PHYLOGENETIC DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN SYMBOLISM → WRITING

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PHYLOGENETIC DEVELOPMENT

OF HUMAN SYMBOLISM

WRITING

Dr. Jacques COULARDEAU

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Modern writing systems are mostly phonetic, either on sounds (abstracted into phonemes), be they vowels or consonants, or on syllables associating at least one consonant and one vowel. There can be many variations on these simple ideas. Semitic languages only write consonants, except for “alep,” “alef,” or whatever other name it may have, the vocalic sound /a/ when it is the initial sound of a discursive word. Tamil and other languages of the same type (isolating languages either known as Sino-Tibetan or Tibeto-Burman) use syllabic writing systems with eventually diacritic signs or modulations for another vocalic sound than the basic /a/.

Syllabic practices exist all over the world. Music notes in the West are derived from the first syllable of a hymn, each of these first syllables sung at the proper pitch.

Ut queant laxīs resonāre fibrīs
Mīra gestōrum famulī tuōrum,
Solve pollūtī labiī reātum,
Sancte Iohannēs.