Language is a tool, not a truth.

Trying to explain a complex concept today to a friend when i guess i could only verbalise how language is a tool and not a truth - a complex concept in itself.

But i see it this way - if you have ever figured out the secret to doing well in maths, you will know that when you are given formulas, its best just to follow them - in blind faith and not to try too hard (or at all) to understand why it can get you the answer you want. You have a formula, you apply it to a situation and you get the results you were looking for.

I guess language is similar to that. im not going to go into the boring elaborations of differences between languages etc - but will say that some linguistic "formulas" assist us in framing something in a way that will be beneficial to us when we are trying to deal with a problem. Because we define it this way, then we can deal with it. no matter which way you want to talk about it, truth does not lie in the language we use. its a means to and end.