1.

10 Steps To Effective Listening

In today's high-tech, high-speed, high-stress world, communication is more important than

ever, yet we seem to devote less and less time to really listening to one another. Genuine
listening has become a rare gift—the gift of time. It helps build relationships, solve problems,
ensure understanding, resolve conflicts, and improve accuracy. At work, effective listening
means fewer errors and less wasted time. At home, it helps develop resourceful, self-reliant
kids who can solve their own problems. Listening builds friendships and careers. It saves
money and marriages.

Here are 10 tips to help you develop effective listening skills.

Step 1: Face the speaker and maintain eye contact.

Talking to someone while they scan the room, study a computer screen, or gaze out the
window is like trying to hit a moving target. How much of the person's divided attention you
are actually getting? Fifty percent? Five percent? If the person were your child you might
demand, "Look at me when I'm talking to you," but that's not the sort of thing we say to a
lover, friend or colleague.

In most Western cultures, eye contact is considered a basic ingredient of effective

communication. When we talk, we look each other in the eye. That doesn't mean that you
can't carry on a conversation from across the room, or from another room, but if the
conversation continues for any length of time, you (or the other person) will get up and move.
The desire for better communication pulls you together.

Do your conversational partners the courtesy of turning to face them. Put aside papers, books,
the phone and other distractions. Look at them, even if they don't look at you. Shyness,
uncertainty, shame, guilt, or other emotions, along with cultural taboos, can inhibit eye
contact in some people under some circumstances. Excuse the other guy, but stay focused
yourself.

Step 2: Be attentive, but relaxed.

Now that you've made eye contact, relax. You don't have to stare fixedly at the other person.
You can look away now and then and carry on like a normal person. The important thing is to
be attentive. The dictionary says that to "attend" another person means to:

 be present

 give attention

 apply or direct yourself

 pay attention

 remain ready to serve

Mentally screen out distractions, like background activity and noise. In addition, try not to
focus on the speaker's accent or speech mannerisms to the point where they become
distractions. Finally, don't be distracted by your own thoughts, feelings, or biases.

Step 3: Keep an open mind.

Listen without judging the other person or mentally criticizing the things she tells you. If
what she says alarms you, go ahead and feel alarmed, but don't say to yourself, "Well, that
was a stupid move." As soon as you indulge in judgmental bemusements, you've
compromised your effectiveness as a listener.

Listen without jumping to conclusions. Remember that the speaker is using language to
represent the thoughts and feelings inside her brain. You don't know what those thoughts and
feelings are and the only way you'll find out is by listening.

Don't be a sentence-grabber. Occasionally my partner can't slow his mental pace enough to
listen effectively, so he tries to speed up mine by interrupting and finishing my sentences.
This usually lands him way off base, because he is following his own train of thought and
doesn't learn where my thoughts are headed. After a couple of rounds of this, I usually ask,
"Do you want to have this conversation by yourself, or do you want to hear what I have to
say?" I wouldn't do that with everyone, but it works with him.

Step 4: Listen to the words and try to picture what the speaker is saying.

Allow your mind to create a mental model of the information being communicated. Whether
a literal picture, or an arrangement of abstract concepts, your brain will do the necessary
work if you stay focused, with senses fully alert. When listening for long stretches,
concentrate on, and remember, key words and phrases.

When it's your turn to listen, don’t spend the time planning what to say next. You can't
rehearse and listen at the same time. Think only about what the other person is saying.

Finally, concentrate on what is being said, even if it bores you. If your thoughts start to
wander, immediately force yourself to refocus.

Step 5: Don't interrupt and don't impose your "solutions."

Children used to be taught that it's rude to interrupt. I'm not sure that message is getting
across anymore. Certainly the opposite is being modelled on the majority of talk shows and
reality programs, where loud, aggressive, in-your-face behaviour is condoned, if not
encouraged.

Interrupting sends a variety of messages. It says:

 "I'm more important than you are."

 "What I have to say is more interesting, accurate or relevant."

 "I don't really care what you think."

 "I don't have time for your opinion."

