Writing is the act of creating a persistent, visual, static representation oflanguage. Awriting system includes a particular set of symbols that are called ascript, as well as the rules by which they encode a particular spoken language. Everywritten language arises from a corresponding spoken language; while the use of language is universal across human societies, most spoken languages are not written.[1]
In general, writing systems do not constitute languages in and of themselves, but rather a means of encoding language such that it can be read by others across time and space.[3][4] While not all languages use a writing system, those that do can complement and extend the capacities ofspoken language by creating durable forms of language that can be transmitted across space (e.g.written correspondence) and stored over time (e.g.libraries).[5] Writing can also impact what knowledge people acquire, since it allows humans to externalize their thinking in forms that are easier to reflect on, elaborate on, reconsider, and revise.[6][7][8]
Thetypewriter, as well as the digitalword processor, allow individual writers to produce visually consistent text mechanically via akeyboard.[11]
Advancements innatural language processing andnatural language generation have resulted in software capable of producing certain forms of formulaic writing (e.g. weather forecasts and sports reporting) without the direct involvement of humans[12] after initial configuration or, more commonly, to be used to support writing processes such as generating initial drafts, producing feedback with the help of a rubric, copy-editing, andhelping translation.[13]
Historically, writing emerged to address the needs of societies growing in economic and social complexity. Once developed, potential applications included tracking produce and other wealth, recordinghistory, maintainingculture, codifying knowledge throughcurricula as well as lists of texts deemed to contain foundational knowledge (e.g.The Canon of Medicine) or artistic value (e.g. theliterary canon). Aids to administration includedlegal codes,census records,contracts,deeds of ownership,taxation,trade agreements, andtreaties. AsCharles Bazerman explains, the "marking of signs on stones, clay, paper, and now digital memories—each more portable and rapidly traveling than the previous—provided means for increasingly coordinated and extended action as well as memory across larger groups of people over time and space."[14] Further innovations included more uniform, predictable, and widely dispersed legal systems, the distribution of accessible versions ofsacred texts, and furthering practices ofscientific inquiry andknowledge management, all of which were largely reliant on portable and easily reproducible forms of inscribed language. Thehistory of writing is co-extensive with uses of writing and the elaboration ofactivity systems that give rise to and circulate writing.[15]
The global spread of digitalcommunication systems such asemail andsocial media has made writing an increasingly important feature of daily life, where these systems mix with older technologies like paper, pencils, whiteboards, printers, and copiers.[19] Substantial amounts of everyday writing characterize most workplaces indeveloped countries.[20] In many occupations (e.g. law,accounting,software design,human resources), written documentation is not only the main deliverable but also the mode of work itself.[21] Even in occupations not typically associated with writing, routinerecords management has most employees writing at least some of the time.[22]
Some professions are typically associated with writing, such as literary authors, journalists, and technical writers, but writing is pervasive in most modern forms of work, civic participation, household management, and leisure activities.[23]
Writing permeates everyday commerce. For example, in the course of an afternoon, a wholesaler might receive a written inquiry about the availability of a product line, then communicate with suppliers and fabricators through work orders and purchase agreements, correspond via email to affirm shipping availability with adrayage company, write an invoice, and request proof of receipt in the form of a written signature. At a larger scale, modern systems of finances, banking, and business rest on written documents – including regulations, policies, and procedures; the creation of reports and other monitoring documents to make, evaluate, and provide accountability for decisions and operations; the creation and maintenance of records; internal written communications within departments to coordinate work; written communications that comprise work products presented to other departments and to clients; and external communications to clients and the public.[24][page needed][25][page needed] Business and financial organizations also rely on many written legal documents, such as contracts, reports to government agencies, tax records, and accounting reports.[26] Financial institutions and markets that hold, transmit, trade, insure, or regulate holdings for clients or other institutions are particularly dependent on written records (though now often in digital form) to maintain the integrity of their roles.[27][page needed]
Many modern systems of government are organized and sanctified through writtenconstitutions at the national and sometimes state or other organizational levels. Written rules and procedures typically guide the operations of the various branches, departments, and other bodies of government, which regularly produce reports and other documents as work products and to account for their actions. In addition tolegislatures that draft and pass laws, these laws are administered by anexecutive branch, which can present further written regulations specifying the laws and how they are carried out.[28] Governments at different levels also typically maintain written records on citizens concerning identities, life events such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, the granting of licenses for controlled activities, criminal charges, traffic offences, and other penalties small and large, and tax liability and payments.[29]
