why is language fundamental to culture? why is religion fundamental to culture?

Question

please answer!
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Answer 1

Language is a means of communication. It evolves in a society just like anything else. As societies migrated to different parts of the world, the language drifted, too, until there were variations of language in different cultures. The more remote a group was and the earlier it split off from the others, the more different the language was.

Some think that our language and intelligence evolved together, in the biological sense. Our brains became more versatile, and therefore they were used to more advantage. Language would have been one of those uses which allowed smarter humans to survive better, so it caused more intelligent brains to be favored in natural selection.

As our intelligence evolved, we also started trying to figure out the world around us. The better we did this, the better we survived. So, our imaginations caused our brains to be favored in natural selection. However, we also had many things we didn't know. It would have been counterproductive for early humans to dwell on each unknown, especially when in danger. So, humans developed heuristics for how to react to things. They generalized their thinking. Instead of having to say to someone, "Tiger, which has sharp claws that cut other guy last week until he died, is currently located in our vicinity.", we can just say, "Danger". "Danger" is an abstract concept. It allows us to be less specific. Abstraction is also a survival trait.

As we learned about the world, we created more and more abstractions to describe it. And we used imagination to think of other possible things to find. If we saw a hill, we imagined a mountain. When we saw animals, we imagined monsters. And when we saw people die, we imagined invisible parts of them moving on. We also abstracted humans to gods. Later, such abstractions became more elaborate. They survived, because they touched on human insecurities about death and danger. That's how religion became fundamental to society, the same way superstition has.

Answer 2

Tongue wagging is important because communication is essential for cooperation of a species. The greater the cooperation within a species, the more successful the species...
Ants are successful without speech, but they do have communication...

Religion being fundamental to culture is a premise I do not accept.

Answer 3

Culture is a group of people who have the same perception of reality. needless to say, they'd need the same language and set of beliefs to communicate and stay together.

But there are exceptions and your statements are generalizations.

Answer 4

religion is not fundamental in any way.