A thank you today to Bobulate, a curious and articulate blog by
Liz Danzico.
She posted a profile of my Language Mapping work.
Bobulate's subtitle is "for intentional organizing"...a slogan after my heart! Every now and then I check in with her intellectually concise musings regarding speech, language and the like.
On a related note, I am always pleased by synchronicity, and I noticed that below my post, she has an entry from "Mr. Palomar in Society" by Italo Cavino. Just the other day a friend of mine "tagged" me in a Facebook note, which was an excerpt from the same book!
However, her excerpt pertained to the notion that perhaps whistling were to replace language:
If man were to invest in whistling everything he normally entrusts to words, and if the blackbird were to modulate his whistling all the unspoken truth of his natural condition, then the first step would be taken toward bridging the gap between... between what and what? Nature and culture? Silence and speech? Mr. Palomar always hopes that silence contains something more than language can say...
My reply to my friend's FB note was:
but what Of sounds that replace/are language?:
a knock at the door
the stomp of a foot
the clearing of a throat
the clanging of the triangle
the honking of a horn
the clapping of hands
the snapping of fingers
the making of razzle berries, aka raspberries
a train whistle (image if a train went by saying something instead...that would be really scary)
a "hey mama you look good" whistle
a "man is that crazy, whoo-wee" whistle
a "you are crazy, cuckoo" whistle
(imagine how differently you respond to the whistle than if someone said those things)
a nummy noise
an mm-hm
a uh-uh and uh-huh and uh-oh one syllabic hyphened noise, (only differing from a whistle in that those are technically the sound of a letter)
a laugh
a sigh
and what of looks/lack of poker faces/knowing glances that say a million things, and of faces that sink a thousand ships and how action and response is a natural rhythm of existence, regardless of language or just plain caveman noises.
and don't get me started on ASL.
Aah, words, words, the beautiful fruit, the more you speak the more we...? To toot your own horn...?? and on that note I bid you a good day!
