This article by Associate Professor Celeste Rodríguez Louro, Professor of Linguistics and Director of the Language Laboratory at the University of Western Australia, was originally published on The Conversation on 19 March 2026.
I remember the first time I attended a linguistics lecture as an undergraduate student in Argentina. The teacher asked a simple question. Where did language come from? My instinctive answer was “books.”
After 40 years of studying language and linguistics, that reaction seems almost ridiculous. But this reflects a common bias among those of us who grew up in a text-based culture. We tend to view written language as the ultimate form of expression, knowledge transmission, and even thought itself.
But linguists know that speech is historically, developmentally, and cognitively prioritized.
Lighting is a relatively recent technological invention layered on top of something much older and more basic. Swiss linguist, semiotician, and philosopher Ferdinand de Saussure said:
Language and writing are two different symbol systems. The second exists solely for the purpose of representing the first.
heart of language
In sociolinguistics (the study of language in society), the most valuable form of language is what researchers call vernacular, the way people speak naturally when they are not paying attention to how they sound.
Pioneering sociolinguist William Labov famously argued that “the history of a language is the history of that language.” In other words, language changes and changes through everyday conversations rather than formal documents.
For this reason, sociolinguists focus on capturing naturally occurring conversations. The most important standard is storytelling. These are the moments when the speaker gets so absorbed that he forgets that he is being recorded, pays little attention to his own speech, and slips into the most natural type of dialogue.
My own research with Glenys Collard uses the Aboriginal cultural forms of storytelling and conversation threading to collect spoken Aboriginal English. Yarn knitting is not just a research method. It is also a culturally grounded way of sharing knowledge that respects the protocols and safety of the communities involved in sociolinguistic research.
Why are we so obsessed with writing?
If speech is the center of language, why does modern society treat writing as the ultimate form of knowledge?
Part of the answer lies in why humans invented writing systems in the first place. Writing made it possible to record information for posterity, freeing memory from the need to carry everything around, and allowing for the expansion of administrative and scientific systems.
From the management of empires to the spread of colonial rule, writing also became an instrument of power. For example, Spain’s so-called “conquest” of the Americas was greatly facilitated by Nebrija’s Grammar of Castilian, published in 1492, which facilitated the task of imposing a Spanish language to the detriment of the ancestral languages of the indigenous peoples.
Over time, Western educational institutions came to treat the written word as the primary means of knowledge. Universities, bureaucracies, and courts are all run by documents. Written scholarship became the gold standard of scholarship and authority.
Even our most famous dictionaries relied on letters. The Oxford English Dictionary was built by generations of volunteers who read texts and wrote and submitted examples of the words used.
Education followed the same model. Students read books, wrote essays, and were assessed through written exams. From medieval monastic libraries, such as the Old Library at All Souls College, Oxford, to modern universities, writing has become synonymous with thinking.
Generative AI challenges
This model is currently under great pressure.
The emergence of large-scale language models has challenged long-held assumptions about writing and learning. If machines can generate coherent essays in seconds, how can educators be sure that students are doing the intellectual work themselves?
This sparked a new interest in what linguists have always considered important: speech.
Some academics now argue that universities should place more emphasis on oral assessments (conversations, presentations, live exams) where students explain their thinking in real time. Once that understanding is demonstrated, AI tools could help shape the final document output.
In this sense, new technologies may be pushing education back toward one of the oldest forms of knowledge exchange: spoken dialogue.
Speaking verbally expands the range of people who can listen to your story.
There may be other benefits to a renewed focus on public speaking.
Written academic English often acts as a gatekeeper, especially for multilingual students whose primary language is not English. Many people are able to think, analyze, and discuss complex ideas more effectively in their native language than in the world language of academia.
New technology is making it easier for students to brainstorm orally in their native language and translate or refine their ideas into written English. In theory, this could make academic spaces more linguistically inclusive.
Some say artificial intelligence may end up amplifying something profoundly human: our ability to think through conversation.
Returning to spoken language
This doesn’t mean there will be no more writing. Written records remain essential for preserving knowledge, building scholarship, and communicating across time and distance.
But it may be time to rebalance our assumptions.
Speech is where everyday language comes alive. There, stories are told, identities are negotiated, and new linguistic forms emerge. For thousands of years, humans have thought together by speaking.
As technology changes the way we write, we may rediscover what linguists have known for years. To understand language, and perhaps to understand thought itself, we need to start with spoken language.
Through a complex combination of privilege, prestige, and standardization, written language has occupied a dominant position in Western society over the past several centuries.
However, spoken language remains the basis for writing. Large language models have destroyed this long-standing hierarchy, but speech remains. Let the spoken word be your guide as we move together through rapidly changing times.
