EARLY FORMS OF COMMUNICATION 



265 



The earliest form of communication of one individ- 

 ual with another is not exactly known. From studies, 

 of some of the primitive tribes now living in Australia 

 and Africa scientists believe that some sort of sign 

 language probably aided by grunts and simple noises 

 was the first crude form used by man. As time went 

 on, the sign language gradually developed into a 

 crude spoken language, and centuries later the signs 

 again formed the basis of a crude written language. 



From studies made of the skulls of the earliest 

 men who inhabited the earth, scientists find that the 

 portion of their brain which controlled speech was 

 fairly well developed. This seems to indicate that 

 the spoken word has been man's most reliable form 

 of communication for a very long period. 



As long as man dwelt in small groups and had 

 little or no contact with other groups or tribes, the 

 spoken word was sufficient for communication. As his 

 needs became greater and he began to trade with 

 other tribes and make war on them, he found that 

 it often became necessary to send messages. Out of 

 this need picture writing developed. A crude picture 

 or series of pictures was used to convey a series of 

 ideas. The pictures usually represented things but 

 gradually came to represent sounds. 



The modern alphabet as we know it has come down 

 to us from the Phoenicians, a race of sea-going people 

 who inhabited a portion of the eastern shore of the 

 Mediterranean Sea about 1500 B.C. Some scientists 

 believe that they secured the foundation of their al- 

 phabet from the writings of the Babylonians and the 

 hieroglyphics of the Egyptians. The early Greeks, 

 who secured their alphabet from the Phoenicians, per- 

 fected it and passed it on almost in its present form. 

 Figure 426 shows how the alphabet has developed, 

 from picture writing. 



Devices to aid in communication seem to have been 

 developed at a very early period. Many of these may 

 have developed as a result of the need of more speedy 

 communication in periods of war. The ancient Greeks 

 and Romans used relays of couriers to carry messages, 

 and even today in the Olympic games a marathon race 

 is run. This had its origin in the run of a Greek 

 courier, Pheidippides, who sped from the plains of 

 Marathon to Athens to report the Greek victory over 

 the Persians. Legend tells that at the end of his jour- 

 ney the runner gasped "Rejoice, we have conquered" 

 and dropped dead. 



The Persians used shouting sentinels placed at in- 

 tervals within the range of the human voice and were 

 in this way able to send messages more rapidly be- 

 cause sound travels at a speed of about eleven hundred 

 feet per second. The tom-tom signaling used by Afri- 

 can tribes also takes advantage of the speed of sound. 



The ancient Chinese built signal towers at inter- 



vals in the Great Wall and used them in times of war 

 to pass messages. 



Many of the early civilizations developed means 

 of communicating which made use of light and the 

 sense of sight. This usually proved more effective* 

 than those methods which depended upon sound and 

 also had the advantage of being more rapid. The early 

 Mound Builders of North America built high mounds 



From Clodd's The Story of the Alphabet. Cour- 

 tesy of D. Apfleton and Company, publishers. 



FIG. 426. DEVELOPMENT OF THE ALPHABET 



used in some cases for signalling with fire. The early 

 American Indians used fire arrows, smoke signals, and 

 beacon fires to communicate with distant tribes. The 

 Aztecs and Incas in Central America and South 

 America developed the heliograph, a device which 

 flashed messages by means of sunlight. 



About 1450 A.D. communication received one of its 

 greatest advances in the development of movable type 

 for printing. This development was made by Guten- 

 berg in Germany. The Chinese had used printing for 

 several centuries before this, but Gutenberg first de- 

 veloped it on a commercial scale. Books were printed, 

 and at an early date news sheets began to appear. 

 These were the forerunners of our modern newspaper, 

 which we recognize as one of the most important of 

 modern communicating agencies. 



Early Americans depended upon such develop- 

 ments as the stagecoach, the early roads, and the 

 postal system. During the pioneer days the famous 

 pony express, a part of the early postal system, was 

 developed and later displaced by the growth of the 

 railroads, one of our modern aids to communication. 



The various nations of the earth have developed 



