Cuneiform Writing - from Pictographs to True Language

The story of writing is as interesting as exploring the ancient world. The word cuneiform came from Latin 'cuneus' which means wedge and forma or the shape. Therefore any script can be called cuneiform as long as the individual signs are composed of wedges. Not only Sumerians used the cuneiform way of writing, but many languages such as Eastern Semitic including Akkadian, Assyrian and Babylonian, Elamite, Eblaite, Hittite, Hurria, Utartian, Ugartic and old persian were written cuneiform way of writing. It is a said that the other civilisations adapted cuneiform way of writing from the Sumerians.

Materials used for cuneiform writing

In ancient Mesopotamia clay and reeds (known as stylus) are some of the substances that are readily available. Mesopotamians combined these materials from mother nature in a very creative and clever way to create the first written form of language in the world history. The first attempts were to draw simple pictures representing the nouns such as barley, head or man, ox, tree etc. This is the very fist attempt of mankind to record concrete nouns as a form of language.

How did it work?

The Mesopotamians  made clay in to small smooth flat surfaces not bigger than a mobile phone combining with water. While the surface is still wet they impressed shapes using stylus to create records. Then the fresh clay was hardened to create a permanent record. The clay tablets were made smaller so that they are esily carried from place to place. 

Sumerian Pictograph
Image taken from: http://www.uned.es/geo-1-historia-antigua-universal/ESCRITURAS_ANTIGUA/PictographSumerian.jpg


According to linguistic specialists the earliest clay tablets are considered as attempt of writing as they do  not represent sounds of the Sumerian language. They are considered as memory aid used by Sumerians to remember objects and record number of items held in that particular object. But later on they began to draw pictographs according to the sound. For example Sumerians used symbol arrow in their claytablets denoting 'life' which seems to have no connection with life. But when we consider the sound they used for arrow it can explained easily.The Sumerian word for arrow was ti.  The word for life was a near homonym, til.  Since the concept life was hard to draw, some scribe took advantage of homonymy and used an existing pictograph to denote the SOUND of the syllable ti regardless of the original meaning of the pictograph.  In exactly the same way, the pictogram for reed was used to convey the semantically unrelated concept reimburse: In the Sumerian language, the word for reed and reimburse were both pronounced something like gi.  Pictograms thus began to be used as sound symbols.

The transition to full writing in Sumeria must have occurred sometime between 3500 and 3000BC, as more and more signs came to be used for their sound value only.  Some of the syllabic units retained their pre-writing pictographic or ideographic shapes, such as the cuneiform sign for arrow or reed;  but even these symbols no longer denoted the concept arrow independent of linguistic expression.  The symbol which resembled an arrow, now denoted the sound syllable ti which could be used to write not only the word for arrow arrow but also life and many other words whose meanings are unrelated.  When the transition from icon to sound symbol was completed, and it became possible to symbolize all the syllables of the Sumerian language regardless of how abstract their meaning, true writing was born. In becoming sound symbols, most pictographs began to be stylized and lost their iconographic form altogether. Numerous examples of true writing in the Sumerian cuneiform syllabary have been found that date after 3000BC.

The morphological structure of the Sumerian language undoubtedly facilitated the invention of writing: in Sumerian many single syllables are separate words or at least separate morphemes.  This morphemic structure undoubtedly facilitated the transfer of pictogram into sound symbols.

Drawing pictures using stylus was not that easy even though they used the simplest version of pictures. Eventually over several millenniums this type of pictorial representation turned in to linear form of drawings. The development of some of the signs over the years shown in the picture bellow.

Image taken from http://i2.squidoocdn.com/resize/squidoo_images/250/draft_lens8877041module78038371photo_1262965504ideograms.gif

Reference List:

1. clay tablet,  Encyclopædia Britannica. 2010. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. viewed 04 Oct. 2010 <http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/120746/clay-tablet>

2. Hoker, R 1996 cuneiform world civilisations an internet classroom and anthology, Washington University, Viewed 04 Oct 2010 </http://www.wsu.edu:8080/~dee/WORLD.HTM >

3. The development of writing, The British Museum, viewed 04 Oct 2010 <http://www.mesopotamia.co.uk/writing/story/sto_set.htm >

4. Robson, Eleanor Cuneiform script and the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, Knowledge and Power, Higher Education Academy, 2010 < http://knp.prs.heacademy.ac.uk/essentials/cuneiformscript/>

5. The invention of writing, Centre for instructiona innovations Pandora web space, Western Washington University < http://pandora.cii.wwu.edu/ >