Alphabet Key To History Of Mankind

Author(s): David Diringer
Publisher: Hutchinsons Scientific and Technical Publications

Page 20

INTRODUCTION
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beginning in a high antiquity, and each presenting a highly organized society,
Certain branches of the history of writing form part of other departments of learning; for instance, hieroglyphic, hieratic and demotic writing are comprehended in egyptology, cuneiform writing in assyriology; the writing of primitive peoples is dealt with by anthropologists or
ogists, Chinese writing by sinologists, the Arabic scripts by arabists; the development of Indian writing forms part of Indian epigraphy and palæography, Philologists and glottologists-students of the science of languages-deal also with the development of writing in connection with the language or languages with which they are concerned. On the other hand, graphology, "the science of writing," is more concerned with the psychological and biological points of view than with the history of writing. See A. O. Mendel, Personality in Handwriting, New York 1947.
The cultured man is also sometimes interested in one or another branch of the history of writing, Egyptology and assyriology, including the study of hieroglyphic, hieratic, demotic and cuneiform writings, had their "good times" in certain periods of the last century; hittirology, that is the branch of learning concerned with the Hittites (the ancient inhabitants of Asia Minor and northern Syria) and their scripts, was in great consideration at the end of the last century and in the first decades of the present; alphabetology, the new department which deals with the intricate problems of the origin of the alphabet, had a brief enjoyment of "good time" quite recently in the U.S.A.
WRITING AND EARLY CIVILIZATION
Unquestionably, while man's creative and destructive powers have been developing for an incalculable number of years, the intellectual progress of mankind developed only at a very late stage; only yesterday, a few thousands years ago, can it be said that the spiritual human advance began. It is very important from the point of view of the history of writing, to stress the significance of this fact, It is, for instance, the best argument against the picturesque theories about lost continents such as "Atlantis" or "Lemuria," since there is no doubt that during the whole history of civilization, the lay-out of the principal land-masses has not much changed. In consequence, it seems probable that the various peoples and tribes on the various continents or blocks of continents developed their early civilizations, including writing, more or less independently.
In the growth of the spiritual human advance, that is of civilization, the origin and the development of writing hold a place of supreme importance, second only to that of the beginnings of speech, as an essential means of communication within human society. Writing, an art peculiar to man, even more than speech, presupposes language, of which it is in