My initial morning task is to feed our outdoor cat, who patiently awaits me by the sliding door to our deck. I fill her dish, but she wants to converse and be petted before she eats. I don't understand her variations on meow and she doesn't understand my comments—but timbre and melody adequately communicate the emotional overtones of our relationship.

I then throw out several handfuls of peanuts, and hear an immediate squawky song from a bird waiting in the Japanese maple tree that umbrellas the deck. Birds and squirrels arrive quickly to gather up the peanuts. No petting ritual here. We might wonder why a bird would alert other birds and animals to food it could otherwise have to itself, but then we might also wonder why we alert friends to economic opportunities, and invite them over for dinner.

Communication and collaboration are absolutely essential in a social species.

Many social species (including humans) use two basic forms of communication, (1) a personal intimate form called grooming or caressing that uses touch and body language to establish and maintain bonding and hierarchical relationships within the group, and (2) a more complex auditory signaling system that alerts others in the group to the nature, location, and importance of potential dangers and opportunities.

Human language appears to be the most extensive and complex of all these communication systems. Mastering one's native oral and written language is an extended major childhood task, and current school standards and assessment programs focus principally on the development of such skills.

Unfortunately, we've narrowed our definition of language.

For example, most K-12 schools currently focus on mastering the sequence of letters that constitute a word but not also on the sequence of tones that constitute a melody, on the grammatical structure of language but not also on the structure of musical forms, on the ability to use writing and typing tools but not also on the ability to play a musical instrument.