The Story Of Communication

Posted On 09/11/2025

By Nikki Wordsmith
hello@nikkiwordsmith.com 
WhatsApp: 07905 456704

Note for you dear reader: This blog post is going to be added to regularly. It is ultimately going to be a stimulating longread and longlisten format e-book. Please bookmark this post and add to your audio library for future reference.

1 Introduction

We all have our own weird and wonderful way of communicating.

You say potato and I say chippy tea.

Then there are the standardised ways such as with the 26 letters of the standard English alphabet — abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz

And all the 7000+ languages on planet Earth, and all their attendant dialects.

Then we have the jargon and codes and all the nicknames.

How I love the nicknames! The pleasure in naming things yourself.

There’s a lot to cover.

So let’s take a highly informative meander through the story of communication.

What Is Your Communication Style?

A good place to start is nicely to how we communicate with ourselves.

From our inner voices to our inner circle.

It is a highly individual and personal way of expressing our self.

As many many wiser and cleverer people than me have attested to before:

Whatever we think we become, wrote Shakespeare.

I think therefore I am, philosophised Descartes.

Margaret Mead is widely quoted as saying:
“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; indeed, it’s the only thing that ever has.”

I yam, what I yam, what I yam, philosophised Popeye the Sailor Man.

Say what you see, urged Roy Walker, the presenter of the television quiz show Catchphrase.

Communication professionals are helpers. We want people to understand what’s going on. We want to make life easier, not harder, philosophises Sia Papageorgiou on Linked In.

And Zadie Smith sums things up well when she says, Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.

Somehow we have to make sense of all of these inside internal and outside external experiences and synthesise them all together to form our own self expression.

It is here through my own studies, lived and professional experiences that I want to share my story of communication.

What I often summarise as: How I became obsessed with trying to get humans closer together, often whether they want to or not.

Thank you reading.

PS If you want to take it further, why not try telling your own story of communication? You never know what you might find out about your own communication style.

2 The Definition And History Of The Word Communication

3 Accentuate The Positive

For the rest of this year I am going to collect on here — on this blog — my main touchstones for the story of my communication and communication in general.

From survival sounds, pleasure and pain cries, hand gestures, body language, singing Neanderthals, the classical civilisations, religion, old, middle and modern English, English, our planet’s 7000 or so current languages and dialects, right through to my ambitious quest to make a universal visual language from modern day emojis.

I shall cover why human beings need to connect with each other. And uncover why I am so obsessed about trying to get humans closer together whether they want to or not. Hence the blog.

Please do let me know in the comments below about any key communication areas and stories that speak to you on this subject.

4 Eliminate The Negative

When we think all hope is lost for humanity, we must remember this — from a very early age our language acquisition rate makes creative communication geniuses of us all.

At an incredibly young age — by two — most of us little language model kids go from babbling to forming words and simple sentences, grasping the basics of language, all the while while our brains are still developing.

The need to understand and connect is phenomenal.

We’re picking up sounds, meanings, and grammar rules at a pace that’d make any supercomputer jealous—around 10 new words a day, just by listening and mimicking.

It’s like we’re wired to crack the code of communication in record time.

And that’s just the very beginning of our mind-blowing communication magic.

So if nothing else from this attempted long read blog, please please please remember this astonishing communication fact.

Bookmark this blog to read later because for rest of the year the story of communication is going to develop and grow in tandem with the work on these projects in 2026: The Emoji Alphabet, Universal Visual Language, Talk Dialect and Hermes Humans.

5 Primal Scream

This post is dedicated to bass player Mani.

This weekend I am going to take a tiny sideways interlude into music of the early 1990s, which is sort of tangentially linked to my story of communication…

Honestly. Keep with me and I promise I won’t let you down. 

On the 23 September in 1991 Primal Scream released this genre blending album Screamadelica. 

I know I was there.  My brilliant friend Perry at Reading University persuaded me to go their gig during our fresher’s week and nothing was ever quite the same…

This cover art for Screamadelica was created by Paul Cannell, an in-house artist for Creation Records. 

