Language is an essential part of everyday life. What Darwin called ‘the sweet music of our species’ has in fact had a vital role in the establishment of the human as ‘the dominant species’; language creates a strong connection within all members of the same social group and allows to convey a virtually infinite quantity of information, involving both concrete and abstract concepts, as well as past, present and upcoming events. Biologically speaking, this is has been and still is a huge advantage over all other species, for which efficiency and variety in communication are fairly limited - if present at all.
A language that can be considered such, has five main properties: it is symbolic, since it is based on the combination of symbols of various kind, which are arbitrary and represent concrete and abstract ideas; it is structured, since said combinations of symbols have to follow syntax and grammar rules, in order to be correctly understood; its final goal is to provide meaning, as each symbol activates the respective mental representation; language is also generative, as the symbols can be…