Describe the transformation of writing systems from pictograms through cuneiform and, finally, phonetic systems

Please provide the best answer for the statement.


1. Writing first appeared in the middle of the fourth millennium BCE in agricultural records as pictograms—pictures that represent things or concepts—etched into clay tablets.
2. Beginning about 2900 BCE, most writing began to look more linear; it was difficult to draw curves in wet clay, so scribes adopted a straight-line script made with a wedge-shaped stylus, or writing tool, cut from reeds. The resulting impressions looked like wedges. Cuneiform writing was named from the Latin cuneus, “wedge.”
3. By 2000 BCE, another significant development in the progress of writing had appeared: Signs began to represent not things but sounds. This phonetic writing thus liberated the sign from its picture.

Art & Culture

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