Asian M20- Midterm 1 Study Material
Lugal
"Big Man" in Sumerian; another word for king
Cuneiform
refers to the way in which a language was represented graphically, visibly(wedge-shaped characters) in writing: (ancient Mesopotiamia(Babylonian, Akkadian), Syria(Ugarit), Iran (Persian))
The Mayan writing system allows for multiple spellings because which two principles apply to most of its signs?
Homophony and polyphony
Rebus Princple
phonetic sign, using exsiting symbols, such as pictograms, purely for their pronunciations nothing else, to represent another or new word
simple tokens
plain tokens no writing on them specify an object had different shapes such as spheres and cones
Complex tokens
thought to represent ideas and quantities often encased in clay bulla specified a commodity
A hieroglyphs that is used to indicate 3 phomenes is usually referred to as which kind of sign?
trilateral
Shiva
one of the main deities of Hinduism supreme god in Shaivism, a denomination of Hinduism the destroyer
Seal Stones
"Unicorn Bull" is most common type (discovered late 19th century) · consists of writing (on top), zoomorphic image or diety and standard or other symbols · very small seals made of soak stone (a very soft type of stone); take hard rock to inscribe in them; a lot are made out of copper as well; some are on amulets (worn around next perhaps for protection) · beyond stone seals, main corpus of inscription are ceramic vessels o all we have on these vessels are fish and vegetation (very decorative) leading some to conclude that it gave rise to largely pictographic signs found on stone seals · Economic Function o Stone seals arise with urbanization of indus valley; rise of writing in major cities of indus valley coincide with peak of settlement o One possibility is that these seals represent economic o Used to stamp something in order to ensure that receiver knew what he or she was receiving o Seals might display some sort of offering to a diety so it'd have religious and economic function (offerings to Gods)
What percentage of the Chinese writing system is purely pictographic signs according to DeFrancis?
1
Chinese Writing
1200 BCE (Shang period) First evidence found scratched onto bones and turtle shells (oracle bones), used for divination in late Shang Period Seal Script
Classical Mayan Phase
200-900 CE Most of the 5000 texts date to this period
Hieroglyphic Writing
3000 BCE Rosetta stone, obelisks
To what millennium do the ear1iest cuneiform tablets probably date?
4th millennium BC
There are approximately how many signs in the Mayan writing system?
800
Dresden Codex
A 39 page divination almanac with several dates, rulers, and gods with their names transcribed next to their picture. It was one of the crucial artifacts used to aid in the decipherment of Mayan language.
Who is David Stuart?
A Mayan expert who began deciphering Mayan glyphs while still a teenager
Dresden Codex
A Pre-Columbian Maya book of the eleventh or twelfth century of the Yucatan Maya Chechen Itza. The earliest known book written in the Americas. Important because it's the most complete of the four remaining American codices. It was used to crack the Maya code.
Diego de Landa
A Spanish Inquisitor who, with the help of a Mayan translator, discovered that the Maya language was both alphabetic and syllabic. ^actually he never discovered it was syllabic, that happened many years later by Knorosov Landa's alphabet The consonant/glyphs for the sounds he was asking to be translated may have been syllabic glyphs instead
Code of Hammurabi
A collection of 282 laws which were enforced under Hammurabi's Rule. One of the first examples of written law in the ancient civilizations.
Hieratic
A cursive writing system mainly used by priests in the provenance of the pharaohs in Egypt and Nubia, it was developed alongside the hieroglyphic system and was typically written on papyrus scrolls.
Hieratic
A form of Egyptian writing typically reserved for priestly matters. It was written on papyrus. Used to be the common script until the rise of Demotic cursive hieroglyphics
Demotic
A form of Egyptian writing used for more common purposes. It had a much more cursive element to it. on the Rosetta Stone
What was the greatest challenge that Schmandt-Besserat experienced while putting together her token catalog?
