We humans communicate with each other in a variety of ways: bodily, sensually, mentally, linguistically. All human communication involves highly evolved and complex processes. To me, language is particularly interesting because it can be expressed both in verbal and written forms, and both are powerful tools in our communication arsenal that we all too often take for granted.

To me, the way we use verbal and written communication is bipolar; both can be either spontaneous or measured depending on the way we use them and/or upon our circumstances. In social conversation, most often the spoken word tends to act as a vehicle for spontaneous communication which reveals our innermost feelings, motivations and thoughts, and reflects what is on the surface of one’s mind. However, in a court of law for example, every word uttered by the officials must be measured, as justice and law depends on semantic accuracy. Largely, this isn’t relevant and doesn’t apply to the tacit rules of social conversation. So, it seems that context has a pivotal bearing on how we use language, written or verbal.

Let’s look at the way we use language in a social way.

Take the phrases “I love you” and “I hate you”, for example. Whether spoken or written, these two simple, yet powerful, phrases differing only by one word, illicit an immediate, emotional response, each poles apart in meaning, and can have a deep and lasting effect on the psyche. How would you feel if someone spoke these words to you right now? Most of us have probably either said or been on the receiving end of each, but our reaction depends on who the person is, and the context in which the words were said, and how they were said. Again, context.

If it’s someone you care about, the words “I love you” will fill you with joy. If you love the speaker back, hearing those special words amplify the love you feel inside and you’d probably say “I love you too”.

But, with “I hate you”, if you hated the speaker, you’d probably say or feel “I hate you too”.

This is interesting because although the words are different, the level of emotional mental response is/can be equal. “Love” and “hate” are extremely powerful words.

To me however, uttered with the utmost depth of sincerity, the words “I love you” is the greatest message one person can send to another, except perhaps, an unknown sacrifice.

Further Reading

For a refreshing look at how language can be used in a positive way, check out Words Can Heal. Or for a spiritual view on language and its ethics, The Unfolding Script of Speech and Language, Part 2.

A colleague of mine once uttered these words. I don’t believe he intended them to become legendary, but within my circle of friends they most certainly are and, I think, rightly so.

What is a word anyway?

Words are abstract constructs. Their substance has no relevance to their meaning. By that I mean that a sound, letter, phoneme, morpheme or word has no intrinsic meaning attached to it save that which the human mind attributes to it. “Walk” could mean the same as “run”, but why doesn’t it? It’s because we have created a different meaning for each. As we grow up from childhood, we learn that different sounds have different meanings, and so we accept these sound-meaning relationships without question. When we learn a language, we are conditioned to associate certain sounds with certain meanings.

Some words are spelled and pronounced the same but can have many different meanings, for example, the word “bank”. How we differentiate contextual meanings with multi-meaning words is an on-going hot topic amongst linguists and lexicographers, but that’s for another post…

Although words are abstract constructs, the association between the sound of a letter or mixture of letters (words), has become entrenched in our understanding of words and how they are used in conjunction with each other to form meaningful sentences, which in turn help us to convey ideas and concepts, although the extent of how much we can convey meaning is extremely limited. This process forms the basis of all our written and oral communication.

Certain words, regardless of language, are similar in different languages.

How can this be? All languages are categorised into families and hence, have hereditary traits. For millennia, people have migrated from country to country, continent to continent. During this, cultures mingled and languages merged. There is no such thing as a pure race. We are all of each other.

Because of this migration, neighbouring cultures share similar language traits. The scale of this is huge. For example, some members of Siberian tribes crossed over the ancient land bridge between far Eastern Russia and Alaska and migrated to South America, and now some South American cultures share some language traits with those still spoken in Russia.

However, this epic fact doesn’t negate the fact that words are dodgy things. What does dodgy mean? Well, it can mean “deceiving”. We may not mean to deceive when we use words, but it is often an un-meant and un-desired side-effect, even when we think we have chosen our words with care. Like it or not, this is inevitable, so it means we have to take special care in choosing the words we use.

As I see it, every human being likes and deserves to be treated with decency. Isn’t this a basic human right? The words we use go a long way, and their impact is vastly underestimated by many people. We shouldn’t think just of how we think we would like to be spoken to, but, more importantly, how we think someone else would like to be spoken to. To achieve this demands supreme concentration and dedication. This one of the reasons why Gautama Buddha rated Right Speech as one of the most important things a human being must pay special attention to and try to master. Try it for just one day and you’ll soon see how difficult it is. You will feel a sense of achievement even in trying. But, persevere: you and those around you will benefit enormously. For my partial take on Right Speech see Part 2 of my article The Unfolding Script of Speech and Language.

One problem with words is that once we crystallise our thoughts into words, the subtleties of meaning become lost or distorted very easily. When we speak or write, how often are we happy that what we have communicated is what we were really thinking? Once we communicate via words, we are, to a degree, at the mercy of the listener or reader’s understanding and perception.

From my point of view, this goes right to the heart of the problem of language: language, written or spoken, plays second fiddle to thought. Thoughts are far superior in accuracy, potency and meaning compared to written or spoken language.

So how is all this relevant in our daily lives?

For most of us, not a day passes when we don’t use either the written word or spoken word. Imagine you had only 100 words (it may seem a lot, but it really isn’t) to use, either written or spoken, each day.

You’d soon learn to choose them pretty carefully.

“See it all, till tomorrow”

Why do, or should, we write? Well, we write to communicate ideas. OK, so why not just talk to someone face to face? Answer: it’s not always possible, the main reason is geographical location.  The written word circumvents this.

The written word not only makes it possible for us to write a letter, e-mail, text, or internet content, it lasts longer than the spoken word. For sure, “words are dodgy things”, as they can be misinterpreted and taken out of context, but the written word is historically more reliable than the spoken word, partly because it can be referenced from source material.

It’s up to historians and keen amateurs to offer interpretations of meaning. Letters and documents hundreds of years old still exist today in personal and national archives and libraries. They are studied by scholars and the layman day-in, day-out. Every word is pored over and analysed for meaning and intent. If the Internet Archive is anything to go by, doesn’t this mean that every word we write for the internet or any other print medium carries significant weight, not only for the present but for posterity? Of course it does.

So where does Zen come in (what does it mean anyway?) and how does an ancient philosophy fit in with writing in the 21st century…?

“See it all, till tomorrow”