| # | Polity | Coded Value | Tags | Year(s) | Edit | Desc |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
"According to the Sanguo zhi [Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms], because Kebineng’s lands were near the Chinese border, many Chinese people (Zhongguo ren 中國人) fled the warlord depredations of late Han and Three Kingdoms China to join Kebineng, teaching the Xianbei how to make Chinese-style arms and armor, and even introducing some literacy. "
[1]
Kebineng’s reign started in 230 CE. "the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
[2]
[1]: (Holcombe 2013, 7-8) [2]: (Graff 2016, 146) David A Graff. 2016. The Eurasian Way of War. Military practice in seventh-century China and Byzantium. Routledge. Abingdon. |
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|
"According to the Sanguo zhi [Chronicles of the Three Kingdoms], because Kebineng’s lands were near the Chinese border, many Chinese people (Zhongguo ren 中國人) fled the warlord depredations of late Han and Three Kingdoms China to join Kebineng, teaching the Xianbei how to make Chinese-style arms and armor, and even introducing some literacy. "
[1]
Kebineng’s reign started in 230 CE. "the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
[2]
[1]: (Holcombe 2013, 7-8) [2]: (Graff 2016, 146) David A Graff. 2016. The Eurasian Way of War. Military practice in seventh-century China and Byzantium. Routledge. Abingdon. |
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|
"Historical sources report that by A.D. 500 the Jujan were actively adopting a variety of Chinese influences, including the use of written Chinese for official records. "
[1]
"the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
[2]
[1]: (Rogers 2012, 224) [2]: (Graff 2016, 146) David A Graff. 2016. The Eurasian Way of War. Military practice in seventh-century China and Byzantium. Routledge. Abingdon. |
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|
Local scripts were in use in subjugated territories, but there is a controversy over whether the Hepthalites were a literate people. Bactrian, Pahlavi, Kharos and Brahmi were in use by others.
[1]
[1]: Litvinsky B.A.,Guang-da Zhang , and Shabani Samghabadi R. (eds)History of Civilizations of Central Asia p. 152 |
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|
Local scripts were in use in subjugated territories, but there is a controversy over whether the Hepthalites were a literate people. Bactrian, Pahlavi, Kharos and Brahmi were in use by others.
[1]
[1]: Litvinsky B.A.,Guang-da Zhang , and Shabani Samghabadi R. (eds)History of Civilizations of Central Asia p. 152 |
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|
"Historical sources report that by A.D. 500 the Jujan were actively adopting a variety of Chinese influences, including the use of written Chinese for official records. "
[1]
"the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
[2]
[1]: (Rogers 2012, 224) [2]: (Graff 2016, 146) David A Graff. 2016. The Eurasian Way of War. Military practice in seventh-century China and Byzantium. Routledge. Abingdon. |
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|
This quote refers to a 16th century inscription on a feast house. “In one of the oldest feast houses in Kafa, at Baha, Cardinal Massaja found a tabot with an inscription dedicated to ‘St. George, Our Lady Mary and God’ and signed by ‘Dengel’ (possibly referring to Sarsa Dengel of the sixteenth century).”
[1]
[1]: (Orent 1970, 272) Orent, Amnon. 1970. ‘Refocusing on the History of Kafa Prior to 1897: A Discussion of Political Processes’. African Historical Studies. Vol. 3:2. Pp 263-293. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2A389XGK/collection |
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|
-
|
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|
This quote refers to a 16th century inscription on a feast house. “In one of the oldest feast houses in Kafa, at Baha, Cardinal Massaja found a tabot with an inscription dedicated to ‘St. George, Our Lady Mary and God’ and signed by ‘Dengel’ (possibly referring to Sarsa Dengel of the sixteenth century).”
[1]
[1]: (Orent 1970, 272) Orent, Amnon. 1970. ‘Refocusing on the History of Kafa Prior to 1897: A Discussion of Political Processes’. African Historical Studies. Vol. 3:2. Pp 263-293. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/2A389XGK/collection |
||||||
|
The following quote refers to ‘state documents’ only; it seems reasonable to assume that non-governmental written records existed before the eighteenth century, given the time period and the fact that Islam is a religion of the book. “Only in the eighteenth century did state documents appear in Arabic.”
[1]
[1]: (Lapidus 2002, 429) Lapidus, Ira M. 2002. A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QW9XHCIW/collection |
||||||
|
The following quote suggests that Ajami script (see second quote) was used by a high-ranking minority. "In southern Senegambia, where non-Manding populations predominated, Manding was a prestigious language of the pagan aristocracy and, on the other hand, the language of the Muslim merchant network of Jakhanke. The existence of Manding Ajami in that area was already attested in the first half of the 18th century (Labat 1728; cited by Giesing & Costa-Dias 2007: 63), long before the pagan rule of the ñàncoo elite of the Kaabu was definitely smashed by Muslim Fulbe troops from Fuuta Jalon. In any case, the emergence of Ajami is not related to the establishment of a Muslim political power in this area: the main holders of Islamic writing in the area, the Jakhanke merchants, were for centuries integrated into the social system of the Kaabu confederation and often served as advisers and intermediates for the political elites."
[1]
"A number of terms have been used in this volume to refer to the usage of Arabic script for languages other than Arabic. Crosslinguistically, such writing systems are often termed ‘Arabic literature’, ‘Islamic literature’ or ‘Islamic writings’, and locally they are known by a large number of names, such as Wolofal, or Kiarabu. The term Ajami in particular (or variations, such as Äjam, Ajamiya, etc.), derived from the Arabic word ʿaǧam ‘non-Arab; Persian’, has gained some degree of popularity in academic literature and is also encountered as a self-denomination for these writing systems in some languages, such as Hausa."
[2]
[1]: (Vydrin 2014: 201-202) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E8Z57DNC/collection. [2]: (Mumin and Verstegh 2014: 1) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/PVIK4HGV/collection. |
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|
Distant ancestors of the Sakha may have been familiar with writing, but lost that knowledge during past migrations: ’Spindle whorls were made of a kind of hard stone coal (slate?). Of particular interest was one spindle, found in Kurumchinakh, which was covered with writing (letters). In comparing these characters with those of various alphabets, it may readily be observed that many of them are similar, as far as they can be deciphered, to the characters of the Orkhon alphabet. There were thirty-seven symbols of which twenty-one are letters and sixteen indistinct, effaced signs, including perhaps mere scratches. The twenty-one letters appear to be an exact reproduction of the Yenisei-Orkhon characters. There are eighteen consonants and three vowels. Some of the characters are repeated and in all there are ten different symbols. The discovery of these writings so far to the north is of great interest. The ancestors of the Yakut, who, in remote times, emigrated from northern Mongolia, undoubtedly knew the Orkhon alphabet and this may explain the Yakut traditions as to the loss of their writings on the way to Yakutsk Province.’
[1]
The first recent script for the Sakha language was developed by 19th century Russian missionaries: ’The Yakut speak Yakut, a Northeast Turkic language of the Altaic Language Family. It is one of the most divergent of the Turkic languages, closely related to Dolgan (a mixture of Evenk and Yakut sometimes described as a Yakut dialect). The Yakut, over 90 percent of whom speak Yakut as their mother tongue, call their language "Sakha-tyla." Their current written language, developed in the 1930s, is a modified Cyrillic script. Before this, they had several written forms, including a Latin script developed in the 1920s and a Cyrillic script introduced by missionaries in the nineteenth century. Yakut lore includes legends of a written language lost after they traveled north to the Lena valley.’
[2]
’Such was the culture of the Yakut people up to the October Revolution. Particularly important was the cultural assistance which the Yakuts obtained from the fraternal Russian people during the prerevolutionary years. In the 19th century it was mainly the political exiles, beginning with the Decembrists, who spread culture through Yakutiya. There were also other progressive Russian people who diffused the beginnings of a cultivated way of life among the Yakuts. In particular, they laid the foundations of the Yakut written language.’
[3]
Russian administrators communicated in writing and composed clerical documents: ’The people became rapidly impoverished, and the order of the voivode to the clerk Evdokim Kurdiukov in 1685 already mentions the arrears in the treasury and orders the yassak gatherers to treat the people in arrears in the following way: from them who have no cattle take, because of their povetry and extreme need one cherno-cherevyya and one sivodushatyya fox from each, and for a sable, two red foxes from each. This same document orders him to make a census of the people, and their goods and cattle: collect the taxes for the current year, 193 (1685) in full, and collect the arrears for the past years, from each as much as possible. Similar censuses were taken earlier also, and their character may be judged by the census of Grishka Krivogornitsyn in 170 (1671) “for the Meginsk volosts” There we find mentioned not only the taxes and the amounts in arrears, but also the houses, wives, number of workers in the family. There is information about those who have died and those who have run away. Moreover the name and clan of every person is given. The personal and clan nicknames, of course are very much corrupted in these notes, and changed to conform with the Russian style, but it is not hard to determine what they actually are. The yassak books and these censuses were the materials out of which was later created the present system of Yakut self-government.’
[4]
But the Sakha probably had little to no access to these and most of the Yakut population remained illiterate until the 20th century: ’In 1942 Yakutiya celebrated the end of illiteracy among the adult population. Over the years of the Soviet regime more than 155,000 illiterate people have been taught to read and write. Work continues with those who are only partially literate in the network of adult schools.’
[5]
We have selected 1800 as a provisional date of transition.
[1]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 62 [2]: Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam and Skoggard, Ian: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Yakut [3]: Tokarev, S. A., and Gurvich I. S. 1964. “Yakuts”, 283 [4]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 780 [5]: Tokarev, S. A., and Gurvich I. S. 1964. “Yakuts”, 298 |
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|
The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
||||||
|
The following quote suggests that Ajami script (see second quote) was used by a high-ranking minority. "In southern Senegambia, where non-Manding populations predominated, Manding was a prestigious language of the pagan aristocracy and, on the other hand, the language of the Muslim merchant network of Jakhanke. The existence of Manding Ajami in that area was already attested in the first half of the 18th century (Labat 1728; cited by Giesing & Costa-Dias 2007: 63), long before the pagan rule of the ñàncoo elite of the Kaabu was definitely smashed by Muslim Fulbe troops from Fuuta Jalon. In any case, the emergence of Ajami is not related to the establishment of a Muslim political power in this area: the main holders of Islamic writing in the area, the Jakhanke merchants, were for centuries integrated into the social system of the Kaabu confederation and often served as advisers and intermediates for the political elites."
[1]
"A number of terms have been used in this volume to refer to the usage of Arabic script for languages other than Arabic. Crosslinguistically, such writing systems are often termed ‘Arabic literature’, ‘Islamic literature’ or ‘Islamic writings’, and locally they are known by a large number of names, such as Wolofal, or Kiarabu. The term Ajami in particular (or variations, such as Äjam, Ajamiya, etc.), derived from the Arabic word ʿaǧam ‘non-Arab; Persian’, has gained some degree of popularity in academic literature and is also encountered as a self-denomination for these writing systems in some languages, such as Hausa."
[2]
[1]: (Vydrin 2014: 201-202) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/E8Z57DNC/collection. [2]: (Mumin and Verstegh 2014: 1) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/PVIK4HGV/collection. |
||||||
|
The following quote refers to ‘state documents’ only; it seems reasonable to assume that non-governmental written records existed before the eighteenth century, given the time period and the fact that Islam is a religion of the book. “Only in the eighteenth century did state documents appear in Arabic.”
[1]
[1]: (Lapidus 2002, 429) Lapidus, Ira M. 2002. A History of Islamic Societies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QW9XHCIW/collection |
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|
"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
||||||
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-
|
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|
See above.
|
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
Based on the literature consulted, it remains unclear whether literacy spread from Buganda to Nkore at this time.
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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|
Distant ancestors of the Sakha may have been familiar with writing, but lost that knowledge during past migrations: ’Spindle whorls were made of a kind of hard stone coal (slate?). Of particular interest was one spindle, found in Kurumchinakh, which was covered with writing (letters). In comparing these characters with those of various alphabets, it may readily be observed that many of them are similar, as far as they can be deciphered, to the characters of the Orkhon alphabet. There were thirty-seven symbols of which twenty-one are letters and sixteen indistinct, effaced signs, including perhaps mere scratches. The twenty-one letters appear to be an exact reproduction of the Yenisei-Orkhon characters. There are eighteen consonants and three vowels. Some of the characters are repeated and in all there are ten different symbols. The discovery of these writings so far to the north is of great interest. The ancestors of the Yakut, who, in remote times, emigrated from northern Mongolia, undoubtedly knew the Orkhon alphabet and this may explain the Yakut traditions as to the loss of their writings on the way to Yakutsk Province.’
[1]
The first recent script for the Sakha language was developed by 19th century Russian missionaries: ’The Yakut speak Yakut, a Northeast Turkic language of the Altaic Language Family. It is one of the most divergent of the Turkic languages, closely related to Dolgan (a mixture of Evenk and Yakut sometimes described as a Yakut dialect). The Yakut, over 90 percent of whom speak Yakut as their mother tongue, call their language "Sakha-tyla." Their current written language, developed in the 1930s, is a modified Cyrillic script. Before this, they had several written forms, including a Latin script developed in the 1920s and a Cyrillic script introduced by missionaries in the nineteenth century. Yakut lore includes legends of a written language lost after they traveled north to the Lena valley.’
[2]
’Such was the culture of the Yakut people up to the October Revolution. Particularly important was the cultural assistance which the Yakuts obtained from the fraternal Russian people during the prerevolutionary years. In the 19th century it was mainly the political exiles, beginning with the Decembrists, who spread culture through Yakutiya. There were also other progressive Russian people who diffused the beginnings of a cultivated way of life among the Yakuts. In particular, they laid the foundations of the Yakut written language.’
[3]
Russian administrators communicated in writing and composed clerical documents: ’The people became rapidly impoverished, and the order of the voivode to the clerk Evdokim Kurdiukov in 1685 already mentions the arrears in the treasury and orders the yassak gatherers to treat the people in arrears in the following way: from them who have no cattle take, because of their povetry and extreme need one cherno-cherevyya and one sivodushatyya fox from each, and for a sable, two red foxes from each. This same document orders him to make a census of the people, and their goods and cattle: collect the taxes for the current year, 193 (1685) in full, and collect the arrears for the past years, from each as much as possible. Similar censuses were taken earlier also, and their character may be judged by the census of Grishka Krivogornitsyn in 170 (1671) “for the Meginsk volosts” There we find mentioned not only the taxes and the amounts in arrears, but also the houses, wives, number of workers in the family. There is information about those who have died and those who have run away. Moreover the name and clan of every person is given. The personal and clan nicknames, of course are very much corrupted in these notes, and changed to conform with the Russian style, but it is not hard to determine what they actually are. The yassak books and these censuses were the materials out of which was later created the present system of Yakut self-government.’
[4]
But the Sakha probably had little to no access to these and most of the Yakut population remained illiterate until the 20th century: ’In 1942 Yakutiya celebrated the end of illiteracy among the adult population. Over the years of the Soviet regime more than 155,000 illiterate people have been taught to read and write. Work continues with those who are only partially literate in the network of adult schools.’
[5]
We have selected 1800 as a provisional date of transition.
[1]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 62 [2]: Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam and Skoggard, Ian: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Yakut [3]: Tokarev, S. A., and Gurvich I. S. 1964. “Yakuts”, 283 [4]: Sieroszewski, Wacław 1993. “Yakut: An Experiment In Ethnographic Research”, 780 [5]: Tokarev, S. A., and Gurvich I. S. 1964. “Yakuts”, 298 |
||||||
|
See above.
|
||||||
|
The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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|
SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’ Christian missionaries introduced Latinized characters: ’The Malays before their conversion to Mahomedanism may be presumed to have had no letters of their own. What they have now are made up out of the Arabic alphabet. To suit the tone of their language the letters are named accordingly. With reference to the Sea Dyaks, since the gospel of Christ has been preached to them, letters of the Roman character are used and pronounced accordingly to suit the tones of their pronunciation.’
[1]
The first true mission schools were established in the 1920s (see above). In the 1950s, Freeman claimed no written calendars for the ’pre-literate’ Iban: ’The Iban still attach great importance to their stellar lore. Tungku, a tuai rumah of the Mujong headwaters, put it in these words:“If there were no stars we Iban would be lost, not knowing when to plant; we live by the stars.”(“ Enti nadai bintang tesat ati kami Iban, enda nemu maia nugal; kami idup ari bintang. ”) It must not be thought however that there is any dogma that rituals, etc. should be held on the exact dates given. The Iban are a pre-literate people without a calendar, and the movements of the Pleiades, Orion and Sirius are taken as no more than general indications of the time when the major operations of felling and planting should be embarked upon.’
[2]
Komanyi claims written calendars following the European pattern and literacy in the 1970s: ’Since most people now have western calendars, they know during which month the sowing, weeding or harvesting is to be done. Their “new year” begins after the harvest is completed, which may be some time in May or June. However, June 1st is “Dayak Day,” proclaimed by the government as the official Dayak New Year’s Day.’
[3]
These figures are entirely contradictory. We have chosen to go with the 1921 figure as it is coherent with the establishment of mission schools, but expert feedback is absolutely essential on this matter. Regional variation may explain the difference, but this is in need of confirmation.
[1]: Howell, William 1908-1910. “Sea Dyak”, 3 [2]: Freeman, Derek 1955. “Iban Agriculture: A Report On The Shifting Cultivation Of Hill Rice By The Iban Of Sarawak”, 40 [3]: Komanyi, Margit Ilona 1973. “Real And Ideal Participation In Decision-Making Of Iban Women: A Study Of A Longhouse Community In Sarawak, East Malaysia”, 15 |
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|
"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
Based on the literature consulted, it remains unclear whether literacy spread from Buganda to Nkore at this time.
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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|
"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
||||||
|
SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’ Christian missionaries introduced Latinized characters: ’The Malays before their conversion to Mahomedanism may be presumed to have had no letters of their own. What they have now are made up out of the Arabic alphabet. To suit the tone of their language the letters are named accordingly. With reference to the Sea Dyaks, since the gospel of Christ has been preached to them, letters of the Roman character are used and pronounced accordingly to suit the tones of their pronunciation.’
[1]
The first true mission schools were established in the 1920s (see above). In the 1950s, Freeman claimed no written calendars for the ’pre-literate’ Iban: ’The Iban still attach great importance to their stellar lore. Tungku, a tuai rumah of the Mujong headwaters, put it in these words:“If there were no stars we Iban would be lost, not knowing when to plant; we live by the stars.”(“ Enti nadai bintang tesat ati kami Iban, enda nemu maia nugal; kami idup ari bintang. ”) It must not be thought however that there is any dogma that rituals, etc. should be held on the exact dates given. The Iban are a pre-literate people without a calendar, and the movements of the Pleiades, Orion and Sirius are taken as no more than general indications of the time when the major operations of felling and planting should be embarked upon.’
