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We have been adaptable enough to have survived, so far. Could we have survived without language,
I wonder? But language is just one way of communicating meanings. Perhaps the ability to invest
things with significance and to understand and explain meanings is our greatest achievement as a
species. Without it we would not have culture and society — no collective identities, no art,
mythology, religion, metaphor or symbolism, no promising, reconciliation, philosophy or humour...
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