Invention of Writing in Iraq and Its History

By Musa Ja'far

Whenever writing is mentioned, the name of Mesopotamia comes to our mind. Mesopotamia is the cradle of the oldest civilization of the world, the land of enlightenment and the country whose history dates back to more than five millenniums.

It was Mesopotamia which taught humanity writing, something that gave rise to a qualitative change in life of the whole humanity.

After all, writing marked the start of civilization as well as the start of history because, thanks to writing humanity preserved its cultural treasures, thus enabled generations to inherit these treasures and to enrich them so as to make them more radiant.

It was also thanks to the invention of writing in Mesopotamia that we have been able now to proudly show to the world the greatest and most important epic, namely the Gilgamesh Epic which the generations still see in it an astonishing piece of fine literature denoting a highly sophisticated mind whose influence still effective despite of more than five millennium since its inception.

What do we mean by writing? The most simple definition of writing is a pictorial demonstration of phrases by alphabet.

While the famous Arab linguist Ibn Mandhour (1232-1311 AD), in his famous Lisan Al-Arab [Arab Tongue] vocabulary says to write means to inscribe words. He also considers writing as a profession similar to tailory, for instance.

While the Encyclopedia Britannica defines writing as a "system of human intercommunication by means of visible marks used conventionally."

As for the Macmillan Encyclopedia writing means "the recording of human communication using signs or symbols to present spoken words or concepts." It adds " the earliest known writing system were all ' pictographic'… if they survived at all they developed into ' ideographic systems' . true alphabetic writing developed about 2000 AC."

When talking about the Semitic languages, the Macmillan Encyclopedia says all of the languages originated in Mesopotamia in the 3^rd Millennium AC.

In its earliest forms, writing in Mesopotamia took the form of cuneiform writing, for which tablets were used as a means to preserve. These tablets were baked to solidify them.

The Macmillan Encyclopedia notes the existence of three subgroups recognized by language scholars: NW Semitic consisted of Ugaritic, Cananitic and Aranatic, all now extinct. From these descended Phoenician and Hebrew.

There are also NE Semitic consisting of Assyrian and Babylonian, both are now extinct.

The third group, S Semitic, is that from which modern Arabic descended as well as Amharic and Tigrinya, the language of Eritrea.

It is safely to say that language preceded writing and not vice versa. Language is a means of communication. At the earliest stages of life, man used to imitate the voices of nature in his language. One of the simplest forms of communication is whistling, hissing and gesture as well as the use of the moves of hands, eyebrows and lips so as to generate voices similar to the voices in nature. Since nature is single, therefore, we have seen some linguists who call for one single language.

The emergence of language dictated the invention of writing. With the passing of time and the establishment of states, the need for writing became all the more necessary and imperative.

Writing was also closely connected with religion. Thanks to Islam, many peoples became enlightened through learning writing.

On March 20, 2001, Iraq celebrates the 5^th millennium of the invention of writing which marked the start of the era of progress and enlightenment.

All this happened thanks to Mesopotamia, which was the first to invent writing.