Making Words Last

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21866, 20 August 1936, Page 6 (Supplement)

Making Words Last

THE STORY OF WRITING AND PRINTING

(By D.G.)

Among methods of recording < thought and language we may 1 consider Egyptian hieroglyphics ] tha earliest. It is true that ; the Incas of Peru used an 1 elaborate system of tying knots in 1 rope (called a quipu), and that in early Ireland and parts of western • Europe ' notches were cut in a certain way on ‘stone or wood; hut it is out of the Egyptian writing : that the alphabet developed, whereas other systems, earlier or later, offered nothing to the future but endless complications, Egyptian hieroglyphics (from two Greek words meaning sacred sculptures) were developed over many hundreds of years, so that; it is difficult tp take their many changes into account in a short article. But it is safe to say that the hieroglyphs, little figures representing animals, fishes, reptiles, the human form and various manmade objects, were about lOPO in number, and that their interpretation was understood by only a small class—generally the priests and high officials of .the state. It might be thought that this picture-writing would be easily understood by European scholars, But the secret was lost from about the beginning of Christian times, and it wasn’t till 1790 that the first due was discovered, Before that, it had always been supposed that each picture represented a single idea; and with this theory no progress could be made- In 1798, however, one of Napoleon’s officers found a, stone, now called the Rosetta ptone, on which was carved a decree «r three languages. These were hieroglyphics (the official writing), a later popular script, and Greek. From the knowledge of the inscription as translated from the Greek version, it was immediately seen that sopie of the hieroglyphs stood for sounds. In the development of hieroglyphics these sound symbols were of the deepest significance. As the earliest known inscriptions contain them, and as’ these date back to 2000 8.G., we can see that the scribes discovered the limitation Of mere picture-writing long before that 1 The hieroglyphs, then, were divided into two classes—ideasymbols (ideographs, as we call them) and sound (or phonetic) symbols. Ideographs again were divided into two classes—symbols which expressed one idea, and symbols which expressed many. A picture of a dog expressed itself

quite simply, but a picture of a woman beating a tambourine expressed joy, and a picture of a jackal expressed cunning, This, of course, would have meant no end t° the number of symbols, so that some were also used to express many ideas. A seated man meant not only man, but father, brother, priest and all relations and offices of man. Its exact meaning would be made clear by the preceding phonetic symbols; we should see their importance both in reducing the number of ideographs and in making their meaning doubly clear. Hieroglyphs, by the way, were sometimes written vertically, sometimes horizontally, and sometimes just scattered about in no particular order. Certain pictures came in time to stand for the sound of the name of the object as well as the object itself. Then they were phonetic symbols. This is the beginning of alphabetic writing, though the Egyptians themselves ' did not get as far as arranging a pure alphabetic system.

This piptute represents what is probably the oldest piece q| alphabetic writing that we snow of, end is remarkable ps showing how even pmohg the Egyptians picturesymbols had developed a soimd valpe 0* their own. Thp figure Use a shepherd’s crook'was meant to pe the back el a chair, and was called Sen. The £ig-Z9g originally stood for a water-line, such as you would see m* windy weather, and was called Na, while the hand was called Ti (not. far removed in spynd from our p). So that we get the letters ana the sound SND. Now Send was the name of the king in whose tomb the inscription , was found- The vowel E is not re- , presented at all, as people recognised i quitp easily what Was ‘meant, just as we know immediately that Chch. > means Christchurch. ! How the beginnings of this alpha - I bet were recognised and made into . a system (though not by the t Egyptians) we will see next week.