The history of writing traces the development of writing systems and how their use transformed and was transformed by different societies. The use of writing prefigures various social and psychological … See more

Before the 20th century, most scholarly theories of the origins of writing involved some form of monogenesis, the assumption that … See more

The Phoenician alphabet gave rise to the Aramaic and Greek alphabets. Most of the writing systems used throughout Afro-Eurasia descend from either Aramaic or Greek. The Greek alphabet was the first to introduce letters representing vowel sounds. It and its … See more

Within a society, the mediums, materials, and technologies used for writing shape what it is used for and what social impact it has. For example, … See more

Writing systems typically satisfy three criteria. Firstly, the writing must have some purpose or meaning to it, and a point must be communicated by the text. Secondly, writing systems make use of specific symbols which may be recorded on some writing medium See more

Cuneiform
Sumerian writing evolved from a system of clay tokens used to represent commodities. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, this … See more

After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, the production and transmission of literature that had previously been widespread across the Roman world became largely confined to the Byzantine and Sasanian empires, where the primary … See more