The fundamental question of knowledge is how we attain it. Essentially, language is what we base most of our knowledge on. We acquire knowledge through the guidance from parents, role models, school and teachers and life experiences. However, learning from one’s own experience is only part of how we learn and acquire knowledge, the rest is mainly language based. The majority of our knowledge is actually acquired from communication with others. Much of what we learn is in fact knowledge passed down or taught to us through language. Hence, language is something used by humans as a means to facilitate how we acquire language. Though there may be some limitations to the way we use language, it is still the basis for much of our thought and communication and subsequently our knowledge acquisition.
There are a number of obvious ways in which language helps us to acquire knowledge. For most people, knowledge is widely based upon the things we learn from our education. Education is a system established to develop our own knowledge. It largely facilitates the sharing and teaching of knowledge though communication with others. Teachers are an example that knowledge can be passed on. They have learnt from others. Every year students in their classes gain knowledge from their teachers. The knowledge we acquire from our education is mainly what we learn from communicating with our teachers. The process of communicating the information to us clearly requires language. Language too, is what enables us to comprehend the new thoughts and perspectives that we acquire through such communication. This is true to many people. People gain further knowledge by the variety of techniques they develop from their education. They use their best method to learn and acquire new knowledge. We can then use such methods to pursue knowledge-acquisition ourselves. Hence language is both crucial and extremely beneficial to our acquisition of knowledge through education.
Books are another means of which we acquire knowledge. This knowledge to can be acquired, passed on and shared by many people. Again, the knowledge we acquire from books is heavily reliant on our own natural language (to be able to read and comprehend the information supplied by the text). In this sense, without language, much of what humans have learnt over time could not even be recorded, and hence our knowledge today would be limited and not passed down. Too, thinking about ideas and thoughts; thinking about thinking; is an essential part of being a reflective, rational person. Another advantage of language to knowledge acquisition here is that information that is difficult to communicate or remember can be ‘off-loaded’ and written down; in turn making such information easier to comprehend and to share. This demonstrates how key language is in acquiring knowledge and indeed how helpful it can be.
It is evidently clear that language is the basis for many of the ways we acquire knowledge. I may be inferred that without language, human knowledge would be immensely restricted, as language is was even structures many of our basic thoughts. Hence language is very helpful in our knowledge acquisition. Though language may have some limitations in the way we perceive our world, without it there is an ability to assume that our thoughts would have little meaning.