[2]
Komanyi claims written calendars following the European pattern and literacy in the 1970s: ’Since most people now have western calendars, they know during which month the sowing, weeding or harvesting is to be done. Their “new year” begins after the harvest is completed, which may be some time in May or June. However, June 1st is “Dayak Day,” proclaimed by the government as the official Dayak New Year’s Day.’
[3]
These figures are entirely contradictory. We have chosen to go with the 1921 figure as it is coherent with the establishment of mission schools, but expert feedback is absolutely essential on this matter. Regional variation may explain the difference, but this is in need of confirmation.
[1]: Howell, William 1908-1910. “Sea Dyak”, 3 [2]: Freeman, Derek 1955. “Iban Agriculture: A Report On The Shifting Cultivation Of Hill Rice By The Iban Of Sarawak”, 40 [3]: Komanyi, Margit Ilona 1973. “Real And Ideal Participation In Decision-Making Of Iban Women: A Study Of A Longhouse Community In Sarawak, East Malaysia”, 15 |
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The Hmong initially had no written records: ’They have no written language, their knowledge is limited, and their living standard is far below the standard of modern life. Because of the backwardness of their civilization they are held in contempt by the Chinese. Due to repeated conflicts in the past between the Chinese and the Miao-I, a great deal of misunderstanding, suspicion and prejudice still exists between the two groups. Fortunately, there are no unified spoken language customs and habits among the various Miao-I groups, and so among their many millions of people there is yet no apparent consolidation of a minority group movement to oppose the Chinese. If our government authorities can undertake the development of their educational standards on the one hand and the elimination of misunderstanding and racial prejudices on the other, then the many millions of Miao-I people can be made into a powerful new force to assume special responsibilities in the war of defense and national reconstruction.’
[1]
Some shamans used written magic charms: ’(1) Spiritual Media. The names for spiritual media in An-shun are the same in the Miao-I language as in the Chinese. The men are known as Kwei-shin or Tuan-kung; the women, Mi-la or Mi-pu. Their duty is to sacrifice to the spirits to invoke their aid and to provide a medium between the spiritual and the human worlds. As such they are respected by the people. All ancestor worship and funeral events have to be presided over by the Kwei-shih. Every Miao-I center has one or two Kwei-shih, who learned their trade since childhood. Among the Chung-chia people the magic charms used for such spiritual purposes are marked with Chinese characters as phonetic symbols and written down as a scripture to be transmitted from master to disciple. The Kwei-shih, who are farmers by trade, take up mediumship as a side line to supplement their income from remunerations gained from its practice. In case of sickness the Miao-I believe the evil spirits are causing trouble, and it is the duty of the Mi-la to chase them away in order to cure the sick person. Often she is invited to the house to do her work. Sometimes in public gatherings the Mi-la is surrounded by people inquiring from her as to the best method of driving away spirits. Evidently the Mi-la is less able than the Kwei-shih, for in case of very serious illness or in the performance of funeral rites the man medium is always preferred.’
[2]
Christian missionaries introduced a romanized script for the publication of sacred texts and religious literature in the native languages: ’Since the reign of Kwang-hsu /1875-1907/ in the Ch’ing Dynasty, foreign Protestant and Catholic missionaries had come to Kweichow to rent houses for dispensing medicine and preaching the gospel. The Miao-I people were attracted by their kind and dignified bearings and many were subsequently converted. These preachers bought property where their congregation was the largest and established schools with teachers instructing the people in the gospel. Today Shih-men-k’an at Wei-ning is the southwest headquarters of the Christian missions. There many Hua Miao become sincere believers and followers. The missionaries have also introduced a romanized form of Miao language based on the English alphabet, which the Hua Miao learn as the “Miao language.”’
[3]
’The first missionaries among the Hua Miao belonged to the Bible Christian Church, a dissenting Methodist sect, that placed great importance on the ability to read the Bible for oneself. With missionary assistance and encouragement, a simple phonetic script was developed in 1905 and in the following years the New Testament was translated in full into Dian Dongbei. Hymnals and study guides were also produced, and a series of school primers. In the 1930s and 1940s a small newspaper was published. Village chapels, built with communal effort, functioned also as one-room primary schools and centers for adult education. The mountain community of Shimenkan (Stone Gateway) in northwestern Guizhou served as the headquarters of church activity. In addition to its own large primary school, it offered secondary schooling and teacher training. At least thirty Hua Miao continued on and graduated from university in the decades before 1949. Some of these became ordained Methodist ministers or doctors and one became a well-regarded anthropologist (Yang Hanxian). Generally the local chapels were served by lay preachers who were trained at Shimenkan. Other young people received training as nurses and agricultural extension workers. At various points in time, agricultural and industrial extension programs were held at Shimenkan. New strains of potatoes were introduced, fruit orchards were planted on the hillsides of many villages, vegetable gardens were encouraged, and a number of Miao learned the techniques of carpentry, brickmaking, and masonry. More efficient looms were designed for home production of cloth. During the prerevolutionary decades, some villages benefited from collective endeavors to build bridges and roads, and pipe systems that brought water into the community. Teams of medical workers, from Shimenkan or from the churchaffiliated hospitals in nearby Zhaotong City, traveled around the area periodically. Even those who were not interested in becoming church members participated in the economic innovations, accepted treatment from the medical workers, and sent their children to the schools.’
[4]
[1]: Che-lin, Wu, Chen Kuo-chün, and Lien-en Tsao 1942. “Studies Of Miao-I Societies In Kweichow", 37 [2]: Chen, Guojun, and Lien-en Tsao 1942. “Religious Beliefs Of The Miao And I Tribes In An-Shun Kweichow”, 3 [3]: Che-lin, Wu, Chen Kuo-chün, and Lien-en Tsao 1942. “Studies Of Miao-I Societies In Kweichow”, 15 [4]: Diamond, Norma 1993. “Ethnicity And The State: The Hua Miao Of Southwest China”, 68 |
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“The most valuable source of knowledge for scholars probing the legends and historical heritage of Sri Lanka is still the Mahavamsa (Great Genealogy or Dynasty), a chronicle complied in Pali, the language of Theravada Buddhism, in the sixth century. Buddhist monks composed the Mahavamsa, which was an adaptation of an earlier and cruder fourth century epic, the Dipavamsa (Island Genealogy or Dynasty). The latter account was compiled to glorify Buddhism and is not a comprehensive narrative of events. The Mahavamsa, however, related the rise and fall of successive Buddhist kingdoms beginning with Vijaya, the legendary coloniser of Sri Lanka and primogenitor of the Sinhalese migrant group.”
[1]
“On the history of the island up to the end of the first millennium, and indeed for three centuries of the second, there is a wealth of historical data. Of these the first category consists of the Pali chronicles, the Dīpavaṁsa and Mahāvaṁsa with its continuation the Cūlavaṁsa, which together provide scholars with a mass of reliable data, not available for other parts of south Asia for most the period under study. Next come the archaeological remains of the civilizations of Sri Lanka’s dry zone, the magnificent array of religious and secular monuments written about in the chronicles mentioned earlier, and the irrigation works. […] “On the history of the island up to the end of the first millennium, and indeed for three centuries of the second, there is a wealth of historical data. Of these the first category consists of the Pali chronicles, the Dīpavaṁsa and Mahāvaṁsa with its continuation the Cūlavaṁsa, which together provide scholars with a mass of reliable data, not available for other parts of south Asia for most the period under study. Next come the archaeological remains of the civilizations of Sri Lanka’s dry zone, the magnificent array of religious and secular monuments written about in the chronicles mentioned earlier, and the irrigation works.”
[2]
“Although its authorship is unknown, the Dīpavaṃsa is believed to have been compiled in the fourth century CE, while the Mahāvaṃsa has been argued to have been written by various monks of the Mahāvihāra and compiled into a single document by the Buddhist monk Mahānāma in the fifth to sixth century CE. It narrates the history of the island from its colonization by Prince Vijaya through to the reign of King Mahāsena (r. 275–301 ce). The Cūḷavaṃsa was a continuation of this narrative, detailing the island’s history up to the eighteenth century CE. Initially scholars believed these narratives to be legends, but the rediscovery of palm leaf manuscripts by George Turnour at Mullgirigalla near Tangalle led to the serious reconsideration of their contents as historical. Sir James Emerson Tennent, Colonial Secretary of Ceylon between 1845 and 1850 CE, stated that this ‘long lost chronicle... thus vindicated the claim of Ceylon to the possession of an authentic and unrivalled record of its national history’.”
[3]
“Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”
[4]
[1]: (Ross and Savada 2002,98) Ross, Russel R. and Savada, Andrea Matles 2002. Sri Lanka: Current Issues and Historical Background edited by Walter Nubin. New York: Nova Science Publishers Inc. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/JQ8T59TD/collection [2]: (De Silva 2005, 3) De Silva, K.M. 2005. A History of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka: Vijitha Yapa Publications. Seshat URL:https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/BHJ4G3V7/collection [3]: Coningham et al. 2017, 21) Coningham et al. 2017. ‘Archaeology and cosmopolitanism in early historic and medieval Sri Lanka.’ Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History. Edited by Zoltán Biedermann and Alan Strathern. London: UCL Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/DCQMW8E3/collection [4]: (Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection. |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’.
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No information found in sources so far.
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French language.
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French language.
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French language.
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Arabic.
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The A-Hmao language was first written by the Pollard script in apprx. 1905.
[1]
[2]
[1]: Duffy, John M. (2007). Writing from these roots: literacy in a Hmong-American community. University of Hawaii Press. ISBN 0-8248-3095-4. [2]: http://www.omniglot.com/writing/pollardMiao.htm |
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Chinese
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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Chinese
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Chinese
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’
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There were several scripts in use.
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There were several scripts in use.
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Written records began being kept from the seventh century.
[1]
[2]
[1]: (Yorke 1990: 20) York, Barbara. 1990. Kings and Kingdoms of Early Anglo-Saxon England. London: Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203447307. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/YXTNCWJNs [2]: (Hills 1990: 47) Hills, Catherine. ‘Roman Britain to Anglo-Saxon England’, History Today, 1 October 1990, https://www.proquest.com/docview/1299029206/abstract/974AE2C925154DEBPQ/1. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/9P2MJSYJ |
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French language.
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French language.
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present: 9th century BCE
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Sanskrit.
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Sanskrit.
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Both the "square script" (also called ashurit, "Assyrian") and the older Phoenician-style scripts of Hebrew.
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ lists no mnemonic devices or nonwritten records or ’True writing, no writing’ See above.
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Sanskrit.
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Akkadian cuneiform.
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"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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e.g. Persian, the language of administration and court letter writing.
[1]
[1]: Daniela Meneghini ’SALJUQS v. SALJUQID LITERATURE’ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/saljuqs-v |
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Literacy existed before latinization, but was associated with social authority: ’It is usually forgotten that literacy had existed in Norse culture, of which Icelandic culture was a late offshoot, long before the year 1000. Actually, literacy was introduced with the runic alphabet as early as the second or third century A.D. Literacy seems, however, to have been the prerogative of the aristocratic class. It seems that the secrets were jealously guarded by the leading social stratum. Runic inscriptions are generally short, and mainly commemorate family relationships. The Tune stone runic inscription from Østfold in eastern Norway (from around A.D. 200) may serve as an example. Although there is some disagreement regarding interpretation, it is commonly believed that the inscription relates a number of inheritors to an ancestor (Grønvik 1981), and that it was connected to the inheritors’ claims to exclusive rights to property. Runes were shrouded in magic and sorcery, imbuing the text with sacrality. Writing constituted authority. That writing of runes was associated with people of authority is also manifested in Norse mythology. In the poem Rígsþula, written in Iceland in the thirteenth century, but commonly [Page 126] believed to belong to the Viking period, the god Heimdallr teaches the prince Jarl (Earl) to write runes. In some of the stanzas of Hávamál the high god Óðinn sacrifices himself in order to obtain the powerful knowledge of the runes (138-141). Óðinn was above all the god of the aristocratic warriors. In these and similar cases the basic message is that rune writing was an exclusive right of the aristocratic class.’
[1]
The introduction of the Latin alphabet expanded the spectrum of written genres beyond the badly preserved runic tradition: ’At the time of settlement, the Icelanders spoke Old Norse (a Germanic language, in the large Indo-European group of languages), which was then common throughout Scandinavia. By the beginning of the twelfth century linguistic conservatism on the remote island society had introduced significant differences between Icelandic and its Scandinavian neighbors resulting in a distinct Icelandic. Prior to the conversion to Christianity in 1000 A.D., Old Norse was written in a runic alphabet. Runes had a restricted use and few runic inscriptions have survived from Iceland. With Christianity came the Roman alphabet and the expansion of written genres, which thrived in Iceland.’
[2]
Early Icelanders then developed a rich literary tradition: ’One of the remarkable legacies of early Iceland is its wealth of literary production. Icelandic literary production encompassed continental chivalrous, hagiographic, and historical traditions, in addition to the autochthonous development of the saga. Among other topics, Icelandic sagas depict events from the early years of Icelandic society, the colonization of Greenland and the discovery of North America, and the civil wars that characterized the twelfth and thirteenth centuries in Iceland. The medieval manuscripts also preserve an artistic tradition in illumination. The literary levels achieved in Iceland, to some degree, developed from strong oral traditions of poetry and narrative. Much of the material culture of early Iceland has not been preserved but a strong tradition in artistic woodcarving is evident.’
[2]
The introduction of Christianity was an important factor in this process: ’By the end of the 10th century, the Norwegians were forced by their king, Olaf I Tryggvason, to accept Christianity. The king also sent missionaries to Iceland who, according to 12th-century sources, were highly successful in converting the Icelanders. In 999 or 1000 the Althing made a peaceful decision that all Icelanders should become Christians. In spite of this decision, the godar retained their political role, and many of them probably built their own churches. Some were ordained, and as a group they seem to have closely controlled the organization of the new religion. Two bishoprics were established, one at Skálholt in 1056 and the other at Hólar in 1106. Literate Christian culture also transformed lay life. Codification of the law was begun in 1117-18. Later the Icelanders began to write sagas, which were to reach their pinnacle of literary achievement in the next century.’
[3]
’While literacy became widespread in Iceland during the two centuries prior to the writing of the sagas, the evidence suggests that writing continued to be connected to chieftains and landowners. As literacy was taught by the Church, most chieftains had clerical training, and many of them were ordained priests (Sveinsson 1953). Although the international outlook of Christianity was inimical to the kin-based and locally-based Icelandic civilization, at that time it was probably not regarded as too radical. Actually, when Christianity was first introduced to Iceland, it was probably considered to be a resource which the chieftains could exploit [Page 127] to their own benefit, and literacy was part of it. At the turn of the twelfth and the thirteenth centuries, when they began to write sagas, relations between the lay and Church authorities became strained. The literature of the twelfth century is half-secular, half-ecclesiastic (Sveinsson 1953:103). The tension between the Church and the chieftains created an independent secular literature in Iceland in the thirteenth century (Lönnroth 1991). Increasingly, people turned to the oral literature which existed in the secular social environment. The context of literacy continued to be closely associated to the dominant social class.’
[4]
The Roman alphabet was adapted to the Norse vernacular: ’When they started writing, Icelanders wrote about secular as well as religious matters. They adapted the Roman alphabet to their own tongue and wrote in the vernacular because they had something to write for one another. This process of writing started just about a hundred years after seasonal labor became available, when landowners could expand their holdings and the distribution of wealth, land, and power began to shift in a continuous process of revaluing the social and political variables.’
[5]
This code refers to both Runes and the Latin alphabet.
[1]: Odner, Knut 1992. “Þógunna’S Testament: A Myth For Moral Contemplation And Social Apathy”, 125 [2]: Bolender, Douglas James and Beierle, John: eHRAF Cultural Summary for Early Icelanders [3]: http://www.britannica.com/place/Iceland/Government-and-society#toc10088 [4]: Odner, Knut 1992. “Þógunna’S Testament: A Myth For Moral Contemplation And Social Apathy”, 126 [5]: Durrenberger, E. Paul 1992. “Dynamics Of Medieval Iceland: Political Economy And Literature”, 106 |
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Greek, Latin.
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||||||
|
"To all appearances, writing as such, in the form of Chinese Classics, was introduced into Japan early in the fifth century as part of the great cultural influx from Paekche."
[1]
However, ’now and then Chinese characters appeared on Yayoi pottery, showing a degree of literacy among craftsmen.’
[2]
[1]: (Frellesvig 2010, 11) [2]: Kidder Jr., J. Edward, 2007. Himiko and Japan’s Elusive Kingdom of Yamatai Honolulu: Hawaii University Press. p. 113 |
||||||
|
Written language was culture of an urban élite, that did not absorb surrounding cultures and languages
[1]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[2]
[1]: (Cissoko 1984, 2010) [2]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
"While their own spoken dialect may have differed somewhat, the Uighurs adopted the written form of Old Turkish used in the Türk empires. Uighur inscriptions found in Mongolia show the primary use of the Türks’ Runic script alongside a cursive adaption of Sogdian for Uighur, which after the fall of the empire became the Uighurs’ main script."
[1]
[1]: (Atwood 2004, 561) |
||||||
|
"In several supercomplex chiefdoms the elite attempted to introduce written records (e.g. Hsiung-nu and Turks)"
[1]
Inscriptions in Chinese found in Ivolga, probably made by Chinese immigrants or war prisoners. "In addition the archeologists found in the settlement a number of items with the inscriptions in Chinese characters. These items included, for instance, a whetstone (Davydova 1995: Table 15, 15), the inscriptions on the three sides of which have been interpreted by a Chinese archeologist Xia Nai (Davydova 1995: 37) as sui (number of years), chóu (enemy, rival, hate, avenge; this character was used as a family name) and dang (a party, administrative unit of 500 households; this character could also be used as a family name). There was a very interesting inscription on the bottom of a vessel from house 21 (Davydova 1995, Table 38, 7, 179, 3), which according to the interpretation of the aforementioned Professor Xia Nai (Davydova 1995: 28) was a representation of the Xiongnu period character Yīng, translated by him as “deserved”. No less interesting were the imprint found on the bottom of a vessel from house 50 (Davydova 1995, Table179, 1), which resembled character Zhǔ (master, ruler), an imprint of the character Wang on another vessel’s bottom, an imprint on the bottom of a vessel from house 13, similar to the character tu (picture) and the scratched inscription on the inner side of another vessel’s collar resembling the character jǐng (a well) (Davydova 1995, Table 29, 1, 179, 6, 9). Some imprints on ceramics were illegible (Davydova 1995, Table 134, 4, 179, 2, 5, 7), however they could quite possibly be the artisans’ stamps. Since even the elite groups of the Xiongnu society were not particularly knowledgeable in the Chinese writing (it would be enough to mention the well known episode with the substitution of a Chanyu stamp by the order of Wang Mang), the common nomads could hardly be more literate than their leaders. Thus we may presume that the inscriptions on items from the Ivolga were made not by the Xiongnu, but by the people of the sedentary-agricultural origin and, most likely, by the immigrants or the prisoners of war from China."
