How did we learn to write ppt

How did we learn to write?

Text adapted from ‘Big Questions From Little People’ (2012)

Gemma Elwin Harris.

PROFESORA MARILUZ MALDONADO RODRÍGUEZ 1º ESO CIENCIAS SOCIALES

Gemma Elwin Harris.

Life was simple…

Once upon a very long time ago,before writing, people had toremember what they said to each otherremember what they said to each otherbecause there was no way ofrecording conversations. That workedwhen life was simple. If you justwanted to exchange your chicken for abasket of your neighbour’s apples, forexample.


But it was not that simple…

But what if you wanted the apples right now

and your neighbor wanted the chickenand your neighbor wanted the chicken

tomorrow, or next week, or next spring? What if,

when the time came, your neighbor said ‘But

you said two chickens!’ and you couldn’t quite

remember what you had said. This could be a

big problem and you could have a lot of

arguments about who said what.PROFESORA MARILUZ MALDONADO RODRÍGUEZ 1º ESO CIENCIAS SOCIALES

This story started in

Mesopotamia…

To find out how writing started you have to look

back ten thousand years, to today’s Irak, thenback ten thousand years, to today’s Irak, then

known as Mesopotamia. This was a hot area, with

two great rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates.

Mesopotamia means ‘between two rivers’. Big

rivers are good for food and transport. They give

water to crops, which can be carried in boats, and

they provide drinking water for cities.


Cuneiform:

The triangular letters…

Beneath their feet, in the earth, which was often flooded,

they found what they needed, clay. It was easy to make little,

soft clay balls, and then use a reed as a sort of wooden pensoft clay balls, and then use a reed as a sort of wooden pen

to make signs that meant things like ‘two chickens’ or ‘a

basket of apples’. Because the pens had three-cornered nibs,

they made marks that were triangular, so their writing is

called cuneiform, which means ‘shaped like a triangle’.Then they baked the clay in an oven, and kept the hard balls

in their offices to avoid arguments in months and years to

come.PROFESORA MARILUZ MALDONADO RODRÍGUEZ 1º ESO CIENCIAS SOCIALES

The scribes were the

first writers…

Later, scribes learned to make lots ofdifferent signs to record any word in theirdifferent signs to record any word in theirlanguage. They could record manydifferent things: accounts of wars, lists ofkings and officials, and the stories thatparents told their children.


Hieroglyphs in Egypt…

Time passed, and two other great rivers made

their regions big and rich. One was the rivertheir regions big and rich. One was the river

Nile in Egypt. About five thousand years ago,

priests in Egypt made up different signs. They

wrote on temple walls and on a sort of paper

made from reeds, recording stories of gods and

kings in picture-writing called hieroglyphs,

which means ‘sacred writing’.PROFESORA MARILUZ MALDONADO RODRÍGUEZ 1º ESO CIENCIAS SOCIALES

Chinese writing…

Then, two thousand years later, in China, peoplebuilt cities on their great river, Yangtse. Their priests didsomething really strange. They used to heat up thesomething really strange. They used to heat up theshells of turtles in fire to crack them, and then used thecracks as some people use tea leaves today, to tell thefuture (divination), scratching beside the cracks. Thiswas the foundation of all Chinese writing. The firstChinese writing was called Hànzì, which means ‘Han’swriting’.



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How did we learn to write ppt