Language: The Origins of Meaning

Harvard FAS

How do languages work? Why are they so distinctly human in the natural world? Is language a creation of our intelligence - we speak, because we are smart, or the other way around? Birds produce sophisticated songs. Do bird songs mean anything? They do, in some way. They serve, for example, as predator warnings or mating calls. Humans too, like birds, can produce music. But for effective day to day communication, or, say, to develop a scientific theory, etc., we need languages with words and…