Inventions of writing[edit]

Sumer, an ancient civilization of southern Mesopotamia, is believed to be the place where written
language was first invented around 3200 BCE

Writing numbers for the purpose of record keeping began long before the writing of
language. See History of writing ancient numbers for how the writing of numbers began.
It is generally agreed that true writing of language (not only numbers) was invented
independently in at least two places:Mesopotamia (specifically, ancient Sumer) around
3200 BCE and Mesoamerica around 600 BCE. Several Mesoamerican scripts are known, the
oldest being from the Olmec or Zapotec of Mexico.
It is debated whether writing systems were developed completely independently
in Egypt around 3200 BCE and in Chinaaround 1200 BCE,[3] or whether the appearance of
writing in either or both places was due to cultural diffusion (i.e. the concept of
representing language using writing, if not the specifics of how such a system worked, was
brought by traders from an already-literate civilization).
Chinese characters are probably an independent invention, because there is no evidence
of contact between China and the literate civilizations of the Near East,[4] and because of
the distinct differences between the Mesopotamian and Chinese approaches
to logography and phonetic representation.[5] Egyptian script is dissimilar from
Mesopotamian cuneiform, but similarities in concepts and in earliest attestation suggest
that the idea of writing may have come to Egypt from Mesopotamia. [6] In
1999, Archaeology Magazine reported that the earliest Egyptian glyphs date back to 3400
BCE, which "...challenge the commonly held belief that early logographs, pictographic
symbols representing a specific place, object, or quantity, first evolved into more complex
phonetic symbols in Mesopotamia."[7]
Similar debate surrounds the Indus script of the Bronze Age Indus Valley civilization in
Ancient India (3200 BCE). In addition, the script is still undeciphered and there is debate
over whether the script is true writing at all, or instead some kind of proto-writing or nonlinguistic sign system.
An additional possibility is the undeciphered Rongorongo script of Easter Island. It is
debated whether this is true writing, and if it is, whether it is another case of cultural
diffusion of writing. The oldest example is from 1851, 139 years after their first contact
with Europeans. One explanation is that the script was inspired bySpain's written
annexation proclamation in 1770.[8]

Various other known cases of cultural diffusion of writing exist, where the general concept
of writing was transmitted from one culture to another but the specifics of the system were
independently developed. Recent examples are the Cherokee syllabary, invented
by Sequoyah, and the Pahawh Hmong system for writing theHmong language.