Who Invented Writing?

[@anak_kucing101]

It's interesting to think that nowadays, if you asked a random person on the street, someone whose native language is Indo-European, to invent a writing system, they would likely create an alphabet based on syllables or single letters. This stands in contrast to the pictographs used by ancient humans to represent words and ideas.

[@Dewydidit]

I don't feel as bad about the legibility of my handwriting after seeing some of these early examples.

[@davidclark573]

The world of antiquity doesn't seem to get anything right any more.

[@boscorner]

​@davidclark573 care to elaborate ? Also what does that have to do with the comment we are replying to?

[@yesfredfredburger8008]

@@davidclark573 what do you mean?

[@hedgehog3180]

@@davidclark573 I mean it's kinda difficult to get things right when you've been dead for millenia.

[@Fclwilson]

I recently learned from Digital Hammurabi that a previously unknown language was discovered in the Hittite area. The linguists are slated to publish in February. If memory serves, it was rendered in cuneiform and the fragment is about 15 lines

[@petermsiegel573]

Kalasmaic… an Anatolian (Hittite-related) written in Hittite cuneiform (writing system), probably by Hittite scribes.

[@karenabrams8986]

That’s awesome news.

[@scribeslendy595]

That makes my little historian heart happy

[@faragraf9380]

there are foreign signs on Denisovan figurines and huge objects, found in the Visoco tunnels. I have both seen.

[@scribeslendy595]

@faragraf9380 kindly elaborate on visoco tunnels? I wasn't aware we'd discovered new remains/symbols in the area

[@shannon_kilpatrick]

So interesting. I never heard of the Balkan scripts before

[@arnorrian1]

Vinča culture is amazing, but little known. It was on par with Ubaid culture in Mesopotamia. The first street in history was found there, and they even did some basic smelting of copper. And the cubist figurines they made are wonderful.

[@undergroundman1993]

My friend asked me if I thought the Egyptians or Sumerians invented writing first or if one influenced the other. I told him they probably appeared within a few hundred years of each other but that it doesn't really matter which one came first. In my opinion both of their societies probably became large and complex enough around the same time to require the development of more complex systems of record keeping rather than one system being inspired by an earlier one.

[@barbarossarotbart]

Both systems are to different to be influenced by eachother.

[@abj136]

@@barbarossarotbart They surely had different backstories, but I’d believe the cultures gained ideas from each other.

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@abj136 Why could it not be a parallel development, like so many other things?

[@flyingeagle3898]

@@barbarossarotbart mainly because the 2 regions are in such close physical proximity that it would be weird if they didn't influence one another to some degree

[@barbarossarotbart]

@@flyingeagle3898 Which two regions? Egypt and Mesopotamia? They are not really close. They had not even been in contact when their writing systems had been developed.

[@MajoraZ]

To clarify on what is said about potential Olmec writing: There's a number of engraved Olmec artifacts that seem to have some sort of writing or proto-writing script on them, the most notable example being the Cascajal Block, which is dated to around 900BC. I'm not quite sure why Dr. Miano decided to not clarify on this more: There IS debate about if this is actually writing or some other form of symbolism, but the Zapotec script itself may not fully meet the definition of a true writing system either, depending on how one defines that (under the strictest definition of "writing", the only script in the Precolumbian Americas which would qualify would be Maya writing) so I would have included it. The Cascajal Block in particular is also debated about in terms of if the dating is reliable or if it's even a legitmate prehispanic piece at all, but as I noted, there are other Olmec pieces which seem to have the same characters or glyphs or symbols on them too.

[@AwakeAtTheWheel]

Super interesting! Amazing that so many places happened to develop writing around the same time. Thanks professor!!

[@yodasmomisondrugs7959]

Aliens....duh!

[@AwakeAtTheWheel]

@@yodasmomisondrugs7959 😂🍻

[@OmegaFares]

The others are still a couple of centuries later than Mesopotamia and Egypt and the so.called balkan scripts.are.just speculation.at this point.

[@s.k.3891]

Prof. Gimbutas (I know, I know !) has published extensively about European writing and proto writing in "the language of the goddess".

[@MrGaborseres]

Thank you again sir 🙂 Your take on the subject is very much appreciated 👍

[@royalapplepie]

Love your presentations 💖

[@jhthephd]

New intro graphic is sick!

[@robertstrawser1426]

Awesome video. I am actually surprised that we do not have more examples of much earlier writing systems that were lost or simply never really progressed. When it comes to writing we are definitely under a bias that, once invented, it would immediately be recognized for its usefulness and continue to develop. We know now that technological development is not usually a straight linear progression but a series of starts and stops with many failures before something actually catches on. Sadly, because many of these earliest attempts were likely written exclusively on perishable materials, we may never find them. I doubt we have found, or will ever find, humanity’s first actual writing but I wouldn’t be surprised if we found more examples of proto-writing, or even full writing systems, that go back many thousands of years before Mesopotamia and Egypt. They just never progressed for one reason or another. Truly this is a fascinating and compelling topic.

