Introduction

This free course, A brief history of communication: hieroglyphics to emojis, is an introduction to the history of writing and the key role it plays in human communication. Nowadays, it is difficult to think of language as existing without writing, but in the long history of humankind’s ability to use language it is only relatively recently that writing emerged. The course also looks as the vital relationship between technology and writing, and how the development of new technologies alter the way we communicate.

This OpenLearn course is an adapted extract from the Open University course L101 Introducing English language studies .