notes on languages

• The pain of growing up in a foreign country, and speaking a language that isn’t the mother tongue is a creative stimulus for slang that feels your own.

• Each language and each accent colors reality differently. Those with verbal minds are most effected by this. People who know multiple languages can gain a certain balance in thought, affect, and perspective. Accent is most linked to affect and probably emotional life. To try and hold a different accent for a long time cultures a different way of being.

• Each phoneme stimulates a different part of the body and mind. This is part of the power of mantras, poetry, and eurythmy. Languages that emphasize or include certain phonemes are culturing a different physiology.

• Our spontaneous expressions of voice are maybe indicative of the sounds we are missing out on.

• Some languages feel closer to reality. It feels like the words arise from a spontaneous feeling of the symbol or phenomena they are trying to communicate. Other languages are abstract or contrived.

• Tamil feels like a light-hearted language that tries to see the humor in things. It would be quite hard to sound depressed and detached in Tamil ala Red Scare Pod vocal fry.

• Italian is spoken with a rhythm which makes it natural for the hands to get involved.

• Latin feels cold, noble, and sober. This makes sense, since the Roman cultural ideal, reflected in their statues, was the weary, sober, stoic, general.

• French seems to be biased towards the front of the mouth. At its best each word is a kiss.