Communication in the past
Communication in the past was very different from communication now. It was much slower in the past but nowadays it's much faster.
Body language
Body language is the first type of communication in humans. Although you might not think that you are using body language but you are using it every day e.g. Emotions and pointing to something. Scientists have linked it with animals and is complicated and is dependent upon the culture e.g. the 'okay' sign in Japan means money but in some Arab countries it means get lost (rudely).
Cave paintings and/or Speech
There has been many debates on where the origin of speech was but speech has definitely come before paintings. Humans first mimicked the sounds of other animals and it gradually turned into words and languages with meanings. Cave paintings came after. They are usually found on the walls or ceilings of caves and inlets in rock and could even be found on a rock in the middle of a desert. Cave paintings are a visual story containing pictures which usually tell a story of a hunt.
Pictographs
The early Sumerians, Chinese and Egyptians used pictographs and ideograms to tell each other things and ideas and represented many different things. Pictographs are still widely used today. Pictographs in the modern world could be the sign for girls and boys toilets and the train station and bus stop signs. They could be classified sometimes as art and sometimes telling something or representing something.
Hieroglyphs
Egyptians used hieroglyphs and was a better way and improved on pictographs. These hieroglyphs are closer to a modern alphabet although it can be read left to right top to bottom or right to left but preferably right to left. It was used widely during the time of the Egyptians and could be found nowadays in Egyptian tombs and pyramids. Hieroglyphs were written on stone or wood but commonly written on papyrus which is a type of reed. Papyrus grew on the edges of the Nile river and were farmed by the ancient Egyptians. A picture of hieroglyphs and the papyrus plant are shown below......
Body language
Body language is the first type of communication in humans. Although you might not think that you are using body language but you are using it every day e.g. Emotions and pointing to something. Scientists have linked it with animals and is complicated and is dependent upon the culture e.g. the 'okay' sign in Japan means money but in some Arab countries it means get lost (rudely).
Cave paintings and/or Speech
There has been many debates on where the origin of speech was but speech has definitely come before paintings. Humans first mimicked the sounds of other animals and it gradually turned into words and languages with meanings. Cave paintings came after. They are usually found on the walls or ceilings of caves and inlets in rock and could even be found on a rock in the middle of a desert. Cave paintings are a visual story containing pictures which usually tell a story of a hunt.
Pictographs
The early Sumerians, Chinese and Egyptians used pictographs and ideograms to tell each other things and ideas and represented many different things. Pictographs are still widely used today. Pictographs in the modern world could be the sign for girls and boys toilets and the train station and bus stop signs. They could be classified sometimes as art and sometimes telling something or representing something.
Hieroglyphs
Egyptians used hieroglyphs and was a better way and improved on pictographs. These hieroglyphs are closer to a modern alphabet although it can be read left to right top to bottom or right to left but preferably right to left. It was used widely during the time of the Egyptians and could be found nowadays in Egyptian tombs and pyramids. Hieroglyphs were written on stone or wood but commonly written on papyrus which is a type of reed. Papyrus grew on the edges of the Nile river and were farmed by the ancient Egyptians. A picture of hieroglyphs and the papyrus plant are shown below......
Carrier pigeons
Carrier pigeons were first put to the test in 776 CE in Greece. There, carrier pigeons would have a message attached on their back or on their leg and were specially trained to send it to whoever or wherever the sender wants it to go. In Greece, they would've sent a message to the local Athenians about the latest news about the Olympics and were later copied by other empires.Homing pigeons were used extensively during World War I and World War II.One pigeon in WWII saved 200 lives by carrying a crucial message even though she was shot in the chest and was awarded a Dicken Medal.
Paper
The Chinese invented paper around 200 CE and was made from rags. It revolutionised the way we communicate. Paper was used in the newly formed postal service and to write religious books and stories. Although it was invented in China it didn't reach Europe until 1200 CE.