[@David1Eskin]

I think the development of writing probably first requires a need for it, namely large scale trade or taxation schemes that make recording communication in a form which is stable and can be transmitted over long spatial distances necessary. Its utility over temporal distances being likely a secondary benefit not necessarily called for at the initial stage of development.

[@hedgehog3180]

@@David1Eskin The temporal stability of writing is also something you have to first invent writing to discover. If you live in a society with purely oral transmission of knowledge you obviously have nothing else to compare oral transmission to so you have no way of knowing that writing is more temporally stable.

[@fernbedek6302]

Thogg in 127 000 BCE invented writing, but no one else in her community was interested in learning.

[@SobekLOTFC]

Keep up the great work, Dr Miano!

[@annepoitrineau5650]

As always, thank you so much. Food for thought and reflection as well as full of knowledge and info. In his seminal book "Tristes tropiques", Claude Levi-Strauss relates of an Amazonian Chief who pretended to understand writing when interacting with C L-S in public, and responded by drawing wavy lines looking vaguely like C L-S's writing. He also includes in the book symbols used mostly as tattoos. These symbols are very abstract, and the Indians do not quite know what they mean, it seems (no agreement as to meaning that is).

[@meesalikeu]

could not be more interesting & more clearly laid out for us - thanks doc! 🎉

[@Jonnygurudesigns]

We can always depend on straight talk and the "breakdown" from our friend the Doctor. This channel has stoked imaginations and passions for history that universities wish they could create through their courses... I find it interesting that other KZbin channels that are absolutely respectable and knowledgeable always give a nod and a tip of the hat to Dr. Miano and what he's doing here.. there is no better place to be than here 😉

[@frankdobs]

Others make history boring by nerding it up too much

[@rogerbogh3884]

Amongst many great videos offered by you, this might be your best. Great topic, and it looks like you had fun

[@chestnutoak1645]

This was very interesting. I especially liked the distinction between symbolic, protowritten language and mature written. Maybe future videos could explore: Norse runic writing and any examples of indigenous writing in sub Saharan Africa. Your KZbin shorts documenting your dates with women who also have an interest in ancient history are a hoot.

[@terrywallace5181]

Excellent program! Informative and interesting.

[@onbedoeldekut1515]

Blessed Yule tidings to you and yours, David.

[@drummersagainstitk]

Thank you for all your work.

[@gregrefon]

Thank you. Very comprehesive and also well writen.

[@comment8767]

Thank you for not having a guitar in the background.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

To be clear, not all writing relates to speech sounds. Logographic writing systems convey morphemes (meaningful components of language), with no direct indication of sound; as opposed to something like an alphabet that marks the sounds. It would be more accurate to say that writing is a physical representation of language, just as speech is a vocal representation of language. It's important because all of the earliest examples of writing are logographic. Alphabets and syllabaries, which both encode actual speech sounds, were a later innovation. As far as I know no culture ever invented writing based on speech sounds initially, there was always an intermediate step of logographic writing or exposure to another literate culture. The main difference between logographies and pictograms or ideograms is that they bypass language and goes directly for meaning. This is what's called "proto-writing", the step between artistic drawing and formal writing. Edit: Oh and you didn't mention Rongorongo, which is from Polynesia. This and the origin in Mesoamerica makes a single origin point highly implausible.

[@cattymajiv]

Yes. You made so many very relevant points. Alphabets were indeed a much later development in writing. And Rongorongo was also definately important enough that he should have mentioned it! Nevermind the fact that many people are going to be frustrated by his ommision of discussion of Egyptian Hieroglyphs. But he did cover the Chinese writing very well. Most people merely gloss over it, and the Indus scripts, which he also covered fairly well. For that matter, he did not cover the fundamental difference between a language and a script, which should always be the starting point of any discussion on writing systems. I feel this video was far too short to really cover the basics at all. What he did cover was important, but he tried to make it short, and some subjects just can't be covered that briefly. So much more could have been said without adding too much more time to it. I'm not able to make this kind of video at all, but I would prefer it to be at least double the length, to include all of the most relevant info.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

But language itself is a form of communication that is in most instances conveyed by speech. I realize there are some languages conveyed by gesture, but in all of the cultures discussed here, that is not the case.

[@InternetDarkLord]

@@WorldofAntiquity But even if, for the sake of argument, one script here was for gestures instead of spoken words, how does that change the question, where did writing begin? How could we even tell the difference today?

[@kifer2594]

@@WorldofAntiquitycould you talk about the knowledge of complex geometry and astronomy in ancient Egypt? Or is there already a video about it?

[@PaulSpades]

@@WorldofAntiquity That's not the point. Written language encodes data, the data may be conceptual and not meant to be spoken. We have many languages of this sort from programming languages to document languages and bit encoding rulesets to mathematical notation and logic notation to music notation. Speech is inefficient or completely inadequate to represent most types of modern data encoding, there's no reason ancient people wouldn't have thought the same. Some of these "proto-languages" seem to encode tabular data, which is a very efficient form of data transmission (or communication, if you prefer), mouth noises will only fail to convey the positional nature of the data. Also, written communication needs not a representation in a completely different medium like speech or gestures. It functions on its own, as do the others. You learn to speak a language without fist knowing how to write, you can also learn how to write a language without speaking at all. This should be obvious to somebody with your linguistic experience.

