The first forms of written language

First people didn't have any written language. That is why it was rather difficult to change information being at the distance of several thousands of kilometres. The famous legend told by Herodotus tells us about the Persian king who got the message from the nomad Skiffs. The message included the next objects: the bird, the mouse, the frog and arrows. The herald who delivered the message said that there was nothing to add to these objects and said goodbye to the king.

The question appeared how to interpret the message. The king thought that Skiffs are giving themselves under the power of the king and that brought him the land, sky and water because the mouse meant the land, the frog meant the water, the bird meant the sky and arrows meant that Skiffs refused to fight against the king. But some of the wise men said that the king was wrong and said this message meant that if Persians didn't hide in the land as mice do, didn't fly home as birds do, didn't go to their swamp as frogs do, than they wouldn't get home as will be killed with these arrows. In the end the wise man was right.

This story says that first people tried to transmit the information with the help of different objects. And such kind of writing has vivid example such as writing with the help of shells of different colours used by Iroquois and writing with the help of the number of knots on the rope that were used in the territory of Peru.

But of course such kind of written language was not rather convenient way of transmitting information and with the lapse of time people invented more comfortable and universal instruments of transmitting the message.