Language Enables Information as Reciprocity Medium

Language is central to being human because it enables cooperation: it lets you make agreements for delayed and different paybacks impossible in barter, and because information is a nonrivaled good that can be shared without deprivation and multiplied, it is the ideal medium of reciprocity—conferring large benefits to others at small cost—which lubricates the hyperdeveloped cooperation and cumulative technological know-how of our species.