There are over 6,000 different languages, and only about 50 writing systems. A ratio that left me mystified during our screening of The Writing Code. I quickly jotted the fact down (thinking to myself that it might be useful if I ever star in Jeopardy) and got to thinking. How can the ratios be so far apart? My idea of literacy when I walked into this class was constricted to the idea of being able to read and write. And the idea that someone does not really understand a language if they cannot perform said reading and writing. However, as we’ve learned in class, there is not just one type of literacy, and just because someone speaks a language does not necessarily mean they need a written aspect in order to function in their society. Literacy is very socially based and if a community is able to function without it, then literacy is not necessarily an aspect that affects their ability to perform within society. This means that not every language needs a writing system that goes along with it. I also learned that there are certain languages that although are spoken and pronounced differently, use the same writing system. Because the writing system uses characters that represent objects, it is easier to understand across more than one language. I think this is interesting and it makes me wonder if it would ever be possible to create a writing system (not necessarily a language) that can be incorporated into societies across the world to improve our communication with other countries (given the air of superiority the US has with the English language, I’d say probably not.)
This is an excellent point. I know through basic knowledge of the rise, conquering, and fall of empires, issues of population density, etc. that history has some answers as to why our written language is so much more condensed than spoken language. It makes sense that as writing was created to be efficient, we need the process to be as streamlined as possible, but the disparity between the figures is still shocking.
Baron pointed out in his article that a writing technology like the pencil goes through so many iterations and refinements before becoming the instrument we’re familiar with today. I’m assuming that writing was subject to the same process, so while it’s possible (but not likely) that each language could have attempted to create an accompanying written form, it may have been lost due to lack of resources, inefficacy, and failure to spread.