Society cannot share a common communication system so long as it is split into warring factions.
The truly unique trait of 'Sapiens' is our ability to create and believe fiction. All other animals use their communication system to describe reality. We use our communication system to create new realities. Of course, not all fictions are shared by all humans, but at least one has become universal in our world, and this is money.
The alphabet was a great invention, which enabled men to store and to learn with little effort what others had learned the hard way-that is, to learn from books rather than from direct, possibly painful, contact with the real world.
Science may never come up with a better office communication system than the coffee break.
The King's 28 letters have been described by scholars as the world's best alphabet and the most scientific system of writing.
Language, in its origin and essence, is simply a system of signs or symbols that denote real occurrences or their echo in the human soul.
I thought that the world was a vast system of signs, a conversation between giant beings. My actions, the cricket's saw, the star's blink, were nothing but pauses and syllables, scattered phrases from that dialogue. What word could it be, of which I was only a syllable? Who speaks the word? To whom is it spoken?
Language is not merely a set of unrelated sounds, clauses, rules, and meanings; it is a total coherent system of these integrating with each other, and with behavior, context, universe of discourse, and observer perspective.
Oh, we're very careful, Marilla. And it's so interesting. Two flashes means, "Are you there?" Three means "yes" and four "no." Five means, "Come over as soon as possible, because I have something important to reveal." Diana has just signalled five flashes, and I'm really suffering to know what it is.
