Talk:History of writing/Archive 2

Did invention occur only in two places?
There is no source for the idea that it is generally accepted that writing was invented in two places independently. I'm, not really contesting this, but thing is, just recently I read a book on this issue which said that it was invented in was it 4 or 5 places independently. Unfortunately I cannot remember the details of this book now. It was from a public library. Anyway, I think it would be interesting for the reader of an encyclopedia like this to get some idea about how it is decided on what constitutes are real writing system and how researchers verify if they are "independent" or not. So, if anyone has any soutces for this, I'd like to see them. 88.195.243.29 (talk) 15:58, 21 February 2016 (UTC)

In the section Writing during the Middle Ages it is stated that arabic cursive writing influenced Latin... How so? Cursive Latin (Roman cursive - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_cursive ) was in use ca. 900 years prior to any written arabic script. BigBadBen 5.158.132.91 (talk) 22:55, 22 February 2016 (UTC)

These categorical assertions are dubious
I get your point,, but why can't it be true that scholars generally agree "true writing of language (not only numbers) was invented independently in at least three places", and yet they still "...debate whether writing systems were developed completely independently in Egypt around 3200 BC and in China around 1200 BC...". The two statements are not mutually exclusive.

The revision you reverted to has no source for its categorical assertion that the writing of language was invented independently in Mesoamerica around 900 BC, which is dubious. The Encyclopedia of the Ancient Maya, an authoritative source, and published in 2015, says: "The earliest text we have, discovered in the late 1990s in the Veracruz lowlands in the "Olmec heartland" near the large Olmec site San Lorenzo Tenochtitlan, is the Cascajal Block, lightly but carefully engraved on a stone tablet [...]. We have no other example of writing from the early Preclassic, which is problematic. Formally, it resembles an inscription, but a couple of features give one pause. [...] Unfortunately no other inscription of this type, or this age, has come to light."]

I think my version is better than yours, but that it could use some expanding to clarify the current state of affairs. The text needs to be amended with more information, and a source. What do you have to offer? Carlstak (talk) 02:58, 4 March 2017 (UTC)
 * To be clear about where I stand: I didn't write the current version, nor do I think it's perfect. I actually tried to come up with a version that incorporated your material instead of just reverting, but I ran out of time, in the absence of which I reverted on the grounds that your change left the article in a self-contradictory state (IMO): the intention of the paragraph mentioning Egypt and China presumably was that in those cases there is some debate as to whether they were completely independent or inspired by earlier writing systems, whereas in Sumer and Mesoamerica, there is consensus that the writing found there was independently developed. So at minimum, if you want to make that change again, you should revise the following paragraphs accordingly. JudahH (talk) 14:42, 7 March 2017 (UTC)


 * I have some time now, so I will try to reinstate your revision w/o leaving [what appears to me] inconsistency in the article body. JudahH (talk) 15:44, 7 March 2017 (UTC)
 * I have now done so. I'm afraid that the wording of my edition may have been a little clumsy, but I hope it at least clarifies the distinction between the two sorts of "invention" that we're talking about here. Feel free to be bold and edit it further. JudahH (talk) 16:08, 7 March 2017 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your reply, . It seems okay, but may need to be reworded, as you say. I don't have time to work on this now, but will take a look again when I get a chance. Regards, Carlstak (talk) 12:41, 8 March 2017 (UTC)

Invention of writing in China
Twice in the last couple of months a user has edited the "Inventions of Writing" section to make two major changes. One of these is to say that it's definitely known that Chinese writing was an independent invention, and the other is to say that Chinese writing dates from 5,000 BC (pushing the date in the article back nearly 4,000 years). The only source provided for these statements is this BBC news article, which doesn't seem sufficiently authoritative to back up these claims. Are either of these claims actually true? If so, can the user or users making these edits please cite a better source? On a broader point, the source for the statement that it's generally agreed that writing was developed at least twice independently is a single book from twenty years ago - are there more, or more recent, sources available for this assertion? 192.76.28.93 (talk) 14:25, 29 June 2017 (UTC)
 * More recent books say at least 3 times, China being one of the three. Doug Weller  talk 13:24, 2 July 2017 (UTC)

