ORIGINAL PAPER Language Metaphors of Life Anton Markoš & Dan Faltýnek Received: 10 January 2009 / Accepted: 22 March 2010 / Published online: 14 August 2010 # Springer Science+Business Media B.V. 2010 Abstract We discuss the difference between formal and natural languages, and argue that should the language metaphor have any foundation, it’s analogy with natural languages that should be taken into account. We discuss how such operation like reading, writing, sign, interpretation, etc., can be applied in the realm of the living and what can be gained, by such an approach, in order to understand the phenomenon of life. Keywords Language . Formal and natural . Interpretative abilities of life Language speaks. This means at the same time and before all else: Language speaks. Language? And not man? […] Are we, in addition to everything else also going to deny now that man is the being who speaks? Not at all. […] But we ask, ‘How does man speak?’ We ask, ‘What is it to speak?’ Heidegger 1971, 195–6 Formal language theory defines languages to be nothing more than sets of strings of symbols drawn from some alphabet. A grammar is a rule-based approach to specifying a language, consisting of a set of rewriting rules that take forms such as A->xB. Searls 2002, 211 Biosemiotics (2011) 4:171–200 DOI 10.1007/s12304-010-9097-6 A. Markoš (*) Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Sciences, Viničná 7, Praha 2, Czechia 128 44 e-mail: markos@natur.cuni.cz D. Faltýnek Palacký University in Olomouc, Philosophical Faculty, Křižkovského 10, Olomouc 771 80, Czech Republic e-mail: faltynek.dan@seznam.cz