When you are surprised or hurt you make sounds like ‘OH!’ or ‘OUCH’. Some people believe that the sounds we make when we are angry, 
frustrated, sad or happy were the starting point for the development of language. This is called the ‘pooh-pooh’ theory about how language began… but to be frank, many people ‘pooh-pooh’ this theory!
Have you noticed how people use their hands to emphasize a point when they are speaking? The gesture theory about the origin of language 
states that man first started using gestures to communicate. These gestures began to be accompanied by sound that eventually developed into a language.We do know that American Indians used an elaborate system of gestures to communicate with each other. However, most people believe that speech and gestures developed together. There is really no proof that gestures came before speech, so the gesture theory is not accepted by many.
We all know that when a dog barks, it goes ‘bow-wow’. But how does that explain the origin of language? According to the bow-wow theory, 
language began as imitations of the sounds made by animals and other natural sounds. Thus the word ‘moo’ describes the noise made by a cow, while ‘meow’ sounds just like a kitten’s cry, and ‘plop’ sounds just like a drop of water falling!But this is just a theory, and many people do not agree with it.
The first men probably started using grunts and other sounds to communicate with each other. Gradually, specific sounds began to be used to 
denote specific things or actions. As man evolved, his brain became larger. The first time this happened was about 1.8 million years ago. He was now able to use two or three words to express himself. However, in this early form of language, there was no grammar or syntax. About 500,000 years ago, another step in the evolution of man took place, and man’s brain became even larger. This enables him to remember more words, and also to develop some form of grammar with which these words were to be used. This was the beginning of human language as we know it
Have you heard a baby trying to speak? It just makes noises that sound like ‘goo’ and ‘gaa’. Well, the very first sounds made by early man 
were probably similar to the sounds made by babies!Human beings probably learned to make sounds by imitating animals. This sound making ability was then passed on from parent to child by mothers making soothing sounds to their babies. Babies learned to repeat those sounds, which sound just like grunts and gurgles to us.Gradually, certain sounds developed into specific meanings to those using them. Over hundreds, and perhaps thousands of years, man developed the ability to communicate through recognizable noise… and ‘speech’ as we know it today became the first form of communication between human beings
Predicting the future may sound like fun, but it is quite a risky business. Many of the predictions made in the middle of the last century about 
what life would be like today have not come true. At the same time, many things that were not predicted have happened! Could anyone have imagined in 1940 that mobile phones would spread like cobwebs all over the world . One thing we can be sure though… the future will be different from what we see today. Air travel will probably be the most usual mode of travel for the common man. We will live in ‘Smart Homes’ with appliances that think and anticipate our needs… and may be evenGoing for holidays to other planets! Electronic paper, home newspapers, wrist phones, holograms movies, pocket sized televisions, wall sized TV screens, interplanetary chats… the possibilities for the future of communications are mind boggling
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