23.   But how many kinds of sentence are there? Say assertion, question, and command?--- There are countless kinds: countless different kinds of use of what we call "symbols", "words", "sentences". And this multiplicity is not something fixed, given once for all; but new types of language, new language- games, as we may say, come into existence, and others become obsolete and get forgotten. (We can get a rough picture of this from the changes in mathematics.) 		
Here the term "language-game" is meant to bring into prominence the fact that the speaking of  
language is part of an activity, or of a form of life.  
 		
Review the multiplicity of language-game in the following examples, and in others: 		
* Giving orders, and obeying them---  
* Describing the appearance of an object, or    giving its measurements---  
* Constructing an object from a description (a  
 drawing)---  
* Reporting an event---  
* Speculating about an event---  
* Forming and testing a hypothesis---  
* Presenting the results of an experiment in  
   tables and diagrams---  
* Making up a story; and reading it---  
* Play-acting---  
* Singing catches---  
* Guessing riddles---  
* Making a joke; telling it---  
* Solving a problem in practical arithmetic---  
* Translating from one language into another---  
* Asking, thanking, cursing, greeting, praying. 
    ---It is interesting to compare the multiplicity of the tools in language and of the ways they are used, the multiplicity of kinds of word and sentence, with what logicians have said about the structure of language.( Including the author of the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus.)    	  

  

 	

24.    If you do not keep the multiplicity of language-games in view you will perhaps be inclined to ask questions like: "What is a question?"---Is it the statement that I do not know such-and-such, or the statement that I wish the other person would tell me. . . .? Or is it the description of my mental state of  
uncertainty?---And is the cry "Help!" such a description?  

  

  

  

  

  

  

Think how many different kinds of thing are called "description": description of a body's  
position by means of its co-ordinates; description of a facial expression; description of a sensation of touch; of a mood. 		
Of course it is possible to substitute the form of statement or description for the usual form of  
question: " I want to know whether . . . ." or "I am in doubt whether . . . ."---but this does not bring the different language-games any closer together. 		
The significance of such possibilities of transformation, for example of turning all statements into sentences beginning "I think" or "I believe" (and thus, as it were, into descriptions of my inner life) will become clearer in another place. ( Solipsism.) 		

25.    It is sometimes said that animals do not talk because they lack the mental capacity. And this  means: "they do not think, and that is why they do not talk." But---they simply do not talk. Or to put it better: they do not use language---if we except the most primitive forms of language.---  Commanding, questioning, recounting, chatting, are as much a part of our natural history as walking, eating, drinking, playing.  

  

  

 		

26.  One thinks that learning language consists in giving names to objects. Viz, to human beings, to shapes, to colours. to pains. to moods, to numbers, etc.  To repeat-naming is something like attaching a label to a thing. One can say that this is preparatory to the  use of a word. But what is it a preparation for? 		

27.  "We name things and then we can talk about them: can refer to them in talk." 'As if what we did next were given with the mere act of naming. As if there were only one thing called "talking about a thing". Whereas in fact we do the most various things with our sentences.  

  

 
		
28. Think of exclamations alone, with their completely different functions. 
* Water!  
* Away!  
* Ow!  
* Help!  
* Fine!  
* No! 	
 Are you inclined still to call these words "names of objects"?