Language teachers should begin by explain this...
Language is composed by space, by symbol (without a value), and by (symbol with a) value. This is the foundations to a language.
In speech, space can be silence, or (not xor) it can also be the pauses in-between words. In writing, spaces can be, a space, a newline, an end of a file, etc..
Symbol is the entity; which in languages is "word". A symbol/word can either have no value (for example, the zero of the decimal numerical system), xor have a value (have a meaning), like the big majority of words in a language's dictionary. The act of getting the value (the meaning) from a symbol/word, is called "interpretation". (The act of putting value (meaning) to a symbol/word, is called "naming association".)
Most human languages I am aware of are implicitly interpreted. This is not told by (poor) (most) language teachers. For example, in such languages, when a person says "nothing" it is communicating the meaning of nothing (which, in Portuguese, its meaning is space), not the "nothing" (quoted; the symbol, the concept).
In fact, I should have had title this as "Space, Quote, Value" to have been more precise, since the English language is implicitly interpreted, since the English language is value-based.
Hope this has been informative enough as a new introduction to languages.
tags: #languages #portuguese #english
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