You and I belong to a species with a remarkable ability we can shape events in each others brains with exquisite precision Language is so tightly woven into human experience that it is scarcely possible to imagine life without it Chances are that if you find two or more people together anywhere on earth they will soon be exchanging words When there is no one to talk with people talk to themselves to their dogs even to their plants I like to describe the skill of language as an instinct This conveys the idea that people know how to talk in more or less the sense that spiders know how to spin webs Webspinning was not invented by some unsung spider genius and does not depend on having had the right education or on having an aptitude for architecture or the construction trades