Monday, May 22, 2006

Where do words come from?

I assert that a word is the formalisation of a concept; a handle on a mental construct, propogated by common use, then perhaps formal acceptance into language. A perception of reality based language and layers of conceptual understanding is wholly limited by these concepts. That they should form the foundation for what seems to be a popular perception of reality seems to me to be wholly lacking.

Consider a bookshop with ten thousand titles from gardening to philosophy through car mechanics and ancient translations.. then perhaps consider all the books in all the world which have ever been, maybe billions of tomes stacked so high as to block out the sun.. consider every single attemt to ever encapsulate even the most minute fragment of the most subjective element of our reality in words and ask; has that task actually ever been achieved?

..then consider what it is to be "knowledgable". Perhaps it is simply the biggest, most ego-centric, self-rightious myth ever known..

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Quite an interesting post. I have thought often of people who are born deaf and have never heard words, yet they must have ideas and concepts. Since these people are able to function, one must assume that the human can maneuver through life without words--at least without spoken words.

And now here comes the computer, instant messaging, etc. and "words" are available to those people. Or, is it so? Can they use words if they have never heard words?

Such thinking can go on forever.

Blessings,

Shirley