Calliope articles from May 2004

Calliope archives from May 2004

From pictures to letters: the source and inspiration of writing well is thinking wisely.(Musings)
May 1, 2004... THE PHRASE "THE HISTORY OF WRITING," IN MANY WAYS, MEANS THE SAME AS "THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD." What, indeed, is history but the written word of people through time telling their goals, accomplishments, dreams, and failures? The need to...

Time line.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... The English alphabet and its ancestors are listed below the line. Other alphabets are above the line. All dates are approximate. 3400-3000 B.C. Sumerian cuneiform picture-writing develops Egyptian hieroglyphs (symbols for pictures and...

The earliest writing system.
May 1, 2004... Writing was invented in Uruk, a Sumerian city-state on the banks of the Euphrates River, around 3400 B.C., but this was not the first attempt to record information. Cylinder seals had long been used to identify officials who witnessed a...

Egyptian Hieroglyphs.
May 1, 2004... The ancient Egyptian language was written in a picture script, called hieroglyphs. It was in the form of objects--animals, plants, and household items--that the ancient Egyptians saw around them every day. Hieroglyphs were known as early as...

The Egyptian language and its scripts.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... The language of ancient Egypt is called Egyptian. It is no longer spoken except in the services of the Egyptian Christian (Coptic) Church. Egyptian is not the same as Arabic, which is the modern language of Egypt and the Middle East. ...

Write like an Egyptian.(Activity)
May 1, 2004... Although not all the letters of the English alphabet are found in Egyptian (and Egyptian has signs for sounds not found in English), you can use this chart to write your name and other messages in hieroglyphs. You Need: * pen or pencil...

Luwians and their script.
May 1, 2004... Hittite is an Indo-European language. As such, it is related not only to ancient languages--such as Greek, Latin, and Sanskrit--but also to modern languages--including English, Russian, Spanish, and German. The original "mother" language,...

Were the Phoenicians the first?
May 1, 2004... A people of sailors and merchants, the Phoenicians were famous in Greek legend for bringing the Greeks the gift of the alphabet. But Greek mythology is silent on where the Phoenician letters originated. We now know that they 90 back nearly...

The Greek contribution.
May 1, 2004... In the bustling markets of the ancient Mediterranean, merchants traded oil, wine, and alphabets. Thus, by the end of the second millennium B.C., a writing system that originally had developed elsewhere, perhaps in Egypt, had reached the eastern...

Pencil power!(Activity )
May 1, 2004... Doing math homework? Which do you prefer to use: pen or pencil? You probably said "pencil," because you know you need an eraser and mistakes are quickly removed. But, pencil is much more durable than you might think. Just try this experiment....

The writing of the wall.(Fun With Words)
May 1, 2004... IT WAS A MAGNIFICENT FEAST. There was far too much food and far too much wine. Soon, King Belshazzar and his guests (the 1,000 most important citizens of Babylon) were dancing through the palace, clinking their gold and silver goblets and...

The Chinese writing system.
May 1, 2004... Each symbol in Chinese is called a character. On occasion, people refer to these symbols as pictographs because some characters show a picture. The character for "sun" is [TEXT NOT REPRODUCIBLE IN ASCII.] and the character for wood, [TEXT NOT...

Alphabet inventors.
May 1, 2004... Since the invention of writing thousands of years ago, everyone who has heard about it has wanted to do it! Historical accounts tell us that even the renowned and feared Mongol ruler Genghis Khan (d. 1227) thought it was a great idea. When an...

Writing it down.
May 1, 2004... "Do your homework!" says your mother, so you pick up a pencil, pen, or even a paintbrush, and begin. Or, maybe you just fiddle with the pencil and wonder... The history of writing implements starts small. Someone scratched a rock on...

How to make paper.(Activity)
May 1, 2004... Imagine how heavy your home-work would be if people still wrote on cuneiform tablets! Fortunately, the Chinese invented paper more than 2,000 years ago. According to tradition, the ingredients were tree bark, cloth rags, fishing nets, and...

Ancient lettering alive and well.
May 1, 2004... In Roman times, Latin inscriptions on stone and writings in ink on papyrus used what is known as "majuscule" lettering. This script was written entirely in capital letters. "Square capital," an early Roman majuscule style, was used mainly for...

Ask Calliope.(Letter to the Editor)
May 1, 2004... [?] I read that the ancient Greeks used a boat called a trireme. What was it like? --Sandy, 12, Web post [!] The trireme was the master Greek warship. It was a long wooden vessel with a keel, frame, and planking. Lining each side of...

Off the shelf.(Brief Article)
May 1, 2004... The Atlas of Languages, revised edition, with editors Bernard Comrie, Stephen Matthews, and Maria Polinsky (Facts On File, 2003, www.factsonfile.com), focuses on the origin and development of languages throughout the world. The final chapter,...

On the Net.(Off the Shelf)
May 1, 2004... For a site that focuses on the history of writing, with links to many related sites, check out: www.delmar.edu/engl/instruct/stomlin/1301int/ lessons/language/history.htm For a great overview of the origins of writing with links to a...

Cobblestone resources.(Off the Shelf )
May 1, 2004... Materials that complement this theme's topic, "The History of Writing," and are available from Cobblestone Publishing include: Phoenicians (CAL9609) Ancient Nubia (CAL9611) Egypt, Science and Medicine (CAL9709) Alexander the...

Still undeciphered!
May 1, 2004... Meroitic, the language of the ancient Kushite kingdom of Meroe (340 B.C.--A.D. 350) was the first written language in Africa south of the Sahara. It could be written using hieroglyphic signs (their version of careful printing) or hieratic signs...