What Was the First Written Language? Discovering the Origins of Written Communication

Analysis: Have you ever thought about the beginnings of written communication and their chronology? The most significant events in humankind’s story might be marked by the first appearances of writing. In our minds, we probably hold images of clay tablets bearing strange markings and of ancient scribes hunched over their work. But how much do we really know about the origins of the first writing? Was it invented separately by different cultures, or did it somehow spring up all at once, like so many other ideas that seem to have a ‘tipping point’ in human history?

The Dawn of Written Language: What Was the First Written Language?

Writing today evokes images of modern letters and symbols. Still, the written word has existed for millennia, dating back to ancient civilizations much like ours that developed advanced forms of communication. They created the first systems of writing, left behind the first recorded words, and paved the way for our own alphabets, scripts, and means of marking down thoughts and ideas.

The earliest known would-be communication attempts came from our ancestors who used pictograms. The first civilization truly to use writing, however, was the Sumerians around 3500 BCE. They inhabited today’s Iraq and are credited with developing not only cuneiform writing but concurrent forms of marking down thoughts and communicating with others.

Cuneiform and Early Scripts:

Known to humanity as one of the oldest writing systems, cuneiform started its life as a pictograph-based system. There, symbols stood for some common object or action, but over time, those symbols became more sophisticated, even more abstract. Sumerians held reed styluses to the left and right sides of the pen, pressing the tips together to form a clean wedge. Well, of course, not a clean one; this was a highly particulate clay ‘pen’ in a pressurized world of wet clay. Yet here, in this texting insurgence that began in ancient Mesopotamia, we see a clear (in principle, if not in practice) ancestor to the modern-day ballpoint pen.

The Sumerian Language:

Sumerian is one of the oldest written languages and, while it was spoken by the Sumerians, it was not used solely for the crudely administrative tasks that earlier forms of writing served. It became a language of cultural expression, religious fervor, and—getting onto quite an advanced level—early “literature,” with epic tales such as the “Epic of Gilgamesh” being transmitted via the ever-improving clay tablets on which cuneiform was inscribed.

The Sumerians were not the only ones who developed early forms of writing, but their creation of cuneiform stands out for its intricacy and long life. Cuneiform was in actual use for more than 3,000 years and had an influence not only on the Sumerians’ descendants but also on several other ancient cultures throughout the region.

The Evolution of Writing: How Early Scripts Changed Over Time

The first written language was a real game changer for human civilization, but it didn’t remain frozen in time. The earliest scripts, such as cuneiform and hieroglyphics, changed over the years for reasons of culture, politics, and economics. These early forms of writing were mainly used to keep track of stuff (like how many goats you had) and expanded over time to other forms of communication. Although you might say that keeping records was “big business,” early writing also paved the way for other kinds of “textual conversations.” These included writing by (and for) professionals involved in various societal activities, as well as in various creative forms.

The Transition from Pictographs to Phonetic Systems:

Simple pictures depicting objects represented early writing systems, such as cuneiform. But as societies became more complex, they progressed to using pictures drawn with an artist’s skill. These pictures soon gave way to symbols that represented the sounds of spoken words. These phonetic writing systems could represent not just what someone could see but also what someone could only think. Pictorial systems became much more efficient, writing could happen faster, and much more could be recorded.

Other Ancient Writing Systems:

Though cuneiform is viewed as the foremost writing force in history, ancient societies also created other kinds of writing with forces that were, by all accounts, almost magical. For instance, Egyptian hieroglyphs, with their mixtures of images and symbols, were used around 3300 BCE in ways that seem almost ordinary today (if you ignore the mind-bending fact that the English word “hieroglyph” is a transliteration of the Greek word “sacred writing”). Meanwhile, the ancient Chinese also had characters—and the forces behind them—around 1200 BCE, not to mention the impressive continuity of that writing form that has allowed for the seamless mixture of Mandarin and English as seen in today’s newspapers.

These ancient systems of writing were absolutely necessary for the formation of societies. They made it possible for civilizations to record the events of their past, render laws in a permanent form, and convey messages over long stretches of territory. Writing reached more and more people over time. Its power carried with it the capacity of known something, or someone, that could be limited in time and space.

The Role of Writing in Governance and Administration:

The writing’s early use was tightly connected to the newborn bureaucracies’ needs. Trade, census, and agricultural data were tracked by the Sumerians and Egyptians in the bases of their emerging economies with the great invention that occurred around 3000 B.C. Writing did not change much for the next two millennia, with picturelike symbols (hieroglyphics) used in ancient Egypt to recording the religious and political events of the age.

When the demand for more widespread written documentation increased, the subtlety of primitive writing systems improved. Laws, religious dictates, and the core elements of cultural identity were all preserved in written form.

The Impact of Cuneiform on Ancient Civilizations

The oldest written language in history is cuneiform. Its influence, however, went far beyond the Sumerians. Cuneiform was one of the first truly widespread writing systems. As such, it profoundly affected the cultures of the ancient world. From Sumer, cuneiform spread to Akkad, Babylonia, and Assyria, where it was used to record laws, treaties, and myths. (Cuneiform)

Cuneiform’s Role in Literature

Perhaps the most important gift of the Sumerians was written literature. The poetic narrative of the Sumerian king, Gilgamesh, is one of the oldest literary works in the history of mankind. It was composed in cuneiform on clay tablets and is still revered today by many as the oldest known epic to survive from antiquity. The story of Gilgamesh was told and retold long before it was written down.

Influence on Other Ancient Scripts

The cuneiform script influenced the evolution of many ancient writing systems in ways that are still being discovered. Take, for instance, the Akkadian script, which came from cuneiform and was used by the people of the Akkadian Empire. For a long stretch, in fact, the Akkadian language was the common language of the ancient Near East, much as Latin was the language of the educated elite in medieval and Renaissance Europe. The Akkadian script itself, however, is only one of many ways in which cuneiform influenced writing in the ancient world.

Cultural and Religious Importance

The religious and cultural practices of people in Mesopotamia were preserved through cuneiform. In the area, writing of all sorts was of paramount importance in notating all things related to religion, right down to the most minute of details. Not much is known about the specifics of Enuma Elish, the Babylonian creation myth, but it was definitely notated in cuneiform. One can only guess that that fact gives some level of importance to the medium as a way to ensure the myth was properly recorded.

Conclusion: The Legacy of Written Language and Its Evolution

The ancient civilization that discovered the earliest form of writing—the cuneiform script—set our world on a new path toward contemporary society. Humanity’s ability to create a means of communication that could exist as a permanent record sparked the beginnings of a number of kinds of organized, long-term partnerships—in business, family, and state. Those record-keeping partnerships, and the kinds of thinking they required, did much to lay the foundations for the contemporary world. They required that people think more and more in terms of categories and hierarchies, organizing even their thoughts and words into recognizable patterns. And as those record-keeping partnerships expanded, they sparked the kinds of conversations that did much to light the fires of the so-called Age of Enlightenment.