The writing has played a vital role in the development of the civilization and the invention of writing has been proved to be one of the most valuable inventions for the humanity. Writing has helped the civilizations to carry the tradition, achievements, experience and knowledge which was successfully delivered to the next generation and new generation delivered the same to the next generation after getting the benefits of all the things. This paper discusses the several aspects related to writing, its development during different ages, its importance and its relation to the civilization.
Writing is considered as one of the most important inventions of the civilization which has benefitted the humanity in a number of ways. Some scholars suggest that it has a history of five thousand years however the evidence of the writings suggests that it existed even before thirty two hundred years. The art of writing has been developed at many places and with the cooperation of many people over a period of thousands of years. The names of the people who contributed in the development of the writing are not known today but their contribution is valued and will be forever. Before the development of a proper system of writing even in ancient years, people used to communicate with the help of some specific sounds.
Writing helps the humans in the process of the communication which is not only necessary for the development of the humankind but also a necessary step towards the furtherance of the human species on the earth. The communication helps and solves all the problems and paves the way of developments. Without communication it is difficult for the human being to sustain and over a period of time it has been proved by several instances where a communication has solved the complex issues.
Different phases in the development of writing
The style of the writing has been developed from a primeval idea into a fully developed alphabetical system in different phases of time. In the first phase of the development, there were different signs used by the people to communicate their views to one another. The credit of the developing such art of communication goes to the people of Sumerian civilization. The first instances of such communication through the symbolic writing have been found which belongs to the Sumerian civilization. In the second phase of the development of writing, these signs were organized in some way and the uses of these signs were increased to a broader level. Phoenicians and Egyptian writings emerged and became popular among the people as these signs were easily grasped and understandable. This furthermore paved a way for the development of the language.
One more step towards the development of the writing was the surfacing of the Greek alphabet writing which was very refined with the use of vowels. When this writing was used with the last developed methods, it appeared as a complete system of writing. Communicating became easy and scientific through this developed method. Though there was open compass for the further development but an adequate amount of work was done towards the development of the writing.
Writing, before arriving of a final destination or at the current stage, passed through the abovementioned stages of development i.e. word syllabic and alphabets. The civilizations that skipped the above mentioned processes were unable to grasp a fully developed writing system. The examples are Indians of North America who still uses pictographic style of writing and the Japanese style of writing, where the word syllabic is used because they did not complete the due process.
Cuneiform style of writing in Sumerian civilization
People of Sumerian civilization were the first to use the writing system to communicate with each other. They developed their own style of writing at sometime five thousand years ago which included consonantal alphabetic and syllabic systems. This style of writing was named as cuneiform which used small soil objects in a particular figure for several transactions which converted in the pictures later on by the Sumerians. The cuneiform style inspired many other civilizations to use a proper medium of communication. Akkadians, Elamites, Hittites and Assyrians used the cuneiform style of writing to communicate mutually and later on Egyptians were also inspired to float their own writing style which gave birth to the hieroglyphics style of writing.
Sumerians wedge shaped style of writing has been a subject of several modifications over a period of time. In the third millennium, a number of changes were introduced in the existing cuneiform language. The direction of the writing was changed from left to right and the numbers of these signs were also reduced with particular changes in the signs to reduce the ambiguity of the writing method.
Hieroglyphics style of writing in Egyptian civilization
Egyptians developed a similar system of writing that is known as Hieroglyphics style of writing. Hieroglyphics means language of gods and like its meaning; it was used for religious purpose mainly. The Hieroglyphics came into the use after Sumerians started using cuneiform and scholars say that the Egyptians copied the style of Sumerians and developed Hieroglyphics. The style of writing was not very common and was not used by a large number of people of Egypt but it was confined to a particular class. Moreover it was mainly used for the religious purposes and for the affairs related to the king.
This pictographic style was extensively used on walls, monuments, tombs, papers and also on furniture. A famous creation found in the history of the Egypt, the book of dead is written in the Hieroglyphics style. The evidences of this writing style are very rare because it was destroyed by the later invasions of the Christians. The monuments where the hieroglyphics was used were destroyed in these invasions and gradually the evidence was abolished of the hieroglyphics.
Phoenician style of writing in Greek civilization
Greeks used to use Phoenician alphabet for communication. There were several problems and complicacies in the cuneiform and hieroglyphics writing styles. There was a need of a more scientific language and Phoenician language filled the gap with its emergence. The first evidence of this language indicates its existence in the 12th to 11th century BC. However on the availability of evidences, some scholars suggest that the Greeks started using this style of writing by the 8th century. The alphabetic of Phoenician language consisted of consonants only and was Semitic writing style. The Phoenician writing style removed the problem of ambiguity at a larger extent and composed a more scientific style of writing in the contemporary period.
Scholars trace the roots of Phoenician language from the proto Canaanite alphabetical system. Initially there were no vowels in the Phoenician style but later on with the influence of other languages, the vowels were introduced and used in consortium of twenty two consonants that already existed.
Conclusion
After having observed the several aspects of the different writing styles of ancient times and their importance, it is clear that these writing styles have been developed over a long period of time and at different places. The system of writing has been developed by a contribution of many people in different ages. The writing has helped the humankind and accelerated the process of humanizing by communicating the information, knowledge and experience from one generation to the other generation. The written information and methods of social, economic structure that had been experienced previously by one generation, was successfully conveyed to the another generation which helped in the process of further development. There is a direct relation between the process of development and the communication. The writing has helped in the association of one generation to another and is one of the reasons of the human existence and the developments on this planet.
Works Cited
Primary:
Carl B. Boyer and Uta C. Merzbach. A History of Mathematics. New Jersey: John Wiley and Sons, 2010.
Corporation, Marshall Cavendish. Ancient Egypt and the Near East: An Illustrated History. Singapore: Marshall Cavendish, 2010.
Gnanadesikan, Amalia E. The Writing Revolution: Cuneiform to the Internet. New Jersey: John Wiley & Sons, 2011.
Philip J. Adler and Randall L. Pouwels. World Civilizations: To 1700. Stamford: Cengage Learning, 2011.
Waddell, L. A. Egyptian Civilization Its Sumerian Origin and Real Chronology. Montana: Kessinger Publishing, 2003.
Secondary:
"Ancientscripts.Com." ancientscripts. 8 December 2011
"Omniglot." omniglot. 8 December 2011
"The Written Language." 25 July 2009. ancient-egyptl. 8 December 2011