[2]
"the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
[3]
[1]: (Kradin 2002, 373) [2]: (Kradin 2014, 90) [3]: (Graff 2016, 146) David A Graff. 2016. The Eurasian Way of War. Military practice in seventh-century China and Byzantium. Routledge. Abingdon. |
||||||
|
"In several supercomplex chiefdoms the elite attempted to introduce written records (e.g. Hsiung-nu and Turks)"
[1]
Inscriptions in Chinese found in Ivolga, probably made by Chinese immigrants or war prisoners. "In addition the archeologists found in the settlement a number of items with the inscriptions in Chinese characters. These items included, for instance, a whetstone (Davydova 1995: Table 15, 15), the inscriptions on the three sides of which have been interpreted by a Chinese archeologist Xia Nai (Davydova 1995: 37) as sui (number of years), chóu (enemy, rival, hate, avenge; this character was used as a family name) and dang (a party, administrative unit of 500 households; this character could also be used as a family name). There was a very interesting inscription on the bottom of a vessel from house 21 (Davydova 1995, Table 38, 7, 179, 3), which according to the interpretation of the aforementioned Professor Xia Nai (Davydova 1995: 28) was a representation of the Xiongnu period character Yīng, translated by him as “deserved”. No less interesting were the imprint found on the bottom of a vessel from house 50 (Davydova 1995, Table179, 1), which resembled character Zhǔ (master, ruler), an imprint of the character Wang on another vessel’s bottom, an imprint on the bottom of a vessel from house 13, similar to the character tu (picture) and the scratched inscription on the inner side of another vessel’s collar resembling the character jǐng (a well) (Davydova 1995, Table 29, 1, 179, 6, 9). Some imprints on ceramics were illegible (Davydova 1995, Table 134, 4, 179, 2, 5, 7), however they could quite possibly be the artisans’ stamps. Since even the elite groups of the Xiongnu society were not particularly knowledgeable in the Chinese writing (it would be enough to mention the well known episode with the substitution of a Chanyu stamp by the order of Wang Mang), the common nomads could hardly be more literate than their leaders. Thus we may presume that the inscriptions on items from the Ivolga were made not by the Xiongnu, but by the people of the sedentary-agricultural origin and, most likely, by the immigrants or the prisoners of war from China."
[2]
"the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
[3]
[1]: (Kradin 2002, 373) [2]: (Kradin 2014, 90) [3]: (Graff 2016, 146) David A Graff. 2016. The Eurasian Way of War. Military practice in seventh-century China and Byzantium. Routledge. Abingdon. |
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Evidence for carved glyphs (of names and calendar dates) has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’ Written records were introduced by colonial authorities and missions, but Schwimmer’s later material suggests a significant time-lag in the spread of literacy: ’For the rest, the skills acquired by Orokaiva over the last 15 years are largely concerned not directly with village development but rather with an increase of understanding of the world outside. While before the war, only a small minority had school education, the Anglican Mission spread its operations to several new stations, including Sasembata, after the war. After the eruption, the scope of education was again greatly extended and it could be said that the eruption marked the beginning of universal school education in the majority of Orokaiva villages. The Sasembata station began to draw virtually the entire child population of the surrounding villages, and most students now follow a five or six year course. While this development had been planned ever since the war, it may be significant that regular school attendance of all the villages in the district was experienced for the first time at Ilimo, where a school was conducted for the whole evacuee child population, and adult classes as well. It is the objective of present school programmes, as far as I can see, to make the population literate and the increase of literacy is a major aspect of acculturation over the period. Literacy has certainly progressed to a point where letters written in Orokaiva to any family in Sivepe can be read and understood with the help of at least a junior member of the family; and can be replied to. While I could see no evidence that people have acquired mathematical knowledge of any sophistication, I was struck by a strong quantitative orientation. In the Orokaiva language, there are no numerals higher than 2; hence, it is the invariable practise to use English numerals when speaking the Orokaiva language. The numerals are, in fact, among the main English linquistic features that have been borrowed. They are used with remarkable frequency; the number of coffee trees, the value in pounds of trade goods included in a bride price, the calculation of money prices, even the number of brothers or men who together played some role in a mythological tale (a distinctly contemporary touch, this)-all these phenomena show that “numbers” have become an integral part of Orokaiva culture. The Orokaiva use the English word “number” for a variety of quantitative concepts, including price. Finally, one must regard as an aspect of acculturation, the introduction of many [Page 80] concepts drawn from the scene of world affairs. While among the Orokaiva, I heard talk about Vietnam, Indonesia, Africa, India. The political orientation displayed was a mild kind of nationalism, and a sense of closeness to newly independent non-white states. But the information, derived from radio broadcasts and speeches by councillors, introduced an acculturative kind of perspective. Its dissemination is being actively encouraged by the Australian authorities.’
[1]
[1]: Schwimmer, Eric G. 1969. “Cultural Consequences Of A Volcanic Eruption Experienced By The Mount Lamington Orokaiva”, 79 |
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"The South Arabia civilizations were literate during most of the first millennium BC and AD, and consequently they supply us with a record that complements that derived from archaeological excavations and surveys."
[1]
"In the second half of the 1st millennium B.C., beside the monumental script of the inscriptions, another, ’cursive’ (or ’miniscule,’ abbreviated below as minusc.), script of everyday documents such as private letters, contracts, and magic texts developed. Discovered in 1973, this script was difficult to decipher. Only thirty minuscule documents have been published, out of an estimated number of several thousand. Almost all published miniscule texts are Sab. and date from the 2nd-3rd centuries C.C., most of them coming from the city of Nashshan in the Wadi Madhab."
[2]
Aramaic was used in northwest and east Arabia in the mid-first millennium BCE "and later adopted by all the polities scattered around the edges of the Syrian desert. The success of the Nabataeans led to the spread of their version of the Aramaic script far and wide, and even after the Roman annexation of their realm in AD 106 it continued in use for a couple of centuries. Subsequently the Arab tribes affiliated to Rome and Iran employed it to write their language, namely Arabic. The process of conveying a language with different sounds and extra consonants caused the Nabataean script (which had only twenty-two letters) gradually to evolve until by the sixth century AD it had become what we would recognise as the Arabi script".
[3]
[1]: (Wilkinson 2009, 57) Tony J Wilkinson. Environment and Long-Term Population Trends in Southwest Arabia. Michael D Petraglia. Jeffrey I Rose. eds. 2009. The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia. Paleoenvironments, Prehistory and Genetics. Springer. Dordrecht. [2]: (Kaye 2007, 168) L E Kogan. A V Korotayev. Epigraphic South Arabian Morphology. Alan S Kaye ed. 2007. Morphologies of Asia and Africa. Volume 1. Eisenbrauns. Winona Lake. [3]: (Hoyland 2001, 198-200) Robert G Hoyland. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. London. |
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"The South Arabia civilizations were literate during most of the first millennium BC and AD, and consequently they supply us with a record that complements that derived from archaeological excavations and surveys."
[1]
"In the second half of the 1st millennium B.C., beside the monumental script of the inscriptions, another, ’cursive’ (or ’miniscule,’ abbreviated below as minusc.), script of everyday documents such as private letters, contracts, and magic texts developed. Discovered in 1973, this script was difficult to decipher. Only thirty minuscule documents have been published, out of an estimated number of several thousand. Almost all published miniscule texts are Sab. and date from the 2nd-3rd centuries C.C., most of them coming from the city of Nashshan in the Wadi Madhab."
[2]
Aramaic was used in northwest and east Arabia in the mid-first millennium BCE "and later adopted by all the polities scattered around the edges of the Syrian desert. The success of the Nabataeans led to the spread of their version of the Aramaic script far and wide, and even after the Roman annexation of their realm in AD 106 it continued in use for a couple of centuries. Subsequently the Arab tribes affiliated to Rome and Iran employed it to write their language, namely Arabic. The process of conveying a language with different sounds and extra consonants caused the Nabataean script (which had only twenty-two letters) gradually to evolve until by the sixth century AD it had become what we would recognise as the Arabi script".
[3]
[1]: (Wilkinson 2009, 57) Tony J Wilkinson. Environment and Long-Term Population Trends in Southwest Arabia. Michael D Petraglia. Jeffrey I Rose. eds. 2009. The Evolution of Human Populations in Arabia. Paleoenvironments, Prehistory and Genetics. Springer. Dordrecht. [2]: (Kaye 2007, 168) L E Kogan. A V Korotayev. Epigraphic South Arabian Morphology. Alan S Kaye ed. 2007. Morphologies of Asia and Africa. Volume 1. Eisenbrauns. Winona Lake. [3]: (Hoyland 2001, 198-200) Robert G Hoyland. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. London. |
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Greek, BactrianFound in inscriptions written with the Greek alphabet in the form of graffiti and funerary inscriptions. Greek alphabet used "for writing the Bactarian language."
[1]
The Bactrian Greeks maintained an uncorrupted greek written language tradition. Inscriptions written with the Greek alphabet is attested from graffiti, funerary inscriptions, and Delphic pronouncements. To date, a Greek inscription has been found in a cave at Qara Kamar in northern Bactria, on the frontier of modern Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan. There is also a large collection of graffiti on storage vases, a dedication of two brothers to the gods Hermes and Herakles found in a gymnasium. Furthermore, researchers have also found a six-line fragment in elegiac distichs on a funerary epigram.
[2]
[1]: Neelis, Jason. Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks: Mobility and Exchange Within and Beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of South Asia. Vol. 2. Brill, 2010, pp. 101-103. [2]: http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/epigraphy-ii |
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written records
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Certainly absent.
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"We do not know what language the Kidarites spoke".
[1]
Coinage had "inscriptions in Sogdian, Bactrian, Middle Persian and Brahmi."
[2]
"The Bactrian script and language were used for a long time after the Kushan age but only small fragments of Bactrian literary works have been discovered so far."
[3]
During the Kushan period there was: Bactrian Greek; Kharosthi script; Brahmi and Kharosthi and several literary languages of Sanskrit and different Prakrits.
[4]
[1]: (Zeimal 1996, 136) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [2]: (Zeimal 1996, 136-137) Zeimal, E. V. The Kidarite Kingdom In Central Asia. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.123-137. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [3]: (Harmatta 1994, 424) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. [4]: History of Civilisations of Central Asia pp. 424-427 |
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The administration apparatus used the dual languages of Bactrian written with Greek script and Gandahari written in the Kharoshthi script.
[1]
Coningham validates this.
[2]
the state chancery used both "Bactrian written in Greek script and Gandhari written in Kharoshthi".
[3]
There also was a "formulae transmitted from the Achaemenians."
[4]
In India two scripts were already in use: Brahmi and Kharosthi.
[5]
[1]: History of Civilisations of Central Asia pp. 424-427; http://cces.snu.ac.kr/article/jces3_1grenet.pdf [2]: Conningham, Robin, pers. comm. Interview with Harvey Whitehouse and Christina Collins, Jan 2017 [3]: (Grenet 2012, 1-2) Grenet, Franz. 2012. The Nomadic Element in the Kushan Empire. (1st-3rd Century AD). Journal of Central Eurasian Studies. Volume 3. Center for Central Eurasian Studies. Seoul National University. [4]: (Grenet 2012, 2) Grenet, Franz. 2012. The Nomadic Element in the Kushan Empire. (1st-3rd Century AD). Journal of Central Eurasian Studies. Volume 3. Center for Central Eurasian Studies. Seoul National University. [5]: (Harmatta 1994, 425) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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"Early in the Han and before, writing had been done on wood, bamboo and silk. Wood and bamboo were bulky and cumbersome, and silk was expensive. As papermaking technology improved, it proved to be the most economical and easiest medium on which to write."
[1]
However, older mediums, such as bamboo tablets, remained in use.
[2]
[1]: (Knechtges 2010, 117) Knechtges, David R. in Chang, Kang-i Sun. Ownen, Stephen. 2010. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. [2]: (Knechtges 2010, 118) Knechtges, David R. in Chang, Kang-i Sun. Ownen, Stephen. 2010. The Cambridge History of Chinese Literature, Volume 1. Cambridge University Press. |
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"Despite the almost complete absence of other written remains, it is clear that Erligang had a writing system that was in its capabilities at least the equal of the Egyptian writing from tomb U-j ... Both systems come to our notice in a ritual context, where their function was some sort of display, but we must remember that normally it is only after writing comes to be used for display that archaeology begins to find traces of it. Because administrative documents were almost certainly written on perishable materials like bamboo and papyrus, we will probably never find them."
[1]
[1]: (Wang 2014, 179) Wang, Haicheng. 2014. Writing and the Ancient State: Early China in Comparative Perspective. Cambridge University Press. |
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"So far no writing has been found at the Erlitou site; the only evidence of writing discovered as yet consists of various carved symbols on pottery (fig. 6.11). Nevertheless, because the writing system of the Shang dynasty oracle bone inscriptions is already highly developed, it is possible that there was writing in the Erlitou culture, particularly at the major Erlitou site."
[1]
"Several signs have been found at the so-called “Early Shang” site of Erlitou (ca. 16th century B.C.) in north Central Henan, generally incised on various pots (Yang Xiaoneng 2000:84-7), but there is, once again, no way to “read” their meaning."
[2]
[1]: (Chang, Xu, Allan and Lu, 2005, 150) Chang, Kwang-chih. Xu, Pingfang. Allan, Sarah. Lu, Liancheng. 2005. The Formation of Chinese Civilization: An Archaeological Perspective. Yale University Press. [2]: (Keightley 2008, 180) |
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[1]
However, Spring and Autumn polities wrote on perishable materials such as silk
[2]
, which means that texts are less likely to be preserved.
[1]: (Hsu 1999, 569) [2]: (Cook and Major 1999, viii) Cook, Constance A. Major, John S. eds. 1999. Defining Chu: Image and Reality in Ancient China. University of Hawai’i Press. Honolulu. |
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"Not only did political chiefdoms, hierarchical settlements, and high shamanism begin in this period, but it may have witnessed the invention of true writing as well; many inscribed but yet to be deciphered pottery pieces have come to light (Fig. I.IO)."
[1]
"A recurring characteristic of Longshan walled settlements in Shandong appears to be the presence of incipient forms of writing; at four of the six sites (Chengziyai, Dinggong, Shijia, and ]ingyanggang) excavators have found inscribed pottery or bones."
[2]
"While there is an ongoing debate about the presence of writing in pre-Shang China, archaeological evidence indicates that simple recording systems occurred before the Longshan period, and that by the Longshan era some simple form of writing may have appeared (Dematte 1999). Particularly crucial are the discoveries of pictographic signs structurally similar to later Chinese characters in the area of the eastern coastal cultures (such as Dawenkou, Liangzhu, and Yueshi)."
[3]
[1]: (Chang 1999, 64) [2]: (Demattè 1999, 127) [3]: (Demattè 1999, 141) |
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contracts (quan) written between state and officials as a way of budget accounting.
[1]
Historical records and documents refer to the Fa jing.
[2]
Ancient Chinese language.
[1]: (Lewis 1999b, 609) [2]: (Fu 1993, 108) Fu, Zhengyuan. 1993. Autocratic Tradition and Chinese Politics. Cambridge University Press. |
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Inscriptions on vessels.
[1]
"The Shi Qiang pan (Figure 23) is one of the most important Western Zhou bronze vessels due to its 270 character long inscription. In two columns, it provides an outline of the first seven Western Zhou kings with a similar account of four generations from the Wei family [65]."
[2]
[1]: (Gernet 1996, 54) [2]: (Bavarian 2005) Bavarian, Behzad. July 2005. Unearthing Technology’s Influence on the Ancient Chinese Dynasties through Metallurgical Investigations, California State University. Northridge. http://library.csun.edu/docs/bavarian.pdf |
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"None of the native peoples developed a system of writing comparable to that of the Mayas, and much less would the Spaniards encounter a native empire such as that of either the Aztecs or Incas. By 1500 A.D., the most advanced of the indigenous peoples were two Chibcha groups: the Taironas and the Muiscas."
[1]
[1]: (Hudson 2010, 5) |
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None of the native peoples developed a system of writing comparable to that of the Mayas, and much less would the Spaniards encounter a native empire such as that of either the Aztecs or Incas. By 1500 A.D., the most advanced of the indigenous peoples were two Chibcha groups: the Taironas and the Muiscas."
[1]
[1]: (Hudson 2010, 5) |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’ According to Salazar’s information, written records and literacy became more widespread only in the second half of the 20th century: ’The official publication of the federation is a bilingual Shuar-Spanish newspaper called Chicham, “Message,” which appears irregularly. Chicham is devoted to accounts of the activities of the federation, as well as general information on such varied subjects as acculturation, government policies, and the situation of Indian groups in Ecuador and South America as a whole. The Shuar have already established contact with native American movements throughout the American continent. Furthermore, the federation has sponsored about 30 publications of different kinds, including scientific subjects (technology, social structure, and mythology of the Shuar), school books (literacy booklets and school texts), and religious works (prayer books, gospel translations). Particular attention must be drawn to the publication of the Mundo Shuar booklets, which represents the greatest effort so far to diffuse Shuar culture in printed form. The collection includes seven series of publications, each series covering a broad aspect of Shuar culture (e.g. ethnohistory, technology, linguistics). Authors include missionaries, white teachers, and Shuar intellectuals who contribute to the recently established Center for Documentation and Research on Shuar Culture. The collection as a whole is printed at the Salesian Publishing House in Quito, and is also directed by a Salesian priest, Father Juan Botasso. Mundo Shuar thus appears as a Salesian effort to rescue what is left of a rich culture that almost disintegrated as a result of more than half a century of Salesian administration of the Shuar people. The works so far published show, as could be expected, a varying degree of scholarship, but on the whole Mundo Shuar has been well accepted in the country, and promises to be an indispensable research tool for anthropologists interested in Shuar culture.’
