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Without writing, civilization would be underdeveloped and underinformed. Writing and literacy, the ability to effectively and efficiently communicate, provides clear understanding. Everyone, no matter what country or culture, can communicate and connect. Earlier civilizations shared information through word of mouth. These preliterate cultures had the the wisest elder or the strongest warrior communicate through stories or actions. It was much harder to pass information along. Since communication was spoken orally, information could be changed or altered in some way. The original message could be distorted in such a major way that it is completely different. Without writing, we would continue the process. However, writing changed that. Cuneiform
and hieroglyphics became the world’s earliest writings. Scholars believe that the first writing system was by the Sumerians in Mesopotamia around 3500 BC. Ancient Egyptian writing called hieroglyphics was created around that early dynastic period also. Additionally, when people began to write information down, individuals could invent, inspire, and acknowledge the past. It helped preserved ideas and memories. The United States Constitution, for example, is a written document created in 1789. However, many written pieces of work were draft from that article. Thirdly, writing helps individuals comprehend and use the written symbols accurately. Without it, information would be limited tremendously. Today, people do not share things in books; people share thing electronically. Google, yahoo, and websites would not exist. Technology would not exist, because a computer reads numbers and symbols that an individual would of have to write out. Moreover, writing goes hand in hand with reading. Both impact the way we think and how we function as members of a society.
Without the Mesopotamians we would not have all the luxury we have today. Could you ever imagine a world without writing? You may think, life would not be so bad without it, but without writing we would not have stories, we could not write to the bank, we could not text. Two major contributions made to society were the first forms of writing known as Cuneiform and Hammurabi’s Code.
Have you ever had trouble reading someone’s handwriting? Occasionally someone’s handwriting is illegible and requires the reader to figure out what word the writer intended to write. This is the same obstacle discovers found themselves facing when they began to interpret Tikal hieroglyphs. Temples of the Tikal’s Maya people contained many pictures and symbols that archaeologist hoped to translate and unlock the puzzling history of the Maya. Although discoverers believed they had solved the mystery of the Maya once the hieroglyphs were analyzed, many questions remain unanswered.
Writing is a type of art because it requires you to think and be creative in the way you want it to be. I have a diary that I wrote almost everyday. They help me think about my day and sometimes turn my bad day into a good day. I write whatever comes into my head at that moment, and reflect on my day. Writing make me think deeper to what happen and help me turn my negative thought to positive. Writing is a very powerful tool. When I write, I have the power to change the story. I am the author of my own story so I can be as creative as I want.
Writing is perhaps the most important building block of communication - after verbal speech, of course. Writing, like most of human civilization, has its roots in ancient Mesopotamia. The first writing systems began in a style known as cuneiform (Cuneiform, 2013). These wedge-shaped markings have their roots in Sumerian culture and were used predominantly for record keeping and accounting. At the archaeological site of Uruk in what is modern day Iraq, a great wealth of knowledge has been gained from the artifacts located there. Uruk was a ceremonial site and is home to the world’s oldest known documented written documents (Price and Feinman, 2013). The documents discovered list quantities of goods that may have been stored at Uruk, leading archaeologists to believe that writing in this part of the world was developed primarily to keep lists of transactions and stockpiled quantities of goods located at the site.
A civilization without any written language would be at a loss. Its ability to communicate and record anything because before man could speak they wrote words down to communicate. Writing is important for civilization because it helps us do things we need everyday, like It helps us create business transactions, It helps us write treaty's, It helps us choose what foods to eat, It helps us give directions. Communicate with others without writing would be no solid form of communication. This impact is in two ways: 1. The ability to accurately record history. That is, to know for sure exactly what someone said or did. This is critically important for passing down knowledge between generations, as it allows for the accumulation of more knowledge than could possibly be kept via oral histories. 2. The impact of this is that writing allows for a system society with a much larger gain of knowledge base than otherwise possible. What we see as technology is really predicated on a foundation of writing. Writing allows for the accurate description of an idea, and one which does not depend on all carriers of that written idea to understand even a little of that idea. Most importantly, writing is required for specialization of a society like, in order to have farmers, merchants, political bureaucrats, soldiers, etc, one must haves in writing. Otherwise, everyone is a hunter-gatherer or farmer. Why was writing so
The earliest writing in Mesopotamia was a picture writing invented by the Sumerians who wrote on clay tablets using long reeds. The script the Sumerians invented and handed down to the Semitic peoples who conquered Mesopotamia in later centuries, is called cuneiform, which is derived from two Latin words: cuneus , which means "wedge," and forma , which means "shape." This picture language, similar to but more abstract than Egyptian hieroglyphics, eventually developed into a syllabic alphabet under the Semites (Assyrians and Babylonians) who eventually came to dominate the area.
