Early Writing and Civilization

Writing has come a long way from what it is seen today. Before writing took place people were communicating orally in some form of grunt or perhaps gestures. One of the early homo used tokens to represent their stock during the era of early civilization; this was done by markings on clay tablets. Different form of writing took place in different times and the style of those writing was different as well. There were styles such as cuneiform, characters and glyphs. Regardless of the region there were symbols or pictures when put together created sounds and words. Early writing came from Maya, Sumerian, Chinese and Egyptians.
The Egyptians begun to use symbols to represent words and not all words but the first letter of the word in something called hieroglyphs. By doing this one can see early form of an alphabet system. Due to this discovery it would be possible to teach others from this written form. The Egyptians were the ones that considered their writings to be sacred. They attached this to a god called Thoth who created art, science and the calendar. The Sumerians believed that the god Enlil created writing and was capable of creating speech. The Mayas believed in the god Itzamna who was in charge of records and keeping time which made it possible to have calendars. The Chinese people did not consider their writing to be divine but they believed that Huang Ti who was able to communicate between heaven and earth.
Writings were also used to help civilization in terms of goods and economic data. Once a form of writing was established those who had stocks were able to keep track of what they had or lost, which represented a form of inventory system. Once that had occurred it was an indicator that civilization was beginning to form. The minds were being developed and creativity was on the move. Now others would have a form to relate to and those in that area would know if they saw a particular symbol it stood for something with a meaning. The need to rely only on memory was good but now information could be recorded and kept to be shared.
As stated writing have symbols that represent and can be put together to form words. With words one is able to form speech and the ability to communicate is expanded. As one can see writing had different meanings to others and because of this some forms of writing were difficult to decode. Out of these writings we are now able to communicate with languages. Just as unique is each writing the same is for each language. Therefore writing was truly an evolution all of its own.