The College Student Who Decoded the Data Hidden in Inca Knots

pocket/com ^ | catherine Davis

[Captain Rhino]

I respectfully disagree.

As the following articles relate, these source or original writing systems took several hundreds of years (or even longer) to fully develop:

Chinese: https://www.ancient.eu/Chinese_Writing/
Cuneiform: https://www.ancient.eu/cuneiform/
Egyptian: https://www.ancient.eu/Egyptian_Writing/
Indus (Harappan): https://www.ancient.eu/Indus_Script/
Mayan: https://www.ancient.eu/article/655/maya-writing/

Note that the first three languages were developed without an outside precursor written language to model on. They were literally created from the blank page. Although in these cases it was actually either wet clay, scraps of bone from sacrificed animals, or pieces of stone/pottery.

The article on Indus valley script notes that the language the ancient Harappans spoke and were writing in remains undiscovered and that there is so little of it (especially when compared with Mesopotamian cuneiform) to analyze. To further compound matters, the civilization, after nearly 2000 years of at least some measure of success, died out:

“DECLINE OF THE INDUS SCRIPT

By 1800 BCE, the Indus Valley Civilization saw the beginning of its decline. As part of this process, writing started to disappear. As the Indus Valley Civilization was dying, so did the script they invented. The Vedic culture that would dominate North India for the centuries to come did not have a writing system, nor did they adopt the Indus Script. In fact, India would have to wait more than 1,000 years to see the return of writing.”

That successor writing system is actually a whole collection of writing systems collectively referred to as Sanskrit. The article quote is somewhat misleading as Sanskrit has its own complex evolution with precursor writing systems and many active branch languages and writing systems down to the present. As with many things on the ancient subcontinent, Sanskrit is a perplexity of complexity in and of itself:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sanskrit#Writing_system

Mayan glyphs are presumed to some have relationship to earlier Olmec symbols. However, comparison of the extensive catalogue of Mayan glyphs with the scant number of Olmec symbol examples show that the Mayans took the concept and evolved it from strictly pictographic system to one that employed pictographs, phonetic glyphs, and combinations of the two. As the article notes, the Maya appear to have switched to near exclusive use of fanfold bark paper booklets (codex) for writing from the 9th century and, thanks to the climate of Central America and the depredations of the Spanish colonizers, only three of these codices survive. What was lost cannot be calculated.

Now, I will agree with you in those cases when there is a precursor writing system to model on, evolution of a written language form can be very rapid ONCE the decision is made to create one. There are numerous examples:

Korean and Japanese: Both start out using Chinese language script but assigning their own language words to the corresponding Chinese written character. After hundreds of years, each nation eventually decides to develop their own unique phonetic alphabets for use in parallel with Chinese to support incorporation of Western ideas and information and make mass education easier.

Vietnamese: Start with Chinese but follow the Korean and Japanese practice of assigning their own language words to the corresponding Chinese written character. With the help of 19th century Western missionaries, develop “Romanized” phonetic alphabet and vocabulary to support incorporation of Western ideas and information and make mass education easier. As related in the article below, this adaption to a western style writing system is somewhat complicated due to the multiplicity of accents and intonations of the spoken language and the selective word usage rules that had developed in using Chinese characters:

http://www.vietnam-culture.com/vietnamese-language-history.aspx

Also to be added to the list of languages adapting an outside writing script: the written languages of Southeast Asia (written with modified Sanskrit alphabets), Urdu (written in Arabic, Sanskrit, and Romanized scripts), the Slavic languages of Eastern Europe(written in the Cyrillic alphabet developed from the earlier Glagolitic script produced by Saints Cyril and Methodius), etc., etc.

However, even when undertaken in more modern times and using a partially borrowed writing system, adapting a fully developed language can still be difficult:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherokee_language

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks Captain Rhino, nice post!