Mounting research evidence from the sciences, the humanities, and the visual arts prompts this call for a reassessment of some of the basic operating principles of language study. Linguistic research has not adequately clarified the relationship among three components: our inner organization of language (comlang) and its expression as visible language and as audible language. The visible and the audible language systems are discrete; one system cannot be interpreted in terms of the other, and it is not the fit between systems which is of first importance but how each operates independently. Language is of a piece with total human development. Research is reported which indicates that a closer affinity exists between man’s internal information processing network and the visible language system—both for the way we handle language today and for the way in which our behavioral patterns were established during the origin and early development of language. An appeal is issued for additional research and theory to study the critical issues.
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