Week Two - Visual Language

Our weekly reading assignment was really interesting this week. It was all about the origins of written communication and the advent of alphabets. I was intrigued by how well the book covered the topic – it really took me around the world and showed me how written language developed in different civilizations. Egypt, Mesopotamia and Greece were all covered, which I had studied before, but it also covered topics such as Chinese calligraphy and the Korean alphabet, which I have not been exposed to before and found really fascinating.

It also touched on the origins of writing – concepts like pictograms, petroglyphs and hieroglyphics. I have been lucky enough to see some actual petroglyphs in person on a visit to the Big Island of Hawaii years ago. I have to say, I wish I had taken this course or been able to read our text before that trip. I know at the time that I saw the petroglyphs that the thing that was the most interesting to me at that moment was the age of the petroglyphs, and that they were still in existence for us to see. I had no idea that what I was looking at was language. 

 

 

In fact, I honestly think one of the things that struck me the most was how basic the images were. I probably thought more about how much humans have evolved since that point, and how much better art was today. I totally missed the point that the petroglyphs were not meant to be art but instead were an emerging form of communication! I am shaking my head now at how I undervalued those images at the time, and I hope I can go back and see them again. I truly have a different vision about what an incredible piece of human history exists there. 

 

Thinking about those petroglyphs, and how I didn’t understand them and appreciate them as a language or form of communication made me think about a passage in our textbook  - it mentioned how the Egyptian hieroglyphics were not understood for nearly fifteen centuries. People were fascinated by the images but did not understand them until Napoleon’s expedition turned up the Rosetta Stone and Jean-Francois Champollion started to translate them.

I wonder if centuries from now, our predecessors will still communicate in ways similar to how we do today? Will they be able to look back at us, their ancestors, and understand our language and our writing? Or will they make the same mistake I did and undervalue our written language as basic and perhaps a primitive art form? Will they have anything to learn from us?

One thing is for sure – I have learned to appreciate the history of written language from our reading this week, and will do my best to keep my mind open to where communication started and where it is headed.

Images sourced from Google, originally published here:

http://www.gohawaii.com/big-island/guidebook/topics/petroglyphs
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dayland/4563634657/
http://saturdaybriefing.outrigger.com/dr-kelleys-weekly-briefing/rubbing-petroglyphs-at-outrigger-hotels/