A lack of proper publication and preservation of the discovered tokens
Uruk
A large Sumerian city-state in Mesopotamia; has tablets with very early Sumerian scripts
Logogram
A letter, symbol, or sign used to represent an entire word
Phonetic Complement
A logogram may be complemented with a phonogram, called phonetic complement. It is the last phonetic value of the word for which the logogram stands. It can be used to determine which particular choice of the logogrammatic value is meant, and often it helps in the interpretation of the grammatical function.
Logograms
A pictographic form of writing in which a specific image or symbol looks like the word it represents.
Which of the following is an example of what Coulmas calls "the rebus principle?"
A picture of a vampire bat being used to represent a baseball bat in writing
Ankh
A sacred Egyptian artifact in which the artistry and purpose Egyptian hieroglyphs represent is fully embodied. The Ankh is covered in Egyptian hieroglyphs, but the hieroglyphs also appear to be part of the design of the Ankh.
Determinatives
A sign used to denote the class of words in logographic scripts and help to disambiguate their interpretation, but have no phonetic value themselves.
What is the Egyptian Book of the Dead?
A somewhat standardized collection of incantations, copies of which were buried with deceased individuals to ensure them a better afterlife
Determinative
A symbol placed next to a symbol, typically a logogram, to denote which semantic the logogram represents (idea, concrete, etc.).
Demotic
A type of Egyptian writing which means "popular writing" and is a later development of hieratic.
What process is at work as cuneiform signs become increasingly written with wedges instead of drawings?
Abstraction
What were the main functions of writing in early Mesopotamia?
Accounting means of actively bookkeeping keeping track of receipts/noting expenditures
According to Schmandt-Besserat, with what industry are the early tokens apparently associated?
Agriculture
Phonetic Complementing
Also referred to by Coulmas as "Phonetic Determinatives", phonetic complements are syllabic signs which specified the reading of a given sign by referring the reader to the terminal sound of the verb form in question rather than its meaning.
Phonetic Complement
An addition of a symbol, usually syllabic and usually a consonant, at the end of a word to reinforce the phonetic pronunciation of the word.
Ankh
An ancient Egyptian hieroglyphic character that read "life".
Give an example of Rebus Principle
An eye for "I" and a bee for "Be" and leaf for "leave" Narmer Belief
According to Schmandt-Besserat, what distinguishes the two stages of token development?
An increase in complexity represented by more complex geometric shapes and markings on the tokens themselves
Which of the following is a major result of the adoption of cuneiform for writing the Akkadian language?
An substantial increase in the number of characters used as syllabograms vs. logograms
Why are numbers so common in surviving Mayan texts?
Ancient Mayans had a very complex calendar, and the surviving texts are highly calendrical
Pyramid Texts
Are a collection of ancient Egyptian religious texts from the time of the Old Kingdom. They are possibly the oldest known religious texts in the world and contained spells to guide the Pharaoh into the afterlife.
Narmer Palette
Artifacts from the tomb(Hierakonpolis) tells you the phonetic spelling of his name*
The combo of signs representing words to form ideas in chinese writing is often referred to as
Associative Compounds/Compound Representational
Behistun Inscription
Authored by Darius the Great of the Persian Empire (Modern Iran), this multilingual inscription is written in 3 cuneiform scripts: Old Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian. Thus, it became the key to the decipherment of ancient cuneiform script.
Which of these is the correct sequence of development for the scripts used to write Egyptian?
Hieroglyphs, hieratic. demotic, and coptic
How did polyvalence help scholars decipher Mayan writing?
Because inscription's were highly formulaic, scholars could use the variation between logographic and phonetic glyphs to identify a glyph's pronunciation and meaning
What is the ultimate reason DeFrancis accepts that Chinese characters are an indigenous innovation as opposed to a learned technology?
Because of his personal belief in the intellectual capacity of human beings
Why do some scholars argue that the Egyptians may have borrowed the idea of writing from cuneiform?