  "This isn't a conversation, it's a contest, and I'm going to win."

We all think and speak at different rates. If you are a quick thinker and an agile talker, the
burden is onyouto relax your pace for the slower, more thoughtful communicator—or for the
guy who has trouble expressing himself.

When listening to someone talk about a problem, refrain from suggesting solutions. Most of
us don't want your advice anyway. If we do, we'll ask for it. Most of us prefer to figure out
our own solutions. We need you to listen and help us do that. Somewhere way down the line,
if you are absolutely bursting with a brilliant solution, at least get the speaker's permission.
Ask, "Would you like to hear my ideas?"

Step 6: Wait for the speaker to pause to ask clarifying questions.

When you don't understand something, of course you should ask the speaker to explain it to
you. But rather than interrupt, wait until the speaker pauses. Then say something like, "Back
up a second. I didn't understand what you just said about…"

Step 7: Ask questions only to ensure understanding.

At lunch, a colleague is excitedly telling you about her trip to Vermont and all the wonderful
things she did and saw. In the course of this chronicle, she mentions that she spent some time
with a mutual friend. You jump in with, "Oh, I haven't heard from Alice in ages. How is
she?" and, just like that, discussion shifts to Alice and her divorce, and the poor kids, which
leads to a comparison of custody laws, and before you know it an hour is gone and Vermont
is a distant memory.

This particular conversational affront happens all the time. Our questions lead people in
directions that have nothing to do with where they thought they were going. Sometimes we
work our way back to the original topic, but very often we don't.

When you notice that your question has led the speaker astray, take responsibility for getting
the conversation back on track by saying something like, "It was great to hear about Alice,
but tell me more about your adventure in Vermont."

Step 8: Try to feel what the speaker is feeling.

If you feel sad when the person with whom you are talking expresses sadness, joyful when
she expresses joy, fearful when she describes her fears—and convey those feelings through
your facial expressions and words—then your effectiveness as a listener is assured. Empathy
is the heart and soul of good listening.

To experience empathy, you have to put yourself in the other person's place and allow
yourself to feel what it is like to be her at that moment. This is not an easy thing to do. It
takes energy and concentration. But it is a generous and helpful thing to do, and it facilitates
communication like nothing else does.

Step 9: Give the speaker regular feedback.

Show that you understand where the speaker is coming from by reflecting the speaker's
feelings. "You must be thrilled!" "What a terrible ordeal for you." "I can see that you are
confused." If the speaker's feelings are hidden or unclear, then occasionally paraphrase the
content of the message. Or just nod and show your understanding through appropriate facial
expressions and an occasional well-timed "hmmm" or "uh huh."

The idea is to give the speaker some proof that you are listening, and that you are following
her train of thought—not off indulging in your own fantasies while she talks to the ether.

In task situations, regardless of whether at work or home, always restate instructions and
messages to be sure you understand correctly.

Step 10: Pay attention to what isn't said—to nonverbal cues.

If you exclude email, the majority of direct communication is probably nonverbal. We glean
a great deal of information about each other without saying a word. Even over the telephone,
you can learn almost as much about a person from the tone and cadence of her voice than
from anything she says. When I talk to my best friend, it doesn't matter what we chat about, if
I hear a lilt and laughter in her voice, I feel reassured that she's doing well.

Face to face with a person, you can detect enthusiasm, boredom, or irritation very quickly in
the expression around the eyes, the set of the mouth, the slope of the shoulders. These are
clues you can't ignore. When listening, remember that words convey only a fraction of the
message.

Listening Skills Exercise: Summarize, Summarize, Summarize!

For at least one week, at the end of every conversation in which information is exchanged,
conclude with a summary statement. In conversations that result in agreements about future
obligations or activities, summarizing will not only ensure accurate follow-through, it will
feel perfectly natural. In conversations that do not include agreements, if summarizing feels
awkward just explain that you are doing it as an exercise.

Dianne Schilling is a writer, editor, graphic artist and instructional designer who specializes
in the development of educational materials and customized training programs for business
and industry. She holds a masters degree in counseling and is a founding partner of
WomensMedia.

