Prasannanshu, Skyline University College Sharjah, UAE

This paper attempts to bring the focus on the origin of the relatively young field of ‘Communication Skills’ or ‘Business Communication’ which has come to be an integral part of various professional and management courses around the globe over the past few decades. In the modern day world, communication skills are be- coming increasingly important and a lot of academic effort is being put into developing, testing and standard- izing the concepts in this field. However, not much effort appears to have gone into tracing the history of this particular branch of learning. Keeping this in view this paper attempts to trace the origin of the concept of Communication Skills in the ancient literature of India. A two thousand year old Tamil text, viz. Tirukkural written by Tiruvalluvar who is also known as Aacharya Kundkunda Swami has been surveyed to unravel the thinking of those times regarding the concepts of ‘communication’. This has been reviewed in light of the thoughts of modern scholars of the field. Some interesting pieces have been produced here that demonstrate that the field of Communication Skills is not without a history: people in India have for millennia been devot- ing attention to, and developing concepts for effective communications. Many such concepts and norms of communication have been handed down to us in the form of aphorisms or sayings. It is very likely that such norms must have been based upon earlier works, folk practices and in general must have been in tune with the wisdom of the time.

Keywords: Origin of Communication Skills, Tirukkural, Tamil, Tiruvalluvar, Aacharya Kundkunda Swami, speech, verbal and non verbal communication. Listening, Feeling, Barriers

Suggested citation: Prasannanshu. (2008). Aphorisms of communication skills in Tirukkural of Tamil: tracing the 2000-year-old roots of the concepts of communication studies.  Skyline Business Journal, Volime 4, No 2,pp 19-27.  

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Prasannanshu. (2008). Aphorisms of communication skills in Tirukkural of Tamil: tracing the 2000-year-old roots of the concepts of communication studies.  Skyline Business Journal, Volime 4, No 2,pp 19-27.