Greek Alphabet

Ancient Egyptians developed a writing system based on pictures, known as hieroglyphics. The difference between cuneiform and hieroglyphics was hieroglyphics stood not only for ideas or objects, but also sounds. According to document four, Egyptians also created papyrus, the first paper, in order to keep records.

In Ancient times written languages had been some of the tools that they used to communicate. “The designation ‘hieroglyphics’ is a Greek word; the Egyptians referred to their writing as medu-netjer ‘the god’s words’, as they believed writing had been given to them by the great god Thoth” (Mark). The Egyptians believed that hieroglyphics were given to them as a special gifts from their god. Another thing is that they used hieroglyphics to represent their

civilization. They started the Olympic games. Greeks come up with the idea of an alphabet

    The river valley civilizations developed writing systems. Each writing system was unique, but they also had similarities between them. The people from Mesopotamia had a writing system called “cuneiform.” The Egyptians had a writing system called “hieroglyphics.” Cuneiform was a writing system based on pictures (3.) Just like cuneiform, hieroglyphics was also based on pictures (11.) Both writing systems presented objects or ideas. Also, they were both carved into stone.

The Greeks language -- unlike the mesopotamians and other early civilizations, attached itself to the land and the descendants of the ancient Greeks. Being the first european civilization to use an alphabet when writing, the Greeks were able to develop and grow quicker with the use of records. Prior to the Greeks, the Mycenaeans inhabited the land, those whom developed Linear B; but with complication of the linguistic norm of Greece the language died, calling upon the Greek adaptation. Now with the help of this new form of writing, the ancient Greeks orchestrated records in which to record trade, shipments, imports and exports, all to organize the city and its new marketed resources. Then, with thee rapidly growing trade routes of the city-states of greece; the greeks could not only trade with one another but trade with other civilizations that bordered the Mediterranean Sea and on, all while keeping track with their clay tablets. One the other hand, the Greeks popular form of writing helped them establish order within their civilization, with the help of written law. During the time of the first democracy, the Greeks formatted laws that were passed by the people, for the people, in order to live in an organized, civilized, and fairly taxed society. In the end, with the establishment of a new form of calligraphy invented, other

The Greeks where the first to use an alphabet. It came around the time the dark ages ended and was mad of 24 letters. Most of are letters like a, b, e and o came from the Greek’s.

Phoenicians devised a simplified alphabet with 22 letters around 1300 BCE became the predecessor of Greek and Latin alphabets. Phoenicians also improved the Egyptian

The first form of writing was created by Sumerians 5,000 years ago called Cuneiform (Document 1). Sumerians used this writing system to keep track of business dealings because they traded with people who lived in lands that were hundreds and even thousands of miles away (Doc. 2). With a written language, ideas could be shared from generation to generation (Doc. 1). To write in cuneiform somebody would need to acquire a clay tablet, then bake it hard in a kiln (Doc. 1). If cuneiform had not been created, there may have not been written languages in the

A type of recordkeeping syllables called Linear B was largely used in Mycenaean palaces. It is also identified as an early form of Greek.

According to Carr, writing began in the year 8000 BC, when people would use small clay tokens that were engraved with symbols as a way to keep track of livestock and goods (Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains). Then during the end of the fourth century BC, the Sumerians and Egyptians both developed their own systems of writings called cuneiform and hieroglyphs respectively. Cuneiform was a system of wedge-shaped characters whereas hieroglyphs was a system of symbols. Both incorporated what is called logosyllabic characters, characters that denoted not just things, but speech sounds too. This meant that both the reader and the writer had to work extra hard to interpret the meaning of each character. As a result, reading and writing cuneiform and hieroglyphs became so mentally stressful that its use was soon restricted to the intellectual elite who had both the time and brain power to read and write the respective system (Carr, The Shallows: What the Internet Is Doing to Our Brains). Then around 750 BC, everything changed. It was around this time that the Greeks developed the very first phonetic alphabet with vowel sounds and consonant sounds. Also, through the analyzation of all of the sounds used in spoken language, the Greeks were the first to be able to

The Greece was the first people to use the alphabet. It was maked after the dark Ages.They had 24 letters They used A,B,E and O from our alphabet. Then we made up the rest of the alphabet. But the idea is still there. Now everyone knows the alphabet.

Important alphabets would include the Greek alphabet, which was the first phonemic alphabet. These are alphabets that are, “…sets of letters, usually arranged in a fixed order, each of which represents one or more phonemes, both consonants and vowels, in the language they are used to write.” (Ager) From this came the two most widely used alphabets, the Latin/Roman and the Cyrillic alphabets, which have been adapted to write numerous languages. From the periods of these writing systems, letters would have begun to spring up as a form of communication between people who were not readily available to give information to immediately.

To begin, the Sumerians of ancient Mesopotamia introduced the first forms of written language-Cuneiform. The beginning of writing was an essential tool that transferred thoughts and speech into text. It was extremely important and allowed for the beginning of record keeping of all sorts. “At this point, writing was used only for record keeping, and thus only concrete words(nouns) such as “ox”,”grain” and “sheep” were needed. As society became more complex, the language evolved enabling signs to be used…and eventually abstract thoughts “(Newman 44). The world came to know a unique way of expressing thoughts and learned to convey messages through writing. From then on, records could be kept, history and stories could be recorded and abstract thinking could shine

Writings may have been introduced from Mesopotamia, and played a major role for inspiration; yet, there were differences in characters and material. The description, “developed” form could be explained as the Egyptian writing was able to describe every spoken language into a written language, even though it was not an alphabetical system. Ancient Egyptian language had several forms and developed as time passed by: Old Egyptian (2650-2135BC), Middle Egyptian (2000-1750BC), Late Egyptian (1550-700), Demotic (600BC-AD500), Coptic (AD300-present), and Greek (332-30BC). In fact, as the Coptic Church still uses the Coptic for liturgical languages, the Egyptian language can be said that it is used for more than 5,000 years, which is longer than any other languages. In addition, there were Hieroglyphs, which were sacred carvings of the words of God. It was used shortly before 3100BC to 40AD and was used for carving on walls and stones. Hieratic was a writing that was used instead of Hieroglyphs when wring on Papyrus, and indeed, it was made to make writing letters easier for priests and scribes. Demotic was a more simple writing system than previous ones, which was used widely by ordinary people. However, Coptic was used by only ruling elites, which described Ancient Egyptian with Ancient Greek. Indeed, the archeological material and pictorial evidence from Egypt shows that the writing were mainly monumental and centered on the ruling group, religion, and on the symbols of Egypt as a single polity . This explains a clear comparison in the usage of the written system of Mesopotamian and Egyptian civilizations, which further can be interpreted within its politics as the Egyptian had a more centralized ruling

Is the development of the writing system the most important factor that led to the rise of a civilization? How does our ancestor learned to write when school is not even available? Understand that writing system that I am referring is not the average of using tools such as ink and paper, but more of creative tool that has developed over time. In this essay, I will cover seven points on the importantance of a writing system in the ancient civilization.