We are all born within a language, so to speak, and that typically becomes our mother tongue.
Along the way, we may pick up one or more extra languages, which bring with them the potential to unlock different cultures and experiences.
Language is a complex topic, interwoven with issues of identity, rhetoric, and art.
As author Jhumpa Lahiri notes meditatively in the novel The Lowlands, "Language, identity, place, home: these are all of a piece — just different elements of belonging and not-belonging."
But when did our ancestors first develop spoken language, what are the brain's "language centers," and how does multilingualism impact our mental processes?
We will look at these questions, and more, in this Spotlight feature about language and the brain.
1. What makes human language special?
When did spoken language first emerge as a tool of communication, and how is it different from the way in which other animals communicate?
As Prof. Mark Pagel, at the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, explains in a "question and answer" feature for BMC Biology, human language is quite a unique phenomenon in the animal kingdom.
While other animals do have their own codes for communication — to indicate, for instance, the presence of danger, a willingness to mate, or the presence of food — such communications are typically "repetitive instrumental acts" that lack a formal structure of the kind that humans use when they utter sentences.
LEARN MORE
How Language Affects Thinking
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Disclaimer: The facts and opinions expressed within this article are the personal opinions of the author. Picasso Creative Writing does not assume any responsibility or liability for the accuracy, completeness, suitability, or validity of any information in this article.
