writing system used in Elam, known from a few monumental inscriptions only The Elamite Cuneiform is a script which was used from about 2500 BC to 331 AD and was adapted from Akkadian Cuneiform.

Anatolian hieroglyphs

Main article: Anatolian hieroglyphs

Anatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenous hieroglyphic script native to western Anatolia first appears on Luwian royal seals, from ca. Anatolian hieroglyphs are an indigenous Logographic script native to central Anatolia, consisting of some 500 signs Anatolia (Anadolu Ανατολία Anatolía) or Asia minor, comprising most of modern Turkey, is the geographic region bounded by the Black the 20th century BCE, used to record the Hieroglyphic Luwian language. Hieroglyphic Luwian is a variant of the Luwian language, recorded in official and royal seals and a small number of monumental inscriptions

Cretan scripts

Main articles: Cretan hieroglyphs, Linear A, and Linear B

Cretan hieroglyphs are found on artifacts of Minoan Crete (early to mid 2nd millennium BCE, MM I to MM III, overlapping with Linear A from MM IIA at the earliest). Cretan hieroglyphs are found on artifacts of Bronze Age Minoan Crete (early to mid 2nd millennium BC, MM I to MM III overlapping with Linear A is one of two linear scripts used in ancient Crete before Greek Mycenaean Linear B. Linear B is a script that was used for writing Mycenaean, an early form of Greek. Cretan hieroglyphs are found on artifacts of Bronze Age Minoan Crete (early to mid 2nd millennium BC, MM I to MM III overlapping with Crete ( Greek: Κρήτη transliteration: Krētē, modern transliteration Kriti) is the largest of the Greek islands and the Linear A is one of two linear scripts used in ancient Crete before Greek Mycenaean Linear B. They remain undeciphered.

Early Semitic alphabets

Main article: Middle Bronze Age alphabets

The first pure alphabets (properly, "abjads", mapping single symbols to single phonemes, but not necessarily each phoneme to a symbol) emerged around 1800 BCE in Ancient Egypt, as a representation of language developed by Semitic workers in Egypt, but by then alphabetic principles had a slight possibility of being inculcated into Egyptian hieroglyphs for upwards of a millennium. The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar Undeciphered scripts dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BCE and believed to be ancestral An alphabet is a standardized set of letters basic written symbols each of which roughly represents a Phoneme, a Spoken language, either An Abjad is a type of Writing system in which each symbol stands for a Consonant; the reader must supply the appropriate Vowel. Ancient Egypt was an Ancient Civilization in eastern North Africa, concentrated along the lower reaches of the Nile River in what is now In Linguistics and Ethnology, Semitic (from the Biblical " Shem " Hebrew שם translated as "name" Arabic: ساميّ Egyptian hieroglyphs (ˈhaɪərəʊɡlɪf from Greek grc-Grek ἱερογλύφος " sacred carving " also hieroglyphic = grc-Grek These early abjads remained of marginal importance for several centuries, and it is only towards the end of the Bronze Age that the Proto-Sinaitic script splits into the Proto-Canaanite alphabet (ca. The Middle Bronze Age alphabets are two similar Undeciphered scripts dated to be from the Middle Bronze Age (2000-1500 BCE and believed to be ancestral The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is a consonantal alphabet of twenty-two acrophonic glyphs found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age (from ca 1400 BCE) Byblos syllabary and the South Arabian alphabet (ca. The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad المُسند branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. 1200 BCE). The Proto-Canaanite was probably somehow influenced by the undeciphered Byblos syllabary and in turn inspired the Ugaritic alphabet (ca. The Byblos syllabary, also known as the Pseudo-hieroglyphic script, Proto-Byblian, Proto-Byblic, or Byblic, is an undeciphered writing system The Ugaritic alphabet is a Cuneiform Abjad (alphabet without vowels used from around 1500 BCE for the Ugaritic language, an extinct 1300 BCE).

Indus script

Main article: Indus script

The Middle Bronze Age Indus script which dates back to the early Harrapan phase of around 3000 BCE has not yet been deciphered. The term Indus script (Harappan script refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Harappan civilization ( Indus Valley The term Bronze Age refers to a period in human cultural development when the most advanced Metalworking (at least in systematic and widespread use included techniques for The term Indus script (Harappan script refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Harappan civilization ( Indus Valley Harappa ( Urdu:, Hindi: हड़प्पा) is a City in Punjab, northeast Pakistan, about 35km (22 miles southwest ^[7] It is unclear whether it should be considered an example of proto-writing (a system of symbols or similar), or if it is actual writing of the logographic-syllabic type of the other Bronze Age writing systems.

