The miracle of writing

Among all the achievements of human beings, the invention of writing is one of the greatest. But perhaps the time will come during our lives when reading and writing become out of date.

Writing was not invented once, but perhaps, six different times, in places as far apart as China and America. Each time it started with simple pictures and lines or dots – these were good enough to record objects or numbers. But something more flexible was needed to record language.

A kind of writing which had this flexibility was invented in Mesopotamia, in about 3000 ВС. The writing was made of triangular shapes* and we now call it "cuneiform"** writing. Like picture writing, it was used in trade, but it was also important for recording ideas about religion and philosophy. Though we don't know what the language these people spoke sounded like, we know a lot about them from their writing.

Meanwhile the Egyptians had developed another kind of writing – "hieroglyphics."*** These were a mixture of pictures and signs which were used by the kings and priests, Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is one of the most beautiful and complicated ways of writing that has been invented. But it was too complicated to become as widely used as cuneiform writing.

Around 1200 ВС writing began to make the last and most important step in its development; the beginning of the alphabet, signs which stand for sounds and which can be used to write any of the words we speak. Nobody knows when, where or by whom the first alphabet was invented. But by 1000 ВС Phoenician traders, from the area we now call Lebanon, were spreading their alphabet writing throughout the Mediterranean world. The Greeks, and later the Romans, changed it, and it grew into the alphabet of letters you can see on this page.

With the alphabet it was possible to write down anything that was said. There were all sorts of stories, myths and traditions waiting to be written down. The invention of paper and ink helped the alphabet to spread quickly, and many more people learned to read and write, though trie vast majority of people were illiterate until long after printing was invented. However, there was one great problem that lasted from Greek and Roman times until the Middle Ages– everything was written by hand. So it was slow and expensive to produce copies of books.

__________________________

* of triangular shapes – в форме треугольников

** cuneiform – клинопись

*** hieroglyphics – иероглифы

Assignments:

1. In a few sentences give a short survey of the history of writing.

2. Translate the text using a dictionary.