Cannell worked closely with Creation Records during the late ’80s and early ’90s, contributing to the label’s distinctive visual identity.

He was known for his bold, expressive style, often using spontaneous brushstrokes and vivid colors.

The cover features a bright, abstract sunburst design. The colours red, yellow, blue and what appears to be two wonky eyes in the middle of the sun are casually splashed around. This style perfectly signals the album’s euphoric mix of Madchester, acid house, rock and rave energy.

Cannell’s Screamadelica cover became one of the most iconic album covers of the 1990s. 

And one of the most memorable album covers ever in my tiny impressionable mind.

As we will discover later on, my studies at university were not perhaps as diligent as they could have been.  

However, through the music and the lights and the smoke, it was the place where I had my first lightbulb moment about symbols, language and the origin of art. 

And for me being relatively free as an adult for the first time, having fun with friends and learning about the longview on humans and tools and art was an exceptionally special time. 

Instinctively, music has always played a HUGE part in my life. So it was mind-blowing to me to find that my old professor Steve Mithen brought out his Singing Neanderthals theory in 2005.

Will we indeed find in time that music has played a HUGE part in everyone’s story of communication?

And as we will discover there is a lot of interesting theories, stories and scientific evidence as to why having our full senses — especially listening — is key.

It sounds so obvious when I write it down. Yet it is to truly hard to truly listen, because first you have to be truly relaxed.

Not easy in this day and age.

It also explains why going to a gig 34 years ago has branded songs like Higher than the Sun, Moving On Up into my mind forever…

6 Primal Communication

When you have had the fortune of reading and sinking your brain deeper and deeper into the palimpsest that is human history, you notice there is a big dividing line between:

Pre-history or history.

Everything before illiterate; everything after literate.

1. Pre-Literate Era (c. 3.5 million BCE – 3000 BCE)

• ~3.5M BCE: Australopithecus used gestures and proto-language.
• ~100,000 BCE: Homo sapiens developed complex speech (laryngeal descent evidence).
• ~40,000 BCE: Cave art (Lascaux, Chauvet) and proto-writing (tallies on bone).
• ~9000 BCE: Petroglyphs and clay tokens (Mesopotamia) for accounting.
• ~3100 BCE: Sumerian cuneiform on clay tablets—first true writing.

This dividing line is embedded so hard into our cultural knowledge banks that nobody even thinks to question it anymore.

As we progress on this story of communication it is worth bearing that in mind, for “true writing” is not natural.

It is a very modern manifestation around 3100 BCE with Sumerian cuneiform on clay tablets.

Writing is a a highly complicated learnt skill.

Whereas human communication is as natural as rain and as old as the hills.

Communication began with gesture, vocalization, and visual symbols.

Our base instinctual communications are the pre-linguistic, hardwired signals that humans and our primate ancestors use to convey emotion, intent, and social status without words. 

Interestingly this without words stage rings true as one of the key phrases that has stuck with me ever since I interviewed Monster Phonics Founder Ingrid Connors.

She said, when describing how to help children to learn to read and write, that, “sometimes, the words get in the way”.

And, Richard Leakey in Chapter 2 of his 1994 book Human Origins, hints that these vocal bursts may have been the precursors to symbolic language — emotional sounds that later got layered with meaning.

Plus my old Professor Steve Mithen from Reading University, England brought out a tantalising theory about singing Neanderthals, which he coined as the Hmmmmm Theory.

There will be more on these three key figures in my story of communication.

For now though I want to look closer at what we know from the time of primal communication.

These early communications are rooted in biology, evolution, and the limbic system — not culture or learned language. They form the foundation of all human interaction, even before symbolic art, speech, or writing emerged.

