This TED Talk features language creator David Peterson,

recorded live at TEDx Berkeley 2019.

Spoons, cardboard boxes, toddler-sized electric trains,

holiday ornaments, bounce houses, blankets, baskets,

carpets, tray tables, smartphones, pianos, robes, photographs.

What do all of these things have in common aside from that? There are photos that I took in the last three months and therefore own the

copyright too.

They're all inventions that were created with the benefit of language.

None of these things would have existed without language.

Imagine creating any one of those things, or like building an entire building like this, without being able to use language or without

benefiting from any knowledge that was got by the use of language. Basically, language is the

most important thing in the entire world. All of our civilization rests upon it. And those who devote

their lives to studying it, both how language emerge, how human languages differ, how they

differ from animal communication systems, or linguists. Formal linguistics is a relatively young

field, you know, more or less,

and it's uncovered a lot of really important stuff.

Like, for example, that human communication systems differ crucially from animal communication systems,

that all languages are equally expressive, even if they do it in different ways.

And yet, despite this, there are a lot of people

who just love to pop off about language, like they have an equal understanding of it as a linguist,

because, of course, they speak a language. And if you speak a language, and that means you have

just as right to talk about its function as anybody else. Imagine, like, if talking to a surgeon and you say, hey, listen, buddy, I've had a

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