History of human communication

The history of human communication is the long journey that links

the first social manifestations of our species, through which one
individual and another could transmit their intentions and perhaps reach
an agreement, to the sophisticated forms of communication available to
us in https://www.caracteristicas.co/sociedad/post-industrial society.

Human communication is a complex and broad category, which

includes numerous forms of information exchange and numerous
possible languages, verbal or not, and through different channels.

Although communication is a fact that humans share with all forms of

life, the capacity for language is unique and exclusive to
humanity. It is possible thanks to human intellectual capacity, which
reaches the levels of abstraction necessary to create, interpret and learn
new languages, or deduce the formulas on which they are based.

See also: Braille

Origin of human communication

Human communication was born with the human being himself,
since it is one of his natural capacities. There is no milestone or date on
which we can mark the beginning of communication among our species,
but we can trace a path of the technologies created by it to allow or
facilitate communication, as we will see later.

The first of all forms of human communication is language. It is

estimated that human verbal communication began with the appearance
of Homo sapiens about 2.5 million years ago. According to some
specialists, it was a determining factor in their proliferation and
dominance over other forms of hominins of the time.

For example, Homo neanderthalensis also had linguistic and

communicative abilities, but they were much less efficient than ours.
This may seem superfluous, but it translates into a higher level of
organization that in situations such as war or hunting would result in a
very noticeable advantage for humanity.
Non-verbal communication

Nonverbal communication is also useful with other species.

It is worth clarifying, before continuing, that language and the human

voice are not the only communication mechanism available to
primitive man. On the contrary, it had important and diverse levels of
non-verbal communication, that is, not involved in words, which we are
also capable of using.

Gestural communication, the most instinctive form of

communication, involving the body and handled at much more
basic levels, is also an effective way of transmitting messages to our
fellow human beings, and even to other species, as occurs when we
make gestures to a dog.

The human voice

The first form of communication in human history was the voice, that is,
language articulated through our vocal system: lungs, throat, vocal
cords, larynx, mouth, tongue, lips, teeth. Everything is put to the service
of emitting a chain of sounds in a continuous, organized and coherent
manner, according to the rules dictated by a language (or idiom).

The human voice is our regular channel of communication, the

most common and most used, whether live and direct, or through
instruments invented to magnify it, such as megaphones, microphones,
etc. In primitive times, the transmission of knowledge depended on it,
since everything was passed from one generation to another orally and
was stored in memory.

Because of that use, rhyme originated, for example: a memorization

technique based on the similarity of sound. The disadvantage of
this method lies in the imperfection of human memory and that the
death of an elder or a wise man in the community could mean the
permanent loss of a lot of important information.

It may be useful for you: Oral communication

The writing

Kanji are graphic symbols that represent concrete ideas.

As a method to solve the problem of the absence of the sender of a
message, and to make the latter last over time, a system of symbols of
various kinds was invented that, once deciphered, could always
transmit the same message: writing. Several types of writing are
recognized:

 Pictograms. These are signs that represent observable reality,

that is, drawings, illustrations of some kind, but organized in a
finite series of possibilities that give them a certain meaning and
order, that is, a certain logic and syntax. This type of proto-writing
was used by various cultures around the world from 9000 BC. C.
and became very popular between 5000 and 6000 BC. C.
Examples of this are Egyptian hieroglyphics or
Mayanhttps://www.caracteristicas.co/civilizacion-maya/ codices.
 Ideograms. The evolution of the pictogram consists of graphic
symbols that represent concrete ideas, and whose combinations
allow for the construction of more complex meanings. In fact, its
conceptual boundaries are broad, so that the same symbol could
represent, for example, “legs”, “walking” or “going” using the
same drawing. This is the case with Chinese and Japanese kanji.
 Alphabet. Alphabetic writing is the most abstract degree of
writing known, which instead of images or ideas, reproduces
sounds through signs, which have no relation to their referents,
except that assigned to them by a collective convention. Thus, the
sign “A” represents a specific sound, but there is no reason why
that sign and not another was chosen to represent that sound. The
first alphabet was that of the Phoenicians, around 1000 BC. C.

The mail
Each country began to develop its own mail service.

The exchange of written texts on paper and other physical supports

made of plant fiber gave rise to systems for sending and receiving
letters and packages in different countries, known as printed mail.

Communications using this system could take a long time to arrive,

although after the invention of the steam engine, it became much easier
to deliver larger quantities of letters to their recipients more quickly.
This model was replaced at the end of the 20th century with e-
mailhttps://www.caracteristicas.co/correo-electronico/.

Printed communication
The invention of the Gutenberg printing press in the 15th century
revolutionized the way of making writings and books, which until
then had been done manually. The only exception were certain seals
and stamps used, for example, during the Roman Empire.

This new invention made it possible to use metal plates sprayed

with pigments to successively ink many identical pages and mass
produce a book. It also allowed the emergence of the first mass-
produced periodical publications, which could be distributed among
citizens by the hundreds or thousands.

With the later invention of lithography and other similar techniques, the
printing press gave rise to a market for mass publications, and later,
companies dedicated to written information, which were the first
newspapers and magazines.

To this day, modern versions of the printing press circulate far more
publications of all kinds than ever before in human history. It is perhaps
the most effective method of written communication in history.

Telecommunications

Radio waves enabled the creation of radio, telephone and television.

The technological advances of the Industrial Revolution opened up a

new spectrum in the capture and reproduction of images, moving
images and sounds. Furthermore, transmission through cables and
then through Hertzian waves, that is, electromagnetic waves, became
possible.
In this way, from the 19th century onwards, humanity began to
gradually flood the electromagnetic spectrum with radio waves,
that is, electromagnetic waves of a spectrum different from that of
https://www.caracteristicas.co/luz/visible light, to send and receive
information.

Thanks to this revolutionary advance, impressive communication

inventions of the 19th and 20th centuries emerged: the telegraph,
the telephone, the radio, television, even radar and microwaves.
Through these technologies, much faster communication was possible
and over much greater distances than ever before in history.

Information technologies

Technology allows us to communicate in real time over long distances.

The Digital Revolution of the late 20th century also brought with it
important changes in human communication. Computers are machines
capable of receiving, storing or transmitting much larger volumes of
information and at much higher speeds than any previous human
invention.
The connection of computers in ever-widening networks, until reaching
the World Wide Web (Internet), made it possible to send multimedia
messages in real time; teleconferences, video recordings, chats, e-
mails or SMS, also available on cell phones and other portable devices. It
was a huge change in the way we communicated up until then.

Future of human communication

Communication of the human species is unpredictable. However, among
the futuristic fantasies of humanity, the possibility of teleportation
or messages sent directly to the mind of another (telepathy) is included.

Timeline of human communication

 200,000 BC C. – Estimated birth of human voice communication.
 50,000 BC C. – First cave paintings in prehistoric caves.
 3250 BC C. – Egyptian hieroglyphic writing is born.
 1050 BC C. – The first alphabet, the Phoenician, emerges.
 900 BC C. – The first postal service is created in China, for
bureaucratic purposes.
 305 AD C. – The Chinese invent a method of printing symbols
using wooden blocks.
 1440 – Gutenberg invents the printing press.
 1814 – Niepce takes the first photographs in history.
 1876 – Graham Bell patents the first telephone model.
 1920 – Radio appears and becomes popular.
 1927 – The BBC in London begins its TV programming.
 1962 – The US launches the first telecommunications satellite,
Telstar I.
 1994 – The Internet is released to the general public.

Source: https://www.caracteristicas.co/historia-de-la-comunicacion-
humana/#ixzz6vXdAv27J