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If currency is how we trade value, language is how we trade reality.

Redefining Language as Tech

We take language for granted, viewing it as something of an innate human trait that simply "evolved" alongside us. Like breathing, it feels natural, automatic, inseparable from what it means to be human. Yet, it's really humanity's earliest and most fundamental technology — complete with its own derivative products and industries, like paper, printing, and the internet. Much like currency, which humans invented to facilitate trade and assign value to goods, language is a structured system humans developed to communicate ideas, coordinate actions, and build societies. It's not just a byproduct of biology; it's a deliberate innovation that enabled everything from coordinated hunting strategies to philosophical debates.

Just as currency standardizes value exchange — a dollar bill represents agreed-upon (if shifting) worth — language standardizes meaning. The word "fire" conveys danger or warmth — often both — universally within a group. Without language, complex cooperation would be impossible, as would be the effective practice of law. In fact, it could be said that every contract, every statute, every courtroom battle rests on our oldest tech: language.

Fragmentation, Convergence, and the Quest for "Hardness"

Currency, like language, is a technology that lets us assign values to abstractions and trade them at scale. And not surprisingly, currency's story mirrors language's. Early humans bartered goods directly, before turning to shells, beads, or livestock as proto-currencies, fragmenting by region (cowrie shells in Africa, wampum in the Americas, etc.). As societies grew, precious metals like gold emerged as "harder" stores of value — durable, divisible, and scarce — eventually leading to coins and paper money.

As for language, first it fragmented into dialects and tongues as tribes separated. Latin spawned the Romance languages, Indo-European branched into English, Hindi, and Spanish. Just as the wheel and fire-making tools spread unevenly, language became a customizable technology, used and refined differently across cultures. Now, in today's globalized world, we're seeing convergence.

English has become a "lingua franca" for business and science, much like the USD dominates global trade. We prefer "hard" currencies — those resistant to inflation, backed by stable economies — USD over, e.g., the Venezuelan bolívar. But then, disputes arise: Is the dollar truly "hard" amid national and global debt concerns? Enter alternatives like gold or Bitcoin, echoing how Esperanto or emoji attempt to unify language (but often fall short).

This preference for hardness highlights a key insight: both technologies thrive on trust and consensus. A currency's value is illusory without collective agreement, and the same goes for language. If "dollar" meant something different tomorrow, economies would collapse. Language's "hardness" lies in its reliability. Words must hold steady meanings to enable progress.

But just as currencies can inflate, devalue, or be counterfeited, language too can slip. Meanings drift. Precision erodes (e.g., “literally” now also means "figuratively"—once its exact opposite). And when agreement erodes — as to, say, truth, justice, or fairness — the system weakens. People stop trusting each other. Markets freeze up. Governments lose legitimacy. Societies fray.

Language Powers Every Human Endeavor

Language isn't just a communication tool; it's the OS for human civilization. It shapes thought. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis suggests language influences cognition — e.g., cultures with more words for "snow" actually perceive snow differently. It drives innovation: scientific breakthroughs require precise terminology; art and literature rely on nuanced expression. Socially, it builds empathy — and conflict. Wars start with words, and end with peace treaties.

Economically, "verbal contracts" are binding in some contexts (in a sense, words can thus be treated as currency). In tech, today's coding languages — Python, Java, HTML — are just the latest evolution of humanity's oldest invention, while AI relies on large language models to think and respond like a human. And to this point, we've hardly even mentioned Bitcoin (so let's fix that)...

Bitcoin is often conceptualized and discussed as a new form of language (or speech even) that communicates economic truth, immutably. Unlike fiat currencies, which can be inflated or manipulated (leading to "semantic drift" in value), Bitcoin's fixed supply and blockchain enforce a "grammar" where transactions are verifiable and irreversible. This creates a language you "cannot lie in," fostering trust through code — rather than intermediaries. Bitcoin has been described as the "language of the internet" — infinitely scalable on the global network, enabling borderless value transfer with zero translation errors in meaning.

Language in Law: The Ultimate Agreement on Value

But even mighty Bitcoin can take a seat for a minute, because nowhere is the technological power of language clearer than in the law. Law is built on words — statutes, contracts, constitutions. We collectively agree that certain terms hold immutable value, not quantitatively (like a dollar's exchange rate) but qualitatively. "Murder" isn't negotiable; it means unlawful killing with malice. "Contract" implies offer, acceptance, and consideration — breach it, and hard consequences (typically) follow.

Legal disputes, at their core, are often nothing more than arguments about the value of a word. In Raffles v. Wichelhaus (the "Peerless" ship case), two parties meant different ships that went by the same name. In the end, the contract at issue was voided. Or statutory interpretation: Does a park's "vehicle" ban include bicycles? What about e-bikes? What about e-bikes that look and move more like motorcycles than bikes?!

In the courtroom marketplace, lawyers and judges aren't just parsing text — they're maintaining the technological infrastructure that keeps civilization running.

In modern law, this extends to digital realms — crypto and NFTs as "property"? AI-generated text as "authorship"? Language evolves, but law demands stability. We assign value to concepts like "truth" (with, e.g., perjury penalties) or "lie" (with, e.g., defamation suits), mirroring how an "apple" is definitively a fruit — not a tech company — in a trade agreement (unless so specified as the capital-A tech company, of course).

We transact in words, and the stakes are nothing less than order. But, same as currency, it's not a system without challenges: cultural differences in word value (e.g., "honor" in varying legal traditions); evolving slang written into contracts; even new "languages" (e.g., emojis in court evidence). Precision tools — like the definitions clause in a contract (which is somewhat akin to pegging currencies to gold) — can certainly help. But I, for one, won't be hodling my breath that yesterday's answers will be tomorrow's solutions, as new "language wars" are being fought every day at the intersection of tech and law over terms like "decentralized," "trustless," and "smart contract" (to name just a few).

Perhaps the future of "meta-modern man" includes an ultra-precise, code-backed language — a trustless linguistic system that minimizes (or perhaps even eliminates) ambiguities in agreements, reporting, and all other forms of communication. (Anyone know what Satoshi Nakamoto's been up to lately?)

Onwards and ... ?

Language is humanity’s oldest and hardest technology. Every time we speak, every time we write, we are participating in the most enduring and transformative invention our species has ever made. And in the law, perhaps more than anywhere else, we are reminded: words don’t just describe reality — they create it. So use them wisely.

What more really is there to say?

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