Study of Language Presentation 3: History of Writing PDF

# The Study of Language Dr Anna Wiechecka ### Presentation 3: The history / development of writing ## Outline of the presentation - The definitions of writing - The origins of writing - Pictograms, ideograms, and logograms - Rebus writing - Syllabic and alphabetic writing - Written English: The...

# The Study of Language Dr Anna Wiechecka ### Presentation 3: The history / development of writing ## Outline of the presentation - The definitions of writing - The origins of writing - Pictograms, ideograms, and logograms - Rebus writing - Syllabic and alphabetic writing - Written English: The most important facts about English spelling ## Writing - definition - a symbolic representation of spoken language via graphic signs (if it is symbolic, it also is highly abstract and arbitrary, cf. previous presentations) - speech - acquired, writing - learned (systematicity and effort required) - spoken languages appeared long before written ones (spoken languages: between 100,000 and 50,000 years ago, written language: 5,000 years ago), cf. the first presentation - The earliest precursors of writing: - cave drawings date back to ca. 20,000 years ago (Lascaux, Altamira etc.), typically depicting some events - clay tokens from 10,000 years ago (probably accounting purposes - balance sheets, bread/beer rationing), artifacts of this kind still being discovered today(!) ## Writing – definition / origins - The oldest writing system (documented, proven etc.) - **cuneiform writing**, ca. 5,000 BC - logo-syllabic, Middle East, consisted of 600-1000 characters - Technique: pressing wedge-shaped reeds into slightly moist clay (in Latin, wedge is translated as *cuneus*) - over time, it evolved - in the final stages of its development, words were divided up into syllables (along the lines of e.g. 'ca-at' for cat / 'mu-zi-um' for museum), some signs stood for whole words (like our '£' standing for pound sterling we use today). ## Writing – definition - note: cuneiform itself was **not a language**, it was a writing system - the languages recorded in cuneiform - Sumerian, Accadian (the best known), also Hittite, related to Latin; in total ca. a dozen languages (the newest discovery - Kalasmaic, a minority language from the Middle East, spoken in the Hittite empire ca. 3000 years BC) - The oldest **script** that could be in some way linked to modern writing systems ca. 3000 BC - The most durable materials: clay, stone ## From pictograms to logograms - **pictograms** **ideograms** **logograms** (the most iconic = the least arbitrary - the least iconic = the most arbitrary) - **Pictograms:** no abstraction involved, their meaning is universally recognized and conventionally agreed upon - **Over to you:** The next slide contains 12 pictograms, each of which should be matched to its meaning (Ur 1988). Can you figure out the interpretation of these symbols? What kinds of cultural assumptions could be involved in the interpretation of these symbols? (Were they necessary?) ## From pictograms to logograms - image The slide shows 12 pictograms. Due to the limited information, it is not possible to provide a complete and accurate description. ## From pictograms to logograms - **Ideograms** -> idea-writing; a more symbolic and less 'picture-like' representation, sometimes one ideogram can stand for an array of meanings - Neither pictograms nor ideograms represent words/ sounds in a language; typically, they are language-independent - Both pictograms and ideograms usually appear in places where we can expect people from various cultures, where many languages are spoken (e.g. airports, tourist attractions etc.) - pictographic or ideographic origins a large number of symbols found in later writing systems ## From pictograms to logograms - When the form vs. meaning relationship becomes significantly abstract and no longer pictorial, the sign becomes a logogram, i.e. it stands for 1 word - **Origins:** most probably cuneiform writing (Sumerians), ca. 5000 years ago (see next slide showing some examples of evolution from more pictorial to less pictorial = more abstract symbols) ## From pictograms to logograms - image The slide shows a table with a timeline from 3200 BC to 1000 BC, displaying different cuneiform symbols for each category (head, walk, hand, barley, bread, water, day and bird) each with its corresponding meaning in English. The next caption reads “The Sumerian writing system: linear 2 cuneiform (after 3000 BC). ## From pictograms to logograms - **Chinese** many characters stand for words / parts of words and not for sounds, writing system used for ca. 3000 years - **People from various parts of China**, using different dialects (and sounding different when talking), will probably have no problem understanding each other in written communication. - This system is not really very economical and seems quite challenging: the necessity to learn (memorize), e.g. the number of characters needed 'for everyday use' is ca. 2500 (other lists – ca. 50,000 characters) - This generates the need for some evolution from a system which is logographic to one which is phonographic (i.e. it involves a set of symbols representing single sounds) ## From pictograms to logograms - image The slide shows various images of pictograms used by **Aztecs**, each representing a different category (crocodile, wind, house, lizard, snake, death, deer, rabbit, water, dog, monkey, grass, reed, jaguar, eagle, vulture, motion, flint, rain, flower) with its corresponding meaning in English. The next caption reads “For dessert: the Aztec logographic system” ## Rebus writing - an attempt at representing sounds in a language via writing - In this kind of writing, a symbol for one entity is taken over as the symbol for the sound of the spoken word used to refer to that entity used whenever that sound occurs in any words (homonymy) - economical - modern English: texting, i.e. ndspeak2u / back@ya etc. - Which four letters of the alphabet sound as if they mean 'Are you all right?'