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7 CONTINENTS

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GRETA THUNBERG

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Transcript

Logography Writing

Pictographs

Syllabary

Tokens as Precursor of Writing

Evolution of Language

By Liseth Lazo

Linguistics

Pictography: Writing as Accounting Device

8000 - 3000 BC

3500 BC

3500 - 3200 BC

3100 BC

2600 - 2500 BC

Alphabet Writing

1500 BC

8000 - 3000 BC The earliest code, a system of signs for communicating information, was tokens, which were used as counters to keep track of things. Each token shape was semantic, referring to a particular unit of merchandise. Moreover, the token system had little in common with spoken language except that, like a word, a token stood for one concept. Unlike speech, tokens were restricted to one type of information only, namely, real goods. Unlike spoken language, the token system made no use of syntax. That is to say, their meaning was independent of their placement order.

3500 BC After four millennia, the token system led to writing. The transition from counters to script took place simultaneously in Sumer and Elam, present-day western Iran when, around 3500 BC, Elam was under Sumerian domination. It occurred when tokens, probably representing a debt, were stored in envelopes until payment. These envelopes made of clay in the shape of a hollow ball had the disadvantage of hiding the tokens held inside. Some accountants, therefore, impressed the tokens on the surface of the envelope before enclosing them inside, so that the shape and number of counters held inside could be verified at all times. These markings were the first signs of writing.

3500 - 3200 BC Logograms are signs that represent a word in a particular tongue. Logograms were easily drawn pictures of words with a sound close to that desired (for example in English the name Neil could be written with a sign showing bent knees ‘kneel’). Since Sumerian was mostly a monosyllabic language, logograms had a syllabic value.

2600 - 2500 BC The syllabary, a system of phonetic signs expressing syllables, further modeled writing on to spoken language. With a repertory of about 400 signs, the script could express any topic of human endeavor. Some of the earliest syllabic texts were royal inscriptions, and religious, magic and literary texts.

3100 BC Pictographs—signs representing tokens traced with a stylus rather than impressed—appeared about 3100 BC. Pictographs referring to goods represent an important step in the evolution of writing because they were never repeated in one-to-one correspondence to express numerosity. Besides them, numerals, signs that represent plurality, indicated the number of units recorded.

1500 BC The invention of the alphabet about 1500 BC ushered in the third phase in the evolution of writing in the ancient Near East. The first, so-called Proto-Sinaitic or Proto-Canaanite alphabet, which originated in the region of present-day Lebanon, took advantage of the fact that the sounds of any language are few. This earliest alphabet was a complete departure from the previous syllabaries. First, the system was based on acrophony-signs to represent the first letter of the word they stood for. Second, it was consonantal-it dealt only with speech sounds characterized by constriction or closure at one or more points in the breath channel, like b, d, l, m, n, p, etc. Third, it streamlined the system to 22 signs, instead of several hundred. Since the alphabet was invented only once, all the many alphabets of the world, including Latin, Arabic, Hebrew, Amharic, Brahmani and Cyrillic, derive from the Proto-Sinaitic alphabet.