Writing is an easy way to communicate all over the world. Without it, barriers would not be limited to language and cultures. It is writing that brings us closer together and educates us with knowledge that is passed from generation to generation. But where does it come from?
Writing: the mark of the end of prehistory
Prehistory ended with the birth of writing. A new era was born when Man began to leave written traces. According to studies conducted by archaeologists, the first texts were books of inventories and accounts. It is after that that Man quickly realized that he could use them to tell stories. This has allowed us, until today, to deepen our knowledge.
However, it has been noticed that prehistoric men already tried to tell their past long before the discovery of writing. You can see in different monuments and famous caves, paintings and engravings that seem to want to transmit messages and testify facts. Unfortunately, no study has been unanimous about the meaning of these rock arts left by people who lived in that other time.
The birth of writing with hieroglyphs
Writing was born 6000 years ago in Mesopotamia and Egypt almost simultaneously. These two neighboring countries used the same system of small images: pictograms and hieroglyphs. But they were very diversified. Documents containing Egyptian characters were discovered around 3000 BC. In addition to the retransmission of the spoken language, many Egyptian civilizations have been noticed. Three signs have been identified: pictograms to show a thing or an idea, phonograms to know the sound and determinatives to grant understanding to the readers by classifying the first two signs.
In parallel with the hieroglyphs, another type of writing was also born in Egypt. It is about the cursive writing which allows to write texts more quickly. It was simple, but less worked and included ideograms, phonograms and determinatives. Like the hieroglyphs. It is in 650 BC that was developed the demotic writing and its facility authorized the extent of various forms of calligraphy. New rules were put in place after its expansion throughout the world. And so the alphabet was born.