Mesopotamia, the cradle of civilization, single-handedly displays the benefit of advantageous geography to advance a society. In the Neolithic age, this land, known as the fertile crescent, progressed with the use of farm tools. This interplay between societal progress, driven by agriculture, led to the need for effective record-keeping. Around 3200 BCE, the Sumerians of southern Mesopotamia pioneered the oldest recorded writing system–cuneiform, an intricate system that evolved from proto-cuneiform in the late Uruk period (Hirst, 2019). Contrary to popular belief, Sumerians did not invent Cuneiform for literature, instead, the writing documented simple commercial transactions (Kleiner, 2019).
Fredrick Douglass once said, “Once you learn to read, you will be forever free.” Coming from the advanced, civilized society we live in, there is never a second guess on how much reading and writing can affect our lives. In Dark Night of the Soul, by Richard Miller, Miller offers us the question, whether or not writing can generate a greater sense of connection to the world. In many places throughout the earth, writing is used to broaden people’s perspectives, as well as form a connection with the world. In the United Arab Emirates for example, a focus on literacy has allowed them to become civilized in the eyes of many advanced countries. But with a positive always comes a negative, with examples of this being the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing, Story of Chris McCandles, and Columbine Shooting, all in which writing narrowed a persons ideas, causing them to act out due to the disconnection they felt with the world. This idea of narrowing and broadening perspective shows its true influence, that dependent on the material, writing can affect us all, allowing us in our own personal ways, to be “free.”
Humans have been using written language to communicate ideas with one another since as early as 3200 BCE in Mesopotamia. Since then, every great civilization has had a written language, each with its own unique characteristics. However, it was the writin...
... helped the architecture to have accurate measurements . Another civilization that also developed a system of writing was China. The written language could be easily to read and understand, but when they spoke it it was difficult to understand. This civilization had a big advantage with the system of writing because all parts of china everyone could learn the language even if they already spoke a different language. This helped make a great civilization because it unifies a large and diverse land and this helped to control it easier. One disadvantage it has is that the writing system has a lot of things to memorize. So if you were a wealthy kid and went to a good school you could memorize the major part of the language, but if you were in the lower class and went to a cheap school then you had trouble learning the language because they didn’t teach the whole language
Back in my home country, we also learn how to write in our early age. I remember that I started to use pencil and wrote things down when I was in pre-school. We wrote basically what the teacher had written for us, so it was pure copying things up. Sometimes the teacher would read some stories and we had to write them down on our book. We probably could only write random words when our teacher didn’t give us the examples. I think it was important for us to know how to express our mind, even though it was still unstructured. As writing is associated with our mindset, to be free and creative
A traditional interpretation of what has become known as the Assyrian Sacred Tree conceives of it as the date palm. Consisting of a series of nodes and interlacing vines, the depiction of the “tree” contradicts the morphological appearance of a date palm seems at best to be a highly abstracted consolidation of various botanical characteristics from separate distinct species. Despite recent proposals by several art historians and botanists to conclusively determine its proper classification, indubitable evidence unlocking the enigma behind this timeless symbol—a sacred fountainhead for many western religions originating in the Near East—has yet to uproot the deep seeded academic insistence on the date palm.
When the term “literature” crossed the mind, one may immediately think of a classical definition of literature. Large libraries with stacks upon stacks of books may enter the mind. However, literature in the broad, informal sense can be traced back much further. In order to trace the evolution of literature, the evolution of human communication must first be considered. For thousands of years, humans have told stories through verbal and written communication. The first written communications are attributed to drawings on writings on prehistoric cave walls. Many of these works however are not considered true literature. Epic of Gilgamesh is one of the earliest known literary works and dates to around 2000 BC in Mesopotamia.
The civilization took place at the modern Pakistan and India places. The Indus valley area was quite fertile and agriculture was the main source of livelihood. There were sufficient rains that provided water for the crops. There was sufficient food among the people and thus there was a rapid population increase among the people in the Indus valley. Due to the increased population, it was necessary to establish a government system which was complex due to the large area to govern (Violatti, NP). The people of the Indus valley were held legible to the laws of the land. Also, the Indus people had a writing system that marked a major milestone in civilization. The writing was used as a form of communication (Koslowski 376). Pottery and making of artifacts was also a major activity that was witnessed during the Indus Valley
The importance of literacy is how it opens up the world to the reader, or writer. Through literacy, we can shape our thinking on certain topics or create original thought. The vivid detail inside of writing can allow the reader to picture the writing through their own mind without pictures, or any outside help. Malcolm X, who wrote “Literacy Behind Bars”, a literacy narrative about his time in prison, described how the world opened up to him through his readings, and how incredible his life was thereafter through his learning to read and write. Literacy enables you to formulate thought, thus allowing you to formulate opinions about certain social, political, or any other range of topics from an education in literacy.