6.1 Is Language Uniquely Human?

Are we the only living beings who communicate?

No. We’re not alone.

Many animals communicate in surprisingly sophisticated ways. Bees perform complex “dances” to signal to their hive where food is located — and how far. Some dolphins use distinctive whistles — true individual names — to call and recognize each other over long distances.

But human language does something we haven’t seen anywhere else:

it allows us to combine a finite set of sounds into an infinite number of sentences, ideas, instructions, and shared plans.

With just a few rules, we can express everything that’s already been thought — and invent what has never been said.

This ability gave us a decisive evolutionary advantage:

it amplified cooperation, allowed us to build complex societies, and enabled knowledge to be stored and transmitted across generations.

And unlike any other resource, knowledge does not run out — it grows when shared.

It is this capacity to build on what others have discovered that brought us to Australia 60,000 years ago – and to the Moon just over 50 years ago.

A capacity that shapes one of the most deeply human forms of intelligence.