Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization

by Barry B. Powell

Writing: Theory and History of the Technology of Civilization traces the origins of writing tied to speech from ancient Sumer through the Greek alphabet and beyond.

Examines the earliest evidence for writing in Mesopotamia in the fourth millennium BC, the origins of purely phonographic systems, and the mystery of alphabetic writing

Includes discussions of Ancient Egyptian, Chinese, and Mayan writing

Shows how the structures of writing served and do serve social needs and in turn create patterns of social behavior

Clarifies the argument with many illustrations

Genres: Language, Nonfiction

296 pages, Hardcover

First published April 20, 2009

Reviews

[Grzegorz Chrupała · Rating 2 out of 5]

Disappointing. This is a book-length rant about how everyone is wrong because they don't subscribe to the author's crank theories about the nature of writing. Thin on evidence and argument, thick with bald assertion.

[Sam Beal · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you do not have a background in linguistics this may prove to be a difficult read. I now have a new appreciation for writing, something many of us take for granted.

[Samuel Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun if intermittently a bit truculent. Like hiking around Mesopotomia with a swashbuckling pedant.

Haven't meddled in this literature for years, so not sure how influential is his theory that West Semitic syllabaries (sic) were adapted into the Greek alphabet specifically to support epic poetry. I'm skeptical, but I enjoyed the presentation anyway. I'm also not entirely sure what he gains in terms of rigor with his taxonomy of semasiographic writing, but I can see how it at least functions as a metaphor to help him frame his broader arguments with imprecise historians of writing. I wished he had done some work to explore parallels between his semasiography and indexical vocalisms (animal alarm calls, etc). The parallels may be false, but they at least merit an explicit dismissal.

I did love his iconoclastic take on pictography, even if the exposition is sometimes muddled. I think assuming that the rebus explains everything about the transition into syllabaries is probably extreme, but he's likely correct that pictography qua pictography is relatively limited in scope.

In any case, a quick, fun romp through the visible signals left to us from the world of the ancient Near East.

[Joseph Hirsch · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classical scholar Barry P. Powell makes the point early in Writing that if the course of human history were a year, written language would have only existed since this very afternoon. It definitely underscores his argument that written language—specifically the Greek alphabet—is the greatest technological achievement in human history.
But how did we get here? How did we go from crude pictograms of men hunting elk smeared in vermillion on cave walls to great abstractions like novel-length works that could be read aloud hundreds of years after their creators died?
Writing does a stellar job of tracing the development of writing and its sometimes tenuous or even nonexistent relationship to speech. It follows the development of written language in China and Egypt, as something done as much for aesthetic beauty as to contain information. Powell also notes the deliberate density and obscurantist bent in the art of the scribe that predominated, especially in Egypt, where something like .3 percent of the population was literate. The purpose of written language, in fact— everywhere from along the Nile to the Yucatan— was to distinguish the tiny ruling class from the undifferentiated rabble. Logographic writing was many times aesthetically pleasing, but was also deliberately complex in order to discourage the scrutiny of unworthy eyes.
It wasn’t until the Attic efflorescence when the simplicity of the alphabet made literacy about ten times as common, and a tool to create great poetry as well as financial records and lists of the small cabal of elites bound for heaven.
The book is brilliant at times, but is thwarted also by the author’s pedantic insistence on using his own bevy of coined terms to describe his theories. There is plenty of existing language that would have made the book more accessible, but, like most academics, Powell has a petty streak (and maybe a grudge or two.) Dr. Powell goes especially hard on those who insist on using the perfectly good term “ideogram,” and his repeated harping on this peeve just makes him come off as churlish and petty.
Thankfully, though, he only gets occasionally distracted rather than completely derailed from his mission of sharing the knowledge, history, and his pet theories of how language developed throughout history.
With photos and images of glyphs and writing on every surface from papyrus to giant stellae. Recommended.

[Celia Abellán Pizana · Rating 4 out of 5]

After having purchased "Reading the Past" by J.T. Hooler, I was left thinking about how could Chinese writing have developed since the Bronze Age, so I searched through the Internet and found this book. Although basic, it gives the reader an ideal initiation to seek further investigation and reading about whichever ancient language picks the interest of the reader.