- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
- cross-posted to:
- hackernews@lemmy.bestiver.se
Archive link: https://archive.ph/cIz4A
It’s dated to be from around 2400 BCE. The article doesn’t clarify if it’s a true alphabet or an abjad, but either way it’s interesting.
While this discovery is very cool, this bothered me:
“Alphabets revolutionized writing by making it accessible to people beyond royalty and the socially elite. Alphabetic writing changed the way people lived, how they thought, how they communicated,”
Ancient Chinese scripts seemed to manage just fine, even during their “writing is magical and only the rich are smart enough to know that magic” phase. Is it possible that the alphabet itself didn’t change the way people lived, but perhaps the people who introduced it to the area changed the way the original inhabitants lived? The conclusion that the alphabet was the cause just seems really Western exceptionalist to me.
This press release is pretty crap, but there is more info here: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/worlds-oldest-alphabet-discovered/
“Chon”
Big chongus?
No sane Middle Eastern language would use a true alphabet, so probably an abjad.
Removed by mod
You think the dividing line between us and animals is writing? There were pre-writing civilisations last century. You’d have fit right in with the morals of the time.