EPTLanguage - something pretty much everyone knows in some way, shape, or form, the basis for any form of communication between people. What would happen if, all of a sudden, everyone forgot language? We’re all so accustomed to communicating everything by talking or writing, so losing language would not be a good thing at all. Language is probably the most important thing invented by human hands, it’s been the absolute foundation for every single thing that humanity has done since its conception, which was quite some time ago. Back then, nobody really knew what to know or could really think at all. That all changed when language came around and everyone was suddenly able to communicate to each other much more easily. Language is present in a lot of animals that aren’t humans, sure, but the main reason why human language is so unique is that we actually verbally say things, and can say a lot of things too. That’s not to mention the fact that we also can write words down, not just say them.
Humans are very intelligent beings, more so than any other animal on earth, at least to my knowledge. Combining that with our very advanced communication skills should mean that misunderstandings are not an issue, but that’s not exactly true; often people may find themselves thinking someone meant one thing when they really meant another, which might seem like it’s because they or the other person are unintelligent, but that is not the case, it’s actually for the opposite reason that someone misunderstands something; humans are overly intelligent beings for the language they have to express themselves.
Misunderstanding something means that someone actually has the capability to know alternate possibilities for the meaning of something that was communicated to them. Most other animals tend to just do what they are doing instinctively and don’t have room for other thoughts, which is mainly because they are simple minded, so they misunderstand things much less easily that humans, who have “grown out” of pretty much all but a select few of our instincts and are vastly more intelligent than any other animal on earth. And that is why we don’t have the same capability as other animals to communicate without misunderstanding, it’s because we’re too smart. If a new form of communication that is more concise than our current language system were to be developed where all words only have one meaning, or at least to make it so things cannot be misunderstood, then misunderstandation would be a thing of the past.
Something that is so amazing about language is that non-words such as “misunderstandation” can be made and understood even though they aren’t even real words. Language is actually incredibly complex, especially in this day and age with all the rules on spelling, grammar, sentence structure, and punctuation to name a few. There’s also a truckload of words and phrases, many of which mean roughly the same thing but have a slightly different meaning from each other or also mean completely separate things. The amount of stuff that’s in language is just ridiculous, really, but that doesn’t stop people from writing it, speaking it, and understanding it. What humanity has done with language is nothing short of astonishing, we’ve made every single thing that can possibly be imagined and then some with language. What we have done is made a new instinct to replace our lack of them; we’ve made it possible for us to communicate to each other, compensating for our lack of instincts to know what to do in life.
Language is, for all intents and purposes and in the world of today, a human instinct, and even though it’s not something everyone is born with, it’s something that practically everyone learns in some way, shape, or form; it’s just so basic to mankind at this point in time. People even think in words quite often, which is just astounding since that means that language has not just influenced the way people think, it has also become the basis of human thought. There is nothing anyone can’t think of with language as it is the thing that people use to think with. Even if someone has a photographic memory, they are likely comprehending what they are remembering through language since there really are no other options for comprehending things or describing things other than language. Language is just so extremely basic to being human at this point that it’s really comparable to animal instincts such as an insect knowing to go out and find food or a bird knowing to make a nest.
I know that I may not be the first one to think of this, but that’s usually how things go when you think of something that you deem worthy to write about and share with other people.
