home » Business from scratch » Why did the emergence of writing give impetus to the development of culture. The main stages of the information development of society

Why did the emergence of writing give impetus to the development of culture. The main stages of the information development of society

The birth of writing, as well as the creation of the state, marks the transition from the prehistoric era to historical time. The formation of the first writing systems met the needs of the developed states of the Ancient East. Under these conditions, a new social category- scribes who recorded various phenomena and events. The texts were applied to different materials: in Egypt on stone slabs and papyrus, in Mesopotamia on clay tablets.

Ancient Egyptian writing appeared at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. and existed until the first centuries of the 1st millennium AD. e. Three of its varieties are known, the names of which were given by the Greeks: hieroglyphic (translated as “sacred letter”), hieratic (“priestly letter”) and demotic (“folk letter”). Egyptian hieroglyphs are pictographic signs based on drawings of objects or actions. The last two forms of Egyptian writing were only adaptations of hieroglyphic writing. Hieratic was its cursive variety - the signs in it already had a somewhat simplified character for a faster outline. Demotic writing, in turn, was a cursive and abbreviated version of hieratic. All three forms of Egyptian writing fell out of use by the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e. and remained unrecognized for many centuries until the Rosetta Stone was found in 1799 containing texts in two languages (Egyptian and Greek) using three types writing: Greek, hieroglyphic and demotic. This discovery allowed the Frenchman J.-F. Champollion in 1822 to decipher the hieroglyphs.

In Mesopotamia, cuneiform writing became widespread, which appeared at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. At first, pictograms were used, which were images adapted to writing on stone and clay. However, it is difficult to draw curved, rounded lines on clay, it is easier to draw pointed ones.

Therefore, pictograms began to be converted into wedges. By 2800 BC. e. The cuneiform took shape finally, although the appearance of the signs could differ in different periods. About 600 symbols are known that were used in cuneiform in Mesopotamia and beyond. With the help of cuneiform, diplomatic documents and religious texts were compiled, which spread throughout the vast territory of the Middle East. Cuneiform signs were deciphered in the middle of the 19th century.

Written monuments discovered in India belong to a later period. The first evidence of it is the inscriptions of King Ashoka, who ruled in the 3rd century BC, although the perfection of the letters used indicates a long evolution of writing.

The beginning of hieroglyphic writing in China dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. e. The Chinese writing system had 2,000 characters.

An important achievement of civilization ancient world is the alphabet. The oldest alphabet was found in Ugarit (a city-state that existed from the 23rd to the 12th century BC), it had 30 letters, mostly consonants, which were written using Mesopotamian cuneiform characters. The most ancient monuments of the Greek language date back to about the 9th century BC. BC e. indicate the similarity of the Greek and Ugaritic alphabets. The Greeks do not have some Ugaritic letters, but there are letters unknown to the Ugaritans. The Romans, through the Etruscans - a mysterious, for most researchers, people who inhabited the central and northwestern parts of Italy - inherited an alphabet similar to Greek. By the 1st century BC e. in Rome there was a writing system of 23 letters, which was also used to draw numbers. As a result of Roman economic and military expansion, the Latin alphabet was adopted by many peoples of Europe.

The birth of writing, as well as the creation of the state, marks the transition from the prehistoric era to historical time. The formation of the first writing systems met the needs of the developed states of the Ancient East. Under these conditions, a new social category was formed - scribes, who recorded various phenomena and events. Texts were applied to different materials: in Egypt on stone slabs and papyrus, in Mesopotamia on clay tablets.

Ancient Egyptian writing appeared at the end of the 4th millennium BC. e. and existed until the first centuries of the 1st millennium AD. e. Three of its varieties are known, the names of which were given by the Greeks: hieroglyphic (translated as “sacred letter”), hieratic (“priestly letter”) and demotic (“folk letter”). Egyptian hieroglyphs are pictographic signs based on drawings of objects or actions. The last two forms of Egyptian writing were only adaptations of hieroglyphic writing. Hieratic was its cursive variety - the signs in it already had a somewhat simplified character for a faster outline. Demotic writing, in turn, was a cursive and abbreviated version of hieratic. All three forms of Egyptian writing fell out of use by the middle of the 1st millennium AD. e. and remained unrecognized for many centuries until the Rosetta Stone was found in 1799, containing texts in two languages (Egyptian and Greek) using three types of writing: Greek, hieroglyphic and demotic. This discovery allowed the Frenchman J.-F. Champollion in 1822 to decipher the hieroglyphs.

