Five Stages of Communication
1. Oral - since the first "Eve" 200,000 BC
- language marks division between prehistoric and historic eras 35,000 BC
- !Kung San, diversity of dialect throughout 5000 languages today
- language is product of culture (Vitaly Sheveroskin) not psychology (Chomsky)
- proto-world "haku" to Indoeuropean "hakw" to Latin "aqua" to German "wazzar"
2. Pictographic - since Blombos ocher 70,000 BC
- Tata tooth from Hungary 45,000 BC
- Altamira, Lascaux, Chauvet, Cussac cave art from 30,000 BC
- animals painted to get them under man's power - "power of the image"
- Vogelherd ivory horse, Venus of Willendorf 30,000 BC
- Danube Lowenmensch mammoth tusk 32,000 BC
3. Written - since cuneiform 3500 BC
- Uruk tokens, Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh 2500 B.C., Egypt hieroglyphics 3100 BC
4. Printed - since Wang Chieh 868 AD
- Chinese eunuch Tsai Lun invented rag-based paper 105 AD for tipao
- Buddhist wood block stamps 600 AD as official seals
- oldest printed book by Wang Chieh 868 AD
- Pi Sheng in China invented movable type in 1045
- Constance Missel of 1450 may be the first printed book in Europe
- Gutenberg Bible printed in Mainz 1454-56
- Johann Fust and Peter Schoeffer Psalter of 1457
- Age of Incunabula 1450-1500, press runs of 200-1000 copies
- Santangel letter 1493 of Columbus; Vatican Library begins
- the "bound" canon of "truth" in ancient texts was challenged by "unbound" discoveries and observations of new "facts" (Anthony Grafton in New Worlds, Ancient Texts; The Power of Tradition and the Shock of Discovery, Harvard University Press, 1993)
- writing and printing gave permanence to human expression, reliable, able to cross spatial distance; but as distance increased between writer and audience, the intimacy and immediacy of oral communication was lost (Ruth Finnegan in Literacy and Orality, Oxford Press, 1988)
5. Electronic - since Morse telegraph 1844 A.D.
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