Saturday - January 06, 2007
Rewriting Writing
The foundations of most modern alphabets are
found in Mesopotamia circa 4000 BCE. There, cuneiform writing on clay tablets
emerged like something as follows. Priests (later, scribes) used reeds to make
marks in clay that could be baked dry in the sun. These marks were usually
pictures representing records, such as who owed whom sheep and how many.
Gradually, the pictures became more abstract, then no longer resembled anything.
At the same time, the purpose of the pictures was changing. Rather than a
sheep, a picture came to represent one of the sounds in the word for "sheep",
and combined with other pictures, words could be sounded out in pictures. This
led to the creation of the first alphabet, and most alphabets since have evolved
their letter shapes from cuneiform
marks.
I recently thought, though, what if writing had taken a slightly different course. As pictures were simplified, rather than drawing fewer cuneiform marks, suppose the pictures were drawn out like constellations. This might have happened if the marking tool hadn't made it so easy to draw lines in the clay, but if it had been easier to just poke holes. Then today we would probably be writing with letters that resemble those of Braille. Rather than letter shapes changing as they did, dot and blank arrangements would have moved, some languages adding more potential dot locations to represent additional sounds, others removing them for simpler syllabaries. Then, rather than using roman-derived letters, my writing might ⠇⠕⠕⠅ ⠇⠊⠅⠑ ⠞⠖⠊⠎.
I recently thought, though, what if writing had taken a slightly different course. As pictures were simplified, rather than drawing fewer cuneiform marks, suppose the pictures were drawn out like constellations. This might have happened if the marking tool hadn't made it so easy to draw lines in the clay, but if it had been easier to just poke holes. Then today we would probably be writing with letters that resemble those of Braille. Rather than letter shapes changing as they did, dot and blank arrangements would have moved, some languages adding more potential dot locations to represent additional sounds, others removing them for simpler syllabaries. Then, rather than using roman-derived letters, my writing might ⠇⠕⠕⠅ ⠇⠊⠅⠑ ⠞⠖⠊⠎.