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Home / 🗺️ world exploration / Literature / Origin of Writing

Origin of Writing

If I recall the way my mom taught me to write when I was two or three, I first learned to write using rice in a bowl. She would make me write the first letter, and map it to the corresponding sound, the next letter, and so on. As for speaking, this was taught in the same manner as I learned emotes. So it was like "ഷ" ("sha"), then combinations "ഷൺ" ("shan"), and so on. In that way, I started to learn to read, by translating those words into sounds and sounds into meaning. Later on it would become second nature for me to translate the words into meaning without referring back to sounds.

In any case, the sounds or letters were not the sources of meaning, they were only the methods of communication, for a meaning that existed beyond it. Because even before I knew any words, I knew the meaning of events, because I could feel them. I only learned to map my interpretations to those sounds.

The problem is that unlike perceiving the world, which comes naturally, mapping those perceptions to words was more like a skill, because not any combination of words would sound just right, and some combinations of words are more difficult to interpret than others.

Forms of writing

  • Pictorial writing system
    • Mnemonics: Marks for remembrance
    • Pictographic: Glyphs directly represent an object or concept
    • Ideographic: Graphemes are abstract symbols that directly represent an idea or concept
  • Transitional system: Graphemes refer not only to an idea, but its name as well
  • Phonetic: Graphemes refer to sounds or spoken symbols, and the form of grapheme is not related to its meaning.
    • Verbal: Grapheme represents a whole word
    • Syllabic: Grapheme represents a syllable
    • Alphabetic: Grapheme represents an elementary sound

Elements of Language

Languages generally consist of a lexicon and grammar. Lexicons are the set of lexemes, and grammar is the rules of combinations of lexemes.

  • Lexicon (A reference of all lexemes with their meaning, like a dictionary)
  • Lexemes (word forms, or basic units of a language's vocabulary. It is the abstract representation of a set of words that have the same meaning, such as run, ran and running. The lexeme can be best represented as by the free morpheme, "run")
  • Glyphs (A glyph is a specific shape of a character in a typeface. A glyph can represent a grapheme, part of a grapheme (such as a diacritic), or a combination of graphemes. A single character can be represented in different styles, and the specific calligraphic design of a character is called a glyph)
  • Graphemes (The smallest functional unit of a writing system)
    • Another definition, in English is that a grapheme is a letter that represents a single phoneme (isn't that a phonogram?)
  • Phonograms (A grapheme or set of graphemes that is associated with a phoneme)
  • Phonemes (The smallest sonic unit of a language, which defines the phonetics of that language)
  • Morphemes (the smallest unit of a word that provides meaning to a combination of letters)
    • Free morphemes (simplest form of a lexeme)
    • Bound Morphemes (prefix, infix or suffix morphemes)
  • Ideograms (A graphical symbol that represents an idea or a concept, either by prior familiarity or by resemblance to a physical object)
  • Pictograms (A graphical symbol that represents an object by having resemblance to it)
  • Logograms or Lexigram
    • A logogram is a written character that represents a whole word (e.g. symbols)
    • Logographic systems often included phonograms, usually used according to the rebus principle, in which a pure ideogram was suffixed with a phonogram in an attempt to clarify meaning.
  • Examples of pure logograms
  • Other discourse forms (used by Tulus)

Elements of Phonetic Articulation

  • Consonants (In articulatory phonetics, a consonant is a speech sound that is articulated with complete or partial closure of the vocal tract)
  • Vowels (A vowel is a speech sound that is articulated without any stricture in the vocal tract)
  • Syllables (A syllable is a unit of organization for a sequence of speech sounds, which form the building blocks of spoken words)

Types of languages

  • Logoconsonantal scripts (Scripts in which graphemes could be extended phonetically according to the consonants of the words they represent, ignoring the vowels)
  • Logosyllabic scripts (These are scripts in which the graphemes represent morphemes, often polysyllabic morphemes, but when extended phonetically represent single syllables)

  • Logosyllabry (It is a syllabry consisting of logosyllabic characters)

  • Alphabets: Consists of consonants and vowels

  • Abjads: Consists only of consonants in the script, leaving the vowels to be inferred by the reader (e.g: Hebrew and Arabic)
  • Syllabries: They consists of characters that represent entire syllables. There are a lot more characters than Abugidas here. (e.g. Hiragana)
  • Abugidas: Abugidas are also referred to as alphasyllabries or semisyllabries, because they are a combination of alphabets and syllabries. The letters are combined with diacritics, or additional lines, to represent the vowels. (e.g. Hindi, Malayalam, Tamil)

