 class of BA first semester in mass communication and journalism. Today we are going to discuss a few things about the early communication system and in the next video we are going to discuss the other objectives of this particular unit. So in this particular video we are going to discuss we are going to trace the origin of communication and we will also discuss the growth of communication that has happened through the various ages. So when we talk about the growth of communication about the early communication human communication system it has a very fascinating history. If we talk about if we think about how communication evolved how communication started at the very beginning it is quite fascinating. Today we know that we are staying in the we are living in the information age and when we think back about how people started communicating at the very early stages how they communicated with each other how they disseminated the messages to their fellow human beings it is quite extraordinary and interesting. Okay now let us think about the age when there was no language no words how people communicated. Okay so the first thing that comes to our mind is people used to communicate through gestures that we can say that nonverbal communication or paintings the cave paintings the images the drawings that were made on the rocks and stones isn't it and we also can talk about the kind of the birds that were used to carry messages from one places to another. Then came the age when people started employing men who used to take communication from one place to another on horseback there were runners who used to run miles and kilometers to deliver different messages especially in the war times. Okay then later on gradually various instruments and various machines were invented through which people started to communicate and then later came the stage of mass communication. Okay so let us go right into the very beginning so how communication took place say in the stone age and how it evolved to the age that we have today that is the digital age. Okay so how communication how human beings acquired the means of communication. Okay the first we have already discussed about the kind of sign languages that were used right for example lighting a fire in the hilltop and communicating through the use of smoke right. Here we can take an example let us imagine that we are in a foreign land and we do not know the language of that particular land now we have to ask somebody for food or other basic needs right. So how we can communicate in that particular situation. Here we have to use all kind of signs and you know non-verbal communication systems that we know in order to forward our message forward what we want for example a plate of food or anything that is necessary for us. So here the sign language is used to communicate our message in the same manner at the very beginning of human civilization these kind of you know communication methods were used to pass on the messages. Now then later it came to cave paintings that we have already discussed and later on gradually in various ancient empires in ancient dynasties like the Chinese Empire or the Roman Empire they used various other means you know that we have discussed just now for you know communicating with their people or with other kingdoms or other such purposes. Okay so there is one particular term that is called anthroposemiotics it is a particular term which has been given to the entire idea or of the study of communication that takes place in the human for the human beings how the human communication system evolved okay and this particular term is also known as human communication and this human communication it passed through many stages to come to the the stage that we have today okay the first stage is the age of symbols, signs and signals okay so when we talk about this particular age we can talk about the very beginning of human life itself okay when the human life itself began people started to communicate using symbols, signs and various signals few of them that we have already discussed in this particular video okay so this happened before the development of speech right so we are talking about cave paintings and other symbols like lighting of fires communicating with smoke etc okay so here we come across a very interesting term that is petroglyphs so what are petroglyphs these are the kind of illustrations or the kind of images that are you know made by the early human beings especially the Neolithic age people which came after the cave painting okay after the cave painting the petroglyphs came into existence these are the images which are made by you know carving on the rock or stones and these petroglyphs they actually date back to 10,000 BC around 10,000 BC so here on the screen you can see two images these are few examples of petroglyphs the first one has been excavated from Sweden and it dates back to Nordic Bronze Age and the picture in the below is a native American petroglyph which is found in USA so other than petroglyphs the other modes of communication of that period are pictograms, locograms and ideograms so what are pictograms they are just illustrations which are which represent a concept an idea or an object or activity okay so these are called pictograms or pictograms pictograms later evolved into ideograms and they are ideograms are graphical symbols that represent an idea okay then the petroglyphs they showed an event the pictograms they tell the story about the event and ideograms are graphical symbols that represent an idea then there are logograms these are actually these represent a meaningful unit of a language and we can also talk about geoglyphs these are actually the drawings or large designs which are created on the ground and very interesting example of geoglyphs are the Nazca lines which are found in Peru these are created by the Nazca culture between 200 to and 600 BC so here are few examples that you can see on the screen then let's move on to the next stage or next age that is the age of speech and language this age is actually major development in the human history when the speech and language was developed around 35,000 years ago it kind of revolutionized the entire field of communication as the development of speech or the development of language it provided the human to another dimension and there was the development in the physical and the social environment there was that we can see the development of culture and this speech and language they acted as a marker of identity and individuality for the human beings then comes the age of writing okay the earliest example of writing could be found on rocks and stone pillars okay people started to engrave create carvings on rocks and stone pillars as it helped in preserving the writings or preserving the messages for a longer period of time okay and these carvings on these writings on rocks and stone pillars these acted as the method of communicating across time because they lasted for a longer period of time okay the oldest known form of writing were primarily look graphic in nature gradually more portable forms of media evolved for example the clay and stone tablets were developed which could be carried easily from one place to another and hence they also acted as a form of communication over space then we can talk about cune forms which are developed by the Sumerians dwelling in the southern Iraq they developed this medium of writing over 5000 years ago again the ancient Egyptians they used another method of writing known as the Egyptian Herod lives which consisted the combination of logographic, alphabetic and idiographic elements again later around 170 BC writing materials like papyrus and parchment were developed which helped in you know giving permanence to the form of writings that were done at that time these are few examples that you can see on your screen the ancient Egyptian Herod lives and the Sumerian language that was developed that comes the age of printing which came with the invention of the printing press by Johannes Gutenberg in 15th century and the first book that was developed is the 42 line Bible then we see the age of coming of the newspapers or newsletters okay the first news pamphlets to start regular publication is the weekly news in 1622 and there are many examples like the London gadget the public occurrences both foreign and domestic which came into existence in 1690 then the Boston newsletter in 1704 okay so these are few examples of newspapers they brought about another age as these these papers carried information related to different aspects of life and these also marked a new era in the history of human communication then later on after this comes the age of mass communication which brought about new dimension to the history of human communication and the age of mass communication began with the invention of printing press with verbal types okay then began the era of mass communication and the era of information technology that we have today and the in the coming of the worldwide web it brought about a major change in the field of communication so these are the various stages of human communication that forms a base for the communication system that we have today so we are going to end our video here and in the later class we will talk about the early communication systems in India and other aspects related to the history of human communication thank you