Alt Text:
pieces of ancient text placed together like a puzzle.
Backstory:
I love languages. The ability to communicate through all sorts of mediums and using every one of the senses. I know there are those who would argue that reading is the main means to require knowledge but there are many considered illiterate whom are perfectly capable of communicating with other beings.
It's not lost on me that the chasms between hurt people due to miscommunication are as wide as they are deep. We chuck every interpretation and assumption into the mix and almost always with the presumption that everyone understands what the symbolisms and multiple meanings behind each word and movement means. Impossible. A million emojis couldn't capture how diverse and complex human beings prove to be, constantly developing ideas and changing our minds, and that's not including each animal and plant species ever evolving.
If time travel did indeed exist, I doubt any of us would make it a minute alive. I'd argue society knows itself and can quickly spot the difference. It's tough enough for the wonderful weirdos in each age constantly having to fight so hard just to be accepted by their own communities. For many acceptance equals survival. Language is a tool, a weapon, and a privilege. LAN-guage is a local area network instrument. In the digital age where social media platforms have become our local areas for networking, I wonder whether we, a specific language, or artificially intelligent computers will be considered the primary instruments for engagement?
Secret symbols sign their way,
Across the lengths of every hidden page.
Delicately deciphering,
Dot and line,
See how the shapes connect,
How the meanings are derived?
Concentration,
Painstakingly copying the scribble;
Even mistakes become part of the dribble.
​
Whether painted on boulder stones,
Scratched marks in honeycombs,
Etched ink in papyrus rolls,
Or typed code on luminescent monitors;
The skilled calligraphy is there for all to see.
Pronounce,
Every transliteration,
The tongue twists with anticipation.
Match sounds to words echoed,
The grapevine plays havoc with the slightest separation.
From village to village cursive of the handwritten,
It becomes distorted,
Often pillaged.
No longer the original or entirely unique,
A son-daughter form of the way the ancients did speak.
Memories are required when dictionaries get tossed,
But who can remember the name for every creature,
Emotion,
And thing before it is lost.
Each facial expression,
The body itself,
Becomes part of the code,
Part of the inner shell.
Language unites,
When love fills each tone,
But it can also separate,
If hate fills the bones.
For every sound,
Paints a picture;
It imagines a thought.
To set these in order requires one to lean on grammar,
If it is taught.
Then forming sentences,
Invisible lines of cipher exiting the body's whole,
And entering the ears of another,
Before stupidity or reason lends a retort.
Thoughts laid bare become instructions laid out,
And anyone comprehending,
Builds based on their own understanding.
Hidden beneath the logic of linguistics,
There is a subtlety,
Which turns language into an art,
A puzzle tree.
Where one word is bound by two different meanings,
For certain things are similar,
And new words come difficult to those simplifying feelings.
Cultures speak in tongues,
But tongues do not relay cultures.
So we remain in the maze of dots and lines,
Ever being altered.