The development of writing was one of the great human inventions. It is difficult (51) many people to imagine language without writing; the spoken word seems intricately tied to the written (52) . But children speak (53) they learn to write. And millions of people in the world speak languages with (54) written form. Among these people oral literature abounds, and crucial knowledge (55) memorized and passed (56) generations. But human memory is short-lived, and the brain’s storage capacity is finite. (57) overcame such problems and allowed communication across the miles (58) through the years and centuries. Writing permits a society (59) permanently record its poetry, its history and its technology.
It might be argued (60) today we have electronic means of recording sound and (61) to produce films and television, and thus writing is becoming obsolete. (62) writing became extinct, there would be no knowledge of electronics (63) TV technicians to study; there would be, in fact, little technology in years to (64) . There would be no film or TV scripts, no literature, no books, no mail, no newspapers, no science. There would be (65) advantages: no bad novels, junk mail, poison-pen letters, or "unreadable" income-tax forms, but the losses would outweigh the (66) .
There are almost as (67) legends and stories on the invention of writing as there are (68) the origin of language. Legend has it that Cadmus, Prince of Phoenicia and founder of the city of Thebes, (69) the alphabet and brought it with him to Greece. In one Chinese fable the four eyed dragon-god T’ sang Chien invented writing. In (70)
myths, the Babylonian god Nebo and the Egyptian god Nebo gave humans writing as well as speech.
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