[@tkc1129]

Great video. Hopefully we keep finding more early examples.

[@susancottman9686]

Thanks for mentioning the Vinca. I read a book about the Danube River civilization a few years back. It was great.

[@GenghisVern]

If tin could travel a thousand miles by caravan, I'm sure information (like proto-writing) would spread along with it.

[@arthurballs9632]

I've regularly received deliveries from China for nearly two decades. Haven't picked up on their language though.

[@GenghisVern]

@@arthurballs9632 tech flows the other way, even today-- i'm sure the afghan tin miners of 3000bc had a reason for digging

[@KindlingEffect]

I once read in a history book that, travelling merchants had a huge role in simplifying the complex symbols into "short-hand" alphabets that could easily be made in a few brush strokes by anyone (no artistic skills required), since they had to do a lot of writing and they needed a lazier/simpler/quicker way to record information.

[@GenghisVern]

@@KindlingEffect sure. and the tallies on clay tablets for instance, if you consider mathematics a language.

[@rdawson808]

This is fascinating! Thanks for making your videos.

[@floepiejane]

Subscribed. I found it fascinating. Thank you. Cheers ✌🏽🌻

[@CoolClearWaterNM]

Great video! Who invented writing? I'd have to go with dozens and possibly hundreds around the world. Who invented it first? That changes with every new discovery. 'That we know of' will always be the best answer. It is a true pleasure to listen to someone who knows that we do not know everything. Side note: I am looking forward to your lecture series. As with Physics lectures from Lewin, Constitution from Hillsdale College, etc. I will wait until the great grand kids are here so that we can dive in as a family.

[@mnomadvfx]

"'That we know of' will always be the best answer" Very true. For all we know the neanderthals recorded information on clay or wood that has long since degraded to nothing, it's incredibly unlikely that any of it would have survived till now.

[@TerribleTom113]

Hillsdale College? Isn't that a mid pushing far Right, Christian propaganda mill peddling alt history regarding the ideological and religious foundations of the U.S.?

[@stephentoons]

You make an interesting topic even more interesting :)

[@pastorwilliamhay1687]

Great presentation. Thx

[@Daniel-ob2ml]

In the writings of Shumer, there is one passage in which a king boast of being able to read the writings from before the flood.

[@Meine.Postma]

For me the tortoise shells indicate a decade in the man's life. Also the Indus script is real writing. But I know nothing. From your video I still go for Sumerian being the first writing but Vinca makes me doubting

[@flyingeagle3898]

The Sumerian/ Egypt cluster or possibly the oldest Chinese examples are the earliest ones with a clear link to modern writing systems and therefore the earliest connections we have to the link of memory and history writing creates. However, it seems highly possible that the examples in the Balkans and a couple other examples were indeed earlier full-writing systems that failed to create that link with us in the modern day, and unfortunately without a large number of examples deciphering it will be near impossible, and perishable materials+ time on even the not -so perishable one make large numbers of examples unlikely to be found

[@soso4169]

Thank you, professor Miano, for mentioning the Dispilio wooden tablet. It was discovered in the neolithic lakeside settlement of Dispilio at lake Kastoria in northwest Macedonia, Greece - a must-see!

[@nikolaykolev1438]

This inscription is valuable because it was examined with C-14. The cedar lived 3000 /5260 BC/years. The inscription is later-3500 BC. This makes it possible to compare with other inscriptions and make a periodization of the development of writing.

[@humbaba55]

Dr. Miano, have you done a video on the Dispilio tablet yet? I'd be interested in your take on it. Thank you for all your great videos.

[@ladyflimflam]

So the interesting thing about the cave art that was shown is that marks around many of the animals have been correlated to the length of time between rut and drop in these animals. So, keeping track of gestation length.

[@cattymajiv]

I haven't heard that, but it's a very interesting idea! Even though it hardly relates to writing, it could be a symbol system related to gestation. Certainly the people did have months, years, and seasons. And they would know that all small animals reproduce frequently, and that large mammals only drop their young about once a year, in spring. Would they really need to differentiate between a horse and a deer, a cow and a buffalo, a lion, a tiger, and a cheetah? I have an opinion, but I may be dead wrong. It's an interesting idea.

[@holdingpattern245]

@@cattymajiv Different animals would have different seasons for migrating, mating, hibernating, etc., which would be useful information for hunters. Written numbers could be related to writing, most writing systems started as systems of accounting. There are also abstract symbols found in cave drawings, some of which are forty thousand years old, but their significance is totally unknown.

[@surjagain]

Very interesting! Thank you for the video 🙏🏼

[@3PercentNeanderthal]

Interesting video, I enjoyed it. Thanks for the content. Liked and now subscribed.

[@zhubajie6940]

So glad you clearly define writing. I was fortunate enough to visit several areas in Henan a few cities and sites several years ago. One of my delights was to see a couple turtle plastrons from Jiahu displayed in the Henan Museum in Zhengzhou. One clearly had a ri(日) symbol I remember but as you said were symbols not writing. Also got to visit the National Museum of Chinese Writing which has many Shang dynasty oracle bones (earliest Chinese writing known) as well as visit Yinxu near Anyang where the earliest oracle bone writing is found dating from about 1300 BCE onward mostly on cattle scapula and turtle plastrons but also on some bronze artifacts.

