Anthropology 340LANGUAGE AND CULTURE

Writing Systems

The Beginning of History

When: Writing began about 3,400 years ago.

Where: The earliest evidence for writing has been found in Mesopotamia, located in what is now Iraq.

Who: The SumeriansWhy: The earliest evidence for writing

appears to be for recording quantities and concepts, not for representing speech.

Types of Writing

Non-Phonetic

• Pictographs

• Ideographs

• Logographs

Phonetic

1.Syllabic

2.Consonantal

3.Alphabetic

Sumerian ScriptSumerian script began as a pictographic writing and then became more stylized as time went on and the Sumerians gave way to the Babylonian and Assyrian cultures.

Pictographic Writing

Pictographic writing tells stories through pictures

PictographsMinoan culture developed on the island of Crete in the Aegean Sea south of Greece and south west of Turkey at about 2000 BC.

Examples of Pictographs Used Today

Easter Island WritingThe writing from Easter Island has not been decyphered. It appears to be at least partially pictographic but may be ideographic or logographic in nature.

Ideograms1. Hittite Culture that ruled Anatolia (what is now Turkey) between 2000 and 1700 BC 2. Nigeria in the early 20th Century3. Indus Valley

Modern Idiograms

AnatolianHieroglyphics(Turkey) are Logograms

Chinese Characters as Logograms

Mixtec Logographic Script

• http://www.ancientscripts.com/mixtec.html

• Arabic Consonantal Alphabetic

• http://www.ancientscripts.com/arabic.html

Chinese (Older Version)

Modern Korean

Maya Glyphs

Egyptian Hieroglyphics are a mixture of alphabetic

and logographic

writing.

The Transition from

Hieroglyphic to Phonological Script as the Phoenicians

borrowed and modified the Egyptians’

writing system

Consonantal Writing

The Phoenicians developed a phonological writing system based on consonants only, depending on the reader to fill in the vowels. This characteristic was carried on in Hebrew until diacritic marks were added to consonants to fill in some of the vowel sounds.

Syllabic Script from Cyprus

Japanese Writing Systems

• Kanji = characters of Chinese origin (combine logographs and syllabary symbols) used for nouns and verb stems

• Hirigana = a syllabary used for verb ending and grammatical participles (on, to)

• Katakana = used for non-Japanese words or loan words

AlphabeticWriting is a

phonological writing

system that has a

different symbol for each vowel

and consonant

sound.

Runic Carving with Writing

Study Guide

Writing Syllabic writingMesopotamia Consonantal writingSumeria Alphabetic writingPictographs Kanji writingIdeographs HiraganaHieroglyphics KatakanaGlyphs RunesLogographs