Language Comprehension

I believe vocabulary is most important to language comprehension by process of elimination of the three options.  Sound is not as important to language as one initially believes because sign language involves no sound and people are able to communicate just as effectively as spoken languages.  While sounds are helpful in communicating, they are not essential to getting your idea across as proved with sign language.  Syntax is also not necessary to comprehend a language or communicate.  Many ancient civilizations communicated through pictographs, which does not have strict structure or rules.  If a sentence's word order is mixed up, one would still likely be able to decipher what was meant and comprehend its meaning.  A lack of syntax does become more of a problem when one is trying to communicate more difficult ideas, however.  For these reasons, I believe that vocabulary is most important to understanding a language.  When children learn how to speak, they pick up single words and their meanings like "milk," "mama," and "toy."  Similiarly when one begins to learn a second language,  the first thing one learns is vocabulary through flashcards, for example.  The brain is able to "connect the dots" between words to understand the full idea, but without a knowledge of vocabulary there are no dots to connect.

Quiz Results

According to GoToQuiz, I have an accent from the West.  I find this extremely surprising, since I am from New Jersey and the Northeastern accent was the smallest percentage of my possible accents.  Even the Boston  and Midland accents came up before Northeastern, which leads me to believe that this quiz is flawed or I truly do not have a distinguishable accent.  I have lived my entire life in New Jersey so in an attempt to understand why I do not have a more distinct accent I took the How New Jersey are you? quiz.  The results of this quiz might explain why I do not have the accent most of my roommates thought I would when they found out I was from New Jersey, since I am only 69% New Jersey.  I suppose you must be 100% New Jersey to really have the New Joyzee accent.