In no particular order, and definitely not organized to lead to any particlar conclusion.

Is language a noun or a verb? A thing or an action?

Language is a tool for communication. But so are mathematics, computer code, music, facial expressions, gestures, and the mating, warning and aggressive displays of beasts, and they are not languages.

Using the prime metaphor of our age, it is a form of software; but it is a type of software that has no specific purpose. It’s purpose is general, it is a program that can do anything, as opposed to one that accomplishes a specific task. The closest thing to it in information technology is the user interface, although even that is highly specific in use, not generalized for application in any situation.

People don’t invent languages, they seem to arise naturally from groups of people; that is, they are not the product of an individual mind, but of the collective mind. Only groups of people have, or need, languages. Human beings seemed to be programmed by evolution to quickly aquire language, but language does exist independently of the human mind, or at any rate, of collective minds. However, language can be codified with symbols and preserved independently of speech.

Language is intimately associated with consciouness and thought, but it is neither of those things. It takes a great deal of consciousness and thought to play a musical instrument, or ride a bicycle in heavy traffic, but none of these activities seem to require any language.

You can’t talk about language without language. This entire essay would be impossible without language. In fact, it would be pointless. Language is self-referential, whatever the hell that means.
What we call “abstract thought” is impossible without language. Does this mean “abstract thought” is merely an artifact of language? That it really has no independent existence or significance of its own?

Language exhibits properties comparable to living organisms. It takes on repeatable and recognizable (but not identical!) forms. It is highly redundant, and functions very effectively even when transmission is highly distorted or degraded. It grows, it evolves, it fractures into hierarchical subunits, but also combines and hybridizes with other languages. There are apparently no primitive or transitional languages. Even in the most isolated, tribal societies, languages can communicate everything required by their users, only an occasional noun or verb has to be introduced to accomodate objects or actions outside the the culture’s experience.

In spite of the variety of languages, none seems to be demonstrably better at communicating than any other. I speak two languages fluently, and I have studied others, but I can’t prove any of them is superior in any way to the others. I know I think differently in Spanish than English, but I can’t articulate precisely how–for all I know, I’m just making it up.

My two languages were learned as a child, I do not recall ever not being fluent in both, and often translated for adults who weren’t comfortable with both. I take no credit for this, I certainly have had little success with my formal language studies as an adult. Kids are just wired that way. They can pick up multiple languages easily, even simultaneously, and they never get them mixed up. Why is that? And more importantly, why do we lose that gift as adults?

Language is a very vital form of information organization, not just for conscious beings, but I suspect, in the universe as a whole. Language, like matter-energy, space-time and perhaps consciousness itself, is one of the ways the universe organizes itself to form complex, non-entropic structures. That is really important, and we need to give it some thought, or (dare I say it?) talk about it.

I’m just speculating here. I don’t have any answers to these questions, I don’t even know if they are meaningful questions. But of al the things in my experience, the one thing language seems most like, what it most resembles, is DNA. It ius a system for processing and transmitting information, intimately associated with a physical matrix, but somehow independent of it. One way of thinking about all living things is that they are simply vessels for protecting, modifying and transmitting DNA. One way of thinking about all thinking beings is that they are simply vessels for protecting, modifying and transmitting language.

Language and DNA may be the universe’s method for contemplating itself.