Proto-cuneiform tablet.Courtesy of CDLI
Proto-cuneiform tablet.Courtesy of CDLI
Wow. I was thinking today where the origin and how the origin of speech came about.
Here’s an article on very early writing.
Cool :)
I’m inclined to think it began with the first prisoner ever.
It says “Helen Thomas, First Grade”.
I’m thinking it was probably WordStar on an IBM PC with 286 processor.
With a “Turbo” button on the PC.
[the transport of pottery]
Back then, Pottery Barn catalogs were actually written on =====>>> pottery.
BTTT
An economics professor of mine in college (might have been an accounting prof—it’s been a long time) said the very first written document was probably an IOU.;-)
I can see from those tablets that autocorrect predated writing.
We should not be surprised by this. It’s the way evolution works all the time.
Thanks. It's certainly a novel and refreshing approach to "in the beginning was the word". Besides, the "TL DR" topic trail below is certainly in line with the varied subject matter of SunkenCiv's threads in general (sunken civ), so it might prove interesting for those who follow them.
BOLOGNA, ITALY—
designs on Mesopotamian cylinder seals were the precursors to certain signs in proto-cuneiform script, an archaic writing system based on pictographs.
Because, as the Zohar explains it (ALL CAPS as formatted at the link),
Shemot: Verse 9999.
בְּהַהוּא זִמְנָא, יִתְּעַר מַלְכָּא מְשִׁיחָא, לְנַפְקָא מִגּוֹ גִּנְתָּא דְּעֵדֶן, מֵהַהוּא אֲתָר דְּאִתְקְרֵי קַ"ן צִפּוֹ"ר, וְיִתְּעָר בְּאַרְעָא דְּגָלִיל, וְהַהוּא יוֹמָא דְּיִפּוּק לְתַמָּן, יִתְרָגַּז כָּל עָלְמָא, וְכָל בְּנֵי עָלְמָא מִתְחַבְּאִין גּוֹ מְעַרְתֵי וְטִנָּרֵי, דְּלָא יַחְשְׁבוּן לְאִשְׁתְּזָבָא. וְעַל הַהוּא זִמְנָא כְּתִּיב, וּבָאוּ בִּמְעָרוֹת צוּרִים וּבִמְחִלּוֹת עָפָר מִפְּנֵי פַּחַד ה' וּמֵהֲדַר גְּאוֹנוֹ בְּקוּמוֹ לַעֲרוֹץ הָאָרֶץ.
At that time the king, Messiah, will arise to go out of the Garden of Eden from the place called the 'bird's nest' and he will become revealed in the land of Galilee [בְּאַרְעָא דְּגָלִיל]. On the day that MESSIAH goes there, the whole world will tremble and all the people of the world will hide in the caves and CRACKS in the rocks and will not expect to survive. And concerning that time, it is written, "And they shall go into the holes of the rocks, and in the caves of the earth, for fear of Hashem, and for the glory of His majesty, when He arises to shake the earth terribly" (Yeshayah 2:19).
Which is to say, the word "Galilee" -- galil [גָלִיל] -- is literally a cylinder.
Ferrara and her colleagues identified a number of seal designs concerning the transport of pottery and textiles that evolved into later proto-cuneiform signs used for the same purpose.
Pottery. It's like the Jewish proverb that got top billing over on the Jewish Proverbs page:
The stone fell on the pitcher? Woe to the pitcher. The pitcher fell on the stone? Woe to the pitcher.Esther Rabbah 7:10, quoted in Lewis Browne: The Wisdom of Israel, an Anthology [1]
an archaic writing system based on pictographs
There's a simple Unicode sign for a wedge. It's easy to remember because it even looks like it goes full circle; i.e. 2π (2•22/7):
Wedge (∧) is a symbol that looks similar to an in-line caret (^). It is used to represent various operations. In Unicode, the symbol is encoded U+2227...I never get tired of the integration of all things. I always keep my eye out and my options open, however, because this isn't the only place where "Galilee" and "cylinder" appear together in history.
Galileo was born in Pisa (the following visual pairing is how I am able able to remember the detail without trying), so the 'land of the Galil/Galilee' even alludes to Italy, of Roman Empire fame (but who's looking there):
The biblical roots of Galileo's name and surname were to become the subject of a famous pun.[26] In 1614, during the Galileo affair, one of Galileo's opponents, the Dominican priest Tommaso Caccini, delivered against Galileo a controversial and influential sermon. In it he made a point of quoting Acts 1:11: "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?".[citation needed](The quote is of sketchy credibility, but that's what's been out there for people to remember.)
It's a long, long journey that actually starts with Galileo's middle finger, going up. That's how I always find the best stuff. Never boring; always surprising.
Date: Stand, case, and inscription: ca. 1737This item exemplifies the celebration of Galileo as a hero and martyr of science.
“They also show how the meaning originally associated with these designs was integrated into a writing system.”
That's right. As such, Emojipedia includes in its catalog this important salute to science and establishment wisdom.
😉
Hieroglyphics still blows my mind. A bunch of recognizable characters, like Bird-House-Dog. Then they tried to decipher it, and wound up wondering: Does that mean that the Bird lived with the dog in the house? Or did the dog maybe eat the bird in the house? Or maybe...
Wound up none of the above. The characters were simply sounds, no different than our “a, b, c, d...”. They had us going for thousands of years with that scheme!
Often times when people try to assert their elitist credentials and expertise, I like to assert that written language was invented by illiterates.
First grade of course, every body know s that!
..,..,......
