My Next Reading...

This book is interesting, it gives quite a bit of history on who, where, why and how reading and writing began. It is a bit complicated and I need to read with lots of care!
How the brain adapted itself to read: the first writing systems were:
• Tokens in hardened clay envelopes
• Intricate dyed knots of twine
• Designs scratched on the surface of turtle shells
• Crosshatched lines on stones found in South Africa thought to be 77,000 years old
The history of reading is about several cognitive and linguistic revelations along with cultural changes. The first writing consisted of:
• Symbolic representation-simple marked lines on clay tokens, stones or turtle shells
• As system of symbols is used to communicate through the ages which preserved words and thoughts from humans and cultures
The first language spoken is claimed by so many people from Egyptian King Psamtik claiming that Phrygian was the first human language to James IV of Scotland to Frederick II Hohenstaufen. It has never been proven where the first language started and what it was exactly.
Symbols go all the way back to 4000 BCE and helped two important facets of our brain “our capacity for specialization and our capacity for making new connections among association areas. The Sumerians came up with one of the first and important systems of writing. They used pointed reed stylus on soft clay and created a script that looked a lot like bird tracks to those of us who do not really know what we are looking at. This type of writing was meant for administrative and accounting purposes ONLY.
I’m really interested in reading development and how it happens or how it does not happen. I hope it comes soon!