The Development of Writing

In comparison to spoken language, writing is relatively new - it was invented for the first time by the Sumerians of Mesopotamia in about 3200 BCE. Indians of Mexico invented it independently around 600 BCE, and the rise of Egyptian and Chinese systems may have been independent as well. Writing was certainly a great boon to memetic spread, greatly increasing the fidelity and the fecundity of the memes that took advantage of it. These issues have already been analyzed in Memetics and Society. In this section we will examine writing systems and how they might have developed.

Writing and Memetic Selection

The development of language as an adaptation for memes, not genes, is still a speculative proposal. However, it is certain that writing is a purely memetic adaptation - there are no genes "for" writing proficiency (though there are some that impair this ability). Writing, of course, is a vast improvement upon speech in terms of memetic fecundity and fidelity. Writing a meme down greatly increases its likelihood of being read by potential adherents, and the very fact of being written may encourage people to adopt certain memes, as in the cases in which people insist that something is true because they read it in the paper. Writing also improves on memetic fidelity by liberating memes from fallible human memory; memes that are written down are much less vulnerable to confusions or elaborations in retelling, and therefore have a much lower mutation rate.

Writing probably actually developed through memetic competition, in which slightly different systems competed and those that were most successful were adopted. Writing probably began as an accounting system of marks on clay tablets or other media. As such, it was probably not very standardized; each merchant or accountant could in theory have his own slightly different system of marking his tablets. Major conventions such as direction and orientation of markings may have been established in most languages due primarily to historical contingency, but the specifics of structuring the marks probably came about via memetic selection. Each person who used the marks used them in a slightly different way; some ways were easier to remember, easier to write, or easier to read than others, and so these memes got copied, Eventually, this process produced better and better writing systems.

Types of Writing

There are three basic forms of writing systems: logographic systems, which use symbols to represent whole words; syllabary systems, which use symbols to represent syllables; and alphabetic systems, which use symbols to represent units of sound. Logographic systems are the most intuitive from the perspective of a society on the cusp of developing writing, and thus they tended to be the first to arise. They also are most logical next step from the marking system used by merchants and accountants. (Incidentally, the fact that Chinese is a logographic system is one piece of evidence for its independent invention - it bears little resemblance to the cuneiform of the Sumerians and is of the type expected for an early writing system.)

Logographic systems, while being highly intuitive at first, quickly become extremely cumbersome. They are difficult to learn and give relatively few pronunciation cues. Moreover, they require the invention of a new syllable every time a new word is needed, and they make compound words and complicated syntax much more difficult to write. Finally, the complicated pictorial symbols must be rendered almost perfectly in order to be legible, which makes writing a time- and energy-consuming process.

The second system, the syllabary, is much rarer, since it is an intuitive system only for a few languages. It is used in one variant of Japanese and was developed by an extremely intelligent Cherokee, Sequoyah, for use in writing and recording his native language. His system, based very loosely on English (at most he borrowed a few forms), became so successful that the formerly illiterate Cherokee tribe began publishing newspapers and books in their own language.

The third system of writing, the alphabetic system, is the most difficult to invent and the easiest to use. Many linguists believe it was invented only once, by the Phoenicians, and then spread or adapted to other languages. The system seems counterintuitive at first, since its most basic units do not correspond to anything meaningful in speech, but rather to an isolated sound. However, the system uses the power of infinite combination to achieve its success; whereas Chinese characters might take years to learn, the standard Roman alphabet often takes only a few months for children to memorize. Moreover, when each letter represents a certain sound, pronunciation is more easily inferred from the structure of a word (though English pronunciation sometimes leaves speakers confused). Finally, markers such as umlauts serve to increase the power of a system by more carefully delineating the pronunciation of certain letters.

In general, when logographic, syllabary, and alphabetic systems compete, the alphabetic system will tend to dominate because it can express the most thoughts most efficiently. Languages such as Japanese and Chinese will probably eventually be outcompeted because English - or another language based on an alphabet, most likely the Roman one - is so much easier to use. (This is not to say that English is easy, only that the alphabetic system is most efficient.)

Spelling and Writing

One of the pitfalls of an alphabetic system is the proper spelling of each word. Regional variations in pronunciation affect how different speakers try to render their spoken words into writing. Consequently, speakers of the same language may find it impossible to communicate via writing because of differences in spelling.

The solution to this problem, of course, is to standardize spelling whenever possible. This is another example of the influences of memes: those spellings that are easiest to remember are most likely to become standard. Of course, plenty of modern English spelling is due primarily to now-obsolete historical facts, but these spellings were most likely quite logical to the English-speakers that originally standardized spelling. Moreover, sometimes illogical or difficult-to-remember spellings (and grammatical rules) are retained for other memetic reasons: they may confer prestige on those who observe them, serve as a mark of education, or indicate a formal tone (compare through and thru).

Early "creative spelling" in English has given way to standardized spellings for the vast majority of words, recorded in dictionaries and, more recently, in computerized spell-checkers. Though some variation in spelling remains, this primarily reflects distinct dialects, rather than multiple accepted spellings in a single dialect. For example, American and British English vary systematically in the spellings of certain words (American color and British colour) and suffixes (American -ize and British -ise).

Looking Further: Links and References

The following links and references are useful in the study of the development of writing.

• Books
  • The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
  • How the Mind Works by Steven Pinker
  • Words and Rules by Steven Pinker
  • The Meme Machine by Susan Blackmore

• Websites
  • Linguistics FAQ
  • Linguistic Society of America - click on "Writing"
  • The Phoenician Alphabet
  • Writing Systems Resources
  • Chapters 3 and 8 of The Language Instinct by Steven Pinker
  • Language Miniatures - collection of language essays by William Z. Shetter

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