You might also enjoy this article:  9 Small Steps That Will Make You Happier, Starting
Now.
HISTORY OF
COMMUNICATION
 

Better than shouting

Communication begins with language, the distinctive ability

which has made possible the evolution of human society. With
language any message, no matter how complex, can be
conveyed between people over a limited distance - within a
room or place of assembly, or across a short open space. In
modern times 'town criers' hold an annual contest to discover
which of them can shout a comprehensible message over the  
greatest distance. The world record is less than 100 metres.
Already, at that short range, a more practical alternative is to
run with the message. 

The history of communication is mankind's search for ways to

improve upon shouting. 
When running with a message, to convey it in spoken form, it
is safer to do it oneself. Sending anyone else is unreliable, as
the game of Chinese whispers demonstrates. So another
requirement for efficient communication is a system
of writing. 

Messages carved on stone pillars communicate very well across

 
time, down through the centuries, but they are an inefficient
method of communicating across space. The message reads
only within reading range; its recipients must travel to receive
it. The system is altogether more efficient if it is the message
which travels. This requires yet another ingredient in the
communication package - a portable writing material such
as papyrus. 
There are forms of long-distance communication not based on
words. The smoke signals used by American Indians (above all
perhaps in westerns) are of this kind. So are bonfires lit in
succession on a line of hilltops. But such devices are only
capable of conveying very limited pre-arranged signals, such
as 'danger' or 'victory'. 
 
Some non-verbal systems are more sophisticated. The whistled
language of Gomera, in the Canary islands, is used to
communicate across deep valleys. It is well adapated to the
islanders' immediate needs, but would be incapable of sending
this paragraph as an accurate message. For communication of
this kind writing remains indispensable. 

Post haste: 6th century BC

The sending of written messages is a standard feature of

government in early civilizations. Much of our knowledge of
those times derives from archives of such messages,
discovered by archaeologists. 

There is great advantage to a ruler who can send or receive a  

message quicker than his rivals. In the estimation of the
ancient world the most efficient postal service is that of the
Persians. Put in place by Cyrus in about 540 BC to control his
new empire, the largest yet known, it is much improved upon
by Darius a generation later. 

Imperial communication: 522-486 BC

Darius extends the network of roads across the Persian empire, 

to enable both troops and information to move with startling
speed. At the centre of the system is the royal road from Susa
to Sardis, a distance of some 2000 miles (3200 km). At
intervals of a day's ride there are posting stations, where new
men and fresh horses will be available at any moment to carry
a document on through the next day's journey. The Greek
historian Herodotus marvels at these Persian couriers. 

By this method a message can travel the full distance of the

road in ten days, at a speed of about 200 miles a day. A
similar road goes down through Syria to the Mediterranean
coast and Egypt. Another goes east to India. 
Many different tongues are spoken in the Persian empire, from
Egypt to India. But all the official messages travelling on the
imperial roads are in one language, Aramaic.
This Semitictongue, deriving from a tribe in northern Syria,
first spreads through Assyria. Then Babylonian merchants
carry it further afield until, by the 6th century, it is in general
use as a Lingua franca throughout Mesopotamia.   

As a language for the Persian civil service, Aramaic also has a

practical advantage. It uses the Phoenician alphabet, a
language to which it is related. So its letters can be written
on papyrus (easily portable) instead of needing to be pressed
with a cuneiform stylus into wet clay. 

Speeding up the messenger: 2nd - 11th century

Until recent centuries, the only way to increase the speed of

communication has been to improve the speed of the
messenger. This depends on good roads, fast riders and well
provisioned staging posts at which fresh men and horses are
always available. The network of Roman roads makes
communication steady and reliable, but it is unlikely that it is
faster than the delivery system perfected by the Persians - on
 
the terrain of steppe and plateau, across which horsemen can
gallop with fine abandon. 

However one major improvement in the speed of

communication is recorded in the Middle East, where in certain
circumstances a simpler messenger is substituted for the horse
and rider. 

