Linguistics
Huginn: Blessed be Sapir, and blessed be Whorf, who in this generation spake truth about speech and language!
Muninn: My dear, it is man who constrains language to his will, and not language which constrains man.
H: But it is biology which constrains the human spirit, and linguistics which governs thought.
M: (sighing) If that were so, you would be Language, not Thought, and I would have left you for Prometheus. You are Thought, you should think.
H: (sulking) It was a pretty idea. And true in parts. You sound like Noam.
M: You and I are archetypes; we cannot afford to be merely true in parts, but must be true in all.
two ravens whispered at 10:24 AM
1 Comments:
I disagree. I prefer to take the Orwellian stance, and to say that ideas cannot exist without a structure in which to define them, namely language. A man who has no definable linguistic to rationalize what he sees, has no means of idea association - he may see a tree, but without any term to define it, he quickly loses memory of that object if he is not in contact with it. Otherwise, he will slowly learn to associate some terms, not necessarily verbal, with the tree, forming a crude yet very tangible linguistic system.
This applies especially to abstract and complicated ideals such as freedom of speech, differing forms of governance, God, and so on. Since these things cannot be tangibly felt, they need a system within which they can then become definable ideals. Otherwise, without a system of reference, as it is, these ideals will lack any tangible form of expression, and thus will inevitably fade.
Just a thought.
--Ben Soh
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