Because the hieroglyphic writing system appears already fully developed
What is the main reason most people believe that Chinese characters are "ideographic" as opposed to phonetic?
Because the phonetic and semantic indicators are "soldered" into what appears to be a single Sign that is semantically based
Why do we know so little about how Egyptian was pronounced?
Because the script recorded only the consonants and not the vowels, meaning that we usually don't know what the vowels in a word were
Henry Rawlinson
Behistun Inscription generally credited with deciphering Babylonian cuneiform but his journals showed that he used Edward Hinck's work without crediting him. Old Persian
Ong argues that writing can "self-correct" the biases that it introduces. What does he mean by this?
By distancing us from what we observe, writing lets us observe it more critically and therefore accurately.
In Goody's opinion, how does grammar of a written language differ from the grammar of a spoken language?
By writing down grammatical rules in "grammars," grammar is standardized, controlled, and becomes the model for the spoken grammar of that language
A Danish scholar who was one of the first to read some of the cuneiform signs at the ruins of Persepolis?
Carsten Niebuhr
Jean Champollion
Champollion published the first translation of the Rosetta stone's hieroglyphs in 1822, showing that the Egyptian writing system was a combination of phonetic and ideographic signs.
According to Robinson, which of these was a popular drink in Mayan culture?
Chocolate
Which of the following cities was NOT one of the major cities of the classical period in Mayan history?
Cholan
What is David Stuart's major contribution to the field of Mayan studies?
He has deciphered numerous Mayan glyphs, effectively deciphering the Mayan writing system
Ong calls sound "evanescent," by which he means that it fades almost as soon as it is produced. How, in his opinion, does this limit the discovery or creation of new knowledge?
Citizens of oral cultures must spend a major portion of their time simply retaining knowledge that they have already obtained, leaving less time for "exploratory thought."
On what material was cuneiform primarily written?
Clay
What are "matres lectiones?"
Consonant signs used to indicate vowels
Unlike the cuneiform languages, which assign syllabic values to its signs, hieroglyphics only represent what type of sound?
Consonantal
The development of the "hieroglyphic alphabet" as Coulmas calls it, conforms to which of his stages of abstract writing development?
Conventionalization of characters to represent all sound forms in a language
What is the name of the mayan site where the so-called hieroglyphic stairway was discovered
Copan
What two languages were instrumental in deciphering the phonology of ancient Egyptian written with hieroglyphs?
Coptic and Assyrian/Babylonian
Copan
Copán is an archaeological site of the Maya civilization located in the Copán Department of western Honduras, not far from the border with Guatemala. Have hieroglyphic stairway It was the capital city of a major Classic period kingdom from the 5th to 9th centuries AD.
The inscribing of admonitions to future kinds on royal monuments would be an example of which function of writing according to coulmas?
Coulmas talks about important role writing plays as technology that distances speaker from audience - writing allows us to speak across huge spatial distances - writing has distancing function so king can use writing on monumental stella to talk to all future people
rosetta stone
Crucial to deciphering Egyptian Hieroglyphics, this stone was composed of 3 different scripts: Hieroglyphics on the top, demotic in the middle, and Ancient Greek on the bottom. Because people recognized the Greek alphabet, they were able to use the stone to decipher the other two foreign scripts. "Priests did not have to pay taxes" commissioned by Ptolemy V at the age of 13
Hieratic Writing
Cursive writing on papyrus, priestly writing
What was the principle contribution of Mao Zedong (aka Chairman Mao) to the Chinese writing system?
He introduced both the Simplified Script and Pinyin, an adaptation of the Latin alphabet to Chinese
What name is given to signs that denote the class of the word following them but which have no phonetic value themselves?
Determinative
Which of these is a type of sign found in Egyptian hieroglyphic script?
Determinative, Triconsonantal, Phonetic Complement, and Logographic
Based on the currently available archaeological evidence, which of these developments occurred in both the Egyptian and Sumerian writing systems?
Determinatives
Which of these is a ideographic element of Egyptian hieroglyphics?
