Language separates humans from all the other animals on this planet. Birds may have their songs, bees may wobble their bottoms, but none of them can match us when it comes to describing the difference between a coffee cup, a runny nose and the theory of relativity. We have evolved language, a wonderfully complex system for manipulating, storing, retrieving and sharing meaningful symbols. Human language has given birth to human civilisation and all that we have achieved as a species, for better or for worse, over the past 50,000 years.