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Fun facts help people break the ice when initiating conversations. A dose of informative and mind-boggling facts makes any chat, no matter how formal, lighter.
It may not seem apparent, but we also have those in the communications profession. Today, we share some amazing communication fun facts that many people still probably do not know.
1. The earliest long-distance communication method was the smoke signal.
It was utilized in North America, where every tribe has its own communication method. Danger was indicated by smoke coming from the hilltop.
Ancient China also employed the smoke signal. Smoke signals were sent from tower to tower by the soldiers stationed at the Great Wall to warn of danger. They were able to send messages this way for up to 750 kilometres within a few hours.
In the Vatican, the smoke signal is still used to notify the selection of a new pope during the “Conclave” procedure.
2. Pigeons were widely utilized for long-distance communication because of their inherent homing abilities.
Persians, Romans, Greeks, and Mughals all employed pigeons. Pigeons were also utilized in the 19th century to send stock quotes from one city to another.
Homing pigeons are also thought to have been used at the inaugural Olympic games in ancient Greece to inform the athletes’ hometowns of the results.
Cher Ami, a homing pigeon, received the French War Cross award for her services during World War I.
3. In 2018, a woman in Western Australia found the oldest known “message in a bottle” believed to be 132 years old.
The “message in a bottle” was authenticated based on a handwriting sample by Dr Ross Anderson, Assistant Curator of Maritime Archaeology at the Western Australia Museum.
As BBC reported, “Thousands of bottles were thrown overboard during the 69-year German experiment but to date, only 662 messages – and no bottles – had been returned. The last bottle with a note to be found was in Denmark in 1934.”
This implies that more bottled notes from the same experiment may very possibly still be in bottles, waiting to be discovered.
(https://messageinabottlehunter.com/)
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4. In 1995, less than 1% of the Earth’s population has access to the internet.
Today, the number of internet users worldwide has reached 5.03 billion, or 63.1 percent of the world’s population.
The number of internet users also continues to rise, with the most recent data showing that in the 12 months leading up to July 2022, the connected population of the world increased by about 180 million.
5. With the proper training, talking parrots have the cognitive ability to develop associations with what they are saying.
A study in 2006 investigated the cognitive and communicative abilities of grey parrots, which are usually regarded as “mindless mimics”, for 30 years.
It found that Grey parrots are capable of completing a variety of cognitive tasks and may learn and speak English in a fashion that frequently resembles that of very young children. The ideas of same/different, color, size, and shape are a few examples.
A Hardvard study in 2019 supported this finding when it found that African grey parrots can have cognitive abilities which can sometimes surpass those of 5-year-old humans.
6. The Sami people have as many as 1,000 words for reindeer. They refer to different traits like size, shape and personality.
For instance, “a reindeer with the nearest to its nostrils having a different color than one would expect in view of the color of its remainder of its hair” is called a “sietnjanjunni.”
Reindeer were revered by the Sami as kindred spirits who shared the hard yet stunning northern nature with them and provided them with food.
Perhaps the most moving example of the Sami’s reverence for reindeer may be found in one of their creation myths, which describes how the universe was made from a reindeer’s body. (https://truenorthgallery.net)
They also have a word for a bull with one large testicle – “Busat.”
You may also want to read: 5 common corporate workplace communication pitfalls (commsroom.co)
Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
