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.