The Embodied Origin of Language

I know; you want an agreement of sorts here. The Other opposes me. Are you the other?

 

No agreement is necessary, contention is already shared. If my hair grows an inch, is that inch the other?

 

Now you are dealing in alchemy. I believe too little (just personally) that the chemistry of the skin is relatable to the values of the chemical evolution of the Identity of living consciousness from the differences of ultimately decaying Matter.

 

I would say that intent is not absent in any case. I recognize their are some things in which we may find trepidation in claiming for ourselves.

 

Ouch, it's there* not their.
You mustn't know a damn thing.
Kidding. I've been having a lot of epiphanies on language lately myself.
Mainly what you have a covered and a dab of something else.
What you would have covered I would consider applies to the fact that language conveys experience. Tone of voice can dictate the mood. I've found that, say person X observes A & B. A comes off as exciting, B comes off as depressing (the cue is from tone of voice and over all "body language") A & B deliver the joke. X may find A funny and B not funny even though it is the same joke. Basically how the receiver picks up vocal cues, perhaps. Yes, I'd also go as far to say that there are wave lengths that underlay all these processes, based on personal experience. Also, yeah, simply looking at another we can pick up on what they feel so language isn't always necessary, etc. Family's seem to be the most primitive example of people who can look at each other and have an idea of what's going on by that alone.
I'd also go as far as to say language can only convey experience, but never really capture it's essence. Words are like pointers to what actually is real, but the words in themselves are man-made and not of nature and not "entirely" important either. Example, 100 different religions can point to the same experience -- the content really is just interchangeable.

Dane Cook seems to prove my point, he doesn't have any real jokes (just kidding) yet he tells stories with high enthusiasm and animation and wins the crowd almost every time, even if the content is devoid of any apparent cleverness or wit.

 

.

this is the one existential ideo-word i've experienced . it points
to itself the word that means this exactly so identified . i laugh
at it . just the other day i witnessed a little kid discover this for
herself . a giggle erupted . by jolly , it surely was is and shall be
a fine revelation .

.

 

Laughter is the juggling of yes and no in the same place.

 

It seems that anyhow was invoking for the "giggle".

 

You command every level of my appreciation friend.

 

if equal equals equal
j j j
and pos. equals pos.
r j r
and neg. doesn't equal pos.
y yj r

then

ry would equal nonsense?

nonsense - the beginning of
awareness

there is a human language flying into space at this moment . it begins
sensibly with equal equals equal . this is of the language Lincos and
is in the culture capsule aboard the Voyager .

so space creatures might find it and try to read it .

hmmm.... seems to be nonsense , Vlhop , but ....

if nonsense is a

a yj a

 

We are justified by our words, by even those we do not speak.

 

just humming along birdily . for all the busy-ness of me head and not talking much i wonder how i silently communicate what's important . i guess that's up to who's listening and choosing . oft it seems best that my intention is for all the meaning to be made by thee . it's the way of I making music glee .

 

the resonant effect occurs via the tension / conceptualization interface.

 

... I don't pereceive this VORTEX. Did I ever; I know it existed. Today: I say to no one there. Atleast that would be right side up.

 

Cause it is not a vortex, it is the net of intent, a scaffolding.

 

People learn most from me when I don't speak. I justify myself with words often, I infiltrate beyond justice with words as well. Creates confusion amongst those that seek total justification, this confusion should lead back to justice depending on the individual. Some people are just judgmental though.

 

Some people, I believe to the existentialist, think they are judgmental.

 

Some people realize in the doubtful ontology of this aforesaid discussion that they are morally obligated. But it is judged by the Other that they were existentialists. They may regret that their ego is deflated too.

 

I should be writing----instead, creative avoidance forces me to go through old threads in the philosophy and religion forum...

Very good observation! I find this to be an interesting subject as well. I think language works on several levels.

