The only thing most people do better than anyone else is read their own handwriting. – John Adams
I had recently been to a meeting with my child’s teacher, and she casually told that my child’s handwriting is that of a doctor, very difficult to read and comprehend. This got me thinking, about the importance of handwriting. I was also wondering how our ancestors made a record of the important events or sent written messages.
The first written symbol originated in the form of Mesopotamian cuneiforms (Sumerian, Elamite, and others) around 3000 BC. The Egyptians developed “Hieroglyphics” around 2800 BC. The Sumerians used vertical long tablets of wet clay to inscribe symbols from right to left and top to bottom. Initially the symbols got smudged in the right handed scribes, so found a solution by turning the tablet sideways. The ideographs, also became slant making it look abstract. Ideographs were combined to get longer words, which later developed into phonograms (a symbol representing a vocal sound). The first sound of the symbols was used to produce new words.
The papyrus and reed brushes were used to write by the Egyptians around 2400 BC. Hieroglyphics, was a form of pictorial writing, the pictures represented the objects they depict, or the sound/ group of sounds. Hieroglyphics was simplified around 1500 BC, which was mostly used for religious writing. Slowly it was used for commerce as well. Again, the script was simplified around 500 BC, which was used by the people, widely.
The Phoenicians around 1500 BC developed the Phoenician alphabets, which was phonetically based symbols. These 22 Phoenician symbols/ alphabets were widely used. The use of these symbols spread to Greece around 800 BC, and slowly spread to India, Persia and Egypt.
We do not realise, and take it for granted, the ‘writing’. Our ancestors must have felt so helpless when they were not able to record the events happening around them, or send messages to anyone. Today, everything is just a click away.
More on writing and ancient scripts in the next ‘writing’.