[1]
[1]: Salazar, Ernesto 1981. “Federación Shuar And The Colonization Frontier”, 601 |
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The earliest phonetic hieroglyphic writing was found in the tomb J at the Abytos Cemetary U - on the pottery vessels and small bone/ivory labels
[1]
. They are dated to Naqada IIIA. But it should be noticed that already in Naqada I, signs similar to hieroglyphs have been found, especially on the pottery vessels (pot marks). However "none of these signs hints at the existence of phonograms, phonetic complements or detenninatives" and "the absence of an important component of the hieroglyphic writing system does not allow us to designate these signs as "hieroglyphic writing""
[2]
. It can be rather treated as an abstract symbolic system
[3]
[1]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. [2]: Kahl, J. "Hieroglyphic Writing During the Fourth Millennium BC: an Analysis of Systems". Archeo-NiI 11 (2001); 122, 124. [3]: Meza, A. 2012. ANCIENT EGYPT BEFORE WRITING: From Markings to Hieroglyphs. Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation. pg: 25. |
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The earliest phonetic hieroglyphic writing was found in the tomb J at the Abytos Cemetary U - on the pottery vessels and small bone/ivory labels
[1]
. They are dated to Naqada IIIA. But it should be noticed that already in Naqada I, signs similar to hieroglyphs have been found, especially on the pottery vessels (pot marks). However "none of these signs hints at the existence of phonograms, phonetic complements or detenninatives" and "the absence of an important component of the hieroglyphic writing system does not allow us to designate these signs as "hieroglyphic writing""
[2]
. It can be rather treated as an abstract symbolic system
[3]
[1]: Köhler, E. C. "Theories of State Formation". [in:] Wendrich, W. [ed.]. Egyptian Archaeology. Chichester: Blackwell Publishing. pg: 41. [2]: Kahl, J. "Hieroglyphic Writing During the Fourth Millennium BC: an Analysis of Systems". Archeo-NiI 11 (2001); 122, 124. [3]: Meza, A. 2012. ANCIENT EGYPT BEFORE WRITING: From Markings to Hieroglyphs. Bloomington: Xlibris Corporation. pg: 25. |
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Earliest known hieroglyphs are the apparent inscriptions on labels found in the tomb U-j which dates to c.3150 BCE.
[1]
"by Dynasty 0, writing was used by scribes and artisans of the Egyptian state."
[2]
"The earliest eample of accounting, and indeed writing, which dates back to Dynasty Zero (about 3,300 BC), was in the form of tax lists on linen (Davies and Friedman, 1998)."
[3]
"A joint Yale and Royal Museums of Art and History (Brussels) expedition to explore the the ancient Egyptian city of Elkab has uncovered some previously unknown rock inscriptions, which include the earliest monumental hieroglyphs dating back around 5,200 years. These new inscriptions were not previously recorded by any expedition and are of great significance in the history of the ancient Egyptian writing systems, according to Egyptologist John Coleman Darnell, professor in Yale’s Department of Near Eastern Languages and Civilizations at Yale, who co-directs the Elkab Desert Survey Project."
[4]
[1]: (Bard 2000, 60) [2]: (Bard 2000, 74) [3]: (Ezzamel 2002) Ezzamel, Mahmoud. 2002. Accounting working for the state: Tax assessment and collection during the New Kingdom, ancient Egypt. Accounting and business research. Volume 32. Issue 1. pp 17-39. [4]: Martell, Bess Connolly. June 20 2017. Yale archaeologists discover earliest monumental Egyptian hieroglyphs. news.yale.edu/2017/06/20/yale-archaeologists-discover-earliest-monumental-egyptian-hieroglyphs |
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Abnormal hieratic. Demotic. Theban cursive writing.
[1]
Theban cursive and Abnormal Hieratic are the same; replaced by Demotic. See e.g. K. Donker Van Heel, The lost battle of Peteamonip son of Petehorresne. In Acta Demotica, Acts of the Fifth International Conference for Demotists, Pisa, 4th-8th September 1993, ed. E. Bresciani, 115-24. Egitto e Vicino Oriente 17.
[2]
"standardization of all private documents pertaining to family income" implied by Heredotus’s claim that Saites (under Amasis) taxed household income and assets. At this very time demotic Egyptian replaced abnormal hieratic at Thebes.
[3]
[1]: (Agut-Labordere 2013, 980) [2]: (Manning 2015, Personal Communication) [3]: (Agut-Labordere 2013, 1008-1009) Agut-Labordere, Damien. "The Saite Period: The Emergence of A Mediterranean Power." in Garcia, Juan Carlos Moreno ed. 2013. Ancient Egyptian Administration. BRILL. |
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“The sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries were a golden age in theology and devotional writing as well as politics.”
[1]
[1]: (Maltby 2009, 91) Maltby, William S. 2009. The Rise and Fall of the Spanish Empire. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. https://www.zotero.org/groups/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/SUSVXWVH |
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"the Ethiopians, following the rise of the Aksumite state between c. 150 BCE and the turn of the Common Era, came to write in Ge’ez, and Ethiosemitic language using a cursive script (fidal) based on the musnad script of South Arabia."
[1]
Inscriptions of the 2nd and 3rd centuries "offer the earliest forms of the Ethiopic alphabet, the use of which has survived to the present day." Earlier inscriptions in the Aksum region, dating to last half of the first millennium BCE, were of south Arabian type.
[2]
[1]: (Hatke 2013) George Hatke. 2013. Aksum and Nubia: Warfare, Commerce, and Political Fictions in Ancient Northeast Africa (Institute for the Study of the Ancient World). New York University Press. [2]: (Anfray 1981, 363-364) F Anfray. The civilization of Aksum from the first to the seventh century. Muḥammad Jamal al-Din Mokhtar. ed. 1981. UNESCO General History of Africa. Volume II. Heinemann. UNESCO. California. |
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SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’ The Japanese administration introduced schooling in the Japanese language: ’The chief subject in the prescribed elementary school curriculum was the Japanese language, spoken and written. Officially language work was supposed to occupy half of the teaching time; arithmetic about a quarter; and miscellaneous subjects, such as gymnastic exercises, singing, handicraft, ethics, and geography, the remainder. According to reports of students the actual emphasis on the Japanese language was if anything even greater than this. While the official curriculum prescribed the teaching of the more common Chinese ideographs as well as the Japanese Kana syllabary, [Page 85] few, if any, native students could be said to be literate in Japanese to the extent of being able to read a newspaper by the end of fifth grade. Certainly none could read the regulations promulgated by the South Seas Government Office; and these regulations were not translated, except sometimes orally and in summary by rather confused native interpreters.’
[1]
Christian missionaries taught writing in the native language: ’The Japanese schools did not try to teach reading or writing in the native language, although some Trukese learned these skills from the Western Protestant and Catholic missionaries. Starting even before German rule, the missionaries had translated parts of the Bible and prepared hymns and other religious materials in Trukese, and continued to teach reading and writing in the native tongue to such children as would come to them.’
[2]
[1]: Fischer, John L. 1961. “Japanese Schools For The Natives Of Truk, Caroline Islands”, 84 [2]: Fischer, John L. 1961. “Japanese Schools For The Natives Of Truk, Caroline Islands”, 85 |
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The Akan languages did not receive a script until the late colonial period: ’Twi is a tonal language and, since missionary work during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has been written in Roman script’
[1]
’Akan languages started to be written down, mainly in religious publication, by Danish, German and British missionaries during the 17th and 18th centuries.’
[2]
’Towards the end of the century the use of written records and communications had made some headway. Europeans like the Frenchman Bonnat were absorbed, albeit briefly, into the system, and Asantes like the Owusu Ansa brothers, mission educated, were fully literate. Written messages were sent: for example, in 1889 Prempe 1 received a written account of the fate of a force dispatched against recalcitrant Ahafo towns. The writer described himself as ‘Chief Miner’, possibly an Elminan. The year before the King received a letter from a Muslim divine, Abu Bakr B. Uthman Kamaghatay, setting out terms for his return to Kumase. Both letters were kept until removed from Kumase by British forces in 1896.’
[3]
[1]: (Gilbert, Michelle, 1994:11; Literacy Database) [2]: (Ager, Simon 2013; Literacy Database [3]: McLeod, M. D. (Malcolm D.) 1981. “Asante”, 88 |
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|
For example: "Only under their son Samudra-Gupta does the dynasty emerge from obscurity. Once again this is mostly thanks to the survival of a single inscription", on what is known as the "Allahabad pillar".
[1]
[1]: (Keay 2010, 136-137) Keay, John. 2010. India: A History. New Updated Edition. London: HarperPress. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/HSHAKZ3X. |
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|
’Twi is a tonal language and, since missionary work during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has been written in Roman script’
[1]
’Akan languages started to be written down, mainly in religious publication, by Danish, German and British missionaries during the 17th and 18th centuries.’
[2]
Early native intellectuals were accordingly mostly mission-educated. While elites increasingly used couriers for the transmission of written communication (see below), the majority of the population remained illiterate during the period in question. ’Towards the end of the century the use of written records and communications had made some headway. Europeans like the Frenchman Bonnat were absorbed, albeit briefly, into the system, and Asantes like the Owusu Ansa brothers, mission educated, were fully literate. Written messages were sent: for example, in 1889 Prempe 1 received a written account of the fate of a force dispatched against recalcitrant Ahafo towns. The writer described himself as ‘Chief Miner’, possibly an Elminan. The year before the King received a letter from a Muslim divine, Abu Bakr B. Uthman Kamaghatay, setting out terms for his return to Kumase. Both letters were kept until removed from Kumase by British forces in 1896.’
[3]
[1]: (Gilbert, Michelle, 1994:11; Literacy Database) [2]: (Ager, Simon 2013; Literacy Database [3]: McLeod, M. D. (Malcolm D.) 1981. “Asante”, 88 |
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|
The script use by the Knossian administration is the Linear B.
[1]
[2]
Unlike the other Bronze Age scripts, Linear B has been deciphered; the primary language in the preserved texts is Greek as it was developing in the 14th and 13th centuries BCE.
[1]: Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge [2]: Palaima, T. G. 2010. "Linear B," in Cline, E. H. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean, Oxford, 356-72. |
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|
The script used during the Old Palace period is the Cretan Hieroglyphic and the Linear A, the latter introduced at Knossos and Phaistos at the end of the period.
[1]
[2]
Ninety sylabograms, many of which equivalent to those of Linear A and B, and thirty logograms, denoting agricultural commodities, have been distinguished in Cretan Hieroglyphic. The archival documents, mostly administrative records containing lists of agricultural commodities, people and livestock, appear in a variety of forms, such as tablets, two, three and four-sided bars, medallions, nodule, flat-based nodules, roundels, one-hanging nodules, cones and crescents. They were also incised or stamped directly on objects. Assemblages of Hieroglyphic documents were found at Knossos, Malia, Phaistos, Kato Syme, Petras while isolated finds comes from may other sites. The largest assemblage was found at Malia. The script, which is not deciphered, continued to flourish and be used at least until the ends of the Middle Minoan III period (1600 BCE).
[1]: Olivier, J.-P. and Godart, L. 1996. Corpus Hieroglyphicarum Instriptionum Cretae (Études Crétoise 31), Paris [2]: Tomas, H. 2010. "Cretan Hieroglyphic and Linear A," in Cline, E. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean, Oxford, 345-46. |
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|
The script use by the central administration is the Linear B.
[1]
[2]
Unlike the other Bronze Age scripts, Linear B has been deciphered; the primary language in the preserved texts is Greek as it was developing in the 14th and 13th centuries BCE.
[1]: Ventris, M. and Chadwick, J. 1973. Documents in Mycenaean Greek, Cambridge [2]: Palaima, T. G. 2010. "Linear B," in Cline, E. H. (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of the Bronze Age Aegean, Oxford, 356-72. |
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|
Limited use of Akkadian Cuneiform writing, primarily in diplomatic correspondence and bureaucratic administration.
[1]
The use of Akkadian becomes relatively more frequent in the Late Bronze Age, but still remains quite sparse by comparison to other polities in the Ancient Near East.
[1]: Shai/Uziel (2010). |
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|
For example, "An ostracon from Izbet Sartah was found in a silo of Stratum II, dating to the end of the eleventh century BCE. The 22-letter alphabet was incised in five rows in proto-Canaanite script. Although it is apparently earlier than the tenth century BCE, it is included here since, from a paleographic point of view, it is similar to the inscription from Khirbet Qeiyafa and apparently belongs to the transition between Iron I and Iron II."
[1]
"A hoard found at Eshtemoa included five jugs full of silver scrap; the word חמש, “five”, is written in red or black ink on three of them. Based on ceramic and paleographic typology, the jugs date to the tenth or ninth centuries BCE."
[2]
Additional examples listed in the cited article.
[1]: Ahituv/Mazar (2014:54). For a general overview of literacy in ancient Israel, see Rollston (2010). [2]: Ahituv/Mazar (2014:57) |
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|
Post-Mauryans in Krishna valley: "Amaravati inscription of this period records the existence of a royal scribe (rajalekhaka). This may indicate that record-keeping started to play an integral part in local political administration as well as in commercial activities in this period."
[1]
In Andhra region post-Mauryans: "This appearance of kingship, currency and writing indicates that the basic infrastructures of a state system, which had been introduced in the Maurayn period, started functioning at the local level and transforming the megalithic/tribal society into proto or early states, basically characterized by centralized administration, stable kingship and social stratification."
[2]
[1]: (Shimada 2012, 118) Shimada, Akira. 2012. Early Buddhist Architecture in Context: The Great Stupa at Amaravati (ca. 300 BCE-300 CE). BRILL. [2]: (Shimada 2012, 118-119) Shimada, Akira. 2012. Early Buddhist Architecture in Context: The Great Stupa at Amaravati (ca. 300 BCE-300 CE). BRILL. |
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|
"Deotek is a small village in Chandrapur district, about 50 miles southeast of Nagpur. It contains an old temple and a large inscribed slab (now in Central Museum, Nagpur) bearing two epigraphs. Out of the two inscriptions, one dates back to the time of Asoka and the other to that of the Vakatakas."
[1]
[1]: (Sawant 2009) Reshma Sawant. 2008. ‘State Formation Process In The Vidarbha During The Vakataka Period’. Bulletin of the Deccan College Post-Graduate and Research Institute 68-69: 137-162.< |
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|
"A growing body of literature, composed now in Akkadian instead of Sumerian, accumulated through the later second and first millennia. These included new versions of earlier stories, such as Ishtar in the Netherworld, and new stories, such as Enuma elish and The Story of Erra, as well as new compositions in old and new genres of religious literature and other branches of literary composition such as disputations, fables, and love poems, and the time-honored Sumerian lexical texts, now translated and greatly expanded and developed. Epic poems about historical monarchs began to appear, including fictive “autobiographies.” On the practical side, there was a growing body of “scientific” literature: compilations of omen and divination observations, treatments for illnesses, recipes and other treatises, as well as mathematical tables and exercises."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 291) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
||||||
|
"A growing body of literature, composed now in Akkadian instead of Sumerian, accumulated through the later second and first millennia. These included new versions of earlier stories, such as Ishtar in the Netherworld, and new stories, such as Enuma elish and The Story of Erra, as well as new compositions in old and new genres of religious literature and other branches of literary composition such as disputations, fables, and love poems, and the time-honored Sumerian lexical texts, now translated and greatly expanded and developed. Epic poems about historical monarchs began to appear, including fictive “autobiographies.” On the practical side, there was a growing body of “scientific” literature: compilations of omen and divination observations, treatments for illnesses, recipes and other treatises, as well as mathematical tables and exercises."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2005: 291) McIntosh, J. 2005. Ancient Mesopotamia: New Perspective. Santa Barbara: ABC Clio. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/itemKey/KK2E3KMD. |
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|
There are lack of evidences suggesting that the writing system has been already invented.
|
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|
archaic pictographic script & early cuneiform script
[1]
; c. 3400-3200 BCE (Early and Middle Uruk Period)- ’beginning of Proto-Cuneiform’- mainly numerical tablets and clay bullae; c. 3200/3100- 3000/2900 BCE - (Late Uruk Period and Jemdet Nasr Period) - ’beginning of Proto-Elamite’ - texts discovered at Uruk (Uruk III and Uruk IV).
[2]
[1]: Roux 1998, 70-71 [2]: Nissen et al. 1993, 5-6 |
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|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
Linear Elamite.
[1]
Old Elamite. Susa III texts c3000 BCE not related to Old Elamite inscriptions c2300 BCE.
[2]
Elamites developed their own script
[3]
[1]: (Potts 2016, 117) Potts, D T. 2016. The Archaeology of Elam Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [2]: (Potts 2016, 71) Potts, D T. 2016. The Archaeology of Elam Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [3]: (Farazmand 2009, 22) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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|
"Alexander had apparently hellenized Susa to the extent that the language of administration was Greek, the form of city-state government was Greek, and even the ethnic composition of the area was partially Greek."
[1]
[1]: (Wenke 1981, 306) Wenke, Robert J. 1981. Elymeans, Parthians, and the Evolution of Empires in Southwestern Iran. Journal of the American Oriental Society. Vol. 101. No. 3. Jul-Sep. American Oriental Society. pp. 303-315. http://www.jstor.org/stable/602592 |
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|
The first written records in the Valley of Oaxaca are from the Rosario phase (700-500 BCE).
[1]
[2]
Written records are therefore coded as absent for this period.
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London. |
||||||
|
Evidence for carved glyphs (of names and calendar dates) has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
||||||
|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
e.g. Persian, Arabic. The administration used Persian writing. Arabic manuscripts survive as well
[1]
Both Persian and Arabic were in use, and a wide range of document types and scholarly subjects were produced.
[1]: REUVEN AMITAI, ’IL-KHANIDS i. DYNASTIC HISTORY’ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/il-khanids-i-dynastic-history; Stefano Carboni, ’IL-KHANIDS iii. Book Illustration’ http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/il-khanids-iii-book-illustration |
||||||
|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
"Greek served as their official language."
[1]
"Although we know little of Parthian administrative practice we may assume it provided the basis for the Sasanian administration that followed it in a closely related form of Middle Persian, and in a related script, in the 3rd century AD."
[2]
"After the introduction of Old Persian cuneiform under the Achaemenians, a related form of the same language (a Middle Persian language written in a simplified form of the Aramaic consonantal alphabet) continued as the vehicle of administration under the Parthians."
[2]
Chancellery script under the Achaemenians 1st century BC.
[3]
[1]: (Neusner 2008, 18) Neusner, Jacob. 2008. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 1. The Parthian Period. Wipf & Stock. Eugene. [2]: (Spooner and Hanaway 2012, 12) Spooner, Brian. Hanaway, William L. in Spooner, Brian. Hanaway, William L eds. 2012. Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order. University of Pennsylvania Press. [3]: Boyce, Mary, ‘Parthian Writings and Literature’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), iii, p.1151. |
||||||
|
"Greek served as their official language."
[1]
"Although we know little of Parthian administrative practice we may assume it provided the basis for the Sasanian administration that followed it in a closely related form of Middle Persian, and in a related script, in the 3rd century AD."
