Language and Species by Derek Bickerton

You only run into a few really important ideas in your life, and you tend to remember them, if not always exactly when and where they were first heard or read. Years ago, I read this book, and crashed headlong into one of these ideas.

The idea was this: We use language to communicate, and it’s no doubt our most important invention. But communication isn’t what language is, it’s what language does. Language is a system of representation.

Okay, what’s that mean, and what’s important about it?

F...