Pigeon post: from the 11th century

Domesticated pigeons are first developed in ancient Egypt,

and the pigeon loft or dovecote subsequently becomes a living
larder for many communities - such as medieval monasteries.
In Baghdad, in the 11th century, the idea first occurs of
making use of the tendency of certain pigeons to fly straight
home from wherever they may be. 
 
A rapid one-way postal service (always back to base) becomes
possible. By selective breeding of suitable birds, the homing
pigeon is developed. The swiftest and most wide-ranging
conqueror of medieval history, Genghis Khan, sees the
obvious potential. Pigeons carry swift news of each new
conquest to his homeland in Mongolia. 
But the rapid and widespread dissemination of a message must  
await the development of printing.

Scholars in the east have had the benefit of printing for many
centuries, enabling holy and learned texts to be more widely
possessed. But the very late arrival of printing in the west
proves to be of much greater significance. The development by
 Gutenberg in Germany of movable type happens to coincide
with the Renaissance, a time of great vigour in European
culture. 

  
Gutenberg and western printing: 1439 - 1457

The name of Gutenberg first appears, in connection with printing, in a law case in Strasbourg in 1439.
He is being sued by two of his business partners. Witnesses, asked about Gutenberg's stock,
describe a press and a supply of metal type. It sounds as though he is already capable of printing
small items of text from movable type, and it seems likely that he must have done so in Strasbourg.
But nothing from this period survives. 

By the time he is next heard of in connection with printing, he is in Mainz. He borrows 800 guilders in
1450 from Johann Fust with his printing equipment as security. The resulting story of Gutenberg and
Fust is a saga in itself. 
 

No date appears in the Gutenberg Bible (known technically as the 42-line Bible), which was printed
simultaneously on six presses during the mid-1450s. But at least one copy is known to have been
completed, with its initial letters coloured red by hand, by 24 August 1456. The first dated book from
these same presses, in 1457, is even more impressive. Known as the Mainz psalter, it achieves
outstanding colour printing in its two-colour initial letters. 

These first two publications from Germany's presses are of an extraordinary standard, caused no
doubt by the commercial need to compete with manuscripts. The new technology, so brilliantly
launched, spreads rapidly. 
 

The spread of printing: 1457-1500

An invention as useful as printing, in a Europe of increasing prosperity, readily finds

new customers. 

The first Italian press is founded in 1464, at the Benedictine town of Subiaco in the papal states.
Switzerland has a press in the following year. Printing begins in Venice, Paris and Utrecht in 1470, in
Spain and Hungary in 1473, in Bruges in 1474 (on a press owned by Caxton, who moves it to London
in 1476), in Sweden in 1483. By the end of the century the craft is well established in every European
kingdom except Russia. 
 

From incunabula to mass communication: 1457 - 1525

In the first half-century of European printing the book rapidly displaces the the manuscript of earlier
generations, providing equal elegance at less cost. Printed books of the 15th century are known as
incunabula (Latin for the 'cradle' of printing). Though very rare now, incunabula were surprisingly
numerous then; 1700 presses in some 300 towns are estimated to have produced about 15 million
volumes by 1500.

Even in their own time these incunabula are special and expensive objects. But printing has another
trick up its sleeve - in the long run one which is much more significant. 
 

The profusion of presses in Europe by the early 16th century means that the machinery is in place for
a different and entirely new form of production - the rapid printing of pamphlets, or even single sheets,
which can be used in a war of propaganda. 

This potential lies dormant until an unexpected opportunity arises. It comes through an intellectual
controversy of unprecedented violence - the Reformation. After Luther's challenge to the Roman
Catholic church, the printing presses feed and fan the flames. Pamphlets fly in all directions. The
printed page finds a new role as an arena of almost instant debate. The 'press' acquires a new and
significant meaning. 
 

First with the news: 1609-1690

If the 16th century is the first age of the pamphlet, the 17th fills the same role in relation to the
newspaper. The turmoil in Europe in the first half of the century, particularly during the violent and
complex Thirty Years' War, makes people eager for information about the latest events. The printers
and newsgatherers move rapidly to satisfy this need.