Postal Service
The first postal service was invented in Persia in 500 BC by King Cyrus the Great and was also used in China. Back then people didn't write on paper using ink and then sending it to their friend with a stamp on it instead the king used it to collect taxes from the people and passing important messages such as rebels and threats of war from neighboring empires. Even though now technology is advance and is more faster and now the is social networking and all that, people still us the post and most senders prefer to send very important messages that they want no-one to see through mail. The nickname for mail is 'snail mail' probably because it is a very slow way of communicating and snails are slow.
Town Criers
There has been queries on when town criers first came but they first appeared in England around 1540. Town Criers were very important people and if anything happened to it, it faces the same consequences as if you done it to the king or queen and were very important to the king and queen as well. The mayor of a town would usually choose who the town criers would be. They have clothes that usually represent the town. They would first ring their bell or something and shout out the traditional saying 'Oyez Oyez Oyez' and would then open a scroll and read the message out to the citizens.
Newspapers
The first daily newspaper was 'Einkommende Zeitung' which was made in Germany in 1650 CE. Newspapers were a way of publishers and reporters communicating with the public. They usually have local news or world news but could also have advertisements, comics and many other things. There were many other newspapers before the 'Einkommende Zeitung' , the first ever newspaper was made in 59 BCE and was called Acta Diurna which was published in Rome but it wasn't daily. Before newspapers, important news were just sent by word-of-mouth so news of a hurricane might not reach some.
Braille
Braille was a secret code developed by Charles Barbier so soldiers could communicate at night and was nicknamed night writing. It consisted of a twelve dot pattern. In 1821 Charles Barbier visited the Royal Institute for the Blind in Paris where he met Louis Braille. He found major defects of the code. One reason is that the twelve dot space was too big for a human to recognise it in one passing. He designed a better six dot system which is still in use to this day.
Telegraph
The inventor Samuel Morse thought of a machine that could send messages and he made it a reality in 1837 when he made a wire right around his university. He sent a message in the form of dots and dashes and it worked. He showed it to the Congress by placing 10 miles of wire around his home. Congress didn't think it worked for long distances but he was astonished when it worked. When they accepted the telegraphic system he thought that the messages could be sent further if they were attached to poles. In 1844 telegraph wires were all around America. In 1874, Thomas Edison and very famous inventor improved the wire so two messages could be sent at one time. In 1915, it was improved even more when eight messages could be sent through one wire at a time.
Telephone
Before the invention of the telephone, there were many other 'mechanical sound transmitters. One of the mechanical ones is the classic string method. A tin can or a cup has a hole and a string trough it and was connected to another cup which had the other end. The sounds trabel through the string mechanically rather than electrically and it came out the other end. They were sold commercially but were quickly surpassed by the electric telephone. The electric telephone was created by Alexander Graham Bell and was an improvement of the telegraph. Although Alexander Graham Bell patented the first telephone, many other people created telephone-like devices before him. Telephone wires replaced the telegraph wires. Alexander thought that if telephone exchanges are set up, you didn't a wire from one house to every other house, instead if every house had one wire to an operator, the operator would then hook you up with the right person. Telephones then sonn replaced the telegraph and became very successful.
Television
Television was successfully demonstrated in San Francisco on the 7th of September, 1927. It was demonstrated by Philo Taylor Farnsworth. He lived in a house with no electricity until the age of 14. In high school, he thought of a machine that codes a moving picture into radio, send it, then turn it back into a moving picture. Boris Rosing from Russia also tried it 16 years before Philo Taylor Farnsworth. Farnsworth's machine wasn't a real television but was the direct ancestor of modern televisions. RCA,a very successful radio broadcaster invested $50 million in the new invention and had a 15 minute newscast daily. Early television was very weak, it struggled to sense the colour white and was even more punished in World War II when the company was focused on the military. It even competed with the new FM radio and was soon out of business but it came back a few years later.
Carrier pigeons were first put to the test in 776 CE in Greece. There, carrier pigeons would have a message attached on their back or on their leg and were specially trained to send it to whoever or wherever the sender wants it to go. In Greece, they would've sent a message to the local Athenians about the latest news about the Olympics and were later copied by other empires.Homing pigeons were used extensively during World War I and World War II.One pigeon in WWII saved 200 lives by carrying a crucial message even though she was shot in the chest and was awarded a Dicken Medal.
