The History of Writing - Where the Story Begins - Extra History
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 24 มิ.ย. 2024
- 📜 The History of Writing - Extra History
Sumer was the land of the first real cities, and those cities required complex administration. The temples that kept people together were not only religious places but also warehouses that stored the community's collective wealth until it was needed to get through lean years. As the donations came in, scribes would count the items and draw pictures of them on clay tablets. The images quickly became abstract as the scribes needed to rush, and they also morphed to represent not just an image but the word itself - more specifically, the sound of the word, which meant that it could also be written to represent other words that sounded similar (homophones). Sumerian language often put words together to express new ideas, and the same concept applied to their writing. As people came to use this system more, the scribes began to write from left to right instead of top to bottom since they were less likely to mess up their clay tablets that way. Those who read the tablets didn't appreciate this change, so the scribes rotated the words 90 degrees allowing tablets to be rotated if the reader preferred - but this made the images even more abstract, until eventually, the pictograms vanished entirely to be replaced by wedge-shaped stylus marks: cuneiform. Many of Sumer's neighbors adopted this invention and helped it spread throughout the region, though completely different writing systems developed independently in cultures situated in places like China and South America!
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Now you know why it requires Pottery first...
-JP
WHY???? I just finished three Civ campaigns and I thought I could forget about it for a few hours. Grrr, now I need to conquer the world again.
IT ALL MAKES SENSE NOW
*Goes to rush Great Library*
0_0 (mind blown)
Yes, more of these would be grand! Do the whole tech tree in CiV if you have to! Haha, I think your audience enjoys whatever you do on here, so this new History of Ideas is refreshing and I would love to see more come of it.
It surely doesn't. Yes, a long lasting writing needs it because of the mentioned accident, but I am sure that today, even the kids can write things that might not last for a long, but are efficient enough, with no tools. What am I talking about, well writing to the ground with their feet. This of course is by no means a denial of the fact that what you told was true too in record keeping.
Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. More like this please.
yyaaaaaasssnnsss
Stole the scribed symbols right out of my mouth!
yes we want more
agreed
Agreed
Incredibly interesting episode. I would love too see more on this.
MagzTV? You watch this? I was on a battle with you on War Thunder before you left War Thunder!
Magz himself? omg
magz whatup
420th like
I just found the chronological order playlist, needless to say my, my life is complete. Thanks everyone
i relate,
I just found it thanks to you lol my life is also now complete. Your awesome for that 🙏🙏
I loved it. Please continue this as a series.
YES
Agreed!
Definitely!
Yes more please MORE!
Yes please! I would love to see the progression of writing.
As a hobby linguist I love this episode. You could actually try and do some episodes on language families. I found that reading about how for instance the speakers of the different branches of Proto-Indo-European migrated and built related yet distinct societies can be as thrilling as reading a crime or mystery novel. All the "who could be distantly related with whom" and "how did the original belief system of theirs ancestors manifest in this particular daughter society" can be so interesting, fascinating, and sometimes baffling.
I always found it interesting how civilisations who had no known interaction with each other managed to come up with similar concepts (Pyramids, writing, etc.)
Not really, interaction were made and so on they learned.
@@tobythethird5694 yeah, sure the Mayans learned with the Egyptians how to build their pyramids.. or maybe a pyramid is just the easyest way to build something tall
@@Hashiriya985 yeah the egyptians used their rowboats to sail past the pillars of hercules and into the americas 😱
I love how people act like pyramids are some like unique concept and not just the easiest way to stack rocks.
Speaking of it..... could you do a video on the epic of Gilgamesh? That would be fascinating!
In case they don't, here's the rundown:
It's the first written literary work in the history of mankind, it deals with the concept of mortality, human struggle against it and the need to accept it and enjoy food, dance and love while you're still here.
Gilgamesh the first hero. Sorry too much Fate/stay night.
