This past week my class split into groups and each group created our own alphabet. The language we developed was in ways very similar to ours of the English language. We created letters that looked much like our A’s, B’s, and C’s, but then we also had ones that looked more like zig-zagged lines or just basic shapes. It was a little challenging trying to come up with an alphabet that was brand new, without using our everyday language as the base for our creation. The one we created had 26 letters and we basically took each letter from our English alphabet and transformed it into something new, but a majority of the time you could still tell what letter we used as our inspiration for our new creation.
I’ve realized that its hard to imagine as our language as anything other than how we know it. It’s amazing to think how much language has changed over the years and how different different languages are across the world, how in some languages they don’t read left to right, but they might read right to left or up and down. It’s also interesting seeing how language started out as pictures and symbols, and now we have letters.

Last week, my group and I developed a language very similar to the twenty-six character alphabet we see in place today. Our new language did in fact have twenty-six characters as well. However, our language differed from its predecessors because it combined the use of letters and symbols (such as shapes and lines).

It was a bit of a challenge for our group because it was hard to get out of the mindset of what is familiar to us and really be creative and imaginative when coming up with our new language. Instead, our alphabet was simply a variation of our current alphabet with a combination of simpler as well as more complex letter forms added to the mix. We chose to do this because the modern alphabet is what is familiar to us, and symbols aid us in memorization.

I think our language was an exception during this exercise because most people chose to go along the picture and symbol route rather than utilizing a letter system. I believe language has evolved from picture-based to letter-based because pictures can only represent so much of a culture. In my opinion, it is difficult to communicate complex ideas and beliefs using symbols and pictures only.

When trying to develop a language with the group it was hard trying to figure out whether we should use symbols, or pictures. The challenges for creating a new language is trying to figure out if you want to use symbols, pictures, or letter based items. When creating the language in the group we went with either symbols or letter based items because we wanted to try and create a completely new language. I feel by doing this we were successful in creating a very new alphabet which worked almost exactly like the alphabet that we all know today.

When creating this I found that the patters of our letters started to become more line-like with some dots incorporated along with the lines. I feel this made the letters stand out from anyone else because it was unique in its own way, but so was everyone else in their own way also. I feel language evolved from picture based systems to a current letter system so that when using the letter system we could come up with more words then there were for just the picture based systems. The picture based systems only have a certain amount of pictures that only went for a certain amount of words and this limited the language. I feel by giving it a letter based system it created much more words that could be there for everyone.

Challenges for creating a new language is having one that all can agree on or at least coming to a compromise. Personally, the way we did our language was not the way I would have had it. It was a lot harder than it had to be, and honestly it didn’t truly follow the directions. What was discussed among the group was to come up with symbols for prefixes, suffixes, and word roots. After that, to create a word you would combine those symbols together and that would be the new word. It sounds like it would’ve been a good idea, but it would have been easier to just create symbols or pictures for the 26 letters, instead of doing what we had. Another challenge is creating something that matches the letter that you are trying to represent–have it be somewhat cohesive.

I did notice that with other groups that there was a lot more thought and meaning behind the symbols and pictures, which makes the alphabet that the group created a lot more believable. With ours, the symbols weren’t discussed as well as they should have been.

I think that our language evolved the way it did because nothing truly stays the same; we’re constantly changing, even if its little by little. As it was said in class, we use emoji’s a lot more than we used to for communicating through text messaging. It’s interesting to think of where we’re going with our language now that we are a bit more advanced than we used to be.

So for this weeks class, we had to develop a language. We got into a group and the first thing I said was “I’m hungry, let’s do it about food”. Sarah said, okay let’s do it. I really wasn’t sure at first but as we developed it, it turned out really interesting. Towards the end, we came up with the emotion symbols. With the emotion language, it enables communicating the feeling associated with the food. ie: hungry = normal hunger pains, hangry = hungry/angry, non-hangry, and full/too full. As a group, we took turns drawing our favorite foods. All of these drawings are symbol based. We tried to simplify each symbol so they were representing the food so we understand it but still in the caveman style. I would say the only challenging thing was the coming up with which foods to develop. The easiest way to quickly come up with them, we thought of our favorite foods, but we each spent at least 30 seconds before we sketched it. As we sketched, we helped each other in keeping the simplicity of the symbols without adding too much. As we were developing these, I thought they would be nice vectorized in Adobe Illustrator. It would be interesting to see this as a typeface.

