Speaking Without Words
It is an undeniable, incontrovertible, and scientifically-proven fact that humans love to talk. It's literally part of who we are—one of the first things we learn after the whole "crawling and walking" stage is how to make sounds and string sentences together. Once we figure that out, we don't stop (now you understand why parents hate it when their kids won't stop asking the "Why?" question).
We talk about anything and everything—how our weekend was, how great the game was, how boring work is. We gather around the water cooler (if we're at work) and the bar (if we're not) and just talk about whatever strikes our fancy. If we run out of things to talk about—which is rare, unless you're an introvert by nature like I am—we talk about the weather, or we make up imaginary friends and talk to them instead. If you're British, talking about the weather comes as naturally as breathing.
Save for the naturally-reserved among us, humans on the whole are a chatty bunch (so much so that we've made up pages' worth of words to describe how annoying we can be to other people who wonder when/if we'll ever shut up). We mark first words because they're important to us as parents, last words because they're important to people who come after us, famous speeches because they're important to the historical record, and general gobbledygook for the simple fact that the only thing worse than death is being forgotten. You know who doesn't want to be forgotten? Absolutely nobody.
History is full of talkers—John Kennedy talking about going to the Moon; Abraham Lincoln talking about how the fallen at Gettysburg gave their "last full measure of devotion" and that we should resolve that "these dead shall not have died in vain"; Neil Armstrong talking about his one small step. We've even built entire religions around what people said because, on some level, they were right.
History also makes room for those instances where no words were necessary or couldn't be expressed and gave us opportunities to make sense of them anyway—or we found new ways of saying the same thing; pictures that tell stories without saying a word, uncovered artifacts believed to be lost to time that still beg us to remember the people that made them, a more efficient way to communicate that doesn't require so many letters (or no letters at all). Humans have found creative ways of making themselves be heard even when the voice—that primary means of communication that every child learns to use when they realize they have it—has been taken from them.
Cave Paintings
While Man was still in the first stages of figuring out his place in the universe and trying not to burn himself after (accidentally?) discovering fire, his use of painting on cave walls was the earliest indication he gave of "knowing" himself in an active way.
Cave paintings in Lascaux Cave near Montignac, France.
Originally discovered by chance in 1940, the now world-famous Lascaux cave paintings in southwestern France offer a glimpse into the mind of early Man; their depictions of wild animals such as deer and horses show that he was not only not alone, but also that he understood that there were other beings occupying the same space he was. In the eighty years since, paintings from that period have been discovered in over 350 caves in both France and Spain; the oldest being a 64,000-year-old red hand stencil likely made by a Neanderthal that was found in Maltravieso cave near Caceres, Spain. Paintings have also been found all over the world, including:
1. East and Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Mongolia, Burma, India)
2. Africa (Namibia and South Africa)
3. Australia
Various theories and interpretations have been put forth as to why they were made in the first place, with the two most prevalent being that they were used as "hunting magic" for increasing prey in an area so the tribe wouldn't go hungry, or the effect of a shaman coming out of a trance.
Bayeux Tapestry
By its very nature, art—like music—is expressive without saying needing to say anything ("a picture is worth a thousand words"). While there are an innumerable number of art pieces all conveying an innumerable number of ideas, arguably none is as straightforward (or has as much of an interesting history) as the Bayeux Tapestry.
Measuring an awe-inspiring 230 feet long and 20 inches tall, the Bayeux Tapestry tells the story of the Norman invasion and conquest of England by William, Duke of Normandy ("William the Conqueror") over Harold, Earl of Wessex (later King of England) at the Battle of Hastings in 1066; though there are words inscribed in Latin on the Tapestry itself, for the most part they're used as placeholders since the scenes can be followed along with relatively little difficulty.
Commissioned (allegedly) by William's half-brother Bishop Odo (who later became the Earl of Kent) to commemorate his triumph, the Tapestry's earliest-known written reference—a 1476 inventory of Bayeux Cathedral—shows that it was hung annually on the cathedral's walls as a way to celebrate the week of the Feast of Saint John the Baptist. While it may be surprising to learn that the Tapestry was confiscated during the French Revolution for use as "public property" in the covering of military wagons, what is most surprising is that almost ten feet of it (most likely depicting William's coronation as King of England) is missing and that to this day no one seems to know where it is.
Sign Language
The alphabet in American Sign Language
We might think that sign language is a relatively new invention, but people have been using it for centuries; in fact, the astute philosopher Plato was making references to a "sign language" in the 5th century BC. Out of the 150-200+ known sign languages worldwide today, Indo-Pakistani Sign Language has the most with around 7 million signers (6 million in India, 1.08 million in Pakistan, 450,000 in Bangladesh).
The first manual alphabet for signing was developed by a Benedictine monk named Pedro Ponce de León (the "first teach of the deaf") who based it, appropriately enough, on the hand gestures monks used when they were forbidden from speaking; the first official book on sign language phonetics was published in 1620 by de León's contemporary Juan Pablo Bonet, titled Reducción de las letras y arte para enseñar a
hablar a los mudos ("Reduction of letters and art for teaching mute people to speak").
Emojis 👍
If you have a smart phone, chances are that you've used an emoji (or ten); you can thank the Japanese for giving you the modern interpretation, but you should thank computer scientist Scott Fahlman for coming up with a digital text-based system of symbols for emotional conveyance in 1982. As emoticons got more complex, their wording changed—by the mid-1990s, the emoticon had given way to the smiley; starting in 1997, a new image was being used on Japanese phones that had replaced the smiley and came from the Japanese words for "picture character"—the emoji.
Emojis work because they're easy-to-use and can convey meaning faster than using words, but they're also a double-edged sword; communication issues can arise when using them, due to differences in cultural or contextual interpretation (what you meant could be very different from what you intended to say). Another potential hazard could simply be due to technology—unless the person you sent the emoji to has the same device or operating system you do, the same emoji might be completely different.
About the Author: Ronald Hamilton, Jr. is a graduate of Arizona State University's Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, where he graduated with a Bachelor of Arts in Mass Communication and Media Studies. When he's not writing for COM-GAP, Ronald is a volunteer with the nonprofit Live Forever Project.