Written Language in Europe: Wut Do Those Funny Marks Mean

Morninglord

Alright I asked this question last night in the chat thread and people jumped the shark and answered the wrong question. I decided it was worth a thread since people seemed so interested in talking about their language differences.

Basically the question is this:

In modern written correspondence and typography, most European languages appear to adhere to a very similar set of letters to the English written language and typography. That is, they have around 26 or so letters, and indicate differences in pronunciation with combinations of these letters put together differently (ae as a Dutch phonetic sound for example) and extra pronunciation marks.

Now I have little knowledge about these matters, but I do know that Greece at least used to have its own written language that used different symbols than English.

What I want to know, is wether the European languages that use the current English phonetic symbols in their own way used to have their own, completely distinct, set of written symbols.

Since this is debate, I'll put forth an extremely uneducated hypothesis (since debates are always better with a hypothesis to yell at/agree with) vis a vis that they did not, and they stole the English symbols as a convenient way to construct a written language when they realised they needed one.

If you disagree with this hypothesis, by all means, throw those other symbols at the thread that are not constructed of English written symbols put together differently or with a few extra squiggles.

I am keenly interested in seeing them.

I'm going to be really dissapointed if the hypothesis is mostly correct.


This thread could also be used as a discussion of spoken language differences in the European Continent/ America, but really the question is regarding written symbols rather than languages themselves and that's the original question that did not get answered so try to answer that one first eh.



edit: I have been informed that everything came from Latin and was spread by the Romans. This is very fascinating, I didn't know this. Was there anything before the Romans? This is what I want to know.

edit2: I now see that this op is woefully ignorant, so its best to see the rest of the thread for a better discussion before replying.

edit3: Here is a restatement of the question for those who don't want to read the thread.

Let me rephrase the question using the words I have since learnt.

I'm asking if there's any evidence of any written language being derived completely independently of Sumerian based languages from Northern Europe before the Romans spread it to them.

Let's for example take, oh I don't know, Finland. Let's assume there were people here before the Romans got there. What did these people in Finland use to communicate to each other non verbally. Are there any records of such a language, and what form did the symbols take. Remember this is before the Romans got here, so it can't be Sumerian. They have not been influenced by this yet. Futhark is a very close approximation of what I'm talking about, but it evolved well after Old Italic and Latin, and was clearly influenced by them.

Now apply that example to every single collection of major peoples in Europe before the Romans got there.
Did any of them have a written word non derived from Sumerian. It can be proto-writing, and not a proper alphabet, that is fine. Just did it exist, is there any evidence.

The answer that I have gathered so far is no.

redx

I don't get it.

Everyone went and stole it from rome, after they fell. Those that hadn't already had romans invade and bring it with them.

it's from latin. it hasn't changed much. Stuff has been added, and there are ligatures and shit, but everyone pretty much got iit from the romans. Eventually.


It was popular and worked well. So people adopted it. Like, roman numbers suck ass, so we use arabic ones.

I'm baked. I must be missing something important.

Medopine

Greco-Roman alphabets are pretty much the source of the alphabet you're talking about.

Aroused Bull

Yeah, they're Latin letters. Rome conquered Europe, Latin became the hip language, especially in places with little or no written language themselves. Latin characters were copied for writing things in the vernacular. After Rome fell, everyone kept the alphabet, making minor changes here and there as appropriate.
I thought everyone knew this.

Oboro

Yeah, the runic alphabets that existed in certain parts of Europe were more or less just repeated flashes in the frying pan. There were attempts to reinvigorate them at various points in history, but the Greco-Roman steamroller don't stop for nada.

Medopine

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet#European_alphabets

Morninglord

Jesus alright fine replace English with Latin above.

I want to know about the flashes in the pan.

Medopine

So you're basically wanting to know the history of the written alphabet?

Or what's the question here?

redx

Nordic runes and shit?

meh, the bluetooth logo is a ligature of two of them. That's about all I know.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alphabet ?

Morninglord

I made edit clarifying the question.

Medopine

Ahh, well that's interesting shit.

Specifically who came up with writing first (go Egypt!) and whether or not it generated in several places at once.

For Greco-Latin characters though, look to the Phoenicians - sea faring traders that spread their letters around the Mediterranean.

