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<blockquote data-quote="gepetto" data-source="post: 7929102" data-attributes="member: 6990165">Seems like an unnecessarily small definition of language, which is just another way of saying verbal communication. If your communicating your ideas and emotions your using language, and you have language, otherwise you couldn't be using it. You might have a small vocabulary and you might have a huge one but either way you still have language. Whether that language is native to you or not is irrelevant.The idea that the need for interpretation somehow invalidates the communication as a language is just silly. All communication requires some interpretation on the part of everyone involved. And all of the interpretation is imprecise. Even among humans with the same native language, level of education and cultural background mis-interpretation of meaning is extremely common and the source of much of our interpersonal conflict. Never mind 2 or more people with differing levels of language precision or culture. The idea that suddenly I'm not really using language because the guy in the french restaurant when i'm on vacation has to try to interpret my meaning is a little ludicrous. The same way that my dog is definitely using his language however limited when he goes to the backdoor and whines to tell me he needs out. Thats his verbal communication. His vocab is definitely limited. Pretty much hungry, happy, angry and gotta piss. But he's quite proficient at making his thoughts and desires known with it.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="gepetto, post: 7929102, member: 6990165"] Seems like an unnecessarily small definition of language, which is just another way of saying verbal communication. If your communicating your ideas and emotions your using language, and you have language, otherwise you couldn't be using it. You might have a small vocabulary and you might have a huge one but either way you still have language. Whether that language is native to you or not is irrelevant. The idea that the need for interpretation somehow invalidates the communication as a language is just silly. All communication requires some interpretation on the part of everyone involved. And all of the interpretation is imprecise. Even among humans with the same native language, level of education and cultural background mis-interpretation of meaning is extremely common and the source of much of our interpersonal conflict. Never mind 2 or more people with differing levels of language precision or culture. The idea that suddenly I'm not really using language because the guy in the french restaurant when i'm on vacation has to try to interpret my meaning is a little ludicrous. The same way that my dog is definitely using his language however limited when he goes to the backdoor and whines to tell me he needs out. Thats his verbal communication. His vocab is definitely limited. Pretty much hungry, happy, angry and gotta piss. But he's quite proficient at making his thoughts and desires known with it. [/QUOTE]

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