Alternatives to writing?

What are some alternatives to writing that could be used to record information? For example, the Inca recorded information on pieces of knotted string that they called quipus.
 
How far are you taking the definition of 'writing'? The most intuitive way of recording stuff is iconic, so the most likely 'alternative' rarelly would be a writing system stuck in early stages of development. Little icons and numerals for recording transactions and times or drawings to iondicate plans and schematics work without actual 'words' and with a minimum of grammar. You can also have a symbolic system that's dedicated to speacial applications, like Polyneasian sea charts, or quipu, for other fields. That would mean a society in which experts for various things learned various sign systems. It isan't really all that different today, bzut we're using a standardised writing and numeral system across them, so it looks less strange.

Unfortunately I suspect that once you have language, any record-keeping system of sufficient complexity will at some point begin to approximate language. Which makes it writing.
 
What are some alternatives to writing that could be used to record information? For example, the Inca recorded information on pieces of knotted string that they called quipus.


If you are looking for methods by which to record information (other than oral, whoole 'nother discussion), historically there are the general categories

Iconography - branches off into Hieroglyphics and Chinese characters
Symbolic Representations - branches off into Quipu knots & sanskrit (first writing)

Those are the only two I can think of, for general categories (though I seem to recall a third one :( )

Given that, any 'alternative' has to fit therein. So... how about carvings? little tableaus or counters or tokens representing things? Combine them for more fun (like towers of hanoi)... I'm picturing little carvings of cows with replaceable merchant figures (carved to look like the merchant) on a base with a fence. Toss in cattle tokens to represent heads of cows. Replace carving with painting for another method ( cave paintings anyone? )

Or, a much more unlikely scenario, a musical score where the notes (in pitch and length) denote numbers, and... something on the score represents the type of goods.

Sea shells, for maritime cultures, as a possible prototype of currency. Type = goods for market, quantity = number of goods. 4 shells of oysters = 4 flasks of wine for example.

You'll notice I'm fixating on marketing records... that's the first known purposes of recording information. I suppose astronomical related information too... in which case, mose of these could be adapted to it as well, but you'll need some concise/concrete method of abstracting numbers into neater records.

I suppose you could also carve stone floors to represent the heavens?
Or (and go away alien/conspiracy theorists) build actual buildings to record the information... ie, the alignments of buildings in Maya construction or Giza pyramids.

Animals would be another way... type & quantity useful for recording various things... just keep removing the younglings born to maintain the count.
 
I'm picturing little carvings of cows with replaceable merchant figures (carved to look like the merchant) on a base with a fence. Toss in cattle tokens to represent heads of cows. Replace carving with painting for another method ( cave paintings anyone? )

Lol, very interesting image you've conjured up here. I like it!

Or, a much more unlikely scenario, a musical score where the notes (in pitch and length) denote numbers, and... something on the score represents the type of goods.

Yeah, musical notation is the first thing that came to my mind when I saw this question. But you make a good point -- it would be kind of awkward.
 
When I mentioned writing, I was talking about symbols that you'd somehow place on a surface (which would include our alphabet, hieroglyphs, pictograms, musical notes, etc...), I was wondering if there were other ways of recording things for posterity or mass distribution, ruling out Oral stuff.
 
so... record information for posterity and/or mass distribution.
Do so without placing any kind of symbol on any kind of surface.
Do so without using Oral traditions.

I'll skip my protest that Quipu knots are symbols on a surface of rope...


That is truly interesting challenge...
You can't speak it, and you can't put it down on a surface as a symbol.

Huh that even rules out things like the Nazca lines.

The *only* thing that comes to my mind meeting the strictest interpretation of those restrictions would be taking a hybridization of the S. African Click languages with the skin drums of various cultures. If you can transliterate the click language into tonal, rhythmic drumbeats, then you'd have something that fits your requirements - drum beats in tone & rhythym representing concepts. Great for mass distribution with big drums. Good for posterity as something akin to an oral tradition... teacher/apprentice drumming away w/ no words.

You might be able to do something similar with say, a simple 7 holed recorder/flute and use tone & rhythym to convey a message of clicks of various lengths, tones, and types. Various other musical concepts might apply.

I would extremely interested in how you avoid a musical oral tradition evolving from either...



I guess, maybe, you could do a thing with the placing of sand, gravel, rocks, plants, and trees (think oriental rock gardens), but that seems like placing a symbol on a surface....

The only other thing I can think of would be some kind of body music... snaps of fingers, clicks of tongue, slaps of various body parts. Each method could represent basic fundamental concepts - you could even devise an alphabet from that without ever using language.

Again, I don't see how to avoid an oral tradition growing from that in one way or another.
 
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