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101-430: A diary is a written or audiovisual memorable record, with discrete entries arranged by date reporting on what has happened over the course of a day or other period. Diaries have traditionally been handwritten but are now also often digital . A personal diary may include a person's experiences, thoughts, and/or feelings, excluding comments on current events outside the writer's direct experience. Someone who keeps
202-488: A diary or journal). The global spread of digital communication systems such as e-mail and social media has made writing an increasingly important feature of daily life, where these systems mix with older technologies like paper, pencils, whiteboards, printers, and copiers. Substantial amounts of everyday writing characterize most workplaces in developed countries . In many occupations (e.g. law, accounting , software design , human resources ), written documentation
303-411: A journal app with its iOS 17.2 update, pulling suggestions for entries based on locations the user has visited, music they have listened to, and photos from their photo library alongside prompts. A personal organizer is a form of diary to list actions and tasks for the day, which are recorded in a log, often using symbols to differentiate and categorize items. In free writing, the diarist sets aside
404-442: A " text ", is a series of physically inscribed , mechanically transferred , or digitally represented symbols. The interpreter or activator of a text is called a "reader". In general, writing systems do not constitute languages in and of themselves, but rather a means of encoding language such that it can be read by others across time and space. While not all languages use a writing system, those that do can complement and extend
505-778: A complex interaction among available tools, intentions, cultural customs, cognitive routines, genres, tacit and explicit knowledge, and the constraints and limitations of the writing system(s) deployed. Inscriptions have been made with fingers , styluses , quills , ink brushes , pencils , pens , and many styles of lithography ; surfaces used for these inscriptions include stone tablets , clay tablets , bamboo slats, papyrus , wax tablets , vellum , parchment , paper , copperplate , slate , porcelain , and other enameled surfaces . The Incas used knotted cords known as quipu (or khipu) for keeping records. The typewriter and subsequently various digital word processors have recently become widespread writing tools, and studies have compared
606-406: A diary is known as a diarist . Diaries undertaken for institutional purposes play a role in many aspects of human civilization, including government records (e.g. Hansard ), business ledgers , and military records . In British English, the word may also denote a preprinted journal format . Today the term is generally employed for personal diaries, normally intended to remain private or to have
707-702: A diary is the Diary of Merer , an ancient Egyptian logbook whose author described the transportation of limestone from Tura to Giza , likely to clad the outside of the Great Pyramid . The oldest extant diaries come from Middle Eastern and East Asian cultures, although the even earlier work To Myself ( Τὰ εἰς ἑαυτόν ), today known as the Meditations , written in Greek by the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius in
808-411: A few minutes each day to write without any constraints, letting thoughts flow freely and allowing the subconscious mind to express itself. Freewriting can unearth hidden thoughts and emotions, fostering self-discovery. A gardening journal helps gardeners improve their efforts over time by providing a historical record of actions taken, the weather and other elements, and the results. A gratitude journal
909-428: A girdle of thorns, self-flagellation , sleeping on stones, and walking barefoot in the snow. However, modern commentators argue that Beatrice's biographer, who is known to have taken liberties in his adaptation of her diaries, may have simply copied these ascetic practices from the life of Arnulf of Leuven . His accounts of her childhood may be particularly suspect, since the autobiographical notes on which he based
1010-717: A housewife. Commenters have described the work's prose style as simple, balanced, lyrical, and experiential. Reypens praises it as "a hidden pearl of mysticism", while Scheepsma calls it "the most splendid of all the Limburg sermons ." Beatrice's focus on love (" minne ") as a central point of her mysticism may have been influenced both by her contemporary Hadewijch , and by the growing German tradition of Minnesang . Her Seven Ways also draws heavily on works such as Bernard of Clairvaux 's De diligendo Deo and Richard of Saint Victor 's De quattor gradibus violentae caritatis . In turn, Beatrice's writings contributed to
1111-478: A limited circulation amongst friends or relatives. The word " journal " may be sometimes used for "diary," but generally a diary has (or intends to have) daily entries (from the Latin word for 'day'), whereas journal-writing can be less frequent. Although a diary may provide information for a memoir , autobiography or biography , it is generally written not with the intention of being published as it stands, but for
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#17327658475881212-620: A more dependable method for creating permanent records of transactions. On the other hand, writing in both ancient Egypt and Mesoamerica may have evolved through the political necessity to manage the calendar for recording historical and environmental events. Further innovations included more uniform, predictable, and widely dispersed legal systems, the distribution of accessible versions of sacred texts , and furthering practices of scientific inquiry and knowledge management , all of which were largely reliant on portable and easily reproducible forms of inscribed language. The history of writing
