Language

Lets go back 2 million years ago.

Visualize earth as a wild place, no buildings, no cars, no civilization. A magnificent blue planet just governed by cruel jungle law.

In that scene, you are one of our descendants, a homo habilis. You just left your group of about 30 tribal members, your people.

Together with 8 other brave friends, you all take off looking for sharp stones to make spears in the savanna.

Very important for our story, there was no grammatical language yet. You and your friends are using primal sounds to communicate.

After 10 mins walking, our small group reach an open area in the savana. We are all peacefully looking for perfect stones.

Not far from there, a salivating and hungry lion is approaching the group.

As it goes, one of us is about to die.

The king of the jungle charges from a long distance on pure instincts and power.

You are the first to notice the attack. You howl with all your lungs to alarm everybody.

Panic.

By chance, you know exactly how to escape because 5 mins before you made a turn and saw a safe place, hidden in the savana.

Everybody could be saved. You try to yell but your friends cannot understand precisely your primal sounds.

As it goes, you've managed to escape and reach the safe place but, seconds later, one of your friends is caught.

The lion roars victory.

Slowly, the brutal scene fades down and the savanna returns to the superficial calmness.

Later, you regroup at your campsite, one friend is missing.

Unfortunately, with no structured language and without words, no exact explanations were possible. Little can be said to the other 29 members about the savanna tragedy.

Also, in 2 months you will not be able to say “Do you remember Jay ? the guy killed by the lion 2 months ago ?”, “Yes! Jay, I miss him, he was a good man”.

Without language, there are no clear representation of the past or future. Without language our mind is mostly instincts and emotions. If you could go back 2 million years ago, you would be a “here and now” creature. Like the lion or a yogi master.

Is language then a bad thing ? Not at all. Language is fundamental and probably one of the most powerful tools in human history (if not the most powerful).

It changed us forever but also has a high cost. Lets get into the bill.

This book is an ongoing project. The content and the chapters may change before the final release.

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