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Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite
The Strange Tools of Human Communication by Ruth Finnegan centers on communication as a multimodal phenomenon of voice, writing, and music. She traces alphabetic writing to Semitic proto-alphabets derived from Egyptian hieroglyphs, distinguishing it from pictographic systems that convey meaning visually across languages. Finnegan teaches that oral, visual, and gestural communication evolved together rather than sequentially. She speaks on oral traditions as dynamic performances involving voice, rhythm, and gesture, illustrated by African storytelling techniques. The book covers transitions between oral and written forms, including mixed-media practices in various cultures. Finnegan also discusses the cultural, philosophical, and mathematical significance of numbers and music, leaning into music’s role in human expression. She argues for continuity between human and animal communication, rejecting strict divisions, and calls for recognizing the multimodal, evolving nature of communication shaped by biological and cultural factors.
Ruth Finnegan’s The Strange Tools of Human Communication: The Voice, the Pen, and the Lyre is a professional, intelligently elegant, and precise work that does a wonderful job of guiding readers through a wide-ranging discussion on human expressive methods. True to form and walking the walk, the prose itself demonstrates Finnegan’s strong command of language and exhaustive research. Finnegan’s style is scholarly but accessible, and, for myself, where English is my second language, I took a great deal away from what she has to say. The most interesting aspect to me is the parts where symbolic forms are discussed, and how well they are integrated into the cultural and historical context. The structure allows readers to move through many diverse topics that are all explained and given with real-world examples. Overall, this is an informative and stimulating book that illuminates the multifaceted nature of how humans connect. Very highly recommended.
