What do I know about language? absolutely nothing!

I have come to realize, the more I learn(particularly in TOk) the less I actually know. For goodness sakes I can not even understand what does and does not make a language, something which I have been learning for my whole life! However I do believe that language is subject to perception. For example I may believe body language is one of the most important aspects to a language, while another person would completely disagree and say WOW are you ever stupid that has nothing to do with language. I suppose there is no right or wrong answer, unfortunately for me this is a hard concept to catch hold of because I like it when things are "black and white", or "cut and dry" if you will. Oh well c'est la vie!

haha nothing can top staceys first title!

Language, language, laguage. It is certainly not made up of one component, be it: words, gestures, expression, or whatever else one may think makes a language. However the combination of these things is what makes language. The primary usage of language obviously being communication. I do agree with Hayley that body language is indeed important however i do not believe it is more important, but rather equally as important as spoken language. Essentially they work together, spoken language would simply be a string of words without body language just as body language would be meaningless movement without words to convey an idea. I believe that expression and voice inflection contribute greatly to making a language communicable and serving the purpose of conveying a thought or idea. For example, take the statement 'you look nice today.' Your best friend says " you look nice today" while someone else says "you look nice today"(creepy/old man, emphasis on the 'NICE'). The idea conveyed by your best friend is merely a compliment, while from the old man "o my goodness today this OLD man was hitting on me, what a perv!! Exactly the same words yet totally different impacts. Therefore I do not believe so much that it is 'what we say' but rather 'how we say things' that effects the communication and understanding of ideas from one human to another, provided the same language is being spoken by each individual