The Germans, as with earlier stages in the development of printing, are first in the field. Both
Augsburg and Strasbourg have news sheetsduring 1609. Occasional sheets are known in several
European cities during the late 16th century, but these two Germany papers seem to be the first
published on a regular basis. 
 

During the next two decades newspapers are published in Basel, Vienna, Amsterdam, Antwerp and
London - where the title of the earliest news sheet in 1621 (Corante, or, Newes from Italy, Germany,
Hungarie, Spaine and France) suggests the strongly European flavour of this thirst for information.

France follows in 1631, when the Gazette de Franceis established with official encouragement from
Cardinal Richelieu. Newspapers are soon known in Denmark (1634), Florence (1636), Sweden
(1645) and Poland (1661). The earliest American newspaper is published in Boston in 1690 under the
title Publick Occurrences Both Forreign and Domestick. 
 

Improving the post: 1633-1639

All governments depend on communication, and throughout history there have been repeated
attempts to increase the speed and reliability of the mail. For rulers who know their Herodotus, there
is always the performance of the Persian couriers as a challenging yardstick.

The Mongols in the 13th century achieve a speed of communication similar to that of the ancient
Persians. Soon after this the princes of Moscow are said to have learnt from their Mongol neighbours
how to establish an efficient postal system. Louis XI sets up a royal post in France in 1464, with the
necessary relays of horses in permanent readiness. But it is in the 1630s that a sense of urgency
seems to develop. 
 
In 1633 Charles I commissions Thomas Witherings to improve postal communications between
England and France. Witherings does so by placing boatmen under contract to make regular
crossings with the mail between Dover and Calais. Two years later Charles decides to make the
inland mail a royal monopoly, and again selects Witherings for the task. 

Witherings establishes on a permanent basis the ancient system (familiar everywhere as a temporary
measure in any military campaign) of official 'posts' whose job is to keep fresh horses and couriers in
readiness at all times at their particular 'post stage'. During the 17th century the posts begin to be
referred to more often as post masters. 
 

Witherings adds a new element by placing the system on a commercial basis, enabling private mail to
be carried on a published scale of payment. The payment relates to a single sheet of paper (causing
the English to learn to write very small), and it varies according to the distance travelled - with extra
charges if the item is carried on by branch posts from any of the main towns on the post road. This
postage system remains in place until the great reform by Rowland Hill in 1840.

Witherings' speed of 120 miles a day is not up to the standard of ancient Persia(Britain being less
easy for galloping across), but a letter can now be sent and an answer received between London and
Edinburgh within a week. 
 

Sweden follows this example, establishing a royal mail in 1636. Three years later, the first organized
postal system in the American colonies gives an intimate view of how personal any postal system is
at this early stage - with the post master very directly responsible for the efficiency of his own area.

In 1639 the authorities in Massachusettslegislate for the distribution of mail in the colony (as yet only
ten years old). All mail arriving from overseas is to be delivered to the house of Richard Fairbanks in
Boston. Fairbanks has the responsibility for getting each letter to its destination, and is allowed to
charge one penny for his pains. 
 

Optical signals: 17th - 18th century

The invention of the telescope in the 17th century makes possible a wide range of optical signalling
systems. The earliest to be developed is that of flags at sea. Pioneered in England in 1653, the
complexity of the messages which can be sent becomes steadily greater over the years. 

By 1782 the admiral of the fleet, Lord Howe, has at his disposal a total of twenty-eight flags to be
used in conjunction with a printed code issued to all his officers. In different combinations, used either
as whole words or single letters, the flags can form any sentence. 
 
 This system is finalized during the Napoleonic wars as the Signal Book for the Ships
of War, issued by the Admiralty in 1799. This is the code used by Nelson at Trafalgar in 1805, to fly
from his masts the message 'England expects that every man will do his duty'. His signals lieutenant
later reveals that the admiral told him to transmit 'England confides..', but he suggested the change
because 'expects' was in the code as a word whereas 'confides' would have to be spelt out. 