Iron Age and the rise of alphabetic writing

Main article: History of the alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet is simply the Proto-Canaanite alphabet as it was continued into the Iron Age (conventionally taken from a cut-off date of 1050 BCE). The history of the Alphabet begins in Ancient Egypt, more than a millennium into the History of writing. The Proto-Canaanite alphabet is a consonantal alphabet of twenty-two acrophonic glyphs found in Levantine texts of the Late Bronze Age (from ca This article is about the archaeological period known as the Iron Age for the mythological Iron Age see Ages of Man. This alphabet gave rise to the Aramaic and Greek, as well as, likely via Greek transmission, to various Anatolian and Old Italic (including the Latin) alphabets in the 8th century BCE. The Aramaic alphabet is an Abjad, a Consonantal Alphabet, used for writing Aramaic. The Greek alphabet (Ελληνικό αλφάβητο is a set of twenty-four letters that has been used to write the Greek language since the late 9th or early Various Alphabetic writing systems were in use in Iron Age Anatolia to record Anatolian dialects and the Phrygian language. Old Italic refers to several now extinct Alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European (predominantly Italic The Greek alphabet for the first time introduces vowel signs. The Brahmic family of India probably originated via Aramaic contacts from ca. The Brahmic family is a family of syllabaries (writing systems used in South Asia, Southeast Asia, and parts of Central Asia and East Asia, This article deals with the geophysical region in Asia For geopolitical treatments see South Asia. the 5th century BCE. The Greek and Latin alphabets in the early centuries of the Common Era gave rise to several European scripts such as the Runes and the Gothic and Cyrillic alphabets while the Aramaic alphabet evolved into the Hebrew, Syriac and Arabic abjads and the South Arabian alphabet gave rise to the Ge'ez abugida. This article is about the 4th century alphabet of the Gothic bible The Cyrillic alphabet (səˈrɪlɪk also called azbuka, from the old name of the first two letters is actually a family of Alphabets, subsets of which are used by The Hebrew alphabet (אָלֶף-בֵּית עִבְרִי alephbet ’ivri) consists of 22 letters used for writing the Hebrew language. The Syriac alphabet is a Writing system used to write the Syriac language from around the 2nd century BC. The Arabic alphabet is the script used for writing several languages of Asia and Africa such as Arabic, Persian, and Urdu. The ancient South Arabian alphabet (also known as musnad المُسند branched from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet in about the 9th century BC. Ge'ez (gez ግዕዝ) also called Ethiopic, is an Abugida script that was originally developed to write Ge'ez, a Semitic language

Writing and historicity

Historians draw a distinction between prehistory and history, with history defined by the presence of autochthonous written sources. Stone Age Paleolithic See also Paleolithic, Recent African Origin, Early Homo sapiens, Early human migrations "Paleolithic" History is the study of the past particularly the written record Those who study history as a Profession are called Historians Etymology An indigenous language or autochthonous language is a Language that is native to a region and spoken by Indigenous peoples but has been reduced The emergence of writing in a given area is usually followed by several centuries of fragmentary inscriptions that cannot be included in the "historical" period, and only the presence of coherent texts (see early literature) marks "historicity". The History of literature begins with the History of writing, in Bronze Age Mesopotamia and Ancient Egypt, although the oldest literary In the early literate societies, as much as 600 years passed from the first inscriptions to the first coherent textual sources (ca. 3200 to 2600 BCE). In the case of Italy, about 500 years passed from the early Old Italic alphabet to Plautus (750 to 250 BCE), and in the case of the Germanic peoples, the corresponding time span is again similar, from the first Elder Futhark inscriptions to early texts like the Abrogans (ca. Old Italic refers to several now extinct Alphabet systems used on the Italian Peninsula in ancient times for various Indo-European (predominantly Italic Titus Maccius Plautus (c 254–184 BCE commonly known as Plautus, was a Roman Playwright. The Germanic peoples are a historical group of Indo-European -speaking peoples originating in Northern Europe and identified by their use of the Germanic The Elder Futhark (or Elder Fuþark, Older Futhark, Old Futhark) is the oldest form of the Runic alphabet, used by Germanic tribes The Abrogans, or Codex Abrogans (St Gall Stiftsbibliothek Cod 200 to 750 CE).

See also

• Palaeography
• Oral literature

References

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.
• Hans J. Nissen, P. Damerow, R. Englund, Archaic Bookkeeping, University of Chicago Press, 1993, ISBN 0-226-58659-6.
• Denise Schmandt-Besserat    HomePage, How Writing Came About, University of Texas Press, 1992, ISBN 0-292-77704-3. Denise Schmandt-Besserat is a French-American Archaeologist and retired professor of Art and archaeology of the Ancient Near East.
• Steven R. Fischer A History of Writing, Reaktion Books 2005 CN136481

External links

• BBC on tortoise shells discovered in China
• Fragments of pottery discovered in modern Pakistan
• Egyptian hieroglyphs c. 3000 BCE
• Denise Schmandt-Besserat  HomePage
• Children of the Code: A Brief History of Writing - Online Video
• Scriptorium Bulletin Board — A forum devoted to writing systems

Denise Schmandt-Besserat is a French-American Archaeologist and retired professor of Art and archaeology of the Ancient Near East.

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