What is the defect of the oldest alphabet? The emergence of writing and the most ancient alphabets

The history of the origin of writing goes back to the primitive communal system. It was then that people began to develop the skills to transmit a variety of messages using drawings. Somewhat later, the person came to the convenience of depicting concepts on the letter in the form of combinations of sounds, which, in turn, denoted letters. So the ancient alphabets appeared. Where and how was the first word written? What is the defect of the oldest alphabet and how did it come about? Let's try to figure it out ...

Sumerian cuneiform

The first system of written signs, according to historians, originated about five and a half thousand years ago in the agricultural settlements of Sumerians - the people living between the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. The method of writing, called "cuneiform", consisted in extruding the signs on a rectangular tile from wet clay with a sharpened stick, which was kept at a small angle. Further, the tile was dried in the sun or burned in an oven.

Using cuneiform signs, the Sumerians conveyed the meaning of concepts in a stylized form. In addition, they also had designations for some abstract quantities ("light", "time"). In total there were more than two thousand characters of a picture letter. However, to reflect the meaning of complex concepts, they were few, so the Sumerians introduced a phonetic principle. The sign that was associated with a particular sound could be used to denote another object by means of this sound. This principle has been the basis of the writing of our days.

Hieroglyphic letter of ancient Egypt

Writing in Egypt originated in the fourth millennium BC. Initially, records were made with the help of conditional images - ancient alphabets appeared in the next stage.

The ancient Egyptian letter united several varieties:

• Hieroglyphic - the earliest form of writing of the Egyptians. It was based on the use of pictures, or pictograms; Thus, mainly religious texts were composed;
• Hieratic - simplified form of hieroglyphic writing. It was a kind of "cursive", convenient for conducting legal and business documents;
• Demotic - a much later and convenient form of business cursive, whose badges reminded little of the previous hieroglyphics.

However, in all cases of Egyptian writing there was a common feature in which one single sign could mean a whole concept, and a syllable, and a separate sound. In addition, there were still special icons - determinatives, serving for additional explanations of the values of a particular image.

With the help of hieroglyphs, as a rule, monumental inscriptions on stones were carved. Hieratics and demotics made records on cane papyrus with the help of ink.

Phenicia or Seir: who first invented the alphabet

The greatest achievement in the development of writing was the invention of the first alphabet. According to the prevailing theory, its creators were Phoenicians. For the convenience of conducting trade with peoples who spoke different languages, for the first time in the 11th-10th centuries BC they implemented the alphanumeric system for recording concepts.

However, there is a second version of the origin of the first alphabet. His invention is attributed to the inhabitants of Seir - a desert area, located to the south of the Dead Sea. It is known that the Seirians were mastered in their own language. Even in the XIX century BC, the Egyptians, who equipped expeditions to the Sinai Peninsula, hired them to increase the number of their detachments. It is believed that the records made by the Seyr Overseers and Titmakers and submitted to the Egyptians in the form of reports, eventually led to the emergence of the alphabet. Supporters of this theory say that the earliest records with the help of the alphabet were made by the inhabitants of Seir.

Phoenician letters. What is the defect of the oldest alphabet

The Phoenician alphabet includes twenty-two letters. Some signs were borrowed from already existing systems of writing: Egyptian, Cretan, Babylonian. All the letters of the ancient alphabet were represented in the form of a conditional scheme of the object, the name of which began with a sound that corresponded to this letter. There was a principle of correspondence of the outline of each letter, its pronunciation and name. It is known that the Phoenicians wrote from right to left.

What is the defect of the oldest alphabet? First of all, in that he depicted only consonants and half-voiced sounds. Vowels simply dropped when writing.

Subsequently, the ancient Phoenician alphabet became the basis on which all other alphanumeric systems arose, including in the countries of Europe.

Greek is one of the oldest living written languages

The starting point for the development of all Western alphabets was the writing of the ancient Greeks. By 403 BC, they invented a system of writing, called "Ionic letter." In the Greek alphabet there were originally twenty-four letters. The first inscriptions discovered by archaeologists in this language were carved into stone or painted on ceramic objects.

What is the defect of the oldest alphabet of the Greeks? The earliest inscriptions that reached us were characterized by letters having strict geometric shapes and an equally precise distance between the lines and individual letters.

More recent texts, already handwritten, are characterized by more rounded letters, and also by a coherent spelling of words. Over time, in Greek writing, there were two types of letters - uppercase and lowercase.

Later the Greek alphabet was borrowed by the Romans. Many of his letters they left unchanged and added a number of their own. Nowadays the Roman (Latin) alphabet is widely distributed, having changed very little during this time.