Lexikon - scattered words on words

My piece for Ikon's 'Lexikon' gathering (Feb '10)

At six months, uses vocalisation with intonation. At 12 months, practices inflection. At 18 months, has a vocabulary of between 5 and 20 words, mostly nouns. At 24 months, about two thirds of what is said is intelligible. At 36 months, uses the past tense. At 48 months, has most vowels and diphthongs and the consonants p, b, m, w, n well established. At 60 months, can count to ten. At 7 years, can handle opposite analogies easily, like girl-boy, blunt-sharp, sweet-sour. At 8 years, complex and compound sentences can be easily used. At 15, writes his first song. At 29 years, realises that language is a proxy of the mind, falling short of describing subjective experience.

Languages are only proxies of our minds, endeavouring but failing to summarise what we experience. To illustrate – although somewhat urban-mythologised, the notion of there being many Eskimo words for ‘snow’ helps us understand how our own language for snow is inadequate.

While hardcore deconstructionists might want to tackle how all language falters, I am willing to concede that simple messages such as “going to the shops” or “could you pass the ketchup” suffice in many circumstances. But as soon as we attempt to describe that we feel cold, or that something is a particularly nice shade of red, or that we are happy, then we are witnessing an obvious failing of language. What is our experience of temperature, or of colour, or of emotion? What is my experience of these things and how could I ever portray this to another person? Already these words are painfully inadequate. And we haven’t even started talking about religious experience and the divine.

"Whereas the truth is that fullness of soul can sometimes overflow in utter vapidity of language, for none of us can ever express the exact measure of his needs or his thoughts or his sorrows: and human speech is like a cracked kettle on which to tap crude rhythms for bears to dance to, while we long to make music that will melt the stars." – Gustave Flaubert (Madame Bovary)

We get so daft thinking we’re clever with words; people saying ‘chill-ax’ or ‘Re.’ or ‘ASAP’ in some obscene vocal shorthand. The same rules of shorthand obscenity apply to words such as ‘god’ or ‘love’. Maybe we’ll get smart and suggest that we realise that GOD surpasses our word ‘god’ but we don’t even know what we mean by ‘surpass’! Words are little cages; their definitions force boundaries on our imaginations. Observant Jews write down, but do not attempt to say the name of God.

4 And they said, let us build us a city and a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad upon the face of the whole earth. 5 And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the children built. 6 And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do; and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do. 7 Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another's speech. (Genesis 11)

A Torah commentator of 15th century, suggested that the Tower of Babel was a functional flying craft, empowered by some powerful magic or technology; the device was originally intended for holy purposes, but was later misused in order to gain control over the whole world. Many Kabbalists believed that these ancient peoples possessed the magic knowledge of the Nephilim, which allowed them to construct incredibly powerful devices. Isaac of Acre wrote that the Tower builders had reached, or at least planned to reach the distance of 9-10 billion kilometres above the Earth surface, which is about the radius of the Solar System.The Book of Invasions, recounting the mythological beginnings of the Irish race, suggests that King Fenius Farsa was one of the 72 chieftain’s who built Nimrod’s Tower of Babel. After it collapsed he chose the best features of all the confused languages and fused them together to create Goidelic, the forerunner of the Irish language.Maybe the Word became flesh knowing that words were never going to do.Now that I’ve tried to talk to you and make you understand, all you have to do is close your eyes and reach out your hands and touch me. Hold me close, don’t ever let me go. More than words is all I ever needed you to show. Then you wouldn’t have to say that you love me ‘cause I’d already know.