History Of Writing

The human ability and desire to communicate our feelings and experiences has always set us apart from other species and the evolutionary journey that begins at least 290,000 years ago with simple art forms leads us to a world today dominated by a plethora of technologies enabling instant and global communication.
Before humans were able to speak, which scientists believe developed around 35,000 BC, prehistoric art took a range of forms in every inhabited continent. These art forms, which range from carvings in animal bones to cave paintings, were used to record daily events and also as a form of entertainment for the early hunter gatherer communities.
The movement from pictures to words began with the invention of the first writing system in Sumer, an ancient civilisation located in modern day southern Iraq. Cuneiform (meaning ‘wedge-shaped’ which relates to the shape of the letters when made in wet clay) was invented between 3400 and 3200 BC and used symbols to represent sounds and words. This was shortly followed by the development of Egyptian Hieroglyphics and other symbol based writing systems independently in China, South America, and by 1900 BC in Europe.
100 years after the first writing system came to Europe, the first ‘true’ alphabet was developed in Phoenicia (located along the coastline of modern day Lebanon). The Phoenician alphabet consisted of 22 letters with no vowel sounds which is a practice still seen in written Arabic and Hebrew today.
Out of the Phoenician alphabet evolved the Greek alphabet and by 700 BC, the Latin alphabet which is still used today in many modern languages including English. The Latin alphabet has also adapted several times with the addition and deletion of some letters as well as many changes to its appearance dictated by the pen available.
The impact of the development of writing systems on human civilisation is huge, so much so that the term ‘prehistoric’ was traditionally used to describe the period in history before written records were kept. The contribution of writing to education enabled students to come together to learn with the development of the library and the university.
Despite the popularity of instant computer generated communication, the hand written word is far from obsolete. Global sales figures for pens and pencils suggest that humans still prefer to craft the most important communications themselves; perhaps not least because your humble pen or pencil requires no updates or upgrades or any power source.

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