Also prostitutes were apparently considered intelligent back then, according to my English professor (in fact I think he said prostitute was a mistranslation), cuz the other male main character begged her to teach him (after the sex scene of course). The epic of Gilgamesh is also the first instance of two people becoming friends through a fight, many years before Japanese anime. xD
Even if they did it would be the known factual history of King Gilgamesh they would talk about, not the mythology of the Epic of Gilgamesh
MugenHeadNinja they have now
I'm a big fan of having a "history of an idea" series. I think it would be a lot more interesting than the "kings, dates, battles" versions of history.
It does bring a bit of nice variety!
+Extra Credits
Who on your team writes comments? is it a variety of people or usually just one?
It's Walpole.
Yes! History doesn't always have to be about war or politics. I'd like to see more exta history videos like this. I would like to see a few series about bigger events, developments and transitions that have occured in the past. Maybe the neolithic revolution could make a nice series. That said, I enjoyed all the more conventional series about the first crusade and such a lot. They make for great stories. I'm still hoping there will be a series on the opium wars. I think the events leading up to the first one, and the people that were involved are especially interesting..
Opium wars is coming! It's either the next series or the one after that, I can't quite remember.
Great!
Did you watch Sanitary movement from Extra Credits? It's my favorite series so far :) I wish there were more history videos like those in that series :)
I watched it, one of my favourite series as well. I really like how they try to do videos on less convential stuff. Hope to see more of that.
KermitdeKipper
Yeah exactly. I'd love to hear more about less known things. Things you are not told in school. I'm sure history lovers know most of those things already, but things like sanitary movement and such..those are still very interesting to explore and fresh :) More of non convetional things would be super good :)
MY HISTORY TEACHER AT SCHOOL SHOWED US THIS VIDEO.
same :P
your teacher is a mega chad
lol same
congratulations. our teachers are not interested in very informative videos
same
I love the idea of tracing a concept through history, and more than events, I feel like comparing concepts across different cultures is insanely useful =D
Wow. I like it. What other candidates are there for this "History of Ideas" one-off tradition?
We were waiting to see if people liked it before we made any definite plans, so... I don't know yet!
you should do more of these. They are so entertaining
What about the history of games in ancient civilizations?
Aztec game: you shoot a ball in a hoop with your hip and then you get to die as a sacrifice.
History of the human means of transport, electricity, any cultural advancement like capitalism, socialism...
It's kinda dangerous because most of this topics could be very difficult to make as entertaining as following the story of just one person with a high impact in history...
do another episode on ideas and make the next one on government systems
YES
Yas!
yes
That's a great idea.
The change from monarchy to autocracy to democracy
THAT WAS AMAZING!!!!! I'm speechless with so many precious information effectively condensed and portrayed. I'll be forever grateful of this kind of content.
Also, the ending song is PERFECT.
"if you set your hand down, you could destroy the clay"
Now my fellow lefties just get graphite all over their hands.
i already do.
Hebrew is the other way around... Go Jewish! xD Arabic language is inclusive tho: BOTH right and left-handed people get their writing smeared equally!
I don’t
Or all lefties could learn to write from right to left, exclusively in Arabic. 😂
ye that happened to me lol
You see those kids making full sentences with emojis? Don't laugh at them, they're the future of our language.
😂😂😂👌👌👌
And as it turns out also the past
No, it's a regression to a primitive script. In Sumer it was the future but today's writing systems are way more efficient. The Chinese are still stubborn enough to keep a writing system that actually requires you to memorize thousands of symbols because each one represents a different word.
though mostly emoji is just a clarification on how something should be read.
such as:
"Hey! :D"
or
"Hey! >:("
it's not a replacement, it's an enhancement! :)
That isn't really true, the Chinese writing system doesn't technically require you to memorize thousands of symbols, because for one, Chinese writing is not "symbols writing". When you really dissect each character in Chinese, you would realize that there is logic behind all the symbols (for example 木=wood as in the material, 林=woods and so on)
If you still intend on thinking that you need to remember thousands of symbols in Chinese, let me remind that you technically need to remember the spellings of thousands of English words, which is about as hard to a non native English speaker as a non native Chinese speaker learning Chinese.
