Wittgenstein importance of language - made easy overview in a nutshell.
Language for Wittgenstein was expression of way of life. When misused even fuel for worldwars. Largely ignored by history

Ludwig Joseph Johann Wittgenstein (1889-1951) was born in Austrian Vienna as son of a wealthy Jewish family. MONTY PYTHON hymned his beer-drinking abilities in a memorable verse. "Harpers and Queen" wrote about Wittgenstein as the "Elvis of philosophy". Wittgenstein studied civil engineering in Berlin and Manchester. After learning about the work the mathematical philosopher Bertrand Russel (1872-1970) Wittgenstein changed to studying at Trinity College in Cambridge under Russell. My VIEW: I GUESS that until becoming soldier in the bloody WWI he was 'rational' like a math teacher. In this period he produced his Tractatus. Experiencing the stupidity (the 'rationality') of warfare, and the for him totally unknown world of footsoldiers (gunfood) made him leave (mainly) 'rational' thinking. Because unlike his fellow soldiers Wittgenstein suddenly 'saw' (paradigm shift) the non-sense of tea drinking officers 'rationally' treating/talking-about common sense 'soldiers' as 'gunfood' (both sides in paradigm paralysis). After that life changing flash about the cultural influence of 'language' he finished his Tractatus. So World War I in Ludwig Wittgenstein triggered the flashview "Tractatus". At once Wittgenstein 'saw' that language expresses lifestyle. and when such life-form-worlds keep colliding finally results in warfare (war on terrorism) between language-culture-1 and language- culture-2 (two paradigms). As mathematician he writes down this message in a very formal report. WWII refreshes his memory, and this time his "Philosophical Investigations" are written in common sense. Nevertheless the message about the danger of language is largely missed. WWI and WWII also prevented that Wittgenstein became a Christian Buddha. Young Wittgenstein SEEMED influenced by Nietzsche. The 2 world wars and the agressive 'rational' behavior that caused them destroyed the last traces of Western common sense. In the thinking of Wittgenstein was already all the relativism that had been needed. Now especially Britain and France completely twisted history, to hide that power thinking made them out of by fear inspired prejudice at any cost purposely aim at TOTAL destruction of Germany (and Austria-Hungary) and made them rob the 'innocent' Muslim Ottoman Empire. They caused the Armenian Problem, The Kurdish Problem, The Palestine Problem, The Trouble in Iraq, to name a few. But they are only blocking solutions. Students of Wittgenstein talk with respect about him. He didn't prepare lectures , but was like a walking thought-generator. He improvised right on the spot, and there never was a dull moment. He died in Cambridge.

Wittgenstein flashes about language in a nutshell

Wittgensteins first flash-VIEW was his introvert 'rational' dissertation "Tractatus logico-philosophicus" (1922), written as Austrian student in England, and finished in an Italian prison camp (See map of Europe before WWI). The basic assumption that "a proposition is a picture of reality" is 'logical atomism' inherited from Bertrand Russell. But this assumption also made this brilliant semi-mathematical work around 'mind-worlds of words' undigestible.
The Tractatus inspired Logical Positivism, Wittgenstein himself LEFT this view.
Every 'proposition' (blot) on paper triggers mood, and non-sense worlds (mind-worlds). Most 'propositions' (blots) are non-sense.
Nevertheless the 'Tractatus' remains brilliant and without the essential assumption remarkably but also to be expected shows precisely the same relative view on logic that Wittgenstein expresses in "Investigations" (Compare with my article Mini-Tractatus. I give a logical summary in a nutshell, ignoring the 'blots'and concentrating on 'sense'.

Wittgenstein's second flash-view   The horrors of WWII made Wittgenstein realize for a second time the TREMENDOUS influence of non-sense symbols (expertly used by the Nazis to create nightmares), and this shock made Wittgenstein Take the Leap to some Common Sense. From his new paradigm Wittgenstein wrote "Philosophical Investigations" about 'language. And Wittgenstein rejected the basic assumption of his "Tractatus".
As young student he wrote as a computer ('rational'), but this time he tries to interprete logic (manipulation of behavior through 'words) in meaningful common sense notions. Written in a much more positively stimulating environment than a prison camp, and this time fully realizing that absolute-rule based logics (like 'rationality') must be unravelled to common sense VERY patiently.
It is black humor that exactly the unpreventable multi-interpretability ('creation of non-sense worlds' = 'wishful daydreaming') that Wittgenstein repeatedly warned against that made that his views were not sensed.

