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100
Cuneiform in Mesopotamia: from 3100 BC
In about 3200 BC temple officials in Sumer develop a reliable and lasting method of keeping track of the animals and other goods which are the temple's wealth. On lumps of wet clay the scribes draw a simpified picture of the item in question. They then make a similar mark in the clay for the number counted and recorded. When allowed to bake hard in the sun, the clay tablet becomes a permanent document. -
110
Hieroglyphs and papyrus in Egypt: from 3000 BC
The second civilization to develop writing, shortly after the Sumerians, is Egypt. The Egyptian characters are much more directly pictorial in kind than the Sumerian, but the system of suggesting objects and concepts is similar. The Egyptian characters are called hieroglyphs by the Greeks in about 500 BC, because by that time this form of writing is reserved for holy texts; hieros and glypho mean 'sacred' and 'engrave' in Greek. -
116
The seals of the Indus valley: from 2500 BC
The Indus script, which has not yet been deciphered, is known from thousands of seals, carved in steatite or soapstone. Usually the centre of each seal is occupied by a realistic depiction of an animal, with above it a short line of formal symbols. The lack of longer inscriptions or texts suggests that this script is probably limited to trading and accountancy purposes, with the signs establishing quantities and ownership of a commodity. -
125
Chinese characters: from 1600 BC
The last of the early civilizations to develop writing is China, in about 1600 BC. But China outdoes the others in devising a system which has evolved, as a working script, from that day to this. -
126
Phonetics and the alphabet: from the 15th century BC
The most significant development in the history of writing, since the first development of a script in about 3200 BC, is the move from a pictographic or syllabic system (characteristic of Sumerian, ancient Egyptian and Chinese) to a phonetic one, based on recording the spoken sound of a word. -
136
The Arabic script: from the 5th century BC
The script is developed from the 1st century BC by the Nabataeans, a people speaking a Semitic language whose stronghold at Petra, on a main caravan route, brings them prosperity and the need for records. Writing is not much needed by the nomads of Arabia, but when it becomes urgently required for the Qur'an (to record accurately the words of God in the 7th century AD), the Nabataean example is to hand. Through Islam and the spread of Arabic, it becomes one of the world's standard scripts. -
360
Ulfilas and his alphabet: AD c.360
Ulfilas is the first man known to have undertaken an extraordinarily difficult intellectual task - writing down, from scratch, a language which is as yet purely oral. He even devises a new alphabet to capture accurately the sounds of spoken Gothic, using a total of twenty-seven letters adapted from examples in the Greek and Roman alphabets. -
Period: Jan 1, 700 to Jan 1, 1500
From handwriting to print: 7th - 15th century AD
It is a striking fact that the letters which we take for granted today, in printed books, derive for the most part from handwriting in the last centuries of the Roman empire. Indeed the script in fragments of Latin messages, written by members of the Roman garrison at Hadrian's Wall in about AD 100, is visibly related to the letters taught in western European languages in the 20th century. -
Jan 1, 1100
Black-letter style: 11th - 15th century AD
In the later Middle Ages, the clarity of the Carolingian script becomes lost. A much darker and denser style evolves in northern Europe from the 11th century. It is known as 'black letter', because of the almost oppressive weight of dark ink on each densely packed page. This medieval style derives partly from an aesthetic impulse (there is drama in dark pen strokes and in the angular ends left by a broad nib), but it is above all a matter of economy. -
Jan 1, 1500
Roman and italic: 15th century AD
Italian scholars of the 14th and 15th century, followers of Petrarch in their reverence for classical culture, search through libraries for ancient texts. Copying out their discoveries, they aspire also to an authentic script. They find their models in beautifully written manuscripts which they take to be Roman but which are in fact Carolingian. -
Copperplate: from the 16th century
For purposes of handwriting a version of the italic script eventually becomes the norm in most western societies. The reason is partly accidental. Flowing letters are easily engraved, as can be seen in the captions of any engraving. The natural movement of the burin through the metal is in elegant curves, ending in elongated points. A nib, filled with ink, can easily make the same flowing marks on paper. -
The talking leaves of the Cherokee: AD 1821 - 1828
In the early 19th century, recognizing the advantage that writing brings to the white Americans, Cherokee Indiana resolve to acquire the same benefit for their own people. They analyze the spoken sounds of the Cherokee language and decide that it consists of eighty-six identifiable syllables. A symbol is selected for each syllable - by adapting letters in the English alphabet, and perhaps also by borrowing from fragments of Greek and Hebrew in the books distributed by missionaries. -
The Carolingian script: 8th century AD
In AD 780 the emperor Charlemagne meets Alcuin, a distinguished scholar from York, and invites him to direct his palace school at Aachen. Twelve months or more later, in October 781, Charlemagne commissions from a scribe, by the name of Godesalc, a manuscript of the gospels. Godesalc completes his magnificent book for the emperor in April 783. The Godesalc Evangelistary, as it is now called, is the first book in which the script known as Carolingian minuscule appears. The text uses conventional