For 5600 years, writing has given us the ability to transmit thoughts over generations and make vast strides in understanding.
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I just want Extra Credits to notice me senpai
More on the history of writing, please.
Loved this episode.
I like the history of ideas or concepts. something like how philosophy or math
started would be great.
Please make more on writing! It's one of my favorite subjects
Please do more of these! You guys break it down so that the history is comprehensible and fun (just like you do with your biographies). I think your style really works for discussing "ideas" as well as people and events!
Please do more on this subject! I love the history of languages and writing. I wrote a research paper on Cuneiform years ago and this really brought a lot back to my memory. Please do more!
Hm...does it seem like a community who voted for a series on an obscure financial crisis over major wars like more series or one-offs on unromantic but important developments which shaped history?
I think the answer is "yes".
I see your point. ;)
Yeah, this is the sort of community that would go bonkers over an episode on, say, the invention of aniline dyes, or the history of noh theater, just as much as most people would want to talk about, say, the French Revolution or the Boxer Rebellion.
you have a point
you have a point
Naturally.
If y'all liked this, search for a fella named "xidnaf" on TH-cam. He has tons of these types of videos.
its good to see someone else who watches xidnaf :0
His videos are very well explained and fun
The only thing I don't really love about xindaf is having to wait 3 months for a video -_-
I forgot about him! Its been awhile since I saw on of his vids!
+Agustin Simoncelli he has school to worry about. TH-cam isnt his job, its also only him making his videos.
He cant make his videos as fast. he's busy.
Extra credits nust does a phenomenal job, even after 5 years of contextualization, explanation, along with their impecavle animation.
These videos are super entertaining and enlightful to watch. And they hold perfectly even after 5 years
Awesome! Our son is home schooled and we always add a little to his learning. I have a custom playlist set up to save the things I come across and want him to watch and this is absolutely going to be added.
I also love your kid friendly yet highly informative (even for adults) style of narrating and animation, and now I want to see more of your videos as well.
Well done!
A history of history itself.
Could maybe do something on specific historians who mvoed the study forward. I've wanted to do something about ibn Khaldun for a long time, for example... -Soraya
Extra Credits You should do it solely on his name alone. Or maybe an episode about important muslim scholars (the very basis of the scientific method was created by a muslim scholar).
+Extra Credits hey you should do one on Alexander von Humboldt who moved the study of natural history significantly and his book Kosmos is still in print: )
Don't get me wrong. Algebra was invented by a muslim. That awesome explorer who gave us a lot of the early history of remote parts of the world was a muslim. But the Basis of the Scientific Method is older than Islam. Mainly because if you actually care about the reality of nature enough you need to figure out how to accurately test things, and that is always the same regaurdless of where and when you live.
"There are few explicit discussions of scientific methodologies in
surviving records from early cultures. The most that can be inferred
about the approaches to undertaking science in this period stems from
descriptions of early investigations into nature, in the surviving
records. An Egyptian medical textbook, the Edwin Smith papyrus, (c. 1600 BC), applies the following components: examination, diagnosis, treatment and prognosis, to the treatment of disease,[2] which display strong parallels to the basic empirical method of science and according to G. E. R. Lloyd[3] played a significant role in the development of this methodology. The Ebers papyrus (c. 1550 BC) also contains evidence of traditional empiricism." -wiki
Now, if you mean they spawned the widespread use of the Inductive Experimental Method (Because Fuck Epicurus. He may have been one of the first and wrote the first physics book, but fuck!) and the formalization of several fields of science. Yes, Yes they did. And those were very important advances to our understanding of the universe. But that is hardly the Basis. If anything the Basis of Science always existed and we just discovered it over time.
