Writing

The Babylonian Writing System

The Babylonians adopted the Sumerian writing system called cuneiform, which they started using  around 2700 B.C. They shaped the Sumerian writing system to express they're own language, Akkadian.

Cuneiform has approximately six hundred different symbols to form sentences.

This is just one example of a Babylonian cuneiform text.

The Babylonians didn't exactly shape their written words the way we do. They didn't break up their words into letters, they broke them into syllables. Of course, they started out with writing words even more simple than that. When they first began writing, they started by just having a symbol for each word. Then, after that, they improved their writing and broke some words into syllables. Their writing system is one of the most complicated ones to read and write, and not only because of the number of different symbols, but because some words are broke into syllables, while others are still just words. On top of that, they are polyvalent- they can be read in more than one way, depending on time period, context, and genre. Their language is even harder to read than this english example of an orthography.

This means-"I believe you are a great manager of men."

To write, they used a stylus, an object made of wood or reed, with a pointed end, and a flat end. They would use their stylus and carve whatever they were writing on their clay tablet. They used the pointy end for carving their symbols, and the flat end for rubbing out any mistakes that they made.

The Babylo-nians took some clay and made it into a tablet, a rectangle or square, about the size of a small piece of paper. When they had a tablet made, they used their stylus, and carved their words on it. Then they put it out in the sun to bake.