1313-462: A mountainous Egyptian mining site known as Serabit el-Khadem. This site was also home to a temple of Hathor, the "Mistress of turquoise". A later, two line inscription has also been found at Wadi el-Hol in Central Egypt. Based on hieroglyphic prototypes, but also including entirely new symbols, each sign apparently stood for a consonant rather than a word: the basis of an alphabetic system. It
1414-544: A semantic (meaning) element called a radical with an existing character to indicate the pronunciation, called a phonetic . However, such phonetic elements complement the logographic elements, rather than vice versa. The main logographic system in use today is Chinese characters , used with some modification for the various languages or dialects of China , Japan , and sometimes in Korean , although in South and North Korea ,
1515-761: A variant of the early Greek alphabet, gave rise to the Etruscan alphabet and its own descendants, such as the Latin alphabet and Runes . Other descendants from the Greek alphabet include Cyrillic , used to write Bulgarian , Russian and Serbian , among others. The Phoenician system was also adapted into the Aramaic script , from which the Hebrew and the Arabic scripts are descended. The Tifinagh script (Berber languages)
1616-540: A way to bring previously unpublished diaries to the attention of historians and other readers, such as the diary of Michael Shiner , an enslaved person in the 19th century who documented his life in Washington, D.C. Web-based services such as Open Diary (started in October 1998) and LiveJournal (January 1999) soon appeared to streamline and automate online publishing , but growth in personal storytelling came with
1717-469: A year before her father brought her home. Not long after, he sent her to become an oblate at a Cistercian convent he had founded called Bloemendael in Eerken , where she received an education in the liberal arts , as well as Latin and calligraphy . At the age of fifteen, Beatrice asked to be allowed to enter the novitiate ; after being put off for a year due to her young age and delicate health, she
1818-487: Is a diary of things for which someone is grateful . Keeping a gratitude journal is a popular practice in the field of positive psychology . A sleep diary or sleep log is a tool used in the diagnosis and treatment of sleep disorders or to keep track of dreams had in order to gain insight to the subconscious or for further contemplation. The German Tagebuch ('days-book') is normally rendered as "diary" in English, but
1919-488: Is a set of written symbols that represent consonants and vowels . In a perfectly phonological alphabet, the letters would correspond perfectly to the language's phonemes . Thus, a writer could predict the spelling of a word given its pronunciation, and a speaker could predict the pronunciation of a word given its spelling. However, as languages often evolve independently of their writing systems, and writing systems have been borrowed for languages they were not designed for,
2020-403: Is as yet undeciphered. The term 'Indus script' is mainly applied to that used in the mature Harappan phase, which perhaps evolved from a few signs found in early Harappa after 3500 BC. The script is written from right to left, and sometimes follows a boustrophedonic style. In 2015, the epigrapher Bryan Wells estimated there were around 694 distinct signs. This is above 400, so scholars accept
2121-650: Is co-extensive with uses of writing and the elaboration of activity systems that give rise to and circulate writing. Individual motivations for writing include improvised additional capacity for the limitations of human memory (e.g. to-do lists , recipes , reminders, logbooks , maps , the proper sequence for a complicated task or important ritual ), dissemination of ideas and coordination (e.g. essays , monographs , broadsides , plans , petitions , or manifestos ), creativity and storytelling , maintaining kinship and other social networks, business correspondence regarding goods and services, and life writing (e.g.
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#17327658475882222-484: Is descended from the Libyco-Berber script , which is assumed to be of Phoenician origin. In the history of writing , religious texts or writing have played a special role. For example, some religious text compilations have been some of the earliest popular texts, or even the only written texts in some languages, and in some cases are still highly popular around the world. The first books printed widely using
2323-509: Is explicitly directed toward the learning of writing, but much is focused more on subject learning. Writing systems may be broadly classified according to what units of language are represented by its symbols: alphabets and syllabaries generally represent a language's sounds of speech ( phonemes and syllables respectively)—while logographies represent a language's units of meaning ( words or morphemes ), though these are still associated by readers with their given pronunciations in
2424-522: Is not an independent glyph for each syllable. While research into the development of writing during the Neolithic is ongoing, the current consensus is that it first evolved from economic necessity in the ancient Near East . Writing most likely began as a consequence of political expansion in ancient cultures, which needed reliable means for transmitting information, maintaining financial accounts, keeping historical records, and similar activities. Around
2525-508: Is not only the main deliverable but also the mode of work itself. Even in occupations not typically associated with writing, routine records management has most employees writing at least some of the time. Some professions are typically associated with writing, such as literary authors, journalists, and technical writers, but writing is pervasive in most modern forms of work, civic participation, household management, and leisure activities. Writing permeates everyday commerce. For example, in
