Welcome to our first issue of the Language Exepress!

Put your hands on your stomach and make the sound ‘ah’. The air stored in your lungs is forced out by your diaphragm and through your airways, traveling up through your vocal folds, opening and closing every one hundredth of a second so that they are able to produce a pitch, modulated by a range of muscles in your mouth to form the sound: ‘ah’. We transitioned from primal grunts such as these to basic languages roughly 100,000 years ago either by a development in the brain or vocal anatomy. Basic languages allowed us to alert the tribe to danger or to communicate our needs, increasing our chances of survival. At this stage, languages have undoubtedly united the pack – bringing humans closer together towards the united goal of survival. But to do so, they have become more efficient at excluding animals or other humans posing the possibility of being a threat. 

 

As humans developed agriculture, we went from living in small packs to larger communities, communicating with the same level of complexity as we do today. Languages enabled us to build civilisations with laws, commerce, art, religion and education. They became longer lasting, as words are solidified into physical forms. Inscriptions into tablets, the printing press and the internet all increased the reach of languages as they become more efficient at spreading ideas to more people than ever before. This basic tool that has been developed from a survival tool to a tool of unlimited creation now has the power to cause unity or division on a global scale.  

 

Humans are clearly different; we look different and we think and speak in different languages. But having differences does not mean that we are divided. We can see the beauty in our differences rather than use them to justify violence and division. This is because our differences give us a reason to use languages in the first place – if we thought and acted the same way, there would be little need for communication. Not only do our differences not divide us, but we are less different than we think. When we dare to learn languages other than our own, we begin to spot clues, also known as cognates, which hint at the secrets of our innate similarities: our shared ancestors, heritage and language families. These cognates act as a reminder that we have a lot more in common than we thought.  

 

Ultimately, our languages unite us in the fact that they are at the core of what it means to be human. They have acted as a key thread throughout our history, allowing us to survive and eventually thrive within communities. The power of languages is needed more than ever in the deeply divided world we find ourselves inhabiting. As our ancestors managed to do so successfully 100,00 years ago (evident by the fact that we are here today), we must re-evolve our ability to use languages as a unifying tool to better communicate what needs to be said.