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THE
STORY OF
WRITING

Comprehension
Genre Text Features
Skills and Strategy
Expository • Sequence • Table of
nonfiction • Graphic Sources Contents
• Monitor and Fix Up • Captions

Scott Foresman Reading Street 6.5.5

ISBN 0-328-13665-4 by Gail K. Gordon

ì<(sk$m)=bdg fa< +^-Ä-U-Ä-U illustrated by Cynthia Watts Clark

Reader Response
THE
STORY OF
1. Use a graphic organizer like this one to put the following
writing systems in order, from oldest to most recent:
Chinese characters, Phoenician alphabet, cuneiform,
Roman alphabet, demotic hieroglyphics. In each box, write

WRITING
a fact about the writing system named.

2. The first people to invent an alphabet were known by two

different names. Write down what you remember. Then
review the chapter about the first alphabet. What changes
did you have to make to your answer?
3. In this book, there are many words that belong to the
study of language known as linguistics. Make an illustrated
by Gailpictogram,
glossary using the words K. Gordonhieroglyphics, and
phonograms.illustrated byInternet
Go to the CynthiatoWatts
find Clark
examples.
4. How do you think learning to read and write using
hieroglyphs would be different from learning an alphabet?
Explain your answer.

Editorial Offices: Glenview, Illinois • Parsippany, New Jersey • New York, New York
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 CONTENTS

CHAPTER 1 ............................................................................... 4

Writin ?
What Is Writing
CHAPTER 2 ............................................................................... 6

The Earliest Writing: Cuneiform

CHAPTER 3 ............................................................................... 9

Writing in Ancient Egypt: Hieroglyphics

CHAPTER 4 ............................................................................. 12

In China: Ancient Characters

CHAPTER 5 ............................................................................. 15
Our Alphabet: Those Familiar ABCs
CHAPTER 6 ............................................................................. 17
The Printed Word
Every effort has been made to secure permission and provide appropriate credit for Glossary ....................................................................... 20
photographic material. The publisher deeply regrets any omission and pledges to
correct errors called to its attention in subsequent editions.

Unless otherwise acknowledged, all photographs are the property of Scott Foresman,
a division of Pearson Education.

ISBN: 0-328-13665-4

Copyright © Pearson Education, Inc.

All Rights Reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This publication is
protected by Copyright, and permission should be obtained from the publisher
prior to any prohibited reproduction, storage in a retrieval system, or transmission
in any form by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or
likewise. For information regarding permission(s), write to: Permissions Department,
Scott Foresman, 1900 East Lake Avenue, Glenview, Illinois 60025.

2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 V0G1 14 13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05
3
 No one knows how old language is or exactly how it
Chapter 1 developed in human communities. Evidence suggests that
What Is Writing? the earliest writing system may have developed about
6,000 years ago. Even though we might not know how
Your cat stares at the refrigerator and meows. Her it first developed, we can guess that as human society
meows are not words as you know them, but you became more complicated, our ancestors must have
recognize their tone. It’s the “feed me now” tone. Is she wanted to communicate more complicated ideas. Simple
speaking “cat,” a language you understand but cannot grunts and cries would not have been clear or specific
speak? enough. As language developed, social interactions and
Cats and other animals can communicate with each communication could become more complex. Likewise,
other—and sometimes with us—but they are not using as society continued to develop, so did language. Even
a language when they do. At least, they do not have today, as our society changes, our language changes with
a “language” in the way that human linguists define it to meet new needs.
language. In the chapters that follow, we will see how different
To rise to the level of language, communication systems of writing developed and technological
must have rules. These rules are part of a system called developments had an impact on writing. The history of
grammar. While we may understand the cat’s message, writing is not a simple story to tell, but like most stories
it is not possible for cats to combine sounds in new ways about human society, it is an interesting one.
that express new thoughts. A cat cannot write. Language
and its visual representation—writing—belong only to
human beings.

We know that cats can

communicate with us,
but not in words.

