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The first alphabetic writing was developed by workers in the Sinai Peninsula to write Semitic languages c. 2000 BC. This script worked by giving Egyptian hieratic letters Semitic sound values. The Geʽez script native to Ethiopia and Eritrea descends from the Ancient South Arabian script, which had initially been used to write early Geʽez ...
Cuneiform [note 1] is a logo-syllabic writing system that was used to write several languages of the Ancient Near East. [3] The script was in active use from the early Bronze Age until the beginning of the Common Era. [4] Cuneiform scripts are marked by and named for the characteristic wedge-shaped impressions (Latin: cuneus) which form their ...
Fifteen distinct writing systems have been identified in pre-Columbian Mesoamerica, many from a single inscription. [2] The limits of archaeological dating methods make it difficult to establish which was the earliest and hence the progenitor from which the others developed.
In most cases, some form of the language had already been spoken (and even written) considerably earlier than the dates of the earliest extant samples provided here. A written record may encode a stage of a language corresponding to an earlier time, either as a result of oral tradition , or because the earliest source is a copy of an older ...
Around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. [49] The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the emergence of civilisations and the beginning of the ...
For broader coverage of this topic, see Writing. A writing system comprises a set of symbols, called a script, as well as the rules by which the script represents a particular language. The earliest writing was invented during the late 4th millennium BC. Throughout history, each writing system invented without prior knowledge of writing gradually evolved from a system of proto-writing that ...
It was used for the first time in Uruk, later spreading to additional sites such as Jemdet Nasr. [20] With the advent of the Early Dynastic period c. 2900 BC, the standard cuneiform script used to write the Sumerian language emerged, though only about 400 tablets have been recovered from this period; these are mainly from Ur, with a few from Uruk.
Writing appeared very early in the Middle Uruk period, and then developed further in the Late Uruk and Jemdet Nasr periods. [126] The first clay tablets inscribed with a reed stylus are found in Uruk IV (nearly 2000 tablets were found in the Eanna quarter) and some are found also in Susa II, consisting solely of numeric signs.