[2]
"After the introduction of Old Persian cuneiform under the Achaemenians, a related form of the same language (a Middle Persian language written in a simplified form of the Aramaic consonantal alphabet) continued as the vehicle of administration under the Parthians."
[2]
Chancellery script under the Achaemenians 1st century BC.
[3]
[1]: (Neusner 2008, 18) Neusner, Jacob. 2008. A History of the Jews in Babylonia. 1. The Parthian Period. Wipf & Stock. Eugene. [2]: (Spooner and Hanaway 2012, 12) Spooner, Brian. Hanaway, William L. in Spooner, Brian. Hanaway, William L eds. 2012. Literacy in the Persianate World: Writing and the Social Order. University of Pennsylvania Press. [3]: Boyce, Mary, ‘Parthian Writings and Literature’, in The Cambridge history of Iran: the Seleucid, Parthian and Sasanian periods. Part 2, ed. by Ehsan Yar-Shater (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983), iii, p.1151. |
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|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
Liverani says the so-called "urban revolution" of the Uruk phase occurred 3800-3000 BCE.
[2]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 69-70) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
Persian and Arabic script.
[1]
The Safavids had a thriving literature culture based around the court. Persian and Arabic written systems were used. Religious and philosophical texts, history, practical works and, of course, poetry were produced by scholars and artists associated with the court. The central government also kept it own administrative records, although these have not survived.
[1]: Rudi Matthee ‘SAFAVID DYNASTY’http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/safavids |
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|
Pahlavi script, Manichaean script ("variant of the Syriac script"), Parthian script.
[1]
"The most widespread languages during the Sasanian era were Middle Persian (or Pahlavi), Parthian, Sogdian, Khwarizmian, Khotanese Saka and Bactrian; various texts in these languages are extant."
[2]
[1]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 91-93) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [2]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 91) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf |
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|
Pahlavi script, Manichaean script ("variant of the Syriac script"), Parthian script.
[1]
"The most widespread languages during the Sasanian era were Middle Persian (or Pahlavi), Parthian, Sogdian, Khwarizmian, Khotanese Saka and Bactrian; various texts in these languages are extant."
[2]
> Six different scripts known.
[3]
1. Avestan: invented by Sasanids. Religious use. 2. Comprehensive: possibly for physiognomy and divination (Arab sources). 3. Turned or Cursive: Legal, medicine, philosophy. 4. Correspondence between officials: letters. 5. Common.
[1]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 91-93) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [2]: (Tafazzoli 1996, 91) Tafazzoli, A. and Khromov, A. L. Sasanian Iran: Intellectual Life. in Litvinsky, B. A. ed. and Iskender-Mochiri, I. ed. 1996. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume III. The crossroads of civilizations: A.D. 250 to 750. pp.82-105. unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0010/001046/104612e.pdf [3]: (Daryaee 2009, 53) Daryaee, Touraj. 2009. Sasanian Persia: The Rise and Fall of an Empire. I.B. Tauris. London. |
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|
[1]
Elamites developed their own script
[2]
"the proto-Elamite script - the designation applied to the earliest pictographic stage in contrast with the later Elamite linear script."
[2]
[1]: Potts 1999, 145-6 [2]: (Farazmand 2009, 22) Farazmand, Ali. 2009. Bureaucracy and Administration. CRC Press. Boca Raton. |
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|
"The great organisations of the first phase of urbanisation rose to prominence without writing. The latter developed relatively quickly as a response to these institutions’ needs."
[1]
[1]: (Leverani 2014, 73) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
"Sometime during the fourth millennium, in the urban center of Uruk (for which the archaeological period is named), southern Mesopotamia acquired a specifically Sumerian historical identity. With the introduction of a system of writing, a gradual development from an earlier accounting system, a radical change occurred in the social organization and in the very foundations of thought."
[1]
"A decisive step forward came about with the substitution of a system of tokens with a graphic code, made of the imprint of that same token on clay. This constitutes the origins of writing, a system providing much more flexibility and scope for development. In a short period of time, many signs were created and written with a reed stylus, rather than with the tokens. ... as it developed, the process led to the development of pictograms, namely signs representing in a simplified form of the object meant. Therefore, tablets inscribed with numerals and authenticated with seal impressions were substituted by tablets bearing both numeral signs (imprinted on clay) and pictograms (written with a stylus). Seal impressions soon became superfluous for administrative records, though they remained crucial for important legal tablets, letters and so on. The information provided by the seal could now be expressed through pictograms."
[2]
[1]: (Amiet, Chevalier and Carter 1992, 4) Amiet, Pierre. Chevalier, Nicole. Carter, Elizabeth. in Harper, Prudence O. Aruz, Joan. Tallon, Francoise. eds. 1992. The Royal City of Susa: Ancient Near Eastern Treasures in the Louvre. Metropolitan Museum of Art. [2]: (Leverani 2014, 76) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
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|
The first written records in the Valley of Oaxaca are from the Rosario phase (700-500 BCE).
[1]
[2]
Written records are therefore coded as absent for this period.
[1]: Flannery, K. V. and J. Marcus (1983). "The Cloud People." New York. [2]: Marcus, J. and K. V. Flannery (1996). Zapotec civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley, Thames and Hudson London. |
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|
Susa III texts c3000 BCE not related to Old Elamite inscriptions c2300 BCE. "simply indefensible to claim that Malyan was the site at which the Susa III writing system originated." It was a system derived from proto-cuneiform Susa II / Uruk IV.
[1]
glyptic style writing found at Tepe Sialk (north) and especially Tepe Yahya (southeast)
[2]
Proto-Elamite descendent fro Uruk IV writing and developed different signs to the Sumerian of Jemdet Nasr. Susiana was the centre of Proto-Elamite culture along with Tall-i Malyan at Fars.
[3]
[1]: (Potts 2016, 71) Potts, D T. 2016. The Archaeology of Elam Formation and Transformation of an Ancient Iranian State. 2nd Edition. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. [2]: (Amiet, Chevalier and Carter 1992, 4) Amiet, Pierre. Chevalier, Nicole. Carter, Elizabeth. in Harper, Prudence O. Aruz, Joan. Tallon, Francoise. eds. 1992. The Royal City of Susa: Ancient Near Eastern Treasures in the Louvre. Metropolitan Museum of Art. [3]: (Leverani 2014, 91) Liverani, Mario. Tabatabai, Soraia trans. 2014. The Ancient Near East. History, society and economy. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
Western alphabet developed c800 BCE and by 700 BCE had arrived in Italy.
[1]
However, "most [Italian peoples before the Romans] were not even literate"
[2]
, although some writing has been found in association with elite graves
[3]
[1]: (Cornell 1995, 103) [2]: T.J. Cornell, The Beginnings of Rome (1995), p. 37 [3]: G. Forsythe, A Critical History of Early Rome (2006), pp. 53-58 |
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|
The Latin alphabet was the standard script, although Greek became increasingly popular as a subject of study among the humanists.
|
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|
The earliest known written Japanese texts date to the eight century. Although the spoken languages have no relationship Chinese characters were borrowed to enable Japanese to be written ‘Over time the Japanese writing system developed into a complex use of Chinese characters along with two different phonetic scripts to represent the sounds of spoken Japanese. The two phonetic scripts—hiragana and katakana—represented the same sounds but were used in different contexts reflecting, among other things, class and gender.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.242. |
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|
The earliest extant written records from Japan are the 8th century court Japanese chronicles Kojiki and Nihon Shoki
[1]
-- these incorporated even earlier historical records. "The earliest Japanese imperial chronicles, that is, the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki, were completed in AD 712 and 720, and included compilations of various historical records as well as ancestral legends dating back to ancient times"
[2]
"To all appearances, writing as such, in the form of Chinese Classics, was introduced into Japan early in the fifth century as part of the great cultural influx from Paekche."
[3]
[1]: G. Barnes, 1993.The rise of civilization in East Asia : the archaeology of China, Korea and Japan. New York, N.Y.: Thames and Hudson, 21. [2]: (Mizoguchi 2013, 32) Mizoguchi, Koji. 2013. The Archaeology of Japan: From the Earliest Rice Farming Villages to the Rise of the State. Cambridge University Press. [3]: (Frellesvig 2010, 11) |
||||||
|
The earliest known written Japanese texts date to the eight century. Although the spoken languages have no relationship Chinese characters were borrowed to enable Japanese to be written ‘Over time the Japanese writing system developed into a complex use of Chinese characters along with two different phonetic scripts to represent the sounds of spoken Japanese. The two phonetic scripts—hiragana and katakana—represented the same sounds but were used in different contexts reflecting, among other things, class and gender.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.242. |
||||||
|
The earliest known written Japanese texts date to the eight century. Although the spoken languages have no relationship Chinese characters were borrowed to enable Japanese to be written ‘Over time the Japanese writing system developed into a complex use of Chinese characters along with two different phonetic scripts to represent the sounds of spoken Japanese. The two phonetic scripts—hiragana and katakana—represented the same sounds but were used in different contexts reflecting, among other things, class and gender.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.242. |
||||||
|
Evidence for carved glyphs (of names and calendar dates) has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
The earliest known written Japanese texts date to the eight century. Although the spoken languages have no relationship Chinese characters were borrowed to enable Japanese to be written ‘Over time the Japanese writing system developed into a complex use of Chinese characters along with two different phonetic scripts to represent the sounds of spoken Japanese. The two phonetic scripts—hiragana and katakana—represented the same sounds but were used in different contexts reflecting, among other things, class and gender.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.242. |
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|
"To all appearances, writing as such, in the form of Chinese Classics, was introduced into Japan early in the fifth century as part of the great cultural influx from Paekche."
[1]
"The earliest Japanese imperial chronicles, that is, the Kojiki and the Nihonshoki, were completed in AD 712 and 720, and included compilations of various historical records as well as ancestral legends dating back to ancient times"
[2]
[1]: (Frellesvig 2010, 11) [2]: (Mizoguchi 2013, 32) Mizoguchi, Koji. 2013. The Archaeology of Japan: From the Earliest Rice Farming Villages to the Rise of the State. Cambridge University Press. |
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|
The earliest known written Japanese texts date to the eight century. Although the spoken languages have no relationship Chinese characters were borrowed to enable Japanese to be written ‘Over time the Japanese writing system developed into a complex use of Chinese characters along with two different phonetic scripts to represent the sounds of spoken Japanese. The two phonetic scripts—hiragana and katakana—represented the same sounds but were used in different contexts reflecting, among other things, class and gender.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.242. |
||||||
|
The earliest known written Japanese texts date to the eight century. Although the spoken languages have no relationship Chinese characters were borrowed to enable Japanese to be written ‘Over time the Japanese writing system developed into a complex use of Chinese characters along with two different phonetic scripts to represent the sounds of spoken Japanese. The two phonetic scripts—hiragana and katakana—represented the same sounds but were used in different contexts reflecting, among other things, class and gender.’
[1]
[1]: Deal, William E. 2005. Handbook to Life in Medieval and Early Modern Japan. Oxford University Press.p.242. |
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|
c582 CE: "The First Turkic Khaganate officially split into the Western and the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. In the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, the Sogdian language and script was used for chancellery purposes and inscriptions."
[1]
[1]: (Hosszú 2012, 285) Hosszú, G. 2012. Heritage of Scribes: The Relation of Rovas Scripts to Eurasian Writing Systems. Rovas Foundation. |
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|
’From the mid first millennium AD onward, Khmers constructed brick, stone, and laterite monuments with dedicatory stelae bearing Khmer, Sanskrit, or Khmer and Sanskrit inscriptions; these constitute the primary indigenous documentary source.’
[1]
’The first dated Khmer-language inscription from Cambodia was incised in 611, and the earliest Sanskrit inscription was carved two years later.
[2]
’No one knows for certain how long people have lived in what is now Cambodia, where they came from, or what languages they spoke before writing was introduced, using an Indian-style alphabet, around the third century CE.’
[3]
’This ascendance has important implications when considering the inscriptions of Southeast Asia. The earli- est of these, from VO CANH in southern coastal Vietnam, was written in Sanskrit, as were those of the coastal state of FUNAN. Indeed, Sanskrit was the preferred language of all the major inscriptions of CHENLA and the kingdom of ANGKOR, in Cambodia, although Old KHMER was also used in subsidiary texts on many occasions. The quality of the Sanskrit employed was admirable, as seen in the long dedicatory inscriptions of the temples of the PRE RUP, PREAH KHAN, and TA PROHM at Angkor.’
[4]
[1]: (Stark, Miriam 2010, p. 144) [2]: (Chandler 2008, p. 27) [3]: (Chandler 2008, p. 13) [4]: (Higham 2004, p. 294) |
||||||
|
’From the mid first millennium AD onward, Khmers constructed brick, stone, and laterite monuments with dedicatory stelae bearing Khmer, Sanskrit, or Khmer and Sanskrit inscriptions; these constitute the primary indigenous documentary source.’
[1]
’The first dated Khmer-language inscription from Cambodia was incised in 611, and the earliest Sanskrit inscription was carved two years later.
[2]
’No one knows for certain how long people have lived in what is now Cambodia, where they came from, or what languages they spoke before writing was introduced, using an Indian-style alphabet, around the third century CE.’
[3]
’The Pre-Angkorian Sanskrit texts were generally short ‘literary gestures’ (ibid., 219), but by the Angkorian period, they used very sophisticated poetry, employing polished orthography and grammar, as in India. These display knowledge of Indian intellectual and political thought and of literature including the metrics of poetry (Majumdar 1953: xvii-iii; Bhattacharya 1991: 2-4; Pollock 1996: 218-220; Dagens 2003: 217). Yet, although Indian Brahmins were occasionally brought in (Wolters 1982: 91), Sanskrit culture was generally indigenised, with local inflections present from the beginning. Khmer Brahmins are said to be the authors of major Sanskrit works such as the Ta Prohm and Prah Khan inscriptions (Pollock 1996: 220; 222). In Jacques’ (1986: 328) view, the elite that knew Sanskrit was very small and since the texts are found only on temple sites, this may suggest that the only audience for the Sanskrit inscriptions was the gods. Whereas the use of Sanskrit in public writing died out quickly in Burma and Java, it lasted up to the late 13th century in Cambodia (Footnote 47). Its decline is linked with the spread of Theravada Buddhism (Houben 1996:11).’
[4]
’This ascendance has important implications when considering the inscriptions of Southeast Asia. The earli- est of these, from VO CANH in southern coastal Vietnam, was written in Sanskrit, as were those of the coastal state of FUNAN. Indeed, Sanskrit was the preferred language of all the major inscriptions of CHENLA and the kingdom of ANGKOR, in Cambodia, although Old KHMER was also used in subsidiary texts on many occasions. The quality of the Sanskrit employed was admirable, as seen in the long dedicatory inscriptions of the temples of the PRE RUP, PREAH KHAN, and TA PROHM at Angkor.’
[5]
[1]: (Stark, Miriam 2010, p. 144) [2]: (Chandler 2008, p. 27) [3]: (Chandler 2008, p. 13) [4]: (Lustig 2009, pp. 107-108) [5]: (Higham 2004, p. 294) |
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|
Evidence for carved glyphs (of names and calendar dates) has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
’No one knows for certain how long people have lived in what is now Cambodia, where they came from, or what languages they spoke before writing was introduced, using an Indian-style alphabet, around the third century CE.’
[1]
’From the middle of the first millennium C.E., more early historical states are known (for example, Chenla, Dvaravati, Champa, Kedah, and ̋rivijaya). These states exhibit a shared in- corporation of Indian legal, political, and reli- gious ideas and institutions, including the use of Sanskrit names by rulers, as seen in stone inscriptions (first in South Indian and then in indigenous scripts) and in the layout and styles of religious architecture and carvings.’
[2]
’Thus Michael Vickery has summarized the many refer- ences in the inscriptions to local gods worshiped in Chenla temples. The local matrilineal descent system continued, and the Khmer language took its place along- side SANSKRIT in the inscriptions. Vickery prefers the notion of an Indic veneer, wherein the elites in society selectively adopted those Indian traits that suited their objectives. These included the SANSKRIT language for per- sonal and place names, the Indian script, and architec- tural styles. These elements contributed to the increasingly strong divisions in society that signal the for- mation of states, but the essential characteristics of the Chenla kingdoms were Khmer.’
[3]
’This ascendance has important implications when considering the inscriptions of Southeast Asia. The earli- est of these, from VO CANH in southern coastal Vietnam, was written in Sanskrit, as were those of the coastal state of FUNAN. Indeed, Sanskrit was the preferred language of all the major inscriptions of CHENLA and the kingdom of ANGKOR, in Cambodia, although Old KHMER was also used in subsidiary texts on many occasions. The quality of the Sanskrit employed was admirable, as seen in the long dedicatory inscriptions of the temples of the PRE RUP, PREAH KHAN, and TA PROHM at Angkor.’
[4]
’The archaeological hardware of these vital centuries is provided by the surviving temples, reservoirs and rice fields, but the social software has to be teased out of the surviving inscriptions. Carved onto stone stelae, these were inscribed in Sanskrit and old Khmer languages. Nearly all relate to the foundation and administration of a temple. They regularly refer to a ruler or the title and name of a local grandee associated with the temple foundation and its maintenance. The Khmer text includes information on rice fields, their boundaries, donations of surplus products to the temple, and the number and duties of individuals assigned to its support.’
[5]
[1]: (Chandler 2008, 13) [2]: (Bacus 2004, 619) [3]: (Higham 2004, 74) [4]: (Higham 2004, 294) [5]: (Higham 2014, 830) |
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|
’Archaeological research at Oc Eco in Vietnam and Angkor Borei in Cambodia, two walled and moated urban centres linked by a canal system, have revealed the adoption of Sanskrit names for kings, use of the Bhrahmi script, worship of Hindu gods, and adherence to the teachings of the Buddha, wooden statues of whom have been uncovered, containing pits for cremated human remains. Grave offerings found in these pits include gold plaques embellished with sacred Buddhist inscriptions and images of Hindu deities.’
[1]
’The Chinese envoy Kang Tai reports that Funan had walled vil- lages, palaces, and houses. His report that “they like to engrave ornaments and to chisel” is borne out by the discovery of many artifacts related to metalworking, including gold, silver, tin, and copper at Oc Eo. He also mentions that they had books and archives and used an Indic script to write.’
[2]
’The earliest extant Sanskrit texts, from Cambodia’s Funan period, are undated records from the 5th century: undated Khmer inscriptions appear about a century later. Dated inscriptions in Sanskrit and Old Khmer start from the early 7th century. The Pre-Angkorian Sanskrit texts were generally short ‘literary gestures’ (ibid., 219), but by the Angkorian period, they used very sophisticated poetry, employing polished orthography and grammar, as in India. These display knowledge of Indian intellectual and political thought and of literature including the metrics of poetry (Majumdar 1953: xvii-iii; Bhattacharya 1991: 2-4; Pollock 1996: 218-220; Dagens 2003: 217).’
