When I was having lunch, I was thinking about whether humans had language first or writing first.
As for how historians have studied this, let's put that aside for now and talk about my thoughts.
The earliest humans learned to use fire because they either found delicious cooked food or desired warmth and light.
After eating cooked food, they discovered that their fists were particularly powerful and could command others (referring to the animal world).
At this time, there was no language, and everyone was just gesturing (like howling, referring to chimpanzees).
People learned to cultivate.
To count, they came up with the earliest counting tools.
In history books, it is written as ropes, but later they found that ropes were too fragile, so they switched to carving on stones.
This should be the earliest form of writing.
Most Chinese characters are actually pictographic characters, representing something by drawing it.
As for the pronunciation, it is probably understood differently by each tribe, and the pronunciation of each tribe is not the same.
Later, there were characters with multiple pronunciations.
It was because of the lack of uniform pronunciation.
Some people might think that I have gone off topic here.
Actually, I haven't. All of this is related to fists.
Because of fists, social classes were formed.
Because of fists, people were forced to learn.
And to unify (Emperor Qin Shi Huang was truly great).
People nowadays say that Emperor Qin Shi Huang was tyrannical, but he did all of that for the sake of eternal rule.
Speaking of this, everything was actually done for the sake of easy rule.
Promoting Confucianism, where gentlemen use words, not force. Everyone became gentlemen, only using words, not force.
No one resisted, no one caused trouble. Wouldn't that bring about peace in the world?
Isn't that what rulers like to see the most?
Still, as the saying goes, might makes right.
And civilization is the same.
Heroes use force to challenge prohibitions, but peace has always been achieved through force.