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The Spread of the World's Major Writing Systems to 1492

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The Spread of the World's Major Writing Systems to 1492 Copyrighted Material 75° the1492 spread of the world’s major writing systems to 1492 Runic inscription Arctic Circle from Sweden, early The adoption of writing marks the end of a society’s 11th century ad. prehistory. Writing has been invented independently many times during world history and is a natural expression of the human capacity for abstract and symbolic thought. Roman inscription from the emperor Trajan’s reign in the Latin alphabet. Writing was a response to growing social and economic complexity and as such it is often considered one of the Ogam defining characteristics of civilization. Runic The earliest known writing system was the Sumerian Mongol pictographic script which developed c. 3400 bc. In the 45° 3rd millennium the pictographs were gradually refined Etruscan Chinese pictographic and simplified, developing into the cuneiform script. Latin Cyrillic alphabet Luvian Proto-Canaanite alphabet Chinese logographic The Sumerian scripts were adopted widely. Sumerian Phoenician-Canaanite alphabet hieroglyphic Korean Mycenaean Linear B Japanese pictographic was adopted by the Elamites and perhaps Sumerian pictographic alphabet Greek alphabet Aramaic script inspired the Indus valley pictographic script. Cuneiform Minoan hieroglyphic Cuneiform Indus was adopted by the Assyrians, Babylonians, Elamites Valley Tibetan Egyptian Elamite script Hittites and Persians among others. pictographic hieroglyphic Nabataean Despite its superficial similarity, the Egyptian Olmec Kufic Brahmic hieroglyphic script, which developed c. 3100 bc, was Epi-Olmec Tropic of Cancer Chinese cursive probably invented independently of Sumerian pictographic. Mixtec Egyptian hieroglyphic inscription script, used from from the 4th century bc. Its influence was limited to Nubia, Minoan Crete and the Zapotec Maya Sabaean Han dynasty times Hittite empire. Mesoamerican writing was also based on Ethiopic for writing informal hieroglyphs, though only the Maya script could represent documents quickly. all aspects of spoken language. The earliest Chinese A Sanskrit text written in writing, which appeared c. 1200 bc was a pictographic Maya hieroglyphs in a page from the 11th- or 12th-century ad the Indian Brahmic script. script. Continually refined, this developed in the first Dresden Codex. Equator millennium bc into a logographic script which is directly ancestral to the modern Chinese script. The only script to develop in the Pacific region, the undeciphered 18th- century Rongorongo script of Easter Island, was also based on pictographs. 3000 BC 2000 BC 1000 BC AD 1 1000 The americas Zapotec hieroglyphic The hieroglyphic and cuneiform scripts have thousands Mixtec Olmec Epi-Olmec of characters and are difficult to learn. This limited literacy Maya hieroglyphic Sumerian cuneiform to a small elite of professional scribes. In the 16th century east asia Japanese script on a clay tablet. Chinese pictographic Chinese logographic bc, the Canaanites invented the much simpler alphabet Korean alphabet with only 22 characters representing consonants. All south and Southeast Asian scripts Central Asia Peruvian quipu, used for Mongol modern alphabets, except possibly the Korean, ultimately Tibetan encoding information in Indus Valley pictographic Brahmic Modern Indian scripts derive from the Canaanite alphabet. Western alphabets knotted coloured strings. middle east Aramaic include characters for vowels as well as consonants, a Nabataean Kufic Arabic Sabaean refinement introduced by the ancient Greeks. Elamite pictographic Proto-Canaanite alphabet Phoenician Spread of writing by: Sumerian pictographic Cuneiform Of major civilizations, only the Andean did not develop Luvian hieroglyphic a system of writing. In this region information was encoded 3000 BC 500 BC africa Ethiopic Egyptian hieroglyphic 45° in knots on devices made from coloured strings known as europe 2000 BC AD 500 Minoan Linear A Greek quipus. The earliest evidence for the use of quipus, from Cyrillic Minoan hieroglyphic Mycenaean Linear B Etruscan Runic Latin Caral in Peru, dates to around 3000 bc. 1250 BC AD 1492 Ogam 114 150° 120° 90° 60° 30° 0° 30° 60° 90° 120° 150° 180°.
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