In Arrival, Louise Banks (played by Amy Adams) asks to meet and interact face-to-face with the aliens who have landed on Planet Earth and has to use visual communication to more quickly and effectively learn their language. Similarly, studies of human communication have shown that non-verbal signals account for a significant proportion of that communication making it more effective and memorable. Read more »

In Language: The Cultural Tool, Daniel Everett argues that language is a tool developed by humans to communicate, in the same way that we have developed other tools to help us cook, grow plants and drive around. He reviews the diversity of languages around the world, and most especially those he has studied as an anthropologist in the field, and shows that their diversity reflects their origins as tools to solve specific local problems. Read more »