Determinatives
Narmer Palette
Discovered by British archeologists James E. Quibell and Frederick W. Green and contains some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found.
What is the purpose of the Dresden Codex?
Divination almanac
The primary style of writing that was used in the Book of Dead was ...
Hieratic
Codex
Earliest type of manuscript in the form of a modern book. The Codex replaced earlier scrolls of papyrus and wax Dyptich tablets.
According to Nissen, writing was probably developed to support which of the following?
Economic expansion
Which of these best describes Coulmas' interpretation of Egyptian writing in this chapter?
Egyptian writing was theocratic - it was primarily used by, and guarded by, members of the upper class...especially priests
According to Coe, to what social group did Mayan scribes apparently belong?
Elites
Which of the following is the best example of "deep orthography?"
Enough
Boustrophedon
Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters. Rather than going left-to-right as in modern English or right-to-left as in Arabic and Hebrew, alternate lines in boustrophedon must be read in opposite directions.
What is the diff between glyphs and hieratic in terms of their function in ancient egypt?
Glyphs on monumental architecture; hieratic used by priests on papyrus (what artifact showed function of hieratic- book of dead); main diff of glyphs and hieratic is hieratic is cursive and glyph is more 90 degree
In both Akkadian and Japanese, the affixing of syllabic signs to pre-existing logograms serves to identify what aspect of that word?
Grammatical function
Which of these is an analog computer?
Grandfather clock
Zhou Dynasty
Great Seal Script flourished period of disunity (politically and administrative-wise) 1046-256 BCE Longest lasting Chinese dynasty, followed Shang dynasty
What is the name of the script that emerged almost simultaneously with hieroglyphs and is a cursive form?
Hieratic
What is the chronological relationship between hieroglyphs, Coptic and demotic?
Hieroglyphic, Demotic and Coptic
Aesthetic Function
In cultures where art was highly valued, writing in itself provided an aesthetic appreciation through the literature it told and the visuals of writing in elegant letters.
Henry Rawlinson
Is accredited with the translation of the Old Persian sections of the Behistun Inscription which paved the way to the subsequent ability to decipher the Elamite and Babylonian parts of the text, which greatly promoted the development of modern Assyriology.
Palermo Stone
Is one of seven surviving fragments of a stele known as the Royal Annals of the Old Kingdom of Ancient Egypt. The stele contained a list of the kings of Egypt from the First Dynasty through to the early part of the Fifth Dynasty and noted significant events in each year of their reigns.
Coptic
Is the latest stage of the Egyptian writing. Egyptian began to be written in the Coptic alphabet - an adaptation of the Greek script with some letters inherited from Demotic - in the 1st century CE.
Reifying Function
It allows for a more clear and direct communication between one person and another. The messages sent would no longer be altered or misspoken by a middle man.
According to Nissen, what happened over time to the number of signs in the cuneiform writing system?
It decreased as graphically similar signs merged
According to Coulmas, what separates the Greek alphabet most significantly from its Semitic forerunners?
It uses similar sign types to indicate vowels systematically along with consonants
Copan
It was the capital city of Mayan culture during the Classic period kingdom from the 5th to 9th centuries AD.
According to Coulmas, what is the significance of the inscription of the Persian king Darius at Bihistun?
It was the key to the decipherment of cuneiform
The production of law codes such as the Code of Hammurabi (huge stele that included first copy of law) in Mesopotamia writing would be an example of which function of writing, according to Coulmas?
It would attest to social control function; writing used to organize society, law codes represent attempt by king to employ writing in order to control society
Which of these is the most complex writing system?
Japanese
Palenque
King Pacal's tomb: the outside has his name written phonetically, the inside of the tomb has his name written in a single glyph
Which scholar first proposed many syllabic readings for the supposed Mayan "logograms"?