2626-470: Is the act of creating a persistent representation of human language . A writing system uses a set of symbols and rules to encode aspects of spoken language, such as its lexicon and syntax . However, written language may take on characteristics distinct from those of any spoken language. Writing is a cognitive and social activity involving neuropsychological and physical processes . The outcome of this activity, also called "writing", and sometimes
2727-525: Is the book one writes in, only read by oneself – particularly in adversity. Anne Frank went so far as to address her diary as "Kitty." Friedrich Kellner , a court official in Nazi Germany , thought of his diary as a weapon for any future fight against tyrants and terrorism, and named it 'Mein Widerstand' , My Opposition . Victor Klemperer was similarly concerned with recording for the future
2828-699: Is typically published as articles in journals or within book-length monographs . Arguments, experiments, observational data, and other evidence collated in the course of research is represented in writing, and serves as the basis for later work. Data collection and drafting of manuscripts may be supported by grants, which usually require proposals establishing the value of such work and the need for funding. The data and procedures are also typically collected in lab notebooks or other preliminary files. Preprints of potential publications may also be presented at academic or disciplinary conferences or on publicly accessible web servers to gain peer feedback and build interest in
2929-638: The Vita Beatricis , composed within a few years of Beatrice's death by an anonymous hagiographer . Some historians speculate that this writer may have been Willem of Afflighem [ nl ] , but others reject this identification as based on a misinterpretation. The Vita , written in Latin, is based on a combination of these writings and eyewitness testimony, including that of Beatrice's sister Christina. The biographer admits to omitting some parts of Beatrice's writing, and altering others. Some historians speculate that both these alterations, and
3030-461: The Abbey of Our Lady of Nazareth , also founded by her father. A number of other nuns accompanied her, including her sisters Christina and Sybilla. Beatrice was elected the first prioress of Nazareth the following year, and held the post until her death in 1268. According to one legend, after Nazareth was abandoned during a time of disturbance, the body of Beatrice was translated by angels to
3131-547: The Diaries of Adrian Mole ). Both prompted long-running satirical features in the magazine Private Eye : the former entitled Mrs Wilson's Diary in reference to Mary Wilson , wife of Prime Minister Harold Wilson , the latter entitled The Secret Diary of John Major Aged 47¾ and written as a pastiche of the Adrian Mole diaries from the perspective of the then-Prime Minister John Major . Another famous example of
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3232-533: The Latin diarium ("daily allowance," from dies , "day"). The word 'journal' comes from the same root ( diurnus , "of the day") through the Old French jurnal (the modern French for 'day' being jour ). The earliest recorded use of the word 'diary' to refer to a book in which a daily record was written was in Ben Jonson 's comedy Volpone in 1605. The earliest known book resembling
3333-517: The MIT Media Lab website from 14 November 1994 until 1996. Other early online diarists include Justin Hall , who began eleven years of personal online diary-writing in 1994, Carolyn Burke, who started publishing Carolyn's Diary on 3 January 1995, and Bryon Sutherland, who announced his diary The Semi-Existence of Bryon in a USENET newsgroup on 19 April 1995. The internet has also served as
3434-508: The Narmer Palette , dating to c. 3100 BC , and several recent discoveries that may be slightly older, though these glyphs were based on a much older artistic rather than written tradition. The hieroglyphic script was logographic with phonetic adjuncts that included an effective alphabet . The world's oldest deciphered sentence was found on a seal impression found in the tomb of Seth-Peribsen at Abydos, which dates from
3535-522: The Rhinelands . Its authorship was not determined until 1926, when historian Léonce Reypens [ nl ] identified it with the Latin translation in Beatrice's biography, De caritate dei et septem eius gradibus . This identification has subsequently been widely accepted by academics, although historian Wybren Scheepsma has questioned its reliability. Unusual among spiritual texts of
3636-527: The Smythson company created the first featherweight diary, enabling diaries to be carried about. Many diaries of notable figures have been published and form an important element of autobiographical literature. Samuel Pepys (1633–1703) is the earliest diarist who is well known today; his diaries, preserved in Magdalene College, Cambridge , were first transcribed and published in 1825. Pepys
3737-486: The Sumerian language and Egyptian hieroglyphs are generally considered the earliest writing systems, both emerging out of ancestral proto-writing systems between 3400 and 3300 BC, with earliest coherent texts from c. 2600 BC . It is generally agreed that Sumerian writing was an independent invention; however, it is debated whether Egyptian writing was developed completely independently of Sumerian, or
3838-544: The development of writing were driven by pragmatic exigencies like keeping track of produce and other wealth, recording history , maintaining culture , codifying knowledge through curricula and lists of texts deemed to contain foundational knowledge (e.g. The Canon of Medicine ) or artistic value (e.g. the literary canon ), organizing and governing societies through texts including legal codes , census records, contracts , deeds of ownership, taxation , trade agreements , and treaties . As Charles Bazerman explains,
