Linguistic heritage with three revolutions

Three successive revolutions have transformed the nature of human being communication. In all three revolutions, the communicative use of language has undergone a change of function. The first revolution began with the invention of writing system.

In principle, this freed man from the ephemeral limitations of the spoken word. But writing and reading, and thereby access to codified knowledge, remain a privileged activity of scribes and the educated minority, and the experience of the common man remained limited to a face to face oral culture.

The second revolution, with the invention of mechanized printing, made mass literacy possible. This Gutenberg revolution enabled mass education.

It dramatically expanded the horizons of the ordinary citizen’s community and made democratic participation in the government of nation states effectively possible for the first time.

One side effect was to standardize the form of written language and written text has dominated the structure of knowledge, communication and culture for five hundred years until present day.

We are now in the early stages of the third and most radical revolution of all, where computer based information and communication technologies (ICTs) give the individual the power of instant world-wide access to information through a fluid and natural mix of written text, graphic images and sound.

This information revolution is giving birth to the information society, in which the role of language itself is once again being transmuted, by the effects of screen based multimedia communication networks like the internet. Linguistic heritage with three revolutions