Knorosov
Stages of decipherment of Mayan glyphs
Landa's Alphabet, Knorosov's looks at the codices and realizes the writing is logo-syllabic Linda Schele discovers the use of verbs (100+ known verbs) David Stuart--one of the most important decipherers, works on polyvalents (different signs that represent same sound)
Logograms are marked in Egyptian hieroglyphs by what is often referred to as
Logographic Stroke
Which of tile following types of characters comprises the majority of the characters used in modem Chinese writing?
Logographic characters with a phonetic complement to indicate what aspect of the logogram's semantic field it refers to
Lord Shield
Lord Shield was the name given to the Maya ruler whose crypt aided in the decipherment of Mayan writing.
What was the primary language used to decipher the Mayan glyphs?
Mayan
Palenque
Mayan city in which the King Pacal had a temple built to record his achievements
Pacal
Mayan king found in Temple of Inscriptions; ruled for 83 years
David Stuart
Mayanist, worked with Linda Schele His work on the decipherment of Maya hieroglyphs led to a MacArthur Fellowship in 1984, at the age of 18
Be able to describe some of the functions of writing, according to Coulmas:
Mnemonic Function: Writing aided in the memory of a given population. It is extremely impressive that illiterate cultures were capable of remembering long narrations, stories, as well as day to day accounting necessities. Writing helped alleviate some of the pressure on human memory by providing a written record of what needed to be remembered. Distancing Function: Writing allowed communication to expand its range from simple interaction with those who lived within walking distance, to cities away. Reifying Function: It allows for a more clear and direct communication between one person and another. The messages sent would no longer be altered or misspoken by a middle man. Social Control Function: Writing provided a clear defining characteristic in the stratification of writing societies. It allowed the hierarchy to maintain clarity and control by only allowing the elite the privilege of reading and writing. Interactional Function: Writing allowed for indirect interaction between a single "speaker" and several "listeners" through methods such as cookbooks, wills, instruction manuals, etc. Aesthetic Function: In cultures where art was highly valued, writing in itself provided an aesthetic appreciation through the literature it told and the visuals of writing in elegant letters.
behistun inscription
Multi-lingual inscription located on Mount Behistun in Iran. It was crucial to the decipherment of cuneiform because it's essentially a rosetta stone (hierogylphic, demotic, then greek) They were copied by Rawlinson. It depicted King Darius Written in Babylonian (later form of Akkadian), Elamite, and Old Persian
According to Robinson, are the uniconsonantal signs used in the hieroglyphic script an early alphabet?
No, they are actually syllabic, not alphabetic
What language was represented by the cuneiform inscription at Persepolis?
Old Persian
Cuneiform Writing
Old Persian cuneiform is mainly blocky and alphabetic thought of as the oldest form of writing. This is debateable 3100 BCE began as a logographic script Persepolis and Behistun inscription
Which part of the Behistun inscription was first to be deciphered?
Old Persian part because its mostly alphabetical so easier
Two consequences of the invention of writing, according to Coulmas
One of the biggest consequences of writing was the new ability to very clearly separate, distinguish, and control the social classes from those worthy enough to learn how to write and those who were peasants. Accounting and trade became much easier.
sumerian
One of the first languages used with Cuneiform. not semetic
Are speakers of different "regionalects" of Chinese able to communicate in writing?
Only if they are literate and share knowledge of a particular regionalect
Which of these following terms does Ong prefer to use instead of "illiterate?"
Oral
The name of the Mayan ruler who was discovered at Palenque was:
Pacal
Which of the following is NOT an artifact containing early cuneiform?
Palermo Stone
DeFrancis argues that the majority of Chinese characters provide what type of indication?
Phonetic
The characters in Hangul were primarily designed to represent which of the following?
