The capacity for language serves as a cornerstone of human cognition. In this short introductory talk, we will first jointly explore why studying language is elementary for our understanding of the (human) mind/brain. Against this background, we will then review and discuss a selection of past and present studies carried out at the Department of Neuropsychology at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig which have embraced this notion of language as a window into the workings of the mind/brain.