The development of writing systems: from pictograms to the alphabet.
Large number of the lgs found in the world today are used only in the spoken form. Writing systems is a relatively
recent phenomenon. We may trace human attempt to represent information visually back to
cave drawings  about 20.000 years ago, or
clay tokens  about 10.000 years ago (ancient precursors of writing)
Writing which is based on some alphabetic script can only be traced back to around 3.000 years ago.
Evidence: on stone or tablets. If those ancients were using woods or perishable materials, we have lost them.
But those inscriptions we do have allow us to trace the development of writing tradition going back a few thousand
years. Then the human wanted to create a more permanent record of what was thought or said.
Earliest writing areas:
" Egypt  hieroglyphics
" Mesopotamia  Sumerians (=Iran, Iraq)
" Syria, China, India
" America  Mayan pictures
Writing systems developed independently in different places of the world. Pictures which repeat, regularities 
systems. At the beginning writing and drawing were connected with each other.
NON-PHONOLOGICALsystem of writing
=> not economical, not effective (pictures stood for some activities, the characters or symbols didn t reflect speech
and sounds of a given lg)
Pictographic system of writing (PICTOGRAMS)
a kind of simplified representation of the actual object, picture-writing.
The idea was that everyone should use similar forms to convey roughly similar meaning (it was not always
clear  it was a question of the agreement between people). A conventional relationship must exist
between the symbol and its interpretation.
A form like (Słońce) can be used for  sun .
Problems with expression of abstract things, feelings, thoughts
Space  in order to express longer thought they had to combine the pictures
Today s pictograms  road signs (language-independent); origins: Hieroglyphics
Ideographic system of writing (IDEOGRAMS)
in time, the symbol can take a more fixed symbolic form, such as . and come to be used for  heat ,
 daytime ,  sun . It derived from the picture of the sun. (simplification of the form, more abstract)
water ,wet (developed from the river )
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 These types of symbols are a part of the system od idea-writing; fixed symbolic forms for different
meanings
The difference between pictograms and ideograms: a difference in relationship between the symbol and
the entity it represents. The more picture-like : pictograms, the more abstract : ideograms.
Similarity between pictograms and ideograms: they don t represent words or sounds in a particular lg.
Logographic system of writing (LOGOGRAMS)
Symbols are used to represent words in language; word-writing (logograms stand for words)
example: cuneiform used by Sumerians
The relationship between the written form and the object it represents has become arbitrary.
modern logograms: in China: many Chinese written symbols, or characters, are used as representations of
the meaning of words and not of the sounds of the spoken lg. (two speakers of different dialects of Chinese
may have difficulty to understand each other s spoken lg but can both read the same text).
Chinese writing: has the longest continuous history of use as a writing system (3.000 years); many different
symbols, but basic literacy is possible with knowledge of only 2.000 characters.
REBUS WRITING
A way of using existing symbols to represent the sounds of lg is via rebus writing
In this process the symbol of one entity is the symbol for the sound of the spoken word used to refer to
that entity: eye => - pronounced  eye ,  I .That symbol then comes to be used whenever
that sound occurs in any words.
we can combine this symbol with the one for  deaf and we have  defy ; with the logogram for  boat and
we have  bow-tie etc.
PHONOLOGICALsystem of writing
SYLLABICwriting
set of symbols which represent the pronunciation of syllables  syllabic writing
there re no purely syllabic writing systems in use today but modern Japansecan be written with a set of
single symbols which represent spoken syllables: Japanese has a partially syllabic writing system (a syllabary)
examples: KATAKANA (contains 75 graphemes),
CHEROKEE  symbols correspond to syllables
CYPRIOT
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ALPHABETIC writing
characters stand for letters, for a single sound
alphabet  a set of written symbols which each represent a single type of sound
it occurred in the origins of Hebrew and Arabiclgs: the alphabets (even now)largely consist of consonant
Greeks revised alphabet: by using separate symbols to represent vowels
from Greeks this revised alphabet went to the Western Europe and Eastern Europe( were Slavic lgs were
spoken)
the modified version, Cyrillic alphabet (after St Cyril, a 9th c. missionary)  the basis of writing system in
Russia
Many letters in modern European alphabets can be traced from their origins in Egyptian hieroglyphics.
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