1. There is the most mundane conscious level--we speak in the grammar, and the vocabulary that we have learned. It is structured in a linear or non-linear manner depending on the language we are using. (The more non-linear the language, the less that language has been shaped and conformed by rationalistic objectivism—but it usually breaks down to how long the language itself has been written in an alphabetic language. Chinese for example has a long history as a written language, but the writing is deeply symbol based and nonlinear). The non-linear languages have a closer affinity to our subconscious which is why the cultures that use such languages tend to be more spiritual-focused. At this mundane level though, the meaning of our words tends to be more superficial—we use the words that make sense because they have always made sense, we, and everyone around us always uses them. This is the conscious use and choice of words. If we ignore the deeper levels, we could say that they are the simple product of reason---a computer or machine spits out language at this level. By itself it is simply mechanical pre-programmed language.

2. There is a deeper level that is the expression of our field of being---our Dasein (to borrow from Heidegger---which I have been doing a lot of lately---he seems to keep coming up in reference). This is my interpretation of what you are relating here, Thedope, and your post has got me to re-examine this a bit. This would be the language as it is expressed from the spiritual (or field of consciousness if you will). I believe the subconscious is the doorway to the spiritual (or the numinous as Jung would say), and so this level of language relies heavily on the symbolism of the subconscious, which is also how we apprehend experience. It is there in subconscious, in our spirit, our soul, that we understand the vibratory signature, that we perceive the intonation, and so forth. This deeper level impacts the mundane level, which is what separates us from computers mechanically spitting out pre-programmed bits of objective information. Non-linear languages, being more in tune with the subconscious have a deeper way of expressing, or dealing with this. Japanese haiku is very powerful in what it does and does not express. If you try to learn Lakota (Sioux) there will be those who caution you that it is a powerful language, so you should not learn it unless you learn the spiritual side too, because, they say, just to use the language in a bad way can affect others in ways you do not know. It has the ability to manipulate the wakan—the sacred powers. The understanding of this is the forgotten power of the ‘word’ (logos) that was part of all language formation, but has been lost to centuries of civilization and objectivism.

3. I think there is a third level as well—simply a historical level. It is the old spiritual level as it was. Because we apprehend experiences base on our present existential experience, our language is generally locked in a present state of being and understanding. The archetypical symbols may go back to our earliest pre-human ancestors, but we paint our understanding of those archetypes with our own unique present day viewpoint. Therefore how we interpret the symbols we communicate with at the 2nd level above, is still based on existential experience, cultural conditioning, and other individual and cultural factors. But we do not make up the words brand new with each generation. We carry words that are based on roots that go back to our most distant past—from a time when we did understand the power of the word. This level in other words is the meaning of the words, behind the meaning of the words---what Kant would say, if he wrote of words rather than things---the word as the word in itself. Words change, meanings get altered, but I believe you are just like me, when you examine the root of the words, you find those hidden meanings that give new insight to the meaning expressed---meanings and implications buried within the language that we probably miss completely if we did not examine the roots. After all, our language is handed down from the distant past, and that language shapes the way we see and experience the universe, so I think there is a hidden influence on the mundane level from here too. This level might be like a side-note, if you will, to the spiritual aspect of language you wrote about.

I have always been amazed at the meaning buried in the roots of our language, Ancient Greek, Indo-European roots, Germanic roots, etc.. I like what you spoke of in another thread about Aramaic---a language that is so non-linear and spiritually deep, that the New Testament takes on whole new spiritual meanings in its original Aramaic---if directly translated, Christians would hardly recognize it (I have a book written by an expert on Aramaic, an ex-monk, who left the church to explore the mystical reality of just that). Someone responded to you about Wittgenstein—he explored this as well. But I think the deeper insights come from those who focused on the roots---the original spiritual power embodied in the ‘word.’ Carl Jung is a good example. Martin Heidegger felt that we need to re-examine ‘being’----and that we have to break through Kant and Descartes, and the Greek Rationalism and go back to the very roots of the meaning. He does some very interesting work on this in essays such as, ‘The Thing,’ and ‘Building, Dwelling, Thinking.’