3939-427: The printing press were bibles . Such texts enabled rapid spread and maintenance of societal cohesion, collective identity , motivations, justifications and beliefs that e.g. notably historically supported or enabled large-scale warfare between modern humans . Beatrice of Nazareth Beatrice of Nazareth ( Dutch : Beatrijs van Nazareth ; c. 1200 – 1268), also known as Beatrice of Tienen ,
4040-473: The "marking of signs on stones, clay, paper, and now digital memories—each more portable and rapidly traveling than the previous—provided means for increasingly coordinated and extended action as well as memory across larger groups of people over time and space." For example, around the 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration in Mesopotamia outgrew human memory, and writing became
4141-526: The 19th century. As examples, the Grasmere Journal of Dorothy Wordsworth (1771–1855) was published in 1897; the journals of Fanny Burney (1752–1840) were published in 1889; the diaries of Henry Crabb Robinson (1776–1867) were published in 1869. Among important U.S. Civil War diaries are those of George Templeton Strong , a New York City lawyer, and Mary Chesnut , the wife of a Confederate officer. The diary of Jemima Condict , living in
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4242-473: The 4th millennium BC, the complexity of trade and administration outgrew the power of memory, and writing became a more dependable method of recording and presenting transactions in a permanent form. The invention of the first writing systems is roughly contemporary with the emergence of civilisations and the beginning of the Bronze Age during the late 4th millennium BC. Cuneiform used to write
4343-430: The 7th millennium BC, but whether or not these symbols are related to the characters of the later oracle bone script is disputed. Over the centuries, three distinct Elamite scripts developed. Proto-Elamite is the oldest known writing system from Iran. In use only briefly ( c. 3200 – c. 2900 BC ), clay tablets with Proto-Elamite writing have been found at different sites across Iran, with
4444-534: The German occupation of Amsterdam in the 1940s. Otto Frank edited his daughter's diary and arranged for its publication after the war. Many edits were made before the diary was published in other countries. This was due to sexually explicit material, which also led to some libraries banning the book. The writing of diaries was also often practiced from the 20th century onwards as a conscious act of self-exploration (of greater or lesser sincerity) – examples being
4545-663: The Second Dynasty (28th or 27th century BC). There are around 800 hieroglyphs dating back to the Old Kingdom, Middle Kingdom and New Kingdom Eras. By the Greco-Roman period, there are more than 5,000. Writing was very important in maintaining the Egyptian empire , and literacy was concentrated among an educated elite of scribes . Only people from certain backgrounds were allowed to train to become scribes, in
4646-477: The Trinity. Eucharistic devotion was also important to Beatrice's spiritual practices, and her medieval biographer describes the intensity of her devotion as resulting in bleeding and physical collapse. For much of her life, especially in 1217 and 1228–1231, Beatrice suffered from intermittent periods of depression and torpor, which some modern commentators have suggested might reflect bipolar disorder . She
4747-611: The adoption of Aramaic as the lingua franca of the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911–609 BC), Old Aramaic was also adapted to Mesopotamian cuneiform. The last cuneiform scripts in Akkadian discovered thus far date from the 1st century AD. The earliest known hieroglyphs are about 5,200 years old, such as the clay labels of a Predynastic ruler called "Scorpion I" (Naqada IIIA period, c. 32nd century BC ) recovered at Abydos (modern Umm el-Qa'ab) in 1998 or
4848-581: The advancement of their own research, does it become codified as contingently reliable knowledge. News and news reporting are central to citizen engagement and knowledge of many spheres of activity people may be interested in about the state of their community, including the actions and integrity of their governments and government officials, economic trends, natural disasters and responses to them, international geopolitical events, including conflicts, but also sports, entertainment, books, and other leisure activities. While news and newspapers have grown rapidly from
4949-548: The area of what is now West Orange, New Jersey , includes local observations of the American Revolutionary War . Since the 19th century the publication of diaries by their authors has become commonplace – notably amongst politicians seeking justification but also amongst artists and litterateurs of all descriptions. Amongst late 20th-century British published political diaries, those of Richard Crossman , Tony Benn and Alan Clark are representative,
5050-519: The author's own use. In recent years, however, there is internal evidence in some diaries (e.g. those of Ned Rorem , Alan Clark , Tony Benn or Simon Gray ) that they are written with eventual publication in mind, with the intention of self-vindication (pre- or posthumous), or simply for profit. By extension, the term diary is also used to mean a printed publication of a written diary; and may also refer to other terms of journal including electronic formats (e.g. blogs ). The word ' diary ' comes from
