Handwriting - The History of Handwriting

Ancient Communication

Writing is a form of simple coded but standardized symbols of agreed upon shapes & size. Different symbols developed in different cultural communities which are used to interact with each other by making repeated use of the same. This over span of years developed into a set pattern, which generally came to be known as “language”.

The major contributors in development

Historians are of the opinion,  that the three major contributors to the developments of writings came from Sumerian-cuneiform in 3000 BC, Egyptian- hieroglyphs in 2800 BC & the Chinese-kanji in 1800 BC.

Ideographs to Phonograms

Simple Pictographs used to represent people, place & things were later combined to express ideas & thus became the ideographs, evolving themselves beyond the original drawings. Different cultures adapted different methods of writing the ideographs. The Sumerian Scribes from top to bottom & right to left.

Various Ideographs were combined to meet the Phonetic requirements of the developing languages. These combination of various shorter ideographs came to be known as Phonograms.

Modern Writing

The Use of ink

The use of ink is one of the greatest invention that accelerated the development of modern written communication. This can be traced back to the use of “Papyrus and Reed Brush” by the Egyptians, which dates back to 2000 B.C. It is also also known as Hierographs. These were further simplified in 1500 B.C. for Priestly Writing & came to be known as Hieratic Script. With more wide spread use by the common masses by  500 B.C. it was called the Demotic Script or the script of people. 

The progressive development of alphabets

22 Phonetically based symbols were accepted around 1500 B.C. & were widely  used in Greece. Under Alexander The Great in his era of expansion that is in 500 B.C. these symbols spread across to as far as Egypt, Persia and India.

The rise of the Roman Empire in 146 BC saw the adaptation of 23 letter, with ascenders & descenders finding place, alphabets across the borders of England, North Africa, Europe, and Persian Gulf.

With the width of the Alphabets being condensed by 400 AD, around 600AD the the Christianity or the Celtic Writing came into acceptance. Roman script came into existence and widely excepted in both lower and upper case. The space between words were also added to enhance readability.

During the reign of Charlemagne, writing was standardized. With addition of three alphabets v, u & j, the 26 alphabets of the roman script came into being between 700 AD to 1500 AD.

Institutions for development & mass awareness

Mid 1700 AD saw many institutions being established to spread the 26 alphabets its use & mass awareness. The growth of the British Empire proved to be one major contributors to the wide spread development & acceptance of the modern Roman script.