Words and Pictures

1 - (Cartoon of an eyeball looking down at the earth floating over an open book.) In the beginning was the Word... 2 - (Inpho drawing at his desk.) Inpho: But words--in the beginning--actually weren't words.
3 - (Cartoon of Inpho as depicted in an Egyptian hieroglyph.) Inpho: They were pictures. 4 - (Inpho standing in between the letter 'I' and a picture of an eye.) Inpho: Today on the podcast, we're talking about the invention of writing. And how words evolved from pictures.
5 - (Cartoon of the Egyptian god Thoth standing in front of Egyptian scenery.) Inpho: And joining us in studio to help me out with this topic, he's a god from ancient Egyptian mythology who, according to legend, gave writing to humans--please welcome, Thoth! 6 - (Inpho and Thoth in the podcast studio.) Inpho: Thanks for coming on the podcast, Thoth. Thoth: Glad to be here, Inpho.
7 - Inpho: Maybe we could start by talking about how writing first came to be. Thoth: Sure! So when I first gave writing to humans about 5000 years ago, the first thing they used it for was... 8 - (Inpho standing in front of an old spreadsheet keeping track of various items.) Thoth: ... to keep track of all their stuff!
9 - Thoth: Here are some of the things humans first wrote about: How many cows do I have? How many cows have I traded? How many cows are owed to me? 10 - (Inpho standing next to a large grey tablet with writing.) Thoth: At this early stage, people wrote on clay, and their writing was pictographic. Which means they used simple pictures as symbols for common objects.
11 - (Inpho drawing at his desk, recalling the image of the eye and the earth from the beginning.) Thoth: Over time, the meaning that humans assigned to these picture symbols began to change. People wanted to use writing to represent ideas as well as objects. And so, towards that end, writing evolved. 12 - Thoth: Instead of looking at a picture of a cow and interpreting it to mean 'a cow', the picture now stood for the sound of the word when spoken -- 'cow'.
13 - Thoth: In the earliest known alphabet, used by the ancient Phonecians around 1050 BC, the word for 'cow' was 'alef'. In the Greek, who picked up what the Phoenicians started, the symbol for 'alef' becomes 'A' for 'alpha'. Words are made of pictures! 14 - (Chart showing examples of letters and how they evolved from simple pictures.) Thoth: More specifically, the picture symbols that started as representations of physical things slowly transformed into 'sound-pictures' -- symbols that stand for sounds.
15 - (Thoth holding up the Egyptian Book of the Dead.) Thoth: And so, beyond simply keeping record of their physical property, writing could now keep record of nonphysical ideas. History, literature, philosophy, religion -- all these could now be written, preserved, and saved for future generations. 16 - (Cartoon of Thoth in full glory as an Egyptian god demonstrating the gift of writing.) Thoth: Writing allows humans to preserve their legacy in a form that survives their own physical death. It truly is a gift from the gods!
17 - (Back in the podcast studio.) Inpho: Well, Thoth, you may be suprised to know that there are some people out there who disagree with you on this. Thoth: Oh? 18 - Inpho: There's this guy named Plato from Athens who actually used your gift of writing and wrote this about you ...
19 - (Cartoon images of the philosopher Plato.) Plato: Most ingenious Thoth, one man has the ability to beget arts, but the ability to judge of their usefulness or their harmfulness belongs to another; and now you who are the father of writing have been led by your affections to ascribe to it a power the opposite of that which it really possesses. For this invention will produce forgetfulness in the minds of those who use it. 20 - Plato: Their trust in writing, produced by external characters which are no part of themselves, will discourage the use of their own memory within them. You offer your pupils the appearance of wisdom, not true wisdom, for they will read many things without instruction, and will therefore seem to know many things when they are for the most part ignorant.
21 - (Images of Thoth making a series of realizations.) Thoth: Shoot. I never thought of it like that. He actually makesa good point... Plus now computers are only making it worse, not to mention social media... ..I've made a huge mistake... 22 - (Close up of Thoth, shocked.) Thoth: I've doomed us all!
23 - (Inpho at his microphone.) Inpho: Shoot. So Plato was right. 24 - (Inpho's spaceship flying through space with the earth blowing itself up in the background.) Well, I guess that's all the time we have. Thanks everybody for tuning in!

Afterword

Writing was in its beginnings a form of drawing, an art. As men used gestures when they could not use words, so they used pictures to transmit their thoughts across time and space; every word and every letter known to us was once a picture.

Will Durant, from Our Oriental Heritage