5151-475: The biography do not begin until age fifteen. A central topic of Beatrice's spirituality was the Holy Trinity , a topic on which she read extensively, including Augustine's De Trinitate . Her first vision, experienced in 1217 while meditating on her psalter , was of the Trinity. She had a number of subsequent Trinitarian visions, and expressed constant longing to be freed from her body and united with
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#17327658475885252-431: The capacities of spoken language by creating durable forms of language that can be transmitted across space (e.g. written correspondence ) and stored over time (e.g. libraries or other public records). Writing can also have knowledge-transforming effects, since it allows humans to externalize their thinking in forms that are easier to reflect on, elaborate on, reconsider, and revise. Any instance of writing involves
5353-632: The capital of Turkmenistan , revealed an inscription on a piece of stone that was used as a stamp seal. The earliest surviving examples of writing in China—inscriptions on oracle bones , usually tortoise plastrons and ox scapulae which were used for divination—date from around 1200 BC, during the Late Shang period. A small number of bronze inscriptions from the same period have also survived. In 2003, archaeologists reported discoveries of isolated tortoise-shell carvings dating back to
5454-460: The city of Lier . Beatrice is known as Blessed within the Catholic church, with a feast day on 29 July. Beatrice is associated with the mulieres religiosae , an emerging thirteenth-century group of European women with their own distinctive set of devotional and mystical practices. Beatrice's medieval biographer describes her as practicing intense mortification of the flesh : wearing
5555-564: The container's surface, one picture for each instance of the token inside. They next dispensed with the tokens, relying solely on symbols for the tokens, drawn on clay surfaces. To avoid making a picture for each instance of the same object (for example: 100 pictures of a hat to represent 100 hats), they counted the objects by using various small marks. In this way the Sumerians added "a system for enumerating objects to their incipient system of symbols". The original Mesopotamian writing system
5656-524: The corresponding spoken language. A logography is written using logograms —written characters which represent individual words or morphemes . For example, in Mayan, the glyph for "fin", pronounced ka , was also used to represent the syllable ka whenever the pronunciation of a logogram needed to be indicated. Many logograms have an ideographic component (Chinese "radicals", hieroglyphic "determiners"). In Chinese, about 90% of characters are compounds of
5757-540: The course of an afternoon, a wholesaler might receive a written inquiry about the availability of a product line, then communicate with suppliers and fabricators through work orders and purchase agreements, correspond via email to affirm shipping availability with a drayage company, write an invoice, and request proof of receipt in the form of a written signature. At a much larger scale, modern systems of finances, banking, and business rest on many forms of written documents—including written regulations, policies, and procedures;
5858-785: The creation of reports and other monitoring documents to make, evaluate, and provide accountability for decisions and operations; the creation and maintenance of records; internal written communications within departments to coordinate work; written communications that comprise work products presented to other departments and to clients; and external communications to clients and the public. Business and financial organizations also rely on many written legal documents, such as contracts, reports to government agencies, tax records, and accounting reports. Financial institutions and markets that hold, transmit, trade, insure, or regulate holdings for clients or other institutions are particularly dependent on written records (though now often in digital form) to maintain
5959-531: The day for being written in the vernacular instead of Latin, the Seven Ways has been the focus of much of the modern scholarship on Beatrice. It is the best-known among the Limburg Sermons, and Scheepsma describes it as "a classic of medieval (female) mysticism". The treatise describes seven forms or manners of love: Beatrice compares the soul, in its relationship to God, first to a bride, then to
6060-488: The degree to which letters of an alphabet correspond to phonemes of a language varies greatly from one language to another and even within a single language. In most of the alphabets of the Middle East, it is usually only the consonants of a word that are written, although vowels may be indicated by the addition of various diacritical marks. Writing systems based primarily on writing just consonants phonemes date back to
6161-517: The destruction of Beatrice's original works, may have been intended to avoid suspicion from inquisitors , such as Robert le Bougre [ fr ] . Beatrice's most famous work is her Seven Ways of Holy Love ( Dutch : Seven Manieren van Heiliger Minnen ). This treatise was preserved anonymously in the Limburg Sermons , and known for its influence on mysticism in Brabant and
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#17327658475886262-573: The diaries of Carl Jung , Aleister Crowley and Anaïs Nin . Among important diaries by 20th-century literary figures are those of Franz Kafka , Edmund Wilson and the French writer Paul Léautaud (1872–1956). The self-reflective Diary: Divine Mercy in My Soul written by Saint Faustina contains accounts of her visions and conversations with Jesus. A strong psychological effect may arise from having an audience for one's self-expression, even if this