4 5
 Archaeologists believe that the Sumerians’ first
Chapter 2 writings were trading records. In the earliest stage of the
The Earliest Writing: Cuneiform development of cuneiform, simple pictures were used to
represent things that people saw every day. A picture of a
Cuneiform, what we call the earliest form of writing, goat meant one goat.
was developed more than 5,000 years ago. Archaeologists As the writing system developed, the pictures became
have found thousands of clay tablets with cuneiform in even simpler, so that the scribe, or writer, could draw the
the remains of Sumerian settlements. symbol in fewer strokes. These simple drawings are called
The Sumerians lived a settled life, not a nomadic one. pictograms.
They were farmers and shepherds with cattle and sheep, The pictograms were drawn on soft clay tablets with a
and were the first people to build cities. They needed sharpened reed. The tablets were then baked in ovens or
a way to keep records of trading and laws. Since the dried in the sun until they hardened.
Sumerians lived in one place, there was time for a writing At first, the pictograms were drawn in vertical
system to develop. columns. Later, they were drawn in horizontal rows. This
made the writing of the characters easier, as did a new
Cuneiform means “wedge-shaped.”
This writing looks like lines and wedges writing stylus. With the new stylus, the wedge-shaped
in different combinations. characters could be created more easily and quickly.
Eventually, it was not enough to simply use a
pictogram to refer to an object. People wanted a way to
express less concrete thoughts; they began to produce
what we call ideograms. As their name suggests, these
symbols could refer to abstract ideas, such as happiness,
as well as concrete objects. This was a great leap forward,
but there was another leap yet to come.

Early cuneiform pictograms went through stages of development.

They became simpler and sometimes changed direction.

6 7
 Cuneiform pictograms and ideograms were
reasonably easy to produce and to read, but there were
Chapter 3
more than 2,000 symbols! That meant that few people Writing in Ancient Egypt: Hiero
Hieroglyphics
lyphics
could become true masters of the skill of writing. This
limitation led the Sumerians to develop phonograms. At the same time the region of Mesopotamia was
Phonograms are linked to the sound of the spoken writing with cuneiform, Egypt was using a writing system
language. In the modern English language, ock, as in called hieroglyphics.
clock, and oke, as in joke, are phonograms. Combined Scholars think the development of hieroglyphics may
phonograms called “rebus devices” were used to have been influenced by cuneiform. It is believed that
represent the sound of a word. traders and other travelers may have carried cuneiform
Scholars believe that this change from one system to clay tablets with them from one place to another in their
another happened gradually over time. The signs became caravans.
more simplified. The scribes still needed to learn about The earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions are from the
600 phonograms, but that was fewer than before. same period as cuneiform writing—about 5,000 years
ago. However, some scholars think that hieroglyphs
may have begun even earlier because the system was
so well developed. Egyptian scribes recorded stories as
well as ideas about law, medicine, and agriculture in
hieroglyphics.

The word hieroglyphic comes from the Greek language. It means

“holy carving.”
8 9
 Egyptians used papyrus sheets that served them as Visitors to exhibits of ancient Egyptian artifacts can
paper serves us. Papyrus is a reed that grows along the admire the beauty of hieroglyphic inscriptions and learn
Nile. It was also used to make ropes, mats, and even what the texts say by reading scholars’ translations.
sandals. The Egyptians cut the stems of the plant into Scholars have made much use of the Rosetta Stone.
thin strips and placed them on top of one another at an Discovered by French soldiers in 1799 in the Egyptian
angle to produce a strong surface. Scribes used a reed to village of Rashid, the Rosetta Stone is written in
write on the papyrus with black ink made from soot and hieroglyphics, demotic, and Greek. In 1822, a linguist
water and red ink made of cinnabar, a reddish mineral, used it to discover the grammar of hieroglyphics. This
and lead oxide, a reddish compound of lead and oxygen. allowed him and all the scholars who followed to
Drawing hieroglyphs on paper took too much time uncover the meaning of the writings on the stone.
and skill to be used every day. The scribes working with
ink on papyrus developed a cursive script that allowed
them to work more quickly. They called it hieratic. The Rosetta Stone is in the collection of the
British Museum. It was the key for scholars
Eventually a third script came into use called demotic to the secret of reading hieroglyphics.
script—“writing of the people.” Demotic could be
written even more quickly.
Texts in hieroglyphics do not easily give up their
secrets. Usually, a text reads from right to left, but there
are exceptions. For example, the text might change its
direction, running right to left in one line and left to
right in the next or even top to bottom in one column
and bottom to top in the next.

10 11
 The Chinese writing system serves many versions of
Chapter
pter 4 the language. Chinese speakers who do not understand
In China: Ancient Characters one another can read the same texts. This ability to share
writing has helped to unify Chinese culture.
In China, a writing system developed approximately When the computer revolution began, writers of
1,000 years after the writing systems of Mesopotamia and Chinese faced a challenge. An alphabet system requires
Egypt. Remarkably, that same system—with only minor only one byte of computer memory, but a Chinese
changes in some characters—is still used in China today. character takes two. This problem was solved, and today
Only the technology of writing has changed. Chinese writing can be rendered electronically.
In spoken Chinese, many single syllables sound the
same and carry more than one meaning. Listeners use
both tone and context to understand the meaning of
words. The Chinese never developed a purely phonetic,
or sound-based, system of writing. Like other writing
systems, Chinese writing began as pictograms and
ideograms that were simplified over time.
Most modern characters are also made up of a
root that suggests the meaning and another sign that
suggests the sound. Chinese characters appear in columns
or rows. In order to read a Chinese newspaper, a reader
would need to know several thousand characters.

