4 ms·

Writing is also a far greater (/ less likely) achievement than many people realise. You need a language, enough social structure to create a demand for written

by n4r9 7y ago

Writing is also a far greater (/ less likely) achievement than many people realise. You need a language, enough social structure to create a demand for written instructions/messages beyond simple pictures, and an Einstein-level linguistic genius to figure out how to break down and codify language utterances in a way that can readily be learnt and understood by the general population. Some languages such as Guniyandi have only recently undergone this conversion [0], in fact there are likely thousands of languages still without writetn forms [1] [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooniyandi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gooniyandi [1] https://www.ethnologue.com/enterprise-faq/how-many-languages-world-are-unwritten-0 https://www.ethnologue.com/enterprise-faq/how-many-languages...

iguy 7y ago
But writing didn't (IIRC) start with writing down speech. It started with accountancy, with recoding taxes payed and owed. So it arises with agricultural states, it's part of what lets a king rule so many peasants that merely having his brothers remember who owes how much doesn't work anymore. Figuring out that it could be used to write sentences took a few millennia after that. And only after that came enough simplification for people other than palace/temple employees to learn it.
- n4r9 7y ago
  Interesting. I looked this up and there's a Wikipedia page listing the earliest written accounts [0]. Looks like joint earliest are Egyptian hieroglyphs in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen [1] and ancient Sumerian tablets [2]-[3]. It seems like a lot of early writing was also concerned with religion although a lot of the slightly later writing did cover economic and administrative records. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_written_accounts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_wri... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth-Peribsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth-Peribsen [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_of_Shuruppak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_of_Shuruppak [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesh_temple_hymn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesh_temple_hymn
  - iguy 7y ago
    These seem to define writing to mean only things with which you can write sentences, which is fair enough, but excludes earlier use of symbols for counting (of taxes!). I have in mind things like [1], or this from [2]: "The original Sumerian writing system derives from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, using a round-shaped stylus impressed into soft clay at different angles for recording numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing by using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing were gradually replaced around 2700–2500 BC 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 BC. About 2600 BC, cuneiform began to represent syllables of the Sumerian language." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_numeral_systems#Clay_token https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_numeral_sys... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Proto-writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Proto-writi...
    - n4r9 7y ago
      Ah, yes I failed to pick up on that distinction in your last post. Now I almost want to add "sophisticated trade system" to the list of written language prerequisites.
WalterBright 7y ago
> Writing is also a far greater (/ less likely) achievement than many people realise. The monumental inventions are: 1. writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers 5. internet because they are ways to store and disseminate knowledge.
- bad_user 7y ago
  Spoken language is also used to spread knowledge from the wise to the young. This is sometimes called culture.
  - WalterBright 7y ago
    Spoken language evolved, it wasn't invented.
    - deleted 7y ago
      [deleted]

by n4r9 7y ago

iguy 7y ago

But writing didn't (IIRC) start with writing down speech. It started with accountancy, with recoding taxes payed and owed. So it arises with agricultural states, it's part of what lets a king rule so many peasants that merely having his brothers remember who owes how much doesn't work anymore. Figuring out that it could be used to write sentences took a few millennia after that. And only after that came enough simplification for people other than palace/temple employees to learn it.

n4r9 7y ago
Interesting. I looked this up and there's a Wikipedia page listing the earliest written accounts [0]. Looks like joint earliest are Egyptian hieroglyphs in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen [1] and ancient Sumerian tablets [2]-[3]. It seems like a lot of early writing was also concerned with religion although a lot of the slightly later writing did cover economic and administrative records. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_written_accounts https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_first_wri... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth-Peribsen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seth-Peribsen [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_of_Shuruppak https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Instructions_of_Shuruppak [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesh_temple_hymn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kesh_temple_hymn
- iguy 7y ago
  These seem to define writing to mean only things with which you can write sentences, which is fair enough, but excludes earlier use of symbols for counting (of taxes!). I have in mind things like [1], or this from [2]: "The original Sumerian writing system derives from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, this had evolved into a method of keeping accounts, using a round-shaped stylus impressed into soft clay at different angles for recording numbers. This was gradually augmented with pictographic writing by using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted. Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing were gradually replaced around 2700–2500 BC 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 BC. About 2600 BC, cuneiform began to represent syllables of the Sumerian language." [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_numeral_systems#Clay_token https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_ancient_numeral_sys... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Proto-writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing#Proto-writi...
  - n4r9 7y ago
    Ah, yes I failed to pick up on that distinction in your last post. Now I almost want to add "sophisticated trade system" to the list of written language prerequisites.

WalterBright 7y ago

> Writing is also a far greater (/ less likely) achievement than many people realise. The monumental inventions are: 1. writing 2. paper 3. printing press 4. computers 5. internet because they are ways to store and disseminate knowledge.

bad_user 7y ago
Spoken language is also used to spread knowledge from the wise to the young. This is sometimes called culture.
- WalterBright 7y ago
  Spoken language evolved, it wasn't invented.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]