“Pen, Ink, and Paper”

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22513, 22 September 1938, Page 4 (Supplement)

“Pen, Ink, and Paper”

(By Jean Ingram)

. It, Js; so long since man first found: the spoken •word insufficient for bis needs that it is impossible to tell just how the first message was sent. .Perhaps by the selfsame ways wtyich savage peoples use to-day-smoke signals, beacon fires, or symbols .'such as coloured stones,'flowers, for torches. This. last method, the lighted torch, was often used in ancient Greece, and even in comparatively modem times in Scotland. in time of war or. revolt.

But how ’was. a, written language evolved? How long ago? It is quite certain that for thousands of years before Christ men were communicating with each other by means of signs and pictures. All over Europe archaeologists have uncovered caves whose wialls are inscribed with clear and unmistakable drawings of animals long since extinct. Other walls bear stories of ancient di'amas—battles, tragedies, and triumphs, all told through the medium of little •crude .figures scratched in the stone or painted in ochre by some caveman in an idle hour. The messages conveyed by this, first method of pictorial writing are unmistakable even to-day.

A rock painting of an elephant from the cave of Castillo, Spain

Pictures were" naturally the first means of written self-expression, but it was only a step from drawings to ideographs. This “ideawriting” is exactly what it seems to be—pictures which give the reader the idea;of an object without pictorially representing that object. For instance, there came a time when the primitive artist found himself-unable to draw a picture of "hair,’' and so drew instead a hare, trusting that his reader would understand. Pictures became formalised, lost shape altogether in some cases, and finally came to represent a phonetic sound. Strangely enough, ancient Egyptian writing (generally regarded as the mother of aIL writnever became entirely alpha'Betic, there being retained even now many .signs which are useless, decorative relics of the old pictorial form. , ‘ . , , , True writing was first developed by the Assyrians. Egyptians, and Chinese. It is not known when the Egyptian hieroglyph was first evolved, but it must have been many thousand* of years ago. A Gre*k Writer tells us that Egyptian lettering was seen in

Greece about 600 8.C.. Greece herself is regarded as a country of ageold culture, but for hundreds of years before she emerged from barbarism the hieroglyphic form of writing was used nationally in Egypt

The Egyptians used a peculiar form of paper made from the papyrus reed. It was made by laying thin slices of papyrus stem, with edges overlapping, across other slices laid at right angles to the first. It was then moistened and placed under a heavy weight. After the pressing, the edges were trimmed, and overlapping pieces neatly glued down, 50 that a tough ivory or yellow sheet was formed. At first- writing was done with a reed, the end slightly frayed to form a brush, but later a split, penlike reed was used. Ink was made of finely powdered dye substance solidified with gum, and was either red or black. Both ink and paper were exceedingly durable, and many fine examples of centuriesold Egyptian writing are in existence. For a long while the hieroglyphics puzzled all who tried, to translate them, but finally the famed Rosetta Stone was deciph-

ered in 1814, thus forming a key for further translation.

Babylonia, that lost nation, used the old picture writing for very many years, but gradually a style that has come to be known as cuneiform was evolved. This striking and distinctive form of writing puzzled experts for a long while. As its name denotes, •it is “wedge-shaped.” Why should the writer have troubled to indent his letters triangularly? It , was realised that it was the writing material of the old Babylonian scribe that caused this peculiar formation. He wrote on a flat, oval, or disc of soft clay, and for a pen he used a square-ended reed; You can imagine that with stroke with such a pen a cei lain amount of clay would be scooped up into a small heap, thus obscuring the character. So the Babylonian scribe held his clay tablet on a slant, and, holding his reed tapright, dabbed the end into the clay, thus making a dent that was deeper .at one end than at the other, or wedge-shaped. These tablets werendried in the sun, or baked in an oven, in which case they became almost imperishable.

The Swahili

They were enclosed in ingenious clay envelopes and signed with a seal.

Our own alphabet came from the Phoenicians, who used it about: 1000 years before Christ. It is almost sure, however, that they borrowed it from the islanders of Crete. There were originally 22 signs, all consonants. The Phoenicians were great merchants, and carried their writing knowledge with then! on their trading expeditions to the Mediterranean countries. Thus the Greeks learned the alphabet. There were, however, certain sounds in the Phoenician language that were not in the Greek and the sounds representing them were used for vowels. The world “alphabet” comes from the Greek “alpha beta” —words themselves rived directly from the Phoenician.

A flourishing trade in papyrus sprang up, although the new. writing was used almost entirely' .for business purposes. By 700 B.C. it had been adopted nearly everywhere in Greece, and can bo found on pottery of that period. Writing was also done in the Roman manner, with a pointed stylus on a tablet of smooth wax. Parchment later superseded both wax ; and papyrus. Paper, as we know it, was used by the Chinese for centuries before Europeans heard of it. Paper from linen rags and fibrous matter was long manufactured in Samarkand, and it was there the Arabs learnt the use of it during their conquest of Tartary. They established it in Egypt, and the Moors carried it into Spam, and thus to Europe. • . The Romans used the wax tablet extensively, and later parchment, with elaborate inks—red, purple, and gold. There was also black ink with a soot basis, and sepia, the inky substance secreted by the cuttlefish.' Soft lead styli or plumbago sticks were the forerunners of our modern lead pencil. So came our written language. In other parts of the world different systems came into being—such as string-writing in Peru. There was a like system in Greece very long ago, by which simple messages were recorded by means of knots in a leather thong, but the Peruvian quipu was so complex that the messenger who bore it was specially trained as an interpreter. It was composed of a number of vari-coloured cords hanging from a crossbar, and an elaborate code pf knots was used. Very intricate and verv different were these knots from that familiar and simple alphabet which small children know to-day, little dreaming _ that it was first chanted by Phoenician seamen in wondrously-carved boats 3000 years ago.

The description given by Marco Polo in his writings of centuries ago fits many a Swahili—to-day, “Their mouths are so large, their noses so burned up,, their • lips so thick, their eyes so big and bloodshot, that they look like devils.” Curly-headed, beardless, negroid people are these Swahilis, speaking a pleasant-sounding language. If you know Swahili you can travel almost across Africa, and seldom will you be at a loss. The Swahili language has borrowed from French, Portugdcse, Arabic, and you may recognise some English words strangely adapted. Thus the word expressing great approval .is “fursklasi,” and a present is "krismass” ,

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