Writing is both a practice and a system. It is the graphic representation of ideas, concepts and objects by means of signs called letters. The latter can have different characteristics according to the specific society that uses them, which also generates different writing systems. One of them is, for example, the alphabet, and its history is very extensive, dating back to about four centuries BC.

In this article we will make a brief review of the history of writing , dealing with the trajectory it has followed from classical Mesopotamia to present-day Western societies.

History of Writing in Antiquity

Mesopotamia, the ancient region of the Near East, is recognized as the place where the beginnings of writing developed, which later gave rise to our current alphabetical system.

This process was made possible by the multilingual and multicultural context that was characteristic of the area around the fourth millennium BC. Especially important for the history of writing was the combination of Semitic languages with the language of the Sumerians, which was transmitted through pictograms representing the objects.

Cuneiform writing

The latter, the Sumerians, are credited with creating the cuneiform script. This is because their pictograms were not simply graphic representations but conveyed messages in a systematic way with linguistic value.

In addition, it is called “cuneiform writing” since, in the beginning, the pictographs were made on clay tablets and through the use of wedges (pieces of wood or metal with a point and edge that serve to break or make incisions). In fact, the word “wedge” comes from the Latin cuneus, and that is where the term “cuneiform” has been derived from.

Although the Sumerian language did not survive, cuneiform writing was a technique adopted by different Indo-European and non-Indo-European groups. For example, it was recovered by the Babylonians, but it was also used to write languages such as Akkadian and Elamite. It was used by the Persians (a people of Indo-European origin originally based in Iran), Hurrites (Mitanni people from Northern Mesopotamia), Hittites (a people from the Anatolian peninsula, one of the powers of the Middle East).

Thus, writing as a technique, and clay tablets along with wedges, as the main tools, spread throughout Asia Minor, Syria and surrounding areas . It is estimated that cuneiform writing was used for three and a half millennia and the last record of cuneiform tablet is from 75 AD (Ferreiro, 1994).

Subsequently and through different historical events related to the way human settlements have been generated; cultural diversity and linguistic mixture made it possible for the writing system initiated by the Sumerians to reach the hands of the Hellenic peoples .

Origins of the Alphabet

The Greeks inherited from the Phoenicians and/or the Canaanites an ordered set of signs and symbols also associated with a name and a sound (known as the “principle of acrophony”).

This ordered set of signs and symbols was assimilated and adapted by the Greeks for their own purposes. Specifically, it is the writing system that is called “proto-Canadian” (from the Bronze Age), which has been recognized as the paradigm from which the Phoenician alphabet was developed, which in turn laid the foundation for the development of the Latin, Greek, and Hebrew alphabets, among others.

Writing, Reading and Literacy

The writing system we know as alphabet is then the result of a multi-literacy of the peoples conquered by the inhabitants of Ancient Greece, and arises as a result of the rich cultural and linguistic exchange.

This means that the scribes of the time had strongly mixed alphabets, worked, used and mastered more than one language. Another consequence was that these alphabets were administered and distributed according to social systems, which is visible, for example, in the process of secularization of writing (when it ceased to be a practice reserved for religious cults).

Thus, inevitably, the history of writing systems is linked to the history of literacy, while the latter is the process by which the discourses to be written are controlled, used and distributed (Ferreiro, 1994). Moreover, while writing and texts do not exist without material support, the history of writing is also the history of reading, an issue that has recently been addressed by different linguists and historians.

Literacy followed a process of systematization and expansion that had different characteristics in the following historical moments of Western civilization, in a close relationship with the printed culture , the transmission of knowledge and education as fundamental practices and values for development.

Bibliographic references:

  • Ferreiro, E. (1994). Diversity and the literacy process: from celebration to awareness. Revista Latinoamericana de Lectura. 15(3): 2-11.
  • Laporte, J.P. (2012). Review of “History of Reading and Writing in the Western World” by Martins Lyons. Journal of information, culture and society. 27: 123-135.