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Volume 26, Issue 2
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Abstract

Abstract

It was easy to say that writing was invented out of nothing three times (that we can be sure of), in Sumer, China, and Mesoamerica. That syllables were important in those inventions emerged from attention to modern inventions of writing. But in recent years, specialists in Mesopotamian and Mesoamerican texts have been uncovering details about the development of cuneiform and glyphs that, perhaps surprisingly, prove to be comparable and mutually illuminating. In both cases, it seems legitimate to say that the earliest forms did not yet represent the actual writing of specific languages (: ). Chinese writing, even though we cannot observe any essential changes in the from its earliest known examples to the present day, also proves to have something to contribute, in the wake of a comparative study of how Chinese writing was adapted for writing neighboring (and unrelated) languages. And even half a century of experience with a semiotic system designed to be alinguistic, “Blissymbolics,” has something to tell us about non-writing turning into writing.

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2025-06-23

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When is non-writing writing? or, When is writing non-writing?
Written Language & Literacy 26, 188 (2023); https://doi.org/10.1075/wll.00078.dan
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  • Article Type: Research Article
Keyword(s): cuneiform; definition of writing; evolution of writing; Mesoamerican writing; origin of writing

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