So today I found myself absolutely amazed at how we got the written word. I started thinking about it during my World History and Cultures class, as I read in my textbook about the Sumerians, the first people to put their language into written form. This is what my A Beka history book says,
"Near the end of the early period of Sumerian history, the Sumerians developed their greatest contribution to civilization: the art of writing. With the invention of cuneiform writing, Sumerian history proper begins, since history is primarily a written record of man's past. ... Sumerian cuneiform writing passed through three major stages of development. The earliest form was composed of pictograms: symbols representing particular objects, such as the sun, the moon, a man, a tree, a bird. Because there was a need to represent the abstract as well as the concrete in written form, the characters came to be ideograms, symbols of things that cannot be pictured and of actions and ideas. ... In the third stage of development, cuneiform characters came to represent word sounds and not just objects or ideas. This last stage is known as a phonogram."Jerry Combee and George Thompson, the writers of this book, go on to explain that this first written language contained some 600 characters and wasn't translated until the 19th century by Sir Henry C. Rawlinson.
Wowza. As I was reading this, I got thinking, "How did they ever think of this? Translating sounds to words?" And then my perspective got focused and my questioned changed to, "How did God ever think of this?" The written word is a wonder. It's amazing - we talk and then somehow we have to convert sound into physical shapes and words that we write down and that others understand. Think about that for a moment. God is so creative.
So as you read this, first, be grateful that we have the written word and that you can understand it! And then give praise to our omniscient, all-knowing, Creator. For the written word truly is a wonder.