Today it’s not difficult for a person to send a message to friends or relatives. Almost every one of us can, due to the presence of intelligence, write a message, text or electronic. It is hard to imagine that there were times when writing did not exist at all. It would seem that people almost always knew how to read and write. However, this is far from the case.
In the process of studying the origin of writing, many questions arose, for example: where did writing first appear, when did it appear, how did people invent it? The answers to them still cause a lot of controversy in the scientific community, although scientists have developed specific theories about this. The study of writing must begin in the Middle East.
Ancient civilizations that once existed on this territory are the cradle of world culture both in the West and in the East. But before you look at the history of writing, you need to figure out what the meaning of this term is.
The meaning of the word "writing"
From the point of view of linguistics, writing is a special system of signs that allows you to formalize, transmit and record information with a view to its further use and transfer. In other words, writing is data that has acquired a sign form. Writing should not be differentiated from human language, because it is a subspecies of this phenomenon. A similar theory appeared as a result of the study of the human psyche. When we write, we think, thereby producing a symbolic transference of our speech. This characteristic does not allow us to say exactly where and when the writing appeared, but historians still found some patterns that allowed us to create certain theories of the origin of this phenomenon.
Written language of the peoples of Mesopotamia
On the territory between the Tigris and Euphrates several thousand years ago, the great Sumerian civilization existed. Scientists believe that in this place writing appeared for the first time. What historical fact influenced its appearance is unknown, although there is a fairly common theory. It says that writing, which arose in the ancient Mesopotamia, was a product of the evolution of man who wanted to facilitate the process of accounting for his work.
In those days, all harvested crops were to be deposited with the priests. To somehow facilitate the process of accounting for the harvest, they came up with the most primitive writing model - the pictogram. It is presented in the form of sticks, crosses and circles. Later signs began to evolve, therefore, at many monuments of civilizations of the ancient Mesopotamia, one can see elementary drawings of legs, ears, a person, stars, etc.
Ideogram writing of the peoples of Mesopotamia
Further development of writing gave rise to ideograms. In fact, these were the same signs, only their meaning was interpreted in a completely different way. For example, any signs associated with the legs indicated a specific action - “walk,” “wear,” or even “stand.”
Along with ideogram writing, a phonogram developed. Its essence is that the signs are almost never used. The meaning of the words was conveyed through sounds that were very difficult to express with the help of primitive pictorial symbolism. So there is a special, symbolic writing, in which there were no more pictures. Information began to be transmitted using alphabetic and syllabic designations. Thus, the study of the ancient Mesopotamia answers the question of where and when the writing appeared.
Egyptian writing
Another source of knowledge in the history of the development of writing is ancient Egypt. The language of this civilization has changed almost over the course of its entire history. The process of communication between the Egyptians of the Old Kingdom was very different from that of their descendants during the Roman expansion. The type of hieroglyphs that were used in writing did not change, but their meaning underwent significant changes.
It must be remembered that when writing arose in Egypt, this civilization was already in contact with other countries of the Middle East. Therefore, the hieroglyphics of Ancient Egypt are in many ways different from the awkward pictures of the ancient Mesopotamia. The ancient Egyptians wrote over 3,500 years ago BC. Writing was a combination of drawings and ideography. With the advent of a new era, it changed by adding new signs. To date, scientists have counted 6,000 hieroglyphs of the ancient Egyptian language.
A rich set of hieroglyphs makes many scientists think that writing arose during the heyday of ancient Egypt. They explain their point of view by the fact that it was the Egyptians who made sense of those small drawings with which they tried to convey their thoughts. The theory in many respects contradicts the known historical facts. The question remains what to do with the letter that arose on the territory of Mesopotamia, because it appeared much earlier. However, this is a completely different topic.
Deciphering the writing of Ancient Egypt
Many ancient authors and scholars tried to decipher the rich language of Ancient Egypt. Some succeeded, others failed. But all the ancient scholars are united by one thing - an exaggeration of the meaning of the symbolic writing of the ancient Egyptians. They assigned too much role to this standard attribute of the life of a normal intelligent person. Nevertheless, in their works there is a rational kernel. For example, Plutarch evaluated all Egyptian writing as purely symbolic. And Herodotus singled out several types of writing: sacred and folk. Clement of Alexandria went even further in this matter. He suggested that there are three types of Egyptian writing: hieroglyphics, hieratic style (sacred writing), epistolography (everyday writing). The most famous decryption attempt was made in the 10th century by an Arab explorer and traveler, Ibn Wahshi. Modern Egyptian scientists have found unique decryption methods that help answer the question of where and when the writing came about. To date, there are no problems decrypting Egyptian hieroglyphs.
How did Greek writing come about?
The emergence of writing in Greece, the cradle of Western culture, is associated with the fact of the appearance of the Greek alphabet. It should be noted that the Greek alphabet is borrowed. It was created on the basis of the Phoenician, which the Greeks adopted in the 9th century BC. The alphabet consisted only of consonants, which was completely unsuitable for the Greek language. Therefore, the Greeks literally “diluted” it with several vowels. Already in the 7th century BC, they learned to write, as evidenced by the finds of archaeologists. The oldest text currently known is the Dipilon inscription. There are also theories that Greek writing arose around the 17th century BC, but there is no real historical evidence for this. So, we know how Greek writing came about, as well as Egyptian and Mesopotamian. But there are also historical findings of a completely different, European culture of writing.
Prerequisites for the emergence of Slavic writing
Somewhere in the 5th century AD, a great settlement of the Slavs takes place . As a result of this large-scale migration process, many different tribes appeared. This period is identified with the time when Slavic writing arose. Insignificant tribes gradually developed, and by the end of the 9th century the Eastern Slavs created their own state, which they called Kievan Rus. The new state was rapidly gaining military power, and also developed its culture. It is during this period that writing occurs, because during the Slavic settlement only the Slavic language existed. Paradoxical as it may seem, the laws of writing were formed after the invention of the Slavic alphabet, just as it happened in Greece.
Cyril and Methodius - the progenitors of Old Russian writing
The first books in the Slavic language provide an opportunity to understand how the Old Russian script originated.
The brothers Cyril and Methodius created the alphabet and the first Slavic books for the Moravian prince on behalf of Emperor Michael III. It happened in 863. Writing came to the territory of ancient Russia in the form of the alphabet - Cyrillic or Glagolitic.
But here there is a slight discrepancy. When
writing appeared
in Russia, people in the territory of this state already knew the Slavic language. Hence the question: is writing and the alphabet really formed on the territory of Kievan Rus or did these irreplaceable cultural attributes come from outside? To this question, scientists can not give an answer to this day. Most likely, scattered tribes spoke their own, purely local dialects. As for Slavic writing and language, they were formed in their classic form during the existence of Kievan Rus on the basis of the alphabet of the brothers Cyril and Methodius.
Conclusion
So, we have analyzed various historical periods that make it possible to understand where and when the writing arose. The history of this phenomenon contains many secrets that still need to be shed.