ABSTRACT
Linguistic landscaping is as old as writing. For all we know, writing was communicative rather than private from its inception (Harris 1986; Coulmas 2003), and some of its earliest functions are bound to public display. Property marks, brands and border stones, for example, speak to all members of a relevant community. Monumental inscriptions, too, appear early in all literate cultures. In the modern sense of the word, ancient civilizations were not (fully) literate, because in antiquity the art of writing was confined to a scholarly elite rather than being a basic qualification for full participation in society (Goody 1987). Yet, even when writing was a specialized skill and literacy restricted, the exhibition of visible language marked a fundamental change in the human habitat. It changed the way people saw the world, it changed their worldview, it changed their attitude towards and awareness of language, and in many ways it changed the organization of society.
