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Ulf Hjorth-Moritzsen 


It is hard to tell exact when the first written words occurred. However we do know for sure that people as long as 30.000 years ago were painting pictures on cave walls. Whether these paintings expressed stories or were just a pastime for the artistic prehistoric man we do not know. What we can state clearly is that these paintings were the first human communication performed by other means than by the spoken word.

Some 20.000 years later human beings were ready to take the next step into the art of writing. One assumes this happened around 10.000 years ago, when humans in addition to hunting and gathering started to settle down in permanent farming societies. Humans would now own property and grow various agricultural products which required the ability to count ones property. From this period we know of carved counting tokens.

Another 5.000 years would pass by before the next step in the evolution of writing took place. By this time Mesopotamian farmers started to do pictorial inscriptions in clay. The symbols represented various matters like a record of land or a number of farm animals. The symbols grew even more sophisticated as they also represented items like a hand, a foot, a man, a woman, a head, and even a sunny day.
Somewhere during this same period someone discovered that the spoken language consists of a certain number of sounds that are put together to form a word or a phrase. By defining this sounds, and making symbols for each of them a writing system could now be established. In the period from these ancient pioneers and to day this philosophy has not changed. On the other hand the symbols has changed and a variety of symbols has spread around the world, resulting in Latin letters used by the Western world, Cyrillic letters in eastern Europe, Greek letters, Arabic letters and so on.

In the same period writing has evolved from being used only for archival and registry purposes to cover an abundance of other objectives.

To day the written word is essential and the ability to master it is required almost for all aspects of life. Writing and reading is the main key to understand the past, the present and the future. By the written word humans are able to share and acquire all kind of knowledge.  By reading a good novel or some interesting piece of poetry the harassed people of to day’s society can manage to get away and relax for a few moments.

A student thirsting for knowledge will visit the library or most probably try to search the Internet for written information.
Every day an enormous number of Newspapers deliver the latest news and local gossip.
Every day textbooks are written and published, reports, notes and minutes of meeting are being prepared.
Every day schoolchildren are being bothered by various exercises and they are even registered in the principal’s black book.  

Even if the written word no longer is only stored on paper and behind covers, the words are still compiled by letters and that’s the way it’s going to be for still a long time to come.

This section of my website contains a tribute to the written word. For the time being the writing section includes some articles about Karin Blixen, Thomas de Quincey and Ernest Hemmingway. Further there is a compilation of Aphorism, an ode to the words and a listing of the Nobel Literature laureates.