Language is the most astonishing behavior in the animal kingdom. It is the species-typical behavior that sets humans completely 1 from all other animals. Language is a means of communication, 2 it is much more than that. Many animals can 3. The dance of the honeybee communicates the location of flowers 4 other members of the hive (蜂群). But human language permits communication about anything, 5 things like unicorn (独角兽) that have never existed The key 6 in the fact that the units of meaning, words, can be 7 together in different ways, according to 8, to communicate different meanings. 　　Language is the most important learning we do. Nothing 9 humans so much as our ability to communicate abstract thoughts, 10 about the universe, the mind, love, dreams, or ordering a drink. It is an immensely complex 11 that we take for grante[D] Indeed, we are not aware of most 12 of our speech and understanding. Consider what happens when one person is speaking to 13. The speaker has to translate thoughts into 14 language. Brain imaging studies suggest that the time from thoughts to the 15 of speech is extremely fast, only 0.04 seconds! The listener must hear the sounds to 16 out what the speaker means. He must use the sounds of speech to 17 the words spoken, understand the pattern of 18 of the words (sentences), and finally 19 the meaning. This takes somewhat longer, a minimum of about 0.5 seconds. But 20 started, it is of course a continuous process.