7 Primal and Instinctual Communication Systems

Here’s a breakdown of the core instinctual communication systems, supported by evolutionary biology, neuroscience, and ethology:

1. Facial Expressions — Universal Emotional Signaling

1. Happiness → Duchenne smile (eyes crinkle)
2. Sadness → Downturned mouth, furrowed brow
3. Fear → Wide eyes, raised brows, open mouth
4. Anger → Lowered brows, tense lips, flared nostrils
5. Surprise → Raised brows, wide eyes, dropped jaw
6. Disgust → Nose wrinkle, upper lip curl
7. Contempt (sometimes added) → One-sided mouth raise

• Evidence:
• Blind-from-birth children show these same expressions — proving they’re genetic, not learned.
• Charles Darwin (1872) first noted that certain facial expressions are innate and cross-cultural

2. Vocalizations — Pre-Speech Sounds

• Crying → Distress call; triggers empathy and caregiving
• Screaming → Alarm/danger; activates fight-or-flight in others
• Sighing/Groaning → Frustration, relief, or bonding
• Infant cooing/babbling → Early social engagement (present in all cultures)
• Grunting → Effort, dominance, or agreement (common in sports, labor)
• Laughing → Universal signal of play/safety (even in chimpanzees)
• Singing → pre-linguistic emotional communication often associated with joy. While more structured than screaming, it is still a vocalisation that predates human language.

3. Body Language & Posture (Dominance, Submission, Bonding)

• Signal
• Meaning
• Evolutionary root
• Eye contact (sustained)
• Dominance, attention, attraction
• Primates use stare to challenge
• Averted gaze
• Submission, respect, calming
• Avoids triggering aggression
• Open palms
• Trust, non-threat
• Shows no weapon
• Puffed chest, broad stance
• Confidence, dominance
• Makes body appear larger
• Shoulders slumped
• Defeat, sadness
• Reduces perceived threat
• Mirroring posture
• Rapport, empathy
• Automatic in close bonds

4. Touch (Haptics)

• Grooming → In primates: bonding, parasite removal
  → In humans: hugging, hand-holding, back-patting
• Handshakes → Test grip strength (ancient trust signal)
• Embrace → Oxytocin release → trust, safety
• Aggressive touch (push, slap) → dominance or warning

5. Proxemics (Use of Space)

• Personal space bubbles (Edward T. Hall):
  • Intimate: 0–18 inches (lovers, parents, close kin)
  • Personal: 1.5–4 feet (friends)
  • Social: 4–12 feet (acquaintances)
  • Public: >12 feet (strangers)
• Violation = threat → triggers stress response

6. Smell (Pheromonal Communication)

• Androstadienone (male sweat compound) → increases female cortisol, attention
• Estradiol (in female tears) → reduces male testosterone
• Infant head odor → triggers maternal bonding
• Fear sweat → others detect and feel anxious (proven in lab studies)

7. Infant Reflexes (Hardwired Survival Signals)

• Rooting reflex → turns head toward touch on cheek
• Moro reflex → “startle” arms-out cry when support lost
• Grasp reflex → clings to finger (primate tree-hanging legacy)
• Stepping reflex → walking motion when held upright.

Evolutionary Summary: The “Four F’s” Drive Instinctual Communication

It is suggested all these base primal instinctsual signals serve one of four survival goals:

1. Fleeing (fear signals)
2. Fighting (anger, dominance)
3. Feeding (hunger cries, food-sharing gestures)
4. Reproduction (attraction, bonding, grooming)

7 Why Do We Want Communicate?

Our deep need to connect with others and understand, and be understood, is usually described by a few related psychology terms:

1. Belongingness / Need to Belong

A fundamental human need to form and maintain close, meaningful relationships.

Proposed by Baumeister & Leary — one of the most widely accepted explanations.

2. Social Connection

A broader term for our drive to bond, interact, and feel part of a community.

3. Empathy / Need for Empathic Understanding

The desire to understand others’ feelings and to have our own feelings understood.

4. Interpersonal Relatedness

Used in humanistic psychology (e.g., Carl Rogers) — emphasises connection, authenticity, and mutual understanding.

5. Attachment Needs

In attachment theory, humans have an innate need for secure connection, especially with trusted people.

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