Just your average 69-year-old college freshman studying abroad.

The scientific community thinks our larynx dropped into its spot above our trachea around 100,000 years ago.

Our necks stretched to make room for our vocal tracts. We developed control over our breathing. Our tongues grew pliable and our lips learned to shape sounds.

We wandered in small bands and came up with thousands of languages. They help shape how we see the world. What does it mean, you might ask, if a tribe can’t express a future tense — what about supper?

We talk, schmooze, gossip and interface at two to four words a second and we do it on the fly, without thinking. That makes our gift treacherous. James 3:8 refers to the sins of speech as “deadly poison.” The serpent used beautiful words.

Maybe the most remarkable thing is that language exists in the first place, that we’re able to talk — even if we don’t always do it well.

When I sit down at a restaurant here, they pretend to understand what I’m ordering and I pretend that what comes out is exactly what I had in mind.