Language

Language constitutes the rules or conventions of communication between two or more sentient beings. Thus there are languages or aspects of language corresponding to each of the senses, to bodily movement and behaviour, and according to some theorists, adducing animal, if not human forms of telepathy, there are mental languages. Human attention is focussed on human verbal language, oral or written. The science of language, linguistics, considers human vocal comunication to be its pr!imary area of investigation. One of the conclusions of linguistics, however, is that animal communication systems are very tightly circumscribed as to subject or meaning (or message), whereas the languages which are species-specific to man have a near infinite productive, creative aspect. There appear to be few limits to what humans can express by language, and this assertion becomes truer in proportion to the breadth of the definition of human language. If, for example, one includes 'body language' as language; or if one includes subliminally detectable electro-chemical states of excitement (for example), hypnotic influences or works of art as communication, then the range of human language in terms of its information or message-carrying capabilities is inexhaustible. Two of the most interesting areas of investigation in linguistics are the mental 'deep structure' of language and the identification that is approximated by saying that mind is language and language is mind.