[@Kittynugget1]

Thanks!

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Wow, and thank you!

[@aapex1]

Very informative as always.

[@杨洋-e8i]

Hello Professor, thank you very much for your fair and objective evaluation of one of the testimonies of human civilization - words. Liangzhu people have begun to use written records to preserve social development and cognition. At present, the tangible objects that can be verified exist in the world, such as ancient jade texts engraved on jade.

[@daveshrum1749]

I just wanted to thank you for your videos. Every time I see one of those ancient alien type videos it makes my blood pressure rise and I just see red lol. I have to watch one of your videos as an antidote to stupidity. 😁

[@Meine.Postma]

I was the obnoxious commenter on your "Big News" video... Well prof, do not panic but I'm going to give you a compliment! Excellent video and I learned things. Way to go to promote your course. Most things I saw of you were debunking vids in which you (rightly) are a little elitist. But when you stick to teaching: Compliments! Please don't stop debunking BTW... Peace? O yeah, time for new spectacles? I've also appended my comment on your "Big News" video to recommend your new course/lecture

[@cattymajiv]

He has several different pairs of glasses, and he seems to wear them about equally. I wear which ever 1s of mine are the most comfortable, unless another pair are nearer to hand. My nicer ones hardly get worn. I save them for going out, and my best ones are for special occasions only. The ones I'm wearing now have lenses that are 40 years old and frames I got from Goodwill. They've been repaired twice, but they are the most comfortable. I think these 1s of his are a liitle odd too, but it's the last thing I would comment on.

[@anasevi9456]

excellent video, and perfectly outlines how writing as we know it; evolved from a supremely advanced tally system.

[@floepiejane]

Consider this, when you tell me something, you give me an account of it. Cheers ✌🏽🌻

[@Farm_Emo]

The "one culture that was copied," seems like such a pinpoint hypothisis that I don't know how one would prove it. Seems closer to Tartaria thinking than scholarly. We already know languages themselves don't seem to share one common ancestor. Many do but not all language familys are connected to another. So it would seem very reasonable that those language families would also evolve writing separately from one another.

[@InternetDarkLord]

Also, how did writing get to the Americas so early?

[@PlatinumAltaria]

Writing has absolutely no connection to language families.

[@mrgmurphy2000]

Good video... Very well researched! Thx

[@Thorwald_Franke]

Thank you for mentioning the Vinca culture. It might be useful to produce a video about the prevailing writing system, how it developed into our present world-wide Latin alphabet used by everybody in one way or another. So, the Mesopopatmians are the source where it came from, via Phoenicia, the Greeks, the Etruscans.

[@moonflower9403]

Love 🥰your knowledge. I find it very interesting to listen to

[@crispincain5373]

Thank you David

[@antiqqque]

that's a nice lookin' shirt and tie combo! love your channel Dr. Miano

[@loke6664]

In the Americas, it is possible that the Mayan script is close to the Zapotec as well. The earliest we found and clearly dated so far seems to be from San Bartolo and is dated somewhere between 300 and 400 BCE but the excavation of pre classic Maya cities is a bit spotty at best. For instance have only a tiny fraction of El Mirador been excavated and I think the oldest writing I heard of from there is dated around 100 BCE but the city seems to have been settled around 700 BCE and it was a massive city, maybe the largest in the new world at the time and with a tiny bit mostly from later periods have seen any archaeology yet, I assume there are at least somewhat older writing there too (I can of course be wrong). I find it pretty hard to manage a massive city with 200 000 people without any administration so it is certainly a place worth looking into at least. But it is still hard to say who first invented writing. I think Ur probably have the best claim with the evidence we have at the moment followed by Egypt a couple of years later but since we are talking about less then 100 years of the earliest in both places (even if the early Egyptian seems more primitive) a single find could switch that up. We also need to dig more in the Balkans and specifically China, the evidence for either is inconclusive. We only know that writing seems to have showed up in the old world around 5000 years ago and maybe 3000 years in the new from the evidence we have so far. One never know if the evidence already have been found and is lying around some museum with the wrong date on them or not even investigated, like those tiny clay figurines Claus Schmidt found and traced to Göbekli Tepe in the early 90s. I don't think writing was only invented once though. We find different proto scrips and symbols in use in too many places too far from each other for that to be the case. Sure, I could buy that the Harappan script could be inspired by Cuneiform since we have signs of trade between the western Harappan cities in Afghanistan at early times, they were not that far away and seems to at least had some kind of goods exchange so it is possible they were inspired by the Summerian seals on goods. I don't think the same thing is true for China or Mezzo America though, in China we see signs of proto language way before we see signs of contact or trade and we also see the signs slowly evolve which speak for them inventing them as a slow process. As for the Zapotecs, we have zero evidence of them trading with anyone with writing and the American symbols differs significantly from any others which speak against that. Some written languages were clearly inspired by others though, like the Scandinavian runes for instance (oldest known is from Norway dated to between 0-200 CE). Current theory is that someone was either trading or a mercanary in Roman service and realized the use of writing but wanted a simpler system that was easy to carve on stone, wood and antlers (that is was simpler can both be proven about the relatively high literacy in Scandinavia and the fact that it took me like 2 days to learn them, they were still common among Swedish peasants up to WW1 who couldn't write in Latin letters). In any case, it is a mystery and part of the problem is that this period of time have gotten less focus then the slightly later periods which affects funding and where archaeologists dig. Also, many regions have either been war torn or not gotten as much archaeology done which further makes finding the evidence harder. Hopefully new evidence will pop up in the future.

