What are advantages of using UML?

As the name suggest UNIFIED MODELING LANGUAGE. Modelling has been around for years, not only in software field but also in other trades like civil, mechanical etc. Example in civil engineering drawing the main architecture built of diagram is a model by itself. Modelling makes complex and huge system to break up in to simple and discrete pieces that can be individually understood. Example simple flowchart drawing is modeling.
There are two main advantages of modeling:
Readability: - Representing your whole architecture in flowchart, class diagrams, ER diagrams etc makes your project more readable. Especially when programmerfs change jobs handover becomes easier. More the project is not readable more the dependencies.
Reusability: - After the system is more readable and broken down to pieces, it becomes easier to identify redundant and similar modules. Thus increasing reusability.
So why UML? Well different languages have different ways of coding and syntaxes. In order to bring all languages in one roof UML is in to picture. As the term comes in UNIFIED, it unifies all disparate languages in one roof so that can be understood by people who are working on some other platforms.