Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization offers a coherent system of terms and categories for the study of the complex phenomena in the world's writing systems. Tracing the origins of writing tied to speech from ancient Sumer through the Greek alphabet and beyond, the book examines the earliest evidence for writing in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC, the relations of these systems to Egyptian and Chinese writing, the origins of purely phonographic systems, and the mystery of alphabetic writing. With examples from contemporary and historical writing systems, and many illustrations, Writing shows how the structures of writing served and do serve certain social needs and in turn create deep patterns of social behavior.

Leseprobe

List of Illustrations. Maps. Preface. Chronology. Introduction: A Difficult Topic, Little Studied, Poorly Understood. 1. What Is Writing? 2. Writing with Signs. 3. Categories and Features of Writing. 4. Some General Issues in the Study of Writing. 5. Protocuneiform and Counting Tokens. 6. Origin of Lexigraphic Writing in Mesopotamia. 7. Plato''s Ideas and Champollion''s Decipherment of the Egyptian Hieroglyphs. 8. Egyptian Writing and Egyptian Speech. 9. The Origin and Nature of Egyptian Writing. 10. "The House of Life": Scribes and Writing in Ancient Egypt. 11. Syllabic Scripts of the Aegean. 12. The West Semitic Revolution. 13. What Kind of Writing Was West Semitic? 14. The Origins of West Semitic Writing. 15. Chinese Logography. 16. Lexigraphic Writing in Mesoamerica. 17. The Greek Alphabet: A Writing That Changed the World. 18. Summary and Conclusions. Glossary. Bibliography. Index.