Historical development of communication

What is communication?

The word “communicate” comes from the Latin “communicates, communicare” wich means:
“to share, communicate, impart, inform; join, unite, participate in”, and even to ”make
common”(Online Etymology Dictionary)

According to Dumitru Bortun,” Communication is the main manifestation of psychosocial

interaction, because all interpersonal interactions (perceptive, sympathetic or functional) are
handled through communication “(30). In other words, communication is the exchange of
information, thoughts or messages, through speech, signals, writing, or even behavior. And
the importance of communication is unquestionable.

The history of communication dates back to prehistoric times, and the oldest known proof of
communication between humans , are the symbols known as: “the cave paintings”
communication evolving through time to the means of communication that we all know today,
for example the internet, telephone, television etc.

Why did communication appear?

As I mentioned before, the oldest known proof of communication are the “cave paintings”
but seeing those “cave paintings” a question comes to our mind: ”why did they painted it? “ in
other words, “why did the need of communication appeared”? The answer is simple, the need
of communication appeared at the moment when two or more “homo sapiens” came in
contact, and they needed to understand each other, the need of communication appeared with
the formation of families and little societies such as tribes.

Language

If we talk about communication and the appearance of family and society we also have talk
about language.
Communication begins with language, the distinctive ability which has made possible the
evolution of human society.

The word language has two meanings in English, one of them is: “the common thing in how
all human beings use the words or writing, any system that allows the expression of feelings or
the communication. In a strict sense, a universal and specific community institution that
performs its own features”(Stran, Stanciugelu 68). Or in other words: “systematic means of
communicating ideas or feelings by the use of conventionalized signs, sounds, gestures, or
marks having understood meanings “(Merriam Webster dictionary)

And the other meaning is: “A social particular product of the faculty of language, a system of
conventions that are necessary to communication, information exchange,that is adopted in a
more or less conventional way, by the speakers of a certain society (Stran, Stanciugelu 68). Or
in other words: “the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used and
understood by a community” (Merriam Webster dictionary)

“Language” can be considered a code more or less wide, depending on which meaning we
choose from the two that I mention before, a code that people and society can understand and
communicate with, With language any message, no matter how complex, can be conveyed
between people.

Until another way of communication appeared, the culture of any society was passed down to
the future generations through oral communication, thus, through language.

The writing

Even though Oral communication or communication through a certain language can be very
effective, throughout history, humans searched for other ways to communicate, because when
trying to deliver a message, to convey it in spoken form, it is safer to do it oneself, but
delivering the message yourself is not always possible and delivering the message through
other person can be unreliable, because the message might get distorted, So another method
of efficient communication had to be discovered, and a system of writing had to appear, more
precisely the symbols appeared.

The writing also appeared from the necessity of passing the information down to the next
generation, this resulting into the evolution of societies, “Civilizations grow once the writing
appears and the transition from oral communication to the written word is that which
determines the development of a civilization” ( qtd in Sartori 19)

“To communicate, Sumerians and Egyptians used ,for the past six millennia, visual symbols,
pictograms or hieroglyphs” ( Petru Bejan 297)
Even though symbols as the ones mentioned before or even the ” cave paintings” could
communicate very well across time, they were an inefficient method of communicating across
space, the message could be read only within reading range, therefore they needed something
even more efficient, a portable writing material such as a papyrus.

Every culture has its own myths about the beginnings of writing, like the one of Theut in the
Phaedrus Plato or the tribulations of Hermes, the Greek inventor of writing. Graphic variations
of different writing systems are justified by the cultural particularities, historical, nature
supports and the tools used.( Petru Bejan 297)

Until the XV century we cannot talk about the “man who reads” in a general way, “because
the written text had to be reproduced by copyists, therefore only a handful of people had the
privilege of reading” (Sartori 19). The possibility of every man to read became possible only in
1455 when Gutenberg printed 200 copies of the bible, and those 200 copies could be reprinted
due to the invention of the printing press.

The process of reproduction by printing has been slow but steady, and “culminates with the
appearance of the newspaper at the turn of the XVIII century”. (Sartori 19)

The evolution and the meaning of the word communication

“Communication was believed to be an important aspect of human existence since ancient

times, the proof of that is found in the etymology of the word communication” (Tran,
Stanciugelu 12), as I mentioned before, the word “communication” comes from the Latin
“communicare” “which ancients vocabulary also had the meaning of:” transmitting to others”
or “to share something to others” “(Tran, Stanciugelu 12)

But as Tran and Stanciugelu mentioned in their work, even though the origin of the word
“communication” comes from Latin, “the civilization that had the first preoccupations about
the practical part of communication were the Greeks” (Tran, Stanciugelu 12)
For the Greeks, “the art of making a speech and present it in the agora was an indispensable
condition of the citizen status” “(Tran, Stanciugelu 12)

Concrete evidence of communication theory first appeared in the work of Corax from
Siracuzza "Art of rhetoric” in the VI century. Plato and Aristotle continued with those theories
and they institutionalized “communication” as a subject that needed to be studied.

The Romans took the Greek model, developing it and creating around the year 100 BC the
first model of a communication system.

Another period in which the communication developed, are the middle ages, “in the middle
ages, the growing importance of the church, the development of the trading routes and of the
first state formations will give communication a new importance” (Tran, Stanciugelu 13)
Communication became institutionalized, and certain people were assigned to handle official
documents writing or as lawmakers.
Furthermore, during this age, we can even talk about “the existence of a common system of
signs and symbols in certain areas of the world” (Tran, Stanciugelu 13)
 The development of the trading routes also played an important role on communication
development, “facilitating the creation of the post as main communication system, at the
beginning of the fourteenth century” (Tran, Stanciugelu 13)

The advancement of technology from the Modern Age, encouraged the discovery of new
methods of communication, starting with the mid-nineteenth century, new inventions like the
“telegraph” or the “telephone” (invented by Alexander Graham Bell) appeared, the “radio”
which “eliminated the distance” (Sartori 19), the“ television” appeared in the mid-twentieth
century, and also with the development of electronic computers, “the internet” appeared.
Also, new means of conveyance were invented, like: “the train”, or the “motor vehicles”, this
inventions also facilitating communication.

The Modern Age, represented, or represents “the explosion of communication development

in all the possible ways” (Tran, Stanciugelu 13).

References:

1 - Online Etymology Dictionary,n. p., n.d, Date of acces: 03.10.2016

http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=communication

2 – Course “Psihologia Cominicarii” Dumitru Bortun, ŞCOALA NAŢIONALĂ DE STUDII POLITICE ŞI

ADMINISTRATIVE David Orgilvy”

3 – “Teoria comunicarii” Vasile Tran, Irina Stanciugelu, Comunicare.ro, 2003

4 - Merriam- Webster dictionary,n. p., n.d. Date of acces; 03.10.2016

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/language

5 – Homo Videns, Imbecilizarea prin Televiziune si Post-gandirea, Giovanni Sartori, Humanitas, Bucuresti
2005

6 – ELABORAREA PRODUSELOR DE RELAŢII PUBLICE II, Prof. dr. Petru BEJAN, Editura Universităţii “Al. I.
Cuza” Iaşi – 2008