symbolic 57: the root language
I was very cursorily reading a thread on one of the mailing lists I half pay attention to the other day while there was a discussion about the ability to find coded messages left behind in written texts. Michael Drosnin's The Bible Code had its fifteen minutes of occult fame a few years ago when he posited the existence of coded messages would could be discerned if you used a skip method of reading the letters. Naturally, depending on the language you are dancing with, the message will be different if not outright illegible. The conversation running through the thread was that you could still find patterns in any language -- you weren't limited to Latin or Hebrew.
Which leads to the hypothesis of a root language -- the whole pre-Babel tongue supposition -- if everything has the same basic root, then everything will adhere to patterns that much easier. Someone offered English as the language which existed prior to the destruction of the Tower, which is a woefully short-sighted American viewpoint. While English may be the de facto post-Babel linguistic convergence point, it saddens me to think that we are in any rush to reach this homogeneous state.
I'm reminded of the quintessential point of failure of Utopian societies: the human animal doesn't like perfection. We constantly war with the dichotomy of individuality versus uniformity -- we want to belong, but we also want to be individuals.
Once we all speak the same tongue, we'll start rewriting history. Like this fellow arguing for English as the root language.
From a genetic and mathematic standpoint, if you have a system that has many diverse end points, it stands to argue that the branches of the system's evolution occurred because of anomalies and aberrations. A perfect system would, by defintion, remain perfect, and since we're not at a perfect system now (a homogenous structure), it can follow that we've drifted from the origin point. Whether it happened through the adoption of regional variations or a single lightning bolt which blew off the crown of our half-finished tower, the system has moved far enough from its "perfect" state that all that is left is a memory of the beginning.
As a system distorts and mutates, it loses its potency. If we run along the path of this arguement, then a return to the primal tongue would mean an increase in the simple power of language. "Simple" and "powerful" are not two words which I would necessarily use to describe English with its endless rules and exceptions to those same rules.
[GrammarHammer Amtower -- my editor at Opi8.com -- just got the 15th edition of the Chicago Manual of Style in the mail. I'm sure it is not a slim volume.]
So what is language? Is it a means of communication or a means of control? If you had the root, what would you use it for?
writing
This is a reasonably comprehensive list of my published work, both virtual and physical.
THE MISFIT LIBRARY
I am Nine of Thirteen, one of the members of the Misfit Library, a writing collective which puts out a quarterly journal of our respective work. We are scattered across the globe and determined to change the face of the planet one story at a time. The link above will take you to Misfit Central where you can acquire copies of the journal as well as read exclusive online material.
SYMBOLIC
I wrote a column for OPi8.com's Transmit blogs: journals of the new dark underground. SYMBOLIC tracked the novel I was working on, referencing the process and the research materials which mad up the backbone of the work. In addition, SYMBOLIC busied itself with ruminations and considerations on the nature of language and communication. And a wee bit of mythology. The first 100 entries of SYMBOLIC can be found here on this site as well as at OPi8.com.
LITERARY REPRESENTATION
I am represented by Scribe Agency as my literary agents. Please contact these gentleman if you have any queries about my work.