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A History of Writing STEVEN ROGER FISCHER a history of writing globalities Series editor:Jeremy Black globalitiesis a series which reinterprets world history in a concise yet thoughtful way, looking at major issues over large time-spans and political spaces; such issues can be political, ecological, scientific, technological or intellectual. Rather than adopting a narrow chronological or geographical approach, books in the series are conceptual in focus yet present an array of historical data to justify their arguments. They often involve a multi-disciplinary approach, juxtaposing different subject-areas such as economics and religion or literature and politics. In the same series Why Wars Happen Jeremy Black A History of Language Steven Roger Fischer The Nemesis of Power A History of International Relations Theories Harald Kleinschmidt Geopolitics and Globalization in the Twentieth Century Brian W. Blouet Monarchies 1000—2000 W. M. Spellman A History of Writing steven roger fischer reaktion books Dedicated to Sir Robert Evans Published by Reaktion Books Ltd 79Farringdon Road, London ec1m3ju, uk www.reaktionbooks.co.uk First published 2001 Copyright © Steven Roger Fischer 2001 All rights reserved No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior permission of the publishers. Printed and bound in Great Britain by St Edmundsbury Press, Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data Fischer, Steven Roger A history of writing. – (Globalities) 1. Writing – History I. Title 411'.09 isbn 1 86189 101 6 Contents preface 7 1 From Notches to Tablets 11 2 Talking Art 34 3 Speaking Systems 68 4 From Alpha to Omega 121 5 The East Asian ‘Regenesis’ 166 6 The Americas 211 7 The Parchment Keyboard 237 8 Scripting the Future 294 references 321 select bibliography 335 illustration acknowledgements 343 index 345 Preface This introduction to a history of writing is meant to serve as useful preliminary reading for university students and others who wish to have a general and up-to-date overview of writing’s remarkable story. Central to the book’s theme are the origins, forms, functions and chronological changes of the world’s major writing systems and their scripts. Writing’s social dynamics are addressed at each stage. Since Homo erectus, hominids appear to have distinguished themselves from other creatures by forming societies based on speech. What now distinguishes modern Homo sapiens sapiensis a global society based most importantly on writing. Once the specialized domain of only a few thousands, today writing is a skill practised by about 85per cent of the world’s population – some five bil- lion people. All modern society rests on writing’s plinth. Most writing systems and scripts that have existed are now extinct. Only minute vestiges of one of the most ancient – Egyptian hieroglyphs – live on, unrecognized, in the Latin alphabet in which English, among hundreds of other languages, is conveyed today. (Our m, for example, ultimately derives from the Egyptians’ consonantal n-sign, depicting waves.) In conse- quence of a series of fortuitous developments, the Latin alpha- bet has become the world’s most important writing system. Though language’s vehicle, it will possibly outlive most of Earth’s natural languages. How humankind writes today, and its larger significance for the emergent global society, can be better appreciated through an understanding of where writing came from, which is the theme of this book. Writing fascinates everyone. For nearly six thousand years, each age has embraced this wonder, surely society’s most versa- tile and entertaining tool. Today, ancient writing in particular 7 intrigues, as it permits the past to speak to us in tongues long extinct. Here, writing becomes the ultimate time machine. Notwithstanding, all writing remains an artifice, an imperfect device seemingly fashioned, if only at first blush, to reproduce human speech. There have been endless ways to accomplish this. History has now reduced and refined these to a small number of ‘best’ solutions. Readers will appreciate, though, that the historical process of reduction and refinement is still contin- uing, as society discovers new needs and new answers. It is for this reason that, much more slowly than the languages they transmit, writing systems and scripts are forever in flux. But writing is much more than Voltaire’s ‘painting of the voice’. It has become human knowledge’s ultimate tool (sci- ence), society’s cultural medium (literature), the means of democratic expression and popular information (the press) and an art form in itself (calligraphy), to mention only some mani- festations. Today, writing systems based entirely on electronic communication are rapidly encroaching on what has, until now, been the domain of speech-based writing. Computers can now ‘write’ both messages and entire programs between them- selves. At the same time, they are elaborating new systems of their own that transcend everything we have understood to be described by the word writing. Even the substances on which writing takes place are metamorphosing: e-ink (electronic ink) on plastic screens, thin as paper, might one day replace the ubiquitous substance which itself earlier replaced parchment. Writing changes as humanity changes. It is a gauge of the human condition. Several insights will, I hope, become evident in the course of this brief overview. No-one ‘invented’ writing. Perhaps no-one independently ever ‘re-invented’ writing, either, be it in China or Mesoamerica. All writing systems appear to be descendants of earlier prototypes or systems, whose idea of graphically depicting human speech, scheme for accomplishing this, and/or graphic signs used in this process were borrowed and adapted or converted to fit some other people’s language and social needs. Jeremy Black of Exeter University and Michael Leaman of Reaktion Books, within a week of one another, independently 8 . a history of writing
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