History
![Picture](/uploads/1/9/6/2/19626295/326873623.jpg?172)
Language existed long before writing, emerging probably simultaneously with sapience, abstract thought and the Genus Homo. In my opinion, the signature event that separated the emergence of palaeohumans from their anthropoid progenitors was not tool-making but a rudimentary oral communication that replaced the hoots and gestures still used by lower primates. The transfer of more complex information, ideas and concepts from one individual to another, or to a group, was the single most advantageous evolutionary adaptation for species preservation. As long ago as 25,000-30,000 years BP, humans were painting pictures on cave walls. Whether these pictures were telling a "story" or represented some type of "spirit house" or ritual exercise is not known.
![Picture](/uploads/1/9/6/2/19626295/1367392482.png)
The advent of a writing system, however, seems to coincide with the transition from hunter-gatherer societies to more permanent agrarian encampments when it became necessary to count ones property. We see the first evidence for this with incised "counting tokens" about 9,000 years ago in the neolithic fertile crescent. Around 4100-3800 BCE, the tokens began to be symbols that could be impressed or inscribed in clay to represent a record of land, grain or cattle and a written language was beginning to develop. One of the earliest examples was found in the excavations of Uruk in Mesopotamia at a level representing the time of the crystallization of the Sumerian culture.
![Picture](/uploads/1/9/6/2/19626295/443980892.gif?215)
As time went by, writing had evolved from a form of accounting, to a form of communication. This new form of communication allowed people to communicate over long distances, in the form of sending messages. Originally, verbal messages were sent by telling a messenger a message, the messenger would then relay the message verbally to the recipient. This form of sending messages was not very reliable, because often times the messenger would forget the message, or only remember it partially. The introduction of writing meant that people no longer had to worry about messages being forgotten by the messengers. This also meant that messages could be kept secret, because most people were illiterate; the messenger would not be able to read it, and had it been intercepted on the way, the people who had intercepted the message would not be able to understand the message.