We are suspended in language such that we don't know what is up and what is down
Niels Bohr
Adjectives, verbs and nouns are stored and processed in their own particular regions of the brain. Other regions retrieve them. Others compile them into thoughts and utterances.
communicating
Words are symbols of the contents of our mind. When spoken they extend our mind outside of our body. They try to change other people and may, like viruses format or program them.
Written words are more persistent symbols of spoken words. Writing extends ideas even further, passing on the blueprints of culture and technology beyond the memories of present generations.
limitations
Modern languages enable complex society. But they are limiting. They bring perceptual biases that constrain the way we think.
In many languages nouns divide the world into separate objects and verbs frame experiences as events using past, present and future tenses. These very tools that enable us to conceptualise and communicate otherwise inexpressible ideas also limit us to their world of three dimensional space moving through time. They limit what we can talk about and even dictate what we see and think.
Once we have a word for some thing we become imprisoned within its limitations and less able to see the world in other ways. We often expect abstract nouns like time, space, justice, bravery, and spirituality (the list is endless) that spring up within a language to refer to something real that actually exists outside of our thoughts.
A small part of our thinking is symbolised in words and yet words dominate our culture. They have the most social, scientific, personal and legal significance. Emotional, tactile, pictorial and other sensory images are less noticed. And yet only they give meaning and importance to the words and enable the words to be understood.
We can't know everything in words or understand and live life from words alone. The world does not fit into such small spaces. And the words that seem so stable and defined in dictionaries become slippery and unpredictable in the wild.
culture
Culture is shaped by language and language is shaped by culture. Each empowers and limits the other.
If a community shares the feelings associated with the words in its language they will have a common understanding of the words. Words by themselves do not communicate their meaning fully and accurately. They require the frame of reference of a shared culture to be understood and each individual will have their own particular feelings in response to words and sentences.
Some of the wisdom and clarity of infancy returns with old age and dementia as we forget our culture and stories and begin to see things as they actually are once again.
The mind and body exercises also go beyond the limitations of words.