The beginning of hieroglyphic writing in China dates back to the 3rd millennium BC. e. The Chinese writing system had 2,000 characters.

An important achievement of the civilization of the Ancient World is the alphabet. The oldest alphabet was found in Ugarit (a city-state that existed from the 23rd to the 12th century BC), it had 30 letters, mostly consonants, which were written using Mesopotamian cuneiform characters. The most ancient monuments of the Greek language date back to about the 9th century BC. BC e. indicate the similarity of the Greek and Ugaritic alphabets. The Greeks do not have some Ugaritic letters, but there are letters unknown to the Ugaritans. The Romans, through the Etruscans - a mysterious, for most researchers, people who inhabited the central and northwestern parts of Italy - inherited an alphabet similar to Greek. By the 1st century BC e. in Rome there was a writing system of 23 letters, which was also used to draw numbers. As a result of Roman economic and military expansion, the Latin alphabet was adopted by many peoples of Europe.

The appearance of writing was preceded by the appearance of speech. At the dawn of the formation of mankind, speech was very simple, the lexicon consisted of the most necessary words. As society developed, speech became more complex, the number of words grew. Mankind accumulated knowledge, while the issue of their transfer to new generations became more and more acute, in the absence of writing, this could only be done through oral transmission from teacher to student.

Opportunities for oral transmission of knowledge are limited. Once there came a moment when the accumulated information became so much that it was no longer possible to convey it in its entirety orally. It was necessary to somehow fix the knowledge - so that they could be perceived in the absence of the person who owned them. As a result, the first versions of writing began to appear in different parts of the world. At first, writing did not reflect the sound of the language, it was entirely symbolic. Each symbol represents a particular concept. Basically, such symbols are found on stones, therefore this species writing is called pictographic.

The next stage in the development of writing was the appearance of logographic writing, in which the characters had graphic view, which conveys their meaning. This is what Sumerian writing was like. They wrote in those days on stone and clay tablets.

Despite the fact that logographic writing played a very important role in the history of mankind, it remained very imperfect, not allowing to fully meet the needs of a growing civilization. It was replaced by logographic-syllabic writing, in which the letters lost their figurativeness, becoming combinations of cuneiform lines.

Sound writing, close to us, appeared at the turn of the second and first millennia BC. Unlike the previous writing systems, the new one cost only 20-30 characters. Majority modern systems writings trace their history back to the Phoenician sound writing.

The appearance of sound writing, which made it possible to convey the sound of words, gave a strong impetus to the development of human civilization. There was no need for the oral transfer of knowledge, sound writing made it possible to transfer knowledge in full and accurately, fixing them first on clay tablets, then on parchment and papyrus, and even later on familiar paper. If anything held back the spread of knowledge, it was the lack of printing - every text had to be scrupulously copied by hand. But with the advent of printing, this obstacle was removed.

The development of Slavic writing is associated with the names of the brothers Constantine the Philosopher (in monasticism - Cyril) and Methodius. It was they who created the first Slavic alphabet, which laid the foundation for Slavic and, subsequently, Russian writing.

Related videos

World history writing teaches that writing appears when the state arises. Based on this thesis, it can be argued that writing in Rus' appeared in the tenth century, but most likely this is not so: there are several evidences that writing in Ancient Rus' the Slavs knew how long before Cyril and Methodius.

Instruction

The famous historian Vasily Tatishchev was the first to suggest the existence of pre-Christian writing in Ancient Rus'. At the same time, he relied on the chronicles of Nestor, who described the events taking place 150 years before his birth. Tatishchev argued that it was simply impossible to do this, relying only on oral speech. This suggests that Nestor used written sources that have not survived to this day.

Unfortunately, little is known about the pre-Christian. The Slavs carved signs on wood, but, according to the tenth-century Bulgarian writer Khrabr, they also used Greek and Latin. An additional argument in favor of pre-Christian writing is the language factor - such words were present in ancient Slavic speech, and, which suggests that the Slavs were familiar with writing before the adoption of Christianity.

Officially, Cyril and Methodius are considered to be the creators of Slavic writing. Their origin is still the subject of controversy among modern scientists, it is only known that they were fluent in the language spoken by the Slavs.