Meanwhile the same war has stimulated both sides to evolve a similar technique for sending
messages on land. 
 

The French take the initiative. In 1791 Claude Chappe develops the idea of a line of hilltop towers,
each bearing a structure with two hinged arms. The pair of arms can be moved to any of 49
recognizably different positions, seven for each arm. Every tower has two telescopes, fixed and
focussed on its neighbour in either direction - between three and six miles away. Messages, made up
of a few frequently used words and others spelt out from the alphabet, can be rapidly passed from
tower to tower. 

Chappe coins two words for his invention which become widely adopted - telegraph (from Greek for
'far write') and semaphore (Greek for 'sign bearer'). 
 

Chappe's semaphore is used in France, where several lines of towers are built. It is also taken up in
many other countries, and is adapted to a human version over shorter distances - with a signaller's
two arms, extended by flags, taking up the coded positions instead of the mechanical equivalent in
the tower. 

In England a similar device is developed a year or two later by an aristocratic clergyman, the
Reverend Lord George Murray. On his towers he places a structure with six sections, each of which
can be either open to the sky or closed with a black panel. The six black-white options give 64
elements in Murray's vocabulary, in place of 49 in Chappe's. 
 
By 1796 one line of towers runs from Deal on the coast of Kent to London, and another from Lille to
Paris. Messages about the enemy flash in each direction. Both sides claim that transmission with
trained signallers over these distances takes only two minutes. Whatever the precise times, these
methods certainly outdo all previous options - being faster than a runner, a galloping horse or even a
pigeon. 

After the war Britain adopts the French system. Semaphore holds sway until the arrival of the next
and (once again) infinitely superior method of sending messages - an early version of which is
demonstrated by Charles Wheatstone in 1838. 
 

Mail coach: 1784 - 1797

Benefits in both communication and travel derive from an initiative of John Palmer in 1782. As owner
of a theatre in Bath, he is struck by the fact that letters to and from London often take three days on
the journey - because the royal mail employs for the purpose individual postboys on decrepit horses.

Palmer proposes to the government a more ambitious scheme, by which the mail is to be carried in
special coaches with good horses, armed guards, and no outside passengers. There is strong
opposition from the post office, but the young William Pitt gives Palmer his personal support. As
chancellor of the exchequer, he is attracted by the idea of higher postal charges for a better service. 
 

The first mail coach runs from Bristol to London in 1784. It is so successful that by the autumn of the
following year Palmer has launched services to sixteen other towns including Liverpool, Manchester,
Leeds, Norwich, Dover, Portsmouth, Hereford, Swansea and Holyhead. Edinburgh is added in 1786.
By 1797 there are forty-two routes in operation.

The departure of the mail coaches becomes a famous event every evening in London, for they all
leave together at 8 p.m. Average speeds are now up to nearly 10 m.p.h. Edinburgh is reached in 43
hours, meaning that an answer can be received in London within four days. 
 

The reporters' war: 1854-1856

Recent developments in many fields make the Crimean War the first modern war, in the sense that
the public at home becomes rapidly and intensely aware of what is going on at the front.

The first important changes are in transport and printing. When the editor of the Times in London
decides to send a reporter out to join the British army in the Crimea in April 1854, he knows that
reports will get back to London (with the best available combination of ship, train and electric
telegraph) faster than from any previous conflict. And his mechanized steam presses will be able to
supply a large readership with news of unprecedented immediacy. 
 

His chosen reporter is William Howard Russell, whom the Crimea soon transforms into a national
figure - Russell of the Times. Appalled at what he sees in British army camps and hospitals, Russell
makes himself intensely unpopular with the authorities by describing the conditions in vivid detail. His
account of British patients at Scutari, in September 1854, compares their condition unfavourably with
the French hospitals. He makes a Passionate pleafor 'devoted women' to come out from England to
tend them.

It is a measure of the new immediacy that one devoted woman, destined to be even more famous
than Russell, responds directly to his words. Florence Nightingale sails for the Crimea, with thirty-eight
nurses, in October. 
 

