While still a graduate student at Johns Hopkins University, UC Santa Cruz professor Elaine Sullivan unearthed ancient ...

Traditionally, the origin of alphabetic writing is attributed to the Semitic peoples of the Sinai around 1900 BCE. This alphabet, known as “Proto-Sinaitic,” is thought to have been derived ...

Most of the world’s languages are written alphabetically; in an alphabetic writing system the basic components represent sounds only without any reference to meaning. For example, the letter “b” in ...

However, Schwartz, who shared details about the cylinders at an annual meeting of the American Society of Overseas Research in the fall of 2024, believes that the alphabetic writing is of a ...

Understanding the breadth of writing The devaluation of Aboriginal graphic writing systems reflects a broader colonial bias that equates written language exclusively with alphabetic systems. By ...

At Tell Umm-el Marra, finger-length clay cylinders, unearthed by Johns Hopkins University archaeologists, show engraved symbols—possibly the earliest alphabetic writing—found at this ancient ...

Credit: MICK TSIKAS/AAPIMAGE When we think of writing systems we likely think of an Alphabetic writing system , where each symbol (letter) in the alphabet represents a basic sound unit ...