On it I also found something rather special.
As a part of my GCSEs I had to do a presentation, and my chosen topic was language. I wanted to define language, because it is so beautiful and so complex, that I didn't feel that defining it as just "a form of communication" was enough. I remember searching online for various definitions, and I found this one. It still remains one of the most beautiful things I have ever read. I remember that the website was just one paragraph of text, and nothing more. At over 1,300 words long, it is a lengthy description of language, but it covers everything and more. It was all in one paragraph, but I'm going to put each sentence on a new line; I think it is easier to appreciate each individual part more if it is split up like that.
If I am able to thoroughly capture in my literature any aspect described in this piece, I will die happy because I will know that I was able to write the impossible. There is a poetry in this that I cannot explain, and about nine years on from when I first read it, it still gives me goosebumps and remains to be the standard of quality that I want to achieve in my own writing.
If it is requested enough, I would love to read this out in a YouTube video, and give details about my favourite parts.
There are triggers: abuse, war, a lot of religion, death, violence, pain.
NB: I have no source for this. It is not mine. I have looked online for a source and found none; if you recognise it, please tell me so I can give credit to the original creator. Again, this is not mine.
One may as well attempt to define God.
Language is a system of verbal symbols which the majority of human beings use to communicate shapes, colors, emotions, sensations and ideas.
It is the even smaller symbols which, when combined in the correct order, create a form of written communication.
It is the complex set of hand gestures that the deaf use in place of words.
It is the notes written on a sheet of music directing the pianist as to how to play a song.
Language is a painting that causes us, with more than a little nostalgia, to remember what it was like to ride the carousel as a child.
Or, it is a sculpture which causes our heart to leap at the thought of mighty Greek gods.
Then again, it is the picture in which one sees a set of inescapable eyes which tell the story of so much suffering that one shrinks away and hopes that he never meets a person with that look in his life time.
Or, language can be a song so beautiful one is moved to tears, but cannot explain why because words do not exist to do so, and any attempt would only detract from what one is truly feeling.
And language is a poem that causes the young lover’s heart to flutter.
But then, there is the feeling of one’s father’s hand upon one’s shoulder, one’s mother’s warm embrace, and the shrill giggle of a giddy younger brother that as surely as anything tells the receiver that he is home, and that he is loved, and that he always will be.
It is the gentle caress of a lover’s finger as he strokes the check of his sweetheart, and it is the action of her moving closer to him in the chill of the evening as they watch the sun set, and before it is even forgotten it becomes the tear of a beautiful bride who is still trying to believe that that moment was real.
Or, it the slap of a belt against a bear butt for which the naughty child vows never to forgive his parent but eventually comes to realize was for his own good.
It is the “the look” from one’s grandmother that reminds one to mind one’s manners when there is company at the house.
Or, it can be the intentional turn of a woman’s head that tempts the man while at the same time confirming the fact that he will never have a chance.
It is the attempt of the old man to stand up straight so that he might recapture for himself a certain dignity that he once had, but all to clearly sends the message to anyone near enough to witness, that he has never lost it.
Conversely, language is a slap in the face which knocks a woman down and, in her own mind, reaffirms her belief that she deserves it and that she should never have asked him a question when he was in one of his moods.
Language is the buzz of helicopter blades which reminds the veteran that he too could be dead and causes him to ask why he is not when so many other good men are.
It is the clank of an iron door as it closes which in its ominous air of finality tells the guilty man that he will never be free again.
It is the weeping of a family over the tombs of murdered children, which reminds the whole world that something has gone terribly terribly wrong.
Language is a smell that reminds us of the hospital.
That memory, in turn, calls to mind the last few moments spent with Grandpa a week before he was called back to God.
Language is the swell of adrenaline surging through the blood stream which calls upon one’s primitive instinct demanding that one either fight or flee, when in actuality he or she must only step onto the stage in front of a crowded auditorium.
It is a runny nose and congested chest, which all too clearly exclaims that you are sick, but the work must get done so buck it up.
It is a sliver in a child’s finger that tells him to cry which, in turn, causes the adult to wonder why it isn’t more acceptable for them to weep more often.
It is the burning in one’s lungs that tells him or her that he or she really should stop smoking.
It is the manic pounding of one’s heart that says as clearly as anything that it is time to call the ambulance.
It is the sound of running water, which can immediately remind a person that they have not used the bathroom for several hours and perhaps it is time to find one.
It is the message sent along the spinal cord to the brain in order that one might register pain.
It is the hormones sent throughout the body heralding the news that adolescence in near, so get ready to work.
It is the buildup of lactic acid within muscles screaming that the body needs more oxygen.
Then again, language can be the colorful leaves on a tree and the honking of Canadian geese which are the first signs of the coming winter and clear indicators of the progressing autumn.
And when this is over, one hears the geese again and the green returns announcing spring.
It is the song of a robin rejoicing in the glory of summer.
It is the squawk of a crow partaking in the leftovers from harvest.
It is the squeak of wheels in fresh snow proclaiming to children that there will be no school today because of it.
It is the great rush of wind just before a storm calling the family into the house to wait it out.
Language is the flash of lightening and the crash of thunder proclaiming for miles the power, might and majesty of God.
Language can also be the gentle bat of a cat’s paw against one’s hand as one scratches its stomach that delivers not only the massage that the cat has had enough, but also the message that if it persists, someone will be hurt.
Or, language can be a growling dog telling his master that something just isn’t right.
It is the bawl of a mama cow telling a good rancher that her calf has gone missing.
It is the twitter of a bird announcing that morning has arrived once again and it is time for everyone to get up.
It’s the gentle sniffing of a horse in one’s pocket just to say hello and by the way do you happen to have a little grain.
Perhaps most powerful though, it the great swelling of emotion within one’s self which cannot be explained, but only attributed to the fact that one is loved by his god.
It continues into a great awe in all created things, and ends in the realization that the human being is so small, and yet, is favored above all other things by that same god.
It is the certain knowledge the one possesses at night just before sleep that he or she is under God’s protection.
It is the sudden reassurance that God is on one’s own side just before a huge decision is made.
So what is language?
It is all of these things.
It is that which is so tightly interwoven with our soul that to differentiate between the two becomes painfully difficult.
It is a process of sending a message and receiving it.
Sometimes it doesn’t work.
Perhaps something is lost in the reception of a message because of the media used to express it, or perhaps the two communicators are just not on the same level.
Language is that which is used to define the world, and then to make sense of it.
But also, it is the means by which perception of the world takes place.
From the first moments of conception until death, it is that which occurs in every action which might conceivably take place.
Perhaps, most easily said, all things, in one way or another, are language.
See you next week,
E