Like hieroglyphics, Chinese characters are

appreciated for the beauty of their form. They
are often an important element in Chinese art.

12 13
 Chapter 5
Our Alphabet: Those Familiar ABCs
Most experts agree that the alphabet we are
familiar with began about 3,000 years ago with the
Canaanites—also called the Phoenicians—who lived
along the Mediterranean Sea. The Phoenician alphabet
was a phonetic system, but it contained only consonants.
Around the same time, Aramaic developed, as well
as Arabic and Hebrew writing, which are phonetic
systems that probably have their roots in the Phoenician
alphabet.
The Greeks used the Phoenician-based consonant
signs and borrowed consonant signs from Arabic to
represent vowel sounds. After about 2,500 years, the
Greeks had an alphabet of 24 letters, many of which we
would recognize today.
The Greek alphabet seems to have been the source
of the Latin alphabet, our own “ABCs.” Like the
Phoenicians, the Greeks were sailors and probably spread
the use of their alphabet through trade.
The writing system used in this book came to us
from the Romans, who wrote in Latin. Although other
European languages were spoken, all official documents
were written in Latin. It was not until the year A.D. 842
that an official document was written in the language of
the people. It was a treaty written in Old German and in
Old French.

14 15
 During medieval times, monks wrote in Latin, the
language of the church. They produced beautiful,
Chapter 6
hand-written manuscripts with illuminated letters and The Printed Word
illustrations.
By the time of the Renaissance, more people When books were first introduced, printers tried to
outside of monasteries were learning to write. A imitate the hand-lettered pages produced by scribes.
scribe might be paid by a wealthy patron to produce These books were large and expensive both to make and
documents. A historian might record the legacy of a purchase.
king. An astronomer could record the stars seen from his In the fifteenth century, Johann Gutenberg invented
observatory. Books about many subjects began to appear, the first mechanized printing press. By the end of the
but they could not yet be mass produced. They were sixteenth century, books were being printed in spoken
written one at a time and only the very wealthy could languages, not just in Latin. Printed letters replaced
afford to own them. hand-drawn letters, and some printers began to produce
smaller books. These smaller books were more affordable
and easier to carry.

Johann Gutenberg changed the

way books were produced when he
invented the printing press.
16 17
 As printing technology for books advanced, people
wondered if handwriting would eventually disappear. It
did not. At an early age, even children of today study the
art of penmanship.
In the nineteenth century, inventors experimented
with pen design and formulas for ink. In 1945, the ball-
point pen was produced in great numbers. Today the
ballpoint is still used, but now we also have soft-tipped
pens and inks of many colors.
In advancing from the pen to the typewriter, people
wondered again if handwriting would disappear. Today
we use computers, and some people wonder if one day
we might do all of our reading from computer screens.
Handwriting is unlikely to disappear. People seem to
feel comfortable using writing tools, and new hand-held
electronic devices allow us to write on a screen as if we
were writing on paper.
From clay tablet, to papyrus sheet, to modern paper,
to the computer screen, the written word has appeared
on many surfaces. It has served as a beacon shining both
into our past and our future—revealing history and
allowing us to explore our hopes and dreams.

The Palmer method became a popular method of handwriting

instruction in the late nineteenth century. It was common in
classroom instruction well into the twentieth century.

18 19
 Glossary Reader Response
beacon n. a source of light medieval adj. related to the 1. Use a graphic organizer like this one to put the following
or inspiration. Middle Ages in Europe, from writing systems in order, from oldest to most recent:
the fifth to the middle of the Chinese characters, Phoenician alphabet, cuneiform,
caravans n. groups of
fifteenth century. Roman alphabet, demotic hieroglyphics. In each box, write
travelers on a journey
often with animals; trading observatory n. a building a fact about the writing system named.
expeditions. that provides a good view of
the sky.
legacy n. something
inherited or received from patron n. someone who
an ancestor or a time in the gives money or other
past. support, usually to an artist.
manuscripts n. documents
written by hand.

2. The first people to invent an alphabet were known by two

different names. Write down what you remember. Then
review the chapter about the first alphabet. What changes
did you have to make to your answer?
3. In this book, there are many words that belong to the
study of language known as linguistics. Make an illustrated
glossary using the words pictogram, hieroglyphics, and
phonograms. Go to the Internet to find examples.
4. How do you think learning to read and write using
hieroglyphs would be different from learning an alphabet?
Explain your answer.

20