Etymology of these words

  • Lexeme
    • It comes from Latin lexis, which comes from Ancient Greek word λέξις (léxis), meaning "word" + -eme, which means a unit in a linguistic structure, extracted from the Ancient Greek word φώνημα (phṓnēma), meaning "sound".
    • λέξις (léxis) comes from the combination of λέγω (légō), meaning "speak" +‎ -σῐς (-sis), a suffix referring to a process. -σῐς (-sis) was a modification of the original sound -τις (-tis) due to palatilization (the change in sound due to differences in speech capabilities due to differences in the palates, or roof of the mouth).

While I was at it, I decided to see the etymology of the words "palates" and "assibilate", and I realized this:

  • palates > Latin word palatum > possibly from Etruscan word 𐌚𐌀𐌋𐌀𐌃𐌖𐌌 (faladum), meaning sky
  • assibilate > Latin word assībilātus, meaning “murmured, whispered at, hissed” (past participle of assībilō (“hiss at”, verb)) > Latin words ad, meaning “at”, sībilō, meaning “hiss” > Latin word sībilus, meaning “a hissing, whistling”), of imitative origin > From Proto-Indo-European word *sweysd-, meaning "to hiss"- I couldn't get any further etymology for *sweysd, but I found out about *swe and *dwes, which caught my attention because of language proximity.
    • The Proto-Indo-European word *swemeans relating to self, which is related to *dwes, which means the daylight sky god, which later formed the Indo-Aryan Vedic word, "daiv", meaning "god", and also the Zoroastrian word "daiv", meaning "demon".
      • *Dyēus derives from the stem *dyeu-, meaning brightness of the day, which comes from the root *di or dei-, meaning "to shine" or "be bright".
        • *Dyēus was often paired with *Dʰéǵʰōm, the Earth Mother, in a relationship of union and contrast (think of the Horizon). This remained the same in the Vedas.
        • द्यौष्पितृ (dyauṣ-pitṛ), meaning sky god, husband of Prithvi and father of Agni and Indra.
          • द्यौस् (dyaús, nominative singular of द्यु (dyú, “sky”))
            • द्यु (dyú) comes from Proto-Indo-Aryan *dyā́wṣ, from Proto-Indo-Iranian *dyā́wš, from Proto-Indo-European *dyḗws (“sky, heaven”). Cognate with Ancient Greek Ζεύς (Zeús), Latin diēs, Hittite 𒅆𒍑 (sius).
              • *dyḗws comes from earlier *dyéws, from *dyew- +‎ *-s.
                • *dyew means "heaven" or "sky" or "to shine"
                  • The Persian derivative was لیو • (liv), meaning "sunlight"
                  • Another derivative was Proto-Indo-Iranian *dinám, which led to Proto-Indo-Aryan *dinám, and to Sanskrit दिन (din), meaning "day"
                  • Similarly, Sanskrit word दिव (div) also came from *dyew
                • पितृ (pitṛ) came from Proto-Indo-Iranian *pHtā́ (“father”), from Proto-Indo-European *ph₂tḗr (“father”). Cognate with Avestan 𐬞𐬌𐬙𐬀𐬭‎ (pitar)
                • Closely related is Jupiter, whose etymology follows from Latin Iūpiter (“father Jove”), from Proto-Italic *djous patēr (literally “sky father”) (cognate with Ancient Greek Ζεῦ πάτερ (Zeû páter, “father Zeus”)), from *djous (“day, sky”) + *patēr (“father”), from Proto-Indo-European *dyḗws (literally “the bright one”), from *dyew- (“to be bright, day sky”), and *ph₂tḗr (“father”). Doublet of Dyaus Pita. (Doublets are like cognates, but includes loanwords)
      • Indo-Iranian (Persian) Zoroastrianism took "daiv" to mean demonic entities, which could've found its ways to Judaism and hence Islam too. (Yes this is apparently true)
      • Proto-Indo-European word *deywós, a proto-Vriddhi (a style mostly related to Sanskrit) derivative of *dyew
        • To form a vṛddhi-derivative, one takes the "zero-grade" of the "ablauting" stem (i.e. removes the vowel), inserts the vowel *e in a position which does not necessarily match that of the original vowel, and appends an accented thematic vowel (or accents any existing final thematic vowel)
        • In this case, it came from Proto-Indo-European *dyew- "sky" (cf. Latin diēs, Sanskrit dyú "day"; Hittite šīu- "god") → zero grade *diw- → proto-vṛddhi derivative *deyw-ó-s "god, sky god"
