Evolution of written language.

How writing was formed is a very interesting process. It started with pictographs and worked its way up from there.  Accountants, to keep track of who paid whom what and who owed whom what, used the earliest form of record keeping and writing. Which makes sense if you think about it. There was no real need for it. It evolved from there mostly for political purposes. Messages and stuff like that. The kings and queens sending the messages didn’t know how to read or write them, so they had people called scribes who would write the messages, deliver them, and read them to their intended recipient. In some places scribes were very proud of their work. They saw themselves as superior because only they could read and know the things that had been written down. Religious leaders also knew how to read, because of the bible. When written language became more common, it was just symbols and pretty much had nothing to do with how things actually sounded when spoken. The first examples of phonetic language were when people’s names were written down. I think that is so cool. The fact that you can follow the evolution of language so well is awesome to me. Words are always something I have been interested in. I always wanted to take Latin to try to learn all the roots and origins of words, but unfortunately when I started taking my college foreign language credits, Latin was not offered. Some people were very opposed to the widespread use of written language, which is crazy to me. Today everything we do is in written language. Well, not everything, but a lot of things. We communicate through texting with our parents and friends, emailing our professors and bosses, keeping up with each other on social media. Its crazy how much people read on a day-to-day basis. It isn’t books that they are reading, but its definitely written word. And it all started with some drawings on a cave wall. That is so insanely cool .

Monkey Sphere

            In the book Writing on the Wall I found the first chapter very interesting. Learning about the research about monkeys and how they form social groups was almost mind blowing to me. I had heard of the “monkey sphere” before. I had no idea that within larger groups, that monkeys form even smaller grooming cohabitations and how complicated that they can be. Who the monkeys choose to groom and what smaller groups they choose to be in is extremely calculated. Everything they do is in relation to their social status to the rest of the group. I had no idea that monkey society was that complex. Baby monkeys will even trick the whole group into thinking that there is danger to get out of trouble with their mothers. It goes on to explain that humans behave in much the same way. Apparently, the larger the brain size, the more capable of handling social situations we are. That means we can have more people in our “monkey sphere”. If I am remembering correctly, that means about 150 people for humans. With social network I am going to assume that we all have more than 150 “friends”, but that’s the number it is thought that we can actually connect with. We even have smaller groups within our larger one. Look at any group of friends and you will see what I am talking about. For our grooming cohabitations, we no longer use grooming we use gossip. This is something else I found incredibly interesting. Gossip is a fundamental part of how we relate to each other as people and how we build relationships. Gossip is always looked at as a bad thing, but it is legitimately how we grow as a species. It is how we build trust with each other and warn others about people that could possibly hurt them or cause them pain. All of this makes a lot of sense to me. I was just so shocked at the similarities you can draw between the social groups between monkeys and people.

Readers Interviews

Blog 2

The class and early books

     So far my class, History of Print Culture, or as my professor likes to call it, The Business of Books had been incredibly interesting. Ever since I was a little kid books have been a passion of mine. I would stay up way later than my parents would allow and try to read my books in the dim light my cracked closet door allowed to cast across the room. I would collect books from my grandparents house, and make trips to the public library with my mom and fill an entire shoulder bag full of books to take home. One of the most exciting moments from my childhood was when I learned how to sign my name so that I could get a library card. So I guess you could say that I really love books. Everything about them. Not just reading them. So taking this class I have been very excited that so far, we have been talking about the history of books, and how they used to be made. From scribes to Gutenberg people painstakingly and lovingly put books together. Books were a form of art (still are in my opinion) when everything was handlettered and hand stitched. The drawings were all by hand, and books were so rare that only the rich could really afford them. People were much less educated and bound books were reserved for the churches. With the invention of the printing press, books became more widespread, although still rare. And with this came an interesting reaction. Religious authorities began speaking out harshly against books, claiming they should be reserved for holy use only and that they would change society for the worse. Even intellectuals, philosophers, spoke out against books claiming that they were inferior to the spoken word, and that they could never capture the emotion and expression expressed through telling a story by mouth. They said that a man would never have to remember anything for himself because he could just write it down to recall later. This was an especially interesting point in the class because the same sort of thing is happening in our society now, just not with books. With the invention of social media, these problems and questions are being raised again. I don't think anyone in modern society will argue that books were a bad invention that affected society in a poor way. Unless maybe you talk to a college student who has to read a textbook in a couple days time. Now we're faced with wondering in social media is detrimental to our society. There's is no question that it is changing society, and that we are in the middle of a cultural revolution, but is it harmful? It is definitely something interesting to think about.