So does writing speed up cultural change or slow it down?
Language is one element of culture that researchers can measure to determine whether writing speeds up or slows down cultural change.
"Writing can lead to what learning psychologists sometimes call 'canalization,'" Charles Perreault, an associate professor in the School of Human Evolution and Social Change at Arizona State University, told Live Science in an email. "It can narrow the range of ways people think about a problem. When a rule, method, or story is written down, people may come to see it as the correct version … and may not even consider that a better or different way could exist."
Eadwine the Scribe, from a 12th Century psalter written at Christ Church, Canterbury by Eadwine. For much of the Middle Ages and before the invention of the printing press, transcriptions written by monks were the primary cultural bridge preserving early Christian writings, and classic Greek and Latin texts, for posterity. (Image credit: UniversalImagesGroup via Getty Images)
This idea shows up in artistic expression, too: A 2017 analysis by ethnomusicologist Patrick Savage looked at more than 4,000 British-American ballads from the 16th through 20th centuries and found that written melodies changed less than those shared through oral tradition.
"Before writing, much cultural knowledge had to be stored in people's brains," Perreault said. "That has obvious limits."
"If writing prevents knowledge from being lost, and if it also helps information spread through a society, as with the printing press, then it could accelerate the ratchet effect of cumulative cultural evolution," Perreault said. "But this remains, to some extent, a hypothesis."
By the book
Writing has been separately invented only around four times in human history — although "some people argue there's a fifth in India," Gray said — which means nearly every writing system on Earth descends from that handful. Those systems spread through contact; trade, war, religion and the other ways humans intermingle had their own effects on cultural change that are hard to untangle from the effects of writing.
Related mysteriesAlso, "mass literacy is quite recent," Gray said. "If you've got these written varieties that are just used by, often, religious elites, that's potentially going to have much less impact."
"I would say that writing probably speeds up cultural change overall," Perreault said. Gray agreed, though he acknowledged that most people would guess the opposite.
Still, Perreault cautioned, "these are empirical questions that have yet to be answered empirically."
Hence then, the article about does written language speed up or slow down cultural change was published today ( ) and is available on Live Science ( Middle East ) The editorial team at PressBee has edited and verified it, and it may have been modified, fully republished, or quoted. You can read and follow the updates of this news or article from its original source.
Read More Details
Finally We wish PressBee provided you with enough information of ( Does written language speed up or slow down cultural change? )
Also on site :
- Boston’s Skinny House is about 10 feet wide at the street and just over 6 feet wide inside in places; in September 2021 it sold for $1.25 million
- ‘Two and a Half Men’ Creator Says Charlie Sheen Made Show a ‘Nightmare’: ‘I Had No Choice But to Shut Down’
- ‘Triangle of Sadness’ Producer Backs Park Syeyoung’s Memory-Bending Love Motel Drama ‘Satellite of Love’ at Busan Asian Project Market