African talking drums were able to convey entire sentences, if not paragraphs. Drumming as communication over several miles was developed long before written language. Some Africans in recent years have gone from talking drums to cell phones without learning a written language in between.
In the early days of telephone switchboards (turn of the last century), teenage boys were hired as operators. It was soon found that boys favored pratical jokes and pranks, drinking beer, and wrestling to hours of monotony at the switchboard. Young women soon replaced them. :lol: