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History Of Writing

Table of content

1. Introduction
2. The development of writing systems
2.1 Non – phonological systems
2.1.1. Cave paintings
2.1.2. Pictographic
2.1.3. Ideographic
2.2 Phonological systems
2.2.1. Logographic
2.2.2. Sumerian writing
2.2.3. Syllabaries
2.2.4. Alphabets
3. Conclusion
4. Appendix
5. Reference

1. Introduction


The aim of this report is to define the history of writing, how the writing system changed through the development of human society.

2. The development of writing systems

According to array of proofs discovered in many countries all over the world by the archaeologists, it is said that Writing has been existing for such a long time and it is continuously developed with the flow of time. At the beginning, the symbols in writing systems do not have any relationship with the sound of the language which called non – phonological systems (Crystal, 1986)
2.1. Non – phonological systems
These systems of writing just provided the picture of the entities which the people wanted to mention but did not contain any linguistic elements.
2.1.1. Cave paintings
In stone age, prehistoric man begun to draw the paintings of the cattle they had, their work instruments or the activities in daily life on the cliff walls around 36,000 BC (Web Site of Sally Gentieu Welch, undated). These images were considered as the first form of writing.
2.1.2. Pictographic
After that, the writing system was developed with the appearance of the pictographic (other names: pictographs or pictograms) in which the fundamental objects and ideas were drawn on the rocks inexactly but still sufficiently clear and quite easy to be recognized. However, the pictograms were ambiguous and it is difficult for the people nowadays to decipher them correctly. At that time, the pictograms just had the images but not the sound (Cryrtal, 1986 and The evolution of type website, undated). Occording to O’Gray, Dobrovolsky and Katamba in Contemporary Linguistics,...