This is Archemetry

                                     Language 

 It comes in speech and in written form. Is the code that we use to transmit information and it is extremely important to us, from the early days that scientific ideas started to develop, to today’s modern world. Of course there are many more ways of transmitting information such as body language. 

 Some say that before language was even developed, we used to communicate with incoherent sounds and body movements. Then eventually we started to ‘’draw’’ symbols and signs that we gave a meaning to. Slowly thru this processes language was developed. Now this sounds like a lovely story, at least the most comprehensible view of the history of language as it is known today.

 The history of language goes really back in time, much before the popular to us ancient languages appeared. Some of these early forms of languages have not been successfully translated yet and we need more archaeological evidence in order to distinguish them.                                                                                                            

                                          Palaeolithic Revolution

 We have mainly evidence of paintings in cave walls that date back to 20.000BC
It seems that the Palaeolithic human had a very artistic approach of how to express his ideas about the world.
 Actually back then they could draw better than I can. Quite amusing but even with the sophisticated tools of pencil and fine paper, I still can’t draw animals that good or even shade them properly.
 Their communication method is suggested to be very primitive, comprised of incoherent sounds and maybe a few symbols. 

                                                    
                                
                                  Undecipherable Language Systems

 Archaeological evidence of these language systems, date back to 7000BC-5000BC (Neolithic period). They resemble to hieroglyphics (signs and symbols), but they are not similar to the ones that specialists are familiar with. So they cannot be translated and we cannot directly relate them to the development of the later form of languages, although they do have some common points between them. What we can assume is that these symbols were organized and improved thru out the history, in order to form our today’s languages. 

 I would guess that during the Neolithic period, there were indeed various forms of symbolic communication but they seem to be quite incomplete. An example I could give is e.g. a Neolithic human saying something like ‘’Sun… god…up …’’ pretty much trying to communicate with a very poor vocabulary, forming incomplete sentences. We see this kind of example many times when we try to communicate with foreign people.  We only speak a few words, combined with body movements, hopping for someone to understand us. E.g. when asking for directions in a foreign country. 

 These symbols weren’t letters, but they were logograms and ideograms, expressing a word or idea, as well pictograms, in that case pictures. This helps us to understand that language didn’t start as an alphabet, but mainly as symbols that small tribes would agree on their meaning. E.g. the leader of the tribe would draw a circle and point at the sun! Then they would all know that this is going to be the sun.  

 They probably made phonetic attempts to express these symbols with sound and slowly memorized them. This is also similar to how you slowly teach a little kid how to speak. By using books with drawings and repeating the word. By showing things to them and keep saying the word. It is a basic method of early communication.

 Eventually, much later on, when they had developed a certain vocal speech and a more complete graphical representation, they decided to somehow break these words down into segments and thus create syllables and the letters of the first known alphabets. But it took a few millennia for this to happen.     
                    
                                          Proto-literate symbol systems 

 A few millennia later, these first civilizations had become experts into symbolisms and thus developed the first decipherable languages, such us hieroglyphs and other similar symbol systems. It was a mix of logograms, ideograms and phonograms, syllables and even symbols for letters comprising the form of language that started from around 3000BC. Unfortunately we haven’t found all the missing links between the first undecipherable and later on, more decipherable language systems, thus we cannot fully describe the transition from one to another. We can logically assume that within these first 6 millennia that we have evidence of symbols and even full tablets of signs, that these tribes slowly improved and developed their methods of communication. So the first logo-syllabic systems were formed.

 Now to some might seem as a primitive form of communication but apparently it seems to be a quite advance form of language. It is mostly because of its complexity and rich symbolic terminology. There seems to be a strong visualizing aspect into understanding and expressing such forms of language, rather than the simplistic form of an alphabet.The symbols used were simple forms of geometrical signs and other random designs, to even very artistic and amazingly pretty drawings. 
                                                                         
                                                 Alphabet 

 We do have evidence of ancient symbols that resemble to letters, but we cannot prove whether this led to the formation of an alphabet. Apparently they used these letter like symbols in order to transcript other languages. There are many gaps in historical evidences that lead into many isolated languages, causing confusion and arguments between specialists. We haven’t found any links that could explain the existence of certain ancient language systems. Most of these theories are hypothetical. Still within the last 2 millennia BC we have found evidence of alphabets and other symbolisms that we cannot fully explain the link between them. But by putting all this evidence together, we can easily see that the first attempts of symbolic communication evolved into smaller segments, in the attempt to unify the various language systems into alphabetical ones, to support methods of translation between those ancient civilizations. It is logical that they had to work on creating a practical coding system, so they can communicate with other civilizations, exchange all kinds of information and as well to promote trade.~

 Alphabet is just a code that is used for analyzing language itself. Even in today’s language that we speak, we mainly use words (phonograms) to express our thoughts and letters are mainly a code in order to write and read and also in order to translate one language to another. So yes we did coded logographic symbols into the simpler form of letters and syllables in order to integrate them. But words will always be the main principle behind language expression. In a better attempt to explain this, I would say that they are mental pictures that we express as words and we code with letters. Although thru out the years we kind of lost the idea of the visual mental part, it doesn’t change that it is a fundamental concept of language, a tool that is meant to enhance communication and increase understanding. But we will come to this later.  There are many theories of how our today’s language formed and where it comes from, but none is fully proved. I would only guess that thru out history, the ancient civilizations borrowed each other’s symbols and adapted them into theirs, to slowly improve their system and this led us into the current form of languages that mainly started a few centuries BC.

 Cuneiform seems as a more logical approach to today’s alphabet. It has triangular angles and shapes that would fit in better to the Greek alphabet. The Indo European models of language are the most dominant theories that suggest the origins of our today’s language.

 Still in schools we were taught of the most dominant theories that exist, because if you start pointing out the many different theories of language origins to kids, during this early stage of education, they will probably just get confused. We got to teach history as a coherent story of events and later on, when we grow up, it is up to us to look closer into these various theories and possibilities, and make up our own mind.