Phonology
5 Different Classifications of Chinese Writing
Pictograms or hieroglyphs - some sort of picture they want to put into writing Simple representational Self explanatory characters Associative compounds/compound representations Combo of two or more symbols to create a new character with a new meaning Rebus principle Using the word's sounds, but not its meaning Pictophonetic, logosyllabic when new word is formed based on two parts: one symbol based on meaning and one symbol based on sound
Demotic Writing
Popular writing, later form of hieratic, on the Rosetta Stone
Acrophonic Principle
Principle that allows a picture to be used to represent the first sound in a word. The use of this principle by Phoenicians led to the development of an alphabet. The word shin 'tooth', for example, was represented with a picture. This picture was then used for the 'sh' sound. The Phoenicians were traders, and their writing system was borrowed and modified by speakers of Hebrew and Greek. The letter for 'tooth' became Σ (sigma) in Greek.
The Egyptian hieroglyphic sign for the "sun" had the phonetic value ...
Re
Rosetta Stone
Rediscovered in Rosetta Egypt around 1799 by Pierre-François Bouchard, of the Napoleonic expedition to Egypt. The Rosetta stone is a multilingual stele inscribed with Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Demotic, and Greek. Thus, it became the most important artifact in the decipherment of ancient Egyptian Hieroglyphics.
Based on your reacting of Coulmas, what does the word "hieroglyph" literally mean?
Sacred carving
Ugaritic
Scribes in the city of Ugarit used the Egyptian derived signs, in order to create an alphabet with cuneiform signs. Clay tablets found in Ugarit provide the earliest examples of Semitic orders of the alphabet which led to the development of Arabic and Hebrew. There are 30 signs that represent alphabetic phonemes, 27 consonants and 3 vowels. The orientation of the script is from left to right. There are three levels: A, B, C with these levels representing vertical signs, horizontal signs, angle wedge and circular signs, respectively.
What is the term that is used to describe the combination of a character indicating the meaning of a word with a character indicating its pronunciation?
Semantic-phonetic
What would Ong describe as writing's "primary function?"
Separation
For Goody, what type of thinking does writing allow that non-writing societies lack in a significant way?
Sequential reasoning
From what dynasty and period did the oracle bone inscriptions probably Originate?
Shang dynasty, 1400-1200 BC
Bulla
Small round orbs which contained tokens and were used in economic transactions. They typically contained simple tokens which specified quantity and complex tokens which specified commodity. Lastly, they were signed with a cylinder seal that acted as an official signature.
According to Coulmas, which of these factors contributed to the cultural diffusion of the Chinese script in greater East Asia?
Sociopolitical concerns
What distinguished Soothill's "dictionary" from native Chinese dictionaries?
Soothill organized the characters phonetically, rather than semantically
Which of the following represented an attempt to classify the Chinese characters according to their phonetic value?
Soothill syllabary
According to Coulmas, what is the language of the earliest cuneiform documents?
Sumerian
According to Schmandt-Besserat, what does the size of the discovered token clusters likely indicate about their original use?
That they recorded only rather small quantities of goods
According to Schmandt-Besserat, what does the distribution of tokens within settlements suggest about their use?
That they were used primarily for record-keeping
For Goody, what type of technology is writing?
Technology of the intellect
What was Fray Diego de Landa's primary assumption about the Mayan writing system?
That it was alphabetic
What is Ong's primary critique of Plato's argument against writing?
That it was made in writing, which shows how ingrained writing had become by that point.
What would Good say is the difference between language and writing?
That language. being universal to humans, deals with the world at the level of cognition. while writing is the following development of its communication
In what way does Goody argue that logographic writing s superior to alphabetic writing?
That logograms are easier to learn initially because signs can be learned individually without having to understand the entire system, as with alphabets
For Goody, what is the impact on future generations of having knowledge stored m writing?
That preserved records then form the basis of future knowledge and understanding after speech and memory are gone
Which of the following best describes Goody's understanding of the interaction of technology and humanity?
That technology is formed by as well as formative for humanity
The Shang dynasty oracle bones show no fixed direction in the writing of the signs. What does this indicate, in line with the theoretical assumptions of this course?
That this is an early phase of the writing system in which direction is unfixed
According to Robinson, how should the word "ye" in the phrase "Ye Olde" be pronounced?