MPythonGirl True enough. The history of science contains many "giants".
When will Extra History cover history from South America? I'd suggest starting with Pedro II, Emperor of Brazil.
why not start earlier and go with the Mayans or Montezuma?
+trashcan1112 you also could, but in the tradition of Extra History, it would be better to focus on 1 important person or 1 important event. Maybe cover Montezuma or the colonization of Spanish America. I'd tell you why I chose Pedro II, but there's too much to say about him, so I suggest a quick search on wikipedia about him.
+Didi Andrade when the patreon supporters vote on it
that`s a smart ass son of b!(#!, it`s funny to see him manipulating the political parties in my history classes.
oh heck yes :D
I'm interested in the history of everything. I've been binging this channel off and on for a week and a half now, and it and Historia Civilis are the best history channels on TH-cam currently. Keep up the great work!
Several years later, I'm just getting around to marathoning your videos. Truly a delightful way to find out about many things I never would have discovered on my own about history! I do appreciate that you present yourself as a starting point and not merely an authority, but I did want to say you've done an amazing job bringing to light many things I'd never heard of in a way that makes it fun and engaging to learn about. Thanks for all the hard work!
Would love to see more like this about historical inventions and abstract concepts every once in a while. I love the more traditional history episodes as well, but this was a nice change of pace.
I loved this video. I'd love to see more on even this same topic. What I like most about EH is that it explores nooks and crannies of history.
Definitely explore this more. The history of ideas is the history of human civilization as a whole, and will let you touch on SOOO many other fascinating subjects, times, and places :-)
This is great episode. I love every episode of Extra History made by your channel. I would love to see how the written word is developed to what we have, where we have it, and how it was made. Please, don't stop making these.
I think a few one offs on the history of different ideas would make an excellent compliment to the main entries.
I really appreciate this try of yours, guys. Sometimes in history it's not only important to focus on dates, battles or single characters, but also on larger concepts, ideas and things that explain WHY those dates, battles or characters happened. I'd say that this needs to be more often, so i approve this kind of EHs.
Keep it up, guys! I love it!
Great episode! Please more linguistic episodes and histories of ideas!!!
Keep it coming guys, I love this channel!
I'd love to see more of these. This one was really interesting, as I'm sure we've all wondered where the seemingly random symbols we have for letters and such came from and why they mean what they mean.
More of these please. Ideas are incredibly fascinating, and human intervention never ceases to amaze me. Mathematics next, maybe?
intervention of invention, brilliant! varie punny!
This is my favorite part of history, and something that I feel connects us back to the other parts of history. The ways marriage developed and have been viewed in the past and the knowledge of how that changed is a key part of how I look at what family can mean and why. The knowledge that Europe gaining access to tea fueled both the industrial revolution and the development of modern dating, as well as one of the first jobs women were allowed to do that did not involve sex, gives me context for the importance of tea at different points of history, and how it impacts our culture today. All these little idea connections demonstrate how the little everyday things in our life matter in a way that helps me approach my life with a renewed sense of wonder. The way small things and ideas we take for granted reminds me that the small things we may take for granted within ourselves can shape the greatest things about us.
So yes, a lot more like this, and abstract concepts (which I know you are already great at) as well as the impact of small things would also be great to see more of as part of that.
SUB TO ME, SUB TO U
this is genuinely one of the most fascinating EH episodes so far. Good job!
Guys... videos like this is why I love this channel. i know a lot of channels cover things LIKE this but I find the vast majority of the time they are far more concerned about sounding smart than actually teaching.
Also, pictures help a lot :D
Also, yes, very interested in more videos like this. This was awesome.
Could you name some similar channels?
YES! YES! AND YES! Please, develop more in the history of ideas, loved this one
The timing of this video is well place for me. I recently started reading a book titled ideas a history of thought and invention from fire to freud by Peter Watson and just finished the section devoted to the development of writing. I think this is a very interesting topic and that you should do more of these singular episodes.
