Editorial note:
Maciej wrote this poem for his presentation about the evolution of language. It is based on chapter 5: "So Sweetly Sung in Tune" in The Human Story by Robin Dunbar, Faber & Faber, 2004.

Evolution of Language

Maciej Sienkiewicz

Maciej Sienkiewicz is a Polish student from a Teacher Training College, English Unlimited, in Gdansk, Poland. E-mail: maksiek123@wp.pl

We use language to communicate
Using language we can lessons take
Then we know how to a hand axe make
Then we know there are bison down at the lake
Still there are no better things
Than the value our experience brings
But we love to talk and talk
Like there's no limit, like there's no clock
We need to know how to communicate in life and about life
That's the only way to survive
But people aren't tedious boring beings
That's why we talk about many different things
Sport, culture, music, fashion
That's the part of our passion
And if language is for grooming
Now sitting here, what are we doing?
Why our lifetime business is so time consuming?
From Gdansk to Panama
From Tokyo to Alabama
20% of our life
We use to find a husband, to find a wife
Simply the talk put us together
As without the sunshine there's no good weather
We can talk in groups of three or four
But more people - less control
And above all - we might feel quite small
We need to agree
When you speak and when speaks me
But remember: it's easy to talk!
Listening is a very hard work
A listener has also to be in action
He encourages, shows some interaction
Regarding language, whole nature is far behind
No baboons, no chimpanzees can something better find
But finding a friend is not always one minute
You need a time investment and lots of patience in it
Without language we wouldn't know our world
To sum up - the speech is our gold
Who is who, what is where
That's what normal people care
And just to add one more thing
Speech is more than a diamond ring

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