The
The Book of the Dead
The Book of the Dead is an ancient Egyptian funeral text with spells.
What role did the Dresden Codex play in the decipherment of Mayan texts?
The Dresden Codex was a 39 page divination almanac that contained many dates, facilitating the decipherment of the Mayan number system. It also had images of their gods with their names written next to it, allowing for a side by side comparison.
Coptic
The Egyptian language written in the Greek alphabet Used by Christian egyptians who believed hieroglyphics and the like were too pagan
The behistun inscription was commissioned by
The Persian King Darius
Philae Obelisk
The Philae obelisk is one of two obelisks found at Philae in Upper Egypt in 1815 and soon afterward acquired by William John Bankes. He noted two inscriptions on it, one in Egyptian hieroglyphs, the other in ancient Greek.
Which of these concepts introduced in an earlier reading is the same as Nissen's principle of phonetic abstraction?
The Rebus Principle
What role did the Rosetta Stone play in the decipherment of Egyptian Hieroglyphs?
The Rosetta Stone provided side by side comparisons of known languages and writing to Egyptian hieroglyphs, allowing for decipherment of key glyphs that would allow them to piece together other sections of writing.
Pointing to the 'gh' of 'cough', 'o' of 'Women', and 'ti' of 'nation', linguists often joke that the English word 'fish' can be spelled 'ghoti'. What aspect of these letters in the English language is the joke playing on?
The characters are polyvalent - they can represent different sounds in different contexts
cuneiform
The earliest known system of writing consisting of wedge shapes and lines. It was often written with a reed stylus on clay tablets or stone. Started off as logographic (like most languages) Cuneiform was syllabic, primarily used for the languages of Akkadian and Sumerian (was not semetic). George Grotefend of Germany did some crucial work in translating some parts of old Persian, but he didn't have awesome credentials so he didn't get a lot of credit for it
Oracle Bones
The first agreed upon form of Chinese writing in which a statement or question was written onto turtle shells. The shell was then heated until it cracked and an expert was called in to interpret its meaning. The Shang Dynasty artifact (1200 BCE)-oracle bones, ox shoulderblades?
Simple Tokens
The first evolution of cuneiform writing and were used between 8500 - 3200. Used to specify quantity.
Sumerian
The language of the earliest cuneiform documents
What is the primary accomplishment the technology of writing affords humans according to Goody?
The organization development and accumulation of knowledge
According to Nissen, which of these elements is most important to identifying the spoken language a script represents?
The presence of phonetic signs in the script
Rebus Principle
The representation of a word or syllable by a picture of an object whose name resembles the sound represented in the word or syllable. phonetic value of a symbol matters and not its meaning) ex. belief, narmer
Complex Tokens
The second phase in the evolution of cuneiform writing and were used between 3500 - 3200. Used to specify commodity.
According to Nissen, why can't we be sure what is the language encoded in proto-cuneiform?
There aren't any phonetic signs in the script to tell us the language
What does it mean to say that Chinese characters have both a semantic and phonetic components?
They form the majority of Chinese characters by far—over 90%, and were created by combining a rebus with a determinative—that is, a character with approximately the correct pronunciation (the phonetic element, similar to a phonetic complement) with one of a limited number of determinative characters which supplied an element of meaning (the semantic element)
What were the so-called dragon bones actually?
Turtle shells and ox scapulae used for divination
Archaeological discoveries from which of these ancient cities has contributed the most to our understanding of the earliest phases of cuneiform writing?
Uruk
Mohenjo-Daro
Vast majority of Early Indus Writing signs come from the two largest sites: Mohenjo-Daro and Harappa
What percentage of the ancient Egyptian population was literate?
We don't know, but it was almost certainly a very small percentage
Based on what Coulmas tells you about the word's origin, what does "cuneiform" most likely mean?
Wedge-shaped
According to Coulmas, when do the most significant changes occur in the history of a writing system?
