Author's Note: With this piece, I just wanted the readers to have something to respond to and a piece that I could interact with the readers.
Today I was thinking about literature, and the use of words, letters. We all know how to read and write and say the ABC's, but in reality, aren't these little squiggles and lines just things that we made up? In truth, aren't letters just some person's idea of moving the world on to something bigger and better? These questions have been in my mind for awhile, and I have wanted to share them and get other people's opinions on them for awhile also. In my mind, letters and words are simply a person's imagination that turned into reality, the entire world's reality now; the past, present, and future, but are they really necessary?
Way back when human civilization was not developed, and cave people roamed the earth, they had no need to use words. They could communicate with simple nods of the head or hand gestures, or grunts. They were able to feel sadness, anger and love, all without the use of words or letters. Then some person came along and started to draw shapes, possibly on the wall of a cave or a clay tablet, and these shapes they gave meaning to, and then called "letters", and then, put these shapes together to form "words". Words and letters that the entire world knows, eats, sleeps, and talks. Everything in this world has a name, but in reality, is it just a few complex shapes pushed together to form a longer shape that someone decided was the label of an item, perhaps the closest thing sitting next to them on the table they worked at; or was it something deeper? These questions I, and perhaps other people, struggle to find a logical answer to.
Many people say that new technology pushed letters and words, also many other inventions, to happen, but does this mean that in the future, our world will have such a drive to find newer technology that is turns into a dystopic world? How we came up with letters and words, the world may never know. But if we didn't, would our world be the same?
Just something to think about. I myself need to think about this also. Comment your thoughts please!
Well, I love this entry. It may have to do with the fact that this is a serious topic. Sometimes those odd questions really uncover interesting, intelligent issues. My fondness for the entry could also be because I totally agree with you. Words don't exist; they are an expression of our imaginations. A person may ask, why does that even matter. But the answer is important: look how often people take the spoken or written word as Truth. It's amazing how we know on one hand that the word is created, and on the other hand, treat the word as though it was something real. I don't know if that made sense.
ReplyDeleteI agree with part of your thoughts...I agree that words really have no meaning, they are simply just labels to objects. I believe that our world has become so much more developed, and not just technology wise, but also emotionally, our love and hates for other human beings have become so much more complex...love is not just mating anymore, it's something more if you get what I'm saying. Cave men were a lot less informed than we are now and I think that we need these words to describe the world around us and express ourselves. I don't really know how to express my thoughts through comment but I'm trying...I think we feel emotions stronger than we did then and I think we understand them more than we did then (not saying we have fully understood everything about life.) so we've had to think of some form of communication to express ourselves more. okay, sorry this is long:)
ReplyDeleteI think about this alot too, i also imagine how people came up with the sounds and our tricky rules. Thanks for writing about it!
ReplyDeleteThat make perfect sense Mr. Johnson, and what you said was very interesting.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you. What is the point of letters? All they do is help people know what certain things are, and they even confuse a lot of people. There are so many combinations of letters (words) that many people don't know. There are also the different letters.
ReplyDeleteI agree i've been wondering the same things since like second grade. Wondering, 'What is really happening when i drag a pencil across paper and form scribbles that are taken with meaning.' and if the cave people did make the letters I wonder why one language isn't universal now.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion letters and words are for giving a name to something that you can't describe with grunts or hand gestures. Also I think that letters and words are important mainly because of names. It feels good to know that you are something important. Without letters and words there would be no names and some people might feel unimportant.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you! I've always wondered why they came up with this and how? I can't imagine how the Chinese people did it, isn't there alphabet 200 characters? Anyway, I also agree with Claire. If we didn't have words, just imagine having your name be just someone grunting. Our world would be so much different.