Research undertaken inacademic disciplines is typically published as articles in journals or within book-lengthmonographs. Arguments, experiments, observational data, and other evidence collated in the course of research is represented in writing, and serves as the basis for later work. Data collection and drafting ofmanuscripts may be supported by grants, which usually require proposals establishing the value of such work and the need for funding.[30] The data and procedures are also typically collected inlab notebooks or other preliminary files.[31][page needed]Preprints of potential publications may also be presented at academic or disciplinary conferences or on publicly accessible web servers to gain peer feedback and build interest in the work. Prior to official publication, these documents are typically read and evaluated bypeer review from appropriate experts, who determine whether the work is of sufficient value and quality to be published.[32]
Publication does not establish the claims or findings of work as being authoritatively true, only that they are worth the attention of other specialists. As the work appears in review articles, handbooks, textbooks, or other aggregations, and others cite it in the advancement of their own research, does it become codified as contingently reliable knowledge.[33]
News and news reporting are central to citizen engagement and knowledge of many spheres of activity people may be interested in about the state of their community, including the actions and integrity of their governments and government officials, economic trends, natural disasters and responses to them, international geopolitical events, including conflicts, but also sports, entertainment, books, and other leisure activities. While news and newspapers have grown rapidly from the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, the changing economics and ability to produce and distribute news have brought about radical and rapid challenges to journalism and the consequent organization of citizen knowledge and engagement.[34][35][page needed] These changes have also created challenges forjournalism ethics that have been developed over the past century.[36]
Formal education is the social context most strongly associated with the learning of writing, and students may carry these particular associations long after leaving school.[37] Alongside the writing that students read (in the forms of textbooks, assigned books, and other instructional materials as well as self-selected books) students do much writing within schools at all levels, on subject exams, in essays, in taking notes, in doing homework, and informative and summative assessments. Some of this is explicitly directed toward the learning of writing, but much is focused more on subject learning.[38][39]
Logographies represent a language's units of meaning (words ormorphemes), though still associated by readers with their given pronunciations in the corresponding spoken language.
Asyllabary is a set of written symbols that representsyllables,[40] typically a consonant followed by a vowel, or just a vowel alone. In some scripts more complex syllables (e.g. consonant–vowel–consonant or consonant–consonant–vowel) may have dedicated glyphs. Phonetically similar syllables are not written similarly.[40]
Syllabaries are best suited to languages with a relatively simple syllable structure, such as Japanese. Other syllabic scripts includeLinear B and theCherokee syllabary.[44]
Alphabets that generally only have letters for consonants are calledabjads orconsonantaries; though optional, abjads may also use diacritical marks to specify which vowels follow each consonant. The earliest alphabets were abjads, influenced by symbols representing specific consonants that originated in Egyptian hieroglyphs. Most abjads are likewise native to the Middle East, reflecting the relatively limited variation of vowels in themorphology of theSemitic languages spoken in the region.[40]
In most of the alphabets of India andSoutheast Asia, vowels are indicated through diacritics or modification of the shape of the consonant. These are calledabugidas oralphasyllabaries.[40] The termabugida is derived from the names of the initial letters in theGeʽez script, another prominent abugida used to write several languages in Ethiopia and Eritrea.[45]
Writing first emerged in theEarly Bronze Age to meet the growing economic needs of the city-states ofSumeria, located in southernMesopotamia. During this time, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, withSumerian cuneiform serving as a reliable means for recording transactions, maintaining financial accounts, and keeping historical records, among similar activities.[46]
Cuneiform, used to write theSumerian language, was followed relatively quickly byEgyptian hieroglyphs, with both emerging from proto-writing systems between 3400 and 3100 BC, with the earliest coherent texts fromc. 2600 BC.[47] TheIndus script (c. 2600 – c. 2000 BC), found on different types of artefacts produced by theIndus Valley Civilization on theIndian subcontinent, remains undeciphered, and whether it functioned as true writing is not agreed upon.[48] While its origins are not visually obvious, the opportunity for Mesopotamian cultural diffusion to have introduced the concept of writing to the Indus peoples is clear.[49]
Globular envelope with a cluster of accountancy tokens, Uruk period, fromSusa – Louvre Museum
In the 1970s, archaeologistDenise Schmandt-Besserat presented a theory establishing a link between cuneiform and previously uncategorized clay "tokens", the oldest of which have been found in the Zagros region of Iran. Around 8000 BC, Mesopotamians began using clay tokens to count their agricultural and manufactured goods. Later they began placing these tokens inside large, hollow clay containers (bulla, or globular envelopes) which were then sealed. The quantity of tokens in each container came to be expressed by impressing, on the container's surface, one picture for each instance of the token inside. They next dispensed with the tokens, relying solely on symbols for the tokens, drawn on clay surfaces. To avoid making a picture for each instance of the same object (for example: 100 pictures of a hat to represent 100 hats), they counted the objects by using various small marks.[50]
