Scientists can not tell exactly when did humans start talking, but they think it probably happened about 100,000 years ago in south-western Africa, with the language spoken by our ancestors. Some scientists believe that it developed very slowly, starting with sounds and gestures, whereas other believe that it started when our ancestors' brains became bigger and more developed.
Writing is the act of recording language on a visual medium using a set of symbols. The symbols must be known to others, so that the text may be read. It was invented after people had settled in towns, and after agriculture had started. Writing dates from about 3,300BC, which is over 5000 years ago, in the Middle East. Writing is one of the greatest inventions of the human species.
The oldest found written document in the world is the Kish tablet which was found in Iraq, at the site of the ancient Sumerian city of Kish. The text was written on limestone. In spite of their efforts, archaeologists cannot tell the exact time the Kish tablet was made - probably between 3350-3200 BC. The writing is on the tablet is pictographic, which means that they didn't write words, but draw pictures that resembled real physical objects.
Written on thin, post-card sized wooden leaf-tablets, the Vindolanda tablets date to the 1st and 2nd centuries AD and are the oldest surviving handwritten documents in Britain. They were discovered at the site of a Roman fort in Vindolanda, northern England. The documents record official military matters as well as soldiers' personal messages between the members of their families and slaves, including an invitation to a birthday party held in about 100 AD, which is perhaps the oldest surviving document written in Latin by a woman.
The oldest written document written in Slovenian is kept in the Bavarian State Museum in Munich, Germany and are called The Freising Manuscripts. It is believed that they were written in Carinthia, between 972 and 1039, most likely before 1000. They are the not only the oldest surviving document in Slovenian, but also the oldest surviving document written in any Slavonic language. The Freising Manuscripts are church texts and they consist of three texts in the oldest Slovenian dialect.
Like many inventions, printing press is the result of work of many brilliant minds that enabled Joannes Gutenberg to invented it. When the trade with China started to flourish in the 14 century, the traders brought back not the only goods, but also the diseases, such as the plague. The plague killed many monks who copied the books, which caused the cost of copying rise dramatically while the cost of paper was dropping. So, in a strange way, the plague was one of the things that led to the invention of the printing press at around 1439.
William Shakespeare is one of the world's greatest writers. He is famous for his play Romeo and Juliet and many more. He did not invent the story of Romeo and Juliet. Most of the tragic story was an adaptation of Romeus and Juliet, a poem written by Arthur Brooks in 1562. Brooks wasn't the original writer of the story either. Although the original source of this tale is uncertain, Masuccio Salernitano, from Italy, was the first author to write it down around 1476 and even then other writers adapted it. Shakespeare probably wrote it before 1594, so his famous play is an adaptation of adaptations that stretched across a hundred years and two languages.
France Prešeren started writing poems as a young man. He showed them to a literary critic Jernej Kopitar who advised him to put them away for a few years and think them over. Prešeren was so upset that he burnt all of his poems that had been written so far, except for three. Waterman is one of them. The idea for the poem was taken from The Glory Of The Duchy Of Carniola, written by Janez Vajkard Valvazor. Prešeren didn't change much of the original story. In the original story, the girl's name was Zalika. He changed it to Urška who was an inn-keeper's daughter young Prešeren was in love with. The poem was written sometime before 1825.
