writing, the visible recording of language language, systematic communication by vocal symbols. It is a universal characteristic of the human species. Nothing is known of its origin, although scientists have identified a gene that clearly contributes to the human ability to use language.
..... Click the link for more information. peculiar to the human species. Writing enables the transmission of ideas over vast distances of time and space and is a prerequisite of complex civilization. Where, and by whom writing was first developed remains unknown, but scholars place the beginning of writing at 6,000 B.C. The norm of writing is phonemic; i.e., it attempts to symbolize all significant sounds of the language and no others (see phonetics phonetics (fōnĕt`ĭks, fə–), study of the sounds of languages from three basic points of view.
..... Click the link for more information. ). When the goal is established as one letter for one phoneme (and vice versa), the result is a complete alphabet alphabet [Gr. alpha-beta, like Eng. ABC], system of writing , theoretically having a one-for-one relation between character (or letter) and phoneme (see phonetics ). Few alphabets have achieved the ideal exactness.
..... Click the link for more information. . Few alphabets attain this phonemic ideal, but some ancient ones (e.g., Sanskrit) and some modern new ones (e.g., Finnish) have been very successful. The contemporary important writing not of alphabetic type is that in Chinese characters, in which thousands of symbols are used, each representing a word or concept, and Japanese, where each character represents a syllable. The Chinese system is so distant from the language that the same characters are used in writing mutually unintelligible dialects, e.g., Cantonese and Mandarin. In some languages, as in English and French, the modern freezing of spelling has removed the writing more and more from pronunciation and has resulted in the need to teach spelling and the growth of fallacies like the "silent" letter (a letter is really either the symbol of a sound or it is unnecessary). Writing was developed independently in Egypt (see hieroglyphic hieroglyphic (hī'rəglĭf`ĭk, hī'ərə–) [Gr.,=priestly carving], type of writing used in ancient Egypt .
..... Click the link for more information. ), Mesopotamia (see cuneiform cuneiform (ky
nē`ĭfôrm) [Lat.
..... Click the link for more information. ), China, and among the Zapotec Zapotec (zä`pətĕk, sä`–), indigenous people of Mexico, primarily in S Oaxaca and on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
..... Click the link for more information. , Olmec Olmec (ōl`mĕk), term denoting the culture of ancient Mexican natives inhabiting the tropical coastal plain of the contemporary
..... Click the link for more information. , and Maya Maya (mī`ə, Span. mä`yä)
..... Click the link for more information. in Central America. There are some areas where the question as to whether writing was adopted or independently developed is in doubt, as at Easter Island. Ancient writing, at first pictographic in nature, is best known from stone and clay inscriptions inscription, writing on durable material. The art is called epigraphy. Modern inscriptions are made for permanent, monumental record, as on gravestones, cornerstones, and building fronts; they are often decorative and imitative of ancient (usually Roman) methods.
..... Click the link for more information. , but the use of perishable materials, mainly palm leaf, papyrus, and paper, began in ancient times. See accent accent, in speech, emphasis given a particular sound, called prosodic systems in linguistics. There are three basic accentual methods: stress, tone, and length.
..... Click the link for more information. ; calligraphy calligraphy (kəlĭg`rəfē) [Gr.,=beautiful writing], skilled penmanship practiced as a fine art.
..... Click the link for more information. ; punctuation punctuation [Lat.,=point], the use of special signs in writing to clarify how words are used; the term also refers to the signs themselves. In every language, besides the sounds of the words that are strung together there are other features, such as tone, accent, and
..... Click the link for more information. ; paleography paleography (pālēŏg`rəfē) [Gr.
..... Click the link for more information. .
writing
..... Click the link for more information. peculiar to the human species. Writing enables the transmission of ideas over vast distances of time and space and is a prerequisite of complex civilization. Where, and by whom writing was first developed remains unknown, but scholars place the beginning of writing at 6,000 B.C. The norm of writing is phonemic; i.e., it attempts to symbolize all significant sounds of the language and no others (see phonetics phonetics (fōnĕt`ĭks, fə–), study of the sounds of languages from three basic points of view.
