Author Archives: ducky

About ducky

I'm a computer programmer professionally, currently working on mapping applications. I have been interested non-professionally for a long time in the effect on society on advances in communications technology -- things like writing, vowels, spaces between words, paper, etc.

Administration: pub time, comments

Posted on February 9, 2011 by ducky

Two administrative things: #1: I have changed the time I schedule posts to automatically publish from 00:01 to 20:30.  I discovered that I was trying to wait up until the pub time in order to announce the publication on Facebook, … Continue reading →

Posted in Administration | 1 Comment

Samaritan — ~600 BC, Israel

Posted on February 8, 2011 by ducky

There is a joke among linguists about the difference between a dialect and a language: “a language is a dialect with a standing army”. Similarly, I think that the distinction between the first alphabet used to write Hebrew — what … Continue reading →

Posted in Abjad, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | Leave a comment

Venetic — 690 BC, Italy

Posted on February 7, 2011 by ducky

Venetic was an Indo-European language related to Latin, spoken on the Italian peninsula in the vicinity of what became Venice.  Venetic was one of several scripts in what is now Italy, representing quite a few languages: Latin, Etruscan, Venetic, Faliscan … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | Leave a comment

Old Persian cuneiform — 525 BC?, Iran

Posted on February 6, 2011 by ducky

The earliest Old Persian cuneiform we know of is in a stupid-huge trilingual inscription in Old Persian, Elamite cuneiform, and Babylonian cuneiform (basically well-aged Akkadian cuneiform).  The inscription, at Behistun, Iran, is 15m by 25m, 100m up the side of … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!", Syllabaries | 2 Comments

Lycian — 600 BC?, Turkey

Posted on February 5, 2011 by ducky

The Lycians lived in southwest Turkey, not far from Greece, but spoke a descendant of Luwian.   They made a new alphabet by adding a few characters to the Dorian dialect of the Greek  alphabet.  Some of the letters might have … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 1 Comment

Carian — 650 BC?, Turkey

Posted on February 4, 2011 by ducky

There are a fair number of texts in Carian in both southwestern Turkey and in Egypt, but archeologists had a devil of a time figuring out what they said.  This was a bit odd, as the Carians used a variant … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 1 Comment

Latin Majuscule — 690 BC, Italy

Posted on February 3, 2011 by ducky

Latin script and its variants are the most widely used writing systems in the world.  Latin script is the primary writing system in most of Europe, almost all of North America, South America, Australia, and Antarctica, large portions of Africa, … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, Rating: 4 "Huh, interesting!" | 8 Comments

Etruscan — Italy, 700 BC

Posted on February 2, 2011 by ducky

Somewhat unusually, the Etruscan writing system is completely understood, but the Etruscan language is not.  With the early Cypriot script, archeological linguists can guess that the symbols in early Cypriot writing system corresponded to the same pronunciation and orthography as … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, language unknown, Rating: 3 "I did not know that" | 3 Comments

Zero — various times, various places

Posted on February 1, 2011 by ducky

When I was a little girl, I thought the concept of zero had always been with humans, sort of like food and pain and sky.  When I got a bit older, I learned that zero had been discovered/invented rather recently … Continue reading →

Posted in Numbers, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!" | Leave a comment

Greek — 800 BC, Greece

Posted on January 31, 2011 by ducky

Greek legend says that a Phoenician, Cadmus, brought writing to the Greeks.  This is not hard to believe, as the earliest Greek glyphs look very similar to Phoenician.  However, the Greek alphabet had something from the beginning that no other … Continue reading →

Posted in Alphabet, previous script didn't quite work, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!" | 9 Comments