HISTORY OF READING.pdf: AN INTRODUCTION TO READING AND WRITING
1.
2. “Books are the carriers
of civilization. Without
books, history is silent,
literature dumb, science
crippled, thought and
speculation at a
standstill.”
(Barbara W. Tuchman)
3. • According to
paleontologists who study
fossils and other
evidences of life on earth.
the first man was a
latecomer on earth and
appeared on the planet
only about one hundred
thousand years ago. but
even during those primitive
days man walked upright,
had adaptable hands and
brain he was a social
being who communicated
with his kind.
4. He employed grunts and
body language using
gestures and postures to
convey his ideas and needs
to others. Slowly he
developed oral language
which enable to express
more clearly the messages
he wanted to convey.
In time ,various
circumstances such as need
to communicate to others
who are distant in place
caused man to devise
symbols corresponding to
his oral messages.
5. • We have evidences of this
in the Old Stone Age rock
painting and cuneiform or
picture writing .
• From these we have
knowledge of the earliest
human act of picture-
writing and reading.
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7. • The Sumerians were one of the earliest
urban societies to emerge in the world, in
Southern Mesopotamia more than 5000
years ago. They developed a writing system
whose wedge-shaped strokes would
influence the style of scripts in the same
geographical area for the next 3000 years.
• Eventually, all of
these diverse
writing systems,
which
encompass both
logophonetic,
consonantal
alphabetic, and
syllabic systems,
became known
as cuneiform.
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8. CUNEIFORM TABLET
Picture Writing
during the Sumerian
Civilization between
3000-4000 B.C
Incised in baked
tablets . They served
to communicate and
preserve private
letters ,business
contracts ,accounts
,tax receipts, royal
orders and state
records .
9. • The Egyptian
civilization along the
river Nile carved their
pictorial symbols
known as
hieroglyphics on the
stone wall of temples
and tombs, or carefully
painted them on
wooden coffins . The
Egyptian also invented
paper derived from
papyrus plant.
• Which they wrote
their signs with reed
pen and ink made by
mixing water, gum and
soot.
12. • Other civilizations such
as those in Syria,
Phoenicia and Palestine
used more permanent
writing materials such
as leather rolled into
scrolls.
• But the greatest
contribution to the
progress of ancient
civilizations came from
Phoenicians who
adopted and spread
the use of letter
symbols or the
alphabet
14. • Due to its simplicity it was developed by other
peoples such as Greeks and Romans . The Roman
system of writing in turn to became the basis for all
the systems of being read by modern people today.
Greek Alphabet Roman system of writing
16. The first writing - Sumerian logographs from
4000 BC - were simply pictures of objects and
activities:
Sumerian Logographs - circa 4000 BC
17. In 2000 BC, the Phoenicians developed the first
methods to represent spoken language - an
alphabet consisting entirely of consonants:
•SPKNWRDSRTHSYMBL
SFMNTLXPRNCNDWRT
TNWRDSRTHSYMBLSF
SPKNWRDS.
20. Yet another 1000 years passed before the next
improvement in text, namely the invention of
lower case characters by Medieval Scribes.
Spokenwordsarethesymbolsofm
entalexperience,andwrittenword
sarethesymbolsofspokenwords.
21. Spoken words are the symbols of
mental experience, and written words
are the symbols of spoken words.
• About 1000 years ago, in 900 AD, the last major
upgrade in text took place: the insertion of
spaces between words. Also developed by
Medieval Scribes.