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Cuneiform is the earliest known writing system [5] [6] and was originally developed to write the Sumerian language of southern Mesopotamia (modern Iraq). Over the course of its history, cuneiform was adapted to write a number of languages in addition to Sumerian.
This article cites its sources but its page reference ranges are too broad or incorrect. Please help in adding a more precise page range. (July 2024) (Learn how and when to remove this message) Survey of eight prominent scripts (left to right, top to bottom): Sumerian cuneiform, Egyptian hieroglyphs, Chinese characters, Maya script, Devanagari, Latin alphabet, Arabic alphabet, Braille Part of ...
Therein, writing emerged with a pictographic script, Proto-cuneiform, in the Uruk IV period (c. late 4th millennium BC). The documented record of actual historical events—and the ancient history of lower Mesopotamia—commenced in the early-third millennium BC with cuneiform records of early dynastic kings.
Map showing the extent of Mesopotamia. The Civilization of Mesopotamia ranges from the earliest human occupation in the Paleolithic period up to Late antiquity.This history is pieced together from evidence retrieved from archaeological excavations and, after the introduction of writing in the late 4th millennium BC, an increasing amount of historical sources.
Centuries after the fall of the Akkadian Empire, Akkadian, in its Assyrian and Babylonian varieties, was the native language of the Mesopotamian empires (Old Assyrian Empire, Babylonia, Middle Assyrian Empire) throughout the later Bronze Age, and became the lingua franca of much of the Ancient Near East by the time of the Bronze Age collapse c ...
The proto-cuneiform script was a system of proto-writing that emerged in Mesopotamia, eventually developing into the early cuneiform script used in the region's Early Dynastic I period. It arose from the token-based system that had already been in use across the region in preceding millennia.
The relationship between writing and language more broadly has been the subject of philosophical analysis as early as Aristotle (384–322 BC). [8] While the use of language is universal across human societies, writing is not; writing emerged much more recently, and was independently invented in only a handful of locations throughout history.
Many texts survive in multiple copies because they were repeatedly transcribed by scribes in training. Sumerian continued to be the language of religion and law in Mesopotamia long after Semitic speakers had become dominant. A prime example of cuneiform writing is a lengthy poem that was discovered in the ruins of Uruk.