Media, Information and Technoculture 2000F/G Lecture Notes - Lecture 3: Phoenician Alphabet, Eric A. Havelock, Sumer

• School: Western University
• Department: Media, Information and Technoculture
• Course: Media, Information and Technoculture 2000F/G
• Professor: P

Document Summary

Origins of writing: sumeria: 3200bce mesopotamia, accountancy: economy outstripping memory, pictographic script represent of objects in life. Sumerian: rebus principle, pictographic symbol used for phonetic value. Clay: cylinders on clay personal stamps, baked clay tablets, trade/commerce its heavy and big not easy to transfer but its good to have a hard copy. Writing: alphabetic: phoenicians -1500 bce, 22 letters (first alphabetic writing, hebrew, latin, arabic, cyrillic, bengali (indo-european) Ancient greece: craft to democratic literacy, devalue memorization (we can write it down instead of memorizing, new statements/ novel ideas (a new way of thinking, ideas been write to spread and share, eric havelock: pre-philosophical, pre-literacy, ore-scientific . Writing (ancient greece: objectify texts, disembodiment (separating the knower from knowledge, abstraction (the better the writing system, the easier you can get to practical knowledge) Innis oral tradition alphabetic literacy brake on knowledge monopolies. Scribal culture: scriptoria, book production, hand copying, parchment, dictation, hybrid writing/orality, holy scripture, name of the rose (1986)