Talk:History of writing

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[edit] Confusing Chronology

This articles discussion of the origins of writing is confusing. For instance, we have the text:

..symbols carved ASDSFADSASDFinto 8,600-year-old tortoise shells were discovered in China. The shells were found buried with human remains in 24 Neolithic graves..

As we are not told how old the human remains were, it would be natural to think that the writing of a similar antiquity as the shells.

In stark contrast, we are later told that writing began in Mesopotamia around four thousand years ago.

It's a matter of definition,there are other older scripts as old as chinese ones,but we are not sure wether they are writings.So Before there is a concluded answer,mesopotamia is a ideal candidate.--Ksyrie 01:32, 11 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Origin of the Alphabet

The very brief entry on the origins of the alphabet, while not wrong exactly, does an injustice by not mentioning the Phonecian (Hebrew) alphabet dveloped in parallel/in conjunction with the hieroglyphic alphabet. Unlike the Egyptians though, the Phonecians made wide use of the new invention (simple sailors needed to keep trade records and couldn't spare time for the years of study typically required to master an ideographic writing system).

In fact the idea of the alphabet was only invented once in human history, so that practically all alphabets in existence today are direct descendents of Phonecian. (There have been a couple of independent alphabets using unrelated character schemes - most notably Hangul (Korea) and Irish. But these developments were undertaken by people who were already very familiar with one of the descendents of Phonecian.

I shan't emend the entry in this regard. Possibly this is better taken up under a heading for origin of the alphabet (?)

--Philopedia 01:37, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Related articles

I think this article should be a subsection of history of communication, just as history of alphabet should be a subsection of this article.--Piotr Konieczny aka Prokonsul Piotrus Talk 07:10, 16 January 2006 (UTC)

[edit] expand

so far, the article discusses only the evolution of writing systems. It should also describe the evolution of writing materials as well as of the evolution of the applications of writing (letters, epitaphs, annals, hymns, etc.). dab () 16:54, 11 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Historical history

So far the article only covers the pre-history of writing, up to the Iron Age. There's lots of material from the historical era yet to be added. -- Beland 03:20, 16 February 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Jiroft civilization!!!

No one has mentioned the Jiroft civilization! It is probably where writing began! Some one stop this madness!!!!!!!!!!!!! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Manu kian maheri (talkcontribs) 15:43, 29 April 2007 (UTC).

I just checked out the article on the Jiroft civilization, which I had never heard of. There is indeed a claim for ancient writing made in connection of this. Could someone with more knowledge of this take a look into this? Martijn Faassen 01:02, 24 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Independent development of writing

How is it that isolated populations of humans developed agriculture and then writing very close in time? Man had existed in very close to our modern form for tens of thousands of years. Cave paintings date back at least 40,000 years. And yet, agriculture and writing seem to have appeared in completely isolated populations within a period of perhaps a few thousand years? How is this possible?


Writing upon a seal, dated to be 7000 years old During excavations that are taking place in the town of Giannitsa, a very ancient seal was unearthed that bore a sample of writing in its inside curved side. The dimensions of the seal are 2.5 x 5.5 cm. The linear elements are aligned onto three rows, which are divided by horizontal carvings that run along its length. According to the archeologist in charge, Panikos Chrysostomou, the linear symbols of writing of the aforementioned inscription are similar to the ones found in the Dispilio inscription, and others that have been found on vessels, statuettes and on spindle flywheels that were unearthed in the central Balkans. Contrary to the other findings that bear similar linear writing symbols however always in a disorderly arrangement, the Giannitsa inscription, with the etched elements arranged in an organized manner, indicates that it constitutes part of a complicated system of writing.

Its chronological placement establishes the Giannitsa inscription as the most ancient sample of writing in the world.

http://www.hellenicway.ca/may03/periscope.htm

[edit] vandalism?

I just saw Sirkad revert 3 edits by an anonymous user as vandalism. While I'm sure there may be something wrong with these edits, it doesn't look like vandalism to me. I'm going to revert the revert until it's explained why this is vandalism, or whether there are other reasons to remove these edits. Martijn Faassen (talk) 17:43, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

My apologies to Sirkad, I looked wrong and the edits are indeed clear vandalism. Sorry for the false alarm. Martijn Faassen (talk) 17:45, 19 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Chronology problem (unless time went backwards)

This is a quote from the article:

"Round-stylus and sharp-stylus writing was gradually replaced about 2700-2500 BCE 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 BCE."

This is problematic since the 29th century BCE obviously preceded 2700-2500 BCE.

Marty8 (talk) 19:57, 22 March 2008 (UTC)