LiteratureLiteratureLiteratureLiterature

Story Telling: How stories change over time

Language existed long before writing, emerging probably simultaneously with sapience, abstract thought and the Genus Homo. The signature event that separated the emergence of palaeohumans from their anthropoid progenitors was not tool-making but a rudimentary oral communication that replaced the hoots and gestures still used by lower primates. The transfer of more complex information, ideas and concepts from one individual to another, or to a group, was the single most advantageous evolutionary adaptation for species preservation. As long ago as 25,000-30,000 years BP, humans were painting pictures on cave walls. Whether these pictures were telling a "story" or represented some type of "spirit house" or ritual exercise is not known.

The advent of a writing system, however, seems to coincide with the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to more permanent agrarian encampments when it became necessary to count ones property, whether it be parcels of land, animals or measures of grain or to transfer that property to another individual or another settlement. We see the first evidence for this with incised "counting tokens" about 9,000 years ago in the neolithic fertile crescent.

Around 4100-3800 BCE, the tokens began to be symbols that could be impressed or inscribed in clay to represent a record of land, grain or cattle and a written language was beginning to develop. One of the earliest examples was found in the excavations of Uruk in Mesopotamia at a level representing the time of the crystallization of the Sumerian culture.

The pictures began as representing what they were, pictographs, and eventually, certain pictures represented an idea or concept, ideographs, and finally to represent sounds.

head foot sun "day" hand woman

Eventually, the pictographs were stylized, rotated and in impressed in clay with a wedge shaped stylus to become the script known as Cuneiform. The pictograph for woman, as seen above became .

Written language was the product of an agrarian society. These societies were centered around the cultivation of grain. A natural result of the cultivation and storage of grain is the production of beer. It is not surprising, therefore, that some of the very oldest written inscriptions concern the celebration of beer and the daily ration alotted to each citizen.

It's tempting to claim that the development of a writing system was necessitated by the need to keep track of beer, but perhaps we can be satisfied that it was just part of it.

The signs of the Sumerians were adopted by the East Semitic peoples of Mesopotamia and Akkadian became the first Semitic language and would be used by the Babylonians and Assyrians. The Akkadian characters continued to represent syllables with defined vowels.

For the next step toward the development of an alphabet, we must go to Egypt where picture writing had developed sometime near the end of the 4th millennium BC. One of the earliest examples is the name of NAR-MER, either the first or second Pharoah of an united Egypt in 3100 BCE. The name appears as two syllabic figures between the cows' heads on the Kings cosmetic pallete.

First glyph "Nar" (Egyptian "monster fish," "cuttle fish.")

Second glyph "Mar" is a pictograph of a drill or borer

Unlike Akkadian, the Egyptian syllabic system had no definitive vowels. Some hieroglyphs were biliteral, some triliteral. Others were determinatives that at the end of the word gave a sense of the word and others were idiographs. Eventually, however, certain Egyptian hieroglyphs such as

which was pronounced r'i meaning "mouth" became the pictograph for the sound of R with any vowel. The pictograph for "water" pronounced

nu became the symbol for the consonantal sound of N. This practice of using a pictograph to stand for the first sound in the word it stood for is called acrophony and was the first step in the development of an ALPHABET or the "One Sign-One sound" system of writing.

Early cylinder seal depicting beer production

The Egyptian consonants were:

A glottal stop similar to the Hebrew Alef

Pharyngeal H, like Hebrew Het

Consonantal Y, like the Hebrew Yod

Like German CH as in ich

Sometimes abbreviated as \ \, sound of Y or ee used in the last syllable

Sound of Z

Gutteral sound corresponding to Hebrew Ayin

Sound of S

W or U, corresponds to Hebrew Waw

SH, Corresponds to Hebrew Shin

Sound of B

Q, corresponds to Hebrew Qof

Sound of P Sound of K

Sound of F

Hard G

Sound of M

Sound of T

Sound of N

Sound of TCH, as in hatch

Sound of R

Sound of D

Sound of emphatic H

Sound of DJ, or Hebrew Tsade

The Egyptians used the acrophones as a consonantal system along with their syllabic and idiographic system, therefore the alphabet was not yet born. The acrophonic principal of Egyptian clearly influenced Proto-Canaanite/Proto-Sinaitic around 1700 BC. Inscriptions found at the site of the ancient torquoise mines at Serabit-al-Khadim in the Sinai use less than 30 signs, definite evidence of a consonantal alphabet rather than a syllabic system.

