Language

What’s the point of knowing something if we can’t pass on that knowledge? Language is probably the single most important tool humanity has ever invented. Without it, the discovery of fresh water or a plentiful food source would have benefitted only the discoverer and those he could drag with him. Without it, the rules and customs of our growing communities would have had to be negotiated with grunts and clubs. Without it, the young would never have learned from the mistakes of the elderly. I’m not saying these things don’t still happen, its just that now, if resources are hoarded, or politicians club each other, or children suffer ills that would have been prevented had they just listened, it’s because people are stupid, not because they’re non-verbal.

There is arguably nothing more mundane than language. We learn to speak as toddlers and take that for granted for the rest of our lives. But language has a complex and surprising life of its own. It grows and evolves as we do. It holds a long record of understandings, re-understandings, and misunderstandings. And we ought to pay it more attention than we do. Language is weird, and to those who care to look it offers an endless array of oddities and absurdities. It is, after all, human.