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Mesopotamia cuneiform -

The earliest form of writing is cuneiform, which appeared 5,500 years ago in Mesopotamia (present-day Iraq). This was a complex system of characters representing the sounds of Sumerian, the language of Sumer in southern Mesopotamia. The earliest examples of cuneiform are tablets with written inscriptions representing the work of administrators, perhaps of large temple institutions, recording the allocation of rations or the movement and storage of goods. The pictographs were inscribed into the tablet with a sharp instrument. The example pictured dates back to 3100-2900 BCE.

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The language of learning -

The first writer in history known by name is the Mesopotamian priestess Enheduanna (2285-2250 BCE). Sumerian, meanwhile, was maintained as the language of learning until at least 200 BCE. The last datable document in cuneiform is an astronomical text from 75 CE.

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Egyptian hieroglyphs -

Egyptian hieroglyphic script is a writing system used by ancient Egyptians that employs characters in the form of pictures to represent their language. The Narmar Palette (pictured, both sides), contains some of the earliest hieroglyphic inscriptions ever found. It dates back to around 3200 BCE.

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Hieratic script -

The ancient Egyptians were the first to write in ink using reed brushes and pens and using papyrus as a writing surface. This cursive ink writing came to be known as hieratic script, or 'priestly' script. Pictured is a fragment of a funerary papyrus of Kahapa with a text from the Book of the Dead written in hieratic script, dated back to c. 525–343 BCE.

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'Sacred carvings' -

The carved and painted letters we see on ancient Egyptian monuments are called hieroglyphs ('sacred carvings'). Here, a guide pictured in the mid-20th century explains some of the hieroglyphs in the Great Hypostyle Hall of the Precinct of Amun-Re, part of the Karnak Temple Complex near Luxor in Egypt.

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The Rosetta Stone -

The Rosetta Stone, a stele made of granitoid, features a decree issued in 196 BCE. The top and middle texts are in Ancient Egyptian using hieroglyphic and Demotic scripts (a script derived from hieratic) respectively, while the bottom is in Ancient Greek. This ensemble helped scholars finally crack the code of hieroglyphics.

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Phoenician alphabet -

The Phoenician alphabet developed from the Proto-Canaanite alphabet, during the 15th century BCE. Before then, the Phoenicians wrote with a cuneiform script. The origins of most alphabetic writing systems can be traced back to the Phoenician alphabet. Pictured is a terracotta alphabet tablet from the ancient port city of Ugarit in Syria.

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Linear B -

Linear B is a syllabic script that was used for writing Mycenaean Greek, the earliest attested form of Greek (no texts in Linear A have ever been deciphered). The script predates the Greek alphabet by several centuries. This page-shaped tablet inscribed with Linear B dates back to 1400-1375 BCE.

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Greek alphabet -

The Ancient Greek alphabet descended from the Phoenician alphabet, which in turn derived from Egyptian hieroglyphics. This 5th-century BCE bronze plate is inscribed with the Achaean alphabet, a local variant of the Greek alphabet.

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Cretan and Greek scripts -

The Gortyn code, also known as the Great Code, is written in the Ancient Greek Dorian dialect, spoken in places like southern Italy, Crete, and Rhodes. This 5th-century BCE text is found carved on the wall of a Roman theater at Gortyn in Crete.

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Elamite script -

The Elamite cuneiform script was used from about 2500 BCE to 331 CE and is the oldest-known writing system from Iran. Pictured is an inscription of the Persian kings Darius I and Xerxes in three languages: Ancient Persian, Elamite, and Babylonian.

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Etruscan alphabet -

The Etruscan alphabet was the alphabet used by the Etruscans, an ancient civilization of central and northern Italy. It's an alphabet probably derived from one of the Greek alphabets. This 6th-century BCE bronze sheet shows the engraved sequence of the this alphabet. The Latin alphabet evolved from the visually-similar Etruscan alphabet.

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Latin alphabet -

The Latin, or Roman, alphabet was originally adapted from the Etruscan alphabet during the 7th century BCE to write Latin. The Latin alphabet is the most widely used alphabet system in the world. Pictured is the inscription from the Shrine of Augustales, the Roman priests dedicated to the cult of Augustus, found at Herculaneum. The shrine dates back to 70-79 CE.

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Oracle bone -

The earliest surviving examples of writing in China—inscriptions on so-called "oracle bones"—date back to around 1200 BCE. The engraved Ancient Chinese scripts record questions that were posed to the royal ancestors about topics as diverse as crop rotation, warfare, childbirth, religious rites, and even toothache. Since ancient times, Chinese characters have long been able to represent both concepts and the sounds of spoken language to varying degrees.

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Mesoamerica -

Writing evolved throughout Mesoamerica—the area which runs from southern Mexico to Costa Rica— from as far back as 900 BCE. The Olmecs, the earliest-known major Mesoamerican civilization, are known to have developed a crude system of writing. Examples of Zapotec script, another early example of Mesoamerican communication, can be found on tablets displayed at the Museum at Monte Albán (pictured) in Oaxaca, Mexico.

