5 ms·
I agree that there must have been earlier writing, likely written on wood. Early systems could have evolved from markings on trees, like we still use on the App
by lkrubner 2y ago
I agree that there must have been earlier writing, likely written on wood. Early systems could have evolved from markings on trees, like we still use on the Appalachian Trail, and other trails. Warnings for bears or tigers, symbols for different tribes on different paths. If you've hiked much then you're aware that even experienced woodsmen can get lost as the season changes and a valley changes, or after a hard storm washes away evidence of a trail. Children, in particular, would have been at risk, but would have almost certainly needed to do work over distances, in particular fetching water, which is something that even today children as young as 5 are asked to do. Notches on trees would have been a likely starting point for a system of symbols to communicate.
When I was much younger I used to work as a hike leader for a summer camp in Virginia. We would take a small group of teenagers out for 7 day hikes, during which we could cover something between 70 to 90 miles (112 to 145 kilometers). At one time I knew that stretch of trail so well I thought I could walk it blindfolded. And yet, I only knew it in the summer. One year I went in the fall and I was astonished how different it was. I was helped by the markings on the trees. (This was before cell phones and GPS.)
- dachris 2y agoExactly - there's probably a fluent transition between symbols and painting and writing and then alphabetic writing. Territorial animals that we are, I'd add "here starts the territory of the Saber-Toothed Tiger Clan" signs to path markings as likely candidates for earliest symbolic communication. Nice to see that the earliest examples of writing are still somewhat recognizable (as opposed to modern alphabets) - see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_writing - a hand, a foot, a goat or sheep. Fun thing is, with modern technology we have regressed (advanced?) to a massive use of pictograms - a modern smartphone wielding human, in addition to the alphabet, knows at least a few hundreds or even thousands of pictograms ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
- DonHopkins 2y agoI'm so old that we didn't even have Emojis, not even letters yet, and we had to communicate with punctuation alone! ;)
- choeger 2y agoYou had punctuation? We had to to with empty spaces and silence! I once read an entire poem just using silence!
- truculent 2y ago> there's probably a fluent transition between symbols and painting and writing and then alphabetic writing I'm with you until we get to alphabetic writing, which has (to our knowledge) only been invented once. To get from other writing systems to an alphabet requires a few conceptual leaps which are much more challenging and, I would suggest, not fluent. If it were a smooth path, we ought to have seen alphabetic scripts arise independently multiple times (as we have other forms of writing).
- Tainnor 2y agoAlphabets may only have been invented once, but writing systems that have a (roughly, it's never perfect) 1:1 correspondence with the sounds of the language have been invented several times independently, e.g. in syllabaries (Japanese Kana are derived from Kanji) and abugidas. I would suggest that that conceptual leap is a much bigger one than the one of treating consonants and vowels as independent.
- truculent 2y agoSyllabaries have been invented multiple times independently and an alphabet only once, which to me would suggest the alphabetic step is the harder one to make. Why would you suggest the opposite? I'm a complete layperson in this area, so I understand my view might be quite limited.
- int_19h 2y agoThe alternative possibility is that alphabets lend themselves much more naturally to adaptation for other languages, and so, once invented, they spread extremely fast - faster than it would take for another one to appear naturally.
- truculent 2y agoYes, that's a nice point - this adds censoring to our "data" on other writing systems. My intuition is that even if you accounted for exposure to an existing alphabet, the time-to-develop alphabet would still be much longer than for syllabaries or other writing systems, but that's a guess.