Download Oral traditions Version 2

Oral History and the Origins of
Writing and Literature
• The following information comes directly
from the World History Book, World
History: Perspectives on the Past.
Prehistoric Times
• Neanderthals may not have been
capable of truly articulate speech. If
so, the Cro-Magnons’ advanced
linguistic skills may have enabled them
to plan complex cooperative projects
that gave them an edge over the
Neanderthals.
• Prehistory—the long period of time
before people developed writing.
Writing was developed about 5,500
years ago.
Questions
• If writing was only invented about
5,500 years ago, how long do you
think it was before ALL people could
read and write?
• How do we know things about
civilizations and people that did/do not
use a system of writing?
Oral History
• A culture that did not have a writing system
often “handed down its history and laws by
word of mouth… Griots [West African
record keepers] memorized the great deeds
of past kings, family histories, and important
events in their village.”
Civilizations in Southwest Asia
• Scribes—professional writers
• Every group of people had its own culture—its
own way of life including language, tools,
customs, and rules. To be considered a
civilization instead of just a culture, the
following traits were essential: the growth of
cities, specialized workers (including scribes
and schoolmasters), writing, advanced
technology, and complex institutions.
• Sumerians invented writing as a
necessity of city life. Priests needed
some way to keep track of the grain and
other merchandise that moved in and
out of the temple storehouses.
Merchants needed accounts of debts
and payments. The first written
symbols, therefore, stood for commonly
traded objects—a donkey, an ox, a sack
of grain. These signs were called
pictographs because they pictured the
things they stood for.
Sumerian Pictographs
Sumerian Pictographs
• Eventually, ideas became associated
with certain pictures. For example, a
house might also stand for the idea of
protection or safety. Such signs are
known as ideograms.
• Still later, signs came to stand for
certain sounds. Cuneiform signs did
not stand for single sounds, as letters in
the alphabet do today. Instead, each
cuneiform sign stood for a whole
syllable. By putting groups of signs
together, scribes could write full
sentences and express many ideas.
They could create everything from
financial records to poems.
• Sumerian writing grew more and
more efficient. The earliest tablets
used about 2,000 different signs.
By 3000 B. C., that number had
been reduced to 800. By 2500 B.
C., the number had been cut down
even further to about 600 written
signs. However, this was still such
a large number that only a few
people learned to read or write.
• Babylon’s merchants, farmers, and
workers needed written laws to help
them resolve disputes…therefore made
a collection of laws known as
Hammurabi’s Code. Scribes carved
these laws on a stone column, or stele.
The eight-foot stele contained more
than 3,500 lines of cuneiform
characters.
• On their travels, Phoenician
merchants needed a
simplified kind of writing to
keep business records.
Cuneiform, with its 600
symbols, was much too
cumbersome.
Consequently, the
Phoenicians discovered a
way to keep records using
just 22 symbols.
• The Phoenician writing system first
appeared around 900 B. C. Soon it was
carried to trading centers all over the
Mediterranean world. Later, the Greeks and
Romans changed the shapes of the 22 letters
and added 4 others, making the alphabet we
know today. The word “alphabet,” in fact,
comes directly from the first two letters of
the Phoenician alphabet, “aleph” and “beth.”
• The invention of the alphabet was
immensely important. Unlike
cuneiform, the Phoenician way of
writing was a simple system that many
people could master fairly quickly.
True, the majority of the population
still could not read or write. However,
over the centuries, literacy (the ability
to read and write) became more
widespread. The growth of science and
industry many years later would have
been impossible without this spread of
literacy.
Ancient Egypt
To win the highest posts, either in the
army or in the government, people had
to be able to read and write. Thus,
most high positions went to people
who had been born into families
wealthy enough to send their children
to school. But even humble village
scribes taught their own children and
perhaps some of their friends’ children.
• Crude pictographs had been the earliest
form of writing in Egypt, but scribes
quickly developed a better system. For
most of ancient Egypt’s history, scribes
used the form of writing that we call
hieroglyphics. This term comes from the
Greek words “hieros” and “glyphe”
meaning “sacred carving.
Ancient India and China
• p. 76-77 - The Aryans had no writing system.
Instead, their priests preserved their culture
from generation to generation by memorizing
long hymns and poems. When the Aryans
migrated to India, they brought a rich
collection of myths, or tales of their
gods…Aryan priests could sing from memory
a great number of long and complicated
hymns, each one suited to a different religious
ritual. Some of these hymns may date back to
1500 B. C.
• p. 86—“The earliest evidence of Chinese
writing comes from Shang times. At Anyang
and other Shang cities, archeologists have
found hundreds of animal bones and tortoise
shells with written symbols scratched on them.
The strange objects are known as oracle bones
because priests used them to foretell the
future. Some of the characters are very much
like those in a modern Chinese newspaper.
• In the Chinese method of writing, each
character stands for an idea, not a
sound. Recall that many of the
Egyptian hieroglyphics stood for
sounds in their spoken language.
Sumerian cuneiform and the
Phoenician alphabet also corresponded
to spoken language. In contrast, there
were practically no links between
China’s spoken language and its
written language. One could read
Chinese without being able to speak a
word of it.
Examples of Chinese Characters
• The Chinese system of writing had one
great advantage. People in all parts of
China could learn the same system of
writing, even if their spoken languages
were very different. Thus, the Chinese
written language was very important in
unifying a large and diverse land.
Questions
• Explain the difference between ideographs,
pictographs, and alphabets. What advantage do
alphabets have over ideographs and pictographs?
• Explain the role of literacy and education in
invasions and take-overs.
• Explain the importance of literacy and education to
people within various societies.
• What is a scribe? Why were scribes important?
• What is the difference between a culture and a
civilization?
• Where does the word “alphabet” come from?