Haphazard

Medopine wrote: »

Ahh, well that's interesting shit.

Specifically who came up with writing first (go Egypt!) and whether or not it generated in several places at once.

For Greco-Latin characters though, look to the Phoenicians - sea faring traders that spread their letters around the Mediterranean.

I thought cuneiform writing was invented by the Sumerans, not the Egyptians?

Morninglord

Just to be clear, now that I know about the greco-latin characters, I'm no longer really interested in them, just as the original misinformed post was not interested in the "english".

Aren't there any old cave scrawlings in europe anywhere with strange old letters? Or did nobody even bother writing before the romans? I know now about Cyrillic, the russian symbols. Also about the arabian and asian symbol sets. But nothing seems to have originated from northern europe at all, not even as a it existed but the romans rolled them into the ground.

Did vikings have a script?

Sorry if my posts are really uneducated as I am from australia and really don't know anything about Europe. I'm just interested.

edit: Here's an interesting quote:

The earliest known alphabet in the wider sense is the Wadi el-Hol script, believed to be an abjad, which through its successor Phoenician is the ancestor of modern alphabets, including Arabic, Greek, Latin (via the Old Italic alphabet), Cyrillic (via the Greek alphabet) and Hebrew (via Aramaic).

Some more info about the Antolian Heiroglphs, dating back to 1400BC:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anatolian_hieroglyph

They were more on the halfway point between southwest asia and europe though.

Medopine

Haphazard wrote: »

Medopine wrote: »

Ahh, well that's interesting shit.

Specifically who came up with writing first (go Egypt!) and whether or not it generated in several places at once.

For Greco-Latin characters though, look to the Phoenicians - sea faring traders that spread their letters around the Mediterranean.

I thought cuneiform writing was invented by the Sumerans, not the Egyptians?

Yeah though there is some evidence that heiroglyphs showed up earlier in Egypt, or at the very least showed up independently. Trying to dig up some links - I got this in college when I was taking my Egyptian history courses for fun.

Aroused Bull

Yes, the Norse had a script. Futhark, I believe they used.

Look, basically, writing was developed in a few locations around the middle east a bit less than five thousand years ago. Prior to that, people drew pictures, but they didn't have any kind of alphabet or means of transcribing speech. The Egyptians developed a pictographic hieroglyphic system. This was then refined by the Phoenicians into a more traditional alphabet, with symbols for individual consonants but no vowels. The Phoenicians spread that around a bit, and eventually the Greeks learned of it. They refined it into the Greek alphabet, which had vowels and was no longer pictographic. Later, when the Romans copied Greek culture, they also copied their alphabet but changed it some more into the Latin alphabet. They then proceeded to spread that to most of Europe.
That's all paraphrased somewhat. You get the gist.

Morninglord

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark

Common opinion is that is was derived from Old Italic/Latin scripts. So it doesn't count.

Aroused Bull

Morninglord wrote: »

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elder_Futhark

Common opinion is that is was derived from Old Italic/Latin scripts. So it doesn't count.

Doesn't count for what?

Aegis

On a slight tangent,

What I want to know, is wether the European languages that use the current English phonetic symbols in their own way used to have their own, completely distinct, set of written symbols.

This is slightly incorrect usage of the term or phrase "phonetic symbols". I believe what you were looking for was the term "orthography" because Phonetic symbols (as my two linguistic and phonetics classes are teaching me this year) are these . Conveniently enough, you can write any language using that particular orthography since they refer specifically to speech sounds produced.

Medopine

ArrBeeBee wrote: »

Yes, the Norse had a script. Futhark, I believe they used.

Look, basically, writing was developed in a few locations around the middle east a bit less than five thousand years ago. Prior to that, people drew pictures, but they didn't have any kind of alphabet or means of transcribing speech. The Egyptians developed a pictographic hieroglyphic system. This was then refined by the Phoenicians into a more traditional alphabet, with symbols for individual consonants but no vowels. The Phoenicians spread that around a bit, and eventually the Greeks learned of it. They refined it into the Greek alphabet, which had vowels and was no longer pictographic. Later, when the Romans copied Greek culture, they also copied their alphabet but changed it some more into the Latin alphabet. They then proceeded to spread that to most of Europe.
That's all paraphrased somewhat. You get the gist.

