demagogue on 4/3/2011 at 18:51

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I was researching this not long ago when I was trying to make my own ConLang (constructed language). I wanted to know how glyph systems develop and evolve.

My own conlang was a tribute to the two languages I studied the most, Hebrew & Japanese (which use Chinese kanji), and my own script is a kind of hybrid, kanji-like glyphs with Hebrew-like lines and curves. And in that process I studied a little the development of both scripts to get a feel, from the early origins to later refinement. Both the Chinese glyphs and Hebrew glyphs have their own very interesting generation stories, as they developed independently by people in the region, and both dominated their hemispheres as the root of each region's script systems (though not grammar or phonetics), so that today you only have isolated self-contained pockets in the world where a script developed outside their line (like parts of India or Korea), but even then there was some influence.

Hebrew as I understand it came from a mix of Semitic peoples from Egypt to south Palestine cooping and simplifying Egyptian hieroglyphs to their own grammar and changing social dynamics (which were then adapted by Phoenicians, in turn adapted by Greeks, in turn adapted by Romans into our script). There was an episode of the Naked Archaeologist which claimed Hebrew was actually developed by Semitic Hebrew people coming out of Egypt at the time of Exodus, and the development of the script and new national Hebrew ethos was part of the same movement as the Exodus narrative -- and he pointed to things like earliest writings they could find were religious references to God in Sinai, connecting the two (though others question that and say other non-Hebrew Semitic people developed the script earlier and in other contexts, and the Hebrews were just one group cooping it), and there are still gaps in the evidence, as there are with the development of any language. But definitely the Hebrew script is special and has a fascinating story. (All languages have fascinating stories to tell for that matter.)

Edit: As for the language of "creation", I did read one book that made a good argument the development of written language was a sea change in the way humans experienced reality. In a spoken language, concepts flit in and out of existence as they are spoken. They're only embodied in the breath of the words themselves. But with a written language, suddenly concepts take on a more permanent reality and exist even when you aren't reading it. One thing the book noticed was that in cultures with only spoken languages (i.e., every culture before Hebrew), the "creation" gods were female which give birth to reality at a moment in time, whereas with the rise of written language (Hebrew in particular), the creation gods became male, constructing reality according to an eternal plan (the words themselves instantiate the reality, in their declarative form grammatically, "let there be...", e.g., God spoke and there was light, Adam named the animals, etc). And people really looked at reality very differently under those two different narratives, from events being simply pushed into reality ex nihilo by the force of the thing itself, to events running according to an eternal script, with the written script being a critical component of that. It's a legacy that remains in our worldview to this day, and you see the tension between those two ways of experiencing reality, or understanding the meaning of it, in our modern scientific worldview. Really interesting stuff to think about!

MorningDove on 4/3/2011 at 20:12

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Hi, Demagogue,

You are not kidding, language and writing is absolutely fascinating stuff. The more I read up on it and study it, the more involved I get. I feel there is certainly something more to it. Something elevates us from the creolization of it all. There is a science involved here that uses math; and I have always believed that math in itself is a language.

When I read this book that I mentioned, my eyes were immediately opened up to something flitting on the horizon that I cannot even begin to explain. Its something of the divine as silly as that may sound.

When I examined the Chinese writing I saw that there are similarities with the Hebrew letters. For instance the letter A’s are almost exact. Not just the A’s but B, E, K, L, M, P, S, T and Z. Even the Mayan, Phoenician and Greek letters share similarities especially with three letters (H, N and B). And what I think is even more fascinating is that both the Phoenician, Hebrew and Cuneiform letters share strong resemblances in the letters G, D, H, V, S and SH.

From my understanding it is thought that Sumerian Cuneiform is the oldest writing -- those strange looking dashes carved in rock tablets. And then, when we analyze the cuneiform we find that it is just the Hebrew letters turned sideways to the left. So there are lots of similarities and parallels here.

All of this leads me to believe that there was originally one spoken and written writing and language, and if you’ve examined that link I supplied above it reveals that the Hebrew writing that is found in the Torah today is mathematically structured. The amazing thing here is that they are not just mathematical structures with an irrelevant number, but rather a intelligent ration that coincides with nature.

This is just so overwhelming. The thought of it all is mind-boggling to me at the present moment.

Can you make the connection and see what I’m seeing? :angel:

Azaran on 4/3/2011 at 22:43

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(http://www.soas.ac.uk/baplar/recordings/) Here you can find recordings of akkadian hymns read aloud

Azaran on 5/3/2011 at 21:34

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Hebrew khatul, Estonian kass, Greek gáta, Basque katu...

Speaking of Akkadian, I seem to remember in a movie, either End of Days, or Stigmata, can't recall which, there was a scene where this old woman is possessed and uttering messages in Akkadian, and she sounds exactly like the Interpreter in Thief.

demagogue on 22/3/2011 at 19:43

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I like how easily you slide from Hebrew being the language of Creation to alien abductions based on a true story, lol. But perhaps these are not incompatible things in some curious worldview or another.

But in any event, we're getting quite off topic from the Thief glyphs and their inspirations and interpretations. We should stick to that focus if we're going to discuss anything here.