The Birth of Writing

Literature · 20 questions

The invention that made speech outlive the speaker.

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1. What was cuneiform written on?

   1. Papyrus rolls
   2. Treated animal skin
   3. Polished stone slabs
   4. Wet clay tablets
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   D) Wet clay tablets

2. What was cuneiform mostly used for at first?

   1. Writing poetry
   2. Recording prayers
   3. Accounting and stock records
   4. Compiling laws
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   C) Accounting and stock records

3. Which find made it possible to decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs?

   1. The Turin Papyrus
   2. The Rosetta Stone
   3. The Palermo Stone
   4. The Narmer Palette
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   B) The Rosetta Stone

4. What was the crucial innovation of the alphabet?

   1. Each sign stands for a single sound
   2. It used many more signs
   3. The shapes became more elegant
   4. It could be written faster
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   A) Each sign stands for a single sound

5. European alphabets are generally traced back to which people?

   1. The Phoenicians
   2. The Etruscans
   3. The Celts
   4. The Persians
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   A) The Phoenicians

6. What did the lack of spaces between words in ancient texts encourage?

   1. Wasting writing material
   2. Distorting the letter shapes
   3. Making translation impossible
   4. Reading the text aloud
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   D) Reading the text aloud

7. Why did punctuation become widespread?

   1. To decorate the page
   2. To save writing material
   3. To make texts easier to read correctly
   4. To keep tax records
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   C) To make texts easier to read correctly

8. What was the printing press's biggest effect in Europe?

   1. Handwriting styles changed
   2. Books became cheap and widespread
   3. Languages became simpler
   4. Libraries closed down
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   B) Books became cheap and widespread

9. Why did Chinese writing not shift to an alphabet?

   1. Writing was held to be sacred
   2. It was written with a brush
   3. Paper was in short supply
   4. Its signs are tied to meaning more than sound
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   D) Its signs are tied to meaning more than sound

10. In which direction are Arabic and Hebrew written?

    1. Right to left
    2. Left to right
    3. Top to bottom
    4. Alternating each line
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    A) Right to left

11. Where did lower-case letters in the Latin alphabet come from?

    1. The invention of printing
    2. The development of fast handwriting
    3. A decision of the church
    4. Techniques of stone carving
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    B) The development of fast handwriting

12. What was the main aim of the 1928 alphabet change in Turkey?

    1. Changing the spoken language
    2. Coining new vocabulary
    3. Making reading and writing easier to learn
    4. Making printing cheaper
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    C) Making reading and writing easier to learn

13. What is emoji use often compared to in the history of writing?

    1. The end of the alphabet
    2. The loss of punctuation
    3. A partial return to picture writing
    4. The death of language
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    C) A partial return to picture writing

14. What does it mean that a language has no writing system?

    1. It is only spoken
    2. It is primitive
    3. It is extinct
    4. It has no grammar
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    A) It is only spoken

15. Writing is believed to have been invented independently in more than one place.

    1. True
    2. False
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    A) True

16. Papyrus was made from a reed that grew along the Nile.

    1. True
    2. False
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    A) True

17. Parchment is made from animal skin.

    1. True
    2. False
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    A) True

18. Paper was invented in Europe.

    1. True
    2. False
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    B) False

19. Some writing systems do not write vowels at all.

    1. True
    2. False
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    A) True

20. Hieroglyphs carry only pictorial meaning and no sound values.

    1. True
    2. False
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    B) False