ReplyDeleteThere are times where I think of something totally random like this, but then I forget it but you wrote it down so good job on that part. And if you think about it, if we went back to caveman time, we would be totally confused and not know what to do. Then if a bunch of cavemen came here, with all of the technology and stuff that we have now, it would be the same feeling, just a different way of expressing it. I'm not sure if you get what I mean, but haha okay whatever :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with most things all of you guys are saying. Words really are just scribbles that take on a form and meaning. (Eesh just writing this is creeping me out) Autumn, I understand what your saying about technology further pushing our understanding of words and letters but I really don't think that it was technology that made new letters and words and besides, technology is so universal that it can make us believe almost anything it wants us to. Morgan in your coment you mentioned that you think that we are more developed in our speaking than people like cavemen because we are farther along in time. But does that mean that later there will be a whole new way of speaking and writing? One thing I don't agree on with you is that we have words to describe things. Sure that is what they do, but if you think about it words really are just a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.
ReplyDeleteThis is the exact same thing I think about all the time. Seriously, it's like the four or fifth thing I think of everyday. But I think I know some things about words that some people migh not have evr thought about because of this. For example, I think letters are meant to be like pictures, which they kind of are. They're little symbols that you draw with some kind of medium that make people think of a certain thing because all our lives, we've been specially taught to. It's the same way with the spoken word, only with sounds rather than pictures. In caveman time, I think letters actually were pictures that you would draw in the dust to telll others what you were thinking. I think cave pictures were caveman version stories, with the pictures of men hunting horses as the words. The reason that there wouldn't be one universal language is because cavemen were seperated into tribes and families. The different groups would have wanted to simplify the pictures they drew so they could communicate faster. So, each group would have drawn the figures in a simpler method, and each generation would have simplified it more and more untill we ended up with the alphabet we have today. And each alphabet would be different, depending on how thedifferent groups decided to shorthand their pictures. Words would have developed in quite the same way, but from sounds that resembled the sounds the topic of conversation made.
ReplyDeleteWow, this comment is long, but yeah, that's what I think about words on a daily basis. Sucks to be ADHD right?
Jordan you described exactly what I think. Words and letters are really just pictures. Thank you for explaining it in more of a clear way.
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ReplyDeleteI totally agree with you! Kind of like Jordan said, letters are just organized pictures that someone decides sounds good together. So, if that's true, I could make up a random order of letters and it wouldn't be any different from any other word. If I or anyone else can do that, is there really any need for a thesaurus or dictionary?
ReplyDeleteThat was so cool! Aside from how beautiful the entry was wrtingly, I absolutely loved that how when I was reading the letters, I was thinking about how I was reading the letters, but somehow my brain was processing that your entry was about letters, but you wrote your thoughts in letters, and I read your thoughts about letters in words and letters. (sigh) That sentence just goes to show that something as simple as words and letters can be so complex and have such deep thoughts. Great job Autumn! I loved this entry I hope you post more theories and questions.
ReplyDeleteHas anybody ever just kept saying words over and over again until at one point they sound foolish? Well it is really weird...
ReplyDeleteAlso, in the book 1984, it talks about Newspeak. Newspeak is a language that was created by the government to cut down on words. So instead of bad it would be ungood. And the amount of words would continue to decrease with each version of the dictionary. I don't exactly know how that fits in but I thought that it might have to do with the futuristic stuff.
ReplyDeleteSo you mean instead of having a bunch of words that mean the same think with a few differences in meaning, like sad, melancholy, somber, and blue, you've got one word that means the exact same as all the others, except in such a simple form that noone can mistake the meaning, like unhappy? I know unhappy is a word that exist, but it's the same basic concept. right?
ReplyDeleteThis is such a mind-boggling thing to think about. The whole concept of humans developing enough to create a language, words.. it's incredible. My mind hurts thinking about it. This piece was very well written, and as always, I love your vocabulary!
ReplyDeleteI agree with you Autumn. Words, especially in English, have so many meanings and so many variations.
ReplyDeleteLetters are just iterpertaitons of our minds. Did I spell that word right? Anyway they are just scribbles but we make them more than that. We imbue part of our personality into them to make the part of ourselves.
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