Epigraphy refers
to the study of writing systems in general, and to ancient writing
systems more specifically. In some cultures, the only people who
knew how to write died off and left behind the systems they had
used, requiring specially trained scholars and linguists to decode
the system in order to read the remaining texts.
Egyptian hieroglyphs are a good example of a system that had to
be deciphered before we could begin to understand the culture
in any depth. With the help of the Rosetta
Stone (which contained a text written in two forms of Egyptian
as well as in Greek), Jean
François Champollion, Thomas
Young, and others were able to decode the message and begin
the long process of deciphering the writing system itself. Epigraphers
are fortunate in that human languages follow very strict and quite
regular grammatical and syntactical rules; these linguistic regularities,
and the understanding of the history of languages, make decipherment
possible in most cases where the language that was written down
is known, and where enough written texts are available. Some scripts,
like Cretan Linear A, are undeciphered because linguists are not
sure what language it represents, and because the number of texts
is limited. Michael Ventris, who discovered that another Cretan
script (Linear
B) actually represents an early form of Greek, was only successful
because enough examples of the script were available--and because
he suspected (contrary to what most of his contemporaries thought)
that the language represented might actually be Greek.
(For some images comparing Linear A and Linear B, click here.)
A
brief history of writing
Human
beings have attempted to create a permanent record of their thoughts,
observations, surroundings, etc. for at least the last 30,000
years. The earliest of these records appear in the form of paintings
and drawings on rock surfaces, and also as calendars. One interpretation
of the purpose of cave paintings, in fact, suggests that our ancestors
kept track of the migrations of flocks and herds by creating their
images on cavern walls. Calendars make good religious and agricultural
sense in cultures whose livelihood depends on remembering when
a certain animal will appear after a winter migration, or when
to plant a particular crop. And when populations increase, with
the resulting increase in social and economic complexity, keeping
account of various kinds of transactions becomes imperative.
It
is not surprising, then, that the first writing appeared in neolithic
cultures such as those that arose in the Indus River valley, Mesopotamia,
along the Nile, and in China, where agricultural success led to
rapid economic and political development. In all of these locations,
writing systems began to emerge around 5,000 years ago. With the
inception of full systems in a variety of forms--from pictograms
to syllabaries to alphabets--the "information age" truly began.
The resulting accumulation of information that led to increasingly
rapid technological innovation changed the world dramatically
and irrevocably.
Pictograms
and ideograms
The
earliest writing
systems depended on signs which referred to a concept, rather
than on words that represented the concept itself. For instance,
a picture of a sun might signify the concept of light or of warmth,
or it might represent the sun itself. Both Sumerian cuneiform
writing and early Chinese are examples of pictographic
systems that evolved into ideographic forms.
The limits of logographic ("word picture") writing
become obvious when we consider the potential size of a system
designed to depict a language with a very large vocabulary. One
reason the Chinese, who invented moveable type in the early 12th
century AD, never made significant use of it, is that their largely
ideographic system was simply too large to make typesetting practical.
But the major problem with logographic writing arises from ambiguity;
if a single sign can represent several different ideas or objects,
clarity becomes difficult to achieve. Because of this, most logographic
systems eventually evolved naturally into syllabaries.
Rebuses
All
true writing attempts to reproduce sounds. A
significant step in the development of full writing systems occurred
among the Sumerians and Egyptians who began to use pictograms
not simply as representations of objects, but of the sounds that
made up the object's name. Today, rebuses are used primarily as
a children's game. But the television game show Concentration
also required contestants to solve puzzles that consisted primarily
of rebuses for common sayings and clichés.
Syllabaries
and alphabets
To
avoid the limitations of logographic systems, which use a single
sign for each word, a more complete, or "full" writing system
must maintain a fixed correspondence between the signs and elements
of the language it represents. Syllabic systems,
such as Cretan Linear B and modern Japanese, have signs for each
different syllable that occurs in the language; alphabetic
systems, like English, contain signs for each separate sound
in a language.
Economy
and clarity seem to be the forces behind the development of syllabaries.
By using a single sign for a particular sound, writers could use
far fewer signs and assure their readers of much less ambiguity.
Whereas a logographic system might require a minimum of 500-600
signs, a purely syllabic system might need only 100. Syllabic
writing, because it is purely phonetic, reduces ambiguity by indicating
how each word is to be pronounced.
Syllabaries
consist of both consonant-only and consonant-plus-vowel systems.
Each sign in Cretan Linear B, for example, represents a consonant-vowel
combination. Ancient Hebrew was a consonant-only system that relied
heavily on context; the reader could only tell what vowels followed
the consonants by understanding the context of the message. The
ancient Hebrew verse from the Song of Songs that means "This is
my beloved, this is my friend," written without vowels can also
be read as "This is my uncle, this is my shepherd." Modern Hebrew
attempts to correct this difficulty by adding vowel signs.
During
the so-called "dark ages" in Greece, after the fall of Mycenaean
civilization, the syllabary known as Linear B was lost; but soon
after 1000 BC, the Greeks borrowed the Phoenician writing system,
divided the consonants from the vowels, and invented the first
alphabet (named after its first two letters,
alpha and beta--or alef and bet
in the Semitic Phoenecian system). To form the vowels, the Greeks
adapted five Semitic sounds for which there were no equivalents
in Greek: alef, a; hey, (epsilon) e; yodh,
(iota) I; ayin, (omicron) o; and vav, (upsilon)
u.
Further
research: Look into the history of a writing system such as Egyptian
or Mayan hieroglyphs, or Cretan Linear B. As you do, consider
the importance of writing in our own culture and in the history
of cultures in general. Although oral traditions have always played
a significant role in cultural life, imagine what life might be
like without writing. What kinds of technologies might exist if
we relied primarily on our own memories and voices to transmit
information? Does writing inevitably develop along with increasing
complexity in political and socio-economic systems?
Consider
as well the impact of writing on human consciousness and cultural
evolution. How does the introduction of writing alter the way
in which human beings communicate? How have writing technologies
influenced the development of our culture(s)? The concept of literacy
has become one hallmark of civilization. How did the invention
of moveable type and the wide distribution of books help this
concept to develop? In terms of the future, how will the newer
technologies--computers in general, and hypertext in particular--affect
the way we conduct human discourse?
Sources