Writing

Ancient Sumerian record keepers marked pictographic symbols in soft pieces of clay with a pointed reed. The clay tablets were then baked to make them hard. We call the Sumerian writing system cuneiform. Cuneiform means wedged shaped, because the marks in the clay were wedges.

The first pictographs were simple. A writer would draw an object such as a fish or a broom to communicate to others. A pictographic writing system worked well in a simple society, but it was difficult to describe abstract concepts such as justice or liberty in pictographs. Many Chinese people continue to use a pictographic system today, but the government has endorsed the Pinyin system of phonetic writing.

Eventually, most cultures developed phonetic writing systems where a symbol represents a sound rather than an object. English speaking people, agree that the symbols D-O-G refer to an animal. English, French, Spanish, German and Russian are examples of phonetic languages. Phonetic languages make small typewriters and computer keyboards possible. Imagine a different key for every single word!

Resources

Download this lesson as Microsoft Word file or as an Adobe Acrobat file.

Listen as Mr. Dowling reads this lesson.