Paper
The Chinese invented paper around 200 CE and was made from rags. It revolutionised the way we communicate. Paper was used in the newly formed postal service and to write religious books and stories. Although it was invented in China it didn't reach Europe until 1200 CE.
Postal Service
The first postal service was invented in Persia in 500 BC by King Cyrus the Great and was also used in China. Back then people didn't write on paper using ink and then sending it to their friend with a stamp on it instead the king used it to collect taxes from the people and passing important messages such as rebels and threats of war from neighboring empires. Even though now technology is advance and is more faster and now the is social networking and all that, people still us the post and most senders prefer to send very important messages that they want no-one to see through mail. The nickname for mail is 'snail mail' probably because it is a very slow way of communicating and snails are slow.
Town Criers
There has been queries on when town criers first came but they first appeared in England around 1540. Town Criers were very important people and if anything happened to it, it faces the same consequences as if you done it to the king or queen and were very important to the king and queen as well. The mayor of a town would usually choose who the town criers would be. They have clothes that usually represent the town. They would first ring their bell or something and shout out the traditional saying 'Oyez Oyez Oyez' and would then open a scroll and read the message out to the citizens.
Newspapers
The first daily newspaper was 'Einkommende Zeitung' which was made in Germany in 1650 CE. Newspapers were a way of publishers and reporters communicating with the public. They usually have local news or world news but could also have advertisements, comics and many other things. There were many other newspapers before the 'Einkommende Zeitung' , the first ever newspaper was made in 59 BCE and was called Acta Diurna which was published in Rome but it wasn't daily. Before newspapers, important news were just sent by word-of-mouth so news of a hurricane might not reach some.
Braille
Braille was a secret code developed by Charles Barbier so soldiers could communicate at night and was nicknamed night writing. It consisted of a twelve dot pattern. In 1821 Charles Barbier visited the Royal Institute for the Blind in Paris where he met Louis Braille. He found major defects of the code. One reason is that the twelve dot space was too big for a human to recognise it in one passing. He designed a better six dot system which is still in use to this day.
Telegraph
The inventor Samuel Morse thought of a machine that could send messages and he made it a reality in 1837 when he made a wire right around his university. He sent a message in the form of dots and dashes and it worked. He showed it to the Congress by placing 10 miles of wire around his home. Congress didn't think it worked for long distances but he was astonished when it worked. When they accepted the telegraphic system he thought that the messages could be sent further if they were attached to poles. In 1844 telegraph wires were all around America. In 1874, Thomas Edison and very famous inventor improved the wire so two messages could be sent at one time. In 1915, it was improved even more when eight messages could be sent through one wire at a time.
Telephone
Before the invention of the telephone, there were many other 'mechanical sound transmitters. One of the mechanical ones is the classic string method. A tin can or a cup has a hole and a string trough it and was connected to another cup which had the other end. The sounds trabel through the string mechanically rather than electrically and it came out the other end. They were sold commercially but were quickly surpassed by the electric telephone. The electric telephone was created by Alexander Graham Bell and was an improvement of the telegraph. Although Alexander Graham Bell patented the first telephone, many other people created telephone-like devices before him. Telephone wires replaced the telegraph wires. Alexander thought that if telephone exchanges are set up, you didn't a wire from one house to every other house, instead if every house had one wire to an operator, the operator would then hook you up with the right person. Telephones then sonn replaced the telegraph and became very successful.
Television
Television was successfully demonstrated in San Francisco on the 7th of September, 1927. It was demonstrated by Philo Taylor Farnsworth. He lived in a house with no electricity until the age of 14. In high school, he thought of a machine that codes a moving picture into radio, send it, then turn it back into a moving picture. Boris Rosing from Russia also tried it 16 years before Philo Taylor Farnsworth. Farnsworth's machine wasn't a real television but was the direct ancestor of modern televisions. RCA,a very successful radio broadcaster invested $50 million in the new invention and had a 15 minute newscast daily. Early television was very weak, it struggled to sense the colour white and was even more punished in World War II when the company was focused on the military. It even competed with the new FM radio and was soon out of business but it came back a few years later.