I’m currently working on three and a half other articles, which may take some time to complete. So while I’m working on that, I decided to publish something rather different.
What follows is my attempt to build a world where language develops as a physiological-aesthetic response to external stimulii. I hope you enjoy.
In wonder they open their eyes upon the world’s first dawn.
Fresh to creation, they know nothing either of themselves or of the world around them. They have no names as of yet for
COLD
Nor do they know the names of
WARMTH
They are ignorant what to call
LOVE
They feel but cannot name their
HUNGER
Like infants they wander between
SKY AND SHORE
They have no knowledge as of yet of how even to craft a name.
But the world beacons with dangerous beauty, demanding to be addressed.
The texture and color of stone meant firmness, hardness.
The storm upon the horizon spoke of a coming downpour, of terrifying thunders.
Vivid scarlet upon the slithering serpent hissed, “keep away!”
Songbirds filled the air with the music of flutes, and left the people to wonder at what was being said.
Through sight…
through sound…
through touch…
and taste…
and smell…
the world communicated to them, and they knew they they had to respond.
And so in manifold ways, respond they did.
Some among them, after the fashion of the insects make words from smells, sculpted scent to send upwind, devised pheromone phonemes full of meaning.
Their flesh metamorphosed to accommodate their chosen manner of communication. They grew scent-glands, sprouted antennae, chewed with mandible-mouths. Their fresh-formed wings quickly whisked them to the treetops away, where they spoke in savory scent-sentences of when the wind would turn, and how lovely was the odor of dusk.
Some among them, after the fashion of the dancing deer, make words from motion and from gesture.
They learned the subtle differences between a glance, a gaze, a look, a stare. They expressed paragraphs with the twitch of an eye. Theirs is a silent speech, a signed language of the visible flesh. Their bodies grew naturally to accommodate their chosen manner of communication. Six arms and hands, each as fluent as a tongue, spring from their formless flesh. These permit them to carry on three distinct conversations at a single time.
Some among them, after the fashion of the songbirds, make words from sounds.
They vibrate the atmosphere within and without their throats to project meaning outside. Thiers is an invisible speech, a spoken language, whose unseen pressure compels a response, coaxes echoes from the mouths of other speaking-beings. With their new-found song, they call out to dust, to the ash, to the towering trees and the overarching sky. With cadences and melodies they name the waking world, and the world responds by naming them. They are--Ilnaquis--the newborns, the learners.