This was cool! Although I have to admit I really enjoy the storytelling aspect of following a person or society more. That said, it would be really neat to see the occasional episode of a concept too. Keeps it fresh, mixes it up. I'd say I'm all for more like this.
The history of ideas is a key part of the history of mankind and i would love to see you do more of it.
I like the idea of the history of ideas.
I loved the video. PLEASE do more like it. Explaining how concepts and ideas grew and became the things that we know today is AWESOME. Again, I LOVE THIS CHANNEL, THANK YOU!!!
This was awesome, I had learned some of this in my World History class in school, but this was much more interesting. I love the way you guys take something of a narrative focus throughout this series
Great idea guys! I would enjoy more of these for sure!
You guys should definitely do more Extra Histories on topics like this.
I am70years old. History has always been a favorite subject.if we'd had programs like this in schools everything would be different. Complex concepts can be shown simply without being condescending or overly childish. Bravo! I love them.
I love exploring the history of ideas! Writing fascinates me in and of itself, and the idea of writing grabbed me!
I really enjoyed this episode and I would love to see more history of concept episodes. Maybe history of storytelling? History of math?
I would look forward to more of this series.
Watching this episode I couldn't help but smile!! It's simply amazing how it all started and where we are now.
I *love* this stuff. I can honestly say I like your Extra History content more than I like your video game-related content.
yes! these histories of concepts allow us (or at least me) to further perceive, understand and then see common things in the world today as new and exciting things. Please do more of these and make the mundane interesting through historical knowledge.
I completely agree
Seriously though, this was fun! By all means feel free to do more stuff like this. Agriculture is a fascinating one.
Masterfully done, this is one of my favorite ways to learn little snippets of history to be used later. Please keep up the excellent work.
Oh man I love this, please keep doing more of these history of concepts!
Everything started here in Mesopotamia (iraq 🇮🇶) my country ❤❤❤❤
im american
@@shrekinsurens3094 I AM JEFF
@@cucumberleaf6559 lol hi sarah
@@cucumberleaf6559 you american too
@@cucumberleaf6559 but we needs a better president
Don't stop doing the regular show, but add this in, I can't get enough of this. Team up with more channels too if you need to, like Alternative History Hub and even the Great War channel. I'm okay with you guys "selling out" a bit if that means you can produce two a week.
This was indeed wonderful. I'd love to see more like it on writing and other more "idea" related topics.
this was awesome. I'd love to see more concepts and writing covered. that being said, if you guys make it I always enjoy it.
SUB TO ME, SUB TO U
"Share in the comments whether you'd be interested in more videos like this" YES. UNEQUIVOCALLY YES. MORE LIKE THIS, YES PLEASE, YES.
I agree!
'Extra History/ Extra Credits would you guys ever consider doing a sorta "Extra Mythology/Extra Myths" Series where you go into detail about the stories regarding specific cultures? I always like the idea that a myth is the crystallization of a society's ideals and how they saw the world, and I have learned a lot from such stories as the Iliad, Odyssey, Journey to the West, Atlantis, Gilgamesh, Beowulf, etc.
Excellent! Please do more episodes like this. A history of architecture would be brilliant.
Loved this episode, and I do hope you do more "idea" type episodes! Thanks for this one!
They say Emoji are dumb. They say its childish. HEY! RESPECT YOU ANCHESTOR.
i would love an chestor right now
@Evil Snail HEY! RESPECT YOUR KEYBOARD!
Still dumb, and childish :)
👆🙂👍!
you should learn english before trying to be witty.
Hey guys great video. An idea for another one-off would be the history and importance of the concept of the number 0.
Fascinating keep these coming please. Love the history of concepts and ideas as much as the history of society and its peoples. :)
A history of concepts such as writing, definitely are worth doing a series! Good job!
Keep this content coming. Good stuff.
