Daylila

Language

Writing systems, linguistic evolution, speech encoding, language structure, and the historical development of how humans represent and transmit meaning through symbols and sounds.

1 piece in this category

May 2026

09 May 6 min

The Leap from Drawing Things to Drawing Sounds

A 4,400-year-old script shows the design leap from drawing objects to encoding sounds — the hard transition that made alphabets possible.
How writing systems encode speech and the historical moment when marks first represented sounds rather than objects