Origins of Writing- Matthew Winkler

Primal Religions
Reflection 2

On October 20, 2010 some of the students presented information from Walter J. Ong’s book, Orality and Literacy. In this class in particular the topic was the origin on writing in its most elementary forms and how it spread. Most writing originated from the Sumerians in 3500 BCE. This cuneiform script would have an influence over other forms of writing in the area that would then branch out to become its own form of written language. I do find it interesting how most cultures around the world including those that were in America and did not have documented contact with the main world still came up with a form of writing. The writing was not available to everyone and only certain people could read it. It made writing a power symbol because if you could write down information there would be less of a chance of forgetting it. Certain individuals would have the ability to write in this writing to one another leaving some individuals oblivious to what was being said around them. I guess my question is not why writing came about but how so many different cultures came up with it supposedly independent of each other in some cases?
I also remember the quote on page 87 about how the Roman alphabet will eventually replace China’s main language. It appears that there are over 40,000 characters to learn and that this can take up to 20 years to fully learn. The roman alphabet has much fewer characters to learn, which means the written form of that language can be mastered at an earlier age. I did not realize this in class because just hearing the selected quote gave me the implication that China was going to be forced to change their language. It would seem that as the world become more inter connected that the most simple language and writing form will prevail so that individuals spread all over the world will be able to communicate with each other. I more so found this interesting then had a question on it.