Talk:Mesoamerican writing systems

Writing in the early Americas was nominated for deletion. The discussion was closed on 20 August 2023 with a consensus to merge. Its contents were merged into Mesoamerican writing systems. The original page is now a redirect to this page. For the contribution history and old versions of the redirected article, please see its history; for its talk page, see here.

Writing systems Top‑importance

	Writing portal This article falls within the scope of WikiProject Writing systems, a WikiProject interested in improving the encyclopaedic coverage and content of articles relating to writing systems on Wikipedia. If you would like to help out, you are welcome to drop by the project page and/or leave a query at the project’s talk page.Writing systemsWikipedia:WikiProject Writing systemsTemplate:WikiProject Writing systemsWriting system
Top	This article has been rated as Top-importance on the project's importance scale.

Mesoamerica (inactive)

This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mesoamerica, a project which is currently considered to be inactive.MesoamericaWikipedia:WikiProject MesoamericaTemplate:WikiProject MesoamericaMesoamerica

Mexico Low‑importance

	Mexico portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Mexico, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Mexico on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.MexicoWikipedia:WikiProject MexicoTemplate:WikiProject MexicoMexico
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Indigenous peoples of the Americas Mid‑importance

	Indigenous peoples of the Americas portal This article is within the scope of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the Americas, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Indigenous peoples of the Americas on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Indigenous peoples of the AmericasWikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the AmericasTemplate:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of the AmericasIndigenous peoples of the Americas
Mid	This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale.

Indigenous peoples of North America Low‑importance

	This article is within the scope of WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North America, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of Native Americans, Indigenous peoples in Canada, and related indigenous peoples of North America on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.Indigenous peoples of North AmericaWikipedia:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North AmericaTemplate:WikiProject Indigenous peoples of North AmericaIndigenous peoples of North America
Low	This article has been rated as Low-importance on the project's importance scale.

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Andreag1.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 00:55, 18 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment

This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Fuhri4david.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 03:56, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Epi-Olmec script

Maunus, congrats on this new article -- a nice survey indeed. I could do a copyedit of the article if you'd like, fixing redlinks and the like.

Also, there is an article on the Isthmian script at Epi-Olmec script. As mentioned in that article, there are several names for this script and when I wrote the article I chose Epi-Olmec as the title since:

That is the name used on the Ancient Scripts website.
That name has more Google hits than the other 2 names.
That is the name used by Justeson and Kaufman, who seem to be the academics who've studied the script the most.

Justeson and Kaufman also claim that they've deciphered the script, a disputed claim.

By the way, I took a small bit of your recent La Mojarra Stela 1 photo, blew it up, and added it to the Epi-Olmec script article.

Anyway, good work. Madman 19:33, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

Go ahead Madman the article is yours to edit and fix up, I appreciate any assistance. I Agree with Epi-olmec and just giving Isthmian a mention in there somewhere.Maunus 20:28, 9 August 2006 (UTC)[reply]

India?

No one with cross-disciplinary experience would include India in the list. Indus Valley Script is even widely accepted as being derived from Proto-Elamite, which is only logical.

Before I'm done, it might be widely accepted that Chinese is from there, too. Look at the timeline and the state of Chinese once it finally appears in what's been excavated. Also, compare writing system mechanics, esp. with Mayan. But this will have to wait until I've published.

Yeah, yeah, super great article. You deserve major kudos for writing anything for this horrid site, run by sell-outs funded by the man. This place is more about small-time politics than Academia, and that takes a lot of doing.

Epigraphist (talk) 14:51, 26 September 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Nature of writing

The assertion that postclassic cultures like the Mixtecs and the Aztecs didn't have writing is disputed. I know a few Aztec scholars (like Mike Smith) who would disagree, given the narrative structure of Aztec codices and the logophonetic elements listed in the article. I also know Mayanists that would argue that the Maya had the only real writing and that the others don't really count. Other than Maya, most of the mesoamerican scripts tend to straddle the boundary on what is and isn't a writing system and it often comes down to what definition you're using. Should this article include a brief description on theories of the nature of writing systems for reference, or would that be too much of a sidetrack from the main topic? Perhaps different perspectives on the issue should be included in the section on each individual script. Does anybody have any thoughts on this? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Snickeringshadow (talk • contribs) 11:19, 17 May 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Dubious

Including India here as a region, along with Mesoamerica, where writing emerged independently is dubious at best and blatantly factually inaccurate at worst. The cited "writing system" that supposedly emerged in India, the Indus Valley Script, has no evidence that conclusively shows that it is indeed a proper writing system. Instead, there is overwhelming evidence that it is a type of proto-writing consisting of pictograms, ideograms etc.

The statement at the beginning of this article that writing emerged independently in India contradicts the Wikipedia article on writing systems and also the Wikipedia article on the Indus Valley Script itself. I propose that "India" be removed from this article unless someone can show, with proof beyond that of a reasonable doubt, that it should be included here. As of now I've marked it as Dubious.

Jdbtwo (talk) 22:49, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Egyptian is dubious as well. — kwami (talk) 23:57, 23 June 2013 (UTC)[reply]

Independent development of writing systems

A minor point of contention – the article states that Mesoamerica was one of three civilisations that independently developed writing, along with Mesopotamia and China. What of Egypt? — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Nineteenth Century (talk • contribs) 16:01, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

My understanding of scholarly plurality opinion, maybe bordering on consensus, is that Egyptians were plausibly exposed to the vague "vibes" of writing via commercial contact with the proto-cuneiform tradition developing in Mesopotamia during the late fourth millennium BC—if not necessarily direct exposure, working knowledge, or importation of it. Many count 4, some count 3, but there's not an enormous amount of daylight between those two positions, since it's pretty clear that hieroglyphs emerged rather quickly to be platonically ex nihilo, but clearly are a completely different system invented without taking cues from cuneiform. Remsense ‥ 论 18:14, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

In my view, Egyptian hieroglyphics would still count as independently developed if invented without any actual influence from other systems, regardless of whether the Egyptians were aware of Sumerian cuneiform when they invented hieroglyphics. That would merely be knowledge.

Aside from Mesopotamia, Egypt, China and Mesoamerica, there are other places where writing may have developed independently – Crete with its Linear A; Harappa; Eastern Island with its rongorongo; the Jiroft civilisation in Iran; and a few others. The Inca, and even the Nsibidi writing system in Nigeria, may also count.

Please correct me if any of these were not independently developed. Obviously it would lead the article astray to list all of these, unless in a footnote. The Nineteenth Century (talk) 21:51, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Many (most?) of those examples have not been demonstrated as constituting writing, or are generally agreed upon as not being writing—i.e. as representing a functional encoding of a particular spoken language. That is not to say that symbol systems are of less interest, they are just qualitatively different in how they function and develop—that writing emerged from "proto-writing" as few as four distinct times in human history is stunning both in how particular writing is and what other value symbol systems can have. Remsense ‥ 论 23:05, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

Oh! One unambiguous example that would count as an independent invention of writing according to these criteria is the Cherokee syllabary. Remsense ‥ 论 23:22, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]

@The Nineteenth Century: (remember, new posts go at the bottom!) Remsense ‥ 论 18:15, 26 March 2025 (UTC)[reply]