The Alphabet

An alphabet is a standard set of letters that is used to write one or more languages based on the general principle which the letters represent phonemes of the spoken language. The history of the alphabet began in ancient Egypt.The first pure alphabet emerged around 2000 BC in ancient Egypt.Then, alphabetic principles had already been introduced Egyptian hieroglyphs for a millennium (see Middle Age alphabets). 

The Phaistos Disc

The Phaistos Disc is a curious archaeological find, likely dating to the middle or late Minoan Bronze Age.The target of this and even its original geographical place of manufacture, remain discussed, making it one of the most famous mysteries or archaeology.Each disc has a total 241 tokens,including 45 unique signs.

The Greeks

Modern scripts of Europe is the main source of the Greek alphabet with the adoption of Phoenician letter forms and maintains to the present day, the history of the Greek alphabet began.The Phoenician alphabet was rigorously speaking abjad in the other words it represented only consonants.Its classical and modern form,the alphabet has 24 letters,ordered from alpha to omega.

The Romans

Several hundred years later, the Romans used the Greek alphabet as the basis for the uppercase alphabet that we know today.They also corrected the art of handwriting,fashioning several distinctive styles of lettering which they used for different purposes the Roman alphabet consisted only of capital (upper case) letters.The lower case letters developed in the Middle Ages from cursive writing, first as the uncial script,and later as minuscule script.The old Roman letters were retained for formal inscriptions and for emphasis in written documents.

Pictogram-Ideogram-Logogram

Pictogram

A pictogram, also called a pictogramme or pictograph is an ideogram that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and graphic systems in which the characters are to considerable extent pictorial in appearence.Pictography is a form of writing which uses representational, pictorial drawings.It is a basis of cuneiform and to some extent, hieroglyphic writing, which also uses drawings as phonetic letters or determinative rhymes.

   

(Water,rabbit,deer pictographs on a replica of an Aztec Stone of the Sun)

Ideogram

An ideogram or ideograph is a graphic symbol that represents an idea or concept. Some ideograms are comprehensible only by familiarity with prior convention;others convey their meaning through pictorial resemblance to a physical object, and thus may also be referred to as pictograms.

Logogram

A logogram or logograph is a single grapheme which represents a word or a morpheme (a meaningful unit of language). This stands in contrast to other writing systems, such as alphabets, where each symbol (letter) primarily represents a sound or a combination of sounds.

References

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pictogram

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logogram

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ideogram

Cuneiform

History has been beginning with invention of writing and this has been cuneiform as you know.People preferred stones because of lack of paper.After the invention of papyrus term of writing on stone finished and also cuneiform broke up.

[Sumerians believed in education.Record keeping was very important to them.Their written language began as pictographs, pictures of things that acted as words.Pictographs worked,but they were rather cumbersome.Soon,Sumerians started to use wedge-shaped symbols for objects and ideas instead of pictures.Today we call this written language wedge-shaped symbols cuneiform.]

A few examples for cuneiform...

Look at cuneiform tablets!

Rocks and Caves

In first week our topic is rocks and caves. We have seen too much pictures which are drawen by primitive people (hunters and gatherers) into walls of caves.There were examples which have been done before thousand years ago by primitive's.These paintings are quite impressive and different...

According to me geoglyphs are more interesting because I am impressed by large motifs.Geoglyph is a large desing or motif (generally greater than 4 metres)produced on the ground and typically formed by clastic rocks or similarly durable elements of the landscape, such as stoınes, stone fragments, gravel or earth.For instance, Geoglyphs on deforested land in the Amazon rainforest.



















For more information look at this video...

Welcome

I opened the blog for VA 312 course welcome to all of you! The topics that we have read in the lesson were about nice and controversial topics which helped me broaden my view of the history of visual communication.Every week you will see a new sharings about lecture :)