It is difficult to imagine a modern person who cannot read and write. Knowledge of writing is so important that they begin to teach him in kindergarten. But writing, on the scale of the existence of mankind, appeared relatively recently - about 3200 BC.
The appearance of writing was preceded by the appearance of speech. At the dawn of the formation of mankind, speech was very simple, the lexicon consisted of the most necessary words. As society developed, speech became more complex, the number of words increased. Humanity was accumulating knowledge, while the question of its transfer to new generations arose more and more, in the absence of writing, this could be done only through oral transmission from teacher to student.
Opportunities for oral transmission of knowledge are limited. Once the moment came when the accumulated information became so much that it was no longer possible to transmit it in its entirety orally. It was necessary to somehow fix knowledge - so that it could be perceived in the absence of the person who owned it. As a result, the first variants of writing began to appear in different parts of the world. At first, the writing did not reflect the sound of the language; it was entirely symbolic. Each symbol reflected a particular concept. Basically, such symbols are found on stones, therefore this type of writing is called pictographic.
The next stage in the development of writing was the emergence of logographic writing, in which the symbols had a graphical form that conveyed their meaning. This is exactly what the Sumerian writing was. They wrote in those days on stone and clay tablets.
Despite the fact that logographic writing played a very important role in the history of mankind, it remained very imperfect, not allowing to fully satisfy the needs of a growing civilization. It was replaced by a logographic-syllabic writing, in which the writing lost its pictoriality, becoming a combination of cuneiform lines.
Sound writing close to us appeared at the turn of the second and first millennia BC. Unlike the previous writing systems, the new one managed only 20-30 characters. Most modern writing systems trace their history back to Phoenician sound writing.
The emergence of sound writing, which makes it possible to convey the sound of words, gave a strong impetus to the development of human civilization. The need for oral transmission of knowledge disappeared, sound writing made it possible to convey knowledge in its entirety and accuracy, fixing it first on clay tablets, then on parchment and papyrus, and even later on paper familiar to everyone. If anything held back the spread of knowledge, it was the lack of printing - each text had to be scrupulously rewritten by hand. But with the advent of book printing, this obstacle was removed.
The development of Slavic writing is associated with the names of the brothers Constantine the Philosopher (in monasticism - Cyril) and Methodius. It was they who created the first Slavic alphabet, which laid the foundation for the Slavic and, subsequently, Russian writing.