[@InternetDarkLord]

One of the biggest stumbling blocks to cultural exchanges between the Old and New Worlds thousands of years ago is pathogens. Why didn't more germs swap between the two hemispheres? The Vikings were in a remote area, but extensive trade should have spread diseases.

[@colinchampollion4420]

The Maya and Olmecas invented writing because of their old and superior civilization 😂🎉😂🎉

[@insanitarium2]

Great video. Thank you

[@tommack9395]

I could swear Sister Aponte invented writing? Least seemed that way in first grade when she was teaching us cursive penmanship, one slip of the fountain pen you're likely to get that yardstick smacked down on the desk.

[@revylokesh1783]

Memories of back ehen I was a student of sumerology. While the knowledge is all but lost now (me not having pursued a career in academia) I remember learning Sumerian by translating Gudea's votive inscriptions from Lagash.

[@esioanniannaho5939]

Brilliant Video. One story that needs a bit of digging is about the library of Alexandria. The brilliant film r Movie 'Agora' depicts that and the Intellect Hypathia. It was burnt down by early Christian Fanatics. However some books were rescued and saved. Some manuscripts were turned into Palimpsest. They had a particular thirst for manuscripts from the libraries of the Far East. I would really love one on this topic and on early knowledge or internet of ancient times. Many 🙏 for the enlightenment 😊

[@pretentioussystem]

Many thanks!

[@hamm0155]

One direction to think about would be who developed writing in a way that stayed and was part of what transpired later and where we are today. When we ask “who invented x?” One meaning is where we got it from. Sumerians Egyptians and Chinese created systems that lived on and had descendants. If Balkan script is writing, presumably it did not have descendants.

[@cattymajiv]

Very well put! Thank you!

[@scottzema3103]

(YIKES! On certain sites I'm stimulated to write a lot apparently, thanks for your videos!) ....But continuing with the Chinese language discussion, the Chinese writing system since its inception has historically developed as primarily an ideographic system which is used throughout the Far East regardless of the country or culture or language. There are many connoisseurs of Chinese calligraphy in Japan or Korea, for instance, who don't understand a word of Chinese yet who understand the Chinese written language perfectly. As another example, you can have a Korean, a Chinese, and a Japanese together in one room who do not understand at all each another's language, but who can yet communicate very effectively using the universal written language of Chinese characters (up to a point). Even within China itself there are educated Chinese who can be mutually unintelligible with one another when speaking, yet who can read the same newspapers as both are literate with the same writing system. I myself was educated as a scholar of Japanese art, one benefit of which I can read Chinese although I understand only a few spoken words of Mandarin. So you can have a written language completely divorced from a spoken language. Also, when I think about symbols considered as tools for communication with aliens in our age I think about the symbols on the plaque on the Voyager spacecraft. I see symbolism carefully considered for communication with an alien species. I see scientific symbolism divorced of language such as mathematics. And what about handicapped people who are hard of hearing, yet who if profoundly deaf from birth who may have problems with understanding spoken language? They can certainly learn to write and read. Perhaps the Paleolithic hunters mouthed out the words when counting the dots next to the paintings on the walls of the caves, a name for each dot representing seasons or the months of gestation of the animals or whatever they intended to convey. I personally think that the pillar top you showed from Gobekli Tepe shows households (and houses) of prominent families in the settlement, each with its own animal totem and each with its forever unknowable spoken name. The impulse to write seems only a part of a generally human program of using symbols for purposes of communication. In my opinion the paintings of the cave animals you showed are part of this general human impulse, as are arguably all arts, which is at base the impulse to communicate. SZ BA MA Seattle

[@Astras-Stargate]

Great video, thanks

[@iviecarp]

This is a detail about the subtitles: at 7:38, Dr Miano says "we don't have that until the 2nd dynasty" but the subtitles say "3rd dynasty" which may be an issue if someone is not watching with audio on (and also makes me wonder if which of the two is wrong xD)

[@MossyMozart]

In 2020, "NOVA" (on PBS in the USA) did a 2-parter called "A to Z". The 1st episode was "The First Alphabet", which also explored this topic. They traced how letter forms evolved from pictographs and spread. Episode 2, "How Writing Changed the World", traced the development from parchment to papyrus to paper. Very interesting!

[@_MikeJon_]

Who invented writing? A tax collector.

[@InternetDarkLord]

The sad part is, you might be right!

[@hansolowe19]

Or merchant, or priest.

