Talk:History of writing

"Writing must be complete"?

Under "Writing systems", it is claimed: There are considered to be three writing criteria for all writing systems. The first being that writing must be complete. It must have a purpose or some sort of meaning to it. A point must be made or communicated in the text. Second, all writing systems must have some sort of symbols which can be made on some sort of surface, whether physical or digital. Lastly, the symbols used in the writing system must mimic spoken word/speech, in order for communication to be possible.

Everything seems reasonable to an amateur, except for the statement that writing must be complete. In what way? Do the next two sentences form a definition? In that case it could be made more obvious. Fomalhaut76 (talk) 18:52, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

It must be complete in the sense that every word someone wants to write in their language can be written. (In case you're interested in this topic, read John DeFrancis's Visible Speech. The Diverse Oneness of Writing Systems. He uses the term "full writing systems.") What would be a better wording for amateurs like you? Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:22, 24 January 2021 (UTC)

a link to a scientific publication website-reg. update about a new (most ancient to date?) verified archaeological inscription discovery

Could someone please take a look at this webpage (which I have accidentally came upon: http://www.sci-news.com/archaeology/tel-lachish-inscription-09571.html (entitled: Archaeologists Find 3,450-Year-Old Alphabetic Inscription in Israel) in order to DETERMINE what UPDATE CHANGES-if any at all, are needed/necessary for this Wikipedia page?

Thank you! :) AK63 (talk) 20:55, 21 April 2021 (UTC)

Expand Mesoamerican Writing

This article quite disturbingly seems to all-but ignore the history of the independently-developed writing systems of Mesoamerica, with only a tiny section on it. Instead, it seems almost enitrely to focus on the history of writing in Afro-Eurasia. This is not an area I have much knowledge in, but information could perhaps be directly added from the article Mesoamerican writing systems. AvRand (talk) 20:23, 17 August 2021 (UTC)

Inappropriate template?

The entire section on the uses and implications of writing was marked with the template about excessive detail. It seems to me this is no more detailed than the entire earlier sections on writing systems. Writing and the history of writing cannot properly be understood without some attention to the uses that have been made of it and how it has given rise to different realms of human activities. While writing systems are important, there is in fact another article "eriting systems" devoted to it, which dupicates much of the same information (as does the article on "writing."). Writing systems are only the beginnings of the story, and do not indicate the imporatnce of writing for human life. I would like to request this template be removed.

My username is cbazerman but the signature that follows will probably direct to a different user named methodical. Methodical 21:08, 5 November 2022 (UTC)± — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbazerman (talk • contribs)

The issue is that the details aren't all relevant. Like: Curricula at these traditional universities were soon regulated by the Vatican and were organized into four faculties: Liberal Arts, Theology, Law, and Medicine; what does that have to do with writing? Sure the students probably wrote about the topics, but why is it relevant that the Vatican organised education into these particular faculties, as opposed to some other system? The sentence could stop at "regulated by the Vatican", but even that seems tangential. This is an article about the history of writing, not the history of knowledge, or of religious education, or of curricula.

Another example: Ptolemy's Almagest (a Latinized versiion of the name of the Arabic translation, Al-Majisti) dominated astronomy through the Middle Ages; how is this relevant beyond the fact that the Almagest is a book and books contain written text? This might be relevant to an article about the history of astronomy, but not about the history of writing. While I understand that you're trying to convey that writing has been impactful in a number of fields, this point would be better made by a discussion of broader patterns of change rather than by discussing particular books.

Details like the examples I've given here are only tangentially relevant, and are excessive. As I said in the edit summary, I think you've gotten carried away. You need to be more selective about which details to include. While all this is very interesting, these details don't belong in this particular article. Perhaps some of this material can be moved to other articles. I'll leave that up to you. – Scyrme (talk) 23:38, 5 November 2022 (UTC)

ok. Now I got it. I will try to make the connections to writing more explicit and leave out things that may seem tangential. I will work on this soon. Methodical 02:03, 6 November 2022 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Cbazerman (talk • contribs)