This is the alphabet that was the precursor to Phoenician, Greek and Roman. Meanwhile, in the North another experiment in a consonantal alphabet was taking place. Excavations of the ancient city of Ugarit, modern Ras Shamra, has produced texts in a cuneiform script that was also consonantal. In the order of the Alef-Beyt:

The Semitic languages diversified along geographic lines as Northwest Semitic, Northeast, Southwest and Southeast. Northwest Semitic consists of 2 major groups, Aramaic and Canaanite. Canaanite is represented by Ugaritic, Phoenician, and Hebrew. Northeast Semitic consists of the ancestral Akkadian, represented by Babylonian and Assyrian. The Southwest and Southeast Semitic languages consisted of North and South Arabic and Ethiopic.

The term epigraphy is generally used for writing on hard durable materials such as stone or postsherds (ostraca) but some use the term for any inscriptional remnants of a past civilization.

Palaeography is the study of the progressive changes and developments in the form of letters over time and is usually applied to writing on less durable materials such as parchment, leather or papyrus. An experienced palaeographer can often date a specific manuscript with fair accuracy. Epigraphy on stone is usually harder to date since more archaic forms were often retained for monumental inscriptions. The causes of changes in scripts were primarily sociological and psychological, a script hand being a reflection of styles and trends for particular time periods. Unfortunately, this is not measurable for the palaeographer whose primary tool is a systematic collection or database of thousands of exemplars of written material of known date.

Spelling and the sequence of characters in a word and their setting in a grammatic structure is the provenance of Orthography.

Using the fonts I have created for classroom work by my various scholar friends in the discussion lists, I have arranged the following inscriptions of Genesis 1:1 to display the development of the Semitic scripts since the 10th century BCE.

Archaic Scripts

Old Phoenician 10th-9th cent. BCE

Moabite 850 BCE

Early Aramaic 800 BCE

Siloam Inscription 700 BCE

Samaritan *

Lachish Ostraca 6th cent. BCE

*Samaritan retained the use of the archaic script.

Aramaic Square Scripts

Elephantine Payrus 5th cent. BCE

Nabataean Aramaic 1st cent. CE

Great Isaiah Scroll 200-100 BCE

Habakkuk Pesher 150-100 BCE

Codex Leningradensis 1010 CE.

Modern Hebrew

The Phoenician Alphabet was adopted by the early Greeks who earned their place in alphabetic

history by symbolizing the vowels. Therefore, the Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek scripts all came

from the Phoenician. The Greek alphabet led to Latin and Cyrillic. Aramaic led to Arabic and

most of the scripts used in India. The entire Western World became the inheritors of those beer

drinkers in Mesopotamia and the torquoise miners in the Sinai.

Phoenician

Early Greek

Roman

http://www.historian.net/hxwrite.htm

Evolution of Printing

Prior to print

Oral culture was all that existed. Oral culture gradually found the need to store what was said for long periods of time, and slowly developed scribal culture. Scribal culture being inaccurate and tedious at best developed into print culture. Each segment is rich with its own effects on the world. Scribal culture, defined by the written or physical conveying of ideas, is important to understand in achieving a grasp on the unfolding of print culture itself. Scholars disagree over when scribal culture developed.

In scribal culture, procuring documents was a difficult task, and documentation would then be limited to the rich only. Ideas are difficult to spread amongst large groups of people over large distances of land, not allowing for effective dissemination of knowledge.

Scribal culture also deals with large levels of inconsistency. It was always considered that the oldest document was the most accurate, as it had been copied the least. In the process of copying documents, many times the meaning became changed, and the words different. Reliance on the written text of the time was never exceedingly strong. Over time, a greater need for reliable, quickly reproduced, and a relatively inexpensive means of distributing written text arose. Scribal culture, transforming into print culture, was only replicated in manners of written text.

Development of print

The Chinese invention of paper and woodblock printing, at some point before the first dated book in 868 (the Diamond Sutra) produced the world's first print culture.[1] Hundreds of thousands of books, on subjects ranging from Confucian Classics to science and mathematics, were printed using woodblock printing. Movable type (which the Chinese also invented) had limited impact in East Asia. This was likely due to the thousands of Chinese characters required.

Paper and woodblock printing were introduced into Europe in the 15th Century, and the first printed books began appearing in Europe. The invention of Johannes Gutenberg's printing press (circa 1450) greatly reduced the amount of labor required to produce a book leading to a tremendous increase in the number of books produced. Early printers tried to keep their printed copies of a text as faithful as possible to the original manuscript. Even so, the earliest publications were still often different from the original, for a short time, in some ways manuscripts still remaining more accurate than printed books.