[@gustavoboscardin9351]

There are only two certainties in life: first are taxes, second is death

[@mnomadvfx]

Tax, trade or property (land) records.

[@mnomadvfx]

@@gustavoboscardin9351 No, the first is death, the second is taxes. Taxes only exist while there are humans to demand or pay it.

[@MegaMar20]

Very informative.

[@TraitorVek]

Very Fascinating . I Love this.

[@anxofernandez3344]

From a linguistic perspective I don't necessarily agree with that idea of writing representing sounds and speech. Cuneiform and hieroglyphics are considered forms of writing, even though they were more ideographic, representing concepts rather than words. I know historians have a different opinion on the matter. I'm a philologist and I often have this kind of nerdy discussions with history majors and philosophy majors. When does writing start and where? Is writing the decisive factor to call a society or group of people a civilisation? Could pre-history have some forms of writing? It's a lot of fun to argue about these things, even though we often disagree.

[@ecta9604]

I’m really curious about prehistoric writing! I don’t know much about the subject, but it seems possible to me that writing or proto-writing might have been invented, abandoned and forgotten more than once during our 300,000 year development, leaving no traces behind. Do linguists believe this is a possibility or not so much?

[@ecta9604]

“ Is writing the decisive factor to call a society or group of people a civilisation?” Also, I’m curious about your take on this! It seems to me that if it were accepted it would make illiterate groups like English peasants uncivilized, which doesn’t ring true. Might be wrong though.

[@peterfmodel]

Excellent video.

[@ceder4696]

5:03 the figurine on the left ball looks like the figurine of the glass translucent greek sculpture with colored glass that changes when you light it from different angles. Maybe the mesopotamians had streets lights that where lid by fireflies at night or decorative lamps or clothing that used the insect as a coating?

[@monitor-mindtheover-void6712]

I'm pretty sure that one Uncle who decides my future every annual examination result day is the one who invented writing. He studied in Australia, France, Canada and America "simultaneously". He's also an astrologer btw, can't forget that.

[@Desertphile]

Thank you.

[@AncientPuzzles]

I wouldn't be surprised if some Neolithic cultures had writting, but having clear evidence is obviously important. Great vid👏🏻

[@David1Eskin]

What about the Quipu system of South America, while not graphical and therefore not writing, if those who assert that quipus recorded more than mere tallies and counts are correct, it represents a fascinating sibling to writing as a means of recording information and communication. Are there any examples of other similar siblings to writing from elsewhere in the world?

[@holdingpattern245]

It would be writing since it is a linear sequence of physical symbols. If the idea is correct, that is; but personally I have been convinced by the arguments of people opposed to it.

[@Akkesama]

Really enjoy your videos!

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Thank you!

[@KaitlynBurnellMath]

Yep, I think it's very clear that writing had to be invented by multiple different people in multiple different places. Much like farming and metalworking. But what I find really fascinating is that the idea of an alphabet was probably only invented once. (The earliest forms of writing are not alphabets, of course, they're much more complex--the first alphabet not being invented till around the time of the bronze age collapse. There are of course many alphabets today, but every subsequent alphabet seems to have been created only after coming into contact with another alphabet).

[@adorabell4253]

It makes sense because with so many localized dialects logographic scripts are superior for conveying info. You don’t need to learn a new language or dialect, you just need to know how to write. As long as you’re operating in the same language family you’re good.

[@johannageisel5390]

Personally, I believe it was a group effort. Maybe one culture came up with the idea of writing, then another developed the concept further, then another further... It's also possible that the idea died out at some point and was discovered again in another place.

[@PlatinumAltaria]

Well that's true broadly of writing, but the differences between even cuneiform and hieroglyphs suggests independent development. Further flung writing demonstrates this further.

[@faithlesshound5621]

One culture which lost writing and regained it centuries later was Ancient Greece. The Linear B tablets of Crete and the adjacent mainland have been shown to use a syllabary for an archaic form of Greek used for storekeeping by palaces & temples. It seems to have been based on Linear A, which encodes a different language (Finno-Ugric?) used earlier on Crete. That apparently died out with the collapse of the civilization late in the second millennium BC. Some centuries later, an alphabetic script based on that of the Phoenicians was developed further north and east. In our own time, scripts have been adopted and rejected for political reasons, since changing the script separates its users from their own history and from their neighbours. Some eastern European countries switched from Cyrillic to Roman letters in the 19th century. The Turks changed from Arabic to Roman script in the 19th century, and were followed by several central Asian societies. The latter were forcibly switched to Cyrillic by Stalin and are now going back to Latin. In Pakistan, low status languages like Punjabi and Mirpuri have scripts but are not taught in school, so most users think they can not be written, unlike Urdu, which alone is taught. In the Anglosphere, several countries have stopped teaching handwriting, as a result of which only printed materials are accessible to their schoolchildren, for whom "joined-up writing" might as well be in Arabic or Chinese. To a lesser degree the same applies to the switch from Fraktur to Roman letters for German.