The Crimean war lives with similar immediacy in images. It is the first war assignment undertaken by
a photographer. Early in 1855 a Manchester publisher, Thomas Agnew, decides to send a
photographer to the front. He selects Roger Fenton, who becomes a familiar figure of great curiosity
to the troops. He travels round in a converted delivery vehicle with the words 'Photographic Van'
painted on the side. Inside is the dark room where he develops his large glass plates.

Needing exposure times of up to twenty seconds, Fenton's photographs are mainly of soldiers posed
among the paraphernalia of war in the Crimean landscape. They are published by Agnew in five
portfolios before the end of 1855. 
 

Meanwhile a British print dealer, Dominic Colnaghi, has used the same approach in a more traditional
art form. He sends out the artist William Simpson, who arrives at Balaklava in November 1854 and
stays with the army until the fall of Sebastopol in September 1855.

Advances in printing mean that Simpson's watercolours can be rapidly produced in London as
realistic tinted lithographs. Two series are issued in 1855-6 under the title The Seat of War in the
East. Simpson, with his pencil and brush, can capture the drama and pathos of war in a way not yet
available to Fenton. His picture of Florence Nightingaleamong the wounded at Scutari, published in
April 1856, contributes to her legend. 
 
Photography soon catches up, to establish itself as the medium best equipped to convey the horrors
of war. In 1860 an Italian-born British photographer, Felice Beato, photographs the dead defenders
sprawled in a fort which has just been captured in the second Opium War. A bystander sees him at
work and describes the Rush of adrenalin of the authentic war photographer.

The first war to be fully covered photographically is the American Civil War. Thanks to the enterprise
of Mathew Brady, who sends teams of photographers to the various battle fronts, some 10,000 glass
negatives survive as a detailed visual record of four years of conflict. 
 

This History is as yet incomplete. 

 

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The first writing

Writing has its origins in the strip of fertile land stretching from the Nile up into the area
often referred to as the Fertile Crescent. This name was given, in the early 20th century, to
the inverted U-shape of territory that stretches up the east Mediterranean coast and then
curves east through northern Syria and down the Euphrates and the Tigris to the Persian
Gulf. 

The first known writing derives from the lower reaches of the two greatest rivers in this
extended region, the Nile and the Tigris. So the two civilizations separately responsible for
this totally transforming human development are the Egyptian and the Sumerian (in what is
now Iraq). It has been conventional to give priority, by a short margin, to Sumer – dating the
Sumerian script to about 3100 BC and the Egyptian version a century or so later. 
 

However, in 1988 a German archaeologist, Günter Dreyer, unearths at Abydos, on the Nile in
central Egypt, small bone and ivory tablets recording in early hieroglyphic form the items
delivered to a temple – mainly linen and oil. 

These fragments have been carbon-dated to between 3300 and 3200 BC. Meanwhile the
dating of the earliest cuneiform tablets from Sumeria has been pushed further back, also to
around 3200 BC. So any claim to priority by either side is at present too speculative to carry
conviction. 
 
Evolution of a script

Most early writing systems begin with small images used as words, literally depicting the
thing in question. But pictograms of this kind are limited. Some physical objects are too
difficult to depict. And many words are concepts rather than objects. 

There are several ways in which early writing evolves beyond the pictorial stage. One is by
combining pictures to suggest a concept. Another is by a form of pun, in which a pictorial
version of one object is modified to suggest another quite different object which sounds the
same when spoken. 
 

An example of both developments could begin with a simple symbol representing a roof - a
shallow inverted V. This would be a valid character to mean 'house'. If one places under this
roof a similar symbol for a woman, the resulting character could well stand for some such
idea as 'home' or 'family'. (In fact, in Chinese, a woman under a roof is one of the characters
which can be used to mean 'peace'). 

This is a conceptual character. The punning kind might put under the same roof a sloping
symbol representing the bank of a river. The combined character, roof and bank, would then
stand for a financial institution - the type of 'house' which is a 'bank'. 
 

