Limited Communication In Our Civilised Society

There are approximately 7,000 languages (inclusive of dialects) currently in use around the world.

About 250 languages are spoken by Australian Aboriginal people alone.

94% of languages are spoken by only 6% of people around the world, leading potentially to many lesser used languages falling into disuse, contributing some day to a dusty old statistic in some slightly less dusty history book.

There are approximately 1 million words in the English language, about 500,000 of which are listed in the Oxford English Dictionary.

Languages, and communication in general, are always evolving and changing, adapting to our busy lives as we ourselves change and adapt. In recent times we have seen txt speak take on a life of it's own, and modern social media platforms such as Twitter have seen language being used differently due to the imposed limit of 140 characters in status updates. We can even "tiny" the URL address of a relevant link, if necessary.

Those who are deaf and hard-of-hearing have sign language (with estimates of perhaps 200 sign languages around the globe), for example AUSLAN in Australia and British Sign Language in the UK.

Then we have Braille, a tactile language form for those who are blind, with it's own varying forms, adaptions and extensions.

Additionally, we communicate through coded languages, such as the dash and dot form of Morse code, through writing, through smell (a clean, fresh home or a demonstrated interest in personal hygiene communicates a person's related values) and in many, many other ways.

We as human beings, arrogant as it may seem, are fairly sophisticated when it comes to communication. For example, not only what we say, but how we say it, relays information. Tone, pitch, volume, pauses between words, the speed at which we talk and even the use of um's and ah's all say more than just our word choice alone. And body language has come into it's own, becoming an art and a science in recent years too.

Why do we communicate at all? Well, within the context of no man being an island, communication allows us to build relationships, what with we humans being the social butterflies that we are. It is the vehicle through which we express our desires, and how we demonstrate the facilitation of the desires of others. We communicate to educate & learn, to influence & achieve, to bond & accept and to affect & engender behaviour, emotion and thought.

This is just my observation. I'm sure there are even more layers to the mystery of communication.

Now, there is something I don't understand. With all this information, and bearing in mind Maslow's psychological theory "hierarchy of needs", listed as -

1. Physiological needs

2. Safety needs

3. Love and belonging

4. Esteem

5. Self-actualization

6. Self-transcendence

and recognising the dazzling array of information that can be gleamed using the 6 honest serving men known as - What, Why, When, Where, Who and How (please see the poem below)...

why are the most common questions asked -

How are you? (Answer: Okay)

What's on the T.V. tonight? (Answer: Nothing)

What's for dinner? (Answer: It's in the oven!)

How much is it? (Answer: Always 20% more than it should be!)

Odd, huh?



Poem by Rudyard Kipling -

I keep six honest serving-men
(They taught me all I knew);
Their names are What and Why and When
And How and Where and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.

I let them rest from nine till five,
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men.
But different folk have different views;
I know a person small-
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!

She sends'em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes-
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!