Do more of this. Do more of the history of writing too!
Fascinating, I wanna know more about writing and about ideas in general, also big up for the graphics in this episode which were particularly nice I found, congrats to you all keep making the world smarter I love your work :)
These one-offs are very interesting and a great way to showcase a part of history that may not be enough to fill a whole series but nonetheless are an important part of history as a whole. Please make more, perhaps filling in a one-off between series. :)
Maybe something like this for the development of musical notation? It's still in the realm of writing, but there are tons of layers of tradition and innovation that gave us the mess of Italian terminology we use today.
SUB TO ME, SUB TO U
More History of Writing!!!!!
This was one of the first videos that I watched,I fell in love immediately with this channel :)
I like the history of ideas just as much -or even more- than the ones on ancient societies and wars. Please continue the series on writing!
I love this. I'd love to see more on the history of ideas!
that makes 2 of us
Speaking of ideas, how about ideologies, sets of ideas that shaped the world, the history of those could be interesting as well. Don't go with the fascist or communist ideas either, something older and more obscure that was important in shaping a society.
How about pacifism or faith healing? Or perhaps environmentalism. I hear in ancient times nobody wanted to litter in the river for fear of offending the river god. Ancient people attributing human characteristics and feelings upon inanimate objects probably played a role in early notions of conservatism, even today a lot of people teach their kids about environmentalism by telling them to "respect nature".
Stoic Philosophy shaped the Roman way of thinking, for example.
Anarchism is very unknown
I loved the idea for one off episodes, I hope you do more of them for such intresting subjects.
oh god more of this please! if my history teacher was as engaging as this channel ide know alot more than i do
This was cool, I'd like more of this.
More like this would be awesome! Really enjoyed it!
Ideas influence history just as much as battles, if not more so. This is a great idea! the history of mathematics, science, so many opportunities :)
I really love your videos, thank you for all the small glimpses into all these interesting bits of history.
This was pretty informative and definitely interesting! I would love more of these :)
I always wonder about the history of different "ideas" so imo it would be great to see more of those.
i like it =D and if you guys would make more that would be awesome
Yes, history of ideas is facinating. You and your team did excellent work! Thank you
Would love to see more on this, as well as the "idea" topic in general
Yup, this was cool. Do more of these. :)
Holy cow! It all makes so much sense!
These little episodes are nice. They can serve as one-offs to connect one series or episode to another, providing a nice continuation.
This is a wonderful idea, and I'd love to see one or more follow-up episodes covering the genealogy, so to speak, of modern writing systems, but other ideas would be awesome to see as well.
I love this. I would certainly like to learn more about this.
A brief history of the spoken word, which you kind of touched on in this episode, would be interesting.
I know it's tricky since the spoken word far predates written history, but still...
we don't know. we don't even know which species of humans were able to speech
unematrix
Yep. That's also why I asterisked my post...but hopefully archaeological conjecture mixed with what we know from the last 5000 years can make for an interesting and informative episode.
For one thing, I love these little one-offs. Little snippets of history that cover subjects that might be difficult to stretch out into two or three parts not only makes it an easier format, but it also greatly widens the number of topics you can talk about.
For another, it's nice to see you guys doing more subjects that aren't necessarily about war and conflict. Don't get me wrong; conflict is the very basis of nature, but it is nice to see the exploration of subjects that aren't so focused on war and death that, sadly, seems to be what many historians focus on. This, the South Seas Bubble and the story of John Snow and the birth of Pathology are among my favorite Extra Credits episodes.
I would love to see in general more things about scientific development, too. Like the stories of scientific greats like Charles Darwin, Albert Einstein or Gregor Mandel. One in particular, as a paleontology nut, I would love to see get the Extra Credits treatment is the story of John Ostrom, the man who pretty much changed the way the world saw dinosaurs.
Reminds me a lot of the BBC Series, "How We Got To Now". I love the concept, and would love to see more of it!