From Grunt to Chip
At our last Forum meeting, Tom Wright, CEO of Age UK, said that
communication is of great importance in ensuring that, as older people, we
can maximise the various benefits available to us. This statement made me
begin to think about what we mean by “communication”?
In its most simple form it is transmitting information from
one person to another: hence the “grunt” in my title. We can’t imagine how
Adam and Eve “talked” to each other but it is reasonable to assume that once
mankind discovered it could make noises with its mouth some form of language
would begin to emerge. Similarly scratching an image on clay with a stick
could communicate important facts such as where to find animals for food,
shelter, etc. Communication is a means to survival: take as an example a
baby’s cry of hunger. These are the basics.
Throughout world history different peoples developed their
own languages – the Tower of Babel – and, in a curious way, instead of
bringing peoples together the very differences have driven us apart. Written
language began to develop around 3000BC in Mesopotamia to record such things
as the harvest i.e. to build up a body of knowledge for future reference. It
developed and changed from Egyptian hieroglyphs and the Greek and Roman
alphabets to, in our Western World, the alphabet of 26 letters. It is
interesting to note that the Chinese require 50,000 “logograms” to write an
equal number of words.
But our world is light years away from the Mesopotamians in
our ability to communicate. It would seem to be magic to them that, as I am
writing this on my laptop computer, I can instantaneously send this script
thousands of miles away – or even to the next village. For me, as well, this
fact is astounding. How many of us as children had a telephone in our house
and yet how many now say they cannot survive without their mobiles!
Those of you who use emails know their value in keeping in
touch with family and friends across the world. But, for some, new
technology seems to be retrograde – “I can’t see why I should bother.” I
refer you to the start of my column – unless we embrace the “computer chip”
we will find ourselves in a state of illiteracy unable to access the
information we need to participate fully in the modern world. So, take every
opportunity the Forum offers to become acquainted with computers.
We are incredibly lucky in this country as our access to the
Internet is not mediated - it uses the almost universal language of
(American) English which seems to have torn down the Tower of Babel and has
become a unifying force allowing us to speak to the Global Village
