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The origin of letters. Created by Brit Cruise.
Video transcript
(piano music) Brit: Informally, we can think of information as some message, stored or transmitted, using some medium. When you paint you are representing your message using a continuous pattern with a seemingly endless number of possible forms. You are free to express yourself. When humans began developing writing systems, we naturally had to divide our world into a finite number of atomic units which we express using symbols. Any written language can be thought of in this way. Messages are formed by arranging symbols in specific patterns. Let's return to 3,000 BC and explore two ancient writing systems. First, in ancient Egypt, we had Hieroglyphics, a priestly form of communication reserved for governmental, fiscal, magical, and religious purposes. It was practiced by a select few writers known as scribes, and writing was generally unintelligible to the common people. The symbols themselves broadly fall into two categories, word signs, which are symbols that represent a single meaningful concept... Woman showing mouth: Back. Apple. Brit: ...and sound signs. These symbols represent chunks of sound. Dark haired woman: Be. Boy in red shirt: Ze. Girl in black shirt: Ton. Boy in green shirt: Ca. Brit: Now, the total number of different symbols in common use was over 1,500, and if you divide all of these symbols into word signs versus sound signs, we find a much smaller portion of sound signs. There were around 140 sound signs, and of these, only 33 represented distinct consonants, a tiny fraction of all of the symbols in use. At the time, the medium used to store the symbols was primarily rock, and this was ideal for durable inscriptions, allowing messages to travel into the future. Mobility was not a main concern when communicating messages in this way. However, a new physical medium for storing symbols was emerging at the time. Along the Nile, silt deposits left from flooding made the surrounding land extremely fertile, and one of the many crops they grew was Papyrus. It could be sliced into strips, and these strips were then soaked, (bell tones) Brit: and weaved together and finally pressed, allowing the natural sugars to act as glue. (bell tones) Brit: After several days, it dried and formed an almost weightless tablet. (bell tones) Brit: This medium was ideal for sending messages across greater spaces, rather than the more durable inscriptions focused on time. This shift toward cheap portable mediums for storing symbols coincided with the spread of writing into the hands of more people for new purposes. Gradually, as people began to write more on Papyrus, the symbols evolved to suit more rapid writing. This lead to a cursive script, known as Hieratic. For example, here is the world's oldest surviving surgical document. It's written in Hieratic script, dated to around 1600 BC. These symbols were based on Hieroglyphics, however the pictures were simplified to match the swiftness of writing in ancient shorthand. Also, the number of common symbols in use began to shrink down to around 700. By escaping from the heavy medium of stone, thought gained lightness. A marked increase in writing by hand was accompanied by the secularization of writing, thought, and activity. This lead to a new writing system called Demotic around 650 BC, which was devised specifically to facilitate the ease of rapid writing. For example, this text is known as a marriage contract, and is one of the earliest known examples of Demotic script. It's interesting to notice that there was a dramatic reduction again in the total number of symbols with this new system, roughly 10 percent of the total number of symbols used before. This was due to a shift towards the use of phonetic symbols, or sound signs... Dark haired woman: Be. Boy in red shirt: Ze. Girl in black shirt: Ton. Boy in green shirt: Ca. Brit: over word symbols, or meaning signs. And the new simplicity meant that children could be taught to write at a young age. We see this same pattern in other cultures. Let's return back to 3,000 BC and visit Mesopotamia, where Cuneiform was the writing system originally used for fiscal purposes, as it was a powerful method of tracking debt and surplus commodities before the invention of coins. For example, here is a document recording someone's stock of animal hides, and this type of writing evolved to suit other needs. For example, this tablet contains a recipe for bread and beer, and here's another tablet which contains a legal document. Originally, the writing system was used by the Sumerians, and there were over 2,000 different symbols in use, which could also be divided into word signs and sound signs. Akkadian gradually replaced Sumerian as the spoken language, and here is the earliest known dictionary from 2,300 BC. It contains word lists in Sumerian and Akkadian, and this was discovered in modern Syria. When it was adapted by the Akkadians and fitted to their language, they reduced the number of symbols to around 600, and they did this again by moving towards sound signs. Again, we see both Hieroglyphics and Cuneiform using several hundred sound symbols in their more evolved forms, and as writing systems escaped their formal usage and spread to more and more people, the soil was ripe for the invention of a brand new writing system for the people. One of the great discoveries in the history of writing is dated to around 1700 BC. The Sinai inscriptions were found in the Sinai peninsula, and they were about 20 feet apart. This was important because each picture denotes a consonant sound, and no word signs are used. When sounded out correctly, the letters would produce words in ancient Semitic. Although not fully deciphered, this message appears to be of the form, "name, rank and prayer". The two words deciphered are "Chief" and "God". This innocent example was part of a writing revolution, creating meaning by merging sound signs only. Woman showing mouth: A. Ack. Back. Ba. Pl. Apple. Brit: By 1,000 BC, we arrive at the Phoenician Alphabet, which emerges along the Mediterranean used by the Phoenicians who are a maritime trading culture. The Phoenician writing system was based on the principle that one sign represents one consonant, and it was used to write a northern Semitic language, containing only 22 symbols total. The symbols chosen to represent these sounds were often borrowed from Hieroglyphic pictures, so that the letter's name began with the letter's sound. For example, mem, which stood for water, became what we know of as the letter M. Aleph, which stood for ox, became what we know of as the letter A, but the secret power of this alphabet, unknown to it's inventors, was that it did not need Semitic speech in order to work. Dark haired woman: D. Boy in green shirt: Ah, eh, i, ou, oo. Brit: With modest adjustments, these miraculous letters would be fitted to diverse tongues of Europe, India, and southeast Asia, Boy in red shirt: Za. Brit: carrying literacy around the globe. Boy in red shirt: Ma. Da. Brit: This was the source of the Greek and later Roman alphabet forms we know today. The idea of an alphabet is a powerful method for transmitting and storing information. Realize, it doesn't really matter what the symbols are or how you choose them, or even what language it's in, information is just a selection from a collection of possible symbols. And, over time, we have always looked for faster, more efficient ways of transporting information across greater and greater spaces, and when we try doing this using new mediums, which travel faster than any human or animal, an engineering problem presents itself. (microphone feedback) Voiceover: Hello? (microphone feedback) Voiceover: Hello? (microphone feedback)