ABSTRACT
This chapter sketches out what language is. It introduces the traditional distinction between external and internal language and disentangles language from communication. The relationship between language and cognition, and specifically between natural language and the language of thought, is explained: the main function of language is to externalize the language of thought. The nature of language structure is defined in terms of cartographic syntax, as well as through the relationship between language and meaning, and in particular through the metaphysics of natural languages. The chapter ends with a description of how meaning is communicated through natural languages and provides an initial explanation as to why communicated meaning is conveyed implicitly more often than explicitly and to why truth within natural language is communicated covertly rather than overtly.