I have now edited the writing and knowledge section to remove tangential information and make the section more explicitly focused on writing. I hope you will find it appropriate to remove the template now. Thanks for the help. Methodical 16:58, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

It's much better now; I've removed the template. – Scyrme (talk) 18:21, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks 68.227.85.78 (talk) 18:42, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Lead: "genres … digital currency"

What is this passage saying? How relevant are "money" (idealized exchange value) or "currency" (signified exchange value) to the history of writing, that they should be mentioned in the lead? Neither money nor currency imply writing, see coin, cowrie, tally stick. Is this just someone jamming in a plug for cryptocurrency? 2601:642:4600:BE10:28D4:17DB:75E1:C3E6 (talk) 06:29, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Good catch -- I removed it -- that had been here for a ridiculously long time too. I don't think editors review this article much despite its importance. SamuelRiv (talk) 06:52, 26 January 2024 (UTC)

Alternatives to writing

Is it worth having a section on historical alternatives to writing? The only examples I can think of are oral tradition and the Incan Quipu Alexanderkowal (talk) 08:59, 20 April 2024 (UTC)

idiographic.

Idiographic not ldeographic as it says in the article. 2607:FEA8:88E5:A200:F50E:C6D4:58B:A810 (talk) 06:57, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Those are different words meaning different things. I'm not sure idiographic could be used here (I think not), but according to [1], ideographic has nearly 200 years of provinence in this sense. Nø (talk) 07:31, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

I think we should adopt "idiography" as a synonym for "autobiography" Remsense诉 08:14, 24 June 2024 (UTC)

Dispilio tablet

This article links to Dispilio tablet. That article seems to have serious problems regarding sourcing and notability. Though not a formal AfD (yet), I have here to delete that aricle. Please chime in there if you have an opinion (or help improve the article)! Nø (talk) 12:12, 28 June 2024 (UTC)

Rearrangement

Understandably, a lot of outdated or non-scholarly sources have been used to describe proto-writing/other symbol systems in this article as writing. I think one of the underlying issues is the layout: we have a very rigid progressive layout which very much contradicts the understanding that all protowriting either in effect precedes writing or necessarily evolves into writing. Thoughts on how to better represent diverse traditions of protowriting in this article would be much appreciated. Remsense诉 20:48, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

@Alexeysun: the paragraph directly below the one you replaced directly contradicts the one above, which was sourced entirely to the aforementioned non-scholarly, outdated sources. They are news articles written close to the discoveries by non-experts. No scholarly consensus you or I have ever come across characterizes these systems as glottographic writing—the definition of writing used in this article, across Wikipedia, and in contemporary scholarly literature. Every single rundown of the history of orthography I have ever read excludes these systems or explicitly mentions they are not proven to be glottographic writing (at best) and cannot be characterized as such. You could see this both on this article and the ones for the symbols in question, if you had bothered to read a word of either in tandem with the explanations I gave. Remsense诉 22:52, 28 July 2024 (UTC)

On the topic of sources, is there any reason why under References there is both a Citations and Sources section? When should a work be placed under Sources and not just under Citations? 66.215.184.32 (talk) 10:39, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

It is very common for short citations to be listed separately from the full citations they refer to on articles like these. Remsense诉 12:15, 7 August 2024 (UTC)

I've still been racking my brain about this, and I think I've settled on that it's best to have a top-level organization based firstly on area, not time. Here's what I have:

1. Emergence – mostly terminology and universals, brief listing of ex nihilo inventions and proto-writing
2. Ancient Near East (3400–1000 BCE)
   1. Cuneiform in Mesopotamia
   2. Hieroglyphs in Egypt
3. Mediterranean abjads and alphabets (1000 BCE – present)
4. African and South Asian abugidas (800 BCE – present)
5. Chinese characters in the Far East (1250 BCE – present) – have to include Central and Southeast Asia, hence "Far East"
6. Mesoamerica (500 BCE – 1500 CE)
7. Materials and technology
8. Literacy and literary culture

This still feels awkward, with a top half that's primarily going by the typology of the writing system, and then cleaning up ancillary properties in the back half, but. Remsense ‥ 论 04:55, 27 August 2024 (UTC)