{"id":1944,"date":"2017-01-01T12:00:48","date_gmt":"2017-01-01T18:00:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/?p=1944"},"modified":"2017-03-02T15:50:29","modified_gmt":"2017-03-02T21:50:29","slug":"ancient-information-theory-symbol-space-and-alphabets","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/ancient-information-theory-symbol-space-and-alphabets\/","title":{"rendered":"Ancient Information Theory, Symbol Space, and Alphabets"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe that\u00a0alphabet we use today is essentially a set of symbols that developed over thousands of years. And why are so many alphabets so similar, even though the languages are so different? There&#8217;s an answer!<\/p>\n<p>In one of\u00a0Khan Academy&#8217;s Computer Science track of videos, called\u00a0<em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.khanacademy.org\/computing\/computer-science\/informationtheory\">Journey into Information Theory<\/a>,<\/em>\u00a0there are two videos that are extremely informative in explaining how the written alphabet developed. I&#8217;ve included links to the videos on YouTube.<\/p>\n<p>The initial breakthrough is simple: disassociating the meaning of the word from the symbols used to create it. This is also known as the <strong>Rebus Principle<\/strong>. (Also seen in picture puzzles and the game show,\u00a0<em>Catchphrase<\/em>!) From that, symbols can\u00a0be rearranged to create different sounds and convey meaning. This principle evolved over thousands of years, getting more and more abstract and, along with writing technology such as papyrus, gives us the alphabets we use today.<\/p>\n<p>There are links below the videos, if you&#8217;re interested in learning more. I also recommend watching the whole series of videos on Information Theory.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>The first video is the <em>Origin of the Written Language<\/em>. The video goes into cave drawings, or <strong>Pictograms<\/strong>, and the development of symbols called <strong>Ideograms<\/strong>, as well as <strong>proto-writing<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Origins of written language | Computer Science | Khan Academy\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/lkeXaqoXDYQ?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The second video is called the <em>History of the Alphabet<\/em> and the development of <strong>Hieratic<\/strong> writing, a type of cursive invented for papyrus, and <strong>Demotic<\/strong> writing, a further development of hieratic.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"History of the alphabet | Journey into information theory | Computer Science | Khan Academy\" width=\"840\" height=\"473\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6NrTrBzC6dk?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Remember that the point of these videos is to explain information theory, so there&#8217;s a focus on what is known as symbol space. Symbol space decreased as the use\u00a0of the alphabet increased, as more information could be shared with fewer symbols.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p>After watching these, you might be interested in learning more. Here are a few references:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Rebus#Rebus_principle\">Rebus Principle<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Ideogram\">Ideograms<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Proto-writing\">Proto-writing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hieratic\">Hieratic writing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Demotic_(Egyptian)\">Demotic writing<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Phoenician_alphabet\">Phoenician alphabet<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s hard to believe that\u00a0alphabet we use today is essentially a set of symbols that developed over thousands of years. And why are so many alphabets so similar, even though the languages are so different? There&#8217;s an answer! In one of\u00a0Khan Academy&#8217;s Computer Science track of videos, called\u00a0Journey into Information Theory,\u00a0there are two videos that &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/2017\/01\/ancient-information-theory-symbol-space-and-alphabets\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;Ancient Information Theory, Symbol Space, and Alphabets&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1946,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5,4],"tags":[358,366,355,361,364,356,357,362,365,363,367,33,360,359],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1944"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4704,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1944\/revisions\/4704"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1946"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1944"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1944"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alliwalk.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1944"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}