The linguist studies language as the astrologer studies stars.

As the astronomer studies stars.

Stars, unlike language, don't influence actual events; stars have no more meaning for humans than they have for clams or dragonflies.

This is to say, our specific perceptual structures -- eyes, ears, skin, brain -- have no evolutionary need for stars.

Yet stars have significance -- meaning -- to humans. From constellations that carry mythical names and religious meanings to specific stars that act as navigation aids to speculative objects of romance and culture, the patterns of stars we perceive in the night sky give us something ineffably human -- something which, lacking, feels less human. The jailed prisoner, the miner, the modern city dweller all function at night -- as living creatures -- despite a lack of stars. (For comparisons, consider a world without trees ... consider a world without water.)

The linguist treats "language", or "langue", as a phenomenon as separate from humans as the stars from the earth: something that, lacking, would feel less human but which, given, defines humans as a species. That is, language is treated as simultaneously separate and essential; both meaningless (who needs language to eat, drink, breath, shit?) and yet the very quality that sets humans apart from the birds and the bees.

Language as a communication system is thought to be fundamentally different from and of much higher complexity than those of other species as it is based on a complex system of rules relating symbols to their meanings, resulting in an indefinite number of possible innovative utterances from a finite number of elements. Language is thought to have originated when early hominids first started cooperating, adapting earlier systems of communication based on expressive signs to include a theory of other minds and shared intentionality. This development is thought to have coincided with an increase in brain volume, and many linguists see the structures of language as having evolved to serve specific communicative functions. [among the multitude and variety of academic descriptions for language, this serves as well as any -- as does wikipedia as a source.]

Historical institutions develop around language that neglect accurate and comprehensive definition and description of language while relying upon it as pathway, vehicle and destination (see, for instance, religion, law, science, academia, politics, business ... almost any traditional aggregation of meaning.)

We've agreed, apparently, that since we can't truly know meaning, we'll assume we do.

What does it mean to "mean?"

This is the task I attempt to address -- not as an academic or as a linguist, nor as an anthropologist or psychologist, nor even as a philosopher or poet, all (among many other ways of structuring understandings) legitimate, if self-limiting ways of giving meaning to life. Perhaps I hope to discover within chaos, order.

If we are to save ourselves from everyone else ("them"), we must understand our own place in the universe: which is to say, we must understand how our meanings destroy us in very real ways.