The reason for the creation of writing in Rus' was the spread of the Christian religion and the need to conduct church services in a language understandable to the people, and not in Latin, as was practiced in most European countries, but which almost no one understood.

For a long time in Rus', two types of the alphabet were known: and Glagolitic. Today we use the Cyrillic alphabet, but the Glagolitic alphabet has not taken root. According to historians, there is a possibility that Cyril created the Glagolitic alphabet, and one of his students, Clement, created the Cyrillic alphabet, after which he named it after his teacher. Initially, the Cyrillic alphabet had forty-three letters, some of which also denoted numbers. Only after a series of reforms in the Cyrillic alphabet did thirty-three letters remain, as in the modern alphabet.

Despite the fact that a single written language in Ancient Rus' arose only with the adoption of Christianity in 988, apparently, the Slavs knew how to express their thoughts on “paper” long before this date. It was Cyril and Methodius who streamlined Slavic writing, taking as a basis one of the dialects of the ancient Bulgarian language and adapting it to Slavic speech.

In many ways, it was thanks to the emergence of a single written language that Christianity gained such a large-scale spread, and the service in the native language, and not in Latin, became a real example, which was followed by other European nations.

Lecture No. 1. The history of the emergence of writing

Writing, like sound speech, is a means of communication between people, and serves to transmit thoughts at a distance and fix it in time. Writing is part of the general culture of a given people, and therefore part of world culture. The history of world writing knows the following main types of writing:

pictographic,

ideographic,

syllabic,

letter-sound.

pictographic(picture) - the most ancient writing in the form of cave paintings of primitive people;

Ideographic (hieroglyphic) - a letter from the era of early statehood and the emergence of trade (Egypt, China). IN IV-III millennia BC. e. in Ancient Sumer (Anterior Asia), in Ancient Egypt, and then, in II, and in Ancient China a different way of writing arose: each word was conveyed by a drawing, sometimes specific, sometimes conditional. For example, when it was about the hand, they drew the hand, and the water was depicted with a wavy line. A house, a city, a boat were also designated by a certain symbol ... The Greeks called such Egyptian drawings hieroglyphs: "hiero" - "sacred", "glyphs" - "carved in stone". The text, composed in hieroglyphs, looks like a series of drawings. This letter can be called: "I am writing a concept" or "I am writing an idea" (hence the scientific name of such a letter - "ideographic").

The extraordinary achievement of human civilization was the so-called syllabary, the invention of which took place during III-II millennium BC. e. Each stage in the formation of writing recorded a certain result in the advancement of mankind along the path of logical abstract thinking. First, this is the division of the phrase into words, then the free use of drawings-words, the next step is the division of the word into syllables. We speak in syllables, and children are taught to read in syllables. To arrange the record in syllables, it would seem that it could be more natural! Yes, and there are many fewer syllables than words composed with their help. But it took many centuries to come to such a decision. Syllabic writing was already used in III-II millennia BC. e. in the Eastern Mediterranean. For example, the predominantly syllabary is the famous cuneiform.(They still write in a syllabic way in India, in Ethiopia.)

alpha-sound(phonemic) writing expressing the phonemic composition of a language. Phonemes denote individual speech sounds and may vary depending on the pronunciation. Our writing cannot convey all the sound nuances of the language and is intended only to differentiate (distinguish) words.

Russian alphabet has 33 signs, while the phonemic structure of the language consists of 39 phonemes.

Alphabetic writing system- the basis of the writing of many peoples of the world, the linguistic specificity of which is also reflected in the phonographic composition of their alphabets. So in the Latin alphabet - 23 signs, in Italian - 21 , Czech - 38, Armenian - 39 .etc.

The characters of the alphabet are graphically different from each other and in their simplest form represent graphemes(the invariable form of the letters included in the alphabet, without taking into account style, typeface and other shaping).

The graphematic composition of the alphabet has evolved over many centuries based on the requirements of a particular language, the requirements for ease of writing and reading.

First letter alphabet appeared about 16 in. BC. It is known that the Semitic tribes that lived on Sinai Peninsula, adopted a number of signs-ideograms from Egyptian writing, denoting the first sounds of the names of certain objects with them. This is how the original letter was born.

Phoenicians, having adopted and improved it, in turn served as intermediaries in the movement of alphabetic-sound writing from the South-Eastern Mediterranean to the Greeks.

