Category Archives: Rating: 5 “Whoa!!”

Aztec — 1400 AD, Mexico

Posted on January 15, 2011 by ducky

There are no pre-Columbian Aztec books remaining: the colonists managed to get every last one.  However, there are a few books written by Aztecs left from the period after the Spaniards occupied the land, with translations/explanations written in Spanish. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Logograms, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!" | 4 Comments

Mixtec — 1200 AD, Mexico

Posted on January 14, 2011 by ducky

The Mixtec writing system is from Southern Mexico, very close to the Mayan civilization in distance and contemporaneous.  The Spaniards only did half as good a job destroying the Mixtecs books — there are a whopping eight pre-Columbian Mixtec books … Continue reading →

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

Maya — 250 BC, Guatemala

Posted on January 13, 2011 by ducky

Maya script is a very rich and complicated script, and the colonizing Spaniards did an outstanding job of eradicating it.  For example, they managed to destroy all but four books written in Maya script. Fortunately, many carved examples of Mayan … Continue reading →

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

Traditional Chinese — 220 AD, China

Posted on January 8, 2011 by ducky

Traditional Chinese — also called “Regular Chinese” or “kǎishū”, appeared around 200 BC. There were numerous evolutionary stages between Small Seal and Traditional Chinese, including a looser, more calligraphic style called “Clerical Script”. At this stage, some of the stylistic … Continue reading →

Posted in Evolved slowly from parent, Logograms, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!", technology influenced | 18 Comments

Proto-writing — 7000 BC, Iraq

Posted on January 1, 2011 by ducky

Nobody wrote down how writing got invented (duh), but there is speculation as to the origin of writing. Archeologists have found small clay objects that they think were used in commerce to represent various goods, starting in about 7000 BC … Continue reading →

Posted in developed by illiterate(s), first in its area, Logograms, Rating: 5 "Whoa!!" | 4 Comments