Who was the first writer? That is, who was the first person to set down on some surface—a rock, a leaf, a cave wall, in short, some surface that could reasonably retain the “writing” for at least a short period of time—a representation of an object that could be transferred to another person? It seems to me that such a figure (we would call it a “noun” in today’s parlance) should be held in the same high regard in the evolution of the human race as the development of the wheel, the taming of fire, perhaps the bow and arrow, and so forth. Why? Consider:
It could be argued that cave wall paintings should be considered the first form of writing, but the artists who drew figures of animals, or their hands, were really only putting down what they saw. While those paintings have lasted for thousands of years (a testimony to the durability of the pigments they used), it was to them only a characterization of the animals in their local vicinity. They may have worshipped it, or the animals it illustrated, or used it in ceremonies, but it had nothing of what we would call representation.
To represent is, in at least one definition of the word, to act for another. Someone, somewhere, thousands of years ago, developed the concept of putting a smaller symbol on a surface easily transferrable from one to another. Those symbols represented something. More than a picture, those symbols sat in place of the object. In so doing, that person entered an entirely new world, the world of writing. Writing is, of course, putting down representations of speech by using characters that stand for the words. They represent the words. Such writings have been found from thousands of years ago, sure. On clay tablets, on papyrus, on stone, perhaps on other surfaces. But who was the first? Who really conceived the idea? It took place so long ago, in circumstances where no records were kept, that we may never know.
I certainly don’t have to go into the importance of writing in today’s society. It is enough to know that writing has been in use for thousands of years. But as a writer (of absolutely no repute whatsoever) I find myself wondering where and when the concept of “writing” came from. It seems to me that the first person (and it was almost certainly a member of the genus “Homo” of which we are the most prominent members) who developed the real concept of representation and set it down so that others could see it, should be classed along with such other intellectual giants as Newton and Einstein and Socrates (and others) in the magnificent leap of genius that brought writing into the world. More than simple drawings on the walls of caves, writing brought the distribution of thought and image to those away from the cave, and has almost certainly been the most important factor in the dissemination of ideas. But who was the first? Who was it that said, “I’m putting down this little scratching that represents a deer”? Who took it off the wall and changed it into a much simpler representation of that deer? (He probably got a lot of stares and frightful looks when he showed it to others.) Where/when was he/she? I don’t know, but it’s extremely unlikely that Einstein would have ever developed relativity if he had only cave walls and animal drawings to work with.