000 YEARS; BUT THEY HAVE BEEN TALKING FOR MUCH LONGER, DOUBTLESS EVE...

5,000 years; but they have been talking for much longer, doubtless ever since there have been humanbeings.When writing did develop, it was derived from and represented speech, although imperfectly.Even today there are spoken languages that have no written form. Furthermore, we all learn to talk wellbefore we learn to write; any human child who is not severely handicapped physically or mentally willlearn to talk: a normal human being cannot be prevented from doing so. On the other hand, it takes aspecial effort to learn to write. In the past many intelligent and useful members of society did not acquirethe skill, and even today many who speak languages with writing systems never learn to read or write,while some who learn the rudiments of those skills do so only imperfectly.To affirm the primacy of speech over writing is not, however, to disparage the latter. Oneadvantagewriting has over speech is that it is more permanent and makes possible the records that anycivilization must have. Thus, if speaking makes us human, writing makes us civilized.