[@cattymajiv]

@@faithlesshound5621 How does one teach children to read without teaching first to write? To understand the ABCs one must be able to create them, with a pencil and paper. I call bullshit on this post. Just because it's well written for the most part, and may well contain many facts, it's very clearly an attempt by a right winger to convince us that children are not being taught to write. I have no doubt that not too much farther down he will post again, this time claiming that the time that is freed up by not teaching writing is now devoted to teaching the kids to be trans, or some other equally absurd idea. In the 1960s they were in the process of giving up on the idea of regimental handwriting that must look a certain way, but to think anyone can get by without knowing how to write is ridiculous. Every teacher knows that, and so does everyone reading this, if they give it 30 seconds of thought. Can you survive without writing, and the ability to read handwriting? Of course not! To claim it's being omitted from school is a HUGE lie! The author of that post ought to be ashamed of themself! These people always give themselves away. They think we won't be able to spot their lies if they hide them among facts (or statements that might seem like facts to those who are not experts.) The ones who are constantly screaming about the govt and science lying to us, are actually the ones that are doing all the lying! Those nutcases invest an awful lot of time and effort into their lies, so be very careful what you believe. The US is jam packed full of these right wing extremists. Fanatics who are desperate to enlist others to their way of thinking. They are so full of anger and hatered that they will say anything, no matter how absurd it is. So most especially, do NOT believe anything in a KZbin video, unless the video is from a very trustworthy source, like an accredited university or scientific organization. And NEVER believe anything in the comments to any video, anywhere. Right now there are more trolls than we have ever seen before, working for so many different factions. There are Putin's trolls, Trump's trolls, and local trolls, working on local issues. In Canada we have anti Tredeau trolls, and Alberta seperatist trolls. Be very judgemental about every comment you read. No matter who it SEEMS to be from.

[@frankdobs]

Wonder if known trade routes from the time could give more evidence either way

[@ecta9604]

Thank you for this video Professor Miano! This is my favorite one yet, and that’s saying something. I have a couple of questions if you have time. 1. Why is it difficult to accept writing developing without being accompanied by things like states? I’ve heard that there used to be a concept called the “Neolithic Package”, with the idea being that things like monumental architecture, large settlements, strict hierarchies, animal and plant domestication etc. all tended to appear at the same time, but in recent scholarship this has been effectively challenged and examples of each of these things have been found to have developed independently of the others. Why hasn’t writing also been freed from this package? 2. I’ve grown to assume that when writing develops it isn’t forgotten, but I don’t know if this is a valid assumption. Might writing or proto-writing have developed multiple times in prehistory and been abandoned or forgotten, leaving no evidence behind?

[@WorldofAntiquity]

1. You can have writing without states, but it is difficult to achieve standardization without one. 2. Yes, but this would happen most probably to ones that do not receive widespread use.

[@ecta9604]

@@WorldofAntiquitythanks!

[@rachmondhoward2125]

Interesting. Is the problem not with our definition of writing? Who defined symbols or signs must have sound value (phonetic) to be considered writing? People who have speech impediments use sign language (hand signs) to communicate, there are no phonetics involved. I think we should define writing as the use of pictures, signs and symbols to communicate meaning among people of a particular society. A triangular sign as a road marking or drawn on a piece of paper communicates meaning to those who have learned what the sign means, warning, yield and it elicit the appropriate behaviour.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

I'm not sure how it is a problem. No doubt there are people who would like to redefine the word "planet" so that it includes Pluto, but why?

[@AYAmusic.]

Love the new intro!

[@AtomicCrucifier]

I would love to hear ur thoughts about connection between Vinča script and linear A and B. Thanks @World of Antiquity

[@TheLionFarm]

I enjoy your works

[@TheGahta]

"noo pa, ive got better to do then go to the fields with you, im a writer" 😂 -the one who invented writing probably 😅

[@chicoti3]

I think the prerequisite of the symbols having to be phonetic is too eurocentric. Chinese characters for instance are primarily semantic in nature and only phonetic by proxy. If you take Japanese, for instance, 5 different people can look at the same character and read it 5 different ways, all based on the meaning of the character. Heck they can even make up a new reading on the spot. This is akin to looking at the word "woman" and reading it as "girl", "female", "wife", etc. Is that phonetic? I don't think so. But it's still obviously a writing system. It's just one that conveys meaning and leaves the phonetic bit at the reader's discretion. And since one of these characters is enough to convey meaning, conditioning a writing system to having multiple characters in sequence would also incorrectly label these into the non-a-writing-system category.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

Both Chinese and Japanese writing represents speech. It doesn't have to be phonetic. It can be read aloud.

[@chicoti3]

@@WorldofAntiquity That's often not the case. What you read aloud may not be the words the other person thought of when writing down, e.g. a Cantonese speaker reading a text composed by a Mandarin speaker. And sometimes one might not even be able to read aloud the text at all, such as when reading old documents, even though the meaning is still conveyed. Those all support the idea that the characters represent the idea behind the speech rather than speech itself. That is to say the characters record the idea in a pre-language state, which is then interpreted and converted into speech by the reader. This, in fact, is the basis for 漢文, a method of reading middle Chinese using Japanese that's still taught in Japanese schools today.

