#history of writing

[wanderrealms]

"No one, to my knowledge, has done the kind of analysis of fiction in the 20th century that Halberstam did (first in the late 1970s, and then again in this article). Sure, there’s been a lot of writing about the history of fiction, in America in particular.

But that writing is myopic. The literary historians in the university system (including my late brother) focused on literary works or “mainstream” bestsellers, books that took over the national consciousness and led to changes and/or discussions.

....

The genres aren’t immune from the myopia. I have read as many books on the history of science fiction and fantasy as I can get my hands on, and probably just as many on the history of mystery fiction (both here and in the U.K.).

....

So, let me put this out there for graduate students in search of a topic: Examine all of fiction publishing since the 1890s or so—genres, pulps, digests, and paperbacks as well as hardcovers and “important” books. See where such an examination takes you. If nothing else, I can guarantee that your dissertation will be different than all the others."

I found Kris challenge interesting and wanted to help spread it in case someone finds it a good idea. (I'm not American so I'm probably missing a lot of context). The rest is also an interesting read.

[wtfearth123]

The Evolution of the Alphabet: A Story of Human Ingenuity and Innovation 🤯

How the Alphabet Changed the World: A 3,800-Year Journey

The evolution of the alphabet over 3,800 years is a long and complex story. It begins with the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs, which were a complex system of pictograms and ideograms that could be used to represent words, sounds, or concepts. Over time, the hieroglyphs were simplified and adapted to represent only sounds, resulting in the first true alphabets.

The first alphabets were developed in the Middle East, and the Phoenician alphabet is considered to be the direct ancestor of the Latin alphabet. The Phoenician alphabet had 22 letters, each of which represented a single consonant sound. This was a major breakthrough, as it made it much easier to write and read.

The Phoenician alphabet was adopted by the Greeks, who added vowels to the system. The Greek alphabet was then adopted by the Romans, who made some further changes to the letters. The Latin alphabet, as we know it today, is essentially the same as the Roman alphabet, with a few minor modifications.

The English alphabet is derived from the Latin alphabet, but it has undergone some further changes over the centuries. For example, the letters "J" and "U" were added to the English alphabet in the Middle Ages, and the letter "W" was added in the 16th century.

The evolution of the alphabet has had a profound impact on human history. It has made it possible to record and transmit knowledge, ideas, and stories from one generation to the next. It has also helped to facilitate communication and trade between different cultures.

The alphabets are a fascinating invention that have revolutionized the way humans communicate and record information. The history of the alphabets spans over 3,800 years, tracing its origins from the ancient Egyptian hieroglyphs to the modern English letters.

Here is a brief overview of how the alphabets have evolved over time:

Egyptian hieroglyphs (c. 3200 BC): The earliest form of writing was the pictographic system, which used symbols to represent objects or concepts. The ancient Egyptians developed a complex system of hieroglyphs, which combined pictograms, ideograms, and phonograms to write their language. Hieroglyphs were mainly used for religious and monumental purposes, and were carved on stone, wood, or metal.

Proto-Sinaitic script (c. 1750 BC): Around 2000 BCE, a group of Semitic workers in Egypt adapted some of the hieroglyphs to create a simpler and more flexible writing system that could represent the sounds of their language. This was the first consonantal alphabet, or abjad, which used symbols to write only consonants, leaving the vowels to be inferred by the reader. This alphabet is also known as the Proto-Sinaitic script, because it was discovered in the Sinai Peninsula.

Phoenician alphabet (c. 1000 BC): A consonantal alphabet with 22 letters, each of which represented a single consonant sound. The Proto-Sinaitic script spread to other regions through trade and migration, and gave rise to several variants, such as the Phoenician, Aramaic, Hebrew, and South Arabian alphabets. These alphabets were used by various Semitic peoples to write their languages, and were also adopted and modified by other cultures, such as the Greeks, Etruscans, and Romans.

Greek alphabet (c. 750 BC): The Greek alphabet was the first to introduce symbols for vowels, making it a true alphabet that could represent any sound in the language. The Greek alphabet was derived from the Phoenician alphabet around the 8th century BCE, and added new letters for vowel sounds that were not present in Phoenician. The Greek alphabet also introduced different forms of writing, such as uppercase and lowercase letters, and various styles, such as cursive and uncial.

Latin alphabet (c. 500 BC): The Latin alphabet was derived from the Etruscan alphabet, which was itself derived from the Greek alphabet. 

Roman alphabet (c. 1 CE): The Roman alphabet is essentially the same as the Latin alphabet, as we know it today. The Latin alphabet was used by the Romans to write their language, Latin, and became the dominant writing system in Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire. The Latin alphabet was also adapted to write many other languages, such as Germanic, Celtic, Slavic, and Romance languages.

English alphabet (c. 500 AD): The English alphabet is derived from the Latin alphabet, but it has undergone some further changes over the centuries. For example, the letters "J" and "U" were added to the English alphabet in the Middle Ages, and the letter "W" was added in the 16th century. The English alphabet consists of 26 letters, but can represent more than 40 sounds with various combinations and diacritics. The English alphabet has also undergone many changes in spelling, pronunciation, and usage throughout its history.

The evolution of the alphabet is a remarkable example of human creativity and innovation that have enabled us to express ourselves in diverse and powerful ways. It is also a testament to our cultural diversity and interconnectedness, as it reflects the influences and interactions of different peoples and languages across time and space.

Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed the post about the evolution of the alphabet. If you did, please share it with your friends and family. 😊🙏

[haggishlyhagging]

In India the Goddess Sarasvati was honored as the inventor of the original alphabet, while in Celtic Ireland the Goddess Brigit was esteemed as the patron deity of language. Texts revealed that it was the Goddess Nidaba in Sumer who was paid honor as the one who initially invented clay tablets and the art of writing. She appeared in that position earlier than any of the male deities who later replaced Her. The official scribe of the Sumerian heaven was a woman. But most significant was the archaeological evidence of the earliest examples of written language so far discovered; these were also located in Sumer, at the temple of the Queen of Heaven in Erech, written there over five thousand years ago. Though writing is most often said to have been invented by man, however that may be defined, the combination of the above factors presents a most convincing argument that it may have actually been woman who pressed those first meaningful marks into wet clay.

-Merlin Stone, When God Was a Woman

[lukaszmichal]

I’m taking a class on cognitive psychological aspects of reading and, alongside some genuinely interesting insights from experimental studies, the professor is telling us such. painfully. inaccurate. things about the history of writing. Today we sat a midterm exam. In one of the questions we were asked to describe how syllabaries evolve into alphabets. Let’s see how well the man takes being corrected by a student :’)

[adamrenfro]

This should be of interest to most of my friends here.

How Writing Has Spread Across the World, from 3000 BC to This Year: An Animated Map.

[typhlonectes]

Colorful Chart Reveals Evolution of English Alphabet From Egyptian Hieroglyphics 

Most of us use the letters of the alphabet everyday, but did you ever stop to wonder how their shapes came to be? The history of the alphabet is fascinating, and each of the 26 letters has its own unique story. Matt Baker (of UsefulCharts) has designed a handy poster that documents the evolution of our familiar alphabet from its ancient Egyptian Proto-Sinaitic roots (c. 1750 BCE) up to present day Latin script.

The limited edition Evolution of the Alphabet chart shows how early shapes and symbols eventually morphed to become the ABCs we know today. While some letters are recognizable quite early on, others have little resemblance at all. The letter “A” for example, began as an Egyptian hieroglyphic that looks like an animal head with horns. Through Phoenician (c. 1000 BCE), early Greek (c. 750 BCE), and early Latin (c. 500 BCE) periods, the lines that made “A” eventually simplified to become the symbol we know today...

Read more: https://mymodernmet.com/history-of-the-alphabet-usefulcharts/

[intothestacks]

A Book By Any Other Name: Clay Tablets

Origin: Uruk, Modern-Day Iraq (3,200 BCE)

The oldest known “books” we have come in the form of clay tablets. They were, as their name suggests, tablets of clay which were written on while soft. While many were fired in a kiln to ensure preservation of the contents, many were dried in open air or by the sun. Though the unfired tablets had the downside of being a lot more fragile, letting the clay dry through natural means meant you could “recycle” the tablet by adding water to it and smoothing it out.

Originally created to record trade transactions, they were soon used for a variety of purposes. It is in clay tablets that we find the oldest story recorded in full (The Epic of Gilgamesh; if you prefer audiobooks, there's a podcast retelling the story here), the first proto-textbooks (vocabulary lists for scribes to study), receipts, and signatures (see here for an image of the oldest signature). Oh, and customer complaints against this copper merchant called Ea-Nasir who was evidently very bad at merchant-ing if the dozens of complaint letters found at his house in Ur are anything to go by. (I highly recommend clicking on the link – the article explaining Ea-Nasir’s infamy is really funny).

A customer complaint to the merchant Ea-Nasir. Written sometime around 1750 BCE. See here for a translation of the letter.

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"File:Complaint tablet to Ea-Nasir.jpg" by Qualiesin is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

[pclysemia]

Uruk, founded by the Sumerians in southern Mesopotamia around 3500 BC , is the first settlement that even the strictest of archaeologists agree was a proper city. Along with its neighbours Ur, Larsa and Nippur, it had what is now considered to be the sine qua non of fully fledged urbanism: zoning. Not the most exciting sounding attribute perhaps, but critical to the way the city was run. Uruk can claim to be the world’s first true city, not because of its magnificent temples and monuments, but because its citizens were employed in specialised tasks, including the running of a civic administration. To judge from its records, the latter was devoted almost entirely to managing the agricultural hinterland, and many experts believe it was the complexity of this task that led the Sumerians to invent writing.

Carolyn Steel, Hungry City: How Food Shapes Our Lives

[art-emesia]

introduction to the ways art and writing mix

Humans have been using writing to communicate for ~5,000 years, but scientists estimate that humans have been using art to communicate for ~73,000 years*. This has caused art to both influence and overlap with writing in interesting ways throughout history, including today. We’re going to explore some of those ways and why they’re important.

To keep this post from getting too long (and to allow you to read the parts you’re interested in and skip what you’re not), I’ve split it into four parts with the possibility of adding more in the future. Congrats! You’ve finished the introduction, also known as the most boring part because there’s no pictures of art in it. The other parts are linked down below. Thanks for reading!

part one (you are here)

part two: hieroglyphics

part three: illuminated manuscripts

part four: picture books

[angelinthefire]

I remember in high school history class, my teacher talking about one writer, (who I think was from France?) who looked at writing as creating chemical reactions, like the characters are the chemicals, and his job was to mix them together and see what happened.

The thing is, I'm not sure if that was an actual thing or something that I'm completely misremembering.

[linguisticalities]

(via BBC - Culture - The story of handwriting in 12 objects)

[gullethead]

hey

if i were...wie sagt man....making an ancient history blog (on wordpress not tumblr) for like...ancient and classical history written in an accessible way what would be some subjects youd like to read about