While still a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, UC Santa Cruz professor Elaine Sullivan unearthed ancient ...

Traditionally, the origin of alphabetic writing is attributed to the Semitic peoples of the Sinai around 1900 BCE. This alphabet, known as “Proto-Sinaitic,” is thought to have been derived ...

Most of the world’s languages are written alphabetically; in an alphabetic writing system the basic components represent sounds only without any reference to meaning. For example, the letter “b” in ...

While cuneiform is considered the world’s oldest writing system, having emerged before 3400 BCE in Mesopotamia, it is neither an alphabet nor a language but rather a set of characters denoting ...

From an animal's tusk, it was worked into a small personal hygiene tool, inscribed with a modest wish, and eventually, ...

and not just because they date at least 500 years earlier than the earliest known examples of alphabetic writing previously identified,” Schwartz said. “Further, they were found in northern Syria, ...

Understanding the breadth of writing The devaluation of Aboriginal graphic writing systems reflects a broader colonial bias that equates written language exclusively with alphabetic systems. By ...

At Tell Umm-el Marra, finger-length clay cylinders, unearthed by Johns Hopkins University archaeologists, show engraved symbols—possibly the earliest alphabetic writing—found at this ancient ...

Credit: MICK TSIKAS/AAPIMAGE When we think of writing systems we likely think of an Alphabetic writing system , where each symbol (letter) in the alphabet represents a basic sound unit ...