Planet Word

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Words are all we have. Certainly, reader, words are all we have, you and I, as you sit with this book or reading device in front of you and I sit and tap at my keyboard. You have no idea where I am as I do this, and I have no idea who, where or what you are as you continue to read. We are connected by a filament of language that stretches from somewhere inside my brain to somewhere inside yours. There are so many cognitive and cerebral processes involved simply in the act of my writing and your reading these words that not all the massed ranks of biology, genetics, linguistics, neurology, computational science or philosophy can properly describe, let alone understand or explain, how it all works.

Yet language, as we are all aware, is a human birthright. It is as free and available to us all as the ability to walk. The impairment, trauma, abuse or psychological impediment must be very severe indeed for any child in the world not to be able acquire their language with no more effort (and usually less pain) than they acquire their teeth.

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