What do you consider the greatest human invention? Would it be television? The Internet? None of these would be possible without language.
Language has empowered humankind to evolve from simple tribes to the multicultural and interconnected world of today. Language facilitated the creation of new inventions to improve the world around us and to better connect us. The story of the Tower of Babel in the Bible provides evidence of this claim. “And the LORD said, ‘Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language, and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.’” (Genesis: 11:6) Even the almighty God of the Bible was frightened of the power of a united humanity, he endeavored to introduce multiple languages to sow confusion amongst humans. Today, with society being more interconnected than ever, we may be reaching another point in history like the tower of Babel. Fortunately, the universal language of bits and bytes made possible great scientific achievements such as the moon landing.
Language has also made it possible for us to learn from the past more effectively via writing. Without the written word providing knowledge of the past, we would be doomed to repeat the same mistakes time and again. Writing has also allowed ideas to travel through time. We only learned of Mendel’s ideas of genes passing down in reproduction through his notes. We use these ideas today to grow the most efficient strains of our crops and to raise the most meat or milk-producing forms of animals such as cows. As Samuel Taylor Coleridge said, “Language is the armory of the human mind, and at once contains the trophies of its past and the weapons of its future conquests.”
Without language, humanity would never be at the point we are today. The massive cities we live in today would be merely an aspiration, like the kingdom of heaven. Our modern technologies and ideas would be unknown except in the minds of the most creative or insane.
Therefore, I contend, language is humankind’s most powerful invention.
Your opinion on language is interesting! Language really is a great invention, it helped us get where we are today. Without it, the world would not be the same.