Writing and Civilization: From Ancient Worlds to Modernity

Discover the fascinating history of the written word-its invention, transmission from culture to culture, and evolution-in this interesting course by an anthropologist.

• By This Professor
• 01: What Is Writing?
• 02: The Origins and Development of Writing
• 03: Where Did Our Alphabet Come From?
• 04: The Fubark-A Germanic Alphabet
• 05: Chinese-A Logosyllabic Script
• 06: Japanese-The World's Most Complex Script
• 07: What Is Decipherment?
• 08: The Five Pillars of Decipherment
• 09: Epigraphic Illustration
• 10: The History of Language
• 11: Proper Nouns and Cultural Context
• 12: Bilinguals, Biscripts, and Other Constraints
• 13: Egyptian-The First Great Decipherment
• 14: What Do Egyptian Hieroglyphs Say?
• 15: Old Persian-Cuneiform Deciphered
• 16: What Does Cuneiform Say?
• 17: Mycenaean Linear B-An Aegean Syllabary
• 18: Mayan Glyphs-A New World Logosyllabary
• 19: What Do the Mayan Glyphs Say?
• 20: Aztec Hieroglyphs-A Recent Decipherment
• 21: Etruscan and Meroitic-Undeciphered Scripts
• 22: Han'gul, Tengwar, and Other Featural Scripts
• 23: Medium and Message
• 24: The Future of Writing