Concepts and, therefore, language are primarily a tool of cognition—not of
communication, as is usually assumed. Communication is merely the consequence,
not the cause nor the primary purpose of concept-formation—a crucial
consequence, of invaluable importance to men, but still only a consequence.
Cognition precedes communication; the necessary precondition of communication
is that one have something to communicate. (This is true even of communication
among animals, or of communication by grunts and growls among inarticulate men,
let alone of communication by means of so complex and exacting a tool as
language.)