HIS 395 Chapter Notes - Chapter 1: Communication, Written Language, Some Records
Document Summary
The ultimate storage facility for all information is the human mind itself. There are (cid:373)a(cid:374)y ad(cid:448)a(cid:374)tages to oral co(cid:373)(cid:373)u(cid:374)icatio(cid:374) : people analyze data progressively, people question each other until full understanding is achieved. There are also disad(cid:448)a(cid:374)tages : oral communication is transient (it exists only as it is going out of existence), the fallibility of human memory. Even in societies where writing is fully established, orality continues to play an essential role. Writte(cid:374) (cid:449)ord has (cid:373)a(cid:374)y ad(cid:448)a(cid:374)tages o(cid:448)er orally tra(cid:374)s(cid:373)itted i(cid:374)for(cid:373)atio(cid:374) : written language can accommodate more than a million words, while oral speech only has about a few thousand, more flexible and more reliable. These advantages guaranteed the spread of literacy. The amount of recorded information grows at a steady pace as information advances: small groups of individuals (those with economic and political power) begin to produce and rely on written records and the masses follow. As the quantity of records went up, the quality generally went down.
