Page 64 - SST Class 05

and symbols formed the earliest form of writing. This type of writing is called
pictograph .

In the beginning, man made these symbols as he perceived the things; for example, he
drew almost a horse when he drew a symbol for a horse. It was difficult to draw these
pictures, so he started to simplify these signs and symbols. He used lines, crosses or
circles for different features and then for whole things. For example, he drew one line
to say ‘one’ and two lines to say ‘two’. It was also the time he was learning to discover
language. He tried to attribute sounds to these pictures and symbols.

Thus over a long period of time, a system of writing was developed to which he could
attribute some sounds. It was during this time that cave art developed. He drew
pictures of animals, objects, hunting scenes etc., on the cave walls. This also helped to
develop his writing and speech.

As man lived in small groups, the members of one group drew specific signs and
symbols, which were often different from those of the other group, as there was little
interaction between them. This was how different scripts and different languages came
into being.

A script is a system of writing; for example, English is the Roman script while Hindi is
written in Devnagari script. The earliest script was developed in Mesopotamia. It
consisted of pictures and signs made on clay tablets. This script was called cuneiform
Script.

Even today, there are some scripts which are pictographic,
like the Chinese and Korean. In them, a character (word) quite

resembles the object it means to say, though the characters
have been modified to a great extent. For example, in Chinese,
you can see here how the word for ‘girl’ evolved over time.
Some scripts mixed pictures and symbols, like in Egypt. This script is called the

hieroglyphics , meaning sacred writing. This script can be seen inscribed on the walls of
tombs and temples in Egypt.

A script was developed by the Indus Valley Civilization also. It mainly consisted of
animal and human figures, along with some letters and symbols. This script has not
been deciphered as yet. With time, the Brahmi script was developed in our country.
Many of the modern Indian scripts are based on this script.

The modern Indian scripts are based on sounds and not on pictures, that is, each sound
is written differently; for example, in Hindi, ‘keâe’ is
Know It!
written different from ‘kesâ’. Some of the scripts used in
v In India, the oldest script was in
India at present are Devanagari, Arabic and Roman.
use more than 5000 years ago.
Sanskrit, Hindi, Marathi and Nepali languages are

64 Contemporary Social Science-5