Also sprung to life in Easter Island and in South America, let's not forget.

And the heiroglyphic system of the Egyptians is NOT pictographic, because the figures directly represent phonetic sounds/letters as well as ideas or word "qualifiers".

Medopine

In December 1998, Dr. Gunter Dreyer, director of the German Archeological Institute in Egypt, announced new radiocarbon dates for tombs at Abydos, on the Nile about 250 miles south of Cairo. The dates indicated that some hieroglyphic inscriptions on pots, bone and ivory in the tombs were made at least as early as 3200 B.C., possibly 3400. It was now an ''open question,'' Dr. Dreyer said, whether writing appeared first in Egypt or Mesopotamia.

At the symposium, Dr. John Baines, an Oxford University Egyptologist who had just visited Dr. Dreyer, expressed skepticism in polite terms. ''I'm suspicious of the dates,'' he said in an interview. ''I think he's being very bold in his readings of these things.''

Source: http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9B01EFD61139F935A35757C0A96F958260&sec=&spon=&pagewanted=1


So, take it as you will.

Morninglord

Arbee: Doesn't count as what I am looking for: A northern european writing system not derived from either cunieform or egyptian heiroglyphics.

Aegis: I don't know the field and I struggled with the wording of the op, so thanks for that I'll remember that word in future.

Basically it doesn't look like one existed, or if it did, there are no records.

Aroused Bull

Medopine wrote: »

ArrBeeBee wrote: »

Yes, the Norse had a script. Futhark, I believe they used.

Look, basically, writing was developed in a few locations around the middle east a bit less than five thousand years ago. Prior to that, people drew pictures, but they didn't have any kind of alphabet or means of transcribing speech. The Egyptians developed a pictographic hieroglyphic system. This was then refined by the Phoenicians into a more traditional alphabet, with symbols for individual consonants but no vowels. The Phoenicians spread that around a bit, and eventually the Greeks learned of it. They refined it into the Greek alphabet, which had vowels and was no longer pictographic. Later, when the Romans copied Greek culture, they also copied their alphabet but changed it some more into the Latin alphabet. They then proceeded to spread that to most of Europe.
That's all paraphrased somewhat. You get the gist.

Also sprung to life in Easter Island and in South America, let's not forget.

And the heiroglyphic system of the Egyptians is NOT pictographic, because the figures directly represent phonetic sounds/letters as well as ideas or word "qualifiers".

Yeah, I misused the word.

Janin

Morninglord wrote: »

Arbee: Doesn't count as what I am looking for: A northern european writing system not derived from either cunieform or egyptian heiroglyphics.

Aegis: I don't know the field and I struggled with the wording of the op, so thanks for that I'll remember that word in future.

Basically it doesn't look like one existed, or if it did, there are no records.

Are you looking for something like runes? Runic alphabets existed before Rome conquered Europe.

Podly

People should have to read Guns, Germs and Steel before they post here.

Or at least have passed Jr. High.

Morninglord

Janin wrote: »

Morninglord wrote: »

Arbee: Doesn't count as what I am looking for: A northern european writing system not derived from either cunieform or egyptian heiroglyphics.

Aegis: I don't know the field and I struggled with the wording of the op, so thanks for that I'll remember that word in future.

Basically it doesn't look like one existed, or if it did, there are no records.

Are you looking for something like runes? Runic alphabets existed before Rome conquered Europe.

They did, but according to the very article you just cited, its highly likely they were descended from mediterranean languages in the first place, rather than originally conceived.

Raakam

This link is helpful, maybe?

Janin

Morninglord wrote: »

Janin wrote: »

Morninglord wrote: »

Arbee: Doesn't count as what I am looking for: A northern european writing system not derived from either cunieform or egyptian heiroglyphics.

Aegis: I don't know the field and I struggled with the wording of the op, so thanks for that I'll remember that word in future.

Basically it doesn't look like one existed, or if it did, there are no records.

Are you looking for something like runes? Runic alphabets existed before Rome conquered Europe.

They did, but according to the very article you just cited, its highly likely they were descended from mediterranean languages in the first place, rather than originally conceived.

It'll be nearly impossible to find a European language not descended from early Mediterranean languages, if only because the area's just not very big (easier to travel from Italy -> Norway than Italy -> China).