[3]
’There are also SEALS bearing brief texts in the Indian BRAHMI script and an abundance of evidence for trade involving Rome, India, and China.’
[4]
’This ascendance has important implications when considering the inscriptions of Southeast Asia. The earliest of these, from VO CANH in southern coastal Vietnam, was written in Sanskrit, as were those of the coastal state of FUNAN. Indeed, Sanskrit was the preferred language of all the major inscriptions of CHENLA and the kingdom of ANGKOR, in Cambodia, although Old KHMER was also used in subsidiary texts on many occasions. The quality of the Sanskrit employed was admirable, as seen in the long dedicatory inscriptions of the temples of the PRE RUP, PREAH KHAN, and TA PROHM at Angkor.’
[5]
[1]: (Higham 2013, p.586) [2]: (Miksic 2007, p. 123) [3]: (Lustig 2009, p. 107) [4]: (Higham 2004, p. 113-114) [5]: (Higham 2004, p. 294) |
||||||
|
’Archaeological research at Oc Eco in Vietnam and Angkor Borei in Cambodia, two walled and moated urban centres linked by a canal system, have revealed the adoption of Sanskrit names for kings, use of the Bhrahmi script, worship of Hindu gods, and adherence to the teachings of the Buddha, wooden statues of whom have been uncovered, containing pits for cremated human remains. Grave offerings found in these pits include gold plaques embellished with sacred Buddhist inscriptions and images of Hindu deities.’
[1]
’There was a taxation system involving payment in gold, silver, perfumes, and pearls, and a script which originated in India.’
[2]
’Funan seems to have originated in the Mekong delta area, and around 200 AD under Fanzhan’s uncle, Fanshiman, through successive campaigns along the Gulf of Siam, it occupied belts of land of varying length which allowed goods to be transported by road or porterage to the ports on the Indian Ocean side of the peninsula.’
[3]
’The Chinese envoy Kang Tai reports that Funan had walled vil- lages, palaces, and houses. His report that “they like to engrave ornaments and to chisel” is borne out by the discovery of many artifacts related to metalworking, including gold, silver, tin, and copper at Oc Eo. He also mentions that they had books and archives and used an Indic script to write.’
[4]
’There are also SEALS bearing brief texts in the Indian BRAHMI script and an abundance of evidence for trade involving Rome, India, and China.’
[5]
’This ascendance has important implications when considering the inscriptions of Southeast Asia. The earli- est of these, from VO CANH in southern coastal Vietnam, was written in Sanskrit, as were those of the coastal state of FUNAN. Indeed, Sanskrit was the preferred language of all the major inscriptions of CHENLA and the kingdom of ANGKOR, in Cambodia, although Old KHMER was also used in subsidiary texts on many occasions. The quality of the Sanskrit employed was admirable, as seen in the long dedicatory inscriptions of the temples of the PRE RUP, PREAH KHAN, and TA PROHM at Angkor.’
[6]
’Probably a form of the Mon-Khmer language family using the Sanskrit writing system’
[7]
[1]: (Higham 2013, p.586) [2]: (Higham 2012b, p. 590) [3]: (Jacques and Lafond 2007, p. 47) [4]: (Miksic 2007, p. 123) [5]: (Higham 2004, p. 113-114) [6]: (Higham 2004, p. 294) [7]: (West 2009, p. 222) |
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|
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
||||||
|
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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|
Zapotec writing and counting systems were recorded by the Spanish after the invasion.
[1]
Detailed documentation was written in Spanish after the end of this period.
[2]
[1]: Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. p92-3 [2]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
||||||
|
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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|
Scholars use oral tradition to help reconstruct life in the Segou kingdom.
[1]
The polity may not have used written documents but there were written documents in the semi-autonomous, Islamic ’marka’ towns, populated by Soninke and other Mande-speakers.
[1]: (Monroe and Ogundiran 2012) J Cameron Monroe. Akinwumi Ogundiran. Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa. J Cameron Monroe. Akinwumi Ogundiran. eds. 2012. Power and Landscape in Atlantic West Africa: Archaeological Perspectives.Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. |
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|
"The inscriptions of the Orkhon, written in Turk in rune-type characters, contain a number of words not common to Turkic but with parallels in Samoyed or Ugric languages from which, directly or indirectly, they had to be borrowed."
[1]
"The First Turkic Khaganate officially split into the Western and the Eastern Turkic Khaganate. In the Eastern Turkic Khaganate, the Sogdian language and script was used for chancellery purposes and inscriptions."
[2]
[1]: (Sinor 1990, 291) [2]: (Hosszú 2012, 285) Hosszú, G. 2012. Heritage of Scribes: The Relation of Rovas Scripts to Eurasian Writing Systems. Rovas Foundation. |
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|
"The Khitan too developed a writing system on the Chinese model, though it was little used."
[1]
"In 920 the first Khitan script (the "large script," an adaptation of the Chinese script to the very different, highly inflected Khitan language) was presented, and by the end of A-pao-chi’s reign this script was widely used. In 925, when Uighur envoys visited the court, the emperor’s younger brother Tieh-la (whom A-pao-chi recognized as the most clever member of his family) was entrusted with their reception and, after learning their script (which was alphabetic), devised a second "small script" for Khitan."
[2]
[1]: (Beckwith 2009, 180) [2]: (Twitchett 1994, 67) |
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|
Late 16th century: “Tümen Jasaghtu Khan tried to unify the country administratively and so included in his government not only Abtai, Altan and Khutughtai Sechen, but also other influential nobles from all the tümens and from the Oirat regions. He compiled a new code that was supposed to be based on Chinggis Khan’s Great Ya ̄sa ̄ or Jasaq (see Volume IV, Part One). Subsequently, Altan Khan, Abtai Khan and, most likely, several others followed his example and adopted their own laws and codes in their respective tümens. But only some of these have been preserved, whether wholly or partially. They were written in the old Mongol script, which had been borrowed from the Uighur, and adopted under Chinggis Khan as the official script of the Mongols. »
[1]
[1]: (Ishjamts 2003, 214) |
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|
"There are several major inscriptions in the Turkic runic script from Khoshoo Tsaidam but also from the Tuul, Ongi, and Selenge River basins."
[1]
"Further inscriptions of this kind are known to us; these historical and biographical texts are memorials or eulogies for the living, and they tell of the deeds of Türk kaghans and their retainers. They combine descriptions of events that involved the hero of the inscription (or his ancestors) with an exposition of the political beliefs and ideas of the author of the text; they may be seen as ‘declarations of intent’ and to some extent were used as propaganda (Figs. 3 and 4). Even more common were memorial inscriptions on rock faces, some of which proclaimed the author’s right to use the adjacent pasture or site (Figs. 5 and 6).9"
[2]
[1]: (Rogers 2012, 226) [2]: (Klyashtorny 1996, 340-341) |
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|
Glyphs.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
Coded inferred present for later Xiongnu Imperial Confederation: "In several supercomplex chiefdoms the elite attempted to introduce written records (e.g. Hsiung-nu and Turks)"
[1]
When did this transition occur? The written records in Later Xiongnu times were mainly Chinese. "Since even the elite groups of the Xiongnu society were not particularly knowledgeable in the Chinese writing (it would be enough to mention the well known episode with the substitution of a Chanyu stamp by the order of Wang Mang), the common nomads could hardly be more literate than their leaders. Thus we may presume that the inscriptions on items from the Ivolga were made not by the Xiongnu, but by the people of the sedentary-agricultural origin and, most likely, by the immigrants or the prisoners of war from China."
[2]
"the early steppe peoples would not have been a promising vehicle for the diffusion of complicated, textually based knowledge; according to the Northern Wei dynastic history, the Rouran were illiterates whose leaders at first kept records of their troop numbers by piling up sheep turds as counters but eventually graduated to scratching simple marks onto pieces of wood. Not surprisingly, there is no evidence of the transmission of Chinese military theories and texts to the West by way of the Avars, other steppe nomads, Silk Road caravans, or any other channel prior to the activities of the Jesuit missionaries in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries."
[3]
[1]: (Kradin 2002, 373) [2]: (Kradin 2014, 90) [3]: (Graff 2016, 146) David A Graff. 2016. The Eurasian Way of War. Military practice in seventh-century China and Byzantium. Routledge. Abingdon. |
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|
"There are no written records of any description to throw light on the history of West Africa before 900 A.D."
[1]
"The West Africans who laid the foundations of their medieval empires during the centuries before 900 C.E. did not develop a written language they could use to record historical events."
[2]
Oldest example of writing in West Africa c1100 CE tomb inscription at Gao.
[3]
[1]: (Bovill 1958, 51) Bovill, E W. 1958/1995. The Golden Trade of the Moors. Oxford University Press. Oxford. [2]: (Conrad 2010, 13) Conrad, D. C. 2010. Empires of Medieval West Africa. Revised Edition. Chelsea House Publishers. New York. [3]: (Davidson 1998, 44) Davidson, Basil. 1998. West Africa Before the Colonial Era. Routledge. London. |
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|
Evidence for carved glyphs and genealogical registers has been found.
[1]
[1]: Marcus and Flannery (1996) Zapotec Civilization: How urban society evolved in Mexico’s Oaxaca Valley. Flannery and Marcus (1983) The Cloud People: divergent evolution of the Zapotec and Mixtec civilizations. Museum of Anthropology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Academic Press, New York. |
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|
Icelandic scholars copied and translated manuscripts, but fictional literature was present as well: ’But whatever advantages the union with Norway might bring, it produced no new era of development. Intellectual life continuted to flourish, and numerous literary works were written, but but a distinct decline in the quality of literary production becomes noticeable, especially towards the close of the thirteenth century. The old vigor and originality was dwindling, as the growing Christian medieval-time spirit, which was only strengthened throught a closer relation with Norway, was fostering a love for legends and chivalric romances which encouraged copying and translation rather than creative production and original scholarship.’
[1]
Legal codes and royal letters also became an important tool in the exercise of government, as evidenced in the conflicts between laity and clergy and the associated involvement of the Norwegian crown: ’Upon his return to Iceland Bishop Arni, assisted by Bishop Jörund of Hólar, summoned the people of his diocese to a general council at Skálholt, where he proposed several measures of reform, among others that the churches should be made ecclesiastical property under the control of the bishops. As nearly all churches in Iceland were privately owned, this would involve a change in property rights to which the people would not readily consent. [...] the king’s assistance could be invoked. [...] With threats of ban and excommunication he so intimidated the lesser landowners that they suffered to let the smaller churches to pass under ecclesiastical control. But the chieftains who owned the larger churches resolutely resisted. This was especially the case with the churches of Oddi and Hitardal, two of the largest in Iceland. Their owners refused to surrender them; but the bishop caused a decree of transfer to be promulgated at the Althing, threatening the owners with the ban if they resisted. [...] In 1273 King Magnus summoned a council to meet in Bergen to consider a new code of church laws to be proposed by Archbishop Jon of Nidaros, and to deal with other questions touching the relation between church and state. At this council, Bishop Arni, Hrafn Oddsson and the Icelandic chieftains also appeared. In the trial of their case the king as inclined to favor the chieftains, but the archbishop rendered a decision in Arni’s favor. His victory was so complete that upon his return home he began to prepare a new code of church laws for Iceland, based on principles suggested to him by Archbishop Jon. The code was adopted at the Althing in 1275 with the understanding that it was later to be ratified by the king and the archbishop.’
[2]
[1]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 208p [2]: Gjerset, Knut [1924]. "History of Iceland", 217p |
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|
SCCS variable 149 ’Writing and Records’ is coded as ‘1’ or ‘None’, not ‘Mnemonic devices’, or ‘Nonwritten records’, or ’True writing, no records’, or ‘True writing; records’ Written records were introduced by colonial authorities and missions.
|
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|
Possehl states that there was no writing before the urban phase in the Indus valley.
[1]
While seals have been found in Mehrgarh III layers, these show no evidence of script or writing.
[2]
[1]: Gregory L. Possehl. The Indus Civilization. A Contemporary Perspective. Walnut Creek, Altamira, 2002, p. 51. [2]: , C. A. (in press) Chapter 11, Case Study: Mehrgarh. In, Barker, G and Goucher, C (eds.) Cambridge World History, Volume 2: A World with Agriculture, 12,000 BCE - 500 CE. Cambridge University Press: Cambridge. |
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|
The Indo-Greeks straddled a crossroads of writing systems and written language traditions. Inscriptions written with the Greek alphabet, use of cuneiform in legal documents and exposure to records in Prakrit are all recorded. Further evidence is found in the Kharosthi inscriptions and the Asokan edicts. Further evidence exist of a transmissions of writing systems to other groups in the North Indian area.
[1]
[1]: Neelis, Jason. Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks: Mobility and Exchange Within and Beyond the Northwestern Borderlands of South Asia. Vol. 2. Brill, 2010, pp. 98-107 |
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|
"The Indus civilization flourished for around five hundred to seven hundred years, and in the early second millennium it disintegrated. This collapse was marked by the disappearance of the features that had distinguished the Indus civilization from its predecessors: writing, city dwelling, some kind of central control, international trade, occupational specialization, and widely distributed standardized artifacts. [...] Writing was no longer used, though occasionally signs were scratched as graffiti on pottery."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 91-92) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Civilization. Oxford; Santa Barbara: ABC-Clio. |
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|
"Despite huge interest in its decipherment, the writing of the Harappans still cannot be read, for a number of reasons: the absence of bilingual inscriptions to provide a starting point, the stylized form of the signs, the very limited length and nature of the texts, ignorance of the language that the script was being used to record, and the fact that the script died out instead of giving rise to later scripts. In addition, the number of signs indicates that the script was probably logosyllabic; so the number of components to be deciphered and the complexities of their use and interrelations are much greater than they would be with a syllabic or alphabetic script."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 356) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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|
"Despite huge interest in its decipherment, the writing of the Harappans still cannot be read, for a number of reasons: the absence of bilingual inscriptions to provide a starting point, the stylized form of the signs, the very limited length and nature of the texts, ignorance of the language that the script was being used to record, and the fact that the script died out instead of giving rise to later scripts. In addition, the number of signs indicates that the script was probably logosyllabic; so the number of components to be deciphered and the complexities of their use and interrelations are much greater than they would be with a syllabic or alphabetic script."
[1]
[1]: (McIntosh 2008, 356) Jane McIntosh. 2008. The Ancient Indus Valley. Santa Barbara; Denver; Oxford: ABC-CLIO. |
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Distant ancestors of the Sakha may have been familiar with writing, but lost that knowledge during past migrations: ’Spindle whorls were made of a kind of hard stone coal (slate?). Of particular interest was one spindle, found in Kurumchinakh, which was covered with writing (letters). In comparing these characters with those of various alphabets, it may readily be observed that many of them are similar, as far as they can be deciphered, to the characters of the Orkhon alphabet. There were thirty-seven symbols of which twenty-one are letters and sixteen indistinct, effaced signs, including perhaps mere scratches. The twenty-one letters appear to be an exact reproduction of the Yenisei-Orkhon characters. There are eighteen consonants and three vowels. Some of the characters are repeated and in all there are ten different symbols. The discovery of these writings so far to the north is of great interest. The ancestors of the Yakut, who, in remote times, emigrated from northern Mongolia, undoubtedly knew the Orkhon alphabet and this may explain the Yakut traditions as to the loss of their writings on the way to Yakutsk Province.’
[1]
The first recent script for the Yakut language was developed by 19th century Russian missionaries: ’The Yakut speak Yakut, a Northeast Turkic language of the Altaic Language Family. It is one of the most divergent of the Turkic languages, closely related to Dolgan (a mixture of Evenk and Yakut sometimes described as a Yakut dialect). The Yakut, over 90 percent of whom speak Yakut as their mother tongue, call their language "Sakha-tyla." Their current written language, developed in the 1930s, is a modified Cyrillic script. Before this, they had several written forms, including a Latin script developed in the 1920s and a Cyrillic script introduced by missionaries in the nineteenth century. Yakut lore includes legends of a written language lost after they traveled north to the Lena valley.’
[2]
[1]: Jochelson, Waldemar 1933. “Yakut”, 62 [2]: Balzer, Marjorie Mandelstam and Skoggard, Ian: eHRAF Cultural Summary for the Yakut |
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The only surviving written records about Cappadocia are from the historians writing from outside Cappadocia either at the time of the kingdom or later.
[1]
Detailed information about the written records of Cappadocia cannot, therefore, be given.
[1]: Bowder, D. (ed.) (1982) Who was Who in the Greek World, 776 BC - 30 BC. Phaidon: Oxford. p171-172, 196 |
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Cuneiform system.
[1]
"During the period of the primacy of Hattusa, the Hittites are best known from their royal library and archives excavated at that site, written in the Cuneiform script on clay tablets, a script and medium borrowed from Mesopotamia."
[2]
A hieroglyphic script was used on monuments, Cuneiform was not used for monumental inscriptions on stone. "The two scripts, Cuneiform and Hieroglyphic, only appear together on one type of document, the royal seals, where the King’s name is written in the centre in Hieroglyphic and in a circular ring around it in Cuneiform."
[2]
[1]: Gamkrelidze T. (2008) The Problem of the Origin of the Hittite Cuneiform, Bulletin Of The Georgian National Academy Of Sciences, vol. 2, no. 3,pp. 169-174 [2]: (Hawkins 2000, 2) John David Hawkins. 2000. Corpus of Hieroglyphic Luwian Inscriptions. Volume I. Inscriptions of the Iron Age. Walter de Gruyter. Berlin. |
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"While the ancient Thracians were a non-literary people and no domestic historical sources are known, a number of Greek and Roman authors give information on the region and the local tribes. Ancient writings provide some possibility to study Thracian political history, culture, religion and society, but, on the other hand, they do not contain sufficient data to enable those studying Thrace to draw comprehensive conclusions and to reconstruct the whole situation."
[1]
[1]: Theodossiev, N. (2011) Ancient Thrace during the First Millennium BC. In, Tsetskhladze, G. R. (ed.) The Black Sea, Greece, Anatolia and Europe in the First Millennium BC. Peeters: Leuven, Paris, Walpole, pp1-60)p5 |
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“We know Harari in two chronologically different forms. Ancient Harari is written in Arabic letters because the Harari are Muslims.”
