Debt To The Past: Language And Communication.

[Music] in Iron Fist and height the mission the power of language for evil or for good is the foundation for every other power that man possesses within language by the magic forces of emotions habits of thought traditions of culture language is man's oldest and most priceless heirloom it gives him the power to imagine to reason to dream to create and to communicate all this to others on the rub the power of language but what is language first there are the various tongues every spoken language is made up of sentences sentences are made up of words words are made up of syllables which in turn are made up of phonin s t word q c word of course we also use unspoken language gestures actions signs and symbols many as precise and eloquent as the spoken equivalent much of our communication some say as much as 50% is in wordless language [Music] [Music] of course the idea of unspoken language and in fact many of its most useful expressions are debts we owe to the past but even at best unspoken language is limited ideas can be better and more clearly expressed by spoken language languages are related like the branches of a tree new languages constantly grow out of old ones how many branches Al together 100 200 no sir the people of the earth speak some 3,000 separate and distinct Tes why so many partly because of isolation living apart from other people partly because a people's language reflects its unique character its attitudes its ways of life consider for instance the Indians of Mexico for many of these tribes corn is the basic crop and the basic diet for this reason they have many names for corn depending on its stage of growth or state of preparation corn on the cob boiled corn on the cob roasted corn on the cob dried for storage the Indians have many names for corn because their whole way of life is based on corn but with us other things are more more important for this reason we have many names for such things as types of [Music] buildings and forms of transportation in this way each language meets the special needs of the people who speak it of course spoken language is common but in many places written language is rare it's a startling fact almost half the world's adult population can neither read nor write because of this men and women lug notebooks and tape recorders into the Far Corners of the globe they are dedicated to the great task of bringing needy people the marvelous gift of reading and writing in their own language this is a foreign concept to them entirely the pring of either trees or plants it would seem that way for man to go forward he must be able to communicate and to receive communication written language enables man to pass on to others what he has learned so that new learning may be built on the old scientists generally distinguish three stages in the history of writing pictographic idiographic and phonetic a pictographic sign is merely an agreed upon symbol for some object with the American Indians a fish a tree three a man these pictograms were chiseled into rocks traced on animal hides woven into blankets painted with colored sand but with pictograms man could write only about objects he wanted to go beyond this to write about ideas qualities and actions the things that could not be portrayed with simple pictures so in many places pictographic writing became idiographic in ancient Egypt for instance the pictograms for water and for man were put together to form The idiogram Thirst you see an idiogram is a combination of two or more pictures intended not to represent simple objects but to represent ideas Egyptian writing called hieroglyphics was both pictographic and idiographic but soon it became phonetic as well how did this happen let's look for the answer in a simple puzzle called the Reus in English for instance this picture and this picture make the word catalog here's another and one more used this way these are no longer pictures of objects they are pictures of sounds each picture is a syllable a phonetic sign in Egypt when over 600 pictures had become phonetic signs the Egyptians could write any word they could speak they could write about feelings and emotions and ideas belief treason love hate fear Beauty goodness and much more but when Egypt crumbled the art of writing and reading hieroglyphics was forgotten centuries passed men studied the hieroglyphics wondered what they told of the religion the science the history of Egypt but no one could unlock the secret then in 1799 a startling Discovery near the mouth of the Nile soldiers and workmen of Napoleon bonapart found a large black stone later called the Rosetta Stone it carried the same message in three kinds of writing the bottom section in ancient Greek the middle section in simplified hieroglyphics and the top section in standard hieroglyphics by comparing the three sections The Secret of reading hieroglyphics was rediscovered one once ancient man learned that in place of writing with thousands of pictures he could write faster and better with only a few hundred syllable signs the invention of alphabetic writing became possible syllable writing spread quickly from the Egyptians to the semites and the semites made a vital Improvement they realized that spoken language has many more syllables than it has phones the the basic sounds of speech so instead of using 600 or more syllable signs as the Egyptians had done the semites found they could write even better with only 22 Phim signs in other words they invented the alphabet at biblis in the setic land of Phoenicia proof of this has been found on the coffin of king ayam who ruled the city 12 centuries before Christ on the lid is an Epitaph in letters thought to be direct ancestors of our modern alphabet many of these people were Sailors and Merchants from Phoenicia they developed a vast network of trade routs everywhere they went They Carried alphabetic writing with them and it wasn't long before other people learned the secret by the year 1 BC the Greeks were using an alphabet based on semetic models the letter forms were changed perhaps to make them easier to write perhaps to make them look better The Phoenician Alf and Beth became the Greek Alpha and beta from which of course we derive the word alphabet the spread of writing to all parts of the Civilized world was aided by the invention of paper from Papyrus a reed that grows along the Nile paper was easier to write on than stone or clay and much more portable the merchants of biblis imported paper from Egypt and sold it to Greece just as we call the kind of table wear which first came to us from China by the name China so the Greeks called paper from biblis by the name name biblis from this root we have the word bibliophile a lover of books bibliography a list of books when the Hebrew scriptures were copied on paper the Scrolls were known as the Biblia or as we now say the Bible so it is that in popularizing the use of alphabetic writing and paper the semites left us a Heritage reflected in every book we read and the little town of bibas has lent its name to the most influential book in all human history the Bible as for the Greeks they now had tools to preserve for us their great works of literature science and philosophy the Romans also learned the alphabet They carried it on on their march to conquer the world and they spread it like the measles our debt is to the Romans for the shape of capital letters we commonly use today what does the alphabet mean to us why you use it almost every waking moment of every day every time you write your name type a letter read a book or a new newspaper or a street sign or a billboard or a menu you are using the alphabet we learn through language we express ourselves with language and we use language in our mind to explore our memories to recall our experiences to test our perceptions to develop new Concepts and ideas is yes the very Act of thought itself depends in large part on the skillful handling of words learning the techniques of communication to read rapidly to write clearly to speak effectively is basic to everything we are or may become for each of us to improve himself to go forward and to make worthwhile contribution utions to our society we must learn to communicate and to receive communication from others only in this way may we claim and use our heritage from the past a Heritage of knowledge and culture of dreams and hopes of history and experience expressed in language recorded in writing language is power power to build and power to destroy we have good reason to fear the destructive power of language it is for us to use the power of language wisely to wipe out illiteracy to spread the knowledge of freedom and righteousness to promote friendship and understanding among all peoples will we do this whether we do or not depends on what kind of individuals we are if we are personally committed to the highest moral and spiritual values these values will guide our use of language and we will have a share in making language a dynamic Force for good in the world around us [Music]