        • Proto-Indo-Iranian word *daywás
          • Proto-Indo-Aryan: *daywás (“god, deity”)
            • Sanskrit: देव (devá), meaning "god" and later देवता (devatā), meaning "goddess", and देवसभा (devasabhā), meaning "the court of Indra, or assembly of gods"
          • Proto-Iranian: *daywáh (“demon”)
            • Avestan: 𐬛𐬀𐬉𐬎𐬎𐬀 (daēuua), meaning "demon"
            • Old Persian: 𐎭𐎡𐎺 (d-i-v /⁠daivaʰ⁠/), meaning "demon"
            • Classical Persian: دیو‎ (div), meaning “demon”
              • Ottoman Turkish: دیو (div), meaning "demon"
              • Urdu: دیو‎ (dīv), meaning "demon"
              • Derived word: *daywánah, (by *daywá + *nah), meaning "demon possessed"
                • Classical Persian: دیوانه‎ (devâna)
                • Urdu: دیوانہ‎ (divana), meaning "mad"
                • Hindi: दीवाना (dīvānā), meaning "mad"
        • Related, about demons: The Proto-Indo-European word *h₂ems-, meaning “to engender, beget” turned into *h₂ḿ̥suros, meaning "begetter", which turned into
          • Hittite word 𒈗𒍑 (hassus), meaning "king"
          • Proto-Indo-Iranian word Hasuras which turned into
            • Proto-Indo-Aryan word *Hásuras which turned into
              • Sanskrit word असुर (ásura), meaning "demon"
            • Proto-Iranian (Persian) word *Háhurah, which turned into
              • Avestan word 𐬀𐬵𐬎𐬭𐬀‎ (ahura), meaning “lord”
          • Proto-Germanic word *ansuz
  • So obviously, when Proto-Indo-Aryans split into Indo-Iranians and Indo-Aryans, they mixed up the words, and Indo-Aryans formed a happy religion in India, while Indo-Iranians met the exiled Jews and helped them get back their land, and introduced the idea of daivs and idol worship as demons to them. So the Jews said "WRITE THAT DOWN". So later on, Islam came, and stuck with the same idea that idol worshipers are demons and must be destroyed at all costs. Then Islam went on spreading their religion, and they reached India and guess what, they found idol worship. So they looked at each other, and said, bruh, the bastards are here. "FUCKING kill them" (Zach star voice). So they destroyed our culture and our places of worship.
  • From Zoroastrians, Jews learned monotheism, and El and Yahweh became one; They learned to hate idols, and they also learned individual morality, which up until then was such that sons inherit the sins of the ancestors. They also learned the concept of a fiery hell, judgement and the end days from Zoroastrianism.
    • Book of Daniel (El is my Judge) first reveals the end times, directly after the period of Babylonian Exile.
  • Hatred of Idol Worship
  • But the Jews found also in the Persian faith the one among all religions most like their own, in this, that it had no idols (https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/1869/08/zoroaster-and-the-zend-avesta/630001/)
  • Zoroaster quickly perceived that the ancient monotheistic religion of the Aryas was degenerating into a state of image and idol worship (https://oll.libertyfund.org/page/zoroaster-s-teachings)
  • We never worshiped murtis (idols) (http://parsizoroastrianism.com/Tenets/noidols33.html)

  • A murti is actually the vessel for the spirit of god, not a god; produced according to Shilpa Shasthras. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prana_Pratishtha), from (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murti)

    • This also explains the concept of ishta-devas and ishta-devatas (it's just what nature of god resonates with your feelings as a diverse person)
    • Hmmm? (Beyond anthropomorphic forms of religious murti, some traditions of Hinduism cherish aniconism, where alternate symbols are shaped into a murti, such as the linga for Shiva, yoni for Devi, and the saligrama for Vishnu.)

  • मूर्ति (murti) comes from मूर्छ् (murch), meaning "to take form", which is likely from the Proto-Indo-European word *mr̥tós, meaning "mortal" (often compared to Ancient Greek βρότος (brótos), meaning “blood from a wound”)

    • I guess, "mrityu" in Sanskrit should be from the same roots.