[1]
[1]: (Wagner 1997, 486) Wagner, Ewald. 1997. ‘Harari’ In The Semitic Languages. Edited by Robert Hetzron. London: Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/V9HWX5VP/collection |
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In Egypt financial registers "were written in the special Siyaqat script, developed for financial purposes out of the Arabic script and introduced into the Treasury during the 10/16th century by the scribes who were sent to it from the Porte. The concise and regular nature of this script made it ideal for use in the limited space available in the registers, and is lack of the normal Arabic diacritical marks and violation of the usual rules for the formation and connection of Arabic letters made it incomprehensible to all but those especially initiated into the secrets of its formation and use."
[1]
[1]: (Shaw 1962, 341) |
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Luwian inscriptions
[1]
"shared cultural traditions that are best demonstrated by the numerous Luwian inscriptions and rock reliefs found in the Western Taurus."
[2]
[1]: (Bryce 2002, 43) [2]: Radner, Karen. 2013. Tabal and Phrygia: problem neighbours in the West. Assyrian empire builders. University College London http://www.ucl.ac.uk/sargon/essentials/countries/tabalandphrygia/ |
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"Sogdians used different types of script according to the religion to which they belonged. The Buddhists used a national script of Aramaic origin, with heterograms. This script is also known from secular writings and from what is probably the only Zoroastrian text in it.26 The Manichaeans had their own alphabet and the Christians used Syriac script, but both sometimes wrote in the national Sogdian script."
[1]
"The Bactrian script and language were used for a long time after the Kushan age but only small fragments of Bactrian literary works have been discovered so far."
[2]
[1]: (Marshak 1996, 255) [2]: (Harmatta 1994, 424) Harmatta, J. Languages and literature in the Kushan Empire. in Harmatta, Janos. Puri, B. N. Etemadi, G. F. eds. 1994. History of Civilizations of Central Asia. Volume II. The development of sedentary and nomadic civilizations 700 B.C. to A.D. 250. UNESCO Publishing. |
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"widespread use of a single script, Sabaean"
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 94) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/ZMFH42PE. |
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"widespread use of a single script, Sabaean"
[1]
[1]: (Robin 2015: 94) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3. |
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Account from 1472 AD by a historian‘Then after the Qur’an I studied the Quranic readings, individually and collectively, under my maternal uncle ... Then I studied Arabic under my maternal uncle and others. I studied also in particular under him arithmetic, algebra, anatomy, surveying, God’s ordinances and fiqb with the result that I derived benefit from all these disciplines’
[1]
[1]: G. REX SMITH, ‘THE TAHIRID SULTANS OF THE YEMEN (858-923/1454-1517) AND THEIR HISTORIAN IBN AL-DAYBA’, ‘’Journal of Semitic Studies’’, Volume XXIX, Issue 1, 1 March 1984, p. 151 |
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In Egypt financial registers "were written in the special Siyaqat script, developed for financial purposes out of the Arabic script and introduced into the Treasury during the 10/16th century by the scribes who were sent to it from the Porte. The concise and regular nature of this script made it ideal for use in the limited space available in the registers, and is lack of the normal Arabic diacritical marks and violation of the usual rules for the formation and connection of Arabic letters made it incomprehensible to all but those especially initiated into the secrets of its formation and use."
[1]
[1]: (Shaw 1962, 341) |
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In the Majeerteen Sultanate there were some individuals who could write in Arabic. “They likewise worshipped Islamic saints from the Arabian Peninsula, intermarried, and sometimes used Arabic scripts, since Somali Cushitic remained oral.”
[1]
[1]: (Smith 2021, 41) Smith, Nicholas W.S. 2021. Colonial Chaos in the Southern Red Sea: A History of Violence from 1830 to the Twentieth Century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/K6HVJ7X4/collection |
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"It was quite common in the sedentary regions of Arabia to inscribe texts of a legal nature on stone (see chapter 5 above for examples). The advantage of this was that these texts were then easily available for all to read (or have read for them) and would endure for many lifetimes. The subjects are diverse: commercial ordinances (such as the list of taxes owing on goods sold in Palmyra put up by the city council, and the regulations concerning trade in the market of Timna established by the king of Qataban), sanctions against criminals, hydrological legislation, cultic prescriptions, boundary settlements, property claims and so forth. The issuing authority was most often a deity (whose edicts were effected by means of an oracle and received and transcribed by a religious functionary), a king or his representative, or a city or tribal council. And even individuals might avail themselves of this practice, laying down conditions for use of their tombs, asserting their ownership of houses and the like. A special type of juridical inscription, so far known chiefly from the Jawf region of south Arabia and Raybun in Hadramawt, is the penitential text, in which persons confess their infraction of a law, usually to do with purity, and make an offering in atonement.""
[1]
"widespread use of a single script, Sabaean" [2] [1]: (Hoyland 2001, 124) Hoyland, R. 2001. Arabia and the Arabs: From the Bronze Age to the Coming of Islam. Routledge. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/hoylan/titleCreatorYear/items/AUHRSTGG/item-list [2]: (Robin 2015: 94) Robin, Christian Julien. 2015. “Before Himyar: Epigraphic Evidence for the Kingdoms of South Arabia.” In Arabs and Empires before Islam, edited by Greg Fisher, 91-126. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Seshat URL: https://www-oxfordscholarship-com.ezp.lib.cam.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199654529.001.0001/acprof-9780199654529-chapter-3. |
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
We are inferring presence for the kingdom of Nkore due to likely spread of literacy from the Buganda polity.
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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"In the field of religion and culture, the nineteenth century is said to have witnessed the golden age of Islam in the Futa Jalon. It was the century of great scholars and the growth of Islamic culture. All the disciplines of the Quran were known and taught: translation, the hadiths, law, apologetics, the ancillary sciences such as grammar, rhetoric, literature, astronomy, local works in Pular and Arabic, and mysticism. Nineteenth-century European visitors were highly impressed by the extent of the Islamization, which was visible in the large number of mosques and schools at all levels, the degree of scholarship, the richness of the libraries, and the widespread practice of Islamic worship. All this seems to have been facilitated by the use of the local language, Pular, as a medium of teaching and popularization of Islamic rules and doctrine."
[1]
[1]: (Barry 2005: 539) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/SU25S5BX/items/6TXWGHAX/item-list |
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“The Tamil silver-plate inscription of the Maratha Prince Ekoji (A.D. 1676) confirms the above lease to the Dutch.”
[1]
[1]: (Menon 2001, 303) Menon. A.G. 2001. ‘Copper Plates to Silver Plates: Cholas, Dutch and Buddhism’ In Fruits of Inspiration: Studies in Honour of Prof. J.G. de Caparis. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/FU8TFSTT/collection |
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“One of the distinctive features of the literature of the Polonnaruva period was the continued vitality of Pāli as the language of Sinhalese Buddhism. The tradition was still very much in favour of writing in Pāli rather than Sinhalese. The Pāli works of this period were mainly expositions or summaries of the works of the Pāli canon. There were also the tīkās explaining and supplementing the commentaries composed in the Anurādhapura era. The Dāṭhavaṁsa, a history of the tooth relic, was one of the more notable literary in the Pāli language. Its author, Mahānāma, is also credited with the first part Cūlavaṁsa, the continuation of the Mahāvaṁsa. The Pāli literature of this period bears the impression of the strong tonic effect of Sanskrit, which had not a no less significant influence on contemporary Sinhalese writing. The bulk of the Sinhalese works of this period are glossaries and translations from the Pāli canon. There were also two prose works by a thirteenth century author, Gurulugomi, the Amāvatura and the Dharmapradīpikāva, of which the former was more noteworthy; and two poems (of the late twelfth and early thirteenth century), the Sasadāvata and the Muvadevadāta, both based on Jātaka stories, and both greatly influenced by the Sanskrit works of Kālidāsa and Kumāradāsa.”
[1]
[1]: (De Silva 1981, 74) De Silva, K.M. 1981. A History of Sri Lanka. London: C. Hurst & Company, Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/4R6DQVHZ/collection |
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“Although its authorship is unknown, the Dīpavaṃsa is believed to have been compiled in the fourth century CE, while the Mahāvaṃsa has been argued to have been written by various monks of the Mahāvihāra and compiled into a single document by the Buddhist monk Mahānāma in the fifth to sixth century CE. It narrates the history of the island from its colonization by Prince Vijaya through to the reign of King Mahāsena (r. 275–301 ce). The Cūḷavaṃsa was a continuation of this narrative, detailing the island’s history up to the eighteenth century CE. Initially scholars believed these narratives to be legends, but the rediscovery of palm leaf manuscripts by George Turnour at Mullgirigalla near Tangalle led to the serious reconsideration of their contents as historical. Sir James Emerson Tennent, Colonial Secretary of Ceylon between 1845 and 1850 CE, stated that this ‘long lost chronicle... thus vindicated the claim of Ceylon to the possession of an authentic and unrivalled record of its national history’.”
[1]
“On the history of the island up to the end of the first millennium, and indeed for three centuries of the second, there is a wealth of historical data. Of these the first category consists of the Pali chronicles, the Dīpavaṁsa and Mahāvaṁsa with its continuation the Cūlavaṁsa, which together provide scholars with a mass of reliable data, not available for other parts of south Asia for most the period under study. Next come the archaeological remains of the civilizations of Sri Lanka’s dry zone, the magnificent array of religious and secular monuments written about in the chronicles mentioned earlier, and the irrigation works.”
[2]
“Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”
[3]
[1]: Coningham et al. 2017, 21) Coningham et al. 2017. ‘Archaeology and cosmopolitanism in early historic and medieval Sri Lanka.’ Sri Lanka at the Crossroads of History. Edited by Zoltán Biedermann and Alan Strathern. London: UCL Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/DCQMW8E3/collection [2]: (De Silva 2005, 3) De Silva, K.M. 2005. A History of Sri Lanka. Sri Lanka: Vijitha Yapa Publications. Seshat URL:https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/BHJ4G3V7/collection [3]: (Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection. |
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"The country’s relative press freedom attracted authors and engravers from all parts of Europe. Besides Latin, which was the main language for scholarly works, more and more works were printed in the regional languages, in the first instance in Dutch, but also in French and other European languages – even in Hebrew and Arabic."
[1]
[1]: (Emmer and Gommans 2020: 80) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/AI9PPN7Q/collection. |
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“Recent excavations at the Sri Lanka site of Anuradhapura, the capital of Devanampiya Tissa, have provided evidence of Brahmi dating to the beginning of the fourth century BC. The discovery of this script, the earliest example of its kind in South Asia, has enabled a reassessment of the traditionally accepted theories and allows us to suggest fresh hypotheses for its development and spread in South Asia.”
[1]
“Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”
[2]
[1]: (Coningham et al. 1996, 76-77) Coningham, R.A.E. et al. 1996, ‘Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the Brahmi Script’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal. Vol 6: 1. Pp 73-97. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/QNHMB4H3/collection [2]: (Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection. |
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“Over the years, the language [Oromo] has been written in the Latin, Sabaean, and Arabic scripts.”
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 319) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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“Recent excavations at the Sri Lanka site of Anuradhapura, the capital of Devanampiya Tissa, have provided evidence of Brahmi dating to the beginning of the fourth century BC. The discovery of this script, the earliest example of its kind in South Asia, has enabled a reassessment of the traditionally accepted theories and allows us to suggest fresh hypotheses for its development and spread in South Asia.”
[1]
“Literature for much of the Anurādhapura period was Buddhist, written in the Pāli language. The Buddhist scriptures were preserved on the island, first orally and then in writing. The three main monastic orders added their own commentaries, but only some of the Mahāvihāra texts survive. In the later Anurādhapura period, the production of Pāli literature declined and literary works in Sinhala appear.”
[2]
[1]: (Coningham et al. 1996, 76-77) Coningham, R.A.E. et al. 1996, ‘Passage to India? Anuradhapura and the Early Use of the Brahmi Script’. Cambridge Archaeological Journal. Vol 6: 1. Pp 73-97. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/QNHMB4H3/collection [2]: (Peebles 2006: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/HJG4VBC5/collection. |
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“Over the years, the language [Oromo] has been written in the Latin, Sabaean, and Arabic scripts.”
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 319) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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Before Harar became the Adalite capital in the early fourteenth century, it was still an important trading town in the Adal Sultanate interior. “Some of the Arabic inscriptions on tombstones collected between the modern towns of Harar and Dire Dawa bear thirteenth-century dates, and show the existence of fairly well-developed Muslim communities in the region of Harar, which probably was an important centre of dispersal for many of the founders of other Muslim settlements further inland.”
[1]
[1]: (Tamrat 2008, 140) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Tamrat/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list |
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In Barawa (also known as Brava) on the Benadir coast, there are various examples of Arabic inscriptions from the early 12th Century. “Cerulli reports an Arabic inscription from Brava, commemorating the death of a Muslim resident in 1104/5, which certainly indicates the existence of a highly developed Muslim community there in the eleventh century.”
[1]
[1]: (Tamrat 2008, 137) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/search/tam/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list |
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Written Arabic genealogies of Somali lineage were held by Sheikhs. “Only the Shaykhs maintained written Arabic manuscripts that recorded the genealogical connections at the highest levels, among various clan founders.”
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 129) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library |
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“Over the years, the language [Oromo] has been written in the Latin, Sabaean, and Arabic scripts.”
[1]
[1]: (Shinn and Ofcansky 2013, 319) Shinn, David and Thomas Ofcansky. 2013. Historical Dictionary of Ethiopia. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/TWITJWK4/items/29MS79PA/collection |
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Written Arabic genealogies of Somali lineage were held by Sheikhs. “Only the Shaykhs maintained written Arabic manuscripts that recorded the genealogical connections at the highest levels, among various clan founders.”
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 129) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library |
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“A Muslim community was also indicated by the recovery of 2 undated Arabic inscriptions, one part on an inscription from the Quran 48:31-1, which if complete would read ‘In the name of the Most Gracious, the Most Merciful’ and on the second line, ‘We have given you a glorious victory’, the other only bearing the words ‘on God’”.
[1]
[1]: (Insoll 2017, 209) Insoll, Timothy. 2017. ‘First Footsteps in Archaeology of Harar, Ethiopia’. Journal of Islamic Archaeology. Vol 4:2. Pp 189-215. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/VQ38B374/collection |
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“In the meantime, the sons and grandsons of Yekunno-Amlak were deeply involved in bitter wars of succession, and a valuable Arabic document for 1299 reports what seems to have been a considerable territorial concession to an Ifat leader by one of the sons of Yekunno-Amlak.”
[1]
[1]: (Tamrat 2008, 143-144) Tamrat, Taddesse. 2008. ‘Ethiopia, the Red Sea and the Horn’ In the Cambridge History of Africa: c. 1050 – c.1600 vol. 3. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Pp 98-182. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/search/Tamrat/titleCreatorYear/items/A68FCWWI/item-list |
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“The liturgical language of the Orthodox Church and the name for the Tigrinya writing system [Ge’ez]. Ge’ez developed as the language of the Aksumite Empire, derived from the merger of a Semitic South Arabian language and one or more Cushitic languages, but there is some dispute as to whether it was the original root of all the Ethiopic Semitic languages, (including Tigre, Tigrinya, and Amharic) or simply a regional dialect that acquired political predominance during the Aksumite period.”
[1]
[1]: (Connell and Killion 2011, 269) Connell, Dan and Killion, Tom. 2011. Historical Dictionary of Eritrea. Second Edition. Lanham, Maryland: Scarecrow Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/24ZMGPAA/collection |
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Written Arabic genealogies of Somali lineage were held by Sheikhs. “Only the Shaykhs maintained written Arabic manuscripts that recorded the genealogical connections at the highest levels, among various clan founders.”
[1]
[1]: (Cassanelli 1982, 129) Cassanelli, Lee. V. 1982. The Shaping of Somali Society: Reconstructing the History of a Pastoral People, 1600-1900. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/TKPH7Z89/library |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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“In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”).”
[1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection |
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“The influx of Islam into West Africa was very significant. Through Islam, the people of diverse ethnic groups and languages found a common bond of allegiance to a central authority. Ability of Muslims to read and write and to communicate over long distances made them valuable in advising the rulers of the Ancient Empires of West Africa. […] The educational value of Islam was tremendous. Some rulers employed Muslim Interpreters to record events in Arabic language and to communicate with more distant rulers on behalf of the rulers. As a result of the influx of foreign Muslims into West Africa, Arabic writing and learning were introduced.”
[1]
[1]: Adelowo, E. D. ‘Islam in Oyo and its Districts in the Nineteenth Century’. Thesis, University of Ibadan, 1978, 24–25. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/UHKKZNRA/collection. |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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The following quote suggests that a Yoruba written alphabet was invented in the nineteenth century. "Àjàyí[...] returned in 1841 to the Bight of Benin and the Bight of Biafra. Now officially known as Samuel Crowther, he [...] was the architect of Yorùbá modernization through his efforts as a linguist to reduce the Yorùbá language to writing, a major revolution in Yorùbá cultural and intellectual history. His accomplishments in this regard included the translation of the Bible into Yorùbá and the development of the first Yorùbá dictionary."
[1]
[1]: (Ogundiran 2020: 391) |
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“Since the 17th century, Hausa has been written in a version of Arabic script called ajami that, like Arabic, is written and read left to right. Hausa is a tonal language, signifying that the meaning of a word depends on the high, medium, or low tone assigned to the vowels. The spellings of words, however, have not been standardized, and variations exist. Many of the written works in Hausa, especially prior to the mid-20th century, are based on Islamic themes.”
[1]
“In the city of Sokoto there was a small bureaucracy headed by the vizier who in his own house had some scribes to receive and write short (one-page) letters in classical Arabic to those emirs he was in charge of overseeing (Last 1967:190-97) . Imported paper and local ink were used, and letters from the Amir al-mu’minin had his personal stamp on them (the vizier and the emirs had no stamp of their own). The letters were never dated, but they were folded in a precise way and carried in a pouch by a messenger; it could take a week or more for a letter to reach the addressee, since fifteen miles a day was a good speed and distances were huge.”
[2]
[1]: Falola, Toyin, and Ann Genova. Historical Dictionary of Nigeria. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2009: 149. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SJAIVKDW/collection [2]: Last, Murray. “Contradictions in Creating a Jihadi Capital: Sokoto in the Nineteenth Century and Its Legacy.” African Studies Review, vol. 56, no. 2, 2013, pp. 1–20: 6. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5RUPN5VI/collection |
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“Available records reveal that Ochalla Angna and Olimamu Attah both [had] Islamic clerics served as court scribes (what is today known as court clerks) and records of proceedings were written and kept in Arabic.”