6363-531: The diary after correct PIN entry on a secure USB device. With the popularization of mobile apps , diary or journaling apps have become available for iOS and Android . Proponents have cited numerous reasons for journaling using digital applications, including ease and speed of typing, mobile portability, and search capabilities. Digital diaries are also tailored towards shorter-form, in-the-moment writing, similar to user engagement with social media services such as Facebook , Twitter and Instagram . Apple released
6464-575: The earliest). Linear B , the writing system of the Mycenaean Greeks , has been deciphered while Linear A has yet to be deciphered. The sequence and the geographical spread of the three overlapping, but distinct writing systems can be summarized as follows (beginning date refers to first attestations, the assumed origins of all scripts lie further back in the past): Cretan hieroglyphs were used in Crete from c. 1625 to 1500 BC; Linear A
6565-433: The eighteenth to the twentieth centuries, the changing economics and ability to produce and distribute news have brought about radical and rapid challenges to journalism and the consequent organization of citizen knowledge and engagement. These changes have also created challenges for journalism ethics that have been developed over the past century. Formal education is the social context most strongly associated with
6666-425: The emergence of blogs . While the format first focused on external links and topical commentary, widespread blogging tools were quickly used to create web journals. Recent advances have also been made to enable the privacy of internet diary entries. For example, some diary software now stores entries in an encrypted format, such as 256-bit AES ( Advanced Encryption Standard ) encryption, and others only permit access to
6767-445: The help of a rubric, copy-editing, and helping translation . Writing technologies from different eras coexist easily in many homes and workplaces. During the course of a day or even a single episode of writing, for example, a writer might instinctively switch among a pencil, a touchscreen, a text-editor, a whiteboard, a legal pad, and adhesive notes as different purposes arise. As human societies emerged, collective motivations for
6868-625: The hieroglyphs of ancient Egypt. Such systems are called abjads , derived from the Arabic word for 'alphabet', or consonantaries . In most of the alphabets of India and Southeast Asia , vowels are indicated through diacritics or modification of the shape of the consonant. These are called abugidas . Some abugidas, such as Geʽez and the Canadian Aboriginal syllabics , are learned by children as syllabaries, and so are often called "syllabics". However, unlike true syllabaries, there
6969-595: The integrity of their roles. Many modern systems of government are organized and sanctified through written constitutions at the national and sometimes state or other organizational levels. Written rules and procedures typically guide the operations of the various branches, departments, and other bodies of government, which regularly produce reports and other documents as work products and to account for their actions. In addition to legislatures that draft and pass laws, these laws are administered by an executive branch , which can present further written regulations specifying
7070-466: The latter being more indiscreet, in the tradition of the diaries of Chips Channon . In Britain in the field of the arts notable diaries were published by James Lees-Milne , Roy Strong and Peter Hall . Harold Nicolson in the mid-20th century covered both politics and the arts. One of the most famous modern diaries, widely read and translated, is the posthumously published The Diary of a Young Girl by Anne Frank , who wrote it while in hiding during
7171-418: The laws and how they are carried out. Governments at different levels also typically maintain written records on citizens concerning identities, life events such as births, deaths, marriages, and divorces, the granting of licenses for controlled activities, criminal charges, traffic offenses, and other penalties small and large, and tax liability and payments. Research undertaken in academic disciplines
7272-441: The learning of writing, and students may carry these particular associations long after leaving school. Alongside the writing that students read (in the forms of textbooks, assigned books, and other instructional materials as well as self-selected books) students do much writing within schools at all levels, on subject exams, in essays, in taking notes, in doing homework, and in formative and summative assessments . Some of this
7373-470: The lost vernacular account of her visions, Beatrice of Nazareth ). From the Renaissance on, some individuals wanted not only to record events, as in medieval chronicles and itineraries, but also to put down their own opinions and express their hopes and fears, without any intention to publish these notes. One of the early preserved examples is the anonymous Journal d'un bourgeois de Paris covering
7474-580: The majority having been excavated at Susa , an ancient city located east of the Tigris and between the Karkheh and Dez Rivers. The Proto-Elamite script is thought to have developed from early cuneiform (proto-cuneiform). The Proto-Elamite script consists of more than 1,000 signs and is thought to be partly logographic . Linear Elamite is a writing system attested in a few monumental inscriptions in Iran. It
7575-502: The modern diary was that of Abu Ali ibn al-Banna in the 11th century. His diary is the earliest known to be arranged in order of date ( ta'rikh in Arabic), very much like modern diaries. The precursors of the diary in the modern sense include daily notes of medieval mystics , concerned mostly with inward emotions and outward events perceived as spiritually important (e.g. Elizabeth of Schönau , Agnes Blannbekin , and perhaps also, in
