I am interested in everything historical. The history of writing enthralled me long time ago. However, before I came to New York City, it was very hard to obtain a good book on this topic.
Other than Amazon.com, Borders, Barnes and Noble, I also visit the Strand bookstore very often. This bookstore is located near Union Square, on Broadway and 12nd Street. Their web site: http://www.strandbooks.com. You can order books online, then pick up in the store. It is very convenient, however, it lacks the feeling of serendipity when you browse the bookstore physically. It is quite different when you sit in front of your computer, let the search engine do the fun part of the work.
It is impossible to overvalue the benefit of writing. No writing, no civilization. A Chinese lore told us, when Cang Jie invented writing for the people, all ghosts whimpered. The reason is not very different as Zeus got angry when Prometheus brought fire to the mortals. In Ancient Egypt, writing was also deemed sacred. The word "hieroglyph" means holy engrave in Greek.
However, both Chinese and Ancient Egyptian writing systems are hard to use. To writing in Chinese, one must remember thousands of characters, each representing a word and syllable. The hieroglyph is not any easier.
A branch of Semites, the Phoenicians, discovered that a syllable can be broken down to sounds, or phonemes, that is, consonants and vowels. It is natural to record the consonants and vowels, instead of the syllables, hence the symbols needed for the writing system would be reduced significantly.
Here, I oversimplified. The Phoenicians invented an alphabet that does not include vowels. Maybe they don't need the vowels because their language has few of them. Today's writings of the Arabic and Hebrew, two Semitic peoples, also omit the vowels.
It is the ancient Greeks who adopted and modified the Phoenician alphabet, added vowels, endowed us the progenitor of all the western alphabets, the Greek, Latin, and Cyril.
It is noticed that the language of Malta people is Semite in origin. It is the only Semite language using Latin alphabet. One theory goes that the Maltese are the descents of ancient Phoenician sailors and colonists, who traveled to this island thousands of years ago. It is possible, but there is no definite evidence. Another mystery on the island of Malta is the megaliths, similarly to the Stonehenge, now one knows why they are there, who erected them, and for what purpose. Yesterday, I heard from NPR that the Austrian traffic authority used megaliths in order to reduce the traffic accidents in a certain high way section, believing that the high traffic accidents are caused by certain ghostly source. Since the megaliths are believed to be used by the Druid as sacred items, why not try erecting a megalith to disperse the ghostly spirits? According to them, it works. I was amazed to hear that a modern Western democracy can be so superstitious. OK, maybe that is true that the former President, Mr. Reagan sought the advises of astrologers. Anyway, we mortals do need a lofty guidance and protection, aren't we?
Neither the ancient Chinese nor the Egyptians are the first to invent a writing system. This honor goes to the Sumerians, the residents of the Mesopotamia, who invented the cuneiform writing around 3rd millennium BC. The cuneiform characters are inscribed on clay tablets. Writing in cuneiform is no easy job, it requires years of intensive training. Some of the school homework was discovered among some of the earliest remaining tablets.
During the early years, until the great Charlemagne (742-814), all Latin writings were using different forms of capital letters, and there is no space between words. Punctuation is a much later invention. Charlemagne is a great patron for learning. He brought the learnt English monk Alcuin (732-804) to Aachen to help him setting up a new literary standard for the benefit of preserving the holy books and learning. Alcuin invented the lower case letters, so called Carolingian Miniscule. He set up a calligraphy school in monastery of St. Martin's in Tours to teach his new Carolingian Miniscule. He wrote the edict of Charlemagne of 789: "In each bishopric and in each monastery let the psalms, the notes, the chant, calculation and grammar be taught and carefully corrected books be available."
We will wait for hundreds of years for Johann Gutenberg's invention of printing, the Internet of the fifteenth century, to make the production of books accessible to a greater audience. Before 1450s, all books are copied by hand, a tedious and error-prone travail. Printed books brought knowledge and learning to more people, ushering the coming age of Renaissance and Enlightenment.
The advent of Internet makes the production and distribution of documents ever easier. One can become the writer, the publisher, and the distributor at the same time, without a large capital investment. The benefit is obvious, so are the shortcomings. People write more hastily, less discreet, some even skips proofreading. Without proper editing and culling, a large amount of writings is nothing more than capricious rants and shouts. Everyone can shout at top of his lung. The net result: few listened. Even so, people keep shouting, murmuring, since expressing oneself is the human nature.
This is one of the Discoveries series books. The other books in this series includes:
The Amazon: Past, Present, and Future
Beethoven: The Composer as a Hero
Gauguin: The Quest for Paradise
The Life and Lore of the Elephant
Lost Cities of the Maya
North Pole, South Pole: Journeys to the Ends of the Earth
Pompeii: The Day a City Died
The Reign of the Dinosaurs
The Search for Ancient Egypt
Van Gogh: The Passionate Eye
The Vikings: Lords of the Seas
The Aztecs: Rise and Fall of an Empire
The Mysterious Sky: Order and Chaos
Newton: The Father of Modern Astronomy
Rembrandt: Master of the Portrait
Rodin: The Hands of Genius
The Search for Ancient Greece
Go Home |
Back to Readings
August 22, 2003