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Maya script -

Of the several known pre-Columbian scripts in Mesoamerica, it is the Maya script that appears to be the best developed. The Maya hieroglyphic writing system was a sophisticated combination of pictographs directly representing objects and ideograms (glyphs). The earliest inscription identified as Maya dates to the 3rd century BCE. Pictured is an inscribed ornamental Mayan brick from Comalcalco in Tabasco, Mexico, dated back to 652 CE. The inscription relates to the god Ahkal Te' Chaahk.

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Dresden Codex -

The Dresden Codex is the earliest-surviving book written in the Americas. Surviving the Conquistadors' burning of thousands of indigenous texts, this rare and valuable document found in Yucatán was painted somewhere between 1000 and 1300 CE by Maya scribes on pressed fig-bark paper coated with lime plaster. The codex was rediscovered in the city of Dresden, Germany, hence the book's present name. It is located in the museum of the Saxon State Library.

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Indus script -

The symbols etched into several stone seals found in the Indus River Valley of Pakistan may be writing. As yet undeciphered, scholars believe this script may contain a mixture of logographic and syllabic components. The society that used these symbols was the culmination of a historical settlement in the Indus region that goes back to at least 7000 BCE. Pictured is a steatite seal with a bull, dated back to 2500–2000 BCE.

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Nabataean script -

The origins of the Arabic alphabet can be traced to the writing of the semi-nomadic Nabataean tribes, who inhabited southern Syria and Jordan, northern Arabia, and the Sinai Peninsula. Surviving stone inscriptions like this on rose-colored sandstone in the Nabataean archaeological site of al-Hijr near the northwestern town of al-Ula in Saudi Arabia show strong similarities to the modern Arabic writing system.

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Arabic script -

The Arabic alphabet is the second-most widely used writing system in the world after Latin, and the third by the number of users, after the Latin and Chinese scripts. Arabic likely developed in the 4th century CE as a direct descendant of the Nabataean alphabet. Pictured is a manuscript written in the 6th century CE.

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Rongorongo script -

A system of writing known as Rongorongo was discovered on Easter Island in the mid-19th century. Several unsuccessful attempts have been made to decipher the script, though it's believed some of the glyphs represent dates. The name Rongorongo means "to recite, to declaim, to chant out" in Rapa Nui, the native language of Easter Island.

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Cyrillic script -

A writing system developed in the 9th–10th century for Slavic-speaking peoples of the Eastern Orthodox faith, Cyrillic script is derived from the Greek uncial script and is known for being written entirely in capital letters. The Cyrillic script is used to write Russian, Bulgarian, Czech, Serbian, and Ukrainian, among other languages. Cyrillic is the third official script of the European Union, following the Latin and Greek alphabets. Pictured is a 18th-century example of the Lord's Prayer in Cyrillic script.

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Kanji script -

Japanese, Korean, and Vietnamese script were each greatly influenced by Chinese writing. Indeed, before the introduction of Chinese characters, no Japanese writing system existed. For example, Kanji, one of the three scripts used in the Japanese language, are Chinese characters, which were first introduced to Japan in the 5th century via the Korean peninsula. Pictured is a page from an album of Japanese and Chinese poems, published in the Azuchi–Momoyama period between 1573 and 1615.

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Latin script -

Latin script is the basis for the largest number of alphabets of any writing system. Being the standard script of the English language, it is often referred to simply as "the alphabet" in English. Some of the finest illuminated manuscripts ever created are written in Latin. Pictured is the monogram page from the Book of Kells, produced by Celtic monks around 800 CE.

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Latin script -

With the spread of Western Christianity during the Middle Ages, the Latin alphabet was gradually adopted by the peoples of Northern Europe. Latin script was the writing system of choice for royalty and the nobility.

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Medieval Latin script -

Pictured: the signatures of Henry VII and  Elizabeth of York are set against those of Henry VIII and Catherine of Aragon.

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Gothic script -

Gothic script, also known as blackletter, was a script used throughout Western Europe from approximately 1150 until the 17th century. Here, Gothic script in the German language is describing Christ on the Cross between the Virgin and Saint John in a 1510 illustration by German printmaker Albrecht Dürer (1471–1528).

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Origin of the English language -

Old English was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers who arrived on Norse longboats.

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Old English -

Old English was the language of the Anglo-Saxons (up to about 1150), an inflected language with a Germanic vocabulary, and very different from modern English. An excellent example of West Saxon Old English writing style is found in the heroic epic poem 'Beowulf,' produced between 975 and 1025.

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Middle English -

The Middle English period generally falls between 1150 and 1500. Middle English saw significant changes to its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and orthography (spelling, capitalization, punctuation, etc.). Geoffrey Chaucer's 'Canterbury Tales,' written between 1387 and 1400, exemplifies the use of Middle English.

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Modern English -

The advent of Modern English from the 15th century saw this form of the English language used in the majority of texts, for example in the works of William Shakespeare and in translations of the Bible, notably the King James version (pictured). Today, English is the world's most widely spoken language.

Sources: (The British Library) (World History Encyclopedia) (History) (Britannica) (The Metropolitan Museum of Art) (European Commission) (Exploring History) (Japan-Guide.com) (Oxford English Dictionary) (World Economic Forum)

See also: Which countries have the best English language skills

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