History of Kanji in Japan

Each of the four civilizations had a system of writing. The first form of writing was developed by the Sumerians from the Tigris-Euphrates River, called cuneiform. It had about 300 symbols and was used to mark property boundaries and charts of major constellations. Usually, a wedge-shaped stylus is used on soft clay to produce cuneiform symbols. Cuneiform was later diffused into other following cultures. The Nile River Egyptians developed a different form of writing to help maintain the Egyptian empire. It was pictographic and combined with sound signs to produce hieroglyphics. Most of their writing was done papyrus, which was a fine paper produced from the stem of a water plant. The Indus River also invented their own unique alphabet, however, to this day, it has not been deciphered yet. The most sophisticated form of writing emerged from the Chinese. They came up with characters that symbolized the idea of a thing, naming it

When the civilizations were first invented, there was a lot of chaos and confusion. This led to the invention of the different forms of writing. Each civilization had a form of writing for

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 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

c. 5000-3500 BC: The first city-states gradually develop in southern Mesopotamia. This is the achievement of the Sumerian people. c. 3500: Writing begins to be developed. At first this is based on pictograms, and takes about a thousand years to evolve into a full cuneiform script.

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

In Ancient China, they developed a writing system for preservation. In China, people would use logograms, which are symbols that represent a word or a meaning.In the early days of the ancient Chinese civilization, people would write on oracle bone or tortoise shell.In Ancient India, writing systems were developed for recording data and information. The Indus script used signs and words and it was written from right to left. By 1800 BCE, the Indus valley civilizations started to fall and writing were often used anymore. Ancient Egyptians started to developed a writing system called, hieroglyphics because they needed a way to record important information. They believed that recording data and communicate information about government and religion was essential. Scribes were only ones to write in hieroglyphics and were written from left to right or top to bottom. In Mesopotamia, people started developing a writing system to information. Mesopotamia created a writing system called, cuneiform. Mesopotamian scribes would record important dates and event, and position of the stars. These ancient civilizations started to create their own writing system to record history and communicate information.

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

However, the act of interacting with the spiritual world was impossible without the early uses of writing. The initial early uses of writing were to record religious ideas and events that had taken place. Some examples of the first early uses of writing were seen in the oracle-bone inscriptions of the Shang Dynasty, the ritual bronze inscriptions in the Shang and Zhou dynasties, and the metal bound box during the Zhou dynasty. The need for record keeping and procedures for religious performance resulted in a large necessitation of literacy to continue these practices, especially for individuals of higher social standings.

To start, the Sumerians invented cuneiform, which began the path to written language in the future. Cuneiform was the first written language. It was invented over 5000 years ago! (Doc. 1). They used a stylus to make imprints for writing. Written on the clay tablets it was used to keep records, document business

Chapter six begins with describing when the first use of alphabets occurred. The earliest alphabet happened in Egypt and had pictorial characters. Then around 1,000BC, Phoenicians began using the Egyptians alphabet. At 700 BC, the Greeks developed their alphabet and eventually the Romans developed the alphabet we use today. The alphabets were written with ink on papyrus. Once the Industrial Revolution occurred, the printing press was invented causing prints to happened much faster and on a larger scale. In 1886, Ottmar Mergenthaler invented the Linotype, replacing the printing press (which required hand setting letters) with a machine that had a keyboard. The use of typography as well as the technology used to create it has come a long way.

Around 100 C.E. paper was invented by chinese craftsmen. Prior to this, the chinese people wrote on either silk or bamboo. Because of this, writing about religion and and nature increased heavily. Moreover, poetry started becoming more dominant in the works of the chinese as it allowed them to express how they felt and it helped them feel complete with nature. Because of literature, the spreading of religion and communication became much easier to access since paper was a lot cheaper than the previously used material, silk.

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