Cuneiform is considered the earliest known writing system in the world. She first appeared in the XXXIV century BC. in Ancient Mesopotamia.
By the middle of the 3rd millennium BC. e. cuneiform, now used at least for the Sumerian and Akkadian languages, developed into a more or less stable verbal-syllabic system, which included about 600 signs, which were characterized by both polyphony and homophony. In subsequent centuries, all 600 signs were never used at the same time in one place.
Cuneiform of Xerxes in the Van fortress in Turkey, written in three languages: Old Persian, Akkadian and Elamite.
Following the spread of the Sumerian-Akkadian culture throughout Asia Minor, cuneiform began to spread everywhere. First of all, together with the Akkadian language, but gradually adapting to the local languages. From some languages we know only individual glosses, proper names or isolated texts (Kassite, Amorite, Amarna-Canaanite, Hutt). Only 4 languages are known that have adapted and systematically used cuneiform for a large body of texts: Elamite, Hurrian, Hittite and Urartian:
* Elamite cuneiform (2500-331 BC)
* Hurrian cuneiform (2000-XII / XI centuries BC)
* Hittite cuneiform (XVII-XIII centuries BC)
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* Urartian cuneiform (830-650 BC).
The form of writing was largely determined by the writing material - a clay tablet, on which, while the clay was still soft, signs were squeezed out with a wooden writing stick or a pointed reed; hence the "wedge-shaped" strokes.
Most of the cuneiform writing systems date back to Sumerian (via Akkadian). In the Late Bronze Age and in antiquity, there were writing systems that outwardly resemble Akkadian cuneiform, but of a different origin (Ugaritic writing, Cypriot-Minoan writing, Persian cuneiform).
The oldest piece of Sumerian writing is a tablet from Kish (about 3500 BC). It is followed in time by documents found at the excavations of the ancient city of Uruk, dating back to 3300 BC. e. The emergence of writing coincides in time with the development of cities and the accompanying complete restructuring of society. At the same time, the wheel and knowledge about copper smelting appeared in Ancient Mesopotamia.
Between the Tigris and the Euphrates was the Sumerian kingdom, and in the east - the kingdom of Elam. Governors, merchants, and artisans lived in the cities of these rather urbanized states. Outside the cities there are peasants and shepherds.
Both the commercial and administrative contacts of all these groups needed to be captured in some form. It was from this need that writing emerged.
The first system of recording was created by the Sumerians. Elam, where at that time only a set of scattered pictograms was used, adapted the Sumerian script to suit his language.
To account for property in Sumer and Elam, a system of clay chips of various shapes (Tokens) was used. Initially, each token designated one object (a cow, a ram, etc.) Then the size and shape of the token began to undergo changes. And soon marks began to appear on them (fingerprints, serifs, recognizable geometric shapes).
The tokens were stored in a clay container, which was often sealed with a cylindrical seal identifying the owner. Thus, for example, if a container contained information on the number of head of cattle in a herd, it had to be broken in order to count the balls in it.
By 3300 BC. e. on the surface of the container, along with the owner's seal, prints of the tokens contained in the envelope began to appear. Thus, the information contained in a set of icons placed in a clay ball was duplicated by imprinting the same icons on its surface. This made it possible to read the information contained in the envelope without breaking it, and made it difficult for unauthorized changes to the information. Gradually, physical tokens disappeared, only their prints remained, and the spherical container became flat. This is how the first clay tablets appeared with the first records of the number of certain objects: circles and corners, squeezed out in clay, the shape and size of which indicated the designated object and its quantity. At the same time, there was no abstract concept of a “universal unit of measurement”. Each symbol existed only in connection with its qualitative and quantitative feature. One sheep is not equal to one measure of grain.
Thus, the first symbols of writing took the form of countable objects (goods). For example, the sign "1 goat", "2 sheep", "3 measures of grain" Playing the role of a "symbol-picture", they were by definition pictograms.
Subsequently, stable combinations of pictograms began to form, the meaning of which gradually departed from the sum of the meanings of the pictures. For example, the sign "bird" together with the sign "egg" gave the combination "fertility" not only as applied to birds, but also as an abstract term. These combinations were already ideograms ("symbol-idea").
By 3000 BC. e. the resulting pictograms and ideograms began to be used phonetically, composing from these symbols (“symbol-sound”) words that sometimes have no, even indirect, relation to the objects depicted.
The writing style changes at the same time. To simplify writing, all the symbols are decomposed into short segments (wedges - where is the name of the writing), which no longer needed to be carved in clay, but could simply be applied using a kalama - a special stick with a pointed triangular end.
Parallel to this, existing symbols are rotated 90 ° counterclockwise.
The vocabulary of the new writing system is constantly updated, the styles are being refined and standardized. Writing is already capable of quite accurately conveying the Sumerian language, not only administrative and legal journals, but also literary works, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Starting from the II millennium BC. e. Cuneiform is spreading throughout the Middle East, as evidenced by the Amarna Archives and the Bogazkoy Archives.
Gradually, this recording system was superseded by other language recording systems that appeared by that time.
Development of cuneiform from pictograms (for example, the SAG sign "head"): 1) pictogram, approx. 3000 BC e. 2) inverted pictogram, approx. 2800 BC e. 3) an ideogram carved on stone or metal, approx. 2500 - 2350 BC e. 4) a cuneiform sign, embossed on clay, ca 2500 - 2350 BC. e. 5) the end of the III millennium BC. e. 6) II millennium BC e. 7) I millennium BC.
The Sumerians used cuneiform writing that evolved from pictography. Cuneiform signs fall into several categories:
- logograms expressing only the meaning of the root;
- sylabograms, indicating only the sound of a syllable;
- numbers;
determinatives, unpronounced signs, which served to refer a word to some lexical-semantic field.
The ancient Persian cuneiform and the Ugaritic alphabet are cuneiform in form, but independent in origin. The latter, according to A. G. Lundin, was an adaptation to writing on clay of a different writing (Proto-Canaanite or Sinai), from which the Phoenician writing also originated, in favor of which the order of signs and their reading testifies.
The Cypriot-Minoan script was also an attempt to adapt the Aegean-type script to writing exclusively in clay. The closest to the cuneiform writing are the signs of the tablet found in Ashdod.