Today we will go over Chapter 12; we are reading one chapter a week.
I encourage this to be slow blogging - the very opposite of "breaking". I will leave this on my hot list for a week, so comment any time during the week.
When we get near the end of GGS, I'll start a poll for the next book; I am strongly leaning towards the book Ideas: A history of thought from fire to Freud.
Ground rules: I expect vigorous discussion. But I expect civil discussion. A sign I saw in a restaurant said
Be nice or leave
One thing that has been used to distinguish "civilized" people from "barbarians" is writing (used, that is, by people who could write). In this chapter, Diamond traces the evolution of writing, and gives some details about how writing can work.
Writing was independently invented in only two to possible four places. The definite sites are the fertile crescent and mesoAmerica. Possibly independent are China and Egypt. It is extremely difficult to invent writing, and Diamond goes over some of the reasons it is hard. It's much easier to copy the idea of writing, and this can be done either by "blueprint copying" or "idea diffusion" - or some mix. In blueprint copying, the whole writing system is copied, and adapted to the new language. In idea diffusion, the simple idea of writing is copied, but the system used is quite different. A prime example of idea diffusion is Sequoyah, a Cherokee who invented a writing system for that language, after realizing that Europeans gained a lot from being able to write.
He also points out that nearly all writing systems fall into three groups, in terms of the main system used: Logograms, syllabaries, or alphabets. The languages we are most familiar with are all alphabetic - English, for example - with each letter (more or less) representing one sound. Also somewhat familiar are logographic languages, where each symbol represents (again, more or less) one word - the most familiar here is Chinese. Less common are syllabaries, where each symbol represents a syllable, one example is the Kana system in Japanese. But there are no pure forms; for example, English has logograms like $.
The invention of writing required the existence of a group of people with enough "leisure" time to be scribes; in all cultures, writing started as the possession of an elite. In many languages, the earliest writings are tax records and such. Diamond quotes Claude Levi-Strauss as saying that ancient writing's main function was "to facilitate the enslavement of other human beings".
For today's poll, I ask "How many languages do you speak?" - and please give details in the comments - which languages? Do you speak them or read them or both? What's interesting about them? Any non-IndoEuropean languages? etc.
Have fun in the comments.