“Every language has a history. Every script has a story. Hidden in ancient words and texts are clues to how people communicated, thought, and lived. What will you discover about yours?” – Dr. Vahid Rafieyan
How did humans first develop language? How did spoken words become marks on clay, parchment, and paper that could survive for thousands of years? These questions take us deep into one of humanity’s most fascinating accomplishments: the history of the written word.
The course Archeo-linguistics, jointly taught by Interdisciplinary Arts professors Dr. Darren Ashmore and Dr. Vahid Rafieyan, explores this history by bringing together archaeology, linguistics, anthropology, and the study of written and material evidence. Archeo-linguistics was previously a workshop, but starting from Fall 2026, the course is offered as a three-credit lecture course which includes, depending on the semester practical paleographic and calligraphic elements.
The origins of human language remain a mystery. There is no single accepted explanation for how language emerged, and researchers continue to explore different hypotheses about the development of human communication. Writing, however, is physical evidence that we can study. Some of the earliest known writing developed in southern Mesopotamia around the end of the fourth millennium BCE, in the context of increasingly complex cities and systems of administration. Early clay tablets recorded goods, rations, and other economic information using pictographic signs. Over time, these signs became increasingly abstract and developed into what we now call cuneiform, written by impressing a reed or stick into clay.
But writing did not remain fixed. As languages, technologies, and societies changed, so did the ways people recorded and communicated. A written mark can therefore tell us much more than the words it represents. It can offer clues about the people who made it, the materials they used, and the world in which they lived.
For example, early medieval manuscripts (the focus of the 2026 fall course) preserve an extraordinary variety of scripts, letterforms, abbreviations, layouts, and decorative practices. Uncial, Carolingian Minuscule, and other medieval scripts each have their own visual characteristics and histories, while the development and use of different scripts can help scholars understand how texts were produced and circulated. The famous Book of Kells, for example, is a spectacularly intricate religious manuscript created circa 800 that demonstrates the extraordinary combination of writing, decoration, and visual design found in Insular manuscripts.
The text itself is only part of the story. The parchment, ink, tools, layout, initials, illumination, mistakes, and other details of a manuscript can all provide evidence. A medieval manuscript is not simply something to read, it is an object to investigate.
The course Archeo-linguistics combines this kind of investigation with practice. Students will learn methods for examining historical scripts and considering their linguistic, social, and historical contexts. They will also have the opportunity to engage directly with the techniques of manuscript production and, by the end of the course, create their own historically informed manuscript.
From the earliest marks pressed into Mesopotamian clay to the intricate pages of medieval manuscripts, Dr. Darren Ashmore and Dr. Vahid Rafieyan invite students to look at writing in an old way. It is not only a record of language, but it is also a material trace of human history. If you are curious about ancient manuscripts and what these surviving texts can tell us about the people who made them, Archeo-linguistics offers you the chance to investigate the evidence for yourself.
‘Summon up the ghosts of ancient worlds with us and you will not take language for granted again. Not once you have carved stone, pressed clay and stooped over parchment as scribes out of long ages passed!’ – Dr. Darren Ashmore