Hand-copied illustrations were replaced by first woodcuts, later engravings that could be duplicated precisely, revolutionizing technical literature.

Print culture, the Renaissance, and the Reformation

The high costs of copying scribal works often led to their abandonment and eventual destruction. Furthermore, the cost and time of copying led to the slow propagation of ideas. In contrast, the printing press allowed rapid propagation of ideas, resulting in knowledge and cultural movements that were far harder to destroy.

Prior renaissances (rebirths) of classical learning prior to the printing press had failed. In contrast, the Renaissance was a permanent revival of classical learning because the printing of classical works put them into a permanent and widely read form.

There were a large number of prior attempts in Western Europe to assert doctrines contrary to the ruling Catholic Church. In contrast, the Protestant Reformation spread rapidly and permanently due to the printing of non-conformist works such as the 95 Theses.

Print culture and the American Revolution

A profound impact

Numerous eras throughout history have been defined through the use of print culture. The American Revolution was a major historical conflict fought after print culture brought the rise of literacy. Furthermore, print culture's ability to shape and guide society was a critical component before, during, and after the Revolution.

Pre-Revolution

Many different printed documents influenced the beginning of the revolution. The Magna Carta was originally a scribal document of 1215, recording an oral transaction restricting the power of English kings and defining rights of subjects. It was revitalized by being printed in the 16th century and widely read by the increasingly literate English and colonial population thereafter. The Magna Carta was used as a basis for the development of English liberties by Sir Edward Coke and became a basis for writing the Declaration of Independence.

Additionally, during the 18th century, the production of printed newspapers in the colonies greatly increased. In 1775, more copies of newspapers were issued in Worcester, Massachusetts than were printed in all of New England in 1754, showing that the existence of the conflict developed a need for print culture. This onslaught of printed text was brought about by the anonymous writings of men such as Benjamin Franklin, who was noted for his many contributions to the newspapers, including the Pennsylvania Gazette. This increase was primarily due to the easing of the government's tight control of the press, and without the existence of a relatively free press, the American Revolution may have never taken place. The production of so many newspapers can mostly be attributed to the fact that newspapers had a huge demand; printing presses were writing the newspapers to complain about the policies of the British government, and how the British government was taking advantage of the colonists.

In 1775, Thomas Paine wrote the pamphlet "Common Sense," a pamphlet that introduced many ideas of freedom to the Colonial citizens. Allegedly, half a million copies were produced during the pre-revolution era. This number of pamphlets produced is significant as there were only a couple million freed men in the colonies. However, "Common Sense" was not the only manuscript that influenced people and the tide of the revolution. Among the most influential were James Otis' "Rights of the British Colonies" and John Dickinson's "Farmer's Letters". Both of these played a key role in persuading the people and igniting the revolution.

During the Revolution

Newspapers were printed during the revolution covering battle reports and propaganda. These reports were usually falsified by Washington in order to keep morale up among American citizens and troops. Washington was not the only one to falsify these reports, as other generals (on both sides) used this technique as well. The newspapers also covered some of the battles in

great detail, especially the ones that the American forces won, in order to gain support from other countries in hopes that they would join the American forces in the fight against the British.

Before the Revolution, the British placed multiple acts upon the colonies, such as the stamp act. Many newspaper companies worried that the British would punish them for printing papers without a British seal, so they were forced to temporarily discontinue their work or simply change the title of their paper. However, some patriotic publishers, particularly those in Boston, continued their papers without any alteration of their title.

The Declaration of Independence is a very important written document that was drafted by the original thirteen colonies, as a form of print culture that would declare their independence from the Kingdom of Great Britain and explained the justifications for doing so. While it was explicitly documented on July 4, 1776, it was not recognized by Great Britain until September 3, 1783, by the Treaty of Paris.

Post-Revolution

After the signing of the Treaty of Paris, a cluster of free states in need of a government was created. The basis for this government was known as the Articles of Confederation, which were put to effect in 1778 and formed the first governing document of the United States of America. This document, however, was found to be unsuitable to outline the structure of the government, and thus showed an ineffectual use of print culture, and since printed texts were the most respected documents of the time, this called for an alteration in the document used to govern the confederation.

It was the job of the Constitutional Convention to reform the document, but they soon discovered that an entirely new text was needed in its place. The result was the United States Constitution. In the form of written word, the new document was used to grant more power to the central government, by expanding into branches. After it was ratified by all of the states in the union, the Constitution served as a redefinition of the modern government.