..... Click the link for more information. ). When the goal is established as one letter for one phoneme (and vice versa), the result is a complete alphabet alphabet [Gr. alpha-beta, like Eng. ABC], system of writing , theoretically having a one-for-one relation between character (or letter) and phoneme (see phonetics ). Few alphabets have achieved the ideal exactness.
..... Click the link for more information. . Few alphabets attain this phonemic ideal, but some ancient ones (e.g., Sanskrit) and some modern new ones (e.g., Finnish) have been very successful. The contemporary important writing not of alphabetic type is that in Chinese characters, in which thousands of symbols are used, each representing a word or concept, and Japanese, where each character represents a syllable. The Chinese system is so distant from the language that the same characters are used in writing mutually unintelligible dialects, e.g., Cantonese and Mandarin. In some languages, as in English and French, the modern freezing of spelling has removed the writing more and more from pronunciation and has resulted in the need to teach spelling and the growth of fallacies like the "silent" letter (a letter is really either the symbol of a sound or it is unnecessary). Writing was developed independently in Egypt (see hieroglyphic hieroglyphic (hī'rəglĭf`ĭk, hī'ərə–) [Gr.,=priestly carving], type of writing used in ancient Egypt .
..... Click the link for more information. ), Mesopotamia (see cuneiform cuneiform (ky
nē`ĭfôrm) [Lat...... Click the link for more information. ), China, and among the Zapotec Zapotec (zä`pətĕk, sä`–), indigenous people of Mexico, primarily in S Oaxaca and on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec.
..... Click the link for more information. , Olmec Olmec (ōl`mĕk), term denoting the culture of ancient Mexican natives inhabiting the tropical coastal plain of the contemporary
..... Click the link for more information. , and Maya Maya (mī`ə, Span. mä`yä)
..... Click the link for more information. in Central America. There are some areas where the question as to whether writing was adopted or independently developed is in doubt, as at Easter Island. Ancient writing, at first pictographic in nature, is best known from stone and clay inscriptions inscription, writing on durable material. The art is called epigraphy. Modern inscriptions are made for permanent, monumental record, as on gravestones, cornerstones, and building fronts; they are often decorative and imitative of ancient (usually Roman) methods.
..... Click the link for more information. , but the use of perishable materials, mainly palm leaf, papyrus, and paper, began in ancient times. See accent accent, in speech, emphasis given a particular sound, called prosodic systems in linguistics. There are three basic accentual methods: stress, tone, and length.
..... Click the link for more information. ; calligraphy calligraphy (kəlĭg`rəfē) [Gr.,=beautiful writing], skilled penmanship practiced as a fine art.
..... Click the link for more information. ; punctuation punctuation [Lat.,=point], the use of special signs in writing to clarify how words are used; the term also refers to the signs themselves. In every language, besides the sounds of the words that are strung together there are other features, such as tone, accent, and
..... Click the link for more information. ; paleography paleography (pālēŏg`rəfē) [Gr.
..... Click the link for more information. .
Bibliography
See J. H. Ober, Writing: Man's Greatest Invention (1964); O. Ogg, The 26 Letters (rev. ed. 1971); J. A. Fishman, Advances in the Creation and Revision of Writing Systems (1977); A. Gaur A History of Writing (1984); G. Sampson Writing Systems (1985); R. Harris, The Origin of Writing (1986).
writing
System of human visual communication using signs or symbols associated by convention with units of language—meanings or sounds—and recorded on materials such as paper, stone, or clay. Its precursor was pictography. Logography, in which symbols stand for individual words, typically develops from pictography. Logography requires thousands of symbols for all possible words and names. In phonographic systems, the symbol associated with a word also stands for similar- or identical-sounding words. Phonographic systems may evolve to the point where symbols represent syllables, constituting a syllabary. An alphabet provides symbols for all the consonants and vowels.
writing
1. a group of letters or symbols written or marked on a surface as a means of communicating ideas by making each symbol stand for an idea, concept, or thing (see ideogram), by using each symbol to represent a set of sounds grouped into syllables (syllabic writing), or by regarding each symbol as corresponding roughly or exactly to each of the sounds in the language (alphabetic writing)
2. anything expressed in letters, esp a literary composition
3. the work of a writer
4. literary style, art, or practice
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