? ## Syllabic writing - a syllabic writing system = writing system which employs a set of symbols each of which represents the pronunciation of one syllable - ca. 1821: **Sequoyah** (1767-1843, a Cherokee, North Carolina, aka. George Gist or George Guess) invents a syllabic writing system for his people (i.e. the Cherokees) - It was so successful that the formerly illiterate tribe even began publishing newspapers and books in their own language (see next slide) + literacy rate rose to 100% - tribe reunification and establishing cultural identity ## Syllabic alphabet: the Cherokee script - image The slide shows the Cherokee alphabet organised in columns and rows each symbol representing a different syllable. ## Syllabic writing - **modern times:** - Japanese can be transcribed as a set of symbols representing one spoken syllable each; it can be referred to as a syllabary (i.e. a partly syllabic writing system) - no purely syllabic writing systems that we know of ## Syllabic writing - Over time, ancient Sumerian (which had used cuneiform writing, i.e. had developed a fully-fledged logographic system) and ancient Egyptian (a similar situation) started to evolve and ended up including syllable symbols - However, the first nation to come to use a syllabic writing system in 100% the Phoenicians (ca. 3,000 - 4,000 years ago), with many symbols having been taken from the Egyptian writing system - By 3,000 years ago, they had given up on using logograms replacing them with a syllabic system - The next step alphabetic writing (Arabic, Hebrew) ## Alphabetic writing - a transition from syllabic writing: one written symbol no longer represents a spoken syllable it comes to represent a single spoken sound (an alphabet = a set of written symbols, each one representing a single type of sound or phoneme) - observed in the development of writing systems of Semitic languages (Arabic and Hebrew), which were based on the findings of the Phoenicians - the words are written as sets of consonants with the vowels being filled in by the reader a consonantal alphabet - Semitic script believed to be the source of most alphabets out there (in the East: Iranian, Indian, Southeast Asian ones; in the West: the Greek alphabet) ## Alphabetic writing - image The slide shows the Hebrew consonantal alphabet with each letter represented by its corresponding symbol and its English transcription. ## Alphabetic writing - The basic order of letter symbols: ca. 3,000 years ago - early Greeks: vowels added to the consonantal alphabet - From the Greeks, the alphabet spread throughout Western Europe (with modification to fit spoken languages and their requirements) the Roman alphabet - It also spread throughout Eastern Europe and evolved into the Cyrillic alphabet (used in Eastern Slavic languages to this day) - Interestingly, it has been argued that the form of a number of letters in modern European alphabets can be traced from Egyptian hieroglyphics ## Modern written English - Why, at times, is there no correspondence between the spelling and the pronunciation of English words? What possible reasons (possibly historical) come to mind? - Over to you: You have a chance to test your knowledge and intuition and match the dates with events (see next slide). How did they influence the spelling of English? ## Modern written English - image The slide displays a table with two columns: "Date" and "Event". The table displays different dates (1066, 1350, 1476, 1525, 16th century, 16th and 17th centuries, 1755) and their corresponding events: a) England begins to re-establish its own identity, b) many Latin and Greek words imported, c) Norman Conquest, d) printing introduced in England, e) Samuel Johnson's dictionary, f) spelling reformers, g) William Tyndale's English Bible condemned as sacrilegious. ## Modern written English: answers - image Another table with the same columns as the previous slide, presenting the correct answers: - 1066: c) Norman Conquest - 1350: a) England begins to re-establish its own identity - 1476: d) printing introduced in England - 1525: g) William Tyndale's English Bible condemned as sacrilegious - 16th century: f) spelling reformers - 16th and 17th centuries: b) many Latin and Greek words imported - 1755: e) Samuel Johnson's dictionary ## Modern written English: answers - 1066: Norman French- the official language of England, the next 300 years: only a few monks continued to write English; important and wealthy people stopped speaking it; English became the language of mainly the lower classes - ca. 1350: England starts to re-establish its own identity Early modern English writers (Geoffrey Chaucer); William Tyndale later translated the Bible into modern English in 1525 and tried to give English a consistent spelling system, but their efforts were repeatedly frustrated as many people had only