Communication through the ages

Louis Braille

Braille was invented by a young boy named Louis Braille (1809-1852) from Coupvray near Paris. He lost his sight in an accident when he was three years old. He went to his local school but didn't learn much by listening alone. At the age of 10 he won a scholarship to be educated at the Royal Institute for Blind Young People in Paris. There were 14 huge books with raised letters. Louis was desperate for more knowledge.
Then, in 1821, when Louis was 12 years old, a former soldier visited the school and presented his 'night reading' device, comprising a code of 12 raised dots. The purpose of the code was to enable soldiers to share secrets on the battlefield without speaking but it was too difficult for them! Louis was thrilled with the idea and simplified the system to 6 dots. Then in 1829 he published the first book in braille.
He could hardly have imagined that his system of writing and reading by feeling with your fingers would still be in use 200 years later!
It has now been adapted to meet the requirements of all languages from Greek to Zulu. It is also used to show musical, mathematical, chess and scientific notation.

Cave paintings

Walking down the street, you often see art on the sides of buildings. Today this art is called graffiti but placing artwork on walls is not a new idea. Thousands upon thousands of years ago this was how people communicated with each other.

Historians believe that the first period of this type of communication dates back about 40,000 years. The oldest art can still be seen to this day on a cave wall in Borneo. In most cases, the pictures on the walls are animals or people but there is also evidence of people leaving their handprints in the caves.

On the Gower, Dr George Nash discovered a piece of art on a stone wall in 2010. Historians believe it is the oldest piece of wall art in Britain and may date back 14,000 years. There have been many discussions about what is depicted on the stone, but experts think that it is a picture of a deer.

Can you hear the bell?

There is no doubt that the use of language, whether spoken or written or signs, is the most common means of communication. But did you know that some people use bells to communicate?

I'm sure you're all used to hearing bells! What sound do you hear in school? Yes, bells! Schools now have a technological bell but decades ago teachers would ring a bell to let the children know when playtime started and ended.

We have one popular legend here in Wales that tells of the use of bells to send messages. In the legend of Cantre’r Gwaelod, there was land in Cardigan Bay that lay below sea level. A barrage was built to keep the sea out of the village, and it was Seithennyn's job to protect the barrage doors to keep the residents of Cantre’r Gwaelod safe. When he needed to warn people that the sea level was rising he would ring bells as a sign of danger. They say that if you go to Cardigan Bay on a quiet night you can hear the bells of Cantre’r Gwaelod still ringing beneath the waves.

Bells have also been used in modern communities in Wales. In the early 1960s, Swansea Water Corporation threatened to drown a small village in Carmarthenshire to provide water for Swansea. Residents of the village objected to the plans and some Corporation workers agreed with them. Every time a member of the Corporation left Swansea someone would contact the residents of Llangyndeyrn and they would ring the village church bell to warn the rest of the residents. The villagers would protest and stop anyone from entering the village.

Egyptian hieroglyphs

How many times have you heard a teacher complain, 'You must use punctuation! I can't make a head or tail of your work!' But if we used hieroglyphs like the ancient Egyptians, we wouldn't have to worry about punctuation because they didn't punctuate at all! They didn't use vowels either!

What does 'hieroglyph’ mean’?

It’s made up of two Greek words:

• hieros which means 'sacred’ or ‘holy’
  glyph which means 'writing'

Hieroglyph therefore means 'sacred writing'. It used pictures to represent things, events, sounds and ideas. There were more than 700 symbols. Some pictures represented whole words.

How do we know how to read hieroglyphics?

In 1799, a stone was discovered at el-Rashid (Rosetta) in Egypt. On it was writing in two languages – Egyptian and Greek – and three types of script: hieroglyphics which was the script used in important, religious documents, demotic which was the common Egyptian script, and Greek which was the language used by the rulers of Egypt at the time.

How do we know which way to read hieroglyphics?

You have to look carefully at the hieroglyphics to know which way to read them. It depends on which way the people or animals face. If an animal faces to the right then you read from right to left. If it faces to the left you read from left to right – as we do. To complicate things, sometimes they read from top to bottom!

Letters long ago

People used to write many more letters a long time ago. Many years ago, messengers would carry letters from place to place. In the 6th century Before Christ, in Persia, they carried messages 100 miles a day by changing horses. In Greece letters were carried by athletes. One athlete named Philonides ran 148 miles in one day!

When the Post Office was created in Britain in 1860, letters and parcels were carried from London to Holyhead by Royal Mail stagecoach.

In the beginning, postmen would carry letters on horseback or on foot. Then came the bike and today the van. But what do we get through the post? Very few personal letters, fewer and fewer postcards from people on holiday and too many letters asking for money or a contribution or advertising.
But will letter-writing end altogether? Will mailboxes only be seen in a museum?