From (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murti)
While murti are an easily and commonly visible aspect of Hinduism, they are not necessary to Hindu worship.[45] Among Hindus, states Gopinath Rao,[76] one who has realised Self (Soul, Atman) and the Universal Principle (Brahman, god) within himself, there is no need for any temple or divine image for worship. Those who have yet to reach this height of realisation, various symbolic manifestations through images, idols and icons as well as mental modes of worship are offered as one of the spiritual paths in the Hindu way of life. This belief is repeated in ancient Hindu scriptures. For example, the Jabaladarshana Upanishad states:[76]

शिवमात्मनि पश्यन्ति प्रतिमासु न योगिनः |
अज्ञानं भावनार्थाय प्रतिमाः परिकल्पिताः || ५९ ||
- जाबालदर्शनोपनिषत्

A yogin perceives god (Siva) within himself,
images are for those who have not reached this knowledge. (Verse 59)
— Jabaladarsana Upanishad, [77]

Hinduism differentiates Bhakti (spiritual love) from Kama (erotic love).

Not related, but fun fact: murti is an anagram of timur > Timurids > Tamerlane > Persian تیمور لنگ‎ (teymur-(e) lang, literally “Timur the Lame”) > Proto-Turkic *temür (“iron”)

Evolution of Writing

Neolithic Age

  • Jihau symbols
  • Vinca symbols
  • Dispilio tablet
  • Indus script / Harappan script

Bronze Age

  • Sumerian cuneiform
  • Egyptian hieroglyphics
  • Chinese
  • Mesoamerican
  • Elamite script
  • Early Semitic Alphabets
  • Anatolian Hieroglyphics (Indo-European)
  • Cretan and Greek Scripts

Language families

Note

Database of languages and families: https://glottolog.org/glottolog/family

There are many, but I'll name just a few I'm familiar with:

Indo-European family

  • Indo-European (Includes Vedic Sanskrit, Greek, Hittite, Latin, etc.)
    • Pre-Anatolian (4200 BC)
      • Hittite (Earliest recorded Indo-European Language)
    • Pre-Tocharian (3700 BC)
    • Pre-Germanic (3300 BC)
    • Pre-Italic and Pre-Celtic (3000 BC)
    • Pre-Armenian (2800 BC)
    • Pre-Balto-Slavic (2800 BC)
    • Pre-Greek (2500 BC)
    • Proto-Indo-Iranian (2200 BC)
    • Evolution From Then
      • 1500 - 1000 BC
        • Pre-Proto-Germanic develops in Scandinavia during Nordic Bronze Age
        • Pre-Proto-Celtic Urnfield and Hallstatt cultures emerge in Central Europe, introducing the Iron Age
        • Indo-Aryans move to India and start the Vedic Age and the Iron Age in Punjab
        • Proto-Italic speakers move to the Italian peninsula
        • Hittites go extinct
        • Mycenaean civilization makes way for Greek Dark Ages
        • Iranian speakers start migrating towards Greater Iran
        • Balto-Slavic splits into Baltic and Slavic
      • 1000 - 500 BC
        • Celtic Languages spread to Central and Western Europe, including Britain
        • Baltic languages were spoken in modern day Poland to Moscow
        • Homer writes the Epics Iliad and Odyssey
        • Indo-Aryan tongue reaches eastwards to a broader Mahajanapadas, 16 kingdoms, giving rise to Greater Magadha cultural sphere, where Mahavira preaches Jainism and Gautama Buddha preaches Buddhism.
        • In Iran, Zoroaster composes Gathas.
        • Pre-Proto-Germanic gives rise to Proto-Germanic in Scandinavia
        • Achaemenid Empire replaces the Elamites and Babylonia
        • Proto-Italic splits into Osco-Umbrian, Latin-Faliscan, and possibly Venetic and Siculian
        • Some Indo-Aryan speakers move to Sri Lanka and Maldives
      • 500 BC – 1 BC/AD (Classical Antiquity)
        • Spread of Greek and Latin throughout the Mediterranean and, during the Hellenistic period (Indo-Greeks), to Central Asia and the Hindukush
        • The Magadhan power and influence rises in ancient India, especially with the conquests of the Nandan and Mauryan empires.
        • Germanic speakers start migrating southwards to occupy formerly Celtic territories.
        • Scythian cultures extend from Eastern Europe (Pontic Scythians) to Northwest China (Ordos culture).
      • 1 BC – AD 500 (Late Antiquity, Gupta period)
        • Armenian language was found in this period
        • Proto-Slavic emerges
        • The Roman Empire and then the Germanic migrations marginalize the Celtic languages to the British Isles.
        • Sogdian, an eastern Iranian language, becomes the lingua franca of the Silk Road in Central Asia leading to China, due to the proliferation of Sogdian merchants there.
        • Greek settlements and Byzantine rule make the last Anatolian languages extinct.
        • Turkic languages start replacing Scythian languages.
      • 500–1000 (Early Middle Ages)
        • The Viking Age forms an Old Norse koine spanning Scandinavia, the British Isles and Iceland.
        • Phrygian becomes extinct.
        • The Islamic conquests and the Turkic expansion result in the Arabization and Turkification of significant areas where Indo-European languages were spoken.
        • But Persian still develops under Islamic rule and extends into Afghanistan and Tajikistan.
        • Due to further Turkic migrations, Tocharian becomes fully extinct while Scythian languages are overwhelmingly replaced.
        • Slavic languages spread over wide areas in central, eastern and south-eastern Europe, largely replacing Romance in the Balkans (with the exception of Romanian) and whatever was left of the Paleo-Balkan languages with the exception of Albanian.
          • East Slavic languages
            • Belarusian
            • Russian
            • Rusyn
            • Ruthenian
            • Ukrainian
          • South Slavic languages
            • Western South Slavic languages
              • Bosnian
              • Chakavian
              • Croatian
              • Montenegrin
              • Serbian
              • Slavomolisano
              • Slovene
            • Eastern South Slavic languages
              • Bulgarian
              • Church Slavonic
              • Macedonian
          • West Slavic languages
            • Sorbian languages
              • Lower Sorbian (also known as Lusatian)
              • Upper Sorbian
            • Lechitic languages
              • Kashubian
              • Polish
              • Silesian
            • Czech–Slovak languages
              • Czech
              • Slovak
        • Pannonian Basin is taken by the Magyars from the western Slavs.
      • 1000–1500 (Late Middle Ages)
        • Albanian was found
        • Baltic was found
          • East Baltic
            • Lithuanian
            • Latvian
            • Latgalian
            • Samogitian
            • Selonian
            • Semigallian
            • Old Curonian
          • West Baltic
            • Skalvian
            • Sudonian
            • Western Galindian
            • Old Prussian
          • Dnieper Baltic
            • Eastern Galindian
        • Modern dialects of Indo-European languages start emerging.
      • 1500–2000 (Early Modern period to present)
        • Colonialism results in the spread of Indo-European languages to every habitable continent, most notably:
          • Romance (or Latin or Neo-Latin Languages), to North, Central and South America, North and Sub-Saharan Africa, West Asia
            • Ibero-Romance
              • Portuguese
              • Galician
              • Asturleonese/Mirandese
              • Spanish
              • Aragonese
              • Ladino
            • Occitano-Romance
              • Catalan/Valencian
              • Occitan (lenga d'oc)
              • Gascon (sometimes not considered part of Occitan)
            • Gallo-Romance
              • French/Oïl languages
              • Franco-Provençal (Arpitan)
            • Rhaeto-Romance
              • Romansh
              • Ladin
              • Friulian
            • Gallo-Italic
              • Piedmontese
              • Ligurian
              • Lombard
              • Emilian
              • Romagnol
            • Venetan
            • Italo-Dalmatian
              • Italian
                • Tuscan
                • Corsican
                • Sassarese
                • Central Italian
              • Sicilian/Extreme-Southern Italian
              • Neapolitan/Southern Italian
              • Dalmatian (extinct in 1898)
              • Istriot
            • Eastern Romance
              • Romanian
              • Aromanian
              • Megleno-Romanian
              • Istro-Romanian
            • Sardinian
              • Campidanese
              • Logudorese
          • West Germanic, to North America, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and Australia
            • English
            • Dutch and German
          • Russian, to Central Asia and North Asia.

Afro-Asiatic

  • Afro-Asiatic
    • Semitic Languages

Dravidian

  • Dravidian
    • Malayalam
    • Tamil
    • Kannada
    • Telugu
    • Tulu
    • Kodava
    • Brauhi

Images

  • Indo-European Language Families
  • Proto-Indo-European expansions
    • image

Backlinks

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