Posted on 08/07/2003 4:19:19 PM PDT by blam
When time erases written languages
By Greg Lavine
The Salt Lake Tribune
While researchers periodically hail new finds as the earliest examples of human writing, few scientists have systematically peered into the other end of the process -- the fall of a culture's written symbols. Writing systems, like cultures, have come and gone throughout human history. Brigham Young University anthropologist Stephen Houston and other colleagues studied several dead script systems from around the globe to look for similarities and differences in their respective demises. "What's interesting is why people choose, or are forced, to drop something that had been enormously important to their society," Houston said from his current field site in Guatemala. "This is an enormous step. And since it is such a big shift, it points to even larger changes in the societies that use and transmit such forms of writing." These reasons can range from the arrival of a conquering civilization to limiting a system's use to a narrow band of users. Researchers from BYU, Oxford University in England and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore put forth their findings in a recent edition of the journal Comparative Studies in Society and History. Mayan, Egyptian and Mesopotamian writing systems were examined as part of the study. "The disappearance of writing systems is a significant gauge of the end of a civilization, but the two do not coincide neatly and writing systems show amazing persistence, which is a sign of their cultural importance," said John Baines, an Egyptology researcher at Oxford University. Among the factors that set up a culture's script for trouble was a small pool of people trained to write, Houston explained. Some writing systems were used mainly for government or religious reasons. In the societies examined in the study, those individuals able to read and write were often members of the aristocracy or specially trained workers, such as scribes. If a particular government or religion fell, the related script system generally collapsed as well. If a wider swath of society can use written scripts, for tasks such as writing letters and keeping records, the system has a better chance of surviving cultural upheaval, he said. The Mayans faced their biggest challenge when the Spanish swept through and took over their ancestral homelands. Houston, who focused on the Mayan part of the study, drew from some 10,000 hieroglyphic texts. "The Spaniards found the hieroglyphs 'obnoxious' and actively discouraged their use," Houston said of the fall of the Mayan writing system. Egyptian hieroglyphs eventually met a similar fate once the Romans took control of the region about 30 B.C., he said. "With Egyptian, the hieroglyphs became too closely associated with a religion that the state no longer wants to sponsor," he said. Baines noted that Egyptian writing did manage to survive, at least in some form, through various occupations, including the Roman Empire. The latest Egyptian text was written in 450, well past ancient Egypt's glory days, Baines said. While it is possible that the letters on this page will someday appear as a jumble of squiggles to future readers, the modern alphabet appears to have some staying power. "The alphabet doesn't have the same cultural and religious associations of the other writing systems," Houston said. "It is deliberately 'general' and will remain so."
While researchers periodically hail new finds as the earliest examples of human writing, few scientists have systematically peered into the other end of the process -- the fall of a culture's written symbols.
Writing systems, like cultures, have come and gone throughout human history. Brigham Young University anthropologist Stephen Houston and other colleagues studied several dead script systems from around the globe to look for similarities and differences in their respective demises.
"What's interesting is why people choose, or are forced, to drop something that had been enormously important to their society," Houston said from his current field site in Guatemala. "This is an enormous step. And since it is such a big shift, it points to even larger changes in the societies that use and transmit such forms of writing."
These reasons can range from the arrival of a conquering civilization to limiting a system's use to a narrow band of users.
Researchers from BYU, Oxford University in England and Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore put forth their findings in a recent edition of the journal Comparative Studies in Society and History. Mayan, Egyptian and Mesopotamian writing systems were examined as part of the study.
"The disappearance of writing systems is a significant gauge of the end of a civilization, but the two do not coincide neatly and writing systems show amazing persistence, which is a sign of their cultural importance," said John Baines, an Egyptology researcher at Oxford University.
Among the factors that set up a culture's script for trouble was a small pool of people trained to write, Houston explained. Some writing systems were used mainly for government or religious reasons. In the societies examined in the study, those individuals able to read and write were often members of the aristocracy or specially trained workers, such as scribes. If a particular government or religion fell, the related script system generally collapsed as well.
If a wider swath of society can use written scripts, for tasks such as writing letters and keeping records, the system has a better chance of surviving cultural upheaval, he said.
The Mayans faced their biggest challenge when the Spanish swept through and took over their ancestral homelands.
Houston, who focused on the Mayan part of the study, drew from some 10,000 hieroglyphic texts. "The Spaniards found the hieroglyphs 'obnoxious' and actively discouraged their use," Houston said of the fall of the Mayan writing system.
Egyptian hieroglyphs eventually met a similar fate once the Romans took control of the region about 30 B.C., he said.
"With Egyptian, the hieroglyphs became too closely associated with a religion that the state no longer wants to sponsor," he said.
Baines noted that Egyptian writing did manage to survive, at least in some form, through various occupations, including the Roman Empire. The latest Egyptian text was written in 450, well past ancient Egypt's glory days, Baines said.
While it is possible that the letters on this page will someday appear as a jumble of squiggles to future readers, the modern alphabet appears to have some staying power. "The alphabet doesn't have the same cultural and religious associations of the other writing systems," Houston said. "It is deliberately 'general' and will remain so."
As is the Y in "yt". This is probably the "thorn", a symbol used for "th" which looks similar to the letter Y, much as the & symbol is a ligature of "et" (latin and).
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