Sitting on the Fence . . . For Thousands of Years

As we began this unit on written knowledge, I was rather excited.  I love hand writing and different symbols and everything that has to do with writing.  The power of the written word is something I have loved ever since I learned to read.  I suddenly became disappointed when I realized that I needed to talk about writing within the Hopi culture, mostly because they do not have an alphabet.  I guess that kind of puts a damper on writing if you don't have an alphabet.  Luckily as I have studied out the topic, I have realized that the Hopi language and people can give us a lot of cool clues as to how writing systems are developed because they stayed with a transitionary step to developing writing systems - the pictograph.

The famous "Hopi Prophecy Rock" - Said to depict
the consequences of not living in harmony
with the earth.  Says that if we don't there will be a
WWIII-like cataclysmic event. 

This petroglyph has a circle that is divided
 into 4 parts which represents Mother Earth.

Fist off it is important to note that the Hopi have never written any of their stories down.  Actually it has something to do with the sacredness of these stories.  They are too sacred to these people for the whole world to just know about and understand.  The book that I read, The Book of the Hopi, which I have mentioned in previous posts, is actually the first instance of the Hopi story being recorded (and even at that it is written in english).  For years and years the Hopi kept these stories secret but they finally were convinced to write the stories down as a gift to future generations.

The swastika was used to represent the sun, and was used
to represent the direction of a clan's journey, thus some clans
used the clockwise swastika while others the counter-clockwise.

The Hopi have a rather complex language which, although it has never developed a specific writing system on its own, has led to some writing system precursors.  The Hopi language comes from a family of languages called the Uto-Aztecan language family.  The Uto-Aztecan family also includes languages such as Shoshone and Nahuatl, the language spoken by the Aztecs.  Interestingly enough some of the other languages in this language family did eventually develop into written systems.

The emergence symbol.  Shows
the enveloping arms of Mother Earth.

Although a writing system was never developed, the Hopi people did have a way of communicating messages through drawings in the form of petroglyphs.  Here, I think it is important to distinguish between a few similar words to help us understand native american writing. The word petroglyph comes from petro which means rock and glyph which means carving.  So petroglyphs are symbols that were carved into rock.  Hieroglyphs, on the other hand, are pictures (not necessarily carvings in rock) that are used to represent objects, sounds, or ideas.  Pictographs are simply standardized symbols that are literal visual representations of something.  So to recap.  Petroglyphs are in rock (hieroglyphs and pictographs can both fall in the category of petroglyphs) but hieroglyphs and pictographs differ in that pictographs are literal, direct symbols, while hieroglyphs can also stand for sounds or abstract ideas (i.e. egyptians, mayans, or aztecs).

This is the nakwách symbol, a symbol
of brotherhood depicting two clasped hands.

The pictographs of the Hopi are used to tell stories.  They have a number of universal symbols to represent different people, clans, numbers, or ideas.  While not what I would call a "writing system" these symbols are very effective at communicating stories and ideas through a medium that is somewhere between writing and art, and one that in many cultures quickly developed into more complex writing systems.

Petroglyphs which show a number of typical symbols.
Spirals are often representative of numbers, especially
the number of legs of a journey have been accomplished.
In the bottom left is a man with his hands upraised, representing
that he is an important, holy man with nothing to hide.  The sun
and moon are to the right of him by his head and show he keeps
good thoughts and is on guard against evil, day and night.

Although each symbol may have a specific meaning, this rock writing is somewhat ambiguous, unlike more developed writing systems, because it is just showing a story.  The story can be told by different interpretations (which is part of the reason why the prophecy rock has been made so popular by "end-of-the-world fanatics").  The writing lacks syntax or a more specific meaning to each symbol, such as those found in hieroglyphics.  One of the reasons that this system might never have evolved is because of the diversity of the Hopi language.  Each village has a different dialect.

In modern times, Hopi is written using a modified form of the English alphabet that was assigned to the Hopi language by white men in order to study and communicate better with the Hopi.  We no longer would expect the Hopi language to develop its own writing system because of this cultural interaction.

I'll end with a few thought questions:  What other reasons might there be for the Hopi to not develop a more complex system?  Why would similar languages (nahuatl) have developed a hieroglyph system and not the Hopi?  How might the Hopi culture have been changed had they come up with a formal writing system?