written French or Latin before and continued to spell according to French rules (double, couple, route, sure, centre) ## Modern written English: answers - 1476: printing introduced in England fixed spelling; **problem**: many early printers were native Dutch speakers no consistent decisions about English pronunciation + printers were paid by the line often they inserted additional letters into words to earn more money and added extra letters to the last word of a line to make the whole text look neater - many of their spelling errors, whims and tricks eventually became accepted English spellings (!), e.g. the "h" in ghost. ## Modern written English: answers - 1525 - William Tyndale's English Bible condemned as sacrilegious by the Pope of Rome and the English bishops Tyndale himself was executed in 1536 - Many people wanted to possess Tyndale's Bible much reprinted in Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland; to reduce the chances of censorship, Tyndale's authorship was often disguised + many of his consistent spellings were changed to make the reprints appear more like genuine new editions - 16th c. - spelling reformers wanted to bring written forms closer to Latin origins (sometimes erroneously): dette debt; iland island ## Modern written English: answers - 16th and 17th centuries - many Latin and Greek words imported into English; their Latin spelling was kept, because Latin and Greek were regarded as superior to English hundreds of words which, according to English spelling rules, should have a doubled consonant after a short stressed vowel, but because they are spelt according to Latin rules, they do not: abolish, abominable, banish, body, capital, category, habit, hideous, lily, perish, petal, statue, study, topic, tropical, value, vanish, vomit ## Modern written English: answers - By 1700, this amalgam of different influences had made English spelling much as it is now; Samuel Johnson's dictionary of 1755 fixed our present system - Over to you: What arguments could you give in favour of changing the modern English spelling? What changes would you introduce? ## Modern written English - **SPELLING REFORM PROPOSAL (???)** - Having chosen English as the preferred language in the EEC, the European Parliament has commissioned a feasibility study in ways of improving efficient in communications between government departments. - European officials have often pointed out that English spelling is unnecessarily difficult - for example, cough, plough, rough, through, and thorough. What is clearly needed is a phased program of changes to iron out these anomalies. The program would, of course, be administered by a committee staff at top levels by participating nations. - In the first year, for example, the committee would suggest using 's' instead of the soft 'c'. Sertainly sivil servants in all sities would resieve this news with joy. Then the hard 'c' could be replaced by 'k', since both letters are pronounsed alike. Not only would this klear up konfusion in the minds of klerikal workers, but keyboards kould be made with one less letter. ## Modern written English - **SPELLING REFORM PROPOSAL (???) cont.** - There would be growing enthusiasm when in the sekond year, it kould be announsed that the troublesome 'ph' would henseforth be written 'f'. This would make words like 'fotograf' twenty per sent shorter in print. - In the third year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reash the stage where more komplikated shanges are possible. - Governments would enkourage the removal of double letters, which have always been a deterent to akurate speling. - We would al agre that the horible mes of silent 'e's in the languag is disgrasful. Therfor we kould drop thes and kontinu to read and writ as though nothing had hapend. By this tim it would be four years sins the skem began and peopl would be reseptiv to steps sutsh as replasing 'th' by 'z'. Perhaps zen ze funktion of 'w' kould be taken on by 'v', vitsch is, after al, half a 'w'. Shortly after zis, ze unesesary 'o' kould be dropd from vords kontaining 'ou'. Similar arguments vud of kors be aplid to ozer kombinations of leters. - Kontinuing zis proses yer after yer, ve vud eventuli have a reli sensibl riten styl. After tventi yers zer vud be no mor trubls or difikultis, and evrivun vud find it ezi tu understand ech ozer. Ze drems of ze guvermnt vud finali hav kum tru. ## Direction of writing - Egyptian hieroglyphics – ………………………. columns - Phoenician, Arabic – ……………………………. right to left - Roman, English – ……………………………. left to right - boustrophedon ??? ## Direction of writing- answers - Egyptian hieroglyphics – vertical columns - Phoenician, Arabic -horizontal right to left - Roman, English – horizontal left to right - boustrophedon ? see next slide ## Boustrophedon writing - image The slide shows a text written in boustrophedon way. In order to read it, you need to start at the left and read to the right, then flip the side and read from right to left. This pattern continues until the text is complete. This is how ancient Greeks wrote in the past. ## Sources - Yule, George (2010). The Study of Language, Fourth Edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. - https://www.britishmuseum.org/blog/how-write-cuneiform - http://www.ancientscripts.com - www.wikipedia.org - https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/archaeology/hittite-ancient-language-discovered-turkey-b2449689.html