Causes of Miscommunication
According to scientists, humans began speaking about 100,000 years ago, and writing began around 4000 B.C. Prior to written language, humans used pictures (cave drawings), which evolved to word symbols. The evolution of language, what some have called the “human system of communication,” proves false the old adage “a picture is worth a thousand words,” since it’s almost impossible to convey conditional, complex, or complicated ideas with a simple image.
While some linguists suggest that an accurate accounting of the number of words in the English language is impossible, the Global Language Monitor claimed that there were 1,013,913 words on January 1, 2012, with a new word created every 98 minutes. Due to the sheer number of words available to choose from, the opportunity for muddled communication is high, even when two people have similarly sized vocabularies. The specific words known to each person, as well as the understood meaning of each word, can vary significantly due to different environments, cultures, and experiences.