Goldhelios Principles of Language
In popular culture, people often talk about language as a method of communication. They talk about the variety of foreign languages in the world, the beauty of one language over another or the cultural diversity each language represents.
We choose instead to focus on CAPITAL “L” Language. We focus on Language as a system of understanding. If Language were a painting, we don’t wax poetic on form and color but question the brushes, paints and the canvass - or even why we starting painting to begin with.
These Principia Idioma are the 6 universal characteristics of Language that intrigue us the most. They guide our exploration into the world of CAPITAL “L” Language.
One. She is a 'she'.
Most importantly, language must be personified. It is not enough to abstractly talk about the 'grammar of German' or the 'characters of Chinese'. She, Language, must be addressed with proper pronouns, giving her personality and agency. This is not to give her a specific gender, but rather to jar us from the expected so that we can each see her in a new light. By taking her out of context we can begin to understand what we often overlook - the naked qualities of Language.
Two. She is ubiquitous.
She is everywhere we have been, are currently, will be and even might be - Language is not held back by possibility, probability or reality. In this sentence green goats with yellow tails can spring into existence and into our mind’s eye. Remarkably a phrase for every possibility of that little green goat already exists in Language, however we as speakers have yet to put all the word combinations together (and might never do so). This means she can help us realize what is or will be by unfurling her potential ahead of our path. As with the ocean water surrounding a fish, Language is all around us supporting us as we move through experiences.
Three. She is fast.
She is a system that we project out onto the world around us from within. Her borders expand violently to claim both tangible objects and new ephemeral concepts. From far away galaxies to the principles of democracy - nothing can escape the nouns, verbs, adverbs and adjectives of speech. Before we invent light-speed technology to visit our closest neighbor star, we've named its planets and debated its composition. Before we developed modern industry we predicted and conceptualized its theory, all within the confines of idiom. Language is infinitely fast.
Four. She hides from us.
Although language is the basic currency with which we negotiate reality, she is largely invisible to us. As a system she is intangible - English can't physically materialize in front of us. You can't touch it. Yes, you can read it here and now as footprints left on a page. However, you cannot extrapolate all of English from this passage. Language is simply a set of rules and symbols - software we carry around in our heads. As with the fish sounded by the ocean, we are often unable to see what surrounds us - pulling us in the current.
Five. She has personality.
As with any system, Language shows favor, weakness even bias. She is not a passive or inert tool, but actively working to understand or code experiences in her own unique way. English, for example, understands time as an experience that flows from front to back. "That challenge lies ahead," "We can't face the future," "coming up in the weeks ahead," all reveal that the future is perceived as being in front of us when in reality this is a bias of English as our future has no relation to space. Language chooses to highlight certain aspects of reality in particular ways and we as her speakers are often taken along for the journey.
Six. She is a powerful tool.
Our ability to symbolically breakdown reality into parts of speech will always be our single greatest invention. Through Language we can take novel experiences or objects and better distinguish them, to isolate them and to define them. First Language invented the wheel, for example, then the hub, the spokes, the bearings, the bolts, the flanges, the gearbox - and on and on. The borders of Language advance and evolve to become ever more flush with her reality. This means she can take the most complex, heavy and difficult challenge and break it down into her bits of speech. These bite size bits allow us to play, reorder, remember and truly analyze anything - resulting in our most powerful tool, the linguistic mind.