When It is used to express languages for which it was not invented
Homophony
When a single sound has multiple written signs
Polyphony
When a single written sign has multiple sounds
Polyphony
When one symbol can have several different sounds.
Homophony
When there are many symbols that represent the same sound value.
Shang Dynasty
When writing first began appearing in Chinese. 1200 BCE 4500 chinese characters
In Goody's opinion, how does writing affect one's use of logic and contradiction?
While all humans have the ability to use logic and note contradiction, writing allows for a more systematic approach to argumentation since the argument can be reviewed in Its written form
According to Coulmas, which of the following developments could the Egyptians have theoretically borrowed from the Sumerians?
Word writing
What aspect of literacy does Goody most focus upon?
Writing
What does "dzib" mean in Mayan?
Writing
Mnemonic Function
Writing aided in the memory of a given population. It is extremely impressive that illiterate cultures were capable of remembering long narrations, stories, as well as day to day accounting necessities. Writing helped alleviate some of the pressure on human memory by providing a written record of what needed to be remembered.
Distancing Function
Writing allowed communication to expand its range from simple interaction with those who lived within walking distance, to cities away.
Interactional Function
Writing allowed for indirect interaction between a single "speaker" and several "listeners" through methods such as cookbooks, wills, instruction manuals, etc.
Social Control Function
Writing provided a clear defining characteristic in the stratification of writing societies. It allowed the hierarchy to maintain clarity and control by only allowing the elite the privilege of reading and writing.
During what dynasty and period was the Great Seal Script used?
Zhou dynasty, 1028-221 BC
What does the term "compound representational" mean in relation to early Chinese?
a combination of two or more symbols to create a new character with a new meaning. (Ex. sun + moon= bright)
abecedary
a written out version of the alphabet (Ugaritic); an inscription consisting of the cuneiform signs (or letters of an alphabet) listed in a fixed order that resembles the modern order we have inherited nearly 3500 years later.
Han'gul is unique among scripts that were in some way derived from Chinese in that it is:
an alphabet
Boustrophedon
bidirectional text Every other line of writing is flipped or reversed, with reversed letters.
Complex Tokens
clay balls with tokens inside of them and also had inscriptions on them
narmer palette
contains some of the earliest hieroglyphics ever found thought to be a depiction of Narmer unifying Upper & Lower Egypt hieroglyphics already being used phonetically, employing the rebus principle palettes are used to grind cosmetics
Jean Champollion
french deciphered many hieroglyphics because he already knew coptic suggested that foreign names in cartouches were written with phonetic values identified the hieroglyphics on the rosetta stone as a mix of ideograms and phonetic signs previously, he believed that hieroglyphics were wholly logographic had a rivalry with Thomas Young
What does name tagging primarily mean in the context of the decipherment of Mayan writing?
inscriptions regularly identify the owner of the artifact on which they were inscribed
Great Seal Script
is a traditional reference to Chinese writing from before the Qin dynasty, and is now popularly understood to refer narrowly to the writing of the Western and early Eastern Zhou dynasties, and more broadly to also include the oracle bone script.
code of hammurabi
law code that was very harsh but also protective of its citizens, especially women and children written vertically Akkadian coulmas: social control and order
Sumerian
mainly logograms and some syllabic signs of cuneiform*
Mayan Writing
mainly logographic with phonetic complements Dresden and other codices
Simple Tokens
manufacture of small objects modeled in clay and hardened with fire, these artifacts of systematic geometric shapes. These first 4 thousand years were mainly cones, spheres, flat and lenticular disks, cylinders, tetrahedron with smooth face.
Dzib
means, in Mayan, "The House of Mysterious Writing" Above doorway are intricately carved glyphs—the "mysterious" or "obscure" writing that gives the building its name today Under the lintel in the doorjamb is another carved panel of a seated figure surrounded by more glyphs Inside one of the chambers, near the ceiling, is a painted hand print.