Writing during the Middle Ages
With all respect to editors and administrator here;

I have deleted some paragraph in writing during the Middle Ages section that tell about Baybayin. I think this article just informing and describing about history of writing from the beginning of civilization to the present. It also explain about some writing system that has important contribution on writing system history or human civilization in general sense. Some of important writing system in history like example; Egyptian hieroglyph, cuneiform, Hanzi (Chinese) character, Aramaic, Greek, Latin, Arabic, and maybe Cyrillic. But, I think Baybayain is not so important like writing system that I've mentioned before. Baybayin is just one of writing system that ever existed in human history, used in pre-colonial days of Philippines, part of Brahmic script because its descended from Kawi script, and now considered as extinct script. I think it kinda irrelevant if we included one of not-so-important writing system history in this article, why we didn't insert some paragraph about every writing system that ever existed in history, like Thai, Runic, Hebrew, Gurmukhi, Inuktitut, Old Turkic, Manchu, Osmanya, etc, if we did allow one of editor to edit this article only to pleasure their pride and sense of nationalism of its respective country, not to provide factual information about history of writing objectively. -114.124.151.199 (talk) 13:40, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I'm in agreement with your removal of content only just added a few days ago without explanation or discussion. Even if it weren't WP:OFFTOPIC for this broad scope article, what has it to do with the Middle Ages? --Iryna Harpy (talk) 20:48, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * I think Middle Ages part of this article told about history of important writing system in that period, as I highlighted in paragraph "...primary literary languages...", three times mentioned in the paragraph. As I told before, Baybayin is just descendant of Brahmic witing system, not considered as one of important writing system in writing history. These paragraph are has just been added by someone who had some delutional sense of nationalism (I mean "Pinoy Pride" if you still don't understand yet). If we still kept these Baybayin paragraph, why we don't just include history of Brahmic script to this article too, and still there many descendant of Brahmic script that had more important influence than this Baybayin, for example Bengali, Devanagari, Tibetan, and so on, and added them all to this article. Thanks for your response -114.124.206.147 (talk) 23:58, 8 July 2017 (UTC)
 * Actually, I did understand the lateral connection between descent from Brahmic scripts, but it is WP:OFFTOPIC for the scope of this article. Hundreds writing scripts have evolved (and have even been adopted much later in the piece) from older writing systems. A 16th century offshoot is WP:UNDUE for this article. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 02:02, 10 July 2017 (UTC)

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Regarding the Sumer-Egypt issue
In the article it is stated in the "Inventions of Writing" section that "In 1999, Archaeology Magazine reported that the earliest Egyptian glyphs date back to 3400 BC, which "challenge the commonly held belief that early logographs, pictographic symbols representing a specific place, object, or quantity, first evolved into more complex phonetic symbols in Mesopotamia." This is a very major point if true, and I think it alters the tone of the article, which otherwise suggests that the archaeological consensus is that writing emerged first in Mesopotamia. Assuming that Archaeology Magazine is a valid source (I was not aware of it before reading this article) I think that that sentence should be moved higher up because if it is valid then it's a very important fact regarding the history of writing. Compounded with Gunther Dreyer's view discussed in the "Egyptian Hieroglyphs" section, one could make a strong case based on this article for Egyptian writing either pre-dating cuneiform or at least emerging independently of cuneiform. Reading the article it appears as though scholars disagree on whether Hieroglyphics or Cuneiform came first, and they were both within a century or so of each other.

Alternatively, maybe remove all ambiguity and have a section dedicated to the scholarly disagreement on the Egypt-Sumer issue? I'm kind of new so I don't want to edit the article, but I just wanted to share some thoughts. — Preceding unsigned comment added by The Urge to Purge (talk • contribs) 04:00, 31 March 2018 (UTC)

Origin of writing redirect
I don't like the present naked redirect from "origin of writing" to this article, as it stands.

