History of Writing
The History of Writing traces the development of expressing language by letters or other symbols and the studies and descriptions of these developments. Human beings started to write some 8000 years ago, in the form of symbols, and then moved on from ideographs to phonographs. These, over centuries, developed into a set pattern, which generally came to be known as “language.”Handwriting can be broadly being classified as Ancient, Medieval & Modern.
History of Handwriting - The Journey
The Ancient Developments
Early History of handwriting indicates that the development started in the form of symbols in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and Indus Valley called Egyptian Hieroglyphs, Cuneiform, Indus Script, etc. Evidence confirms the origin of the early alphabetical system to the Phoenicians.
The Medieval Transformations
The Phoenician alphabet system included 22 vowels-less letters around the 11th century BC. By the 8th century BC, a few consonants got dropped & the Greeks included vowels. These were the Capital letters only, but later the lower case got introduced in medieval times
Modern Adaptations
The modern-day advancements in Roman Script took place in the 20th & the 21st Century. Several styles of writing got adapted. Cursive Style, Print Style, Lucida, Calligraphy, etc. The invention of various user-friendly writing instruments revolutionized Handwriting & Handwriting Skills.
Importance Of Handwriting
Why is Handwriting important even in today's hi-tech era of communication?
When anybody writes, it is just not the use of a pen and pencil on paper, but it is a process that involves coordination between the mind and motor actions of the brain. The brain conceives a thought and directs hands and fingers to reproduce these thoughts in the form of words or sentences with the help of a writing instrument on a writing object.
We can infer from the above statement that the reverse process is also valid.
That is to say, one with good handwriting skills has been invariably observed to have a better thought process. We can also substantiate from the above statement that the top 10 students of a class usually have highly developed writing skills. Handwritten communication being the most primitive media of expressing oneself, has been proved to be an effective process of learning a language in terms of correct spellings, massive vocabulary, and outstanding communication abilities, both through written and verbal forms.
This is proves the importance of Handwriting even in today hi-tech era. The fact is that we are living in a high-tech era. The pen seems to be replaced by the thumb, touch screens, and keyboards. But, the fact remains that you need to be familiar with every letter and word to reproduce thoughts through typing. The best way to learn handwriting is to use a pencil or pen during school days.