7676-580: The one that appears to have been best developed, and the only one to be deciphered, is the Maya script . The earliest inscription identified as Maya dates to the 3rd century BC. Maya writing used logograms complemented by a set of syllabic glyphs, somewhat similar in function to modern Japanese writing. In 2001, archaeologists discovered that there was a civilization in Central Asia that used writing c. 2000 BC . An excavation near Ashgabat ,
7777-447: The phonetic Hangul system is mainly used. Other logographic systems include cuneiform and Maya . A syllabary is a set of written symbols that represent syllables , typically a consonant followed by a vowel, or just a vowel alone. In some scripts more complex syllables (such as consonant-vowel-consonant, or consonant-consonant-vowel) may have dedicated glyphs. Phonetically similar syllables are not written similarly. For instance,
7878-446: The script to be logo-syllabic (typically syllabic scripts have about 50–100 signs whereas logographic scripts have a very large number of principal signs). Several scholars maintain that structural analysis indicates an agglutinative language underlies the script. The Proto-Sinaitic script, in which Proto-Canaanite is believed to have been first written, is attested as far back as the 19th century BC. The Phoenician writing system
7979-416: The second half of the 2nd century AD, already displays many characteristics of a diary. Pillowbooks of Japanese court ladies and Asian travel journals offer some aspects of this genre of writing, although they rarely consist exclusively of diurnal records. In the medieval Near East , Arabic diaries were written from before the 10th century. The earliest surviving diary of this era which most resembles
8080-465: The service of temple, pharaonic, and military authorities. The hieroglyph system was always difficult to learn, but in later centuries was purposely made even more so, as this preserved the scribes' status. The world's oldest known alphabet appears to have been developed by Canaanite turquoise miners in the Sinai desert around the mid-19th century BC. Around 30 crude inscriptions have been found at
8181-508: The syllable "ka" may look nothing like the syllable "ki", nor will syllables with the same vowels be similar. Syllabaries are best suited to languages with a relatively simple syllable structure, such as Japanese. Other languages that use syllabic writing include Mycenaean Greek ( Linear B ), Cherokee , the Ndjuka creole language of Suriname , and the Vai language of Liberia . An alphabet
8282-710: The term cuneiform ), at first only for logograms , but by the 29th century BC also for phonetic elements. Around 2700 BC, cuneiform began to represent syllables of spoken Sumerian. About that time, Mesopotamian cuneiform became a general purpose writing system for logograms, syllables, and numbers. This script was adapted to another Mesopotamian language, the East Semitic Akkadian ( Assyrian and Babylonian ) c. 2600 BC , and then to others such as Elamite , Hattian , Hurrian and Hittite . Scripts similar in appearance to this writing system include those for Ugaritic and Old Persian . With
8383-582: The term encompasses workbooks or working journals as well as diaries proper. For example, the notebooks of the Austrian writer Robert Musil and of the German-Swiss artist Paul Klee are called Tagebücher . A travel journal, travel diary, or road journal, is the documentation of a journey or series of journeys. A war diary is a regularly updated official record of a military unit's administration and activities during wartime maintained by an officer in
8484-423: The tyrannies and hypocrisies of Nazi Germany and of its East German successor state in his diaries. However in these cases, the authors didn't anticipate publication. As internet access became commonly available, many people adopted it as another medium in which to chronicle their lives with the added dimension of an audience. The first online diary is thought to be Claudio Pinhanez's Open Diary , published at
8585-482: The unit. Such diaries can form an important source of historical information, for example about long and complex battles in World War I . There are numerous examples of fictional diaries. One of the earliest printed fictional diaries was the humorous Diary of a Nobody by George Grossmith and his brother Weedon. 20th-century examples include radio broadcasts (e.g. Mrs. Dale's Diary ) and published books (e.g.
8686-588: The use of fictional diaries as prose is Bram Stoker's Dracula . A modern example includes the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series where each book of the series is written in a first-person view of the main character, as if the book were an actual diary. Other examples are the Bert Diaries and the cellphone diaries in the Japanese manga and anime television series Future Diary . Writing Writing
8787-524: The ways in which writers have framed the experience of writing with such tools as compared with the pen or pencil. Advancements in natural language processing and natural language generation have resulted in software capable of producing certain forms of formulaic writing (e.g., weather forecasts and brief sports reporting) without the direct involvement of humans after initial configuration or, more commonly, to be used to support writing processes such as generating initial drafts, producing feedback with
8888-479: The work. Prior to official publication, these documents are typically read and evaluated by peer review from appropriate experts, who determine whether the work is of sufficient value and quality to be published. Publication does not establish the claims or findings of work as being authoritatively true, only that they are worth the attention of other specialists. As the work appears in review articles, handbooks, textbooks, or other aggregations, and others cite it in
