A Brief World History of Conversation
The first people ever to speak to each other were Adam and Eve, around 6,000 BC. They were spending their third Christmas together — always a good excuse for conversation, dancing, and merriment. It was during the final moments of the feast when Eve suddenly adjusted her fig leaves, frowned, and turned to Adam:
“Do you have a cigarette?”
Those were the first words ever spoken by one human being to another, roughly a thousand days after they met. According to some experts, this can’t technically be called the first “conversation” in human history, since only Eve spoke. Adam replied with a guttural sound — a very common male statement during sports broadcasts — and, without lifting his head from his plate, tossed her a pack of Marlboros.
And so they continued in pleasant silence until their expulsion from Paradise, the first consequence of which was the eternal punishment of having to speak in order to communicate.
The conversation between Akhenaten and his wife Nefertiti was equally brief, one December morning in 1370 BC. The pharaoh, an early riser, had just returned from doing some household shopping when he came across his wife sunbathing against a pyramid. Suddenly, for the first time in his life, he felt the urge to talk to her.
“Nefertiti, you look beautiful today.”
“Today?” she replied, sitting up with a defiant look. “So what about the other days, Akhenaten?”
Akhenaten shrank before Nefertiti’s elegant shadow until he disappeared, sinking into the sand without another word.
Another of the oldest recorded conversations was the one between Fred Flintstone and Fidel Castro, back in the Stone Age.
“I’m going to start a revolution,” said Fidel.
“Well, better stone than never,” replied Fred — a man with an extraordinary sense of humor.
Fidel was petrified by that answer. Until 2016.
The first truly fluid conversation in history took place during a sporting event between two eternal rival teams.
“It was a foul,” shouted a fan.
“It wasn’t a foul,” replied a rival fan.
“It was a foul,” joined in a third fan.
“It wasn’t a foul,” answered another.
“It was a foul,” replied some random person.
“It wasn’t a foul!” added yet another.
The discussion — lively and rich in adjectives — is preserved in its entirety at the Library of Congress. It fills nearly 3,000 volumes and is classified as an “unfinished work.”
Spanish spread quickly. So did English. The rest of the world’s languages survived mainly through imitation. No German really wants to speak German, but refusing to do so would mean agreeing with a Spaniard or an Englishman, and that goes against their religion. So they speak German — a language that sounds like a Harley-Davidson in anger management therapy.
Conversations among Chinese speakers have long fascinated scholars for their exotic nature. The Chinese speak at roughly the same speed they play ping-pong, and everything they say sounds like Bugs Bunny in fast-forward. It’s unclear whether they actually understand each other, but they nod, duck their heads, and make curious facial expressions that convince Westerners that something meaningful is being said. Humanity’s two greatest mysteries remain: where I left my car keys, and what the Chinese are talking about on the street.
A long chain of family celebrations will now carry us to December — the month of office Christmas parties. This is the time of year when 90 percent of all human conversation takes place. Wine may have something to do with it. People talk, smile, and congratulate each other — at the office, at the bar, and at home. The season seems to expand the human mechanism that produces irrelevant chatter, and dinners and parties become irresistible invitations to dialogue. Alcohol helps, of course — as does the joy of consuming 600 percent of the recommended annual sugar intake in each dessert. Then January arrives, silence returns, and life tastes sour again.
Looking back, I’m not entirely sure that Eve, Akhenaten, and company did humanity much good with their historic contribution to dialogue. There are, in the end, two great scientific theories about conversation and its role in human relations: One claims that violence in contemporary society is caused by a lack of communication. The other argues that violence in contemporary society is caused by an excess of communication. I’m in favor of both.
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