Cuneiform (from Latincunius,lit.'wedge') emergedc. 3200 BC in the context of this technology for keeping accounts. By the end of the 4th millennium BC,[51] the Mesopotamians were using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay to record numbers. This system was gradually augmented with using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted by means ofpictographs. Round and sharp styluses were gradually replaced with wedge-shaped styluses, at first only recordinglogograms – with phonetic elements introduced by the 29th century BC to represent syllables in Sumerian, resulting in a general purpose writing system.[52][53]
From the 26th century BC, cuneiform was adapted to write the East SemiticAkkadian language (Assyrian andBabylonian) which had spread across southern Mesopotamia – and then to others such asElamite,Hattian,Hurrian andHittite. Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those forUgaritic andOld Persian. With the adoption ofAramaic as the lingua franca of theNeo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC), Old Aramaic was also adapted to Mesopotamian cuneiform. The latest cuneiform texts in Akkadian discovered thus far date from the 1st century AD.[54]
The earliest knownhieroglyphs (from Greek,lit.'sacred writing') are clay labels for thePredynastic ruler "Scorpion I", datedc. the 33nd century BC and recovered atAbydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) – or otherwise theNarmer Palette, datedc. 3100 BC.[55] The hieroglyphic script waslogographic, with phonetic adjuncts that included an effectivealphabet. The oldest deciphered sentence is attested on a seal impression from the tomb ofSeth-Peribsen at Abydos, dating to theSecond Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). Around 800 hieroglyphs were used during the Old, Middle, and New Kingdom periods (2686–1077 BC); by the Greco-Roman period (30 BC – 642 AD), more than 5,000 distinct glyphs are attested.[56]
Writing was important in maintaining the Egyptian empire, and literacy in the difficult system of hieroglyphs was concentrated among an educated elite ofscribes serving temple, pharaonic, and military authorities.[57]
Of severalpre-Columbian scripts inMesoamerica, the one that appears to have been best developed, and the only one to be deciphered, is theMaya script. The earliest inscription identified as Maya dates to the 3rd century BC.[58] Maya writing used around 800 distinct symbols – mainly logograms, complemented by a set of syllabograms used for affixes, disambiguation between different readings of a logogram, or the substitution of certain logograms entirely.[59]
The earliest surviving examples of writing in China – inscriptions onoracle bones, usually tortoiseplastrons and oxscapulae which were used for divination – date fromc. 1200 BC, during theLate Shang period. A small number of bronze inscriptions from the same period have also survived.[60]
TheProto-Elamite script, in usec. 3200 – c. 2900 BC, is attested on clay tablets found at different sites across modern-day Iran, with the majority having been excavated atSusa, an ancient city located east of theTigris.[61] The script is thought to have been partlylogographic, to have developed from early cuneiform, and to have used more than 1,000 signs – though its inscriptions "have been, and will remain, highly problematic in a discussion of writing because they represent a very unclear period of literacy".[62]
TheElamite cuneiform script, usedc. 2500 – 331 BC, was adapted from cuneiform as was used to write Akkadian. At any given point during this period, Elamite cuneiform used around 130 symbols – with a total of 206 used across its entire lifespan, far fewer than in most other cuneiform scripts.[40]
The alphabet is only known to have been invented once in human history, by a community of Canaanite turquoise miners in theSinai Peninsulac. 1800 BC to writeWest Semitic languages,[65] "in the context of cultural exchanges between Semitic-speaking people from the Levant and communities in Egypt".[66] This earliest attested form is known as theProto-Sinaitic script, and it adapted concepts and at least some of its written letterforms from Egyptian hieroglyphic writing; it adopted wholly West Semitic sound values for its letters, as opposed to adapting existing Egyptian ones.[67] Precise dating of its origin, as well as the graphical origins of many letterforms (if any) remain unclear, and the script remains undeciphered.[68] Around 30 crude inscriptions have been found at a mountainous Egyptian mining site known as Serabit el-Khadem, with symbols that stood for single consonant sounds rather than whole words or concepts – the basis of an alphabetic system. It was not until between the 12th and 9th centuries BC that use of the alphabet became widespread.[65]
ThePhoenician alphabet (c. 1050 BC) is a direct descendant of Proto-Sinaitic. Proto-Sinaitic and Phoenician wereabjads which only had letters representing consonantal sounds; Phoenician was ultimately adapted into theGreek alphabet (c. 800 BC), the first to represent vowel sounds, which it did by re-purposing unused Phoenician consonantal signs.[69] TheCumae alphabet, a variant of the early Greek alphabet, gave rise to theEtruscan alphabet and its own descendants, such as theLatin alphabet.[70] Other descendants from the Greek alphabet includeCyrillic, used to write languages such asBulgarian andRussian.[71] The Phoenician alphabet was also adapted into theAramaic script, from which the West AsianSquare Hebrew,Arabic,[72] and South AsianBrahmic scripts are descended.[73]
In the history of writing,religious texts or writing have played a special role. For example, some religious text compilations have been some of the earliest popular texts, or even the only written texts in some languages, and in some cases are still highly popular around the world.[74][page needed][75][76]
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