The Development of Writing

My goal since I was growing up is to acquire learning and writing is part of it. Writing provides me a form of expression, communication, and education. Ever since the development of writing, all humankind have been benefited from it. Writing is developed in 3,000 B.C and is believed to have started in Mesopotamia. According to Dr. James Clarkson, senior lecturer in Classics at the University of Cambridge, the early people in Mesopotamia used clay because it was easy to form, to shape, and to mark on. They, also, used it for counting purposes. In 5,000 B.C, they started using cuneiform, distinguished by its “wedge-shaped” marks. It was a more advanced way of writing using clay because of the use of basalt. In ancient Egypt hieroglyphs, the combination of logo graphics and alphabetic sets, has evolved. They used papyrus, a plant which brought to us the idea of paper, brush and ink. Hieroglyphs is said to be “a simplified form to form the basis of alphabet; the origin of Hebrew and a lots of different alphabets” (Clarkson). Another alphabet is the Greek. It is consisted of different vowels or signs. It is argued that Greek alphabet to be the closest alphabet to the modern one, yet it stops on letter “T.”  The Greek alphabet is borrowed by the Romans and translated it to Latin letters; all in capital letters which eventually refined to a modern alphabet.

The development of writing gave the early people the opportunity to keep records which is carried through generation to generation. It is interesting to know the history of writing because it gives information on how it was discovered. Because of writing, it enables me to acquire knowledge, to record information, most especially, to share this blog to you.

Work Cited:
Clarkson, James. “The Story of How We Got Our Alphabets.” BBC News. BBC, 18 Aug. 2011. Web. 14 Sept. 2013.