The series “Open Linguistic Debates of the 21st Century” was created to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the University of Szczecin and is intended as a platform for discussions on the latest trends in linguistics. Volume 1 starts with contributions addressing the most innovative future-oriented issues influencing human functioning and cognition like quantum cognition and AI tools followed by a contribution focusing on the origins of concepts and language crucial for understanding human mind and behavior. Furthermore the volume contains contributions looking at the role of language in multilingual context. These studies deal both with actual contact between people and language use in texts of culture. As a result, the volume offers a broad spectrum of studies giving insight into human language functioning.