What Is Language?

Human beings can communicate with each other. We are able to exchange knowledge, beliefs, opinions, wishes, threats, commands, thanks, promises, declarations, and feelings – only our imagination sets limits. We can laugh to express amusement, happiness, or disrespect, we can smile to express amusement, pleasure, approval, or bitter feelings, we can shriek to express anger, excitement, or fear, we can clench our fists to express determination, anger or a threat, we can raise our eyebrows to express surprise or disapproval, and so on, but our system of communication before anything else is language.

SOUND SYSTEM AND THE ARTICULATION

The differences in sound are the result of different manners of articulation – the way they are pronounced. Speaking in a native or a very well-known language does not require much thought about the positioning of the lips, the tongue or a possible closing of the air flow through the nasal cavity. Fully conscious articulation would be too slow. There are only a few elements whose position can be controlled by conscious will Nonetheless, it still allows a great variety of sounds to be pronounced.