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Tuesday, November 12, 2013

Digital Scrapbook entry #3 - Mesopotamia

http://www.theguardian.com/education/2006/nov/01/schools.wordsandlanguage
http://edsitement.neh.gov/lesson-plan/cuneiform-writing-system-ancient-mesopotamia-emergence-and-evolution#sect-thelesson
When writing first appeared on the earth around 3500 BCE in Mesopotamia, it was representational form of writing called pictographs. Pictographs originated in Sumer and were used to represent objects; for instance a picture of a cow would stand for cow. Over the years the people found that writing out a whole picture for each word was cumbersome and we impractical for any words other than nouns and their writing began to evolve.
This evolved form of writing was called cuneiform, meaning wedge shaped writing named for its wedge like shapes because of the reeds used by the scribes as writing utensils. In today's modern word our language is going through a similar transformation. With the spread of the use of cell phones came a quicker form of writings: text talk. Text talk is used to represent other groups of commonly texted words such as got to go: G2G or laughing out loud: LOL.
These short cuts have recently become part of our vernacular and many have been added to dictionary's. In fact it was recently announced that the Scottish Qualifications Authority (SQA) will be excepting text talk on written English exams, showing how much like ancient writing todays writing is still constantly changing. 

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