In the following Google video, Noam Chomsky raises and answers the interesting question: what amazing insights into language have linguistics revealed, which the public does not know about?.
He answers that human natural language was propably developed to support the human thinking process, not to serve as a means of communication. He believes that language might have evolved long before it was first used for communication. He goes as far as saying that the design of human natural language makes it unfit for communication.
I find his language-is-for-thinking point is very interesting. I'm currently finishing a PhD, and it would explain the difficulties I sometimes have when trying to convert between language for thinking into language for communicating my thoughts. There is even a phd-comic about it.
As very often with Chomsky, the talk weaves in and out between political and linguistic topics. Interestingly enough, he does not shy away from mentioning and criticizing Google's part in state oppression through cooperation with NSA. That might seem like a breach of some sort of social etiquette, however, he was strongly encouraged to "speak truth to power" by the person introducing him. Be careful what you ask for.