The oldest Greek letters appeared in 8th c. BC, but only to 4th c. to our era have gained relative completeness, graphic simplicity and clarity.

IN 3 in. BC exists and Latin alphabet. The Latins (the inhabitants of Rome and its environs, hence the name - Latin) borrowed the Etruscan alphabet, which developed on the basis of the Greek. On the edge new era the letter was located between two lines, it was continuous, there were no intervals between words, the geometric shapes of the letters made it difficult to write.

The creation of the alphabet of the Slavic-Russian writing system - "Cyrillic" refers to by the end of the 9th beginning of the 10th. The creators of the Slavic alphabet based on the Byzantine script were brothers Kirill(Konstantin the Philosopher, he took the name Cyril not long before his death) and Methodius, natives of Thessalonica (Thessaloniki) in Macedonia. The Slavic language was their native language, and they received Greek upbringing and education.

Along with the Cyrillic alphabet, there was another alphabet - Glagolitic.

In Rus', the Glagolitic alphabet did not last long and was completely replaced by the Cyrillic script. From the history of the Old Russian font, the main calligraphic variants of the Cyrillic alphabet stand out:

from the 11th century - a charter letter(according to the oldest Russian manuscripts that have come down to us);

from the 14th century – semi-status, which served as a model for the typeface in the middle 16th century;

at first 15th century spread different kinds cursive.

Charter- an early calligraphic form of the Cyrillic alphabet. The letters of the charter had almost square proportions and were distinguished by straightness and angularity of forms. They were placed freely in the line, there were no gaps between words.

An example of a classic charter letter is "Ostromir Gospel", written in 1056-1057 deacon Grigory by order of the Novgorod posadnik Ostromir. A letter of incorporation is quite laborious to write. The inscription of the letters of the charter required frequent changes in the position of the instrument of writing. The letters were more drawn with a pen than written.

Semi-charter- a kind of calligraphic version of Cyrillic writing. The semi-stated text has a brighter overall picture. The letters are rounder and smaller, the words and sentences are separated by clear gaps, the style is simpler, more flexible and faster than in the statutory letter. Stroke contrast is less; pen sharpens sharper. There are many abbreviations under the titles, as well as many different superscripts, stresses (forces) and a whole system of punctuation marks. The letter takes on a noticeable slope. The semi-ustav lasted as long as the handwritten book lived. It also served as the basis for the fonts of early printed books. The first printed book in Rus', The Apostle, was made by the book printer Ivan Fedorov in 1564.

Russian ligature- a special decorative letter used with 15th century mainly for highlighting titles. There are two types of ties: round and angular(stamped). One of the main methods of tying is the mast ligature, in which two adjacent strokes (boles) of two letters turned into one. The voids formed at the same time were filled with reduced oval or almond-shaped letters, as well as half-masts (half-bolts) of neighboring letters. The inscriptions made in gold or cinnabar carried a special artistic and decorative load in various written monuments.

Almost simultaneously with the formation of a semi-charter, a business letter develops cursive, which quickly seeps into books. Cursive 14th century very close to halfway point.

In the 15th century it becomes freer, gains considerable distribution; She wrote various letters, acts, books. It turned out to be one of the most mobile types of Cyrillic writing.

In the 17th century cursive, distinguished by its special calligraphy and elegance, has become an independent type of writing.

In the 17th century semi-ustav, moving from church books to office work, is transformed into civil letter. At this time, books of writing samples appeared - “The Alphabet of the Slavic Language ...” (1653), primers of Karion Istomin (1694-1696) with magnificent examples of letters of various styles: from luxurious initials to simple cursive letters.

The reform of the alphabet and type carried out Peter I at the beginning of the 18th century. contributed to the spread of literacy and education. In form, proportions and style, the civil font was close to the old antiqua. The new font began to print all secular literature, scientific and government publications. The first books of the new type were published in Moscow in 1708.

Agreement on the use of site materials

Please use the works published on the site for personal purposes only. Publication of materials on other sites is prohibited.
This work (and all others) is available for download free of charge. Mentally, you can thank its author and the staff of the site.

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Students, graduate students, young scientists who use the knowledge base in their studies and work will be very grateful to you.

Why did the emergence of writing give impetus to the development of culture. The main stages of the information development of society

Agreement on the use of site materials

Send your good work in the knowledge base is simple. Use the form below

Similar Documents

Popular