The Passion and the Sickness of Language - Milena Oda (inspirational books to read txt) 📗

Every language has its own emotional code. Whoever can decipher the code of a foreign language can then understand the mentality and the culture of the people who use it.

The affections and passions of humanity are contained in language. We grow up in a language like in a family, learning its melody and rules and indeed its entire linguistic system, and this unconsciously forms us. Language educates us and gives our ego system its inner radiance, emotion and passion. Each language has a different relationship to passion and stimulates different emotions through its sound and structure and the speed with which it is spoken. There are some languages that are lively and song-like, whereas others sound less animated and somewhat colder. We generally choose to learn those foreign languages that match our personal sensibility.

The melody of language and the sound of words are not enough to create a satisfactory language. The passion of language can grow cold through the meaninglessness and senselessness of the words chosen.

The Level of the Language is the Level of the Intellect

Language helps us to verbalise problems of all kinds. Understanding problems means describing them in order to solve them. The inability to express ourselves leads to a problem and this unsolved problem makes us speechless, powerless, and ultimately also makes us ill.
We attempt to develop our own language through intellectual effort. We aim to preserve our living, powerful essence and we delight in our own ideas.

To make demands on language we must examine the way we speak and think. With each word we look inside ourselves, seeking to understand the significance and meaning of every single word. The spoken word attracts our attention and makes a demand on our intellect. We are glad to make this effort! What a play of forces! We want to feel adequately armed to battle against the evils in our society, which commands only a limited range of words. This is not a public battle; it is a struggle with ourselves, against ourselves. We erect our own obstacles and voluntarily overcome them. Who – if not we ourselves – should be our judge?

The intellectual dissatisfaction we experience in the course of this process compels us to improve our language. Gestures can also replace the words we lack. But don't we feel ashamed when we have to use a gesture simply because we can't find the right word in our native language? We immediately admit that, not only are there enormous gaps in our vocabulary, but also in our thoughts and in our experience of life. Yes, language humiliates us and drives us into a corner. It educates us. To prefer the spoken word to the gesture is demanding, but it shapes our way of thinking. Language is not merely an instrument we use to make ourselves understood; it is also used to fill our own emptiness.

It is a known fact that every language has a formal, indeed unemotional structure that is habitually used daily without much reflection. This structure saves the person speaking from having to reflect, having to critically observe the indicated problem or from having to empathize. The use of phrases that are like spare parts of our individual thought tends to hollow out the core of our being. This core is the source of our energy and emotional strength. The word loses its life and fervour. Any form of progress is missing.

In society we tend to express ourselves simply, unemotionally and in clichés. Eloquence or the pure imitation of words is only a sign of the boundaries of the intellect. The words have no content. We prefer to imitate existing words rather than produce new ones. We prefer to present schematic views and to feign ideas, perhaps because this is easier to do, in order to fill our own inner emptiness. Readymade phrases make language tedious and are a direct indication of the "selflessness" of the person speaking.

We then ask ourselves: what must the inner life of someone be like, when their use of language and the thoughts they discover in the depths of their being are so boring? We notice that the speaker's way of thinking is of no consequence and is, in fact, sick.

We reveal the depths of our ability to think and our critical observation of ourselves when we speak. Thinking persons protect themselves against the threat of enthusiasm, against the suppression of energy and intellect that are concealed in language. We wish to work assiduously at speaking, at building up words, questions and answers and thus to spell out the originality of language. Evidently, we assume that when a person is ill then the language he uses is also sick. But we ourselves want to become and remain healthy. We ought repeatedly ask ourselves a question that should be answered honestly, in order to see ourselves, whether in light or shadow: What do I express through my language?

Publication Date: 07-30-2010

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