Cuneiform in Mesopotamia: from 3100 BC

In about 3200 BC temple officials in Sumerdevelop a reliable and lasting method of keeping
track of the animals and other goods which are the temple's wealth. On lumps of wet clay the
scribes draw a simpified picture of the item in question. They then make a similar mark in the
clay for the number counted and recorded. When allowed to bake hard in the sun, the clay
tablet becomes a permanent document. . 

Significantly the chief official of many Sumerian temples is known by a word, sangu, which
seems to mean 'accountant'. But however non-literary the purpose, these practical jottings in
Sumer are the first steps in writing. 
 
As writing develops, a standardized method of doing it begins to emerge. This is essential to
the very purpose of writing, making it capable of carrying a message over unlimited distances
of space or time. Doing so depends on the second scribe, in a faraway place or the distant
future, being able to read what the first scribe has written 

In Mesopotamia clay remains the most common writing surface, and the standard writing
implement becomes the end of a sharply cut reed. These two ingredients define this early
human script. Characters are formed from the wedge-shaped marks which the reed makes
when pressed into the damp clay, so the style of writing becomes known as cuneiform (from
the Latin cuneus, meaning wedge). 
 

Hieroglyphs and papyrus in Egypt: from 3000 BC

The second civilization to develop writing, shortly after the Sumerians, is Egypt. The
Egyptian characters are much more directly pictorial in kind than the Sumerian, but the
system of suggesting objects and concepts is similar. The Egyptian characters are called
hieroglyphs by the Greeks in about 500 BC, because by that time this form of writing is
reserved for holy texts; hieros and glypho mean 'sacred' and 'engrave' in Greek. 

Because of the importance of hieroglyphic inscriptions in temples and tombs, much of the
creation of these beautiful characters is by painters, sculptors in relief and craftsmen
modelling in plaster. But with the introduction of papyrus, the Egyptian script is also the
business of scribes. 
 

The Egyptian scribe uses a fine reed pen to write on the smooth surface of the papyrusscroll.
Inevitably the act of writing causes the hieroglyphs to become more fluid than the strictly
formal versions carved and painted in tombs. 
Even so, the professional dignity of the scribes ensures that standards do not slip. There
gradually emerge three official versions of the script (known technically as hieratic) which is
used by the scribes. There is one, the most formal, for religious documents; one for literature
and official documents; and one for private letters.
 

In about 700 BC the pressure of business causes the Egyptian scribes to develop a more
abbreviated version of the hieratic script. Its constituent parts are still the same Egyptian
hieroglyphs, established more than 2000 years previously, but they are now so elided that the
result looks like an entirely new script. Known as demotic ('for the people'), it is harder to
read than the earlier written versions of Egyptian. 

Both hieroglyphs and demotic continue to be used until about 400 AD. Thereafter their secret
is forgotten, until the chance discovery of the Rosetta stone makes it possible for the
hieroglyphic code to be cracked in the 19th century. 
 

The seals of the Indus valley: from 2500 BC

As in the other great early civilizations, the bureaucrats of the Indus valley have the benefit of
writing to help them in their administration. The Indus script, which has not yet been
deciphered, is known from thousands of seals, carved in steatite or soapstone. 

Usually the centre of each seal is occupied by a realistic depiction of an animal, with above it
a short line of formal symbols. The lack of longer inscriptions or texts suggests that this script
is probably limited to trading and accountancy purposes, with the signs establishing
quantities and ownership of a commodity. 
 

Chinese characters: from 1600 BC

The last of the early civilizations to develop writing is China, in about 1600 BC. But China
outdoes the others in devising a system which has evolved, as a working script, from that day
to this. Chinese characters are profoundly ill-suited to such labour-saving innovations as
printing, typewriting or word-processing. Yet they have survived. They have even provided
the script for an entirely different language, Japanese. 

The Non-phonetic Chinese script has been a crucial binding agent in China's vast empire. Officials
from far-flung places, often unable to speak each other's language, have been able to
communicate fluently in writing.

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