It’s important to use the right words when writing about writing.
Scholars studying the history of it distinguish between pre-writing symbols used to mark objects and more precise marks that establish an exact correspondence between sign and sound; script and language are not the same thing.
A new study in Antiquities illustrates the transition from printed symbol to written word — a metamorphosis that lead author Silvia Ferrara, a philology researcher from the University of Bologna calls “fuzzy.”
