This free course, A brief history of communication: hieroglyphics to emojis, is an introduction to the history of writing, and the key role it plays in human communication. It tracks this history from the invention of writing around 5500 years ago to the mass popularity of emojis today.

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• understand how different writing systems have developed over time 
• understand how technology influences what we can do with language, and the form that language takes.