To my sensibility, the state of affairs could be readily improved by adding a new section "Precursors of writing" before section "Inventions of writing". This section could point to proto-writing as a main article, while summarizing that page vastly better than its own lead. Note that you can also say more, because "precursor" is inherently a slightly larger frame.

One could, for example, incorporate this citation:


 * Code hidden in Stone Age art may be the root of human writing — 9 November 2016 by Alison George

and tie proto-writing to its own potential origins in early cave art.

Ideally the nasty and unsatisfying present redirect from "origin" would then be refined to point to this new "precursor" section.

But I'll leave that for the next guy, as I'm just passing through. &mdash; MaxEnt 18:13, 16 October 2018 (UTC)

History of Writing is an example of poor writing
Perhaps it is unsurprising that this entry about writing is badly written, all over the place with many inconsistencies, and without any clear structure. I've tried to do some cleanup, but it needs a lot more. Scholars have advanced in their thinking, this reflects lots of old ideas.

About the reference to “The Invention of Writing in Egypt” by David Wengrow
It is a chapter in the book Before the pyramids: The origins of Egyptian civilization, ed. Emily Teeter, Oriental institute museum publications 33, The oriental institute of the university of Chicago, 2011.

I looked it up. Wengrow writes that Egypt and Mesopotamia were “not in direct contact with one another, and despite their parallel development in these two regions, the two earliest writing systems do not appear to have been directly related (Woods 2010)”.

Unfortunately, the book failed to include the reference to Woods in its bibliography (no entry between Wilson and Yadin, other references by Wengrow do get a listing). It may refer to Alexandra Woods, but I was unable to find a publication from 2010 that lists her as the sole author. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hurdsean (talk • contribs) 08:28, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

Thanks for your help! I did a search and found it. So, I added it: Woods, Christopher. "Visible language: the earliest writing systems." Visible Language: Inventions of Writing in the Ancient Middle East and Beyond. The Oriental Institute of the University of Chicago, Chicago, 2010, pp. 15-25. --WLBelcher (talk) 13:08, 31 October 2019 (UTC)

BC/AD or BCE/CE
This article currently uses a mixture of BC/AD and BCE/CE date formatted. While there is no preference for one or the other on Wikipedia, there should be a standardized use of one or the other on a given page. I recently standardized this page to use BCE/CE but was reminded by that it's proper to start a discussion before standardizing.

Is there any opposition amongst the editors of this page for using BCE/CE instead of BC/AD?

Skoulikomirmigotripa (talk) 18:18, 13 November 2020 (UTC)


 * As a non-Christian I prefer BC/AD. Reference to Christ's birth or some other event in the past is probably inevitable, but why should that date be the start of the "common" era? There's nothing in it that's common to humankind. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 19:00, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I would prefer BCE/CE, as this article has no close connection to Christianity. Dimadick (talk) 19:03, 13 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I would also prefer BCE/CE per User:Dimadick पाटलिपुत्र  Pat   (talk) 04:42, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Ditto, no connection to Christianity. I don't understand what you mean.  Doug Weller  talk 15:48, 14 November 2020 (UTC)
 * What I mean is this: Any of the above terms refers to Pope Gregory XIII's Christian calendar and thus to Chistianity anyway, but why claim the Christian era starting with Jesus Christ's supposed birthday is humankind's "common era"? It certainly isn't. Love —LiliCharlie (talk) 16:10, 14 November 2020 (UTC)

This conversation dropped off my radar, but it seems like the majority is in favor of BCE/CE. I'm going to go ahead and finally make this change. We can always flip-flop to BC/AD later if there's a change in consensus, but the mixture of the two systems in this article looks sloppy. Skoulikomirmigotripa (talk) 00:48, 1 November 2022 (UTC)