8989-657: The years 1405–1449, giving subjective commentaries on current events. Famous 14th to 16th century Renaissance examples, which appeared much later as books, were the diaries by the Florentines Buonaccorso Pitti and Gregorio Dati and the Venetian Marino Sanuto the Younger . These diaries include records of even less important everyday occurrences together with much reflection, emotional experience and personal impressions. In 1908,
9090-595: Was a Flemish Cistercian nun , visionary and mystic . Remembered chiefly through a medieval adaptation of her writings, of which the originals are now mostly lost, she is venerated as Blessed by the Catholic Church. Beatrice's treatise Seven Ways of Holy Love is an early example of bridal mysticism . Long surviving only in Latin adaptation, it was rediscovered in 1926, making it the earliest surviving work of mystical prose in Middle Dutch . Beatrice
9191-627: Was a case of cultural diffusion . Archaeologist Denise Schmandt-Besserat determined the link between previously uncategorized clay "tokens", the oldest of which have been found in the Zagros region of Iran, and cuneiform, the first known writing. Around 8000 BC, Mesopotamians began using clay tokens to count their agricultural and manufactured goods. Later they began placing these tokens inside large, hollow clay containers (bulla, or globular envelopes) which were then sealed. The quantity of tokens in each container came to be expressed by impressing, on
9292-516: Was adapted from the Proto-Canaanite script sometime before the 14th century BC, which in turn borrowed principles of representing phonetic information from Egyptian hieroglyphs . This writing system was an odd sort of syllabary in which only consonants are represented. This script was adapted by the Greeks , who adapted certain consonantal signs to represent their vowels. The Cumae alphabet ,
9393-613: Was admitted as a novice in 1216. From 1216 to 1218, Beatrice studied manuscript production at La Ramée Abbey [ fr ] . There she met Ida of Nivelles , who became her close friend and spiritual advisor; the two may have continued to correspond until Ida's death in 1231. In 1218, Beatrice became one of the founding members of Maagdendaal Abbey [ nl ] , where she remained for three years. She returned in 1221 to Bloemendaal, where her father and her brother Wickbert had meanwhile become lay brothers. Beatrice took her permanent vows in 1225. In 1235, she left to join
9494-686: Was amongst the first who took the diary beyond mere business transaction notation, into the realm of the personal. Pepys' contemporary John Evelyn also kept a notable diary, and their works are among the most important primary sources for the English Restoration period, and consist of eyewitness accounts of many great events, such as the Great Plague of London , and the Great Fire of London . The practice of posthumous publication of diaries of literary and other notables began in
9595-628: Was born in Tienen in the Duchy of Brabant , part of the Holy Roman Empire , located in today's Belgium . She was the youngest of six children in a wealthy bourgeois family. When Beatrice was seven, her mother, Gertrudis, died; her father, Barthelomeus Lanio, sent her to the Beguines in nearby Zoutleeuw , where she attended the local school. Beatrice there remained there for a little over
9696-552: Was brought relief by various spiritual experiences, describing incidents in which her spirit was elevated and Christ embraced her or spoke comforting words to her. In 1231, Beatrice experienced a vision in which she was united with the Seraphim , and heard Christ promise her that she would never suffer to the point of wishing for death. Beatrice is known to have produced a number of autobiographical and spiritual writings in her native Middle Dutch. Most of these survive only by way of
9797-498: Was derived c. 3200 BC from this method of keeping accounts. By the end of the 4th millennium BC, the Mesopotamians were using a triangular-shaped stylus pressed into soft clay to record numbers. This system was gradually augmented with using a sharp stylus to indicate what was being counted by means of pictographs . Round and sharp styluses were gradually replaced for writing by wedge-shaped styluses (hence
9898-627: Was not until the 12th to 9th centuries, however, that the alphabet took hold and became widely used. The Cascajal Block , a stone slab with 3,000-year-old proto-writing, was discovered in the Mexican state of Veracruz and is an example of the oldest script in the Western Hemisphere, preceding the oldest Zapotec writing by approximately 500 years. It is thought to be Olmec . Of several pre-Columbian scripts in Mesoamerica ,
9999-417: Was used for a very brief period during the last quarter of the 3rd millennium BC. It is often claimed that Linear Elamite is a syllabic writing system derived from Proto-Elamite, although this cannot be proven since Linear-Elamite has not been deciphered. Several scholars have attempted to decipher the script, most notably Walther Hinz [ de ] and Piero Meriggi . The Elamite cuneiform script
10100-506: Was used from about 2500 to 331 BC, and was adapted from the Akkadian cuneiform. At any given point within this period, the Elamite cuneiform script consisted of about 130 symbols, and over this entire period only 206 total signs were used. This is far fewer than most other cuneiform scripts. Cretan hieroglyphs are found on artifacts of Crete (early-to-mid-2nd millennium BC, MM I to MM III, overlapping with Linear A from MM IIA at
10201-665: Was used in the Aegean Islands ( Kea , Kythera , Melos , Thera ), and the Greek mainland ( Laconia ) from c. 18th century to 1450 BC; and Linear B was used in Crete ( Knossos ), and mainland ( Pylos , Mycenae , Thebes , Tiryns ) from c. 1375 to 1200 BC. Indus script refers to short strings of symbols associated with the Indus Valley Civilization (which spanned modern-day Pakistan and North India ) used between 2600 and 1900 BC. Despite attempts at decipherments and claims, it
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