Today, with just twenty-six letters, we can write a letter to our friends or answer an examination question. Thousands of years ago, there was no writing system at all. News, knowledge and information were passed on from one person to another by word of mouth. If you ever played 'rumor clinic' where a cognate message is passed from one person to another down the chain by mouth, you will understand the inefficiency of the system. Messages passed down are unreliable as the speakers may mix up or lose part of the information.
The first written language was invented by the early cave man. They tied bits of animal hair together to form brushes and painted pictures on the cave wall, telling their friends about their hunts. It was after several centuries that different writing systems like the Chinese characters and hieroglyphs in Egypt were invented. The alphabetical system that we are using currently also came about only after many decades of development.
Besides alphabets, the invention of writing tools is another major transition. In olden times, the kind of writing tools used, depended on the material they wrote on. For example, in the Middle East, where clay is abundant in supply, the early people used hollow reed 'pens' to carve onto the wet clay tablets. After which, these clay pieces were baked till rock hard to make the writings permanent. In ancient Egypt, Egyptians either wrote on scraped thin pieces of animal skins called 'parchment' or flattened papaya stems known as 'papyrus'. Their writing tool was a primitive kind of fountain pen -- a reed with ink inside.
It was only in the 1880s, that fountain pens were invented. Before that, most people used either quill pens - sharpened bird feathers or nibbed pens, which were dipped into ink before writing. Fountain pens invented later have both plus and minus points. With tiny ink tanks in them, fountain pens are superior to quill or nibbed ones as the ink in them do not run out as quickly. The disadvantage is that sometimes, the nibs of the fountain pens may break, causing the ink to leak, staining the writer's fingers.
The flaw in fountain pens has led to further investigation and the successful invention of the first 'ballpoint' pen by a Hungarian, Ladislao Biro. There were many people after him who tried to improve upon the appearance of his ballpoint pens. Today, 'ballpoint' pens are conveniently and widely used in the world.
PRECIS
TITLE: Revolution Of Writing Instruments
Preserving the writing content was great hurdle in ancient time, centuries ago; co-ordination was done orally causing the loss to some parts of message-endorsed. Invention of writing tools such as crafting graffiti’s on various natural things by cave man and some other methods like Chinese alphabets and Egyptian method of preserving depictions on animal hides and plants stems were in practice. In 1880’s it further transited into fountain pen and feather for writing using inks with some pros i.e. writing properly and cons like spilling ink from its storage, and finally a successful and widely used instrument ‘Ballpoint’ by Hungarian Ladislao Biro was invented.
Word Count: 105.