As we know, the first writing language appeared about 5 thousand years ago. It appeared in the civilization of the Sumerians. Their writing system was called the cuneiform. Ancient people wrote on clay tablets with small, sharpened blades. After the signs were written, the tablets were burned for better preservation. From the first signs of writing to the creation of script and of the alphabet 2000 years will pass. And the first alphabet will be the Indus Valley script, in northwestern Hindustan.
Scientists think that the origins of writing might have been in several places at once. Thus, the foci of the birth of writing are as follows:
- Mesopotamia. It was there that the Sumerian civilization developed;
- Nile Valley;
- In the Far East (China).
I would like to note that regardless of the place of the formation of writing, the stages of its development are everywhere the same. First there were sticks and drawings, and only then there were written, graphic signs. In some places, instead of writing, they sent each other different objects, which had their own meaning.
Topics of the first letters were very simple and ordinary. They wrote or, more often, drew anything they saw, such as animals, food, nature and weapons. An example of this kind of writing is Egyptian. It actively used drawings, which were competently supplemented by graphic signs, in some places even reminiscent of the script.
Chinese writing emerged around the 13th century BC in the form of hieroglyphs. The writing became one of the most complicated in the world, as one sign meant a whole word or phrase.
At the same time the Sinai script appeared in the Middle East. This is a landmark event, as it was then that the number of written signs decreased significantly. It was in this inscription that there were selected signs that denoted certain syllables. It was then that writing became syllabic. Later, the Phoenicians went further and simplified the syllables into individual letters, and it was they who created the alphabet.
At the end of the ninth century BC, the Greeks created their own script based on the alphabet of the Phoenicians. It was the first alphabet that contained both vowels and consonants. Modern archives contain about 50,000 manuscripts in the Greek alphabet.
When did the writing in Russia appeared
Full-fledged writing in Russia appeared about 863, together with the appearance of Cyrillic. Cyrillic originated from the Greek charter (solemn writing). The composition of the original kirillitsa alphabet is still unknown. The well-known "classical" kirillitsa with 43 symbols probably contains later letters such as "y" and "uo". What is certain is that the original Cyrillic alphabet contained all 24 letters of the Greek alphabet.
The Cyrillic alphabet has undergone tremendous change over a long period of time. One of its major reformers was Peter the Great. For example, before his reforms, there were no lower case letters, all signs were capital letters.
The written language in Ancient Russia can be divided into several streams: the uncial font, and everyday writing (cursive writing). Statutory writing was used to write books and government official papers. Correspondingly, everyday writing was used mostly in everyday life and in educational institutions. You can read more about the development of the alphabet and the Russian script in this article.
