From Images to Writing.

        b – Historical period :
- Limited writing systems
- Complete writing systems
- Syllabic systems
- Alphabetic systems

        c - Modern times :

        d - The 20th century :

        e - In summary :




b – Historical period :
The study of languages that exist today, or that past civilisations have bequeathed to us, teaches us how communication through primitive visual signals evolved into the language we use today.

    Writing systems can be divided into several groups :
        - limited writing systems, consisting of images or "pictograms", constitute the oldest form of writing. Their purpose is to evoke in the mind the image or impression that will subsequently be expressed through language.


        - Complete writing systems, on the other hand, are characterised by a correspondence between the signs of the writing system and the spoken language.
As the symbols used no longer merely represent the object referred to, but represent sounds, knowledge of the language is required for comprehension. These are referred to as logograms and phonograms . Egyptian hieroglyphic writing was the first to demonstrate the transition from a logographic system to a phonetic one.


    In word-based writing systems, a single sign can represent several independent and distinct words. The writing may therefore be ambiguous, but other types of signs are added to resolve the ambiguity.

        - syllabic systems : whilst logographic writing requires one sign per word, a syllabic system reduces the number of signs needed to express the richness of language. Nevertheless, such a system still requires at least 500 to 600 signs.

        - alphabetic systems : a new milestone was reached when a distinction was made between consonant and vowel sounds ; the number of signs required to represent a word increased, but the total number of signs needed to transcribe the language was very small (20 to 30).


    At the same time, the study of languages that exist today has enabled us to understand how the earliest articulated languages, directly derived from animal cries, led to our rich linguistic heritage.
    There are currently around 5,000 languages spoken worldwide, constituting a database containing hundreds of thousands of words. However, these very different languages share common words, allowing them to be grouped into families (around 400).
    Within these families, researchers have been able to identify other common words, also grouped into families, enabling them to delve ever deeper into what could be a "fossil" language, consisting of just a dozen words spoken around 50,000 years ago (research by Merrit Ruhlen, a linguist at Stanford University, California).
    One of these words is ‘tik’ or ‘dike’, which means ‘one’, ‘only’, ‘index’ or ‘finger’...
    This gradual narrowing of the lexical field might thus lead us to hypothesise that human language originated from animal cries, but we shall return to this subject in more detail (fig101 - in french).


    We can therefore observe once again that humankind, even though it has since diverged and followed its own evolutionary path, forms part of the evolutionary continuum of animal species.
    In fact, whilst sexual reproduction in primitive plant and animal life favoured the mixing of acquired genetic traits (stored in the DNA molecule), verbal communication favoured the mixing of learnt traits (stored through learning).

    However, our aim here is not to study the evolution of languages up to the present day, but quite the opposite: to trace them back to their origins, that is to say, to start with symbolic writing systems and trace them back to the images that gave rise to them.


    In this return to the origins—which, for us, ends with the pictorial language of dreams—we shall examine the evolution of the Chinese character representing what we write as ‘fish’ in order to trace it back to its origins.


    Dreams thus appear to be, within our cerebral structures, the intermediate and decisive stage that enabled us to move from the real object—the fish—to an abstract (graphic) image. They consist of a virtual image, whether static or animated, which forms the basis of the abstract representation drawn before it is transformed within linguistic systems.
    When we discuss dreams, it is this visual mental representation that we will be able to describe.
    We have observed, throughout evolution, that some people retained an almost direct link with nature—even if this link was mediated by the shaman—whilst others gradually lost it. Among the latter, at the very time when the spirits of nature were isolating themselves on Mount Olympus or ‘in heaven’—to be represented only by images—the realms of their abstract thought were becoming dissociated from their ‘animal spirit’.


    Over the centuries, humankind will continue to develop its abstract language whilst increasingly distancing itself from the natural world. Evolution will take a new turn!
    The emergence of animal intelligence goes hand in hand with the creation of language, that is to say, a system of cohesion that enhances adaptation to the environment. Language developed alongside social groups among mammals (such as the sentinel at the edge of the herd). This same language would enable humans to push back the boundaries of their territory by allowing communication to be transmitted across distances, in order to protect themselves from the natural environment and to transform the world according to their needs.
    Thus, just as the codes written into the DNA molecule had fixed the characteristics acquired within living organisms, written texts would fix the characteristics learnt by humankind.
    But these early spoken and written languages, which forged links between people, were, at that time, still capable of communicating directly with nature, whether with nature spirits or with God the Creator.

c - Modern times :
    Human societies will extend beyond the limits of sound and light signals; telecommunications and energy transmission networks will emerge.
    We have observed that animals themselves have developed a nervous system that provides them with information about their entire organic territory and about events occurring at the boundaries of that territory.
    Today, humankind is developing its own communication networks even further: every individual can be connected to the entire human community, thanks to computers or "electronic brains" managed by specialists. The parallel that can be drawn with cellular development into organs and the "controlling" central nervous system is, from this perspective, striking.
    Every person connected to the whole of the human community has, like the cell and early humans, every possibility of transforming themselves; yet they retain only a part of this capacity and specialise to meet their own needs and those of society.

    Originally, life was a reality that there was no need to understand. The acquisition of abstract thought would separate humans from nature and from life.
    A new stage has been reached : man definitively turns his back on the sensible world to devote himself to his materialist reason. He questions this world, which has itself become material, and attempts to understand it whilst striving to recreate it.

    Man suddenly finds himself alone in the material universe; science develops, excluding everything that is not research and transformation.

    Abstract thought has distanced itself from his sensations and functions entirely autonomously.
d - The 20th century :
    At the beginning of this century, a turning point in thought occurred. Suddenly, man no longer projected his spiritual quest towards the heavens, or his inner wealth elsewhere; instead, psychology reminded him of a path that leads through the self.
    Human dissociation is seen in a new light, no longer as a pattern of external separation (man and God), but as a pattern of internal separation : the conscious and the unconscious.
    Our interactions with the world are changing.
But these two isolated parts hold within them the potential for another capacity: that of reuniting...
    These two inner realms, of which humankind has, for centuries, been able to utilise only one part, each possess their own language:
- verbal language.
- and the imagery of dreams.
    A new meaning emerges ; there is no longer :
- on the one hand, humankind and its questions.
- on the other, God, the creator of life.
- and, on the sidelines, life itself.
    Totality is found within man: life and its source are found within oneself, in a mysterious place called the unconscious.
And this unconscious possesses its own form of thought : the natural thought of dreams !
    Avant toute chose, nous allons tenter de saisir comment ont évolué ces deux formes de pensée, et quelle est leur raison d'être.



1 – The development of life forms that facilitate communication :
    Chemical and acoustic communication :

    Vocalisations and language :
2 - The evolution of communication within societies :
    Visual and auditory language :

    First representations of images :

    The emergence of language :

    The development of language and writing :