Re: 'Scripts' & Communications

From: John A. Malley (102667.2235_at_compuserve.com)
Date: 04/10/04 

Date: Fri, 09 Apr 2004 22:08:28 -0700

Peter T. Daniels wrote:
[...]
>
>
> "Written scripts" have been around for more than 5000 years, and the
> roman alphabet, the Hebrew script, and the Chinese script haven't
> changed much in appearance in 2000 years -- three quarters of which, for
> the first two, was without printing.
>
> So why would an 'alphabet' look much different 500 years hence?
>
> Few, if any, of the scripts currently in use show signs of being
> abandoned by their users.

Cuneiform IMO is a good example of "script inertia" - if you can adapt
it to your language, or if it maintains access to older information,
then continue to use it. The Sumerians invented it, then the Akkadians
conquered them and used it, and so followed the Babylonians and the
Assyrians and the Hittites and other peoples of Asia Minor, over a
period of thousands of years. It's tied to a particular technology (clay
tablets) that worked well in that region of the world.

The increasing influence Aramaic, used more and more as a common
language for the peoples in that region between the 8th and 7th
Centuries BC, eventually supplanted cuneiform and clay tablet
technology. Aramaic could be written with ink on leather, papyrus or
parchment. It wasn't until the end of the 5th Century BC that people
stopped writing contracts and legal agreements in cuneiform on clay
tablets and switched to Aramaic on parchment, leather or papyrus. The
last known cuneiform clay tablet was composed in 6 BC.

There's a great book that covers the history and evolution of scripts
(from which the above is paraphrase), "The Book Before Printing,
Ancient, Medieval and Oriental", David Diringer, Dover Publications,
1982, ISBN 0-486-24243-9.

John A. Malley
102667.2235@compuserve.com

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