The Hangry Alphabet

During last class we were asked to create our own language in groups. In my group, we decided to try and take the original English alphabet and convert it into a picture or hieroglyphic-type alphabet. We wanted to keep our concept simple and easy to follow, this was a priority in our design concept. We also wanted to keep all 26 letters in our new alphabet, just in picture form. Once we figured out how we wanted our design to be, we began sketching new “letter drawings”. For each letter of the alphabet, we would replace the symbol of the letter which a picture of an item that began with that same letter. For example, our “A” we changed the letter to a sketch of an apple, because apple begins with the letter A. For our “G” we changed the letter to a sketch of a gem. We continued creating a new sketch for each letter until our alphabet was complete. Even after creating our new “Picture Alphabet”, which was fun to create, I’m happiest with our regular Alphabet we use everyday. Now I understand why we changed to a letter based language systems instead of picture based systems; it’s easier to write out, recognize, and to follow.

Cave paintings were significant because they showed how humans communicated back in the day. I do believe that their paintings were indeed intentional, because they have meanings. Do I know what each painting is gonna tell me? I don’t know; however, I see it as a toddler drawing. If this sounds insulting, there was no intention to do so. I have no clue what a 3 year old is drawing sometimes, but it does have shape and form implying that there may be some meaning behind it. We may not know what it is, but they might. The same principle applies to the early minds of these primitive humans. The fact that there was communication like a game of Pictionary is incredibly interesting, but I don’t think these thoughts were too complex. Most of the drawings or paintings found probably include animals, food, or personal markings to show territory or let everyone know that who was there. It’s basically like finding a carved number into the side of a bathroom stall. I find it hard to believe an early human would be able to pass extremely complex messages with just pictures since we still have problems with that today. A mark I would probably leave behind would probably be something like my foot just to show I existed. Communication, I believe, is inherent to us. Most of the people in the world have had to communicate to somebody at one point. Whether it’s through talking, pictures, or dancing; it is necessary. Otherwise, would anyone be able to help each other? I feel communication existed back then to help one another survive since surviving is also natural to us. Communicating is just another insurance to our survival just like a bow is an insurance for Katniss Everdeen’s survival in the Hunger Games.

Much of our visual communication can be said to be greatly credited to cave paintings. Cave paintings were the first forms of “founding principles of communication.” Cave painting do more than just tell information for the next people wondering by, it is a form or art. These artist focus on deliberately mixing specific pigments, and creating realistic representation of animals. They also take credit for their work, I would like to think using their hand prints is a form of signature, taking responsibility for what they have created.

I believe this illustrates how these paintings were made intentionally by these artists. It is shown by the deliberate preparation these artists take before creating their work. We know that many of these paintings were painted to help the other caveman who came along after they have left. We also know that many of these paintings depicted animals that were hunted in that area, but they also created symbols that had different meanings. I believe if I was creating something at this time, I would definitely want to create my hand print. Some people may think this is shallow, but I would just like to be part of this type of depiction of history. To be able to make my mark on history even if it’s just a simple thing like a hand print.

The Cave paintings were a spectacular way of demonstrating  that the human ,even at its most primitive form,  showed signs of coherence and understanding of mortality or leaving a “mark”. The fact that these people were able to grasp the concept of wanting to be remembered or marked in history will show the uniqueness that is man. They understood that in order to be remembered you had to have something to be remembered by, thus the handprint took place. And the handprint was an intelligent way of personalizing themselves on their art, or property. This had to have came through the realization that death is imminent and unstoppable. So that sense of haste and belief in time loss is very evident in their markings. The paintings also gave clear examples of them wanting to document what was around them, such as with the animal paintings; the usage of color in their paintings; and the materials they used. For example, many of us know that not many paints would survive in those conditions that they were left in, so the understood that in order to “mark” you have to use paint that will last or markings that will last. This is why as time went forward they began to use stone and more efficient ways to ensure longevity of their text, art and culture.

The cave paintings were significant because the creators had to communicate in any way they could. Letting the humans of the future know what was going on in that time would be a big part of that I would have wanted to tell in my story. I feel as if we are programmed to figure out how to communicate in any way we can. In the images that I’ve seen of cave paintings, they were trying to say what was happening in their life. As we know from facebook, myspace, ect. we all like to tell everything  that we do in life to someone. I love to talk about other peoples adventures as well as their accomplishments or history. Therefore i’m glad we have these cave paintings to help us know and understand was going on in that time period. I would be curious to know what exactly they used to get the paintings to last as long as they have.