Early written languages

Early written languages

One of the marks of progress in early human civilizations was the development of the early written languages, which involved the construction of alphabets, logograms, and ideograms. Some early languages included the following (sorted alphabetically):

List of early written languages

* Akkadian
* Arabic
* Aramaic
* Armenian
* Avestan
* Aztec
* Bengali
* Brahmi
* Bugis
* Burmese
* Byblos
* Cherokee
* Chinese
* Coptic
* Cuneiform
* Cypriot
* Cyrillic
* Devanagari
* Egyptian
* Elamite
* Epi-Olmec
* Etruscan
* Futhark
* Ge'ez (Ethiopic)
* Georgian
* Glagolitic
* Gothic
* Grantha
* Greek
* Gujarati
* Gupta
* Gurmukhi
* Hebrew
* hPhags-pa
* Iberian scripts
* Indus Script
* Japanese
* Javanese
* Jurchen
* Kadamba
* Kalinga
* Kannada
* Kashmiri
* Kharosthi
* Khitan
* Khmer
* Korean
* Landa
* Latin
* Lepcha
* Linear A
* Linear B
* Luwian
* Malayalam
* Maya
* Meroïtic
* Mesoamerican Writing Systems
* Mixtec
* Modi
* Mongolian
* Nagari
* Naxi
* Nushu
* Ogham
* Old Hebrew
* Old Kannada
* Old Persian
* Oriya
* Oscan
* Pahlavi
* Phaistos Disc
* Phoenician
* Proto-Sinaitic
* Samaritan
* Sarada
* Sinhala
* South Arabian
* South Asian Writing Systems
* Sumerian
* Syriac
* Takri
* Tamil
* Telugu
* Thai
* Thamudic
* Tibetan
* Tocharian
* Turkic runes
* Ugaritic
* Venetic
* Yi Scripts
* Zapotec

Importance of written language

Written languages allow historians to speculate on the entertainment, lifestyles, and cultures of peoples long after they have died. Thus, the knowledge and wisdom of past civilizations is made immortal and passed down many generations.

External links

* [http://www.english.uga.edu/~hypertxt/040699sci-early-writing.html Theories concerning early writing]
* [http://www.ancientscripts.com/ More on ancient scripts]

ee also

* History of writing


Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.

Игры ⚽ Нужен реферат?

Look at other dictionaries:

  • Languages of China — Languages of country = China image size = 300px caption = Map of Linguistic Groups showing areas claimed by the People s Republic of China (including areas governed by the Republic of China) official = Chinese unofficial = main = regional =… …   Wikipedia

  • Early New High German — Infobox Language name=Early New High German nativename= Deudsch region=southern Germany (south of the Benrath line), parts of Austria and Switzerland extinct=developed into Modern German from the 1650s familycolor=Indo European fam2=Germanic fam3 …   Wikipedia

  • Languages of the United States — Official language(s) none Main language(s) English 82.1%, Spanish 10.7%, other Indo European 3.8%, Asian …   Wikipedia

  • Languages of the European Union — Official language(s) Bulgarian Czech Danish Dutch English Estonian Finnish French German …   Wikipedia

  • Languages of the United Kingdom — Languages of country = United Kingdom official = English [Citation url=http://www.thecommonwealth.org/YearbookHomeInternal/139560/ title=United Kingdom; Key Facts publisher=Commonwealth Secretariat accessdate=2008 04 23] main = English >90%… …   Wikipedia

  • Languages of Sweden — Languages of country = Sweden caption = official = none unofficial = main = Swedish >90% regional = indigenous = (Unofficial languages / Dialects) Älvdalsmål, Jamtlandic, Scanian minority = (Officially recognised) Finnish, Meänkieli, Romani, Sami …   Wikipedia

  • Early Scots — describes the emerging literary language of the Northern Middle English speaking parts of Scotland in the period before 1450. The northern forms of Middle English descended from Northumbrian Old English. During this period, speakers referred to… …   Wikipedia

  • Early African Church —     Early African Church     † Catholic Encyclopedia ► Early African Church     The name, Early African Church, is given to the Christian communities inhabiting the region known politically as Roman Africa, and comprised geographically within the …   Catholic encyclopedia

  • Written vernacular Chinese — Traditional Chinese 白話 Simplified Chinese 白话 Hanyu Pinyin báihuà Literal meaning plain sp …   Wikipedia

  • Early Swedish literature — designates Swedish literature written between approximately 1200 ndash;1500 AD.As Swedish evolved from Old Norse in the 13th century, the Swedish literature began to take form as an independent body of literature. The earliest form of an… …   Wikipedia

Share the article and excerpts

Direct link
Do a right-click on the link above
and select “Copy Link”