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Writing
: a chronicle
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3300 |
BC Sumerian clay tablets with
writing- Uruk /Irak
Drawings (pictograms) somehow «
speaking directly to the mind » |
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2300 |
BC Hindu scripts appear
(pictograms). They are perhaps
the most intriguing of the many
scripts from all parts of the
world that remain undeciphered.
(Mohenjo-daro – North West India
/ Pakistan) |
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1400 |
BC Appearance of alphabetic
cuneiform inscriptions (about 30
letters)
(Ugarit in the North of Syria) |
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300 |
BC Following the arrival of
Aryans in India (Alexander the
Great), appearance of Brahmi and
Kharoshti scripts in India - 37
characters deriving from the
Phoenician letters and written
from left to right. |
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No less than about 200 different South
and South East Asian scripts derive
directly or indirectly from the Brahmi
script :
They include the GUPTA script used to
write Sanskrit as well as Tibetan and
their descendents.
It is often a syllable that was
represented by the Indian scripts ;
consonant signs express inherent vowels.
They also include the DEVANAGARI script,
the script of the city of the gods,
probably born during the 8th century AC
and which is written today by millions
of Hindi speaking people in India. With
48 characters, this writing is
considered as one of the most
sophisticated writing in the world.
They also include the so called PALI
scripts because they are used to write
the traditional language of Buddhism,
which is the Pali language. Today these
Pali characters are used to write the
Thai, Lao and Cambodian languages but
with some variations among them.
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