What do you think was the first sound to become a word, a meaning?...
I imagined two people without words, unable to speak to each other. I imagined the need: The color of the sky that meant 'storm.' The smell of fire taht meant 'Flee.' The sound of a tiger about to pounce. Who would worry about these things?
And then I realized what the first word must have been: ma, the sound of a baby smacking its lips in search of her mother's breast. For a long time, that was the only word the baby needed. Ma, ma, ma. Then the mother decided that was her name and she began to speak, too. She taught the baby to be careful: sky, fire, tiger. A mother is always the beginning. She is how things begin.
Tag: words language motherhood mother mother-and-daughter
And on the way home I thought: pity the poor in spirit who know neither the enchantment nor the beauty of language.
Muriel BarberyTag: language
Each word's evocative value or virtue, its individual power of touching springs in the mind and of initiating visions, becomes a treasure to revel in. Besides this hold on affection a word may well have about it the glamorous prestige of high adventures in great company. Think of that the plain word "dust" calls to mind. "Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was." "Dust hath closed Helen's eye." "All follow this and come to dust." "The way to dusty death." So, to the lover of words, each word may be not a precious stone only, but one that has shone on Solomon's temple or in Cleopatra's hair.
C.E. MontagueA tough life needs a tough language—and that is what poetry is. That is what literature offers—a language powerful enough to say how it is.
Jeanette WintersonTag: life words reading books poetry literature language
Argot is both a literary and a social phenomenon. What is argot, properly speaking? Argot is the language of misery.
Victor HugoLove and translation look alike in their grammar. To love someone implies transforming their words into ours. Making an effort to understand the other person and, inevitably, to misinterpret them. To construct a precarious language together.
Andrés NeumanTag: love relationships language understanding lovers grammar translation
It would seem that, through touch, through kissing, we might have gouged a worm-size channel through which crucial information could pass, sublingual messages, the kind of pre-verbal intimacy that should flow with thunderous force between the bodies of people so bonded. We should have been able to bypass a mere inability to exchange language.
Ben MarcusThe English language is a work in progress. Have fun with it.
Jonathan CulverMÿnna tachton gernast spuho somen gelen Emÿna daÿda"
[modern: Minä tahdon kernaasti puhua suomen kieltä, [mutta] en minä taida]
("I willingly want to speak Finnish, [but] I am not able")
(found in a German travel journal c.1450)
Tag: words language finnish suomi
Word by word, the language of women so often begins with a whisper.
Terry Tempest WilliamsTag: women silence language writing-whisper
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