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Let's not speculate and instead give several  citations from 'Investigations' (if mentioned original from 'Tractatus'):

"Most of the propositions and questions to be found in philosophical works are not false but nonsensical. Consequently we cannot give any answer to questions of this kind, but can only establish that they are nonsensical. Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise from our failure to understand the logic of our language." ("Tractatus" 4.003) [The Joker: Wittgenstein means that these statement are TRUE in rational logic, but make no sense in Common Sense logic]

About the word "pain"
:"Here is one possibility: words are connected with the primitive, the natural expressions of the sensation and used in their place. A child has hurt himself and he cries; and then adults talk to him and teach him exclamations and, later, sentences. They teach the child new pain behaviour." ("Investigations" 1244).
So the emotion 'pain' in the view of Wittgenstein is a mind-concept that is trained by parents to children, and connected to the word 'pain'.

'A proposition is a queer thing!' Here we have in germ the subliming of our whole account of logic. The tendency to assume a pure intermediary between the propositional signs and the facts. Or even to try to purify, to sublime, the signs themselves. -- For our forms of expression prevent us in all sorts of ways from seeing that nothing out of the ordinary is involved, by sending us in pursuit of chimeras.

Thought must be something unique." When we say, and mean, that such-and-such is the case, we -- and our meaning -- do not stop anywhere short of the fact; but we mean: this -- is -- so. But this paradox (which has the form of a truism) can also be expressed in this way: Thought can be of what is not the case.

Language (or thought?) is something unique" -- this proves to be a superstition (not a mistake!), itself produced by grammatical illusions.

The problems arising through a misinterpretation of our forms of language have the character of depth. They are deep disquietudes; their roots are as deep in us as the forms of our language and their significance is as great as the importance of our language. Let us ask ourselves: why do we feel a grammatical joke to be deep? (And that is what the depth of philosophy is.)

(Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, 4.5): "The general form of propositions is: This is how things are." That is the kind of proposition that one repeats to oneself countless times. One thinks that one is tracing the outline of the thing's nature over and over again, and one is merely tracing round the frame through which we look at it.

When philosophers use a word -- "knowledge", "being", "object", "I", "proposition", "name" -- and try to grasp the essence of the thing, one must always ask oneself: is the word ever actually used in this way in the language which is its original home? --

The work of the philosopher consists in assembling reminders for a particular purpose.

If language is to be a means of communication there must be agreement not only in definitions but also (queer as this may sound) in judgments. This seems to abolish logic, but does not do so. -- It is one thing to describe methods of measurement, and another to obtain and state results of measurement. But what we call "measuring" is partly determined by a certain constancy in results of measurement.

The proposition "Sensations are private" is comparable to; "One plays patience by oneself ".(Wittgenstein means that definitions have no meaning)

The essential thing about private experience is really not that each person possesses his own exemplar, but that nobody knows whether other people also have this or something else. The assumption would thus be possible -- though unverifiable -- that one section of mankind had one sensation of red and another section another.

Couldn't I imagine having frightful pains and turning to stone while they lasted? Well, how do I know, if I shut my eyes, whether I have not turned into a stone? And if that has happened, in what sense will the stone have the pains? In what sense will they be ascribable to the stone? And why need the pain have a bearer at all here?!

To end with his remark: A serious and good philosophical work could be written consisting entirely of jokes.

Human kindness, human concern, for Witgenstein was far more important than being an intellectual wizard. Wittgenstein saw 'life' as sets of BEHAVIOR Ludwig Wittgenstein of course was utterly frustrated about not being understood in social science It made him leave the rigid scientific surroundings, to try to refind respect in a wortwhile living in rural Norway

Henkt the Axe, February 2003.