Knowledge you can walk. Read the idea below, then step up to the general, across to peers or down to the specific.
Mental
Language and Communication
Communication is passing information from one being to another, and language is the structured system of words and grammar humans use to do it.
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The idea
Communication is usually defined as passing information from a sender to a receiver. The sender puts an idea into a message, sends it through a channel such as sound or a screen, and the receiver has to decode it to understand it. Animals and even plants communicate too. For example, maple trees release chemicals into the air that warn other plants about animals eating their leaves.
Language is a special kind of communication built from vocabulary and grammar. People use it by speaking, by signing with their hands, and by writing. With a limited set of words, a speaker can make an endless number of new sentences and talk about things that are far away or only imagined. Children learn language by talking with the people around them and usually speak fluently by about three years old.
Humans also communicate without words, through body language, touch and facial expressions. Language does more than carry facts, because it also shows which group a person belongs to and helps people bond. The scientific study of language is called linguistics.
Check yourself
Question 1 of 3
By about what age do most children speak their first language fluently?
Composition
what it's made of
- Message and channel — An idea is coded into a message and sent through a channel to a receiver, who decodes it.
- Vocabulary — The words a language uses to name things, actions and ideas.
- Grammar — The rules for how sounds or signs form words and how words combine into sentences.
- Verbal communication — Messages in language form, whether spoken, written or signed.
- Non-verbal communication — Messages sent without language, through body language, touch and facial expressions.
Connection
how it relates
Under Mental
Change
how and why it evolves
- Past
- Language slowly developed from earlier primate communication as early humans became able to understand what others were thinking and intending. Later inventions changed how people communicate, starting with writing and then mass printing, radio, television and the internet.
- Now
- A 2026 estimate counted around 7,500 spoken or signed languages, and about half of them are described as endangered.
- Next
- Experts expect that many of today's languages will probably no longer be spoken by the year 2100, while new technology keeps adding new ways to communicate.