[@WorldofAntiquity]

@@chicoti3 *What you read aloud may not be the words the other person thought of when writing down, e.g. a Cantonese speaker reading a text composed by a Mandarin speaker.* Same pronunciation is not required. But I am glad you agree that it can be read aloud. Therefore the writing represents speech. *And sometimes one might not even be able to read aloud the text at all, such as when reading old documents, even though the meaning is still conveyed.* But it could be read aloud at the time it was written. *Those all support the idea that the characters represent the idea behind the speech rather than speech itself. That is to say the characters record the idea in a pre-language state, which is then interpreted and converted into speech by the reader.* Then you will need to explain why, when people learn Mandarin, Chinese writing is a crucial component of the process. Chinese writing system is logosyllabic, which means that a character represents a syllable in spoken Chinese, but these are combined into words of multiple syllables. It's true that some characters represent ideas, but for the most part, Chinese writing represents speech. www.britannica.com/topic/Chinese-writing (check out pars. 5 and 6)

[@Vercingetorix.Fantasia]

May be a dumb question, but what does cursive mean in the context of ancient writing? My only cursive experience was in 3rd grade

[@WorldofAntiquity]

It's when the characters are written in a smooth, flowing manner and are often connected.

[@flyingeagle3898]

Thanks for this terrific, thorough, and fariminded summary of evidence for writing. I have occasionally challenged some conventional wisdom in your videos comments on this topic, but I think you did a fantastic job here. It is first absolutely true that the oldest writing we somewhat understand and therefore create a chain of memory and evidence to is the ~5000 year old(3000 BCE) examples from Egypt and Mesopotamia. The possible exception is China but my knowledge there is limited with your video here giving examples I was unaware of, and it seems the earliest possible examples of writing in China are not well understood even by professionals partly due to the limited number of surviving examples. For pre ~3000 BCE writing I personally find the examples in the Balkans by far the most compelling because they provide relatively strong evidence of a sophisticated communciation system(whether full writing or "proto-writing") prior to the systems with direct links to modern writing systems or known history . Given that it appears that writing arose independently in multiple places on the globe( at least the middle east, china, and central america, with possibly India, Egypt and others are independent as well) I would not find it at all surprising, In fact, I find it probable that it arose at other places and times before 5000 years ago, but many of those communication systems failed to survive to the present day, and if there was a state, or collection of city-states in the Balkans with a writing system 6-8,000 years ago, but the writing was mostly perishable and its memory was all lost, the evidence for that might look quite similar to what we have actually found in the region. I wonder what other parts of the world might yet be hiding.

[@ghostlyninja125]

I think that complex and abstract social constructs probably always come from some form of tradition that slowly builds and changes over time. This would include writing among various other things

[@christopherellis2663]

It wasn't invented. It emerged in various modes in various places. Even writing has some four forms.

[@johnnysmall]

Nice new intro graphic!

[@patrycjakonieczna]

As it has been presented in film, the critical point is to determine where and when pictograms started to act as individual sounds. We could not say that some pictograms were not any form of simplified writing. Of course, they might be if one picture represented a single syllable not even an individual letter. Beside of these, I agree with conclusions that language must have a structure, each graphic sing corresponds to individilual letter, and there is a specific way of putting letters in a rows.

[@johnkelly3886]

Proto-writing and writing were used to record economic transaction and produce statements of account. As such writing is the first step in the invention of money.

[@Incorruptus1]

I see cave arts and petroglyphs, even tribal tattoos as a written form of communication as well. Although we must recognise most forms of life have forms of communication. ❤ Thanks Dr. M.!

[@R0guemetal]

A comment for the algorithm. Thank you for your efforts 💜

[@AlbertaGeek]

Good idea!

[@HumanBeanbag]

That little globe is pretty cool!

[@nbnbnz]

"no not that tartaria 😮‍💨" Lol 😂

[@jvh22a]

Off this topic. But would your classes be able to be downloaded? I want to join but cant be at the computer for the live sessions

[@WorldofAntiquity]

In the future, yes.

[@jvh22a]

@@WorldofAntiquity great, I'll buy that course so I don't take up space on the coming up lessons. Thank you

[@jvh22a]

@@WorldofAntiquity or streamed at a later date would be good to. Thanks

[@jamesolivier5224]

Traffic stuff. Thanks for your efforts.

[@spikyballoon6207]

For the Americas part, Recently an epi-Olmec stone stelae has been found, dated to about 900 BCE. They probably had earlier writings, but same goes for all other cultures.

[@The_Real_Danger_Mouse]

Mind blown was when paper making vessels were discovered and dated back to 11,000 BCE: Pulp jars and flats with presses to compact fibers. Did they write? What were they doing with the pressed fibers? According to cave paintings, there were symbols for direction, weather, rough numbers, duties, and negative and positive (no and yes). Unfortunately, over 90% of human stuff was made from wood and wood doesn't survive long. The paper and what they decorated it with are gone longer than the wood artefacts which have also disintegrated into dust. All we have left are the clay and the stone. 😔

[@Ben-kv7wr]

I always thought of the development of writing as an evolutionary arms race between bureaucrats and tax evaders but these early possible examples you provided are making me rethink that!