Thomas Jefferson was noted as saying, “The basis of our government being the opinion of the people, the very first object should be to keep that right; and were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers, or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate for a moment to prefer the latter.” This serves as an excellent example of how newspapers were highly regarded by the colonial people. In fact, much like other forms of 18th century print culture, newspapers played a very important role in the government following the Revolutionary War. Not only were they one of the few methods in the 18th century to voice the opinion of the people, they also allowed for the ideas to be disseminated to a wide audience, a primary goal of printed text. A famous example of the newspaper being used as a medium to convey ideas were the Federalist Papers. These were first published in New York City newspapers in 1788 and pushed for people to accept the idea of the United States Constitution by enumerating 85 different articles that justified its presence, adding to a series of texts designed to reinforce each other, and ultimately serving as a redefinition of the 18th century.

The state of print today

Today, print has matured to a state where the majority of modern society has come to have certain expectations regarding the printed book:

• The knowledge contained by printed books is believed to be accurate. • The cited author of a printed book does indeed exist and is actually the person who wrote

it. • Every copy of a printed book is identical (at least in the important aspects) to every other

copy, no matter how far apart the locations are in which they are sold.

Copyright laws help to protect these standards. However, a few regions do exist in the world where literary piracy has become a standard commercial practice. In such regions, the preceding expectations are not the norm.

Currently, there are still approximately 2.3 billion books still sold each year worldwide. However, this number is steadily decreasing due to the ever-growing popularity of the Internet and other forms of digital media.

Transition to the digital era

As David J. Gunkel states in his article "What's the Matter with Books?", society is currently in the late age of the text; the moment of transition from print to electronic culture where it is too late for printed books and yet too early for electronic texts. Jay David Bolter, author of Writing Space, also discusses our culture in what he calls "the late age of print." The current debate going on in the literary world is whether or not the computer will replace the printed book as the repository and definition of human knowledge. There is still a very large audience committed to printed texts, who are not interested in moving to a digital representation of the repository for human knowledge. Bolter, in his scholarship and also along with Richard Grusin in Remediation, explains that despite current fears about the end of print, the format will never be erased but only remediated. New forms of technology (new media) will be created which utilize features of old media, thus preventing old media's (aka print's) erasure. At the same time, there are also concerns over whether obsolescence and deterioration make digital media unsuitable for long-term archival purposes. Much of the early paper used for print is highly acidic, and will ultimately destroy itself.

The way that information is transferred has also changed with this new age of digital text and the shift towards electronic media. Gunkel states that information now takes the form of immaterial bits of digital data that are circulated at the speed of light. Consequently, what the printed book states about the exciting new culture and economy of bits is abraded by the fact that this information has been delivered in the slow and outdated form of physical paper.

In the article, "The First Amendment, Print Culture, and the Electronic Environment", the author notes that expectations will change as information becomes less tied to specific locations, and as machines become networked and linked to other machines. This means that in the future certain goods will not be associated with their origins.

The article "The First Amendment, Print Culture, and the Electronic Environment" also mentions how the new electronic age will make print better. Placing information into electronic form not only liberates the information from its pages but removes the need for specialized spaces to hold particular kinds of information. People have become increasingly accustomed to acquiring information from our home that previously was only accessible from an office or

library. Once computers are all networked, all information should, at least in theory, be accessible from all places. Print itself contained a set of invisible and inherent censors, which electronic media is helping to remove from the creation of text. Points of control that are present in print space are no longer present as distribution channels multiply, as copying becomes faster and cheaper, as more information is produced, as economic incentives for working with information increase, and as barriers and boundaries that inhibited working with information are crossed.

Changes in technology and its effect on print culture

There are more online publications, journals, newspapers, magazines, and businesses than ever before. While this brings society closer, and makes publications more convenient and accessible, ordering a product online reduces contact with others. Many online articles are anonymous, making the 'death of the author' even more apparent. Anyone can post articles and journals online anonymously. In effect, the individual becomes separated from the rest of society.

The advances of technology in print culture can be separated into three shifts:

• spoken language to the written word, • the written word to Printing press, • the printing press to the computer/internet.

The written word has made history recordable and accurate. The printing press, some may argue, is not a part of print culture, but had a substantial impact upon the development of print culture through the times. The printing press brought uniform copies and efficiency in print. It allowed a person to make a living from writing. Most importantly, it spread print throughout society.

The advances made by technology in print also impact anyone using cell phones, laptops, and personal digital organizers. From novels being delivered via a cell phone, the ability to text message and send letters via e-mail clients, to having entire libraries stored on PDAs, print is being influenced by devices.

http://www.sharpweb.org/