Vol. __, No. __
This article critiques the prevailing "subordination theory" of writing—that writing is merely a written symbol system of language ("symbol of symbols," "tool of tools")—a view rooted in 19th-century comparative philology based on Indo-European, Egyptian, and Sumerian scripts. The author argues this theory, along with its associated "purpose theory" of writing's origin (writing purposefully created to help language transcend time/space), faces serious problems concerning pictographic writing, which shows almost no correspondence to language sounds or sentences, contradicting the claim that writing was designed for language from the outset. While some scholars have proposed that pictographic systems were originally independent of language and later merged with it, none explain the mechanism of this merger. Drawing on new research into Chinese minority mnemonic-recording methods and the Naxi Dongba script, the author proposes a new framework: early human communication comprised two parallel systems, visual and auditory, laying groundwork for a revised theory of writing's origin and nature.
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