Your comments on vowels and consonants is very interesting. In the first of three books that I am writing, I talk quite a bit about language, especially the language of the feminine. Language roots in most languages are based on consonants. Many languages, such as Egyptian Heiroglyphics (when written as an alphabetical form), Sanskrit, Arabic, and Hebrew were written in root form only—without the vowels—later the languages added vowels as kind of an afterthought. On the other hand there are many languages that use single vowels, but not single consonants without vowels. In Japanese for example, there is no Mcdonald’s restaurants----they are called Makudonarudozu.

If I apply this root structure to your observations I would suggest that the consonants represent the root structure in many languages---the archetype, or the structure of the Platonic form without the essence. The vowels placed into that structure is what gives it the essence. This places language in an archetypical context just as the archetypes of the psyche. Jung explained that archetypes are universal to the human psyche, but that they are lacking in actual symbols---they are pre-symbolic. For example, we all have a Mother Archetype, but we fill that archetype with our own experience and perception, and thereby build our own symbol of the mother—good, bad, evil, loving, whatever—through which gives individual meaning of that archetype to us. But the archetype is more like the axial structure of the crystal, not the substance of the crystal or the crystal itself, which can always vary within how it expresses that axial structure.

IN my book I explore the one root which is found in every language around the world, and is intricately linked in one way or another with the feminine---its most basic from is ‘k~n,’ but somewhere in the Middle East, it became k~n~t (I think many people can recognize the word here). As it passes through languages the consonants devolve and break down, k~ becomes kh~, or g~, or eventually breaks down into h~.

Classical or early linguistics tells us that the root form—the consonants—should be the main feature that is shared. But there is a very heavy reliance on the vowel form too----a definite predominance to u, and o (long forms and the short u as in cut, which fits between these sounds)---such as kund (Hindi and Sanskrit for Lotus, and cont, Welsh for the feminine English word that uses the u). The word hollow, which uses a short-o (like an a in father) in English, is very often u or long-o in world languages. This language has lasted so long, because of its sacred-sexual, and sacrosanct qualities.

But here is a problem. There is a second root, p~k, which is also connected to the feminine appearing in distant languages, and other odd connections. In Tagolog, ‘puki,’ for example, means vagina, Ainu has the same word, as does Basque (the one non-IndoEuropean language in Western Europe). All of these languages are located at opposite corners of Eurasia. This root also has the same common vowel predominance for u and o. This root I think reappears as a masculine p~. (My research suggests to me that our earliest ancestors did not concern themselves with gender differences---both the male and the female were equal parts of the creation process, and you find evidence of this buried in language. Indigenous languages of cultures that place little emphasis on sexual difference still retain use of the feminine root as the primary sexual roots for their language for example, regardless of gender).

Anyway, you’ve got me thinking about consonants as the form of being, and vowels as the, how you put it, ‘I am’ of being, when it comes to language. The only thing I would add is that the lips too are part of consonant formation----the explosives, and fricatives do not need the tongue.

 

Mountain Valley Wolf, it is refreshing to speak with someone who is so practiced in their ideas.

I have to do remedial research on the philosophers/philosophies that you mention as I truly am a novice regarding those particulars.

My perspectives come from the quality of attention I have trained myself to.
I am inclined to describe it as, my meditation is beyond symbols, and I think variously by others as becoming as little children or beginners mind in combination with the vigilance to remain in that state, praying without ceasing, or staying awake.

I take your point about the lips being involved in consonant formation and I would expand my poetic/noetic rhetoric by saying we wrap our mouths around the vowel as we taste it. I point particularly to the tongue as the organ of taste even though our whole bodies are involved in the production of the sounds we make. All of our mouth parts are involved in consuming/tasting the world, whether going in, or going out, including the teeth.

I talk about the human creature as being tasting man, and knowing man.
There is no accounting for taste, but taste, sensational nature, is refined through harmonious relations or coming to know.