'Story or History of writing'/Part:01

Language existed long before writing, emerging probably simultaneously with sapience, abstract thought and the Genus Homo (—such as Homo habilis, who used simple stone tools—) .The signature event that separated the emergence of paleo humans (early humans) from their anthropoid (a higher primate, especially an ape or apeman) progenitors was not tool-making but a rudimentary oral communication that replaced the hoots and gestures still used by lower primates. The transfer of more complex information, ideas and concepts from one individual to another, or to a group, was the single most advantageous evolutionary adaptation for species preservation.  As long ago as 25,000-30,000 years, before present, humans were painting pictures on cave walls. Can cave paintings be considered a form of written language? In that case, we can set the flag to 30.000 years ago. However, Whether these pictures were telling a "story" or represented some type of "spirit house" or ritual exercise is not known?

The advent of a writing system, however, seems to coincide with the transition from hunter-

gatherer societies to more permanent agrarian encampments when it became necessary to count ones property, whether it be parcels of land, animals or measures of grain or to transfer that property to another individual or another settlement.  We see the first evidence for this with incised "counting tokens" about 9,000 years ago in the neolithic fertile crescent. Around 4100-3800 BCE, the tokens began to be symbols that could be impressed or inscribed in clay to represent a record of land, grain or cattle and a written language was beginning to develop.

One of the earliest examples was found in the excavations of Uruk in Mesopotamia at a level representing the time of the crystallization of the Sumerian culture.The pictures began as representing what they were, pictographs, and eventually, certain pictures represented an idea or concept, ideographs, and this new way of interpreting signs is called the rebus principle. Only a few examples of its use exist in the earliest stages of cuneiform from between 3200 and 3000 B.C.,For example, Each of us certainly met with rebuses in everyday life. Undoubtedly, the most famous and popular puzzle looks like this : i ♥ u ( pronounced "I Love You" ) . Thus, in the modern sense, is a rebus puzzle, consisting of images of objects (drawings in combination with other compositions and alphabetic characters), congruent

with the words or parts of words and finally to represent sounds and thus writing born ! However, The consistent use of this type of phonetic writing only becomes apparent after 2600 B.C. It constitutes the beginning of a true writing system characterized by a complex combination of word-signs and phonograms—signs for vowels and syllables—that allowed the scribe to express ideas. By the middle of the third millennium B.C., cuneiform primarily written on clay tablets was used for a vast array of economic, religious, political, literary, and scholarly documents. The oldest surviving love poem is written in a clay tablet around 2031 BC from the times of the Sumerians, inventors of writing, is given below as an example of their literary writing works.

"Man of my heart, my beloved man, 

your allure is a sweet thing, as sweet as honey. 
Man of my heart, my beloved man, 
your allure is a sweet thing, as sweet as honey." 

"You have captivated me, 
of my own free will I will come to you. 
Man, let me flee with you—into the bedroom. 
You have captivated me; 
of my own free will I shall come to you. 
Lad, let me flee with you—into the bedroom." 

"Man, let me do the sweetest things to you. 
My precious sweet, let me bring you honey. 
In the bedchamber dripping with honey 
let us enjoy over and over your allure, the sweet thing. 
Lad, let me do the sweetest things to you. 
My precious sweet, let me bring you honey." 

"Man, you have become attracted to me. 
Speak to my mother and I will give myself to you; 
speak to my father and he will make a gift of me. 
I know where to give physical pleasure to your body— 
sleep, man, in our house till morning. 
I know how to bring heart's delight to your heart— 
sleep, lad, in our house till morning." 

"Since you have fallen in love with me, man, 
if only you would do your sweet thing to me. 
My lord and god, my lord and guardian angel, 
my Cu-Suen who cheers Enlil's heart, 
if only you would handle your sweet place, 
if only you would grasp your place that is sweet as honey. 
Put your hand there for me 
like the cover on a measuring cup. 
Spread your hand there for me 
like the cover on a cup of wood shavings." 

NB:Shu-sin or Cu-Suen: was king of Sumer and Akkad, and was the penultimate king of the Ur III dynasty.

enlil :"Lord (of the) Storm" /Enlil/Ellil is one of the most important gods of Mesopotamia. Enlil's /Ellil's main city is Nippur. Kings from all over Mesopotamia sent offerings to him there. 

[Kandiah Thillaivinayagalingam]

Part:02 will follow