Ancient Writing

Writing was introduced before 3000 B.C. by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia. The Mexican Indians also invented their own writing systems before 600 B.C. These are the only two original writing systems that are indisputable. The Egyptian and Chinese writing systems may also have been created independently but it is not concretely proven. All other writing systems have been created by the use of blueprint copying. Blueprint copying is when you copy or modify an available detailed blueprint. The basic blueprint for writing created by the Sumerians and the Mexican Indians were then used to create new writing systems. The foundation was already written but many changes were needed because of the multitude of different languages. The three strategies used in writing systems are the alphabets, the logograms and the syllabries. With the Chinese writing system of today a symbol is used for a certain word or sound, this is done by using logograms. The logogram can tell you the letter, sound or position in which to put the tongue. The English language that we as Americans have learned uses the alphabets, which consists of one letter representing a single sound. Two letters put together can represent a totally different sound. These sounds put together will make the words. The system of syllabries is composed of signs that represent different syllables in a word. A four syllable word in English will be spelled with four different symbols that represent each sound. For each society, languages were expressed with different symbols to represent the same word thus a modification to the original blueprint had to be made to represent their language. A mixture of alphabets, logograms and syllabaries have been combined and modified over time to create the different writing systems. The original writing systems were brought about to fit different needs. As societies went from just hunting and gathering to selling the items, a system for keeping count was needed.