Is there a better way to communicate a simple message than by way of an artistic representation of whatever it is you want to convey?
If you look at a realistic drawing of an eye, you’ll know that the image stands for an eye, like so:
But what if you’re not so great at sketching realistic renderings of things? Or, what if you don’t want to spend an hour working on something that represents one thing?
Let’s devise a solution: we’ll use a simpler drawing that will still represent the eye the same way. This serves our purpose just as well:
Okay, better! Most people can draw something that could pass for an eye.
Over 5000 years ago, the ancient Egyptians went through a process that was similar to this. Here’s what they came up with for the eye of Horus:
De-stylizing the image makes it way, way easier to copy.
And, the Egyptians also decided that it would be a lot easier to write if every symbol represented not only a word, but also a phonetic sound that was close to the original word. So, if you knew that the drawing above represented the eye of Horus, the god of the sun and sky, you could easily convey that with a symbol.
The really genius part came about by way of laziness.
Egyptians realized that a symbol for a thing was powerful, but you were somewhat limited because you had to know a lot of symbols, and any time you wanted to convey a symbol for a word or concept, you had to make up something entirely new.
Every. Single. Time.
The innovation was to have a symbol represent not a god or object, but instead a sound.
The Eye of Horus started out representing Horus himself, but over time, this symbol came to represent the sound ‘ir’ in Egyptian writing.
This was a significant leap in the evolution of hieroglyphics, morphing from merely pictorial to a system infused with phonetic values, allowing for more complex expressions and a broader range of communication.
Now, if you learned a handful of symbols, you could put together any word you needed to. This was a proto-alphabet, and the precursor of the very letters I’m typing right now.
I am using the concept the ancient Egyptians invented more than 5000 years ago to tell you about a concept ancient Egyptians invented more than 5000 years ago.
These enormous mental leaps—using symbols of images to represent things, not just the images themselves; and these simplified images representing sound—are responsible for the way most written communication happens on the planet today.
Egypt was far from the only civilization to develop writing. From the Sumerians around the same time, to ancient China 1500 years later, to the Mayans around 2300 years ago, writing cropped up all around the world. However, there’s an unbroken line between Egypt’s innovations and this piece:
Ancient Egyptians started using stylized hieroglyphs as symbols to represent concepts. These simplified symbols were easy to copy, so they caught on quickly. However, it wasn’t until these symbols came to represent phonetic sounds and not just words that the really big leap was made.
Eventually, the script made its way to the Sinai peninsula, where it took on a life of its own, gradually becoming more simplified until the Phoenicians codified these symbols into an alphabet, one more dramatic leap upward:
Ancient Greece picked up the ball from the Phoenicians, codifying their own alphabet, and then the Romans (who loved everything Greek) adopted and modified their letters into… well, ours.
Can you see how the Phoenician script above became today’s Latin alphabet? There are an awful lot of familiar characters, especially considering that the script is around 3500 years old.
I hope you’ve enjoyed traveling back through time with me today. From the banks of the Nile to my laptop’s clacking keys, we are incredibly fortunate to be able to trace this unbroken line all the way back to the points of innovation.
As you leave me a comment here today, consider the story the letters you’re typing represent.
You're going to like a future essay I'm writing on the Hebrew word "Elohim" with the root "El" formed from the Phonecian "Aleph" and "Lamehd" and how that ties into the Biblical story from Exodos of the Golden Calf.
This is fun, you know I like putting words and shapes (and all the senses) together. (Can you tell I'm catching up - you write faster than I read ;)