> Just don't call it "language" or the human exceptionalists will get very upset
We don't know what "language" is. This is an attempt to empirically construct that definition from the bottom up. Calling it "language" may saddle whatever's going on here with needless or even misleading assumptions.
Language is a word we invented to describe a certain category of things. It's not some big mystery, there's not some objective, universal meaning that we have yet to discover.
By the broadest definitions, chimpanzees have a language, and maybe even multiple dialects. By the narrowest definitions, only humans have languages.
People behave like there's some profound truth here, but this is really just semantics. I don't see why it's such a touchy subject, other than the fact that people like to believe humans are a special case.
>Cultural value inherited from the past, mankind holding dominion over all others on earth.
That's not just some "cultural value". That's an actual capacity. If sharks, tigers, or monkeys could lord over us, they would have. Like they do for species they have the upper hand on.
As for "dominion over the earth," we're in the process right now of finding out exactly how fragile our hold over the planet is. I would not be asserting "dominion over the earth" as some kind of virtue at this point.
We don't know what "language" is. This is an attempt to empirically construct that definition from the bottom up. Calling it "language" may saddle whatever's going on here with needless or even misleading assumptions.