[1]
[1]: Jacob, Audu. “Pre-Colonial Political Administration in the North Central Nigeria: a Study of the Igala Political Kingdom.” European Scientific Journal, vol. 10, no. 19, 2014, pp. 392–402: 399. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/5AN8R7UW/collection |
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“Since the 17th century, Hausa has been written in a version of Arabic script called ajami that, like Arabic, is written and read left to right. Hausa is a tonal language, signifying that the meaning of a word depends on the high, medium, or low tone assigned to the vowels. The spellings of words, however, have not been standardized, and variations exist. Many of the written works in Hausa, especially prior to the mid-20th century, are based on Islamic themes.”
[1]
“Another effect of the spread of Islam was the influx of scholars and clerics from various parts of Africa. This occasioned the spread in Hausaland of new political, social and cultural ideas and the growth of literacy, defined as the ability to read and write in the Arabic language, and later also in Hausa, using the Arabic script (the ajami system).108 ”
[2]
“[Footnote] 108. However, it should be noted that no Hausa ajami manuscript written before 1600 has yet been discovered.”
[2]
[1]: Falola, Toyin, and Ann Genova. Historical Dictionary of Nigeria. The Scarecrow Press, Inc., 2009: 149. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SJAIVKDW/collection [2]: Niane, D. T., & Unesco (Eds.). (1984). Africa from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Century. Heinemann; University of California Press: 293. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ERZKPETN/collection |
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“’Then comes Borno on the banks of the River Negro (where there is a great lake, caused by the aforesaid river), a very great city having much commerce. It has its own king. .. In writing to foreign princes, they use the Arabic language, as I am informed by Signor Giovanni di Vesti, a most honourable person. Among the Turks, where he was the slave of a great count, he himself saw a letter which he [Mai of Bornu] wrote to the Bassa [Pasha] of Tripoli, with much eloquence and very great art. This prince is so powerful, that he has several times put into the field 100,000 men against the King of Cabi [Kebbi]. Because of his power, the Negroes deem him to be an emperor. They also have a great multitude of horses, which the Arabs bring in from their countries, selling them for at least 700 or 000 scudi each. These do not live for long, for when the sun enters the Sign of the Lion, many die each year from the extreme heat.. Many Turks go there to seek their fortunes, and also many Moors of Barbary, who are their learned men, and where, being very few, they are extremely well paid. This is the case amongst all of these Negroes who are Mahometans. And from there set out each year merchants who carry such quantities of the best Cordovan [leather] that it is accounted a great thing in the Fizzan [sic], and from where they return with infinite numbers of horses for their country, accompanying the caravans of Negro merchants.”
[1]
“That is another aspect of ’Arabic as the Latin of Africa’ - when Muslims who could write Arabic, used the script to write their own languages, just as the English, and other Europeans, used the Latin script to write their own languages. In West Africa, the first such writing now known was in the mid-seventeenth century, when a man of the state of Kanem, just north of Lake Chad, wrote comments on the Qur’an in the local language of Kanuri, at the sides of a copy of the Qur’an in its original Arabic language.”
[2]
[1]: Martin, B. G. (1969). Kanem, Bornu, and the Fazzan: Notes on the Political History of a Trade Route. The Journal of African History, 10(1), 15–27: 25-26. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/PFENZUSB/collection [2]: HUNWICK, JOHN O. “WEST AFRICA AND THE ARABIC LANGUAGE.” Sudanic Africa, vol. 15, 2004, pp. 133–44: 143. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/26533KM8/collection |
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“The question as to the manner in which a record of the age of these children was kept by a people who had no writing, poses itself here.”
[1]
[1]: HERSKOVITS, M. J. (1932). POPULATION STATISTICS IN THE KINGDOM OF DAHOMEY. Human Biology, 4(2), 252–261: 258. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/8T74FM7D/collection |
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Communications between Senegambian groups and the French and English colonists were made in Arabic and French. “There was a series of treaties, frequently negotiated with great care and written up in French and Arabic.”
[1]
[1]: (Klein 1972, 425) Klein, Martin A. 1972. ‘Social and Economic Factors in the Muslim Revolution in Senegambia.’ The Journal of Africa History. Vol. 13:3. Pp 419-441. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/ZJRN8UJ8/collection |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. |
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"Literacy entered Uganda for the first time with the introduction of Islam in the late 1860’s and for nearly a decade instruction in Islam was progressing and flourishing at the royal court. When literacy was introduced into the kingdom of Buganda, it was confined to speakers of Arabic and Kiswahili. "
[1]
[1]: (Pawliková-Vilhanová 2014: 145) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/T7IMKZJJ. |
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The following quote characterises the people of Tanganyika (the broader region of which Karagwe formed part) as "pre-literate" in the early 19th century. "We do not know what inland Tanganyikans believed in the early nineteenth century. They were pre-literate, and the religions of pre-literate peoples not only leave little historical evidence but are characteristically eclectic, mutable, and unsystematic."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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“A Sanskrit epigraph mentions the name Madhurakavi who belonged to a family of doctors and was a minister under king Parantaka Nedunjadaiyan.”
[1]
[1]: (Kamlesh 2010, 599) Kamlesh, Kapur. 2010. ‘Pandya Dynasty’ In Portraits of a Nation: History of Ancient India. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/3TS5DCT6/collection |
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Languages spoken in this polity were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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"As we have seen, to secure their essential ties, the ancient states, lacking writing and money, relied on kinship, trust, and personal relationships, which were periodically rekindled by direct contact and exchanged words."
[1]
Languages spoken in this polity were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[2]
[1]: (Chrétien 2006: 178) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/FXCVWDRI/collection. [2]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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The following quote characterises the people of Tanganyika (the broader region of which the Fipa formed part) as "pre-literate" in the early 19th century. "We do not know what inland Tanganyikans believed in the early nineteenth century. They were pre-literate, and the religions of pre-literate peoples not only leave little historical evidence but are characteristically eclectic, mutable, and unsystematic."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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Languages spoken in Rwanda were turned into "written artefacts" only in the colonial period: "Before the arrival of the Europeans, Kinyarwanda and Kirundi were already employed in both kingdoms – Ikinyanduga in southern Rwanda and Ikiruundi in central Burundi – yet with a lot less linguistic unity in the two kingdoms than in (post)colonial times. The missionary and colonial interventions, therefore, rather focused on lexicon, resulting in status planning initiatives and contributing to the compilation of dictionaries, favouring a specific dialect over others. [...] The most salient and visible adaptations were a part of the primarily orthographic alignments of textualisation processes (turning languages into written artefacts)."
[1]
[1]: (Nassenstein 2019: 16-17) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/QUT3P5UT/collection. |
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The following quote characterises the people of Tanganyika (the broader region of which Buhaya formed part) as "pre-literate" in the early 19th century. "We do not know what inland Tanganyikans believed in the early nineteenth century. They were pre-literate, and the religions of pre-literate peoples not only leave little historical evidence but are characteristically eclectic, mutable, and unsystematic."
[1]
[1]: (Iliffe 1979: 26) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SB2AJMVC/collection. |
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The following quote discusses the archaeological site at Kodumanal. “Over 100 inscribed pieces of pottery were also found in the excavations. Most of these were in the Tamil language and Tamil-Brahmi script. A few inscriptions are in the Prakrit language and Brahmi script. Palaeo-magnetic dating of these potsherds has given a rage of c. 300 BCE to 200 CE.”
[1]
[1]: (Singh 2008, 402) Singh, Upinder. 2008. A History of Ancient and Early Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century. London: Pearson Education. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/UJG2G6MJ/collection |
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“But more interesting and important are the numerous Brahmi Tamil inscriptions and Brahmi script found on pot sherds of the period. They have been found in more or less the same type of script in Arikamedu, Kanchi, Karur, Uraiyur, Korkai etc. i.e., in a vast territory in Tamilnadu.”
[1]
[1]: (Raman 1976, 55) Raman, K.V. 1976. ‘Archaeology of the Sangam Age’. Proceedings of the Indian History Congress. Vol 37. Pp 50-56. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/M3ZPI56I/collection |
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“The Persian records of the Nawab in the Tamilnad Archives, Madras, contain letters, government orders, accounts, service records of officials. There is also a diary maintained by Kishanchand, a trusted munshi of Mohammed Ali. It covers a period of about two years ending with February 1785.”
[1]
[1]: (Ramaswami 1984, 329) Ramaswami, N.S. 1984. Political History of Carnatic Under the Nawabs. New Delhi: Abhinav Publications. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/PTIS9MB4/collection |
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“A great deal of information about this dynasty and the vast empire that the rulers controlled comes from the inscriptions. These inscriptions are in three languages, Tamil, Sanskrit and Prakrit. Sanskrit was the court language of the Pallavas.”
[1]
[1]: (Kamlesh 2010, 563) Kamelsh, Kapur. 2010. ‘The Pallava Dynasty’ In History of Ancient India: Portraits of a Nation. New Delhi: Sterling Publishers Pvt. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/UETBPIDE/collection |
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“The Kalabhras who ruled in the far South including Kerala and South Mysore, minted and circulated a large quantity of copper coins from about 250 A.D. to the middle of the sixth century A.D. On early issues of the tribe we have the figures of tiger, elephant, horse and the fish. In rare specimens a seated Jain Muni or a swastika sign or the short sword or the symbol of Manjusri are seen. The Prakrit inscription on the other side of the coin in Brahmi script reads invariably Acuvikanta Kalabhra.”
[1]
[1]: (Gupta 1989, 23) Gupta, Parmanand. 1989. Geography from Ancient Indian Coins and Seals. New Delhi: Concept Publishing Company. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/5Z4TFP7P/collection |
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Tamil script. “The place-history (Sanskrit sthalapurana, Tamil, talapuranam) is an important genre of Tamil literature as David Shulaman’s study of the Saiva material has demonstrated. Though related to pan-Indian Sanskrit purana literature, Tamil sthalapuranas are distinguished by their emphasis on a particular location, its sacred qualities and the unique character of the deity worshipped there. The strong belief in the concentrated presence of the sacred in particular places is a notable feature of Tamil culture.”
[1]
[1]: (Branfoot 2001, 203) Branfoot, Crispin. 2001. ‘Tirumala Nayaka’s ‘New Hall’ and the European Study of the South Indian Temple. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society. Vol 11:2. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/FE5VZ76M/collection |
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The following quote discusses an agreement between the Nayak of Thanjavur Vijayaraghava and the Dutch. “Apart from the above agreement, there is also an elaborate contract between Vijayaraghava Nayak and the Dutch inscribed on a silver plate in the Dravidian language Telugu. The Dutch ‘translation’ of the silver-plate grant of the Nayak Vijayaraghava, dated 24 December 1658, mentions that the following ten villages, which were originally belonging to the palli of the Portuguese, are given to the Dutch by Vijayaraghava.”
[1]
[1]: (Menon 2001, 303) Menon. A.G. 2001. ‘Copper Plates to Silver Plates: Cholas, Dutch and Buddhism’ In Fruits of Inspiration: Studies in Honour of Prof. J.G. de Caparis. Leiden: Brill. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/7F5SEVNA/items/FU8TFSTT/collection |
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Inferred from reference to "internal scripts" in the following quote. "Historical information on those emerging years of the empire is dim and has to be carefully extracted from the accounts of Arab writers (Levtzion and Hopkins 1981), the scanty internal evidence in the Kanem-Borno king lists (Lange 1977), and the few fragments of internal scripts that have been recorded by the German traveler Heinrich Barth (1857-59; Lange 1987) and the British colonial officer Richmond Palmer (1967; 1970)."
[1]
[1]: (Gronenborn 2002: 103) |
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The Ajuran was an Islamic Sharia Sultanate on the Benadir coast of present-day Somalia. As an Islamic Sultanate the religious literature would have been the Quran which was written in Arabic. “The little available records depict that the sultanate was headquartered in Merca, applied Islamic Sharia, established strong standing army, and gave priority to building water supplies and building fortifications.”
[1]
[1]: (Abdullahi 2017, 64) Abdullahi, Abdurahman. 2017. Making Sense of Somali History Vol. 1. London: Adonis and Abbey Publishers. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/47CK4M35/library |
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"The precise use of the Islamic calendar and of Arabic script and language are strong evidence of the presence of an Islamic scholarly elite. This literate elite is represented by the faqīh Ibrāhīm b. al-Ḥasan, “ qāḍī al-quḍā (lit. “cadi of the cadis”) of Šawah” whose death occurred in 1255. The title “cadi of the cadis” refers to the judge at the head of the judiciary of a state or of a city, and therefore presupposes a sophisticated judicial hierarchy."
[1]
[1]: (Chekroun and Hirsch 2020: 94-95) Seshat url: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/SU25S5BX/items/TA84VGHX/item-list |
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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The following quote implies that indigenous writing emerged in the region in the 19th century. "The first documented autochthonous, Mande script to appear in West Africa was the one created by Duala Bukere from Grand Cape Mount County in Liberia who created a Vai syllabary in 1833, which has been standardized to 212 characters (Dalby, 1967: 14-18). [...] Appearing first in the region, the Vai syllabary became the prototype for other writing systems that were created in the inter-wars among indigenous peoples in Sierra Leone and Liberia. Speakers of southern Mande languages such as the Mende (1921) and the Kpelle (1935), and speakers of the Kru languages such as the Bassa (1920-25) have based their writing systems on the syllabary (Dalby, 1967: 2-4)."
[1]
[1]: (Oyler 2001: 75) Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/X7HQWWH9/collection. |
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No writing system in Allada the year before Whydah became independent, so likely the same in Whydah: “Another question arising from the incidence of credit in both the local economy and the overseas trade is the nature of the indigenous system of recordkeeping. In Allada the local people, it was noted in 1670, in the absence of writing used knotted strings to keep records of various matters, including commercial transactions (“the price of goods”). Several later accounts allude to other mechanical devices for keeping financial (and fiscal) records in Dahomey.”
[1]
[1]: Austin, Gareth, et al. “Credit, Currencies, and Culture: African Financial Institutions in Historical Perspective.” The International Journal of African Historical Studies, vol. 34, no. 1, 2001, p. 144: 33. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/SPXH2IUW/collection |
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No references found in the consulted literature to a written form of Nri that doesn’t use the Latin alphabet. “If these are the problems to be faced in languages that have written form hundreds of years ago one cannot imagine what problems there are in dealing with languages whose written forms are yet to be established.”
[1]
[1]: Onwuejeogwu, M. A. (1975). Some Fundamental Problems in the Application of Lexicostatistics in the Study of African Languages. Paideuma, 21, 6–17: 10. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/IISK3KCM/collection |
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“Since the end of the 15th century, a great deal of material about Benin has been supplied by sailors, traders, etc., returning to Europe. However, information on the Edo people before this date is very difficult to obtain, as there was no written record and the oral record is at best rather fragmentary.”
[1]
“The theme of this study presses the sources for the reconstruction of Benin military history to its limits because written documents scarcely exist, except for the reports and accounts of European visitors.”
[2]
[1]: Bondarenko, Dmitri M., and Peter M. Roese. ‘Benin Prehistory: The Origin and Settling down of the Edo’. Anthropos 94, no. 4/6 (1999): 542–52: 542. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/Y4V3D623/collection [2]: Osadolor, O. B. (2001). The Military System of Benin Kingdom, c.1440–1897. University of Hamburg, Germany: 27–28. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/collections/GWWIKDDM/items/N4RZF5H5/collection |
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“Although the ancient people of the Southwest didn’t have a written language, they had effective ways to communicate. Cultures worldwide have used rock art to transmit ideas and beliefs. There are two types of rock art, petroglyphs and pictographs. Petroglyphs are images carved or pecked into a rock surface. In Chaco Canyon, petroglyphs are carved into the sandstone cliffs that form the canyon walls. Many are located on boulders. Pictographs, images painted on a rock surface, are less common in Chaco Canyon because the paint erodes over time. At Chaco, and throughout the American Southwest, rock images were probably an important form of visual communication. Some are images of clan symbols; others are records of important events during migrations. Still others are memory aids for recalling stories, songs, and ceremonies.”
[1]
[1]: (“Chaco Culture - Communication”) “Chaco Culture” NPS Museum Collections, accessed May 8, 2023, https://www.nps.gov/museum/exhibits/chcu/index6.html. https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/NMRVDA5I |
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Cyrillic alphabet, writing system developed in the 9th–10th century CE for Slavic-speaking peoples of the Eastern Orthodox faith. It is currently used exclusively or as one of several alphabets for more than 50 languages, notably Belarusian, Bulgarian, Kazakh, Kyrgyz, Macedonian, Montenegrin (spoken in Montenegro; also called Serbian), Russian, Serbian, Tajik (a dialect of Persian), Turkmen, Ukrainian, and Uzbek.
The Cyrillic alphabet was an indirect result of the missionary work of the 9th-century “Apostles of the Slavs,” St. Cyril (or Constantine) and St. Methodius. Their mission to Moravia lasted only a few decades. Their disciples went to South Slavic regions of the first Bulgarian empire, including what are now Bulgaria and the Republic of North Macedonia, where in the 900s they constructed a new script for Slavic, based on capital Greek letters, with some additions; confusingly, this later script (drawing on the name of Cyril) became known as Cyrillic. Saints Naum and Clement, both of Ohrid and both among the disciples of Cyril and Methodius, are sometimes credited with having devised the Cyrillic alphabet. [1] [1]: “Cyrillic Alphabet | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica,” last modified October 11, 2023, accessed November 24, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cyrillic-alphabet. Zotero link: 5PGC4769 |
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Cyrillic Script: Originally developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th century, the Cyrillic script was brought to Russia through the spread of Christianity. It became the foundation of the written language in the Russian Empire..
[1]
[1]: “Cyrillic Alphabet | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica,” last modified October 11, 2023, accessed November 24, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cyrillic-alphabet. Zotero link: 5PGC4769 |
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Cyrillic Script: Originally developed in the First Bulgarian Empire during the 9th century, the Cyrillic script was brought to Russia through the spread of Christianity. It became the foundation of the written language in the Russian Empire..
[1]
[1]: “Cyrillic Alphabet | Definition, History, & Facts | Britannica,” last modified October 11, 2023, accessed November 24, 2023, https://www.britannica.com/topic/Cyrillic-alphabet. Zotero link: 5PGC4769 |
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"Gahadavalas issued a number of inscriptions which constitute a major source for the study of various aspects of their rule."
[1]
[1]: (Yadav 2011: 360) Yadav, D. 2011. ASPECTS OF RURAL SETTLEMENT UNDER THE GAHAAVALA DYNASTY: C. 11 TH CENTURY CE TO 13 TH CENTURY CE (AN INSCRIPTIONAL ANALYSIS). Proceedings of the Indian History Congress , 2011, Vol. 72, PART-I (2011), pp. 360-367. Seshat URL: https://www.zotero.org/groups/1051264/seshat_databank/items/F8STV588/library |
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Written records in Arabic have a long scholarly tradition in Yemen.
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